Page 57 of The Life-Changing Magic of Falling in Love

I commit the entire email text to memory so that I can no doubt repeat it to myself verbatim when trying to get my solid eight tonight.

How do I get my head around the fact that I’ve failed?

Failed.

It’s a new experience.

It is not a nice experience.

I try and think about what I’d tell a member of my team in this position – feeling dejected. Defeated. Immobile with shock. The words, “Not every campaign will pan out. The trick is how you pick yourself up and crush the competition to get the next one. In a contracting market you need to be even more commercially aware. Even more savvy. That means ensuring you have more than one egg in more than one basket. Keep those feelers out. Have many, many irons in the fire…”

But as the newly promoted Advertising Account Director and therefore responsible for bringing in business and increasing revenue streams and building winners and having awards under your belt, let’s be frank … that kind of psychobabble is complete bullshit, isn’t it?

Because how’s it going to look to Harrison when he learns the first major account that I was supposed to bring in … the example I was destined to set … is dead in the water?

How’s it going to feel knowing I’ve suddenly acquired a great big question mark about me above my head?

Because he doesn’t care about how many feelers, eggs and irons I have out there – not when that’s just standard business practice. No, what Harrison requires from an account director is the ability to lead by example.

My jaw aches with tension because it was understood I wasn’t only as good as the Forever Yeong account.

It was understood I was more.

I swivel around in my chair but the cityscape brings no comfort and worse, no creative thinking sparks how to turn this all around.

I close my eyes only to picture units of Perfect Pies being depleted on a national scale as the winning advertising company propels the company out of the stratosphere because they understood their client’s needs and, oh yeah, how to not fail.

I wrench open my eyes and see I still have fifty-seven minutes until I meet with Anya. I think about all those hours stuck in a hospital bed when I was younger. Learning how to be patient. Learning how to dream. Learning how to get ready to take my leap forward and make those dreams a reality.

They seem so far away from me somehow.

Blimey.

Has all my success made me soft?

I heave in a breath, determined to pull myself together and re-set. I need to start making notes on the team talk I’m going to have to give when I disclose that we didn’t get the account I had them all working through the night on last week.

Fiercely I set about describing how to never stop creating opportunity – how to never stop creating, period, when I become aware that my left shoulder is tingling.

Really tingling.

I press into the nerves and muscles and note that the area feels hard. Like I’m super tense … or like there’s an obstruction?

Left-hand side is heart.

The words on my document swim in front of me and I leap to my feet to pace.

While pacing I stretch my neck out. Rotate my shoulder. Clench and un-clench my hand a couple of times.

Okay, that’s feeling a bit better.

I’m fine.

Right?

I try to analyse if I should go back to the hospital and get checked out again. What if they tell me they made a mistake? That I really do have an issue with my heart again.

What if they don’t?

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