by Paul Long
“When can I fight again?” Vinny asked the doctor.
“I’m not sure you’re understanding the severity of the situation, Vinny,” the doctor answered. “We’re not certain you’ll ever walk again, so fighting is almost an uncertainty.”
Vinny’s response: he was certain at that moment that he’d fight again. And fight he did. Vinny worked tirelessly for a return to the ring, even working out while wearing the halo.
Fourteen months following the car crash, Vinny was back in the ring boxing again. He ultimately beat the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world, Roberto Duran, and held a championship belt again.
In the movie Bleed for This there’s an interview with Vinny Pazienza that happened several weeks after his fight with Duran. A reporter asked Vinny what he learned through his experience.
Vinny answered, “I learned that people will tell you all sorts of lies to get ahead in the world.”
“What’s the biggest lie you’ve ever been told?” the reporter asked.
“It’s not that simple,” Vinny said.
“What do you mean, ‘It’s not that simple’?” responded the reporter.
“No, that’s the biggest lie I’ve ever been told—it’s not that simple,” Vinny explained.
We’ve all heard that statement: “It’s not that simple.” I’m certain we’ve all said it a few times in our own lives:
▪ I want a better job, but . . . it’s not that simple.
▪ I want more money, but . . . it’s not that simple.
▪ I want to deal with this crippling anxiety, but . . . it’s not that simple.
▪ I want to experience more fun in life, but . . . it’s not that simple.
“It is that simple,” Vinny went on to say. “Do the thing they say can’t be done, then it’s done. Then you realize—it is that simple and it always was.”
The purpose of this book is to mitigate the sting of challenging times, identify the things that give you strength in life, and provide direction on how to gravitate towards them. If you want to live a life filled with more joy, fun, and fulfillment, it is that simple. Stop focusing on what’s not working and create more of what does work. Whether you’re an individual wanting to experience life in a different light or an organization with the goal of creating a fun, employee-focused culture, you’ve taken the first step in accomplishing your goal. Welcome to Fundamism: Connecting to Life Through F.U.N.
As I see it, fun is an experience that is underappreciated and easily created. It’s underappreciated because so many of us forget the monumental role having fun can play in shifting our mindset from one of heartache or dismay to one of joy and satisfaction. Fun is easily created because everyone on this planet has something they do for fun, and with a little thought we can turn even the most monotonous of tasks into something enjoyable. Fundamism: Connecting to Life Through F.U.N. will guide you on how to establish a joy-based mindset and a fun-based life, both at work, at home, and anywhere else your experiences take you.
The F.U.N. of Fundamism
Fundamism is the philosophy of purposefully living a fun and fulfilling life. The F.U.N. of fundamism is an acronym representing the three key aspects of the philosophy. F.U.N. reminds us to focus on consistently building a personal foundation, striving to understand others’ perspectives, and identifying next steps to ensure we’re all living our best life while maximizing the experience. In the pages that follow, you’ll learn about fundamism in detail so that you can set your happy-machine on full-blast. Here are some areas we’ll be exploring:
F = Foundation
If you consider yourself purpose-driven, what is your purpose? How does this purpose manifest itself in all you do? If you were to describe yourself in three words, what would they be? How do those three words align with how others describe you?
Your personal foundation is everything that makes you, you. Your purpose in life, personality style, ability to communicate effectively, and the experiences that have shaped you help establish how you experience life. If you sincerely desire fun and satisfaction in life, you must take a deep look inside yourself to identify where your strengths and areas of opportunities lie. The foundation chapter of this book will guide you in clearly identifying your personal foundation, reveal areas that can be improved, and help to create alignment in your life.
U = Understanding Others’ Perspectives
What drives the differences between us? Why do we connect with some individuals better than others? Do you find that you’re typically “curious” or “furious” in situations where someone rubs you the wrong way? How do you create more meaningful interactions?
Understanding others’ perspectives is critical in maximizing joy and contentment in life. Taking the time to walk in the shoes of others will enable you to create more positive, memorable experiences in your journey. This is what the U in F.U.N. is all about!
N = Next Steps
You’ve explored your foundation and feel you’re on the right track in understanding the perspective of others. What’s next? What are the tactical things that you can do right now to drive more fun and fulfillment in life?
Next Steps allows you to immerse yourself in activities and behaviors that will actually generate change in your life. If you want to have more fun in life, next steps is where the rubber truly meets the road.
Setting Yourself Free of “Woe Is Me”
We all know people that brighten up a room when they enter. In contrast, I’m sure many of you know folks that when they LEAVE the room, the room brightens up a little! The question then becomes—which are you? With whom do your surround yourself?
We’ve all played the victim a few times in our lives. Even the happiest of people have bad days. We talk to ourselves and say things like:
▪ “No one has it as bad as I do.”
▪ “What difference can I make?”
▪ “My day would go better if others would pull their head out of their ass!”
▪ “Why does God hate me?”
▪ “Everything bad in life happens to me.”
Do any of these excuses sound familiar?
Throughout my tenure in many positions of leadership, I’ve heard many excuses about why someone is grumpy or angry in life. Many have said that past experiences help develop a person’s attitude. Those who lose loved ones or suffer through bad relationships struggle with getting close to others. Those who continuously get the short end of the stick expect the shaft and actually begin to anticipate its arrival.
I get all of this. To tell you the truth, I agree that sometimes life is not fair. Unfortunately for us, life does not give a damn. Life does not stop to cry about what has happened nor does life stop to admire what has been accomplished. Successes or failures are all based on the human mind and a person’s own perspective. It is important to know that your path is already set in motion. The responsibility of paving it and minimizing bumps along the way lies squarely on your shoulders. But that doesn’t mean you have to walk it alone.
Fundamism: Connecting to Life Through F.U.N. is here to act as your guide, your map, and your playbook so that you not only have an easier time minimizing those bumps—you’ll experience fun and satisfaction along the way. This book supplies you with a ton of options, inspiring real-life stories, research-based recommendations, realistic and doable advice, and a wide range of practice activities—so that you’ll have the guidance and support you need to establish a positive, joy-based mindset and a fun and fulfilling life.
There’s no time like the present to get in on the fun! First stop on the journey: to help any of you still stuck in your “woe is me” excuses, I tell the unlikely story of how I landed on fundamism…
Chapter 1
Arriving at Fun’s Front Door
“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.”
—Og Mandino
To give you some important background on fundamism—and to establish so
me essential elements of the fundamism philosophy of living—let me tell you how I arrived at fun’s front door. Simply put—pain. Pain, disappointment, sadness, and injustice—that’s what propelled me to embrace fun and all that fun has to offer. As contrary as it may sound, it was all things negative in life that convinced me that fun is the way to go. Let me give you the stories, so you can get that much closer to embracing fundamism, no matter the hurt and disappointment you may have experienced.
Victim or Victor: The Choice
Growing up was easy for me. Despite the fact that my parents divorced shortly after I reached the age of one, I was truly blessed with friends and family that loved me, unconditionally. Both my mother and father remarried, and while my mother’s second marriage was short-lived, my father’s endured the test of time.
Like many, we struggled with money. I distinctly remember situations where I had to go to the grocery store and buy milk with food stamps. Or the time I was asked by my mother to take a Ziploc bag of nickles and dimes into the gas station to put five dollars of gas in our rusty Oldsmobile Delta Eighty-Eight.
Throughout the early years of my adolescence, I didn’t fully understand how amazing my stepmother truly was. At times, I looked at her as the “wicked witch of the Midwest” and even convinced myself that my story paralleled that of Cinderella. Of course, I mean a more burly, boss-dude, masculine version of Cinderella, but Cinderella nevertheless. My friends would always joke around about the chores I had to do before I could hang out. “Hey, Paul, we would ask you to go to the football game, but you wouldn’t have enough time to paint the house,” they would joke.
Every time I asked my father if I could stay the night at my friend John’s, he would respond with the same old tired line, “Yeah, you can go, just not today.” This would then be followed by the most annoying laugh you ever heard.
It wasn’t until after I graduated high school that I realized my stepmother was the glue that held our whole family together. Our family consisted of my father, stepmother, brother, two half-sisters, and me.
As I’m sure you can imagine, feeding a family of six wasn’t always the easiest. My stepmother worked in the claims department at WalMart and my father worked (when he was able to) as a building official for the City of Louisburg, Kansas.
I love my father. He is my blood and has helped me to become everything that I am today. He did this by modeling the traits I wanted to emulate while also showing me things I never wanted to become. We all have strengths and opportunity gaps. When you closely observe all sides of a person, it is possible to learn and grow from almost all individuals in your life.
Choosing “Victim”
My father suffered from a debilitating disease that millions of people suffer from around the world. Some are able to recover. They surround themselves with positive people and a support system that aids them in overcoming the sickness. Others are not so fortunate. They allow the disease to define their existence and negatively impact those around them. This disease is spreading rampantly throughout our planet. While the sickness may not have an official medical term, it can adequately be described in three words: WOE IS ME!!!!
My father was an entrepreneur who made a living developing commercial buildings in the Kansas City area. He was on cloud nine after landing one of his largest jobs to date when he began the lengthy and expensive process of constructing a new development. However, the company that hired my father had been experiencing financial instability and ended up filing bankruptcy.
After this happened, the world that my father knew was sent into a tailspin. Everything that he owned was tied to this development, so he lost thousands and thousands of dollars. At this point he had to make a choice. He could use this experience as a growth opportunity for himself, or he could make it an excuse and highlight it as the defining moment in a life that didn’t turn out as expected. Ultimately, this moment was the beginning of my father’s demise—a downward spiral plagued by addiction and reoccurring back problems caused, in my opinion, by immersing himself in a lifetime of negative baggage.
My father filed bankruptcy in his thirties, and it negatively impacted his life ever since. He blamed every failure or loss on that one experience and had trouble owning outcomes based on his decisions. Shortly after my father’s sixtieth birthday, he passed. The last five years of his life he spent sleeping exclusively in a recliner, in a fog created by opiates, and consuming a diet that consisted mainly of Milky Way Simply Caramel bars and Coca-Cola, while lighting each new cigarette with the previous one. He gave up on life but sought forgiveness from those around him.
Life does not always happen as we’ve planned for it to happen. Many of us have experienced horrible things that no one person should have to see or feel. These experiences, however, help define who we are and what we become. The strength that we possess and develop through times of sorrow becomes a part of us and allows others to see that recovery is possible.
I forgive him. My father’s suffering gave me the ability to thrive. His strengths shaped me. His opportunities drove me. I am thankful for every experience that he went through because it gave me the fire to help others overcome the hardships they face.
My dad was special, as are you. Don’t give up. There’s still time to make the changes necessary to create more happiness in your life.
Choosing “Victor”
I now realize that my stepmother is truly a saint. She is one of two unbelievable moms in my life, and I don’t consider her a stepmother at all. To me, she is just mom. Mom managed the family finances and limited the negative impact our father could play on our attitudes by showing my siblings and me that we had a choice. She could have allowed herself to fall into the “funk” that plagued my father on a regular basis. However, she remained as strong as Sylvester Stallone in his arm-wrestling classic, Over the Top, and continues to be one of the most optimistic people I have ever met.
You have a choice. You can be the example of what those around you are scared to death to become, or you can be an inspiration to others. This can only be done by the way you choose to react to life experiences. Life doesn’t stop to cry about what has happened, so why should we spend too much time doing so?
It is perfectly acceptable to grieve, reflect, and express sadness in times of heartache. Tears are good for the healing process, and I encourage everyone to shed a few during difficult times. However, if you are both determined and quick to look ahead and move forward, you will find it impossible to drown in the puddles those tears leave.
The examples my father and stepmother set certainly paved my way to fundamism, but what landed me on fun’s doorstep is another story—the story of Noah Wilson.
Noah—Courageous, Present, Impactful
Did you know that only 4% of federal cancer funding supports pediatric cancer research? I didn’t either until I was introduced to one of the most caring, wise, funny, strong, driven, and inspirational people I’ve ever met. I’d like to call your attention to the fact that the individual exhibiting those traits—who started a charity founded on giving hope to those in need, inspired an entire community to raise awareness for pediatric cancer research, and altered the course of my life—this individual was only seven years old. His name is Noah Wilson.
What does charity, community, pediatric cancer, and little Noah Wilson have to do with fundamism? In short, the story of Noah Wilson became the inspiration I needed to finish the book you’re reading now. People ask me all the time why I’m so passionate about pediatric cancer research and the events that led to me becoming president of the Noah’s Bandage Project Board. In the pages that follow, you’ll learn that Noah Wilson not only embodied many elements of fundamism, he is the blueprint for how fundamism can be leveraged to help change your perspective and bring more happiness to your life.
To understand the depth of this incredible boy, the courage he showed, and the impact he left on this earth, it’s important to learn his story from someone with firsthand knowledge and exper
ience. Unfortunately, Noah Wilson passed at the age of seven. He’ll never fully understand the difference he made to Scott (his father), Deb (his mother), his siblings, or the countless others he inspired.
However, by reading the following words of Scott Wilson, my hope is that you find strength in Noah’s story and are driven to alter the narrative in your own:
Noah was always an “easy” child. From the moment he was born, he always had an incredible peace about him and a confidence that he could do anything. When he walked into a room, a peace would fill the space. He loved God and was confident in his calling. We believe this confidence is what helped him remain so courageous throughout his life.
In March of 2014, Noah began experiencing pain in his lower back and right leg. It started off as an intermittent pain throughout the day that seemed to worsen at night. He had trouble sleeping flat in his bed, so he and I would camp out on the recliner in our family room. We started the process of getting him checked out by a doctor, visiting a chiropractor, urgent care, and even the ER over the course of about a month. The pain would come and go but eventually got worse, to the point that it hurt to walk, twist, and even move.