Dan Hooker has learned valuable lessons from his past mistakes in his fighting career and has worked to capitalize on them in recent years.

After enduring a tough stretch, losing four out of five fights between June 2020 and March 2022, Hooker has since turned things around. He’s now on a three-fight winning streak, highlighted by a thrilling Fight of the Night victory over Mateusz Gamrot at UFC 305 last August.

Who knew actually training for UFC fights is a great idea? These are things you learn,” Hooker joked during an interview on Israel Adesanya’s YouTube channel.

Reflecting on his mindset during his rough patch in 2020, Hooker admitted that his focus was on the wrong goal.

At that stage in my career, I just wanted money, and [UFC] capitalized on that, and I sold my title shot. At the end of the day, that’s what it came down to. I just wanted money, then I got money, and I was like, ‘That’s not cool! I want a world title,’ and you can’t trade money for a world title.

Hooker revealed that a shift in mentality was key to his resurgence. He began focusing on his long-term goals rather than financial gain.

I asked myself where I wanted to be in my career and admitted that where I had been wasn’t where I wanted to be.

He later elaborated on the evolution of his ambitions.

You want to be a ranked UFC fighter, but then you want more. Then you want to be a main event fighter. Then you win a main event, and you’re like, ‘This is shit as well, I want something else.’ At the end of the day, chasing the goal is the extra fun part. It’s not sitting back and holding on to that goal. Once you do that, you’re trading order.