As I browse the internet for stories about Euro Millions and other lottery winners, losers, and whatever else of any interest, I find news items and press releases and blogs like this and begin to wonder, “When will Google find my blog entries here on trillonario.com and scoot me to the top of the list?

Maybe you’ve heard of it before: Ego Surfing. Google Envy. It means status in the world’s biggest online community (a.k.a. everything and everyone online). For some lucky bloggers, blog entries lead to book deals and other opportunities.

It reminds me of lotteries. Ten lucky web pages will be drawn from a bank of millions, and these ten will appear before a web searcher’s eyes on page one. Lesser prizes are found on pages 2 or 3, and by the time you reach page ten, all the insignificant buzz is good for is to motivate you to keep on trying.

How would you like to be known as “The Fat One”? Your answer may reveal a lot about which culture you come from.

North Americans, for example, have been showered for decades with ads designed to instill fear about having body odor, bad breath, body weight, and Head & Shoulders has desperately tried to imply that dandruff flakes belong to the ’so-disgusting- that-you-can’t-be-loved- until-you-purchase-our-product’ list.

Europeans, on the other hand, are not so paranoid about body odor and other such concerns. If you’ve stood in a crowded metro during summer, you may have noticed.

The Spanish frequently refer to overweight children as “gordito” - fatty - and it’s not meant nor taken as a put down.

It doesn’t hurt, of course, that Europe’s biggest lottery is named “The Fat One.” Yep. That’s what El Gordo means in Spanish, as in El Gordo primitiva lottery.

I don’t care where you’re from - you can’t tell me that winning the title “El Gordo” via the lottery won’t make a heck of a lot of people a lot more fond of you.

With as many lottery winners as the world has made over the past decades, the bank of conventional wisdom regarding how to handle such an over-abundance of good luck has grown quite large.

This wealth of knowledge is drawn from the experiences of some “unlucky” winners. A poster child of luck-gone-sour is Jack Whittaker, who won a $315 million Powerball in December, 2002 - then the larget jackpot ever.

Jack was already a hard-working self-made millionaire when he “struck it rich.” He stayed busy with many business projects, was a good boss and loyal to his employees, donated substantially to churches and local students. But the celebrity nature of his new money focused endless attention on his weaknesses that led to his wife leaving him, his daughter died, his car and home have been repeatedly burglarized, his employees embezeled from his company at least eleven times, and now Jack isn’t sure the winning was worth it.

Here are a few lessons to take from his story as covered by the Associated Press:

1. Don’t lend money to friends, because “of course, once they borrow money from you, you can’t be friends anymore.” Make a game plan to prevent your relationships from being about the money.

2. Make a game plan to prevent people from asking you for money all the time. Set up a foundation or something that considers the merit of each request, for example, and send anyone asking for cash to its web page.

3. Avoid publicity wherever possible, and if you think you’d enjoy the attention, do a little research and make sure you’re right before seeking it. Consider, for example, that Jack has faced  460 legal actions since winning, most of which attempting to get at his money.

And here’s some conventional wisdom that we would all do well to remember now and then:

1. Be grateful for whatever you have. Don’t waste your life looking forward and wishing nor backward and regretting.

2. Your family and friends and reputation are your greatest possessions and nothing will ever change that. Treat them accordingly.

3. Be generous with your means, your love, and your forgiveness.

Yes, you’ve heard them a million times; yes, they sound trite; yes, they’re cliche, but that doesn’t make them any less true.