The 7 Habits of a Highly Effective League of Legends Player Part 1

I'm going to be writing a new series that I've entitled The 7 Habits of a Highly Effective League of Legends Player. The inspiration for this piece is Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The aim of this series is to help enable and empower the reader to take charge of their League of Legends career and become successful. This could apply to raising ELO, reduce raging, and increase enjoyment while playing. I cannot guarantee that you’ll reach Diamond or Platinum from reading this since the focus is behavioural and not so much mechanical skill, and you need both to reach high ELO. However, I guarantee that if you take these habits to heart, you'll enjoy your time spent on League of Legends a lot more than you currently do.


Habit #1 – “Be Proactive”


The first habit has a lot to do with looking at what shapes who you on. In League of Legends, we are shaped by our experience, and ELO. As an inexperienced player you are treated as if you don't know the game as well as someone who has played since beta, and as such, you will perform in a manner that you're expected to. ELO influences us in a similar way, and with the addition of borders for S2 standings, a player will likely under perform if they are on a team with all Platinum players when they only reached Gold last season. The Gold player may have worked hard to improve and may be just as good as the Platinum players now, but because they're expected to do worse, they will do worse in most cases. These two factors are external determinations that are used to gauge our aptitude to perform, but the fact that they are external shows that they don't have to dictate how we perform.


The basis of human intelligence is the idea that we can decide our responses to stimuli. In the case of League of Legends, the stimuli are our experience and our ELO (the perception our team/enemy has of us). As humans, we have the choice to play as we are expected or play how we know that we can play. The difficulty is applying this principle, and this is where the first habit comes into play.


The idea of habit #1 is to switch from being a reactive person to being proactive. To do this, you need to take the initiative. You can't wait for others to judge your skill based on your experience or ELO, but instead, you need to make the first move. In the context of a League of Legends match, you can do this in a number of ways such as:

• Speak up in champion select and be cooperative
• Get first blood (don’t give first blood)
• Win your lane
• Make plays early on
• Play safe (ward/ping/call mia)

There are numerous ways of taking the initiative, but the idea is to set a precedent yourself rather than letting other factors set it for you. A fine example of this would be my life. I've faced stereotypes and expectations that others have placed upon me, but they've never dictated my success. Since I started streaming and putting myself out there online, I've heard a lot of people saying things like, “He's good for how he plays.” They see my limitations and put the expectation of my capability on me, but I choose to ignore such comments because I know I can do better. I know I can and will improve. My ELO may be at 1k now, but my understanding of competitive play and the game far exceeds that (at least in my opinion). My limiting factor is not my physical capabilities as people like to think, but it is the fact that I'm still finding the best way of playing for me. I don't play or limit myself by the expectations of others, but rather, I try to prove them wrong by taking the initiative and improving myself whenever possible.


The essence of being proactive is considering what is in your power to influence or change (your cs'ing skill, your behaviour, your map awareness, etc) and separating it from things you can't control (teammate's attitude, teammate's performance, enemy's skill, etc). The idea is that you should focus on things that you can control instead of getting stuck on the areas that you cannot control. An example of this would be playing top lane and getting ganked a lot. You can control this by warding and improving your map awareness. Alternatively, you have no control over your teammate rage quitting after they die in lane, so you shouldn't focus your energy on this matter. Not only will this help you improve your gameplay, but you'll enjoy yourself far more if you don't get upset over things that you cannot control.

Shaping of Reality by Networking

This is a follow-up to my Perception and Shaping Reality post last week. This week, I'd like to explore how we can bring about a change in perception. I'll be looking at how humans naturally form "tribes"(networks) as described by David Logan in his TEDx Talk. The main point I'm taking from his talk is how we can improve our own networking and increase our individual/organizational clout.

Perception: What we see lies upon the surface. What is lies underneath the surface.

To change how disabled people are perceived, we must expand the tribes(networks) that hold the values of acceptance and understanding. I know many non-profits, and advocacy groups try to do this already, but their reach is usually limited to the reach of their members. That is say, they rarely expand past their current tribe. As stated in David Logan's video, great tribe leaders are those who expand their tribe's influence by introducing people to other people. This is somewhat of an absurd concept since you'd think that you're just expanding the other person's tribe, but I would like to suggest a possible explanation. The act of introducing one person to another is a show of confidence and power. You are asserting yourself to the other 2 people and taking a leading role. This means that they will be more likely to follow your values in the near future. In essence, you've influenced 2 tribes with one action instead of 1. This act has allowed you to establish clout(social power) among both the tribes.

How do I establish clout?

The key is to attend as many social gatherings, conferences, dinners, fundraisers, clubs, etc. as you can. A lot of people use these events to network, but most don't fully take advantage of the situation. I would suggest that after you've attended an event where you networked, you should follow up with the people you've met. Go for a coffee, develop a relationship outside of the particular event you met at. This added step lets you move from acquaintances to being friends/colleagues.

How do I use my clout?

With the establishment of personal or organizational clout, you can move on to my next suggested step for motivating the shaping of perception. Start a cause/movement that fits within your established values (the values that your tribes follow) and elicits action by those who see it. You need something to be eye-catching and 'viral' for it to be successful. A fine example of this concept in recent media was the Kony 2012 campaign. The Invisible Children organization spent years establishing its clout at universities throughout the USA so that when they made an eye-catching video it went viral immediately. I find this to be the hardest part because you need to create content that generates action. You may have the clout necessary for your friends/colleagues to spread the message, but the people who see it need to act upon seeing your video. To help with this conundrum, you should look to expanding your networks in a few particular circles; university students, film makers, and communications professionals.

Following-up the action

This step is often left out in most practices. It is synonymous with the last step of many business models that relate to feedback/monitoring performance. This step is often overlooked because the project/product has already been finished, but it is critical for insuring the success and growth of future endeavours. In the non-profit world, this is why donors usually receive some form of thank you, and shaping perception is no different. If you don't follow-up by sending thank you's, or asking for feedback then your supports/tribes/networks will think that the cause was successful and no more action is needed. This is rarely the case since most causes require years of protesting, and fundraising for to be completely successful. Just as our existence is continuous, so are the issues we face.

Summarized Steps:

1. Establish personal/organizational clout by attending networking functions.
2. Follow-up meetings with your new contacts to develop personal connection.
3. Start a cause that aligns with your network's values.
4. Create a video, site, blog post, event, etc that can catch the attention and elicit action.
5. Follow-up to tell everyone it isn't over yet.
   

Questions or comments about my thought process/suggested steps are welcome.

Perception and Shaping Reality

This TEDx video inspired me to write on a topic that I've always found fascinating since it pertains to my life quite a bit.

Essentially, the concept of perception that we know today is formed around our cultural norms, and these norms are typically defined as a collective agreement by the majority. While the acceptance of norms usually needs some form of majority to be adopted, the drivers of these norms are typically a minority. A prime example of this is how celebrities influence current trends. So based on the above classifications, perceptions are cultural norms that the majority has accepted, but a minority created. What does this mean for finding ways to change or shape perceptions?

It means that anyone can do it! The trick is finding out how. I'd like to believe that to shape our current and future perceptions, we need to first look to the past and determine why the current perception exists. Since I'm personally invested, I shall focus on why people in wheelchairs are seen as being 'disabled,' useless, and/or inept. I like to think that the root of this perception is simply that people are ignorant of the truth, but to really change things, I need to delve into the traditions of our predecessors and find out how they treated people who were different. Of course, there isn't much mystery behind this question. Our history is riddled full of subjugation, segregation, and degradation. We, as a species, shun what we don't understand because we fear the unknown. We need to feel in control to feel powerful, and on some levels, we feel we have a divine right to be powerful. We see this all the time with statements like: "We're the top of the food chain," "We're the chosen ones." Even though these statements may very well hold truth, our species acts like a spoiled brat who deserves all the shiny new toys.

Ahh, but I digress. I am to be focused on perception and not on all the indignities of humankind. If we look to the past, we see the purging and segregation of physically disabled individuals. In today's society, this would be considered horrific, although segregation does still occur, but it not as horrific as in the past. So, the root of our perception of disabled individuals is based around the past acts of purging and segregation. With the root defined as best as we can, we can move forward to erasing them from our current society, right? Only if things were that simple. The issue is figuring out how a minority creates a norm that the majority will not only accept but will act on. We can't all be famous and influence millions by tweeting about our clothing. Of course, there has be another way to influence the majority besides being a celebrity, or else, people like Martin Luther King, Jr. or Ghandhi wouldn't exist.

I'll be stopping here for now. A small teaser of what is to come: What motivates people/tribes? TEDx Tribal Leadership