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How to Play Video Games for a Living

In the documentary 'All Work All Play' about Electronic Sports League tournaments, I was struck by the surreal spectacle of video game fans in stadiums, akin to other major sports. Michael 'Carmac' Blicharz's story particularly stood out...
How to Play Video Games for a Living

I’m watching the documentary All Work All Play, which is about the Electronic Sports League tournaments. Fans of video games watch each other play in huge stadiums, just like we would with any other major sport. It’s surreal.

What stood out to me was the story of Michael ‘Carmac’ Blicharz, who landed an amazing job as the director of Intel Extreme Masters… with no experience at all.

How? He simply proved that he could do the job.

Here’s the exchange:

CARMAC: I was a journalist before joining [Electronic Sports League]. I was writing stuff and I was critical of a lot of things that happened in E-Sports, in the industry overall.PAUL: He was extremely critical of Intel Extreme Masters. I remember he wrote a piece explaining what he would do if he were running it, and then… I offered him the job to run it.CARMAC: I had zero management experience — none, whatsoever — and then suddenly I’m running the most prestigious tournament circuit. [Chuckles]

Yet another success story, in a long line of success stories — such as Jack Dorsey and Ryan Graves — who demonstrated that they were capable of doing great work, and then landed an amazing gig because of it.

You can do the exact same thing. I teach this process in my course, Land a Job You Love.

Published by:

Charlie Hoehn

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