Mega Millions and Dreams
On Friday someone finally won the lottery Mega Millions jackpot. It was worth $1.28 Billion.
Yup with a Capital B!
Talk about life-changing and altering money.
The odds of actually winning the lottery is 1 in 330 million. Not great but someone was going to win it eventually and it happened. Congrats to whoever it was, and if for some reason you happen to be reading this blog. I have one request "Can I hold a hundy?"
But the lottery got me thinking about dreams and how little we do of it. You see the lottery isn't about you actually winning. Rather it's the dream unlock it gives you. For a moment in time, it frees your mind to wonder and think about what you want your life to actually look and live like.
But even more than dreaming, it actually forces us to THINK! One thing our society had lost is the ability to think. I mean really THINK. With the number of distractions we have on a day-to-day basis, we never have the chance to sit and pontificate about life. Not necessarily always to solve a problem but just to allow our minds to build random connections.
I'm kinda lucky. Because I write this blog and create content. I'm forced to do a lot of thinking. It's helped me tremendously. This has helped me to process things a bit easier and make bigger subjects not too big a deal.
I love this quote from Blaise Pascal
"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."
The only thing missing from the quote is "sit quietly in a room alone AND THINK!"
Thinking in our society has been so demonized that you regularly hear statements like
"It's not that deep."
"You're overthinking it."
Now there are times, we do tend to overdo things (I know my whole life is one of OVER PROCESSING). However, when the level of thought is almost zero and is closer to impulse and instinct than reason. I'm sure we can do a fair bit of overthinking. I think this comic shares that thought really well.
The lottery gives us the momentary reprieve to do some of that thinking. So let's do some of that thinking and dreaming right now. With one simple question: What would you do if you won the lottery?
Part of the thinking, you immediately have to do when you imagine winning the lottery is
WHAT IS OF VALUE TO ME?
This question is very important because even outside of winning the lottery, it should be asked. This is your guiding light and gets you focused rather than living by default. You begin living on purposed. Rather than being alive, you actually start living.
At work, we played a game where everyone said what they would do with $10 million. This question was hard for some to answer cause it seems crazy and out there. But also because it shows what you value and people fear what people think. For me, it was a layup. I have neither of these inhibitions. I have come to terms with being a weirdo a long time ago. Infact I EMBRACE IT. Ask my friends.
Anyway here are some of the things I would do:
Hire a Fiduciary Financial Advisor. Because I want to live life and not be hampered by the nuts and bolts of the money (like trusts, taxes, etc). To the advisor my only directive is ensure I have the money to do what I want.
Open my time to be able to do whatever I want whenever I want. Specifically spending as much time with friends and family as possible. Mainly my kiddos and especially my wife
Giving at least 10% to two of my churches.
Invest 50% of it in a diversified portfolio that generates dividends that I can life off of into perpetuity.
Pay off all my family debts. When I say family I mean immediate family.
Fund my parents with enough money to live for the rest of their lives doing whatever they want.
All siblings getting at least $1 million.
Creating a scholarship foundation for International Students specifically focused on UAB my Alma Mata.
Creating a foundatjon that connects my mom's school in Nigeria, Living Spring, to better resources and setting up connections for the students to be able to have a direct connection to Ivy League educations. Part of which will be upgrading the facilities of the school to be state of the art.
Donating to my favorite charities and organizations: Project Sunshine, St. Jude's, Bible Project, Children's of Alabama and Atlanta, Through the Word.
Build a house in the location that my wife and I want to live for the foreseeable future.
Fund this creative endeavor of mine. Which can mean coaching, editors, etc. Continue educating people about finances. Hopefully be able to speak, maybe write a book, etc.
Create a family office so I can invest in start ups and learn more about businesses from an operational perspective without having to be hands on.
Fund the creative endeavor of my wife.
Join various boards for education
Influence politics (yes I will play this game)
Buy my dream car and build my dream garage to tinker on whatever.
Give with no questions asked
I could keep going but you get the point.
Notice a lot of these things I already do to some degree today. The money will just give me the ability to supercharge them. By doing this exercise, it exposes to me the things that I desire for my life.
Notice travel is no where on this list because it ain't that important to me. Do I want to see places? Yeah sure but it's not a priority for me. So tells me, travel shouldn't be s main part of my life currently (now this can change when other people are involved in the decision aka future wife).
Point of the exercise is just to help you see what exactly you want in life.
So think more
✌🏾