Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm happy to be here.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Thanks for inviting me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You want me to do a shot?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's what you're saying?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Matcha, ashwagandha, passion fruit.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It looks like it's got lion's mane, cordyceps.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
All right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Let's do it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Bottoms up.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Mm-hmm.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, you know.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I mean, it's like...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If I were still CEO of Whole Foods, we'd be approaching Erewhon differently than current management.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Let's put it that way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, I have a lot of respect for Erewhon.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I think they're doing a great job.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so I admire what they've accomplished.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If I was still CEO of Whole Foods, I did retire about three years ago now, we'd approach Erewhon differently.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I wouldn't concede sort of the high end of the market to them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I would compete.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
In fact, we had created a new brand called Ideal Market.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We had the trademark for Ideal Market.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And we had one and we had a...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
original one in Colorado, and then we opened a second one in Boulder, and then we had a second one in Denver.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And it was similar to a lot of the things that Erwan's doing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And the idea was to open Ideal Markets in the LA market.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Let's just say the head of marketing really didn't like that idea because she believed that it'd be difficult to support another brand, a brand name.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that Whole Foods could compete.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I thought, well,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We can't really move Whole Foods to quite where everyone's going, but we could create a different brand.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We didn't agree, but when I knew I was going to retire, I gave a year's notice.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So it's like, I don't want to force this down the throats of the management team because they're going to clearly not do it after I go.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I just dropped it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But if I was staying on, I would have definitely done that, and it would be a good competition.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We'd push Air One a little harder, and they'd push Whole Foods or Ideal Market, and we'd see how it turned out.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Trust me, I know that well.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, one of the things that Amazon helped Whole Foods do, there are some things about Amazon that I wasn't really happy with from a cultural standpoint.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But one of the promises they made to us that they kept was they really helped us drop our prices.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
In the first two years after that merger, acquisition was back in 2017.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
For the first two years, Whole Foods was able to drop its prices significantly four separate times to where I almost never hear that whole paycheck anymore.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We're far more competitive price-wise.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You are.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So we do have that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Advantage versus Air One.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I always wanted Whole Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Our first core value is to be the highest quality natural and organic foods in the world.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was our first core value.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so I would want Whole Foods to be able to do that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If it couldn't do it under the Whole Foods brand, we'd have another brand.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So it doesn't matter because I did retire and it was a good thing I did.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The existing management didn't want to go that direction.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So part of letting your child grow up is it makes different choices than the parents might want.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I led Whole Foods for 44 years.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You might say as a parent, it's got a good foundation, it's got good values, it's good peeps.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But it wants to do different things than the parents might want to do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that's part of every parent knows you got to let your child go in its own direction.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It has its own destiny, so to speak.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, but I never really was a corporate guy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that was part of the conflict with Amazon ultimately.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Was, I mean, I'm an entrepreneur and I had no business background.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I took no business classes in school.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I started this business up with really very little business background, no educational background.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I think three things happened.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
One is, is that as an entrepreneur, I'm willing to take chances and innovate and
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
but then also learn from my mistakes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I learned from many mistakes that I made.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Secondly, I'm a voracious reader.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So once I got interested in business, I may not have taken any classes, but I read hundreds of business books, accounting, marketing, finance, strategy, pretty much everything I could get my hands on, I read.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then my father, there was a good business
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
and he became my mentor for the first 16 years of the company's history.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So yeah, I learned a lot and got better.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
One of the secrets is to keep improving all the time.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You never can let up.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You have to get better and better and better.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I've always had a competitive side to me, which just talking about Erwan, it comes out a little bit.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I mean, it's like, that just means I want to be the best.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I want to reach the highest potential possible.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's not competitive in the sense that I hate my competitors or they're evil or bad.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I mean, someone like Erwan, I got to be good friends with the former president of Trader Joe's, Doug Rao.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And he actually and I were deeply both involved in conscious capitalism.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And Doug said the
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Whole Foods taught Trader Joe's more than any other company.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And Trader Joe's made Whole Foods a better company.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's what competition does.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It makes you better.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So Erwan, viewed in that way, is someone that can make Whole Foods better if we would engage with them in that way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So that's how I blend it together.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's hard to say because, you know, it's like you're on a journey for books, and so books have different impacts.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I remember early on,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Once I discovered Peter Drucker, a management theorist, I read all Peter Drucker's management books.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And his magnus opus was management, practices, task, something else.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It was a big, thick book.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That became sort of a Bible for me for a while.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I read that book several times.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It was very well earmarked.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Another book on business ethics had a huge impact on me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
A former philosophy professor I studied under at University of Texas, Robert C. Solomon, Bob Solomon, his book was called Ethics and Excellence.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I probably read that book a dozen times and it had a huge impact on me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So different books along the way have had a big impact on me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And also I read a lot of business biographies of entrepreneurs, right?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I mean, John D. Rockefeller, Rockefeller by Ron Chernow, who wrote, who did Hamilton, now has a new book on Mark Twain.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Books on Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Andrew Carnegie.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No, it's pronounced Carnegie.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It is?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes, it got New Yorkized, but that's how he pronounced it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Carnegie.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so I read all those biographies and these guys were inspiring to me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Andrew Mellon, James Hill.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
There's just the business biographies.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
In fact, there's a podcast, which I'm going to pitch because for anybody that's an entrepreneur, they need to listen to the Founders Podcast.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's a guy named David Sinner.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Do you know about this podcast?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, very well.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So he reads these biographies of
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
entrepreneurs and business people and does a podcast on them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I've gotten a lot of, I've read a lot of books from listening to his podcast.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I think I just named about 10 books.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes, exactly.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Exactly.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Sure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I mean, think about that as a good personal finance book for people that, you know, it's very, one of the things we don't teach in school, which is criminal in my mind, is personal finance.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That should be something that's taught in high school.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I know.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
People get to become adults and they don't have the slightest clue about money.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
What to do about it, how to manage it, how to save it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If you can master the basics of personal finance, you're well on your way to becoming a wealthy person.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Just by saving and letting it compound over time.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I know.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Why is that?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You know what?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
One of my homework assignments is, which I, when I was reading the review of you, is that you've got a TEDx that's got like 5 million views.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Whatever.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, that's a good one.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's 5 million more times than I've watched it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I'm going to have to listen to it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I love that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I mean, 10 times...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's very persistent.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Most people would quit after two times.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You know, I...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's so funny you say 10 because there's two ways that connects with my brain.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, one is I tell people that you can learn to love any food if you will expose yourself to it about 10 times.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Really?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I've learned to love every vegetable by simply – it's like it starts out, I don't like this.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then it goes to, you know, it's not bad, but I would never pick it on my own to –
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, it's actually pretty good.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Really?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's my favorite food.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I love that food.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And it's just, you know, our taste buds turn over about every two weeks.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Did you know that?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Really?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's why it's easy to re-educate your palate.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Taste buds are, they're just constantly, the cells are being recycled all the time.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So you can teach yourself to like any food.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So moral of the story, teach yourself to like the foods that are really, really good for you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
All the vegetables.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I mean, broccoli.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Cauliflower.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Before I moved in this vegetarian co-op, I think the only vegetable I'd ever eaten in my life was a pickle on a hamburger.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Really?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, that was until I was about 22.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
One time in my life.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I mean, I'm just an individual, Jen.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm just an individual.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I've just gone my own.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I followed my own heart and wherever it took me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And people change, people develop, people grow.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
My life's been an adventure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's a grand adventure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So yeah, I'll give a little background.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So taking up weed when I didn't eat any vegetables, pickles, and hamburgers.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I moved in this vegetarian co-op when I was 22 or 23 years old, right around that era.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I wasn't a vegetarian.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I actually was just, I was very interested in all things counterculture.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was very influenced by people that were, you know, hippies going their own way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so I moved in and thought, I just meet really cool people.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I did.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
People taught me how to, I had a food awakening.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I learned how to cook.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I started eating vegetables, getting myself used to it and liking it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I became the food buyer for the co-op.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I had thought previously to that, Jen, that it was like, my body was like a car.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You take it in, like you go to the gas station to get fueled up.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You go to McDonald's or the Jack in the Box to get fueled up.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So it never occurred to me that we were like a living being that has tens of trillions of cells that need to be nourished.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And food could make you feel better, give you more vitality, help you supercharge your immune system.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was all new to me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so I began to learn that at the co-op.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then I got interested in it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I'm reading cookbooks for fun.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm practicing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I go to work for this small natural food store called Good Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I came home back to the co-op one day, and I started talking to my girlfriend, who I'd met at the co-op, at Prana House, the name of this co-op.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I said, Renee, what do you think if we opened up our own natural food store, you and me?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And she said...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, Macko, man, I think that'd be really cool.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Renee was definitely a hippie.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
She was like, so I'm 23 now and Renee's 19.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We had no background in this at all, except I'd worked a little bit in this natural food store.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But it was gonna be fun.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So we went out and hustled money.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We raised $45,000.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
found Safer Way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Safer Way, it was very idealistic store because it was vegetarian and we didn't sell alcohol, we didn't sell coffee, we didn't sell sugar.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We did very little business.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was the takeaway.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was the takeaway, yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We were very idealistic, very pure, but we didn't meet the market where we found it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And we were also on a residential street.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We lost
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Half our money, we lost $23,000 in the first year.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But then it was like, I started reading all those books.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
My dad's mentoring me, making mistakes, learning from him.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I realized, oh, we need a different location for one thing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We're on this residential street.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Renee and I moved out of the co-op.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We're living in the house now, this old Victorian house on the third floor, sleeping on a futon couch at night.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
There's no shower or bathtub in this place.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We're not supposed to be there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It was his own commercial place.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We just lived up there and we actually took showers in the Hobart dishwasher from the cafe.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, exactly.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm pretty sure that violated most of Austin's healthcare rules.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I think so too.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We didn't promote it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Anyhow, so to speed up that story a little bit,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We decided we got to get a bigger location.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We found some additional capital to invest, and we opened up the first Whole Foods Market.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We merged with another small natural food store like Safer Way that was, you might say, a friendly rival.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And together, we co-founded the first Whole Foods Market, which was a great, huge success right from the beginning.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Within six months, it had become the highest volume natural food store in the entire United States.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It just took off.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It was one of the world's first natural food supermarkets.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Not the very first, but one of the first three or four.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And it was very successful.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We were in the right place at the right time.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It just went bonkers.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We had a flood nine months after we opened, which almost put us out of business.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But we learned a lot from the flood.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We learned, A, don't build stores in 100-year flood zones, because the 100-year flood happened the first year we were open.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's the biggest flood Austin had in 70 years.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I might add...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
the biggest flood that's happened in the hill country since that tragedy that just happened recently in Hunt, Texas.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Wow, yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's the biggest flood since the flood of 1981.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Really?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, really.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But you rebounded.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We rebounded.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We got reopened.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I learned about stakeholders that I didn't have the word for.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But we should have died.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And our stakeholders saved us.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Our customers came and helped us.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Neighbors and customers helped us clean up the store day after day to get reopened again.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They didn't want us to die.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They loved us.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Our team members worked for free until we could get reopened.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
to pay them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And if we didn't get open, we wouldn't be able to pay them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Our suppliers gave us more inventory.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Our investors put more capital in.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The bank loaned $100,000 to us on my signature, which I assure you was absolutely worthless.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And we got reopened and we never looked back.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And we just went on from success to success after that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's a great question.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I believe the hardest expansion a retailer ever does is going from one to two stores.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Actually, that's 100% growth.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And now you have to create systems for the first time.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It can't all be tacit knowledge that you keep in your head.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You need to write things down and create policies that both stores will follow.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So since we had four co-founders, we kind of divided it up into three.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
two people at each store.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But then, so it took us two years to get, after Whole Foods, it took us two years to get the second one open.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Then two years after that, we got the third one open.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And two years after that, we got the fourth one open.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I always tell people, to show you how fast Whole Foods grew,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
At the end, when we went public in 1992, 14 years after we'd opened the first Whole Foods Market, no, the first Safeway store, we were up to 12 stores.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It took us 14 years to get to 12 stores.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
When I retired 30 years later, we were 540 stores.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So once we got the formula down and it worked, we scaled it pretty rapidly.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And we acquired Mrs. Gooch's in LA.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We acquired Bread and Circus in Boston, Fresh Fields in DC.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We acquired a lot of our friends.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
and cashed out the entrepreneurs, made them very wealthy and gave us new platforms for growth in different geographical areas.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then we took the best practices from each one of them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We didn't think Whole Foods was better than everybody else.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We just, these were our peers.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so we had an attitude of what can we learn from them that makes us better?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, everything's always evolving.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So Whole Foods, for most of our history, was very decentralized.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We were, and there's always trade-offs in organizational structure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We were very innovative historically.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
When we're decentralized, we empowered regional leadership to innovate, to create new things.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
A lot of them didn't work, but the ones that did work, we could copy and spread.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So Whole Foods, in fact, Whole Foods drove a lot of the entire innovation of the supermarket industry for a long period of time.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But then what happened over time, and this trend began before I retired, we had hired professionals and the professionals were trying to, I'm talking about a lot of MBAs, and they were trying to make Whole Foods more efficient.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Cut our costs so we could lower our prices.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And the trade-off when you do that is that you centralize more things and you take power away from the regional people so they won't make mistakes and have a lot of waste.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But the trade-off is you get less innovation.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You're less creativity.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
People are less empowered.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That trend accelerated under Amazon.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And after I left, it's really accelerated because I was kind of the thing that was holding it back, saying, hey, we're losing our innovative edge.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We're not really.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We're just doing the same thing over and over again.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's what most retailers do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I do think Whole Foods has changed.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But, you know, I didn't know how to stop it, actually, to tell you the truth.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, once Amazon acquired the company, I didn't have the power to do it any longer.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Most people don't know that backstory.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
In my book, The Whole Story, which I'm going to pitch right now, I tell the whole story of Whole Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's also my personal spiritual journey.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's a memoir.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's very candid, very honest.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
and very authentic.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But we didn't want to sell Amazon.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's just that Amazon was the best solution to a problem we had.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that problem was we had shareholder activists take a large stake in the company.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I met with these guys.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They were very unreasonable people.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'll take my bad language that they were using out of it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But- No, you don't have to.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I met with them and they basically said, they showed this PowerPoint, which had a bunch of bullshit in it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I said, well, I could get a copy of the PowerPoint because I think there's a few mistakes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And they says, no, we're not going to give you a copy of the PowerPoint.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
This is Jana Partners.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's the name of this private equity firm.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I said, well, why not?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And he says-
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, we don't want to.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I said, but I know, but there are a lot of mistakes there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We don't care.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And they said, but we're showing it to all your investors anyway.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I said, listen, Mackie, here's what's going to happen.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
First, first thing I'm going to do is take over your board.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And once we do that, we're going to fire you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then we're going to fire every one of your executives that doesn't do exactly what we tell them to do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then we're going to just put you up for sale to the highest bidder.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And there's not an effing thing you can do about it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then they walked out of the room.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so it was like, okay, that did not go very well.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then it was like, we had like three or four alternatives we could do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
One would be to fight them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was probably what we thought was going to happen, which meant we'd have a struggle with them over the board first.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then if they got control of the board, we'd have a struggle with them over the shareholders.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so we could fight them all the way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The challenge of that strategy was,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We needed to lower our prices.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Whole Foods, the whole paycheck thing had really stuck.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And there's another even more backstory I'm not going to go into that is more complicated.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But we had the government harassing us in certain cities and it was hurting our brand and we were getting a lot of negative publicity.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I'm not going to go into that right now.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But that led to Jana taking this position.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then we needed to lower our prices, but we needed time to do that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because you're selling something for a dollar and you start to sell it for 90 cents.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
In the short run, your sales just dropped 10% if everything went down 10%.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Your same store sales dropped, went negative 10%.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Your profits probably dropped 30% or 40%.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that's going to freak out Wall Street.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so then you're playing into Jana's hands.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Then it's going to like, these people are wrecking the business.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We need to take it over.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So we needed time to do that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We weren't going to have time with Janet as investors.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So then we looked.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Maybe we could find somebody friendly to buy it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So we talked to Warren Buffett.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And Warren, he knew all about Whole Foods, but he made a joke, which was pretty funny.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He said, you know, we own Dairy Queen.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I'm famous for my junk food eating.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
John, this is not a good brand fit for me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I think he just maybe thought we were still too expensive for a price.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But anyhow, he didn't want to do it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And Albertsons, we had a talk with Albertsons.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They really wanted to merge with us.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But it was obvious to me that was a very poor cultural fit.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so then I kept asking this question.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I really believe that if you put intentionality out into the universe, things happen.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So one of my intentions I kept asking was, what's the win-win-win solution here?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
What's good for our customers?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
What's good for our team members?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
What's good for our suppliers?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
What's good for our investors?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And what's good for the larger community?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And one morning I woke up and the answer pops in my brain.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It was, what about Amazon?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'd met Jeff Bezos at a conference the year before.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He and I had hit it off.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We had a lot in common, science fiction, fantasy, scuba diving.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We were on a panel together.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Jeff says, this has been great.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I want to follow up with you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Let's get together and talk.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I didn't hear from him.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Of course, he's going through that when his marriage was starting to break up and stuff like that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then a year later, we contact Amazon, see if they're interested.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They were very interested.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We flew in, had a special meeting with Jeff and his top senior leaders.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And we had, you know, I always like to tell people, you know, when you fall in love with somebody, there's always what I call the conversation.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The conversation where you connect and the hearts connect.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And it's like, whoa, I've never met anybody quite like this.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And you fell in love.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That happened in our first conversation with Amazon.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
These guys were not like I thought they were going to be.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They were incredibly intelligent, which I thought they would be.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Very entrepreneurial, very strategic.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We talked about all the things Whole Foods and Amazon could do together.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I remember our team, the three executives I brought with me, we went to a restaurant afterwards to process what had happened, and we were kind of looking around saying, that was incredible.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was an incredible conversation.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then it was looking around, and then we asked the question, like, do you think they liked us too?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And it turned out they did.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They contacted us a couple days later, flew a team down, and then it was a whirlwind romance.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Six weeks after the first meeting, we were engaged to be married.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that ended up being our solution.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
What I'll never know is if we'd fought, could we have won?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I felt like this was the best thing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Whole Foods dropped prices four times in those first two years with Amazon.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Our team members all got raises.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
All the hourly people got raises within a month of the deal happening.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Really?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Amazon came in and set the new minimum wage back in 2017 at 15 bucks.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So everybody that was hourly went 15 and then they staggered it up from there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So literally, I don't know,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
80,000 people got pay increases, cost Amazon hundreds of millions of dollars to do that, as did it did cutting those prices.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Those were two things that were really, really good for morale, good for our customers.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Our suppliers got, not only did they not get dropped by Amazon, but they studied our movement and they picked up a lot of our suppliers and put them into amazon.com that weren't there before.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So it was really good for a lot of our suppliers.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Our investors got like 30% more money from that sale than they had previously to Amazon doing it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The price of the stock went up.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And our communities also developed because of our philanthropy, our foundations.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Not only did Amazon not change that, they made additional donations to our Whole Planet Foundation, our Whole Kids Foundation.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So they've been a good partner in a lot of ways.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But culturally, that's been the rubbing point.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We're different culturally.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And to give Amazon credit there, they haven't really tried
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
to change Whole Foods culture in any direct way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They like our culture.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But the metaphor I'd come up with, Jen, is like, think of Amazon like this giant sun.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And we're like a big planet in their orbit, like Jupiter.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Okay, we're big.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We were a Fortune 250 company when they bought us.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But Amazon was a Fortune 5 company when they bought us.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So even though they haven't tried to change us, the fact of the matter is their gravitational pull is so powerful that Whole Foods is nevertheless affected by it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So we're still Whole Foods, but we are changing the gravities affecting Whole Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I will tell you what my motto is now that I've retired in just about three years.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's not my problem any longer.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You don't care.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I do care.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
There's not anything I can do about it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I do care.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If you think of it, it's like my daughter.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I make the joke that I married my daughter off to the richest man in the world.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes, exactly.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He was the richest when I married her off, and then Elon Musk passed away.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, right, right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No, it doesn't really matter too much.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I mean, I can't do anything about it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And the greatest gift I can give my successor is not to try to interfere in any way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, part of it's not necessarily the fault of the existing management.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The people, let's just put it this way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
When I retired after 44 years, I was like the last man standing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
All the people that we built the company together with, they all retired.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They all retired before me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I was working with people that were substantially younger than me that had professional backgrounds.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so the thing about professionals, this is why most corporations over time begin to decline.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Once the founders leave, that entrepreneurial spirit begins to go out of the company, and it's less creative, less innovative.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And it's true of almost all businesses, unless they're family-owned.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So what ends up happening is the professionals are very smart people.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They get MBAs from Harvard and Wharton and Stanford.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They're very bright people.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But their first loyalty is to their careers.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And oftentimes...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
A company like Whole Foods or Amazon is just kind of a stop along the way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's an addition to the resume.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then they're going to leverage that to another higher paying job.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so their first loyalty is going to be to their own careers.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then the second loyalty is to their profession itself, because they think of themselves as professional.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So as we were building the company, it was very hard.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It was very easy to enlist people that were coming up through the ranks into our purpose and our mission.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
In our stakeholder theory, people bought into that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It got harder to do that with the professionals because, again, their loyalties were not first to the company.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so I do think that's why over time, despite all that intelligence and market research and all the things they do, that sort of the creative spark oftentimes goes out of companies as they age.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But, you know, capitalism solves for it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Mm-hmm.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Companies like Erewhon come along.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So new entrepreneurs come up who aren't, it's like Whole Foods disrupted the supermarket industry.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You could argue Erewhon's disrupting Whole Foods, at least in LA.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I would argue that Erewhon's business model may not translate, it translates to New York, but I don't know if it translates maybe to the Bay Area, but it wouldn't translate everywhere.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Where are they charging for that now?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, it's not that much different from going to like a high-end restaurant, right?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right, right, right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You're going to pay more, but you're paying more for atmosphere, for service, for...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, again, I'm not going to throw down a near one.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They're doing something right there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They're obviously very successful, and I'm very happy for them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Sure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Also, in L.A., probably because of the Hollywood culture that sort of—
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
People want to be in the coolest, hippest places.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
True.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And Erwan has got that niche now.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's why you say it kind of like the new Whole Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because we used to be that niche.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And now the cool people go to Erwan and the people see the cool people going to Erwan and they want to go there too because that's where the cool people are going.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Hey, you know that Love Life, we're working with Erwan.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Are you?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We have an alliance with them, a marketing alliance.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If you're an Erewhon member, join one of their club.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You can get a special deal at Love Life.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm forgetting it right now, but I think you get a discount on memberships.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, you do?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You get a discount on a membership.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I signed a five-year contract.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Mm-hmm.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
with Amazon when the merger happened.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I had a five-year commitment, but I detail this in the book and some detail the whole story, but I was increasingly fighting with Amazon about cultural things.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And you might say that the tipping point occurred, this is back in February of 2022.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And the fight that I had with Amazon that tipped me was call back to work.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I wanted to bring our corporate staff back into the office.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And because everybody else at Whole Foods was going to work every day, everybody going into the stores or the distribution centers or everywhere else had to go into work.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But Amazon, because of Amazon, our corporate people didn't have to.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They could work at home.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And after a year, I thought it was wrecking our culture because we had sort of a privileged elite that didn't have to play by the same rules everybody else had.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that was so not Whole Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We had a much more egalitarian culture.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Everybody gets the same benefits.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Everybody gets the same discounts.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No privileged elite.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So that bothered me a lot.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I could see it was affecting... People asked me about it when I go down to the stores.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Hey, are the people back to work upstairs?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I was there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Amazon didn't want us to force anybody to come back to work.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I wanted to.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I'm talking to Dave Clark, who was my superior, who in almost every other way, I really loved Dave.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I still love Dave.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Dave was very smart and he was a very decisive and a very good decision maker.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I watched him make good decisions over the years and he was a very good decision maker.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But he was wrong about this decision.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He did not want to let me bring him back.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I started, I was talking to him, I said, Dave, listen,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Trust me, I'm the general in the field.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
This is bad for Whole Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It doesn't matter if Amazon doesn't want to do this.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Trust me, I know this is the best thing for Whole Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And he said, it triggered him.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And when I started talking about being the general in the field, trusted general in the field, and he says,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
God damn it, John, why don't you just fucking do what you're told to do once?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You ought to argue about everything.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I said, Dave, can you give me any other examples of me ever arguing with you about anything?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And he thinks about it and he says, I don't fucking have to give you an example.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I know it and everybody at Amazon knows it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's like, whoa.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Everybody at Amazon knows it?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Knows what?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I mean, it's like, and I said, Dave, I can see you're really triggered.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I think maybe we should not have this conversation any longer.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so we got off the Zoom call.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And Dave and I had this call every month.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He canceled the next two months.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then I thought, but I decided that day, I decided, you know what?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I don't have power anymore at Whole Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I can't do what I think is best for the company.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I can't protect the team members.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I can't protect the culture.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's time for me to go.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
However, that's such a monumental decision that I didn't want to make that hasty.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I wanted to think about it for a few months.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I thought, if Dave will contact me and apologize for being a jerk, you know, maybe I'll stick around a little bit longer.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But he canceled the next two calls we were supposed to have.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then they get back on, and it was like nothing had happened.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And it's like, okay, so that's how it's going to be.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so then another three months, everything was kind of normal.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I had kind of made this decision.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I wanted to talk it over with people at Whole Foods that I love and trust.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I wanted to talk it over with my wife.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I wanted to make sure it was really the right decision, because I knew there was no going back.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So then it was pretty clear my heart was guiding me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
to say that it was time to go.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's time to do the next thing, which by the way, leads to love life, right?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I call up Dave and I go over it with him and say, you know, I think it's time for me to go.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I think it's time for me to leave.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I'll fulfill my commitment I have on the contract.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'll finish out.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I basically gave one year's notice.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that last year at Whole Foods was arguably one of the best years of my whole career there because I had the new successor already picked, Jason Buechel.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Amazon loves Jason.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's who they would have picked anyway.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I'd already been mentoring Jason anyway.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He was my chief operating officer.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He'd been the chief technology officer.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He spoke Amazon speak, so to speak.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Wow.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I basically, for the next year, let him run the company anyway.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I just made a grand tour.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I visited everything.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
as many stores as I could, maybe a hundred stores around the country and said goodbye.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And it was so wonderful because I got so much love from people and I gave so much love and it was very teary eyed stuff.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so I had a great last year.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Wow.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I wish people could, that's the best way to leave the company.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And, you know, I still have so many good relationships with people there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Do you?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Sure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
People still know me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I go into a store.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I go into that El Segundo store to shop here because it's next to Love Life.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And yeah, people know me there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They talk to me, come up and talk to me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Jason.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, I mean, you think about what does a leader like me do?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
This is a good tip for entrepreneurs out there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
One of the questions as I grew the business that I asked myself and continue to ask me at the very end, what does the company most need me to do now?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that answer will change over time as the business grows.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
At the early days, what they needed me to do was run a store.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then the next thing they needed me to do was get involved in real estate so we could get really good real estate decisions.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And part of, as the business would grow and I'd let go of things,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
One of the things that's difficult to do is let go of things that you really enjoy doing and you're really good at.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But if you keep asking that question, what does the company most need me to do?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's like, okay, like at one point it needed me to do something I wasn't very good at and didn't want to do, but I knew I needed to do it, which was I needed to be more public facing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I needed to speak publicly more often.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I needed to tour around to the stores, connect with the team members, connect with suppliers.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
connect with Wall Street, just be sort of the face of the company.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Hence the media training days.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's, and I flunked the media training days, exactly.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But nevertheless, and I wasn't very good at it initially, but I practiced it and I got better at it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Ten times.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Now I'm a very good public speaker.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm very relaxed in front of crowds and audiences and stuff.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So anyway, the point is it's changing and evolving over time.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So what was the company most needing me to do?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, the last year it most needed me to do was have a really good farewell and hand the reins of power over to my successor with not dropping a baton but doing it in a very skillful way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Before that, so you might say after Amazon bought the company, what was my most important job?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
My most important job there was to, A, protect Whole Foods' culture from Amazon, while at the same time integrating as closely to them as we could to make the business more successful and efficient.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Whole Foods bought 23 companies over my time as a CEO.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I knew a lot about what made a good acquisition.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And you know what an acquiring company wants?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They don't want to hear about how good the good old times were before the acquisition.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They want to hear about the good things that are happening now and how much you like Amazon and the good things Amazon's doing for the company.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They want you to be a good team player.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I worked hard on that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I spent a lot of time selling Amazon to Whole Foods people and saying and pointing out like I just did to you a little while ago.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Why this was a good thing for the company.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so that Whole Foods people would not be rebels, but we'd be good team players.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I also needed to work with the, you know, I knew any way you sliced it, I was getting older.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I knew at some point my time was going to end.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I always kind of thought it would end after five years.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I thought that's long enough.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And, you know, it was clear to me, by the way, that when Amazon didn't say, oh, John, we don't want you to leave.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Please stay.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We'd like you to have another three-year contract.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No contract was offered.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They were not.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They were not.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I don't think they were going to force me out because I was too, you know, famous or, you know, that could be really bad if they forced me out.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But they were glad I was leaving.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was pretty obvious.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Really?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They were happy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I was like, sure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because I was arguing with them about culture.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I was fighting back.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I was pushing back.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I was never a yes man.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Whole Foods is doing really well from a financial standpoint.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Sales are very strong.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Sales are growing very rapidly.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I mean, I don't actually know, but the last year I was there, we'd gotten up to $22 billion in sales my last year.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'd say they're probably at $26 or $27 billion now.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So they're $4 or $5 billion bigger.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm pretty sure if Amazon wanted to sell Whole Foods, we'd pay $13.7 billion for it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's probably worth, I don't know, probably almost twice that much, I bet.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Are you a billionaire now?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So something people don't know about me is just simply that I'm a wealthy guy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I have enough money.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I stopped taking any compensation back in 2006.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I gave all of my stock options to our foundations.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I never took a salary after that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I had enough.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No, no, that's inaccurate.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was ChatGPT.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We capped ChatGPT.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
What did I know?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I know.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We capped the salary, the compensation anyone could make.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
By the time I left, it was about 13 times the average pay was the most anyone could make.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I think the very best paid people at Whole Foods were making close to a million dollars a year.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I was still making $1 a year.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I only took $1 a year from 2006 on.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I made nothing the last 16 years I got paid zero, nothing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
$1.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Except they never gave it to me.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They never gave me that dollar.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They never gave you that dollar?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm thinking about suing them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They owe me like $13.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You want to hear something funny?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So at Whole Foods, we have what we call benefit hours.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So you can bank those benefit hours if you don't use them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I was banking.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I have 1,000 plus paid time off hours.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I guess they probably owe me about $1 an hour.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They owe me about $1,000.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm not going to tell you how much stock I had or how much my net worth was simply because it just gets misunderstood.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Everyone wants to know.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I remember telling one guy, one of my friends asked me my net worth one time, and I told him, and he says...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's it?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
For all you did with Whole Foods?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I said, are you kidding?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm fabulously wealthy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
There's nothing I can't do in life.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so it's always a good question to ask yourself.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
How much do you really need?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
In fact, I'm going to tell you a story.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
This is one of my favorite stories.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You might have heard this one.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Did you know that Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22, were good friends?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They were good friends, and they were both writers.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So they're at this party on Long Island at a hedge fund.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
at a party and they were there and Vonnegut was needling Heller.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He says, so Joe, you know the guy that owns this place?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He makes more money in a day than you've made for all the books you sold of Catch-22 and all your other books combined.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Every single day, he makes more money than you do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
What do you think about that?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And Heller thinks about it for a few minutes or a minute or so.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And he says, well, Kurt, I've got one thing he'll never have.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And he said, what's that?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I have enough.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's a good story, right?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Good story.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that's how I feel.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I have enough.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, sure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Same principle.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Conscious capitalism, for the record, I've co-authored a book.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It came out in 2013 with Raj Sisodia, and we're working on a second edition of it right now.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, you are?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, it came out 12 years ago.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It needs to be updated.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So conscious capitalism means that there are four pillars to it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The first pillar is every business has the potential to have a higher purpose.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
besides just making money.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that's the biggest misunderstanding people have about business.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They think it's just all about the money.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's all about profit.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that's why business and capitalism have bad brands, you might say.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But in fact, the best way to understand the purpose is to use an analogy or a metaphor.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Let's take my body or your body.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
My body has to produce red blood cells
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
or I die.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No red blood cells, I'm dead.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But it doesn't follow because I need to have red blood cells.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The purpose of my life is to produce red blood cells.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Business, similarly, business has to make a profit or it dies.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It doesn't have the money to sustain itself.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It can't meet payroll.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It can't pay for repairs.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It has to make money or it dies.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But that doesn't mean that's why it exists.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It does not exist to primarily make money.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's a byproduct.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It exists always to create value for its customers.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's why it exists.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And the higher purpose is involved in that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So for example, Whole Foods' higher purpose, which we articulated, is to nourish people
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
in the planet.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's our purpose, to sell the highest quality natural and organic foods possible, help nourish people, help them be the healthiest version of themselves.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And if we do that well, profits result in that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So that's the first thing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Purpose is very important.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
First principle of Conscious Capital.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Second one is all the stakeholders matter.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
What's a stakeholder?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, a stakeholder is somebody that has a stake in the business, who's voluntarily trading with the business for mutual gain.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So like customers are trading with the business.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You go to Erewhon, you pay $25 for a smoothie.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They didn't make you buy that smoothie.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You did it because you wanted to.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so you made a trade voluntarily for your own mutual gain.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Similarly, employees or team members, they work together.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They trade their labor and their time and their creativity and their energy for paycheck or for other types of compensation, benefits and whatnot.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They don't have to work there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
In fact, there's lots of other jobs they potentially could do in a competitive marketplace.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So they do it for their mutual gain.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Similarly with suppliers, they don't have to supply.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They don't, you know, they'll like you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They don't have to trade with you at all.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Trading is always voluntary for mutual gain.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Same thing with investors.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They don't have to invest their capital.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Communities that we're part of.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So all the stakeholders matter.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so stakeholders, once you realize that, then you can see, wow,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They're all interdependent.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They're all connected together.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Can we create strategies where all the stakeholders are simultaneously winning?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Customers are benefiting, suppliers are benefiting, employees are benefiting, investors are benefiting.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
A win-win-win.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's the beautiful thing about business and capitalism, which people don't understand.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It has the potential to be a win-win-win system.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
that has an upward spiral indefinitely.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's why capitalism has led to so much progress in the world.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's totally misunderstood.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's been branded by its enemies, the Marxists, the socialists, wrongly and inaccurately.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Third principle, leadership.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We need leaders who are conscious, that have a higher purpose themselves to not just align their pockets and their own compensation.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They're there to serve that business and make it a better business and serve all the stakeholders.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then the fourth principle is culture.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We spend a lot of our lives at work.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Culture matters.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We have to create cultures that allow human beings to flourish and be happy and where they can find meaning and purpose and love.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I always say at Whole Foods, if you give people two things, they want to work for you forever.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Give them purpose and give them love.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's what we most crave for.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And by the way, that's why knowing when you have enough money is important.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because people chase after money, fame, and power because they think if they have those, they will get love.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And those are very addicting.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You can get addicted to any of those.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You don't have to be addicted to them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But the people I know that chase after those things, they find eventually that it doesn't, no matter how famous they get or how powerful they get or how wealthy they get,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It doesn't fill the void in the heart which only love can fulfill.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So that's what you should chase after is love, not money, power, and wealth.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So anyway, that's conscious capitalism in a nutshell.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We value those because if we think, if we have those, we'll be happy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because what you'll get when you have those things is you'll have some admiration.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You'll have some respect.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You'll have a lot of envy too, though.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The more successful you are, the more envy that you create.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
People that want to tear you down.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But admiration or respect is not the same thing as love.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Nope.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Love comes from the intimacy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It comes from friendship, from really being connected and intimate with somebody.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We're trusting someone and loving.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
As you love, it returns back to you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So we chase after the wrong things.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You might say false idols.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
35 years.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You know, I always say that you know who your true friends are twice in your life or at two extremes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You know who your true friends are when you are very successful because your true friends are really happy for you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They don't envy you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They see your success as their own success.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Those are true friends.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The other friends may not be your friends at all.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They may secretly be wanting you to fall and fail.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So you have to pay a lot of attention to be conscious.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's like you need to have a little bit of sensitivity to envy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If your friends envy you, they're probably not really true friends.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, I know, but you have to be discerning.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And the other time you know who your true friends are is when the bad times come.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because your true friends really care about you, and they're down there in the gutter with you or in the hard times with you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They're not secretly chortling, happy, oh, finally she got hers or he got his.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They're there, and you can tell.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You can tell they genuinely love you, and they care for you, and they want to help you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So it's kind of interesting that the best of times and the worst of times is when our true friends reveal themselves.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
One of the first things my dad taught me was the best capital you'll ever have in your business is the money that you retain from making money.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that's so different than what the venture capitalists do today with these startups.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The venture capitalists are not necessarily your friends at all.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And they may not have your best interest at heart.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They're
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They have a business model where it's called a blockbuster business model.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
One runaway successful idea is all they need to make billions of dollars.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so they can have a lot of failures.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So they try to scale a lot of these businesses too quickly.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And they tell them it's okay to lose money.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We'll just keep raising the price round after round.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And guess what?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If you don't scale well or if you start to lose money, maybe you can't get a higher price.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Then the entrepreneurs get diluted.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And they get a crammed down round and they may get forced out and they bring in professional management to take their place.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So my dad taught me the best capital you'll ever have is the money that you make and then invest it back in the business.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So from very early on, we never tried to scale Whole Foods so much as we just tried to be successful and we kept reinvesting the money in store after store after store.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was a very big lesson.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And the second lesson he really taught me was you've got to be able to build a really good team.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And the best team, that means you have to be sort of very self-aware, Jim.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's like you've got to know what you're good at, but more importantly, you've got to know what you're not good at.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And one of the things I've noticed about entrepreneurs that become successful is their egos can get really inflated, and it's like they think they're good at everything.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You know, I was so bad at so many things that I needed to build a good team around me to compensate for all my weaknesses.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so don't hire and promote people that are just like yourself.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You've already got that covered.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You need to hire and promote people who have the qualities and skills that you don't have in the same degree.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because I'm a firm believer, our culture makes heroes out of entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I mean, all those guys, they're all brilliant people.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
but they also build great teams.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And those teams are what make the business successful.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Entrepreneur is the driver, but you're no better than your team.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, so going along with that, well, I have a very strong sense of purpose.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I can infuse purpose and help other people to see purpose.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I have a certain charisma in that regard.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And because I'm so passionate and I'm an intense guy, people are very attracted to passion in general.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Uh,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Anybody that's passionate about something, I find it fascinating.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No matter what it is.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They could be just a plumber, but who's really in there just working away.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And you can see that they're figuring it out.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They're solving it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And it's like, wow, you're watching a master craftsman at work here.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's fascinating.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And great actors, any type of creative person.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I just find it very, very interesting.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I find the people that are passionate to be the most people I most admire in the world.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because it helps.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Passion comes from purpose for the most part.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's kind of connected.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I think a lot of entrepreneurs have those skills.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I don't think those are – I think Elon Musk has that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I think Jeff Bezos – I mean, Bezos has it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I know Steve Jobs definitely had it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, he had it for sure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes, for sure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So – and that doesn't mean all entrepreneurs are like that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But a lot of them are these –
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Intense people that are very mission driven and people follow them because they, you know, I remember, you know, you ever read the story about how Steve Jobs got John Scully, who ultimately replaced him in Apple, the first car around to work for him?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They really wanted to bring in this – the board was pressuring Steve to bring in a professional manager.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So this guy was like president of Pepsi.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So he was a big corporate – and, you know, Apple was kind of a pipsqueak company back then.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
His name was John Sculley.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So Steve is putting the pressure on him that Sculley is going to have to give up big, you know, to come in as the number two guy under Steve.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And, you know, it was a big step down, you might say.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so how does – you know, what does Steve convince him?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He says, so John –
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugar water to people?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Or do you want to come in and change the world?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because that's what we're doing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We're going to change the world.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Which do you prefer?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Sugar water salesman or world changers?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He had Scully with that argument.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's a good question.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And Beth will believe me when I've thought about it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So imagine for a moment that you knew how to help thousands of people, maybe millions of people in the long run,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Live a healthier, more vital, longer life.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And you did nothing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You just enjoyed the rest of your life.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
When you got to the end of your life, how would you feel?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I know I can help thousands of people be healthier.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And maybe over time, after I'm long gone, Love Life continues to grow and develop, maybe millions of people.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I can't not do it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I have to.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, well, you know, I could have, in my book, The Whole Story, I talk about one of my co-founders who didn't want us to grow past one store.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No, you laugh now.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That first store was a gold mine.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, I said that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I wanted to grow.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And he said, John, why do we want to grow?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We've got this one store.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
All we have to do is not blow it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We're going to all die really rich.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Let's just keep doing it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We don't have to do anything else.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Let's just live the good life.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I said, Mark, I don't want to do that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's going to be boring.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I don't want to do that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I want to build a company.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I want to open Whole Foods markets everywhere.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I want to help people eat healthier all around the country.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And he says, that's ridiculous.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We'll probably fail.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He ended up quitting.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
A few years later, we'd gotten up to four stores and we were struggling because the new stores didn't start as well.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so we had some growing pains, you might say.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And he was so disgusted with me, he quit.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Sold all his stock for a couple hundred thousand bucks and opened up a pizza restaurant.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was not a good financial decision on his part.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I am CEO.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I own about 70% of the stock from the capital that I put in, but it is in LA and I'm in Austin.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So Michael Robertson is the operator that's there running it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so he's got chief responsibility for it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I'm involved in all the major strategic decisions.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm involved in the, we have regular meetings, executive team meetings.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So a lot of the vision is not solely mine, but I was a driver of the vision and what we're trying to do.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It was my idea.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm the ultimate creator, although I have other co-founders.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I was the one that brought everybody together.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Entrepreneurs bring people together and create enterprises.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I like to say that I brought money, wisdom, passion together.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
but I'm not gonna work as hard at Love Life as I did at Whole Foods Market.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I don't have that, I'm gonna be 72 years old in a month.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So while I'm vital and healthy, I just don't, I'm not young.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I can't do the things that I could do in my 20s and 30s and 40s.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's just reality.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I'm somewhere between deeply involved and tangentially involved, someplace in between.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I think about love life.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I mean, I think about it a lot every single day.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So it is the main thing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's the main focus of my life besides my marriage.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's a one-stop holistic health club, all under one roof.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Remember, it's similar to Whole Foods in this regard.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
When Whole Foods opened up, there weren't any other national food supermarkets.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They were small stores and you had to go shop somewhere else.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Our idea was we're going to be one-stop shopper for anybody interested in natural and organic foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They don't need to go to any other store.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
People that are making this as lifestyle choice can just shop at Whole Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That was an original idea.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It may seem trivial now, but nobody believed that would work 50 years ago.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They all thought it was going to fail.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And that's entrepreneurs always climb over a wall of skepticism and doubt.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So we're creating a one-stop holistic health center.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Everything you want is at Love Life.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We've got the gym.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We've got Pilates.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We've got yoga.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We've got physical therapy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We've got pickleball.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We've got a restaurant.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We've got a spa.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We have primary health care.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We have complete testing protocols so we can find out where you are.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We are doing everything.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's a club.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We want it to ultimately become a social club, like a Soho house, except all around wellness and health.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We've got all the biohacks.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We have all the recovery stuff.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And the fascinating thing, Jen, is because of the boomers are...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
aging, they're interested in longevity.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The Xs are interested in that too.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But now you have so much technology that's intervening in so many ways.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We have testings getting better.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Measurements are getting better.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I mean, think about AI.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
In five years, like you see these meta glasses, five years from now, maybe less, we'll be having a wearable
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
that's plugged into us.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Maybe it's an earring.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It might even be an earring that's inserted into, it's connected to our blood.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And it's an AI there that we're going to talk to.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And you don't have to look at your phone anymore because the AI will do anything you want.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And it'll also be monitoring you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's like it'll say, Jen, your pulse rate's just gone up 20 points.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
What's going on here?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Are you okay?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Or your blood pressure, it just really, really zoomed up.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I want you to take some deep breaths, relax, and tell me what's going on.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I just think we're going to have this AI integrated in our wellness and health.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We're going to become much more conscious.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I really think we're on the cusp of sort of a wellness health revolution that's going to change the world.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I'd like Love Life to be part of that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It is.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's incredible.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, one of the reasons that you go to a place like Love Life is we're going to be a good editor for you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We'll be doing the research and figuring it out.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Just like Whole Foods was an editor for National Organic Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Our first plan is to get this one profitable.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And we're probably a year away from that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But even before then, we're looking for a second location, which we want to really do in Austin because that's where I live.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's where we're headquartered.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We can probably finance that separately if we find.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I'm very picky about locations.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm very proud of the fact the first 250 locations Whole Foods opened up were all successful.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It was like the same mall.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I happen to know where all Whole Foods Market's best stores are.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's like number three in Southern California.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You know, Erewhon opened up just down the road.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I haven't been in there yet, but I need to go check it out.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I don't know.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, I could guess my daughter.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I'm always going to care about the well-being of my daughter, but I'm not interfering with her life anymore.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If she wants to see me, she knows where I am.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Vegan.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Was that also, like, again, like... Do you remember that lesson I told you I learned with SaferWave?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It was a vegetarian store.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It just didn't do very much business.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It didn't sell.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Love Life opened a vegan restaurant here.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They did?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
About almost, is it two years ago?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Two or three years ago, I can't remember.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes, it was in Culver City.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We were going to have the first Love Life in Culver City.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, okay.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It was called Love Life.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so what happened there is very interesting.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We thought it was going to be a great location.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We were doing the restaurant first, and we were going to open the medical and the wellness center after that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And we had a corner location.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's where HBO is headquartered.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Apple TVs across the street, Sony, Amazon Studios, they're all within a mile of that location.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Netflix, within a mile of that location.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So this was like streaming headquarters for the whole United States.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Guess what happened after COVID?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Nobody came back to work.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so it was a ghost town there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
There was nobody there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
HBO's was just empty.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Apple was going to build another 575,000 square feet onto that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They canceled that project.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So pretty much every retailer in that center has failed now.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And the other restaurant that opened up also failed.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So we had to walk away from it, canceled out.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So that was a big write-off for us.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We lost a lot of money there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But it was also a vegan restaurant.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so the little cafe we have in El Segundo is not vegan.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We might call it plant four.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's got a lot of plant, but you can add in grass-fed beef.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We get all our meat from Whole Foods, by the way.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, you do?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes, it meets Whole Foods market standards, and we purchase it from Whole Foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, thank you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So the moral of the story is you have to meet the market where you find it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If you're an entrepreneur, you can't force your own values on other people.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And the reality is, much as I don't like it, only half of 1% of the population of the United States is vegan.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's so tiny.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Vegan restaurants are failing everywhere in Los Angeles right now.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I don't know if you know.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Restaurants in general are failing, but the vegan restaurants are just going out of business.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Ones I love, like Real Food Daily, which I always came here to eat.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They don't have anything open anymore.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No, that's closed.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Really?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I know because I wanted to go there.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's closed.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
LA was, along with New York, was kind of the vegan restaurant capital of the United States.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But New York's losing them too.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I think the younger generation, they're back to the protein.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Protein, protein.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, of course.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You know, if I can just take one minute to critique the protein obsession.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So, you know, there's three macronutrients that our bodies need, right?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
There are calories.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You get protein, carbohydrates, and fat.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And Americans are obsessed.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We eat more protein than any other country in the world.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
More protein than any other country in the world.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We spend more money on healthcare than any country in the world.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And we rank 48th in longevity.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Have you ever heard of anybody having a protein deficiency?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So here's what else people don't know what happens to these three macronutrients when you eat them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So extra fat that you eat that your body doesn't need, it just becomes fat on your body, okay?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
The extra carbohydrates that you consume, they're the choice of energy that your body uses first.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So first it burns carbohydrates for energy.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Any excess carbs gets translated into glycogen and stored in glycogen.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then excess carbs beyond that will raise your...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
your temperature at night when you're sleeping so it burns off.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And if it gets past then, then it'll be added to fat.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Protein, on the other hand, cannot be saved by the body.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You cannot save protein.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So the protein that you don't use in the day doesn't go into some protein repository so you can use it the next day.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If you don't need it to grow your hair, your fingernails, or repair bones,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
or whatever you would need to do with protein, new cells.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It just goes through a very complicated process to basically turn it into something else so it can be eliminated from the body.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
This obsession with protein comes from partly the meat industry and partly health influencers like Peter Atiyah, for example, and Max Huberman.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You mean Andrew Huberman?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Andrew Huberman.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Sorry.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They were pushing...
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I like both those guys.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I read their book.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I listened to Huberman's podcast and I like Peter Atiyah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
He lives in Austin.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But I think they're misguiding people on a protein.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They're not nutritionists themselves and I don't think they're really following the science very carefully.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, there's not much of a vegan... It's become politicized.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
There's not a vegan camp because there's... There's too few people.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
There's too few of them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Too few of them.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I'm certainly not, I am not a, I'm an ethical vegan, but I'm not pushing that on anybody else.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I think, you know, I'm kind of believing the Blue Zones diet that you mostly eat plants.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's how we evolved.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But we also didn't evolve as vegans.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We evolved as maybe if you go back far enough to the gorillas, they're vegan.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Chimpanzees are 98% vegan.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
In general, humans grew up eating, hunting and gathering, mostly gathering, but they ate some animal food.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I think that's part of our genetic structure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's hard to get B12.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
We don't know of a single historical culture or tribe that was strictly vegan.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I follow, we'll call it a whole foods plant-based diet, meaning I try to eat as few processed foods as possible.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And I start out the day with a huge smoothie.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I make a whole vitamin mix, a smoothie.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's half vegetables and half fruits.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I really believe when people are obsessed about protein, did you know only about 1% of Americans eat enough fiber?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I think it's more than that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Let's say it's 90%.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Fine.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That means only 10% get enough fiber.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's still very low.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And who doesn't get enough protein?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I know.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So it's fiber is what – when people say, where do you get your protein?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
My answer now is I get it from pretty much every food I eat.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Where do you get your fiber from?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because you will not get any fiber from animal foods.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And whole grains and beans.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And some in nuts and seeds too.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And antibiotics.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You know what I call the low carb diet?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I call it the zombie diet.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because no matter how many times it gets killed, it comes back in a new form.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Paleo.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Now carnivore diet.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It is, exactly.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's still, if you look at sports nutrition, it still leads the category in our nutrition departments for sports nutrition, which is focused around
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Protein and collagen.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So my favorite food, I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I probably get 15 to 20 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Me too.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So I eat a lot.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Number two, look at you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Look how thin and glowing you are.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No, it's fruits.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Probably the single thing people could do to improve their health the most would be to increase their fruit consumption.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Do you know there was a study done where people ate nothing but fruit for 90 days in a controlled, they were locked up for 90 days.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Do you think their blood sugar went up?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No, their blood sugar went down.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Did they gain weight?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
No, they lost weight.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They eat as much fruit as they want.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It can only be fruit.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And their health got better, and almost every one of their biometrics improved.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Really?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Every one of them did improve.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But the funny thing, as I tell the story, is because they set a world record.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
There's never been those large bowel movements in any controlled study before.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
They think it's sugar.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, I have friends that are strictly fruitarians.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah, I'm sure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And they're very thin.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Well, here's one way to think about it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So a pound of vegetables, if you eat a pound of vegetables, you're getting between 90 and 100 calories on average.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If you eat a pound of fruit, you're getting about 300 calories.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So to get 2,000 calories of fruit, you'd have to eat seven or eight pounds of fruit a day.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's a lot.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If all you ate was vegetables, you'd literally starve to death because you couldn't get enough calories.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But how many calories are in a tablespoon of oil?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
120 calories.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's the most calorie-dense food that we have.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If you show a plot for the obesity rate in America, it totally correlates with oil consumption.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Absolutely.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Believe it or not, because of all the negative propaganda, sugar consumption has leveled off and began to decline.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Really?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But oil consumption continues to go up and so does weight.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Sugar's a scapegoat.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
All oils.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, well, studies show, again, because of the fiber that comes along with the fruit, and also particularly berries.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Did you know berries are like superfood fruits because the pectin in the berries slows down tremendously absorption of the sugar into the body?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Totally.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I've eaten strictly fruits all day with a continuous glucose monitor on, and my blood sugar never spiked above a healthy normal.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Sorry to say.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
God, the
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
cherries this year are so great.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I make my own salad dressings, and they're delicious.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
How do you make yours?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Vitamix.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I can even tell you the principles of how to make a delicious salad.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So the first thing is you need some kind of fat.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's why they generally have oil.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But a better, healthier fat will be either nuts and seeds or avocados.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So first you have a fat.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Then you have to add some kind of acid to it, which could be vinegar, like a good balsamic vinegar, or it could be lime or lemon.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
even mustard because it has vinegar in it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So then you have an acid.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Then you want to have something that adds a little bit of salt to it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You don't want it to be too salty, but you want it to be a little bit of salty, which you could get from soy sauce, tamari.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Again, mustard would do for acid and salt.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Add a little bit of salt, and then you either go savory or sweet.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You go sweet if you add fruit to it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
like blueberries or mangoes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And you go savory if you add herbs to it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then I almost never make the same dressing twice.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's so good.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because it takes five minutes to make the most delicious salad dressings you can possibly imagine.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Nuts and seeds taste so much better than oil.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So if you make it with almonds or walnuts or pecans or cashews or pistachios,
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then you get the acid right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then you can taste it, and you can fine-tune it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then you add some kind of liquid to it, water most likely, but you want to get the right consistency on it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Here's the thing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If it's too thin, you just throw a little bit of nuts and seeds in it, and that will thicken it up.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
If it's too thick, you just add a little more liquid.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Send me an email or something of how it goes.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's been fun.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Wow, it's been fun, Jen.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You're a very interesting person.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I really enjoyed talking with you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You know, even people that don't live close to Love Life, we do have a medical only membership.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
So you can just join.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Oh, yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You can just join and we'll still give you occasional pass if you just want to come down to see the doc or whatever.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But once you get to, you go in and you do the test.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
and you do the DEXA scan and we get your blood run and we do the gut test and we get all that back, then you can always just talk to your doctor on Zoom if you want to.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Right.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And they can still create the optimum plan for you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And if you're ever in the area, you can still come in and use the facilities.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Do you like to play pickleball?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Were you a tennis player?
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Because the tennis players are the ones that make the easiest transition to pickleball.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But, you know, here's the thing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
You can have fun playing pickleball the first time you play it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's much easier to play.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's kind of more like ping pong.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then you just find people that are at your level.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's the thing.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
There's no fun playing against somebody that's a lot better than you.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
A little bit better.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
That's how you get better.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
Yeah.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
One of the reasons we put it in a love life is pickleball is intensely social.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
When you play doubles, it's like you're bonding with the person on your team.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And then you maybe switch teams and you're still bonded with that person on the other side.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I love it.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
But now you're bonding with the new person.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
And so we're trying to build this community at Love Life and Pickleball really helps that.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
It's been a pleasure.
Habits and Hustle
Episode 495: John Mackey: From Living Above a Store to $13.7 Billion Exit - The Whole Foods Story
I've really enjoyed talking with you.