When I was young, my dad gave me a paperweight that read, “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” That’s what I was thinking about when Daniel and I wrote, “We will be Number One in the world,” on a cocktail napkin.

There’s no replacement for learning a system from the ground up.

There is, by the way, no better way for a leader to figure out why an idea isn’t working—or how it can work better—than to walk a mile in the shoes of the people you’ve charged with implementing that idea. In general, this is good practice. If you’re the CEO of a hotel chain, work the front desk at one of your hotels a couple of times a year; if you run an airline, take a shift at the ticket desk, or serve drinks and pretzels in economy. Not ceremonially, either—do the job. I bet you’ll be surprised by what you learn; I always was.

It isn’t the lavishness of the gift that counts, but its pricelessness.

The second mistake I’d made was more serious. I’d wanted to make sure every idea we had was communicated properly, so I’d insisted the team learn a spiel. I’d made them performers, ruling out any possibility of a real, quality conversation between them and the guests. Of course the experience had felt inauthentic to Wells; there had been no room for Natasha to connect with him. I had taken away her ability to be herself at the table.