Will Guidara was twenty-six when he took the helm of Eleven Madison Park, a struggling two-star brasserie that had never quite lived up to its majestic room. Eleven years later, EMP was named the best restaurant in the world. How did Guidara pull off this unprecedented transformation? Radical reinvention, a true partnership between the kitchen and the dining room—and memorable, over-the-top, bespoke hospitality. Let’s see what I highlighted from Will’s book.
In the rise of digital communication and increased demand for remote work, 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.
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?”
Ozan Varol is one of the best "out-of-the-box thinkers" I have known and after reading his best seller "Think Like a Rocket Scientist", I started to follow his blog and weekly posts. I get new perspective from what he shares and this makes him one of my best authors. And here is the best book I read in 2024: Awaken Your Genius. No need for fancy introduction, you will understand why I love him so much after having a look at the quotes from his book below. So let's start...
In the last days of the summer'23, I saw my colleague's (Dr. Philipp Moser) post in Linkedin about the book by Ben Horowitz: "The Hard Thing About Hard Things". It is a book with many experiences from Ben and the book brings a new perspective to you and make you learn what is going on in the top management side of the business.
“This the real world, homie, school finished. They done stole your dreams, you dunno who did it.” —KANYE WEST, “GORGEOUS”
From Communist to Venture Capitalist
Father turned to me and said, “Son, do you know what’s
cheap?” Since I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, I replied,
“No, what?” “Flowers. Flowers are really cheap. But do you know what’s
expensive?” he asked. Again, I replied, “No, what?” He said, “Divorce.”
By doing everything, I would fail at the most important
thing. It was the first time that I forced myself to look at the world through
priorities that were not purely my own. I thought that I could pursue my
career, all my interests, and build my family. More important, I always thought
about myself first. When you are part of a family or part of a group, that kind
of thinking can get you into trouble, and I was in deep trouble. In my mind, I
was confident that I was a good person and not selfish, but my actions said
otherwise. I had to stop being a boy and become a man. I had to put first
things first. I had to consider the people who I cared about most before
considering myself.
Until you make the effort to get to know someone or
something, you don’t know anything. There are no shortcuts to curiosity.
Honestly, "The Culture Code" is not one of those books that I will recommend someone to read but it has well chosed quotes that I wanted to carry to my blog. Anyway, I respect to the authoe Daniel Coyle's effort. So here you may find them:
Individual skills are not what matters. What matters is the interaction.
They are not
competing for status. They stand shoulder to shoulder and work energetically
together. They move quickly, spotting problems and offering help. They
experiment, take risks, and notice outcomes, which guides them toward effective
solutions.
They are
tapping into a simple and powerful method in which a group of ordinary people
can create a performance far beyond the sum of their parts.
In Give and Take, Adam Grant, an award-winning researcher and Wharton’s highest-rated professor, examines the surprising forces that shape why some people rise to the top of the success ladder while others sink to the bottom. Praised by social scientists, business theorists, and corporate leaders, Give and Take opens up an approach to work, interactions, and productivity that is nothing short of revolutionary. This book was a summer read for me and I highlighted a lot quotes in Adam’s Grant’s “Give and Take”.
According to conventional
wisdom, highly successful people have three things in common: motivation,
ability, and opportunity. If we want to succeed, we need a combination of hard
work, talent, and luck.
Generally, when I am trying to find a book to read, I visit amazon.com and check out the most sellers in business and biographies. It was a weekend like this and I was updating my Kobo ebook reader with new contents and I just saw that Amazon advises this book: “How are you, really?” by Jenna Kutcher. This honest and natural question interested me and I have a quick look about its comments. Then I visited goodreads.com and saw the high rating and I decided to download. It was one of the many books I uploaded to my ebook reader that weekend but because of its tempting name, I decided to start reading this book first. And I am glad to have read it. It is maybe another personal development book that motivates you but it does not repeat the same things with the other ones. It clearly states how Jenna manages her success story. It is authentic and it makes it unique. I like it as a summer read and I highly advise it to those who do not stop and check how she/he is. In the meantime, how are your, really?
When you read the title of the book, you might guess that it is only about money and maybe business, but it is about life. With the real time stories shared by Morgan Housel, this book makes stories meaningful and let you know more about personal finance, investment, wealth creation and living a better life.
My readers know that I am a lover of memoirs and it is not always easy to find an inspiring memoir. And thanks God, I found it this time. It is a memoir by Robert Iger, ex-CEO of Disney and I liked the flow of the book with the real-time cases. Out of this book, I have even created 2 blog posts for my personal blog. If interested, you can also have a look at them:
Volkan Yorulmaz: Leadership Lessons from Disney’s CEO
Volkan Yorulmaz: No Price on Integrity
.jpg)
Something will always come up. At its simplest, this
book is about being guided by a set of principles that help nurture the good
and manage the bad. I was reluctant to write it for a long time. Until fairly
recently, I even avoided talking publicly about my “rules for leadership” or
any such ideas, because I felt I hadn’t fully “walked the walk.” After
forty-five years, though—and especially after the past fourteen—I’ve come to
believe that I have insights that could be useful beyond my own experience.
Plain and simple, if you like your current financial situation, you probably feel pretty good about money matters, and you don’t need a makeover. On the other hand, if you don’t like your current financial situation, you probably feel pretty lousy about your finances. A makeover is for you!
Wealth building isn’t rocket science. The principles are
simple, time-proven, and effective. In a nutshell, “spend less and invest more”
is a five-word financial strategy.
If you will live like no one else now . . .
later you can live like no one else.
One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had.
Will Smith’s
transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of
the biggest rap stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in
Hollywood history, with a string of box office successes that will likely never
be broken, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will
tells it astonishingly well. But it's only half the story.
There are some players that each and every football fan show respect. Steven Gerrard is one of these characters. I have recently read his biography: My Story. Previously I read Ronaldo’s and İbrahimovic’s biographies and compared to these stars’ biographies, I couldn’t find that much interesting stories. The way Steven tells his story is similar to the way he plays his football: well-disciplined and I think this made his book “standard”. Besides these negative comments, Steven has still things to share and we can benefit from his experiences. Below you will see my quotes from his biography: My Story, by Steven Gerrard.
Steven Gerrard - legendary captain of Liverpool and
England - tells the story of the highs and lows of a twenty-year career at the
top of English and world football.
In My Story Gerrard dissects his full playing career.
He examines the defining games such as the 2005 Champion's League Final when he
inspired 'The Miracle of Istanbul' as Liverpool came back from 3-0 down against
AC Milan to become champions of Europe. He talks about his 114 caps for
England, including World Cup and European Championship campaigns, asking what
went right - and wrong.
In My Story Gerrard dissects his full playing career.
He examines the defining games such as the 2005 Champion's League Final when he
inspired 'The Miracle of Istanbul' as Liverpool came back from 3-0 down against
AC Milan to become champions of Europe. He talks about his 114 caps for
England, including World Cup and European Championship campaigns, asking what
went right - and wrong.
If you want to start a new habit, it means that you have a new challenge. If you need a supporter for this challenge, your main supporter might be a book. And if this might be a book, this will probably be this book: Atomic Habits, by James Clear.
In this blog post, you will
find more than the average highlights that I share because this book is full of
great insights. Here are just some of these awesome quotes which will make you
take action.
Tiny Changes, Remarkable
Results
No matter your goals,
Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving—every day. James Clear,
one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical
strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones,
and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.
In his biography, Şenes Erzik sends a
message that we must be rational for the rest of our lives without giving up.
In other words, he tells his reader not to do what we can't do, but to measure
it well.
I think it was his first turning point when he took the Robert College exams for high school education with the encouragement and support of his older brother Necati Erzik at the age of 14. The universal education he received in a respected school, the strong connections and network he built, was obviously a good investment for him.
People may start with different temperaments and different aptitudes, but it is clear that experience, training, and personal effort take them the rest of the way.
It’s not always the people who start out the smartest who
end up the smartest.
Benjamin Barber, an eminent political theorist, once said,
“I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and
the failures. . . . I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners.”
People in a growth mindset don’t just seek challenge, they
thrive on it. The bigger the challenge, the more they stretch. And nowhere can
it be seen more clearly than in the world of sports. You can just watch people
stretch and grow.
“Becoming is better than being.”
I learn a lot from the biographies and the true stories of professionals. During his storied career as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson won more championships than any coach in the history of professional sports. And he has a lot to share in his book: Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success. Besides, there are great quotes in this book. Here they are:
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
RUMI
Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.
JIM BUTCHER
Organizational psychologist Adam Grant is an expert on opening other people's minds--and our own. As Wharton's top-rated professor and the bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take, he makes it one of his guiding principles to argue like he's right but listen like he's wrong. With bold ideas and rigorous evidence, he investigates how we can embrace the joy of being wrong, bring nuance to charged conversations, and build schools, workplaces, and communities of lifelong learners. You'll learn how an international debate champion wins arguments, a Black musician persuades white supremacists to abandon hate, a vaccine whisperer convinces concerned parents to immunize their children, and Adam has coaxed Yankees fans to root for the Red Sox.
Think Again reveals that we don't have to believe everything we think or internalize everything we feel. It's an invitation to let go of views that are no longer serving us well and prize mental flexibility over foolish consistency. If knowledge is power, knowing what we don't know is wisdom.
Decoding Greatness is a game-changing approach to mastery that will transform the way you learn new skills and generate creative ideas.
For
generations, we've been taught there are two ways to succeed—either from talent
or practice. In Decoding Greatness, award-winning social psychologist Ron
Friedman illuminates a powerful third path—one that has quietly launched icons
in a wide range of fields, from artists, writers, and chefs, to athletes,
inventors, and entrepreneurs: reverse engineering.
In Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin share hard-hitting, Navy SEAL combat stories that translate into lessons for business and life. I have read an updated edition of the blockbuster bestselling leadership book that took America and the world by storm, two U.S. Navy SEAL officers who led the most highly decorated special operations unit of the Iraq War demonstrate how to apply powerful leadership principles from the battlefield to business and life.
It is a great read of the lessons on the battlefield and how they can be applied to everyday business efforts.
Sent to the most violent battlefield in Iraq, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's SEAL task unit faced a seemingly impossible mission: help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a city deemed "all but lost." In gripping firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories in SEAL Team Three's Task Unit Bruiser, they learned that leadership—at every level—is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.
Below
you may find out my key take-aways from each part of this book. I hope you will
enjoy and learn from my highlights.
Another great book is over as of this Father's Day (2021, 20 June). I really loved the quotes from this book. Normally I am a big fan of biographies and autobiographies and this book was a good example of why I love this type of books. In short, they make me learn from other people's experiences. Do you also like to learn from others' mistakes and take-aways, then you should have a look at this book.
From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.
Unflinchingly honest and remarkably candid, Matthew McConaughey's book invites us to grapple with the lessons of his life as he did—and to see that the point was never to win, but to understand.—Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
I've
been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for
forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last
thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that
made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to
have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt
less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.
Introduction
This
is a playbook, based on adventures in my life. Adventures that have been significant,
enlightening, and funny, sometimes because they were meant to be but mostly
because they didn’t try to be. I’m an optimist by nature, and humor has been
one of my great teachers. It has helped me deal with pain, loss, and lack of
trust. I’m not perfect; no, I step in shit all the time and recognize it when I
do. I’ve just learned how to scrape it off my boots and carry on.
