Did you win the Powerball? I haven’t checked my ticket or read any news about it yet. If you did win, I wrote earlier about what I would do immediately if I won the lottery.
There are things I would do with the money, and I have a fair amount of ideas. Dreaming about ‘what would you do if you won a million dollars’ helps to bring about Positive Emotional Attractors, or PEA for short. A couple of years ago, I took a Coursera course with Dr. Richard Boyatzis on Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence. It’s a great online course, free to take, and I highly recommend it.
Course material included information that emotions are contagious, and that our behavior impacts our friends and family three-relationships out. Maybe I’ll write about that another day. It’s fascinating.
PEA & NEA
I learned about Negative Emotional Attractors and Positive ones. Using PEA can help to bring about positive behavior and sustain desired change. Desired change tends to start in the PEA.
One exercise we had in the course was to practice having conversations that inspire. We interviewed a few people and during that conversation tred to activate and maintain the PEA, without the interviewee knowing. One potential question was to ask how would their life change if they won the lottery.
Therefore, daydreaming about winning the lottery, and what you would do with the money is a way to activate PEA. It’s also a way to desire change and work towards that change. It’s a good thing.
How would my life change if I won the lottery?
Some big-ticket items might include:
- Pay off student loans
- Create a business of rental homes
- Start a business with a focus on home décor with a multi-functional (and functional being a key term), small space, contemporary focus
- Organically start an endeavor for a creative craft outlet in the District.
- A place where people can gather and learn, improve on, or teach a craft. Here in the city we are devoid of many such options.
Family & Philanthropy:
- Provide my parents with a gift. They do so much for me, and I’m grateful.
- Set up a trust fund for children’s education
- I would like serve on a non-profit board
- I would create a foundation in order to aid in my sacrificial giving to non-profit organizations I care about
- Create scholarships
Other personal improvement and connecting with others:
- Invite ladies and friends over for tea time, papercrafting or crafting, book clubs, game night
- Learn how to sew – take private lessons on my own terms and on my own schedule
- (While in high school I had a desire to become proficient in sewing. I’ve made recent, and earnest attempts in the past 1.5 years; due to logistics it’s not a favorable outcome)
- Purchase a sewing machine for these lessons
- Take tap dance classes as my preferred form of exercise
- Take cake decorating classes
- Improve my acquisition of foreign languages. I’d like to pick up some German.
- Go to business school, or take business classes that will help with being an entrepreneur
Travel:
- Austria & Madeira
- I would like to visit Salzburg’s Christkindlmarkt (Christmas market) and travel around Austria, Hungary, and Madeira to see where Emperor Karl and his wife, Empress Zita lived.
- Visit with family both back home in Buffalo, and where my husband’s family is located
- Travel once a year to see my friend Rose, who lives abroad
- Hike in many places including along the Appalachian Trail, Glacier National Park, Camino de Santiago.
Other things:
- Purchase
- this awesome Cristel cookware line. It fits in small spaces with flat lids for the pots and pans, and removable handles. In small spaces, it’s the handles that really take over!
- Two fountain pens, and a new nib for my current one. I own three colors of ink, and I’d like to be able to use all three.
- a fitbit or equivalent. I’ve used a clip-on pedometer which is hard to use when you’re wearing a dress.
I’ve just spent some time thinking what I’d do if I won the lottery. I actually created a rather detailed list that I didn’t put above; it would have been too far into the weeds (who the scholarships would go to, for instance). Looking over my list, I see that some of those items are achievable, or can be achievable if tweaked, even without winning a large amount of money. I think I’ll spend some more time later this week to review and see how I can work toward some of these goals.
Previous to this course I never thought about how my life would change if I won the lottery because I never played the lottery! You don’t have to play the lottery, just think about the outcome of winning!
Spend a few minutes in thought or writing it down: How would my life change if I won (50 million after-tax) dollars?