The Resilient Mind - How I Shifted From Fear To Love - John Mackay

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

John Powell Mackey is an American entrepreneur and author. He is the co-founder of Whole Foods Market and was the CEO of the company from its inception in 1980 until his retirement in 2022. Take action and strengthen your mind with The Resilient Mind Journal. Get your free digital copy today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/Download_JournalDownload Mindset App for free and listen to 5000+ of the World's Greatest Motivational Speakers and Thought Leaders: https://bit.ly/mindsetxTheResilientMind Special thanks to Lewis Howes, subscribe to his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/lewishowesWatch the full interview on Lewis's page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JcyPQPKqX0&t=1s Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Resilient Mind podcast. In this episode, you will be listening to How I Shifted from Fear to Love with John McKay. Get access to the Resilient Mind Journal by clicking the link in the show notes. Enjoy. But what people believe is that the capitalism is a zero-sum game. It's truly not. People think that way because that's the way games are. That's the way sports are, right?

There's a winner and there are lots of losers. So Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. they have a lot of money, then they must have, you know, taken that money from other people. There's a fixed pie and they just greedy and they took a big piece of the pie. That's really how most people think about it. Winner takes all. That's not the way business works. That's not the way capitalism is.

It's this game where you have all these interdependent stakeholders in it. You have customers, you have employees, you have suppliers, you have investors, you have the communities that you're part of. They're all trading with the business voluntarily for mutual gain. And what you have in business is this upward spiral where all the stakeholders are benefiting. This is a competitive element to capitalism where you have competitors that are trying to serve customers better than you do. Right. Well, that's how you make progress because they're doing things better than you do. And it's like, well, we've got to study them and copy what they're doing better and then iterate on it and surpasses.

then. We've got to step it up. That's right. You've got to step up. The competition keeps complacency from settling in in the organization. But all of these people that are trading are gaining. So, for example, I always say that when we did the Amazon merger, it was totally a win-win-win deal for every one of our stakeholders. Whole Foods needed to drop its prices. Amazon was willing to look long-term and let us drop our prices. We dropped them four times in the first two years. Cost hundreds of millions of dollars to Amazon for us to do that. They gave raises to everybody in our company within 30 days of the merger occurring. They wanted to have a $15 minimum wage and then go up from there. Our suppliers not only didn't get cut out once that

deal happened, but Amazon studied our sales and they picked up a lot of our suppliers and brought them into Amazon. Wow. And then the investors got like a 30% gain on their stock with the deal. Even the government got lots of more taxes from the deal. Right, right. Everyone won. Yes, and our Whole Foods Market Foundations, the Whole Foods Market Foundation, the Whole Kids Foundation, Amazon not only didn't get rid of those, they put money in themselves and supported it. So it was a win, win, win, deal. Every stakeholder was benefiting. And I just think that's what happens in business in general. The customers are benefiting or they wouldn't trade with the business, right?

And you know what? If they don't like Whole Foods, there's a Trader Joe's down the street, or there's Avons, or there's Ralphs, if you're in L.A., and there's H.E.B. if you're in Texas. If you're doing a good job, people don't trade with you. Yeah, you've got other competitors. That's right, that's right. Yeah. And if you're not paying people a good wage, if they don't feel like they have opportunities to advance, if they don't like the way they're being treated, they're not slaves.

They can leave it any moment. They do, and they do leave. They do find better jobs all the time. And so we have to compete to hold on to our best workers because otherwise they'll go take better jobs. They'll go somewhere else, yeah. Suppliers aren't forced to trade with us either. If we are late in paying them or we treat them poor,

them poorly, they can just not do business with us any longer. Investors, when we were a public company for 26 years, nobody had to trade with Whole Foods. I mean, if they didn't like our way we were running the business, they could sell their stock, and they did, and others would buy it. So this voluntarily exchange for mutual gain is lifting up the whole system. It's not a win, lose game. It's truly a win, win, win game. And that's how capitalism continues to lift this planet upwards to higher levels. Does that mean everybody in business is an altruist and always acts ethically in all situations? No. Business people are people. They have their human natures. Some are greedy, some are selfish. As I might add, it's true of some athletes, some lawyers, some politicians,

some doctors, because it's just the way human beings are. We're wired to to be kind and generous, but also to compete and to win and be selfish and greedy sometimes. So business is not uniquely, you know, greedy and selfish in that way, but it does occasionally have bad actors. Anyway, my point is that I really do love capitalism because it's the only system in the history of the world that is the essence. You've combined science with capitalism,

and those two together are responsible for almost all the great progress that we've seen in this world in the last couple hundred years. My highest regard goes to the great entrepreneurs that create great organizations. I mean, I've always was a great fan of Steve Jobs, for example. Now I'm a fan of Elon Musk. Does that mean I agree with everything Elon does or says? No, just like I didn't with Steve Jobs. But they have built great organizations.

And they're helping, you know, between Tesla and SpaceX and the other companies Elon's creating, they're changing the world in positive ways. also really admire Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, who just passed on. Pretty much, if you find Michael, Michael Dell, the entrepreneurs that, you know, Google guys, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the creative types. I mean, I self-identify that way myself, so those are the people I most admire. Let's kind of like when I was a boy, we went to church. but as soon as we became teenagers, my parents said,

if you don't want to go to church anymore, you don't have to. My dad used to fall asleep. This was an Episcopal church, and it wasn't particularly a strong, they weren't, I'm not sure even the ministers particularly were believing. It's more of a social thing, you know, thing, just something to do on Sunday. But then when I was 18, I had an experience of,

got a crush on a girl, and I was going, you know, I was leaving, I graduated from high school, I'm going on to college. The world's sort of confusing and uncertain. And she pitched me on Christianity, and I became a born-again Christian when I was 18 years old, which I was really into it, seriously into it for a couple of years.

I probably got involved in a group called The Navigators, and I probably managed, I probably memorized about a quarter of the New Testament because they were big into memorizing scripture. And the thing that got me away from that was, as I dive deeper, I studied philosophy. I did, I did religion, studies, and it was the problem of evil. The problem of evil is, you know, the problem of evil is, if God is all powerful and all omniscient, all knowing, and all loving, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And I mean, Christianity had an answer that was, you know, original sin, the free will, but it didn't really,

it didn't satisfy me. I didn't think it was a good answer. So I drifted away, and I, I, I studied philosophy, I became, I would say I became an existentialist, probably an agnostic, but I was probably saying I was an atheist then because it sounded bolder and, you know, I'm just a kid and young guys, you know, shock people. And then when I was 22 years old, just turned 22, I had, I did a psychedelic trip with LSD that changed my life completely because I experienced, the only way I can describe it retrospectively is that I had what I would call it ego death. And what I mean by that is we experience ourselves as separate. We identify with our bodies. You're Lewis. I'm John. This is a cup. This is a table. And we're separate

from that. We're we're individuals. When you experience this, when your ego dissolves, there's no separation any longer. There's no, there is no John. There's no Lewis. There's only beingness, pure beingness. And I was part of it. I, there was no I, I was it. I didn't have any sense of any separation or differentiation. And that was sort of a timeless state and I don't know how long I stayed in that state, probably until the drug began to wear off and then I began to slowly differentiate again. But I came out of that with completely changed.

It was like I realized, oh my God, the essence of what I am, not my ego, not my body, the essence of what I am is immortal. It's always existed. It always will exist. And then it was like, wow, it's all just an adventure forever. We're just an adventure forever, adventuring forever. And we're free to create whatever kind of life we want to create. So I let go of a lot of fear then, not all of it, but I did let go of a lot of fear about,

I'm going to go out and take chances. I remember symbolically, I went out inside and started hitchhiking. Really? It's like the guy says, I don't have a shirt on, it's August, 1975. The guy picks me up and he says, where do you want to go? I just said, I don't care, wherever you're going. He says, I'm going home. I said, I'll go there.

So he drives a few miles and he said, well, son, this is as far as I'm going. I said, okay. And I got out and then I thought, what the hell am I? So I started to walk home. And I ran into my philosophy professor. This is a life-changing event. On the way back walking home. Yes, on the way back.

And I, this was the guy that I idolized. He was my intellectual hero. He's written a ton of books, Bob Solomon, Robert C. Solomon. He wrote 35 or 40 books still had a big influence on my entire life. Was he, were you in college at this time? Yes. Yes. So he was a professor of the college or okay.

Yes. Yeah. And when I was studying for philosophy at the University of Texas, he was one of my professors. Wow. So I run into him and I said, this is a great opportunity. And I went up to this is, Professor Solomon. It's John Mackie. I'm one of your students.

I don't have a shirt on. He didn't recognize me at first. And I said, you know, listen, I've had a couple of questions I've been dying to ask you for years. And he said, well, okay, this is a great opportunity to you. So what are your questions? I said, well, sir, you know, you teach. You know, he was an existentialist influenced by Sartre and Camus. And there's more to his story, which I won't get into because it takes too far field.

But he would teach that, you know, life is absurd. There is absolutely no meaning whatsoever to life. all. There's just we, we live, we die, we disappear, and that's it. But he believed that you could kind of shake your fist at that grim fate and that you could create your own meaning, sort of in defiance to this absurdity of life. So you give life meaning. It doesn't have any meaning, but you give life meaning. So I asked him, I said, so Professor Solomon, do you really believe that there's no real meaning to life except what we just kind of make up? And he said, yes, that's right. I believe. And I said, well, I don't see if you believe that how you could be happy.

And he looked at me and he said, I'm not, I'm not very happy. And it was like, from that moment, I didn't want to be an existentialist anymore because I just had this incredible experience. I saw I was part of all it is. It was all an adventure. Meaning is everywhere. And I just wanted to get on with my adventure. So after that is when I moved into this vegetarian commune, I wasn't a vegetarian. In Texas. In Texas, yes, in Austin. And I had this sort of food awakening. I never realized before. I always thought, I knew exercise could make me feel better. I just thought food was kind of like fuel. Like you're a car. You've got to go into the gas station and get fuel. But if it tastes good, that's all that really matters. I didn't think about whether it was nourishment from, I didn't think of my, I thought myself a machine, not as this living organism that needed to nurture trillions and trillions of cells. So I had to think about it. I had this food awakening, learned how to cook, became the buyer for this commune, food buyer for the commune. And then I went to work for a small natural food store. And I came back after doing that. I loved it. I loved working in that store. And I came back to the co-op, to the commune, my girlfriend,

Renee, who I'd met there. And I asked her, I said, what do you think if you and I open up our own natural food store? And she said, oh, Macomac. She's hippie. Oh, Macleman, that'd be cool. Let's do that. So we did. And that was the genesis of Whole Foods Market. So I start the book telling that story because that LSD trip changed my entire trajectory of my life. Wow. So that's why it's relevant.

And the first chapter of this book is called The Game of Life. And the final chapter is called The Infinite Game. So in some ways, the thread that goes throughout that whole book is that it's all an adventure. life is an adventure. And so I love your school of greatness because if you're going to have an adventure, you might as well go for it. Absolutely. Be the best version of yourself that you can possibly be.

Absolutely. At that point, I would define myself kind of as a seeker. I mean, it's like, all I knew for sure is that the whole thing was spiritual. Everything was spiritual. I went from an atheist to the whole entire universe is spiritual. And so it's the opposite of absurdity. It's like meaning is everywhere. That's what you make of it, right?

Yeah, well, yes, but also it's at the essence of what we are. It's at the core of our being. It's not, it's not. And so then the spirituality accelerated in 1984 when I did, I was invited to do an MDMA journey. This was when it was still legal. I never heard of it before. And I went in and with some friends and I was invited over to this house.

And I had that just completely, my heart just completely opened up. And it was like, yes, this is the meaning of everything. It's all love. It's all love. And this universe that I've been part of, it's the universe itself is the essence of love. And so then I started to do a technique called, breathwork, holotropic breathwork at that time. Stannisov-Groff had done it. And for those that are listening that have never done breathwork, I hardly recommend breathwork because you can

have a transcendent experience just breathing. So you don't need a psychedelic to have a deeper experience of your soul and your spirit. And so I started to do this regularly. And you said you hardly recommend breathwork? How'd you mean? Hardly. Heart toly. Heartily. Heart toly. I passionately recommend breathwork. I still do breathwork. It's very, very powerful. So now I'm doing this breathwork and I've met a bunch of people through this MDMA experience. And one of them gives me this book called The Course of Miracles or A Course of Miracles. And, you know, I kind of, because it seemed kind of vaguely Christian. I said, what is this? It says, well, this is a, it claims to be a channeling from Jesus.

I'm thinking to myself, well, that's nonsense. You know, channeling from Jesus. You know, I had a bad attitude about it. But I like this guy a lot and he said this would change my life. So I said, I want to read it. So I start reading the course of miracles with kind of with not a great attitude, but I don't know, 50, 60, 70 pages in in the text, I came across a passage which changed my life again. And basically the passage says, my son, lifetime after lifetime after lifetime, you have blamed God for everything that you see that's wrong in the world. And you've cursed him. And you don't believe in God.

And you've rejected God. You've rejected love. And then it said, my son, you are asleep. You think when you wake up in the morning that you have awakened to reality. You haven't. You've awakened to yet another dream. a dream that you are creating. Everything that you're experiencing is something you are creating through fear and through judgment and through anger.

And God just loves you and wants you to wake up to love. Wow. So it's like, I got so excited because this was the answer to the problem of evil for me. It was like, because that was what got me to be this agnostic atheist was I couldn't reconcile evil. And the course says, it's just a dream. It's not real. So like when we sleep at night and we're having a dream, we are, it's interesting, right? Think about a dream.

A, we're the dreamer, right? Or a character in the dream too, right? Who are the other characters? Who are these other characters? They seem to be acting independently of us. But when we wake up and everything disappears, yeah, what happened to those characters? Right. Right.

So the course says you think that you're waking up to reality, but you're just waking up to yet another dream. And so the course is a path of awakening to the real reality, which is love. So I've been on that path ever since. And I like to say, I've made some progress. Right. I'm a much more loving being than I was, you know, 25 or 30 years ago. Yeah, and this is a great quote from your book. It says, I learned that the key was to remove the blocks to love's presence through practicing

forgiveness instead of fear, judgment, and attacks on others. The dreams we experience here are actually reflections of. all of our thoughts and emotions. We are always unconsciously creating the world that we are experiencing. Our task here is to become more conscious and begin to transform our waking dreams to happy dreams of love. And then to share that love with everyone we encounter. Couldn't have said it better myself. You said it here.

I mean, forgiveness became a very important part of your path in the aftermath since you encountered a course in mirror. How do you learn to create an environment of love, compassion, and forgiveness while building a capitalistic business, while trying to build a business, earn money, make money? When you have so many people involved, whether there may be employees who maybe are out of alignment at times or stealing or not living up to their responsibilities of their job or customers that are potentially doing good or harmful things towards the business or business partners or, you know, agencies you're working with that are maybe out of a line or whatever it might be, how do you continue to forgive? Yeah. Spread love. Be love. Yes. When others are doing bad or evil against you. Okay. So this, this, I'm going to do the best I can to explain it, but it's going to seem weird. So have you ever had a lucid dream before? I think I've had, you mean, why you're experiencing, you're in the dream. You wake up.

in the dream and realize you're dreaming. Yes. You've had that? Once or twice. Okay. And so what's different about a lucid dream once you wake up? How's the dream change? Well, it feels very real, but you wake up, you mean afterward? No, while you're in the dream. The dream begins to change and the dream changes because once you realize that you're the dreamer and you whatever you're thinking in the dream manifest, you have control of the dream. You have more control. Yes. So imagine that it's not any different here. As you wake up and you realize who you are,

that your thoughts and your emotions are going out and they are creating what you're experiencing. You can put it in the context of like a multiverse. Yes. That there's an infinite number of realities, but the choices we make, the thoughts we make, the universe, that multiverse is forming around us. So once you understand that you're the dreamer

and you begin to wake up into it, The dream gets happier. As you share more, as you practice forgiveness, as you practice not judging others, but being kind and compassionate and caring, the world begins to shift for you. It becomes more of a happy dream. Instead of being in conflict all the time

because we're judging and attacking others, and then we find that we're attacked and judged too, and that we're kind of at war, we bake different choices. We go to the path. If we choose a different path, the world shifts. It's not to say they're not terrible things happening in the world. There are.

But your world shifts. Yes. Your world shifts. Your environment, your world. The people in your world. Maybe not the entire world, but your world. Yes. And the course of Mercos has a very good metaphor for this.

It's like, as we, as our heart awakens deeper to love, our job is to extend that love to everyone. else we encounter. And then it's like we have a candle and we help light the candle in their heart and then they light the candle in other hearts and the world, you don't wake up alone. You're waking up because we're all part, we're all one. We're the best metaphor I can say it's because we're so attached to our egos and our separateness. It's like there's just the one being, The one being is you, the one being is me, the one being is everything. You've got all eternity. What are you going to do in all eternity?

You're going to play because it's an adventure because it's fun, because you can create anything. So you do all, and so the one being is continually playing forever and ever and ever. Wow. It expands through the big bang and self-love and it comes back, breathe back in, and it's in the singularity again, and it blows up again, and it comes out. all possibilities are realized everything. We do. It's, it's, we're on this grand adventure.

Yes. So make it a great grand adventure. One that's fun. One that you share with others. One that you, you help others. I didn't say it was easy. It's, it's hard. However, as you become more conscious, it gets easier.

because it's like imagine that love is the deeper reality, but we continue to block it through our judgments, through our anger, through our fear. I talk a lot about it in the book about we always have a, we're faced with choices every day of we can either contract into fear and anger and judgment or we can expand into love. And here's the thing. I'm going to give you one of the most important tips that's helped me.

The past doesn't exist. In the next moment, you can choose love. And if you forget, that's okay. Because in the next moment, you can choose love. And if you make a judgment or you attack somebody, you say something cruel, it's in the past. You can let it go. And the next moment you choose it. And you practice being in the next moment, open-hearted.

And, yeah, stuff's going to happen. Think about it as a big game. And things are happening. These are all challenges for you. You've got to overcome those challenges. Yes. Somebody just did something really cruel to you and said something really hateful or betrayed you. It's like, wow, what an opportunity for me to learn here.

There were actually four separate coup attempts to take me out. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, four times. Of your own business. Yes, exactly. What was that like? Well, there was a sense of betrayal.

The people that I loved and trusted. I call it in the Lord of the Rings, there's the Ring of Power. In the Ring of Power, people are so attracted to wealth, fame, and power. Those things are seductive. And in the Lord of the Rings, in that particular fantasy series, the Ring was, it was very difficult to wear it and not be corrupted by it. It began to pressure, the ego. Exactly. It's a metaphor for the ego.

The ego wants to be, you know, it's in this competitive war against all. And so I think as I became more successful and wealthier and better known, a lot of people wanted that. They envied it. They wanted that. How did you navigate it the first time versus kind of like the other three times. Did you get better at navigating it or each time was painful? I got, oh, each time was painful. But I got better at it.

And because remember I was using, I said that, you know, you forget. I forget. I go back into the ego. I contract into fear. I'm on the journey like we all are. And I don't claim to never, you know, get upset or fall back into fear. But what's different over time, Lewis, is I don't stay there as long. It's like, oh, yes, I just did it again. I contracted into fear. But instead of beating myself up for not being perfect, it was like, yeah. But now, this moment, I can open my heart back up and be back. And be back in the love space. And so it's like anything. If you practice it, you get better at it. So I've been practicing it. I'm better than I used to be. Right.

Still not perfect. I am not perfect. So how did you navigate that, that first kind of big betrayal moment in business then? How are you able to keep your heart open while also, I guess, protecting yourself and your interest in your business? And how do you navigate those relationships with people that want to hurt you? That's what's so powerful about forgiveness. Yeah.

You know, one of the things that it took me a long time to learn is that when we hold on to a grievance against somebody, we're actually, it's kind of like this poison that we want to give to them. We're drinking it ourselves. That judgment and grievance is harming us. Right. And so once you realize, my God, you know, I got to let go of that. That's really holding on to that anger and judgment. it poisons your soul. So you have to let it go.

And forgiveness is the way that you let it go. So everyone that I've ever felt like, you know, harmed me or hurt me in some way, it's like I've forgiven them all. It's like I wish them the best. I love them. I want them to be, I understand they were doing it for their own ego drive. And it wasn't satisfying them, but they wanted things. And I just let it go.

I forgive them. I don't want to hold on to those anger and that judgment. So it's a skill. You have to practice it. I'm not saying, and I've completely mastered it, I don't, I'm not pretending to be a fully enlightened being every instant of every day. You set yourself up for that, and people are going to show you lots of ways where you're far from being perfect.

You sure you got that lesson? Let me test you again. Let me test you again. The one that hurt me the most, the story was back in 2000 and 2000. And we had started back when, this was when the dot-com. boom was occurring and Whole Foods wanted to, we jumped into it. We created something called Whole Foods.com and then we changed it to WholePeeple.com. My wife and I moved to Boulder and we were doing a, we were doing it there and we were we created a team, we raised venture capital money,

and then that dot com boom turned into a bust and it and it failed and we had to shut it down. We sold off, we sold off pennies on the dollars, what we had left and Meanwhile, while I'd done that, I'd asked a really close friend of mine that was the number two guy in the company, president of the company, to be, so I want you just sort of run whole foods while I'm focused on this. But that only went on for about a year. And then I said, I want to come back. I'm coming back to Austin. I'm taking back over the leadership role. After the bust happened.

Yes. He did not want that to happen. Really? Well, he liked being in charge. And meanwhile, since I had failed, a couple of the directors didn't really want me to come back and that they wanted me to go. If you failed at this thing, we don't want you back down on our thing. Pretty much. And so I was at my most vulnerable, you might say.

And the portrayal was it was somebody I loved and trusted. And then there was a conspiracy, right? And some of the directors with this man, with this leader. And so, you know, this is because we're. we're talking a lot about love, this is a great story of how I sort of overcame that. So the board calls this meeting in Florida where all my leadership and his name is Chris, Chris is going to be there, the board's going to be there, my other executive team members are going to be, they're all going to be interviewed by the board.

So, you know, I don't know what's going to happen. I may not survive this. So I go, and one of the things I do whenever I would travel, I'd always want to visit our stores. So I go visit the Fort Lauderdale store. And while I'm visiting the store, I had this, you know, my heart opened up. And my soul spoke to me and it said, this is your purpose. This is what you love. And you've not lived up to your own standards here.

And so what the message was coming across that there was nothing I love more than this. And that I loved every, I loved all the customers. I loved all the team members. I loved everybody and that I didn't want to lose this. And I was willing to commit and learn from my mistakes and do better going forward. I sort of was making this, meanwhile, I'm walking around in this complete open-hearted love space. Guess who walks in, Chris? Wow.

So I say, hey, listen, could we talk for a minute? Just randomly. Yeah, random. Synchronicity. Yeah. Synchronicity. Or is there synchronicity in those dreams? Maybe. So we go back into the store team leader's office and I said, Chris, you and I have been close friends for 16 years.

It's not too late. We can stop this nonsense right now. If you're willing to, we can go back to the way it was and we'll just let this be in the past. And he said, it's time for you to go, John. You've had a good run here. Wow. And he said, you could go out with, you can go out with honor. Oh, my God.

Or you're going to get thrown out on. Oh, my goodness. And I said, it doesn't have to be that. way and he says that's how it's going to be oh no so you had this beautiful dream hey we're going to come together and everything i'm going to be back in my position but i was still open in my heart i was the point is i was willing to forgive and and we could move past it and he wasn't no but then then we i go into this i go into the board meeting i am still wide open in my heart love yes i'm in love i'm just loving i'm and i talk about how much i love whole foods and and uh how much i love chris and uh and and and

how the company's going to go from here on. I had a whole vision of where we were going to go. And I was told later, many years later, by the lead director. He said, John, you were going to lose that vote. And you came in there and you won everybody but one director over. Wow. And he said, and when Chris got in there, he went into like a 30-minute rant about what a terrible person you were. you know, cataloging all your failures as a leader.

And so later, another director told me, he says, well, John, you know what I did after, I wanted to know what went on there. So for many years after that, they wouldn't tell me, it was a secret. But I would get these directors one-on-one and take them out to dinner. Pour them a couple glasses of red wine. What really happened? Ask a few questions. Time had passed.

And I slowly built the whole story up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so Chris had gone in there and ranted. And one of the directors said, well, we weren't sure we still wanted to keep you as a CEO, but we weren't going to put him in because he was crazy. He was like so angry that we couldn't put him in. And so we decided that you seem to have a vision for the future, and we thought we should give you another chance.

They put you back in. They forgave me. And there's another important message here, which was, I made a commitment when I was touring that store that I was going to be. a better leader that I was going to, and I was going to, I was going to channel more love. And it was like my soul was saying, you either have to step up or get out. And I made the decision to step up. Conscious capitalism came directly out of that experience.

That's when it began to take place. Well, first of all, conscious capitalism to explain to the listeners here, I got to say first of what is not. It's not an economic system. It's not a corporate governance system. it's simply a management philosophy. Okay, so it's because it's controversial now. Yeah. You know, the whole stakeholder thing is being attacked.

And so it's just the better way to manage your business. And so the four pillars of conscious capitalism. First, every business has this potential for higher purpose besides just making money. Business has to make money. But that's not why it exists. A good metaphor is like, my body has to produce red blood cells or I will die. But my purpose is not to produce red blood cells. Right.

Similarly, business has to make a profit or it dies. Yes. But that's not why it exists. It exists to create value for customers. And the higher purpose is in that value creation. For example, Whole Foods' higher purpose is to nourish people and the planet. We're about selling healthy food to people to help nourish them so they can be the healthiest versions of themselves. Google's higher purpose is to organize the world's information and make it readily accessible.

Amazon's higher purpose is to be the earth's most customer-centric company. These purposes can change in a wall over time, but these are having the stated purposes of these companies. So what was the first pillar? The first pillar is that this higher purpose. Higher purpose. Business has a higher purpose. Business is condemned. I mean, ask what's the purpose of a doctor?

Is it to make money? To heal. Yes, but they make a lot of money. Right. Teachers educate. Architects design buildings, engineers construct things. They all have some type of higher purpose that is in service to other people. Well, so does business.

It's the enemies that have made it into it's just about the money. If you go to a party, a cocktail party, you ask people randomly, for example, what's the purpose of business? They'll say, what do you mean what's the purpose of business? Make money. It's like, no, that's not right. It's not the purpose of business. It's to create value for customers. Profits come from that.

Profits are not the goal. They're the result of creating value for other people. And if people could see this and articulate it, the hatred and dislike of business would definitely be toned down. Thank you for tuning in. Continue strengthening your mind by listening to our other episodes.