instructor Hood's Key Ideas from Dominate The Game
by Jennifer A. Garrett

The journey of greatness requires these 4 steps:

1. “Own your game” – Take ownership of your life and avoid “playing the victim” when things don’t go as planned.
2. “Be 100% all-in” – Commit to your game on an emotional, mental and physical level. Without commitment, you can’t create a workable strategy or achieve results – you’re just hoping something good happens.
3. “Trust yourself enough to take risks without second-guessing your decisions.
4. “Make hating to lose a priority” – Cultivate the discipline, dedication and “hate-to-lose mentality” required to be truly accountable to yourself and your goals. 

Preparation is vital when playing to win.

Preparing to play also means prioritizing your physical and mental health. You can’t achieve your goals or show up for others if you feel exhausted and depleted. Call a “timeout” if you need time to reset and re-energize. After your break, refocus by reminding yourself of your goals and priorities and adjusting your plans as needed. When you invest in building mental, emotional and physical strength, you develop the toughness and resiliency required to achieve, even when other people respond pessimistically to them.

In theory, it’s easy to understand the importance of healthy habits, yet 99% of people fail to make the changes needed to put the right habits into place. Reflect on your daily patterns: Are you taking intentional action toward your goals, or are you just relying on what feels familiar as you attempt to get through another day? Write down your daily habits.

As James Clear explains in Atomic Habits, you may not see results overnight, but over time, small changes “compound into remarkable results.”

Surround yourself with the right people by following these rules:

• Choose a team with the “It Factor” – Decide what success looks like to you, who are winning on your terms and inspire you to be your best every day.
• Get sponsors and mentors – Connect with sponsors – professionals who’ve achieved higher levels of success than you.
• Build a robust social network – Continually assess your social network and look for ways to expand it.
• Identify cheerleaders and supporters – Not all your connections need to be the living embodiment of the kind of success you’re pursuing. 
• Know when to ask for support.

• When you experience stress at chronic, harmful levels, it can trigger serious health issues, such as high blood pressure – or even trigger a heart attack. Get your stress levels under control by doing three things: 
• “Decide not to be stressed” – Have you ever noticed that some people get stressed out when faced with a challenging situation, while others don’t? 
• Focus on what you can change – Don’t overly fixate on things you can’t control, including past failures or missed opportunities.
• Breathe – Your breathing tends to speed up when you’re stressed, so take some long, deep breaths. 

Failure can be discouraging, but remember that every successful leader, athlete and entrepreneur has failed. The secret is to “fail forward”: Learn from situations that don’t go as you’d hoped and keep pursuing your goal. Think back to when you were a child: You learned how to walk by falling repeatedly. The same rule applies in adulthood. 

“Successful players in the game realize they must learn from situations so they can effectively navigate through it every time the situation pops up.”

While you should become comfortable with failure, this doesn’t mean you should be comfortable with losses. 

When you commit to unleashing your full potential and living authentically, you do the world a service: You position yourself to share your talents and gifts with others. Take inspiration from Academy and Grammy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington and take the necessary risks to align with your purpose. 

“When you don’t care about what other people say, and you have let go of that fear of judgment, you have reached a dangerously amazing level of freedom.”