Lottery Dreams

Posted on August 26, 2024 by Jonathan Ger, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

Okay, I’m guilty! I did it!  When the lottery is over a billion dollars, you simply have to play… right? I am not typically a “player”, but I simply couldn’t resist. I’m not sure what the amount is that causes me to purchase those little pieces of paper, but I do know a billion+ dollars is one of them.
So, buying the tickets (yes, I bought more than one) was the first part of the journey, but it was the trip into “Lottery Dreams” that I looked forward to.  It usually starts out with something like this (let the insane rambling begin): 
“When we win, what’s the first, big thing you want to buy before we start doing good things for everyone? I know I want to buy some motorcycles and a couple of houses in a few different beautiful places in areas that we love. What about you (you, being my wife)? You’re not sure? Do you want some help? Do you need me to give you suggestions or ideas from previous conversations? Oh, you don’t? You already have ideas? What’s it going to be?  Okay, since you’re not sure, here’s a couple more ideas that I have: We will give both of our sons $100/MM each (assuming we got the billion; which of course we did because that’s part of the Lottery Dream). Let’s also set aside $50/MM for each of the grandkids with the assumption their parents will give them more as time goes on. Now let’s move onto our family members. Each sibling and every relative that is in their lineage get $1/MM. After that, we’ll take family as they come.  Now we can move onto the rest of the world. Remember those kids that we met in the inner city of Philly during my first career? Well, they’re grown now but the neighborhood that we wanted to improve is still there.  We also need to… and … and after that we should … don’t forget about…”
You get it, don’t you?  When the windfall comes we will do special things for ourselves, our  children, our extended family and society as a whole. When the windfall comes… Then reality sinks in and we remember that it was all a dream.
But hold on for a moment. What if we had the power to create that dreamlike feeling without the lottery? Please note that the “dreamlike feeling” is not about making all of those material things come true, but rather the joy, excitement, and anticipation that we felt when we thought about all the good we could do with extreme amounts of money, and had those positive moments by just thinking of all the good that was happening and would be happening in the future?
It’s now weeks after that lottery dream took place and reality once again sunk in…We didn’t win. Okay, so there will be no extra motorcycles, houses and millions being given to our family members, but does all the good that we wanted to do for others have to go away too? Of course not! When you dive deep into what that is all about, you realize there is a plethora of things that can be done as often as you desire to create the same emotions and THAT is the real dream. Volunteering, being a shining light to those around you, seeing the good amidst the challenges, and simply putting the “betterment of mankind” at the top of your list. 
I recently volunteered to do mock interviews for the SEEC, a nonprofit that helps individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, live, work, and thrive in their communities. The idea is to help the job-seekers be ready for actual interviews so that they can obtain the work that they are interested in doing. I met an amazing young man who was smart, talented, qualified and ready to put his skills to work. He worked hard at showing up in this interview and he did a great job. He asked me about my coaching business, because he had done a thorough research of me prior to the interview so he would know who his interviewer was (WOW, so many actual interviewees hadn’t done that). As I walked out of the building, I felt pure joy. I was proud of him, happy to have met him, and enlightened with the knowledge I had gained and could bring into my life. I reflected on the lesson and eventually circled back around to the depth of what I wanted when I thought of my lottery dreams. I have all that I need, so the material things won’t satisfy that internal craving. Helping others and the gift of what that can do for them AND me is what that dream is all about. I can bring that same mindset to my family, friends, neighbors, clients, and the strangers that I interact with each day. When I arrived at home and opened his thank you email, it was set in stone.
When the lottery gets to be real large again, I will probably buy a ticket, but I will also pick up the phone, call my friend Cristin Caine (volunteerism consultant) and ask for her help in placing me in a meaningful volunteer situation again. It doesn’t take the lottery to bring on that action, but I love the idea of turning my Lottery Dreams into tangible dreams of a better world!
It’s all part of the Papa Perspective…reach out to find more.