SALT LAKE CITY — Eight to 10 strangers converge at a secret location. They start with introductions and exchange pleasantries over drinks. Then, they all lend a hand to the chef as he prepares their evening meal.

As these strangers work hand in hand, they are invited to discuss anything they’d like with one another – except, they cannot ask the most obvious question of all, the veritable default at any dinner party: “What do you do for a living?”

These secretive parties are part of an invitation-only event called Evening on the Terrace that takes place about once a quarter. The location and the mix of invitees change for each dinner party, but one thing stays the same: They are all industry influencers, tastemakers and thought leaders who are highly respected and successful within their industries. At any given party, an attendee may mix and mingle with a well-known actor, a fashion blogger, an Olympian, a business leader, a prominent politician, a music rock star or a legendary philanthropist, just to name a few.

Evening on the Terrace is the brainchild of Ryan Westwood, CEO of Simplus, and his friend Randy Garn, co-founder and chief revenue officer of Hero Partners. They wanted to meet some of the most notable, trend-setting folks in their community and around the world – and they wanted these visionaries and trend-setters to be able to meet one another.

These dinner parties have no agenda. Westwood and Garn intentionally designed them to bring together a carefully hand-picked group of influencers, none of whom would necessarily know any of the others. People also can’t ask for an invitation; they must be asked.

“What we love about these dinner parties is that as everyone gets to know one another as anonymous individuals, they connect on a level that transcends what they happen to do from 9 to 5, as the case may be," Westwood said. "They share personal stories, express raw emotions and turn to one another for support and encouragement.”

Westwood and Garn said these dinner parties are life-changing for its guests, with incredible stories, insights and bonding moments that are shared as a group. And now, at the invitation of Westwood and Garn, we’re going to meet just a handful of these fascinating Evening on the Terrace dinner guests.

Modern-day Mother Teresa

The first guest, Ann Webb, is a woman whose life passion is to empower disenfranchised and poorly educated women in Africa and India. She believes so strongly that the secret to lifting these women out of the cycle of poverty is for them to set their own ambitious goals for adult literacy, money management and business development, and so she visits these women often and sends money and resources to them.

Dinner party guests were in agreement that they were dining with a modern-day Mother Teresa. But who is Webb really? Well, the dinner guests eventually learned she’s an incredibly accomplished Utah businesswoman who runs a consulting company, Ideal LifeVision, that help business owners and entrepreneurs unlock their potential and realize their dreams. In fact, one of her biggest motivators to be in this line of work is because she can channel both the proceeds from her business and the same strategies she shares with her clients right back to the women she helps in Africa and India.

NBA player

Next up was a guest who overcame great odds to become a heavyweight in the world of professional basketball. Lance Allred’s personal story is well-known, as he chronicled it in the 2009 memoir “Longshot: The Adventures of a Deaf Fundamentalist Mormon Kid and His Journey to the NBA.” Indeed, he is essentially 80 percent deaf, and indeed, he grew up in a polygamist FLDS sect that his family eventually left.

What was so compelling for dinner party guests was hearing him tell this story in his own words, on his own terms, in the context of a free-flowing dinner party conversation. They heard from him what it is like to grow up going to speech therapy twice a day for three years, enough to be able to communicate so clearly with the outside world that no one would suspect he is deaf. They felt the pain he endured as a teenager because of his family’s prior affiliation with the polygamous sect. And dinner party guests got an inside peek at what it’s like to have played in the NBA for the Cleveland Cavaliers, alongside legends such as LeBron James.

Fortune 500 executive with impeccable timing

Also at a recent Evening on the Terrace event was a man who is a senior-level executive for one of the biggest technology companies on the planet. Mark Sunday is chief information officer for cloud computing giant Oracle.

But how did he end up in such a prominent role? What Sunday shared with dinner party guests is that while being in the right place at the right time certainly played a role in his success, he attributes most of his success to being able to seize upon opportunity. Sunday is famous for once interrupting a conversation with a colleague because he saw a beautiful woman out of the corner of his eye. He went up to her and introduced himself; that woman is now his wife.

Rudy

Anyone who went to the movies in the 1990s remembers the inspiring smash hit about a 5-foot-6-inch tall, 165-pound Notre Dame football player who, after being benched for most of his football career, is thrown into his final game and sacks the opposing quarterback.

But who is the man behind this uplifting 1990s movie, simply titled "Rudy"? Well, Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger actually spent the better part of a decade trying to get this movie made, as he shared with his fellow dinner guests at a recent Evening on the Terrace event. He explained that everyone in Hollywood initially told him no one would care about the story of a diminutive football player who got just 27 seconds of playing time on the field. This college football icon also shared the experience of connecting with his fans, including Lakers great Kobe Bryant, who broke down in tears when describing how the film inspired him as a child.

As you can see, the most prominent, obvious aspects of these guests’ lives is not the focus of Evening on the Terrace dinner conversations. The goal of Evening on the Terrace is to get folks connecting with one another on a much more intimate level, beyond the talking points that publicists and others have prepared for them to share at their speeches and public appearances.

“At the end of the evening, we all walk away feeling renewed and enlightened,” Garn said. “In fact, Lance Allred told me afterward that it was the most fun night he’d had in months!”

Amy Osmond Cook, Ph.D., is the CEO of Osmond Marketing and a food enthusiast. Follow her at @amyocook.

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