The Time I Won the Lottery 🍀

What Would You Do With the Winnings?

Author

Wisdom Made Easy
August 31, 2024

Today at a glance:

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 51 seconds

Before we start, I wanted to make you aware that these newsletters might start to look a little different over the coming weeks.

I’ve been working with Ricky Figeuroa at Pixels to help take WISER Newsletter to the next level.

Many of you will know that I like to re-invest back into Wisdom Made Easy, so being able to get Ricky and his growing team involved is all thanks to your support.

And I wanted to share that Ricky’s looking for support on projects just like this!

If you’re a gifted creator, consider reaching out to him here:
(This is not sponsored - I just think this opportunity is too good not to share!)

Now let’s get WISER together!

🍀 When I Won the Lottery

Wait - what?! You won the lottery, Michael?!

You betcha! Though it might not be what you’re thinking of…

This is something far more precious and statistically unlikely.

It’s less likely than winning any of these:

  • UK’s National Lotto (1 in 45,057,474)

  • Euromillions (1 in 139,838,160)

  • US Powerball (1 in 292,201,338)

And it’s not just me that won the jackpot - you did too!

Have you guessed it yet?

🎉 You Won The Lottery of Life

I recently re-listened to author Simon Alexander Ong on Ali Abdaal’s Deep Dive podcast where he referred to this concept of winning The Lottery of Life, and it got me thinking.

What are the odds that I would be alive?

Faced with this question, I did what all aspiring sages do: I turned to Google.

Fortunately, someone much smarter than I has done all the maths.

Dr Ali Binazir published an article in 2011 looking at the probability of being born and it is FASCINATING.

As the probability of being born is so small, I can’t put it in this email.

It’s 1 in 10 followed by 2,640,000 zeroes.

Or in Dr Ali Binazir’s words:

So what's the probability of your being born? It's the probability of 2.5 million people getting together (about the population of San Diego) each to play a game of dice with trillion-sided dice. They each roll the dice, and they all come up the exact same number - say, 550,343,279,001.

A miracle is an event so unlikely as to be almost impossible. By that definition, I've just proven that you are a miracle.

Dr Ali Binazir

So just under 30 years ago, I was fortunate to beat all the odds and win the most precious lottery of all: The Lottery of Life.

If you want to read the full article (including all the maths), click here.

🤨 Do You Believe It?

Okay, so we’ve established that your existence is pretty much a miracle, do you actually believe it?

The reason I ask this is that I don’t think many of us live like we’re precious miracles.

I know that I have gone through much of my life feeling worthless, largely due to the effects of depression.

But allowing Simon Alexander Ong’s and Dr Ali Binazir’s work to speak into my life has allowed me to reconnect with just how precious I am.

We are each truly miracles; fearfully and wonderfully made.

You are a Wonder of the World.

🤔 So Now What?

I wanted to end with a quote taken from the end of Simon’s feature on Ali Abdaal’s podcast.

Simon is invited to contribute any closing comments, and he prompts listeners to reflect on this:

I’m spending my winnings getting wiser and encouraging other people to get wiser.

Now I pose this question to you too, but I implore you to actually sit with it to digest it.

Every WISER Newsletter issue features Journal Prompts encouraging you to see how you feel about the topic that we’ve shared.

Even if you have never journaled or haven’t paid attention to them in past issues, consider giving it a go this week.

It might just change your life.

📝 Journal Prompts

• Do I believe I am a miracle?
• Who do I know that I should tell that they are a miracle?
• How will I live differently now that I know I am a miracle?

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😊 Thank You!

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Catch you in the next issue!

Thanks,
Michael

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