How I Won The Lottery

Imagine the power inherent in knowing how to cash in on the value
of your life experiences. While I did buy a lottery ticket ($1.5
billion—who wouldn’t), the greatest winnings I’ve accumulated
have little to do with paper (tickets or Benjamin’s).


 


In reality, the odds are stacked heavily against the $1.5 billion
Powerball winner. And unfortunately, no dollar amount can buy a
deep seeded belief in oneself, nor the courage to risk the
vulnerability necessary to reach for your greatness.
   


 


How To Stop Pretending & Profit From Your
Passion


 


I felt dread course through my body as I wondered, “Is she okay?
Is this moment going to stop her from singing forever? I hope
not.”


 


Just moments before, I’d watched Korin Bukowski, not once, but
twice forget the words to, “Try,” as she sang live on The Voice.
She has probably sung that song a million times. What
happened?  By the grace of God, she managed to make her way
through the song, and hold herself together as the judges—and
Carson Dailey—did their best to console her.   


 


“There isn’t a judge up here who hasn’t forgotten their lyrics,”
Blake Shelton said, as he encouraged the American public to vote
for Korin to continue in the competition by using their “instant
save” capability.  And even though she wasn’t saved that
time, she was instantly connected to the public in a powerful
way. Anyone who’s ever made a mistake in public could relate.


 


As she walked off the stage, I couldn’t make sense of the
intensity of my own emotions. I wasn’t the one singing live on
The Voice, but somehow the feelings were intimately familiar. Try
as I might to forget about Korin’s performance, the scene
continued to replay, and so did the emotions. Busying myself by
inhaling gobs of chocolate and exercising like crazy didn’t seem
to stop the persistent nagging brought on by the event.


 


Clearly what happened to her had triggered something in me, but I
didn’t know what it was. And honestly, I found it a whole lot
easier to talk and think about her mistake than dredge up my old
stuff.   So, I refocused myself on my work and prepared
to interview Rich Sheridan, CEO and co-Founder of Menlo
Innovations, a software company in Ann Arbor, MI, that has won
numerous awards for the profound impact it has made in the world.


 


Toward the end of the interview, I asked Rich, “What’s the
greatest challenge you see leaders facing globally?”


 


“Changing human behavior,” Rich said, almost as if a solution to
such a universal challenge was simple.


 


But he was right.  Regardless of title or level of success,
changing our own behaviors (or the behavior of others) is
difficult. It’s the reason we buy hordes of books on dieting,
exercise, and wealth, attend self-improvement workshops, and
engage in team-building seminars with our co-workers.


 


“Give our listeners one step they can take to change human
behavior on their team,” I asked Rich.


 


His answer to this question changed my life.


 


Four simple words—“Watch what you reward,” Rich said, “And I’m
not talking about money, though that is one. When you talk about
how ‘busy’ you are all the time, you’re rewarding ‘busy.’”


 


Parents unconsciously reward a whole host of behaviors in their
children that drive them crazy, like whining, begging, and
interrupting, just to name a few. What you put your attention
to—i.e., reward—grows. I know this not because I have children,
but because I still drive my parents crazy.   


 


Curious about my own results, I headed out for my normal evening
walk, asking myself, “What am I rewarding?”


 


Digging a little deeper, I asked, “What are the results I’m
creating? And what are my ‘Payoffs’ (another word Rich used to
further identify what he was referring to) for getting these
results?”


 


Of course, my mind naturally went to my results, which are
typically the opposite of what I want. Results that drive me
crazy, and leave me feeling frustrated. Results like:


 


Exhaustion from spending hours recording one two-minute
video,

Then over-eating, which probably causes…

Persistent pain in various joints, and constant soreness from
over-exercising.

And then, the most painful -- random and few opportunities
(over the past five years) to share my talent.



 


That last one feels like lead in my stomach.


 


I love this work.  


 


So, what gives? Why have I thrown monkey wrenches at myself,
avoiding the very opportunities where I can contribute the most?
 That’s when it hit me. Monkey wrenches and joint pain are
less painful than dealing with people—that’s why.


 


“Am I afraid of people?” I asked myself, wondering if I should
check myself into… the grocery store to get more chocolate.


 


While in the Trader Joes checkout line—chocolate in tow, I struck
up this awesome conversation with an older couple who had just
finished a hike. We exchanged contact info, and soon we’ll be on
a hike together.


 


Clearly, I’m not afraid of all people, I realized. So, who is it,
and why?


 


“People with suits,” I decided, “The fancier the suit, the more
chocolate I consume.”


 


That’s it—scary people in suits are to blame. If we could just
rid the universe of suits, then my shoulders, knees, and lower
back would be in such better shape! Abolish the suits!


 


Later that week I struck up a meaningful conversation with a
gentleman in a sharp looking suit at Starbucks. He was in
Baltimore seeking additional venture capital for his tech start
up. Thinking I may know someone I could introduce him to, I
probed a little deeper, asking about why he started this
business, how many employees he had, and who he was pitching.


 


Considering he had already raised several million dollars, I was
surprised by his response. “I’ve been working sixteen-hour-days
and I have a couple of full time people,” he said, as he pulled
out a beautifully bound notebook, along with a few flyers,
detailing his product and his plan.


 


“I’m not a graphic designer, but I put these together.”


 


Still not understanding why this product mattered to him, I asked
about his history. Essentially, I wanted to understand how he
made his way into caring enough about this product to start a
business around it.


 


“I was raised in a mobile home,” he shared.


 


Considering the product he was seeking venture capital for had
nothing to do with mobile homes, I was confused.


 


“Why does it matter that you grew up in a trailer park?”


 


“I’m a hard worker.”


 


“Your results speak for themselves. You don’t need anyone to take
pity on you, and offer you a chance because of where you come
from. Share your passion for the product, the excitement of your
current investors, and your plan,” I responded.


 


Interestingly, he spent the next twenty minutes telling me about
how he bought that trailer park, and sold it for a sizeable
profit several years ago.


 


“Now that’s inspiring! Tell your story that way,” I said,
astounded by his journey and courageous spirit. “In fact,” I
suggested, “Show those investors how you took every one of your
challenges, and turned them into opportunities. It’s you, your
stories, and your passion that will not only attract the right
investors, but also inspire others (employees, suppliers, etc.)
to help you make this one a big success.


 


“Thank you,” he said, as we hugged before parting.  


 


  


 


“Clearly it’s not the suits,” I thought as Morgan, my physical
therapist, tortured me with a new needling technique that’s
supposed to aid in rapid healing.  “It’s not people, it’s
not suits, and it’s not people in suits that are stopping me from
doing this work. So, what is it?”


 


Two recent events flooded my mind as I thought about the recent
wave of emotions I’d experienced after Korin’s performance. 
The first was about a speech I gave to NASA, and the other was a
conversation I had with a new friend.


 


NASA, Twitter, Shit!


 


I was invited to give a speech about generational differences at
NASA’S first information technology summit.  Determined to
make my mark and set myself up for a lifetime of guaranteed
success, I abandoned my normal speech preparations, hired a
speechwriter, an expert in PowerPoint, and proceeded to memorize
a forty-minute speech.


 


Forcing myself into my basement for two hours every day, locking
in the speech word-for-word was exhausting, but necessary. No way
was I going to take a chance on this audience. This was NASA—it
had to be perfect.


 


You know how the story ends already, right?


 


All my hard work pays off, and I get a standing ovation.


 


Heeellllloooo ego!


 


Alas, I had no time to contemplate the role of my ego in this
speech.


 


“Focus, Misti,” I repeated to myself in that basement, as my mind
wandered and a giant force inside of me just wanted to go outside
and play.


 


I stayed. I focused. I memorized. Every day for six months.


 


One might think that such persistence would aid in confidence and
calmness in the days and nights leading up to the speech.


 


Nada. It didn’t help at all. Zilch!


 


Xanax, or some stronger equivalent, please?


 


The morning of my speech I was in a haze as I made my way into
the auditorium where I was set to speak in just a couple of
hours. I sat on the stage, visualizing my applause.


 


That’s what you’re supposed to do right—see the ball going into
the hoop?


 


In truth, all I saw was gray. But, to the event planners such
preparations looked good, right? They could see how much effort I
was putting into this speech, right?


 


Mostly, I wanted Linda Cureton, the chief information officer of
NASA, a woman I respected greatly, to be impressed. I wasn’t a
well-established or polished keynote speaker, and I knew she was
taking a risk on me. She believed in me, and I needed to wow her.


 


When the time came, I stepped onto the stage, had a good opening
line, and then completely forgot my speech. Gone. The words I’d
spent hours storing in my memory were inaccessible, and I could
see the discomfort rising on their faces as I struggled.


 


It wasn’t pretty, but I found my way through that speech—much the
same as Korin made her way through that song. After I came off
the stage, Linda looked at me and quietly asked, “What happened?”
Embarrassed, all I could muster was, “I don’t know.”


 


Unfortunately, my failure wasn’t over when I walked off the
stage.  As it turned out, I was the lucky one to speak right
before Vince Cerf, widely known as “The founder of the Internet,”
and one heck of a speaker. The event was webcast live, and so you
can imagine the number of people getting through me in order to
listen to Vince speak. 


 


I don’t know the exact number, but it was a LOT… of important
people. In suits. Watching me fail, miserably. And then tweeting
about it.  I wish I could tell you that I read the tweets
about my speech, but honestly I couldn’t bear to think about how
awful they probably were.  But I did hear about them from
other sources.


 


“Never again!” I thought to myself. “Clearly, they can see that
I’m clueless and have nothing of value to add anyway, so why
bother?”  For the psychologists out there, yes, I
internalized the experience—I was a failure. I didn’t just have a
failure. I was the failure.  


 


That day, I made a decision—I will never let that happen to me
again.


 


I needed training, and so I invested—heavily. I spent hours,
days, and months writing and re-writing stories, exhausted and
annoyed at my inability to get it perfect.   Of course,
the stories could have been perfect had I actually used them in a
speech. But what speech? My phone wasn’t ringing, and I couldn’t
get myself to drum up opportunities. Networking events further
exhausted me.


 


I cringed when people asked, “What do you do?”


 


“I sit at home, looking busy, wishing someone would show up,
sprinkle magic fairy dust on me, and tell me exactly how to… be
Elizabeth Gilbert, Simon Sinek, or Daniel Pink,” was the truth I
was unwilling to share.


 


They were perfect. Their messages resonated with my passion.
Can’t I just be one of them?  Of course not—the job is
taken!  So, I went back to work on perfecting my stories,
just like I’d learned in that training. 


 


How does anyone continue to do their work when they fail so
publicly?  I haven’t figured it out yet, but I did get a
glimpse into the real reason for my failure, and it wasn’t at all
what I thought it was. It wasn’t about being smart enough,
polished enough, or even a good speaker.


 


Dread Locks, Mocha Skin, and 2Pac


 


“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think
we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.” – Brene Brown


 


The truth came to me through a story my friend Aisha shared as we
sat in an Indian restaurant in Baltimore, Maryland.
 Heralding from Queens, New York, and also a veteran, Aisha
recounted her experience of the first time she felt the
suffocating impact of having mocha skin and dreadlocks. 


 


As one of few black women stationed in Kentucky, Aisha had no
idea how to fit in. Fitting in meant she’d need to actually enjoy
country music. Desperate to figure it out, she started watching a
fellow mocha-skinned officer who was well respected despite the
fact that he drove around base in his Lexus, with spinning rims,
and blaring 2Pac.


 


“How do I do this?” Aisha asked him.


 


“You’re the one making a big deal of your skin—they don’t care.
Tell your jokes, just like you’d tell them to me,” he said.
 


 


“They did laugh, Misti,” Aisha told me, “and I realized that all
I needed to do was be me.”


 


That’s it, I realized on my drive home.


 


The day I accepted the opportunity to speak for NASA, I abandoned
myself. Much the same as Aisha, I didn’t believe this audience
would ever want to hear from a woman who spent seventh and eighth
grade in special education class.


 


Why would such a prestigious group of professionals care to learn
from a woman who barely graduated from high school, and was
incredibly lucky to get her education from a university few have
heard of?  They wouldn’t, which is exactly why I had a very
smart woman write and perfect my speech, and another one design
and perfect my slides. 


 


Then I remembered what Linda said to me in the hallway moments
after I delivered that terrible speech.


 


“Misti, you have a story, and you need to tell it,” she said,
quite publicly, and continued on with the conversations she was
having about the upcoming sessions.


 


Since then, I’ve come to realize that it’s not so much about
sharing my story as it is about trusting in my story. Just as
it’s difficult to hear the voice of a singer riddled with
self-doubt, it’s nearly impossible to connect with an audience I
never showed up for.   


 


So, how do I do it? How do I risk the possibility of failure
every day as I share the gifts God has given me with the people
in the suits?


 


Do I find a way to crush my amygdala, the part of my brain that
quietly—without my permission—tells my whole body that I’m about
to die when all I’m doing is standing on a stage sharing stories?


 


Do I stay in hiding, praying that one day I’ll have the perfect
story (history), and then I can share? As if changing my
background were even possible, or desirable.


 


Or, do I recognize my intense fear as a gift from God, reminding
me that all I need to do is breathe—slowly and deeply—and be me.


 


I wonder what would happen if I started rewarding, as Rich so
eloquently taught me, showing up, trusting in my instincts, and
sharing what I have to offer.  What would it mean to reward
total transparency, trust, and truth? What would happen if I
could find a way to reward the kind of risk-taking Aisha took?


 


What would my body feel like if I rewarded authenticity, instead
of trying to control the actions and thoughts of others—a game I
can never win anyway—and started showing up, offering, and
watching God work her magic.


 


My guess is—I’ll have the same experience of pure bliss I had at
the Starbucks that day with the entrepreneur in the fancy suit,
who, turns out, helped me remember that all I need to do is share
my story, my results, my process, and my passion. The right
people (and audiences) will come at the right time to help us
share our gifts—if we will only trust in our own stories.
  


 


Imagine if they had a Powerball that resulted in such trust.
Would you play? I will!


 


Here’s to Your Greatness,


 


Misti Burmeister


 


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