I'm Increasing My Offer - You'll be happier in 7 days or I'll pay you $500

Unfortunately, no one took me up on my offer to cure the winter blues. So I'm making it easier and increasing the offer to $500.

No one took me up on my offer last week. Lets try again.

As you may recall, last week I made the offer that “I will improve your winter blues in 7 days, or I'll pay you $50.” I was nervous because I was risking $23,000 of my own money and trying to have some “skin in the game” as they say.

It started off strong with four people saying that they wanted to do it, but unfortunately, no one made it after just the first day.

I’m so confident that this will make anyone happier and I’m so concerned about how many of my friends are saying that they are depressed - I’m making it easier and increasing the offer to $500.

I’m even making it easier to qualify: You don’t have to be addressing Seasonal Affective Disorder (Winter blues), you don’t have to post anything publicly, and you don’t have to give up deserts of change your diet at all.

Here is my new offer:

Following these simple steps will make you happier in 7 days or I will pay you $500. It’s that simple.

Here are the simple rules.

1. Get your blood flowing for at least 30 minutes every single day. Work out, Lift, Run, Move, be physically active, or simply go for a purposeful Walk - You choose the work out. You just have to do it every day and it has to be purposeful and deliberate. You need to get your heart rate up. Deep breathing is highly effective for improving mental health and is consistently proven by research.

2. Ignore your phone, email, & social media for the first 1 hour of the day and the last 1 hour before you go to bed - every single day. Be present. Don’t be nose down to your phone or device at the start and end of the day.

3. Keep a private journal at the end of the day to document how you’re feeling, what you’re grateful for, and what you accomplished in the day. Never miss a day. The journal will be private to you.

4. No alcohol or drugs that aren’t prescribed by a doctor for all 7 days.

That’s it. 4 simple steps that require no equipment, no gym membership, nothing for you to buy - all you need is a desire to improve your mood.

I’ve made the rules much simpler. You don’t need to post anything publicly, you don’t need to share how you feel with anyone, this is all completely private between me and you.

Here are the very simple rules:

1. You must be a real human living in the USA. I don’t know how the rules in other countries work with stuff like this.

2. You must start the challenge on or before 12/11/2023 and complete it before 12/18/2023.

3. You must have a desire to be happier than you currently are today. This method isn’t intended to be able to cure your grief or clinically diagnosed depression within 7 days. (But I am confident that this process will probably help.)

4. These tasks need to be new to you. If you already do all 4 of the steps above, congratulations! But this challenge doesn’t apply to you.

5. You must email me to let me know that you are starting this challenge! Consider this your registration for the challenge. Just email me on the day you start so that we can start the clock running and so that I can send you words of encouragement along the way. This challenge will be private between me and you.

6. Each day that you complete all 4 steps, you must document them by sending me an email and letting me know what you did for each of the steps. This entire bet is basically on the honor system, so I need to be able to follow along with your progress each day. You can’t just wait until the end and say “I did it and it didn’t work.” That’s not fair.

7. After you complete the 7 days, you must have a friend, a significant other, or a family member that is willing to vouch for you. I want to be able to verify that you did what you said you did. This person doesn’t need to be present for every workout or anything like that. But they do need to be willing to vouch for you and your honesty.

8. You must respond to my emails so that we can keep a dialog going. Part of this process is having a partner helping you along the way. I can’t help if you don’t respond.

9. At the end of the 7 days, if you have completed all the required steps and you can honestly say that your mood has not improved at all, I will Venmo you $500. It’s that simple. Remember, I’m not promising that you will be the happiest person in the world. With this process we are setting out to improve your mood from the place you started in. Incremental progress is what we are always going after. Not quick easy solutions. Those rarely exist in the real world.

This challenge is limited to the first 50 people that respond. That will cap my expense at $25,000. You don’t need to be a subscriber to my newsletter. I hope this helps as many people as possible.

Let’s do it! Email me and lets get started. I will be your personal coach and motivator along the 7 day journey.

7 days to improve your mood or I’ll pay you $500. What’s stopping you? Lets go!

Next week my topic will be the weight loss drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy. I’ve been working on this article for a while and I’m going to share some of the data, my concerns, and how you can mitigate the harms if you are currently taking those drugs. (As I’ve mentioned before, I am not taking any medication at all and none for weight loss. But I am an early investor in Ozempic & Wegovy.)