John Mackey - From Conscious Capitalism to The Whole Story

00:00:04:23 - 00:00:26:05 Jonathan Keyser: Well, welcome back, everyone, to the Jonathan Keyser podcast. It is my distinct honor today to be able to introduce a good friend, longtime business mentor of mine, and someone that really has shifted the consciousness of the business world in a meaningful way. 00:00:26:07 - 00:00:27:09 Jonathan Keyser: Mr. John Mackey, 00:00:27:09 - 00:00:31:00 Jonathan Keyser: co-founder and CEO for 44 years of whole Foods. Welcome, my friend. 00:00:31:15 - 00:00:33:19 John Mackey: Thanks for having me on. Jonathan, good to see you again. 00:00:33:21 - 00:00:41:07 Jonathan Keyser: Great to see you. So we're here. And for those who are on video, you can see the stack of books behind me here. John originally 00:00:41:07 - 00:01:01:17 Jonathan Keyser: co-wrote the Conscious Capitalism book, and that was that was kind of the first time that I had been introduced to the fundamental concepts of conscious capitalism. John, can you just talk in a really high level about that as a starting point as we kind of dive into this conversation about your new book? 00:01:01:19 - 00:01:33:22 John Mackey: Sure. Conscious Capitalism is it is capitalism. So I always have to want to now preface it because there's so much confusion. It's not it's not socialism. It's it's capitalism. It's it's shareholder capitalism. But it's it's it's really not a it's not an economic system. It's not a it's not a governing philosophy or governance governance structure. It's really a management philosophy. 00:01:33:22 - 00:01:56:17 John Mackey: How you should manage your business. And we have three principles or four principles in the book that that are they would call the pillars of conscious capitalism. The first one is every business has this potential for a higher purpose besides just making money. Again, nothing wrong with making money. Business doesn't make money. It it'll die. Profits are the lifeblood of business. 00:01:56:23 - 00:02:19:15 John Mackey: Yeah, but similarly to what Ed Freeman says, the founder stakeholder theory that my body has to produce red blood cells or I'll die. But it doesn't logically follow that. That, therefore, is the purpose of my of my life is to produce red blood cells. It's just it's necessary. But not the purpose. And similarly, doctors, they make a lot of money, But that's not their purpose to make money. 00:02:19:15 - 00:02:44:08 John Mackey: Their purpose is to help heal people. Teachers also are paid, but they educate. Engineers construct things, architects design things. And every every one of the professions refers back to some type of serve vis that they are doing for other people. And money is exchanged for those services. Well, business is no different. It's the greatest value creator in the world and ultimately business. 00:02:44:10 - 00:03:06:00 John Mackey: The higher purpose that every business will refer back to in some form or fashion, to the value that they're creating for their customers and goods and services or whatever else it is that they're trading with their customers. So that purpose needs to be articulated. It can be inspiring to the business. It's the North Star, for example. Whole Foods is purpose. 00:03:06:00 - 00:03:25:12 John Mackey: What higher purpose was to nourish people and the planet? We're in the food business. We're selling healthy food, we're trying to nourish people. And that nourishment is not just for food. We wanted to create a type of culture that was caring. And people love to work at Whole Foods. We're one of the best companies to work for in America for 20 consecutive years. 00:03:25:14 - 00:03:48:13 John Mackey: Okay, second pillar beside after you get past higher purpose is that all stakeholders matter. There's a sort of stakeholder interdependence, and by stakeholders I mean customers are a stakeholder. It means they have a stake in the business and they're trading with the business voluntarily. So customers have a stake. They trade, employees have a stake, they trade, suppliers have a stake. 00:03:48:13 - 00:04:07:15 John Mackey: They trade. Investors have a stake. They trade and communities that we're part of, they have a stake and they also trade with the business. Right. So and once you understand that they are all important, they're not all equally important. That's something I think is confused today that I make a statement of. So clearly a business exists to create value for customers. 00:04:07:15 - 00:04:28:20 John Mackey: So in my mind, a customer is the most important stakeholder and since you don't even need employees, they don't come until later. The second most important stakeholder are the owners of the business. So those are the big two. And then but very shortly as you grow a business, you begin to have to have employees. And so they're become important because they're the ones creating value for the customers. 00:04:28:22 - 00:04:56:09 John Mackey: And if they're unhappy, then you're going to probably have unhappy customers too. And then suppliers every business has to be getting, whether it be energy from energy or or water or electricity or goods, the goods that you might be turning into something else. Your manufacturing, we all have a variety of suppliers. Whole Foods had tens of thousands of suppliers, for example, all around the world, for that matter. 00:04:56:11 - 00:05:25:16 John Mackey: So all these stakeholders are sort of interdependent. And once you begin to see that, then you can manage the business more consciously so that you're creating these win win win scenarios. So all the stakeholders are benefiting that you don't have these. I mean, there are always going to be some trade offs in business, but the conscious business is seeking to minimize those trade offs, seeking to create the most value for their customers and all their other stakeholders in a conscious way. 00:05:25:18 - 00:05:46:20 John Mackey: And then third, the third principle of conscious capitalism is that we need we need we need a different kind of leader leaders that are not just there to line their own pockets and make as much money as possible while they're leading the business. We need leaders that are trying to fulfill the higher purpose of the business and that are servant leaders. 00:05:47:01 - 00:06:16:02 John Mackey: They're in service to the higher purpose of the business. They're in service to the stakeholders there. That's really what their their job is. And so I really believe in that concept of conscious leadership. And then fourth, it's about creating cultures that allow human beings to flourish. It's very interesting today when we have saw these remote work cultures that have popped up after COVID, and I kind of believe in a hybrid model, not to get us too far afield on that one. 00:06:16:02 - 00:06:35:10 John Mackey: That's good that we can not have to be in the office every day. But it's very hard to maintain a culture if you're not connecting in person. So we now have to invent brave new world we're in. We have to find ways to create cultures that allow human beings to flourish while also allowing some remote work, in some cases some of the time. 00:06:35:12 - 00:06:48:05 John Mackey: So those are the four pillars higher purpose, all stakeholders matter and are interdependent conscious leadership and a conscious culture. And that's what we wrote the book about. Those are the four principles. 00:06:48:07 - 00:07:21:00 Jonathan Keyser: Yeah. And I you know, for me it's easy. I've met a lot of leaders and I have gotten to know a lot of leaders and I read a lot of leaders books. And for me, what's different about you and I know you're humble and you'll brush off this compliment, but it's very, very true for me is of all the mentors and leaders in my life that are kind of out there pushing the envelope on a number of different important issues, to me, you really walk the walk. 00:07:21:00 - 00:07:53:15 Jonathan Keyser: I mean, I've gotten to know you personally. You know, you've been kind enough to let me stay at your home. Like like I have seen firsthand the truth in the message. And so for me, it's one thing to write a book. It's another thing to create an entire movement. And I would suggest and I'm sure that there's others that, you know, have contributed as well, but I would suggest that the single biggest factor in transforming business as a force for good in the world in this century has been the movement of conscious capitalism. 00:07:53:19 - 00:08:14:13 Jonathan Keyser: And I remember the first time I walked into Conscious Capital CEO Summit, and I looked around and I listened to what was being talked about and I met the people. And here I am thinking I'm out on an island talking about loving and serving and helping people and changing an industry. A really cutthroat commercial real estate brokerage industry through love and service. 00:08:14:15 - 00:08:30:10 Jonathan Keyser: And everybody I talked to like, Oh yeah, that's what we're doing as well. And I'm like, Well, I finally found my tribe and this is amazing, you know? So maybe talk a little about the movement, because I think it even led to the Business Roundtable kind of shifting some of their philosophies in a public way. 00:08:30:12 - 00:08:40:13 John Mackey: Well, well, thank you. That's a very high compliment. I will brush it off is not really fundamentally true. I, I think we're part of a larger movement. 00:08:40:13 - 00:08:42:22 Jonathan Keyser: And I told you that. 00:08:42:22 - 00:08:52:20 John Mackey: I actually feel like conscious capitalism is actually under attack, is under attack from two sides, both misunderstanding what it is. 00:08:52:20 - 00:09:08:05 John Mackey: So it's being attacked by tradition. I want to I want to circle back to what I said previously. It's a management philosophy. It's not an economic system, nor is it a governance. It's meant to be a set of governance laws and regulations. 00:09:08:07 - 00:09:12:16 John Mackey: And that's where the confusion comes out, because a lot of the traditional camp, 00:09:12:16 - 00:09:39:08 John Mackey: the shareholder capitalists are attacking it because they're afraid that this is like a Trojan horse, sheep and wolf's clothing attempting to take power and control of corporations away from the owners and redistribute it to various stakeholders and so that the profits would be redistributed. And you no longer have the owners controlling the business. 00:09:39:11 - 00:09:47:13 John Mackey: And that is not what conscious capitalism is. But we're constantly being attacked by people from the from the shareholders because they think that's what it is. And counter. 00:09:47:13 - 00:09:51:12 Jonathan Keyser: To that, if that's if that's the concern, what's the response. 00:09:51:14 - 00:10:16:07 John Mackey: There? My response to traditional shareholder capitalists is we have no conflict. I believe the business should be controlled by the owners. I mean, think about it. The owners get paid last in all these exchanges. They get paid last for everybody else's get paid. Think about it. If take a grocery store as an example so our customers get paid, they come in, they get their goods. 00:10:16:07 - 00:10:36:08 John Mackey: Sometimes they they they actually if they go to the prepared foods, they might even eat their food before they have to pay for it. But they're getting paid. They're they're taking those goods and services and leaving the store and they're paying for it and they're getting paid. The exchange is happening right then. There's no delay in time. Right now, team members are employees. 00:10:36:08 - 00:11:00:03 John Mackey: They work and they get paid every two weeks. So they're putting their labor out first and then they're getting paid for that labor within a two week span supplier hours have a longer time horizon in the grocery business. It's usually 30 days. And the book business, which I also happen to be in, it's usually could be up to six months or even a year sometimes before they have to pay. 00:11:00:05 - 00:11:42:19 John Mackey: And so in the grocery business, it's 30 days and usually you have a net, you get a discount if you are net ten, right, and get one or 2% discount to pay with intent. So most people want that discount they pay within ten days. So there's and then so when does the government get paid or when is that the the communities that were part of that that that provide energy and they're getting paid usually within 30 days or if they're taking employment taxes, they're getting paid every couple of weeks and they may not get there in if they're if you're a very profitable company, they're going to want you to pay quarterly income taxes. 00:11:42:19 - 00:12:04:08 John Mackey: If you're in a in a state that charges corporate taxes, income taxes. So so the communities and government are getting paid as they go along, when to the investors get paid? Well, first of all, they don't get paid at all. If there's nothing left over. So people are always wanting to redistribute profits and there may not even be any profits. 00:12:04:08 - 00:12:23:11 John Mackey: It's hard to make money in business. Businesses are very, very loss. Yes, of course. It's also love. Life is nothing. You know, It's got a burn rate. We're burning capital where we have a loss every single day. The day we're open. At this point, we don't have enough business to to cover our overhead. So we think that will change that. 00:12:23:11 - 00:12:46:06 John Mackey: But that's where we are right now. Yeah, so the investors get paid last and if they lose control of the business, they may not get paid last, they may not get paid at all or what they get paid will be very little. And so ultimately that's why they, the investors, need to maintain control of the business. So conscious capitalism is not about taking that control away from the owners. 00:12:46:06 - 00:13:12:23 John Mackey: And once I explain that to the people taking conscious capitalism from the shareholder perspective, they they agree, but they say, well, you're you're being conscious capitalism being misunderstood then. And yes, it is being misunderstood. But then I have to go to see worse being attacked next. It's being attacked by will call it the anti-capitalist or trying to weaponize conscious capitalism as a method to take power from traditional capitalist. 00:13:13:05 - 00:13:45:13 John Mackey: And that's why we're stuck in this middle where they're their goal is because they're anti-capitalist. They want to take the profits away. They want to take the control away, and they're using sort of stakeholders as a as a strategy to try to take it away. Well, all stakeholders matter, right? So let's let's have let's have labor on the board and we'll have a supplier group on the board and we'll have the government on the board will have I will have a customer representations on the board and you can have your own representation on the board. 00:13:45:13 - 00:14:09:04 John Mackey: You're like one of five representatives on the board, and then collectively they'll decide what to do with they'll control the company. Will that be the end of capitalism as we know it? So but you have to see that's conscious. Capitalism's kind of caught in this in this conflict between the anti-capitalist, traditional capitalist when in fact conscious capitalism is a is a management strategy. 00:14:09:09 - 00:14:18:10 John Mackey: It's a way to manage your business in more conscious way. And so that's how conscious capital has been misunderstood today by pretty much by everybody. 00:14:18:12 - 00:14:26:21 Jonathan Keyser: So how do we change that? I mean, how do we fix that misunderstanding outside of podcasts, like this one? 00:14:26:23 - 00:14:44:17 John Mackey: I don't know how to fix it except but you just gave the solution. You have to continue to be stating what you are and what you're not. It's a sad truth that once your brand goes out into the world to a certain extent, you lose control of it and people make it and they can make it into something and it's not. 00:14:44:19 - 00:14:48:19 John Mackey: And I'm I'm deeply worried that might be happening to conscious capitalism. 00:14:48:21 - 00:15:13:19 Jonathan Keyser: Well, yeah, and I think that's a good segue way too. So the third pillar of what you talked about was your second book, and I was very humbled and honored to be one of the people that you highlighted. And again, I will say that, you know, I often feel the same way as you, where I'm not sure that I deserve the credit and the accolades, but certainly our intentions are there. 00:15:13:19 - 00:15:28:05 Jonathan Keyser: But maybe just talk briefly about that and then we'll get to the the new book, because I think it's a progressive story, right? It's a story of conscious capitalism through to the, you know, tell all that you just recently wrote. 00:15:28:07 - 00:15:53:21 John Mackey: Right. Well, conscious leadership, the origin of that book. And I had two coauthors with me on it, but my good friends, Carter Phipps and Steve Macintosh, we each we wrote the book collectively that we each had three chapters there, nine chapters, we had three chapters we each focused on. And I think the heart of the book are the principles of consciously worship that we articulate early on. 00:15:54:00 - 00:16:15:09 John Mackey: So some of those are right out of conscious capitalism, right? The first one is have a higher purpose. So purpose is right there at the beginning of conscious leadership. And so it's a fundamental piece for not only conscious capitalism, the conscious leadership, by the way, the origins of this book are that we have a section in conscious capitalism about conscious leadership. 00:16:15:11 - 00:16:36:22 John Mackey: And there was a so that that book came out in 2013 and Conscious Leadership was published in 2020, 2020. And our seven year gap, I heard again and again and again more questions about you don't write enough about leadership. Could you do you know what is we need to know because all these business people would come to conscious capitalism and they wanted to know how do we operationalize this? 00:16:36:22 - 00:17:13:22 John Mackey: These are these are great ideals, but how do we do it in the real world? Yeah. So we need to know more about conscious leadership. So writing the book, Conscious Leadership was an attempt to address that gap. That and I think we did address it. And so the purpose being the first, the first principle that we articulated in both conscious capitalism, conscious leadership second, then we talk about leading with love and that that is love and leadership are seldom found together in a business context that already shocks people, that that's the one that comes up all the time. 00:17:13:22 - 00:17:41:22 John Mackey: As I'm on this whole story and I talk a lot about Love It, the whole story on my book tour right now. And so but love is absolutely critical to to being effective leaders, in my opinion. If you're not going to have just a strictly professional culture, you're going to have a more human culture, then people have to be able to be show up and be kind of their more authentic self and not just a professional persona. 00:17:42:00 - 00:18:00:02 John Mackey: Yeah, And if the work is going to be satisfying to them, and then of course being in it and it being authentic and being themselves means you have to bring love into the workplace. By love, I don't mean romantic love, I don't mean sex. That can be a different topic, but it does mean that we care about the people we work with. 00:18:00:07 - 00:18:29:00 John Mackey: There are friends. We we develop relationships with them and they care about us. We care about them. And so a lot of people just segregate their work from the look. I, I when I go into the office or I go into the workplace, I put on my professional persona and I leave my friendships, my love, my family, all the things that are most important to me. 00:18:29:02 - 00:18:41:01 John Mackey: They're not in here. And I just think that's not very human. I don't think that's very fulfilling. So I believe love, the love has to come into the workplace with you. And that just means having an open heart and caring and 00:18:41:01 - 00:18:59:07 John Mackey: a leader leads with love. And that doesn't mean they can't make tough decisions. It means, though, that that they're going to they're going to make decisions that are in the interest of the whole of the whole organization and all the stakeholders and particularly the customers and the investors and the team members, employees. 00:18:59:11 - 00:19:28:23 John Mackey: But the other stakeholders are also important and love just means caring. I mean, part of the reason you're going to make those decisions is that you are acting with love. You lead with love. You try to you care about the people you work with. And even when you have to make a difficult decision by like having to let somebody go, you can still do that from the place of love, of genuinely caring about them and generally trying to help them find another place, another job. 00:19:29:01 - 00:19:38:21 John Mackey: I think it's the mistake is that people think they have to be to be tough, to be masculine, to be. They have to to cut off this loving part of their being. And 00:19:38:21 - 00:19:49:09 John Mackey: the art of it is, is to be able to be both integrated, to be both strong and loving, masculine and feminine. We need both of those energies in our workplace. 00:19:49:15 - 00:20:03:01 John Mackey: So leading with love is is a very important thing. I talk a lot about it. I actually did author that chapter originally in the book, although of course Carter and Steve improved on it. So that's that's one that was really important to me. And well. 00:20:03:01 - 00:20:28:09 Jonathan Keyser: I on that point, I remember your presentation on Love and Conscious Capitalism a few years ago. Yeah. And that was profoundly moving for me. It was the first time I'd heard a leader get up and speak on the topic of love again in our business, I use the word love a lot and at the beginning it was more heightened. 00:20:28:09 - 00:20:37:01 Jonathan Keyser: But even today, people look at me a little sideways when I say the word. But it really is such a critical part of what we've done. 00:20:37:03 - 00:20:56:14 John Mackey: Well, and it's easy to talk about. It's you have to walk the talk, right? I mean, you have to show up. And if you and that's why I say you have to lead with love. And if you want to have love at your workplace, you can't just talk about it. You have to demonstrate it. And, you know, one of the things that that I talk about this all the time when I talk about love it. 00:20:56:16 - 00:21:21:21 John Mackey: If you want to have more a love in your workplace, start with ending your meetings with appreciations. You cannot do an authentic appreciation of someone without opening your heart. You cannot make an authentic. People know the difference between flattery and it and actual authentic love, and they know the difference. And so they can tell when you're playing. You know what? 00:21:21:21 - 00:21:45:11 John Mackey: Most people know the difference most of the time. It's sometimes for people for sure, but at Whole Foods, when we did appreciations that would that just there's so much judgment that goes on in a meeting you're judging people what a windbag you know that person will you know it's like their ideas are not cogent. I wish they'd just move off this topic. 00:21:45:11 - 00:22:07:19 John Mackey: And there are lots of judgments that's going on in meetings and judgments are the opposite of love when you're when you're when you're criticizing and attacking, you're not really in your argument really loving. So appreciations are way when the meetings ending for people to reconnect in a heartfelt way and you just it's not they're not mandatory you're not forced to do it but people have the opportunity to do it. 00:22:07:21 - 00:22:25:20 John Mackey: And of course, if you're the leader, you have to lead by example. So I would always, almost always start out appreciations to get it established. And but then once people get used to it, they like it. It feels good to tell people that to thank people for things that they've done for them and to be thanked. But it's out. 00:22:26:01 - 00:23:01:02 John Mackey: So anyway, so lead with love. Then the fourth one. The fourth next principle is integrity. In all things, integrity is like love. It's complicated. Love has not you know, love has many attributes to a generosity, kindness, compassion, forgiveness. These are all types of of of love that are all manifestations of love. Well, similarly, integrity has honesty, trust, telling, authenticity, trustworthiness. 00:23:01:04 - 00:23:05:10 John Mackey: These are all types of integrity. So 00:23:05:10 - 00:23:22:15 John Mackey: integrity in all things has to be a guiding principle in the conscious leader. We act with integrity. We tell the truth. We don't lie lie to people. If we make a promise, we keep it. We show up as we really are. We don't try to deceive people by pretending to be something we're not 00:23:22:15 - 00:23:22:23 John Mackey: it. 00:23:23:03 - 00:23:46:23 John Mackey: We, we, we give trust to people. We assume good intent. We give trust, even though sometimes that trust may be portrayed and we have to change. But we assume good intent until trust has been broken. So integrity and all things we do. And I have found integrity not to be extremely rare, but it's also not that common either. 00:23:47:01 - 00:23:49:18 John Mackey: We could use a lot more integrity in our in our. 00:23:49:18 - 00:24:01:17 Jonathan Keyser: Business, and it's not like it's a zero sum game either, right? There's times where where I catch myself out of integrity and I got to realign. Yeah. So it's sort of like like you said, it's a North Star. 00:24:01:19 - 00:24:10:22 John Mackey: The fourth principle I'm going to talk about and then we'll leave Conscious leadership, although there's a lot more to the book, is find win win Win Solutions. 00:24:11:00 - 00:24:14:23 Jonathan Keyser: My favorite one out of that I guess you can so much from that point. 00:24:15:01 - 00:24:35:07 John Mackey: And by went by win win win it means good for you, good for me, good for all of us. And people say, I don't know why you need a third win. And I say, Well, like you could hire a hitman to kill your wife. That'd be it. That might be good for you. It might be good for the hitman you're paying him. 00:24:35:07 - 00:24:42:06 John Mackey: But it wouldn't be obviously good for your wife and it wouldn't be good for our larger society. Here is what you're doing. Right? 00:24:42:06 - 00:24:42:16 Jonathan Keyser: Right, right. 00:24:42:16 - 00:25:13:16 John Mackey: So. So it needs to be the third is important. And the thing interesting thing about if you start to think win, win, win in every negotiation, in every situation you're in, not only will you transform your life and the way you conduct business, the win, win win is almost a complete ethical system. If that's all you did in every circumstance is do a win win win, you would find you wouldn't have any more ethical quandaries any longer. 00:25:13:18 - 00:25:16:11 John Mackey: They disappear. 00:25:16:12 - 00:25:36:22 Jonathan Keyser: Well, what I what I remember from our personal conversations about this topic after I read the book the first time is I remember you saying they're not always the easiest to bond. Right? You have to you have to work a little harder to find them. Yeah, but when you do, they're more sustainable, right? They they're more long lasting. 00:25:36:22 - 00:26:06:04 Jonathan Keyser: So it's not just that they're the right thing to do, right? It's tying the right thing to do to. And that's the point for me that I love most about conscious capitalism. And you talk about it in the whole story, which again, I think is a groundbreaking book that everybody should read. But it's this idea of just because you're doing the right thing, it doesn't mean you're just doing the right thing for right things sake. 00:26:06:06 - 00:26:26:18 Jonathan Keyser: And that's valuable. But it also has positive consequences throughout your business and throughout your life. But I think I call that the, you know, kind of the kind of the additional the extra stuff. But that that becomes almost a reason in and of itself to do it outside of just the fact that it's the right thing to do. 00:26:26:18 - 00:26:29:03 Jonathan Keyser: What would you agree with that comment? 00:26:29:05 - 00:26:34:04 John Mackey: Yeah, I'll I'll, I'll agree with it. I'll take it even. I'll take it a little bit further. 00:26:34:04 - 00:26:37:00 John Mackey: It's been my experience in life that 00:26:37:00 - 00:26:40:15 John Mackey: we 00:26:40:15 - 00:27:04:23 John Mackey: get back exactly what we give. The giving and receiving are not like opposites. Giving is not a type of sacrifice as we give, as we share love, as we look for win, win, win solutions in all circumstances that comes back to us that the universe is like a mirror or that where we're in a dream. 00:27:05:04 - 00:27:40:10 John Mackey: And as we act more loving in the dream, then people are more loving towards us as we care more so we cared more for. So if we are trustworthy, we find people that are trustworthy back to us. It's like we can kind of create the own in our own and our own circle of relationships. We can begin to create a little circles of love where where kindnesses are repaid, that love is reciprocated. 00:27:40:12 - 00:28:09:18 John Mackey: Compassion is is comes back to you. So that's the paradox. The more caring we are, the more we're cared for. It's not really a paradox. It's just sort of a universal principle. If we act win, win, win, people will begin to act. Win, win, win with us. We we, we get back what we give so that once you're conscious of that, give love, give kindness, seek win, win, win solutions. 00:28:09:20 - 00:28:15:16 John Mackey: And if think about that, if everybody did that, we would transform the world. 00:28:15:18 - 00:28:21:07 Jonathan Keyser: I think that's the biggest I mean, I wrote about that in my book, right? The whole idea of 00:28:21:07 - 00:28:36:13 Jonathan Keyser: imagine a world where everyone selflessly helped each other, regardless of personal gain, understanding that is there, that it is in their own personal best interest to do so. If everybody acted that way, imagine the good we can unlock in the world. 00:28:36:13 - 00:28:39:05 Jonathan Keyser: Imagine the opportunity for everyone we could create. 00:28:39:06 - 00:28:43:08 John Mackey: It's true now, but if you try to make that compulsive, which is what. 00:28:43:09 - 00:28:43:11 Jonathan Keyser: A. 00:28:43:11 - 00:29:26:12 John Mackey: Choice, it's what that which socialism tries to do, then it becomes exploitative. It's like, Well, I want you to give, but I'm going to you know, I'm going to make sure that you do. Well, now, you just entered into the beginnings of a totalitarian culture. So I'm talking about pure voluntary love and caring. And and by the way, when people mis betray your trust, you have to step backwards with that individual ready to forgive, perhaps in the future and give another chance, but also now still loving them, but not letting them take advantage of you and your loved ones again. 00:29:26:14 - 00:29:29:18 John Mackey: So it's it's a dance. 00:29:29:20 - 00:30:10:01 Jonathan Keyser: Well, and for someone like you who has built such an extraordinary organization, that leaves a legacy and is one of the kind of the icons today of business leadership. It's not like you're some talking head in some university somewhere just sort of conceptualizing. You run to the real story. And I would say the whole story in this book, what was you know, what was notable to me was how much of the real John Mackey was just sort of highlighted in your emotions and your thoughts. 00:30:10:01 - 00:30:18:02 Jonathan Keyser: Can you talk about what led having already done to, you know, groundbreaking works? What led you to want to write the whole story? 00:30:18:04 - 00:30:39:02 John Mackey: Yeah, thank you. That's a really great question, Jonathan and I had a I had a multiplicity of reasons for wanting to write this book. The first reason was that it's it's kind of my final gift to Whole Foods Market. It kind of it's a final gift. I'm no longer CEO. I led it for 44 years. I created it. 00:30:39:04 - 00:31:02:00 John Mackey: I co-created it. I nurtured it. I all the other founders, none of them, they all even the longest one left 25 years before I did. So our founders left pretty early, relatively in the story and in doing a little research, I discovered that over a million people that worked for our company. 00:31:02:04 - 00:31:02:22 Jonathan Keyser: Wow. 00:31:03:00 - 00:31:28:18 John Mackey: I know exactly. There's 120,000 working for it right now, and so over a million people are worked for it. So I dedicated the book to team members past all team members, past, present and and this is our story. And now that's a big corporation. People don't see the entrepreneurial roots to it. They don't they don't know that it was just one little tiny store and that a bunch of hippies were starting the business up. 00:31:28:18 - 00:31:55:00 John Mackey: And we had these high ideals about food and about about how to. One of the reasons Whole Foods was so innovative and in sort of the RS because we didn't none of us came from big corporations. We didn't have that experience. We we were free to invent and create something a little bit unique, different. And just like you discovered that you weren't alone, there was a shock to me when I first read Raj Sisodia, his book, Firms of Endearment. 00:31:55:00 - 00:32:10:10 John Mackey: That whole Foods was not the only company it, and there was this way that there we were part of a community of companies that were that were trying to do what we were doing. So that's the first reason as a gift to the team members and a gift to Whole Foods. Secondly. 00:32:10:10 - 00:32:21:11 Jonathan Keyser: I apologize, John, I have to say hello, Mr. Mackey. Say hi, John, this is Sailor. 00:32:21:13 - 00:32:27:07 John Mackey: Hi, Sailor. Are you shy? No, you are shy to me. 00:32:27:09 - 00:32:27:19 Jonathan Keyser: She's. 00:32:27:20 - 00:32:31:00 John Mackey: Sir John doesn't want to look at the camera. 00:32:31:02 - 00:32:34:01 Jonathan Keyser: Who's this? There we go. 00:32:34:02 - 00:32:36:10 John Mackey: Hi, sailor. I don't know him. 00:32:36:10 - 00:32:44:17 Jonathan Keyser: Daddy is a good friend of mine. My dad is doing a podcast. Can I come see you in a second? 00:32:44:19 - 00:32:54:17 Speaker 1 I might be he. Well, after I come, I'm sure. 00:32:54:19 - 00:33:03:09 Jonathan Keyser: Okay. Of you. Thank you. 00:33:03:09 - 00:33:10:04 Jonathan Keyser: Those are how it is in all of my podcast. Those are always the favorite moments. Those are the ones that everybody loves the most, for sure. 00:33:10:04 - 00:33:12:20 John Mackey: How cute is she? I mean, she's. She's a beauty. 00:33:13:00 - 00:33:18:01 Jonathan Keyser: I'm not going to lock the door on that one anyway. Please continue. Good, sir. 00:33:18:01 - 00:33:37:03 John Mackey: So let's see, We're talking about why I wrote the book I talked about. Oh, so for me, it was also a way for me to get closure. I mean, we're just it's. It's timely that your daughter just came in then, because Whole Foods is like my daughter, so. But it's 44 years old now. It's 46 years old, but 40. 00:33:37:03 - 00:34:00:04 John Mackey: 40, almost 46. But 44. When I created it back in 1978 or co-created a co-founded it. And we always love our children and we always will always going to care about them. But they do grow up and they do leave home and you've got to let them go their own way. And this was more for my sake. This second reason was for my sake. 00:34:00:04 - 00:34:04:12 John Mackey: In order for me to be able transition away, I had to feel like I got closure. 00:34:04:17 - 00:34:05:19 Jonathan Keyser: Yes. 00:34:05:21 - 00:34:35:04 John Mackey: And that was important. And the third reason is that I advise everyone to write a memoir because I just in looking back retrospectively, I discovered so many things about myself. I knew patterns emerged as I looked back and work through it systematically. The whole thing was an incredibly learning experience and things I didn't understand became clear to me, looking backwards and seeing the pattern emerge. 00:34:35:09 - 00:34:54:09 John Mackey: So I it was a self-discovery process. I knew more about who I was when I finished writing the book. It was an amazing journey. It took three years to write that book, so and to get it published. So that's the third reason and the fourth reason ultimately, I think it's a good it's a good tale. And the world I thought the world should hear it. 00:34:54:09 - 00:35:19:13 John Mackey: It's a good tale. I think entrepreneurs are very inspired by this book, people that I meet. Mickey Aggarwal, I just published on Instagram yesterday her her reaction when she finished reading book. It's one of the best books, several on the best books she's ever read. She was crying it so spoke to her heart. She you know, she totally identified with so many of the challenges and struggles we went through. 00:35:19:13 - 00:35:46:02 John Mackey: And and that, of course, you know, made me feel fantastic because that's what every author seeks. But the point is, is that I wrote it for people like Mickey. She's a serial entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are highly creative people. They go through some highs and lows and building their businesses. And I wrote it for to hopefully inspire people for, yeah, for maybe decades to come about. 00:35:46:02 - 00:36:05:08 John Mackey: This was a story, a Whole Foods and this was a story and I tried to do it in this very authentic, open way. And it's just a narrative. It's just one story after another. I rewrote the book by telling of stories at certain periods of time, and in the story, I could show how the company was evolving and changing and how I was changing as a leader and as human being. 00:36:05:13 - 00:36:11:14 John Mackey: It also is my own spiritual journey of awakening deeper and deeper and deeper into care and love. 00:36:11:16 - 00:36:45:22 Jonathan Keyser: But I think it's extraordinary for all of those reasons. And what what I think stood out to me the most and what has always stood out to me with you is the authenticity in it. And a lot of times, especially when you have an association with a certain ideal like conscious capitalism, people make assumptions that it's all just love butterflies and rainbows and they don't understand some of the really challenging scenarios you had to go through. 00:36:46:00 - 00:36:50:12 Jonathan Keyser: I'm just going to grab a couple pieces from this book and ask you about them. 00:36:50:18 - 00:36:51:20 John Mackey: Sure. 00:36:51:22 - 00:37:17:02 Jonathan Keyser: On page 125, you say this As much as I want to build cooperative relationships with all my partners, it wasn't always possible to do so successfully. Human beings are also wired to compete. We envy those we perceive as having more success, attractiveness, wealth, fame, power, and so on. And we have a tendency to insist on the fundamental rightness of our own versions of reality, even when it comes at great personal costs. 00:37:17:04 - 00:37:40:05 Jonathan Keyser: I was learning all these lessons, even as I was trying to become more skilled at balancing the inevitable authority of my leadership position with my desire to collaborate and share. Wow. That paragraph hit me when I read that that that that is to me. I would love for you to expand upon that because that's such a powerful. It's the yin and the yang. 00:37:40:05 - 00:37:49:18 Jonathan Keyser: It's trying to figure out how you be a successful business leader and do the tough things while still leading with love. Can you comment on that? Yeah, that paragraph. 00:37:49:20 - 00:38:10:23 John Mackey: Of course. I didn't offer an answer. That was that itself was partly coming from a letter I wrote from to Ex-girlfriend that I was sharing some of my my own thinking about it. And in researching the book, I was rereading a lot of the stuff that I wrote many, many years ago. And I thought, Wow, this one, this one's good. 00:38:10:23 - 00:38:14:06 John Mackey: Maybe it should be in the book. And 00:38:14:06 - 00:38:48:22 John Mackey: I've always been puzzled by that. The paradox of of cooperation and competition. So because both are sort of baked in to this particular reality that we're in, it's it's if you think about natural selection, it's it's highly competitive and it business is highly competitive. It and when it's taken when competition is taken to an extreme, it becomes it becomes war and you kill. 00:38:48:23 - 00:39:12:07 John Mackey: So even in business, there are limits and set for the mafia and gangster type businesses, there's a limit. There's rules that you can't take competition past this point or you you go to jail and you can't murder your competitors to eliminate them. You have to figure out another way to outcompete them with better products and better services. But if countries are competing, they might be competing. 00:39:12:07 - 00:39:38:10 John Mackey: But war is the destruction. And that's that's the I'm trying to say the dark side of of competition at the darkest side is murder. On the one hand at war. On the other hand, where you basically are no longer playing by any rules, you're just trying to kill or destroy those who oppose you. Well, cooperation. But then there's a healthy form of competition, right? 00:39:38:12 - 00:39:59:17 John Mackey: We know in games and sports that having competitors, they push us to be better, pushes to innovate, push us to be creative, push us to make our products and services better. And and so there's this positive side of competition. But one of the greatest examples I'd like to use to people, if you're I don't know if you're a tennis fan at all, but No. 00:39:59:20 - 00:40:33:12 John Mackey: Three, the three greatest tennis players in the history of the world are, and they've won the most Grand Slams. You, Nikola Djokovic, not mean not Djokovic. She's a basketball player. You got Federer, Nadal and now that the all time Grand slam winner who I'm getting confused with the basketball player now but he's he's got a Serbian name and it's I will have to. 00:40:33:17 - 00:40:34:13 Jonathan Keyser: Come back to it. 00:40:34:13 - 00:40:56:08 John Mackey: Or have to come back to that. But anyway, these three tennis players, they all played at the same time and they all were striving to beat the other ones. And so that lifted each of their games higher and higher and higher. And there's this period of time from when these guys were in their 20 years old to now they're there. 00:40:56:08 - 00:41:19:17 John Mackey: Federer is the oldest and he's about close to 40 and Djokovic, that's the name Djokovic and Djokovic is the youngest and he's now surpassed Nadal and Federer and Total Grand Slams won. I think he's got about 20 or 21 now, but no one else, very few other people in the last 20 years won a Grand slam besides these three guys. 00:41:19:19 - 00:41:41:05 John Mackey: They totally dominated tennis. All the rest. The Grand Slams are less than the each of them personally won combined. The last 20 years. I know. So that's the healthy form of competition, right? They couldn't go out and kill each other to eliminate them. They had to improve their tennis game. So there's this healthy side of competition that brings out the very best in us. 00:41:41:11 - 00:42:08:20 John Mackey: And there's a destructive side of competition where we try to destroy or kill those that are our enemies. Well, copper Nation is similar. There's this healthy side of cooperation where we work together and cooperatively, and we do and we we see this in teams, whether it be team sports, we see it can see in corporations where we're cooperating together and our our our joint product, the sum is greater than the whole of the parts is what there's the synergies. 00:42:08:22 - 00:42:31:15 John Mackey: Sometimes my best idea is I come up with a good idea, but then somebody else iterates and builds on that idea and then I build on it again and we have this positive upward spiral of of innovation occurring. We see this in our corporations all the time, and we're seeing it. You see that what happens when you have these great, great companies compete with each other. 00:42:31:17 - 00:43:08:02 John Mackey: And we're seeing it now in AI, but we saw it with the Internet. You could see it in search. And it's just it's now we're seeing it in electrical vehicles with Tesla was a trailblazer, but now we're seeing other entrants come in. So there's this healthy side of cooperation. And yet there's also a downside to cooperation. The downside if if if you have to get complete agreement all the time, that that no one can disagree, that you can't that that cooperation is sort of the opposite of competition and cooperation is good and competition is bad. 00:43:08:02 - 00:43:34:11 John Mackey: So we just need to only cooperate. You end up with sort of bureaucracy, stultifying lack of creativity and you basically progress stops. So what I'm trying to do in the book there is say these are the paradox. Evolution is is a synthesis of both competition and cooperation. So is capitalism. So is the economic ecosystem of innovation and creativity. 00:43:34:13 - 00:44:01:19 John Mackey: It has rules there. There's limits to competition, but the competition is being channeled cooperatively to make progress. So that's what I was trying to do there. And it's the same way in our relationships. It's these are fundamental principles of reality. We are both beings. It's built into our DNA. We both cooperate and, we compete, and there are healthy forms of both of those, and there are unhealthy forms of both of them. 00:44:01:21 - 00:44:18:20 Jonathan Keyser: That's why I love that paragraph. I thought it was such a beautiful sort of snapshot of that. And I think that's, you know, one of many leaders biggest challenges is trying to walk that fine, that balance. And it's an ever moving needle, right, Because things change. 00:44:18:20 - 00:44:22:04 John Mackey: So we have to change with them. 00:44:22:08 - 00:44:57:06 Jonathan Keyser: We have to change with them. I'm going to jump to another part in the book on page 259 where you're talking about your letter of complaint from the NLRB. You talk a little bit about that because as someone who's built an organization with such a focus on helping people and being a collaborative workforce, you know, to me that was an interesting highlight that kind of punch in the gut. 00:44:57:08 - 00:45:31:09 John Mackey: Yeah. What we're talking about here where Jonathan is referring to is back in the year 2002, Whole Foods Market are one of our stores in Madison, Wisconsin. There had been a professor philosophy, a political philosophy professor, whose class project that summer was to unionize at Whole Foods Market. And so several of his students hired into the store and they organized the store and we had a union vote and we lost that vote. 00:45:31:09 - 00:45:49:13 John Mackey: And so a union was voted in and we had about 150 stores about that at that period of time. And for me, that was a complete wake up call because it was like, wow. I mean, I always thought Whole Foods was one of the best companies to work for. It had been named at that time four or five years in a row. 00:45:49:13 - 00:46:10:05 John Mackey: And we went on to be named 20 consecutive years in a row until Amazon bought us. And then we really weren't eligible to play that any longer because we weren't we were part of Amazon. We weren't separate corporations any longer. So to me it was a total wake up call for us. Like, okay, I began to think of the union differently. 00:46:10:05 - 00:46:34:06 John Mackey: I saw them now as a competitor. How were they were a competitor. They were a competitor to the hearts and minds and loyalty of our workforce. If we didn't do a good job of taking care of our people and helping them be happy, giving them competitive compensation, competitive benefits, helping them to have an opportunity to learn and grow and get more responsive ability and higher pay. 00:46:34:08 - 00:46:50:19 John Mackey: If we failed to do that, then the union's message found it would find a welcoming would find welcome amongst our employees. So we decided I made a I decided to make a trip. I visited all 150 stores and an incredible. 00:46:50:20 - 00:46:51:12 Jonathan Keyser: Procedure to. 00:46:51:12 - 00:47:11:14 John Mackey: Do. Yeah, I visited all 150. I talked with the team members. I had the overwhelming question I kept asking how do we make Whole Foods Market the very best company in the world to work for? That was the challenge that I put out to each person as I went around our each stores, I went around and I mean, obviously, of course we heard you need to pay better. 00:47:11:14 - 00:47:30:09 John Mackey: We heard that every time, every place we went. And we but we heard lots of other things. And one of the most important ones we heard was we needed to really improve our health benefits and we needed to we needed to be we need to be more aware in our communications. We weren't doing as good a job communicating. 00:47:30:11 - 00:47:46:06 John Mackey: So we made after doing this, while we were doing this, we were making the changes as we went along and we improved our health benefits. One of the things that when we were younger and the team members were younger when, you know, 20 years before, 24 years before we got started, people didn't have very many health care needs. 00:47:46:06 - 00:48:06:12 John Mackey: But now they were middle aged and they had families. They needed better health care. So we radically improved our care. We changed our some of our communication policies to make sure the team members were in the loop. We we opened up for more participation of team members on thing. We started a a benefits vote. For example, team members could vote on which benefits they wanted. 00:48:06:14 - 00:48:29:15 John Mackey: So that happened for all 149 stores in 150 stores. But one and that one store was Madison, because Madison had a union and the union was representing it. The union made all these types of promises to the team members of what they could do if they voted a union in. But all Whole Foods had to agree to do was we had to negotiate in good faith, which we did. 00:48:29:17 - 00:48:59:06 John Mackey: And what ended up happening is everybody except Madison got better health care benefits. Everybody. But Madison got different communication and different cooperation profiles. But Madison was denied all the improvements we made the rest of the store because we offered it to them. But the union wouldn't let them have it because they said we're negotiating for you. And so to get to cut to the end at the end of one year, the team members of Madison decertified the union. 00:48:59:08 - 00:49:19:09 John Mackey: They said, You really haven't delivered anything to us. We want what the rest of the stores have, but more importantly, those organizers, as soon as the company they they'd gotten A's on their class project for the summer and then they quit. They didn't they weren't long time hall suitors. They didn't care. They went on and did whatever they did after that. 00:49:19:11 - 00:49:42:19 John Mackey: And so the point I'm trying to make here is that the unions made Whole Foods Market better and bike competing, you might say, for the loyalty of our team members. And so I see unions as a good thing. If you don't do it, if you don't if you're if you're not a good employer, the team, your employee, your employees have options. 00:49:42:19 - 00:50:13:14 John Mackey: They can they can unionize. And that's a good thing because if you're mistreating people, then they should have a right to They can quit always get another job. But they also they like the job and they like the place they're working. Perhaps they just need somebody to represent them in negotiations. So I wanted to make it so that no one would ever feel like they ever again needed a union to represent them and pay union dues to get for that privilege that that the company would care enough for them where the unions weren't necessary. 00:50:13:16 - 00:50:14:16 John Mackey: So does that mean that. 00:50:14:16 - 00:50:35:07 Jonathan Keyser: Yes. And I think that that is that is exactly what I wanted you to highlight, because I think it's a lesson in a number of different things. One, leadership that actually is leaning into the love that you talk about throughout the whole story, right. This idea that you are if you actually care about your employees, to your point just now, unions aren't the enemy. 00:50:35:11 - 00:51:00:19 Jonathan Keyser: Unions are just competition to help make sure that you're doing the right things, that you stand by. I love that expression. And I think it's also an example on leadership, on how you deal with a situation like this. Many, many CEOs look at labor as the enemy and they're in a constant fight with them rather than realizing that really the objective is to make their companies union proof, right? 00:51:00:19 - 00:51:14:10 Jonathan Keyser: If you make your companies union proof because you are so good to your people, that's a whole different kind of approach than trying to, you know, just kind of be at war. So yeah, Jonathan struck me in reading that. Yeah. 00:51:14:13 - 00:51:39:05 John Mackey: So one of the things that the unions have said about me for years, which I've which is wrong and inaccurate, is that I'm anti-union, I've never been anti-union. The unions have played an important part in the in the evolution of corporations. They've helped to get more rights for workers. They protected workers from abuse in many cases. So I'm not anti-union. 00:51:39:07 - 00:51:59:19 John Mackey: I'm just trying to create a company that chooses not to have a union. Nobody. They could choose a union. They just don't want to. That's not anti-union. I'd like to say that's beyond unions. There's been Michael and but if unions are necessary and they are necessary in lots of corporations and lots of businesses and companies, then they should have unions. 00:51:59:21 - 00:52:31:16 Jonathan Keyser: Not represent our side. Okay, So another another thing that I wanted to highlight from the book was your op ed in The Wall Street Journal following your you know, you're long one of your long hikes, which was called the Whole Foods Alternative to Obamacare, eight Things We Can Do to Improve Health care. And you did not anticipate the kind of reaction to that op ed that you received. 00:52:31:16 - 00:52:33:12 Jonathan Keyser: Can you talk about that a little bit? 00:52:33:14 - 00:52:56:10 John Mackey: Yeah, I wrote an op ed in The Wall Street Journal back in 2009, and I wrote it just before I was about to go on this one week hike in the 100 mile wilderness on the Appalachian Trail in Maine. I was going have any contact with civilization. So the last thing I did about midnight at night is I put the finishing touches and Senate. 00:52:56:12 - 00:53:19:01 John Mackey: Right. And I and then I went on my hike and and when I came off the hike and I was able to turn my phone back on and get a signal, the phone blew up. I mean, it was okay. And that week it had been published immediately the next day or the next Monday. And 00:53:19:01 - 00:53:28:14 John Mackey: people were upset. I mean, I had the progressives in particular who were upset and they were boycotting our stores. 00:53:28:14 - 00:53:38:11 John Mackey: We had we had demonstrations in front of our stores. Our board was receiving hundreds even, and then eventually thousands and thousands of letters and emails demanding I be fired. 00:53:38:11 - 00:53:46:13 John Mackey: And it was a huge, huge blow. And I just you know, I just thought there's the reason this has actually come back up on my book tour, because one 00:53:46:13 - 00:53:57:08 John Mackey: of the questions I get asked and as I've talked to the business media again is, John, do you think corporations should take political stands on the issues of the day? 00:53:57:10 - 00:54:13:07 John Mackey: And my answer is no, you should not. And that's why I retell the story about what happened to me when I took a stand and I made what I what I came to learn is that and I by the way, I stand by what I wrote. I still think it was a good op ed piece. The reason it was controversial. 00:54:13:07 - 00:54:40:01 John Mackey: Is it is it it went against the progressive narrative, really, that I started out with a quote from Margaret Thatcher that the problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money. That was the that was at the top of the op ed. And and then towards the end, I talked about that health care was not I did not believe as an intrinsic right for health care that we have a everybody we have a need for health care. 00:54:40:01 - 00:54:58:15 John Mackey: But I feel like just like we have a need for food or shelter and we have a need for lots of things that free markets and capitalism is the best way to provide those goods and services, not. It's when you talk about people having a right to health care, you're saying that somebody else has to pay for is really what you're saying. 00:54:58:17 - 00:55:17:07 John Mackey: And I just don't think that's the best way to organize society. So you can have a safety net for the poorest people. But in general, I believe that health care, like every other goods and service we used to, people have an intrinsic right to an iPhone, so they have an intrinsic right to a Tesla or an automobile or I mean, where does where does it end? 00:55:17:11 - 00:55:18:06 Jonathan Keyser: Slippery slope. 00:55:18:08 - 00:55:41:17 John Mackey: Slippery slope. So the moral of the story here is that I thought, well, I'm just exercising my freedom of speech. I'm an American citizen. How can anybody object to that? Well, what they objected to was people could not distinguish between me and Whole Foods. So I was I wasn't speaking for Whole Foods. I was speaking for me. I was giving my own opinions. 00:55:41:17 - 00:56:07:07 John Mackey: These are my own private opinions. This was not something that Whole Foods Market endorsed or agreed with, but the world couldn't distinguish between me and Whole Foods. They were one and the same. And so that's what I tell when I was telling the media, Well, when CEOs speak up on anything, whatever the issue is, it could be on racism and it could be on climate change, it could be on on what's happening in Israel. 00:56:07:07 - 00:56:25:02 John Mackey: It could be whatever you want. They're going to make enemies. They're going to piss a lot of people off. Because, I mean, the reality is we're kind of in these two big tribes, a blue tribe and a red tribe. They don't get along well. They hate each other. And people are forever trying to figure out which tribe you're and whether they're going to love or hate you. 00:56:25:04 - 00:56:33:19 John Mackey: So whenever you take a political stand, you're going to piss off 50%, approximately 50% of the population, and then they may take it out on your company. 00:56:33:19 - 00:56:55:07 John Mackey: That's what they did with Whole Foods. When I spoke up on health care. So I that's I just that's my lesson. I when you represent your corporation and you're the CEO, you sort of need to be a little more judicious in your freedom of speech rights because there will be consequences to your business. 00:56:55:07 - 00:57:16:11 John Mackey: And you're supposed to be or I believe, a conscious leader who's a servant leader also who's looking out for the good of the whole organization, all the stakeholders. So Whole Foods was harmed. The ironical thing, of course, is our sales actually went up. We got so much publicity from that thing that it brought in more business to the company and we had people by boycotting us. 00:57:16:11 - 00:57:35:13 John Mackey: We also had people buy costing us who decided, Well, I'm going to shop at Whole Foods anyway, or I'm going to shop more at Whole Foods. So it doesn't matter. The controversy, the hatred team members were upset. People were it was very divisive. I didn't intend it that way. If you read my op ed, I don't think it is divisive. 00:57:35:15 - 00:57:53:09 John Mackey: It's just a just question. Socialism in it questioned whether people have intrinsic right to health care. That's a that's something you're not supposed to question. And if you do it, it shows your non caring asshole. So anyway, that's that's what I have to say about that. 00:57:53:11 - 00:58:31:20 Jonathan Keyser: I appreciate I appreciate the candor. Again, I think this, this podcast last interview is an example of the I mean, we're covering hard topics. I intentionally picked topics that were challenging because I believe that your willingness to stand in those challenging conversations and have authentic dialog about them is what we need more of in today's world, right? Rather than people shrinking from something because it's unpopular or just, you know, going going along with the narrative. 00:58:31:21 - 00:58:43:06 Jonathan Keyser: I think that the more dialog that we have, especially within influential people like you, are willing to speak their mind. I mean, I'm taking notes over here, right. 00:58:43:08 - 00:59:07:21 John Mackey: Jonathan, Just to just be clear, I did just contradict that point of view I just said, as a CEO, you are your brand of your company, you're represented. You can't speak as freely as you might like to. I so I stop speaking up about political issues to protect Whole Foods. It's a little bit like if people threaten your child, well, that might intimidate you to silence, right? 00:59:07:21 - 00:59:20:01 John Mackey: It's like we know where you live. We're going to get we're going to get your beautiful daughter, sailor, and we're going to we're going to hurt her unless you shut up. So they were threatening Whole Foods and I backed out. 00:59:20:01 - 00:59:44:02 Jonathan Keyser: So I yeah, I guess what I'm what I'm describing is I agree with you that that you as leader, we have a solemn responsibility. And I try really hard to be to be careful with all of those things. What I'm describing, what I was complimenting you on is your willingness to discuss that topic. Okay, fair enough. Right? Yeah. 00:59:44:08 - 01:00:12:10 Jonathan Keyser: Willingness to have a dialog about the real struggle and what that went through and what that was like versus sweeping it under the rug. Putting it in your book. Right. Let's talk about your sale to Amazon. I mean, that was something that kind of took a lot of I mean, I was I was fortunate to be, you know, to be there for the process and to have conversations with you about it and hear you talk about it off the stage, you know, talk about that, because I think that took a lot of people by surprise. 01:00:12:10 - 01:00:26:21 Jonathan Keyser: And, you know, I know what led up to it. And you talk about it obviously in, the book as well. But maybe for the audience of folks here, that's the biggest question I get. When people know that you and I are friends is they ask, well, why in the world, if you believed in all this stuff, why did you sell to Amazon? 01:00:27:01 - 01:00:31:23 Jonathan Keyser: So I'd love for, in your own words for you to share that that that that story. 01:00:32:01 - 01:00:36:09 John Mackey: I'll I'll start out by saying that I get asked a lot 01:00:36:09 - 01:01:01:06 John Mackey: do I regret not selling to Amazon. You know we sold to Amazon now seven years ago. Do you regret it? And the honest answer is I regret that the circumstances made that the best alternative for Whole Foods and it was the best alternative. And if I had to go back again, faced with the same circumstances, I would make the same decision. 01:01:01:08 - 01:01:41:13 John Mackey: Of course, I'd rather stayed independent. I'd rather I mean, we were been independent at that point for, let's see, for 39 years we've been independent and I would have been happy to be independent forever. But we were under extreme pressure. We had shareholder shareholder activists entered in and took a position in the stock. Jana Partners and they I met with them, they came down to Austin, we met and they a lot of times when you get shareholder activist their job, they want what you have a you have shared interests. 01:01:41:15 - 01:01:58:09 John Mackey: They want to get the stock price higher and so do we want to create more value for our shareholders? It's part of what they're an important stakeholder. So but they didn't really want to work with us when I said, well, let's work together, try to improve the stock prices so we don't want to work together. And I said, Well, what do you want? 01:01:58:09 - 01:02:16:18 John Mackey: He says, Well, here's what we're going to do. First. We're going to take over your board. And then once we take over your board, we're going to fire you and your management team. And after we do that, we're going to put it up for sale to the highest bidder. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it. 01:02:16:20 - 01:02:18:14 John Mackey: And then they walked out. 01:02:18:14 - 01:02:24:21 John Mackey: So that was when we talk about cooperation and when when they they certainly were not thinking that way. 01:02:24:21 - 01:02:26:14 Jonathan Keyser: They didn't read that chapter. 01:02:26:16 - 01:02:45:20 John Mackey: So then, I mean, we did lots of things. We did hire investment bankers and lawyers. We we developed a plan to fight the activist. We one of the ways they were going to try to replace our board is that we had a lot of board members that had been on the board ten, 15, 20 years, 25 years, even 30 years in one case. 01:02:45:20 - 01:03:11:16 John Mackey: And hey, to me, that's a good that's a good thing. These were people that loved our company, knew our company, but to governance people that are professional governance experts, this was a board that was probably too chummy with management. And so they weren't doing their job, this or that. So that the very thing we considered a virtue longevity, they consider to be a vice. 01:03:11:18 - 01:03:36:17 John Mackey: And so we had to ask all of our the that the investment bankers, the defensive investment banking firm we hired Evercore recommended that we replace these term directors with those who were very well known but had no tenure at all. So we got a very good retail professional board that came in to replace it. That was our first defense. 01:03:36:19 - 01:03:59:22 John Mackey: And then we we began to map out a strategy of what we needed to do to get help, get our profits up and our stock price up. So we had a whole plan to fight. We also were looking other options, maybe selling the company to a friendly buyer that would that would let foods alone. And we'd like Warren Buffett would have been a perfect partner for us. 01:03:59:22 - 01:04:15:07 John Mackey: And we talked to Warren and he just he made a joke about it, kind of it's like, well, I own what? I own a Dairy Queen. And, you know, I'm famous for I just kind of live on hamburgers and steaks. And I don't think this is a good brand that. 01:04:15:08 - 01:04:16:06 Jonathan Keyser: Right. 01:04:16:07 - 01:04:41:10 John Mackey: And so it probably wasn't the case about the brand. He probably just had already. Didn't think we were a good investment for him. So that was out. And then it was we could go private. We like to go in private, but the problem is going private is, is that you're you're basically giving control of your business over to a private equity firm who has similar interests that Janice had, which is except they put a massive amount of debt on the balance sheet. 01:04:41:12 - 01:05:00:07 John Mackey: They, they, they, they borrow money temporarily to acquire the business. And then once they get control of it, they pay back that bridge loan. They to acquire it and they borrow more money, long term money on the balance sheet of the company they acquire. So they would have put 12 or $13 billion on the hole in debt onto Whole Foods markets balance sheet. 01:05:00:09 - 01:05:26:14 John Mackey: And so we would have had to spend all of our operating earnings or a lot of it to service the debt. And and if we had a downturn in our we could go bankrupt, we might be destroy it. I just thought that risk was too high. Anyway, we were puzzled about what to do, and I and I kept I, I kept asking the question every day, every day, what's the win, win, win solution for all stakeholders? 01:05:26:18 - 01:05:45:04 John Mackey: What's the win win solution for all stakeholders? I kept putting that question out because I put it out to the universe and also put it out to my deeper part of my being, my soul. At one day I woke up and the answer popped in my mind What about Amazon? And 01:05:45:04 - 01:05:49:09 John Mackey: I knew Amazon had been interested and they wanting to do a more in the grocery business. 01:05:49:09 - 01:06:15:14 John Mackey: They were struggling with their business, Amazon Fresh and I had met Jeff Bezos a year before at a microsoft CEO summit, and I he and I got some quality time with Jeff. We talked at a mixer about books, fantasy fiction, science fiction, scuba diving. I'm an experienced diver, and Jeff was new. I told him about the best places I died in the world and we kind of got along well. 01:06:15:19 - 01:06:32:06 John Mackey: And then we were on a panel together, but just the two of us. And after that panel we were talking and Jeff said, You know, you seem like a really interesting guy. We should hang out. Let's talk we talk about Whole Foods. And I said, sure, but I never heard from Jeff after that. But so but I liked him. 01:06:32:06 - 01:06:50:06 John Mackey: I thought, you know what? This is one of the great entrepreneurs of our era. And I think they would probably Whole Foods Market alone. So we we found a way to contact them and they were interested. And so I flew down there with three guys for my my senior leaders on my team, the four of us went and met with Jeff and three leaders on his team. 01:06:50:10 - 01:07:20:15 John Mackey: And we had an amazing two and a half to three hour discussion about what it would be like if we merged companies. And it was an amazing conversation. It's kind of like when you fall in love with somebody might have the conversation where you just have a meeting of souls and they had so many good ideas and we had so many good ideas of how we could help each other that two days after that meeting, they sent a team down to, to do more due diligence on on Whole Foods. 01:07:20:15 - 01:07:25:16 John Mackey: And six weeks after that first meeting, we signed an agreement to get to get married. 01:07:25:16 - 01:07:45:07 John Mackey: They ended being their solution. And I of course, I have a lot more details on it in the book, the Amazon Solution. But I mean, it was just the best solution given the we were in because I didn't want to have the company sold against our will to I didn't want our board to be fired and I didn't want the management team to be fired. 01:07:45:07 - 01:08:08:12 John Mackey: I didn't want if you if we'd been sold to Kroger or Albertsons or some other supermarket company, what they would have surely done is they would have eliminated our corporate offices and, and taken it all into theirs, where our quality standards might have changed. They'd been there and they've been they were under a lot. They would be under a bribe. 01:08:08:12 - 01:08:26:01 John Mackey: We'll call it a bribe from companies like Coca Cola, PepsiCo, the big food companies who want to sell their products at Whole Foods. And we have standards that we don't sell a lot of the items they want us to sell. Those quality standards would have been watered down. Our culture would have been changed. All the supermarkets are heavily unionized. 01:08:26:03 - 01:08:45:07 John Mackey: And I actually had a meeting with Albertsons on an informal basis, and I talked to him and I asked him a question. I said, What percentage of your company is unionized? He said, 75% CEO did. I said 75%. Wow. It's a lot more than I realized it. And and he said, Oh, John, don't worry about the unions. They're going to leave you alone. 01:08:45:08 - 01:08:51:05 John Mackey: And and I said, No, they're not going to leave us alone. They're not going to leave us alone. 01:08:51:10 - 01:08:52:15 Jonathan Keyser: You're so happy with that. 01:08:52:15 - 01:09:15:04 John Mackey: So you have to see the context of what was happening then and what our alternatives were available to us. Amazon was the best solution. And and then I go into some detail in the book towards the end about summing it all up about Amazon. Most of that merger has been really good for Whole Foods, and I go into great detail about how they they people don't say whole paycheck very much anymore. 01:09:15:04 - 01:09:33:05 John Mackey: Part of the reason why is Amazon let us cut our prices four times in the first two years if we'd stayed private you know how hard it is to cut prices. And I mean in a when you have quarterly earnings pressure, if you're selling something for a dollar, you start selling it for $0.90 in the long run. That's a good strategy. 01:09:33:07 - 01:09:59:13 John Mackey: You'll get more business in the short run. Your sales just dropped 10% now. And your same your comp sales or same store sales plummet, your profits plummet. And when you've got activists, you're just toast. So Amazon only dropped our prices. They they gave everybody in the whole everybody the company got a pay raise within a month of acquisition even though that lowered our profitability considerably. 01:09:59:15 - 01:10:23:07 John Mackey: But technology, that's a wasn't a strength of Whole Foods they put in when the when COVID hit. They were able to scale us up for delivery. They spent tens and, tens and millions of dollars to get Whole Foods up to delivery very quickly. And during the COVID, we were very, very good at delivery, and delivery became a large percentage of our total sales. 01:10:23:08 - 01:10:37:23 John Mackey: And they did. They delivered for free, which I was arguing with them the whole time. Don't deliver for free. My God. I mean, it cost us $20 to make a delivery. You can do it for free. It's going to wipe out all of our profits. They are again, we're thinking long term and said we're going to do it anyway. 01:10:38:01 - 01:10:54:07 John Mackey: So Amazon has been a good partner for us. It's not a perfect partner. I talk about some of the cultural differences that are there, but overall a good partner. They helped us and they most importantly, they didn't try to change us, right? They let Whole Foods be Whole Foods didn't try to convert us into Amazon. 01:10:54:09 - 01:11:14:19 Jonathan Keyser: But I think the details around that in in the book, the whole story is key. Let's last question for you, because I know we're getting long on time, easy to do when when we get together and talk about topics we're both passionate about. But tell us about your next venture I mean, it's something that you and I would talk about on on walks. 01:11:14:19 - 01:11:38:14 Jonathan Keyser: And I know what your next iteration is, and it's something that I'm grateful to be able to be a small in. But I just would love for you to kind of share, you know, the next the next iteration of your life. Because because of your the way you treated your your body and your health. You have a lot of life left in and you're still very, you know, full of energy and full of life. 01:11:38:14 - 01:11:55:19 Jonathan Keyser: And I remember, I think at a dinner your house one day, you said you're more excited today than you are, even when you were younger, building Whole Foods. So talk about this next phase of your life then and what that looks like and what your your new mission is or expand. 01:11:55:21 - 01:12:22:22 John Mackey: Well, I'm actually fulfilling a lot of details about it in the book, obviously. But I've had this dream about and I almost did it way back in 1989 with something called Life Works. But I said 89. No, 80, 85, almost dead in 85. But the dream that didn't happen then, but it's happening now in a much larger form. 01:12:23:00 - 01:12:57:09 John Mackey: And the name of the new business is called Love Life. And so we've acquired a few little businesses. We've got a we've got a telehealth business. It's now called a love Life telehealth. If you go to our website W WW love dot life you can see not loved dot live com just loved life. You can see what we're doing right now and we have a a telehealth business we have an online coaching business for people that have or that have diabetes or have one to lose weight. 01:12:57:11 - 01:13:27:09 John Mackey: They might be overweight or obese. We have a we own we acquired a restaurant in Miami called Love Life. That's where we got our brand name from. There are really good plant based restaurant in Miami. I would urge people to try and but when I'm really excited about as we're about to open in July 9th in L.A. and the L.A. area, El Segundo in the Beach cities area, we're opening up an All Best Buy, a 45,000 square foot holistic health membership club. 01:13:27:11 - 01:14:12:01 John Mackey: And let me describe what that is briefly. So we're basically putting five things together under this under this love life vision. The first one is we're going to a healthy food restaurant where it's not going to be a strictly plant based restaurant like one in. It's going to be what we call plant forward. It'll it'll you'll have think of sweet grains and then we'll you'll be able to and you can create salads and bowls, sandwiches, mains, and you can add animal high quality animal animal foods to those meals or make it the center of the plate if you wish so, But it's going to be a very healthy restaurant. 01:14:12:03 - 01:14:44:21 John Mackey: And secondly, we're opening up a state of the art fitness center here. You can think something like Equinox, it's going to be we have a lot of very advanced equipment that you won't generally find in in Equinox either. That helps people to do very quick, fast workouts. We're going to have a spa so you'll be able to get massages or facials or lots of different wraps and things that are exfoliants and things that people do in bars. 01:14:44:23 - 01:15:13:16 John Mackey: We have all this restorative equipment like cold plunges, infrared sauna cryotherapy, regular saunas, hyperbaric oxygen chamber and lymphatic massage table and all kinds of interesting cool stuff that we're doing there. We also have an element of play because we're going to have three pickleball courts inside the inside the facility, and I think we'll get people to join up just to play pickleball, if nothing else. 01:15:13:18 - 01:15:18:18 Jonathan Keyser: And then I want to move in. I, I just make a little apartment in the corner and I'll move in. 01:15:18:21 - 01:15:28:08 John Mackey: Yeah, well, I hope you're going to visit soon after it opens. Then the most important part, I say for last, we have a medical center. And so let me ask you your question. 01:15:28:08 - 01:15:29:20 John Mackey: When most people go see a doctor. 01:15:29:22 - 01:15:30:22 Jonathan Keyser: When they're sick. 01:15:31:00 - 01:15:53:12 John Mackey: Exactly. Our vision is to change the way people think about doctors the next 20 years, where the doctor's job is to keep you from getting sick. And so we now have this technology where we can, particularly the chronic diseases, you're still going to get calls and things like that. But the if you look at the causes of death in the United States, they're not from infectious diseases. 01:15:53:14 - 01:16:24:17 John Mackey: They're primarily from from what we would call chronic diseases. So the biggest killer in America is heart attacks. Second biggest is cancer. Then you've got stroke and you have various autoimmune type diseases that can kill us. And these things are are modern medicine doesn't cure these diseases. They manage the symptoms of the diseases, but they don't reverse them. 01:16:24:19 - 01:16:44:13 John Mackey: And what we believe is the best strategy is never to get those chronic diseases in the first place. And if you get them to detect them at a very early age and working with the medical team and in a wellness coach to reverse the diseases so our vision is we have this technology now that allows us to do a deep assessment. 01:16:44:13 - 01:17:00:13 John Mackey: So let's take you as an example, Jonathan. You come in, you could do a battery of tests and we could give you a complete health report, something you might get at the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic. We can we're going to do that at loveLife. We're going to give you a Jonathan Kaiser report, a doctor. I'll go over it with you. 01:17:00:15 - 01:17:25:09 John Mackey: And then if you're interested, we're going to try to develop put you in one of our one of our medical health plans to help you to become the healthiest version of yourself. How do we customize this for you? And as an individual, our doctors are trained and functional medicine, lifestyle medicine, integrative medicine. So they're going to be able to work with you on an individualized basis. 01:17:25:09 - 01:17:55:09 John Mackey: And we'll have a wellness coach working with you. Now we have these wearables such as or Apple Watch or Rings, Garmin devices about continuous glucose monitors. We have ways to gather the data collected, collated, have your wellness coach and you seeing it and talking about it. And then we basically can see if you're making progress or not. And if you're not making progress well, they're going to they're going to figure out the reason why and then you can modify to tweak the plan accordingly. 01:17:55:11 - 01:18:30:21 John Mackey: So that's the kind of the that's the health vision. But it's more than just physical health that we're going to try to work with. We're also going to be we really want to help people on a on an emotional, psychological and spiritual level. So we will, for example, have meditation classes and meditation gatherings at love life. We already have stated we'll have yoga and Pilates we will have breathwork for people that never done Breathwork Breathwork is an amazing way to have transcendent experiences just by continuous deep in a in a with a guide and a guided way. 01:18:31:03 - 01:18:32:19 Jonathan Keyser: You talk about that in your other book, talk. 01:18:32:19 - 01:18:45:08 John Mackey: About it in the book has had a huge impact on me and then when it's legal and it will be legal in some form or fashion, we will also do psychedelic therapy, particularly MDMA and psilocybin, which now. 01:18:45:08 - 01:18:47:08 Jonathan Keyser: That was why. 01:18:47:10 - 01:19:20:16 John Mackey: Because the science is now so clear now because they've been doing, you know, this these substances were taken out of science for decades when the drug warriors got scared, they outlawed all these drugs, even for scientific study. But over the last decade or so, the last ten, 15 years, they've been legalized again for study, for scientific research. And what they discovered is that PTSD that's particularly useful for veterans that have been seeing combat. 01:19:20:22 - 01:19:48:03 John Mackey: But quite frankly, almost everyone has some PTSD in them from childhood abuse or some traumatic experiences that have happened that have just been suppressed down but still manifest in our lives with with irrational behaviors, a combination of MDMA and psilocybin has proven to be remarkably effective in eliminating PTSD in people. And that's why this is going to be legalized for medical therapeutic uses. 01:19:48:05 - 01:20:15:00 John Mackey: It's already been legalized in Oregon and Colorado, for example. I think California will be very many years behind. It'll it'll be regulated. It'll be licensed. You'll have to be trained in it. But because this can can take these deep emotional states and get us healing on it, I mean, have like talk therapy has like a 1% healing rate on these and group therapy to have like a 1% healing of PTSD. 01:20:15:02 - 01:20:24:07 John Mackey: These these psychoactive substances can heal up to 80%. 80% of people can be healed completely from their PTSD. That's just amazing. 01:20:24:13 - 01:20:36:08 Jonathan Keyser: Psychedelics are for you know, for hippies and, you know, like this whole. So there there needs to be a shift in mindset around these substances. Correct. 01:20:36:08 - 01:21:08:23 John Mackey: And that's happening. The drug warriors, for the most part, have died. And we have a new scientific interest in these substances. And again, response regulated appropriately, use responsibly, not say recreationally, but used in a medical setting can be extremely helpful for people and love. Life is about helping individuals to be the best version of yourself. How do we make Jonathan Keyser the very best version of yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually? 01:21:09:01 - 01:21:43:06 Jonathan Keyser: Well, and I love that. And I also think, you know, you look at what's happening today post pandemic mental health challenges are are are, are through the roof. And so, you know, you started a whole food foods to change how people eat and create health there. To me this is exactly like you just stated a extension of that where now you're taking it to their entire life, not just the food that they put in their body. 01:21:43:11 - 01:22:05:20 Jonathan Keyser: Right. And Just like you were a visionary back in the day when, you know, people thought you were crazy for doing what you're doing. You probably have those people today that don't see the the vision when when love life is fully built out and, you know, mature. What does that look like? What is what do you see in the world from there? 01:22:05:20 - 01:22:23:18 John Mackey: I see love lives all in every major city in the United States and eventually the world to what I see happening. And we'll have lots of copy imitators that will be doing similar things once we once we prove that works. And so the world is going to change and Whole Foods change the way people eat. It's simple fact. 01:22:23:21 - 01:22:49:01 John Mackey: I mean, people today aren't old enough to remember what supermarkets were like when Whole Foods got cranking up about the first 20 years, Whole Foods existed. People would would come into our stores and they'd say, I've never been in a store like this. This is incredible because our stores were beautiful. Yeah, the produce was was abundant. And you just the supermarkets back in the day were were very sort of dingy crummy places to go. 01:22:49:01 - 01:23:11:08 John Mackey: And and they did do to a Whole Foods they've upped their game and they've considerably improved. Not just Whole Foods of course, I mean there are other other factors, but I think similar things are going to play out except faster because now we have social media, now we have these remote technologies, everybody has a smartphone, good ideas, they don't stay hidden. 01:23:11:08 - 01:23:19:05 John Mackey: Long haul foods flew under the radar for a long time before people actually woke up to us. I don't think it will be the case with Lovelock now. 01:23:19:10 - 01:23:52:23 Jonathan Keyser: Now. Well, as always, I mean, I have scratched a whole bunch of notes, you know, to to anyone that's that's growing a business or is just a human in today's world. The whole story is highly recommended. And I and you will be glad that you did. And I urge you to go to Amazon, download and purchase the whole story by John Mackey and and then make sure that you go and comment. 01:23:53:00 - 01:24:15:19 Jonathan Keyser: Give him give him a rating. We want this we want this story to spread. We want we want more people to understand the journey and especially as entrepreneurs, it's very helpful to us to understand that we're not alone. And a lot of these same struggles that you've gone through, you know, other CEOs and entrepreneurs are going through today. 01:24:15:21 - 01:24:28:11 John Mackey: Yeah, you can also get the book. You can also get the book at almost not every Whole Foods market selling it, because some a few of the smaller wholesalers don't have any books, but any hope it sells any books is selling the whole story right now. So you can also go pick it. 01:24:28:11 - 01:24:57:05 Jonathan Keyser: Up by five. Give them to your friends. Well, John, it's been an honor. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for putting yourself out there, as always. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your leadership in in the world. And I think that it already is true today. But I think 50 years from now, people will look back and say, you were probably one of the top three most influential business leaders of our time. 01:24:57:07 - 01:25:14:21 Jonathan Keyser: And me personally, I'm grateful to know you. I'm grateful to be to be associated you. And I'm grateful for the impact that you've had in my life in business. So thanks for coming on the Jonathan Guys podcast and I look forward to many, many positive years ahead together.