Here’s an important lesson about business and life I’ve learned along the way: When people whom you sincerely respect disagree with your opinion…it’s time to take a look at your opinion.

That does NOT mean you change your opinion simply to accommodate others. As Bill Cosby famously said, “I do not know the secret of success, but I do know the key to failure: Try to please everyone.”

However, the fact others with whom you so frequently concur are now failing to support one of your opinions should — at the very least — provide you the opportunity to reconsider and either alter what you think, or become even more convinced of your point.

So, when King Kaufman, Jeffrey Summers, Jonathan Trenn, and more were posting on the blog — and others writing me privately — saying my recent post about Morton’s was something with which they disagreed, I thought it was time to take a look.

I realized the disagreement, at least to some degree, boils down to this: the meaning of the word, “stunt.”

Maybe it harkens back to my old days as a disk jockey when a “stunt” was some contrived crappy event, shamelessly attempting to get more listeners to tune into my show and the station. For example, a state policeman during the noon hour on New Year’s Eve started administering shots of Maker’s Mark to me every fifteen minutes until I became totally, wildly drunk — live, on the air — to show how people needed to take it easy, and not drive, on the holiday evening.

We once parked a car in the middle of the shopping mall, and the person who could keep a hand on the car the longest won the vehicle. It turned out to be a better promotion for Depends than Toyota.

In other words, I’ve always maintained a HIGHLY negative view of ANYTHING that is considered a “stunt.”

Dictionary.com defines “stunt” as “any remarkable feat performed chiefly to attract attention.” And, that’s part of my problem with calling the Morton’s delivery of the steak to Peter Shankman at Newark Airport a “stunt.” I just don’t believe — given the timeframe under which they were operating — this was done chiefly to attract wide, public attention. It was done as a spectacular effort for a great customer.

However, after reading the Oxford Dictionary definition, “something unusual done to attract attention,” the subtle shift in meaning made me reconsider my perspective.

What Morton’s did was certainly “unusual.” And, it was executed to thank a good customer — who, admittedly, also has the enormous advantage of being a superstar on social media with the ability to spread the story far and wide. It obviously attracted HIS attention — that’s why Shankman blogged about it, describing it as the “greatest customer service story ever told.”

(A bit of hyperbole, to be sure. We know the “greatest” customer service story is Taxi Terry…wink, wink, nudge, nudge.)

Here’s the point: words are powerful because of what they represent. For some, to call the effort by Morton’s a “stunt” simply implied an unusual and creative effort to attract attention — and that is something ALL marketers and professionals should be executing for their organizations.

From my perspective, “stunt,” meant a cheesy, low-brow, highly manipulative, less-than-ethical, desperate attempt for publicity. (In other words, anything done by Spencer and Heidi. It’s like when Lindsay Lohan’s bikini top accidentally falls off…in Malibu…in front of the paparazzi. Gee! What a coincidence!)

I know from personal experience that does not describe the wonderful folks at Morton’s.

May I suggest, this is a lesson on how the words we use can have varied meanings — and, therefore, translate differently — to our readers…to our friends…and our customers.