Little Black Book

I stared at the note for no more than a half a second then tossed it aside. Whatever the note meant, I was sure it wasn’t me that it was talking to. Or was it? I shook my head ‘no’ and got down to work. I had put together a list of new business prospects and had decided to create an email campaign focussed on my business and how it can help their business. I wanted to come up with a clever, eye catching piece with enough substance to encourage a return email or even a phone call. I was going to follow up in a day or two by phone to the people who expressed a ‘tell me more’ attitude. I went to make myself a coffee. A break for coffee almost always works for me. The act of focussing on something completely opposite the task at hand almost always helps with my problem solving. ‘Almost’ being the operative word. As I made the coffee any bolt of brilliance failed to appear. After making the coffee I took a couple of sips and decided I didn’t really want a cup. I poured the almost full cup of coffee down the sink and decided to go for a walk. I walked rather absent mindedly for about a half hour then headed back. It was no use. Nothing of brilliance was popping into my head. I realized I would have to just work it out by writing down every crappy and not so crappy idea that entered my head. I returned to my desk and pulled out a pad and started writing words, phrases, and went online looking for quotes that applied. Writing things out long hand rather than banging them out on the computer always works for me. Particularly if I haven’t any brilliant ideas. After a couple of hours, I had scribbled ideas and managed to fill several pages with random words and kind of clever phrases. I wasn’t sure any of the ideas were worth pursuing. I shut down for the day. I would take myself out to the local café and have something to eat. Maybe I was trying too hard. I began to think that maybe my new business email should be less clever and more straightforward. I just wasn’t sure. I walked head down back to my office and as I passed a convenience store I looked up. There was a sign in the window that was used to display the current lottery jackpot but instead it read, ‘Your life will change very soon’. I stopped, and stood staring at the sign then closed my eyes for a second and when I opened them the sign had changed to reflect the current jackpot value. I blinked about million times, looked again and the sign displayed the lottery jackpot value and nothing more. Now, you would think that these messages would have had an effect on me. You would think that after seeing three positive messages about the future, my future, that I would feel hopeful, happier, less droopy, I did not. I felt distracted and annoyed. Never a patient person I hated that I was being told via messages the ‘soon everything will get better’. If it was true, then it needed to happen right away. The word ‘soon’ was intolerable to me. I needed something to happen now, as in immediately, not soon as in next week, next month, or next year! When I got back to the office I checked my email messages. Not an offer of a massive contract or even a two-week project. I never give up so rather than fret I got down work writing my new business pitch. It would be moderately clever but more focussed on serious business. I also decided to offer a one-hour consultation for free. It wasn’t a lot but it was a significant testimony to my belief that I could be of service. It was a reasonable but definitely gimmicky pitch. I didn’t like it after I thought about it. I may as well have offered up to fifty percent off. Operative words being up to.

I opened my new notebook to write down my prospect list of names and phone numbers. I would leave a space after each name and number for next steps if any. As I opened the first page of the book I noticed what looked like a smudge in the corner of the first page. It actually looked like more than a smudge so I got a magnifying glass to get a closer look. I was expecting a smudge but thought it could be something else. I wasn’t sure what the something else could so I used the magnifying glass to see whether it was a smudge or the something else I just mentioned. It was the something else. The smudge was not a smudge but six tiny numbers, two rows of three. 145389. I looked at the numbers reading them out loud, heaven knows why, and then I wrote them down. What the heck did the numbers mean? Were they a combination to some safe or locker, maybe part of a phone number, were they just random number put on the page to annoy the heck out of me or were they lottery numbers. I liked the idea of lottery numbers. People used all kinds of numbers when they bought lottery tickets. Birthdays, anniversaries, street numbers, time and date the shoe sizes of an entire marching band, divided by ten. I decided to buy a lottery ticket and use those numbers. I had nothing to lose. I bet you are thinking, ‘she bought the ticket and holy moly she won’. Well you thought wrong. Not one number matched. For some strange reason, even though the lottery was a bust, I felt the numbers were important to me. I would continue to buy lottery tickets using the numbers but I would try and find out whether the numbers had another meaning. In the mean time I had come up with an email campaign that was creative, business-like and asked for the order. I sent out fifty or so emails to potential new clients, as well as previous and current clients. What was extraordinary was that I got several responses, all positive the very next day. Promotion actually works! I ended up with enough new projects to keep me financially flush and very busy. I kept on buying lottery tickets using the numbers and eventually I actually won. Say what??? Yep, I won fifty thousand dollars. Not the million-dollar jackpot but seriously who would say no to fifty grand? No one that’s who. I was so happy I thought I would explode, fifty grand in the bank, and a ton of new projects. I actually wrote ‘Thank you’ in my little black book. I checked the book every day for a week. I kind of expected a ‘you’re welcome’.