The Best Meal of My Life Revisited After 6 Years

Back in 2005 I was hardly what you would consider a foodie. However, I was heading out to LA on a trip and wanted to eat at least one really good meal. After doing some research on the Internet Spago in Beverly Hills came up as not only one of the best restaurants in Los Angeles but one of the best in the country. So I made reservations for what would become the best meal I had ever eaten in my life.

I still remember how everything tasted to this day. The first course was an organic vegetable soup, followed by grilled prime ribeye steak for the main course. The dessert was some sort strawberry and ice cream concoction that was phenomenal. 

Wolfgang Puck came over and asked how everything tasted.

"This is the best soup I have ever eaten", I told him.

"You're still young. You still have many great meals left to eat", He told me.

And so a few years had past. I had since traveled many more places and eaten many great meals just like Wolfgang Puck said I would. However, that meal at Spago still held the top spot in my memory.  

Then a funny thing happened. I started to question if I ate there again if the meal would be as good as I remembered. I knew some people that recently ate at Spago in Las Vegas and they didn't seem to rave about it like I was expecting. So I decided as soon as I returned to LA again I would go back to Spago and try to order the exact same meal and see if it was just as good.

So last week I made the return trip to Spago. Wolfgang Puck was there again making the rounds the same as six years ago. I looked at the menu and saw the vegetable soup was not on there this time, so I ordered the Chino Farms tomato soup for the first course.

 
I casually took a picture with my phone so as to not draw attention to myself. I was a little embarrassed taking pics of the food, and honestly these pictures can never do justice to how amazing this food actually is. 

Anyway, after the first spoonful I knew it was just as good as I had remembered the other soup being. Rich, smooth, pure... delicious. A cracker placed on top to balance the rich flavor of the soup. Absolutely magnificent!    

I was excited about the main course because they still had the grilled prime ribeye steak, the exact same main course I had ordered six years ago.

Buttery, rich, tender. The steak was so delicious that I can only pray that the food in heaven is half as good. It was just as wonderful as I had remembered. Even as I became full I just wanted to eat this dish forever. By this point I knew this meal was the best meal of my life.

So lastly, even as I was bursting at the seams, I had to have dessert. I ordered the melba, which consisted of raspberries, golden raspberries, Tahitian vanilla ice cream, and other various goodies. Wolfgang Puck himself delivered it to the table making it a perfect end to a magnificent meal. 

I didn't get a picture of the melba, which was a shame considering it was not only the highlight of the meal but probably the best food item I have ever consumed in my life.  

All in all Spago was just as good as I remembered, and it still remains the best place I have ever eaten. 

Axiom 10: Kaizen

"Education is the progressive discovery of our own ignorance." -William Durant

"Study, study, study, study...." -Golden Boy

It irritates me when people act like know-it-alls. In life these are usually the people that know the least. The term kaizen is a japanese concept meaning, "continual improvement." It means that no matter how much you know or how good you are at what you do there is always room for improvement. The times when we feel like our level of improvement has leveled off are the times that we need to push ourselves the hardest. 

Here are a few ways to implement kaizen into your life if you are feeling stuck: 

• Take on more responsibility - Whether at work or school, taking on more responsibility opens up new learning experiences. It may put you in a situation where you are working harder for the same amount of money, but you may learn new skills and your bosses will take notice of your hard work. The efforts of your extra labor will eventually payoff.
• Find a new hobby - A new hobby allows you to learn a new skill and possibly meet new people. Every new hobby you acquire broadens your understanding of the world and opens up new opportunities.
• Find a mentor - You can improve by learning from someone that is a master in their own field. It may be a living person or a deceased author. Once you go to the right source and ask the right questions you will find the answers you are looking for.
• Push yourself outside of your comfort zone - If over a long period of time you fall into too much of a rhythm it becomes harder to continually improve. Pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone will help you overcome this. So for example if you are nervous about travelling force yourself on a road trip. Forcing yourself into uncharted territory emotionally will help you learn about the world and about yourself. It will also overwhelm you with intense emotions. Emotions that we sometimes lose when we get too much into a rhythym.  

Axiom 9: A Good Reputation is Better Than Money in the Bank

"The real measure of wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money." 
-Unknown

"It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it." 

-Benjamin Franklin

Reputation is probably the single most important factor determining a person's success or failure. Look above at the quote above from Benjamin Franklin. What goes through your mind when you read it? To me, I read the quote and get to where I see Benjamin Franklin's name and its his reputation that solidifies my belief in what I read. His reputation was so great that if he wrote that the sky was pink I might believe it. That, my friends, is the power of reputation. 

For me it has always been better to be honest, hardworking, trustworthy, dependable, and let my handshake be as good as a contract. I know sometimes doing the right thing requires more effort, but unless you are one of the smartest people out there you will get caught if you try to pull a fast one.

Your reputation determines your power over other people. It takes a long time to build and can be lost in an instant. Always air on the side of caution when it comes to your reputation - it is your most prized asset in life.

So how do you build and maintain a good reputation?

Simple. Your reputation is made up of three distinct aspects: confidence, character, and experience. Working on these three aspects will help build your reputation. I will delve more into ways that you can work on these three aspects at a later date.

Until then I highly recommend reading The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. He has a great chapter on the power of reputation.