I was recently talking to a client, someone who is going to take my seminar in New York at the end of January. I was calling to give him some details and so forth.

When I first tried to call him, sure enough I dialed the wrong number. I have the world’s worst handwriting. You’d think I was a doctor. My handwriting is so bad that I can’t even read it half the time.

Anyway, due to my poor handwriting I dialed the wrong number. I eventually figured out which numbers were wrong and left my client a message.

A few minutes later, though, my phone rings. It was the person I originally called when I dialed the wrong number.

He leaves me this message: “Hey, It’s Tom. You called me. What’s going on man? Give me a call back and let me know. I’ll be around the rest of the day.”
I’m thinking to myself, “This guy doesn’t even know me, but yet he leaves me that long of a message?”


How many times have you dialed a wrong number and hung up, only to have the person you accidentally called call you back and leave you a message saying, “Hey it’s Tim. You called me.” Why do we do that?

If you dialed a wrong number and hung up in the good old days, nobody knew it. You never really knew if you really any wrong number calls unless you actually answered the phone when they came in. That, of course, was pre-caller ID.

Then, all of a sudden, technology started getting really good and you could hit *69 if someone called and hung up, so you could call that person back. If you got home and you didn’t even know if anybody called, but you wanted to know, you could use this feature to call the last number that dialed you. Then you could say, “Hey, this is Joe. Did you call me?”

Now with cell phones with caller ID and everything else, we’ve become virtually addicted to technology. Now when someone calls and hangs up, we feel compelled to know who called and why they didn’t leave a message.

It’s a wrong number folks! That, or someone who called and hung up because they didn’t want to talk to you or leave a message.

It feels really neurotic to me when someone calls me and says, “You called me. Why didn’t you leave a message?” I didn’t leave a message because I didn’t want to leave one at that time.

Maybe I didn’t leave a message because I’ll call you back later. Maybe I didn’t leave a message because my other line rang or the dog threw up or who knows why. Obviously there was something going on that was more important to me at that moment than leaving you a message.

When it comes down to dating, though, there is a different rule: Always leave a message! if someone calls you a few times but doesn’t leave a message, call them back and say “Why don’t you leave a message? Did you not trust that I would call you back, and you would rather phone stalk me all day?” Have some fun with it.

Alright, see you tomorrow. Bye.