Say Yes, Play!!

I won Disneyland Tickets

I’m fine tuning my speech for SweepsCon17 where Mason and I will be speaking later this week. I’m not going to share all of it here, but while preparing this talk, I realized something about the way I live my life. Here’s a little snippet of my speech, see if you can see where I’m going with this. 

Everybody here is a winner so I’m sure you've all been asked, “How do you do it? How is it you're so lucky? You win all the time." You've also all heard, "Oh, I never win. I don't win the lottery, I never win raffles, I don't win anything." You've all heard that right? Well I know I have, and my very first response is "Do you play?" It makes me chuckle, how can you expect to win if you don't play? I won my first contest when I was 12 or 13 years old. I was listening to our local radio station and the DJ said be caller number nine, and I grabbed the phone and I called, and I was caller number nine and I won a cassette tape. Yes, it was that long ago. But what happened that day set in motion a lifetime of winning for me. An opportunity to win was presented and I took it, I played. What was most important about that win was that it was effortless. I heard the announcement and made the instant decision to win the prize. It just takes one win to see that you can win, you do win. From that day forward I was a winner.

But back to the question, “Do you play?” I know you all play when it comes to a sweepstakes or contests, but do you play in life? We all say yes to that entry, or mail this many cards in, or set reminders to enter once each day online…but isn’t life more fun when you play? I say yes! In fact, I say yes a lot. I say yes when invited to a party where I don’t know anyone other than who has invited me, I said yes when asked if I wanted to fill in for someone who got sick and couldn’t go to Vietnam for 2 weeks, and I said yes when my son asked me if he could raise $25,000 to improve his school kitchen when he was just 9 years old. 

To live a full, happy life, I believe you have to participate. Saying yes, accepting invitations, calling the radio station to try to win the prize, jumping off the rock into the lake, agreeing to go on a blind date, renting the bikes to ride, and any number of a gazillion other things that might enrich your life, if even just a little bit. The truth be told, being willing to play will enrich your life by leaps and bounds. Go ahead, say yes and play!