The reason I have never bought a lottery ticket is that I don’t want to soil my belief system with fantasies of striking it rich through pure luck. Lotteries are perhaps the ultimate free-lunch delusion, which is why they are a favored method of taxation by governments throughout the world.

Sooner or later, anyone who is serious about success must be willing to discard the temptation of something for nothing and recognize that value-oriented action is the most certain road to financial success. In other words, the key to getting what you want in life is to think value instead of rights. You have no right to someone’s love, you have no right to someone’s friendship, you have no right to someone’s respect.

All these, and more, must be earned, and to the extent you create value for others, you will have them in abundance. Wealth, then, is a result of value creation, and because it is quantifiable, it’s an easy way to gauge how successful your value-creation efforts have been.

There is no mystery to this, because underlying it is a fundamental principle of human nature — that human beings always attempt to do what they believe is in their best interest. Anyone who can’t bear to accept this reality of life creates an enormous barrier between himself and the achievement of his goals.