Speaker 1: Was there ever a time when you believed that Whole
Speaker 1: Foods was going to fail?
Speaker 2: There were times when it almost did fail, but there
Speaker 2: was never a time I actually believed it would fail.
Speaker 1: You said something beautiful about what it takes to keep people.
Speaker 2: That Whole Foods was like, Wow, You've had so many
Speaker 2: people work in twenty thirty, even forty years here. How
Speaker 2: do you do that? You give people two things, give
Speaker 2: them purpose and secondly, they want to feel their loved.
Speaker 2: So if you give people purpose and love, why would
Speaker 2: they ever want to leave?
Speaker 1: Hey? Everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you
Speaker 1: come to become healthier, happier, and more healed. I'm so
Speaker 1: grateful to have your ears and eyes for the next
Speaker 1: hour or so, and I'm really looking forward to diving
Speaker 1: in with today's guest. Today's guest is John Mackey, an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur and co founder and visionary of Whole Foods market.
Speaker 1: In its forty four years of service as CEO, the
Speaker 1: Natural and Organic grosser grew from a single store in Austin, Texas,
Speaker 1: to five hundred and forty stores in the US and Canada,
Speaker 1: with annual sales exceeding twenty two billion dollars. John co
Speaker 1: founded the Conscious Capitalism movement and co authored the New
Speaker 1: York Times and Wall Street Journal best selling book entitled
Speaker 1: Conscious Capitalism, Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, and then
Speaker 1: the follow up Conscious Leadership Elevating Humanity through Business. John
Speaker 1: is also the co author of The Whole Foods Diet,
Speaker 1: The Life Saving Plan for Health and Longevity, and the
Speaker 1: Whole Foods Cookbook. And today we're talking about his latest book,
Speaker 1: which is called The Whole Story Adventures in Love, Life
Speaker 1: and Capitalism. It's available right now. We're going to put
Speaker 1: the link in the comments. I'd love for you to
Speaker 1: order this while you're listening along. I promise you it
Speaker 1: won't disappoint. Please welcome to On Purpose, John Mackie. John,
Speaker 1: it's great to have you here. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on Jay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, really grateful to have you here. And I was
Speaker 1: saying to you just now before we started that I
Speaker 1: actually received conscious capitalist as such a pivotal moment in
Speaker 1: my life. I just finished three years of living as
Speaker 1: a monk, and I would honestly say that i'd up
Speaker 1: until that point, thought that consciousness or capitalism were two
Speaker 1: separate things, and that there were two separate pursuits. My
Speaker 1: monk life definitely helped me learn how they were integrated.
Speaker 1: But then when I was integrating back into the real world,
Speaker 1: so to speak, for me to wrap my head around
Speaker 1: rewiring my relationship with consciousness and capitalism, your book and
Speaker 1: your movement really helped craft some of that initial thoughts.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for coming into my life
Speaker 1: at a very pivotal and important moment for me.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I mean, you're an author, so you put
Speaker 2: your books out into the world and you don't always
Speaker 2: know if it's helping anybody or if it's having an impact,
Speaker 2: and unless you hear back from people. So of course
Speaker 2: that makes me feel really good. Thanks for sharing that,
Speaker 2: of course.
Speaker 1: John. There's so much to talk about today, actually about
Speaker 1: your new book, The Whole Story, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: start off actually just by asking you, was there ever
Speaker 1: a time when you believed that Whole Foods was going
Speaker 1: to fail?
Speaker 2: I don't think there's ever time I believed it was
Speaker 2: going to fail. There were times when it almost did fail,
Speaker 2: but there was never time I actually believed it would fail.
Speaker 2: I'm a follower of Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey, and
Speaker 2: I feel like every one of us has called a
Speaker 2: hero's journey, but for a variety of reasons, most people
Speaker 2: don't answer that call, usually fear. I just kind of
Speaker 2: answered that call. I just I got when I'm studying
Speaker 2: existentialism and philosophy and university in my very late teens
Speaker 2: and early twenties, I got really clear about death. We're
Speaker 2: going to die. Nobody gets out of here alive, and
Speaker 2: it's a lot shorter than people realize, the time that
Speaker 2: we have. So what do you want to do with it?
Speaker 2: I felt like this is what my heart and my
Speaker 2: soul called me to do. I talk about it in
Speaker 2: the book quite a bit. And so when you're on
Speaker 2: the hero's journey, you have a lot of near failures,
Speaker 2: you have setbacks, you do get knocked down, but also
Speaker 2: amazing things happen. All these synchronicities occurred. You seem to
Speaker 2: meet the right person at the right time, the right
Speaker 2: mentor shows up, Miracles seem to occur when you're on
Speaker 2: your path, and it's just sort of this grand adventure.
Speaker 2: And yes, I mean we did have We had a
Speaker 2: flood in our first year at Whole Feeds Market where
Speaker 2: we had eight feet of water, and I didn't know.
Speaker 2: We'll call it a near death experience, but actually it
Speaker 2: was turned out in retrospective and a great thing. It
Speaker 2: taught us a lot. It taught me about stakeholders and
Speaker 2: how we're all interconnected, and how there are people that
Speaker 2: love you. Your customers can love you, your employees can
Speaker 2: love you, your suppliers can love you, and the community you're
Speaker 2: part of can love you, and you can love them back.
Speaker 2: So even in the bad things that happened, the disasters,
Speaker 2: if you reframe them, they were all lessons to be
Speaker 2: learned on the hero's journey on the path. So no,
Speaker 2: I never really thought that would fail. I always thought
Speaker 2: it would be successful, but you know, we almost did
Speaker 2: a few times, but we didn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you feel now you're at the stage of
Speaker 1: the hero's journey where you're returning with the elixir? Is
Speaker 1: that where you're at?
Speaker 2: Or you know, I've returned with that alixer, But then
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm still called And that's my new
Speaker 2: business I started up called love Life, which is I
Speaker 2: think also about it's still trying to help people to
Speaker 2: be the healthiest version of themselves, but going beyond just
Speaker 2: healthy food and the deeper part of spirituality, physical healing,
Speaker 2: emotional healing, and spiritual healing. And we now have the
Speaker 2: technologies we didn't have in the past, and we have
Speaker 2: the wearables, and we have the consciousness that need. So
Speaker 2: many traditions are integrating now around the world, all of
Speaker 2: the mystical paths. I mean, you were a monk for
Speaker 2: three years, so clearly you were doing a lot of meditation,
Speaker 2: you were on your spiritual journey. Well, today that all
Speaker 2: that knowledge has been available to people, it's so much
Speaker 2: it's easier to become enlightened today than it used to be,
Speaker 2: you might say. And I feel like a course, that's
Speaker 2: what humanity needs, right, collective awakening, collective enlightenment. And yeah,
Speaker 2: so I feel like I'm still on the path.
Speaker 1: I love that. I mean, in the book the Whole Story,
Speaker 1: you're very candid, you're very open, and you're a different
Speaker 1: sort of business leader because of what you just spoke about.
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued as to when did your curiosity and consciousness
Speaker 1: and spirituality begin. Is it something that was always there
Speaker 1: since you were born or was it something that you
Speaker 1: discovered over time?
Speaker 2: And how even as a child. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: most children have some kind of mystical relationship with part
Speaker 2: of their being and their imaginations, their love and innocence,
Speaker 2: and children always felt a connection to the divine even
Speaker 2: as a child. And then it was more traditional. I
Speaker 2: was raised as a Christian, so traditional Christianity. The deeper
Speaker 2: spiritual awakening occurred when I was like first time I
Speaker 2: actually took a psychedelic drug LSD, back when I was
Speaker 2: twenty in university, and that sort of knocked me off
Speaker 2: the path my parents had planned for me. My parents
Speaker 2: wanted to meet possibly your parents wanted the same thing
Speaker 2: for me, to be a professional above all else. They
Speaker 2: wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer, or
Speaker 2: an engineer or get an MBA do you know, be respectable.
Speaker 2: And but that totally knocked me off. And then I
Speaker 2: began my own search for the meaning of life. I
Speaker 2: wanted to understand do I have a purpose? What is
Speaker 2: existence about? Is it all just you know, random chance?
Speaker 2: Darwinni darwinni and survival of the fittest? Is there a
Speaker 2: deeper spirituality? And of course that's not found necessarily externally.
Speaker 2: It's an interiority. It's found within our own being, within
Speaker 2: our own consciousness, and the psychul the lsd awakened me
Speaker 2: to that possibility, and then I began to read Eastern religions.
Speaker 2: I studied religion, meditating uh. And then I continued on
Speaker 2: that journey and had experienced an ego death again through
Speaker 2: psychedelics when I was about twenty two. That's really kind
Speaker 2: of the starting point of the book. I dissolved my ego,
Speaker 2: I mean, and I was just part of the one
Speaker 2: only there's only the one being, and I just realized
Speaker 2: that at the essence I remembered it. Actually it was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: forgot here it is. And that changed everything because then
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, I can create to dream,
Speaker 2: I can create whatever I want to create, and what
Speaker 2: do I want to create? And that's where the interiority
Speaker 2: the hero's journey begins. And I moved into this food
Speaker 2: co op when I was twenty two years old, maybe
Speaker 2: twenty three, and it was vegetarian. I wasn't vegetarian at
Speaker 2: that time, but I was really interested in all things counterculture.
Speaker 2: I like the hippies and I thought, Mam, I meet
Speaker 2: some cool people in the vegetarian co op, and I did,
Speaker 2: and I had a food awakening. But until then I
Speaker 2: just kind of ate the standard American diet, a lot
Speaker 2: of junk food. I was more like a car got
Speaker 2: to take get in to get gasoline periodically to run fuel.
Speaker 2: As long as the fuel tastes good, I'll eat it.
Speaker 2: And so I didn't eat many vegetables. I didn't eat
Speaker 2: much healthy food, and so I learned how to cook
Speaker 2: in the co op. I learned about natural, organic foods,
Speaker 2: and I got excited about it. Jay I was like
Speaker 2: on fire. And then I went to work in a
Speaker 2: small natural food store and it was like I loved it.
Speaker 2: I loved I was in a community of employees that
Speaker 2: I shared a lot of current values with. I was
Speaker 2: connecting with customers that were my neighbors and becoming friends,
Speaker 2: and it was like, I want to do this. And
Speaker 2: I remember I went back to the co op Prana
Speaker 2: House it was called Proana House and talked to my girlfriend, Renee.
Speaker 2: I think that time I was probably about twenty three,
Speaker 2: name was four years younger, so she was nineteen, and
Speaker 2: I said, Renee, what do you think if we open
Speaker 2: up our own store. Don't you think i'd be cool?
Speaker 2: And she said, oh, mac Oman, that'd be really cool.
Speaker 1: Let's do that.
Speaker 2: So we did and that was the beginning. The first
Speaker 2: door was called Safer Way. Then a couple of years
Speaker 2: later we relocated it merged with another natural food company
Speaker 2: and became Whole Foods Market, and the adventure was well
Speaker 2: launched at that point.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to a couple of things
Speaker 1: you mentioned there, John, This idea that you know, not
Speaker 1: everyone who takes LSD or a psychedelic sparks a pursuit
Speaker 1: into a deeper spiritual journey. It can for some, it
Speaker 1: doesn't for everyone. For you, it obviously got you into
Speaker 1: philosophy Eastern religions, as you said, it kind of forced
Speaker 1: you deeper. What do you think when you describe that
Speaker 1: to someone who's never had a psychedelic experience, never been
Speaker 1: exposed to that. What does that mean when you say
Speaker 1: I had an awakening. We'll get to the ego death part.
Speaker 1: But when you say you had an awakening, when you
Speaker 1: say open it up, is what are you experiencing for
Speaker 1: someone who may not actually know what that means or
Speaker 1: feels like.
Speaker 2: Of course, it's like describing a rainbow tos someone who's blind.
Speaker 2: I mean, they can't understand it really until you have
Speaker 2: a similar experience or what is making love like until
Speaker 2: you've actually done it. I mean, there are certain experiences
Speaker 2: that you have to have to actually understand it. So
Speaker 2: when I talk about that, I don't expect people that
Speaker 2: haven't had similar experiences to understand, but I expect the
Speaker 2: ones that have had similar experiences to say, oh, wow,
Speaker 2: I've been there, I've done that, I felt that experience.
Speaker 2: That kind of speaking to that audience in a way.
Speaker 2: But I also tell people that don't want to do
Speaker 2: psychedelics that there are other pathways that are gentler that
Speaker 2: they can have transcendent experiences. Meditation is one good way,
Speaker 2: but that generally takes a little bit longer for people.
Speaker 2: I've found that breath work is very, very powerful, and
Speaker 2: I've worked with that for years, and you can have
Speaker 2: a transcendent experience on breath work where you get in
Speaker 2: touch with your deeper part of your soul just by
Speaker 2: breathing continuously, particularly in a guided situation, because you're energizing
Speaker 2: a deeper part of your being in your interioror self,
Speaker 2: and it's beginning to emerge, and that can scare people
Speaker 2: so they about breathing. But if you will keep breathing
Speaker 2: and continue to go through it, this is the best
Speaker 2: chance you'll ever have to have an authentic connection with
Speaker 2: your soul. Not the best chancel lear, but it's a
Speaker 2: really good way to do it that's safe and nothing
Speaker 2: to be afraid of. You just breathing. So I encourage
Speaker 2: people that the psychedelics might scare them. Just don't believe
Speaker 2: that there any meaning in life, that there's any interior
Speaker 2: thing to look at. The interior universe is every bit
Speaker 2: as expansive as the physical universe of not more expansive.
Speaker 2: And just we're Americans here and people don't oftentimes do
Speaker 2: these journeys into their interior. You obviously have Jay, you
Speaker 2: spent three years as a month, and so your own
Speaker 2: experiments you might say, or adventures in this part of
Speaker 2: your psyche, are probably very amazing. One of my friends,
Speaker 2: he always wants me to try to explain it to
Speaker 2: him in rational terms. His name is Alec, and I say, Alec, listen,
Speaker 2: I can talk about this, but if you really want
Speaker 2: to know what I'm talking about, you have to do
Speaker 2: the experiments. Because you're skeptical and you're asking me to
Speaker 2: prove it to you, and I'll say I can prove
Speaker 2: it to you if you will do the meditation, if
Speaker 2: you'll do the breath work, if you do the psychedelics,
Speaker 2: you can know there's an authentic spiritual reality that you
Speaker 2: don't believe is there. It's like that story about the
Speaker 2: guy that lost his key on the and he's looking
Speaker 2: under the lamp post because well, that's where the light is,
Speaker 2: but it's not there clearly. So if you're asking people
Speaker 2: to become enlightened by just rationality that's looking for it
Speaker 2: in the wrong place, you won't find it there. The
Speaker 2: light isn't shining there.
Speaker 1: You reminded me of a beautiful Vedic term in the
Speaker 1: language you are using in the Sanskrit is unenthrakash, which
Speaker 1: means in a sky or in a universe, as you
Speaker 1: were saying, and he talks about in the same way
Speaker 1: as the external galaxy. We're so excited to explore and
Speaker 1: send things to space and figure out what's going on
Speaker 1: out there. But the inner sky is as vast, if
Speaker 1: not more, and as deep and profound and unseen as
Speaker 1: that outer sky, and we don't have that curiosity or
Speaker 1: that energy. I wanted to ask you because I think
Speaker 1: one thing I don't take for granted anymore, John, is
Speaker 1: that for those of us who have had spiritual awakenings
Speaker 1: and spiritual journeys. And I agree with you on the
Speaker 1: rational part. I think the way you explained that is brilliant,
Speaker 1: and I can agree with you more although I think
Speaker 1: sometimes we assume that everyone wants to have that experience,
Speaker 1: or we assume everyone should go for that experience. And
Speaker 1: I found that I was lucky. I met people who
Speaker 1: had had enlightened experiences, and that made me open up
Speaker 1: to the idea that a it was possible, be it existed,
Speaker 1: and see it could happen for me. And there was
Speaker 1: this feeling that I would meet someone that I could
Speaker 1: tell was operating in a different realm. They were happier,
Speaker 1: they were more conscious, they were more at peace with
Speaker 1: themselves and others. They operated and read themselves differently. Because
Speaker 1: I got to see that and witness that, I recognized
Speaker 1: that there was a difference between observing them and observing
Speaker 1: someone else, and that made me believe that there was
Speaker 1: another reality that I could want to pursue. But I
Speaker 1: think for a lot of people, they hear us and
Speaker 1: they hear people and they say, what's the point, Like
Speaker 1: I'm trying to I'm paying bills, I'm trying to survive, Like.
Speaker 2: Well, that helped me be richer and more successful, right,
Speaker 2: because they're pursuing a different path.
Speaker 1: So you were saying that actually tapping into this alternate
Speaker 1: reality has benefits in the material world as well.
Speaker 2: Of course it does. Yeah, we started this conversation off
Speaker 2: by talking about well, capitalism and consciousness. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't always see how those things could fit together back then,
Speaker 2: you know, I remember that you read the Hermann Hesse
Speaker 2: book Sa Dartha. Yes, so he did it backwards. Most
Speaker 2: people come to the spirituality later. He came to it
Speaker 2: at the beginning. But then he took what he had
Speaker 2: learned and he could apply it in the in the
Speaker 2: material world, so to speak, and it helped him be better.
Speaker 2: It helped him make him wealthy because he kind of
Speaker 2: had his interior together, which made it easier. But a
Speaker 2: lot of times people are not interested in the interior
Speaker 2: part because they feel like, well, I don't see how
Speaker 2: that's going to help me in my day to day
Speaker 2: pursuit of wealth, fame, success, power, whatever. But those things, ultimately,
Speaker 2: what people will discover when they get those they don't
Speaker 2: really make them happy. What makes people happy ultimately is love.
Speaker 2: And having that connection to other people, to ourselves, and
Speaker 2: to the larger universe that we're part of. It's not
Speaker 2: that money or fame or power are bad things. It's
Speaker 2: just that most people get addicted to them if they
Speaker 2: pursue them, and then they forget about, like said Dartha
Speaker 2: did in his book, He forgot about. Oh I forgot
Speaker 2: as he got deeper in the material plane, he got
Speaker 2: lost in it. So I think people that are dedicating
Speaker 2: their lives to making money or pursuing some thing in
Speaker 2: the material plane, that's what their whole life is devoted to,
Speaker 2: they will find when if they when they get it,
Speaker 2: that it's not really what they want it all along.
Speaker 2: And so if you can do these things together, you
Speaker 2: pursue your own interior spirituality, your own interior growth as
Speaker 2: a person, the spiritual part of you is that develops
Speaker 2: and opens and awakens. Then you're going to appreciate the
Speaker 2: external world even more because it's beautiful. But most people
Speaker 2: don't even notice it's beautiful because they're locked in their
Speaker 2: heads or locked in their own egos, and so they're
Speaker 2: trapped there to a certain extent. But once you can
Speaker 2: begin to break out or help that ego. Get that's
Speaker 2: all I like to say. The ego is a It
Speaker 2: should be a servant, not the master. And once you
Speaker 2: get the ego kind of where it needs to be
Speaker 2: and not driving the car but in the back seat,
Speaker 2: then you're in a position to have it all, which
Speaker 2: is to be to achieve the success that you want
Speaker 2: to lie while having the relationships that you want, while
Speaker 2: having your own spiritual joy, because that's what it is.
Speaker 2: As you awaken to that part of your being, you
Speaker 2: experience a lot more love and joy, and those give
Speaker 2: our soul's satisfaction.
Speaker 1: I was reflecting on this recently, this idea that the
Speaker 1: material world has always made it about the pursuit of
Speaker 1: and having certain things as being the goal of life
Speaker 1: or as being the success of life. And I was
Speaker 1: reflecting on how spiritually, especially in Eastern traditions, whether you
Speaker 1: have something or you don't. I need money, fame, power,
Speaker 1: control is actually irrelevant. It's whether you have freedom from envy,
Speaker 1: freedom from ego, freedom from anger, freedom from lust, freedom
Speaker 1: from illusion. Because you could have everything in the world
Speaker 1: and be envious and feel like you don't have anything.
Speaker 2: I've been fortunate to know several billionaires, for example, where
Speaker 2: they have, you know, everything that could possibly want in
Speaker 2: the material plane, but they're comparing themselves to people that
Speaker 2: are even more successful, richer, and they feel like somehoart
Speaker 2: of their life's not complete. And it's like, you can
Speaker 2: have anything you want materially, and it's your envy that's
Speaker 2: making you unhappy.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 2: What I found it to be a very useful habit
Speaker 2: is is when my friends or anyone has prosperity and success,
Speaker 2: for me to be truly happy for them rather than
Speaker 2: feel envious of them. I feel like envy is a
Speaker 2: very insidious trap that spoils the joy of life.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I always say to people, you need that
Speaker 1: the choice to envy people who study them, and if
Speaker 1: you envy them, then you don't get anywhere. But when
Speaker 1: you study them, you have the opportunity to.
Speaker 2: I like that a lot. I'm gonna take that's a
Speaker 2: takeaway for me today.
Speaker 1: Thank you, please do it. Yeah. Absolutely, I focused on
Speaker 1: that heavily because I always reflected on I was in
Speaker 1: the same way as you appreciate others, admiring others. But
Speaker 1: I saw the KEYPOP was studying them and wanting to
Speaker 1: learn from them, And all of a sudden you didn't
Speaker 1: feel that they were that far away. You felt so
Speaker 1: much closer to them and closer to that success for
Speaker 1: yourself and that abundance for yourself. Going to your point
Speaker 1: on ego death, I love that you use that language.
Speaker 1: Could you describe what an ego death is for someone
Speaker 1: who may be new to the idea or may not
Speaker 1: be aware of how you're referring to it.
Speaker 2: We're very attached to our ego. I mean, we in
Speaker 2: fact think that's what we are. We believe we are
Speaker 2: the ego. We believe we're a body and we're an ego.
Speaker 2: And so the ego is the part of us that
Speaker 2: feels like it's separate. Hey, I'm John, you're you. That's
Speaker 2: a book, this is water, this is a microphone. These
Speaker 2: are different than me. They're not me, And so we
Speaker 2: have this great feeling of individuality and separateness. That is,
Speaker 2: it's so real to us that we think that's actually reality.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: With the ego, death or a better way to put it,
Speaker 2: because death's scary word, is a sort of your ego disappearing.
Speaker 2: You don't have that sense of separation any longer. You
Speaker 2: don't identify with your separation, and the metaphor I like
Speaker 2: to use. This is like clothes. So I have clothes
Speaker 2: on today, they're not me. I'm not my clothes, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to go home and I'm going to take
Speaker 2: my clothes off. Maybe I'll wear them again, maybe I won't.
Speaker 2: I'll wear something different the next day. That's not who
Speaker 2: I am. I don't identify with my clothes. Most people don't,
Speaker 2: but some people do. Some people actually feel really really
Speaker 2: attached to their clothing. And so I'm not my clothes
Speaker 2: and I'm not my ego. Until you can actually have
Speaker 2: an experience where your ego is dissolved, you won't really
Speaker 2: understand what I'm talking about. But one of the great
Speaker 2: things about it is is that once you realize you're
Speaker 2: not your ego, you can also begin to let go
Speaker 2: of your fear of death. Because what we are at
Speaker 2: the deeper part of our being is the oneself, the
Speaker 2: one being we all are, so in a sense, we
Speaker 2: are immortal, but not our egos aren't. So that's the
Speaker 2: thing that freaks people out. It's like I always like
Speaker 2: to say, it's another metaphor. It's like when I die,
Speaker 2: I'm going to oh, yes, I remember here I am again.
Speaker 2: And I'm not John Mackey. I'm not that ego. I'm
Speaker 2: not that the body's going to dissolve and disappear. But
Speaker 2: the essence of what we are, that the one being,
Speaker 2: the oneself is there always, it always has been and
Speaker 2: always will be. And as you realize that, it's like
Speaker 2: our greatest fear, of course, is death, and you can
Speaker 2: begin to let that go. And by the way, once
Speaker 2: you begin to let that fear go, then you can
Speaker 2: really see your life as this adventure. Whatever happens, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. It's just like a dream. In fact, I
Speaker 2: do think life is really a dream, and I think
Speaker 2: that's a good metaphor to understand what we're doing here.
Speaker 2: I oftentimes we'll describe it as have you had experience
Speaker 2: of a lucid dream before? So in a lucid dream,
Speaker 2: we become conscious that we're dreaming. And once you become
Speaker 2: conscious that you're actually dreaming, you can begin to take
Speaker 2: control of the dream and you can you can you
Speaker 2: can create it however you want it to be. And
Speaker 2: once you begin to realize that you're in a dream here,
Speaker 2: then you can become conscious and then you can begin
Speaker 2: to create a happy dream, a dream of love, a forgiveness,
Speaker 2: a dream of on your own hero's journey, so to speak,
Speaker 2: a kindness, compassion. That dream begins to change as you
Speaker 2: wake up. It becomes a happier and happier dream, because
Speaker 2: that's the dream that you're creating. I've always tell my
Speaker 2: friends it's like I believe in the multiverse. It's because
Speaker 2: when I get to a doom and gloomer that says
Speaker 2: we're all going to destroy everything, I says, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: not me. That's not my dream. My dream is going
Speaker 2: to get better and better and better. But the multiverse
Speaker 2: is real because all possibilities are being realized. And I said,
Speaker 2: there'll be some version of John Mackie that goes down
Speaker 2: that horrible path with you. I'm just letting you know
Speaker 2: it'll be a different one than this.
Speaker 1: I think C. S. Lewis wrote it best that you
Speaker 1: don't have a soul, you are the soul and you
Speaker 1: have a body. Oh yes, that's beautiful and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite fa Lewis fans. Yeah me too,
Speaker 1: And it's one of my favorite favorite statements that you
Speaker 1: don't have a soul, you are the soul and you
Speaker 1: have a body. And I loved your metaphor about the clothes.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of a verse in the Bug with Geta,
Speaker 1: which talks about that just as we put on clothes
Speaker 1: and take them off every day, this soul takes on
Speaker 1: new bodies and takes them off and takes on new
Speaker 1: ones exactly, and that cycle continues. And I think that
Speaker 1: there's such a liberation to that acceptance as well in
Speaker 1: that ego death as you call it. That if I
Speaker 1: start to think I am my clothes or I am
Speaker 1: my car, imagine how hard life becomes. Imagine how difficult
Speaker 1: it becomes if every time your clothes get a bit dirty,
Speaker 1: or there's a little rip on them, or there's you know,
Speaker 1: someone knocks into your car. And we even say that
Speaker 1: when someone hits our car, we say, someone hit me.
Speaker 1: Never thought about that hit us. I got hit today.
Speaker 1: And so it's so interesting how quickly we identify with
Speaker 1: our material casing and what we operate in. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you that, how does that then translate
Speaker 1: to business and to building a life in the dream
Speaker 1: as you called it, When you're now trying to operate
Speaker 1: in the dream, how does that realization actually help? Are
Speaker 1: you now visioning in alternate realities. Are you now strategizing
Speaker 1: different How does that make you approach building whole foods differently?
Speaker 1: Because whole foods is very tangible, it's very real.
Speaker 2: The way I think about it. And the first chapter
Speaker 2: in the books called the Game of life, and the
Speaker 2: very last chapter in the books called the infinite game.
Speaker 2: And if the oneself, the one being has always existed
Speaker 2: and the the and I think Hinduism talks about this
Speaker 2: in the Vedanta. We're in the one in the stillness,
Speaker 2: in pure beingness and bliss, and then the big bang
Speaker 2: occurs and we explode into the multiverse on our adventures,
Speaker 2: and then we come back together again. And that's that's
Speaker 2: the infinite game. We do it and we'll always do it.
Speaker 2: And so once you realize that it's all a game,
Speaker 2: that every possibility is realized, we're just going to infinitely create,
Speaker 2: then you can you can frame it up. So there's
Speaker 2: just this fun game. Games should be fun, and that's
Speaker 2: a better way to live. It's living your life is
Speaker 2: it's fun and loving and joyful, and that you're creating.
Speaker 2: We are very happy when we're creating things. Watch children,
Speaker 2: they're endlessly creative, they're endlessly playful. I always tell people
Speaker 2: you want to make a friend with the child, all
Speaker 2: you have to do is one thing, just play with them.
Speaker 2: When you play with a child, they start to trust you,
Speaker 2: they begin to find that you're fun to hang around with.
Speaker 2: You're not like all those other mean grown ups. I
Speaker 2: just think that is a good metaphor for existence itself,
Speaker 2: the metaphor of the game, but an infinite game that
Speaker 2: we are creating ourselves and playing eternal play because you
Speaker 2: have an infinite amount of time. I mean there's no beginning,
Speaker 2: no end that never will be. So yeah, find your own,
Speaker 2: connect with your soul, find out what your soul wants
Speaker 2: to do, and then do it and have fun and
Speaker 2: do good in the world.
Speaker 1: I think play is a great analogy because play is
Speaker 1: not mental. And I think when you say find out
Speaker 1: what your soul wants to do, I think the hard
Speaker 1: part is with we're up going. I don't know what
Speaker 1: my passion is. I don't know what to do. And
Speaker 1: I'm speaking on behalf of I know people's genuine troubles
Speaker 1: when they're listening to the show and they're like, well, Jay, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what my passion is. I don't know
Speaker 1: where to stop. I don't know what skills I have,
Speaker 1: and these are all mental arithmetic exercises, whereas what you're
Speaker 1: saying is not on that level. So how do we
Speaker 1: get out of our heads?
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, those are clues. The best way is
Speaker 2: to go directly to the source. Vise are the breath work, meditation,
Speaker 2: do spiritual exercises. However, one clue is the things that
Speaker 2: give you joy. That's a clue to who you are
Speaker 2: and what your own heart is calling you to do.
Speaker 2: So I often I get asked all the time. I'll
Speaker 2: probably get asked out tonight when I'm just talking this
Speaker 2: university is like, well, you know, how do you know
Speaker 2: what your heart wants you to do? And I said,
Speaker 2: you know, you're on the path. When you're happy, when
Speaker 2: you're listening to your heart and it's bringing you joy
Speaker 2: and discovery and creativity and play, you're on your path,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's when you're not experiencing those things
Speaker 2: that you're not on the path. And so the things
Speaker 2: that draw you in, Like for me, when I moved
Speaker 2: into that co op and I had my food awakening,
Speaker 2: and all I was interested in I just wanted to
Speaker 2: learn about food I want to learn about agriculture and
Speaker 2: organic and regenerative and sustainable and natural foods. And it
Speaker 2: was like I couldn't get enough of it because I
Speaker 2: was so interested in it. So those are all clues
Speaker 2: to what makes your heart saying, that's who you're being,
Speaker 2: that's in this dream, that's what you're trying to create,
Speaker 2: and you can get in touch with that through spiritual exercises.
Speaker 2: In my case, you know, my parents wanted me to
Speaker 2: be a professional, and I talk about in the book.
Speaker 2: My mother died feeling like I was a failure. She
Speaker 2: died in nineteen eighty seven because for her, her son
Speaker 2: was a grosser. And for that, I was so downwardly mobile.
Speaker 2: Graduated from college. I just have one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: hours of electives. I just studied philosophy and religion whenever
Speaker 2: I was interested in. Got a great education. I just
Speaker 2: didn't get credentialed. And for her, the credentials are what
Speaker 2: really mattered. But I was off on my pursuit. I
Speaker 2: was on my hero's journey, and it was given me
Speaker 2: happiness and joy. And that's how you know, how do you.
Speaker 1: Know the difference between the happiness and joy and the
Speaker 1: discomfort that comes even in the happy and joyful path
Speaker 1: versus the discomfort that is not your path. Because I
Speaker 1: think when people think of like am I happy and joyful?
Speaker 1: Then things get a bit harder or like you're saying
Speaker 1: there were days when whole foods could have failed, like
Speaker 1: and it doesn't get easy, and then you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: well is this bringing me joy now?
Speaker 2: So how do we have to introduce another character to
Speaker 2: the story. I mean, we talked about the ego, but
Speaker 2: part of our ego is what I and others call
Speaker 2: the internal critic. The ego really doesn't it judges everyone.
Speaker 2: The ego's constantly judge. That's the part that's envious, that's
Speaker 2: the part that's angry. That's the part that somebody cuts
Speaker 2: you off in traffic, you know, you say curse words,
Speaker 2: And that's the one that's judging us all the time.
Speaker 2: Like as I got deeper into my own spiritual journey,
Speaker 2: that I saw that the critical life issue for me
Speaker 2: was I am not worthy of love because I'm not perfect.
Speaker 2: I do things that I regret. I do sometimes identify
Speaker 2: with the ego, and I do things that later on
Speaker 2: I think that was it. I shouldn't have said that
Speaker 2: that was and I but then I have to go,
Speaker 2: you know, practice forgiveness to move through it. There is
Speaker 2: that part of us that is constantly judging, and that's
Speaker 2: what it does all the time. It judges everyone else,
Speaker 2: and it judges and mostly judges ourselves. And then those
Speaker 2: judgments for ourselves we project out into the world, into
Speaker 2: the dream, and then the dream is manifesting all the time.
Speaker 2: Our emotions, our thoughts are always creating the dream. Here's
Speaker 2: an interesting thing about the dream. We're always character in
Speaker 2: our own dreams, right, Who are the other characters that
Speaker 2: seem to be acting independently of us? Where are the dreamer?
Speaker 2: How can they do things different? And how's that even happen?
Speaker 2: And once you begin to realize, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 2: the dreamer, I'm creating those characters as well, and their
Speaker 2: representations of some of my other inner thoughts, emotions, judgments
Speaker 2: and whatnot. Once you realize that, then it's like you
Speaker 2: stop being a victim in your own dream. So if
Speaker 2: these things are not working out for you the way
Speaker 2: you want that, the internal critic wants to project it
Speaker 2: out into the dream and say I'm a victim. These
Speaker 2: people should be treating me differently. I feel righteous in
Speaker 2: being angry. But again, you're putting out those emotions that
Speaker 2: are not furthering your life and not bringing you joy
Speaker 2: and happiness. And then you get you sort of get
Speaker 2: stuck in it, you get trapped in it, and I
Speaker 2: think that's the human condition in a way. The spiritual
Speaker 2: journey is to awaken to realize, oh my gosh, it
Speaker 2: is a dream. I'm the I'm the character in the dream.
Speaker 2: And so then how do I treat all the other
Speaker 2: characters the way I want to be treated, and that's
Speaker 2: with love, compassion, forgiveness, thoughtfulness. Then that dream begins to change.
Speaker 2: Is that's the energy we put out. But you know
Speaker 2: it's a path because we will forget. Here's here's what
Speaker 2: I always tell people. You'll forget. You'll go back and
Speaker 2: you'll start listening to that ego in the internal critic,
Speaker 2: and you'll judge and you'll but you'll forget that. Oh yes,
Speaker 2: I remember, now, it's my spiritual path. It's just a dream.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: One of the big lessons I learned Jay is that
Speaker 2: the past is it doesn't really exist. The past is gone.
Speaker 2: All that's real is right now in this moment. That
Speaker 2: is what's real, And in this moment you can choose again.
Speaker 2: In this moment, you can choose love, and this moment
Speaker 2: you can choose forgiveness. And then if you forget, that's
Speaker 2: okay because that's the past. And now in this next
Speaker 2: moment you can choose again. We have this freedom, that's
Speaker 2: our freedom. We have freedom in the moment to choose love,
Speaker 2: to choose peace, to choose kindness, to choose forgive us
Speaker 2: to be alive, to be playful. And it's okay if
Speaker 2: we forget. If you get down on yourself for forgetting,
Speaker 2: then you're empowering that ego to judge you is not perfect,
Speaker 2: But when you're sharing love in the moment, you are perfect.
Speaker 2: So you can be perfect in the next moment by
Speaker 2: just choosing again to be present in the moment and
Speaker 2: in the moment there is love.
Speaker 1: How did you transfer that energy, Like I'm imagining you
Speaker 1: as you're building this huge company, before you're walking to
Speaker 1: a meeting, when you're leading a staff meeting, when you're
Speaker 1: meeting stakeholders, How was this translating into reality? What does
Speaker 1: that look like when you're leading a company Because you
Speaker 1: may not be saying these words, but you're trying to
Speaker 1: live them.
Speaker 2: First of all, I didn't do it perfectly. I didn't
Speaker 2: stay in the love space all the time. I got angry,
Speaker 2: I got judgmental, I got afraid all the you know, fear, envy,
Speaker 2: that they're all there. I didn't claim that I did
Speaker 2: Whole Foods in any kind of enlightened way all the time.
Speaker 2: I always said Whole Foods was my ashrom. That was
Speaker 2: the place where I got to practice. I get to
Speaker 2: practice forgiveness, I get to practice being the returning to love.
Speaker 2: I did learn some good things we did. I always
Speaker 2: tell people, if you want to have a more loving business,
Speaker 2: the single thing practice that I most recommend, we would
Speaker 2: end all our meetings at Whole Foods with appreciations. The
Speaker 2: two things that can ship that make the mental shift,
Speaker 2: the emotional shift, the spiritual shift. One is gratitude. I
Speaker 2: start my days with gratitude because that opens the heart,
Speaker 2: and then you practice forgiveness. When you feel like somebody
Speaker 2: has wronged you, you practice forgiveness. But most importantly, we
Speaker 2: would end our meetings with appreciations. That's incredibly powerful. It's
Speaker 2: very hard for people to stay in a judgmental frame
Speaker 2: when you've just appreciated them in an authentic way. I
Speaker 2: always say people can know the difference between somebody who's
Speaker 2: flattering them because they can feel like they want something
Speaker 2: from me versus somebody who's genuinely appreciating us. It's very
Speaker 2: hard to keep your heart closed to that. And so
Speaker 2: as we practiced appreciations in our meetings, I could see
Speaker 2: the love in the larger team, in the larger group spreading.
Speaker 2: We did it at every level, and that one technique
Speaker 2: is very, very powerful. I always encourage people that are
Speaker 2: running businesses or even just running a team, if you're
Speaker 2: in your meetings with appreciations, you will find consciousness begins
Speaker 2: to shift in the dream.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought that up. I remember when
Speaker 1: I was among one of our practices. After completing a
Speaker 1: service or completing an offering that we were doing, whether
Speaker 1: it was you know, feeding the homeless or serving in
Speaker 1: our local communities, who haven't led that project, would go
Speaker 1: around the room and honor and appreciate each person who
Speaker 1: was serving with them. And so when I started my company,
Speaker 1: I would do that at like our Christmas or holiday dinners,
Speaker 1: or at our team events or whatever. Around the room
Speaker 1: and individually speak uniquely about each person in the room
Speaker 1: who is doing something. And people found it so strange,
Speaker 1: and to me, it was the most normal thing I've
Speaker 1: done growing up. And it's become such a beautiful ritual
Speaker 1: that we have because I find it so beautiful to
Speaker 1: reflect on people's individual contribution and the value that they've
Speaker 1: brought and to remind them of it.
Speaker 2: You're seeing their beauty, You're seeing the God part of them,
Speaker 2: and you are helping them to see it because as
Speaker 2: you express that authentically, they can feel your love for
Speaker 2: them and they begin to wonder, maybe I'm actually more
Speaker 2: lovable than I thought.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, exactly. And I think we feel the most
Speaker 1: unloved when we feel unseen, And so if you really
Speaker 1: want to make someone feel loved, you can only do
Speaker 1: that by making them feel seen. When people feel seen
Speaker 1: for who they are and what they contribute and what
Speaker 1: they bring and how much they have to give and share,
Speaker 1: then they not only do they see in themselves, but
Speaker 1: they feel truly seen, so they feel truly loved.
Speaker 2: That's why the greatest gift we can usually give anyone
Speaker 2: is just to be present for them in the moment,
Speaker 2: not lost in our thoughts. It's not. You know, we
Speaker 2: tend to if we listen and we start thinking about
Speaker 2: what we want to talk about or what we're going
Speaker 2: to say, and we lose presence. But the greatest gift
Speaker 2: when you can just be fully present for someone, You
Speaker 2: are loving them by just being present for them, and
Speaker 2: they feel that presence. So I absolutely agree it's they
Speaker 2: feel seen. I like that expression of it.
Speaker 1: I don't want anyone who's listening or watching to be
Speaker 1: under any false pretense. Is that I'm always operating from
Speaker 1: this space either, Like I love what you said about
Speaker 1: there are days when you're agitated, and there are days
Speaker 1: when you're frustrated, and there are days when it's not love,
Speaker 1: it's fear, it's insecurity, it's it's results. Like that's the
Speaker 1: normal human experience. And I think what I definitely learned
Speaker 1: is and I love that you use the word ushram
Speaker 1: in that sense, because that's exactly what ashrom is. And
Speaker 1: ushrom is a place to practice, a place to learn,
Speaker 1: a place to heal. It's a hospital, not a results center.
Speaker 1: You know, I think a lot of people don't realize.
Speaker 1: I remember one of my first days in the monastery,
Speaker 1: my teacher told me, he said, don't forget this is
Speaker 1: a hospital. Like everyone next to you has got an
Speaker 1: illness and so do you. And the moment you start
Speaker 1: thinking everyone around you is perfect as when you weren't
Speaker 1: like this place at all because you came here seeking perfection,
Speaker 1: when actually you should have come here seeking practice.
Speaker 2: Obviously found a good teacher.
Speaker 1: I do. I'm very lucky. I have a great satag.
Speaker 1: But I love the use of the language appropriately. It
Speaker 1: functions so well, and I love that we're having a
Speaker 1: spiritual conversation about business. This is so fulfilling to me.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for this opportunity because it's
Speaker 1: such a new take. We've had business leaders on the
Speaker 1: podcast before, but this is a very different thing when
Speaker 1: you're thinking about growth. I think, going back to that
Speaker 1: conscious capitalism point earlier, I do you think a lot
Speaker 1: of spiritual people still feel hung up about being ambitious,
Speaker 1: about being results driven, about being focused on a goal.
Speaker 1: They feel, in some way deep inside of them, we
Speaker 1: have that wiring that if you're striving for more, you're
Speaker 1: in some way ungrateful, unsatisfied. Well, you could be desired. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about that.
Speaker 2: If that's your Ashram it's a more difficult path. You
Speaker 2: know the old saying it's easy to be a saint
Speaker 2: on a mountaintop. I'm talking about being a saint while
Speaker 2: you're building a business. That's not so easy to do
Speaker 2: because shit happens. And how you respond to that, that's
Speaker 2: your opportunity, is how you choose to respond to the
Speaker 2: circumstances you find in your dream? How will you show up?
Speaker 2: And I think the key is you won't alway show up. Well,
Speaker 2: you'll make some mistakes, but don't have to get lost
Speaker 2: there because you can remember who you are, remember who
Speaker 2: you are and then that next moment and choose differently.
Speaker 2: We can snap back to it right now whenever we
Speaker 2: want to. And that took me a long time to learn.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I might be lost in the dream for for
Speaker 2: days and days, even weeks at a time, and then
Speaker 2: I remember, oh my god, look I've been such a jerk.
Speaker 2: And then instead of beating myself up for not being perfect,
Speaker 2: it's like, yes, but this next moment, I'm no longer
Speaker 2: I am present again. I'm back into the love space.
Speaker 1: People often ask me like why, like how do you
Speaker 1: function in business? And obviously now I live in La
Speaker 1: and everything else, And it's I actually relish the battle
Speaker 1: because I'm reminded every day that I'm not a saint
Speaker 1: when I'm here, whereas on the mountaintop I could potentially
Speaker 1: believe that I've.
Speaker 2: If you think you're a saint, yeah, you've already You've
Speaker 2: already forgotten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: The egos always trying. It's like, oh, you're going to
Speaker 2: do this spiritual thing. I'm going to be the very
Speaker 2: best there is.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: That's the ego trying to maintain control, so to speak.
Speaker 1: I love the idea that I live in a universe
Speaker 1: that constantly holds up a mirror to me because I'm
Speaker 1: constantly reminded of my desires, my lower nature, my higher nature,
Speaker 1: the complexities of it. And I love that battle. I
Speaker 1: relish it because that's what reminds me to stay on
Speaker 1: the journey and stay on the path, and stay committed.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask you, like, when you had
Speaker 1: moments of difficulty where you feel you are moving away
Speaker 1: from love in business and away from compassion, did you
Speaker 1: come up with any practices or habits or tools that
Speaker 1: locked you back in.
Speaker 2: People would ask oftentimes when you have difficult situations. Let's
Speaker 2: say you have to fire somebody or you have a
Speaker 2: business that you're going to shut down. These are very painful,
Speaker 2: very very difficult things to do. You know people are
Speaker 2: going to be hurt, and because we know people are
Speaker 2: going to be hurt, then the call and the only
Speaker 2: right call, is compassion. But you have to think about
Speaker 2: what's the collective good for all and you have to
Speaker 2: make some difficult decisions because you're always thinking what's my
Speaker 2: win win win solution, good for me, good for you,
Speaker 2: good for all of us. And that sometimes means you
Speaker 2: have to do difficult things. But it's how you do
Speaker 2: that makes all the difference, and how you show up.
Speaker 2: If you show up in your heart with love and compassion,
Speaker 2: you're probably going to have a even though it's difficult,
Speaker 2: it's probably going to go well and you'll maintain a
Speaker 2: relationship because they can feel your genuine love for them.
Speaker 2: If you do it with judgment and anger, it's like
Speaker 2: you know you're just getting what you deserve, then you've
Speaker 2: missed it. That's another opportunity, will say, to be in
Speaker 2: the heart space and do the difficult things. It's like
Speaker 2: it's a skill that you have to practice, and if
Speaker 2: you practice it, you will get better at it, and
Speaker 2: you'll still make mistakes, but then you'll learn from those
Speaker 2: mistakes if you just continue to view it all as
Speaker 2: an opportunity to learn and grow and spiritually evolve, and
Speaker 2: that you will make some mistakes and you will learn
Speaker 2: from them. And it's like you were talking about learning
Speaker 2: from those that you know, instead of envying them, you
Speaker 2: study them. Well, it's the same thing with you. You
Speaker 2: learn from your own mistakes. One practice is very helpful here, Jay,
Speaker 2: is to have people that love you that you can
Speaker 2: talk about all this stuff with and they will tell
Speaker 2: you the truth. They'll say, John, you were really harsh
Speaker 2: in that you were not in a loving space when
Speaker 2: you did not, were you? And it's like, no, I
Speaker 2: really wasn't. And he said, well, what are you going
Speaker 2: to do about it? And I said, I'm going to
Speaker 2: go apologize. I really do think we underestimate the power
Speaker 2: of forgiveness. We will make mistakes, mess up, Fess up
Speaker 2: when you make a mistake, when you hurt somebody, when
Speaker 2: you're not in your heart, when you're in an angry,
Speaker 2: judgmental space. The next moment, you can choose love and
Speaker 2: part of choosing love is to go ahead. The ego
Speaker 2: doesn't like to admit it made mistakes, it doesn't like
Speaker 2: to apologize, it doesn't like to ask for forgiveness, but
Speaker 2: that will restore you into that love flow. So you
Speaker 2: have to be willing to go ahead and admit that
Speaker 2: you're not perfect, that you made mistakes, and then as
Speaker 2: you do that, you can then let go of it
Speaker 2: and then you can return.
Speaker 1: John, you talk about the term servant leadership, and I
Speaker 1: feel like today, more than ever, we don't really have
Speaker 1: good role models.
Speaker 2: Of we don't have it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so far away from that, and I feel
Speaker 1: like servant leadership, compassionate leadership, conscious leadership, all of these
Speaker 1: things you'd hope are in business schools and colleges and universities,
Speaker 1: but they're not. And if it does come up, it
Speaker 1: comes up because it's hey, it would be profitable to
Speaker 1: be this way. Or we still haven't got to a
Speaker 1: place where people realize that we should create businesses because
Speaker 1: they'd be good for our kids in future generations, or
Speaker 1: we should create something that positively impacts the world. There
Speaker 1: was still not there yet.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you something you've probably never thought
Speaker 2: about before. Who teaches in medical schools, doctors who teaches
Speaker 2: in law schools, lawyers who teaches in our business schools.
Speaker 2: Not business people. They're intellectuals, they're academics, and it's not
Speaker 2: that that's bad. It's just that they don't have the
Speaker 2: experience of actually leading. They have a theory about leadership.
Speaker 2: There's a reason why medical schools in law schools actually
Speaker 2: have real professionals that are teaching them the skills that
Speaker 2: they need to know. And I think it's part of
Speaker 2: where we've gone wrong in business. We have people that
Speaker 2: have almost no experience in business teaching our students. So
Speaker 2: they can't teach from actual experience of leadership. They don't
Speaker 2: really know about it because they have never really done it.
Speaker 2: So that's one reform that we need to do. There
Speaker 2: needs to be sort of a tradition. I think that
Speaker 2: if you're passing your wisdom on, if you're a retired
Speaker 2: business leader, that you should be For one reason, I'm
Speaker 2: going to go speak at this university tonight. I'm going
Speaker 2: to be talking to business students and I want to
Speaker 2: be sharing my experience as we talked about this book
Speaker 2: that's going to be invaluable to them because that's not
Speaker 2: something they're getting in an NBA program.
Speaker 1: Obviously, the decision to sell to Amazon was not one
Speaker 1: that you made lightly. No explain what was hard easy
Speaker 1: about this?
Speaker 2: Of course, it's always about you know, where do you
Speaker 2: start the story? And in this case, I won't give
Speaker 2: the background for how we got into this position. But
Speaker 2: the short answer is Whole Foods is being attacked by
Speaker 2: shareholder activists. Our stock had declined in the last couple
Speaker 2: of years, and then the shareholder activist is somebody that
Speaker 2: generally wants to make change to get the stock price
Speaker 2: up and then they'll make they'll make money doing that,
Speaker 2: so they're very short term focused. We had a shareholder
Speaker 2: activist called Jana Partners. They didn't want to work with us.
Speaker 2: They just they said, we're going to take over your
Speaker 2: board and we're going to as soon we get a
Speaker 2: control the board, we're going to fire you, fire other
Speaker 2: parts of the management team, and then we're going to
Speaker 2: just sell the business to the highest bidder and there's
Speaker 2: not anything you can do about it, and left and
Speaker 2: a little bit stronger language than that. So for me,
Speaker 2: it was like I kept asking this question. It was
Speaker 2: a spiritual question, what is the win, win win. Solution here,
Speaker 2: what is the best thing for all of our stakeholders?
Speaker 2: How do our customers win? How do our employees win,
Speaker 2: how do our suppliers win? How do our investors win?
Speaker 2: How do the communities that were part of win? And
Speaker 2: I looked at all the different alternatives and I kept
Speaker 2: but I kept asking that question. I really do believe
Speaker 2: when you ask the question and you stay on it
Speaker 2: and you keep asking your soul for the answer, that
Speaker 2: it emerges. And I remember waking up one morning and
Speaker 2: it just popped into my brain right when I woke up,
Speaker 2: and I knew it was the right answer. It said,
Speaker 2: what about Amazon? Because it was kind of a crazy
Speaker 2: idea when Amazon wasn't they have any grocery stores. I'd
Speaker 2: met Jeff Bezos the year before at the conference, and
Speaker 2: he and I had really kind of hit it off.
Speaker 2: You know, we had a lot of common interest. Jeff
Speaker 2: was He loved to read science fiction and fantasy. We
Speaker 2: shared that in common. He liked a scuba dive. I've
Speaker 2: done a lot of scuba diving around the world. He's
Speaker 2: an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur, and entrepreneurs generally can find
Speaker 2: lots of things to talk about you, to talk about
Speaker 2: their businesses. He was very interested in Whole Foods. We
Speaker 2: were on a panel together, and so I really liked him.
Speaker 2: I admire what Amazon had created, and Jeff is one
Speaker 2: of the smartest, most creative people I've ever met. We
Speaker 2: looked at other possibilities. Maybe Warren Buffett would buy the
Speaker 2: company and it'd be in friendly hands, he joked, and
Speaker 2: set own dairy Queen, and I eat junk food. This
Speaker 2: isn't a good fit for me. And we talked to
Speaker 2: Albertson's and we realized, oh my god, they would That
Speaker 2: would be terrible for us to be part of that company.
Speaker 2: We thought about going private, but then you're taking on,
Speaker 2: you know, twelve thirteen billion dollars on your balance sheet,
Speaker 2: and you have to pay that back, and you take
Speaker 2: and you had to pay interest on it. The economy
Speaker 2: has a downturn like it did in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: you might fail, and you're also giving control of your
Speaker 2: business or of private equity people, and they'll have different,
Speaker 2: different motivations just make money. So we didn't have a
Speaker 2: good answer, and the other answer was to fight Jana.
Speaker 2: But Whole Foods needed time to turn around. Its business.
Speaker 2: We needed time to lower our prices. If you're selling
Speaker 2: something for a dollar and all of a sudden, now
Speaker 2: you sell it for ninety cents, in the short run,
Speaker 2: your sales fall, your same store sales fall, your profits fall.
Speaker 2: And when you have activists, you know that want immediate,
Speaker 2: quick turnaround, then that's not we needed. That takes a
Speaker 2: couple of years before lower prices will help your customers
Speaker 2: see what Whole Foods is actually not whole paycheck any longer.
Speaker 2: I love the store now it's more affordable to shop there.
Speaker 2: When I popped in my brain about Amazon, we flew.
Speaker 2: They were very interested right from the beginning. And we
Speaker 2: flew out there and I met with Jeff and three
Speaker 2: of his leaders, and I had three of my leaders.
Speaker 2: It was four on four and we talked for about
Speaker 2: three hours just about what we could do together. And
Speaker 2: they were not they were not your typical corporate types.
Speaker 2: These were extremely intelligent people, very creative. They had a
Speaker 2: lot of good ideas about what we could do together.
Speaker 2: And I remember when we left there, my team and
Speaker 2: I went to a restaurant and we were sitting around
Speaker 2: talking about it, and they said that was an incredible conversation.
Speaker 2: Those guys are not anything like I thought they would be.
Speaker 2: They're so smart and they're so creative. It'd be fun
Speaker 2: to work with them. It'd be a blast. And then
Speaker 2: it was like, well, do you think they liked us too?
Speaker 2: And it turned out they did, and they flew to
Speaker 2: Austin just a few days later, and they started due diligence,
Speaker 2: and six weeks after that initial meeting we struck a deal.
Speaker 2: And when people ask me, you have many regrets about
Speaker 2: selling to Amazon, and the honest answer is, you know,
Speaker 2: given the circumstances, that was the best solution. I regret
Speaker 2: that the circumstances were such that that was our best solution,
Speaker 2: but it was the best solution. If I had to
Speaker 2: do it again under the same circumstances, it would have
Speaker 2: been far better than Jana selling us to Albertsons or
Speaker 2: Kroger or some other supermarket chain that wouldn't understand our values,
Speaker 2: our culture. Amazon has largely, not completely, but largely they
Speaker 2: had Whole Foods keep its culture and operate independently. Now
Speaker 2: it's with me gone. In particular, two years now, they've
Speaker 2: made more changes than they did when I was there,
Speaker 2: partly because I resisted a lot of the changes they
Speaker 2: wanted to do. Let me just point out how it
Speaker 2: was a win win win. We got to cut our
Speaker 2: prices significantly four times in the first two years. It
Speaker 2: cost Amazon hundreds of millions of dollars for us to
Speaker 2: do that, but they think long term, they're willing to
Speaker 2: make that investment put Whole Foods in a sounder long
Speaker 2: term financial footing. They increased the pay of every hourly
Speaker 2: team member and Whole Foods within thirty days of the
Speaker 2: merger occurring, and that cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.
Speaker 2: So that was good for our team members, good for
Speaker 2: our customers. It was good for our suppliers because one
Speaker 2: thing Amazon did was study every supplier we had, and
Speaker 2: they discovered we had all these suppliers they didn't know about.
Speaker 2: That they put into their Amazon dot Com and started
Speaker 2: selling their foods and their products, and so it was
Speaker 2: a big boom. And they didn't tell us we had
Speaker 2: to get rid of anybody. They just studied and learned
Speaker 2: from us. It was good for our investors because the
Speaker 2: stock they know, we sold it for thirty percent more
Speaker 2: than than it was before we started talking to Amazon,
Speaker 2: and it was good for the communities that we were
Speaker 2: part of. Amazon did not change our philanthropic activities for
Speaker 2: Whole food the Whole Planet Foundation, or the Whole Kids Foundation.
Speaker 2: In fact, they gave more money to it. There were
Speaker 2: lots of taxes paid to governments because of the capital
Speaker 2: gains that were done. So I think about every one
Speaker 2: of the stakeholders was better off as a result of
Speaker 2: the Amazon merger, but it wasn't perfect. I did fight
Speaker 2: with Amazon a lot. I would say Whole Foods is
Speaker 2: a more heart based company. Amazon's are more professional culture.
Speaker 2: People there to work there for a while, get it
Speaker 2: on their resume, and then get a higher paying job
Speaker 2: somewhere else. There's not as much loyalty in that company
Speaker 2: was Whole Foods. That's a surprise Amazon. When they dug
Speaker 2: under the hood at Whole Foods, It's like, Wow, you've
Speaker 2: had so many people work in twenty thirty even forty
Speaker 2: years here. How do you do that? And I told
Speaker 2: him the truth. I said, guys, if you want longevity,
Speaker 2: you just give people two things. Give them purpose. People
Speaker 2: need purpose. They want to feel like their work is
Speaker 2: contributing to making the world a better place in some way.
Speaker 2: Or fashioners helping people. And secondly, they want to feel
Speaker 2: they're loved. They want to feel they're cared for. So
Speaker 2: if you give people purpose and love, yeah, why would
Speaker 2: they ever want to leave? Professional cultures don't generally give
Speaker 2: either one of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then when you resigned a CEO in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one and you did a goodbye tool.
Speaker 2: I left in twenty twenty two, So twenty two, Okay,
Speaker 2: So I gave notice and I had a whole year
Speaker 2: of saying goodbye.
Speaker 1: Understood, But you're amazing last year.
Speaker 2: Yah, that was incredible. So did you go to every store? No,
Speaker 2: that was impossible, But I got to every region. I
Speaker 2: did literally talk to tens of thousands of team members,
Speaker 2: And what I did for that whole year was just
Speaker 2: thank people, thank you for what you've done for a whole foods.
Speaker 2: I mean, I got so much love from people. It
Speaker 2: was a beautiful, beautiful letting go. And I'm still on
Speaker 2: really good terms with the leadership there. And also my
Speaker 2: gift to them was, you know what, I'm not meddling
Speaker 2: at all. I'm not judging you. Are they doing some
Speaker 2: things I don't agree with tons of stuff, but you know,
Speaker 2: you've got to support the new leadership that comes in
Speaker 2: knowing that they got to make their mark and they've
Speaker 2: got to follow their own their own hearts in a way.
Speaker 2: And also, here's the thing, Jay, I couldn't really do
Speaker 2: love life until I gave up Whole Foods. That's what
Speaker 2: my heart was telling me to do. It's like you're
Speaker 2: I wasn't happy anymore at Whole Foods. I was fighting
Speaker 2: with Amazon some and I wasn't being creative anymore. The game,
Speaker 2: the playfulness of it, the ability to create that was
Speaker 2: all kind of disappeared for me. I was just running
Speaker 2: a huge corporation for somebody else that wasn't the same
Speaker 2: kind of I didn't have the same kind of joy
Speaker 2: in it. Remember how I said earlier, you know when
Speaker 2: you're on the right path because you're happy. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: wasn't happy. I loved Whole Foods and I but I
Speaker 2: wasn't experiencing that same Jeury Devrie that I had before
Speaker 2: that was sold. And so it's hard for me to
Speaker 2: let go of it because I loved it so much. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but when I did let it go, then the new
Speaker 2: possibilities emerged.
Speaker 1: You said something beautiful there about what it takes to
Speaker 1: keep people, purpose, and love. I want to ask you
Speaker 1: for all the entrepreneurs that are listening, startups, new companies, founders,
Speaker 1: lodge companies, what is your best advice on hiring and
Speaker 1: attracting good people.
Speaker 2: I've always been good at attracting good people because I
Speaker 2: have a lot of passion, a lot of purpose, a
Speaker 2: lot of charisma, and people are drawn to that like
Speaker 2: moss to flames. But I've never been very good at
Speaker 2: hiring people. And I believe people's weaknesses come out of
Speaker 2: their strengths, and one of my strengths is I really
Speaker 2: see the beauty in people. I see the goodness in people,
Speaker 2: and that sometimes makes me a little bit blind to
Speaker 2: things that are not.
Speaker 3: I'm going to.
Speaker 2: But what I learned was is that I had other
Speaker 2: people on my team that had really good bullshit detectors,
Speaker 2: particularly my chief financial officer, Glenda Flanagan, and she was
Speaker 2: so much better at hiring than I was, so I
Speaker 2: just learned to kind of trust her. It's like, if
Speaker 2: Glinda was she didn't think they were going to be good.
Speaker 2: I learned the hard way. If I hired them anyway,
Speaker 2: I'd regret it. I really do believe that you need
Speaker 2: to create a team. CEOs get and founders get way
Speaker 2: too much credit. They get too much credit and too
Speaker 2: much blame. You're always doing it in a team. If
Speaker 2: you look behind Steve Jobs or an Elon Musk or
Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos. I remember I told you how great that
Speaker 2: Amazon team was, and Jeff was brilliant, so were all
Speaker 2: those other people working there. There's just a lot of
Speaker 2: super smart people working for Amazon, highly creative people. So
Speaker 2: Jeff was able to attract and build a great team.
Speaker 2: And so you're kind of no better than your team.
Speaker 2: And I was good at attracting good people, but I
Speaker 2: wasn't good at just earning who was a good cultural
Speaker 2: fit or whose weaknesses weren't going to take them down
Speaker 2: and unharm the organization. I depended on the other people
Speaker 2: to make those calls.
Speaker 1: What would be your best advice for firing someone.
Speaker 2: People procrastinate on firing for a couple of reasons. One
Speaker 2: is that they don't want to hurt the person, and secondly,
Speaker 2: they don't want to feel guilty about it. So my
Speaker 2: best advice is Whole Food's had an interesting practice. I
Speaker 2: make a distinction between people you need to get rid
Speaker 2: of because they don't fit culturally and those who are
Speaker 2: just struggling at the job. Particularly. What I learned is
Speaker 2: that when you oftentimes people would get promoted because they
Speaker 2: had done a good job at a lower level, right,
Speaker 2: so they're ready for the you think they're ready for
Speaker 2: the next step. For many people, they're not ready for
Speaker 2: that next step, and then they get fired. And what
Speaker 2: we had at Whole Food to call it recycling, and
Speaker 2: it was like, you know what, you were really successful
Speaker 2: at your previous job. I want you to go back
Speaker 2: there because you're not happy, you're struggling, and I want
Speaker 2: you to go back, and then you'll get an opportunity in.
Speaker 1: The future that's fantastic.
Speaker 2: And if their egos couldn't handle that, you knew they
Speaker 2: needed to go. But they're really good ones would say, yeah,
Speaker 2: I am struggling. I want to step back, but I'll
Speaker 2: show you. I'm going to learn, I'm going to be better.
Speaker 2: I'm going to get promoted again. Those that later on
Speaker 2: got promoted again, they were great because they took their failure,
Speaker 2: so to speak, as a learning opportunity to grow and
Speaker 2: so then they became more effective leaders. So my advice
Speaker 2: and letting people go is you have to do it
Speaker 2: for the good of the company. And if you're not
Speaker 2: willing to do it, I used to tell myself because
Speaker 2: I never enjoyed doing I was always challenged for me.
Speaker 2: But it was like, if you're not willing to do this,
Speaker 2: and you should step aside because this is what needs
Speaker 2: to happen. And if you're not willing to do that,
Speaker 2: they're not a very good leader. So you have to
Speaker 2: do what you really know is best for the organization.
Speaker 2: Other people are counting on you to make good decisions
Speaker 2: and build a great company. And if Steve Jobs used
Speaker 2: to say, which I really like what Steve would say,
Speaker 2: he'd say, A listers hire other A listers, B listers
Speaker 2: hire C listers because they hire people that aren't as
Speaker 2: good as them because it makes them feel better about themselves.
Speaker 2: Good leaders hire people as good or better than themselves
Speaker 2: and they are not threatened by their strengths. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: they know that's what will make the organization better.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I happen to agree without philosophy, So you want to
Speaker 2: hire the A listers and if you have to fire people,
Speaker 2: that's regrettable. Also, one of the takeaways there is be
Speaker 2: more careful in who you hire, so you don't have
Speaker 2: to fire.
Speaker 1: John. It's been such a joy talking to you today. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I've had such a great time and I feel like
Speaker 1: we've talked about everything from spirituality to business, to habits
Speaker 1: to mindfulness. And we end every episode of On Purpose
Speaker 1: with a final five. These have to be honest in
Speaker 1: one word to one sentence maximum.
Speaker 2: Okay, So, John.
Speaker 1: Mackie, these are your final five. The first question is
Speaker 1: what is the best advice you've ever had or received?
Speaker 2: Follow your heart?
Speaker 1: Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever heard
Speaker 1: or received? I don't know, guys. To number three, how
Speaker 1: do you define your current purpose?
Speaker 2: My current purpose is to fully awaken to love and
Speaker 2: to share that love with everyone I encounter.
Speaker 1: Question number four, how do you define love?
Speaker 2: Love is the essence of being.
Speaker 1: This and fifth and final question we asked this to
Speaker 1: every guest who's ever been on the show. If you
Speaker 1: could create one law that everyone in the world had
Speaker 1: to follow, what would it be? Be kind ever on?
Speaker 1: The book is called The Whole Story Adventures in Love,
Speaker 1: Life and Capitalism. John Mackey, co founder informacy of Whole
Speaker 1: Food's Market. John, it's been such a true pleasure to
Speaker 1: have you in the studio here today, and I hope
Speaker 1: you come back for many, many more And congratulations on
Speaker 1: an incredible journey, incredible book, and really excited to see
Speaker 1: what you continue to do with everything that you're building
Speaker 1: with love life.
Speaker 2: So thank you Jay. It's been a pleasure. This has
Speaker 2: been fun. Yeah, I'm in I'm into having fun, so
Speaker 2: this has been very fun for me. So thanks so
Speaker 2: much for having me here.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Tom, thank you.
Speaker 3: If you love this episode, you love my conversation with
Speaker 3: Airbnb founder Brian Chesky on how to tap into your
Speaker 3: creative potential and the number one thing people get wrong
Speaker 3: about success.
Speaker 2: The best people in your life will be people who
Speaker 2: see potential in you that you didn't see in yourself.
Speaker 2: And I often wonder