I Gave Up Everything For a Dream That Didn't Want Me

This episode isn't about the highlights. It's about what happens after the dream dies. The identity crisis. The silence. The version of yourself you have to grieve. But also: his sister, who never stopped believing in something else for him. And why, looking back, he wouldn't change a thing.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:03

Alright dude, I've been thinking. We need to get I guess first of all. I wanted to apologize. I'm sorry I sound like shit to all our listeners. Um I'm sniffling and I've been coughing here and there for the past week or so, two weeks. Um I think it's just my allergies acting up now. But yeah, I've had this pretty terrible congestion for uh for a while, ever since getting sick. And also my lung collapsed recently. Damn. How did that happen? You know, maybe I was singing in a shower or screamed a little too hard in the car. Kinda just happens. Have I ever told you about this?

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Does this happen like every year?

SPEAKER_04 0:38

No. Have I ever told you how I sometimes scream in the car?

SPEAKER_02 0:42

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Do you ever do that? When you're like driving all alone in your car, screaming at the top of your lungs.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Can I be honest? I I actually don't think I ever have. You've never heard what your like max scream sounds like? No, like deadass, no. I think the last time I did that when I was like. I was like 10.

SPEAKER_04 0:58

Okay, so sometimes, not often, yeah. Very rarely, when I'm like in the car by myself, no one else in the car, yeah, and no like wide open road, no other cars near me, no houses near me, I like to scream at the top of my lungs. Like the most blood curdling, I'm about to get murdered scream of my life. Like out of like anger or something. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Cause you cause like you don't hear your like max scream. Or just out of curiosity. Exactly, yeah. You know? Like you don't know what you're like, because just imagine, like, what if you get murdered sometime?

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

God forbid. You only get that scream once.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Yeah, what if that's like a horrible scream, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Yeah, I don't even think about that way.

SPEAKER_04 1:40

Yeah, I think about that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

That's a good point.

SPEAKER_04 1:42

Um yeah, I don't do this often.

unknown 1:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

It's like But that's how your lung collapsed?

SPEAKER_04 1:46

No, no, no. My lung just randomly collapsed, but yeah, I don't do this often just like like once or twice a year or something. Yeah. Yeah. But anyways, welcome to this week's episode of Catch Up with Kai and Cohen. Uh I'm Kai.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

And I'm Cohen.

SPEAKER_04 1:59

And uh what have you been up to this week, man?

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Well, we went to a birthday party.

SPEAKER_04 2:04

We did.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

And then yeah, other than that, um, just working. Nothing really new. Um actually, by the way, this wasn't really that recent, but we won that volleyball championship. I have I have your t-shirt, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

But anyways, what are you up to? Other than that.

SPEAKER_04 2:25

What have I been up to? I mean, I've been sick. Um, aside from that, not really much. Play some play some Roblox recently. Oh yeah?

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

Play some I've been trying to so for a while now. Um so I got into Roblox like years ago. This is so strange as like a late 20s, like I'm I'm turning 30 this year.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

But uh yeah, I got into Roblox like in my mid-20s. Yeah. Because purely because the games are awesome, man. The games are so fun. And I think I've like tried to get you to play before I've like mentioned it. Yeah, yeah. I've been trying to like get a couple of our friends to play Roblox. And I did, I got a couple guys to play uh like a couple nights ago. It was pretty fun, pretty sick.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Oh, okay. Well, yeah, I remember you I remember you trying to convince me to play. I did try, like there's a lot of games, but yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:13

It's just there's so much on there. Sometimes it's hard to find the good stuff. Yeah. But when you do, there's like so many diamonds in the rough.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

Oh yeah?

SPEAKER_04 3:20

Yeah, yeah, totally. Like Roblox is 100% the future.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Have you been playing um League recently?

SPEAKER_04 3:26

No, not at all, actually. Yeah, I um I I pretty much stopped playing League. Um, it's been years now since I played. Well, like I'll play like so there's like this fun for fun mode called like A RAM, which is basically like Mario Party League. Oh okay, okay. So I'll play that sometimes with like some of our friends. Yeah. But even that's like maybe like once a week. Oh. Yeah. I don't really like yeah, I don't grind at all anymore. I get yeah. Yeah, I haven't done that for like years at this point.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Like, what's your relationship with League? I don't know I know it's like a like a lifelong kind of story, but like Yeah, it's a very long story.

SPEAKER_04 4:03

So right now it's uh I I have no relationship with League whatsoever.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Like you have no animosity, no like no specific attitude towards the game?

SPEAKER_04 4:13

No, that's different. I definitely have maybe not I don't have I mean I I guess I don't have like the greatest feelings. I mean I do have tons of great feelings about League. I had a great time playing, it it uh was like my source of income throughout my 20s and stuff. So I'm happy for that. But there's always gonna maybe not always, but at least for now, there's a part of me that was like, man, should have been different, you know. I I I even now I feel like maybe if some things had gone differently, uh my experience or like career with League could have been pretty different.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

Yeah, it was a it was a pretty long career. I mean, I I chased being a pro for uh for for eight years basically from from uh around 2015 to 2023. I remember, yeah. So I didn't really talk about this much. Um uh when I first talked about league, I I kinda glazed over all the struggles I faced.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Like what specific struggles were so many, so so many.

SPEAKER_04 5:13

So many struggles that were specific to me, and so many struggles that were that would be common among anyone else.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Um like in league or just in general?

SPEAKER_04 5:24

Someone that would be following my journey. Oh, okay, okay. So like someone that's just like playing the game to play the game, they're not really gonna feel any of this stuff. Because they're not because yeah, because they don't think about it at all, you know, they don't need to.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:33

But um, someone trying to go pro, you you have so many other things that need to go right. You know, for example, there needs to be a way to go pro, like a path for someone to go pro. Like if you look at traditional sports, people will often go take a route, something like they'll start off maybe playing in middle school, they'll they'll join like clubs or something like that, go into high school, play on the high school team or a trial for the high school team, and then they'll go into more clubs and then university, and that's how they eventually end up feeding into the pro system. You know, there's like a a direct pipeline.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:08

To go from a complete amateur to a professional. And um as a player in in North America, that is not there at all for League of Legends. Um, it is there for other places like like Europe and Korea, like they've got pretty fantastic maybe not fantastic, but they have some some legitimate um pipeline there, you know, for players to start off as amateurs and then work their way up to to a professional. But there's n there's really nothing like that in in uh North America. Yeah, you just you just the main way to get notice is you just grind the ladder, which is like the ranked leaderboard.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Yeah. Um so in teams just look at the leaderboard and just Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

Oh so there's like a bunch of tiers. Yeah. I'll just focus on the top one, which is called Challenger.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Yeah, yeah, I remember, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:54

And there are only 300 players at challeng in Challenger.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Like it's like uh fixed amount. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

A fixed 300. The top 300 players in the region, those 300 are Challenger.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

But they're not all pros.

SPEAKER_04 7:07

No. No, no, no. Uh yeah, because there's only 50 pros and there's 300 slots, and a lot of time pros don't have the well, maybe not the time, maybe not the drive, but they don't play a lot of solo queue in the first place. Like they don't play like the normal rank mode. So sometimes like there's not even a lot of pros in the or not even all the pros are in Challenger. But yeah, so and and so right now there's 300, but in the past there used to be even fewer slots.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:31

Like uh a couple years ago there was only 200 slots, and then even before that, when Challenger first became a thing, there was only 50 slots. And this was uh I think it was 2013. Yeah. So even back then, when there was only 50 slots, I was one of those 50 slots when it was incredibly difficult to get up there. So so I've I had been on this path for for for super long. Started out in uh well my like I started being good at league in like 2013, 2014, but I started chasing this dream around 2015.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

Yeah. So then say you're in the top 50. Wouldn't that make it easy for you to get scouted by teams for you to go pro?

SPEAKER_04 8:17

I thought so, but I never found that to be the case. A lot of it was like to get scouted, so I don't I don't exactly know how many teams have like people, actual scouts, looking through these like challenger games, high-rank games, seeing like who's good and stuff. I I know there was like maybe one team that was like actively doing it, but it was there was like not much of an effort made from professional teams to like scout our rookies. Historically in North America, that's been the case.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:45

Um and it was kind of just on like the the onus was kind of just like on us players to make something of ourselves. You know, we just have to we just have to like stand above and beyond, head and shoulders above our peers, and that is the way to get on us. Have you have you heard the I'm sure you have, there's like these birds that birds. Yeah, yeah, these these birds that like nest on these like cliffs, like super, super high cliffs.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:11

Yeah, and then when they have babies, yeah, um they need food, right? But there's no food on these cliffs. And the baby birds, they can't fly. They're like one month old. Yeah, yeah. They need food and they can't fly. And this specific I forgot what bird it is, it's like some kind of goose or something. And you know how birds like just like swirly around, I'm sorry about this. But the uh you know how birds like feed their kids like from like mouth to mouth and shit?

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:33

Yeah, so this specific bird they can't do that. So the babies gotta eat on their own.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

So uh and then their like eating spot, like their grass area is like a mile flight, flight away, right? So, anyways, these baby birds, they can't fly yet. They gotta jump off the cliff, and it's like a 400-meter tall cliff, yeah. And like somehow survive this fall, and then like make a one mile trek on foot to their fucking like grass patch so they can eat.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:58

That was us, you know? And you know what the mortality rate for those birds are? Yeah, yeah. It's 50%. 50% of those fucking chicks die. And our mortality rate was higher than that. You know, we 50% of us aren't making it. That's what I was saying, you know?

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Because you're saying it's just luck then. At that point, I mean like at that highest degree or tier of of of that realm of gaming. After that, the way you make it is just luck.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

Yeah, I would say a lot of luck is involved. I mean, it feels kind of like a loser's mentality to be saying this. But like, how do you how do you rationalize it?

SPEAKER_02 10:27

To blame it on luck?

SPEAKER_04 10:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

I mean, but luck is a skill too, though.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

Yeah, how do you I mean how do you quantify that, I guess? Like, as a player, you can't like like how you can't really quantify your luck, so I guess you don't really think about it much.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 10:39

Or at least I don't think about it much.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:41

But like from an outside outside perspective, you know, if someone was telling me the story that I'm telling right now, or at least if if um I was judging my uh journey from an outside perspective, of course I didn't do everything right. You know, there was like tons of things I could have done better. There was tons of forks in the road where I might have chosen like the wrong path. But still, like it sure wasn't fucking easy, you know. Like there wasn't there I didn't know what path I was supposed to follow, and no one knows what path they're supposed to follow. There there's there's no there's no guidance whatsoever unless you you just happen to be like I mean, even if you were like a superstar in North America, you don't have it easy, you know. No one really notices, no one really cares. There's um even though North America isn't the best, there the competition in North America is so intense.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:29

Yeah. It's kind of wild. There's just so many layers to this, you know, because when I say like the competition in North America is so intense, it sounds like I'm just saying, like, oh, players in North America are really good. That's not the case. The competition, the reason the competition in North America is so intense is because a lot of people come from overseas to play in North America. Like a lot of a lot of Korean players and a lot of Chinese players and a lot of European players, yeah, they'll they'll come and play in the North American leagues, they'll get contracted by teams, and every single spot that's taken away from a non-North American player is like you know, one fewer spot that I have left to compete for. You know, so uh uniquely uh this is completely unique to North America. Even though there's a league in North America, in Europe, in Korea, in China, those are the more the major regions, this problem is uh specifically unique to North America, where um the competition for spots is not regional, it's global. People around the world are competing for this specific spot compared to like no one from North America is gonna get a spot in Korea, no one from North America is gonna get a spawn in China, right? Right, right. Or stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

Yeah. So it's just like another level of another barrier that's just like fucking bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

But then when you say there's only 5050 challengers spots back then.

SPEAKER_04 12:47

Yeah. And there's 50 pros, isn't that one to one for Yeah, it is one to one, but but um, you know, teams teams don't exactly value like like the number one I I it's not just teams, it's like pretty much everyone. Like the number one ranked player on the ladder, he's not actually he's probably not actually the number one player. He's probably the one that is like really, really good, one of the best, obviously. Um but just right now he's like has the most time to play, or like he's gone on like a lucky streak, or he's like really figured out something else right now. It's it's very rare to have the number one ranked player actually be the number one like actual player.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Also, and how do the the teams find like good players then? Like if it's not for just the like the leaderboard.

SPEAKER_04 13:33

So so the leaderboard is like uh it's like a basic test, you know. Like if you can't even get to challenger, like then you have no business in the proceed anyway. Yeah, so that's like the first the initial test that you gotta pass, and then after that, that that's like now you're you're like one of the candidates, one of the possible candidates. There's still like a shit ton of candidates, but now you're even in the realm of possibility. You've got like a 1% chance, now you've got 99% of the rest of the work to do.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay, okay. Okay, so that's just only like a fraction of what you need to do become bro.

SPEAKER_04 14:06

That's what the people that have no connections have to do. The people that that aren't friends with pros. Uh in my opinion, there's like a massive nepotism issue. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, totally. You know, in League of Legends. I mean I mean nepotism extends to friendship, right? It's not just like familial. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I I truly think there's like a huge nepotism issue in North America. And I mean, I've ex- I've experienced it firsthand. I've like talked to there's two specific team owners that I've talked to and had like conversations about about pro players. I mean, okay, so there's like one crazy thing, crazy thing I'll say. So you know there was like this one team owner that was like ended up getting like fairly close to like a couple of years ago. He would like consult me about players that he was thinking to add on his team. Yeah. Like, bro, you don't you just you met me like this year. What do you mean you're like just because I'm a high-ranked player, you're like asking for my opinion on like who you should spend millions of dollars to sign on your team?

SPEAKER_02 14:57

But I mean, well that's not nepotism at the end of the day. No, that's not nepotism.

SPEAKER_04 15:00

That's not nepheism, but once once I experienced that, I was like, what the fuck is this?

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Oh you're you're saying like there's like no no standards basically.

SPEAKER_04 15:07

Yeah, yeah, like like what is this? This is like this is like high school dudes picking out who to pick on their fucking dodgeball team or some shit.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:14

I was like so blown away, and it was like I was like friends with a guy, so but internally I was like seething. I was like, are you fucking kidding me? This is like the kind of shit that you guys have been doing while I've been like working my ass off for years trying to do that.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Oh, I see, I see that's fair to work. Yeah, I wonder, I wonder though, I feel like that's like probably the case for a lot of a lot of like um fields though. You think so? Yeah, not just gaming. I don't know, I guess no, I take that back because I feel like there needs to be some degree to some degree of like skill though. Yeah, for example, expertise. And then after that, I feel like, oh, it's just like once again, basically luck. That's what I'm saying. Like which like connections technically can fall under luck as well.

SPEAKER_04 15:52

Yeah, I totally agree. And uh where the nepotism comes in is so so two different things. Uh well, mainly it's like actually just like pro players and uh people involved with the scene, they'll like constantly bring in their friends that are like good enough, like they're like challenger, yeah, but you know, without a doubt, there's like more deserving people that should be getting these chances. But like these people, because they're friends with yeah, pro players or analysts or team modus, they'll like skip the queue.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:19

And they'll like actually get a legitimate shot, not even like a trial, like a legitimate shot in the pro leagues or like a semi-pro leagues.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:24

Um, and that's like a luxury not afforded to people that that truly deserve it. So that's so that's where nephews come in.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

So who are the people who truly deserve it, if not these people who already are challenger?

SPEAKER_04 16:35

I I would say the people no no no um I would say it's the people that truly are challenged, the one that the ones that are grinding solo queue, practicing super hard, and when you play with like, you know, when I play with people, when I played like I've played with tons of pros, I've played with tons of solo queue players, I played at least like 20-30 games with like every pro prep pro player that's played in North America.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:55

Like at least that amount of games. And that's like a decent amount of games to like figure out how like relatively someone's like, you know, where they're at.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:03

It's it's pretty rare for me to to play against a pro player and be like, wow, that's like definitely the best guy I've played in in this situation. That's super rare. It's much more common for me to be like, like, find someone that I have never heard of before.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:15

And they're like playing some like random ass character, and they like whoop my ass.

SPEAKER_03 17:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

And I'm like, damn, this guy is like, damn, this guy is like really fucking good.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

Coming to pro compared to pro players, they're just like, they have they have like a consistency drilled into them.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:30

That everyone needs drilled into them once they become pro.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

Like the ability to like play safe and not make mistakes and not fuck up.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:37

I think there's like tons of players in solo queue that are just baseline way more compared to some pros, yeah, like way more skilled. Way, way, way more skilled, but they just don't get the shot. Yeah, it's unfortunate, but that's that's reality.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

What about Faker?

SPEAKER_04 17:51

He's the best. Without a doubt, there has never been someone like this guy. Uh I I haven't really played much like other games competitively, just League, but I find it hard to believe that someone could do what Faker does in like even other games. Yeah. Like this guy is like literally turns water into wine. Yeah. Like there was like, and and he's uh so Faker is exactly my age. When he became a pro, when he wa he was 17 years old, and he played in his first world championship that year.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:20

And growing up watching Faker, I was always a fan, big fan, yeah. Like from the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:27

But then as I started to get really good at league and started thinking about having a career as a pro player, it's like really fucked with me mentally. Seeing seeing Faker be as good as he was. Yeah. Because it's like this is someone that's like my age.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:40

He's he's at the very very top already. Yeah. He's already accomplished, he's already become a world champion.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:46

You know, and he's my age. He is my peer.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:48

This is something that is, you know, since he's done it, maybe this is something that should be expected of me, even. Yeah. So it was like some days it would be really not even days, like sometimes sometimes, like long stretches of days or weeks or something. It would be like so demoralizing and difficult, just like sucking ass in in North American solo queue, like trying my hardest just to get somewhere, meanwhile, he's like on top of the world, like doing everything. And I say that as like not not out of spite or anything like that. It's purely as just like I'm a huge fan, and it was just difficult to accept the difference in us. Yeah. Because there is a difference in us. He is clearly much better than I am.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:31

And like there's so many times where I've seen Faker play, and I have to admit, like every time I'll admit, like, I could not do that. Like, I'll I I would never see this, I would never make it happen. Like, I can't conceive myself conceiving that that thing that he just did.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:46

So yeah, massive, massive wall. But uh thankfully faker faker is uh the only wall that I've seen like this.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

Really?

SPEAKER_04 19:54

Yeah, there's never been anywhere anyone else ever where I was like, okay, this guy's better than me, I can't do that.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Oh really, hey? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:01

That's why I've I've like always had so much confidence and belief in myself.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

Because whenever I've watched any other player do something, yeah, um I've always been like, yeah, I can do that. I can I can see myself doing that. I I, you know, while this was happening in my head, I reacted to this properly. I thought of the right things to do as this was happening, so I can do this. This is not like insurmountable to me. But then when I see Faker do something that and it's just like, holy shit, there were like so many steps ahead that you had to think to do this. And it's just like, and he's done it so many times that I I can't be like this guy's getting lucky. It's just impossible for you to be lucky this many times.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Damn.

SPEAKER_04 20:35

Yeah. Truly, like, truly an enigma. He's so amazing.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:40

Yeah. And an amazing role model too, like, yeah, super, super good. Always talking about, you know, being frugal and being smart with your money, being smart in general, being kind.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Yeah, so then throughout those eight years, like when you were trying to go pro, yeah. Did you ever feel as the years went by dial in, I'm running out of time, like I'm I'm losing opportunity, um, I might not make it. Do you were you getting these thoughts of doubt and overall panic year by year?

SPEAKER_04 21:15

That came in eventually, but it was it was all kind of sudden. It wasn't like a gradual thing.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

Oh, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 21:21

Yeah, so while I was like super focused on league, for most of it I was just I just focused on getting better. Consistently like believed in myself, just like blind belief, undying belief. Um I d I just I just knew that I could do it. I just had to keep working hard, keep working harder. Those like I mean like I felt like an imposter every now and then.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:44

But that was just that was completely unrelated. Um it was just like whatever I had whatever I had decided to do in my life, I would have like this imposter syndrome where it would be like, you know, clearly I was good every year I was getting to high rank and challenger, but then it would be like Um, I might like get sick for a week or something, or like go on vacation, take a break basically.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:06

And then I would come back and I wouldn't play as well. And I would like start panicking. And I'd be like, holy shit, this is how good I actually am. I was lucky all those other times. Like Oh, I see, I see. Yeah, yeah. So I had I'd get like crazy imposter syndrome.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:18

But it would only last for like two weeks and then I'd like focus up and then you know get back to winning and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:24

So yeah, uh th those were the only kinds of really doubts I had.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:29

Uh for a long time. But then maybe maybe like around post-COVID, I mean it it was it was in 2023 that I decided that I made the final decision. Like that was my last attempt. Now I'm gonna go back to a normal life.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

Um but it but I think I made that I think I made that decision quite fast. It was like within uh within like half a year. I I was I started thinking about stopping. And then within that half a year, I I stopped.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

How did that feel?

SPEAKER_04 23:04

I mean, I think I'm still processing it to be honest.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

I mean that's fair. I mean you devoted eight years into this and then you make that decision, it must be I mean I'm imagining it as it probably felt like your whole world was collapsing.

SPEAKER_04 23:18

Yeah, it yeah, yeah, it did. Um like when when I basically when I decided to give up on like this lead thing, like I had like my relationship at the time was ending as like, you know, things weren't going well either. Yeah. So it was like a lot of stuff to a lot of stuff to happen at once, and it was it was almost like like having an identity crisis again.

SPEAKER_03 23:39

Liter yeah, yeah, quite literally.

SPEAKER_04 23:41

Yeah, I so actually what what was the big thing that I think led me to making this decision to give up was so I've always been very, very close to uh my oldest sister. I have two sisters, yeah, yeah. Oh my oldest one, I've always been very, very close to her. And um all all my gaming basically started with her. Like when I was like a baby, we would like be playing Super Mario on the SNES and stuff, and then got older, started playing Pokemon with her, and then um you know that mutual game that you and I played, Fly for Fun. Yeah, yeah. I started that because of her.

SPEAKER_03 24:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

Um she's always been like a massive ma first of all, massive like friend to me, playing video games, massive support to me playing video games. I mean, it's not like like support was like necessary when we were kids, it was mostly just like I wanted to play games, parents didn't want to let me play games too much. So my sister and my sister was like, let them play games, blah blah blah. Stuff like that. But then once I became good at league, she um Wait, did she ever play League? She did, yeah. She started she started playing after I I started playing like a couple years after. She like tried it out and she liked it. Um but yeah, she she was uh she was a really big support system for me. Basically my entire support system throughout the throughout this process. Yes, yes, yes. So like obviously like my friends like you guys who supported me. Yeah but um it's like a different level because you know you guys didn't have nearly as much insight into my life.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

Compared to my sister, she like she saw everything, all the struggles that I was going through on a daily basis, like if it affected me, how it affected me, things at home, for example, like you know, it's stuff with my parents, she saw all of that too, and and even like just even after seeing like everything that was uh all the struggles that I faced, she would still encourage me to like keep pushing on and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:23

Um so she was like a massive support system for me throughout the whole time.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:27

And then eventually, I think it was around 2023 or maybe a little bit earlier than that, um, out of the blue, uh, she had never done this before, but out of the blue, she like started talking about university to me.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:40

And then that made me start thinking, like, is she like dropping hints for me? Like, is this she given a sign or something? Yeah. Never really asked about it, but I think like subconsciously I kind of took it. It was like her saying, like, you should like start thinking about university.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Were you offended?

SPEAKER_04 25:58

Was I offended? Uh I don't think so. I don't think because I think I think I just like I just take what she says to heart. I mean not always, like we've argued, and in those moments I don't take what she says to heart.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:11

But like but like during times like this, I like I really considered what she was trying to say, and I thought maybe it would be like hard for her to like outright say it, but maybe that is what she wanted to say.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

So I think at that point maybe I started thinking about going back to school.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 26:27

And then at some point, so so you know I went uh back to school full-time, but before that, I don't know if I told you, but I was actually doing university part-time as well. Taking like only one course per semester.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Yeah, I think I think you did tell me, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:39

Yeah, so before I went to full-time, that was like my first step into going back to university, I guess. I started taking so like after that conversation with her, then I started taking part-time classes. And um yeah, eventually I just I think it was sometime 2023, end of 2023, I think I just went back to school full-time.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Yeah, so then what what is still there for you to to process this now at this current present time.

SPEAKER_04 27:10

I think what there's left for me to process is um that I felt like I was born to do this.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:16

What's left to process is accepting that maybe I not maybe, I think I need to come to t I need to come to terms with this not being what I was born to do. But like that that's not so bad, you know? Because just because I wasn't born to like be great at this, I still believe that I was born to be great at something.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

You know, I and I just need to find what that is and like be the best in the world at that.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fair. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:43

But it is of course it is difficult, like thinking that you had it all figured out and then suddenly like realizing you don't have it figured out at all. So it that is definitely difficult. And I I I feel I feel grief almost, but not because I was like so in love with League and I wanted that to be my job. It I feel grief more so because I felt so secure and confident before, and felt like I had like the a path set in front of me, and I was like so sure I was on that path, and now I don't have that same confidence of knowing where I'm going anymore. You know, so that's that's where my grief is. But once I find that, I mean I'll be I'll be chilling, you know.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Because League was essentially your identity. It was. And if you're confident about League, you yourself was confident, but now you're saying you had a crisis because this world has collapsed and everything that you knew, and therefore your confidence essentially shattered.

SPEAKER_04 28:41

I don't know if you noticed, but you know, it has.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

I mean you were you've been telling me, you know what I mean? Like, because I I I you know I I we had this chat and I was saying like I always thought of you as confident, like throughout like school and up until now. I still do. But then you were saying that no, you th you know you that your confidence has gone down quite a bit. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, like from the way I like objectively, just based on image and what you say, I still think you're like the confidence has remained the same. But I can definitely see why if you know like your esteem, self-esteem has gone down.

SPEAKER_04 29:16

Yeah. So before before when you saw me as like that really conscious, confident person, um, that was like 100% legit. I was super confident. I believed in like literally all the like I I used to say like so much stupid shit back then, but I like I I was so confident in myself, I didn't second guess myself, you know. Like I just like believed it. Yeah, you know, like with totally brazen stuff, like they were kind of like some 17-year-old kid saying like he's gonna be a world champion. That's like ridiculous, you know. He doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. But like I believe that and I said it all the time. And and like everything I did, I was confident. And now, I'm sure it's all it's kind of noticeable, but like on on the outward, I can still be that on the outside I can still be that confident guy.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

Because you know, it it would be harder for me not to be that person and have people asking me, like, oh, like what happened? Like, why aren't you like why'd you change? Yeah, yeah. What happened? Like it it confronting that is more difficult to me than just pretending to be confident still.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:11

So yeah, on the outside outside, like I can still do it. But um internally I have a lot more, I ask myself a lot more questions.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

I see, I see. Hmm. Well, I mean, at the end of the day, yeah, do you regret it?

SPEAKER_04 30:27

I don't regret it, but for example, so you had your um thing with music, yeah. And did you say you given the opportunity, if you could be like secure secure with everything, you would go back and do it, right? If you had like a guarantee of security and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Like if I were to make like a secure amount of money doing music and there's sustained stability, yeah, I would I would do music over my current current job.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Yeah, I mean uh nine to five job, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:02

Yeah, like me too. Um you know, if I could like guarantee that everything was gonna be okay, I would go back to do it, but I think I think the big thing behind me like stopping was I just it's it became risk more and more risky. Yeah. You know, because I made the decision I made the decision to quit when I was around 27. And as a 27-year-old breaking into the pro scene, like it's happened before. I I I just think of like what there was this one guy in Korea, he did like his military service and then came back to like join the pro league like super late. I think he was 27 at the time. And um he was like okay, he like always got memed on and stuff like that. Yeah. But it's like it's been done before, and maybe I could do it too.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:46

But it sure is like risky, you know. What if like I keep chasing this for three more years, four more years, I end up 30, 31, and I'm st I'm still like at square one. Yeah, exactly. And when you get like as you get older and older, it's just people want to take less and less. Like people already didn't want to take a take a chance on me when I was like 18, 19. Why the fuck would they take a chance on me when I'm 28, 29, you know?

SPEAKER_02 32:07

That's fair. That's fair.

SPEAKER_04 32:08

But I mean, if I if I like knew that everything was gonna work out, then yeah, I would I I would do it again because like I loved it the whole time, had a great time.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

Yeah. You know, time has passed, right? Like, would you rather have maybe invested that time in something else? For like direct that obsession to something maybe less difficult to attain, and then maybe if if you went that down that path, the what you could have achieved may possibly have been higher or more more fruitful.

SPEAKER_04 32:40

I don't know what that other path would be though.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

That's fair. That's fair.

SPEAKER_04 32:43

Yeah, like I I know I wouldn't I wouldn't have gone. Like I I definitely wouldn't have gone to university right away out of high school, I don't think. Well maybe I would have. If I like sucked at this, yeah, maybe I maybe I would have just gone into university. Because I don't know what else I would do.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Yeah, that's fair.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

I guess it's not really a fair question because you don't really have back then you don't really know what what you were passionate about other than I mean it's a fair question, like because like back then I was I don't even remember what I would have been like at the middle of at the start of high school, I'm sure I was thinking about going into something in university, but I honestly don't remember what it was that I was thinking about.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

I mean, like what was your childhood dream? Even up until junior high or high school.

SPEAKER_04 33:26

I mean I guess this is like kind of goes into my relationship with my parents, but I had like tons of dreams, but it you know, I mentioned before that academics were kind of pushed onto me. Um it it wasn't in the sense that like my parents pushed me to just like study hard and like work hard at whatever I do and like become good at whatever I wanted. Yeah, it was more like a very I had a very specific path that they wanted me to follow.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:52

Um so it was like for example, when I was like the one of the earliest things I remember was like I was like in love with airplanes.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:59

Yeah, and then I would I like I remember telling my parents like oh I want to be an airplane pilot.

SPEAKER_03 34:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:03

And then they were against that right away. They were like, nah, that's that's too dangerous.

SPEAKER_03 34:07

What what age?

SPEAKER_04 34:08

I was I think I was like four or five or something. Damn. Like, nah, they don't it's too dangerous, you can't be doing that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then I was like, okay, I guess. Um and then I got older, at some point I got really into weather.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Weather?

SPEAKER_04 34:20

Yeah, like meteor meteorology and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:23

Like super fascinated by it. I think at this point I was like maybe nine years old. Yeah. I remember I s I remember this these conversations so vividly. I was like sitting in the living room, my dad, my dad's watching TV. I tell him I wanna I wanna I love meteorology. I and I specifically said the word meteorology.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

That's just a crazy word. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:41

I was like proud of knowing the word meteorology, right? Yeah. But but like I meant it. I really loved loved like tornadoes and thunderstorms and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 34:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:48

Um super into weather, and I told my dad I want to be a weatherman. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

He's like And they said nah.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

Nah, they make money, son. You you ain't doing that.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

So what do they what are they wanting to become?

SPEAKER_04 34:57

They wanted me to become an engineer.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Okay. Hmm.

SPEAKER_04 35:00

And you might be like, what else? No, no, no. They wanted me to become an engineer.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

I mean, yeah, no, because I bring that up because you know, um, you know, with Asian parents, they always say the three things which like doctor, engineer, lawyer. Yeah. But then they don't they don't really specify like one specific thing, right? So I I that was interesting for them to mention specifically engineered.

SPEAKER_04 35:17

It was specifically engineered because my dad is an engineer.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Oh, I see, I see.

SPEAKER_04 35:21

And it was like those were the other options doctor and lawyer, but those aren't pushed on me at all. Yeah. It was like engineered, that's what you're gonna do. Yeah, you're gonna study, study this, and you're gonna go to school, be just like your dad.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:32

And shit like that.

SPEAKER_02 35:33

That's so interesting, because um, because my dad wasn't, he was an engineer. He pushed me away from engineering.

SPEAKER_04 35:40

Really?

SPEAKER_02 35:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So mine was more like the other two.

SPEAKER_04 35:45

Did you talk to your dad often about why you should not be an engineer? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Yeah, what'd you say? He was saying more like, um, I mean, I yeah, he was his main thing was that you know, there's pressures at work. Um, there's always um like a higher up you have to follow their instructions or quote unquote orders, stressful of meeting deadlines. Back then I was like, sure, but then now looking at it, that's like that's like all other jobs though. Yeah, yeah. So I guess like I it doesn't really make sense to me now. I'm looking at it, but those are those were his main concerns. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

Yeah, I I always think about like what is it that drives parents to guide their children in a certain direction. Specifically about like this engineering thing, when it's like, you know, what's the difference if I'm an engineer? For like for you. Yeah. What's the difference if you're like an engineer or like literally any other professional career, you know?

SPEAKER_02 36:38

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you know, no, it's it's I had a very similar experience. Um, but it's almost like my like I mentioned before, I thought my dreams were my parents' dreams, but then I later realized it's also eventually my dream as well. I got like the position I wanted and I still enjoyed, so I don't regret it at all. But I could definitely see where where you came from. How I feel like that's like a lot of um immigrant um families and their children's kind of expectations of how they grew up in a place like North America.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

Yeah. But um because it's like, you know, the reality of the situation is my parents did work hard, and I think they probably wanted me to work hard here too. But um yeah, it's you know, uh for for kids a little too much.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Yeah. We went pretty deep, eh? Yeah, we went dove in and talked about some some some serious things.

SPEAKER_04 37:36

Should we call it here?

SPEAKER_02 37:37

What do you think?

SPEAKER_04 37:38

I'm gonna call it. Let's do it. Thanks for listening, guys. This has been whichever episode it was of Catch Up with Kai and Cohen. This has been Kai.

SPEAKER_02 37:45

Yeah, this is uh Vin Cohen. But whoever is listening. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Peace out.