The Dr. Hyman Show - Why Whole Foods Founder John Mackey Is Tackling America’s Health

Episode Date: August 20, 2025

In a world where healthcare often focuses on treating illness rather than promoting wellness, what does it really take to live a healthy, vibrant life? In this episode of The Dr. Hyman Show, I sit down with John Mackey, co-founder of Whole Foods Market, to explore his journey from building one of America’s most iconic food companies to rethinking health, purpose, and consciousness. We talk about his new venture, Love.Life, and how it fits into a bigger philosophy that includes conscious capitalism and living with meaning. You can catch our full conversation on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. We unpack: • What psychedelic insights can teach you about health and consciousness • How conscious capitalism can create “win-win-win” outcomes in your life • Steps you can take to break free from habits driving weight gain and poor health • Why building the right community accelerates your health journey • What living with purpose can do for your well-being at every stage of life This conversation reinforces a belief we both share: that true health comes from love, community, and a comprehensive approach.  View Show Notes From This Episode Get Free Weekly Health Tips from Dr. Hyman https://drhyman.com/pages/picks?utm_campaign=shownotes&utm_medium=banner&utm_source=podcast Sign Up for Dr. Hyman’s Weekly Longevity Journal https://drhyman.com/pages/longevity?utm_campaign=shownotes&utm_medium=banner&utm_source=podcast Join the 10-Day Detox to Reset Your Health https://drhyman.com/pages/10-day-detox Join the Hyman Hive for Expert Support and Real Results https://drhyman.com/pages/hyman-hive This episode is brought to you by Seed, PerfectAmino, Function Health, BON CHARGE, Big Bold Health and Pique. Visit seed.com/hyman and use code 25HYMAN for 25% off your first month of Seed's DS-01® Daily Synbiotic. Go to bodyhealth.com and use code HYMAN20 for 20% off your first order. Join today at FunctionHealth.com/Mark and use code HYMAN100 to get $100 toward your membership. Head to boncharge.com and use code DRMARK for 15% off your order. Get 30% off HTB Immune Energy Chews at bigboldhealth.com and use code DRMARK30. Receive 20% off FOR LIFE + a free Starter Kit with a rechargeable frother and glass beaker at Piquelife com/Hyman.

Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman Show, you've found it in Whole Foods. It's changed the face of food in America for the better. First store was called Safer Way, changed the name of Whole Street Market, and it took off. It became the highest-fung of natural food in the United States, six months after it opened. Why have you sort of turned your attention from groceries and food to health care? I had a tab of LSD, and it was incredibly powerful. The strongest dose of any psychedelic I've ever taken, and I basically was swept away. John Mackie, co-founder of Whole Foods Market, grew one store into a

$22 billion natural foods empire and champions conscious capitalism to elevate humanity. Today, chronic diseases, not infectious diseases are what are killing us. Chronic disease can be contagious. You're more likely to be obese. Your friends are overweight than even your family's overweight. We spend almost 18% of our GDP. But where are we in terms of longevity? When I checked it out today, we were 48. You started basically a movement called conscious capitalism. We had some shareholder activists that were trying to take over the company. Basically,

Amazon was the best solution for us in a very situation where we didn't have a lot of good solutions. Conscious capitalism has four basic principles to that mark. First principle is in functional medicine, we always start with the gut. It's at the core of nearly every aspect of health, from digestion and immune function to brain and skin health. Your gut microbiome regulates inflammation, absorbs nutrients, and maintains the integrity of your gut barrier. That's why I take and recommend seeds DSO-1 daily symbiotic, a next-level probiotic designed to go beyond digestion. With 24 clinically studied probiotic strains and a pomegranate-based prebiotic, DSO-1, supports gut immune function, gut barrier integrity, and even heart health through the gut-liver axis.

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calories or digestive burden of whole proteins. Try perfect amino today. Go to bodyhealth.com and use code hymen 20 for 20% off your first order. You'll feel the difference. Okay, John, welcome to my podcast. We've known each other a long time. It's great to see here. We're in L.A. actually, we both live in Austin, so I don't know how we ended up in L.A. do to podcast. Because we both had some business here. We do. You founded Whole Foods, which everybody now knows. It's changed a face of food in America for the better. You know, you sold food. But now you're kind of focused on healthcare, which is really interesting. And, you know, if you understand that food is medicine, it's not such a big leap, right? But it's interesting. Why have you sort of turned your attention

from groceries and food to health care? Well, I do think it's a continuum. They're both about helping people to become healthier, to be the healthiest version of themselves. And, I mean, I did, I co-founded Whole Foods. I led it as CEO for 44 years. 44 years. 44 years, exactly. We sold it to Amazon, not because we wanted to sell out. We were independent, publicly traded company for 25 years, well, for a long time, and 25 years as a public company.

But we had some shareholder activists that were trying to take over the company. And Amazon, it's a long story, which I detail in my book, the whole story. The short version of that is basically that Amazon was the best solution for us in a very situation where we didn't have a lot of good solutions. So I signed on for five years with Amazon to help integrate Whole Foods into Amazon, make sure that the culture or the values of Whole Foods were protected as best I could protect it. And then those five years were up and I retired from Whole Foods. And also, I didn't want to work as hard, to be honest.

I mean, I was getting older and I wanted to... Pay more pickleball. I wanted to play more pickleball, exactly, and read and travel and spend time with my wife and friends and family, et cetera. That's how I got out of Whole Foods. But here's the thing. It's like I really felt like I knew how to help thousands of people and maybe in the long term millions of people be healthier, to live a healthier, more vital life. How could I not do that? Would I get to the end of my life with a regret? Yeah, sure I could lay on a beach and read and do whatever I wanted. I'd made enough money. But I don't think that would be fulfilling for me.

I'm a very purpose-driven human being. I feel like I needed to be contributing in some way to helping. So you start out your career, basically working at co-op, you know, sweeping the floors, moved to great, you know, one of the most iconic brands in America that has really improved the health for so many people who shopped there. And now you're, you're, you know, 72 and you're still at it. Hey, I've got three weeks. Before I'm 72, I'm going to.

You're biologically 60, but you're... I'm going to enjoy them as well as I can. But, you know, you're really now focused on a, on a new venture, which is very ambitious. And, you know, I'm just curious, what was your early experience in your life that shifted you to think this way, to have this philosophy around food and health and consciousness? Because you're not only, you know, done, you know, the work you've done around creating a business like whole foods, but you started basically a movement called conscious capitalism, which is, how do we do capitalism better?

I'm going to give you like a three to five minute history. there real quick. In my book, the prologues. The whole story. The whole story. Exactly. Everybody's got a good copy. Adventures in Love, Life, and Capitalism. And starts out, the prolog, I'm just turned 22 years old. And I'm living by myself, not in a very good space, an atheist, studying philosophy, existentialism. I don't make you depressed. I took a very, I didn't know it, because back in that day, you didn't know what you were getting in terms of dosage. But I had a tab of LSD. I took it by myself. And it was a very, and it was a very, and was incredibly powerful, the strongest dose of any psychedelic I've ever taken. And I basically

was swept away. I use the metaphor. It's like, imagine Niagara Falls and you're hanging onto a rock with one hand. How long can you do that? Not that long. And so I got swept away. And then I found my ego dissolving, basically that separateness, your mark, I'm John, it's water. Right. It all disappeared. I was, there was really no thoughts. I'm now reflecting back on that state of consciousness when there was no thoughts really there's no separation and what I realized I realized that that A I was a manifestation of the one being as are you as is everything because that's that's all there is is the one being I realized I'd always existed yeah there was no beginning and there's no end yeah and I realized that

life's this adventure yeah and it's like I can make it whatever I want it to be I can create whatever I want to create. And so that was so life-changing. That changed my life. So there's a funny story about this. So I'm coming down on the trip and I'm walking around this neighborhood now. And I run in to my... You were in the East Coast? No, no. I'm in Austin, Texas. Oh, Austin, yeah. I'm walking around and I run into my philosophy professor that I idolized. He was my intellectual hero, a guy named Bob Solomon, Robert C. Solomon. He's written 40 or 50 books. and on philosophy, and he was an existentialist, and he was at that time very influenced by Sartre, and Camus, and Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard, and he believed life was absurd, that there

was no purpose and meaning to life at all. And so I ran into him, and I mean, I think I ran into I think he was there. I had a conversation with him, and I asked him, I said, Professor Solomon is John Mackey, I'm one of your students, I've been out of teching a few courses from me, and you kind of vaguely recognized me, but he didn't know my name. And I said, so Professor Slaman, I have two questions. First question is, you know, you teach that life's absurd, that there's absolutely no meaning whatsoever to life, that we're just sort of thrown into here. It's all been random chance, and we're going to die, and that's it. Our consciousness is extinguished.

And there's just really no purpose. But you take sort of a romantic stance to that. You said, there's no real objective meaning, but we can make something up so we can be romantic. We can sort of throw our fist against a cruel reality. and make our life into an adventure. And I said, is that what you believe, sir? And he said, yes, that's what I believe. And I said, I thought so.

But let me ask you a second question. Are you very happy? And he looked at me and he said, no, I'm not very happy. Yeah. And he looked at me. He was honest at least. Yeah. He looked at me and I looked at him and we went our separate ways.

And what I realized after that point is I just had this, I was still having, actually, this incredible. I mean, you were in the trip when you ran through? Well, I was coming down. But what I don't know, for. sure was he still part of that trip or had I come down enough where he was actually, I mean, what's the difference? I mean, it's all a dream. Anyway, I'm having this conversation. I think I was down enough. The point is, that changed my life. And you know what I started doing after I, I stuck

on my thumb and I started hitchhiking. Across America? Not across America. I just, I was open for adventure. A guy picks me up. And he says, he says, son, where do you want to go? And I said, wherever you're going. I don't really care. So he says, well, I'm going home. Great. He drives a couple of miles up the road and he says, this is home. I'm getting out. I'm working around. I'm thinking, okay. So then I start walking back. And that's actually when I ran into Professor Solomon. Anyhow, after that, Mark, pretty soon after that, I moved into this vegetarian commune, co-op. And I wasn't vegetarian at that time. I really didn't know much about food at all. I didn't eat vegetables or I really ate I ate the standard American diet.

I was a junk food eater. I moved in and I had my food consciousness awakened. I almost have put it. I started to cook. I learned about natural and organic foods. For the first time, I began to realize, my gosh, I'm not just a machine that needs fuel driving the McDonald's and fuel up. I'm a living being.

I need to nourish my cells with nourishing food. And that was when it began. I went to work for a small natural food store. I became, and I worked there for a few months. And I came back, home one, went to the co-op, my girlfriend, Renee, I went to Renee and I said, Hey, Renee, what do you think if we opened up our own natural food store? What do you think about that? And she said, I think that'd be cool. So we did it. I was 23 and she was 19 at that time. So we didn't know what we were doing. But let's just say, we made a lot of mistakes

and I was a fast learner. First store was called Safer Way. And Mark, it was so, idealistically pure. It was a vegetarian store. We didn't sell alcohol. We didn't sell coffee. We didn't sell sugar. We didn't sell white flour. We were very, very pure. We didn't do much business. Safer way, really struggled. And then we relocated it, merged with another small natural food store, changed the name to Whole Foods Market, started selling meat, seafood, beer and wine, coffee, tea, sugar, and some products for the white flour, but then natural organic focus. And it took off. It became the highest volume of natural feaster in the United States, six months after it opened.

It was a huge success. Driven by there or not. It's downtown Austin, right? Yeah. Yeah, amazing. I had a similar experience. I actually had a psychedelic experience in college, very similar to that, and then I moved into a house with eight vegetarians.

Really? You're kidding. In Ithaca, yeah. Yeah, that was where Moosewood Cookbook. Moosewood Cookbook. That was one of my cookbook. That's right. Well, Moosewood Restaurant was in Ithaca.

That's right. And so we used to go there, and then every night we had to cook. And we took our backyard, which we rented a house in town, and I had a room for $100. How old are you? I was 19, you know. And we took the backyard. We tore up the grass, and we planted a whole garden. One of the guys, we had these maple trees on the street in front of us.

He was tapping the maple trees. and we made like a pint of maple syrup. Oh my gosh. And we had to cook every night, and so we rotated. So every night we had basically a family dinner. And one of us was a chief chef, and then one of us was like the helper chef. Right. And then we got fresh, delicious vegetarian food every night for...

How long did you stay in that community? We lived together for a couple of years. And then I ended up moving on to an abandoned commune in Ethaca and lived in a yurt with no electricity or running water. We both were hippies. That's right. No, like, there's any no running water. I had to take my water from a well, like a quarter mile away with these two five-gallon buckets.

What motivated you to become a doctor? Oh, I don't know if you know this, John, but I was a student of Buddhism. So you had that first? Yeah. So I was studying Buddhism. And I did you have a Pasina still? I do meditate, and I still, a lot of the principles are kind of ingrained in me as sort of just my way of thinking out of the road.

You've got a more eclectic approach now. Yeah. Yeah. And I was ended up. taking a course called the Medicine Buddha and about, you know, kind of the healing framework of Buddhism, which is really healing of the mind. Yes. And, and I was like, well, I don't really want to become a monk, so what are we going to do? So I graduated, you know, basically with, what am going to do with the degree in Buddhism? You know, and I ended up... It's my degree in philosophy

about it. Yeah, I'm taking a hike for a week in the Shenandoah Mountains, and I took Moby Dick and just me and myself and I ended up realizing, I mean, I should try to go to medical school and see if, see if I liked it. And if I didn't like it, I would quit, you know, but so far, so good. What was your, you have a doctor, either a parent's doctor? No, no, nobody. The story was that my great, my grandfather's grandfather, Russia, was the doctor to the czar, the last czar.

But I think it's probably made up. I don't believe it. So, so you were, you were not pushed into the, no, no, no, no. You will say you were led by your, you're led by your heart or your soul, a deeper spirit. And I was studying all these ancient healing systems, and I learned Chinese and studied Chinese medicine. And so I was very much thinking differently from the beginning. Mark, you have to write your story. I know, I will.

You've got a lot of books out there. I will. You know, I always tell people, everybody should write a memoir. Because in some ways, only looking retrospectively, a lot of patterns and threads came together in writing the book. It's like, wow, I never quite thought of it that way before. You know, as you know, when you write, it's a discovery process. you're creative and you're and you're discovering things it's hard but you are discovering things that you didn't necessarily put together before and a memoir is also a gift to your family your children

your descendants yeah it's true i think you know you you're right john you can't always tell going forward where things are connecting but looking back you can see all the threads and all the choice and all the decisions that led you to the moment that you're doing what you're doing it helps you actually i think moving forward as well because you when those pat when you should clear about those patterns, then you have less sort of uncertainty. I think people live a lot in fear. I think it's one of the challenges. Fear is what keeps people from following their hero's journey.

Yeah. I think we're all called a hero's journey in all in our own unique ways. Yeah. But, you know, we're too scared. It's scared we might fail, scared of ridicule. Yeah. Scared our parents, won't approve, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just did it anyway.

Yeah. And so did you. Yeah. I don't know what makes some people like that and others not. I was always like that. I actually have a title for my memoir, I've started, but I haven't really finished yet, which is called Notes from God,

and it's stumbling toward the truth. And it's basically this- You shouldn't tell that. Don't, that's such a great title. Keep that title to yourself. That's okay. But you can actually, you can write Moby Dick.

Nobody can copyright a title, so it's okay. But the idea is basically that, you know, when you're moving through life, there's these little doors that open, these little post-in notes from God, let's call them. And you can choose to go through or not. somebody gave you a type of acid and you're like, I'm going to try this and look what happened.

And then, you know, you needed a job. So you went, you know, you worked in a whole natural food store and just one thing connected the next, but you chose to actually do those things. And I think people live less from fear and more from love, which is why I love the title of your new company, the name Love Life. It's exactly. Not an accident. No, it's not an accident.

And those moments we often don't pay attention to in our life, those little notes from God, but I think the more you pay attention to those and listen to those things, the better your life's going to be. And I think what's happening around chronic disease in America is that people are not listening to their bodies or not listening to their conversation that there should be having with their soul. And so they end up in this narcotized, polluted self that's sick and unable to think clearly and feel right.

100%. You know, the thing about the notes from God is that they're always being written. And you can, even if you haven't been listening to him before, you can start listening to it. It's always so you just have to quiet. You have to be still, be quiet. And it's always speaking. And even if we make bad decisions, there's new notes. It's like that it's always waiting for us to listen to it and follow it.

I had been thinking about Love Life or something like that for a long time. Just for people listening, what is Love Life? Love Life is a holistic health center, a one-stop. Holistic Health Wellness Center. It's big. Our first flagship location here is in the L.A. area. It's down in El Segundo, Manhattan Beach. It's got, it's an old Best Buy, so it's big. So we have 45,000 square feet in there. So just real quickly, you go in and, of course, I want to get you there. I'd love to give you a tour and let you see what I'm doing. You go in, first we have a healthy cafe. So healthy food is one of the foundations for people to do.

be as healthy as possible. So starting with food, then we have sort of this whole community space, co-working space, but also a big gather room, community room where we can do lectures. So let's say you were to come do a talk on functional medicine, then we would invite members and the outside community. And we can get, in that expanding it in the cafe, we'd probably get 75 people in there pretty comfortably. Then you go into a fitness center. So we've got like the category, most people try to fit us into is like a gym because we have a really nice gym yeah but of course that's just one little small part of what we're doing and then in that fitness center we're sort of state-of-the-art like i think equinox in a way sort of upscale lots of the most recent cool

technologies in there uh we have a physical therapy room uh we have a physical therapist on staff we really think physical therapy for many people that have injuries is very very efficacious we have for your pickleball injury well uh Yes. We have lots of sort of biohacking stuff, which I'll get to in a sec. Speaking of pickleball, we have three pickleball courts. So I did hurt myself on the court. One of the biohacks we had, there's a pimp machine. So I did that a couple times, and I think that's helped. That's post-electromagnetic frequency, which helps to sort of reduce inflammation.

Yes. Yes, it doesn't. I think it helps a little bit of the circulation and starts to move some of the inflammation out of the, out of the injured, in my case, my calf. So then we've got a yoga studio. We've got a Pilate studio. In that yoga studio, we do breath work. Besides yoga, we do breath work. We can do sound baths. We do meditation classes. We're about all things to help people be the healthiest version of themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Those are all part of the love, vision. We have a really nice spa. So you can do things you do it in any really nice spa with lots of different kinds of massages, facials, wraps. It's not a medical spa per se. We're

not doing Botox or other type of medical injections in that way. We have all this recovery stuff and all these sort of biohacks. So we've got our pimped machines. We've got hyperbaric oxygen chambers. We've got cryotherapy. We've got four red light beds. We've got four infrared sauna rooms. We have a huge steam room. We have six coal plunges and we have the biggest sauna you've probably ever seen and jammed like 40 people in that sauna if we had to. So those are for the recovery things. And then of course what the real thing that sets this part is that we have primary health care. We have a center. We do we do very comprehensive testing like function health blood tests. We do a comprehensive blood test. We do a comprehensive blood test. We add. a gut, gut test because we work with, pardoning with biomes. We do a gut test. We do oral test. We do, we're checking the feces. We're doing a V-O-2 max. It's your fitness level. Yes. Trying to grip strength. We're doing a, we're doing lots of stuff. Body composition. Yes, body composition. We have a Dexas scan.

It's really one-stop shopping. It is. All thing is health and wellness. One thing we don't have, although we have access to MRI because we have a deal with Pronova on that one, like functions, bought a company there. But I think in our next center, which we plan on that being in Austin, although we don't have the location yet, we will put the MRI in because we really want to have that executive health so you can come and do everything there, bring a dermatologist in, maybe do colonoscopy. And just so people can get a complete report card in depth.

But after you get the testing, now we sort of know where you're at. You get your baseline. But that's a starting point. I mean, unfortunately, I've learned kind of the hard way. Knowledge is not enough to get many. Some people get the knowledge. That's all they need. They never look back.

Others, that's interesting, but they don't really want to change anything they're doing. I want to eat my ice cream. That's right. I want to eat my ice cream. It tastes good. I like it. And I feel okay. If you're feeling anxious or down or mentally foggy, it's easy to blame stress.

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a compound linked to inflammation, to mood disorders, even cognitive decline like dementia. And I see it all the time my patients, low energy, anxiety, brain fog, and it's often tied to this one gene. But the good news is you can test for it and then you can support the function of this gene with the right nutrients. And that's why we built function help.

It gives you access to over 160 advanced lab tests, including genetic testing for the MTHRFR gene and many others. I use it myself and I use it with every patient who wants real answers. Go to functionhealth.com slash mark and use the code Hyman100 to get $100 off. And this only works for the first thousand people to get it this week. So sign up right away. Your mood isn't random. Your genes are talking.

Function helps you listen. After my recent back surgery, I was looking for ways to gently support my body's recovery. And one of the most helpful tools I found is the information. infrared P-E-M-F mat from bond charge. It uses low-level infrared heat combined with pulsed electromagnetic fields to support circulation, ease tension, and encourage the body's natural repair processes. I've incorporated it into my routine after physical therapy and long days on my feet, and I found it to be a helpful part of managing post-surgical discomfort and promoting relaxation. It's simple to use, just lie down, breathe, and let the warmth and pulses do their work. I've noticed it helps me wind down and feel more at ease, especially in my lower back. If you're navigating pain, stiffness, or just want to support your recovery at home, it's a thoughtful tool to explore. Head to bondcharge.com and use code DR mark for 15% off your order. That's B-O-N-C-H-A-R-G-E.com, code DR-Mark. Most people, actually, I found, actually don't want to get tested because they don't want to know because they don't want to change. Anyway, so once we've got that, we now have a well-care team.

We have a medical doctor that is functioned medicine trained. We have a nurse practitioner, she can do IVs, she can, or she can do everything. The doctor can really just, we don't have to pay quite as much. We've got a registered dietitian nutritionist who really knows her stuff. We've got medical assistants. We obviously have dexascan operators. We've got a whole well-care team. And so then the whole idea is first we test, then we create a plan, and then we track.

We track through additional testing, but also we can download into our app. Their oral ring results, their Apple watch results, Garmin. We've got like, I don't know, 10 different devices we can put in, continuous glucose monitor, you can put that data in there. That's another thing we test, by the way, as we have people wear that for a couple of weeks. So we get all that information out. But mostly it's about the care team. Problem you know, Mark, what's wrong with our medical system is basically, I call it.

plumber's model. Yeah. It's when you get a plumber. When the sink's broken. When the sinks broken, your pipes is leaking, exactly. Most people don't go to a doctor until something breaks. Yeah. And that might have been fine 150 years ago, but today, chronic diseases, not infectious

diseases are what are killing us. Yeah. And so we know heart disease is our number one killer. Then we got cancer. We know medical care itself is one of the leading causes for death for too many prescription drugs, mistakes made. infections they get in hospitals, et cetera, et cetera. It's true.

People don't realize that, but I think it's the third or fourth leading cause of death. Third leading cause of death. Then obesity, Americans are sad to say is that 73% of Americans are overweight, 73% and 43% are obese. And the trend lines are continuing. It's not like we've peaked. It's still going up. The standard American diet is killing people.

Yeah. I mean, when I graduated from medical school in 1987, there was in a single state that had an obesity rate over 20%. now there's not one under 30 and most are over 40. Is Colorado and Utah over 30? They were the two best. Yeah, Colorado. Yeah, I think they're popping over 30 now.

Well, those trend lines keep going up. And basically, America, the United States, as you know, spends far more than any other country on health care. We spend almost 18% of our GDP. It's $5 trillion. Yes, exactly. But where are we in terms of longevity? When I checked it out today, we were 48.

So most money on health care, we have terrible results. I think we're worse than Q. I think it's been $184 a year. So I'm saying all that because Love Life, we think, is one of the solutions. We want people to join Love Life. We want them to enter into our medical programs. We do primary health care. We'll see them.

It's not a concierge program, but besides the doctor times to go over your test results and work on your plans, we have 10. Acute visits a year you can use that are part of your membership as part of the membership exactly What I and I'll tell you one other story. So how I got to this thing. So yeah, because you know you At Whole Foods, we were self-insured. So we paid means we had United Healthcare. It might have been the administrator and they might have had a network. But we were actually paying yeah all the cost of it. What we discovered was as we tracked it was the 10% of our employees team members were spending 90% of our health care dollars.

That's right. So we began to think, how can we take these 10%? If we can get them healthier, that's going to be a win, win, win, right? It'd be good for them, and it'll be good for whole foods. That's right. And it'll be good for everyone else as well, their families and everyone else connected to it. So we began to create what we call a total health immersion. And we worked with four different sets of, four doctors, and we worked four different times

a year. And we would invite any team member to apply for it. cover all the cost. Of course, we favored those who we knew were in our magic 10%. What ended up happening was pretty extraordinary. We'd go in a retreat setting for a week. And my biggest takeaway from the retreats was, did you know? I mean, you know this.

The human body is far more resilient than I realized. 100%. If we just stop poisoning it, it starts to heal. Bingo. It's incredible. I had not known that personally because I've sort of been on this gradual health journey for decades, right? So I never had any radical improvements.

But what we saw in those weeks were people that, if they were obese, they generally lose 7 to 10 pounds in that week. We saw type 2 diabetics that could actually, in even just a week, normalize and get off their meds. We saw people's cholesterol drop 30 to 40 points in that week, and we saw blood pressure and sometimes drop 30 to 40 points. That's what people don't realize, John, is that people are just a few days away from feeling better.

They are. And they don't know it. They don't know it. It's like Dorothy and the ruby red slippers, you know. That's right. That's what's so powerful about a type of retreat like setting. Because now, here's another takeaway, though. Again, like knowledge, we taught people, the principles.

We showed them what to do. Some took that knowledge, Mark, and they never looked back. Their life was transformed. I'd travel around and visit our stores and then come up and hug me and say, thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Mackey, changed my life. You know, I'm going to see my grandchildren now and I'm playing with my kids. It's so great. Thank you so much.

and others who were apologizing because they lost weight and then they gained it back because they went back to their diets. And the takeaway was when you look a little further was, for people to really make lasting change, some people can do it on their own. Most people need a community of support. 100%. And so Love Life aims to be that community of support for people who really want to become the healthiest version of themselves.

If just like, let's say you're an alcoholic and we send you to rehab for 90 days and you come back sober, you don't crave alcohol any longer. But if you go back into the same social network, it likes to drink. You're going to be back off, you're going to fall off the wagon pretty quickly. So you need a new set of friends, basically. We found that out, and it's like, that's my takeaway from the total health emergence. You need community of support. And how did you apply that at Whole Foods after that? Because I, you know, I think that you're hitting on something that's very important, is that we call chronic illness non-communicable disease, but that's completely wrong. It's not infectious, but it's contagious. Yes. And just as chronic disease can be

contagious, you're more likely to be obese if your friends are overweight, then even your family's overweight because you're basically as healthy as your five closest friends. You know, if all your friends are drinking green juices and going to yoga, as opposed to drinking beer and having burgers and fries, you're going to be healthier, right? Yeah, that's why they, you know, it's like if you're, if you were a teenager who hang around kids that smoked, you more likely become a smoker. Yeah, and community is medicine. And we did this at the Saddleback Church with Rick Warren. We got 15,000 people to lose a quarter million pounds by doing it in community. And it was powerful. And I'm curious how at Whole Foods, you did the community piece. Well, this was the flaw in the program.

We're still doing the program. We still have follow-up with people afterwards. Here's the problem. We've got over 100,000 team members. And they're from all over the country. And Canada and the UK, for that matter, too. So they might go back, but the people they met, the community of people, that they were with, they are scattering. So that community is not together. Now, if some of them came from the same store, then they have a little bit of community support. We can put them in touch with others that were on the journey.

But again, they're so spread out. We didn't solve for it. It's still a problem. It's still a challenge. I really do think these, what Love Life's doing and what other wellness centers, holistic health centers will create, will be also social places for people to go and hang out.

We've designed it in that way. When you see our space, you'll see the co-working space, the community areas, the cafe, the couches, the comfortable chairs are all set up for people to hang out, work, network with their friends that are there. You know, most health club's formula is to get people to become members and just keep paying, but hopefully never come. We have the opposite philosophy. We really like people to spend a couple hours or more every day at Love Life. Come in after work, do some of the recovery modalities, or do a workout, do some recovery, have a meal, meet some people, play some pickleball, take a class.

We have all kinds of different classes there. There's so many stay around for one of our talks or one of our events that are happening. We really want to nurture community. And how do you see this intersecting with health care? Because, you know, people have their health insurance. And people aren't very motivated usually to pay out of pocket for health care, which they think this should be. that's the biggest challenge to be honest people of course everybody ask about that we do create

super bills for people and so if they and but most of our docs our doctors are out of network most likely for them for a lot of the testing that we're doing you can also use your 125 your hSA or hra those can all go towards this yeah i was talking to somebody about it recently and i just said you know what insurance will be one of the last dominoes to fall it won't it won't change until the The market demands that it changed until people are complaining, and then until the government maybe steps in and starts saying, you need to cover this stuff, too. But also, if you track your data at Love Life, you can see longitudinally how people do. Oh, we do.

And that way you can actually show payers how this is actually saving them money, and that's going to change reimbursement. I really do think before we get the insurance companies to change, now we have, this is a, we think a B-to-B potential is big there. Remember, I told you about how Whole Foods was self-insured. We think we can go to big employers in the area and do two things. We can say, look, give us your sick people because we know if you're self-insured that like Whole Foods, 10% are spending 90% of your money. Give us those people that are motivated, only the ones that want to come, because we can't do anything if people don't want to heal themselves. And we can help them heal. And we can help them

heal pretty quickly and do that on a, you know, fee per person basis. And also, but also we'd like to go to those same corporations and say, now give us your up-and-comers, your executives, and get them a optimized member, optimized gold membership at Love Life as a perk as a benefit. These are the people you're counting on to make the most important decisions in your business. The healthier they are, the more vital they are, the better decision-making they're going to be. And the less likely they're going to leave because this is one of your perks that competitors are not offering. Yeah. So there's two ways to approach the B2B. I think the, again, the insurance will change, but it's like, it's just not, it's, it's, we've got to go for the low hanging fruit

first. Yeah, no, I agree. I think you're right. And, you know, I think the, you know, the question is, can you kind of force people into collective change together? I don't know the answer to that, but I know in America. I know in Cleveland Clinic, we had a waiting list of 3,000 people for our Center for Functional Medicine. Wow. And so what we said was you can't get into a one-on-one appointment, but you get into a group visit. And we were able to put people in group visits who, you know, necessarily maybe wanted to see someone privately, but they were willing to just get in. And what we found was that the health outcomes were three times better for the same condition treated by the same doctors

in the same clinic. And we compared, you know, a doctor treating diabetes in a group versus is a doctor one-on-one. Same. And it was three times better outcomes in the group. And the savings were far more. So better outcomes, lower costs is what health care is the holy grail, like value-based care. So it was interesting because not everybody kind of really opted in. I mean, I guess they sort of opted in because they couldn't get an appointment.

But it wasn't like they were motivated to be in a group. They actually were motivated to be seen. Yes. And that just was what we found. So I think if we can kind of encourage people to do that, A is a great example, Weight Watchers is a great example. People change in a collective. I totally agree.

And that's why in the B2B approach, if we can get a group of peers that are coming in from the same company and they're motivated to try to heal themselves, we have a much better chance if they come in as a group, you might say. So you know, you're sort of an unlikely character. You're like a hippie from the 70s who started a health food store and, you know, now the current of Whole Foods, and then you help build this movement around conscious capitalism, which is sort of, I'd love you to sort of talk a little bit about that, because I think it's part of what you're doing with Love Life, which is a business, but it's also bringing more

light into the world as opposed to darkness. So conscious capitalism is a movement I co-founded, and I wrote a book called Conscious Capitalism co-authored that with my good friend, Raj Sassodia. and as I built Whole Foods, when I began to realize was that, because I didn't have a business background, I hadn't worked for any corporations, I began to realize that Whole Foods was very different than most other businesses, and that, you know, we had this higher purpose, we were really cared about all of our stakeholders, we were trying to create these cultures where humans were flourishing, we wanted to lead with love, it was, and these were just, you know, I just thought we were sort of just kind of a one weird, a weirdo company. And then I read a book called

Firms of Constance of Endearment by my co-author of Constance Capitalism, Maraud Society. Firms, not terms, but firms. Firms. Firms. Firms of endearment. And what 30 that he identified, he and his co-author identified. And a firm of endearment was one, all the stakeholders love the firm. Not the shareholders, but the stakeholders do too. Yeah. shareholders love them too, because they all perform really well economically. But the customers love them, their employees love them, their suppliers love them. They're sort of universally loved. And so Whole Foods was one of those 30 companies. And you know, it got me exciting when I read the book. I said, I'm not alone. There are other weirdos out there too doing

similar stuff. Yeah. And so I got together with the authors and said, listen, I want, can you put me in touch with some of these other people? Yeah. And so they did. And I started to realize this is great. This is great. And I realized more people need to know about this because all of these people are financially very successful being loved by all your stakeholders and having a higher purpose is good business it's a way to make more money it's not it's it the money comes from practicing those principles in other words so people think there's this dichotomy between like honestly when you when you're not motivated by money you make more money yes it's there's a good metaphor for it if you pursue happiness you probably won't find it happy because you'll just that if people

that pursue happiness the hardest, oftentimes end up being narcissist. Yeah. Happiness comes from, it ensues, it ensues from love, from goodness, from compassion, forgiveness, kindness, generosity. You become happy because of, not because you're pursuing it directly, but because it's a byproduct of these other qualities. Meaningful work, caring, loving, family. These things lead to happiness.

So anyway, it's the same way with money, ultimately. Profits come from creating value for customers, or members, or patients, or whoever you're working with. That's the ultimate way profits come about. They're indirectly come about from creating value in the world. So conscious capitalism has four basic principles to it, Mark. First principle is higher purpose. Every business has its potential for higher purpose.

for example my body has to produce red blood cells or I'm going to be dead but it doesn't logically follow that my higher purpose is to produce red blood cells similarly businesses must make money or they will die that's not why they exist the purpose of creating value for their customers and Whole Foods is higher purpose was to nourish people in the planet yeah love life is the helping people to become the healthiest version of themselves so everybody business has this higher purpose. Then you have stakeholders. They all are important. They all matter. Customers matter. Employees matter. Suppliers matter. The investors matter. The community matters. The environment matters. And business has to create strategies where they're all simultaneously winning.

Third is leadership. Leaders can't be in it just to line their own pockets. Leaders have got to be those who are purpose driven or serving the stakeholders and they're ultimately servant leaders. And finally, we create cultures, a conscious business, a conscious leader creates cultures where human beings flourish, where they are happy, where they're fulfilled, where their work is meaningful, and they're part of a community that cares about them. That's conscious capitalism in a nutshell. Yeah, that's beautiful. And has it taken off?

I mean, you heard, I think the guy who's, I think Larry Fink, who sort of writes this letter every year, one year wrote a letter about how we need to think about our stakeholders, not only our shareholders. But I wonder how much that's really filtered into the business world. Well, you know, it's interesting. It has filtered in. So when they had that roundtable, business roundtable came out, basically checking off the principles of conscious capitalism.

They got a lot of pushback, a lot of controversy in business circles. I found out later the woman that had been the leader of that, the conscious capitalism had been their framework, the book, had been their framework for those principles. they didn't they did not credit us yeah yeah but nevertheless what any author wants to hear is that their ideas are having an impact and influencing things so speaking of larry think so i'm i'm going to that we're having a special conclave down in cabo for CEOs of very large corporations in there to be about i think i don't know 30 30 or 40 and larry's hosting it down there and we're not calling conscious capitalism as principles of responsible business or something like anyway i got an

invitation of that. So I'm going to be going to that and excited to talk to some of these other. There's some big, big names going down there. So I'm excited to be part of that. Yeah, because we live in such an extractive world and we have extractive capitalism. It's the opposite of conscious capital. We have extractive agriculture. We have extractive health care. It's just they don't take a systems approach. And really what we're talking about with conscious capitalism is viewing things in a larger context, the larger system. And that that actually leads to better business. It's harder. It's harder to do it. It's like you think about health care, because that's what we've been talking about. As you say, that's like extractive health care

because it's just dealing with symptoms. It's not dealing with root causes, right? Right. I mean, functional medicine, you're probably the leader in functional medicine. That's going to root causes and trying to root them out and help people to heal at the deepest levels. That's revolutionary medicine. It's a really, really big deal. So you should be really proud of what you've done. Thank you. Yeah. It's sort of what drives me is how do I, how do I needless suffering for millions of people because so many people don't have to suffer like you're talking about before when you would bring the team members of Whole Foods to these retreats and they would have this radical transformation in a week and they were suffering before and then they ended up in a short

period of a week not suffering. You know, and I think that, you know, I created something called the 10-day detox diet, which essentially it eliminates all. all the processed food and crap, it adds in all the good foods. And it's so powerful. 10 days, it's like the seven day. Yeah. 10 days is even better because it's three days longer. That's right.

30 days is better than that. I know, but if I call it the 30-day diet, I know what it would do it. That's right. People, you know, would you decide 10 days was kind of the most you could hope for the sweet spot? Yeah. And it was, it's amazing to see that. And I think when people have the experience of what it's like to feel good, they actually can connect to something and come back to it, even if they kind of bear off.

Those notes from God are a little more, you can hear them a little bit better? Exactly, yeah. And I think, you know, the work you've done around this conscious capitalism movement is is so important because so much of the things that are happening in our world are all because of a lack of consciousness and a lack of awareness and a lack of understanding that value creation isn't just about the bottom line. It's about multiple bottom lines where everybody wins, where the planet. wins where you win where your community wins you know where win win yeah i just did a ted talk a few

months ago on win win win what were you saying in there the win win win is seeking and the win win in simplest it's it's looking for everyone you interact with you're looking a win for them a win for yourself and a win for the larger hole that we're all part of if all three aren't winning bad strategy yeah so it's kind of given your mind and your heart permission to go down that path And so if you unleash your mind to look for the win-win-win, it will find it. And we generally make trade-offs, and we generally approach it win-lose. We're in a culture where sports and game metaphors or somebody wins, most people lose, hey, that's the way life is.

No, that's a particular approach to life, and it's not the best approach for your happiness or for the betterment of the world. The win-win-win strategy, I argue, is a universal ethical system. I challenge you to think of any ethical dilemma you're in where win, win, when isn't the best way to approach it. What if you could nourish your immune system, metabolism, and longevity, all from a single plant? Himalayan tartary buckwheat or htabeeb is one of nature's richest sources

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potent ingredients. When I start my day with Nunduca, I feel more grounded, focused, and clear-headed. And yes, it tastes amazing. Right now, Peak is offering up to 20% off for life, plus a free starter kit with a rechargeable frother and glass beaker. Go to peaklife.com slash hymen. That's P-I-Q-U-E-Life.com it's hard to get people out of the scarcity mindset and into it this idea of abundance and you know i find that the more i give the more i give money away the more i get my time away the more i get my love away my energy away the more it comes back because the universe is a mirror reflects exactly back which you're giving the more love you give the more love you receive the kinder you are the more kindness comes back if people could understand that we

we are all connected. We are all one. That when they attack someone else, they're attacking themselves. If we can understand that love is the deeper reality and that we share love, it comes back to us. We help light somebody lights the candle of love in us. We send it and give it to somebody else. And that's how this planet's going to heal. It's going to heal ultimately through people waking up and being more conscious about how they show up in the world and how and transforming of love is. I'm like, I'm a big apostle of love. I think you're right on to something,

but we live in such a divisive world now, and I feel like we're less connected and more divided and more... So it starts with yourself. Yeah. Only you can transform the world. I don't mean that in a narcissistic sense. I mean, as we offer love and peace, it is offered back to us.

And right now, I can't worry about, absolutely the whole world, that just puts you into despair. All I can do is show up every day. My wife has a mantra that I try to follow. It's just love everyone all the time. No exceptions. That's pretty good. That's a pretty good real. She says, John, it's so much simpler. You don't have to worry about, well, I'm mad at him. I like her. I'm not so sure about this guy. She says, no, don't have all those comparisons. Just show up, open-hearted, and love everyone. Yeah. and yeah she's she's my teacher that's actually an incredibly powerful way to live and you know I don't know if I do that all the time in in my regular life but most of us don't but as a doctor

that's how you show up I sort of reflected like what is what is it that makes me good at what I do and why do people keep coming back and I think when I meet with someone because when you're a doctor you get to into this sacred space with someone where they're sharing their vulnerabilities their suffering, their fears, their relationship stuff, like whatever, their life story. And I take a very deep life story. I'm not the eight-minute doctor visit. You know, I spend a couple hours of people initially and then, you know, I get to know them. We can offer your job at Love Life.

You're the kind of doctor we're looking for. I know. I wish I had more of me to go around. What I let myself do is love every patient, is to see who they are as a human being. And no matter who they are, where they're from. I mean, I used to work in the Idaho state penitentiary, you know, when I, and, I mean, as a part-time gig when I was a doctor in Idaho, and I would walk in there with murderers and rapists and people who have done horrible things, and I would just try to meet them and

see who they were and love them. And what was really actually shocking to me was most of them were just scared little kids that didn't ever grow up. And they did these horrible things out of their own trauma. And to be able to sort of see that. And, you know, and if you just stop and spend enough time, with somebody and talk to them like the homeless guy in the street and you were helping heal them because you're you're being present like that and open is love yeah you were you were radiating love

to them whether you're conscious of it or not that was probably helping to heal them yeah because that's what everybody wants I'm sure I'm sure and also it also yeah helped them to you know feel safe and it helped me to actually you know care for them enough to to really work hard to figure out what was going on and it's it's like I I don't know why I started out like that but I just I've always been like that. And I remember being like three years old and seeing all these grownups who were just so unhappy and not nice and not acting out of love. I'm like, didn't I didn't get it. I literally remember you were three years old. I was overworldly self. I'm like, I just was full of love all the time. And I didn't get why everybody wasn't all full of love all the time. You know,

it's like, that's our natural state. Yes. That's right. Love is the essence of what we are, but it gets blocked. It gets blocked by anger, fear, judgment, attack, envy, resentment. All those type of emotions clouded over so that the light doesn't shine through. But if we practice forgiveness and we work at opening and being present, the light begins to shine through us again. Here's an interesting thing that I've learned. It's maybe one of the most important tips I will give. If you love everyone all the time, don't we forget that every day at times, we go back into judgment, we judge, you're driving over here, somebody cuts me off, an asshole. I'm not very loving when I'm thinking that or saying that. But what I've learned

is that the past doesn't exist any longer. All that's real is this moment. And no matter how many times I forget, I can go back in the next moment and choose love. I can choose to be present. I can choose to let my heart open. Even if I forget it, next moment I can choose it. If I forget it, Next moment I can choose it. I can practice going back to it. And it's kind of like meditating. The more you practice it, the more skilled you get at it. The more you practice being present and opening to love, the easier it gets.

It's such a simple idea. Choose love over fear. Yes, choose love over fear. Kind of like that first L.S, that massive LSD trip I took, there's nothing really to be afraid of. Yeah. Because the things we're afraid of, like death or suffering or pain. And an ultimate sense, those things really aren't real in any old.

ultimate sense, we make them real through our own minds. Our beliefs are what keep us in prison, you know. Anyway, I found that, I should anyway, an important thing that I've learned is that no matter how many times I forget, I can always remember in the next moment. I'm always, I can be free in the next moment. Isn't that the truth, John? I mean, you know, it thought a lot about death in life because I almost died recently. And I realize that the, real secret, the meaning of life, like the purpose of life, is to get free. So you can be love.

It's like most of us are in a self-made prison of our beliefs, of our thoughts, of our conceptions, of our ideology. And we're always in this trap, but there's actually a way to get free. And when you're free, all you want to do is love. It's kind of like a magic trick. You know, I felt that about you the first time I met you. I felt like you were a very loving person. Thank you. You had a very open heart and you were very caring and I felt that vibe from you. And you know what?

Here's the good news. It's a lot stronger now than I first met you. Yeah. Well, I've gotten more free. I've gotten shit all the old stories, all the bullshit. Oh, my God. It's hard work, you know. But I think, you know, this revolution in health and well being that you're part of

and the revolution in mental health, which in some ways, love life is really helping to solve because you're building community and loneliness is one of the biggest causes of illness. And, you know, it's like the community aspect is such a big piece. And for me, at the end of the day, it's just about how do we sort of always move

into the space of love rather than fear? We'll forget that we can choose it in the next moment. Just remember, no matter how many times you forget, The past, you don't have to bring the past into the present. Yeah. It can be free of the past by just letting it go, realizing it's not real. And in this moment, be present, be conscious, let love flow. I think the psychedelic revolution, and it was your awakening and certainly as part of mine,

and I think a lot of people, to be honest with you, if you look at like Steve Jobs. It's what knocked me off the path my parents had programmed into me. Exactly. And when you think about some of the big corporations that are going on, I think that people don't talk about it. but, like, apple came out of psychedelics, right? And I think for me, and I think increasingly, like, for the population at large, it's this sort of psychedelic revolution around psychedelic therapy. Yes.

Is part of the answer to helping people to let go of the idea of separateness and to let go of the idea that they have to meet life with fear or that they are stuck. And I think, I wish everybody could, I mean, I wish I could literally just take a giant a bunch of mushrooms or LSD and put it in the water in Congress. That would be scary to people. One way to think about it is I read this book a long time ago, which it was a very simple little 50-page book, and it basically said the lazy man's guide to enlightenment. Oh yeah, I don't remember that book.

And it had one big idea in it, and that big idea was you're either expanding or contracting. So expanding opens our consciousness and opens our hearts. for love. Contracting closes it down. That's right. So fear, judgment, hatred, anger, these all contract. The heart shut us down. And then forgiveness, love, generosity. I practice gratitude every day. Gratitude is a huge expanse and everything. No matter how my little petty problems that might be there at work or whatever, practicing the gratitudes in the morning is always expansive. It's always reminds me, that's petty stuff. This is what really matters.

I do think the daily practices are important for people if they want to help not get lost again. So why don't we sort of close by having you share with us your practices? How do you keep yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually on track? Sure. I start out my day, pee, and then I weigh myself. Then I do my spiritual practices, which involves. reading some type of spiritual text. I'm a long-time student of a course of miracles,

so frequently that's what I'm reading. Then I do gratitudes, the expanse of gratitudes. And I just let my mind go whatever I feel I'm grateful for and let that go as long as it feels right. Then I put forth where you can call them affirmations, you can call them prayers, intentionality. I put out there things that I would really like to see manifest. I put it out in a clear visualization of it.

And then I meditate. After that, I'm going to go make a smoothie. I start every day off with a smoothie. It's 50% fruit, 50% vegetables. It's got some protein in it, but it's extremely nutritious. I make a whole two liters of that in a Vitamix. And I'm going to have two glasses for breakfast, and then the rest. My wife will have a glass, and the other glass will get finished off sometime later in the day.

And then I exercise. I'm usually going for a walk, I'm playing pickleball, I'm doing Pilates, I'm doing yoga, or I'm doing a couple of those. Then I will go, I might read or I might go off to work, depending on what's going on, or I might have meetings. I will try to do some other kind of exercise at the end of the day. Now, for food for me, I am ethical vegan, so 100% plant-based. So I try to eat a whole food, some plant-based diet, minimize salt, and minimize oil, minimize processed foods of all kinds. not perfect in that regard, but, you know, probably compared to most people, I'm very high up the list there. I really think fruits and vegetables are extremely healthy. So I'm on, I would say I'm on

a high complex carb diet. I'm eating because I'm eating a lot of fruits, a lot of whole grains, a lot of beans. I do get a lot of protein because I really do eat a lot of foods that have a lot of protein in them. Greens, I eat tons of greens. I think my diet's healthy for me. And I think work, I think having purpose. I read a lot. I also have, I think having purposeful work, like Love Life, I'm on six boards, so I've got other distractions that way. And so, and then I spend a lot of time with my wife.

She's kind of my spiritual group. You guys have a remarkable relationship. I mean, you've had Whole Foods for a long time, but you've also had this marriage. I've been with Deborah for 35 years now. And she's, you know, I tell the story in the book, the woman in the dream when I met her, she was seven years younger than me and I considered myself my ego being what it is thought I was a pretty conscious dude but I was just blown away on the very first date talk about the notes from God my soul was saying this woman is the most awake person you've ever

come across don't blow it don't screw it up John I pretty much did because I was so nervous first thing I did when I picked as a blind date I never met her before first I pick her up and first thing I do is I'm nervous she's the most beautiful person I've ever seen and and I said Hey, mind if I look in your refrigerator? She says, that's weird, but sure, go ahead. Well, you can tell a lot about a person in your refrigerator. The bookshelf in the refrigerator. I went to the bookshelf second.

That was more socially acceptable. She ended up being the great love in my life. And I will tell you a story that I tell him the book. I call the chapter, The Women in the Dream, because I had had a recurring dream in this dream that I had many times. I'm going to this park, peace park in Austin, near where my house is, near Central in Central Austin. I'm going there, and I'm there in the morning, and I'm looking in this beautiful woman is walking to me, and she's naked, and she's radiating, she's shining, and she, and I, she comes up to me, and I, I break up a conversation, I start a conversation when I say, so, um, uh, uh, who are you? And she says, you know who I am. I said, okay. Well, what are you doing?

She says, I've been waiting. What do you've been waiting for? I've been waiting for you to catch up to me. Oh, wow. Well, why? And she grabs my hand, and she says, so we can run together. And we take off running, and then I wake up. That's amazing.

Beautiful dream. After I had the blind date, I had the dream again. And the first time I knew who she was, it was her, Deborah. Wow, that's an incredible. I got chills from that story. No, incredible story. No, to end on. I'm just really honored to be able to know you and your wife and being awesome with you

and look forward to playing pickup ball and more things and more conversations. I really admire what you're doing. Making a big difference in the world. I'm very appreciative. And I wish just love and happiness to you in all ways. Thank you so very much. Thank you, John. Thanks for being on the podcast.

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