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Balancing the Grind with Lindsay Gray, Founder & CEO at STADIUUM Group

Lindsay Gray is the founder & CEO at STADIUUM Group, a sports media intelligence company, strategically positioned at the intersection of sports, media, wagering, and technology.

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1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?

I consider myself lucky to have stumbled onto my calling before I even left school. I transitioned straight out of high school into trading sports betting markets and soon after was doing it professionally.

From here I honed my craft, and was taken in by a prominent boutique fund, that specialised in treating the sports betting markets as a bonified alternate asset class. I learnt a lot in this juncture of my life (early to mid-twenties). A lot about betting, business, strategy and so much more.

Many see sports betting markets in black and white, even those with a ferocious grip on probabilistic modelling and the numbers, or those with a finger on the pulse of the sporting codes.

Once you learn to see the angles and apply innovative thinking to the objective of obtaining long-term profitability, you start to see a kaleidoscope of opportunity and can look beyond the black & white.

I am now CEO and Founder of Sports Media Intelligence startup STADIUM Group. The problems I encountered in the sports media industry, and tools I needed to do my job better (but did not have because they did exist) were the catalyst for STADIUUM Group to be born.

These first-hand issues I encountered, remain the company’s north star.  During the last 5 years, we have been painstakingly building out our two sports media intelligence brands.

2) What does a day in your life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?

A regular day for me is always anchored to multiple time zones due to our global team. I jump into North American meetings in my AM in Canberra, more often than not I take these on walk meetings by the lovely Lake Burley Griffin.

This drifts into the Australian working day, which ironically is the quietest part of my day! Here I have time to think, change my environment. Go for a work hike with a notepad and pen, find a lovely nook in an unexplored part of the city and get the laptop out, or maybe back to the lake!

Last up is the European mornings in my PM, lots of hands on UI/UX design work, product development and general meetings. Most important part of my day is always finding time for swimming laps, running, weightlifting and more.

3) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?

I am a fitness enthusiast and thrive on staying active. I use an athlete mindset to propel my work productivity. With constant creative battles when dealing with product design & development, you need to have fresh thinking on tap.

I am sure I am not the only one to find outside the box thinking hard to obtain (even harder to maintain), when you are inside a corporate box. Work-life balance for me is training the body and testing the mind, a flywheel of challenges and stimulation where one helps the other.   

Elon Musk, Kobe Bryant, Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles, receive a new daily routine each week about some of the most successful people in the world.

4) In the past 12 months, have you started or stopped any routines or habits to change your life? 

I have added swimming laps to my powerlifting/bodybuilding and running activities. Pushing my body in a more sustainable manner, as I am critically aware of my desire to stay in shape in the long-run. Lifting 300kg + barbells in the gym is not something I will be doing in a few decades!

Last thing I will mention, one I hope may help some of your readers, I have become more regimented with dealing with multiple time-zones. Constantly changing sleep patterns is something I just lived with due to my work, but it took a massive toll on my life.

I now put my foot down a little more when it comes to letting my days stretch out too long, or start way too early.

5) Do you have any favourite books, podcasts or newsletters that you’d like to recommend?

Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at the New York University Stern School of Business has a wonderful newsletter that is quite insightful and thoughtfully put together. A podcast I recently discovered has me truly excited, The Art of Curation by Flipboard.

If content used to be king, curation is the new monarch in my opinion. My sports media intelligence startup STADIUUM Group takes the art and science of curation extremely seriously, and hearing about how other businesses approach curation can be extremely profound. Finding this little nugget made my day!

6) If you could read an interview about work-life balance by anyone, who would that be? 

Pep Guardiola.

7) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers? 

Whether it’s lifting heavy weights, salsa dancing or poetry, do what makes you smile and make sure you bring that happiness into your working life. Your colleagues and your own sanity will thank you for it.

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About Author

Hey there! I'm Hao, the Editor-in-Chief at Balance the Grind. We’re on a mission to showcase healthy work-life balance through interesting stories from people all over the world, in different careers and lifestyles.