About the Author

Gerry Simoni

Author of Living a FAT LUCK Life

The ideas behind Living a FAT LUCK Life grew out of my own experience working through the 12-Step program and sponsoring other men who are seeking freedom from a life of anger, resentment, fear, and self-pity. Through those experiences, I began to notice these virtues consistently brought peace, serenity, hope and faith to everyday life.

Over time, those virtues became the FAT LUCK framework.

FAT LUCK is an acronym representing seven virtues that shape how we respond to life:

Forgiveness
Acceptance
Tolerance
Love
Understanding
Compassion
Kindness

These virtues are simple, but they are not always easy. Living them demands honesty, genuine humility, and the courage to respond in ways that often run counter to our old instincts and reations. On my own strength alone, I simply cannot sustain this kind of change day after day. That’s why I need a Power greater than myself to succeed—one day at a time.

This is why I work to build (and maintain) a spiritual bank account by deliberately developing and deepening my faith my God/HP as I understand that Power today. Each conscious connection, each act of surrender, each moment of conscious contact becomes a deposit that helps carry me through the moments when my own resources run dry. Devoloping this faith keeps me from regretting the past or worrying about the future. I’ve learned to turn everything over to my God/HP that is not in my control. And to be clear the only thing I can control are my responses to my world.

Through my own experience—and through the lives of the men I sponsor—I have seen how powerful these virtues can be when they are practiced consistently with their own God/HP. They do not create a perfect life, but they do create a more peaceful one. And peace does not exist in the past or future but only exists in present time. So I focus on only living one day at a time. In reality, today is all I have—tomorrow does not exist.

Living a FAT LUCK Life is not meant to be a philosophy to only visit. It is meant to be practiced daily to live. The work is not about perfection. It is about daily progress—learning to respond to life with more forgiveness, acceptance, love, and compassion than we did yesterday. When I slip I have the framework to bring me back.

The purpose of this website is to support that practice.

Each of the seven virtues has its own page where readers can reflect on the virtue and ask questions about applying it in everyday life with the help of their own God/HP. Self-Love and Gratitude also have their own pages. My God/HP wants me to love myself as I am loved by Him/Her. My God/HP is the embodiment of love. God/HP’s love is constant, unwavering, and not dependent on how “perfect” I am. My God/HP is not judgmental but only guiding. How you define your own God/HP is completely up to you.

In my experience, practicing Self-Love and Gratitude can put living a FAT LUCK life on a fast track toward fulfillment, peace, and serenity. I experienced tremendous growth when I honestly addressed my own lack of self-love and gratitude. I became my own best cheerleader instead of my own worst enemy.

Gratitude helps keep self-pity away. When I make a point of finding gratitude in at least three things each day, my focus shifts from what is lacking to what is abundant. With daily gratitude I find myself always abundant. God/HP may not provide all my “wants” but certainly provides all my “needs” and I understand that clear distiction. For that, I can be grateful every single day.

When possible, I respond personally to questions and reflections shared by readers.

If you are exploring these virtues, I hope they bring the same faith, clarity, and peace to your life that they have brought to mine with the help of your own God/HP.

Why I Wrote This Book

The virtues in Living a FAT LUCK Life are not something I discovered in a single moment of insight. They emerged when I asked for clear guidance as to what is God/HP’s will for me. I started by asking myself what my God/HP’s will was not for me.

Would He/Her want me to be unforgiving, unaccepting, intolerant, unloving, lacking understanding, uncompassionate, or unkind? My answer was of course not. And if that’s true, then the opposite must also be true. So God/HP’s will for me is to show forgiveness, acceptance, tolerance, love, understanding, compassion, and kindness.

A sponsee of mine came up with the acronym, and I thought it was so good I asked for his blessing to make it mine and share it with others.

Like most people, I have spent plenty of time reacting to life with anger, fear, self-pity, criticism, and resentment. The virtues described in this framework did not turn me into a spiritual guru, but they became practices that gradually changed those reactions into calm responses with the help of my God/HP’s help.

I practice them daily. Most days I do it well, and some days I fall short. But the direction remains the same: progress, not perfection. And with the help of my God/HP and these virtues, I can always return to a balanced, positive state—one day at a time.

If the ideas in this book help you respond to life with a little more FAT LUCK than yesterday, then the framework is doing exactly what it was meant to do.

Living a FAT LUCK Life has just begun.