The Email That Will Change Your Life

It was 2007, 2 O’clock in the morning and Hal couldn’t sleep. Hal was staring at his laptop and was feeling frustrated with his life. (As his salary was cut in half, he was unable to pay bills and rent, he was in the debt of $424,000) He suddenly got inspired and opened up a new email and started adding a very diverse group of people to the To: field. Close friends, family members, co-workers, former bosses, acquaintances, and many more. Hal writes “ I was ready for a quantum leap in my potential, and I felt the only way for me to get an accurate statement of who I was, how I was showing up in my family, and where I needed to improve was to solicit honest feedback from the people who knew me the best.

I began to compose an email to these people, who each knew me in different capacities and to varying degrees, explaining that I wanted to grow personally, to be a better friend, son, brother, and colleague and the only thing to do was to get feedback from people who could see things about me that I couldn’t see about myself.”

Hal also says that he had been lying if he didn’t admit that this was the most nerve-tracking email he has ever composed. (Even I myself took 5 days to send this email and even now also few people are still left.) Hal almost chickened out, he considered deleting it, but he thanks God he didn’t do it.

Hal then added that he gained more self-awareness and grew more in a week from reading responses of the emails than he had grown in his entire life.

Hal also writes a problem that some people might get stuck, and the problem is that most people don’t enjoy negative feedback, so they completely avoid asking for feedback. This prevents them from gaining invaluable data about their strengths and weaknesses, thus preventing them from capitalizing on the former and scientifically improving the latter.

Without any further delay, lets directly enter to the email, which you can customize according to your need.

Dear Mom/Friends/Relatives

Thank you so much for reading this email. This isn’t an easy one for me to send, but it is extremely important to me, so I sincerely appreciate you investing your valuable time reading (and hopefully responding to) it.

This email is going out to only a select group of people. Each of you knows me well, and I’m hoping will give me honest feedback about my strengths and most importantly, my weaknesses (aka ‘areas of development’)

I’ve never done anything like this before, but I feel that for me to grow and improve as a person, I need to get a more accurate picture of how I’m showing up to the people that matter the most to me. In order to become the person, I need to be to create the life and contribute to others at the levels that I want, I need your feedback.

So, all I am asking is that you take just a few minutes to email me back with you honestly think are my top two/three ‘areas of development’. If it will make you feel better to also list my top two/three ‘strengths’ (I am sure it will make me feel better), you are definitely welcome to. That’s it. And please don’t sugarcoat it or hold back anything. I will not be offended by anything that you share. In fact, the more ‘brutally’ honest you are, the more leverage it will give me to make positive changes in my life.

Thank you again, and if there is anything else I can do to add value to your life, please let me know

With sincere gratitude,

[Your Name]