Pod Insights The Oprah Podcast Oprah & Will Guidara, The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect About this episode 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://amzn.to/4w2LWI2
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
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Oprah Winfrey? This episode of the Oprah Podcast is presented by Walmart.
0:04 Speaker 01 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.
0:13 Speaker 01 And then before their final savory course, I brought out what we in New York call a dirty water dog to the table.
0:20 Speaker 01 And they freaked out.
0:30 Oprah Winfrey? 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.
0:42 Oprah Winfrey? New York City.
0:48 Oprah Winfrey? 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 all. So when I asked that question recently, the same book kept coming up. Your book, Will.
1:26 Oprah Winfrey? Your book.
1:27 Speaker 01 Thank you.
1:31 Oprah Winfrey? 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 Guidara. Now, if you're a foodie, you know about Will and Eleven Madison Park. Those of you who are here in New York. Oh, you go, 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.
2:15 Oprah Winfrey? 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 selfish pleasure of creating profound moments of connection and delight for their guests. So, welcome, Will Guidara.
2:38 Speaker 01 Thank you. Thank you, guys.
2:41 Oprah Winfrey? Will Guidara's New York Times bestseller, Unreasonable Hospitality, has sold over 1 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 Maya Angelou.
3:01 Oprah Winfrey? 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.
3:26 Speaker 01 By the way, that's so freaking cool.
3:34 Oprah Winfrey? I love it that you start the book with this story, the scene of you and your partner, Daniel Hom. You're sitting at the 2010 World's Best, 50 Best Restaurants event. And it's in London.
3:47 Speaker 01 Yes.
3:48 Oprah Winfrey? 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 gonna come in? How are we gonna place? And you thought you were gonna place, what?
3:58 Speaker 01 Like, 35.
4:00 Oprah Winfrey? 35?
4:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:01 Oprah Winfrey? Out of 50?
4:01 Speaker 01 In an expression of humility, but also confidence, right? It was our first year on the list.
4:05 Oprah Winfrey? Right. And then your partner said, "No, 40."
4:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, something like that. Yeah.
4:10 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah. Okay. So, picture this. It's gotta be exciting to get the call, though, right? That you're one of the 50 best restaurants in the world.
4:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
4:21 Oprah Winfrey? That's pretty good.
4:22 Speaker 01 Yeah, 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.
4:36 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
4:37 Speaker 01 Now, the awards, they're a lot like the Oscars. Okay, you're in this larger-than-life auditorium, surrounded by your heroes, in your fanciest tuxedo, the whole nine.
4:46 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
4:47 Speaker 01 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.
4:55 Oprah Winfrey? Yes.
4:56 Speaker 01 Here, if you're in the room, you already know you're one of the best.
4:59 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
5:00 Speaker 01 The 50 best. You just don't know where on the list you fall.
5:02 Oprah Winfrey? Well, I think that too about the Oscars. Everyone in here is great because you're nominated.
5:06 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:07 Oprah Winfrey? Like, and there's just five people in your category.
5:09 Speaker 01 But at those awards, you're desperate that they call your name.
5:12 Oprah Winfrey? Yes.
5:13 Speaker 01 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 humanly 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, darn it." Turns out, where you're seated has nothing to do with where you place. We'd come, literally, in last place. And...
5:42 Oprah Winfrey? And did you realize at the time, your face is up on the screen?
5:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
5:45 Oprah Winfrey? So you all didn't have that, "Oh, it's fine."
5:48 Speaker 01 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.
5:57 Speaker 01 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've gone on to do what we did next had it not been for that dose of disappointment.
6:22 Oprah Winfrey? 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." And then you guys went and got a bottle of bourbon.
6:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:34 Oprah Winfrey? Yep.
6:35 Speaker 01 As one does.
6:35 Oprah Winfrey? As one does. And during the process of drinking the bourbon and talking about why you came in last place, something happened.
6:44 Speaker 01 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.
7:26 Speaker 01 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 is 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
8:06 Speaker 01 one thing that will never change, which is our human desire to feel seen, to feel cared for.
8:12 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
8:14 Speaker 01 And so that's when I wrote "Unreasonable Hospitality."
8:16 Oprah Winfrey? So you wrote this on a napkin.
8:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:18 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah, after a lot of bourbon. But it turned out to be a book.
8:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:22 Oprah Winfrey? It's something very meaningful. Let's share with our audience this moment. You were 12 years old and your dad took you to Four Seasons.
8:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:30 Oprah Winfrey? 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. And this happened with you at the first time your dad took you to the Four Seasons restaurant here in New York.
8:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:48 Oprah Winfrey? Tell us about that.
8:49 Speaker 01 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 matter.
9:23 Oprah Winfrey? When you say restaurant hours, explain that to the rest of the audience who doesn't know.
9:27 Speaker 01 For people who don't know, restaurateurs work a tremendous number of hours.
9:31 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
9:31 Speaker 01 Like fourteen, fifteen hours a day.
9:33 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
9:36 Speaker 01 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 twelve, 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 that Brooks Brothers blazer with the gold buttons.
9:57 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
9:58 Speaker 01 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 tableside. But what I really remember was how they made us feel. 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. 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.
10:37 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
10:39 Speaker 01 And literally at that age, I knew that's what I wanted to do with my life.
10:42 Oprah Winfrey? Well, you know, I loved reading this book. And one of the reasons I appreciated it so much is because it reminded me of our years on The Oprah Show with my team, the producers, best team in television.
10:56 Speaker 01 Yes.
10:56 Oprah Winfrey? 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.
11:12 Oprah Winfrey? 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.
11:21 Speaker 01 When you introduced surprise and delight into a world that was not accustomed to receiving it.
11:26 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah, well, that's what Favorite Things was all about. Surprise and delight. 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. You remember the surprise and you remember the delight.
11:42 Speaker 01 It's the quote by Maya Angelou.
11:44 Oprah Winfrey? Yes.
11:44 Speaker 01 People will forget what you say, they will forget what you do, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
11:50 Oprah Winfrey? Yes.
11:50 Speaker 01 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.
11:59 Oprah Winfrey? 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.
12:06 Speaker 01 OK.
12:07 Oprah Winfrey? I remember sitting at the table when she first said that and I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna write that down, Maya. Yeah, so that.
12:15 Speaker 01 By the way, that's so freaking cool.
12:21 Speaker 01 That's just amazing.
12:22 Oprah Winfrey? 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 gonna be my greatest legacy. And she said, you have no idea what your legacy will be.
12:58 Oprah Winfrey? And I said, yeah, well, I do. I think these girls, this school is gonna 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. Oh. She said, your legacy is every life you touch.
13:18 Speaker 01 Hmm.
13:19 Oprah Winfrey? So it's everybody who has ever watched a show.
13:22 Speaker 01 They almost started clapping. I think that's like.
13:27 Oprah Winfrey? 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 gonna get a divorce because they were in abusive rela-- it's every life, it's every person who you've ever left a heart print with.
13:46 Speaker 01 By the way, is, is all about what I wrote about.
13:51 Oprah Winfrey? Exactly.
13:52 Speaker 01 I mean, it is perfectly.
13:53 Oprah Winfrey? That's why it resonated so profoundly with me.
13:55 Speaker 01 Because I, 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 asymmetric.
14:07 Oprah Winfrey? And that's what unreasonable hospitality is about. We need to take a quick break, and when we come back, Will's good friend, world-renowned chef Daniel Boulud, joins the conversation. A warm welcome back to the Oprah Podcast, y'all. Thank you so much for being here. I'm with Will Guidara with an audience in New York. Okay, so let's start with a story of a 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.
14:38 Speaker 01 Yes. So, I'm in the dining room, clearing dirty plates at this table, and 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, they're literally going straight to the airport, and they're raving about their trip. They'd been to Le Bernardin, and Jean Georges, 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.
15:02 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
15:02 Speaker 01 They're the good ones.
15:03 Oprah Winfrey? Per Se, yes, Danielle.
15:04 Speaker 01 And, 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 lightbulb 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.
15:26 Speaker 01 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 cannelle of sauerkraut, 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 aged 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.
16:11 Speaker 01 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.
16:17 Oprah Winfrey? To that hot dog, yes.
16:19 Speaker 01 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.
16:30 Oprah Winfrey? Well, you know, intention, I live by that. That's my principle. And you learned that from your father. I learned that from a thought leader that I had on in like 1989. Gary Zukoff writes about it in See 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.
16:53 Speaker 01 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 intention. 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.
17:37 Speaker 01 And I learned the intention part definitively from him.
17:41 Oprah Winfrey? 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 really alters an experience for a person.
17:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think, I mean, I think it requires three things fundamentally. One, just being present.
18:05 Speaker 01 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. 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.
18:26 Oprah Winfrey? 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.
18:37 Speaker 01 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 nobility in 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
19:21 Speaker 01 celebrate some of the most important moments of their lives.
19:24 Oprah Winfrey? 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 Maya Angelou.
19:41 Oprah Winfrey? "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?
19:59 Speaker 01 Because I think if you're simply repeating backwords that someone else has given you, 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.
20:25 Oprah Winfrey? Call to greatness. You actually were inspired by greatness early on.
20:31 Speaker 01 Yes.
20:32 Oprah Winfrey? When you were at Cornell.
20:33 Speaker 01 Yes.
20:33 Oprah Winfrey? And there was a program there called Guest Chefs.
20:35 Speaker 01 Yes.
20:36 Oprah Winfrey? And Danielle Balloud.
20:38 Speaker 01 Danielle Balloud.
20:39 Oprah Winfrey? Came as a guest chef.
20:41 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:41 Oprah Winfrey? And he was one of those people that you, you know, admired and the whole world knew.
20:45 Speaker 01 Yes.
20:46 Oprah Winfrey? And he, how did you get him to come there?
20:48 Speaker 01 Well, I, oh, 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. Um, and we had an amazing time, which maybe we'll unpack that.
21:01 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
21:01 Speaker 01 In a little bit, but I was nobody. Danielle had no reason to care about me, except.
21:09 Oprah Winfrey? So explain this, you were at, you're at Cornell.
21:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:12 Oprah Winfrey? Cornell has a guest chef program where they bring in a guest chef.
21:14 Speaker 01 Yes.
21:15 Oprah Winfrey? And the guest chef chef comes in and he cooks a meal.
21:17 Speaker 01 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, 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, Danielle, 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.
21:59 Speaker 01 But she did pass literally the day after I graduated college.
22:04 Oprah Winfrey? Hmm.
22:04 Speaker 01 And I was going to Spain that summer for.
22:08 Oprah Winfrey? 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.
22:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:18 Oprah Winfrey? And she, she, she comes out of her coma and she speaks.
22:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, so she fell into a coma. She ended up missing my graduation. Um, 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. She had been in a coma. She also couldn't speak intelligibly for like five years.
22:42 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
22:43 Speaker 01 And I woke up in the middle of the night that night and she was awake. And we had like the first proper conversation I'd had.
22:49 Oprah Winfrey? She turned to you and said, "You graduated."
22:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, "You graduated college."
22:52 Oprah Winfrey? Hmm.
22:53 Speaker 01 And we talked for a while and then she went back out. And then she passed later that morning.
23:01 Oprah Winfrey? Hmm.
23:02 Speaker 01 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.
23:18 Oprah Winfrey? And then you took your father to Danielle's.
23:20 Speaker 01 Yeah, so then I'm going to Spain.
23:21 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
23:22 Speaker 01 For this job, which I almost canceled in mourning, 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. 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 bathroom. And we show up at Danielle. 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 Sky Box.
24:03 Oprah Winfrey? Wow.
24:04 Speaker 01 Table for two overlooking the kitchen.
24:06 Oprah Winfrey? You were in the Sky Box?
24:07 Speaker 01 We were in the Sky Box.
24:10 Oprah Winfrey? Wow, okay.
24:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, I didn't, I didn't like hang out with Maya Angelou, but I went to the Sky Box.
24:17 Speaker 01 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. And 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. 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. And yet, he gave my dad and I one of the best evenings of our entire lives.
24:54 Oprah Winfrey? And also, in that passage, when you write about that experience at Danielle, I'm gonna introduce you in a moment. We keep talking about you and talking about. But I learned something too. I just had a big aha, and you all are gonna love this moment. You say, you drink your finest wine, your most expensive wine, on your worst day.
25:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:15 Oprah Winfrey? 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.
25:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, those days are already good. You don't need a good bottle of wine. Drink the best bottles on the worst days.
25:34 Oprah Winfrey? 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, chef you met when you were still in college.
25:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
25:47 Oprah Winfrey? What did you see in this young... Welcome, Danielle Baroud.
25:56 Speaker 02 Thank you a lot. Well, what did I saw in him?
26:01 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
26:02 Speaker 02 I think, you know, when you get to Cornell, there's hundreds of students that are studying hospitality.
26:07 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
26:08 Speaker 02 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.
26:26 Speaker 01 Well, I was in charge of marketing, but his dinner sold out so quickly.
26:29 Oprah Winfrey? There was nothing to market, right?
26:31 Speaker 01 So I decided that I was in charge of entertaining Danielle.
26:34 Speaker 02 Well, exactly. That's what happened. It's then, after a wonderful dinner we had and 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 all say, well, let's go to my home. It's getting, the bar's gonna 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.
27:11 Speaker 01 It was not the nicest house.
27:14 Oprah Winfrey? Didn't you all end up raiding some kitchen and making eggs and truffles in the middle of the night?
27:19 Speaker 02 And now it's 2:30 in the morning, or 2 o'clock in the morning, and we all want a bite. And so I, we go back to school, we go and bribe the, the, the, 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. 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.
27:57 Speaker 01 It was amazing.
27:58 Speaker 02 That's good.
27:59 Oprah Winfrey? Unbelievable. What have you learned from him over the years?
28:02 Speaker 02 Well, what I've learned is, and, 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 recode it for his own vision of what hospitality should be in his own mind. And, and his own, and, and what I've learned is, is leadership among, because he 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 are there all for the customer,
28:44 Speaker 02 but the team first. And I think we are at this power of leadership that make people think and people do things that they would have not conventionally do, for sure.
28:55 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
28:56 Speaker 01 Thank you. I love you.
28:59 Speaker 02 An amazing example. I don't know if I could work for you, but.
29:07 Oprah Winfrey? Thank you, Daniel.
29:08 Speaker 02 You're welcome. Thank you.
29:09 Speaker 01 Thank you so much.
29:10 Oprah Winfrey? Thank you.
29:14 Speaker 01 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, aligns with that whole idea of our legacy is not
29:32 Oprah Winfrey? One thing.
29:33 Speaker 01 Is not one thing, nor are we. We are an 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.
29:52 Oprah Winfrey? Oh.
29:53 Speaker 01 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.
30:11 Oprah Winfrey? 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?
30:22 Speaker 01 Yes.
30:23 Oprah Winfrey? I mean, as I said to you, Melody Hobson, big businesswoman, said to me that she uses it in her work with her employees.
30:30 Speaker 01 Yes.
30:30 Oprah Winfrey? So you believe that this principle of being unreasonable in your generosity and your hospitality can apply to any service, any
30:40 Speaker 01 Yes.
30:40 Oprah Winfrey? organization.
30:41 Speaker 01 I mean
30:42 Oprah Winfrey? And the field guide, which is coming out next year, is to tell us how to do that.
30:46 Speaker 01 Exactly, yes. Unreasonable hospitality is the why. The field guide is the how.
30:50 Oprah Winfrey? Oh.
30:51 Speaker 01 But it's been, 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.
31:08 Oprah Winfrey? Yes.
31:08 Speaker 01 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.
31:21 Oprah Winfrey? I just thought that paying the parking meters was a great idea. Share that with our audience.
31:25 Speaker 01 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.
32:07 Speaker 01 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 is parked. And we're gonna keep the meter fueled the entire time. Just sit here, enjoy the night. And just a little.
32:25 Oprah Winfrey? Isn't that a nice thing? Thinking, that never happened to me. But, okay, that's nice.
32:32 Speaker 01 But here's the thing. It's so simple. It's not hard.
32:37 Oprah Winfrey? 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 the... I said, what?
32:49 Speaker 01 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. 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 here's the thing. We were serving some of the best food in the world. 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.
33:18 Oprah Winfrey? 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 meter 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.
33:41 Speaker 01 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 and 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 can 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 cost two bucks, but look at the impact it had.
34:20 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah.
34:21 Speaker 01 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 gonna do? They're gonna tell them over.
34:39 Oprah Winfrey? Those people are still talking about that sled and that hot dog. Yes.
34:42 Speaker 01 And you end up with legions of ambassadors out there doing your marketing on your behalf.
34:47 Oprah Winfrey? There's your marketing. 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. 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.
35:15 Speaker 03 Right here.
35:15 Oprah Winfrey? What do you want to say? Hi.
35:16 Speaker 03 Hi, Oprah. Hi, Will.
35:17 Speaker 01 Hi.
35:18 Speaker 03 I like to consider myself as a millennial, right? So in between millennial and Gen Z, on the cusp.
35:25 Speaker 01 So we're the same age.
35:26 Speaker 03 Yeah, we're the same age. We're here. We're here. Both, 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.
36:07 Speaker 03 So my question to you is, what advice would you give to kind of have hospitality to people who are kind of difficult?
36:16 Speaker 01 Well, first of all, I love that you sat at the table. I mean, when I first got to Eleven 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 on 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. 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.
36:59 Speaker 01 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. Oh, absolutely, yes. By pulling up a chair. The, 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 him was the charitable assumption. The charitable assumption is a different way of saying, give people the benefit of the doubt.
37:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, in restaurants, sometimes people come in and they are acting like jerks, right? And that's just a reality. The Felix story. Yeah, 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. 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. 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.
38:19 Speaker 01 But I'd always rather err on the side of assuming the best in someone than the other way around.
38:25 Oprah Winfrey? So I mentioned the Felix story because he was a jerk.
38:28 Speaker 01 He was a jerk.
38:29 Oprah Winfrey? He was a jerk. But when he comes in late, no explanation.
38:32 Speaker 01 Yes.
38:33 Oprah Winfrey? The first thing you say is not, "Oh, my God, why are you late?" What you say is, "Is everything OK?"
38:37 Speaker 01 Is everything OK?
38:38 Oprah Winfrey? That's the charitable assumption.
38:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, exactly.
38:39 Oprah Winfrey? Is everything OK? Are you all right? Is your family all right?
38:43 Speaker 01 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. Said, "Hey, are you OK? Like, is everything OK? What's going on?" He goes, "No, I just didn't want to come in until right now."
39:02 Oprah Winfrey? Daniel!
39:02 Speaker 01 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.
39:21 Oprah Winfrey? You fired him, but didn't corporate rehire him?
39:24 Speaker 01 Yes.
39:27 Oprah Winfrey? Yes.
39:29 Speaker 01 I got a call three days later from someone at corporate. This was not Danny Meyer's 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."
39:43 Oprah Winfrey? Without even consulting with you, the manager?
39:45 Speaker 01 Without even consulting me. 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.
40:02 Oprah Winfrey? Yeah. So is it true that when you no longer have trust in the people who are over you, 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?
40:20 Speaker 01 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 the self-fulfilling idea. 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...
40:45 Speaker 01 I think some violations are hard to wind back.
40:50 Oprah Winfrey? Felix was one of them.
40:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:51 Oprah Winfrey? Kyle, what did you want to say?
40:53 Speaker 04 Well, I had the privilege of attending the Unreasonable Hospitality Summit back in May in Nashville, and it left a huge mark on me.
41:00 Speaker 01 Thank you.
41:01 Speaker 04 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, 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. I believed in the experience so much that I actually started working as cleaning staff just so I could get free rides.
41:28 Speaker 01 Just to get in?
41:29 Speaker 04 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...
41:37 Speaker 01 From cleaning staff to that, congratulations.
41:40 Speaker 04 Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
41:44 Speaker 04 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, you know, 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?
42:13 Oprah Winfrey? It will be in the Unreasonable Hospitality Field Guide.
42:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'd love to answer that, but you do need to buy the book.
42:21 Speaker 01 One of my favorite quotes of my dad is, "Keep your eyes peeled." 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 at barber shops. 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.
43:04 Speaker 01 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.
43:25 Oprah Winfrey? 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.
43:44 Speaker 04 Well, a lot of our roles at SoulCycle are rider-facing. So, you know, I'm just a firm believer that if you 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 that experience came true for me.
44:04 Oprah Winfrey? Wow.
44:05 Speaker 01 And yeah, and by the way, obviously, I remember you from the summit. Your energy is unforgettable.
44:09 Speaker 04 Thank you.
44:10 Speaker 01 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.
44:23 Oprah Winfrey? Everybody's going, "Uh-huh." It's like an amen choir.
44:27 Oprah Winfrey? 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 recognized them, that you cared enough to listen and to do something with what you heard. What's your idea of the perfect gift?
44:45 Speaker 01 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.
45:01 Oprah Winfrey? To do something with what you heard.
45:02 Speaker 01 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, 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.
45:34 Oprah Winfrey? Hmm.
45:35 Speaker 01 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.
45:43 Oprah Winfrey? Wow.
45:44 Speaker 01 In my view.
45:44 Oprah Winfrey? What's one of the best gifts you've ever received?
45:47 Speaker 01 Hmm.
45:49 Speaker 01 Um, I'll tell you, I just received an amazing gift four days ago. 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. Um, and yet, since I moved to Nashville, I haven't seen her in a couple of years.
46:30 Speaker 01 Um, 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 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.
47:10 Oprah Winfrey? Well, thank you for the gift of this book.
47:12 Speaker 01 Thank you.
47:12 Oprah Winfrey? Unreasonable Hospitality. There's so much more phenomenal business and life advice in this book that I think that our audience, you're gonna leave with the book.
47:27 Oprah Winfrey? Yes. Yes.
47:32 Speaker 01 Can I?
47:32 Oprah Winfrey? Yes. Yeah.
47:35 Speaker 01 Evie, do you realize what I'm experiencing right now?
47:40 Speaker 01 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.
47:56 Oprah Winfrey? Hell, yeah. An absolute delight. Thank you. Will Gudner'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.
48:19 Speaker 01 Thank you so much.
48:20 Oprah Winfrey? 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 Balud, thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here.
48:33 Speaker 01 You're welcome.
48:34 Oprah Winfrey? 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 set. Go well, everybody. Go well. 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.
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