The New Zealand Lotto recently reached record highs with the jackpot hitting $38 million. As someone who rarely buys a lotto ticket, I got caught up in the frenzy. I picked numbers and bought a ticket online. The jackpot wasn’t won and it rolled over to $44 million, causing further frenzy. I made a mental note to buy another ticket using those same numbers but life got in the way, as it sometimes does, and I didn’t.

After the results came out, news spread of a deserving young couple that won the jackpot. “Good for them”, I thought after scanning through a news article about their win. In the article, reference was made of the winning numbers and to my horror I realised that some of my numbers were there. I did a quick count and jumped onto the Lotto website to see what I had missed.

$21,640.

My heart broke. There’s a famous quote about how often people think about sex, but all day long the number 21,640 was on my mind every seven seconds. Before bed, I decided to check the numbers again. Without the panic I had after seeing that article, and with the time to carefully interpret the numbers I had, I came up with a different result.

$59.

Although there is a sting of embarrassment when I think about this, there is a lesson to be learned - Make decisions and choose your course of action using knowledge, not poorly formed beliefs.

In considering how to react to problems and situations in the future, I’ll be more aware of what I am using to drive my decision. Is it a just a belief or is it real knowledge?

Keys to making knowledge based decisions:

1. Don’t rush to an understanding. Take time to understand the reality around you (macro-level).
2. Know what the problem is that you’re trying to solve and the question you’re looking to answer (micro-level). Understand these as much as possible or practical.
3. Try to remove emotion from the decision and remain objective.
4. Consider your options for action and map out the likely (and unlikely) outcomes.
5. Apply your core philosophy to the problem and solution to stay grounded, such as:
   • "Put the customer first"
   • "Will it make the boat go faster?"
   • "Would an idiot do that?"