Dominate The Game: How Life Changes When You Show Up

CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION

In life, be a participant, not a spectator.

—Lou Holtz

Boom! In a flash it’s gone. Another year of your life has disappeared…525,600 minutes evaporated into thin air. Okay maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I had to get your attention.

You’re familiar with the saying time flies when you’re having fun, but the reality is that’s not the only reason time goes by quickly; sometimes we are just too dang busy trying to survive the rat race or navigate through life and time simply passes us by. Before you know it, you’re wondering where it all went. Your children went from being babies to celebrating their fifth birthday to becoming a teenager to graduating high school in what feels like an instant. Yes, I’m still being dramatic, but parents, I know you can relate.

Even if you don’t have kids, you can surely appreciate how time elapses surprisingly fast. One day you’ve graduated high school, the next it seems like you’re walking across the stage getting your college degree, and then you’re worrying about being a corporate professional or successful entrepreneur and how to traverse life, pay your rent or your mortgage, your phone bill, your cable (for those who still have cable), and those other darn utilities.

The thing about time, too, is that once it’s spent, you can never get it back.

Take a moment and reflect on this past year. How many seconds, minutes, and hours did you spend on unnecessary activities, unproductive meetings, and inefficient processes, versus time spent truly living in your purpose and focused on the things that really mattered to you? I’m talking about everything…job-related, business matters, and personal stuff.

While this answer is different for each of us, for most, there will be a common theme: I wish I had more time. I didn’t get to focus on the things I wanted to. I was too busy with my job. Holy crap, I really didn’t prioritize what I should have. What the heck did I get done this past year???

Life is a journey you only get to experience once. Therefore, it’s up to you to really make it count. I’m not just talking about the daring yolo stuff you see people wanting to do to be adventurous. It’s about having the courage to leave your safe zone, to abandon the familiar and live the life that you want. It’s about not limiting yourself. It’s about dominating the game, showing up the right way, and creating a future self that you can be proud of.

Here’s the thing. In the book of life, everyone has their own path. Do you want someone else to author your story, or do you want to be the one with the pen and paper? To put that in more modern terms, are you going to be the one on the computer typing the keystrokes for your story? However it gets written, don’t let your narrative be dictated by others; rather write your own chapters and don’t be afraid to turn the page and start a new one as needed. The point is, take command and don’t get comfortable.

Something that I have learned throughout my life is that it is important to have the courage to live a life true to yourself, to be willing to go against the grain, and to not live the life others expect of you. There are times we will need to be spontaneous and crazy, play hard, take chances, leave our comfort zone, give it everything we’ve got, and do things others won’t do to capture the meaningful moments in life and to make the most of each day. Live without limits and regret nothing.

It takes a daring person to live fiercely and without regrets. You can’t be afraid to make mistakes, learn from them, and then move forward over and over and over again. That’s how life should be.

When you’re able to do this, embracing every opportunity and challenge for what they’re worth, whether they intrigue you or frustrate you, the rewards are greater than any stumbles you may encounter along the way. They really are.

My journey has certainly proven that to me. In this book, I’ll share with you some examples I personally had to face that tested me and shaped the road I am on now, getting to work with some of the world’s most influential leaders and top-notch professional athletes. Remember that achieving greatness and living a meaningful and fulfilling life is about pushing boundaries and testing perceived limits.

Life is riddled with uncertainty. When faced with new situations, you can choose one of two options: you can be a player who is paralyzed by unknowns, or you can be a brave soul fearless of the vagueness you will face on the road ahead. Throughout this book, the principles covered will challenge you, pushing you to become confident in your ability to conquer any situation you may face in pursuit of your goals, ambitions, and dreams.

This book will help you minimize your fears and become comfortable with uncomfortable environments. Now, how you choose to suit up, show up, and play your game is entirely up to you. But I’m here to be that coach to keep you off the sideline, locked in and playing the game, ready to move the ball, and get you across your goal line.

Life will throw you curve balls, fast balls, tight spiral passes, and wobbly, undefined ones. If you are really trying to push yourself to that next level, uncertainty will be a common obstacle you will encounter. When these situations surface, don’t be afraid of them. Instead, embrace them. Then keep moving forward and don’t stop until the finish line is behind you.

People often say to me, Jen, you’re the busiest person I know.

Or Jen, you have seven degrees! What? And how do you balance your five kids with everything else that you have going on?

Or Jen, how do you not lose your mind juggling everything? I don’t know how you do it.

The answer to those two last questions might simply boil down to one thing: I might be a little bit crazy. That’s a story for another day, though. But all joking aside, there are some things that I do to help me move the ball and make things happen.

Every day I choose to suit up with a mindset full of gratitude, one that appreciates being able to wake up and live another day. Each one is truly a gift.

Every day I choose to show up in the world with a smile on my face, not because my life is perfect, but because I appreciate the blessings that I have. I’m ready to bring positive energy and be a positive influence on those around me.

Every day I choose to move the ball and be fully present because life is too short to not make the most of each day. I want to live my life regretting nothing and never wondering what if?

Life is full of choices and every day you get to choose how you will suit up, show up, and whether you are going to move the ball. Ask yourself, what are your choices going to be? This book is structured in three parts and will give you tools, strategies, and principles to help you navigate through any situation and to win in life.

Something to always keep in mind is that people will look at you and judge you for where you are at today without knowing what you gave up, what you sacrificed, and what you did to get there. As the late Walter Payton said, You have to fight for every single yard.

People reach out to me all the time telling me how lucky I am, how I get to live an amazing life, and how it’s so much fun. But what they don’t see is all the blood, sweat, tears, and more that went into building the Move the Ball brand. They don’t see how I had to fight for every inch, just to get to another yard.

I remember the days when no one from football gave a damn about what I knew about the game—the game that I had fallen in love with at four years old and became a student of ever since. The game that has always been a huge part of my life.

I remember the disappointment, the heartache, and all the rejection (and yes there was plenty of it, which I’ll share more about in this book).

I also remember the times when I told myself that I would always remember my worth and no matter how many people didn’t care, didn’t see my value, and flat out told me No, that I would continue to push forward and move the ball.

Sometimes you have to go after a dream and a vision that others don’t see. All that matters is what you believe and that you are always willing to bet on yourself. You can’t let others dial down your ambition because they are uncomfortable with the volume.

By the end of this book, I want you to stop asking for permission. Your life is 100% your responsibility. You get to choose how you show up to it and what you get done each day. I’m a firm believer in the importance of taking charge of your life and being that quarterback that moves the ball towards your goal line. You should always be writing a life story that you never want to stop reading.

Life is about being happy. You deserve to be happy. The first step is to develop your foundation and define who you are and what you want to become. Next, you need to create your plan. Last, you must take action, pressing forward to make your dreams a reality.

Life is a game where you must actively participate. This should not be a spectator sport. You’ve got to own it, then dominate it. Imagine you are inside a football stadium.

In my first book, Move the Ball: How the Game of American Football Can Help You Achieve Your Life Goals, I analogize your life to a football field, and you are the quarterback driving the plays. To succeed in life, some of the questions you must answer are as follows:

• Are you where you currently want to be?

• Do you know what jersey you are wearing?

• Did you suit up with the right clothes on?

• Are you showing up and being where your feet are?

• What did you do today to move the ball?

These are all important concepts we will examine throughout this book and more.

I consider myself to have been blessed with many opportunities, both professionally and personally. But just like everyone else, my life has had its share of challenges. For one, I started off my young adulthood as a teen single parent. Though faced with these circumstances, I refused to make excuses and kept driving forward with my personal, educational, and career goals. You already read that I have seven degrees, an accomplishment that I, of course, am super proud of. Also, I had each of my children while I was in school, and my five graduate degrees (including an MBA and a Juris Doctor) were completed while raising my kids and working full-time in Fortune 50 senior leadership positions. Did I say I was crazy? And if you are wondering, yes, I do manage to sleep!

One thing I’ve learned on my journey is that when life pushed back on me with its challenges, I used the lessons it taught me to tackle adversity and press forward. I learned not to let others’ expectations define me and determine my capabilities. I worked through new and unfamiliar circumstances, pursued my goals, and left the naysayers on the sidelines.

In my corporate career, I worked on many multi-billion-dollar programs that have helped to keep the United States military the best in the world. Additionally, I have been involved in projects that have improved quality of life and increased life expectancy. While serving as a Judge Advocate in the Army National Guard, I got to be a part of a team that was mobilized to help navigate the early stages of the COVID pandemic. I’ve also been overseas training the Armed Forces of Liberia legal team. Personally, I’m a third-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, active in many community service projects, sit on a number of boards, and an executive partner at the University of Southern California Masters of Business for Veterans (MBV) program. I’m very fortunate to be in good health and most importantly, I’m happy.

Now ask yourself … are you happy with your career? What about your personal life? Do you feel like something is missing?

If so, it’s time for you to make a change, and you already know this. Guess what? You’ve picked up this book and I’m here to help you and to challenge you on your journey.

This book will use powerful examples to help you make the decisions needed to succeed. By providing insights and analogies to the personal side of life and offering a perspective on choices we make in our careers, this book will show you how you can suit up and show up to life to live the life that you want. It will challenge you to find your identity and your vision. This book will also help you define and accomplish your life’s ambitions. The focus is on you and what you want in life—no one else’s expectations matter.

Together we will get you across your goal line. Be prepared to step onto the turf and explore past the boundaries of your comfort zone and the familiar. If you want to change your life and see different outcomes, it starts with you playing your game differently. Make today that day.

Remember that your past doesn’t define you, though it has shaped you into who you are now and prepared you for what you want to become tomorrow. Winning in life is not about how you start; it’s about how you finish. It’s not about how slow or how fast you go, as long as you keep going. It’s not about how other people define you; it’s about how you want to define yourself.

What I want for you is to be the person who wakes up each day with purpose and intent, fueled by passion and determination. Be the one who refuses to be a spectator in life and always shows up ready to play your game; the person who is committed to never giving up. Be the player who believes anything is possible, and no matter what life throws your way, you have trained yourself to say, I’ve got this! Lastly, inspire others by showing them you moved the ball and found your greatness. Because success is not only measured by what you accomplish in life but also by what you inspire others to do.

By the end of this book, I hope my story, as well as the stories of the other great athletes and elite leaders in life that I’ve shared, leave you motivated to go after whatever it is you want in life.

The thing about time is that all of us have the same amount each day, no more, no less. Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once it’s spent, you can never get it back.

This chapter started off discussing how time flies. That’s the bad news. The good news is you’re the pilot. The winners in life use their time wisely to fly in the direction they want to go, and they make those 86,400 seconds each day count. All the others squander it away daily.

There are two types of people in life: those who believe they can do anything and those who believe they can’t. Both are right. Which one do you want to be? Since you’re reading this book, I’m going to go out on a limb and say the former. If that’s the case, what really matters now is how you suit up, how you show up, and whether you move the ball. This book will help you to do that. Are you ready? Let’s go. It’s time to get off the sideline and back in the game.

CHAPTER 2:

TOMORROW IS NEVER PROMISED

Passion is what makes life interesting, what ignites our soul, fuels our love and carries our friendships, stimulates our intellect, and pushes our limits.

—Pat Tillman

There isn’t much in life that is certain. Well, let’s see, there’s death, taxes, oh yeah, one more thing: life will not always go as planned . Can I get an amen to that one?

I mean, think about that for a minute. How many times have you set a plan in motion only for it to get derailed and not go how you envisioned? Ah yes, that’s all a part of the twists and turns we experience on this curvy road called life.

If there’s one thing living through the COVID pandemic has taught us, it’s that life can be extremely uncertain, and you never know what tomorrow may bring. It also served as another reminder that tomorrow is never guaranteed (I’ll get back to this part shortly).

Going back to the first point, the plan we have for ourselves sometimes just gets thrown completely out the window due to circumstances out of our control or things we never could’ve foreseen. Pandemic, or for some other reason. Yep, it happens, you know it does. Go ahead, nod your head.

I want to run it back and share a part of my story from before the pandemic.

Throughout my life, when it came to my career, I always prided myself on being someone who had a plan. I set SMART goals, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I put together a roadmap for how I could achieve it. Little did I know that one phone call would completely change all of that and turn my world upside down. I’ll get to this in a minute.

First, let’s discuss my original plan. My big, long-term career goal was to be a Fortune 500 CEO. Pretty ambitious, right?

While it was a lofty goal, this wasn’t something out of reach for me. I had been blessed with opportunities to excel and climb the corporate ladder in my twenties, landing a senior management job with a Fortune 50 company, The Boeing Company. My peers were in their forties and fifties, yet there I was excelling in a male-dominated field.

I was labeled as one of those high potential employees or hi-pots. I earned a reputation for being a quick study and someone who you could put in charge of challenging projects that could get the job done.

One thing I picked up on early in my career was that I needed to think of myself as the quarterback of the game, driving how I would advance instead of merely relying on others to promote me. With that in mind, I was always looking for ways to differentiate myself from others and concentrated on building up great bullet points for my resume. I focused on networking and being visible to senior executives. Additionally, I made sure to link up with some accomplished mentors, including one who later went on to becoming the CEO of Boeing.

Life seemed to be good. I continued to ascend the corporate ladder and I kept crushing it on my performance reviews. I switched employers to take an amazing role within General Electric’s Aviation division and continued to advance my career. The bullets on the resume got more and more impressive. I knew I was positioning myself on the path to one day achieve that CEO goal.

That’s what I thought, at least. Now let’s get back to that phone call that changed everything.

On the early evening of November 28, 2016, I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, sitting in my dining room when my cell phone rang. I grabbed my iPhone and saw it was my mom calling. Instead of answering the phone, I said, I’m too busy. I’ll call her back later.

You see, I talked to my mom multiple times a week and didn’t think there was anything unusual about why she was calling. But this time, it was different. Her purpose for the call was to let me know that my dad had passed away.

My dad had not been sick and there had been no warning signs or indication that he was going to leave us soon. His death was completely unexpected.

So, what happened? That morning, my dad told my mom that he was feeling great. He did however experience chronic pain and took pain medication that often made him drowsy. He told my mom he was going to take a nap in the living room. An hour later, my mom was cooking in the kitchen and my dad’s cell phone rang. He didn’t answer. My mom then checked his phone. She tried to wake up my dad, but it was too late. He had already passed. It was that quick. No warning, nothing. The lesson: tomorrow is never promised to anyone.

It always bothered me that I didn’t answer my mom’s phone call because I said I was too busy. While taking the call would not have changed the outcome, it made me think about what the hell am I too busy doing?

My goal was to get to the C-suite in a Fortune 500 company, so I was busy being a jet setter and a workaholic. There were times I would come home with one suitcase only to grab another suitcase that was already packed by the door to go on another trip the next day. I was working my ass off trying to create a resume that was even more remarkable and that would help me achieve that dream.

After my dad passed away, I did a lot of reflecting and realized two things:

1. You really are replaceable in the corporate world, and

2. When you go, the world keeps moving whether you’re in it or not.

I’d heard people talk about being replaceable before, but quite honestly, I never thought that applied to me. Was I naïve? Yes.

Because I had been advancing in