#17 Troy Kane: The Founder’s Playbook

In this episode of Stratospheric Leaders, I sit down with Troy Kane, President andCOO of Inplay Global, Inc. an innovative company creating the world’s firstregulated marketplace for Performance Securities – a new asset class offinancial instruments tied to real-time sports team performance and fanengagement.
Troy’s story began on the Chicago trading floors at just 14 – shapedin his formative years by the trailblazing women in his family – including hisaunt who was among the first women on the trading floor of the Chicago Board ofTrade. From there he built a career defined by modernising markets helping drive the shift from open outcry to electronic trading, and today he brings that same pioneering energy to his role at Inplay Global.

A few takeaways from our conversation that stayed with me:

1.Influence = listening + evidence (not volume)

2.Don’t shut people down. Take time to understand other people’s perspectives.

3.Debates need to be rooted in fact.

4.Don’t be afraid to hire people smarter than you. Build by hiring experts, then empowering them (no micromanaging).

5.The real work of leadership is managing the “small things”. They make the big things possible.

6.Educate. Don’t just explain. What makes your business different? Help people get it.

7.Attention to detail isn’t optional. You need to understand all dependencies that go into launching a company.

8.Learn from failure. With any missteps or failures – offer constructive feedback, capture the learning and avoid the same mistake twice.

9.Under promise and over deliver – always! Advice from his Dad that has stayed with him! Consistency and delivery becomes your reputation.

This is a great story on a leader building a business from the ground up in a space that is truly innovative. Enjoy!

Show Links

Website - https://www.georgiedickins.com

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgiedickins

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@GeorgieDickins-q7x

Transcript

0:00

Hi, I'm Georgie Dickens, host of Stratosperit Leaders, the podcast where I get to have inspired conversations with extraordinary leaders from across capital markets. Join me to hear their game-changing strategies, the personal stories and powerful standbites behind the Stratosphere success. Every episode packed with wisdom, insight, and real-world lessons, the stuff they simply don't teach you in business school. If you want to elevate your game and most importantly those around you, this podcast is for you. Enjoy. Troy, I am delighted to welcome you to an episode of Stratospheric Leaders. And I know just from the initial conversation that we had that this is going to be a really enjoyable and insightful conversation. And before we get us, well, get to hear your leadership, Colonels, I would love to, for the audience to get a sense of who you are when you're not in the seat that you sit in. So let's just rewind back to when you were a child. What did you dream of becoming growing up? You know, growing up, you know, you change career, you know, um paths a little bit, like, you know, fireman, policeman, like when you're younger. But actually the first kind of real career path that I kind of thought I wanted to go into was politics. I remember when I was young, I used to say I wanted to be the next mayor of Chicago. Um, this was like seventh, eighth grade. Um, you know, I was very fascinated with, you know, living in Chicago with Chicago politics and just politics in general. And, you know, um would read the news and, you know, was fascinated with the the elections and everything. So I thought that I would one day run for public office. How do you feel about that now? Still, still, still on the bucket list of things to do? You know, you know, throughout my career I realized it's actually better to influence politicians than to be a politician, actually. But um, you know, um I I don't I wouldn't rule it out completely. I do like public service a lot. I think that um there's a lot to give back to the community, and I think that there's um still a lot of work to to be done in government today. Um there's a lot of uh, you know, services and and policies that I think we need to craft for our future generations. And right now I'm doing that in finance, but I would love to maybe one day be able to do that in other areas. You just said the word influence a second ago, and I think there are so many skills and qualities that are transferable, they kind of transcend sectors. When you think about influence, what do you think makes somebody a good influencer, given the fact that it's quite an important quality to have? Yeah, that's a great question. I think one, you have to be very engaging, you have to have a lot of interpersonal skills to be able to represent an argument, um, good debate skills. You can't just shut people down. You have to be able to hear them out and you have to be able to understand their perspective. At the same time, you have to be able to articulate how you're seeing things and why you think that they should believe what you believe. It shouldn't just be one-sided all the time. And I think that, you know, throughout my career, I've seen a lot of evolution of financial markets. And in some of my roles, I've had to advocate for some change in those markets. Um, and how I've done that is through presenting a lot of evidence and research and how I have articulated that back to you know those exchanges in those financial markets, but also hearing back from them about how you know they see things and from their c their other clients' perspectives. There's a lot of perspective out there. I think it's very important to hear it all out before you start to make decisions on it. Yeah, so there uh listening, I hear, you know, you said, you know, listen, hear the person out. And I and I be that strong voice. And you said evidence your argument. I think so often when we listen to people, like it's headlines, but there's no they don't substantiate. So it's like root your argument, your debate, like root it in data, root it in evidence. Yes, absolutely. I mean, you don't have to have like 100% hard evidence all the time, but you should have some foundation of how you've come to your understanding of why you're advocating or or trying to um present a certain argument against or for something. You shouldn't just say it because you should say it because of this or because I read this or research has shown this. Um it's it it stands more ground and it has a lot more um resonating effect with people when you can back it up with some data or some research. Yeah, I think I need to I need you to have a conversation with my children. Recently, one of my sons was like, you know, I need to have more pocket money because I should have more pocket money. I'm thinking that's not rooted in a in a in a strong enough case. Yeah. I would say to my son, put a business plan on what you would do with that pocket money and then we'll talk. Yes, I think that's again because again, it encourages them to be thoughtful, to be strategic. How are they gonna spend, invest? Um when we think about children, um you know, you grew grew up, um, and and I, you know, I've understood from our conversation, you were surrounded by trailblazing women. So not just women, trailblazing women. I think it's really important to underscore that word trailblazing. And uh how did that how do they influence you? We can go back to that word influence. Yeah, I mean, they were you know very significant influences in my life, my mother actually, and my aunts. So my Aunt Mary Claire, my mom's sister, was one of the first women uh on the trading floors of the Chicago Board of Trade. And, you know, she helped kind of trailblaze a lot of the women that came down to the floors, you know, beyond her, including my mom, who was the youngest in her family. And when she got down there, you know, she had to really fight with a lot of grit to really make a career for herself. And I'm very proud of uh the business that she built. She built the clearing services business and she brought in a lot of her sisters and her cousins who were all women um to operate that business. And it ran for 17 years before she sold it to FC Stone. Wow. So grit. And so is that something you identify with yourself? I do, yes. And I learned that from my mother. Yeah, it's such a there's a great book, I think, Angela Duckworth, uh talks about grit being one of the and I think especially in today's world, and I say this to my you know my children, I was like, like, you know, it was school, you know, there can be a lot of participation medals. I'm like the world out there, it's you don't get an award or a job for, you know, just showing up. You know, you gotta do the work, you gotta hustle. Yeah. I mean, that I also learned that from my father as well. But I think with women, there had to be a little bit of an extra kind of ambition and work ethic to be able to make it in finance. And I was very proud of my mom and women in my family who were able to do that. And then, you know, paved the path for myself. I came down to the trading floors when I was 14 because of my mom and the business that she built working for her client. Okay, tell us about that. Age 14 on the floor. Like I I I'm curious, the first day you stepped onto the floor, talk us through that. How did it feel? Like, what was happening to your senses? It was a privilege that, you know, unfortunately doesn't exist anymore because trading floors don't really exist much anymore. But um, it was the day after I graduated eighth grade and um, you know, went down, took my test to get on the floor because you had to take a test to get access to the trading floors, and was a clerk, uh, a runner. And uh one of the gentlemen that I was clerking for was a very tall man, and he gave me one of his old trading jackets that literally went down to my knees. And so I'm like this 14-year-old boy, um, still going through puberty and growing and you know, have this really oversized jacket on me on the floor. And um, you know, you you have a lot of masculinity on the trading floors as well because you have to be loud and strong and you have to get your voices heard in those trading pits back in the day. And so it was very intimidating, but it really helped me break out of my shell. I was very introverted before I started working on the trading floors. And now it's hard to not describe me as an extroverted person. And intimidating. I I think many people will be able to relate to taking on new opportunities, um, expanded responsibilities, you know, moving jobs, you know, you've moved for you've been SIBO, Citadel. There can be many, many times in our life where we can experience you know, intimidation to to varying degrees. What's your relationship with feeling that that kind of intimidation? And when you were age 14, like how did you, how did you, how did you get past it? You have to kind of go deep and kind of find the strength and kind of you know the resiliency to be able to come back onto the trading floors every day. There's actually a story that I like to tell where it was, you know, very busy on the floor one day. You know, one of the the phone brokers was trying to get my attention and uh I didn't hear him. And he threw the phone in my head. And it I don't think he intended it to hit me. Um it was more just to grab my attention, but it it hit me in the head. And, you know, that was just the atmosphere. And, you know, that can be, you know, very humiliating and embarrassing at the same time. But I just took it as a product of the atmosphere. I didn't really let it bring me down. Um, and then the funny thing is, you know, when he found out who my mom was, he kind of really apologized about it. But, you know, it was it was helpful that I was able to come into the business with a strong family name, with a lot of of history. And, you know, I had to make my own way, but it I at least got a good jump start. And I didn't take that for granted. I made sure to really um take the most of it and you know, spent every summer at high school working on the trading floors, learning the business from the ground up. Actually, it wasn't something that I thought that I was going to stick with originally. I thought um I might go into sports medicine or something that was, you know, kind of sports adjacent because I was really getting into sports in high school. But towards my senior year, um, I really kind of like a light bulb went off, saw that this was, you know, a fascinating industry, um, one that I thought that I could do very well in. You know, I was very good in math. It was very math-centric. Um, I knew that I could get some some scholarship money through working at the exchange. And so um that was the path that I decided to take very late in my senior year of high school, actually. You had a very interesting and distinguished career and and and and a successful career in capital markets. And you used the word proud a little while ago. And and I wonder when you reflect on your time, you know, to date in the industry, and we're going to come to in play in a minute, which is you know, your your your current role, and that's on the sports side. So it's interesting how you know that that love, potentially going to sports medicine, that love of sports was already there at an early age. But when you look, yeah, look back at your career, what are you most proud of and and why? That's also a great question. Um I'm proud of the fact that most of my career has been through modernizing our financial markets. You know, when I started in the industry, most of the markets were traded, at least in futures and in derivatives, were on a trading floor. And that was right when electronic trading really started to captivate the industry. I remember being at a Thanksgiving and my uncles telling me that there was no way that OpenLPRI could be replaced by computers, that humans could do it better. I knew, being on the border of a millennial, that yes, computers could do it better than humans. And, you know, from that point on started to anchor my career to anything that associated with the modernizing electronified of the market and you know, was actually given an opportunity to go to Frankfurt, Germany, and work with URX, who was one of the first futures exchanges to pioneer electronic trading and learn trading system development from them, and then came back to the US and helped the Chicago Board of Trade build their first trading systems. And so, you know, for for you know, the first half of my career was, you know, transforming away from an open outpri model into first a hybrid, you know, electronic open outprime model. And then now today, you know, the majority of the futures markets are treated electronically as are most asset classes today. Yeah, it's the open outcry. I remember as a student, I was at Reuters back in 99, 2000, and uh we went to the LME and watched the open outcry, and it was extraordinary. A, you talked about the jackets that you, you know, that you you age 14, someone gave you a jacket that went down to your knees. I I was just intrigued by, you know, different color jackets and just the speed and the hand signals, and I'm the chaos. And I'm like, how like how does anyone know what's getting done? But like clearly a methodology and a a system that that worked. And then I I I uh part of my career I was at iCap and I was on the interest rate swap side. So that was all about the electronification of swaps. And so that modernizing, I I I hear you. Like it's there have been many asset classes um that have been modest modernized. And the the word that really came up for me listening to you is you know, that being a pioneer. And I'd love to hear a little bit around the role that you're, you know, the the company in play, because that pioneer, that modernizing, that transformation, that ability to see an unmet future feels that that's very intrinsically linked to what you're doing now. So I'd love to get a sense of the pathway from the capital markets to what you're doing now, and then I'll pause there because I've got many more questions, but let's just start. Yeah, no. So yeah, I'm very proud uh to talk about in play global, which is my current uh where I am currently. Um I'm the president and COO of InPlay Global, which is going to be the first uh exchange or marketplace for trading securitized sports performance. And when I chose to take this role, what really drove me to it was there's not a lot of new opportunities to innovate in financial markets today. We saw a lot of it through crypto, you know, maybe eight, 10 years ago, but we really haven't seen much since then. And so we now have seen kind of the growth of prediction markets and how sports have kind of grown around prediction markets, sports performance specifically. And when the founder of InPlay Global came to me um and presented the opportunity, I knew I had to, you know, come into this company and help build this because it's very rare, you know, in 2025 to find an opportunity like this where you get to build something from the ground up that's truly innovative and something that hasn't been done before. And so, you know, next year we'll be launching uh sports performance securities, which will allow investors to buy equities on individual team companies that track performance of sports. And which uh which sports are you gonna start with? I mean, is there a favorite or is it well there, but there are definitely favorites. We want to do all the majors in some colleges, but um, you know, we would like to launch with the World Cup next summer. It's a big global tournament, uh, and it's being played in North America, so we see it as a phenomenal opportunity to make that our launch event. Uh, that will take us into the fall, which is football season. So then we'll we'll start to securitize uh professional football and college football teams, and then that will take us into uh professional basketball and hockey. And between now and then, you know, to make the ambition a reality, what are the key things that need to happen? So, you know, when we get to the World Cup, like everything you've spoken about is living and breathing and being, you know, you've executed on. Yeah. So the first thing we had to do was we had to pick um a technology partner, which we recently did. We we selected a company or an exchange group called Memex, the Members Exchange, which has a great track record in building not only their own technology, but the technology for other ATSs, an alternative trading system, which is what we will become. And uh they've already started to write the requirements and begin the build for that so that we can launch that early next year and start to get it tested and rolled out for the retail brokers and market makers to start developing to. Then we have to start educating um investors on what are performance securities and why these are different than other stocks or other um products out there that they might be trading around sports performance. And so that's gonna take a lot of uh media campaigns and educational um you know, marketing uh collateral that we need to uh publish, um, as well as going out and um doing conferences and uh doing some webinars just to explain and help um investors understand um the concept holistically so that when we launch and bring these securities to market, there is uh a very uh succinct understanding of how these trade so that investors can have success right out the gates. And at the beginning we were talking about um the importance of being able to influence, to listen, to be able to debate. It feels like they're kind of really gonna be they're important skills in this in this this part of the journey. Absolutely. It's it's really important in education in general. You want to be able to deliver key information with uh with a foundation that resonates with all investors or all people in general, so that they retain that information and then they can utilize that information in a productive way. And in the case of investing, we see that our our performance securities can be a platform for enhanced financial literacy. We can use these securities to teach the next generation of investors how to trade the stock market through something that they're passionate about, which is sports. You know, how sports and teams perform is no differently than how a company should perform. It's based on futures earnings. Teams are performing on or projected wins, um, how they're gonna uh achieve their performance throughout the whole season. Will they make it to the playoffs? Will they make it to the championships? Actually, I feel like younger generations actually know about how to analyze a sports team than they know how to analyze a stock or or a publicly traded company. So we have now the ability to converge the two and bring the uh bring all that together and and help elevate and empower investors to not only trade securities uh around sports performance, but also securities around publicly traded companies. And you mentioned you're building, you know, you're building from the ground up and and what you're doing is truly innovative. What's one thing no one warned you about when it comes to building something from the ground up? There's a lot of little things that you don't realize when you have to build a company. So it's not just a new product class, we're building a full new company from the ground up. And so we're a startup in its purest form. Like we have to staff every key function from finance to HR to technology and operations. And that's in addition to also developing the product itself and getting that educated and distributed and understood and then launched successfully. And so there's just a lot of little things that add up that you have to keep track of. And so you have to be very detail-oriented. You have to understand all of the dependencies that go into not only launching a company from scratch, but also launching a whole new asset class. And so um, that's those are the things that they don't always tell you in the interview process when you when you go for jobs like this. But I'm actually learning a lot and uh and and it's been an awesome experience so far. And so it's uh it it, as you said, understanding all the dependencies, it's all those little things that that collectively there's a there's a lot to make sure that you're um that you're managing. And when you think about your own style, your leadership style, you know, what do you think makes you uniquely positioned to drive this company forward and create the success that that you're kind of seeking? That's a really great question. Um for one, I don't want to be the smartest one in the room. I want to surround myself with the subject matter experts of all of the areas that I need to make this company successful and to make this product successful. And so bringing in the right talent is the first step in key leadership and being a good leader. And then listening to those leaders that I bring in and understanding and and what they achieve what they can achieve and then empowering them to achieve it. I'm not a micromanager in any regard. I want to give, you know, my leaders, the team that reports into me, the ability to go execute on their plans once those plans have been approved. I want to be able to give them the resources that and and support that they need to be able to achieve success. And then when they have failures or they have missed steps, I want to give them constructive feedback and support then as they recover from from those failures and learn from those payers so that we don't make them. It's interesting feedback because it's feedback is the gift that is really given. But in especially in um a growth company, like the it's it's it's iteration, isn't it? There'll be things that work, things that don't work, but that constant feedback loop. And it it made me think, what's the worst piece of feedback you've ever received about yourself? About myself. Yeah. Although maybe not the worst, but the one you the one that it you kind of like we have a visceral reaction to. Yeah. So earlier in my career, I was often referred to as more tactical than strategic, which isn't necessarily seen as a as a deficiency or like as a as a bad thing, but is you want to grow and you want to be a leader, you know, you want to be seen as Both, both tactical and strategic. You know, tactical is very important because that's how you get things done. That's how you execute on the strategies. But, you know, I didn't like hearing that I wasn't strategic or that I didn't have a strategic mindset. And so, and I think it was also part of my age, because I've often been the youngest person in the room at the levels that I've achieved in my career. And so I often am seated at the table with people 10, 15, 20 years older than me, and they see me as this young guy who doesn't have the experience or expertise that maybe they do. And so they they equate that to a strategic mindset. And so I've definitely over the years tried to amplify that more and more and tried to express more opinion and strategic um uh perspective and not just be, you know, tactical. It's great that I I am seen as that because that's what's gonna get the job done. But what makes a really good leader is you also have to be strategic and forward-thinking, and you have to anticipate like a game of chess, two to three steps ahead of where you want to be. It's interesting, you know, that that the people we we're all highly judgmental. We're human beings, and if you have a heartbeat, we we are judgmental. Uh sometimes consciously, other times unconsciously. And you mentioned there the fact that you are, you know, often at these tables and you you are the youngest person. And people can make a perception of that, that that that you know, age brings wisdom and more insight. And how have you dealt with that perception of, you know, he's the youngest, he's more tactical, therefore he's you know he's less strategic. Is it you said, yeah, I've expressed my opinions more. Like what have you done to me, or have you done anything? How have you managed that? I mean, I often try to prove people wrong and deliver what I say I'm gonna deliver. You know, um, one of the best pieces of advice is that I've ever gotten in my life was from my dad, who said, uh, underpromise and over-deliver. And um, that is exactly what I try to do. And, you know, I try to never set expectations too high that I know are not achievable or that I can't deliver on. I'm a man of my word. I try to deliver on what I say I'm gonna deliver on. And if I can show results, then that usually shows that I can be both tactical and strategic at the same. Makes me think of the bond market, where it's like my word is my bond. Like there's a there's a like, you know, the handshake of um I realize in my well, I I I'm a bit of a people pleaser, so I I overpromise, which is it's clearly is is not a good tactic. Um you you mentioned that you want to surround yourself and you know with with the smarter people. And I think you know, we are who we surround ourselves, you know, the people we most surround ourselves with. And I remember a CEO I work with said, look, I want to be an inch of an expert on every area of the business, but I'm not the expert because I've employed like a CRO, a CHRO, a CIO, a CFO, like you know, they are the expert, but I, you know, I want to be that inch of an expert. And getting talent, get making those choices on talent, getting it right is really important because if you get it wrong, it can be, it can be costly. How do you make sure, like in that interview process or in that selection process, you know, how do you do the best you can at making sure you're getting the right fit for in play? So right now, you know, because we are still small, it's good to have, you know, a few people interview key candidates that we're bringing in, you know, from our CEO and founder to our chief legal officer, you know, strategic advisors that we brought in. So that it's not just my opinion on whether or not these um resources are gonna be the best fit for in-play, but it's a collective uh agreement that they're not only a fit for what we need, but a cultural fit for the company that we want to build. And I think that's absolutely important because you can have really capable people that come in and that can execute on their their job and their their discipline, but if they're not a good cultural fit and they're not gonna be collaborative and work well on a team, which is very important to me, then they're not gonna be a fit for a startup like any. Yeah, it's it it's such a valuable point to underscore the importance of cultural fit because people can be capable, they can be highly capable, but if they're toxic, if they're not the right, if they're not collaborative, like that that stuff can be be very cancerous to an organization. And I think when you see companies get it wrong, it's where they hire purely for capability and they're not thinking, how does that person fit into the the culture of the organization? Um, you you mentioned, you know, strategic advisors. I'm curious, do you have your own internal board of directors? Yes, I do. Yes. Um, you know, I I'm very um I'm very pro-mentorship in general. And I've been a mentor for many years, and I have a lot of great mentors in my my life and have from a very young age. There are very many decisions I make in my life without consulting at least one or two mentors of mine. Um sometimes it's my parents, sometimes it's professionals that are that are both friends and mentors. Um, but I I have my own set of board of directors that have guided me, you know, these last 30 years. It's interesting. I um when I was early in my career, I I looked at senior leaders in the industry and I just assumed that when you when you get to like a you know the C-suite, you've you've figured it all out and you wouldn't, you know, couldn't possibly need any advice. And you realize over time that however senior you are, like it's always good to have sounding boards, to have people who can be the mirror, to have different perspectives. Because sometimes when you're and and and a client referred to this recently, he he said, you know, there's sometimes you need to you need to be the seaplane, other times the surfer, sometimes the snorkeler, sometimes the scuba diver. And and sometimes we can be the scuba diver and actually we need to lift ourselves up to get that perspective. And sometimes we can't do it ourselves because we're in the we're in it, which is where others can help lift us and see the things we might be missing. Exactly. And it, you know, maybe they've been there that you have it, you know, maybe they know where, you know, the landmines are, they have a you know a different approach. And, you know, it's great to also have kind of you know mentors or advisors at different stages in their careers too. I I get mentorship from people younger than me at in early stages of their career. And I've learned a lot from from them. You know, I've learned about what the next generation wants from a leader. I've learned what type of tools they want to utilize in the workplace, what type of culture they want in the workplace. And that's important for me to understand if I'm trying to build a very cohesive, collegiate, you know, atmosphere that, you know, drives productivity and excitement in what we're building. Yeah. That reverse mentoring is really important. Um, as you shared, like what does the next generation want? Like, we don't know what we don't know. And I look certainly at my children, they have completely different ways of doing things. And and it's not necessarily to impose our way on them, it's to it's that openness, that re um receptiveness to seeing, you know, seeing things differently. When you think about your career, what has been an Achilles heel of yours, something you've had to work on? I think it's probably the same for many people of when you reach a certain point, or maybe maybe when you even start out your career, and that's patience. Um, you always want things to happen faster than they are than they can or or should. Um, you always want to accelerate things maybe before they should be accelerated to you know get to the results quicker. Sometimes that's not the right solution or that's the right approach. Sometimes things need to take a certain amount of time to be done with a certain amount of quality. And so, or you just have to just sit tight and wait for certain decisions to be made on the other side of the table. Um, so I would say sometimes uh patience is is my Achilles tendon. Yeah, it's it's uh the word uh impatience as well means I'm patient, like I am patient. Like it's and it it it's and I I remember someone once said to me, it's exercise patient urgency. So it's it's like it's patient urgency is like, yes, it can still be an acceleration wanting to get things done, but also recognizing things take uh things take time. Leadership requires many trade-offs. Um I mean it does, like it's we we we can't do it all. Um what have been some of the I suppose sacrifices you've made for your career? I think the biggest sacrifice is just time with family. Different stages of my career have, you know, added a lot of working hours, sometimes 60, 70 hour weeks, um, a lot of travel um in my career. I've been very fortunate to have opportunities where I've got to travel all over the world, and that takes me away from my family. And so I may miss sporting events with my son, who's now 10, or you know, birthdays or you know, special occasions from time to time, or just quality time with family. And I would say that's probably been the biggest sacrifice for me. And how do you manage that mentally, i.e., you know, you're missing your son's um sports events. So it doesn't there isn't like I don't know if the words guilt or like the the the again, it's it's like it's it's just I'm missing it, but without any kind of emotion attached to it, or maybe there isn't any emotion attached. I'm I'm just wondering how you manage it. I think it's it's situational. Uh you know, I think we're very fortunate today that we have more access to resources that allows us to be there without being there, like FaceTime or video chat. So, you know, I'm fortunate that, you know, I can be out in video or FaceTime with my son when I'm traveling and, you know, talk to him in the mornings before he goes to school or when he gets home from school and you know, at least be present where I can via video. Um, and that's the best that I can that I can achieve, which is not wasn't even possible, you know, 15, 20 years ago. So we're very fortunate and it's just leveraging those resources to at least you know make the best of the situation to be as present as I could possibly be. And then when I am home, I'm trying to make the most quality time that I can. You talk about quality of time and present, which makes me think of presence. You know, our quality of presence is is really important, especially when you're you know, when you're speaking with investors, you know, with your advisors, with as a leader when you're showing up in front of your your of your company. Um And I think how we start our day strongly influences how we show up. What does your morning look like when you wake up? Like what what does your morning routine look like? Yeah, so very strong cup of coffee every morning, like extremely strong, like a couple shots of espresso with my coffee usually in the morning. Um, usually gets my brain going, um, you know, gets the juices flowing. Um, you know, I'm I'm very organized. So usually for me, it's looking at my schedule for the day, making sure I understand what I need to achieve that day, what are the meetings that I have. You know, when you get into more senior leadership roles, you're gonna be juggling a lot of different things throughout the day. You're not just focused on one task or one, you know, set of operations. You could be dealing with a uh a whole hodgepodge of things. And so it's good to understand, okay, how does my day lay out? And so I usually start, you know, my day looking at my calendar. I don't really rely on an assistant or anyone to kind of keep my calendar for me. I'm very um OCD that way. I want to know what I'm who I'm meeting with, why I'm meeting with them. I want to understand, you know, the purpose of those meetings before I go into those meetings so that I'm prepared. Uh and then it allows me to use my time wisely. Yeah, I think understanding the purpose of meetings is is so you can exercise that discernment. I think uh I I uh there's many leaders that I know that their diaries and their own. People can go in and just book time and book time that's already allocated to other things, and it's it's but you know, you want to make sure that your time is being invested in where it has its its highest value. Yes, exactly. You want to make sure it's the good use of your time, you want to make sure that you're delegating your time where it should be delegated and you show up where it's needed. Um and I think that's important with leadership as well. You have to be able to delegate. You shouldn't feel like you need to be everywhere, you can't be everywhere. Um one, you're you'll exhaust yourself and you'll degrade the quality of the the output that you give. And it's not fair to your team that you're always there. You have to be able to allow them to function on their own. And look, with with the senior leadership seat, you know, stress is part of the journey. Like it would be wonderful if things were stress-free. But how do you mitigate the stress that comes with the territory? Um big milkshake at the end of the day. And I'm not joking when I say that. Um, because it's then like is this like special mushrooms or is it? No, I just I'm a big I'm a big sugar person, but my my favorite food is ice cream. And if I'm really having a rough day and I need some comfort food, I'll just put some ice cream in a blender and make a milkshake. And that usually kind of lowers the stress levels a little bit for me. And then exercising as well, you know, I think that's a a great way to get out, you know, some frustration or kind of rebalance you a little bit or get your mind off of work for, you know, an hour or so if you can't a few days a week. And yeah, and we all need that outlet. And you know, when you look back now to the the 14-year-old you that was on the the the the the training floor, what's one thing you go back and and tell that younger self? You're stronger than you think. Speak more to them? I would go back to my 14-year-old self and you know, you're not the the geeky, introverted, you know, 14, 8th grader. You you you are at that point in time. You're you're stronger than you think, and you there's nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it. And so uh saying that, where have you surprised yourself most in your career? I mean, I think when I went to Citadel Securities, that was probably uh one of the more challenging career moves for me. I mean, that was an atmosphere that, you know, is running 100 miles an hour and you have to keep up and you have to learn a lot of new things very quickly. And I think I really stepped up and and kind of took on that challenge and put in the hours and put in the effort to learn, you know, a lot of new asset classes that I had not been exposed to before and learn all the things that Citadel was doing, not just in the US, but globally, and you know, and allowed me to have a six-year uh career there. And I was very fortunate for that. And it is, you've got to do the work, isn't it? Like hard work is a minimum. You're kind of saying there, you know, I put in the effort to learn. And it's being a voracious learner, I think, as well. Like every day is a school day. Yeah, another great piece of advice I got from my dad as I was growing up is never stop learning. And, you know, I saw it from him, not just in the advice, but he he lives it. Like he's constantly learning through his career, through life, like you know, both my parents are, but he was just such a great example of never stop learning. And that's the same advice that I give to my son and to anyone that I mentor, because there's always going to be new stuff to learn. And if you stop learning, then you're gonna get complacent. And if you get complacent, you're gonna get left behind. Yeah, never get complacent. And I think it it can sometimes be easy. We don't realize which is where we know we need the truth tellers around us to tell us, you know, you're getting complacent, like, you know, sort it out. Um, and look, when you when you um when you think ahead, what does success look like for in-play in the go forward? And what is so there's two parts to this question. What does success look like for in-play? And what does success look like for you as well, personally? Success for in-play for us would be we launched in 2026, and by the end of 2027, we're a brand name. Everyone knows who we are. You know, a lot of investors are trading our securities, both retail and institutional. Um, we're scaling, you know, into more sports uh globally, not just, you know, in the US. Um, and you know, we become a real asset class that's traded along all the other asset classes in the financial world. And then for success for me is you know, leading that success, I think, is the success that I want to achieve personally and and seeing the team reach that success. And you've mentioned your parents, you've mentioned your son. Like, what is one thing you'd love to see in your son that means he's a chip off the old block? Good work ethic. Good work ethic. Never giving up. And I don't I don't see that yet. So he's he's he's you know very determined and has a very ingenuitive mind and likes to know how things work. And I love sitting down and building Legos with him and just kind of answering. He's a he nonstop questions all day long, like why, why, why, this, this, this, and you know, very inquisitive. And I love that, and I I hope that never dies with him. And you know what, that childlike wonder, that quizzical why, why, like it's children always are seeking to understand. Like they, you know, they aren't there's that curiosity uh by nature, and the fact you're doing your your Lego, like that building. He's he's already, you know, chip up your off block and in, you know, building. Oh, and your parents, when they, you know, when they look at the person that you've become, what do you think they're most proud of? I think they're proud of, you know, my integrity, you know, the person that I've maintained over the years. Like you can get lost in this industry very easily. Like you get swept away with, you know, the success, the money, the fame, whatever comes with it, depending on the levels that you reach. Um, I've never compromised my core values. I've always tried to, you know, be a man of integrity, be a person of integrity, lead with integrity, and and never compromise. I think that's what they would be the most proud of. Well, look, this has been incredibly insightful, interesting. I've had a big smile on my face, um, listening to you, hearing from you. Um, thank you for sharing your story. Um, I wish you a huge amount of success. I wish in play a huge amount of success. And I look forward to that ambition that you've really spoken to. I look forward to reading all about it and that being realized. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity.