15 years with Calvin Ayre’s media group—amazing memories and five life lessons

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August 2024 marks my 15th year anniversary with Calvin Ayre’s media group, and it’s honestly been the most amazing 15 years of my life.

Looking back over those years, which include major milestones such as moving from the U.S. to the U.K., getting engaged and married, turning 40, obtaining British citizenship, and countless other memories, my journey with Calvin Ayre’s media group has been filled with a series of “firsts” which continue to this day.

Those firsts also include getting in front of a camera, hosting on stage, traveling to places like Siberia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria, spending the night at Princess Diana’s childhood home, interviewing celebs such as Matt Damon, David Hasselhoff, Hulk Hogan, and Ronnie O’Sullivan, and exposure to the brightest minds in blockchain and Bitcoin.

I could go on and on with story after story from my journey, which started in the iGaming world with CalvinAyre.com and shifted into the blockchain space with CoinGeek.com, but today, I’d like to focus on five life lessons I can share with you, thanks to my plethora of experiences so far.

It’s who you know

Those who are not familiar with my story might be wondering how I ended up with Calvin Ayre’s media group in the first place.

In the mid-2000s, I worked for Casino City, a publisher and affiliate in the online gambling industry, which is the same industry that Calvin comes from. Through my role at Casino City, I traveled to online gambling industry conferences and absolutely loved meeting and networking with attendees from all over the world. One of those people was Calvin himself, who noted my network and how I interacted with others.

In 2009, when Calvin decided to launch an online gambling media site called CalvinAyre.com, he thought of me as the “Lead On-Site Reporter.” Despite representing an unknown publication, he knew that professionals in the iGaming space would agree to do video interviews with me because they knew and trusted me. And he was right.

It was through my vast network that I met Calvin, and that same network inspired him to take a chance on me. So much in this life is really about who you know.

Anything is possible

When I first entered the online gambling industry in 2005, there was one operator brand that stood out from the rest and that was Bodog. This of course was Calvin’s brand and I REALLY wanted to be a part of it, but there were not any jobs there suitable for my skillset. Fast forward four years, and I received a phone call out of the blue regarding an opportunity with the soon-to-launch CalvinAyre.com, making my wish a reality.

I had zero on-camera experience, but Calvin was confident I would become good at it over time. He pointed out I already knew the people and the content and promised the on-camera part would just take repetition. Once again, he was right. Anything is possible when you really want it and work hard at it.

Knowledge is power

Besides getting comfortable in front of a camera, one of the biggest challenges I have faced over the last 15 years was the transition from CalvinAyre.com to CoinGeek.com. I was moving from an industry I knew inside and out to an industry I had no clue about. Building my network within the BSV blockchain space was the easy part. Learning about Bitcoin and blockchain was another story.

While daunting at first, luckily, there are plentiful (and free!) resources online for those who are self-motivated to learn about Bitcoin and blockchain. Some examples include the BSV Academy Bitcoin Theory course, the BSV Blockchain YouTube channel, all the sessions from past CoinGeek and London Blockchain Conferences, and the CoinGeek Weekly Livestream episodes—the opportunities are endless. 

Once I started consuming all the courses, articles, and videos that I could fit into my schedule, my understanding of how Bitcoin works and what blockchain can do in the background started taking shape. Everything became easier, and my confidence in creating meaningful video content was restored. Knowledge is power.

You are never too old

Anyone in front of the camera or the spotlight in any way can feel pressure to maintain their youthful appearance despite the inevitable aging process, especially women. I started this job when I was 30, and even then, I was on the older side as a video presenter; many other females in similar roles were in their early to mid-20s. However, these younger presenters did not have the legacy knowledge and contacts I had, which both continue to grow with me as time passes.

We all grow older, and getting upset about it is a waste of time—age really is just a number. You can build muscles and brain cells and start a new career at any point in your life. You can set yourself up for success at any age with enough sleep, limiting alcohol intake, exercising daily, eating organic, unprocessed food (I take my own food to conferences!), and spending as much time as you can with people who make you happy.

Future tech will improve our world, not destroy it

But we can only do this with blockchain.

Now that I focus on public, scalable blockchain and how it works in tandem with other future technologies, such as AI, I can clearly see blockchain’s role in a brighter future for all.

There is a concern when it comes to AI, especially with fake news, manipulated videos and pictures, LLM hallucinations, biases, and the list goes on. However, once blockchain enters the picture, we have a mechanism to timestamp information (data) so its provenance can be verified and integrity maintained regardless of where it ends up. If something goes wrong with AI, such as bad training data, we can track where it came from using blockchain technology.

There is also concern about the rise of IoT devices and who can access the data generated by them. With blockchain, we can own our own data from those devices and keep it private or even sell it if we wish.

With blockchain-backed systems, we can trust what we see online and reclaim ownership over our information—a new, vastly improved and more inclusive digital economy is coming! In this moment we are at the start of something very exciting, and I am so grateful to be a part of it. I’m sure the next 15 years will be even more amazing than the last.

Watch: iGaming & Blockchain with Becky Liggero