Game On: Find Your Purpose--Pursue Your Dream [Kindle Edition]

Emmitt Smith (Author)

Book Description

Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher of the Dallas Cowboys, Dancing with the Stars champion, and successful real-estate investor, outlines the principles that helped him become a winner on and off the football field. In this book he encourages you to live your God-given dream, now. Emmitt reveals that it’s not only vision and talent that propel us toward our dreams, but also a combination of determination, persistence, humility, courage, and faith. In this book, Emmitt gives readers the tools to pursue their dream with all their mind, heart, and soul.

Editorial Reviews

Review

I may have helped Emmitt become a great ballroom dancer, but he taught me about living like a champion.

From the Inside Flap

I’ve written this book to share with you the many lessons I’ve learned as well as the mistakes I’ve made in my life. I hope what I have to say will help you pursue and achieve your dreams, no matter what game you play.

I am often asked to speak about my successful journey from humble Pensacola beginnings to the Pro Football Hall of Fame—with a little Dancing with the Stars championship somewhere in there too. I enjoy telling my story because I believe it will inspire people.

What I hope you’ll remember as you read is that I didn’t begin life as a Hall of Fame running back or a television celebrity. There were many who doubted I would ever make it in the NFL. You will have your doubters too. When they come around, tell them what I told mine: game on!

I have always been determined to achieve my dreams no matter what anyone else might say or think. I am willing to do whatever it takes to become the person I need to be so I can achieve the goals I have set for myself. You can do the same.

Like me, you won’t do it alone. That’s why I wrote this book. I’m hoping to be your companion and guide as you practice the life principles that will help you attain greatness.
—Emmitt Smith

Emmitt Smith is best known as the NFL’s all-time leading rusher with the Dallas Cowboys, 2010 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee, and Dancing with the Stars champion. Emmitt is also a successful real-estate developer, and he appeared on NBC’s reality series Who Do You Think You Are? Emmitt and his wife, Pat, are generous philanthropists in the Dallas area.

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Product Details

• File Size: 766 KB
• Print Length: 295 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1414349815
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. (August 25, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B005EZ0BAU
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,855 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Emmitt - true family man! September 7, 2011

By DMLT

Format:Hardcover

When I saw that Emmitt wrote a book, I knew my husband would enjoy it. I never thought that I would finish the book and fall in love with Emmitt! There are many great stories about his upbringing and lessons learned that I can use with my kids. What a family man. Emmitt is someone I truly admire.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh Start September 16, 2011

By Robert Taylor Brewer

Format:Hardcover

In contrast to the savage pounding that he both took and doled out in the days he was (and still is) the all time leading rusher in the National Football League, Emmitt Smith has produced a gentle and humane book that opens aspects of his life to readers who may have only known him as a football player and had little or no knowledge of his commitment to faith. He may have rushed for a living, but the book has a calm and unrushed tone throughout, and that alone makes it valuable.

The book is not a recount of his on the field exploits, although there is one notable exception. Anyone who saw the 1993 end of the season Giants-Cowboys game will remember the unalloyed brutality that accompanied it, and Smith's performance as an injured player who nonetheless carried his team. He reveals that he did it through concentration and internal dialogue - blocking out extraneous influences - the same qualitites, incidently, that Ulysses S. Grant describes in his Civil War memoir.

For all the fearsomeness of language Smith uses to describe this episode, he is not above using humor, as in the story about the defensive back who "hit me so hard I thought I may have owed him money." The credit he gives to his blocker in the Dallas Cowboy backfield, fullback Daryl Johnson, is a long and sustained ode, not the typical "I couldn't have done it without the other guys" attribution. Well written in style, contemplative in nature, the book has deft observations by Smith about how he found and fulfilled his calling, and how he, or anyone can move their life forward.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars great read! September 8, 2011

By myreviews

Format:Hardcover

Hall of Famer and NFL's leading rusher, Emmitt is the MAN! Every man should read this. His book brings to life all the stories from football that I loved to hear from his perspective. I am glad I picked up a copy because I now understand how to win at everything and still have humility.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent, but Weak in Spots January 9, 2012

By Adam Faughn

Format:Hardcover

Emmitt Smith, the Hall of Fame running back, wrote this book as a way to help people live within their purpose in life. Smith's strength in this book is helping people live focused lives. In fact, that is basically the basis of the book.

Using his own experience as the basis for most of the book, Smith shares some of the times in his life when it didn't seem like he would be the one to accomplish something, but he shows how he made it. Maybe the funniest part of the book is Smith discussing how he became a surprise champion on Dancing with the Stars. Through every chapter, the reader is focused upon one aspect of how to achieve great things.

The weakness of this book is the usage of Scripture. While the book passes as a Christian living book, there is almost no Scripture. Personally, I felt that there was so little that it would almost be better if there were none, and the book was just an autobiography or a leadership book.

If you are a football fan, you'll find several stories that you will enjoy. If not, there is enough of the other parts of Smith's life that it will keep nearly any reader interested. This is an average book, but one I'm glad I read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Easy to read but doesn't consistently deliver September 9, 2012

By M. Keating

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I got the book for free on a kindle giveaway and I'm glad I read it. It is easy to read and certainly defies the typical point of view that athletes are idiots. Emmitt is a bright guy who has a lot of success on and off the football field. He never let himself be defined by his football success and that's encouraging to read.

On the plus side, the book is extremely easy to read. I burned through most of it in a week and enjoyed much of it. I appreciate his unabashed love for his wife and his commitment to his faith throughout. I give him a lot of credit for the way he talked about his friends and his loyalty to them thru the years.

That being said, I have to agree with another reviewer that the reason this book doesn't deliver is that Emmitt frequently holds himself out as a Christian. Where he uses the Bible, it is almost always so far out of context that you can't even get there from here. You simply cannot pluck verses out of the ordinary flow of Scripture and apply them to Dancing with the Stars or your view of goal setting.

Most of the problems I had came from times he explained Christianity as pop psychology or pure pragmatism. He says things like being angry with people can damage your career, which is true, but the message of Christ is that being angry with someone is like murdering them in your heart and a terrible sin that if not covered by the blood of Jesus on the cross is sufficient to send someone to hell. In fact, I'm pretty sure he mentioned the fact that Christians are those whose sins are forgiven because of Jesus one time in the whole book, and every other reference to the Bible was about how God wanted him to succeed. These kinds of things - where he doesn't even base his statement on the Scripture but more like something you'd hear on Dr.... Phil are all over the place.

Some examples of how he takes Scripture completely out of context:

Joseph was a dreamer who acted on his dreams and so should you p18(this has nothing to do with the reason Gen 37 - 50 is in the Bible)

Using James 2:26 about "faith without works is dead" to mean that we can work to put ourselves in a position of God's favor where God is then somehow obligated to "step in when he knows you have stepped up" p29. (Treating the creator of the universe like some kind of genie in a bottle who works according to a formula of our own making is not based on anything close to the Bible.

The way he applies a couple of passages in Ephesians 4 around page 223 is also misguided. These passages not only discuss the life and witness of Christians in a local church context as opposed to how he uses them, he actually waters down their meaning when he says things like Eph 4:31 can be rephrased "don't get bitter, get better." The Bible says "when you get bitter, repent and ask God to forgive you". People who progress at being less bitter or being bitter less often still go to hell when they die unless the sin of bitterness is paid for by Christ dying in his/her place.

I say all that and would not really recommend the book, but I don't disparage Emmitt's personal character in any way. It really does seem like God has done a work in him and will keep working (Phil 1:6). I'm sure he's a great guy and an effective role model, especially in communities he can reach where I couldn't, and I'm grateful to the Lord for using him in these ways. There are things to like about the book, just not enough to recommend it. Read more ›

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