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

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

Oprah talks with world-renowned restaurateur Will Guidara about his New York Times bestselling book, Unreasonable Hospitality that has sold over 1 million copies. Will’s abiding belief is that focusing on providing excellent service to others can transform not only your business, but your entire life. Recorded with a live audience in New York City, this episode also features Will’s longtime friend and mentor, Chef Daniel Boulud of New York’s legendary restaurant Daniel. Presented by Walmart, this podcast is an invitation to use your unique gifts and talent to elevate the lives of those around you. You can find Will’s book, Unreasonable Hospitality, at Walmart.com. Will’s upcoming book Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide is also available for preorder. BUY THE BOOK! Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect, published by Optimism Press and written by Will Guidara, is available wherever books are sold. Unreasonable Hospitality: The Field Guide is available for preorder. Unreasonable Hospitality: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Unreasonable-Hospitality-The-Remarkable-Power-of-Giving-People-More-Than-They-Expect-Hardcover-9780593418574/319309554 00:00:00 - Welcome Will Guidara, author of ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’ 00:03:35 - Handling last place at the World’s 50 Best Restaurants 00:07:45 - Setting the goal to become No. 1 00:08:45 - Will’s first fine dining experience 00:13:46 - The impact we have on others 00:16:30 - Living with intention 00:18:09 - The nobility of service 00:20:50 - Meeting Chef Daniel Boulud 00:23:00 - Taking his father to Daniel’s after his mother’s passing 00:25:19 - Chef Daniel Boulud 00:27:45 - What Chef Boulud learned from Will 00:31:30 - Examples of unreasonable hospitality 00:35:20 - Caring for difficult people 00:36:45 - The charitable assumption 00:41:20 - Mindsets and practices 00:43:40 - Oprah and Will have this in common 00:45:00 - The best gift Will ever received SHOP THE SET Better Homes & Garden Ezra Accent Chair: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Better-Homes-Gardens-Ezra-Accent-Chair-Olive-Green/6832971398?classType=VARIANT&athbdg=L1300&from=/search&wmlspartner=wlpa&cn=FY25-ENTP-PMAX_cnv_dps_dsn_dis_ad_entp_e_n&adid=22222222297_0000000000_21407473164&veh=sem&vtcWeb=eviaA8Ad89fe38QBUyb9gE&expiryTime=1756505947449&c=mWebSmartBanner Better Homes & Garden Miller Drum End Table: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Better-Homes-Gardens-Essentials-End-Table-Walnut/13665865382 Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of the Oprah podcast is presented by Walmart. 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. And then before their final savory course, I brought out what we in New York called a dirty water dog to the table. And they freaked out. 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. New York City. 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. 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,

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 also. When I asked that question recently, the same book kept coming up. Your book, Will. Thank you. Thank you.

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. 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 Gidera. Now, if you're a foodie, you know about Will and 11 Madison Park.

Those of you who are here in New York. Oh, you go, oh. Oh, that will. Okay. It's the three Michelin Star restaurant that he ran here in New York with Will at the helm. Eleven Madison Park rose to be named the best restaurant, not just in New York City, but in the world. The best restaurant in the world. And Will says that the secret sauce wasn't just an extraordinary dining experience.

It was what he calls the selfishness. pleasure of creating profound moments of connection and delight for their guests. So welcome, Will Godera! Thank you. Thank you, guys. Will Goderard's New York Times bestseller, Unreasonable Hospitality, has sold over one million copies. You say here on page 99, without exception, no matter what you do, you can make a difference

in someone's life. You sound like my, Angela. 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. 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. By the way, that's so freaking cool. I love it that you start the book with this story that I, the scene of you and your partner, Daniel Holm, you're sitting at the 2010 world's 50 best restaurants event. And it's in London. Yes.

It's like the Olympics for restaurants or the Oscars, right? And you all are doing what people do. Like, do you think we're going to, we're going to, come in and how are we going to place and you thought you were going to place what like 35 35 yeah out of 50 and an expression of humility but also confidence right it was our first year on the list right and and then your partner said no 40 yeah something like that yeah yeah okay 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 yeah that's pretty good yeah i i think everyone has one of these moments

right 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, the 50 best.

You just don't know where in the list you fall. 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. But at those awards, you're desperate that they call your name. Yes. Here, they start at 50. They slowly count down to one.

Here, you're desperate that they do not call your name for as long as seemingly possible. And I remember I'm all fired up. And then the big British emcee at the front of the room, he says, all right, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to start the countdown at number 50, a new entry from New York City, 11 Madison Park. I was like, gosh, start it. Turns out where you're seated has nothing to do with where you play,

so we'd come literally in last place. 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, yeah, exactly. Everyone else knew to at least pretend to smile and wave guys. I looked like I'd just gotten kicked in the groin.

One of my dad's favorite quotes that I cherish and reference often is adversity is a terrible thing to waste. And that night, we were one of the 50 best in the world, but in that room we were last. And I was angry, frustrated, sad, 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.

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. Like, oh, gosh, you guys didn't take that so well. And then you guys went and got a bottle of bourbon. Yeah. Yep. As one does. As one does. And during the process of drinking the bourbon and talking about why you came in last place, something happened.

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. 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. But when we paused for long enough to really think about it, it became quite clear we had not done anything impactful. 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. And so I thought about the restaurants that had been number one. They were all run by chefs. 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, what new techniques could they develop? And each of them, in their own way, has influenced how restaurants around the world approach cooking. That night, I wrote on a cocktail napkin. we will be number one in the world.

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

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's when I wrote Unreasonable Hospitality. So you wrote this on a napkin. Yeah. Yeah, after a lot of bourbon, but it turned out to be a book. Yeah. It's only very meaningful. Let's share with our audience this moment you were 12 years old and your dad took you

to four seasons because I always love how a seed is planted, you know, and all of us, you know, start out as a little acorns and blossom into our own version of the oak tree. And this happened with you at the first time your dad took you to the Four Seasons restaurant here in New York. Yeah. 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. 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. And gosh, my dad, he is 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. And it honestly did not... When you say restaurant hours, explain that to the rest of the audience. For people who don't know, restaurateurs work a tremendous number of hours.

Like 14, 15 hours a day. Yeah. 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. 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. And I honestly don't remember a ton about that night. I remember the blazer. I made him get me of that Brooks Brothers blazer with the gold buttons. Yeah. 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. I remember they carved a duck for us table side.

But what I really remember was how they made us feel. Because for whatever it was, a couple hours that I was there, crossed 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. 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. And literally at that age, I knew that's what I wanted to do with my life. Well, you know, I loved reading this book. And one of the reasons I appreciated it so much, is it because it reminded me of our years on the Oprah show with my team, the producers, best team in television. Yes.

And this is the way we viewed our audience, as though our audience were guests who were coming to see us and the experience from the toilet paper in the bathroom being, you know, rolled under and not over and everything 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. Well, do you introduce surprise and delight into a world that was not accustomed to receiving it? Yeah, well, that's what favorite things was all about.

Surprise and delight. Yeah. 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. Yeah. You remember the surprise and you remember the delight. It's the quote by Maya.

Yes. People will forget what you say. They will forget what you do, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Yes. 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. 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. Okay. 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, Mike. write that down, Maya. Yeah, so that... By the way, that's so freaking cool.

That's just amazing. Yeah. 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 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 Mandela was there, and these girls are going to be my greatest legacy. And she said, you have no idea what your legacy will be. And I said, yeah, well, 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 what your legacy will be because your legacy is never one thing. She said, your legacy is every life you touch. So it's everybody who has ever watched a show. They almost started clapping. I think that's like, yeah, she said, in that moment,

she said it's never one, it's not one thing. 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. It's every life. It's every person who you've ever left a heartprint with.

By the way, is all about what I wrote about. Exactly. I mean, it is perfectly aligned. That's why it resonated so profoundly with me. Because I think that we underestimate dramatically the impact we have on other people all day, every single day, and we don't understand that outsized and asymmetrical. And that's what unreasonable hospitality is about.

We need to take a question. quick break, and when we come back, Will's good friend, world-renowned chef Daniel Bulu joins the conversation. Just like we've been hearing from Will Godera, our friends at Walmart are dedicated to over-delivering for their customers, especially when it comes to giving gifts this holiday season. Did you know the Walmart app is your ultimate holiday gift destination where you can find something truly special, top brands at low prices for everyone on your list? 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. Whether it's a gift for the holiday party host or

hostess, a secret Santa present for your co-workers, or must-have stocking stuffers for the whole family. And with all the hustle and bustle over the holidays, Walmart makes your life easier with fast free shipping on gifts with orders of $35 or more. Even if you need something at the last minute Walmart has you covered. With Walmart Express delivery, you can have gifts delivered to your door as fast as an hour. How great is that? Walmart. Who new? Shop great gifts 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. I'm with Will Godera, with an audience in New York. 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. Yes. So I'm in the dining room, clearing dirty plates at this table. And there's a table of four. They were foodies on vacation to New York just to eat at great restaurants. And this is their last meal. They're literally going straight to the airport. And they're raving about their trip.

They'd been to La Bernardine and Jean-George and Danielle and per se. And if everyone in this room doesn't know what those restaurants are, just trust in how fancy they sound. They're the good ones. Yes. Danielle. And now 11 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. 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, convincing my chef to serve it.

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 canel of sourcrow, a little scoop of relish. And I think he topped it off

with like a micro herb to make it look fancy. And then before their final savory course, which at the time was our honey lavender-glazed muscovy duck that had been dry age for two weeks, I brought out what we in New York call a dirty water dog to the table. 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 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 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 um 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 well you know intention i live by that

that's my principal and you learned that from your father i learned that from a thought leader that i had on in like 1989, Gary Zuccoff writes about it in Seed of the Soul, whole chapter on intention, how it's one with cause and effect, and intention is what determines the outcome. So tell us your experience of learning intention, that principle from your father. Yeah, I mean, when you think about what my dad did, working 15 hours a day, being a good dad to me, taking care of a handicapped wife, it required an unbelievable level of intentionality. Yeah, every move mattered, every decision counted. Nothing could just be happenstance.

And because he was so intentional, not only in managing his time, but in pursuing the relationships that mattered most to him, 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. and I learned the intention part definitively from him. So in unreasonable hospitality is really about going the extra, extra, extra, extra mile and being conscious of that, paying attention to how you use service in a way that really alters an experience for a person. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think it requires three things, fundamentally.

One, just being present, which I define as caring so much. much about the one person in front of you, that you stop caring about everything else you need to do. And these days, with phones in our pockets, as perpetual distractions, it's really hard even for the best of us to do well. And yet, one of the most powerful things is learning that we need to slow down in order to speed up. Yeah. You write that in unreasonable hospitality, 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 in it. Yeah.

Well, I mean, when I was a kid, most of the people my age, 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, gosh, I think there is no ability and service. 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.

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, 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. You say here on page 99, without exception, no matter what you do,

you can make a difference in someone's life. You must be able to, you sound like my Angela. 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 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 because i think if you're simply repeating back words that someone else has given you they 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 because once you have, I just think that's when you are fully called to greatness. Call to greatness. You actually were inspired by greatness early on when you were at Cornell.

Yes. And there was a program there called guest chefs. Yes. And Daniel Ballard came as a guest chef. And he was one of those people that you, you know, admired and the whole world knew. And how did you get him to come there? 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. And we had an amazing time,

which maybe we'll unpack that in a little bit. But I was nobody. Danielle had no reason to care about me, except... So explain this. 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.

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. 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 daniel in new york city one day um my mother was not supposed to live past me being like 12 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 but she did pass literally the day after i

graduated college and i was going to spain that summer for 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 she she comes out of her coma and she speaks yeah so she fell into a coma she ended up missing my graduation um and so i threw my cap in the air jumped on my car drove there in Boston at that point, went straight to the hospital, fell asleep on her hospital bed, and she had been in a coma. She also couldn't speak intelligibly for like five years. And I woke up in the middle of the night that night, and she was awake. And we had like the first proper conversation. She turned to you and said, you graduated. Yeah, you graduated college.

And we talked for a while, and then she went back out. And then she passed later. that morning but listen i don't know what i believe about certain things but that night i believed in a lot and yeah i'm gonna get uh but that was one of the greatest gifts i could have ever hoped to have received and then you took your father to daniels yeah so then i'm going to spain yeah for this job which i almost cancelled in morning but my dad encouraged me to do it and by the time i change my mind back to doing it the only flight we could find was out of new york city and so my dad and i drove uh from boston down 95 to daniel and we were running late like we had to change into our suits in like a rest station uh bathroom and we show up at daniel and we walk in 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. 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 sky box. Wow. Okay. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't like hang out with Maya Angelou, but I went to the skybox. And 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.

We were the last people in the restaurant. My dad, me and Daniel, he stayed until the very end, gave us a tour. There was no check. And in that moment, while at the first seasons, I was inspired on the power of hospitality to help people celebrate, that was the saddest season of my life. And yet he gave my dad and I one of the best evenings of our entire lives. And also in that passage, when you write about that experience at Daniel,

I'm going to introduce you in a moment. We keep talking about you and talking about it. But I learned something, too. I just had a big aha, and you all are going to love this moment. You say, you drink your finest wine, your most expensive wine on your worst day. 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. Yeah, those days are already good. You don't need a good bottle of wine. Drink the best bottles in the worst days. Don't you think that's a good adage? I think that's good. So he's the world-renowned French chef behind the legendary restaurant.

Danielle here in New York City. Chef, you met when you were still in college. What did you see in this young... Welcome, Danielle Balloon. Thank you, Oprah. Well, 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. And Will was certainly the most animated, the most passionate, the most interested by what was happening that week. And while I don't remember who brought me there, but you were in charge of some part of the dinner. Well, I was in charge of marketing, but his dinner sold out so quickly.

There was nothing to market. So I decided that I was in charge of entertaining Danielle. That's what happened. After a wonderful dinner, we had 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. We all gather into a bar, a dive bar somewhere

on Cornell's Main Avenue. And then after, we'll say, well, let's go to my home. It's getting, the bar's 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. It was not the nicest house. Didn't you all end up raiding some kitchen

and making eggs and truffles in the middle of the night? And it's 2.30 in the morning or 2 o'clock in the morning. And we all want a bite. And so we go back to school. We go and bribe 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. Wow. 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. That was pretty good.

It was amazing. They tasted good. Unbelievable. What did you learn from him over the years? Well, what I've learned is, and that's what the book is so unreasonable in a way that is explaining how to take the codes of hospitality

that we all know and do well and all that. and recoded for his own vision of what hospitality should be in his own mind. And what I've learned is leadership among, because it didn't achieve everything by himself. We don't achieve anything by ourselves, especially in the restaurant business. It's about the team. It's about, of course, we're there all for the customer, but the team first.

And I think we have this power of leadership that make people think and people do things that they would have not conventionally do for sure. Yeah. Thank you. I love you. I'm an amazing example. I don't know if I could work for you, but

Thank you, Daniel. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. I come. And I really, I just want to say one thing. 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 lines with that whole idea of our legacy is not one thing is not one thing and nor are we we are addition of all the relationships and i've learned so much from you but of every 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. People who in the moments where they're in 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, of the many things we have in common, one is that we just derive so much pleasure from being generous with others. Yes. That's what's so interesting about this. I find this to be very inspiring. And I think that after reading it, a lot of people want to know, okay, how do I apply that to my work?

Yes. I mean, as I said to you, Melody Hobson, big business woman, said to me that she uses it in her work with her employees. Yes. So you believe that this principle of being unreasonable in your generosity and your hospitality can apply to any service, any organization. I mean. And the field guide, which is coming out next year, is to tell us how to do that. Exactly. F. Unreasonable hospitality is the why, the field guide is the how. Oh.

But it's been wild over the past three years hearing stories from NFL teams and financial organizations, prison systems, school systems, retirement homes, hospitals, UPS stores. Yes. Of 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. I just thought the paying the parking meters was a great idea. Share that with our audience. So one of the real paradigm shifts in the book

is you can systemize hospitality. 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? you can create magic all the time and so when people this is back in the day when meters in New York City were still coin operated 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 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 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 we would just say hey you know what just let us know where your car's parked and we're going to keep the meter field the entire time just sit here enjoy the night and just a little isn't that a nice thing thinking that never happened to me but okay that's nice but but here's the thing it's so simple it's not hard yeah 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 and I said what so there was a family of four from Spain we had these big big windows that started snowing we ever heard that it was the kids first time seeing real snow 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 and and here's the thing we were serving some of the best food in the world and I've talked to so many people people who do not remember a single thing they ate, but they will never forget how we made them feel through gestures like that. Well, I wouldn't forget the sled either if you sent me to Central Park.

And also there was this moment, too. I thought this was a simple moment that you share in a reasonable hospitality about a couple was celebrating their anniversary, and they said to the Mater D 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? Tell us what happened. PSA, if you leave a bottle of champagne in the freezer, it definitively will burst. And so we did these things, like the kind of things you would do for any close friend.

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 in a note saying, thank you so much for joining us. But here's the thing. Anyone, sometimes people listen to this, and this is important. And they say, well, yeah, of course, you could have. afford to do it. You're a fancy restaurant. Two things. One, it's not about how much these things

cost. It's about how thoughtful they are. That hot dog costs two bucks, but look at the impact it had. Yeah. 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. 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 over. People are still talking about that sled and that hot dog. Yes. And you end up with legions of ambassadors out there doing your marketing on your behalf.

And there's your marketing. Yeah. Okay. 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. 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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Walmart. Who knew? Shop great gifts at walmart.com or on the Walmart app. I welcome you back to the Oprah podcast. I wonder if this conversation will move you to bring a new spirit of hospitality into your life and work. Let's jump back into it. Destiny, where are you? Okay. What do you want to say?

Hi. Hi, Oprah. Hi, Will. I like to consider myself as millennial, right? So in between millennial and Gen Z on the cuss. So we're the same age. Yeah, we're the same age. We're here.

We're here. Both 21, yeah. But I was brought up very old school. So traditional beliefs, values. 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.

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? 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 personal stories. And I use those customer service skills today as my career, as a journalist. However, sometimes you don't meet the nicest people. So my question to you is, what advice would you give to kind of have hospitality the people who are kind of difficult? Well, first of all, I love that you sat at the table.

I mean, when I first got to 11 Madison, I did not have a ton of crazy high-end fine dining experience. And there was a regular from one of my other restaurants that came in, and I went over and put my hands the table and leaned in to engage with him 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 the table is theirs oh um but a 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. And B, I believe the service, the food, the design, they're all merely ingredients in the recipe of human connection. And I believed by breaking the plane, I was able to connect more deeply with him as it sounds like you were able to by pulling up a chair. 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. One of my favorite lessons I learned from was the charitable assumption. The charitable assumption is a different way of saying

give people the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, in restaurants, sometimes people come in and they are acting like jerks, right? The Felix story. Well, yeah, a little bit, the Felix story. Yeah, yeah. 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. 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. 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. Yeah. But I'd always rather err on the side of assuming the best in someone than the other way around. So I mentioned the Felix story because he was a jerk. 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? Well, you say, is everything okay? That's the charitable assumption. Is everything okay? Are you all right? Is your family all right? 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 and said, hey, are you okay? Like, is everything okay? What's going on? He goes, no, I just didn't want to come in until right now. I just didn't want to come in until right now. Spoiler alert, I fired Felix. Because here's the thing. 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. You fired him, but didn't corporate rehire him? Yes. Yes. I got a call three days later from someone at corporate. This is not Danny Myers' company. And rather than even ask from my side of the story,

they said, hey, we talked to Felix. Like, he makes us a lot of money. We rehired him. Without even consulting with you, the manager. 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. And it was from there that I ended up one step away from 11 Madison Park. Yeah. So is it true that when you no longer have trust in the people who are over you, who 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. That's when it's time to go. I think it's impossible to trust people from whom you don't feel you are receiving trust.

And I do like the more trust you give people, the more trustworthy they become, right? It's like this self-fulfilling idea. 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 than might seem appropriate to earn that trust. But I think some violations are hard to wind back. Felix was one of them. Yeah. Kyle, what did you want to say? 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. I'm a district manager at SoulCycle, and at our core, we are an indoor cycling studio, but we really consider ourselves to be a hospitality business first. When I first found SoulCycle, I was newly sober, and 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. I believed in the experience so much that I actually started working as cleaning staff just so I could get free rides. Just to get in? Yeah. 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. Thank you. Thank you. What drives me is the hope of being able to create that same kind of transformative experience for others that SoulCycle created for me.

So I always say that I found my passion at SoulCycle, 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 mindsets or practices leaders like myself could adopt to keep making people feel seen in new ways? It will be in the Unleastable Hospital field guide. Yeah, I'd love to answer that, but you do need to buy the book. One of my favorite quotes of my dad is keep your eyes peeled.

and what he meant when he said that was no matter where you are there's inspiration all around you if you are well looking hard enough and there to grab it and hold on to it when you find it 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 and i've been inspired on airplanes or i was inspired at rocky the musical i was inspired to rocky the musical i was inspired at barbershops. 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. It's actually another Maya Angelou quote, the more creative you are, the more creative you

become. If you create a practice of observation, a practice of reflection, 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. 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 even in the peripheral vision of anybody to even recognize that you have other talents. Well, a lot of our roles at SoulCycle are rider-facing.

So, you know, I'm just a firm believer that if you, you know, give good hospitality, and you make people feel seen, it'll come back tenfold. So I believe in that, and I stand by it, and I believe that experience came true for me. Wow. And yeah, and by the way, obviously I remember you from the summit. Your energy is unforgettable. Thank you.

And I would imagine knowing you only as much as I do, that you got promoted because you acted like the role you wanted to be in. And people saw the initiative you were taking and wanted to just give you more. going, uh-huh, it's like an amen choir. Well, you and I have something else in common. 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. What's your idea of the perfect gift? I mean, I think, 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. And yet, the difference between the good and the great is the simple decision to decide to do it.

To do something with what you heard. Just do it with a gift, with an idea, with whatever it is. My perfect gift, it could look like a thousand different things. It just needs to, one of my favorite kind of articulations is one size fits one. That it's a gift that almost wouldn't make sense for anyone else to receive, but for that person, it's perfect, that it is completely bespoke. And it could cost $3 or it could cost $3,000.

The impact of a $3,000 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. What's one of the best gifts you've ever received? I'll tell you, I just, received an amazing gift four days ago i 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 um 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 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. And yet, since I moved to Nashville, I haven't seen her in a couple years. 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.

And so I walk into the room to do my pre-conversation with the person that was interviewing me. 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. And I'm looking at her, like, is there a lady that works in this hotel that looks exactly like Liz? Turns out it was her. They just flew her down, and we got to spend three days together. And that, with everything that's going on in my life right now, there is no greater gift I could have received. 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 I think, think that our audience, you're going to leave with the book. Yes. Yes. Can I? Yes.

I mean, do you realize what I'm experiencing right now? I believe you can talk things into existence. This is a pinch me moment being up here with you right now. 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. Hell yeah.

An absolute delight. Thank you. Will Gaderer's fantastic book, Unreasonable Hospitality will make you a more generous, more present, sensitive, and available person to use your gifts,

your talents, your offerings to uplift someone else's life. That's what I love about this book. Thank you so much. 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 Balloud, thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here. And a big thank you to this wonderful audience for being with us in New York City. Thanks to our friends at Walmart for supporting this episode and for providing us with this very pretty sit. Go well, everybody.

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