Have you ever won the lottery?
Not many people win big on the lottery.
In the UK, it’s a 14 million to one possibility. The Euromillions jackpot is available to those who beat odds of more than 70 million to one.
What prompted THIS blog was a news item on the radio today.
A builder in the UK bought lottery tickets every week but never checked to see if he had won. After weeks of nagging from his family, he went and checked the stack of old tickets in his work van. He is now £76M better off.
Does it make people happier? Well, to answer this question we need to understand what actually happens when someone wins a few million…
Firstly, you basically go into shock.
You autonomic nervous system reacts in exactly the same way as if you had been delivered a huge dose of acute stress (which it has!). You pale, faint, cry or laugh hysterically. You deny it (“You’re kidding?”). Confusion kicks in. Adrenaline and its drug friends, course through your veins creating surges and crises in the bodily systems over which you have no real conscious control.
So, in the very short term, a lottery win is a huge stressor on the body and mind system!
But surely it gets better?
Well, apparently it goes one of two ways – and the split of winners is close to 50/50 as to whether lottery winners end up happier or LESS happy after the win.
The first (and best) outcome is that you enhance your existing life. You may change certain possessions and aspects of your lifestyle, but you essentially remain the same person. You maintain similar goals, aspirations, relationships and mindset. In other words your winnings help you become MORE of who you are.
OR
The other outcome is that you allow the money to change you at a basic level. You change, not only your possessions, but drop your perceived need for goals or aspirations, use the money to alter the power balance in your relationships and adopt a fundamentally different mindset. In other words you use the money to buy a false identity.
I know at least two of my friends who don’t do the lottery because they fear losing who they are.
So what would YOU do with a few Million? CHANGE everything or ENHANCE everything?
Yoo wisdom: Jim Rohn once said – “Make a million, not for the money, but for the person you will become”. My good friend Neil Almond of 91Untold, who runs ‘Money Mastery’ classes, says: “If you ever win a million pounds, you had better hurry up and become a millionaire!”
Be your best Yoo
Andy and the Yoo team
PS If you want to rebuild confidence, relationships – or tear down some barriers, then check out the Yoo Personal Development Course
I have teamed up with the international learning platform Udemy, and the links in this PS carry a particularly generous discount for readers of my blog (about 90% off!).
