@joulee: You did it. Congrats! All your...

You did it. Congrats! All your hard work and lucky stars and ancestors' sacrifices have led you to this day: your stock is about to be liquid. And you are about to be rich.

I use the word "rich" quite loosely. It means different things to different people. I knew folks who felt that way with a few hundred thousand, and folks who only felt that way with 100 million. It always comes down to expectations. If you ended up with way more than you expected at this point in your life, hopefully you are feeling delighted.

You have probably already heard the research studies about money and happiness, but here's a quick primer: In 1978, psychologists studied Illinois lottery winners and found that within about a year they were no happier than their neighbors living ordinary lives down the street. Worse, they took measurably less pleasure in everyday things: ham and eggs, pleasant conversations, "wow you look nice today" compliments. Four decades later, economists ran a bigger and better version in Sweden, following more than 2,500 winners for years. The Swedish winners did get a lasting lift in life satisfaction (aka they generally felt better about their financial circumstances, which makes sense). But their day-to-day happiness and mental health barely moved.

What does this tell us? Money buys relief and comfort. But it does not buy joy. That part is still your job.

I was in your shoes once, pre-IPO at the hot company of my generation. We had a hackathon the night before we rang the bell. Some of us felt like life was about to change. Others of us felt it was just another ordinary day — a nice milestone, sure, but with so many already crossed on the path to hypergrowth, what's yet another?

In the years since, I have watched friends and colleagues mature into their new fortunes the way one does into a new pair of jeans. At first you're excited because your ass is gonna look great, but then you realize it feels kinda stiff and awkward. After enough time, though, you sink into it. It becomes another detail in the shaping of your life.

Some of my former colleagues slipped away from tech like aquarium fish flushed into the vast blue ocean, off to find their true homes. It wasn't always who I expected--for example, wildly talented engineers would decide they didn't care to ship impact anymore. I saw folks become chefs, hoteliers, artists, therapists, writers, teachers, parents. This group always fascinated me, because it felt like I was watching some kind of Cinderella transformation. Who would you bloom into, if you had that gift of freedom?

Others pursued the leisured lifestyles of the upper crust: weekly jaunts to exotic places in search of Michelin stars (gotta catch them all!), a sleek new home with tasteful furniture (goodbye, old IKEA!), experts to assist them with said tasteful furniture selection or how to get into the hottest clubs, VIP upgrades to Disneyland and Coachella, five-hundred-dollar hoodies from Japan.

Still others continued on the same track, remaining in tech. Some became founders or VCs, and some continued their march at the same company or at a younger imitation, riding the highs and lows for years and years and years, still chasing the thrill of the climb.

Watching all of this, and living much of it myself, here are the biggest things I wish someone had told me then:

1. Money changes your life, but you get to control how much it changes your identity.

I saw this play out in all three groups: among the fish, the leisure class, and the lifers alike. I know people for whom the money simply let them check off life goals like paying off their parents' home or having enough for retirement. They upgraded the car and maybe the house. And then, largely, they stopped. They didn't change how they carried themselves day to day. They didn't change who they hung out with. They didn't take up the game of more. What I noticed about these people is that they could still connect with almost anyone.

On the other hand, the more that access to whatever money can buy becomes part of who you are, the more you become a character to others. You are now that person who eats at fancy restaurants all the time. The one who brings in a full zoo and carnival and running choo-choo train for their 3-year-old's birthday party. Who shows up with rare watches and cars and vintage ports. You may not mean for it to, you may have done absolutely nothing undeserved beyond enjoying what you love, but you become cloaked by all the shiny things your money can buy. And for the people who don't have what you have, this sparkling cloak can be so distracting that they can no longer really see you. You become harder to connect with.

The money will change your life. Whether it changes your self is still up to you.

2. Decide what game you're playing

There is a game, and that game is called more. Once the money lands, a question will be waiting for you that many people neglect to think deeply about: am I still playing?

One founder told me, after he already had a nine-figure net worth, that past a certain point the money is just for scorekeeping. It mattered to him because he made it matter: that number was a measure of what he was able to accomplish and how well he ranked against the competition. If you like that game, go for it. If you know it's a game, by all means, play.

The people I worry about are the ones who didn't like the game but kept playing because everyone around them was playing it. I saw this most in the group that stayed, still marching or sprinting on because it was all they knew, running up a score because they were afraid to stop and ask: What would happen if I stopped? Who would I be if not a player who wins?

You'd still be you, and that's quite enough. And I suspect there may be something even more majestic on the other side.

3. The life of leisure does not equate to a life of joy.

This is the one nobody believes from the outset, and it's the lifestyle of the second group (the luxurious consumers) who taught it to me. The life of leisure is the thing we all grew up wishing for. It looks really good on Instagram, and it sounds really good in the stories you tell friends about your fabulous adventure-seeking, jet-setting life. As with all such things, be careful what you wish for because you might just get it.

I have watched people go through deep bouts of depression because they had everything they thought they wanted only to realize that it didn't bring peace; instead, it brought more wanting, higher expectations and less tolerance.

What I think the aquarium fish group understood (the artists and therapists and teachers) was that they weren't swimming away from work. They were swimming toward meaning. Their work created struggle, but that struggle is the flip side of satisfaction.

And yes, money buys financial security. But if you were the kind of person who was anxious about financial security before the money, you will probably find yourself anxious about something else after it. Anxiety is rarely because of the specific thing; it's a part of who you are, until you figure out how to train your mind to break its old patterns.

The hardest lesson of a post-economic life is that there are no more excuses for why you're not happy. You now have everything society taught you to want: security, freedom, status.

If you aren't happy, the only place left to look is within yourself. The great gift of money is that it strips away every external explanation. What's left is you, and that is both terrifying and maybe the start of a really cool internal journey.

What money is really good for

So if the jeans eventually just feel like jeans, and the leisure doesn't fulfill, and the scoreboard is optional, what should you actually do with the money?

First, find a financial advisor. Once you have money it's far easier to earn more, and there are a lot of arcane pitfalls having to do with taxes and investing strategies and who and what you can give to that is worth understanding.

As for how to best use it: the best answer I've found is this: create memories with other people. The happiness research agrees on this point across many different countries and cultures: people who spend money on others report being happier than people who spend it solely on themselves, and the experiences that stick with us are the ones we share.

There are grand ways to do this, of course. But there are also many small, unfussy ways to go about it. Maybe it means you throw more dinner parties, because you no longer have to think about the cost of the catering. Maybe you become the person who says, "I've got an extra ticket, do you want to join?" Maybe you fund the family reunion that would otherwise never get organized. Maybe you spend your extra leisure time on contributing to your community. None of this will trend on Instagram. All of it, in my experience, is the highest-yield investment available to your happiness.

The lottery studies were half right. The money won't make you happier. But spent deliberately, it can buy the table, and fill the chairs around it.

One last story

Many years after our IPO, a group of former colleagues put together an informal poll of the old crew. One question asked: When you think about your life today, are you happier than you were before the IPO?

It was our own version of the lottery studies, except this time we knew everyone in the dataset. The results struck me. Roughly half said I'm about the same in level of happiness. Around 30% said they were happier. But 20% (one in five people) who had won the exact lottery you are about to win said no, they were more miserable than before.

It's my hope that among your cohort, many more end up in the happy bucket.