s Life a Lottery Ticket?
John Dietz

Do you ever wonder why some people seem to succeed while others struggle just to get by? It can feel like a few of us were born holding a winning lottery ticket while the rest fight for scraps. Some live in beautiful homes and drive luxury cars while others live in poverty. Is it really that simple—just luck at birth? Maybe.

None of us chose where we were born or the family we were born into. Some were raised by loving parents; others by parents who neglected or abused them. I was born in the United States, which many would call winning the lottery. Yet my childhood felt like a losing ticket.

My earliest memories are of poverty and abuse. My parents’ anger often landed on my back, sometimes with thorn-filled switches that left deep gashes. The physical pain faded. The emotional pain did not. Being told I was a mistake, that I should never have been born, cut deeper with every passing day.

By 17, I believed them.

One night, sitting outside a 7-11 on St. Pete Beach, I swallowed 100 aspirin with a Coke. I thought I would fall asleep and never wake up. I didn’t realize that amount of aspirin is like drinking 50 cups of coffee. When the effects hit, my friends knew something was wrong and rushed me to Palms of Pasadena Hospital.

The emergency room staff moved fast. They gave me a liquid that made me vomit for hours, flooded me with IV fluids, and monitored my heart to keep it from failing. I was moved to the ICU, where nurses stayed by my side through the night. I finally passed out the next morning and woke up two days later.

I remember hearing doctors speak to my parents as they sat by my bed praying. It felt ironic. The same people who had hurt me were now asking God to save me. I didn’t understand that for many years. Only after becoming a parent myself did I begin to grasp a difficult truth: my parents did love me. They were simply broken people who didn’t know how to express it.

I went home a week later physically okay, but emotionally scarred. The scars from that night weren’t new—they had been there for years. And if I’m honest, some of them are still there today.

The difference is that nearly 40 years later, through hard inner work and by God’s grace, I live in peace. The demons that once controlled me no longer do.

So, is life a losing lottery ticket?

Back then, for me, it felt like one.

But it was also a winning ticket.

If the first 20 years of my life were hell, the last five have felt like heaven. Not because of wealth or status, but because I no longer try to prove my value through accomplishments. I’ve found healing in helping others grow.

When we realize that we are all broken in some way, we begin to understand that everyone is carrying pain. When our lives become about serving others and leaving a legacy, emotions like greed, envy, and anger begin to lose their grip. We forgive those who hurt us.

Most importantly, we forgive ourselves.

Andy Andrews

Andy Andrews was once homeless. He lived under a pier, surviving on odd jobs and kindness from strangers. No money. No direction. No advantage. By any measure, he held what looked like a losing ticket.

Today, he’s a bestselling author and one of the most sought-after speakers in the world. Not because he won the lottery—but because he decided his past would not define his future. He chose responsibility over resentment.

Bill Porter

Bill Porter was born with cerebral palsy. He struggled to speak and walk. No company would hire him—except Watkins Products, who gave him a shot as a door-to-door salesman.

Imagine that: a man who could barely speak, walking neighborhoods for decades selling products face-to-face.

He became the top salesman in the country. Not because life was easy. Not because he had advantages. But because he refused to believe he had a losing ticket.

Nick Vujicic

Nick Vujicic was born without arms and legs. As a child, he tried to end his life because he believed he was a burden.

Today, he’s traveled the world inspiring millions, married, a father, and a living example that circumstances do not determine worth.

If life were a lottery, Nick would have been handed the worst ticket imaginable.

And yet, he turned it into a life of purpose.

Lacey’s Story

If life were a lottery ticket, my daughter Lacey would have thought hers was taken away on May 21, 2015.

She was 13 years old. Outgoing. Popular. A cheerleader. Excited about 8th grade and already dreaming about high school tryouts she had trained for every single day.

And in one doctor’s visit, all of that stopped.

She was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

The next year of her life wasn’t pep rallies and football games. It was chemotherapy, homeschooling from our house in Palm Harbor, and watching her world grow smaller. The outgoing, fun, social girl became quiet and introverted. Friends faded away. Cheerleading was over. Childhood, as she knew it, was over.

In May of 2016, she had her final chemo treatment. A week later, she was declared cancer-free.

That should have felt like winning the lottery.

But in August, when she walked into Coral Glades High School as a freshman, she didn’t feel like a winner. She felt like “the girl in the hat with cancer.” She hated the attention. Hated the label. Hated being known for something she didn’t choose.

So she did what Lacey has always done when life gets hard.

She went to work.

She overloaded her schedule, took extra night homeschool classes, and graduated in three years in 2019. While other kids were figuring life out, she got a full-time job at Starbucks and enrolled at Broward College.

Two years later, she transferred to Florida Atlantic University and, in August of 2024, earned her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice.

Somewhere along the way, we moved back to Palm Harbor. She met Alex, a bright young engineer in Tampa. They started building a future together.

And Lacey found a new dream.

She wanted to work in Special Victims. Eventually, Homeland Security.

She applied to the police academy with the Clearwater Police Department. She wasn’t selected. Disappointed—but not defeated—she applied to the St. Petersburg Police Department.

This time, she was accepted.

She hired a personal trainer and trained daily for months to pass the physical test. She and Alex were looking for a place to live in St. Pete. Her academy start date was set for June. Her life was lining up.

And then life asked the question again.

During a required medical exam, a doctor noticed something. An ultrasound revealed small masses in her lymph nodes. Then more masses on both sides of her torso.

A PET scan and CT scan were scheduled for May 20th.

A biopsy for May 21st.

Ten years to the day from her original diagnosis.

If life is a lottery ticket, this is where most people would say, “She got a bad one.”

But they would be wrong.

Because I’ve watched this girl for ten years.

I’ve watched her lose her childhood, her friends, her identity—and rebuild herself anyway.

I’ve watched her get knocked down and get back up so many times that getting back up is now who she is.

I’ve watched her become the kind of person you want protecting victims, serving the broken, and standing in the gap for people who can’t stand for themselves.

Cancer didn’t take her spirit.

It forged it.

And whether this biopsy shows good news or bad news, I already know something with absolute certainty:

Lacey is not holding a losing ticket.

She is living proof that the ticket was never the point.

The point is who you become because of it.

Summer’s Story

If life were a lottery ticket, Summer’s would have looked like it was torn in half in October of 2011.

She had just started her sophomore year of high school in Atlanta. Normal life. Friends. School. Plans. Then a nagging pain near her hip led to tests, and those tests led to words no teenager should ever hear:

A rare and aggressive sarcoma.

Chemotherapy started immediately, and Summer’s world became hospital rooms, IV poles, and fear.

She was treated in the AFLAC cancer wing at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. At first, she kept her head down. She didn’t want to talk to the other kids with cancer. She didn’t want to be part of that world. She missed her high school friends. She felt isolated, surrounded by adults, convinced she was the only kid in her world going through this.

“I’m the only one,” she said.

Then came the day her hair began falling out in clumps after her second round of chemo. Horrified, she chose to shave it off. And her twin brother, Jordan, shaved his head too.

That moment changed everything.

For the first time, Summer felt what it was like to not be alone. People patted Jordan’s bald head as much as hers. Someone was walking through it with her. That shared experience opened her eyes.

Maybe she wasn’t the only one after all.

Shortly after, family friends brought her purple wristbands that said “Team Summer.” They planned to sell them for $5 each—half to help with her medical expenses, and half to a cause of Summer’s choosing.

Everyone assumed she would pick a hospital or cancer research.

She didn’t.

By now, Summer had started talking to the kids in the waiting rooms. She saw something most adults missed. Some of them were struggling far more than she was.

She met an 11-year-old girl named Sarah fighting her second round of Ewing’s sarcoma. Sarah had a two-hour commute to chemo with nothing to do. She loved playing games on Summer’s iPhone.

So Summer used her portion of the money to buy Sarah an iPod Touch.

A gift from one kid with cancer to another.

And just like that, Team Summer was born.

Something profound shifted in her.

Now, every time she walked into the hospital, she wasn’t looking at what she had lost. She was looking for someone she could help.

While enduring chemo, radiation, and multiple surgeries, she was also:

• Buying a laptop for a boy with lymphoma so he could talk to his friends
• Giving a young woman with osteosarcoma a fashion photo shoot to help her feel beautiful after losing her hair
• Getting a 6-year-old with leukemia the motorized scooter she always wanted
• Delivering Mega-Bloks to a boy facing a leg amputation so he would have something to focus on besides what was coming

The more gifts she gave, the more donations came in. Over $50,000 was raised.

And the sicker Summer became physically, the brighter she became emotionally.

She had found purpose.

A month or two before she passed, she said something remarkable: even if she could trade the cancer away, she wouldn’t—because it had changed her heart and spirit in ways she never wanted to lose.

On November 11, 2012, Summer passed away at home, surrounded by family. She was 16 years old. Nearly 1,000 people, dressed in purple, attended her celebration of life in Atlanta.

But her story didn’t end there.

The kids she helped started helping other kids. And those kids helped more kids. Today, Team Summer is a living network of children with cancer giving gifts to other children with cancer.

A chain reaction of kindness started by a 16-year-old girl who, by every worldly measure, was handed a losing lottery ticket.

But Summer proved something extraordinary.

Life is not about how long the ticket lasts.

It’s about what you do with it while you have it.

She turned pain into purpose.
Isolation into connection.
Cancer into compassion.

And in doing so, she left a legacy most people never accomplish in a lifetime.

Perry’s Story

If life were a lottery ticket, Perry Campbell looked like the guy who kept scratching off new chances just to see what adventure was underneath.

I met Perry in 1978 at Northside Christian in St. Pete. I thought he was a scrawny 130-pound kid—right up until he ran the ball into my gap and hit me like a freight train. From that moment on, I knew two things: Perry was tough, and Perry was different.

He was a two-way starter—Safety on defense, quarterback and running back on offense. A phenomenal athlete. A questionable quarterback. (He’d be the first to laugh at that.) In one game he threw three touchdowns…to the other team. But nobody questioned his heart. Nobody questioned his strength. At 165 pounds he benched 225 at a state meet. On the field, he hit like a future NFL safety.

But football was just the warm-up act for the life Perry would live.

There were the mountain trips. The late-night adventures. The weight room battles where he outlifted me by a mile. The infamous “Freedom University” behind a church on Duck Pond where the dorm was the attic and the quarterback smoked cigarettes between plays. Perry stayed. I ran.

That was Perry. He didn’t run from things. He leaned into them.

Spring Break trips where we made terrible decisions and great memories. Florida Keys dives where Perry gave 10-minute scuba lessons and sent you into the ocean with, “Do this, don’t do this, ok…go.” Lobster hunting while an 8-foot bull shark circled behind them. Perry didn’t flee. He turned to face it.

Who does that?

Perry did.

Because Perry didn’t just live life—he attacked it. On boats named things like Me Like Cookies, chasing dolphin in 400 feet of water, jumping in after tiger sharks with a spear gun, running Hydrostreams through the intercoastal at night, climbing where we shouldn’t climb, getting arrested where we shouldn’t have been. When Perry was your captain, you just felt like everything would be okay.

And somehow, it always was.

In 1987, Perry started Campbell’s Fundraising. He built one of the top fundraising companies in the country from scratch. No shortcuts. No excuses. Pure work ethic and sales genius. He tried to recruit me out of a teaching job in Boston because Perry wanted everyone he loved on the journey with him.

He introduced me to my wife Monica one night when I didn’t want to go out. Two years later, we were married. My family exists because Perry didn’t take “no” for an answer.

We had a falling out in the late 90s. Business, ego, pride—things that never should come before friendship. Ten years went by. If I could change anything in 45 years, it would be that.

But Perry never stopped being Perry.

In 2015, when my daughter Lacey was diagnosed with cancer, Perry was the first to call. Days later he showed up at All Children’s Hospital with a cookie jar full of money that his kids, Ricardo and Lilia, had raised at a garage sale.

That’s who he was.

Family wasn’t just important to Perry. Everyone was family.

He loved his parents, Holmes and Helen. His sister Lorri. His wife Martha. His kids. He didn’t just love them—he lived for them. In the last decade of his life, he bought a beat-up 48-foot Hatteras in Guatemala, rebuilt it, and captained it back to Tampa Bay with his family by his side. Modern-day Indiana Jones. Jacques Cousteau. Hemingway.

Then came cancer.

And even then, Perry didn’t change.

He had moments of fear, sure. But then you’d see that look in his eye and he’d start planning the next 5, 10, 15 years. A month before he passed, I asked how he was doing.

He said, “I’ve got a pretty easy life. Walk the neighborhood with Martha and Stella. Sit in the jacuzzi and drink my coffee. Do a little work. Take a nap. Hang out with Ricardo and Lilia. I’m living a pretty good life.”

Who says that while fighting cancer?

A man who understands the lottery ticket was never the point.

Perry had adventures most people wouldn’t believe. Built businesses. Raised an incredible family. Loved deeply. Forgave easily. Faced fears head-on. Lived loudly. And in the end, he was grateful.

Grateful.

If life were a lottery ticket, Perry didn’t win because of what he was given.

He won because of how he lived.

And everyone who knew him is better because he scratched off his ticket the way he did.

Until we meet again, my friend.

The best is yet to come.

These stories—and so many others—forced me to confront a truth I didn’t want to see:

The people who seem to have “won” in life are often the ones who started with the least.

They didn’t win because of where they started.
They won because of how they chose to respond.

That’s when it clicked for me.

I didn’t have a losing ticket.

I had raw material.

Pain became empathy.
Abuse became compassion.
Shame became a mission to help others see their value.

The very things I thought disqualified me from a good life became the exact tools that allowed me to serve people at a deeper level.

And maybe that’s the real secret:

Your greatest pain often becomes your greatest platform.

So no—life is not a lottery ticket.

It’s a question.

What will you do with what you’ve been given?

Because the winning ticket was never where you were born, who raised you, or what happened to you.

The winning ticket is the moment you decide:

“My past will not control my future. My pain will not be wasted. My life will serve a purpose bigger than me.”

That’s when you realize…

You’ve been holding the winning ticket the whole time.