This morning on my Facebook newsfeed, the following sponsored post appeared: “Would you keep working if you won $15 Million?”. For many people in the workforce, I think the answer to this would be a resounding ‘yes’. But is that true for you as a business owner?

Your answer to that question comes back to the reasons why you are a business owner. If your reasons are purely to earn money or ‘get rich’, then I would imagine you would most likely quit working if you won $15 million. But many business owners established their businesses for reasons besides just making money – and I wonder if many of them would answer ‘no’ and want to continue working.

Personally, I would keep working – although the capacity of that work and what work I undertake would be likely to change dramatically! Winning a large sum of money would provide me with an enormous scope of choices around how I spend my time and the enterprises I could establish.

But as I thought about this question more, I realised that it is a great evaluative tool. If answering this question brings to light the things that you would REALLY rather be doing, perhaps it is time to challenge yourself as to why you are not aiming for more of those things now. As we hear time and again, life is short. So you need to ask yourself: am I focusing on the things that are important? Or am I waiting for the big lottery win before I change my focus and priorities?

Michelle Grice writes a weekly column for business women in The Western Weekender