This Tuesday started like any other. I opened my gmail account to scour my HARO email for public relations leads. There, at the top of the email, was an advertisement for a new online newsletter called The Toilet Paper. News junkie that I am, I was immediately intrigued, so I clicked through. I liked the looks of it, so I went ahead and signed up for the email. But before leaving the site, I noticed an advertisement for a giveaway. Now, I have to pause here because you need to understand how much I LOVE giveaways. Since starting my crusade to win neat stuff online, I have some really cool stuff – a book that I wanted to read, tax software and even a $100 gift card. So when I saw that Saddleback Leather Company was giving away a 100%, full-grain, boot leather briefcase that retailed at $607.00 for FREE, I was determined to win it. All I needed to do was post a creative response to a quirky question that would generate the most commentary on The Toilet Paper’s Facebook site. Three days and a flurry of requests to my friends later, 142 people had responded to “like” my post and I had generated 78 comments (some of which were responses to me).
While I was striving to win the prize, I realized that I was also learning some life lessons.
No Matter How Small the Request, When You Need Help, It’s Okay to Ask for It
I posted my request for assistance on my page, I sent personal emails, I started chats with people. I went full-out to win the prize. And, every day, to my utter surprise, people responded. I asked for a “Facebook favor” and people went out of their way to help me. When they were confused about whether they had fulfilled the request sufficiently, they contacted me to make sure they were able to help. When I asked folks to post my request on THEIR pages, they did it! Everyone of my “friends” on Facebook and their friends, were more than glad to assist me, even with a silly request that had absolutely no payback for them.
People are Generous and Willing to Help
We look at the news and make up our minds that people are inherently evil, but this is just not true. More often than not, people are generous, kind and willing to help their friends and neighbors. More importantly, this cuts across all lines: race, gender, sexuality?my friends run the gamut, and all of them helped.
People Want You to Succeed
The universe is a friendly place and whether we want to believe it or not, I learned that people want you to succeed. Over and over, people let me know that they were pulling for me and that they wanted me to win. It was a great feeling to know that so many people, without a vested interest in my success, were still hoping that I would succeed.
As I rounded the corner of the contest, it occurred to me that if I applied the same diligence, networking, and perseverance in my life that I had applied to the contest, I would be an unstoppable force. So, thank you Facebook, for connecting people together in a way that has never been possible, and thank you Saddleback Leather Company, for giving me something to shoot for. I didn’t win a bag.
I won a whole lot more.
Thank you everyone. I appreciate all your support!
