When it makes sense to try and beat the odds.

Sometimes low chances are still worth taking.

Photo by Sammie Chaffin on Unsplash

I was scrolling through TikTok and saw a story about a guy who bought an old photograph for a few dollars, then sold it for a million. Turns out the photograph was rare. Historical. Valuable.

What luck. What fortune. I thought, What if I regularly stopped in at antique stores and looked for a hidden gem like that photo? What would I do with that money?

I like to fantasize about being that fortunate. Don’t we all? I know a few multi-millionaires who have launched their own startup, then sold it and cashed in. I often think… What if I could do that? Best-selling book authors can make millions of dollars. I wonder, What if I went for it?

In times like this, I run the numbers in my head. They aren’t good. I Google “probability of winning the lottery” and learn that “the odds in any lottery are about 1 in 300 million.” I imagine that the odds of finding that $5 photo, or running a successful startup, or writing a best-selling book are a lot better than that …