UP211: The esport psychologist

Mia Stellberg is an esport psychologist. She’s employed by some of the world’s most successful teams to help them win and keep the best gamers in the world happy and focused on being the best they can be.

Stellberg wrote recently that “Esport is chess at warp speed. It’s strategic, you need to be really clever, several steps ahead of your opponent, you need to have good strategy, you need to practice all the time, to the point – and even beyond – of obsession.”

So, what does she do to make good players better? What’s the tension between the needs of the individual player and the team owners? What are the areas of competitive advantage that determine the difference between winning and losing?

But beyond that, we talk about the life of a pro gamer, the pressures and the incentives. And we ask how the usual tropes of sports psychology apply to the gaming world, things like team culture, 10,000 hours and marginal gains.

Welcome to a world I hardly knew existed, and an opportunity to delve in to the lives and the minds of some of the best and highest paid esports gamers working today.

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