Wishing For a Windfall

For millions of people, their wildest (and, often, only) dream is to win the lottery. Week after week they pick up tickets at their convenience store and wait to hear their numbers called.

Why is that? Dig a bit deeper and you’ll discover that many of these folks are convinced that such an event would be the solution to all of their problems.

But would it?

A closer look at the real lives of those who once picked the winning numbers shows a slightly different picture. A surprising number of lottery multimillionaires dispose of their newfound wealth rather quickly.

The same is true for many athletes and performers whose wealth arrived in an avalanche. Most of us, it appears, are far more successful when change of any sort is a gradual process.

But that’s not the whole story.

Recently, Paula Pant’s blog, Afford Anything, had an interesting post called How Would Your Life Change If You Had Millions? The article was inspired when her partner asked her what she would do if she found herself super wealthy?

Her reply? “Nothing would change. I’d do the same things I’m doing now: buy rental properties, run a website, write articles. I’d just do it on a bigger scale.”

Pant goes on to explore how people who handled their wealth really well were often people who had already been doing what they loved and just expanded their territory as they prospered.

The piece reminded me of one of my all-time favorite episodes of Inside the Actors Studio on Bravo, an interview with Dustin Hoffman.

At the end of the evening, during the Q & A with the students, Hoffman was asked, “Why do you act?” His answer was passionate and memorable.

He said, (and I’m paraphrasing a bit here), “If I hadn’t gotten the movie (The Graduate), I’d still be doing this. I would be doing this period. I would be doing this in community theater. I’d be teaching at some college or a repertory theater. I can do it anywhere—and I would.”

Even if you consider playing the lottery to be a pleasant hobby, stop fooling yourself that a windfall is the solution to making peace with money.

Instead, consider this observation from Mike Dooley: “Both having money and not having money make fantastic adventures possible that would not otherwise be possible. Same for having, and not having anything else.”

Would Winning the Lottery Make a Difference?

On the morning of August 25, 1997, the big story on the morning news shows was the Powerball lottery drawing happening that evening. For the first time ever, a lottery jackpot had reached the $300,000,000 mark. Lines were forming outside convenience stores, people were planning a lavish future. A mathematician assured the Today Show interviewer that someone would absolutely win based on the finite combination of numbers..

Although I’m not a lottery player most of the time, I decided that if I didn’t buy a ticket or two I’d miss the excitement when the drawing rolled around that evening. I purchased five tickets, I recall, and didn’t give it further thought until the big moment. 

Sitting in front of my television, I laid out the tickets and began checking them as the numbers were called. One of my tickets matched the first number drawn. Then the second, the third, the fourth, and the fifth. Then the Powerball number was called and it wasn’t a match for me. I thought I was going to throw up. 

Several minutes later, I called my friend John, a regular lottery player, to share my trauma. He commiserated with me and then cheerfully pointed out that I had won $5000. Moments earlier, I had lost $300,000,000. Now $5000 felt like a huge windfall.

The next day I drove to the Minnesota Lottery office and claimed my prize. I was giddy.

I had my picture taken holding a gigantic check with my name on it. I promptly deposited the actual check into my sabbatical account. Less than two years later, I was  enjoying eight months of travel and discovery. Traveling first class would not have enriched the experience one bit.

I hadn’t thought about this little episode until a month or so ago when someone reminded me of it. “Do you ever think about how your life would be different if you had won all that money?” he asked. I told him that I hadn’t ever done that and couldn’t imagine that I’d be doing anything other than what I do now. He seemed skeptical.

Honestly, I hadn’t told him the truth. I had considered what winning that money meant and realized that had I become the recipient of this huge fortune, my time would have shifted to being a full-time money manager. But that wasn’t the worst part of it. How could I have maintained any credibility in helping folks become self-reliant and self-employed? I would have forfeited my platform.

One of my all-time favorite episodes of the Actor’s Studio is the one with Dustin Hoffman. At the end of the show, a student asks him what he would be doing if he wasn’t a movie actor. Hoffman teared up and gives a passionate answer (which I’m paraphrasing here.) He points out that his movie career, while bringing him fame and fortune, was a bit of a fluke. If that hadn’t happened, he says, he’d be teaching theater  in a college in the northwest or acting in community theater somewhere in the country. “I cannot not do this.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Elizabeth Gilbert who points out that while the success of Eat, Pray, Love was thrilling, she would be equally devoted to writing had it not happened.

Could it be that it’s not about size, scale or success? Could it be–at least in the well-lived life–simply about the doing? You don’t need $300,000,000 for that.