For anyone who’s ever wanted a more productive pathway through their problems, or wanted to push the reset button and start over with more intention and purpose, Gameness: Land on Your Feet, Not on Your Feelings can help readers find advantages in adversity, both personally and professionally.
Author David Dennis is a licensed counselor and family therapist who drew upon decades of counseling thousands of people — as well as his own life experiences — to identify the four defining characteristics of gameness he shares in the book.
“One of the things that has to happen for anyone is to realize that life is uncertain, unfair and oftentimes unpleasant,” Dennis said in a recent interview. “It’s a mindset … teaching yourself and training yourself to increase your perspective to see things better, even if you can’t see better things.”
Dennis knows a thing or two about the power of shifting his perspective and setting a more positive course for his life. After his father’s premature death and his mother’s downward spiral into alcoholism, Dennis was removed from the only home he’d ever known by Child Protective Services. Years later, his mother died in a housefire of her own making. The trauma was overwhelming.
Through a newfound faith in God and an education in marriage and family counseling, Dennis was able to find a healthy detachment from his past trauma and start seeing his life as a potential to be realized — not a problem to be solved. His personal and professional journeys revealed much about change, growth, purpose and, of course, gameness, and he shares what he learned between the covers of his book.
One of the things that has to happen for anyone is to realize that life is uncertain, unfair and oftentimes unpleasant
Gameness is divided into four sections, each of which takes a deep dive into four defining characteristics of gameness and the choices people can make to live according to these attributes:
– Upgrade Your Perspective: A Never-Quit Mindset
– Fulfill Your Potential: Resoluteness to a Purpose
– Tackle Your Problems: A Fighting Spirit
– Master Your Performance: The Will Required to Act
These aren’t academic concepts to Dennis. He has lived them, refined them, and now, he’s sharing his valuable insights to help readers unlock the life-changing possibilities of developing a mindset of gameness.
“We will live each day in the face of adversity that demands something of us,” Dennis said. “It’s this universal truth that makes gameness life’s most important attribute.”
