I'm Shankar Vedantam, here to tell you about a great mystery.

That mystery is you.

As the host of a podcast called Hidden Brain, I explore big questions about what it means to be human.

Questions like, where do our emotions come from?

Why do so many of us feel overwhelmed by modern life?

How can we better understand the people around us?

Discover your hidden brain.

Find us wherever you get your podcasts.

So how did you start working at the lottery?

Okay, so I got out of high school and went to work part-time in the state house.

I was working in a warehouse, sort of a dead-end job,

and my dad told me that I should go apply at the lottery.

Sheila DeBroski and David O'Reilly were just teenagers when they both heard about jobs opening up at the Massachusetts State Lottery.

And they were looking for people to work the night shift.

It would be a night job.

Working the overnight shift, six at night to seven in the morning.

So it wasn't really that desirable.

They just asked if I had a driver's license and how many hours I could work.

And I said, that sounds like an opportunity.

They hired me on a spot.

They needed people right away.

We're picking up the story in 1976.

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