A few years back, my best friend’s sister (my close friend too, let’s call her Sis) won a new house (a townhouse), car, and other prizes that added up to a tune of about $200,000.

What is her secret?

Sis (and her boyfriend) filled out 50 postcards and snail mailed them to a radio show contest.  At the radio show, 100 winners were selected (obviously, Sis was one of them), and each of those winners won $100 if they immediately called the radio show (which Sis did of course…).  A few weeks later, those winners were entered into a contest to win a “Dream Life” contest.  In this contest, the 100 winners competed for a house, and other “Dream Life” amenities.  So the prizes included a house, car, big screen tv, ticket to the theatre, etc…  to compete, the $100 winners were to show up at the prize house, choose a key from a box, and if the key opened the door to the house, the key holder won the house!

Now the story goes that the day of the “Dream Life” showdown, Sis was scheduled to leave for vacation with her family.  Half of the family went to the vacation location, but Sis, her dad and boyfriend stayed behind (at Sis’s insistence) so she could compete in that contest. 

My friend knew statistically, her chances were a bit better than 1% in winning the house.  Why a bit better?  Because there is always someone that can’t make such contests (maybe because they were going on vacation too).  1% doesn’t sound like much of a chance to win (and in normal matters it isn’t), but when compared to the chances to win via a state lottery ticket!!!  Well, it was definitely worth a shot!

Sis was the 47th person to try.  She put in the key and started to turn expecting to be a miss, but it kept turning (probably that second seemed like a lifetime), and turning, and turning… until the door opened!  She was ecstatic (I saw the pictures of her online).  I couldn’t imagine just graduating from college and winning a house!  Talk about jump starting your financial life!  As an analogy, it would be like Sis is in a race with everybody else that graduated from college, expect that everybody else starts at the start line, but Sis is allowed to start a quarter ahead of everybody else!  I’m a little jealous!

The point of this story is never give up, make your own luck by trying the best you can and going the extra distance to make it happen.  I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t have won that house if I were in her shoes.  I’m sure I wouldn’t have inconvenience my family’s vacation.  I would have skipped it thinking I probably wouldn’t win.  But if you don’t believe and try, then you definitely won’t win!!!

Always remember, you already won a big lottery just being born.  And if you are from the United States, you won another big lottery being born in a free country.

You will never know what you are capable of ,if you don’t believe in yourself and try your hardest in whatever you do!!!  I know this now!!!

And now to you readers, do you personally know someone who has won at least $100,000 dollars or other big amounts?

-D