So, you didn’t win the Mega Millions…

I am not one of the two Mega Millions winner. I suspect neither are you. But for a moment, let’s pretend like we won.

We all have different dreams of what life would be like if we won the lottery. In a brief survey around the OpenView Labs office here were the most common themes: travel, move to another city, give to charities and of course, treat our families like royalty.

Here are my thoughts: Though I woke up this morning no richer than I was when I went to sleep last night, maybe it is time to start taking the “what if” goals more seriously. Chances are, none of us will ever hit the lottery or find a buried treasure in our backyards, does that mean we can never fulfill our wildest dreams?

The reason we all want to win the lottery is because of these dreams. So many of us were driving website traffic to the Mega Millions site this morning they were forced to slim down their website to one page to support the demand!

So, here is my challenge: Start living these dreams–lottery winner or not! If your number one dream is to travel–get out there! Sure, maybe you can’t afford the around the world trip you lust after, but start on a more local level. Start exploring.

Was your goal to move to another city? What is stopping you? We have one life, do what makes you happy.

Give to charity? Give your time. It could very well be the most rewarding thing you can do. Though millions of dollars is sure to make a profound impact, hours of your time could make an equally profound impact on the life of one person.

Treat your family like royalty? We spend our days worrying about our go to market strategy or our competitive positioning, but maybe it’s time to take a step back and balance our lives a bit more. Family is far more important than any of that–be sure they know it!

So, fellow losers–let’s start acting like we won. My guess is, it’d be a lot more rewarding!