Tag: gambling

How to win more by loading your dice before you roll them.

The most successful people I know have taken significant chances. The universe is willing to pay out great rewards. But it requires you to put something on the line to prove you deserve it.

I first learned this lesson from a piece of cross-stitch art in my childhood home that said The turtle only makes progress when it sticks its neck out. You can learn a lot from cross-stitch philosophy.

The great barrier to success is your willingness to take a risk. Most people simply aren’t willing to risk enough to earn a great reward. They play it too safe. But the safe harbor you think you are anchored in is not nearly as safe as you think. (And there is very little safety in safes as Geraldo Rivera showed us.)

The relative lack of safety everywhere means that you should risk it for the biscuit. Always bet on yourself. But it is easy to lower the risk in your risky endeavors. In fact, there is a maxim I adhere to every time I take my chances:

Load your dice before you roll them.

Whenever you take a chance, like ABBA, take as much chance out of the situation as possible. You can do this by taking on opportunities where you have the greatest chance of winning.

Remember, not all playing fields are even. Choose to play on fields that are tilted in your favor. And tilt every board you compete on in your direction by knowing and playing to your strengths.

Take on battles where you have advantages. Lean on your relationships. People advantages are often the greatest advantages of all. Choose opportunities where your proximity is a strength. Compete where your category knowledge is high. It’s what Alex Trebek would do.

Count the cards. Know the decision makers. Do your homework. Study patterns. Start a business in a space where you have great expertise. Then do what hedge funds do and create situations where you win no matter what happens.

Key Takeaway

Take the chance out of the chances you take. Know your strengths. Play to them. You will significantly increase your likelihood of success. Which will ensure that you win more than your fair share of victories.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

The most valuable lottery you’ve never heard of.

By now you all know that you didn’t win last week’s Powerball lottery jackpot of nearly $1.6 billion dollars. Sorry. And if you were like most Americans you were probably off by 5 or 6 numbers. I know how you feel. Because when I was 18 I had a lottery experience that forever shaped my perspective on this get-rich-instantly game.

It happened at my high school graduation. My classmates and I received our Hanover High School diplomas from our principal, the late, super-great Uwe Bagnato. As he handed us our diplomas we each handed him a lottery ticket. It was an exciting experiment. We all wondered how much he might win with 143 chances. (Don’t laugh. We scoured ten towns from two states to come up with 143 educatable kids).  Anyway, we imagined Uwe would become mega-rich, and we would be the last class to graduate under his principality. But when we discovered that he only won a couple of bucks, and would be back at work again after Labor Day, the lottery was forever dead to me.

Since graduation I’ve been betting on myself.  I have made my career as an advertising creative.  And we make our money through an ideation lottery, where ideas bounce around in our head like lottery balls, randomized for fairness.  And when our mental machinery cues those idea-balls to drop into our consciousness we either have winning ideas or losing ideas.

I love the odds in this game.  I stack them in my favor by absorbing the world around me through interesting experiences, reading,  human interactions and sweet tea.  What I like even better is that you can play the idea lottery non-stop. And I do.  For some it is nerve-racking to make your living in this manner.  That’s why so many creative thinkers burn out or switch professions.  But the ones that stick with it are often well rewarded.

The value of the creative lottery is summed up beautifully in one of my favorite quotes:

“More gold had been mined from the mind of men than the earth itself.”  -Napoleon Hill from Think and Grow Rich.

Napoleon, that is some powerful stuff.  But it’s a strange reality. Because I really don’t know where the ideas come from. Sure, sometimes the thoughts are mashups of two things I’ve considered recently.  And sometimes there is a strong logic chain the leads me to an idea.  But a healthy percentage of the time God just drops gold nuggets in between my ears, and for all I know I had nothing to do with it. I’m just smart enough to watch for them, recognize them when I see them and polish them enough to enable others  to recognize their value.

So the next time you watch those lottery balls mixing, think of all the great creative ideas formed in the minds of men and women that have turned them into millionaires and billionaires. I hope it encourages you to bet on your own ideas. And take it from me and Uwe, the chances of winning the lottery are far better in your head.