The BOLD (An End Run Around Your Brain)
A casual encounter with a carefully laid trap by the Virginia Lottery led me to think about the real power of daydreams. If you want to know what your brain is protecting you from dreaming about, unleash your mind to daydream. Then start planning. Today, an exercise is practical dreaming.
The Whisper (Just the Ticket)
I know you’ve seen them. There, on the side of the road, right where the bottleneck forms in the morning commute, lottery billboards sprout on the verge of the road like aggressive flowers of discontent. And what is the effect of the giant number hovering just above the traffic jam in which you find yourself languishing? If you are like me, this seemingly innocuous image launches a bout of daydreaming.
A few years ago, I worked at a job that required me to commute every day past an array of these signs, Ten to fifteen minutes after I saw the numbers, I would find myself lost in thought, tallying a list of all the things I would do with that kind of cash.
Even now, in a life where the commute is no longer a part of my routine, these signs can still trigger a flurry of fake future planning.
It is the job of the lottery marketing team to capture our attention and to drive a specific behavior–to inspire us to purchase lottery tickets. They are very good at what they do. By tapping into our desires, they reveal our motivations for action. We do not, however, have to take the prescribed action. We can harness this motivation to drive our behaviors towards the desires these daydreams reveal.
The process of achievement often looks something like this:
- We determine something we want to change, acquire or do
- We set a goal
- We decide on a course of action
- We take those actions
- We achieve our goal
The endpoint of that cycle is determined by the size of the dream we hold in step one. The size of these dreams can be limited because our brains have a very important job. They are charged with making sure that we are safe and that we are right. To that end, our brains will sometimes place limits on our dreams to protect us from failure and disappointment.
The lottery billboard can short circuit these protections. We know that this is pure fantasy and as such, it cannot threaten our immediate safety. The lottery billboard circumnavigates our brain’s well-intentioned defense system.
What if we were able to utilize this safe space for wild fantasizing to learn something important about what we want and about how we want to get there?
Welcome to the Lottery Billboard Game. Just for fun (because dreaming is really, really fun), you can mine your unfettered fantasy to help design goals which, unlike wishes, have a plan attached.
Here’s how it works:
- Find your winning number: Take a look at the image above of the lottery billboard. For the purposes of this exercise, we will use
it’s number. - Apply a touch of realism: To satisfy our brain’s practical side, we will subtract the taxes we estimate that we would need to pay. They will withhold 24% federal and 4% state taxes. However, the eventual liability would be greater in all probability. Let’s use 45% to accommodate the 37% federal cap and the unknown state amount. That leaves us with $247,000,000. I think we can work with that.
- Dream: Let your brain run wild. What would you do with two hundred
forty seven million dollars? Make a list. Discover the trends: After a time, come up for air and examine your list. What do you notice? Are there any trends? When I did the exercise, I noticed that I was dreaming about a few possessions I’d like to acquire, a lot of experiences I’d like to have and lots of help I’d like to access. Is your list travel-heavy ? Are there items on the list that would make your life richer, more convenient or more manageable How do other people show up on your list? Do you want to provide for family, friends, employees? What does your list reveal about the way you’d like to spend your time? What did you learn about the environment(s) in which you would like to live?- Find the deeper wish: For each trend you identify, ask yourself an
ever deeper set of “What will that provide or enable?” questions. You want to travel to at least 10 new places on vacation. What will travel provide? I will have a chance to experience new places. What will that provide? I would be able to see if I enjoy the culture and environment of a new place. What will that provide? It would provide insight into where I would like to live. What will that provide? I would have a chance to make an informed decision about moving to a new place. I don’t know what such an exercise will reveal for you but I’d love to hear about it. - Find your big, hairy, audacious goals: (a phrase coined by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies). They are there, hiding in plain sight. By considering the deeper underpinnings of your lottery wish list, you can uncover hints about what you really want. Those things you want can be earned by you. Determine the goals, attach a plan and then work the plan with focus and effort.
- Win your own life lottery.
I work every day with people who are building their boldest possible life by learning to align everything they’ve learned with everything they are in order to set and achieve goals that honor their cherished values and that allow them to invest themselves into their unique contributions, to build their unique success. An exercise like the Lottery Billboard Game is a powerful tool that allows us to utilize the powerful work of marketers to allow our brains to participate in big dreams and big plans.
I’d love to hear what’s on your list, what you discovered and just what you plan to do about it.
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