Little Messages

“Post-it notes on car windows.”

Little messages

“I didn’t think that leaving the grocery store and arriving at my car would change my life.”  My friend Scotty said.

You can imagine how this statement captured our interest.  Gordon, Scotty and I were having a casual conversation when Scotty dropped this little line while catching our attention completely.  I just had to know more so I prodded him on.

“I walked up to my car and there was a Post-it note stuck on my door window.  My first reaction was, ‘Oh, great! Someone hit or banged my car and didn’t wait around to tell me so they left me a note.’  So, I tentatively pinched the note between my thumb and forefinger to read it.”

“And?” I impatiently inquired.

“It said, ‘You’re a beautiful person!’ and that’s it.”  Scotty continued.

“It had to say more than that to have a huge impact on your life!  Maybe they left it on your car by mistake.”  Gordon chimed in.

“That was only one part of what hit me.”  Scotty said.  “The next part of the experience is what opened my eyes to the intent of the person who left me the note.  After reading the note I took a quick glance around the parking lot to see if I could catch a clue as to who left me the Post-it.  There wasn’t a note writer to be discerned!  But there were the same Post-it notes on almost all of the cars surrounding me!  It caused me to take a little tour of the parking lot.  I call it my Post-it tour.  Each car had a similar message on it.  Not one was exactly the same!”

“Wow.”  I said.  “Someone went to a lot of effort!”

“Yes.”  Scotty said.  “But that isn’t the whole story!  I went back to the same store, same time, same day of the week and parking area the next week and what do you think happened?  You got it!  I, and about one hundred others, received another note, the same kind of thing, on a different color paper.  I did it for three weeks in a row and received the same type of inspirational message every time!”

“Can’t say I’ve ever seen that before.”  Gordon said.  “Closest thing I’ve ever come across was my friend Mike who would leave little notes for his wife.  He’d put them in unusual spots like inside her shoe.  She loved them!”

“After the third week I started my car and drove away thinking, everyone grows up thinking, ‘I’m special.  I’m going to change the world!’  But very few people do.  ‘Now, here’s a person that grew up and is doing something about it’ I said to myself.  They are changing the world in a very personal way!”  Scotty advanced.

As Scotty said that, it made an impact on me.  My friend Scotty knows lots of famous and very successful people!  It caused me to draw a clear distinction between fame and making a difference in the world.  Lots of people are famous and some get to the point where they can’t live without the fame.  It causes a few to begin to do foolish things just to stay in the spotlight!

The Post-it benefactor does their work in private, on a personal level just to positively change the world in a simple, direct and impactful way.  It’s a type of practice we could all adopt if we wanted to become the people we hoped to be, believed we were going to be.

What kind of little messages are you leaving in your wake?