The past few years have been difficult for so many reasons, and prioritizing mental health has become important. This week, we welcome Summer Scott. Summer is the Director of Team Operations at Counter Logic Gaming, where she incorporates all kinds of programs and initiatives to help players with their mental and physical wellbeing in and out of gameplay. Our conversation was a breath of fresh air about mental health, what we can do to treat ourselves better, and why this is all important in gaming.

Episode Resources:

https://dotesports.com/general/news/razer-launches-esports-wellness-program-for-players

https://digiday.com/marketing/the-protector-how-summer-scott-has-helped-coach-an-esports-industry-into-taking-care-of-itself/

https://dotesports.com/general/news/razer-launches-esports-wellness-program-for-players

Welcome to the meadow woman podcast, we address the

issues, opportunities and challenges facing women in the

development of the metaverse the biggest revolution since the

internet itself. Every week, we bring you conversations with top

female talent and business executives operating in the

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boss POS, the metal woman podcast starts now. Hello, and

welcome to the metal oven podcast part of the holodeck

media Podcast Network. I'm your host Lindsey, the Boss Boss. And

from struggle to success. We're covering it all our returning

listeners who've heard me read that intro dozens of tribes now,

thank you so much for supporting the show. And for all the new

listeners out there. Welcome. I hope you love it. I am really

looking forward to today's conversation, as our guest has a

knowledgeable and very cool background in esports, and

wellness, which is, you know, as a former student athlete and a

big kind of athletics person, I'm just super passionate about

this. So I'm really excited to have her on summer Scott is the

director of Team operations at kinda Logic Gaming, where she

incorporates all kinds of programs and initiatives to help

players with their mental and physical well being in and out

of gameplay. So summer, I would love for you to give a much

better introduction to yourself. And I just gave explained, you

know who you are and what you do for everyone who's out there

listening? Sure. Yeah, I mean, essentially, what you can

consider me is a general manager for a sports team at this point.

I'll be it. I've arrived here

on a track for being a performance coach, right? So in

esports, of all things, so my philosophies around how to

create a winning team, how to staff a winning team, it really

just comes down to how do you make the pieces work well

together? And how do you systematically include ideas

around player wellness, mental health, you know, physical

health, like how do we incorporate this into the

training environment, when you consider where traditional sport

has arrived at now, you understand that there's a real

depth to the staff, right? There's attention to player

nutrition, there's attention to injury management and

prevention, right? Like you have such a breadth of support in

that realm that has been built slowly over time. So in esport,

we need to put that focus back in and making sure that we are

system systemically creating training protocols that allow

for really good career longevity in these young year.

Can you tell me a little about your educational background,

too, and I know that you kind of combine your educational

background with your love of Wow. So to arrive at esports? A

little bit?

Yeah, um, I would say, throughout my schooling, I

really struggled my early education.

I actually my first college experience was at Vassar

College. And for those of you who are unfamiliar, it's a

highly selective school, a lot of pressure associated with

being in an institution like that. And for me, going through

that experience, I suffered, like I just suffered so so

badly, when you are someone who wants to do something that is

difficult, that puts you in an elite class.

And you feel alone doing it. It is suffering. That's it. And my

mental health just really couldn't withstand it at all.

And yet, even then, I was really tapping into things that

made me realize that what was true to me and me, kind of

discovering my identity

helped me understand that, like, I needed to find a way to

connect with other people, and help other people. Throughout

that process. Even though the I was I was just in a really bad

space, I was still discovering that. And like, oddly, when I

first went to Vassar, my major was in classics. I was studying

ancient Greco Roman antiquity. And what I learned there was,

there is something so beautiful and consistent about human

nature.

The fact that you can look at a love letter from 2000 years ago

and understand implicitly what that person's going through,

like the bliss and agony all in one, right. So that's really

interesting. Um, I had a bit of a pragmatic moment and realize

that like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with the classics

degree, and that's when I made the pivot into psychology.

Ultimately, though, because of my struggles with mental health,

I was not able to graduate. I actually spent five years at

Vassar, I was

about a semester off from graduating there,

but got to the point where I could not muster the will to go

back.

And I eventually moved back home with my parents, I enrolled in

my State University completed my degree in psychology.

So, from that point, I think I had a really strong realization

that like, I never wanted to encounter another young person

who was just trying to do something that was really

freaking hard. And, like,

way to describe it, like going after things that could have

triumphant outcomes without support, right, like, that's,

that's the issue I wanted to resolve, I wanted to go back and

fix my failure by helping other people. And during that time,

when the major things I used to cope with video game

I had like a video game to manage different situations to

play like Sims for to relax, I played Call of Duty to like,

lead out of crashes, right. Um, and eventually, it got to the

point where I was playing World of Warcraft. And that is where I

met my, my now husband, he was my raid leader. He was the main

tank. I was the Maintain healer. And

I love the gaming industry, because there are so many

tangentially related things like ancient Roman and Greek

literature. And

that's just so you truly never know where you're going to start

and where you're going to end up. And I think that that's an

important.

I don't know, important thing to remember, I guess I would say

is,

I don't think you need to go into every single thing in life

having a clearer idea of what the end goal is, I think that

there's a way to balance having an end goal while also being

open to possibilities. Yeah, I think you have to in order to

like, actually allow yourself to grow up.

Oddly, a comment that people laugh at me, actually, that I

make constantly is like, I always say like, you know, when

I grow up, I want to do that. Like?

It just Yeah, I say that all the time. That's so funny. Yeah,

like, I am still growing, I'm still very active in this

process of trying to discover myself, like my identity that I

had three years ago is not the identity that I have. Now. It's

something that's constantly evolving. And I feel like if you

actually fail to approach life with that mindset, you're gonna

lose out on a lot. And to answer your original question, you

know, like, I just knew, when I got graduated with my psychology

degree, like, I was at a point where I could keep on going down

the path that was prescribed to me, right, I can can continue

bang my head against the wall, trying to make the way that

academics are structured work for me. But I know it doesn't. I

know that the way that I'm supposed to be able to prove

that I'm a knowledgeable human being in this societal world

that I'm in, in this day and age and this time, like, there are

many people that just like, could not recognize me as

legitimately intelligent if we were going to use a degree as a

measure, right? Yeah. And I kind of had to reconcile that idea

and say, how else can I make myself successful? And that's

when I looked at like, oh, you know, what? I know, I'm fueled

about helping people. I know, I'm fueled by a lot of games.

You know, how, how do I make these two worlds coexist?

And it wasn't an immediate thing, right? It was probably

another two years of me just kind of like wrestling with this

and trying to like, shove myself into the box that I was supposed

to be in, before I finally just like, let it let it rip, and got

the motivation to dive in and try with esports.

Let's talk more about that. I mean, I knew from our last

conversation that I was going to have so many questions, and I

know that I'm not going to get to eating all the questions that

I've written today, which is a little sad for me, because I

told myself to stick to the script, ask all the questions I

wrote because I wanted to hear the answers. And I immediately

went off and asked a question that wasn't on script. So

killing it so far.

As you know, former athlete and then current at least aspiring

mental health advocate.

I would love to start with the performance coaching that we

have gotten into a little bit before, you had mentioned that

it needs to be baked into the training environment, it can't

be an add on, it can't be kind of a, I don't know, something

that you just throw in later. It has to be it has to be there

from kind of the beginning gameplan all the way through.

Right. And that includes a holistic approach compared to

traditional sports a little bit. I wanted to pick that apart and

ask two questions that are part of this performance coaching

first.

How do you develop that environment at Counter Logic?

And what does it do for the team?

So one thing that I've discovered that really sets me

apart is that I invest wholeheartedly in making coaches

look good.

I know it sounds a bit wild, but like

this, this is where things are

the weakest for esport. We don't have coaches coming in, that

have had, you know, 15 years experience as an assistant

coach, before that, they were in like, you know, bad boy for a

team. And like, before that they were, you know, in collegiate

sports themselves. And then before that, they were in like,

Pop Warner Football, like, coaches in traditional sports

were bred coaches, right, from the time that they're playing

their sport in their childhood, to how they were coached

themselves, in collegiate to all of their professional

experience, not to mention the fact that by the time you've

done all of that, you're older, you have some life experience

behind you, and you can get your crap together a little bit

better than someone who's, you know, 22 years old, trying to

manage a bunch of other 22 year olds, right. Like, there's a lot

of things working against the talent here.

So the first thing that I do is I elevate the coaches, I say,

you know, where are your strengths? And where do you

struggle? How do I how do I both do this for you? And this is the

first piece of performance coaching, the performance starts

with the person who's setting the tone, right, we need to

discover what the team culture is what that person intends on

doing, how they feel like the environment needs to be for

everyone to be successful, including them. There's so many

organizations I found that work against the talent they have in

them, because they're trying to develop a system.

That is like, supposed to be the system, right? It's the system

that works. It's the optimal system, are we still not

optimizing things as if like, we're all machines, but it's

just not, it's just not the case, you have to be using the

individual pieces that you have there and the individual

strengths and weaknesses, and figuring out the answers, and

how all the puzzle pieces fit.

So I would say like that's the first piece to creating that

integrated whole of performance coaching, focusing on that

leadership, and helping them discover how they even want to

go about

creating an environment for success.

Okay, so it starts with the coaches, and then how are you

translating some of the performance coaching into

players? Like what does that mean? So sometimes the easiest

thing is to figure out what the coach is actually trying to tell

a player and help them get translated.

So one of the most common

issues that come across as a coach that says like this player

is uncoachable, right? Like they just won't listen. So helping

people break down where where is the communication on the heart

between you two, um, you know, sometimes just helping someone

gain a little bit of a self awareness and awareness of like,

the fact that there's other people in the world that operate

notably different than you, right? They've had notably

different upbringings, notably, notably different support

systems. And they've arrived at different ways to navigate

conflict and conversation.

So that's one piece that is really helpful, a lot of the

time helping people kind of diagnose the communication

styles and the conflict styles, and navigating those better so

that with these kinds of processing conversations, those

two are then able to work more effectively. So in essence, I am

coaching the coach to properly performance coach there player

from the strategic

side. The other part is like, sometimes there's just

fundamentally an education piece that needs to be in there,

right. We're just unaware of some of the gains that we've had

and other areas. You know, when I came into the performance

coaching role, I actually use it to my advantage that I was not

specialized.

I did not feel locked down by my education,

or my certifications, right? I felt really open to finding the

answers in whatever form that they came. So when I say that I

use a multiple multidisciplinary and holistic approach. I'm

really going out there and finding wherever the answer

exists, whether it be Organizational Psychology,

sports, psychology,

you know, physical therapy, I don't know like I will even use

Buddhism, if it was actually the thing that made the move the

needle move for an individual player, right? So getting out

there, finding the answers, and then getting those ideas

attached to the right people at the right time.

is, in essence my brand of performance coaching. I don't

know if it's everybody's.

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. And that's a lot of that's,

that's a lot of inter team dynamics, the performance part.

And what about the kind of development part as an actually

making players better? One thing we talked about was telling

players why they're good first, and then focusing on how they

can get better. I like this approach, because it starts with

the confidence builder, and then empower and, and then it kind of

empowers players to take ownership of the areas

improvement of improvement in a way that seems more sustainable

to me as in, hey, if I know I'm good at this thing, then I feel

more comfortable saying okay, but I'm bad at this thing. So

let me work on that, or I'm not as good at that thing.

But what advice do you have for people to incorporate that kind

of mentality into their own lives, because I think that

could be very useful in identifying the areas where

you're very good and taking cotton and feeling confident in

that. And then, therefore using that to kind of empower yourself

to work on your areas of improvement.

So I'm going to go wild angle on this, I'm going to use like some

of the understanding we have of self discipline, in habit

building to help explain this.

A lot of people think that, like,

if I'm not a runner, it's because I'm lazy.

No, it's not a character flaw. It's just, you haven't build the

habit, right? And

others who say like, alright, if I'm gonna go build the habit, I,

I must not be disciplined enough. If I haven't figured out

a way to do this, like more than five days in a row, right. Um,

the reality is that we need to be a little bit like me to offer

ourselves a bit more grace and understand that in order for us

to do things, we have to find the successful habit to build

off of, to create a domino effect, and produce the outcome

of that we want self discipline and will our complete miss, the

person that systematically sets themselves up for success is

always going to have

just better, right. And like part of part of why this is so

helpful is it helps you scaffold and build the confidence along

the way it helps you understand who you are, and what brings you

success on a day to day basis anyway, right? Even when you are

operating against yourself, there is a source of what

propels you forward. And what creates that forward motion for

you, you don't always have to invent something from nothing.

And that's why when I work with players, I try to center them

around their existing profile of success.

I discovered two things working with gamers at the elite level,

first of which, they may not have the egos you think they do.

Like much to the contrary, most people I work with feel really

pretty shitty about themselves.

They don't think they're that good. And that's how they got

this good. Because they're so self critical and self

deprecating, that that negative energy is what compels them to

get on the computer every day, they can't help themselves

because of like this underlying feeling that they're not enough,

just kind of shitty, like it's not, it's not a good thing to

have to work through, right, like, so I'm trying to get

people to the point where it's just like, you can be worthy,

you can be worth something and be tackled in these goals. And

the funny thing is, a lot of times like players resist that,

because they're fearful that if they take away like a level of

self hatred, that they will lose the motivation to continue

competing and continue getting better, which is usually not the

case. And except in like some very interesting cases. But

I really like the cases I've found.

The most interesting are ones where

the player realizes that they weren't fighting to be better

for themselves.

Like, this is this is where the career Enders happen when they

realize that they were only doing it to prove their parents

wrong, right. Like when their parents were invalidating to

them. And they realized that they don't need to prove it to

their parents anymore. Sometimes they just quit.

So like those are, those are really interesting cases. So a

lack of self worth. Self confidence is something that

I've definitely seen. And the other thing is like, you ask

like a pro league of legends player, I actually asked this

question to five LCS players at one point in time. I was like,

What makes you better than the average gamer? I couldn't

answer. And I'm like, Okay, let's do an easier what makes

you better than a challenger level? Player, right? Like what

makes you better than an academy player?

couldn't answer there was really no understanding of what made

them good. So it's

On these two observations, that's when I kind of like, it's

like we need to develop approach around this, we need to actually

understand this phenomenon and adapt to it. And that's why we

always start with what I call the SSA is string skills and

assets.

I have every coach develop this profile with the player. So they

understand what are your strengths, like what is just

core about your character that sets you apart and makes you

better.

And this is different than skills. Because skills are

things that you've acquired over time you put in the work,

weren't born with, it doesn't come very naturally, but you put

in the work. And that's why you're really good at it. And

then there's finally assets, which are just circumstantial

qualities that set you apart and are useful that we can leverage

in the training environment. And using this profile, we use it as

a foundation to then start challenging the player to be

better saying like, we already know that you have this

foundation, where if worse, comes to worse, we can fall back

on this. So where do we start pushing and where we started

challenging you and making you uncomfortable, right, we know

where your comfort zone is, but like, now we can find the small

places to stretch.

On speaking of being comfortable, we're in

uncomfortable situations, or at least knowing when to push

yourself in uncomfortable situations. We had also

previously kind of talked about confrontation. And this was

something that you had described within a team environment. But

I'm wondering how you teach healthy confrontation. This is

again, a very useful tool for standing up for yourself or

improving an environment or just generally problem solving is

being able to confront a problem. I would love for you to

describe how you do that within a team and what those dynamics

look like. But then also some of the lessons that you think apply

to just the broader world when it comes to handling

confrontation in a healthy way.

Oh, man, this is a this is a juicy one. Um

Um,

so it seems like the first thing to overcome when it comes to

confrontation, like I'm assuming like someone who's hesitant

around confrontation, right, we're not talking about someone

who's overly confrontational. And this is about hesitation for

conflict. I feel like that's a little bit more applicable. And

this is broad strokes. But in in what I tend to see is that a lot

more people tend to shy away from it than to be overly

confrontational, particularly women. So

yeah, um, I think the first step is addressing your ambivalence

about it. Right? I mean, this is, this is something that I've

definitely struggled with.

But there's like, a degree of learned helplessness that you

need to undo for yourself.

Right? Like, how many times have you gone and tried to muster all

of your will to finally like, just like something in the face

of things not going well, and that conversation, not yield?

The right result or an outcome that you were hoping for? And

then you just kind of learn like, alright, well, then I

can't, I can't change anything, right? I can't affect the

situation, even when I even when I do say something, um, that

that mindset, this has to go, right. You can't give yourself

permission to think that I think you need to be a lot more

stubborn. And strong willed, you have to understand that like,

sometimes you need to approach approach the same subject five

times over.

I've definitely had certain things where we have like staff

meetings every Monday and every Friday, and for three weeks in a

row brought the same thing, hey, this is a thing is the thing in

the thing. And after it goes wrong, we like hey, remember

that time I said this was going to be a thing.

Remember now, right?

And I think there's like a brand new person who'd be like, Oh, my

God, like, a you're being annoying, because you're saying

1000 times, like if people wanted to listen, they would

have listened to you the first time, which is not the case,

you're just making assumptions, like people are busy too. They

all have their own workloads. They got to figure out their own

priorities. And the fact of the matter is, is that what you

think is important is not always immediately someone's priority.

That's just the fact of the matter, right? So giving

yourself alternatives to think about can be really helpful. And

just releasing yourself from this line. And

I think we're also trained

to understand that thing I told you so is a disrespectful thing.

I think there's a way to do it. That's not condescending, right?

Because there's a way to say hey, I need you to pay a little

bit more attention to me when I'm alerting things. And this is

my way of doing it. Because the pain that you're feeling right

now because we messed up. It is on you it is your responsibility

because you also chose not to listen to me last time. I need

you to be better for me and

For us to function as a team. So next time you're tempted to

dismiss me or not hear me all the way I need you to remember

this moment right now. So that is, that's the real conversation

that you're having. It's not you being a jerk to say, I told you,

so for the sake of saying, I told you. So you're saying, Hey,

we have to fix this pattern, because it's negative. And it's

not allowing us to achieve our goals. That's why we need to

work on this. And that's why I'm sure you're cheering us on. So I

would say like, that's a really big thing. That's what helped me

resolve some of my ambivalence around just getting my hands

dirty, and being a little bit more confrontational.

Like that, there's a healthy way to say told you so. But on I

mean, I like that because you know, I can be petty but who

can't, but from a study standpoint,

it you are doing yourself and your environment a disservice by

not drawing attention to the solutions that you proposed, if

you propose them. Nobody wins them. So if you're in an

environment where that's comfortable, I think he's, yeah,

and you're totally right in that saying, hey, you know, I did

this thing I fixed this problem before was a problem. And now

it's problem. Yeah, I think that that's an old thing. That's that

petty. I think that's actually like a good win for the team.

Yeah. We like dissect like, what makes things petty. Right, like,

petty its nature is like just being passive aggressive.

With men and women in my, my company, like, I want to be

clear, it is not a lady only thing it is men also. And like,

the issue I have with people, I'm just like, you're being

really passive aggressive and lucky. I will, one thing has

really pushed me off. I'm just like, Yes, you are angry. You

are valid and your anger. So the answer is be aggressive. Don't

be freaking passive. Don't like put like one foot in one foot

out. Like, if you have legitimate anger about

something, then you need to go express that. This whole back

and forth. If you try and act like there's nothing wrong,

you're sending mixed messages, and you're just coming off like

a jerk. So sometimes the answer to eliminating passive

aggressive feelings within your team culture is to literally

just give permission to be aggressive, and you are fine and

within your limits to do so. If you are finally following some

basic guidelines, like you can say what you need to say, but

you need to speak your truth. You don't get to tell somebody

else what their truth is. You don't get to say, Oh, well,

like, I know, you're mad at me like, No, you don't know that.

What are you in the person's brain? Get out there. Like,

that's out of balance, right? You can speak your truth be

like, I feel like you might be mad at me. Because whenever I

walked by you, you like, just don't give me eye contact.

That's your experience, you can absolutely speak to that. So

that's like ground rule. Number one. The other thing is like,

don't insult people. Like, I don't know what you can expect

from another human being, if you're just gonna come at them

and offer insult. And like an insult is when you try to cast

judgment, or label another person a certain way. It's just

like, well, you're being really petty right now. And she's like,

don't tell me who I am. And don't tell me how I'm coming

off. You can tell me something that you don't like, don't call

me petty. I don't know what you want it to get from me this

conversation calling you petty, right? Like, we're not resolving

things, if you're confronting me and calling me names or placing

label loss on me right away. So that's another one that's like

cream of the crop, you can stay out of that boundary, you're off

to a really good start. So I mean, there's like various

strategies like this, of just making yourself more objective

oriented, and set yourself up for better success. When

engaging with conflict, most of which are just like,

be a decent person and try to check yourself before you wreck

yourself. When your aggression is coming out. You're right,

your, your goal is not to attack someone, your goal is to get the

job done, it's to get the objective met. So walking into

the conversation with a clear objective. And something that

you want to get out of the situation is really valuable.

I wish we would have this conversation like three days

ago,

probably would have helped me a little bit more was okay, we all

have things to work on. I am a I am a person who has things to

work on. And I'm not afraid to admit that. So I am absolutely

going to remember this and the ground rules next time. And try

to not be passive aggressive, because I tend to be really good

at that.

And I would like to get better at instead saying what I want to

need this. Yeah, you're right, that just helps everyone so much

faster, and with so much less pain. Um, I want to take a

couple steps back and get into your origin story a little bit.

You did a recent profile with Digiday, which I read prior to

doing this, and I will link in the show notes. It was it was

great. And there was one quote in there that I loved

As soon as I realized that getting into esports could be

something that wasn't just for me, but a gift that I could

offer other people, my innards just went on fire. And I

immediately started trying to get my foot in the door. I am

not going to ask what it was like to have your interview on

fire. But I would like to know what getting your foot in the

door, what that process was like for you. And I know you

mentioned, you got out of school and kind of took a couple years

to figure out kind of the marriage between esports and

psychology. But how did how did your initial approach to teams

come to fruition? How has it changed? And how was the

reception of what you did? To teams and to the industry at

large?

Um,

so

I would say getting in

trying to connect myself with people that were extremely value

driven, was probably one of

the best things I can do. Right, the thing that actually got me

in the door got me trying to do things, was me watching a panel

of Miss Harvey and some other brilliant women just talking

about the classic question of like, why do we not see more

women in esport? Right. So that's what I was responding to,

when I was like, Oh,

me being me going after my dreams, it's not just me trying

to like figure out how we just like interweave gaming and

psychology, right, this is actually an opportunity for me

to possibly affect the world. It's an opportunity for me to

get out there and inspire another young woman who loves to

do. And that was mission critical. Because I needed to

have a selfless reason to do all of this in order to keep going.

Because if that were not true, I would have given up a long time

ago. Just flat out, if I had to fight for myself, I do not have

the mental strength to do that. I don't have the self

confidence, and the ego to want that for me. But if it's in

protection of other people, then I'm going to fight to the death

to make sure that other people have the opportunities that they

need in this world. And that's true of other women. That's true

of the players I advocate for right. I'm just, I just won't

settle for less when it comes to having better for others. So

trying to get my foot in the door. It really came down to how

do I help someone?

When I made that decision, I was like, how do I figure out a way

to find out what someone needs help with?

Honest, first things I was doing was just going on Reddit,

finding out what kinds of people like what kinds of things people

were struggling with just getting on there and answering

the questions, doing some research trying to figure out,

you know, how I would want to be helped in that situation.

I googled, I literally Googled esports psychology, and found

Weldon Greene, who was a professional sports psychologist

who was trying to bring mental health awareness into the

esports scene.

Now I was like, Hey, can I blog for you?

Like, and I was terrified, absolutely freaking terrified to

do it. I spent about a week of my, my boyfriend, then my

husband now just like yelling at me being like summer just email

the guide. I'm like, I can't he's like too big of a deal. And

he's like, so much smarter than me. And I can. I mean, he's

like, what is an email that I do. And I finally emailed him,

got in there, and started sharing what I thought could be

helpful to people. And I was correct.

Like, as soon as I started doing it, my articles were some of the

highest performing even next to other highly credentialed

people, right. There was like clinical psychologists in there,

there was sports psychologists that were working with US

military, and they're, like, freaking organizational

psychologists that will had an experience like managing like 25

plus people on their teams, like, who just understood

implicitly how to do their stuff. And I was like going toe

to toe with producing material that was helpful. It was like

to be able to walk into that position. And I distinctly

remember having conversations with those people who are giving

me such fantastic insight and regular basis. But we would have

conversations like hey, it's like really not good that

there's people trying to performance coach in the esport

industry that are not highly credentialed, like, what do you

think that and they're like, well, they're gonna go in there

and they're going to pitch to teams that they can be helpful.

And they're not going to be as helpful as credentials, people

could be. And they're going to lower the price point making it

impossible for people who really do have the backing and

knowledge to be in there and to be able to

to show other organizations that, like, you should be paying

a really qualified professional to been here and you should be

paying them that salary that they're used to right.

Meanwhile, I'm like,

Okay, I hear you. I do that sounds like a really big, big

problem. I will shoot myself a memo later about it. But yeah,

I will shoot myself on them really? Yeah, the funny thing

is, like, a lot of people just really never realized.

I guess there's like a swell, like, fake it till you make it

message. It's like getting into esport. Yeah.

But like, I also think that there's just like, the insane

amount of humility that you need to bring to the situation. The

fact that I was always like, wondering whether or not my

knowledge was inferior to others is what like, propelled me to

constantly be seeking out more, and to find new solutions, and

to push really, really hard to be the best that I, I possibly

could be.

Because I wasn't about to let anybody say, or do anything to

suggest that I couldn't do the job. Just very stubborn about

it. Very, very stubborn. And again, it came down to not for

me, because I had a I had a thing I had to do, like I'm on a

mission. Like I'm on a freakin mission, I'm gonna get this

done. So

I'm glad that you stuck it out. And that actually brings me to I

think the last question we're gonna have time for. But one big

point we discussed last time was how you did all of this. While

you were beginning while you were starting a family. And with

what we know about the gender wage gap and how it often occurs

after having a child, when women typically miss more time on

parental leave, maybe take more of the responsibilities with the

children wind up not getting that promotion at the same rate

as men with families. Building on an earlier point, that's

unfair for several reasons. But one of them is that people don't

know what you're capable of until you have a chance to show

them that you're capable of it. So right. A lot of women miss

out on the chance to show that they're capable of having a

child and continuing their their work in a way that is just as

good as it was prior to the child. Whether there's less

forgiveness for unexpected interruptions, or, or I don't

know, just less allowance to be a mom while working. Doesn't men

certainly encounter a set of issues that they have to deal

with as well. But this doesn't seem to be as broad of a

problem. Can you just talk about how you were able to balance

family life while advocating for yourself and building your

career in a way that was healthy and sustainable for you?

Well, first, I want to say that if there's anyone who is fearful

about what disclosing a pregnancy could do for their

career, I just want to validate that feeling. I would be lying

if I didn't deal with that, um,

I when I got pregnant the first time, it was after a full time

position I had had on a team, it was a very up and down season.

And by the end of it, I was like, convinced I was done with

esport. Like convinced I was like there's I don't even have

any other jobs lined up. Like, I just I think I'm done, right.

And that's when I was like, my might as well might be a good

period, just be like, I'm gonna give up on this esports stuff.

I'm gonna start a family and just like bow out, right.

And one of my friends who's also a performance coach in the

industry, we're like, hey, CLG is hiring right now. Like you

should apply? And I'm like, like, yeah, like, we'll play

together. It'll be fun. And I'm like,

and I was like, Whatever, I'll just apply for the one job. And

at that time, I was five months pregnant. And I was like,

terrified, terrified for anyone to know, or figure it out.

So when I got hired at CLG, I showed up the welcome dinner

that they had planned for me that like, hey, like, we want to

take you out. We want to, you know, show you some

appreciation. And you know, thank you for coming through and

join our team. And they're like, We were thinking sushi. And I

was just like, I can't eat that.

And like, they were both parents. And they're kind of

like, and then the following day, I was just like, Yeah, I'm

five months pregnant. And they're like, Well, we had set

out to say that if we were ever in a position to hire a woman

that like, we would have to like live up to the values that we

set and make sure that like,

we would stand by what we said and like stand by doing the

right things. Right. So I mean, that says a few things like hey,

it's really helpful to have the two people above me

to also be parents. That is not usually

case in esport, it's not the case right now, like my current

boss is not apparent, you know, love him to death, but it

doesn't always like work in my favor, because just doesn't have

the perspective to understand what I'm dealing with on us.

But like, I think the really interesting thing, beyond them

just being parents was like the fact that they very clearly had

the discussions when interviewing me, or like, even

before that, like what it would look like culturally, to do this

correctly in esport, to have women have a place and to have a

trajectory. So I think that that was really powerful to me to

recognize that they like even in that one comment, after saying

she can't eat sushi that they, they like really demonstrated

that they had a value around making it possible for women.

Love that? Do you have any kind of advice for? I don't know

that, from, you know, from the woman's side, or from the parent

side? How to

Sell the situation? Or how to continue advocating for

yourself? And then do you have any advice on the employer side

of how to, I don't know, handle a situation like that, or just I

think it is important to live up to your values. But just Yeah.

Do you have any thoughts on like, kind of concrete things

that people have done or can do to just make that easier on both

sides? Yeah.

I mean,

I think we have to take this for a grain of salt, because this

comes down. Like, I haven't had the conversations with my boys

around, like, why I was hired in the first place, or why I was

being able to give, be given promotions.

You know, this second child that I had, I was three months

pregnant, and had told my bosses early on in the pregnancy that I

was pregnant. Because I was suffering from really bad

morning sickness, I wanted to be transparent about

donations I needed and like why I was like struggling in some

situations.

So

ultimately, I was hired, while I had a full understanding of the

fact that I was going to have a brand new job overseeing five

different teams and need to take a maternity leave six months

after starting that position. And I think the only reason why

I was able to do that is because I handedly demonstrated prior

that I had the wherewithal, and that was one of the most

powerful assets of the organization had at the time.

Um, so I think that if you approach your career

unapologetically, and just commit to doing a really, really

good job, it's hard for people to oversee what they would be

missing by not trying to retain you. That is, even as a manager,

something that I think about, like, if I just identify someone

who is an asset, like I have to understand fundamentally what it

takes to retain you. So from an employee's side, it's like,

how do I get myself to the point where like, they wouldn't

consider a reality where it wasn't there.

Gotcha. Actually, I had someone previously say, Don't be your

company's best kept secret. And I thought that was a good

encapsulation for saying, don't be afraid to put yourself out

there and say you are an asset and to show that you are an

asset. I mean, I'm really big on like, collecting testimonials.

As often as I found, you know, if there was ever a player that

I worked with, or like, Oh, my God, I worked on this thing.

Thank you so much, like, screenshot, like, hey, oh, my

God, this is such a sweet thing. And they said to me, low key

though, I'm good. I'm important. I'm making these things happen

so that you don't need to worry about it. Right. Like

I say, like, you need to be a little bit shameless about it.

And it's not again, it's like, how do we, how do we reframe

these things that normally would hold us back, right? We talked

about like, overcoming like passive aggression by just

giving yourself permission to be aggressive, right? Like, I feel

like if we stopped labeling ourselves as like, awesome,

Shameless, like, endorse yourself this way, like, what if

we just said like, of course, I'm going to endorse myself.

That's how I advanced myself. Eight

doesn't make Yeah, yeah. There are men that would not really

wouldn't second guess it, right. Like they're just conditioned to

say like, Hey, look at all the great things I did. So why can

we do this for ourselves?

That's a true I'm writing that Beth. I remember that.

And I know I said that I was going to be my last question,

but I can't resist that. I do have one more little section but

I can't resist asking about

what

You think about what's going to happen and as we start

incorporating a lot more emerging tech, and the reason

why I've asked that is because see a lot about the metaverse,

and there's a lot of voices about the metaverse, but there's

not enough people who look like you and me talking about the

metaverse. So I do like to ask people, and especially with your

area of discipline, and talking about mental health and well

being and growing your career, like what are kind of the, you

know, the possibilities you see in emerging tech, what are the

drawbacks? What are the things to look out for one of the

things to be excited about, like,

I hear in team operations right now, but that deals with a lot

of emerging tech stuff.

So like, Just what are you thinking about in the next two

to 10 years?

It's interesting that you bring this up, because I was listening

to a podcast with Mark Zuckerberg on the way in today.

Oh, um, and was actually considering this a little bit

like,

at risk at sanding,

as someone who's anti tech, like our anti progress, you know, my

biggest concern around where we're headed is that even with

these emergent ways of us connecting with each other, it

does seem like we're really missing a fundamental piece. And

I don't know if augmented reality or virtual reality will

help when the gap. But what I'm noticing is that the more

technology we put in place

that we have in getting things right, that are more concrete,

like the simple example is like if I'm always in a virtual world

where I really care about recycling, or, you know, being

zero waste, right? Like, what do I really care about my

environment when I don't contend with it every day, right? Like,

if I had to deal with An Inconvenient Truth of My

behavior, I'm more likely to do things that would go away from

it. So

I think socially,

anonymity has not necessarily made it a fair and equal

situation like engaging, right, women, like have so much

harassment to contend with. And there's all this hostility that

people deep down inside, because they feel wronged in a certain

way from our overall society that just comes out in these

virtual environments. Because you don't have the same level of

investment, you're not worried that someone would like have a

physical altercation with you or conflict with you. If you were

to say these things in person, you can do it without

consequence. So I mean, I really fear what kind of reality we're

getting into when we're not creating these realities that

also are of constant to us in a way that can help balance the

overall

the overall view in society, I think it's really important, and

like, making it applicable to gaming, like we see this happen,

for teams that we have in person versus a remote setting, right?

Like, it's actually mean, it's just far easier to get people in

person to have steak with each other, right? They're

encountering each other day to day.

They understand more about why a conference

together, if you're like on a headset, and you don't have a

camera, if someone's silent, you don't know if they're being

passive aggressive, you don't know if they're thinking you

don't know if they walk away from their keyboard. So there's

all different kinds of ways that you can relate with someone or

like a message is sent, even with silence, that we don't

really know how to break down or understand

without bringing in all of the gaps and context that comes with

us being in reality. So I would say the metaverse Jury's out

a lot of things that they're going to struggle to overcome

and the real challenges like, are you gonna identify the

problems and fix for you've created a new societal standard

that is problematic?

That is my big question as well, which is also why I'm insisting

that everyone that comes on talks about it, because I think

it's one of the

the best or anything, but a good way to do that is by having

conversations early on.

And by getting people out there and getting their voices heard

and their opinions heard early on, and your perspective is

unlike anyone I've spoken with, right like this is this is from

a very psychological standpoint, and there's things that I've

never thought about in here, and I hope that you know, the things

that you think about are in the room when things are being

developed because it's important.

So I thank you so much for offering that that was

fascinating. I felt like I I got like hypnotized listening to you

talk about that a little bit.

Like, you just can't put the genie back in the bottle on

certain things. I think it's a really interesting case study as

well, because like,

while I agree that influencers like can have a really negative

impact on things like specifically like if you look at

like Instagram and like the negative effects that it's

having on our, on our adolescents and their

understanding of like, what their body should look like.

Like, we've like figured out this is bad.

But like this genie is not coming back in the bottle, right

like it is actually undo the damage done now.

So, yeah, I think we just need to be a little bit better about

understanding like, what we are doing and what impact we could

potentially have before introducing new technologies.

That's I'm writing to you.

Because that was a great response. And I would love to

have more conversations with you about this, because I think it's

fascinating. Um, before we get into our last little segment, I

like to do a summary of everything we've talked about so

far. We started with a discussion on the performance

and developmental coaching that you do, setting yourself up for

success. And building a habit that sustainable requires you to

find targets that you can actually hit and feel

comfortable in. A lack of self confidence or self worth can

help motivate you. But it gets to a point where that begins to

hurt. So you have to actually build confidence. I liked your

program of identifying SSS strengths, skills and assets, as

a foundation to then build upon to challenge a player to get

better.

Because you are excited.

And just make sure that you are guilt driven and not shame

driven.

Like, I'm bad, right? I like this is because like, I am not

worthy. That's why I can't do these things. But if you just

shift that away from it being a stay on your character to like

them, well, this thing I did wasn't really great, right?

Guilty the behaviors. So slip shift, I am bad to this behavior

is bad, can be really helpful in overcoming that. Ooh, that's

great that so many little like,

we then want to do steps for confrontation. The first step

was to undo the ambivalence and learned helplessness that you

have. So you have to actually work up the will to call out

what is not going well and not be afraid to do that repeatedly.

Step two is to give yourself alternatives to think about when

it comes to assessing the situation. How busy are the

other people involved? Are they seeing it the same way you do?

Step three is to actually introduce solutions again,

repeatedly over and over until the message gets through. And

step four is to say I told you so without being condescending.

So you draw attention to the solutions that you offer

previously asked for it to go better next time. And encourage

people to remember that dismissiveness. But trying to

fix the negative pattern to improve the outcome rather than

we also talked about never undersell the value of a

processing conversation shows a very long way this one has.

Like it goes a very long way to step back and have that like

meta, like, how do we work better together? Like how do we

just fundamentally do things better in the future? Right?

Like, if you're having it about a regular strategy meeting, no

one would care. So like, why are we not doing these things? So

good. We also talked about the answer to eliminating passive

aggression is to encourage aggression, aggression,

encouraged aggression. Wow. You can allow people to express the

difficulties they're going through as long as you have a

couple of ground rules in place. One, only talk about your

experiences to Don't insult people. And three, check

yourself as the aggression is coming out. Don't be on the

attack, try to figure out how to prove the outcome. And I liked

that we talked a little bit about your motivations and

esports and psychology and you mentioned that yours was having

a selfless reason. And that really kept you going past any

internal issues, past any external pressures, just the

ability to actually impact and help people. For women starting

a family. Before you start considering this, make sure you

demonstrate your worth and prove that you are an asset, endorse

yourself, advance yourself as much as you can. And then when

it comes time to have that conversation, clearly state your

needs. Make sure that you have also the company understand why

why it's valuable to them to have those needs met and keep

you on board and then make companies live up to their

values. If they're an organization that's attempting

to be more attentive to the needs of people who are starting

families

make that happen. Hold on to that. Or hopefully they hold

themselves to that as I know kind of logic did. And then when

it comes to the metaverse, we definitely do not have it all

figured out yet. We can't communicate in the way

We are able to do in person, there's a lot of nonverbal

especially or even silent communications that occur that

aren't necessarily replicable. And undeniably a nun Dimity is a

tool that's been both, I suppose in a lot of circumstances good,

but largely bad when it comes to the internet. So bringing that

into virtual worlds can be a danger. And we need to

understand what we're getting into with technology, because we

can't do it, what's can't undo it once it's out there. People

can attach pretty quickly. Okay, so that brings us to the final

section, I'd love how long this episode is going. Because this

has been such a such a good conversation, and I've learned

so much. So the last section I like to do with everyone who

comes on the show is a moment of reflection, this is a chance for

you to look back on your career. And the question that I like to

ask is, what is one thing you would like to tell your younger

self about getting into the esports industry and being

successful?

Well, huh, are we gonna get a wild answer, juicy answer and

other financial?

What would I tell my younger self, I would tell myself,

that you could be yourself and still be successful.

And I wish I could have told myself that in a way that I

would actually have believed it.

Oh, that's so great. And I wish you could have to, but that's a

really good thing to remember. I hope that people out there,

wherever they're at in their career can take that to heart

and be themselves. Um, I think it's really important for people

to understand, like, the narrative that they have crafted

for themselves.

And like, the limiting beliefs, you have,

like one of the ones that I had for a really long time was like,

You're not a writer. And then like, the funny thing is, is

that like, even after I had my initial success, and esport, as

a writer, I still didn't believe that it could be one.

It was like later in my career, where I actually tried to tackle

like writing a book chapter, I'm just like, I can I can do this.

And I can do this very well. So maybe, the idea that I was not a

writer was incorrect, or I needed to unfixed my mindset

around that and allow myself the room to grow.

So I think you need to do that. And like it's women in this

space. And as a female professional, like, you have to

say, like, I'm allowed to take up space. I'm allowed to speak

passionately. And I don't have to worry about someone else

labeling me as like the overemotional woman. If they

did, that's their freaking problem, because they can't

figure out how to work with a woman in the room, it's not my

issue.

So I think you just need to be able to do that. Otherwise,

you're not gonna be able to be consistent. Always masking

yourself, means you blend into the environment. But it doesn't

mean that you're necessarily having an impact just means that

you can sit there well, and be a background figure. But if you

want to be the protagonist in your own story, you can't be in

the background, you have to be able to move and be dynamic. So,

ah, so many good pieces of advice. I'm probably going to go

back here and listen to this whole podcast several times. Um,

thank you so much for coming on. Where can people follow you find

you find your work?

Anything that you want to plug? Plug it, please? Yeah, I mean,

you'd be able to find me I suppose on Twitter, at psych

summer, Psy, C. Summer as you may or like the season, so my

DMs are open I, I tend to answer them. Um, but other than that,

like, you can just kind of catch me working at CLG. I tend to

keep my head down and try to make things work. So you can

always hit me up on the CLG website as well under the

context section.

So fun. For all of our listeners out there. Be sure to leave

those five star ratings and reviews. Listen to this episode

10 times so you can get all the good advice on it. Be sure to

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This is an esports for interviews with industry

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