Shift Your ENERGY! Go from Fear to LOVE and MANIFEST Your Perfect Life! | John Mackey

There's an infinite number of realities, but the choices we make, the thoughts we make, that multiverse is forming around us. Once you understand that you're the dreamer, the dream gets happier. As you practice forgiveness, being kind and compassionate and caring, the world begins to shift for you.

John Mackey. Co-founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods Market.

And co-author of Conscious Capitalism. Flat out titan in the industry. Thank you, John Mackey. We're faced with choices every day. We can either contract, into fear, anger and judgment, or we can expand into love. And if you forget, that's okay, because in the next moment you can choose love. Human beings should flourish. Everybody that encounters the business should be touched in a positive way. Business can be this amazing force for good. I made a commitment that I was gonna be a better leader. I was going to channel more love. My soul was saying, you either have to step up or get out. Conscious capitalism came directly out of that experience.

If someone's watching and listening right now and they're saying, I really want to generate more financial freedom for my life, and if you could give them one piece of advice, what would that be?

It's been so amazing.

Last year was just a transformative, life-changing event. Team Greatness is great. My name is Lewis Howes. Thanks so much for being here. And before we dive into this special video today, I want to remind you about the Summit of Greatness, our annual conference happening this September in Los Angeles. With David Goggins, Dr. Joe Dispenza, and many more incredible speakers and performers, there will be so many live attendees there that you can meet with, you can network with, and you can help transform your life. Make sure to click the link in the description to get your tickets and I can't wait to see you at the Summit of Greatness here in Los Angeles. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guests. We have the inspiring John Mackey in the house. Good to see you John. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me here, Louis.

Very excited about the conversation we're about to have because I've been following your journey but also just Whole Foods for as long as I can remember. Really last 10-15 years of being kind of in the conscious health and wellness space but also entrepreneurs space and seeing your story in business. Just some stats for people that don't know, Whole Foods sold to Amazon for 13.7 billion, I believe it is. And you guys were also doing 22 billion in sales annually before selling.

No, that's what we're doing now.

Are you doing now? Okay, after selling. But it's been a multiple decade journey to getting there. And the thing that I really appreciate about you and your philosophy is how you said, I want to create a business based on love and creating one of the happiest workplaces in America or in the world. You had that vision and that intention. In a world of win-lose capitalism and competition in business, especially 30, 40, 50 years ago, how did you have the belief that coming from love and forgiveness and creating an environment, a work and customer environment of love would ultimately create abundance for all.

Well, you know, one of the things, of course, what my book kind of demonstrates is that I didn't have that when I was 24 years old. I mean, I didn't have that vision. It's a common mistake that journalists make is that somehow or another, you know, I hatched this whole thing out when I was just a kid, and now we just executed on this grand vision that we had. But it's more of an emergence, a discovery process. You're going along and you're discovering things. Doing a business is a great way to discover more about yourself, more about life. And so I talk about in the book how really, although I got a taste of love when I was pretty young, in 1984 when I actually did MDMA for the first time that I really saw, my God, this is at the core of reality. Love is the most important thing. And I've never forgotten that experience. So that was six years after we started SaferWay and then Whole Foods Market. So the love came, that energy started to flow in at that time. It wasn't something I had at the very beginning.

You're just trying to figure out how to start the business and make money and have a profit.

So one of the things that I really disagree with, not necessarily what you said, but what people believe is that capitalism is a zero-sum game. It's truly not. People think that way because that's the way games are. That's the way sports are, right? There's a winner and there are lots of losers. So Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, they have a lot of money. They must have taken that money from other people. There's a fixed pie and they just greedy and they took a big piece of the pie. That's really how most people think about it. Winner takes all. That's not the way business works. That's not the way capitalism is. It's this game where you have all these interdependent stakeholders in it. You have customers, you have employees, you have suppliers, you have investors, you have the communities that you're part of. They're all trading with the business voluntarily for mutual gain. And what you have in business is this upward spiral where all the stakeholders are benefiting. This is a competitive element to capitalism, where you have competitors that are trying to serve customers better than you do. Right. Well, that's how you make progress, because they're doing things better than you do, and it's like, well, we got to study them and copy what they're doing better, and then iterate on it and surpass them. We got to step up. That's right, you got to step up. The competition keeps complacency from settling in in the organization. But all of these people that are trading are gaining. So for example, I always say that when we did the Amazon merger, it was totally a win-win-win deal for every one of our stakeholders. Whole Foods needed to drop its prices. Amazon was willing to look long term and let us drop our prices. We dropped them four times in the first two years.

Wow.

Cost hundreds of millions of dollars to Amazon for us to do that. They gave raises to everybody in our company within 30 days of the merger occurring. They wanted to have a $15 minimum wage and then go up from there. Our suppliers not only didn't get cut out once that deal happened, but Amazon studied our sales and they picked up a lot of our suppliers and brought them into Amazon. Then the investors got like a 30% gain on their stock with the deal. Even the government got lots of more taxes from the deal.

Right, everyone won.

Yes, and our philanthropy, Whole Foods Market foundations, the Whole Planet Foundation, the Whole Kids Foundation. Amazon not only didn't get rid of those, they put money in themselves and supported it. So it was a win-win-win-win deal. Every stakeholder was benefiting. And I just think that's what happens in business in general. The customers are benefiting or they wouldn't trade with the business, right? And you know what? If they don't like Whole Foods, there's a Trader Joe's down the street, or there's a Von's, or there's a Ralph's if you're in LA, and there's H-E-B if you're in Texas. If you're doing a good job, people don't trade with you.

Yeah, you got other competitors, you got other places to go.

That's right. If you're not paying people a good wage, if they don't feel like they have opportunities to advance, if they don't like the way they're being treated, they're not slaves. They can leave it any moment. They do, and they do leave. They do find better jobs all the time. And so we have to compete to hold on to our best workers, because otherwise they'll go take a better job. They'll go somewhere else. Suppliers aren't forced to trade with us either. if we are late in paying them or we treat them poorly, they can just not do business with us any longer. Investors, when we were a public company for 26 years, nobody had to trade with Whole Foods. I mean, if they didn't like the way we were running the business, they could sell their stock and they did. And others would buy it. So it's this voluntarily exchange for mutual gain is lifting up the whole system. It's not a win-lose game. It's truly a win-win-win game. And that's how capitalism continues to lift this planet upwards to higher levels. Does that mean everybody in business is an altruist and always acts ethically in all situations? No. Business people are people. They have their human natures. Some are greedy, some are selfish. As I might add, it's true of some athletes, some lawyers, some politicians, some doctors, because it's just the way human beings are. we're wired to be kind and generous, but also to compete and to win and be selfish and greedy sometimes. So business is not uniquely, you know, greedy and selfish in that way, but it does occasionally have bad actors. Anyway, my point is, is that I really do love capitalism because it's the only system in the history of the world that is, it's the essence. You combine science with capitalism and those two together are responsible for almost all the great progress that we've seen in this world in the last couple hundred years.

Who are some business leaders in the last five to ten years that you've really either looked up to or respected in a certain way on how they approach capitalism in kind of this AI, social media, modern world versus what it was 20, 30 years ago?

My highest regard goes to the great entrepreneurs that create great organizations. I mean, I've always was a great fan of Steve Jobs, for example. Now, I'm a fan of Elon Musk. Does that mean I agree with everything Elon does or says? No, just like I didn't with Steve Jobs. But they have built great organizations and they're helping, you know, between Tesla and SpaceX and the other companies Elon's creating, they're changing the world in positive ways. Also, I really admire Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, who just passed on. Pretty much if you find Michael Dell, the entrepreneurs that, you know, Google guys, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the creative types, I mean, I self-identify that way myself, so those are the people I most admire.

In your book, the Whole Story, I really love what you've covered in here about adventures in love, life, and capitalism. It's kind of like your eat, pray, love in a sense of how you've lived your life in a capitalistic world, but also in how you've had great love in your life.

Yes.

Talk about your wife in here. I'm curious, because you grew up with a Christian faith, if I'm remembered right, but then you became more of an atheist for a period of time, but then you went more on a spiritual path after that. So you kind of believed in something, then I guess believed in something else and then came into a spiritual journey. What was that like for you?

Well, so let's kind of like when I was a boy we went to church. But as soon as we became teenagers my parents said, if you don't want to go to church anymore you don't have to. My dad used to fall asleep. This was an Episcopal church and it wasn't particularly a strong, I'm not sure even the Ministers particularly were believing. It was more of a social thing, something to do on Sunday. But then when I was 18, I had an experience of got a crush on a girl and I was leaving, I graduated from high school, I'm going on to college, the world's sort of confusing and uncertain and she pitched me on Christianity and I became a born again Christian when I was 18 years old. which I was really into it, seriously into it for a couple of years. I probably got involved in a group called the Navigators and I probably memorized about a quarter of the New Testament because they were big into memorizing scripture. And the thing that got me away from that was as I dived deeper, I studied philosophy, I did religion studies, and it was the problem of evil. The problem of evil is this, The problem with evil is if God is all powerful and all omniscient, all knowing, and all loving, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And I mean, Christianity had an answer that was original sin, free will, but it didn't satisfy me. I didn't think it was a good answer. So I drifted away. And I studied philosophy. I would say I became an existentialist, probably an agnostic, but I was probably saying I was an atheist then because it sounded bolder and I'm just a kid. young guys, you know, shock people. And then when I was 22 years old, just turned 22, I had, I did a psychedelic trip with LSD that changed my life completely because I experienced, the only way I can describe it retrospectively is that I had what I would call an ego death. And what I mean by that is we experience ourselves as separate. We identify with our bodies. You know, you're Lewis, I'm John, this is a this is a table and we're separate from that. We're individuals. When your ego dissolves, there's no separation any longer. There is no John, there is no Lewis. There's only beingness, pure beingness. And I was part of it. There was no I. I was it. I didn't have any sense of any separation or differentiation. and that was sort of a timeless state. And I don't know how long I stayed in that state, probably until the drug began to wear off, and then I began to slowly differentiate again. But I came out of that with completely changed. It was like I realized, oh my God, the essence of when I am, not my ego, not my body, the essence of when I am is immortal. It's always existed. It always will exist. And then it was like, wow, it's all just an adventure. Forever. We're just an adventure forever, adventuring forever. And we're free to create whatever kind of life we want to create. So I let go of a lot of fear then. Not all of it, but I did let go of a lot of fear about, I'm going to go out and take chances. I remember symbolically I started hitch, I went outside and started hitchhiking. Really? It's like the guy says, I don't have a shirt on. It's August 1975. The guy picks me up and he says, Where do you want to go? I said, I don't care. Wherever you're going. He says, I'm going home. I said, I'll go there. So he drives a few miles and he says, well, son, this is as far as I'm going. I said, okay. And I got out and then I thought, where the hell am I? So I started to walk home. And I ran into my philosophy professor. This is a life-changing event.

On the way back walking.

Yes, on the way back. And I this was a guy that I idolized. He was my intellectual hero. He'd written a ton of books, Bob Solomon, Robert C. Solomon. He wrote 35 or 40 books, still.

Had a big influence on my entire life. Were you in college at this time? Yes.

He was a professor at the college or, okay, gotcha. Yeah. And when I was studying for philosophy at the University of Texas, he was one of my professors. So I run into him and I said, this is a great opportunity. And I went up to him and I said, Professor Solomon, it's John Mackey. I'm one of your students. I don't have a shirt on. And he didn't recognize me at first. And I said, you know, listen, I've had a couple of questions I've been dying to ask you for years. And he said, well, okay, this is a great opportunity. So what are your questions? I said, well, sir, you teach. He was an existentialist influenced by Sartre and Camus, and there's more to his story, which I won't get into because it takes us too far afield. But he would teach that life is absurd. There is absolutely no meaning whatsoever to life at all. We live, we die, we disappear, and that's it. But he believed that you could kind of shake your fist at that grim fate and that you could create your own meaning sort of in defiance to this absurdity of life. So you give life meaning. It doesn't have any meaning, but you give life meaning. I asked him, I said, so, Professor Solomon, do you really believe that there's no real meaning to life except what we just kind of make up? And he said, Yes, that's what I believe. And I said, well, I don't see if you believe that how you could be happy. And he looked at me and he said, I'm not, I'm not very happy. And it was like, from that moment, I didn't want to be an existentialist anymore because I had just had this incredible experience I saw I was part of all it is. It was all an adventure. Meaning is everywhere. And I just wanted to get on with my adventure. So after that is when I moved into this vegetarian commune. I wasn't a vegetarian.

In Texas.

In Texas, yes, in Austin. And I had this sort of food awakening. I never realized before I always thought I knew exercise could make me feel better. I just thought food was kind of like fuel, like you're a car. you got to go into the gas station and get fuel. But if it tastes good, that's all that really matters. I didn't think about whether it was nourishment. I didn't think of it as a machine, not as this living organism that needed to nurture trillions and trillions of cells. So I had this food awakening, learned how to cook, became the buyer for this commune, food buyer for the commune. And then I went to work for a small natural food store, and I came back after doing that, I loved it. I loved working in that store. And I came back to the co-op, to the commune, my girlfriend Renee, who I'd met there, and I asked her, I said, what do you think if you and I open up our own natural food store? And she said, oh, MccoMn. She's hippie. Oh, MccoMn, that'd be cool. Let's do that. So we did.

Wow.

And that was the genesis of Whole Foods Market. So I start the book telling that story. because that LSD trip changed my entire trajectory of my life. So that's why it's relevant. And the first chapter of this book is called the Game of Life. And the final chapter is called the Infinite Game. So in some ways the thread that goes throughout that whole book is that it's all an adventure. Life is an adventure. And so I love your School of Greatness because if you're going to have an adventure, you might as well go for it. Absolutely. Be the best version of yourself that.

You can possibly be. Absolutely. So when you're in that season of life, I guess you're your early 20s, mid 20s at this time, starting this natural food store, are you still atheistic mindset? Are you seeking spirituality in other ways now because you're exploring different philosophies or where do you go there spiritually?

Let me let so you want to I'll give a little bit more of the spirituality story here. So At that point, I would define myself kind of as a seeker. I mean, it's like all I knew for sure is that the whole thing was spiritual. Everything was spiritual. I went from an atheist to the whole entire universe is spiritual. And so that's the opposite of absurdity. It's like meaning is everywhere.

That's what you make of it, right?

Yeah, well, yes, but also it's at the essence of what we are. It's at the core of our being. It's not, it's not, and so then, and the spirituality accelerated in 1984 when I did, I was invited to do an MDMA journey. This was when it was still legal. I never heard of it before. And I went in with some friends and I was invited over to this house and I had, that just completely, my heart just completely opened up. and it was like, yes, this is the meaning of everything. It's all love. It's all love. And this universe that I've been part of, it's the universe itself is the essence of love. And so then I started to do a technique called breath work, holotropic breath work at that time. Stanislav Grof had done it. And for those that are listening that have never done breath work, I hardly recommend breath work because you can have a transcendent experience just breathing. So you don't need a psychedelic to have a deeper experience of your soul and your spirit. And so I started to do this regularly.

You said you hardly recommend breath work.

Heartily. Heartily. I passionately recommend breath work. I still do breath work. It's very, very powerful. So, now I'm doing this breath work and I've met a bunch of people through this MDMA experience and one of them gives me this book called the Course of Miracles or A Course of Miracles. And, you know, I kind of, because it seemed kind of vaguely Christian, I said, what is this? He says, well, this is a, it claims to be a channeling from Jesus. I'm thinking to myself, well, that's nonsense, channeling from Jesus. You know, I had a bad attitude about it. But I liked this guy a lot and he said this would change my life, so I said, I want to read it. So, I start reading the Course of Miracles with kind of not a great attitude, but I don't know, 50, 60, 70 pages in in the text, I came across a passage which changed my life again. And basically the passage says, My son, lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, you have blamed God for everything that you see that's wrong in the world. and you've cursed him and you don't believe in God and you've rejected God. You've rejected love. And then it said, My son, you are asleep. You think when you wake up in the morning that you have awakened to reality. You haven't. You've awakened to yet another dream, a dream that you are creating. Everything that you're experiencing is something you are creating through fear and through judgment and through anger. And God just loves you and wants you to wake up to love. So it's like, I got so excited because this was the answer to the problem of evil for me. It was like, because that was what got me to be this agnostic atheist was I couldn't reconcile evil. And the Course says, it's just a dream. It's not real. So like when we sleep at night and we're having a dream, We are, it's interesting, right? Think about a dream. A, we're the dreamer, right? Or a character in the dream too, right? Who are the other characters? Who are these other characters? They seem to be acting independently of us. But when we wake up and everything disappears, yeah, what happened to those characters? Right. So the Course says you think that you're waking up to reality, but you are just waking up to yet another dream. And so the course is a path of awakening to the real reality, which is love. So I've been on that path ever since, and I like to say I've made some progress. I'm a much more loving being than I was 20, 25 or 30 years ago.

Yeah, and this is a great quote from your book. It says, I learned that the key was to remove the blocks to love's presence through practicing forgiveness instead of fear, judgment and attacks on others. The dreams we experience here are actually reflections of all of our thoughts and emotions. We are always unconsciously creating the world that we are experiencing. Our task here is to become more conscious and begin to transform our waking dreams to happy dreams of love and then to share that love with everyone we encounter.

Couldn't have said it better myself. You said it here.

I mean forgiveness became a very important part of your path. in the aftermath since you encountered A Course in Miracles. How do you learn to create an environment of love, compassion, and forgiveness while building a capitalistic business, while trying to build a business, earn money, make money, when you have so many people involved, whether it may be employees who maybe are out of alignment at times or stealing or not living up to their responsibilities of their job or customers that are potentially doing good or harmful things towards the business or business partners or agencies you're working with that are maybe out of alignment or whatever it might be. How do you continue to forgive? Spread love. Be love. When others are doing bad or evil against you.

Okay, so this, I'm gonna do the best I can to explain it. It's gonna seem Weird. So have you ever had a lucid dream before?

I think I've had, you mean while you're experiencing you're in the dream.

You wake up in the dream and realize you're dreaming.

Yes.

You've had that?

Once or twice.

Okay, and so what's different about a lucid dream once you wake up? How's the dream change?

Well, it feels very real, but you wake up, you mean after the dream?

No. While you're in the dream. the dream begins to change. And the dream changes because once you realize that you're the dreamer and whatever you're thinking in the dream manifests, you have control of the dream.

You have more control.

Yes. So imagine that it's not any different here. As you wake up and you realize who you are, that your thoughts and your emotions are going out and they are creating what you're experiencing. Or you can put it in the context of like a multiverse.

Yes.

That there's an infinite number of realities, but the choices we make, the thoughts we make, the universe, that multiverse is forming around us. So once you understand that you're the dreamer and you begin to wake up into it, the dream gets happier. As you share more, as you practice forgiveness, as you practice not judging others, but being kind and compassionate and caring, the world begins to shift for you. It becomes more of a happy dream. Instead of being in conflict all the time because we're judging and attacking others and then we find that we're attacked and judged too and that we're kind of at war, we bake different choices. We go the path, if we choose a different path, the world shifts. It's not to say there are not terrible things happening in the world.

There are, but your world shifts.

Yes. Your world shifts.

Your environment, your world, the people in your world. Maybe not the entire world, but your world.

Yes. And the Course of Miracles has a very good metaphor for this. It's like as our heart awakens deeper to love, our job is to extend that love to everyone else we encounter. And then it's like we have a candle and we help light the candle in their heart. And then they light the candle in other hearts. And the world, you don't wake up alone. You're waking up because we're all part, we're all one. We're all, the best metaphor I can say it's because we're so attached to our egos and our separateness. It's like there's just the one being. The one being is you, the one being is me, the one being is everything. You've got all eternity. What are you going to do in all eternity? You're going to play, because it's an adventure, because it's fun, because you can create anything. So you do all... And so the one being is continually playing forever and ever and ever. It expands through the Big Bang and self-love, and then it comes back, breathes back in, and it's in the singularity again, and it blows up again, and it comes out. All possibilities are realized. Everything we do, we're on this grand adventure. So make it a great grand adventure, one that's fun, one that you share with others, one that you help others.

I'm sure for people watching or listening right now, they may be saying...

They may have turned us off by now.

No, they might be saying, this sounds like a beautiful dream scenario. But, you know, it's just, it's hard paying bills or it's, I've tried to launch a business and it's failed or I've got employees, you know, stealing or complaining. Sure. I'm trying to give love to them, but they're not giving it back. Boundaries are being crossed. People are not meeting expectations. They commit to things.

People are not behaving the way they should be.

Right or exactly. So how do you, you know, over 40 years of living this life in your business and seeing your business go through ups and downs over the last 40 years and Dealing with the challenges of the economy or employees or stakeholders, how did you navigate the emotions when people did something that was harmful towards the business or towards you? Do you just keep giving love? Do you create boundaries?

I wrote a whole book about it.

Right, exactly.

But I didn't say it was easy. It's hard. However, as you become more conscious, it gets easier because it's like imagine that love is the deeper reality, but we continue to block it through our judgments, through our anger, through our fear. I talk a lot about in the book about we're always faced with choices every day. of we can either contract into fear and anger and judgment or we can expand into love. And here's the thing. I'm going to give you one of the most important tips that's helped me. The past doesn't exist. In the next moment you can choose love. And if you forget, that's okay. Because in the next moment you can choose love. And if you make a judgment or you attack somebody, you say something cruel, in the past. You can let it go and the next moment you choose it and you practice being in the next moment open hearted and yes stuff's going to happen. Think about it as a big game and things are happening. These are all challenges for you. You've got to overcome those challenges. Yes, somebody just did something really cruel to you and said something really hateful or betrayed you. It's like, wow, what an opportunity for me to learn here. This is incredible.

What were a couple of the most, the biggest breakdowns that you experienced, whether in business or life, or personally or professionally, from people that either did things to hurt you, whether intentionally or unintentionally, or financial breakdowns. What were a couple of those moments for you?

Well, there were many, and I outline them in the book. So there were actually four separate coup attempts to take me out. Really? Oh yeah, yeah, four times.

Of your own business.

Yes, exactly.

What was that like?

Well, there was a sense of betrayal, the people that I loved and trusted. I call it, in the Lord of the Rings, there's the ring of power. And the ring of power, people are so attracted to wealth, fame, and power. Those things are seductive. And in the Lord of the Rings, in that particular fantasy series, the ring was-- it was very difficult to wear it and not be corrupted by it. Right?

It began-- the pressure, the ego, the pressure.

Exactly.

The weight.

It's a metaphor for the ego. The ego wants to be-- you know, it's in this competitive war against all. And so I think as I became more successful and wealthier and better known. A lot of people wanted that. They, they envied it. They wanted that.

So how did you navigate it the first time versus kind of like the other three times? Did you get better at navigating it or each time was painful?

I got, oh, each time was painful, but I got better at it. And because remember I was using, I said that, you know, you forget, I forget, I go back into the ego. I contract into fear. I'm, I'm, I'm on the journey like we all are, and I don't, I claim to never get upset or fall back into fear. But what's different over time, Louis, is I don't stay there as long. It's like, oh, yes, I just did it again. I contracted into fear. But instead of beating myself up for not being perfect, it was like, yeah, but now, this moment, I can open my heart back up and be back in the love space. And so it's like anything. If you practice it, you get better at it. So I've been practicing it. I'm better than I used to be. Still not perfect. I am not perfect.

So how did you navigate that first kind of big betrayal moment in business then? How were you able to keep your heart open while also, I guess, protecting yourself and your interest in your business? And how do you navigate those relationships with people that want to hurt you?

That's what's so powerful about forgiveness. You know, one of the things that it took me a long time to learn is that when we hold on to a grievance against somebody, we're actually, it's kind of like this poison that we want to give to them. We're drinking it ourselves. That judgment and grievance is harming us. And so once you realize, my God, I got to let go of that. That's really holding on to that anger and judgment, it poisons your soul. so you have to let it go. And forgiveness is the way that you let it go. So everyone that I've ever felt like, you know, harmed me or hurt me in some way, it's like, I've forgiven them all. It's like, I wish them the best. I love them. I want them to be. I understand they were doing it for their own ego drive, and it wasn't satisfying them, but they wanted things. And I just let it go. I forgive. I forgive them. I don't want to hold on to those anger and that judgment. So, it's a skill. You have to practice it. I'm not saying, and I've completely mastered it, I'm not pretending to be a fully enlightened being every instant of every day. You set yourself up for that. People are gonna show you lots of ways where you're far from.

Are you sure you got that lesson? Let me test you again.

Let me test you again.

When was the time that you felt like your ego was the biggest during this kind of multiple decade business journey.

The one that hurt me the most, the story was back in 2000 and 2000. And we had started back when this was when the.com boom was occurring and Whole Foods wanted to we jumped into it. We created something called wholefoods.com and then we changed it to wholepeople.com. My wife and I moved to Boulder and we were doing a We were doing it there and we were we created a team, we raised venture capital money and then that dot com boom turned into a bust and it and it failed and we had to shut it down. We sold off we sold off pennies on the dollars, what we had left. And meanwhile, while I'd done that, I'd asked a really close friend of mine that was the number two guy in the company, president of the company to that to be, I want you to sort of run Whole Foods while I'm focused on this. But that only went on for about a year. And then I said, I want to come back. I'm coming back to Austin. I'm taking back over this leadership role.

After the bust happened. Yes.

He did not want that to happen. Really? He liked being in charge. And meanwhile, since I had failed, a couple of the directors didn't really want me to come back. and that they wanted me to go.

If you failed at this thing, we don't want you back. That's our thing.

Pretty much. And so I was at my most vulnerable, you might say, and the portrayal was it was somebody I loved and trusted. And then there was a conspiracy, right? And some of the directors with this leader. And so, you know, this is because we're talking a lot about love. This is a great story of how I sort of overcame that. So the board calls this meeting in Florida where all my leadership and his name is Chris. Chris is going to be there. The board's going to be there. My other executive team members are going to be there. They're all going to be interviewed by the board. So, you know, I don't know what's going to happen. I may not survive this. So I go, and one of the things I do whenever I would travel, I'd always want to visit our stores. So I go visit the Fort Lauderdale store. And while I'm visiting the store, I had this, you know, my heart opened up and my soul spoke to me and it said, this is your purpose. This is what you love. And you've not lived up to your own standards here. And so what the message was coming across that there was nothing I love more than this. And that I loved every, I loved all the customers, I loved all the team members, I loved everybody. and that I didn't want to lose this. And I was willing to commit and learn from my mistakes and do better going forward. I sort of was making this, meanwhile I'm walking around in this complete open-hearted love space. Guess who walks in? Chris. Wow. So I said, Hey, listen, could we talk for a minute?

Just randomly.

Just randomly.

Synchronicity.

Synchronicity. Or is there synchronicity in those dreams? Maybe. So we go back into the store team leader's office and I said, Chris, You and I have been close friends for 16 years. It's not too late. We can stop this nonsense right now. If you're willing to, we can go back to the way it was and we'll just let this be in the past. And he said, It's time for you to go, John. You've had a good run here.

Wow.

And he said, you, can go out with honor.

Oh my God.

Or you're gonna get thrown out on.

Oh my goodness.

And I said, It doesn't have to be that way. and he says, that's how it's going to be.

Oh, no. So you had this beautiful dream, hey, we're going to come together and everything. I'm going to be back in my position.

But I was still open in my heart. The point is, I was willing to forgive and we could move past it and he wasn't. No. But then, then we, I go into this, I go into the board meeting. I am still wide open in my heart. Love. Yes, I'm in love. I'm just loving, and I talk about how much I love Whole Foods and, how much I love Chris and how the company's gonna go from here on. I had a whole vision of where we were gonna go. And I was told later, many years later, by the lead director, he said, John, you were gonna lose that vote. And you came in there and you won everybody but one director over. Wow. And he said, and when Chris got in there, he went into like a 30-minute rant about what a terrible person you were, you know, cataloging all your failures as a leader. And so later on, another director told me, he says, well, John, you know what I did after-- I wanted to know what went on there. So for many years after that, they wouldn't tell me it was a secret. But I would get these directors one-on-one, take them out to dinner, warm a couple glasses of red wine.

What really happened?

Ask a few questions. Time had passed, and I slowly, built the whole story out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so Chris had gone in there and ranted and one of the directors said, well, we weren't sure we still wanted to keep him as a CEO, but we weren't going to put him in because he was crazy. He was like so angry that we couldn't put him in. And so we decided that you seem to have a vision for the future and we thought we should give you another chance.

Put you back in.

They forgave me.

You went from you're gonna be kicked out of the company completely. But because you went in with a clear vision and an energy and an attitude towards love, forgiveness, and appreciation and gratitude.

And.

They put you not, they didn't remove you, they actually made you back in the CEO.

Yes.

Wow.

And there's another important message here, which was, I made a commitment when I was touring that store, that I was gonna be a better leader, that I was going to channel more love. And it was like my soul was saying, you either have to step up or get out.

Get out.

And I made the decision to step up. Conscious capitalism came directly out of that experience. That's when it began to take place.

What became the key tenets of conscious capitalism from that moment on?

Well, first of all, of conscious capitalism to explain it to the listeners here, I gotta say first what it's not. It's not an economic system, it's not a corporate governance system, it's simply a management philosophy. Okay, so it's, 'cause it's controversial now. You know, the whole stakeholder thing is being attacked and so it's just the better way to manage your business. And so the four pillars of conscious capitalism, first, every business has this potential for higher purpose besides just making money. Business has to make money, but that's not why it exists. A good metaphor is like my body has to produce red blood cells or I will die, but my purpose is not to produce red blood cells. Similarly, business has to make a profit or it dies, but that's not why it exists. It exists to create value for customers and the higher purpose is in that value creation. For example, Whole Foods' higher purpose is to nourish people and the planet. We're about selling healthy food to people to help nourish them so they can be the healthiest versions of themselves. Google's higher purpose is to organize the world's information and make it readily accessible. Amazon's higher purpose is to be the earth's most customer-centric company. These purposes can change and evolve over time, but these have been the stated purposes of these companies.

What was the first pillar?

The first pillar is that it says higher purpose. Business has a higher purpose. Business is condemned. I mean, ask what's the purpose of a doctor? Is it to make money?

To heal.

Yes, but they make a lot of money. Teachers educate. Architects design buildings. Engineers construct things. They all have some type of higher purpose that is in service to other people. Well, so does business. It's the enemies that have made it into it's just about the money. If you go to a party, a cocktail party, and you ask people randomly, for example, what's the purpose of business? They'll say, what do you mean, what's the purpose of business? Make money. It's like, no, that's not right. It's not the purpose of business. It's to create value for customers. Profits come from that. Profits are not the goal. They are the result of creating value for other people. and if people could see this and articulate it, the hatred and dislike of business would definitely be toned down.

Why do you think so many people hate wealthy individuals?

Because they're stuck in that envy, but also stuck in that paradigm that if somebody has more, somebody has less. Rather than seeing that's not true, business is creating value for other people and it's, people don't understand history of where we were. For example, if you go back just 200 years ago, 200 years ago, 94% of everyone alive on this planet lived on less than $2 a day. 94%, 85% lived on less than $1 a day. The average life span was 30. The illiteracy rate, 88% of the people alive on the planet couldn't read. That's 200 years ago. It has been science and capitalism that has lifted that up so that today the average life span is pushing 80 across this planet. Those numbers have reversed on the literacy. Now 90% of the people across the planet can read. The average life span has gone up and the average income, the abject poverty of people that make less than $2 a day, it's dropped to like 6%. and it'll be ended because as long as we continue to allow science and free markets and capitalism to lift people out of poverty, people don't understand that. They don't know their history. They don't know where we were.

What about people that think that, you know, we should have more, I guess, socialistic economies or, you know, people should just be getting paid the same amounts no matter what job they're at, you know, and the government should be funding these things.

Socialism's not new. I mean, in the last 100 years, 41 countries have tried socialism. 41 failures. Really? It doesn't work.

Why doesn't it work? But there seems to be like this utopian dream that it should work, but why hasn't it worked?

Well, because a socialist country is one that, like the Department of Motor Vehicles, is running everything. you have these giant bureaucracies, you don't have the entrepreneurs that are being creative and innovative, they don't have the power to do it any longer, you've got bureaucrats telling everybody what to do, like when you go get your driver's license renewed. That's what socialism is like across everything, you get in lines to get your food, you get in lines to do everything, and you have these government officials determining everything, and you no longer have The entrepreneurs, you no longer have innovation, you no longer have creativity, you no longer have this upward flow because we've damped it all down.

So is there any countries that are doing it well or semi well right now?

Doing what well?

Like socially, you know, communities or... No.

There's no successes ever. Really? So the ones that are usually held out are the Scandinavian countries.

But have you ever heard... You hear about like their happiness levels are way higher and things like that.

But those are not social... None of those Scandinavian countries are socialist. Really? Yeah, Sweden was back in the 60s. But if you look at the Economic Freedom Index, which measures economic freedom, all the Nordic countries are in the top 25, and three of them have more economic freedom than the United States does. Denmark, Sweden, and Iceland all have higher degrees of economic freedom than the United States does now. Remember when the COVID lockdown occurred? Sweden didn't even lock down.

They were open.

Exactly.

Living their lives.

People say we ought to be more like those Nordic countries and I say you're right, we should be. Do you know what the corporate tax rates are in Sweden? Uh-oh, 21%, lower than it is in the United States. Did you know that in school choices, Sweden has a 100% school choice. Every parent gets to pick what school their kids go to.

Really? Yes.

There's so much more freedom in Scandinavia than people realize. So they're thinking about the wrong things. They're thinking now, they do, they have lower corporate taxes. They do have higher income taxes on the average people. And that's what they're focusing on. But you know what? I'd take the higher income taxes if you'll do the rest of it, too. You can't just cherry-pick it.

Right, right, right.

Take the one part that you want, higher taxes on those rich people. Sure. But get rid of the school choice, get rid of the lower corporate taxes, get lower, get rid of-- Health care stuff, probably. Yeah, the health care stuff is what those high personal taxes are paying for. It's a longer field to talk about the Scandinavian countries. They're just not socialistic, although they have a social welfare state that's more developed than ours.

Okay, so what's the, what, it was pillar number one.

The second pillar is a higher pillar. The second pillar is that all stakeholders matter and the stakeholders are the ones that are, they have a stake in the business, right? But there's, I always say there's two tiers of stakeholders. They're the ones that have not only a stake in the business, but are also trading with the business. So like customers are trading with the business, employees are trading with the business, suppliers are trading with the business, investors are trading with the business. and communities are trading with the business. But say other stakeholders like critics, journalists, government officials, policy labor unions, they may not be trading with the business, but they do still have a stake in it. So you have to, so all stakeholders matter, they don't all matter equally. They're not all equally important. But once you see that the stakeholders matter and that they're somewhat in, they are interdependent, they're connected together, You begin to manage the business more consciously. It's like, I'm creating value for not just for our investors, but I'm creating value for these customers, for our employees, for our suppliers, for the communities that we're part of. They're interdependent, and then you begin to think about it differently. I ask the question, what's the win-win-win solution? What's good for every stakeholder? And what's the strategy where all can win? And if you have a stakeholder that's losing, it's not a good strategy. It'll actually come back to bite you down the road. You've set up a negative feedback loop. Pillar number three, that leaders should be more conscious. And by that I mean they should be conscious of the higher purpose. They should be in service to the higher purpose and to all the stakeholders instead of just lining their pockets. Right? I mean, you see sometimes people spend years going up the corporate ladder and they finally get to be the CEO for five to seven years and all they can think about is how do I get as much money as possible. That's not conscious leadership. That's not what conscious capitalism is about. It's about people that are more servant leaders that are serving the organization, serving all the stakeholders, serving the higher purpose of the business. And finally, it's culture, conscious culture. Human beings should flourish. Working for a business should be something where humans, everybody that encounters the business should be touched in a positive way. Business can be this amazing force for good in the world when it's managed in a more conscious way. And everybody it connects with feels better about everything because the business is, and so that's a culture. So it's purpose, stakeholders, leadership and culture, all done more consciously. That's conscious capitalism.

When did you start to feel like you were earning more in abundance financially? Like what season of the business were you like, wow, all this energy and effort and this level of service and love and being there for stakeholders and team and customers and everyone involved, like it's actually I'm seeing the fruits of my labor financially as well. And so when was that season starting for you?

That was a gradual thing. So I mean like, and again, this is the book gets into some detail about this, but when Renee and I started out, we were so poor that we moved out of the co-op and we moved into the store, which wasn't legal for us to live there. It wasn't zoned for that. We lived, it was an old house, we lived on the third floor of this house. It was an office. We didn't have a shower or bathtub or anything. We actually took showers in the Hobart dishwasher.

Come on.

Yeah.

Wow.

I mean, you know, we were young.

Awesome.

Awesome. Adventure. And we took $200 a month out of the business. So we were probably getting, you know, we're working 70, 80 hours a week. So we're far less than a dollar an hour. And, and, but we didn't, you know, it was fun.

We were loving it. Yeah, we were loving it.

Exactly. And I remember when we moved Saferway to Whole Foods and the new store was successful, we started getting paid $800 each a month, $800 a month.

They're like, Wow.

And I was thinking, oh my God, I'm so rich.

I'm rich.

And I, you know, I was getting by on a little moped. I said, I'm gonna buy a car now. I'm gonna buy a car. I bought this used RX-7. And I felt so wealthy making $800 a month. But then what happened is the business continued to grow and I suppose I didn't really feel wealthy when in 1992, 14 years after we started the business, Whole Foods did an IPO. We went public. And I didn't have that many shares because I didn't have any money when we got started, but I had a little bit. And I did the math on the first day of the IPO and I was now worth $7 million.

Really?

Oh my God, I'm a millionaire. This is unbelievable on paper, right? So I think that was the first time I became conscious of the fact that, wow, I probably don't ever have to, I'm going to keep working because I love it, but I probably don't have to if I didn't want to. And then the big change for me was in 2006 when I decided I have enough. I'll never have to worry about money ever again. I have enough. a generational wealth. And I just stopped taking any compensation then. I've never taken any. I've never taken any.

As a CEO, you stopped.

Stop taking any money at all in my stock.

Were you taking stock still or no?

The stock options that I would have received were donated to the, our foundations. Wow. I had enough. And it's been that way ever since.

There's this interview I saw with Jim Carrey. I think it was a year or two ago where he was promoting, I think his last movie. And he said it was a virtual interview. He said, I think I'm retiring. And the interviewer said, no, like, you're too great.

We need you.

Like, we'll, we'll miss you. And he goes, you know, I'm going to say something that I don't think any celebrity is willing to say, and that is, I've done enough. I have enough. and I am enough.

Love it.

And so when you said that, it kind of reminded me of him, you know, his message. And he's like, I love my spiritual life. I love my art, making art every day. And he's like, unless there's some script that really pulls me, that I really want to explore in the future, I think I'm done. And I think it's interesting because in a world where so many people want constantly want more, And when things are hot and they're building, it's like you can keep stacking the chips and saving for a rainy day. Even if you have generational wealth, you could keep earning more. And you're justified to, as the leader and the visionary and the CEO, to receive compensation for the service and the value you're creating in the world.

Yes.

That's interesting that you decided not to, I guess for the last 12 to 14 years, right?

Since 2006, so that'd be 18 years.

Oh, 18 years, yeah.

But the thing was that, for me, that was one of my clearest demonstrations of that servant leadership. And I'm serving the organization, I'm serving the mission, I'm serving the purpose. So there's a great story, and I'm gonna tell you in the audience that some will have heard it, but it's such a great story. So the two great writers, Kirk Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, were invited to this billionaire hedge fund party. And they're around there, and Vonnegut always being a little bit of a provocateur, he's kind of needling Heller, because Heller wrote Catch-22. And he says, so, Joe, this guy makes more money every day than you will make for all the books you've ever sold or ever will sell. He makes it every day. What do you think about that? Hellraiser thinks about it. And he says, you, know what? Kurt, I have one thing he'll never have. And Kurt says, what's that? And he says, I have enough. Wow.

Yeah. Wow. Why do you think so many people feel like they don't have enough?

I think that that's that ring of power, it's the hungry ghost. the ego, you can never have enough of what you don't really want. I mean you think you want this. You think wealth will lead to happiness or if you're more famous, people will love you. If you have more power, you can get your way. These are very seductive things. When what we really want is we want more love in our lives. We want more connection. and those other things are distractions from them. You can view them as tools if you understand what they are and they're not the master.

We think by having those things we'll feel more loved.

Yes, but you know what you oftentimes have if you have a lot more money is people envy you. You don't have more love. In fact, you have more people hate you because you're wealthy. If you have more fame, people want to be you and that you may, they may want your autograph and whatnot, but in general, a lot of people don't like you because, you know, you have more fame than they do. You're in this competitive relationship, whether you may not intend it, but that's how they oftentimes see it. So what we want is if we want that more love, we want more connection with people, those things can be tools, or they can be addictions. Most people get addicted. They can't get enough fame, they can't have enough money, they can't have enough power. You see it happen all the time. It's one of the things that you see in all the movies and television shows, is a billionaire that's trying to get another billion. I've seen, I've taught, I'm not going to name anybody, I've known plenty of billionaires and I'm not, they're even close to one. And these guys, they compare themselves to each other, it's that Forbes list. they might be worth five or six billion dollars in there, but they're comparing themselves to people that have 20 or 30 or 100 million billion.

They're like, I gotta get there.

Yes, exactly. And they're not satisfied. They're not happy. They don't have enough. And think about how you have all these famous actors and celebrities, and they're constantly trying to get more celebrity, more fame. They date each other, not just fake Fake relationships.

To get more fame.

Yes, exactly. And it doesn't satisfy the soul. And what ends up happening is like if you have so much money, you now have to have security guards because your kids might get kidnapped or you might, you know, you're not even free any longer. Now you have to have some bodyguards around you all the time. Or if you get super famous, same thing. People are always asking you for autographs, asking you to sign this or do this or... you start to lose your freedom. And power is not any different. So those things past a certain point don't enrich our lives, but they trap us.

They create more problems.

They create more problems.

As you started to become more famous as an entrepreneur, a CEO, as Whole Foods brand became more famous and more well known around the world, and you started to put out more content and books and all these different things and speaking, et cetera, and become connected to famous people, and famous billionaires and powerful people. What was the biggest, I guess, challenge you had to overcome in your rise to fame, success, and power?

How did I resist those temptations, so to speak? Because I remembered who I am. And I remembered who everybody else is. We're all, there's utter equity because we're all the same being. We're all part of the one self. And so I'm not better or more important than anyone else. I'm just on this different path. I'm waking up. My job is not to become more famous or rich or more powerful. My job is to extend more love in the world and help other people to connect to their hearts and they extend more love. That's the game I'm playing now. And that's what my new business, Love Life's about, I might add, is to help people be the healthiest, kindest, most loving versions of themselves.

If someone's watching and listening right now and they're saying, you know what? I really want to generate more financial freedom for my life. And if you could give them one piece of advice on creating financial freedom from your perspective, what would that be?

Create more value for other people. People don't understand that. Money is you get money by creating value for others and then they trade with you. And so one of the challenges in business I'm always putting to my team is like asking this question again and again and again and again. How do we create more value? What are we not giving our members or our customers that would enrich their lives and make them happier, make them more fulfilled? And so as long as you're thinking about and you're constantly improving your offering, to create more value, then you're going to become wealthier. Those go together and people separate those out and then they forget. Yeah, and it's almost like you're going.

To become wealthier, maybe not financially right away, but you'll feel more enriched right away. Well, you also become more financially wealthy.

Over time if you're creating true value. Exactly. Young people ask me this kind of question all the time and I say, well, how are you going to create more value for other people? Because that's where the money comes from.

It's not about doing the bare minimum and doing the least amount.

It's how can I add the most value to someone? And that never ends. Even when you're creating value, you're still asking the question, how can I create even more value? As long as you're focused, think about that. You're making other people's lives better and you're becoming wealthy doing it. That is a win-win-win game.

Yes. But a lot of people don't want to put it feels like work for people. It feels like that's hard work. You have to do this for years until it pays off. I don't see the results right away.

Well, that's a bad attitude.

I know, but that's the way a lot of people think. They want the money now, they want the freedom now.

Well, nobody, the world does not owe you a living. You will create wealth by giving to others. That's what it's really about. You create value for others and then they trade with you. If you're not willing to do that, well, then you're never going to have very much money.

And how much, how important is having and positive attitude towards generating wealth. Does that help?

Yes, of course it does, absolutely. I mean, some people hold themselves back because they have guilt about money.

Have you ever felt that? Guilty about earning money?

No.

Well, when you see people that have a lot less or struggle or friends, family, or society members... To be completely.

Honest, this is something I struggled about when I was younger. And until I really saw that the wealth that I was creating was something because I was creating value for other people and I didn't have to feel guilty about it anymore. It was like...

So you did feel guilty in the beginning a little bit?

Boy, yeah. I took on the values the culture has that if you have wealth that maybe you stole it, maybe you took too big a piece of somebody else's pie. And I had to get my own thinking squared around that I wasn't stealing from anybody else. I wasn't a crook. I wasn't greedy, I wasn't stealing, I was creating value for people and they were exchanging with me. And so they were getting better and I was getting better and that's how the whole society advances. That's how progress is.

Yeah.

Wow. Now, the tricky thing there sometimes is, it's sometimes we create, we give people what they want, but it's not good for them. That brings us into a whole other ethical plane, right?

Give me an example. Like if you make money and you build financial wealth, giving people what they want, but it's not good for them. What happens to you?

Good question. I'm not sure I have the answer for that one. I have to think about it. But I would say it stains you a little bit, particularly if you're conscious. Maybe a little bit. So, I mean, there's good examples. I mean, tobacco is the best example. People want tobacco, it apparently makes them feel good, but it destroys their health. And so if you're in that business, you're giving people what they want, they're trading with you voluntarily, but you're destroying their long-term health. So that would be a business I would not want to be in. But then you could say the same thing concur with junk food, for example.

Of course, or alcohol, or whatever.

Yes. People are any kind of drug that is addicting and people do want it and they trade with you. I mean pizza for me is like.

I want pizza but I know it's not the best thing for me. It's like, you know, I can eat it every day though if I wanted it, right? But it's not gonna make me healthy. Yes. Unless there's some, you know, really healthy pizza then it's not pizza anymore.

But people are gonna keep eating pizza, of course. By the way, there are ways, there are healthier pizzas. For sure, for sure, yeah, yeah. So that's the tricky thing. And I think it's a fair question you have to ask ethically. You know, my very first store, for example, was a vegetarian store. And it didn't sell coffee. And it didn't sell alcohol.

And it didn't sell meat.

And it didn't sell sugar. And it didn't sell meat.

No cheese.

No cheese. Well, we did sell cheese. We were lacto-ovo-vegetarian. But we did almost no business. the market wasn't big enough. And when we, when Whole Foods, when we moved from Safer Way to Whole Foods, merged with another company, another small business like ours, and started to sell meat, started to sell seafood, started to sell alcohol, coffee, and some sugar, the business took off.

Wow.

And so it was like, you, it's, the tricky thing is, is that, oh.

Man, this is challenging.

You have to meet the market kind of where you find it. But then Whole Foods was always trying to urge people to-- To healthier options.

To healthier options. Maybe you can give me some advice on this because for 11 years of running this show, I've turned down so much money. I don't know if for good or if it's just stupidity. But because I don't drink alcohol, I've never been drunk, and it's not-- I'll have like a Bailey's on ice for Christmas, right? It's like just sip on it. That's about it. But I don't believe in promoting something that I know is more harmful than it is good to most people.

Then don't do it.

So we've never had advertisers that sell alcohol. Yeah. And they want to give a ton of money.

Sure they do. So it's they want you to bless it.

Of course. And you know, it's like different stuff like that or you know, other gambling things or whatever it might be. It's like I'm trying not to endorse something that I want to use. But like you said, there's a market for alcohol, meat, cheese, processed box foods at your stores that maybe you didn't have originally on. But it's like, is that a bad thing? Is it a good thing? Is it like you're still serving and adding value, but it's the value really serving people's souls? If they're making certain choices, is that our choice to decide for them? How do you grapple with that if it's against your values but not your customers' values?

Well, so first of all, you did phrase all that perfectly well. And by the way, there's not a right answer. I can't give you the right answer. You have to find that answer within your own soul and be okay with it. So I think that it's, you know within yourself when it's appropriate and when it's not appropriate. And you have to come to terms with your own values, and where you'll make exceptions.

Yes.

And if those exceptions are justified. It's hard to be completely pure and make money.

And make money.

Well, that's tried. To a certain extent that's true.

That's true.

So, but you can, you know-- I'll.

Be a priest, right?

That's right. So, this is some of the-- I wrestle with these questions all the time with, you know, I had the safer way than Whole Foods and-- It's, I have another saying that you should remember this one because it's a cliche, but it's very true. The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Yes. You have to sometimes ask, is there more net good that comes from this? Because if you're perfect but nobody does business with you, then you haven't done any good either.

Yeah, and you have thousands of employees that you're helping their livelihoods and you wouldn't be able to serve to give jobs and opportunities in a happy place if you weren't able to sell these things?

One of the reasons business is judged all the time is because business is more pragmatic. It makes compromises to serve customers. Remember, we're trying to create value for customers and they're trading with us and exchanging and they want things from us that may not be good for them. So I'm trying not to force my values on everyone else. I actually gave up alcohol two and a half years ago because of my Apple Watch. Because I have an app called Autosleep and I noticed I wanted to get better sleep. So when I got a good night's sleep, I looked at everything and went into it. First thing I discovered was exercise. You want to sleep well? Get a lot of exercise. That's going to give you deep sleep, longer sleep. Next thing I realized is that If I eat too late, it interferes with my sleep. If I eat too much, I eat too late. So for me, for me, I need to eat earlier and not as much at dinner. Lighter dinners. But the third thing was alcohol. Anytime I had even one drink of alcohol, my deep sleep went to zero. I got none. And instead of getting like seven and a half hours of sleep, I got six hours of sleep. And the next day, I didn't feel as good. So then I started, I did this experiment costly because, you know, I didn't, I kind of like drinking. It was fun to do with friends and stuff, conviviality. But the facts were clear. If I want to sleep well, I'm not going to have any alcohol. I haven't had a drink since. Wow. And, but I reserve the right that someday I may sacrifice a good night's sleep. Sure. But so far, I'd rather have a.

Good night's sleep than have a drink. What's going to impact your long-term health and your life span and your health.

Span and your energy levels and your memory?

Also true, everything.

Absolutely.

You're going to become more cautious, you're going to become more loving. It's probably hard to wake up with less sleep and be more forgiving and.

Loving when you're exhausted. If you feel bad, it's harder to be loving and forgiving.

You're more impatient, you're more snappish. Wow, that's interesting. So you've had to, I guess, would you say you've had to make certain compromises over the years or would they.

Not be called compromises? I mean, these are really good questions.

I'm trying to bring it for you, John.

Come on. Again, I don't think there's a right answer. There's the right answer for you, wherever you're at. And if you're gonna feel terrible about something, don't do it. It's not worth it. Not with the money. It's not. People will, but people have to draw that line. And you know, one of the things that, 'cause I've been a vegan for 21 years, and people, People are always apologizing and I'm sorry I made you eat meat at this dinner. I always say that, listen, I don't, you eat whatever you feel is appropriate for you. I'm not gonna judge you because you eat differently than I do. And that, you know, so our judgments are the problem. And if you're gonna judge yourself, I.

Said that about alcohol with people too. I'll be out with people who are drinking and it's like, I'm not gonna judge you, but I'm not gonna be.

Out all night while people are drinking. Also, I'll leave eventually. I'll tell you a funny story on the alcoholic. 'cause my wife, she doesn't drink. She's never drank anything, never had alcohol in her life. And I used to ask her, I said, Deborah, how come you don't ever wanna hang out with my friends? And she said, well, John, it's because your friends all drink. And you guys think you're getting funnier, but actually you're getting stupider. It's boring. Yes.

It is. After a period of time, it becomes boring.

And she says, you don't notice it because you're right along with them. But when I stopped drinking, I started hanging out with them. I had to come home one night and I said, you know, you're right. It's true. All my friends, they think they're funny.

And clever, but they're stupid. And when they're drinking. Yeah, after two drinks, the person I'm talking with usually doesn't become funnier.

No.

It becomes more exhausting and like, okay, they're like, it's just too much. It's like if you're gonna have dinner.

And someone's having a couple glasses of wine, cool. But at that point, all right, let's leave. Let's go home. I've gotten to your place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Took me a long time. In fact, I wish I'd stopped drinking many, many years ago. It was part of my family all drank. Sure, sure. In culture. Culture, yeah.

John, this has been powerful and loving all these stories. I'm curious, you've mentioned your wife a few times. What has been the greatest lesson she's taught you about love and business?

So, in the book, I get into some detail about my wife and from the very first day I met her on a blind date, I had a little voice tell me that she was more conscious than me. And my ego freaked out about that. I said, no way, I'm older. I've had more experience in this way. But. And then as the date, first date wore on, it became increasingly clear. I'd never been with anybody that was this conscious before, this loving.

Well, she didn't drink. So that was a towel right there.

That's right. Exactly. I didn't drink that night either. So. And so when it up, you know, we, we got together. And although I can tell you the story in the book is very much worth reading, I call it the Woman in the Dream, because I had had Or repeat a dream about her. And I, you know, the thing that she has taught me about love, she has a saying that I practice or try to practice, and it's very powerful. She says, John, don't over complicate this. It's not as complicated as you think it is. It's really simple. Just love everyone all the time.

Wow. What about people that wrong you or hurt you?

Don't you differentiate those people? Just love them too. Just love everybody.

But don't you have to create boundaries sometimes?

Yeah, sure you do. That doesn't mean you don't love them. I mean, people make this mistake that if they think love, if you're loved, you're weak. People are going to take advantage of you. You got to be tough and hard and somehow their love is this, it's been, love is powerful, love is strong. you can be very powerful and strong, fully masculine, fully powerful and loving and nobody has to take advantage of you. You do draw your boundaries. Like, no, I don't think that would be appropriate. I mean, people ask me for favors all the time and I just very lovingly and kindly say, yeah, no, I don't think I can be able to do that. I'm sorry. I mean, you still stay in your heart. It's about where your consciousness is at. It's not, as my wife has said many times, she said, John, you can just, you can be kind to people, you can be loving to people while being firm and saying no. It's not weakness to say, it's not a weakness to say, you're not saying no or drawing boundaries does not mean you're not being in your heart or being right. Right, yeah.

You can still be loving and strong.

In fact, if you're not strong, I question how loving you really are.

You got a lot of great stories in here. It's called the Whole Story: Adventures in Love, Life, and Capitalism. I want people to go grab a copy of this book, give it to a friend, check it out. Excited about this. You also have a new vision endeavor that you've been working on called Love Life. Love.life, if they want to go to the website and check it out.

Day.

And I was like, man, I wish this was closer to my home because this is like the ultimate health sanctuary, it seems like. Can you share a little bit more about that, too?

Yeah, I'm so excited about Love Life. It's kind of the continuation of my own higher purpose, my own life dream, so to speak. And it's, we've opened it, but it's a soft opening. It's here in the LA area, it's in El Segundo, and our Our grand opening is going to be August 10th and 11th. You ought to stop by then. Awesome. About the first 20 years that we had Whole Foods Market, Louis, people don't know how bad grocery stores used to be. And so they'd come into Whole Foods and they'd say, gosh, this is amazing. I've never been in a place like this before. And Whole Foods has had this effect over time on other grocery stores. They begin to copy us in many, many ways. We had a, we just changed the grocery industry. We really did. So when people go into Love Life, like I've been touring people around and friends have come by and they go in, it's like, wow, I've never been in a place like this. This is incredible. Why has no one ever done this before? I think that's what people are going to say for many years to come, the first time they go into Love Life. And it'll also be obvious, and they'll ask that question, this is such a good idea why hasn't it happened?

So what's the vision behind it and what is it?

So what is it is that we had this, we took over an old Best Buy, it's large, it's 45,000 square feet located next to a Whole Foods Market that is one of their best stores in Southern California.

Wow, that's cool.

I had this advantage of knowing all.

The best stores and Whole Foods.

So you can get the real estate right in place. Exactly. So it's, you come in and we have a healthy restaurant, it's not a plant-based restaurant, it is but it's what we call plant forward. So you can have bowls and salads and you basically decide what kind of protein you want on the bowl or the salad or the handheld or whatever. That's open to the public, but members will get a little discount in the restaurant. And then we have, then you check in and we have this state-of-the-art fitness center. We're kind of into biohacking. We've got a lot of biohacks in the built throughout here with the type of equipment we're using, the way it can accelerate workouts from power plates to all kinds of different recovery modalities for exercise, for cryotherapy. We have six cold plunges set at 40, 50, and 60 degrees, depending on where you're at. We've got hyperbaric oxygen chambers. We've got pulsing electronic microcurrents. We've got lymphatic massage suits people can wear. We've got a huge sauna, huge steam room, five infrared saunas. We've got all these recovery modalities. We have three indoor pickleball courts, which are, I think, kind of state-of-the-art. We've got a Pilates studio, we've got yoga studio, we've got a physical therapy studio. Everything it has to do with wellness and thriving, we're going to do. We're going to do acupuncture, Chiropractic, Ayurvedic medicine. And then we have a state-of-the-art spa where you can get massages or you can get Rolfed or you can get a facial or you can get an exfoliant scrub or whatever. It's not a medical spa so you can't get Botox there for example. And then we have a medical center. And that's kind of the most important part of what we're doing. Louis, when do most people go see a doctor? When they're sick.

Exactly.

Not preventative. Exactly. Our vision is the doctor's job is so that you never have to see a doctor. You don't get these chronic... People don't realize the things that kill Americans, heart disease is number one, cancer is number two, then you have a stroke and autoimmune diseases. Infectious diseases are way down the list. I mean, COVID spiked it up for a little while, but but now, you know, it's tuberculosis is not a big killer any longer. The flu, pneumonia, these are still killers, but they're not, you know, they're usually not in even the top seven or eight for killers. So it's chronic diseases. And it takes a long time for chronic diseases to develop.

But if you can catch it early and prevent it.

Yes, yes. So it starts out, the idea being you'll come in, you'll become a member of Love Life, and then we'll start out with a battery of tests on you. We need to get your baseline established. We're all on a health journey. We could all be healthier than we are. We just really don't even know where we are. So it starts out by finding our baseline and then working with the doctor and with the wellness coach and depending on the type of path you want to go down to create a precision individualized plan for you and then track it with wearables and with further testing so we can see whether you're making progress or not. And we're and so On the medical way, we have these three different paths people can go down. I know which path you would go down. The first path is if you have a chronic disease or you're on your way to developing one, we want to put you on the healing track. We want to heal you. You can heal heart disease. You can reverse it. It's not a death sentence. You can reverse it and you can certainly prevent it. Diabetes, type 2 diabetes is- Reverse it. Reverse it. You can do it pretty quickly. actually, if you're willing to make dietary lifestyle changes. Same thing with stroke. And most autoimmune diseases are also reversible. Wow. I mean, but we now live with autoimmune diseases increasing, but there are strategies to reverse those diseases. And so that's the first track, healing. The second track, which is the one I know you'd sign up for, is maximum performance. How do you get to be exactly? your absolute fittest, peak strength, peak endurance. Do the VO2 max. We'll set goals, we'll increase that. The third one is for aging baby boomers like myself, longevity.

How do we- Big deal, play, movement.

Yes. How do we increase the health span and the lifespan? If you ask people a question, would you like to live to be 100? The general answer is, hell no, I don't want to be decrepit. It's like, well, what if you aren't decrepit? What if you're just as physically active as you are right now and you have clear mind? Or do you want to be 100 then? Yeah, sure. Okay, that's the longevity program.

So.

Did I mention the pickleball? I think I did. So anyway, we have these customized medical, we have a concierge option. But the whole idea is that to help you be the healthiest version of yourselves. We're also going to be doing emotional and spiritual work with people. So we're going to be doing meditation, we'll be doing breath work, and we're going to have an emotional program as well that we're developing right now. So help people to, you know, most people suffer from PTSD. They just don't even know it. They don't have to have been in the Marines and go to Iraq or Afghanistan. We had things happen when we were kids. that was-- Traumas. Traumas. And there are ways to work through those traumas. That breath work is one way to do it. If psychedelic therapy was legal, we'd be doing that. And it's legal in Oregon and Colorado, so if we had a centers there, we'd be doing it there. But there are other things that we can do, other modalities, and we're interested in all those things. So we really want to help people become great. We want them to become the best version of themselves. Whatever that may be, help them achieve their goals and their dreams.

That's amazing. That's LoveLife. LoveLife. And so, if people go to LoveLife, they can see what this is all about, there's memberships, they can go explore it.

Yep, www.love.life.

That's amazing. Are you going to be expanding into other cities too, or in LA to start?

You know, I live in Austin, so the question is, well, why are you going to the first one in LA? And it's like, you know what? If this idea won't work here, it won't work.

That's true.

LA is the most advanced market probably in the world for what we're trying to do. People want to be healthy here. They want to look good. They want to feel good.

They want to spend money on health.

Exactly. This is a very, very awake place. So this is the best place to prove out the concept.

It's exciting. I'm going to check it out for sure at some point. The whole story is the book, Love.Life is the new venture. John, I have two final questions for you before I ask them. John, I want to acknowledge you for your journey and the lessons that you're sharing here. But the way you show up in love and in service over the last 40 plus years in your business, in your career, and in your life, I just think it's really beautiful to see and experience leaders leading in a different way. Where most people feel like it has to be win-lose, you're all about the win-win. where most people are living in fear, you're living in love. And so I acknowledge you for living that life, obviously not perfectly, and I'm sure you have breakdowns, but constantly remembering who you are and living in that space. So I acknowledge you, John, for the beautiful man that you are.

I'm grateful that you're here. Louis, I feel like you're talking to.

A mirror there, dude. That's who you are. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Appreciate it.

I hope we get stay connected after this. I've got Two final questions. This one is a question called the Three Truths, something I ask everyone at the end of the interviews. Hypothetical scenario.

Okay.

You get to live as long as you want. You know, you're part of love life, so you live well into your hundreds. And you get to create and be on the journey and do whatever you want for the rest of your life. All your dreams do come true in reality and in the lucid dreams that you have everything. It all happens for you.

Yeah.

But for whatever reason in this hypothetical scenario on your last day, you have to take all of your work with you. This conversation is no longer here, the books you create, the businesses, for whatever reason, it's gone. So we don't have access to your information or your content anymore. But you get to leave behind three lessons and this is all you would get to leave behind to the world. I call it the three truths. What would those three truths be for you?

Follow your heart. Love everyone all the time. Follow your higher purpose.

Final question, John. What is your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness is becoming the very best version of yourself. There's not enough examples for young people to say, well, I can achieve that and be human. I can achieve that and care about the people around me. I can achieve that and actually be really, really, really proud. I hope that I get to represent capitalism that's evolved. You know, my.