How Do You Spell Fun?

I will forever remember the first time my college football coach asked us, “how do you spell fun?”

I sat in the field house, surrounded by walls covered in blue paint with red and white motivational text all of them. The room was filled with athletes that had worked so hard to get to where we were sitting. In this dim room that we would split between offense and defense to watch film. Or use for study halls, or even yoga.  Some of us sat at tables, some simply in chairs, all facing the front of the room looking at our gray-haired coach when he asked us this question. 

After hearing the response to this question - I was sitting there, gobsmacked at the fact that a room full of grown men didn’t know how to spell such a simple, three letter word. We shouldn’t have concussions - the season hadn’t even started yet. 

I went over the spelling numerous times in my head like a weird off brand of tetris that I skipped through the tutorial of and opted to learn how to play the hard way.

My high school sucked at football. Sucked badly enough that the adoring fans that were there in the first half typically had ducked out while we were in the locker room at half time. Why? Not to save us the embarrassment of watching them leave. But because they weren’t there to watch us lose. They were there to watch our state championship band play. 

Our best varsity record during my tenure was in my senior year where we were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. We went 5-5. Honestly, this was great considering a good season typically consisted of 3 wins. Our physical prowess was highlighted by the fact that I, a 6’8” 200 lb slenderman type, could start and play every single down on offense my senior year. If you are unfamiliar, linemen are typically significantly heavier - 50 lbs plus - and stronger… a lot stronger… than I was.

Somehow, I found myself recruited and even getting paid to play football at a division two football program coming hot off a national championship victory. 

And now I was sitting there questioning the level of intelligence of everybody within the program. 

So if fun isn’t spelled in the way a 5 year old educated in most parts of the U.S. could spell - how was it spelled?

W.I.N.

The more I have reflected on this saying, the more I have come to appreciate it. Winning was fun. We would get victory Mondays. Celebrate with our peers and with each other. Fun was, in fact, spelled W-I-N. Correction. Fun is spelled W-I-N. 

I recently made a commitment to myself to get unstuck from the rut that I have continually found myself in. I’m not going to lie to myself and say that my rut is a bad one. But it is to me. 

Regardless of promotions or exciting things in my life, I have returned to a baseline status of being disappointed with myself. While I am overly critical of my body of work, from my body to my work, I know that I can achieve more. That there is more that I can get out of this life. 

Part of my commitment to myself stemmed from a video I saw while doomscrolling Facebook as to not doomscroll on Instagram instead - a video where John Cena talked about how he asks himself daily if he has earned the sunset. 

If you would have EVER told me that I would have been inspired by John Cena in this lifetime, I would have looked at you like you had just stepped on my dog’s paw without apologizing. John Cena giving me a paradigm shifting piece of wisdom to break through a series of doomscrolling, nonetheless? Blasphemy. 

Yet, here we are. 

I took this and made it my own. Reflecting on my brief time as a college athlete (it didn’t feel brief, I promise you), I remembered the question Coach Wristen would ask us and immediately knew how I would apply this to my life. Did I win the day? 

The more I have leaned into this, the more I have found that Wristen’s question was right. 

Fun is spelled W-I-N. With a purpose to each day and intentional progress towards that purpose, my life has taken on more meaning. My frustrations with wasting my life have mostly puttered out. Dare I say, if I died tomorrow, I’d be happy knowing that I had at least started on the path to achieving my potential. I couldn’t have said this a few short months ago. 

Since then, the only day I can think of that may have not been a win was because I chose to sleep over making progress on a project. I could argue this was necessary because I hadn’t slept enough over the last week with how much time I was putting into my projects but I’m not here to argue with myself. 

Now the question I ask you is, when was the last time you won the day? The last time you had fun? The last time that you felt a genuine purpose in life? Do you have a way to measure if you are winning the day? How would winning a majority of the days impact your life? How would winning every day for the rest of your life impact it?

Okay, that was a series of questions, but you get the point. 

If you made the conscious decision to win every day for the rest of your life, your life would likely look drastically different. 

While I can’t guarantee that you will become a billionaire so that you can make all of your wildest dreams come true, I can guarantee that you will find purpose. Sometimes, you will find, lose, and rediscover purpose. 

That sounds a hell of a lot better than laying in bed wondering about all of the things that you could have accomplished if you would have just tried. 

So - what do I do now?

Great question.

Now, we determine the direction that you want to take your life in. 

A lot of people like SMART goals. I prefer to go broader than that to start. What do you want out of life? What are the daily pains that you don’t want to experience? What do you want more of? What do you hate doing that you could have someone else do but are stuck doing out of circumstance? 

This will provide you with direction. 

I want to positively impact as many people as I possibly can. Do I know how to do this yet? No. Are my daily steps moving me in the right direction? Yes. Is the picture of that goal becoming slightly clearer? Yes.

What else do I want? To not have to worry about money. To own the house I live in. To save the lives of animals that humans have carelessly discarded - not limited to those I can adopt. To have a nice car. To have more pets. To have the freedom to choose what I want to do in my day. To not HAVE to show up to a job working for someone else if I don’t want to. To travel more. To give back to my parents. To serve others more. To help people accept the differences in others and recognize that the world is full of different perspectives - it isn’t black and white and we shouldn’t try to make it that way. To stop feeling disappointed in the decisions I make that have led me to where I am at. 

That list is in no particular order but these are wants that I have that have fueled the direction that I am taking my life in. 

What are yours? 

Once you have made your list, determine what it is that you need to accomplish that. Some people take it as far as listing out exactly what they need. I prefer approximate mental numbers. Do whatever you think will be most inspiring to you. 

Clearly, I am not above material pursuits. From reading the perspectives of really wealthy people, the pursuit of material possessions loses meaning once you have the things. Candidly, I want to find that out for myself. 

You can be above material pursuits - you can choose to view them in a similar way to me, or take an entirely different approach. Do whatever works for YOU.

For me to have the impact that I want to have, both on me and on others, I need to add value to others in a way that creates value that I can sell. 

In our society, it would be ignorant of me to say that money doesn’t matter. Money directly impacts the scale at which you can operate. The irony being, you just about always have to start at a small scale. 

That leads me to my second need - an audience. If I can build an audience, fans, I have a way to distribute my views and - hopefully - a way to positively shift the way people think towards positive actions. 

What do you need to accomplish your goals?

You’ll notice, I am still being broad with my answers. This allows me the flexibility that I need to adapt to the various changes of plans that are inevitably going to come up. If I have a general direction, I feel that I can build a path. 

We are about to get more granular, though. 

The last question is: How can you achieve those needs?

I can already hear you saying, “Dakota, if I knew what I needed to do to achieve those needs, I’d already have them. Wouldn’t I?” 

Maybe. Maybe not. 

Let’s think about this. If you were trying to build an audience on social media. What would you do? Probably post everyday, engage with others, and try to create value. This could be through education or entertainment.
Could you have told me that? Then, you know the how  to achieving my need of building my audience. Simple, right? 

While the formula can be made that simple, reality shows us that this actually takes a lot of work, creating a high barrier of entry to creating an audience. But, we know the basics of how I would go about building my audience. 

Another framing could be helpful here. 

If a friend, a family member, or a colleague came up to you and stated their need (pretend it’s the same as yours), what would you tell them to do? 

Now I see those wheels turning! 

We often get in our own ways when we are emotionally invested in the outcome, but what would you tell somebody if it wasn’t you questioning how to accomplish it?

If this technique didn’t work for you, all hope is lost. Throw in the towel and call it a day. 

I’m just kidding. I have one more technique I will share. 

This is one I like a lot and personally have used when I wasn’t sure what to do. 

Think of a public figure that looks like they have accomplished something similar to what you are hoping to do. Google what they did to get there.

Personally, I find a lot of inspiration in YouTubers as you can go back and see their journey from small creator to large creator (assuming they don’t delete their content) and you can watch their old content to find what they were actually doing.

This is going to be harder for people that don’t have all of their progress documented on social media but, generally, you can find a rough outline. 

Your job is to sift through how you can make this applicable to your situation - where you are starting from - and act on it. 

Action is the most critical part of this. What small step can you take right now to move you in the right direction? 

Is it learning html so you can start coding a website? 

Is it posting on social media so you can start to make progress on growing your following? 

Through action, you will identify what you don’t know and the skills that you need to build. This will enable you to explore and discover more of the missing puzzle pieces scattered around the world that will eventually come together to form your purpose. 

And you must remember. This will take time. Years. Maybe your lifetime. But if can say you have won each day - you will build a life you want and have fun along the way.