Want to Become an eSports Pro? Learn This Important Lesson from The Rock

Simply *wanting* it won’t get you anywhere.

Breakthrough
Sep 6, 2018 · 4 min read

Going against your parents’ wishes can be a scary thing.

They try to steer you towards the direction they believe would be best for you. The support of a parent can be the difference for many when chasing their dreams. Whenever you hear an athlete, actor, eSports player, or anybody else talk about achieving their dream, the first person they thank is their parents.

Not everybody who ascended to greatness had that luxury though.

One such person, was the most electric wrestler in WWE history. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

Started from the bottom…

Today, The Rock is the highest paid actor in Hollywood. But before that, he was a struggling football player.

Dwayne failed to make it to the NFL and was cut less than halfway through his first season in the Canadian Football League. Broke and without any idea of what to do, The Rock looked to his past for his future: professional wrestling.

The Rock looked to his past for his future: professional wrestling.

Grandson to Peter Maivia and son to Rocky Johnson, The Rock had wrestling in his blood. But that didn’t mean his family wanted him in the business.

The Rock’s father actively discouraged him from following his own footsteps into wrestling.

A hard life of wrestling, injuries, and hardly seeing his family made the senior Johnson worried for his son. He didn’t want him to have to live such a hard life.

But the Rock was determined. He was going to work as hard as he needed to. Harder even. He was going to give 100% of his blood, sweat, tears, and soul to become the greatest wrestler he could be.

…now we here.

23 years later, and the rock is arguably considered the greatest of all time.

He’s also a box office megastar earning over $60 million per year as an actor.

But what is it that made the rock so successful?

There are hundreds of thousands of wannabe wrestlers around the world.

Less than 1% of them ever make it into the WWE. And only 50 ever became WWE Champion.

The Rock did it 8 times.

But you don’t climb Mount Everest 8 times only wanting to do it.

It takes an unfathomable amount of desire, discipline, and work ethic to even have a shot at doing that. That’s all you can even hope for: a shot. Whether it’s wrestling, climbing, esports, or anything else, if you’ve got lofty goals, you need a lofty work ethic.

You need to work harder than anybody else.

You need to train your mind, body, and spirit. For rejection. For failure. For discouragement from every single side.

There will be times where it feels like nobody thinks you can do it. Or that you should even try. The only person who gets to decide that is you. The Rock’s father eventually relented and helped train his son when he saw how serious he was.

It’s up to you.

So if you want to go out there and become the greatest League of Legends player, the number one Overwatch player, or the best at a game that hasn’t even been made yet, know this: nobody in the world is ever going to make your dream happen for you.

It’s up to you and only you.

Though eSports does require a lot of button-pressing, there’s no button to press to instantly become the best at something. There are no guarantees.

I’m going to pull a quote from the great Rocky Balboa in the speech he made to his son.

“Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”

If you have a dream that seems impossible, you need to live by that quote every day of your life.

Every person in the world has an infinite amount of potential, but it’s up to that person to live up to it.

If you want people to believe in you, you have to make people believe in you.

So, go out there. Chase that dream. Fight for it like you are fighting for your very life. But understand you are going to make sacrifices. Even you will have doubts at some point. You’re going to have to work harder for this than you ever thought.

Some people might be disappointed. And a lot of others will say you can’t do it.

Go out there and prove them wrong.


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Breakthrough

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