Why You Don't Want to Win The Lottery

John: Hey, John Sonmez from simpleprogrammer.com and Iíve got something interesting for you this week and itís about winning the lottery. It would be pretty cool to win the lottery, right? Wouldnít that be awesome? If you won the lottery you wouldnít have to work again. You could just go on vacation for the rest of your life, buy whatever you want, not have to worry about money anymore. Well, actually I donít think so and Iím going to tell you why coming up next. Most people want to win the lottery. You might think Iím lying when I say I donít want to win the lottery. Hey, actually to be totally honest with you, part of me does want to win the lottery. Yeah, it would be nice to get some extra cash and not have to ever worry about money and again and I have dreams of vacations, taking things that I would do. But, in reality it might not be the best thing in the world. The reason why Iím telling you about this is because I think it applies to your life in general, because once you understand this concept of why you donít want to win the lottery I think it will help you to do better at the work that youíre trying to do. Hereís the key thing, hereís the key thing about this is that we donít enjoy anything that we havenít earned. Maybe you have experienced this. In fact, maybe youíve helped your children experience this and not even realize that you need this lesson yourself or maybe your parents have taught you this lesson. I remember when I was a kid and my dad said, ìI can just buy you the new bicycle but youíre not going to appreciate it unless you go out and work and make the money and earn it.î That was so right. So many of the things that I bought that I worked hard and made the money for and then bought myself I took better care of them, I appreciated them more. The things that I was given I didnít appreciate as much. In fact, to some degree, at some level the things I was given I was actually robbed of an opportunity to enjoy it because I could not get the enjoyment that I would have gotten out of it if I had earned it. Thatís what happens if you win the lottery. Now, I havenít won the lottery myself so I canít speak from experience, but you can look at the news stories of people that have won the lottery. You can look at the news story of people that ìwon the lottery.î What I mean by that is someone who sold their startup for millions of dollars suddenly became a millionaire, someone who became a famous rock star or actor overnight didnít really work their way up. I mean they worked their way up to some degree but they suddenly had riches dropped on them and then their life became ridiculous. They became suicidal, depressed, and some of them even did kill themselves or completely ruined themselves as a person. They were better off before they won that money. The reason why Iím bringing this up is because this applies to you and your career and you might not even realize it. So many of us are daydreaming saying, ìOh, if I could just get that big break. If I could just get that raise. If I could just win the lottery.î Might be even literally, maybe youíre going and buying lottery tickets and youíre thinking that that would make you happy. Well, Iím telling you itís not. Whatís going to make you happy is earning your way. If you want to be rich, if you want to make money, if you want to be someone who doesnít have to worry about their financial future, donít count on winning the lottery. Donít wish that youíre going to win the lottery. Instead think practically, what can you do, how can you earn your way because there is no way to enjoy that riches or any kind of accomplishment if you didnít earn it. Thatís my thought for this week. Hopefully you find this useful. Maybe you think Iím a little bit crazy. Maybe youíre like, ìAh, John, yeah I would rather win the lottery.î Okay, I understand and hey, I could be wrong here, but Iím just telling you from my personal experience, like I said, I never won the lottery, but I have gotten things handed to me and I have earned things. The things that I have earned I have truly been able to enjoy. The things that have been handed to me I havenít been able to, at least not nearly as much. So if you liked this video, if you like these kinds of videos donít forget to subscribe to my channel. I just want to tell you real quick about something that Iím working on thatís going to help you to boost your career if youíre a software developer and you want to get out there and earn your way basically, not win the lottery which is how to market yourself as software developer. Iím taking preorders, limited preorders right now. Iíll give you more information when I totally launch this thing. You can check out my website simpleprogrammer.com/howtomarketyourself or you can look for the banner ad or links on there. I also have a book on Leanpub that you can search for. Go ahead and check that out if youíre interested. Like I said, Iím taking a limited amount of pre orders right now but Iím putting a huge package for this. Itís going to be a whole lot of really good stuff that Iím working really hard to put together right now. Thanks again for watching this video. Thanks for all the encouragement and support and I will talk to you next week. Take care and donít buy any more lottery tickets, Iím telling you. See you.