Final Reflections and Closing

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Was there ever a time when you believed that Whole Foods was going to fail There were times when it almost did fail, but there was never a time I actually believed it would fail. You said something beautiful about what it takes to keep people the whole fu its life Wow, you've had so many people work in twenty, thirty, even forty years here. How do you do that? You give people two things. Give them purpose. and secondly, they want to feel they're loved. So if you give people purpose and love, why would they ever want to leave Hey everyone, Wlcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become healthier, happier and more healed. I'm so grateful to have your ears and eyes for the next hour or so, and I'm really looking forward to diving in with today's guest. Today's guest is John Macky, an entrepreneur and co founder and visionary of Whole Foods Market In his forty four years of service as CEO, the natural and organic grocer grew from a single store in Austin, Texas to five hundred and forty stores in the US, UK, and Canada with annual sales exceeding twenty two billion dollars John co founded the Conscious Capitalism Movement and co authored a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestestselling book entitled Conscious Capitalism liberating the heroic spirit of business, and then the follow up consonscious leadership, elevating humanity through business Johnn is also the co author of the Whole Foods Diet The Lifesving plan for Health and Longevity and the Whole Foods cookbook. And today we're talking about his latest book. whichich is called the whole story. Adventures in loveove, life and Capitalism. It's available right now. We're going to put the link in the comments. I'd love for you to order this while you're listening along. I promise you, it won't disappoint. Please welcome to On purpose John Macky. John. It's great to have you here. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on, Jay. Yeah, really grateful to have you here. And I was saying to you just now before we started that I actually received conscious capitalism at such a pivotal moment in my life. I just finished three years of living as a monk and I would honestly say that I'd up until that point thought that consciousness or capitalism were two separate things and that they were two separate pursuits My monk life definitely helped me learn how they were integrated, but then when I was integrating back into the real world, so to speak. For me to wrap my head around rewiring my relationship with consciousness and capitalism, your book and your movement really helped craft some of my initial thoughts. I want to thank you for coming into my life at a very P to an important moment for me Thank you. I mean you're an author, so put your books out into the world You don't always know if it's helping anybody or if it's having an impact unless you hear back from people. So of course that makes me feel really good. Thanks for sharing that. off course. John, there's so much to talk about today, especially about your new book, The Hk Story. I wanted to start off actually just by asking you, was there ever a time when you believed That Whole Foods was going to fail I don't think there wass ever time I believed it was going to fail There were times when it almost did fail There was never time I actually believed it would fail. I'm a follower of Joseph Campbell's the hero's journey I feel like everyone of us is called a hero's journey, for a variety of reasons, and most people don't answer that call, usually fear I just kind of answered that call. I just I got When I'm studying existentialism and philosophy in university in my very late teens and early twenties, I got really clear about death We're going to die. Nobody gets out of here alive And it's a lot shorter than people realize the time that we have. So What do you want to do with it I felt like this is what my heart and my soul called me to do. I talk about it in the book quite a bit So when you're on the hero's journey You have a lot of near failures, you have setbacks. you do get knocked down But also amazing things happen. All these synchronicityities occur. You seem to meet the right person at the right time, the right mentor shows up miracles seem to occur When you're on your path And it's just sort of this grand adventure. And yes, I mean, we did have we had a flood our in our first year at Wholefoods Market where we had eight feet of water and I didn't know it was we'll call it a near death experience. but actually it was turned out in retrospect been a great thing. It taught us a lot. It taught me about stakeholders and how we're all interconnected and how there's people that love you. customers can love you, your employees can love you, your suppliers can love you and the community you're part of can love you and you can love them back So Even in the bad things that happened, the disasters, you reframe them, they were all lessons to be learned on. on the herero's journey on the path. So no, I never really felt it would fail. I always thought it would be successful You know, we almost did a few times, but we didn't. Yeah Do you feel now you're at the stage of the herero's journey, where you're returning with the Elixir? Is that where you're at? O You know, I've returned without E Elixir then I feel like I'm still called. And that's my new business. Ive started up called Love Live which is I think also about sill trying to help people to be the healthiest version of themselves, but going beyond just healthy food. And the deeper part of spirituality, physical healing, emotional healing, and spiritual healing And we now have technologies we didn't have in the past and we have the wearables and we have the consciousness Um I mean so many so many traditions are integrating now around the world. all of the mystical paths. I mean, you were a monk for three years. so clearly you were doing a lot of meditation. you were on your spiritual journey Today all that all that knowledge has been available to people. It's so much It's easier to become enlightened today than it used to be, you might say And I feel like of course, that's what humanity needs, right? Collective awakening, collective enlightenment. And yeah, so feel like I'm still on the path. I love that. I mean in the book The whole story, you're very candid, you're very open and You're a different sort of business leader because of what you just spoke about. I'm intrigued as to when did your curiosity and consciousness spirituality begin? Is it something that was always there since you were born or was it something that you discovered over time and how? Even as a child, I mean, I think most children have some kind of mystical relationship with part of their being and their imaginations, they Their love and the innocence in children always felt he connection to the divine, even as a child. And then it was more traditional. I was raised as a Christian, so traditional Christianity deeper spiritual awening occurred when I was like first time I actually took a psychedelic drug, LSD back when I was twenty in university And that sort of knocked me off the path My parents had planned for me My parents wanted me, possibly your parents wanted the same thing for me to be a professional Above all else, they wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer get an NBA, do, you know, be respectable. And and but that totally knocks me off. And then I began my own search for the meaning of life. I wanted to understand Do I have a purpose? What is existence about? Is it all just, you know, random chance? Din Darwiny and survival of the fittest? deeper spirituality and of course, that's not found N not necessarily externally, it's an interteriority. It's found within our own being within our own consciousness And the LSD awakens me to that possibility. And then I began to read Eastern religions. I studied religion, meditating. And then I continued on that journey and I had experienced an ego death again through psychedelics when I was about twenty two. That's really kind of the starting point of the book I dissolved my ego. I mean it and I was just part of the one. There's only there's only the one being. And I just realized that at the at the essence, I remembered it actually was like Oh yeah, forgot. H it is. and that changed everything because Then I was like All right, I can create It's a dream. I can create whatever I want to create And what do I want to create? And that's where the interiority, the hero's journey begins. I moved into this food co op when I was twentyenty two years old, maybe twenty three. And it was vegetarian. I wasn't vegetarian at that time But I was really interested in all things counterculture. I like the hippies. And I thought, M, I'm going to meet some cool people in a vegetarian co op. And I did And I had a food awakening Until then I just kind of ate the standard American diet, a lot of junk food. I was more like a car. gotot to take it in to get gasoline periodically to run fuel as long as the fuel tastes good. I'll eat it and And so I didn't eat many vegetables, I didn't eat much healthy food. And so I learned how to cook in the co op. I learned about natural organic foods, and I got excited about it, Jay. I was like on fire. And then I went to work in a small natural food store it was like, I loved it I loved. I was in a community of employees that I shared a lot of values with. I was connecting with customers that were my neighbors and becoming friends And it was like I want to do this. And I remember I went back to the co op, Prana House was called Prawn House and talk to my girlfriend, Renee. I think At the time I was probably about twenty three. Renaye was four years younger, so she was nineteen. and I said Renate, what do you think if we open up our own store? Do you think that'd be cool? And she said, Oh, Maclan be really cool. Let's do that. so we did. And that was the beginning. The first door was called Saferway And then a couple of years later, we relocated it, merged with another natural food company, and became Whole Foods M market. And the adventure was well launched at that point. I want to go back So a couple of things you mentioned there, John. this idea that You know, not everyone who takes LSD or psychedelic a pursue into a deeper spiritual journey. It can for some. it doesn't for everyone For you, it obviously got you into philosophy, Eastern religions, as you said, It kind of forced you deeper. What do you think When you describe that to someone who's never had a psychedelic experience, never been exposed to that. What does that mean when you say I had an awakening? We'll get to the ego death part, but When you say you had an awakening, when you say open it up, what' what is what are you experiencing for someone who may not actually know what that means or feels like? Of course, it's like describing a rainbow to someone who's blind. I mean they can't understand it really until you have a similar experience or What is making love like until you've actually done it? I mean, there are certain experiences that you have to have to actually understand it. So when I talk about that I don't expect people that haven't had similar experiences to understand, but I expect the ones that have had similar experiences to say, Oh, wow, I've been there. I've done that. I've felt that experience that K kind of speaking to that audience in a way. I also tell people that You don't want to do psychedelics But there are other pathways that are gentler can have they can have transcendent experiences Meditation is one good way, but that generally takes a little bit longer for people. I have found that breath workor is very, very powerful. And I've worked for that for years and you can have a transcendent experience on breath workork where you get in touch with your deeper part of your soul, just by breathing continuously, particularly in a guided situation, because you're energizing a deeper part of your being and your interior self and it's beginning to emerge. and that can scare people so they stop breathing. But if you will keep breathing and continue to go through it This is the best chance you'll ever have to have an authentic connection with your soul m not the best chensuler, but it's a really good way to do it that's safe and nothing to be afraid of just breathing. So I encourage people that the psychedelics might scare them don't believe that there's any meaning in life, that there's any interior thing to look at. The interior universe is every bit as expansive as the physical universe but not more expansive And just we're Americans here and people don't oftentimes do these journeys into their interior. you obviously have, Jay. You spent three years as a monk And so your own experiments, you might say, or adventures in this part of your psyche are probably very amazing. One of my friends who always wants me to try to explain it to him in rational terms, his name is Alec, and I say Alec talk about this, but if you really want to know what I'm talking about, you have to do the experiments yourself because you're skeptical And youre ask me to prove it to you And I'll say I can prove it to you, if you will do the meditation, if you will do the breath workork, if you do the psychedelics, you can know there's an authentic spiritual reality that you don't believe is there. It's like that story about the guy that lost his key under the and he's looking under the lamp post because Well, that's where the light is But it's not there. clearly. So if you're asking people to become enlightened by just rationality, that's looking for it in the wrong place. You won't find it there. The light isn't shining there. You reminded me of a beautiful Vedict term In the language you are using in the Sanskrit is uarakkash, which means in a sky or inner universe, as you were saying, and it talks about in the same way as the The external galaxy we're so excited to explore and send things to space and figure out what's going on out there, but the inner sky is as vast, if not more and as deep and profound and unseen as that outer sky and we don't have that curiosity or that energy. I wanted to ask you Because I think one thing I don't take for granted anymore, John is that For those of us who have had spiritual awakenings and spiritual journeys And I agree with you on the rational part. I think the way you explain that is brilliant. and I can agree with you more Although I think sometimes we assume that everyone wants to have that experience or we assume everyveryone should go for that experience And I found that I was lucky. I met people who had had enlightened experiences and that made me open up to the idea that A it was possible Be it existed and see it could happen for me. And there was this feeling that I would meet someone that I could tell was operating in a different realm. They were happier, they were more conscious, they were more at peace with themselves and others. They operated and carried themselves differently because I got to see that and witness that I recognized that there was a difference between observing them and observing someone else. And that made me believe that there was another reality that I could want to pursue But I think for a lot of people, they hear us and they hear people and they say, What's the point? Like I'm trying to I'm paying the bills, I'm trying to survive. like will that help me be richer and more successful? Right because they're pursuing a different path. So you're saying that actually pping into this alternate reality benefits in the material world as well. Of course it does. Yeah We started this conversation off by talking about, well uh capitalism and consciousness, you know, I don't always see how those things could fit together back then. You know I remember you read the Hermann Hess book, Sadhartha? Yes, of. And so he did it backwards. Most people come to the spirituality later, he came to it at the beginning. But then he took what he had learned And he could apply it in the material world, so to speak. and it helped him be a better it helped to make him wealthy because he kind of had interior together, which made it easier. But a lot of times people are not interested in the interior part because they feel like, well it I don't see how that's gonna to help me in my day to day pursuit of Wealth, fame, success power, whatever that Those things ultimately what people will discover when they Th that don't really make them happy What makes people happy ultimately is love and um having that connection to other people. ourselves and to the larger universe that we're part of. It's not that money or fame or power are bad things. It's just that they're Most people get addicted to them if they pursue them. and then they forget about, like Sidhartha did in his book. He forgot about, oh, I forgot as he got deeper into the material plane. He got lost in it So I think people that are dedicating their lives to to making money or pursuing something in the material plane, if that's what they're life is devoted to, they will find when they if they ever when they get it, that it's not really what they wanted all along And so if you can do these things together pursue your own interior spirituality, your own interior growth as a person spiritual part of you is that develops and opens and awakens then you're going to appreciate the external world even more Yeah because it's beautiful But most people don't even notice it's beautiful because they're locked in their heads or locked in their own egos. And so they're trapped there to a certain extent. But once you can begin to break out or help that ego get With all, I like to say the ego is a It should be a servant, not the master. And once you get the ego kind of where it needs to be and not driving the car but in the back seat, Um then you're in a position to have it all, which is to be to achieve the success that you want in life while having the relationships that you want, while having your own spiritual joy Because that's what it is. As you awaken to that part of your being, you experience a lot more love and joy. and those give our souls satisfaction was reflecting on this recently, this idea that The material world has always made it about the pursuit of and having certain things as being the goal of life or as being the success of life And I was reflecting on how spiritually, especially in Eastern traditions Whether you have something or you don't I e money, fame, power, control is actually irrelevant. It's whether you have freedom from envy Freedom from ego, freedom from anger, freedom from lost, freedom from illusion because You could have everything in the world and be envious and feel like you don't have anything I've been fortuned to know several billionaires for example, where they have, you know Everything they could possibly want in the material plane They're comparing themselves to people that are even more successful richer and they feel like someh of their life' not complete and it's like You can have anything you want materially And it's your envy that's making you unhappy. Correct. But I have found it to be a very useful habit is when My friends or anyone has sperity and success for me to be truly happy for them rather than than feel envious of them. I feel like envy is a very insidious crap that spoils the joy of life. Absolutely. And I always say to people, you either have the choice to envy people or study them And if you envy them, then you don't get anywhere. But when you study them, you have the opportunity to I like that a lot. I' that's a takeaway for me today. Thank you. Please do it. Yeah. abbsolutely Ive focused on that heavily because I always reflected on I was in the same way as you appreciating others, admiring others, but I saw the ke I was studying them and wanting to learn from them And all of a sudden, you didn't feel that they were that far away, you felt so much closer to them and closer to that success for yourself and that abundance for yourself. Go to your point on ego deeath, I love that. you use that language Could you describe An ego deeath is For someone who may be new to the idea or may not be aware of how you're referring to it. We're very attached to our ego We in fact think that's what we are. We believe we are the ego. We believe we're a body and we're an ego And so the ego is the part of us that feels like it's separate. I'm Jeon You're you 's a book This is water This is a microphone These are They' different than me. They're not me And so We have this great feeling of individuality and separateness. That is it's so Real to us that we think that's actually reality. And so with the ego death or The better way to put it because death's scary word is sort of your ego disappearing. You don't have that sense of separation any longer. You don't identify with your separation. And the metaphor Id like to use is like ose close on today. They're not me. I'm not my clothes And I'm going to go home and I'm going to take my clothes off Maybe I'll wear them again. Maybe I won't. I'll wear something different the next day. That's not who I am. I don't identify with my clothes. Most people don't But some people do. someome people actually feel really, really attached to their clothing And so I'm not my clothes and I'm not my ego until you can actually have an experience where Y ego is dissolved you won't really understand what I'm talking about. But one of the great things about it is that once you realize you're not your ego, You can also begin to let go of your fear of death. becausecause what we are And the deeper part of our being is the one self, the one being, we all are So in a sense, we are immortal ur egos aren't. So that's the thing that freaks people out. It's like, I always like to say it's another metaphor. It's like, When I die, I'm going Oh yes, I remember here I am again and I'm not John Mackkey I'm not that ego. I'm not that body's going to dissolve and disappear and essence of what we are that the one being, the one self, is there, always. It always has been and always will be. And as you realize that, it's like our greatest fear, of course, is death And you can begin to let that go. And by the way, once you begin to let that fear go, thenen you can really see your life as this adventure. Whatever happens, it doesn't matter. It's just like a dream In fact, I do think lifeife is really a dream. And I think that's a good metaphor to understand what we're doing here Oftentimes we'll describe it as Have you had experience of a lucid dream before? So an aucid dream We become conscious that we're dreaming And once you become conscious that you're actually dreaming You can begin to take control of the dream and you can create it however you want it to be And once you begin to realize that you're in a dream here then you can become conscious. And then you can begin to create Be dream. A dream of love of forgiveness, a dream of on your own hero's journey, so to speak, a kindness, compassion. That dream begins to change as you wake up becomes a happier and happier dream because that's the dream that you're creating. I always tell my friends, it's like, I believe in the multiverse. it's like Be when I get to a doom and gloomer that says, we're all going to destroy everything, I says, well Not me That's not my dream. My dream is going to get better and better and better. But the multiverse is real because all possibilities are being realized. and I said There'll be some version of John Mckeee that goes down that horrible path with you. I'm just letting you know It'll be a different one than this one. What if your day didn't start with chaos, but calm Hatch is built on a simple belief. smallmall intentional bedtime rituals can change how you show up tomorrow peopleeople try to fix their energy by doing more during the day. but real change starts the night before. Hatch Restore is a smart sleep clock designed to help you unplug and create a consistent bedtime routine. 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And so it's one of my favorite favorite statements that you don't have a soul, you are the soul and you have a body. And I loved your metaphor about the clothes. It reminds me of a verse in the Bagwad Gita, which talks about just as We put on clothes and take them off every day. This soul takes our new bodies and takes them off and takes our new ones. Exactly. And that cycle continues. I think that There's such a liberation to that acceptance as well in that ego death as you call it, that If I start to think I am my clothes or I am my car Imagine how hard life becomes.. Imagine how difficult it becomes if every time you're clothes get a bit dirty or there's a little p on them or There's, you know, someone knocks into your car and we even say that when someone hits our car, we say, someone hit me Oh ye, I never thought about that hit a car but I got hit today. And so it's so interesting how quickly we identify with our material casing and what we operate in. And I wanted to ask you that how does that then translate to business and to building a life in the dream as you called it. When you're now trying to operate in the dream, how does that realization actually help? Are you now visioning? In alternate realities, are you now strategizing differently? How does that make you approach building wholeo foods differently? Because Who food is very tangible. It's very real. The way I think about it, and the first chapter in the book is called The Game of lifeife And the very last chapter in the bookse is called the Infinite Game The one self, the one being, has always existed And the the and I think Hinduism talks about this in the Vedanta We're in the one in this stillness in pure beingness and bliss end The big bang occurs and we explode into the multiverse On our adventures And then we come back together again And that's the infinite game. We do it and we'll always do it And so once you realize that it's all a game, that every possibility is realized, we're just going to infinitely create, then you you can frame it up so there's just this Fun game Games so to be fun. and that's a better way to live. It's living your life as it's fun and loving and joyful and that you're creating We are very happy when we're creating things. W children. They're endlessly creative. they're endlessly playful I always tell people, you want to make a friend with a child? All you have to do is one thing. Just play with them. When you play with a child, they start to trust you They begin to find that you're fun to hang around with. You're not like all those other mean grown upps I just think that is a good metaphor for existence itself the metaphor of the game. But an infinite game that we are creating ourselves and playing eternal play because you have an infinite amount of time I mean, there's no beginning, no end. there never will be So Find your own, connect with your soul, find out what your soul wants to do. And then it and have fun and do good in the world I think play's a great analogy because Play is not mental And I think when you say, find out what your soul wants to do, I think the hard part is we're up here going I don't know what my passion is, I don't know what to do. and I'm speaking on behalf of I know people's genuine troubles when they're listening to the show and they're like, well, Jay, like, I don't know what my passion is, I don't know where to start. I don't know what skills I have. And these are all mental arithmetic exercises, whereas what you're saying is not on that level. So how do we get out of our heads? Here's the fact Those are clues The best way is to go directly to the source, visa Vis, breathwork, meditation, do spiritual exercises. However, One clue is the things that give you joy That's a clue. who you are and and what your own heart is calling you to do So I often I get asked all the time. I'll probably get asked out tonight when I'm doing this talk at this university is like, well You know, how do you know what your heart wants you to do. And I said You know you're on the path when you're happy When you're listening to your heart And it's bringing you joy and discovery and creativity and play You're You're on your path. you know. And when it's when you're not experiencing those things, that you're not on the path. And so the things that draw you in like for me when I I moved into that co op and I had my Food awakening All I was interested in I just wanted to learn about food. I wanted to learn about agriculture and organic and regenerative and sustainable and natural foods. And it was like I couldn't get enough of it because I was so interested in it. So those are all clues to what makes your heart sing That's who you're being. that's in this dream. That's what you're trying to create. And you can get in touch with that. through spiritual exercises, in my case, you know my parents wanted me to be a professional. and I talk about in the book, my mother died feeling like I was a failure. She died in nineteen eighty seven because for her Her son was a grocer And for that, I was so downwardly mobile. I never graduated from college. I just have a one hundred and twenty hours of electives studied philosophy and religion, whatever I was interested in, got a great education. I just didn't get credentialed. And for her, the credentials were what really mattered But I was off on my pursuit. I was on my hero's journey and it was giving me happiness and joy. and that's how you know How do you know the difference between The happiness and joy and the discomfort that comes even in the enjoyful path versus the discomfort that is not your path. because I think when people think of like, am I happy and joyful And then things get a bit harder or like you're saying, there were days when Whole Foods could have failed and it doesn't get easy. and then you're like, oh, well, is this bringing me joy now? So how do we have to introduce another character to the story. I mean, we talked about the ego Part of our ego is what I and others call the internal critic The e code really doesn't It judges everyone. The ego's constantly judging. That's the part that's envious That's the part that's angry That's the part that somebody cuts you off in traffic. you know, you say curseed words. And that's the one that's judging us all the time As I got deeper into my own spiritual journey that I saw that the critical life issue for me was I am not worthy of love. because I'm not perfect I do things that I'm regret. I do sometimes identify with the ego and I do things that later on, I think that was I shouldn't have said that. That was But then I have to go you know, just forgiveness to move through it. And there is that part of us that is constantly judging. and that's what it does all the time. It judges everyone else. And it judges and mostly it judges ourselves and then those judgments for ourselves, we project out into the world into the dream And then the dream is manifesting all the time Our emotions, our thoughts are always creating the dream. Here's an interesting thing about the dream We're always a character in our own dreams, right Who are the other characters that seem to be acting independently of us? We're the dreamer? How can they do things different? How And how's that even happened and Once you begin to realize, oh my God, I'm the dreamer, I'm creating those characters as well And they're representations of some of my other inner thoughts, emotions, judgments and whatnot Once you realize that, then it's like you stop being a victim in your own dream So if these things are not working out for you the way you want internal critic wants to project it out into the dream and say I'm a victim These people should be treating me differently I feel righteous in being angry again you're putting out those emotions that are not furthering your life and not bringing you joy and happiness. And then you get You sort of get stuck in it, you get trapped in it And I think that's the human condition in a way. The spiritual journey is to awaken to realize, oh my gosh, it is a dream. I'm the dreamer, I'm the character in the dream And so then how do I treat all the other characters the way I want to be treated. and that's with love. Passion, forgiveness thoughtoughtfulness then that dream begins to change is that's the energy we put out. But you know, it's a path because we will forget. here's what I always tell people, you'll forget You'll go back and you'll start listen to the ego and the internal critic and you'll judge and but you'll forget Oh yes, I remember now it's my spiritual path. It's just a dream I guess one of the big lessons I learned, Jay is that the past doesn't really exist. The past is gone All that's real is right now in this moment. That is what's real. And in this moment, you can choose again In this moment, you can choose love In this moment, you can choose forgiveness And then if you forget That's okay because that's the past. And now in this next moment you can choose again. We have this freedom. That's our freedom. We have freedom in the moment to choose love too choose peace, to choose kindness, to choose forgiveness, to be alive, to be playful And it's okay if we forget. If you get down on yourself for forgetting, then you're empowering that ego to judge you is not perfect When you're sharing love in the moment, you are perfect So you can be perfect in the next moment by just choosing again to be present in the moment. and in the moment, there is love. How did you transfer that energy I'm imagining you as you're building this Huge company before you're walking to a meeting When you're leading a staff meeting, when you're meeting Stakeholders. How was this translating into reality What does that look like when you're leading a company, because you may not be saying these words, but you're trying to live them First of all I didn't do it perfectly. I didn't stay in the love space all the time. I got angry, I got judgmental, I got afraid. all the, you know, fear, envy, they're all there. I didn't claim that I did Whole Foods in any kind of enlightened way all the time I always said Whole Foods was my ashrom That was the place where I got to practice I get to practice forgiveness. I get to practice being the returning to love I did learn some good things we did. I always told people If you want to have a more loving business single thing practice that I most recommend, we would end all our meetings at Whole Foods with appppreciations The two things that can shift that make the mental shift, the emotional shift The spiritual shift One is gratitude I start my days with gratitude because that opens the heart And then you practice forgiveness when you feel like somebody's wronged you, you practice forgiveness But most importantly, we would end our meetings with appreciations. That's incredibly powerful. It's very hard for people to stay in a judgmental frame when you've just appreciated them in an authentic way. I would say people know the difference between somebody who's flattering them because they can feel like they want something from me versus somebody who's genuinely appreciating us. It's very hard to keep your heart closed to that And so as we practiced appreciations in our meetings, I could see the love in the larger team in the larger group spreading. We did it at every level. And that one technique is very, very powerful. I always encourage people that are running businesses or even just running a team If you end your meetings with appreciations, you will find consciousness begins to shift in the dream. I'm so glad you brought that up. I remember when I was am monk one of our practices after compleomting a service or completing an offering that we were doing, whether it was you know, feeding the homeless or serving in our local communities. whooever led that project would go around the room and honor and appreciate each person who was serving with them. And so when I started my company, I would do that at like our Christmas or holiday dinners or at our team events or whatever go around the room and individually speak. uniquely about each person in the room who is doing something and people found it so strange and to me it was the most normal I'd done growing up and it's become such a beautiful ritual that we have because I find it so beautiful to reflect on people's individual contribution and the value that they've brought and to remind them of it. You're seeing their beauty. you're seeing the God part of them, and you are helping them to see it. becausecause as you express that authentically, they can feel your love for them they begin to wonder, maybe I'm actually more lovable than I thought. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And I think We feel the most unloved when we feel unseen. And so if you really want to make someone feel loved, you can only do that by making them feel seen. When people feel seen for who they are and what they contribute and what they bring and how much they have to give and share, then they not only do they see it in themselves, but they feel truly seen so they feel truly lo That's why with the greatest gift we can usually give anyone is just to be present for them in the moment, not lost in our thoughts. It's not, you know, we tend to If we listen and we start thinking about what we want to talk about or what we're going to say and we lose presence. But the greatest git when you can just be fully present for someone, You are loving them by just being present for them and they feel that presence. So I absolutely agree. it's they feel seen. I like that expression of it. I don't want anyone who's listening or watching to be under any false pretensces that I'm always operating from this space either. L I love what you said about There are days when you're agitated and there are days when you're frustrated and there are days when it's not love, it's fear, it's insecurity, it's results. like that's the normal human experience. And I think What I definitely learned is And I love that you use the word ashrim in that sense because that's exactly where Ashram is and Ashram is a place to practice, a place to learn, a place to heal. It's a hospital, not a result center, you know, I think a lot of people don't realize. I remember One of my first days in the monastery, my teacher told me, he said, Don't forget this is a hospital. like everyone next to you has got an illness and so do you. And the moment you start thinking everyone around you is perfect is when you won't like this place at all because you came here seeking perfection when actually you should have come here seeking practice Obviously found a good found a good teacher. I do. I'm very lucky. I have a great set of teachers, but I love the use of the language appropriately, it functions so well. And I love that we're having a spiritual conversation about business. This is so fulfilling to me. So thank you so much for this opportunity because it's such a new take. We've had business leaders on the podcast before this is a very different thing When you're thinking about growth I think going back to that conscious capitalism point earlier do think a lot of spiritual people still feel hung up about being ambitious about being results driven about being focused on a goal They feel in some way deep inside of them, we have that wiring that if you're striving For more You're in some way ungrateful, unsatisfied. you could be desir. Yeah. so let's talk about that. If that's your asham, it's a more difficult path You know, the old saying, it's easy to be a sain on a mountain topop. I'm talking about being a saint while you're building a business That's not so easy to do because shit happens. and how you respond to that That's your opportunity. It' how you choose to respond to the circumstances you find in your dream. How how will you show up? I think the key is you won't always show up well. You'll make some mistakes, but don't have to get lost there because you can remember who you are. Rember who you are And then that next moment, you can choose differently. We can snap back to it right now, whenever we want to. And that took me a long time to learn. Sometimes I might be lost in the dream for for days and days, even weeks at a time. and then I remember, oh my Godd 've been such a jerk And then instead of bank beating myself up for not being perfect, it's like This next moment, Im no longer. I am present again. into the love space. People often ask me like why like how do you function in business? And obviously now I live in LA and everything else and it's I actually relish the battle becausecause I'm reminded every day that I'm not a saint When I'm here whereas on the mountain top I potentially believe that I've If you think you're a saint. Yeah.'ve already you've already forgotten. Yeah, exactly, exactly. The ego's always trying it's like, you're gonna to do this spiritual thing? I'm going be the very best there is. Exactly, exactly. That's the ego trying to maintain control, so to speak. I love the idea that I live in a universe that constantly holds up a mirror to me I'm constantly reminded of my desires, my lower nature, my higher nature, the complexities of it. And I love that battle. I relish it because That's what reminds me to stay on the journey and stay on the path and stay committed. And I wanted to ask you like when you Had moments of difficulty where you feel you are moving away from love in business. and away from compassion Did you come up with any practices or habits or tools that you back in Pople would oftentimes when you have difficult situations, let's say you have to fire somebody or you have a business that you're going to shut down These are very painful, very, very difficult things to do. You know people are going to be hurt. Because we know people are going to be hurt Pul and the only right call is compassion But you have to think about what's the collective good for all and you have to make some difficult decisions because you're always thinking, what's my win win win solution? goodood for me, good for you, good for all of us And that sometimes means you have to do difficult things But it's how you do that makes all the difference and how you show up If you show up in your heart with love and compassion you're probably going to have a Even though it's difficult, it's probably going to go well and you'll maintain a relationship because they can feel your genuine love for them If you do it with judgment and anger. It's like, you know, you're just getting what you deserve, Th then you've missed it That's anotherother opportunity will'll say to to be in the heart space. and do the difficult things. It's like it's a skill that you have to practice. And if you practice it You will get better at it And you'll still make mistakes, but then you'll learn from those mistakes. If you just continue to view it all as an opportunity to learn and grow and spiritually evolve, and that you will make some mistakes and you will learn from them. And it's like you were talking about learning from those that, you know, instead of envying them, you study them. Well, it's the same thing with You learn from your own mistakes. One practice that's very helpful here, Jay, is to have people that love you. You can talk about all the stuff with And they will tell you the truth. They'll say, John You were really harsh in that. you were not you were not in a loving space when you did that, wereere you And it's like No, I really wasn't. And he saidays, Well, what are you to do about it I said, I'm going to go apologize. I really do think underestimate the power of forgiveness. We will make mistakes Mess up us up. When you make a mistake, when you hurt somebody, when you're not in your heart, when you're in angry judgmental space And the next moment you can choose love Part of choosing love is to go ahead E ego doesn't like to admit it made mistakes, it doesn't like to apologize, it doesn't like to ask forgiveness. That will restore you into that love flow So he has to be willing to go ahead and admit that you are not perfect, that you made mistakes And then as you do that, you can then let go of it. and then you can return What if your day didn't start with chaos, but calm Hatch is built on a simple belief. smallmall intentional bedtime rituals can change how you show up tomorrow peopleeople try to fix their energy by doing more during the day. but real change starts the night before. Hatch Restore is a smart sleep clock designed to help you unplug and create a consistent bedtime routine. 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It's how simple and accessible they're made therapy With over thirty thousand therapists and more than six million people served globally They've helped so many people find support that fits into their lives They also match you with a therapist based on a questionnaire, and if it's not the right fit, you can switch anytime You don't have to say yes to everything this summer findind support in therapy Sign up and get ten percent off at betterterhelp. com Forward slash J's top three Bet HLP. com Forward slash J's top three. John, you talk about The term seven leadership And I feel like today More than ever, we don't really have good role models of We don't have it We don't have presidential We're yeah, it's so far away from that. And I feel like Svant leadership, compassionate leadership, conscious leadership, all of these things you'd hope are in business schools and colleges and universities, but they're not. And if it does come up, it comes up because it's hey, it would be profitable to be this way. or we still haven't got to a place where people realize that We should create businesses because they'd be good for our kids and future generations or we should create something that positively impacts the world. we're still not there yet. T tell you something you probably never thought about before teaches in medical schools Profess is in your doctors Yeah Who teaches in law schools? Lawyers? Wh teaches in our business schools? notot business people They're intellectuals, they're academics And it's not that that's bad. it's just that they don't have the experience of actually Bleeding. They have a theory about leadership There's a reason why medical schools and law schools actually have real professionals that are teaching them the skills that they need to know And I think it's part of where we've gone wrong in business. We have people that have almost no experience in business teaching our students. So they can't teach from actual experience I was leadeadership They don't really know about it because they have never really done it. So that's one reform that we need to do. There needs to be sort of a tradition, I think that If you're passing your wisdom on, if you're a retired business leader, that you should be it's one of reason I'm going to go speak at this university tonight. I'm going to be talking to business students and I want to be sharing my experiences. as we talk about this book That's going to be invaluable to them because that's not something they're getting in an MBA program. Obviously, the decision to sell to Amazon was not one that you Made lightly? No. explain what was hard, easy about Of course, it's alwaysoice about, you know, where do you start the story? And in this case I won't give the background for how we got into this position. but The short answer is, Whole Foods is being attacked by shareholder activists Our stock had declined in the last couple of years. and then the shareholder activist is somebody that generally wants to make change to get the stock price up and then they'll make they'll make money doing that. So they're very short term focused We had a shareholder activist called Jana Partners They didn't want to work with us. They just, they said, we're going to take over your board and we're going to as soon we get to control the board, we're going to fire you ire other parts of the management team, and then we're going to just sell the business to the highest bidder And there's not anything you can do about it left a little bit stronger language than that So for me, it was like kept asking this question. It was a spiritual question What is the win win win solution here What is the best thing for all of our stakeholders? How do our customers win How do our employees win? How do our suppliers win? How do our investors win? How do the communities that we're part of win And I looked at all the different alternatives and I kept but I kept asking that question. I really do believe when you ask question and you stay on it And you keep asking your soul for the answer It emerges and I remember waking up one morning And it just popped into my brain right when I woke up And I knew it was the right answer. It said, what about Amazon because it was kind of a crazy idea that when Amazon wasn't didn' have any grocery stores I'd met Jeff Bezos the year before at the conference and he and I had really kind of hit and off. you know, we had a lot of common interest. Jeff was he loved to read science fiction and fantasy. We shared that in common. He liked to scuba dive. I've done a lot of scuba diving around the world He's an entrepreneur I'm an entrepreneur and entrepreneurs generally can find lots of things to talk about, talk about their businesses. He was very interested in Whole Foods. We were on a panel together and so I really liked him. I admire when Amazon had creat And Jeff is one of the smartest most creative people I've ever met. We looked at other possibilities. Maybe Warren Buffett would buy the company and it'd be in friendly hands. He joked and said, I own dairy quQeen and I eat junk food. This isn't a good fit for me. And we talked to Albertsonons and we realized, oh my God, that would be terrible for us to be part of that company We thought about going private, but then you're taking on, you know, twelve thirteen billion dollars on your balance sheet and you have to pay that back and take you have to pay interest on it. economy has a downturn like it did in two thousand eight You might fail, and you're also giving control of your business or private equity people and they'll have different motivations. just make money So we didn't have a good answer and the other answer was to fight Janna. But Whole Foods needed time turn around his business. We needed time to lower our prices. If you're selling something for a dollar And all of a sudden now you sell it for ninety cents in the short run Your sales fall Your same store sales fall. Profits fall And when you have activists, you know, that want immediate turn around then that's not we need it that takes a couple of years before lower prices will help your customers see, well Whole Foods is actually not whole paycheck any longer. I love the store and now it's more affordable to shop there pops in my brain about Amazon. We flew, they were very interested right from the beginning. And we flew out there and I met with Jeff and three of his leaders and I had three of my leaders and was four on four. And we talked for about three hours just about what we could do together. And they were not They were not your typical corporate types. These were extremely intelligent people veryery creative. We had they had a lot of good ideas about what we could do together And I remember when we left there My team and I went to a restaurant and we were sitting around talking about it, and they said, That was an incredible conversation. Those guys are not anything like I thought they would be. They're so smart. And they're so creative It'd be fun to work with them. It'd be a blast And then it was like, well, do you think they liked us too? And it turned out they did. And they flew to Austin just a few days later and they started due diligence and six weeks after that initial meeting We struck a deal. And When people ask me, you haveving any regrets about selling to Amazon The honest answer is You know Given the circumstances, that was the best solution I regret that the circumstances were such that that was our best solution But it was the best solution. If I had to do it again under the same circumstances, it would been far better than Janna. selling us to Albertson's or Kroger or some other supermarket chain that wouldn't understand our values, our culture. Amazon has largely not te but's largely that Whole Foods keep its culture and operate independently. Now now it's with me gone in particular two years now, they made more changes than they did when I was there, partly because I resisted a lot of the changes they wanted to do. Let me just point out how it was a win, win win. We got to cut our prices significantly four times in the first two years. It costs Amazon undreds of millions of dollars for us to do that. But they think long term, they're willing to make that investment and put wholeold fees in a soundnder long term financial footing Increase the pay of every hourly team member in Whole Foods within thirty days of the merger occurring. cost them hundreds of millions of dollars So it was good for our team members, good for our customers It was good for our suppliers because one thing Amazon did was study every supplier we had And they discovered we had all these suppliers they didn't know about that they put into their amazon. com and started selling their foods and their products And so it was a big boom And they didn't tell us we had to get rid of anybody. They just studied and learned from us. It was good for our investors because the stock you know, we sold it for thirty percent more than than it was before we started talking to Amazon And u, It was good for the communities that we were part of. Amazon did not change our philanthropic. activities for wholeood the whole Planet Foundation or the whole Kids Foundation. In fact, they gave more money to it There were lots of taxes paid to governments because of the capital gains that were done. And so I think about every one of the stakeholders was better off as a result of the Amazon merger was It wasn't perfect. I did fight with Amazon a lot. I would say Whole Foods is a more heart based company. Amazon's a more professional culture. People are there to work there for a while, get it on their resume and then get a higher paying job somewhere else. There's not as much loyalty in that company whereereas Whole Foods. That's thing that surprised Amazon when they dug under the hood at Who Foods it's like Wow, you've had so many people workking twenty, thirty, even forty years here. How do you do that I told him the truth. I said, Gys, if want if you want longevity You just give people two things. giveive them purpose People need purpose. They want to feel like their work is contributing to making the world a better place in some way or fashion or is helping people. And secondly, they want to feel they're loved. They want to feel they're cared for. So if you give people purpose and love