I’m a fan of sitting back every once in a while, looking at my life, and asking myself “If I could change one thing that would make a greater positive difference in my life than anything else I could change, what would it be?” But then I was thinking about how often it is easier to see another person’s faults rather than our own, so if I really want to find out what I should change maybe I should bring in some support.
I’m also a fan of Spencer’s in Salt Lake City. They have the best steak in the United States. Don’t just take my word for it, local food snob Ben Smith says so too, and he’s had steaks all over the world, including Kansas. Seriously, the steak I had there was the best steak I’ve had in my life, and yes, I’ve been to Carvers. Spencer’s makes a Carvers steak taste like a large sponge soaked in juices from fetid pig entrails. Perhaps I’m exaggerating things, but I’m telling you, Spencer’s has really good steaks.
So here’s the deal. I will take three people to lunch at Spencer’s, and I’ll pick those three people based on who can give me the most valuable advice in three categories.
Here are the rules:
1. I will choose one winner from each of three categories; business, personal, and family.
a. Business – Your advice could be about my current business, my in-the-works business, or it could be something entirely different, like “Just get a real job, will you?”
b. Personal – What could I do, or stop doing, that would add value to my life? Should I get up earlier, read more books, exercise more, do one thing every day that scares me, or live homeless on the streets for a week?
c. Family – What sage advice would you give me to make me a happier family man? Just to give you some background, I’m happily married, no kids, but working on adopting one.
2. The deadline will be soon, so don’t hold back. This isn’t like bidding on something on eBay. I probably won’t let this go on more than a week or two.
3. Post your advice as comments to this post. Emails and any other sort of correspondence will not count.
4. Yes, multiple submissions are ok.
5. If you’re not local to SLC or any other Spencer’s we’ll work something out. Maybe an iPod Shuffle or something.
The advice must be relevant and specific to me. Generic advice of the sort that comes from fortune cookies won’t cut it. The more personal it is, the more hard-hitting and life-changing it is, the better. The way I’ll judge who wins is by which advice I feel creates the most value for myself. And I’ll be much more inclined to favorably judge those suggestions that are harsh. I want suggestions that make me cringe and say “Oooh, that smarts. But man, that’s a good suggestion, that would seriously help me if I started doing that…”
Let the constructive criticism begin.
