Fellows Book Online Version 2020

23 been cancelled due to COVID-19 and has been postponed until 2021. Today I want to share our experience on what it has been for us going through these competitions and what are the main takeaways that we got. As we entered the competition in 2018 as clear underdogs in the championship and then defending the title in 2019 as favorites. Basically, just to paint the picture for you in what was at stake in these competitions, it’s around 20-25 million-dollar championships, so it is very life changing for whoever participates. Considering the ecosystem behind is definitely not the same as it is in sports. We see the salaries growing for players, but what I mean is the pressure for that competition is truly tremendous. For e-sport players it is recognized in the e-sport world as being the biggest competition that you can find out there, it is called the international. You’ll find it on google, you’ll find all the information you’ll need for it. So basically, what you have to understand for e-sport players and teams, that we had to figure out the ‘takeaways’ of what made winning possible by ourselves. We had to do all the mistakes that I would say in traditional sports have been done in the past and now you have very experienced staff that are going to be able to guide the players through the common traps of competition. Common traps of competition being, knowing how to manage your confidence level, build proper team dynamics, all these very key things that at the end of the day are what makes the difference between champions and just great athletes that have the skill but are not able to overcome what comes with high level competition. So, I am just going to go ahead and share some takeaways that are very important to me and are nowadays guiding how I help players around me and basically life principles that competition taught me. Of course, before you get to that point, for everyone that competes at any level, I think everyone will relate in the sense that you only truly learn through loses. You know the common saying that you win, or you learn. Ideally I’d say that you either win and learn or you learn, because one of the big takeaways I take from all of this is that the teams or the athletes that are able to maintain themselves at the highest level are the athletes that treat winning the same way they treat losing. It is very common when you win to not self-reflect as much as when you lose of course because losing comes with pain, your ego trembles a bit. So, it is only natural that you have to self-reflect, you have to rebuild, and you have to get the key learnings going in to the next competition. I do think winning is so rewarded in our society and communities that you are not pushed to self-reflect, there is a lot of narcissistic comments, you will be praised. In my eyes the true key to maintain yourself at the highest level and to keep winning, is to treat winning the same what you treat losing, meaning reinvent yourself if you need to, challenge everything that you’ve achieved, because execution often is very different from theory in the sense that you might have won a game or a tournament, it definitely not stop you from doing a lot of mistakes and looking at these mistakes is definitely the most important thing going in to the next step. In that aspect you need to treat losing the same way you treat winning, in the sense that when a loss happens there is probably a lot of things to celebrate and a lot of positive things to take away and to not let the negatives and what you failed completely blindside you, and take away what you need to take in to the next competition. That would be the first point, treating winning and losing exactly the same and looking at a game or competition as being a learning experience no matter what. Only yourself can stop you from truly making it a rewarding experience. Now I want to highlight more the underdog situation. So, basically, we went in to the 2018 championship as being a team that everybody looked at as being probably one of the worst teams going into the tournament, commentators/ analysts. You have 18 teams from all around the world who participates. We were a European team, and basically, we were not the favorites to win it. It’s a very big tournament that all teams prepare for years in advance. So, we were in a position of course where there was no pressure on our shoulders. The key for us was to build our confidence, make sure that we thought and believed in ourselves that we could achieve it. Often, we say in sports that underdog is a more comfortable position. Basically, you go into games and challenges with nothing to lose and everything to win, because your expectations are pretty low which could be regarded as a bad thing but in a way is something that just lifts off the pressure and you play free. We have this concept talking about playing free; it is something really important for you to express your potential. Now I’m going to get a bit specific, but I want to share a story about one of our players. The theme of what I want to tackle is about the power of enabling somebody. Throughout my own career and throughout what I see in traditional sports, daily life, professional life; we are often asked to fit a certain way of thinking or a certain way of behaving. Because success has happened in the past and I guess it is common knowledge that that success happened because of certain characteristics. That person is a hard worker, for instance, or that person reacts really well to pressure, so he has a competitive mindset. I do want to challenge that assumption in the sense that everybody is very different. By definition, we are all very different and very unique and we have a lot to bring to the table. Yet I do believe certain systems make certain profiles unable to express their potential. I want to get a little bit more specific. So, one of my teammates with whom I won