A LETTER FROM SIMON SINEK

At Optimism Press, we imagine a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are, and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. And the reality is, we are more likely to build this world if we commit to building it together.

But there’s a problem. . . .

Over the last few decades, we’ve drifted apart. We used to do more things together. We attended church and other places of worship. We met up with friends and neighbors and met new people through bowling leagues and at our local rec centers. But these days, church attendance is down dramatically and bowling leagues and rec centers have all but disappeared. Add in the rise of digital communication and increased demand for remote work and we are left feeling lonelier and more apart than at any other time in recent history. Yet our intense desire to feel a sense of belonging remains—it’s an innate human need. That’s where Unreasonable Hospitality comes in.

On its surface, this is a book about a talented entrepreneur who helped transform a middling brasserie in New York City into the best restaurant in the world. However, this book is much bigger and more important than that. It is a book about how to treat people. How to listen. How to be curious. And how to learn to love the feeling of making others feel welcome. It is a book about how to make people feel like they belong.

The greatest restaurants in the world became great by challenging the way we think about food: sourcing, preparation, presentation and, of course, taste. But when Will Guidara set out to make Eleven Madison Park the best restaurant in the world, he had a crazy idea about how to do it: “What would happen if we approached hospitality with the same passion, attention to detail, and rigor that we bring to our food?”

Most people think of hospitality as something they do. Will thinks about service as an act of service—about how his actions make people feel. And he recognized that if he wanted his frontline teams to obsess about how they made their customers feel, he had to obsess about how he made his employees feel. The two cannot be separated: great service cannot exist without great leadership.

Will not only transformed a restaurant, but challenged our entire idea of service. The lessons in Unreasonable Hospitality have as much relevance to real estate agents and insurance brokers—even government agencies—as they do for people who work in restaurants and hotels. His thoughts on leadership are as applicable to business-to-consumer companies as they are to business-to-business companies. Indeed, any organization would benefit from his thinking.

In this book, Will shows the amazing impact we can have on someone’s life when we give them a sense of belonging . . . and, as important, how inspiring it is to work together to give people that feeling. And that’s an idea worth sharing.

Be unreasonable and inspire on!

Simon Sinek