Recognize the frame? Just watched it.

Based on a true story. In short, here’s what happened.

In 1984, an otherwise unremarkable 35-year-old air-conditioning technician from Ohio hit the jackpot on CBS’s “Press Your Luck”. He went home from L.A. with $250 000 in his pocket (after taxes and in today’s money). That was 4–5 average annual U.S. salaries at the time.

Pretty cool, right? Good for him!

And do you know what he did next?

After buying and selling an investment property that “he got bored with,” Michael converted all the money into one-dollar bills, hoping to find rare ones with matching serial numbers. Nothing came of it.

Then he got robbed.

The guy died broke at age 50.

What am I getting at… don’t confuse luck with your own genius.

They say life gives every one of us at least one shot. We may land a high-paying job, sell our great business for a pile of money, receive an inheritance or half a fortune in a divorce, buy some “crypto-whatever” in 2009 for a couple cents — and it turns out to be Bitcoin.

The important thing is to tell yourself, “That was luck, I just got lucky,” “I’m the same as everyone else,” stop, look around, and think — how do I not lose this?

Want to keep tempting fate? No problem. Carve off 0.5–1% of your capital and take risks with it. Get lucky again? Great. No? Fine.

We think of you as a safe harbor.

That’s what clients I’ve been working with for eight years told me recently. If things have “finally started going your way,” write, call — we’ll have something to talk about.