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lawrencebush
March 6, 2017
Introduction by Dr. Lewis R. Shurtz and Helena Day, MSW, with Lawrence Bush
We all get that intuitive feeling, at one time or another, that “something’s coming, something good,” as Tony sings it in West Side Story. Never mind that he ends up getting killed by Chino; the important thing is that Tony also got to sleep with Maria, so something did come and it was good, just as he predicted.
Lotteries have their own version of Tony’s song: “Hey,” says the New York Lottery ad, “you never know.” In fact, with the book you’re now holding in your hand, you can and you will know. We’ve created a simple system for you to follow that will vastly increase your chances of winning the lottery, any lottery.
“How can that be so?” you’re likely to say. “Only a sucker thinks that luck can be turned on and off.”
Oh, yeah? The fact of the matter is that people, in many ways, do create their own luck. Psychologists have studied this and figured out that it is people who take chances and seek a little variety in life who generally have the best luck, because they create more opportunities for good things to happen. One guy named Dr. Richard Wiseman — check out the name, names are among the omens that this book talks about — Richard WISEMAN has even come up with four basic principles for creating good luck. One we’ve just told you but you had to be listening instead of moping. The others are having positive expectations so that you recognize luck when it comes your way; being resilient so that you can transform challenge into opportunity; and listening to your intuition, which knows better than you.
Don’t think, now, that you’ve got the whole attitude adjustment thing down pat and you can put this book down and walk down a strange street into some bodega and buy a winning lottery ticket. There are millions of Tonys and Marias out there thinking that something’s coming, something good. All of their intuitions are bumping and jostling and shoving each other right up to that bodega door. If you want to the upper hand, you’re going to have to read our book.
“All right,” you may be saying, “it sounds interesting. But if you guys [one of us is not a ‘guy,’ actually, you’re going have to start noticing these things if you want to win the lottery], if you guys are so smart, why are you writing books instead of winning lotteries left and right?” And you may even be saying, “Ah-ha!”
Wipe the smirk off your face. Here are the facts. We don’t want to win lotteries because lottery winners are not especially happy. Dr. Melinda SMARTYPANTS proved this in a definitive study in 1985. Some lottery winners even commit suicide after winning, though you’d think they would have waited until they spent all the money. One lucky man who won the New Jersey Powerball twice went and killed himself twice before he could even be interviewed by Dr. Smartypants. No, psychologists have studied this and have made clear that poor people generally consider themselves happier than rich people do. Poor countries actually have higher happiness quotients than rich countries. Bangladesh is happier than France. Afghanistan is happier than America. Think about that.
In other words, you’re going to win the lottery at your own risk. This book will tell you how, but it’s not responsible for what happens afterwards. Even if you decide, in the end, not to win, you’ll still gain great insight about how you view the world and how the world views you. That will definitely help you connect with your own Maria or Tony, and definitely to dodge Chino, instead of staggering around calling his name.
How, exactly, does our system work? It was Thomas Alva Edison who said that “genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Coming from a man who held 1,093 patents, including for the light bulb, the phonograph, and the movie camera, Edison’s statement is profoundly modest and has been a tremendous boon to the deodorant industry. Fortunately, it has nothing to do with winning the lottery. We have determined, in fact, that “genius” and “luck” are entirely unrelated — although without “luck,” “genius” often goes unrewarded, and therefore, even if you’re a sweaty genius, you should buy our book.
The actual formula is this: Lottery luck is five percent weather (also known as “God”), eleven percent hunch, thirteen percent self-knowledge, sixteen percent body language (“bop”), eighteen percent reward for being kind (especially to animals), and twenty-one percent paying close attention without interrupting. There’s also an eleven percent as-yet-unexplained ingredient, which we’ll explain shortly after we stop writing in italics. That leaves five percent for the influence of the clerk selling you the lottery ticket and other people who are standing near the point of purchase — all of whom you can and will, in turn, force to yield to your superior desire to win the lottery. (See Chapter Seven, “Look at the Ducks!”)
The as-yet-unexplained ingredient is becoming clearer as we crunch numbers on our outrageously powerful computer. One clear aspect is the principle that we call “No-No.” Simply stated, the “No-No Principle” holds that if there’s no way that you should be buying that lottery ticket — if it’s your last bit of cash and you have five kids at home waiting for you to bring home a dozen eggs and there’s a state trooper parked right outside of the store — you will definitely not win. The universe, in general, does play dice, but not with you if you’re being a complete idiot.
The “No-No Principle” can also be expressed mathematically, but that would take pages and pages of formulae and would discourage you as much as reading the word “formulae” and wondering if there’s something else you don’t know. As our outrageously powerful computer continues to analyze the make-up of that eleven percent as-yet-unexplained ingredient of lottery luck and reveals insights that we can translate to your experience and reading level, we will make the information available in future editions of How to Win the Lottery, and possibly at our website. Stay in touch, and keep your credit cards current.
Now start reading! The air is humming, and something great is coming.
The actual formula is this: Lottery luck is five percent weather (also known as “God”), eleven percent hunch, thirteen percent self-knowledge, sixteen percent body language (“bop”), eighteen percent reward for being kind (especially to animals), and twenty-one percent paying close attention without interrupting. There’s also an eleven percent as-yet-unexplained ingredient, which we’ll explain shortly after we stop writing in italics. That leaves five percent for the influence of the clerk selling you the lottery ticket and other people who are standing near the point of purchase — all of whom you can and will, in turn, force to yield to your superior desire to win the lottery. (See Chapter Seven, “Look at the Ducks!”)
The as-yet-unexplained ingredient is becoming clearer as we crunch numbers on our outrageously powerful computer. One clear aspect is the principle that we call “No-No.” Simply stated, the “No-No Principle” holds that if there’s no way that you should be buying that lottery ticket — if it’s your last bit of cash and you have five kids at home waiting for you to bring home a dozen eggs and there’s a state trooper parked right outside of the store — you will definitely not win. The universe, in general, does play dice, but not with you if you’re being a complete idiot.
The “No-No Principle” can also be expressed mathematically, but that would take pages and pages of formulae and would discourage you as much as reading the word “formulae” and wondering if there’s something else you don’t know. As our outrageously powerful computer continues to analyze the make-up of that eleven percent as-yet-unexplained ingredient of lottery luck and reveals insights that we can translate to your experience and reading level, we will make the information available in future editions of How to Win the Lottery, and possibly at our website. Stay in touch, and keep your credit cards current.
Now start reading! The air is humming, and something great is coming.
