Cheating.
Today I want to talk a little bit about cheating. As you all know, I work in sports, I work in Esports, and in both fields I find myself surrounded by people who cheat, including myself.
Now I do not want to talk about doping. There's rules for that, and I adhere to them. I do not
want to talk about hacking or DDOS'ing, for I do none of these and have experience with
none of it. I want to talk about why you and I cheat, and why it means we will never be what
we want to be.
Every once in a while, I get a message or an e-mail or even sometimes a guy on the street who
approaches me, full of enthusiasm, and they ask me a question that I've come to dread. "How
do I get better at League of Legends?"
Take a moment to look at that question. You try and answer it. Can you? Neither can I. I've
tried, for sure. "Focus on your vision control", "Learn your limits", "Play simpler champions."
I say it because it makes you happy, it gives you hope and it pushes you to try again. But it
won't make you better. You already know any piece of advice that I can tell you in such a
short amount of time, you already know that there is no golden ticket, no secret advice that the
pro's understand and that we just haven't shared with you. I see people paying $5, $10, $20 to
ask pro's questions about climbing on Stream, and you've all seen that "Oh shit" expression
when they try to come up with a respectable answer. They never can, nobody can. So if we all
know it, why do we still ask? We ask, because it gives us the illusion of having tried. If Lee
'Faker' Sang-Hyeok told you "To be the best, you must read two books a day and exercise for
an hour", how many of you would do it? We don't want the real answer. We want to give
ourselves the illusion of trying. Having asked somebody "How do I get better?", you can now
tick off the little box that says 'Today I strived to reach my goal.' Don't get me wrong though,
asking questions is important, but only if you can open your mind and accept whatever
answer you get.
I am a cheater. You are a cheater. We are cheaters. We cheat because it's easier. It's easier to
call me a hack for not having an answer to your question than it is to look to yourself and say
"maybe I'm asking the wrong questions?" It's easier to blame the system, or the coach, or the
computer, or the League than it is to look yourself in the mirror and say "I did not try hard
enough."
You want the golden ticket? Here's what you need to do to get success in any field in the
entire world: From your body - Preparation From your mind - Cunning From your heart Determination
So let's talk about how we cheat in these three areas. We cheat with our bodies, because we
should have started earlier. We are not mad because our teammates are bad, we're mad
because our sleeping schedule is out of whack and we have caffeine pumping through our
veins. We did not lose the BO5 because we had a bad pick and ban phase. We lost because
you based your entire lifestyle on dopamine release, and since you lost game one, the whole
series is spoiled.
Every single task in the world has a physical component. This is the component that you must
address first. Shape yourself to be a tool of success, there are no excuses to not start
yesterday. It does not have to be exercise, but you must control your body before you can
control your life. If the brain is the only muscle you'll need, then by GOD you treat that
muscle with respect.
We cheat with our mind because we want freedom. To succeed, we must have a plan. But a
plan entails commitment. Feeling free while giving up most of our days to work hurts. So we
cheat. When was the last time you made an excuse for yourself? "I don't actually need to
warm up.", "I'll just wing it at practice tonight", "I'm sure I can ACE that test without
studying."
In order to regain your freedom while working hard, you must be cunning. You must find the
most efficient way to achieve any goal you set for yourself. Write it down, make one that
adheres to your physiology and stick to strategies that do not require you to burn yourself out.
No professional player can survive 8 hour scrim blocks followed by 6 hours of solo queue. It
will kill your mind, your body and your soul. Design your life to be cunning and efficient.
We cheat with our hearts, because the hardest truth of them all is that we are not good enough.
When you fantasize about being a professional League of Legends player, you dream of the
money, the roar of the stage, the interviews or maybe the dream of "five guys hangin' out and
playing video games". Do you dream of back pain, neck pain, wrist pain and headaches? This
is your future. Do you dream of having millions of people looking over your shoulder,
scrutinizing your every word and analyzing every click of your mouse, upholding you to
impossible standards? This is your future.
We tell ourselves lies to spare ourselves the pain of admitting the truth. "He had talent", "She
was lucky". You must be aware of external factors, but ultimately, the day you go home
unable to find something to improve in yourself is the day you stop improving. You have hit a
plateau from which it is almost impossible to keep climbing. You MUST be an idealist and a
perfectionist if you wish to succeed. You must be able to criticize yourself and accept
criticism without letting your mood suffer. I have worked with many people who get paid to
play games or do sports, I have worked with few who are professional, so many of them will
be too caught up in their own ego to EVER ask themselves, "what can I do differently?"
Learn to be determined, learn to love finding and working on your own short-comings and
you will be successful.
There are a lot of you out there who play video games because you want the competition that
comes from sports, but for one reason or the other you cannot perform. I do not ask of you
that you be athletes, you need not touch a weight in your life. But I so would wish that you
would all be winners. A true winner does not win on stage, a true winner secures victory
about three months before, when everybody allowed him to lie to himself and he refused.
Those around you want for you what makes you feel good, but not always what makes you be
good. If your mum let's you skip homework, it is YOUR responsibility to say "No mum,
today I must study."
If you can push yourself without hating yourself, you'll go far. -Hazel out