Stephanie Harvey is one of the best female gamers in the world. She’s part of a L.A.-based video game team that trains and competes around the world. Her talents have landed her on the Forbes “30 under 30” list and she was recently named one of BBC’s top 100 influential and inspirational women for 2016.

Now, she can add “Canada’s Smartest Person” to her list of accomplishments.

“I’m just proud and hopefully I can make a difference with gamers,” says Stephanie, also known as missharvey on YouTube and Twitter (where she has more than 49,000 followers).

When asked why she decided to compete on the show, Stephanie says she enjoys trying new things. “I thought it would be a great challenge for me because it’s something that I’ve never done,” says Stephanie. “I was really excited to be a part of it.”

“Not in a million years would I have thought that I would’ve won the show!”

Stephanie was surprised to learn a few things about herself during the competition. “I learned that I can perform really well under pressure. I’m not necessarily the smartest, but when it mattered, I was able to pull through and continue on the show,” she says.

On the very first episode of Canada’s Smartest Person, Stephanie competed in a linguistic challenge with guest judge Scott Thompson.

The goal was to create a speech from a list of pre-selected words in less than 45 seconds. The combination of restricted vocabulary and a time limit made this a daunting task for participants with creative minds and large vocabularies. But for Stephanie, there was an additional obstacle: English is her second language. “It was a rough moment for me on the show,” she says.

Stephanie showed that it’s okay to not be be strong in every area. Never giving up is the key – and trying is the first step to unlocking doors.

Stephanie says she enjoyed competing on Canada’s Smartest Person because she was able to test her abilities in many different ways, and show Canada the many ways she’s smart.

“This show is about overall smartness – it has music, it has arts, it has physical stuff and in the end, you just have to be able to survive,” says Stephanie. “It really doesn't matter your background...It has nothing to do with knowledge. It's all about on-the-go stuff. If you're clever and witty, you can win!”