Stop Playing Small—Go for the Jackpot

Playing it safe won’t take you where you’re destined to go. 2025 is the year to stop settling and start swinging for the jackpot.

In 2019, one of my best friends, Andre Emmett, was murdered. This weekend, I took his oldest daughter—who is now eight—to Dave & Buster’s for some one-on-one time. As we laughed, played, and talked about her dad, we decided to start the day by walking through the prize section to see what she wanted to win. She pointed to her target: 1,900 tickets. That was the goal.

I told her, “Cool. Now we know what we’re after.”

Are You Just Playing for Tickets—or Do You Actually Know What You Want?

Life’s not a game. But it’s full of people collecting “tickets”—likes, promotions, busyness, surface-level wins—without any idea what they’re actually playing for.

If you don’t define your destination, you’ll always feel lost. You’ll scroll social media comparing your path to people who do have a target. And you’ll wonder why you feel like you’re behind—when you never set a goal to begin with.

Define your dream. Write it down. Go for it.

Big Wins Require Big Moves

At one point, we found a game that was all about timing. Stop the light at the perfect spot and you hit the jackpot—600+ tickets. Miss it slightly, and you’d only get 20.

I tried to steer her toward the safer route: the games that gave consistent 60-80 ticket returns. A slower, more conservative path to our goal. But she wasn’t having it.

She looked me dead in the eye and said, “I want to go for that.”

She hit the jackpot.

Focus on the Bonus—Not the Fear

What struck me wasn’t just the result—it was her focus. I saw the risk. I saw the low odds. She saw the bonus. She locked in on what she wanted, not what she feared.

That’s the difference between people who win big and those who stay stuck in safety: what they choose to focus on.

The best snowboarders don’t focus on the trees—they focus on the white space. The best entrepreneurs don’t focus on the odds—they focus on the opportunity.

In life, you don’t hit the jackpot by focusing on failure. You hit it by locking your vision on the result and committing to the leap.

Ask Yourself Right Now:

• Am I playing conservative out of strategy—or fear?

• Am I focused on the 20-ticket risk or the 600-ticket jackpot?

• Do I know what I want—or am I just spinning wheels collecting random wins?

It’s Time to Play Big

You don’t get one life to spend it playing small. You have too much potential. You’ve survived too much already. You’re capable of way more than you've shown yourself.

This year, stop shrinking your goals to fit your fears. Start expanding your action to match your capacity.

👉 Define the prize. 👉 Fix your eyes on it. 👉 Go all in.

Because when you play big and hit big, everything changes.