Winning $100 While Riding A Mule

Or 1,697 pesos. Whatever currency you prefer, that's how much I won today.

No, I wasn't gambling.

At the time, I was riding a mule named El Macho in the hills of El Segundo.

There's a lot to do here in Baja—snorkeling, surfing, horseback riding, fishing, and buying houses back in the United States.

Buying houses - that's what we did yesterday.

Well, we signed the contract for one anyway - we'll close in July.

"We who?" you ask.

Remember my good friend Eric - AKA the Notorious EVB - who took a class I recommended earlier this year? Full story here - but the short version is he wanted to change his way of making a living.

"I've got to do something different," he said.

"Go take this class on investing," I said.

When I wrote about it, I predicted that he'd be doing deals by the end of the year, and a dozen or more people reached out.

"Can I get in on that?"

"Can you tell me about the class?"

I did.

And guess what?

Guess how many of those dozen took the class?

ZERO.

Not one damn person.

Meanwhile, EVB took the next class and is now doing his first deal with me on a house near Charlotte.

EVB, by the way, lives in Florida.

633 miles away.

He hasn't seen the house, and he never will.

Oh, and also, by the way, between that first class and the second, he had a life-altering medical situation that left him paralyzed for about a month.

He's still recovering and learning to walk all over again.

Shit like that stops 95% of people in their tracks. Because 95% of people are all excuses, to begin with, so you tack on something like NOT BEING ABLE TO WALK, and it's game over.

But not EVB.

At least, not the new EVB.

The truth is, the old EVB was just like the old RWP.

Asleep at the wheel with one fucking excuse after another as to why he wasn't living the life he'd dreamt.

And then came the same epiphany I had.

"Holy shit. I'm 50. WTF am I waiting on?"

From there, it was on like Donkey Kong.

The difference, though, between EVB and the dozens of people who asked me about the class is that HE WENT AND TOOK THE DAMN CLASS.

Of the dozens, he was the only one who did more than talk about it. He was the only one who showed up, took the class, and then put in the work to execute.

Which gets back to my $100.

It came from a contest I didn't even know I'd entered, a contest inspired by something I'd written.

The contest organizer took it and threw out a challenge to a bunch of other storytellers.

One week to write something similar, and then we'd vote on the winners.

Today, I took first place.

And second.

And third.

Not because mine was the best entry.

But because mine was the only entry.

Of dozens of other people who had the opportunity, exactly zero showed up and put in the work.

That leads to an undeniable fact about the game of life.

"Winning" the game means different things to different people. My win and your win may be the same, or they may be totally different.

But, no matter how you define it, you have a much better chance of winning when you actually show up to play.