The odds of winning the Powerball or the Mega Millions jackpot are about 1 in 300 million. If something so improbable, so incredibly rare happened, wouldn’t you be jumping for joy? Celebrating your great fortune and then doing everything you can to keep it and not squander it away?

What if I told you that you already had won the lottery? And one that’s more precious and harder to win than the largest lotto jackpot ever. The simple fact that you’re alive and breathing means you’ve already won the lottery. Unfortunately, most people aren’t living like it.

Harvard physician, speaker and author Dr. Ali Benazir once brilliantly calculated the odds of you being born. In order for you to take your first breath, thousands of generations of people in your family tree had to be born and survive times of famine, war, disease and food scarcity. And that’s the short list. They had to reach reproductive age and have children who also survived.

And that process had to continue, without even one interruption, for millions of years until your parents had a chance meeting, at some point had sex and the one out of the two hundred and fifty million sperm from your father met your mother’s egg.

The pregnancy had to then be carried to term, you were born and survived to adulthood. I don’t know about you, but given some of the crazy things I did when I was younger, it’s a miracle that I’m still here. But I am. And so are you.

The odds that you’re alive right now are 1 in 400 TRILLION. Let that sink in. 1 in 400 trillion. And here you are, reading this blog.

You’ve won the greatest lottery ever. The problem is, you’re probably not living life like you were holding the winning ticket.

If you’re like most people, and lord knows I’ve been there, you feel stressed and overwhelmed by day-to-day life. Among the kids, work, relationship with your partner, your own health, social commitments and financial pressures, there’s you. Wondering what happened to the more carefree days. Whatever happened to waking up feeling energy, excitement and limitless possibilities?

What happened is people stop dreaming. I’m not suggesting you dream like you did when you were a kid. Or you walk away from your commitments.

I want you to start dreaming adult dreams. I want you to see yourself feeling fantastic. Exercising more. Having more energy. Feeling more engaged in what you and surrounding yourself with people and projects you love.

We create the lives we envision. Start dreaming in vivid detail again of what you want. Write it down. Then create and execute a plan to make those dreams real. After all, a dream without a plan is just wishful thinking.

You are the winner of the greatest lottery there ever was. Surely you can take this life and start living it like the precious gift it is. Appreciate what you have right now, in this moment. Say three things that you appreciate. And then start turning your dreams into realities by stopping these 5 Health-Destroying Behaviors.

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