What if your mind shifts?

My new book is now available for the first time on Amazon and in book stores, and this is a book that Club Fearless members already have received a copy of because it is the sequel to FEARLESS.

Once you can grasp being fearless, you can start shifting your mind and the new book has over 100 mindshifts you can make.

I know what you're thinking. You'd rather just win the lottery. Right? Well, no, hold on. That's the whole reason our country is in debt. And that's the thoroughly corrupted thought inside the head of our favor-buying, morally bankrupt politicians.

 Winning the lottery would do you more harm than good.

(I know, you are saying, "Let me be the judge of that! I want to find out for myself!")

However, I think it's important to see this.

A recent news story about a person named Abraham Shakespeare is instructive. Winning $30 million in the Florida Lottery should have been the best thing that ever happened to him. Would you agree? (Actually, I hope not.)

Because with Abraham's newfound wealth came a string of bad choices and hangers-on who constantly hit him up for money. Nine months ago, he vanished. Friends and family hoped he was on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean.

On Friday, detectives confirmed that a body buried under a concrete slab in a rural backyard was his.

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When you really study The Seventeen Lies we tell ourselves to maintain our stories in life, you see that Lie Number Eleven may be the most fascinating of all the lies:

Winning the lottery would solve everything

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The whole concept of the lottery is based on what Gandhi insisted was one of life's true evils: unearned money.  The concept that ruins more businesses and individuals than any other: something for nothing. A bubble-leveraged greed grab for instant financial payoff.

When people begin to tell themselves that money itself is what's missing in their lives, the lying has begun. Because money is not what's missing.  What's missing is the ability to make it and save it. The personal effectiveness is what is missing. The inner strength.

Action builds that strength, and we lie to ourselves to stay out of action.

In his book about lottery winners in the state of Michigan, Money For Nothing, Jerry Dennis documents many sad stories of people who won millions only to have their lives become much more difficult. One couple won a fortune, only to face tax complications that prompted them to quit their jobs and invest in a small resort. The main resort house began falling apart as soon as they moved in, and the whole thing turned into a nightmarish money pit.  The people started treating them differently. Even the grocer who used to smile and give them a nice deal on vegetables or throw in an extra orange, never did that any more.  People regarded them coldly.

Lottery winners often have to move to another state and start over. Go somewhere where people don't know how they got their money.  Because people treat lottery winners much differently than they treat people who have earned their wealth. Distant relatives call and ask for financial help.

"Come on! It's for my daughter's medical bills. It's not as if you earned that money. You ought to be willing to share some of it! I can't believe the selfishness and greed you're showing. After all, it's just by pure chance that you have that money. I could have won as easily as you. It's pure luck. You didn't do anything at all to deserve what you got. And now you won't even share a small percentage of it! I know people who work hard for their money who are more generous than you. Boy, that lottery really brought out the worst in you. At least we know who you really are now. At least the rest of the family knows your true selfish uncaring unsharing character."

A wealthy person who has earned the money is usually treated with respect. I was watching TV and I saw a show on which Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, both multi-billionaires, went to the University of Washington to share the stage and speak to students about their businesses and life experiences.  When the two men arrived in the auditorium, they were greeted with a standing ovation.

People who become millionaires in the lottery are often treated with jealousy and a kind of contempt. (The universe has a great deal of fun unmasking these lies that we tell, like the lie about the money solving everything.) Most people who win money quit their jobs and try to spend their way to happiness and fulfillment only to find themselves growing less and less happy.  Many realize that they were not even being truthful with themselves every morning when they said, "I hate this job."

Joe Mullich, writing in Business First, recounts the horrible misadventures of lottery winner Buddy Post who won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania State Lottery.

When Buddy Post won his sixteen million dollars he was a cook and a carnival worker, working for every cent he had, and treating his money as if he had earned it (which he had.)

After winning the lottery, Post began a life of pure trouble.  He started up a bar and a used-car lot with his siblings, but those businesses went under.  Post's landlord then claimed that Post owed her half the lottery money, and Post was restricted from taking any more of his winnings. Eventually she got a third of it.  Around the same time Post's brother, Jeffrey, was plotting to kill Post and his wife.  He was trying to get the rest of the lottery money for himself. The brother was eventually convicted of his murder plot in 1993. Post then declared bankruptcy with debts of $500,000, not counting money owed for taxes and to lawyers. 

Mullich concludes his story about Buddy Post, "Today? Post lives in a mansion, but the gas was shut off when he couldn't pay the bill.  Post now says he feels lucky his phone and electricity weren't shut off too. Post has been trying to auction off his future lottery payments but the Pennsylvania Lottery is trying to block the auction. Post says he will devote the remainder of his days to filing lawsuits against lawyers and others who have conspired to take his money."

The reason lottery winners are blindsided by the unexpected horrors of winning is that they have tried to equate their discipline problems with money problems. They tell themselves money is the answer, when it's not.  The answer was action. How to develop a reliable course of action that would provide more than enough money. The lie is used to avoid this action.

In Money For Nothing, Jerry Dennis concludes that "many lottery winners have been disappointed to find that, instead of a free ride on a gravy train, they've only been given a new pair of shoes for the same old dusty road, or, as one winner put it, 'the same problems, just with bigger numbers.' "

In a shocking study done by Dan Coates, Ronnie Janoff-Bulman and Philip Brickman the well-being of lottery winners was compared to those who had suffered accidents resulting in quadriplegia (loss of the use of arms and legs) and paraplegia (loss of legs).  They wanted to find out whether people who won the lottery would have huge increases in happiness, and whether people who suffered such devastating physical traumas would have huge decreases in happiness.

Neither thing happened!  The increases didn't occur, and the decreases didn't occur.  People kept their happiness quotients, on the average, at the same level no matter whether they lost their legs or won eight million dollars. The two groups reported nearly identical levels of happiness.

So, people could win the lottery. Or they could lose their legs.  The two events would have the same effect on their happiness in life.  I think that proves that happiness is a separate thing. It's totally separate from outside events, good or bad. It's an internal adventure, and it's based on our ability to grow a sense of purpose that we can fulfill every day. Every day.

To continue to tell myself that I'd be happy if I won the lottery is to continue to lie to myself about where happiness comes from.

Meanwhile, friends and family puzzled Friday over Abraham Shakespeare’s rapid rise and fall. They said their friend lived a humble life, and just before he bought the winning ticket, he joined a church and was baptized.

At that moment, he was perfect just the way he was.

Then he won the lottery.

The same one we all want to win.

His unearned riches drew all the wrong people into his life with all the wrong motives. He started telling people he wished he had never won. Soon after that he wished he had never been born.

Build. Your. Strength.

Comments

[Neifa]

The latest round of rasogtretiin starts October 3 and ends in early December. results start going out about 2 months later. there's no absolute set date on that. by the way, they only send winning notifications out and they don't send all those at once. with millions of entries, it's too much to contact everyone, beyond the winners. If they did that, they'd have to start charging for entries. Was this answer helpful?

[Tony Shoffner]

Very powerful, Steve.

Thanks for sharing.

Your friend,

Tony

[Kevin]

People see winning the lottery as an incredibly rare and enviable bit of luck.

But the chance of each of us having being born is so small it can't be grasped by the human mind. A specific sperm and a specific egg were required for the genetic combination that created you. These in turn came from your parents, who each had to have been created by the same lucky process to have been able to produce the sperm and egg that became you. Each of these events is much less likely than winning a lottery. Oh, and you're on the winning end of a string of these wins stretching back to the beginning of life, some billions of years ago.

We've already won the grand prize and have all that we need to be happy.

[ASHOK NARAYAN]

steve,
you are right one thing i have not read till now is a success story of a lottery winner,expanding and growing rich,
nor leaving a legacy to his next generation,
it looks like a universal plot to deceive or dupe the lazy day dreamers,
its as good as winning in gambling.race horse or any easy money, the post winning of money may not go to right cause,
that's why money is not productively expanding, it can be compared to corruption,
taking salaries without proper work/efforts
,probably a scientific study has to be made on the lottery winner and a book titled,
lottery was us strategy can be written by chandler,
infact , a very similar story is going on in indian television serial, right now,
about the same story, the head of the family
totally resisting the use of money,and fighting against the use of such money,lottery money,
the family very greedily wants to spend for their dreams,
ASHOK NARAYAN,
BENGALURU,
INDIA,

[Steve Chandler]

....I am sure you are RIGHT! I bet there are some people who do not do poorly, and I'd like to think you would be one of them.
A recent study I read showed that over 74% of people who won, when surveyed five years later, wish they had not won. But I'm sure some people are glad they did, as you say. My point is really about being addicted to outside fixes for internal problems. I've never seen anyone "do well" with that approach.

Steve Chandler

[Fae Queen]

There are many people who did well after winning the lottery. Unfortunately, all we hear about are the ones who didn't. Believe it or not, a sudden windfall doesn't ruin everyone's life. I like to think that if I won the lottery, I would be intelligent enough to handle it wisely.