In Search Of Heroes Spreads Good News About Everyday, Real-Life Heroes Who Deserve Recognition For Their Good Works

14. Do you maintain your sense of humor in the face of serious problems?
Mike Filsaime: Oh absolutely! Probably too much. You know Ralph when I was in the car business I was the joker. I knew when it was time to be serious but even at the most serious points like if I was getting mad or if we had a meeting or something like that I would always throw in a tidbit of humor.

I think it keeps us real. I think it bonds people with you. It’s one of the best qualities you can have is to have a good sense of humor and a good wit. Being able to laugh at yourself but still knowing when business is business and how to put business together.

I think it’s important to create a work environment where people have fun. There’s no place they’d rather be than working with a group of people that they are with. If humor is not somewhere in there then I think the workplace will suffer.
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Paulie Sabol: I don’t know. What I think for me is a more direct question is how do I maintain any worthwhile position in the face of uncertainty? A lot of people say to me that I come across to them as being humorous. I think my humor is fairly dry and almost very British in its form.
I don’t know how I maintain it, or even if I do, or if it is just something that pops in. What I do believe that it is useful for me to act as if the following statement is true when it comes to this question of uncertainty and serious issues in life.
I believe, and it is useful for me to believe this, the universe itself, and all of its power and complexity, will actually conspire on the behalf of me. It will actually move in a way to help me, will actually use that area of uncertainty itself, that area of serious question and challenge and differential result to produce the results that I imagine, desire and attract to myself into being through my actions.
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Donna Fox: I think that sometimes humor is the only thing that we can fall back on in sad times. My father passed away a couple of years ago and I felt driven, something I had to do, was to give some remarks at his funeral.

You probably don’t know this, Ralph, but I have a terrible fear of public speaking. I’m a speaker, but I face that fear because I also love to teach and I love to educate, motivate and inspire people.

At my father’s funeral I decide that I want to motivate and inspire people. He was just a great man in his simple way. Like many fathers he started in the Boy Scouts when my brother was young.

But unlike many fathers he stayed for 40 years and really devoted much of his life to influencing and guiding young boys and men to grow up into really amazing adults.

He gave so much to so many. He was a teacher. I’m a seminar speaker and a trainer and a teacher, and I like to think that I’m following in my dad’s footsteps. He was a teacher, too.

At his funeral I decided that I wanted to deliver a humorous presentation. We actually closed the event with me mustering up the best courage I could with my fear of public speaking and all of the emotion that went into the day and delivered a humorous speech about my father.

People still talk about it today. It’s the humor in times of sadness that provides the optimism, really, to go back to the last question. It provides the optimism.

You kind of face the Murphy’s Law and you face the sad times in life but there is a glimpse of hope and future in humor. Laughter is the best medicine. It sure is.
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TOM BEAL: You have to. At least I have to. I choose to. I have the optimism and I have the positive thinking but there are things that others might interpret as “bad things happen” and I say “WOW! I didn’t see that one coming. Wow!” but you have to laugh and as I mentioned in the fifth step, you have to have fun.

When you enjoy doing what you love there’s going to be other people that interpret things as a problem and things like that. There are all challenges. It makes life more exciting. The more you progress up that level of consciousness the more other people would see these problems get bigger but your capabilities to handle them are more so.

If I was up to bat and there was a major league baseball pitcher pitching to me I’d strike out for sure, if not be shaking and pee in my pants cause that would be scary. But you know to jump from not knowing anything to jump up to the major leagues you have progressive steps.

Just like school has 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th, you graduate to different levels of how you can handle communication skills and how you can handle adversities.

You will never be given a major league baseball pitcher problem if you are only in the minor leagues or only at the tee ball level. You are only given the obstacles and challenges that you are capable of handling in life. Sometimes I feel like there’s a major league pitch and I’m not ready for it.

But it wouldn’t be happening if I wasn’t ready for it. As we are speaking right now I’m going to share some personal things. There are a lot of people that already know but my wife and I have been married for five years but we are currently separated right now.

You’ve been talking to me for awhile and you can tell I still have optimism and I still have happiness. Here’s my belief on that. I know that everything is going to work out exactly the way it needs to work out. I don’t know what the end result will be but I know it’ll work out exactly the way it needs to.

Here’s a little history. My wife and I have been married five years now. On July 10th, 2002 her father passed away. On July 13th, she spoke at his funeral. On July 20th at the same church we had our wedding, a Greek wedding. So that just puts things into perspective.

I had a conversation with her father prior to this saying “Look man this wedding is ridiculous at this time.” He told me “Tom I don’t care if I die.” That puts things in perspective.

Let’s talk about something you may or may not know Ralph. On Sept.11, 1998 I was in a car wreck. My car rolled four times and I was ejected from the sun roof and laid there with severe head trauma and had a “near death experience”. The car wreck was about 10:00pm. I had severe head trauma and it was a miracle I lived through it.

Just laying there I thought “No one is showing up.” Then it hit me, I’m going to die here in this field. I was out in the field and during the roll my battery flew out so my car was laying in this field way off the road. People were driving by and no one knew someone‘s laying there dying.

So it hit me, this is the way it’s going to end. Next thing you know I’m laying there and I see someone in the field and I’m up in the air. I’m like “Whose that?” I focus in and see that it is me.

Next thing you know I’m pulled up in the sky. It’s just like you see on TV, the bright lights. I’m standing there and I’m really confused. I’m trying to figure out what’s happening.

Then someone comes up and puts their arm around me and it was so comforting and I just felt like everything is ok. Then we turn around and we’re facing this big huge door and we start walking towards this door.

I stop and am shaking my head and I said “I know this is not how it’s supposed to end. I know you had more for me to accomplish. Send me back.”

Next thing I know I woke up and had been Mercy Flighted, which is a helicopter lift. A couple of hours later they got there. I had been lifted to a hospital and woke up with respirator breathing for me in Intensive Care.

I was in the hospital for just less than a week and the Dr.’s were telling me and my family “Tom will never walk and talk again properly. I wouldn’t accept that. The Dr.’s were getting real upset. I said “NO, I’m walking out of here.”

They had a meeting with my family and said “We are really upset. Tom does not understand the fact that he may never walk or talk again properly the rest of his life.” My family sat down with me and said “Tom this is serious and you may not walk or talk again properly.”

I said “I’m walking out of here” the best I could. I had to learn to speak and everything and there’s a whole weird story behind that. But you think I’d say “I’m going to walk out of here” but cat, red, blue, car would come out of my mouth. It was really weird.

I checked myself out. I signed a whole bunch of release papers against Dr.’s orders and left the hospital because they were trying to tell me I would never walk or talk again and I didn’t want to hear that. Thankfully I didn’t hear that because I am walking and talking.

There were a couple of years where my leg dragged. I had what was called “drop foot” and they never knew when that nerve damage would go away or if it would. Now I can walk, you’ve seen me, Ralph I walk and talk. I wrestled Russell Brunson a couple of times. I ended up going back and winning a couple of wrestling tournaments after that car wreck.

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