Oprah & Will Guidara, The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect

Speaker 1 This episode of the Oprah podcast is presented by Walmart.

Speaker 2 I ran outside of the hot dog cart, bought a hot dog, ran back into the kitchen, then came the hard part, convincing my chef to serve it.

Speaker 2 And then before their final savory course, I brought out what we in New York call a dirty water dog to the table.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 they freaked out.

Speaker 1 Hi there. It's great to be with you all here on the Oprah podcast.
We are stepping out of my tea house for a little change of pace. We're in New York City.

Speaker 1 New York City.

Speaker 1 With an audience of our listeners, it is so fun to be with you all. I'm so glad you're enjoying the podcast.
People stop me on the street and tell me about it.

Speaker 1 I talk to a lot of people, and sometimes when I interview really smart or successful people, I will ask them this question: What is the book that you think everybody should be reading?

Speaker 1 A book that we can actually learn from? Because I still love learning new things and sharing the lessons that I learned with all of you all.

Speaker 1 So when I asked that question recently, the same book kept coming up.

Speaker 2 Your book, Will.

Speaker 2 Your book! There you go.

Speaker 1 So I did a podcast recently with Melody Hobson and I said, what is the book? And she said, well, have you read Unreasonable Hospitality? I said, no, I haven't read it. Then I asked that question.

Speaker 1 David Brooks said, he read Unreasonable Hospitality. Someone else said, I go, what is this unreasonable hospitality? Well, this is what it is, the book, Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Gudera.

Speaker 1 Now, if you're a foodie, you know about Will and 11 Madison Park. Those of you who are here in New York, you go, oh, that that Will.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 It's the three Michelin star restaurant that he ran here in New York with Will at the helm. 11 Madison Park rose to be named the best restaurant, not just in New York City, but in the world.

Speaker 1 The best restaurant in the world.

Speaker 1 And Will says that the secret sauce wasn't just an extraordinary dining experience. It was what he calls the selfish pleasure of creating profound moments of connection and delight for their guests.

Speaker 1 So welcome, Will Godara.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Thank you, Way.

Speaker 1 Will Godara's New York Times bestseller, Unreasonable Hospitality, has sold over 1 million copies.

Speaker 1 You say here on page 99, without exception, no matter what you do, you can make a difference in someone's life.

Speaker 1 You sound like my Angelo.

Speaker 1 In the book, Will shares his abiding philosophy that living in service to others can transform your work, your business, and your life. You must be able to name for yourself why your work matters.

Speaker 1 Doesn't that resonate with you all? It's a lesson he learned as general manager of New York's legendary 11 Madison Park when it was named the number one restaurant in the world.

Speaker 2 By the way, that's so freaking cool.

Speaker 1 I love it that you start the book with this story that I just seen of you and your partner, Daniel Holm. You're sitting at the 2010 World's

Speaker 1 50 Best Restaurants event, and it's in London.

Speaker 1 It's like the Olympics for restaurants or the Oscars, right?

Speaker 1 And you all are doing what people do, like, do you think we're going to come in? How are we going to place? And you thought you were going to place what?

Speaker 2 Like 35.

Speaker 1 35 out of 50.

Speaker 2 And an expression of humility, but also confidence, right? It was our first year on the list. Right.

Speaker 1 And then your partner said, no, 40.

Speaker 2 Yeah, something like that. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 So picture this. It's got to be exciting to get the call, though, right? That you're one of the 50 best restaurants in the world.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's pretty good.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think everyone has one of these moments, right?

Speaker 2 Those that they can recall with extreme detail because they were that profound in their story and i remember getting the letter inviting us to london and celebrating that we were on that list and so of course we went yeah now the awards they're a lot like the oscars okay you're in this larger than life auditorium surrounded by your heroes um in your fanciest tuxedo the whole nine yeah but different from the oscars in one notable way at the oscars i'd imagine when you're nominated for an award once they get to your category you're desperate that they call your name yes here if you're in the room you already know you're one of the best yeah the 50 best.

Speaker 2 You just don't know where in the list you've got.

Speaker 1 I think that too about the Oscars. Everyone in here is great because you're nominated.
Like, and there's just five people in your category.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 at those awards, you're desperate that they call your name. Yes.
Here, they start at 50, they slowly count down to one.

Speaker 2 Here, you're desperate that they do not call your name for as long as humanly possible.

Speaker 2 And I remember I'm all fired up, and then the big British MC at the front of the room, he says, all right, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to start the countdown.

Speaker 2 At number 50, a new entry from New York City, 11 Madison Park. I was like, gosh, darn it.

Speaker 2 Turns out where you're seated has nothing to do with where you place. We'd come literally in last place.

Speaker 1 And did you realize at the time your face is up on the screen? Yeah. So you all didn't have that.
Oh, it's fine. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Maybe not. Exactly.
Everyone else knew to at least pretend to smile and wave, guys. I looked like I'd just gotten kicked in the groin.

Speaker 2 One of my dad's favorite quotes that I cherish and reference often is: Adversity is a terrible thing to waste. And

Speaker 2 that night,

Speaker 2 we were one of the 50 best in the world, but in that room, we were last. And

Speaker 2 I was angry, frustrated, sad.

Speaker 2 But now I look back on that last place finish with gratitude because I don't believe we would have gone on to do what we did next had it not been for that dose of disappointment.

Speaker 1 So you and your partner left, and I think one of the other chefs saw you and started, you know, chuckling when he saw you. He's like, oh, gosh, you guys didn't take that so well.

Speaker 1 And then you guys went and got a bottle of bourbon. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yep. As one does.

Speaker 1 As one does.

Speaker 1 And during the process of drinking the bourbon and talking about why you came in last place, something happened.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we went through all the stages of grief, but ultimately landing on acceptance. Because here's the deal.
At that point, our food was pretty extraordinary.

Speaker 2 Our service was about as close to technically perfect as possible. The dining room was amazing.
And it was for those reasons that we were on that list.

Speaker 2 But when we paused for long enough to really think about it, it became quite clear we had not done anything impactful.

Speaker 2 And I think, listen, it's absurd to say one restaurant is the best in the world when you earn the top spot on that list. What it really means is you are a restaurant making an impact.

Speaker 2 And so I thought about the restaurants that had been number one. They were all run by chefs.

Speaker 2 Chefs who were unreasonable in pursuit of the food they were serving, their product, and relentless in pursuit of innovation. What new ingredients could they cook with?

Speaker 2 What new techniques could they develop? And each of them, in their own way, has influenced how restaurants around the world approach cooking.

Speaker 2 That night, I wrote on a cocktail napkin, we will be number one in the world.

Speaker 2 But a goal without a strategy, that's nothing more than a pipe dream. And so I thought about those chefs.

Speaker 2 If they were unreasonable in pursuit of product and relentless in pursuit of change, we were going to be unreasonable in pursuit of people and relentless in pursuit of the one thing that will never change, which is our human desire to feel seen, to feel cared for.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's when I wrote Unreasonable Hospitality.

Speaker 1 So you wrote this on a napkin? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 After a lot of bourbon, but it turned out to be a book. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Sounding very meaningful. Let's share with our audience this moment.
You were 12 years old and your dad took you to four Seasons.

Speaker 1 Because I always love how a seed is planted, you know, and all of us, you know, start out as little acorns and blossom into our own version of the oak tree.

Speaker 1 And this happened with you at the first time your dad took you to the Four Seasons restaurant here in New York. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Tell us about that. Well, so I grew up in hospitality.
My dad was a restaurateur. My mom was a flight attendant with American Airlines.
And it's just all I've known.

Speaker 2 But when I was a little kid, my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. And the radiation treatments she received ultimately rendered her to becoming a quadriplegic.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 gosh, my dad,

Speaker 2 he's just amazing. I mean, watching him work restaurant hours, watching him be a good dad to me, watching him care for her, he was my hero.

Speaker 2 And it honestly did not.

Speaker 1 You say restaurant hours. Explain that to the rest of the audience.

Speaker 2 For people who don't know, restaurateurs work a tremendous number of hours. Yeah.
Like 14, 15 hours a day. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It didn't matter what he did for a living. That's what I would have wanted to do.
But it just so happened I started falling in love with it by going to work with him.

Speaker 2 And when I was 12, he said, hey, if you really want to do this, you need to experience the best. And so he took me to the Four Seasons for dinner.

Speaker 2 I honestly don't remember a ton about that night. I remember the blazer.
I made him get me that Brooks Brothers blazer with the gold buttons. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I remember it was the first time in my life that I dropped a napkin and someone gave me a new one and called me sir.

Speaker 2 I remember they carved a duck for us table side, but what I really remember was how they made us feel.

Speaker 2 Because for whatever it was, a couple hours that I was there across that table from this man who meant everything to me, the entire world was put on pause. And I felt so very connected to him.

Speaker 2 And it was the first time I realized firsthand the extent to which through hospitality, whether it's in restaurants or any industry, you can create magic for people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And literally at that age, I knew that's what I wanted to do with myself.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, I loved reading this book. And one of the reasons I appreciated it so much is because it reminded me of

Speaker 1 our years on the Oprah Show. with my team, the producers, best team in television.

Speaker 1 And this is the way we viewed our audience, as though our audience were guests who were coming to see us.

Speaker 1 And the experience from the toilet paper in the bathroom being, you know, rolled under and not over and

Speaker 1 everything

Speaker 1 being like you were coming to visit us and this is our welcome to you to be a part of our conversation, our family of conversation in that moment.

Speaker 2 And you introduced surprise and delight into a world that was not accustomed to receiving.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, that's what Favorite Things was all about. Yeah.
Surprise and delight.

Speaker 1 And I know a lot of people who were in those audiences for Favorite Things, everybody wanted to be in there to get the stuff. You don't remember the stuff, but you remember the moment.

Speaker 1 You remember the surprise and you remember the delight.

Speaker 2 It's the quote by Maya Angelou. Yes.
People will forget what you say, they will forget what you do, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Yes.

Speaker 2 And I think that is, in a nutshell, hospitality and what we all have an opportunity to give to, well, everyone around us every single day. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, actually in the book, you say this quote by Maya Angelou that probably wasn't even her quote. I will tell you that actually is her quote.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 I remember sitting at the table when she first said that and I was like, oh my God, I'm going to write that down, Maya. Yeah.
So that was.

Speaker 2 By the way, that's so freaking cool.

Speaker 2 That's just amazing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, another great one she said, another great one she gave me when I came back from opening my school in South Africa and she had the had had a cold and wasn't able to come and i flew from south africa directly to her house to check on her and also to tell her about the whole experience of opening my school this is in 2007 and she was making biscuits and i said maya oh my god that school it was just the greatest experience nelson mandella was there and these girls are going to be my greatest legacy and she said You have no idea what your legacy will be.

Speaker 1 And I said, yeah, well,

Speaker 1 I do. I think these girls, this school is going to be my greatest legacy.
And she put the dough down and she said, I said you have no idea

Speaker 1 what your legacy will be because your legacy is never one thing.

Speaker 1 She said, Your legacy is every life you touch.

Speaker 1 So it's everybody who has ever watched a show.

Speaker 2 They almost started clapping. I think that's like.

Speaker 1 Yeah, she said,

Speaker 1 in that moment, she said, it's never one, it's not one thing.

Speaker 1 It's everybody who ever watched a show and decided to go back to school because of something they heard or decided they were going to get a divorce because they were an abusive relationship.

Speaker 1 It's every life. It's every person who you've ever left a heart print with.

Speaker 2 By the way, is

Speaker 2 all about what I wrote about. Exactly.
I mean, it is perfectly...

Speaker 1 That's why it resonates so profoundly with me.

Speaker 2 Because I think that we underestimate

Speaker 2 dramatically the impact we have on other people all day, every single day. And we don't understand that outsized.

Speaker 1 That's what unreasonable hospitality is about.

Speaker 3 We need to take a quick break. And when we come back, Will's good friend, world-renowned chef Daniel Bulu, joins the conversation.

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Speaker 3 Like Will and I've been saying, one of my favorite things is giving a gift with intention. One that says, you matter to me.

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Speaker 3 Walmart, who knew? Shop greatgifts at walmart.com or on the Walmart app. A warm welcome back to the Oprah podcast, y'all.
Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 3 I'm with Will Gudera with an audience in New York.

Speaker 1 Okay, so let's start with the story of the family who comes in. They're on their way back to Europe.
This is their last restaurant they're visiting in New York. And you overhear them say.

Speaker 2 Yes. So I'm in the dining room clearing dirty plates at this table.
It was a table of four. They were foodies on vacation to New York just to eat at great restaurants.
And this is their last meal.

Speaker 2 They're literally going straight to the airport and they're raving about their trip. They'd been to Le Bernadin and Jean-Georges and Danielle and Perse.

Speaker 2 And if everyone in this room doesn't know what those restaurants are, just trust in how fancy they sound.

Speaker 2 They're the good ones.

Speaker 1 Yes, Danielle.

Speaker 2 And now I live in Madison Park, trip of a lifetime. But then one woman jumps in and said, yeah, but you know what we never got to have was a New York City hot dog.

Speaker 2 And it was one of those light bulb moments. And I dropped off the plates, ran outside of the hot dog cart, bought a hot dog, ran back into the kitchen.
Then came the hard part.

Speaker 2 convincing my chef to serve it.

Speaker 2 But I asked him to trust me, and eventually he cut it up into four perfect pieces, putting one on each plate with a little swish of ketchup, one of mustard, a canela of sauerkraut, a little scoop of relish, and I think he topped it off with like a micro herb to make it look fancy.

Speaker 2 And then before their final savory course, which at the time was our honey lavender glazed Muscovy duck that had been dry aged for two weeks, I brought out what we in New York call a dirty water dog to the table.

Speaker 2 And I explained it. I said, hey, I overheard you talking.
We could not let you go home with any regrets. Here's that New York City hot dog.
And

Speaker 2 they freaked out. I've been working in restaurants my entire life.
I'd served tens of millions of dollars worth of Wagyu beef and lobster and caviar.

Speaker 2 And yet I can confidently say that I had never seen anyone react to anything I'd served them like they did to that hot dog. To that hot dog, yes.

Speaker 2 And I think in moments like that, You need to go back to the tapes, see what you did well to make sure you keep on doing that thing. That's how you put intention to intuition.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, intention, I live by that. That's my principle.
And you learned that from your father.

Speaker 1 I learned that from a thought leader that I had on in like 1989, Gary Zukov, who writes about it in Seat of the Soul, a whole chapter on intention, how it's one with cause and effect, and intention is what determines the outcome.

Speaker 1 So tell us your experience of learning intention, that principle from your father.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, when you think about what my dad

Speaker 2 did,

Speaker 2 working 15 hours a day, being a good dad to me, taking care of a handicapped wife, it required an unbelievable level of intentionality. Intentionality.
Yeah, every move mattered.

Speaker 2 Every decision counted. Nothing could just

Speaker 2 be happenstance. And because he was so intentional, not only in managing his time, but in pursuing the relationships that mattered most to him,

Speaker 2 he was able to thrive in all three of those roles. And I mean, I think unreasonable hospitality happens at the intersection of intention and creativity.

Speaker 2 And I learned the intention part definitively from him.

Speaker 1 So unreasonable hospitality is really about going the extra, extra, extra mile and being conscious of that, paying attention to how you use service in a way that

Speaker 2 really

Speaker 1 alters an experience for a person.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I think it requires three things fundamentally. One, just being present,

Speaker 2 which I define as caring so much about the one person in front of you that you stop caring about everything else you need to do.

Speaker 2 And these days, with phones in our pockets as perpetual distractions, it's really hard, even for the best of us, to do well.

Speaker 2 And yet, one of the most powerful things is learning that we need to slow down. in order to speed up.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You write that

Speaker 1 in Unreasonable Hospitality, that that there is nobility in service. Can you expand on that? Because I think a lot of people don't get that there's nobility.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, when I was a kid, most of the people

Speaker 2 my age,

Speaker 2 they were being strongly encouraged to be doctors or lawyers and bankers. No one wanted their kid to go and serve other people.
That was almost like putting yourself below others. And yet,

Speaker 2 gosh, I think there is nobility in service.

Speaker 2 I think, by the way, just naming the importance of your work is a valuable exercise for everyone because I don't care how much you love your job, sometimes work stinks.

Speaker 2 And if you don't know that you're making an impact, it's hard to bring your fully realized self to the table. And so in hospitality and service,

Speaker 2 gosh, what happened with me and my dad of the Four Seasons, we have the ability to help people celebrate some of the most important moments of their lives.

Speaker 1 You say here on page 99, without exception, no matter what you do, you can make a difference in someone's life.

Speaker 1 You must be able to, you sound like my Angela.

Speaker 1 You must be able to name for yourself why your work matters. Doesn't that resonate with you all? You must be able to name for yourself.

Speaker 1 And if you're a leader, you need to encourage everyone on your team to do the same. Why must you be able to name for yourself why it matters?

Speaker 2 Because I think if if you're simply repeating back words that someone else has given you,

Speaker 2 they cannot fully be your own. I think people need to pause for long enough to think about what they do and identify all the many people they can impact so beautifully through that work.

Speaker 2 Because once you have,

Speaker 2 I just think that's when you are fully called to greatness.

Speaker 1 Call to greatness. You actually were inspired by greatness early on.
Yes. When you were at Cornell.
Yes. And there was a program there called Guest Chefs.

Speaker 2 Yes. And Danielle Ballud

Speaker 1 came as a guest chef. And he was one of those people that you, you know, admired and the whole world knew.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 And how did you get him to come there?

Speaker 2 Well, so I was not responsible for getting him there, but I was one of the students in the class that ended up serving him when he was there.

Speaker 2 And we had an amazing time, which

Speaker 2 maybe we'll unpack that in a little bit. But

Speaker 2 I was nobody. Danielle had no reason to care about me, except.

Speaker 1 So explain this.

Speaker 1 You're at Cornell. Cornell has a guest chef program where they bring in a guest chef.
Yes. And the guest chef comes in and he cooks a meal.

Speaker 2 And the students run the restaurant around him and you serve paying guests. And it's a great exercise to actually learn what it's like to properly run a restaurant.

Speaker 2 And we had an amazing dinner and Danielle and I really ended up bonding that weekend to the point that he invited me to go to his restaurant, Danielle, in New York City one day.

Speaker 2 My mother was not supposed to live past me being like 12.

Speaker 2 And yet, she kept on living. She was so focused on seeing me graduate college that She lived seven years longer than any doctor said she would.

Speaker 2 But she did pass literally the day after I graduated college.

Speaker 2 And I was going to Spain that summer for.

Speaker 1 And there was this remarkable moment with her in the hospital where she had not been speaking, hadn't spoken for a long time, and it makes me want to cry. And you came to see her.
Yeah. And

Speaker 1 she comes out of her coma and she speaks.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so she fell into a coma. She ended up missing my graduation.

Speaker 2 And so I threw my cap in the air, jumped in my car, drove there in Boston at that point, went straight to the hospital, fell asleep on her hospital bed. And

Speaker 2 she had been in a coma. She also couldn't speak intelligibly for like five years.

Speaker 2 And I woke up in the middle of the night that night and she was awake. And we had like the first proper conversation.

Speaker 1 She turned to you and said, you graduated.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you graduated college.

Speaker 2 And we talked for a while and then she went back out.

Speaker 2 And then she passed later that morning.

Speaker 2 But listen, I don't know what I believe about certain things, but that night I believed in a lot and

Speaker 2 yeah, I'm gonna get

Speaker 2 but that was one of the greatest gifts I could have ever hoped to have received.

Speaker 1 And then you took your father to Danielle's.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so then I'm going to Spain

Speaker 2 for this job, which I almost canceled in morning, but my dad encouraged me to do it. And by the time I changed my mind back to doing it, the only flight we could find was out of New York City.

Speaker 2 And so my dad and I drove from Boston down 95 to Danielle. And we were running late.
Like we had to change into our suits in like a rest station

Speaker 2 bathroom. And we show up at Danielle and we walk in

Speaker 2 and they greet us. They walk us through the bar.
I thought they'd seat us in the bar, but they didn't. They walked us into the dining room.
I thought they'd seat us in the dining room. They didn't.

Speaker 2 They walked us into the kitchen, up the set of stairs, into this very special room called the Skybox. Wow.
Table for two overlooking the kitchen. You were in the skybox.
We were in the skybox.

Speaker 2 Wow. Okay.
Yeah, I didn't like hang out with Maya Angelou, but I went to the sky box.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 Danielle himself, the greatest chef in the world to me. at that point in time, proceeded to send us up 16 courses, explaining every dish himself.

Speaker 2 We were the last people in the restaurant. My dad, me, and Danielle.
He stayed until the very end, gave us a tour. There was no check.

Speaker 2 And in that moment, while at the four seasons, I was inspired on the power of hospitality to help people celebrate. That was the saddest season of my life.

Speaker 2 And yet he gave my dad and I one of the best evenings of our entire lives.

Speaker 1 And also in that passage, when you write about that experience at Danielle, I'm going to introduce you in in a moment. We keep talking about you and talking about, but I learned something too.

Speaker 1 I just had a big aha, and you all are going to love this moment. You say,

Speaker 1 you drink your finest wine, your most expensive wine on your worst day.

Speaker 1 A lot of people keep their wines and they keep their best meals and they keep their best china and their best things for when there's something to celebrate or when there's a big deal happening, but you say, do it on your worst day.

Speaker 2 Yeah, those days are already good. You don't need a good bottle of wine.

Speaker 2 Drink the best bottles on the worst days.

Speaker 1 Don't you think that's a good adage? I think that's good. That's good.
So he's the world-renowned French chef behind the legendary restaurant, Danielle, here in New York City.

Speaker 1 Chef, you met when you were still in college.

Speaker 1 What did you see in this young? Welcome, Danielle.

Speaker 2 Thank you, Abraham.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 4 what did I saw in him? Yeah. I think, you know, when you get to Cornell, there's hundreds of students that are studying hospitality.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 4 Will was certainly the most animated, the most passionate, the most interested by what was happening that week.

Speaker 4 And well, I don't remember who brought me there, but you were in charge of some part of the dinner.

Speaker 2 Well, I was in charge of marketing, but his dinner sold out so quickly.

Speaker 2 There was nothing nothing to market. So I decided that I was in charge of entertaining Danielle.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 4 That's what happened.

Speaker 4 After a wonderful dinner we had and

Speaker 4 this interaction with all the students and the guests there, then we went out. And so we went out for a drink, typical after work.

Speaker 2 We all gather into a bar, a dive bar somewhere on Cornell's Main Avenue.

Speaker 4 And then after we all say, well, let's go to my home.

Speaker 4 It's getting, the bar is going to close. Let's go to do the after in my home.
And I got into this flat house that, I don't know how many people were living into this small house.

Speaker 2 It was not the nicest house.

Speaker 1 Didn't you all end up raiding some kitchen and making eggs and truffles in the middle of the night?

Speaker 4 And now it's 2.30 in the morning or 2 o'clock in the morning, and we all want...

Speaker 2 a bite.

Speaker 4 And so we go back to school, we go and bribe

Speaker 4 the security in order to get to the kitchen to take some eggs, some caviar, some truffle. And I bring that back.
Now I'm in the kitchen. There's a mountain of dirty dishes everywhere.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 4 The closets are all broken. There is no plate, nothing, but there is a big pan that I clean up and I start to make my scrambled eggs inside.
And I have one spoon, one pan. I fed 30 people.

Speaker 2 That was pretty good. It was amazing.
It tasted good. Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 What did you learn from him over the years?

Speaker 4 Well, what I've learned is,

Speaker 4 and that's what the book is so

Speaker 4 unreasonable in a way that is explaining

Speaker 4 how to

Speaker 4 take the codes of hospitality that we all know and do well and all that.

Speaker 4 and recode it for his own vision of what hospitality should be in his own mind.

Speaker 4 And what I've learned is leadership among, because he didn't achieve everything by himself. We don't achieve anything by ourselves,

Speaker 4 especially in the restaurant business. It's about the team.
It's about, of course, we are there all for the customer, but the team first.

Speaker 2 And I think

Speaker 4 we are at this power of leadership that make people think and people do things that they would have not conventionally do, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Thank you. You are

Speaker 4 an amazing example. I don't know if I could work for you, but.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Danielle. Thank you.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much. Thank you.

Speaker 2 I've come.

Speaker 2 I really, I just want to say one thing.

Speaker 2 I think we are ultimately a compilation of all the people that we find ourselves lucky enough to be around as we grow. And it's a little bit of a

Speaker 2 aligns with that whole idea of our legacy is not

Speaker 2 one thing, nor are we. We are an addition of all the relationships.
And I've learned so much from you, but of every

Speaker 2 person I've met in restaurants who has achieved the level of success that he has, there's no one that comes anywhere close to being so generous with the next generation. Oh.
People who...

Speaker 2 in the moments where they're on the receiving end of his generosity have nothing to give him in return and yet he gives because not only is it the right thing to do, but I think we,

Speaker 2 of the many things we have in common, one is that we just derive so much pleasure from being generous with others. Yes.

Speaker 1 That's what's so interesting about this. I find this to be very inspiring.
And I think that

Speaker 1 after reading it, a lot of people want to know, okay, how do I apply that to my work? Yes.

Speaker 1 I mean, as I said to you, Melody Hobson, big businesswoman, said to me that she uses it in her work with her employees.

Speaker 1 So, you believe that this principle of being unreasonable in your generosity and your hospitality can apply to any service, any

Speaker 1 organization? I mean, and the field guide, which is coming out next year, is to tell us how to do that.

Speaker 2 Exactly, F. Unreasonable hospitality is the why, the field guide is the how.
Oh.

Speaker 2 But it's been wild over the past three years

Speaker 2 hearing stories from NFL teams and financial organizations, prison systems, school systems, retirement homes, hospitals, UPS stores

Speaker 2 of

Speaker 2 the experiences they've created for others that have been inspired by the book. And it's so cool when you hear a story about something that I don't think I ever would have been able to do.

Speaker 1 I just thought the paying the parking meters was a great idea.

Speaker 2 Share that with our audience.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 2 one of the

Speaker 2 real paradigm shifts in the book is you can systemize hospitality.

Speaker 2 If you have your eyes open wide enough to identify simple pattern recognition, the things that happen over and over again, and then decide what is the most awesome way to respond every time that happens,

Speaker 2 you can create magic all the time.

Speaker 2 And so when people, this is back in the day when meters in New York City were still coin operated.

Speaker 2 We realized that guests would have to run out in the middle of their meal to go fuel the meter. And that breaks the bubble that we're trying to create.

Speaker 2 And so we just implemented a system. When we were bringing people to the table, we'd ask them how they got to the restaurant.

Speaker 2 And if they took a subway or they drove and parked in a garage, okay, we don't do anything. But if they drove and they parked in a meter,

Speaker 2 we would just say, hey, you know what? Just let us know where your car is parked. And we're going to keep the meter fueled the entire time.
Just sit here and enjoy the night.

Speaker 2 And just a little isn't that a nice thing?

Speaker 1 Thinking that never happened to me. But, okay, that's nice.

Speaker 2 But here's the thing. It's so simple.
It's not hard.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 1 that's not hard, but this was a hard one. Remember the time when someone came and they had not gone sledding and you got the sleds? Yes.

Speaker 2 I said, what?

Speaker 2 So there was a family of four from Spain. We had these big, big windows that started snowing.
We overheard that it was the kids' first time seeing real snow.

Speaker 2 And so, I mean, it feels pretty obvious, right? You send someone out to a store, find sleds, send them up to Central Park after their meal to go sledding.

Speaker 2 And here's the thing. We were serving some of the best food in the world.

Speaker 2 And I've talked to so many people who do not remember a single thing they ate, but they will never forget how we made them feel through gestures like that.

Speaker 1 Well, I wouldn't forget the sled either if you sent me to Central Park. And also there was this moment, too.

Speaker 1 I thought this was a simple moment that you share in our reasonable hospitality about a couple was celebrating their anniversary and they said to the mater Dee that they had a bottle of champagne in their freezer at home and they said, do you think it will burst before we get home?

Speaker 2 Tell us what happened.

Speaker 2 PSA, if you leave a bottle of champagne in the freezer, it definitively will burst.

Speaker 2 And so we did

Speaker 2 these things, like the kind of things you would do for any close friend.

Speaker 2 We got their address, we went back to their house, we took the bottle out of the freezer, put it in the fridge, and left some caviar and a note saying, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 here's the thing. Anyone, sometimes people listen to this, and this is important.

Speaker 2 And they say, well, yeah, of course, you can afford to do it. You're a fancy restaurant.

Speaker 2 Two things.

Speaker 2 One, it's not about how much these things cost. It's about how thoughtful they are.
That hot dog cost two bucks, but look at the impact it had. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But also, I would actually go so far as to argue that you can't afford not to, because every dollar I ever spent on unreasonable hospitality was far more impactful than any dollar I ever spent on traditional marketing.

Speaker 2 Because when you give people stories like this to tell, what do you think they're going to do? They're going to tell them all. Most people are still talking about that sled and that hot dog.
Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 And you end up with legions of ambassadors out there doing your marketing on your visual marketing.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 3 Thank you for listening. It means a lot to me that you chose to join all of us here.
And I was really supercharged by this conversation with Will.

Speaker 3 I hope you stay with us for more unreasonable hospitality lessons. Did you know the Walmart app is your ultimate holiday gift destination where you can find something truly special?

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Speaker 3 Walmart, who knew? Shop great gifts at walmart.com or on the Walmart app. I welcome you back to the Oprah podcast.

Speaker 3 I wonder if this conversation will move you to bring a new spirit of hospitality into your life and work.

Speaker 1 Let's jump back into it. Destiny, where are you? Okay,

Speaker 1 what do you want to say? Hi.

Speaker 2 Hi, Oprah. Hi, Will.
Hi.

Speaker 1 I like to consider myself a Zillennial, right? So in between millennial and Gen Z on the cusp.

Speaker 2 So we're the same age. Yeah, we're the same age.
We're here. We're here.
Both family. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I was brought up very old school. So traditional beliefs, values.

Speaker 1 So I'm loving this conversation today because I truly believe that everyone's first job should be in customer service, whether it's retail or waitressing.

Speaker 1 I was a waitress myself in college and I developed customer service skills. However, you might not like this.
I wasn't a traditional waitress, right?

Speaker 1 Because I would actually sit in the booth with my customers and take their order and just get to know them. And because of that, I really developed like those those personal stories.

Speaker 1 And I use those customer service skills today as my career as a journalist. However, sometimes you don't meet the nicest people.

Speaker 1 So my question to you is, what advice would you give to kind of have hospitality to people who are kind of difficult?

Speaker 2 Well, first of all, I love that you sat at the table. I mean, when I first got to a limit in Madison, I did not have a ton of crazy high-end fine dining experience.

Speaker 2 And there was a regular from one of my other restaurants that came in and I went over and put my hands on the table and leaned in to engage with him.

Speaker 2 And when I went back to the service station, the service director, who did have a lot of fine dining experience, started yelling at me in the way that you yell at your boss, you know, like very upset that I had done that because the rule of fine dining is you don't touch the table.

Speaker 2 The table is theirs. Oh.

Speaker 2 But A,

Speaker 2 Any rule, if you ask why it exists and the only answer is that that's how it's always been done. That's a rule that no longer deserves to exist.

Speaker 2 And B, I believe the service, the food, the design, they're all merely ingredients in the recipe of human connection.

Speaker 2 And I believed by breaking the plane, I was able to connect more deeply with him, as it sounds like you were able to

Speaker 2 by pulling up a chair.

Speaker 2 I learned so many lessons from Danny Meyer. I think Danny Meyer is one of the true greats, not just in restaurants, but just, he's one of the great men.

Speaker 2 One of my favorite lessons I learned from him was the charitable assumption. The charitable assumption is a different way of saying give people the benefit of the doubt.

Speaker 2 Yeah, in restaurants, sometimes people come in and they are acting like jerks, right? And that's just a. The Felix story.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, a little bit, the Felix story. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And it's a totally fine expression of human nature to decide that the people acting like jerks no longer deserve our most profound hospitality.

Speaker 2 And yet, the charitable assumption would have you instead say maybe they're acting like a jerk because on their way to the restaurant tonight, they just heard that their wife was filing for divorce or someone in their family had died.

Speaker 2 And maybe the person acting like a jerk actually needs our love more than anyone else in the room. And by the way, sometimes they're just jerks.

Speaker 2 Yeah. But I'd always rather err on the side of assuming the best in someone than the other way around.

Speaker 1 So I mentioned the Felix story because he was a jerk. He was a jerk.
He was a jerk. But when he comes in late, no explanation, the first thing you say is not, oh my God, why are you late?

Speaker 1 Well, you say, is everything okay?

Speaker 2 Is everything okay?

Speaker 1 That's the charitable assumption. Is everything okay? Are you all right? Is your family all right?

Speaker 2 Felix was a guy that worked for me that I gave him the charitable assumption when he was late, very, very late, into a service that was a very busy one for us at that restaurant.

Speaker 2 And said, hey, are you okay? Like, is everything okay? What's going on? He goes, no, I just, I just didn't want want to come in until right now.

Speaker 2 Daniel. Spoiler alert, I fired Felix.

Speaker 2 Because here's the thing:

Speaker 2 I think when you work so, so, so hard to build a culture and to embody and celebrate what right looks like, and someone is that reckless with that culture, they cannot continue to be a part of it.

Speaker 1 You fired him, but didn't corporate rehire him?

Speaker 2 Yes,

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 I got a call

Speaker 2 three days later from someone at corporate. This was not Danny Meyer's company.
And rather than even ask for my side of the story, they said, hey, we talked to Felix. Like, he makes us a lot of money.

Speaker 2 We rehired him.

Speaker 1 Without even consulting.

Speaker 2 And when you give as much of yourself to a job as I've always given to the ones I've had and you feel that disenfranchised, there's only one thing you can do. And so I put in my notice there.

Speaker 2 And it was from there that I ended up

Speaker 2 one step away from 11 Madison Park. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So is it true that when you no longer have trust in the people who are over you,

Speaker 1 like the corporate office, you no longer trusted them because they didn't trust you. And so you know that is not going to be a workable situation.
And that's when it's time to go.

Speaker 2 I think it's impossible to trust people from whom you don't feel you are receiving trust.

Speaker 2 And I do like the more trust you give people, the more trustworthy they become, right? It's like this self-fulfilling idea.

Speaker 2 Now, I always try to give people, whether they're the ones I work for or the ones that work for me, one more chance

Speaker 2 than might seem appropriate to earn that trust. But I think

Speaker 2 some violations are hard to wind back.

Speaker 1 Felix was one of them. Yeah.
Kyle, what did you want to say?

Speaker 2 Well, I had the privilege of attending the Unreasonable Hospitality Summit back in May in Nashville and it left a huge mark on me. Thank you.

Speaker 2 I'm a district manager at Soul Cycle and at our core, we are an indoor cycling studio, but we really consider ourselves to be a hospitality business first.

Speaker 2 When I first found Soul Cycle, I was newly sober and,

Speaker 2 you know, looking for, I didn't know it at the time, but I was really looking for a new community. and a sense of belonging and I really found it in our studios.

Speaker 2 I believed in the experience so much that I actually started working as cleaning cleaning staff just so I could get free runs. Just to get in? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And today I have the honor of leading several of our markets and the teams that bring that magic to life. What drives me...
From cleaning staff to that, congratulations. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 Thank you. Thank you, Eric.

Speaker 2 What drives me is the hope of being able to create that same kind of transformative experience for others that Soul Cycle created for me. So, you know, I always say that

Speaker 2 I found my passion at Soul Cycle, but I found my purpose in the work that we do every single day. So my question for you is, since hospitality is always evolving, what are some

Speaker 2 mindsets or practices leaders like myself could adopt to keep making people feel seen in new ways? It will be in the Unreachable Hospital. I can't wait.

Speaker 2 I can't wait. Yeah, I'd love to answer that, but you do need to buy the book.

Speaker 2 One of my favorite quotes of my dad is, keep your eyes peeled.

Speaker 2 What he meant when when he said that was, no matter where you are, there's inspiration all around you if you are,

Speaker 2 well, looking hard enough and there to grab it and hold onto it when you find it.

Speaker 2 I found that I was able to bring fresh perspectives to the work I was doing in the restaurant because of things that inspired me in other places.

Speaker 2 And I've been inspired on airplanes or I was inspired at Rocky the Musical. I was inspired at barber shops.

Speaker 2 And in each one of those things, because I was able to see the thing that was happening, take it home, make it my own, I was always able to come up with new, new, innovative ideas.

Speaker 2 It's actually another Maya Angelou quote: the more creative you are, the more creative you become.

Speaker 2 Right? If you create a practice of observation, a practice of reflection,

Speaker 2 I just don't think there's any end to the amount of inspiration we can receive. And by definition, the ideas we can create.

Speaker 1 Kyle, can you give us an idea of how you're on the cleaning staff and you get noticed enough? Because usually people don't pay attention to people on the cleaning staff and you're not

Speaker 1 even in the

Speaker 1 peripheral vision of anybody to even recognize that you have other talents.

Speaker 2 Well, a lot of our roles at SoulCycle are rider-facing.

Speaker 2 So, you know, I'm just a firm believer that if you give good hospitality and you make people feel seen,

Speaker 2 it'll come back tenfold. So I believe in that and I stand by it and I believe that that experience came true for me.
Wow. And yeah, and by the way, obviously I remember you from the summit.

Speaker 2 Your energy is unforgettable. Thank you.
And I would imagine, knowing you only as much as I do, that you got promoted because

Speaker 2 you acted like the role you wanted to be in.

Speaker 2 And people saw the initiative you were taking and wanted to just give you money. I was going,

Speaker 2 like the amen choir.

Speaker 1 Well, you and I have something else in common.

Speaker 1 Here's what you say about gifts on page 217, that gifts are a way to tell people you saw, heard, and recognize them, that you cared enough to listen and to do something with what you heard.

Speaker 1 What's your idea of the perfect gift?

Speaker 2 I mean, I think,

Speaker 2 first of all, that last line, I think, is such an important one. So many people have great ideas.
They listen, they hear something, they come up with an idea.

Speaker 2 And yet, the difference between the good and the great

Speaker 2 is the simple decision to decide to do it. To do something with what you heard.
To do it, with a gift, with an idea, with whatever it is.

Speaker 2 My perfect gift, it could look like a thousand different things.

Speaker 2 It just needs to, one of my favorite kind of articulations is one size fits one.

Speaker 2 That it's a gift that almost wouldn't make sense for anyone else to receive, but for that person,

Speaker 2 it's perfect, that it is completely bespoke. And it could cost $3 or it could cost $3,000.

Speaker 2 The impact of a $3, one-size-one fits one gift will always be bigger than the impact of a 3,000 one-size-fits-all gift. Wow.
In my view.

Speaker 1 What's one of the best gifts you've ever received?

Speaker 2 I'll tell you, I just received an amazing gift four days ago.

Speaker 2 I do a lot of speaking about unreasonable hospitality. I'm very fortunate to be on the receiving end of some pretty cool gestures when I go to do a talk.

Speaker 2 I did a talk in Nashville where I live now. And my mom was sick.
My dad was working a lot. So we had a nanny who was my cousin.

Speaker 2 who lived with us for years and Liz is her name and she is like my second mom. Liz is one of the most important people in the world to me.

Speaker 2 And yet since I moved to Nashville, I haven't seen her in a couple years.

Speaker 2 The people hosting me called my dad and said, hey, what's a gift that we could give Will that no one else would ever think of? And he said, get Liz.

Speaker 2 And so I walk into the room to do my pre-conversation with the person that was interviewing me.

Speaker 2 And Liz is sitting at the table that I'm going to sit at. And Liz doesn't dress up, so she's wearing like fancy pants and a button-down shirt.

Speaker 2 And I'm looking at her like, is there a lady that works in this hotel that looks looks exactly like this?

Speaker 2 Turns out it was her. They just flew her down, and we got to spend three days together.
And that,

Speaker 2 with everything that's going on in my life right now,

Speaker 2 there is no greater gift I could have received.

Speaker 1 Well, thank you for the gift of this book. Thank you.
Unreasonable hospitality. There's so much more phenomenal business and life advice in this book that

Speaker 1 I think that our audience, you're going to leave with the book.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Can I?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Ivy, do you realize what I'm experiencing right now?

Speaker 2 I believe you can talk things into existence. This is a pinch-me moment being up here with you right now.

Speaker 2 I just want to make clear that I don't take moments like this for granted, nor do I think any of us ever should. And the fact that my book was just the book that you gave away.

Speaker 2 Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 An absolute delight. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Will Gagara's fantastic book, Unreasonable Hospitality, will make you a more generous, more present, sensitive, and available person

Speaker 1 to use your gifts, your talents, your offerings to uplift someone else's life. That's what I love about this book.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 It's available wherever you buy your books. And keep an eye out for Unreasonable Hospitality, the field guide coming in April of 2026.
Chef Danielle Balut, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 1 And a big thank you to this wonderful audience for being with us in New York City.

Speaker 1 Thanks to our friends at Walmart for supporting this episode and for providing us with this very pretty set. Go well, everybody.
Go well.

Speaker 1 You can subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week.
Thanks, everybody.