John Mackey: Not Sure You're on the Right Path In Your Career? (Use THIS Framework When You Feel Lost About What's Next)

In its forty four years of service as CEO, the Natural and Organic grosser grew from a single store in Austin, Texas, to five hundred and forty stores in the US and Canada, with annual sales exceeding twenty two billion dollars. John co founded the Conscious Capitalism movement and co authored the New York Times and Wall Street Journal best selling book entitled Conscious Capitalism, Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, and then

the follow up Conscious Leadership Elevating Humanity through Business. John is also the co author of The Whole Foods Diet, The Life Saving Plan for Health and Longevity, and the Whole Foods Cookbook. And today we're talking about his latest book, which is called The Whole Story Adventures in Love, 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 Mackie. John, it's great to have you here. Thank you so much.

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 that initial thoughts.

I want to thank you for coming into my life at a very pivotal and important moment for me.

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. And 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 synchronicities occurred. 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 in our first year at Whole Feeds Market where we had eight feet of water, and I didn't know. We'll call it a near death experience, but actually it was turned out in retrospective and a great thing. It

taught us a lot. It taught me about stakeholders and how we're all interconnected, and how there are people that love you. Your 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, if you reframe them, they were all lessons to be learned on the hero's journey on the path. So no,

I never really thought that would fail. I always thought it would be successful, but you know, we almost did a few times, but we didn't.

the wearables, and we have the consciousness that need. 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. Well, today 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 a course, that's what humanity needs, right, collective awakening, collective enlightenment. And yeah, so I feel like I'm still on the path.

was raised as a Christian, so traditional Christianity. The deeper spiritual awakening 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 to meet 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 or get an MBA do you know, be respectable.

And but that totally knocked 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? Darwinni darwinni and survival of the fittest? Is there a deeper spirituality? And of course that's not found necessarily externally.

It's an interiority. It's found within our own being, within our own consciousness, and the psychul the lsd awakened me to that possibility, and then I began to read Eastern religions. I studied religion, meditating uh. And then I continued on that journey and 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, and I was just part of the one only there's only the one being, and I just realized that at the essence I remembered it. Actually it was like, oh, yeah, forgot here it is. And that changed everything because then I was like, all right, I can create to 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. And I moved into this food co op when I was twenty 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, Mam, I meet some cool people in the vegetarian co op, and I did, and I had a food awakening. But until then I just kind of ate the standard American diet, a lot

of junk food. I was more like a car got to take get in to get gasoline periodically to run fuel. As long as the fuel tastes good, I'll eat it. 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 and it was like I loved it. I loved I was in a community of employees that

I shared a lot of current 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 it was called Proana House and talked to my girlfriend, Renee. I think that time I was probably about twenty three,

name was four years younger, so she was nineteen, and I said, Renee, what do you think if we open up our own store. Don't you think i'd be cool? And she said, oh, mac Oman, that'd be really cool.

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, is what are you experiencing for someone who may not actually know what that means or feels like.

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 felt that experience. That kind of speaking to that audience in a way. But I also tell people that don't want to do psychedelics that there are other pathways that are gentler that

they can have transcendent experiences. Meditation is one good way, but that generally takes a little bit longer for people.

I've found that breath work is very, very powerful, and I've worked with that for years, and you can have a transcendent experience on breath work 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 in your interioror self, and it's beginning to emerge, and that can scare people

so they about 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. Not the best chancel lear, but it's a really good way to do it that's safe and nothing to be afraid of. You just breathing. So I encourage people that the psychedelics might scare them. Just don't believe that there 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 of 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 month, and so your own experiments you might say, or adventures in this part of your psyche, are probably very amazing. One of my friends, he always wants me to try to explain it to

him in rational terms. His name is Alec, and I say, Alec, listen, I can talk about this, but if you really want to know what I'm talking about, you have to do the experiments. Because you're skeptical and you're asking me to prove it to you, and I'll say I can prove it to you if you will do the meditation, if you'll do the breath work, 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 on 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.

means in a sky or in a universe, as you were saying, and he talks about in the same way as 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 explained 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 everyone 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 read 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 bills, I'm trying to survive, Like.

It helped him make him wealthy because he kind of had his interior together, which made it easier. But a lot of times people are not interested in the interior part because they feel like, well, I don't see how that's going to help me in my day to day pursuit of wealth, fame, success, power, whatever. But those things, ultimately, what people will discover when they get those they don't really make them happy. What makes people happy ultimately is love.

And having that connection to other people, to 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 most people get addicted to them if they pursue them, and then they forget about, like said Dartha did in his book, He forgot about. Oh I forgot as he got deeper in the material plane, he got

lost in it. So I think people that are dedicating their lives to making money or pursuing some thing in the material plane, that's what their whole life is devoted to, they will find when if they when they get it, that it's not really what they want it all along. And so if you can do these things together, you pursue your own interior spirituality, your own interior growth as a person, the spiritual part of you is that develops and opens and awakens. Then you're going to appreciate the

external world even more 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 that's 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, then you're in a position to have it all, which is to be to achieve the success that you want to lie 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 soul's satisfaction.

from illusion. Because you could have everything in the world and be envious and feel like you don't have anything.

takeaway for me today.

Could you describe what an ego death is for someone who may be new to the idea or may not be aware of how you're referring to it.

I am. I don't identify with my clothes. Most people don't, but some people do. Some 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 your ego is dissolved, you won't really understand what I'm talking about. But one of the great things about it is is that once you realize you're not your ego, you can also begin to let go

of your fear of death. Because what we are at the deeper part of our being is the oneself, the one being we all are, so in a sense, we are immortal, but not our 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 to oh, yes, I remember here I am again. And I'm not John Mackey. I'm not that ego. I'm

not that the body's going to dissolve and disappear. But the essence of what we are, that the one being, the oneself 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, then 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 life is really a dream, and I think that's a good metaphor to understand what we're doing here. I oftentimes we'll describe it as have you had experience of a lucid dream before? So in a lucid 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 you can 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 a happy dream, a dream of love, a 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. It becomes a happier and happier dream, because that's the dream that you're creating. I've always tell my

friends it's like I believe in the multiverse. It's because when I get to a doom and gloomer that says we're all going to destroy everything, I says, well, yeah, 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 Mackie that goes down that horrible path with you. I'm just letting you know it'll be a different one than this.

new bodies and takes them off and takes on new ones exactly, and that cycle continues. And 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 your clothes get a bit dirty, or there's a little rip 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. Never thought about that hit us. 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 different How does that make you approach building whole foods differently? Because whole foods is very tangible, it's very real.

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 can you can frame it up. So there's just this fun game. Games should be fun, and that's a better way to live. It's living your life is it's fun and loving and joyful, and that you're creating. We are very happy when we're creating things. Watch children,

they're endlessly creative, they're endlessly playful. I always tell people you want to make a friend with the 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 ups. 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 that never will be. So yeah, find your own, connect with your soul, find out what your soul wants to do, and then do it and have fun and do good in the world.

where to stop. 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?

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 on your path, you know. And 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 moved into that co op and I had my food awakening, and all I was interested in I just wanted to learn about food I want 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 saying, 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 grosser. And for that, I was so downwardly mobile. Graduated from college. I just have one hundred and twenty

hours of electives. I just studied philosophy and religion whenever I was interested in. Got a great education. I just didn't get credentialed. And for her, the credentials are what really mattered. But I was off on my pursuit. I was on my hero's journey, and it was given me happiness and joy. And that's how you know, how do you.

Like 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 regret. I do sometimes identify with the ego, and I do things that later on I think that was it. I shouldn't have said that that was and I but then I have to go, you know, practice forgiveness to move through it. 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 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 character in our own dreams, right, Who are the other characters that seem to be acting independently of us? Where are the dreamer? How can they do things different? And how's that even happen?

And once you begin to realize, oh my god, I'm the dreamer, I'm creating those characters as well, and their 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 that, the 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. But 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 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, compassion, forgiveness, thoughtfulness. 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 here's what I always tell people. You'll forget. You'll go back and you'll start listening to that ego in the internal critic, and you'll judge and you'll but you'll forget that. Oh yes, I remember, now, it's my spiritual path. It's just a dream.

In this moment, you can choose love, and 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, to choose peace, to choose kindness, to choose forgive us 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, But 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.

I did learn some good things we did. I always tell people, if you want to have a more loving business, the single thing practice that I most recommend, we would end all our meetings at Whole Foods with appreciations. The two things that can ship 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

has 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 always say people can 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're in your meetings with appreciations, you will find consciousness begins to shift in the dream.

or at our team events or whatever. 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 thing I've 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.

in that sense, because that's exactly what ashrom is. And ushrom is a place to practice, a place to learn, a place to heal. It's a hospital, not a results 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 as when you weren't like this place at all because you came here seeking perfection, when actually you should have come here seeking practice.

you're thinking about growth. I think, going back to that conscious capitalism point earlier, I do you 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. Well, you could be desired. Yeah, so let's talk about that.

And I think the key is you won't alway show up. Well, you'll make some mistakes, but don't have to get lost there because you can remember who you are, remember who you are and then that next moment and 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 god, look I've been such a jerk.

And then instead of beating myself up for not being perfect, it's like, yes, but this next moment, I'm no longer I am present again. I'm back into the love space.

when I'm here, whereas on the mountaintop I could potentially believe that I've.

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 locked you back in.

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, good 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, then you've missed it. That's another opportunity, will say, 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. You learn from your own mistakes. One practice is very helpful here, Jay, is to have people that love you that you can talk about all this stuff with and they will tell you the truth. They'll say, John, you were really harsh in that you were not in a loving space when you did not, were you? And it's like, no, I

really wasn't. And he said, well, what are you going to do about it? And I said, I'm going to go apologize. I really do think we underestimate the power of forgiveness. We will make mistakes, mess up, Fess up when you make a mistake, when you hurt somebody, when you're not in your heart, when you're in an angry, judgmental space. The next moment, you can choose love and

part of choosing love is to go ahead. The ego doesn't like to admit it made mistakes, it doesn't like to apologize, it doesn't like to ask for forgiveness, but that will restore you into that love flow. So you have to be willing to go ahead and admit that you're not perfect, that you made mistakes, and then as you do that, you can then let go of it and then you can return.

we should create something that positively impacts the world. There was still not there yet.

Not 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 leading. They have a theory about leadership. There's a reason why medical schools in 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 of leadership. 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 For one 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 experience as we talked about this book that's going to be invaluable to them because that's not something they're getting in an NBA program.

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 a control the board, we're going to fire you, fire 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, and left and a little bit stronger language than that. So for me, it was like I 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 were 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 the question and you stay on it and you keep asking your soul for the answer, that

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 when Amazon wasn't they have any grocery stores. I'd met Jeff Bezos the year before at the conference, and he and I had really kind of hit it 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 a 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 you, to 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 what Amazon had created, 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 set own dairy Queen, and I eat junk food. This isn't a good fit for me. And we talked to Albertson's and we realized, oh my god, they would 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 you take

and you had to pay interest on it. The economy has a downturn like it did in two thousand and eight, you might fail, and you're also giving control of your business or of private equity people, and they'll have different, different motivations just make money. So we didn't have a good answer, and the other answer was to fight Jana. But Whole Foods needed time to turn around. Its 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, your profits fall. And when you have activists, you know that want immediate, quick turnaround, then that's not we needed. That takes a couple of years before lower prices will help your customers see what Whole Foods is actually not whole paycheck any longer.

I love the store now it's more affordable to shop there. When I popped 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. It 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, very creative. 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 have many regrets about selling to Amazon, and 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 have been far better than Jana selling us to Albertsons or Kroger or some other supermarket chain that wouldn't understand our values, our culture. Amazon has largely, not completely, but largely they had Whole Foods keep its culture and operate independently. Now

it's with me gone. In particular, two years now, they've 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 cost Amazon hundreds of millions of dollars for us to do that, but they think long term, they're willing to make that investment put Whole Foods in a sounder long

term financial footing. They increased the pay of every hourly team member and Whole Foods within thirty days of the merger occurring, and that cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. So that 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 dot 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 they know, we sold it for thirty percent more than than it was before we started talking to Amazon, and it was good for the communities that we were

part of. Amazon did not change our philanthropic activities for Whole food 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. So I think about every one of the stakeholders was better off as a result of the Amazon merger, but it wasn't perfect. I did fight with Amazon a lot. I would say Whole Foods is a more heart based company. Amazon's are more professional culture. People 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

was Whole Foods. That's a surprise Amazon. When they dug under the hood at Whole Foods, It's like, Wow, you've had so many people work in twenty thirty even forty years here. How do you do that? And I told him the truth. I said, guys, if you want longevity, you just give people two things. Give 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 fashioners 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, yeah, why would they ever want to leave? Professional cultures don't generally give either one of those.

at all. I'm not judging you. Are they doing some things I don't agree with tons of stuff, but you know, you've got to support the new leadership that comes in knowing that they got to make their mark and they've

got to follow their own their own hearts in a way. And also, here's the thing, Jay, I couldn't really do love life until I gave up Whole Foods. That's what my heart was telling me to do. It's like you're I wasn't happy anymore at Whole Foods. I was fighting with Amazon some and I wasn't being creative anymore. The game, the playfulness of it, the ability to create that was

all kind of disappeared for me. I was just running a huge corporation for somebody else that wasn't the same kind of I didn't have the same kind of joy in it. Remember how I said earlier, you know when you're on the right path because you're happy. Yeah, I wasn't happy. I loved Whole Foods and I but I wasn't experiencing that same Jeury Devrie that I had before that was sold. And so it's hard for me to

let go of it because I loved it so much. Yeah, but when I did let it go, then the new possibilities emerged.

particularly my chief financial officer, Glenda Flanagan, and she was so much better at hiring than I was, so I just learned to kind of trust her. It's like, if Glinda was she didn't think they were going to be good. I learned the hard way. If I hired them anyway, I'd regret it. I really do believe that you need to create a team. CEOs get and founders get way too much credit. They get too much credit and too

much blame. You're always doing it in a team. If you look behind Steve Jobs or an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. I remember I told you how great that Amazon team was, and Jeff was brilliant, so were all those other people working there. There's just a lot of super smart people working for Amazon, highly creative people. So Jeff was able to attract and build a great team. And so you're kind of no better than your team.

And I was good at attracting good people, but I wasn't good at just earning who was a good cultural fit or whose weaknesses weren't going to take them down and unharm the organization. I depended on the other people to make those calls.

just struggling at the job. Particularly. What I learned is that when you oftentimes people would get promoted because they had done a good job at a lower level, right, so they're ready for the you think they're ready for the next step. For many people, they're not ready for that next step, and then they get fired. And what we had at Whole Food to call it recycling, and it was like, you know what, you were really successful

at your previous job. I want you to go back there because you're not happy, you're struggling, and I want you to go back, and then you'll get an opportunity in.

for the good of the company. And if you're not willing to do it, I used to tell myself because I never enjoyed doing I was always challenged for me. But it was like, if you're not willing to do this, and you should step aside because this is what needs to happen. And if you're not willing to do that,

they're not a very good leader. So you have to do what you really know is best for the organization. Other people are counting on you to make good decisions and build a great company. And if Steve Jobs used to say, which I really like what Steve would say, he'd say, A listers hire other A listers, B listers hire C listers because they hire people that aren't as good as them because it makes them feel better about themselves. Good leaders hire people as good or better than themselves

and they are not threatened by their strengths. Yeah, because they know that's what will make the organization better.

Food's Market. John, it's been such a true pleasure to have you in the studio here today, and I hope you come back for many, many more And congratulations on an incredible journey, incredible book, and really excited to see what you continue to do with everything that you're building with love life.