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Elevating Humanity Through Business with John Mackey

no heavy. What's up? It's Chase. I want to welcome you to the episode of the Chase Travis Live show here on Creativelive. You know the show. This is where I sit down with the world's top creators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders, and I do everything I can to unpack their brains with the goal of helping you live your dreams in career and hobby and in life, we are broadcasting live here to a global audience. So if you're in the comments on whatever platform you're watching, whether it's YouTube, live Facebook, live Twitter, live instagram live or my favorite, which is creative live dot com slash tv, let us know where you're coming in from, and I will do my best to let your questions and comments, um, affect the trajectory of the show. If you've got questions for our guests, I want to know about them, Um, and that is away again for you to shape the show and be a part of our conversation today, which we all know is it's fun to be connected in a global way, and I will stop talking here an...

d get to the get to the business because I know you're not here for me. I know you're here for our guest today in our guest, John Mackey is the CEO and co founder of Whole Foods Market. He's also the co founder of the nonprofit Conscious Capitalism, the co author of Conscious Capitalism and most recently, one of things were Going to be over indexing on today. Conscious leadership elevating Humanity through businesses. New book He's devoted his life to selling natural organic foods. One of the first places in our country where we really saw organic foods hit scale. Um, was that whole foods And And he wants to build a better business model. Um, September. This particular month of 2020 marks the 40th anniversary of opening the very first whole foods market. Please give a warm, creative, live welcome tap on the keys. Raise the roof, smiley faces, whatever you do out there on the Internet and welcome John to the show. John, Thanks for being a guest today. Thanks, Chase. Glad to be here. I'm very excited. I have the good fortune of getting an early copy of, um of the book and in a pdf form, and I want to say congratulations. Great. Great accomplishment. And if we need anything right now, Dear God, we need leadership. So I don't know if this is the way books work You've been working on it for a couple of years. Was just some vision that you had of needing to change the trajectory of our leadership. Or why? Why leadership? Well, we when we published conscious capitalism back in 2013. So seven years ago. But, um, the two chapters we wrote on conscious leadership got a lot of feedback leaders wanted. They wanted mawr of that they wanted, uh, they wanted to be more conscious leaders themselves. They wanted more direction on how to do that. So it was kind of the next book that was kind of up, that I felt like I needed to write. It's kind of a happy accident that it's being published a time right now when we're in a in a very divided society and idea of more conscious leaders is very timely in that sense. But that's that's just fortunate on our part. Well, Azaz the saying those are to be lucky than good. That's perfect timing, and you happen to be good already. So, um, congrats that the thing that I've always appreciated about, um, all the you never spent time together before, But, you know, I've read your previous work and what I've always admired about Whole foods. Uh, and, um, basically, your work over 40 years, we just Azad acknowledged in the intro there, 40 years since the first store opened is this understanding of purpose and the crowd that's watching and listening to this right now. And I'm seeing comments coming in from all over the world. I'll recognize a few of you out there in the world. We've got a seven or nine countries already tuned in, but is the folks who are listening are creators and entrepreneurs, and in part, they are free spirited, and they're individuals. And purpose is a really, really important, um, concept for them. But I'm hoping you can help us understand what your purpose was in starting whole foods. And maybe through, um, understanding the way it worked for you. We might, um, inspire some folks to to take that toe heart for themselves. Sure. Let me maybe just give kind of the origin story of the company and that that that will talk about how I I found my own purpose in life with the business. So back when I was about 23 years old, I moved into a vegetarian co op in Austin, Texas, and I was a student at the University of Texas. Uh, studying philosophy and religion and basically humanities in general. Got 120 hours of electives. No degree. I just took what classes I wanted to take. I moved into this vegetarian co op. I wasn't a vegetarian, but I was very interested in all things counter culture. This is back in the middle of 19 seventies, and I thought I'd meet really cool people in a vegetarian co op. And I did. I met. I met my girlfriend that I co founded the business with, and I had my food awakening because I did become a vegetarian and I learned about natural and organic foods, and I got really excited about them. The more I I learned about it, the more excited I got. I became the food buyer for the co op. Then I went to work for small natural food store and learn the retailing business, and I remember coming home to the CO op one evening and just talking to my girlfriend. And I said I had this crazy idea today. Renee, what do you think if you and I opened up our own store and I don't know how my life might have been different if Renee had said No, I don't want to do That's a terrible idea. Instead, she got super excited about it, and we launched on that adventure, and we opened up the first doors called Safer Way. It was a very pure store that had we was vegetarian and it it had no, we didn't sell alcohol or caffeine or sugar white flour. We were just very, very pure. And we did almost no business. And we had a vegetarian store and we had a vegetarian cafe. And then we, Renee and I moved out of the co op and we moved in and lived on the third floor of the store. Very romantic, good part of my youth, but learned valuable lesson. And then I had my food awakening. Safer way struggled. But when we decided to relocate it and we merged with another store, changed the name, the Whole foods market, and we hit the sweet spot. That store, the first Whole Foods market just literally took off. It exploded, became the highest volume natural food store in the United States. And so people asked me if I had this grand design, Whether had this purpose? No. I followed my passion. I had this awakening about food, and in that awakening, and in that discovery, I found purpose. This was something I really wanted to do so and the more I did it, the more I learned the more excited I got. And one store led to two because we had a flood that wiped us out. But we rebuilt and we said, We got to do a second store so this will never risk wiping us out again. And that was successful. Let me open the third store. We raised venture capital money. Then we went out of Texas into California in Palo Alto, and Whole Foods just sort of took off like a like a Roman candle or a rocket ship. It just really, really launched. And we made a lot of mistakes, but we learned is very I think, back on those early days with a great deal of nostalgia, partly because I was super young and I have in a time of my life. But the purpose came from following my passion. Passion led to purpose and then purposes what I realized. If I could get people excited about Whole Foods as I was, if I could instill that purpose and the people that work there, then the success of the business would be guaranteed. And I was pretty good at doing that. Well, I'm fascinated by, um, a particular aspect of what you said, and I've seen it over and over in our community. I have experienced this myself, and it was clearly a piece for you, which is you didn't figure out that that passion and the next steps from sitting on the couch and intellectualizing them it was literally required that you took some action, right? You went and did this other work and you came back to was it Renee and said, Let's do this thing. It didn't come like I have an idea for this thing. It's like, Really, As you said, your purpose unfolded from taking steps. And I don't know if that, you know, defines an entrepreneur, someone who's willing to take the risk Or if that it seems to me that this is available to everyone. How did you understand that passion? Because right now there's someone sitting in their underwear in Ohio watching us screen this and they're wondering. Like, Boy, I want some of that juice. That sounds great, but how? I mean, I'm passionate about so many things. I like chocolate cake and macaroni and cheese, and I like, you know, cutting people's hair. And I like, you know, they have 10 things. How did you narrow it down? And was it obvious to you, or did you run some sort of analysis? How'd you underscore or or or unearth? What? You're passionate enough. I was just a kid, right? I mean, at that time, I think I turned 24. By the time we opened this store and there was no master plan, I was just excited and I went for it. Um And I will tell you it's good to go for it in life if you know it. Fortune favors the bold, make do things, make a commitment, take a chance. And I don't even think of taking a chance. Just follow your heart. Do what you care about. And, uh, it will probably work out for you. And if it doesn't, you'll still learn a lot of lessons along the way, and you'll be a wiser human being. This idea of taking a leap, I think it's a little bit blown out of proportion. Um, Richard Branson investing Creativelive longtime friend and also have been on this show. He's gone on record, saying very clearly like this belief that you have Thio like get a second mortgage on your house and do all these things in order. Thio To become an entrepreneur or to experience experiment or to follow your passion or follow your heart, that's that's a narrative that's just sexy in the media. But most of the entrepreneurs that I know again speaking from Richard here are ones that have just taking a chance. As you said, gone on an adventure and you didn't have to see all of the staircase. You just have to see the stairs that air in front of you, right at the moment, I'm wondering if you can either validates to Richard's P O. V there or or add something to it or change it. What What are your thoughts on that statement. I've met Richard before and I really like him. And, uh, that is I think he's think he's fairly accurate. I will tell you a story, and we don't, uh, Matthew McConaughey, the actor, is coming out with this kind of memoirs of his 1st 50 years. And I got to read a He lives in Austin. I got to read a the early version of the book and did an endorsement for it. And the thing that I love most about that book is Matthew wasn't an actor. I mean, Matthew Waas. Actually, he took some film and television classes at the University of Texas and he thought he was gonna be operating cameras. And he got he went in. This, uh, movie was happening in Austin, and he just asked, You got to play this bit role in this movie called Dazed and Confused, and, uh, he kind of did a good job at it and somebody asking to go try out for something in L. A. And he did that and and he never had any acting classes or anything like that. But he just got interested in acting and a lot of ways he just started playing himself. And you know, that's the easiest role to place yourself and, you know, look enemies, one of the most famous actors in the world who in a sense just kind of followed an interest. And then it once you take, it's kind of hard to say this, But once you make a decision, I found that oftentimes thinks serendipity starts toe happen. Synchronicity is begin to occur. You start meeting the right people. New doors open up. You kind of put this intentionality out in the world. You start moving forward and other doors start opening. It's like you've begun an adventure and it takes you in surprising places. You can't always anticipate it it, and I think that's a good way to think about it as an adventure. That's part of your life adventure. And I wasn't trying to be an entrepreneur. I wasn't trying. I didn't. I just was interested in this, and I thought it would be fun, and then it and then it grew. It grew into something that's then my life, and but I think it was because I just followed my heart. You know, Let me back up something. This might actually be a key. So I started the story. I couldn't You know, I had to start the story somewhere. But if I go back just a couple of years when I was about 20 years old, I was a student at University of Texas studying philosophy, and I was trying. I was trying to get a philosophy degree, and I hated this course I was taking was required. Course. I didn't like it. I didn't like the professor. I didn't like the book. I didn't like the class, but I was tourney, right, Because I had to take this to get a degree, and I You know, my parents want me to get a degree. I didn't know what I would do with a degree in philosophy, but I was on a degree track. But I had this inner battle because part of me just said, Don't read it. You're not interested in it. Don't do it. And I will. You have to, because you gotta You gotta buckle down and get this degree. So one day I was fight having internal battle, and I stood up and I threw the book down on the ground. and I will moderate my language a little bit here. But I said I'm not going to read this frigging book, And, uh, and the next day I dropped the class in my entire life, changed. At that point, it was like, Okay, I'm not going to get a degree in philosophy. So from that point, I stopped reading books I wasn't interested in. I stopped taking classes. I wasn't interested, and I started auditing classes, reading whatever I wanted to. I took control of my own life. It was my life. Now. My parents were upset. Where's a college degree? They cut me off. They didn't. They didn't pay for me anymore. So I had. I had to work, got jobs. But it was cheap to live in Austin back in the middle early seventies, and I was now in control of my life, and I started doing what I wanted to do, and then I Soon after that, I moved in the vegetarian co op. But I think the point is I stopped living my life the way everybody else told me I needed to be living it, and I started really doing what I wanted to do. That was really what changed everything for me. And then in some ways, moving into that vegetarian co op was just an extension of me throwing that book down on the ground and saying, It's my life and I'm gonna do what I wanna do. I'm gonna follow the things that I care about That was, that was the liberating moment in my life. I changed everything. That is such a brilliant story. And part of what I believe is the rial power. There is your willingness to disappoint some people. And usually these are people that love us very much and and whom we probably love back right, thes thes air, our parents and grand parents and peers and spouses and career counselors. And and I'm wondering, where did you sum up that courage? And if you could, you know, share what was going through your mind right then? Was it just that this is my life? And then that was enough, Or did you do some other rationalizing? So that's a very great question chase. So honestly, it was a very difficult decision, and it really was my parents that when I thought about I have to get this degree, it's because I don't want to disappoint my parents. That was really the thing that was going on in my mind. And, uh, I guess maybe it's because I was studying philosophy, but at a pretty early age, I don't It's kind of sound kind of weird. I got really clear about death. I was going to die. And most we spend most of our lives and kind of denial of death because that's going to be way in the future. I'm young. I don't have to worry about that. But I sort of got really cleared about age 19 or 20. I am going to get old and sick and die. Oh, my God. What am I going to do with my life? I don't even know if there's any life after death. I just know I'm going to die. So in that case, I'm gonna make my life an adventure. I'm gonna do what I want to do, and I'm gonna see where it takes me. I just took control of my life and believe me, it was very hard. It was very hard to do that, you know, one of one of things I did soon after That was I said, I'm gonna go on an event. I'm gonna go hitchhiking across America. And so Oh, my God. My mother told me when I walked out of the door with my backpack and Houston, Texas back in 1970 three or something like that. She said, if you walk out of that door, you could never come back and I will tell you I hesitated. I thought, Good God, my mother said. I my mother, my mother says I'm not ever welcome back in the house. And then I thought myself, That is very manipulative. And if you really feel that way, if you really are gonna welcome me back here just because I want to go hitchhiking across America, then fine. That's why I don't want to come back. But that was a very courageous act, and I did that. And now that was actually, that was slightly before I threw the book down on the ground. So I just dropped out for a while, and I think I was a little bit younger, Uh, or maybe a year younger than that. But that was the first time I rebelled in a big way against my parents. They were very unhappy about that. That that I was gonna get killed, hitchhiking was dangerous. And, uh, it was a grand adventure. I met the most interesting people hitchhiking around America and then but that I guess maybe you know something. You help me put it together. That actually made it a lot easier for me to throw that book town and drop out because I realized that life's adventure and I wanna learn as much as I can. I want to do as much as I can. I wanna be alive. This was back in the era where you know, you had like, uh, you had stepping wolf with their song born to be wild, and it was a generation awakening them to themselves, and I was part of it. And, uh um, yeah, I I think back on those times with great memories. But I did take some courageous steps for me at the time. I did have to overcome mostly parental disapproval. That was my deepest fear. My parents were stopped loving me, but I took. I was able to master it. At the end of the day, I was able to master that fear and act. And I think a lot of people don't take charge of their lives because they're afraid they're afraid of something. Afraid of rejection, afraid of failure, afraid that they're going to be hurt, afraid of of something. And, uh, I guess I just had enough courage toe face that fear and move forward. Anyway, even though I was scared, believe me, hitchhiking across America, I was scared to death. Initially. Just a kid. I was by myself. Right. So, um, but you know what? It wasn't. I felt safe the whole time. I met really interesting people. I was getting invited to come over to people's houses and and people were passed. This is passing on marijuana all the time. And it was, uh, it was fun. A grand adventure. Well, you've got people from all over the world paddle from Sydney. Asked Jensen loves the way you're thinking are is great. So grateful for our conversation today. Long Beach, New York Billy is saying so much gratitude for helping provide clarity and what he's feeling, Um, in short again, global audience. I think what is so relatable about that is Look, we're social animals, right? we're social creatures, and we want to connect and be a part of the tribe and be welcome around others that we love and that we hope love us back. But this is a threat that is so common in my conversations with people that are crazy, successful and have lived the lives and, um, follow their heart that, you know, such such that so many folks want to emulate. And yet, this there's an unwillingness, ultimately to betray others. And I feel like that is ultimately a willingness to betray ourself. And the question The following question is, did you feel that? Were you able to then reconcile this with your parents? At some point, it was that, and this is the silver lining is like they might say that at the beginning. But if you go away and actually, you know, find or create fulfillment for yourself, there may be some reckoning. So tell us that it worked out okay. And you go, it did work out okay. I mean, I think I hitchhike for couple of months, and I called home and my mother just said I didn't mean any of that. I love you. Please. Please be safe. You're always welcome to come back home. So and I did. I came back home and the prodigal came home, and it was all fine. Um, And then again, I had to deal it again when I did drop out of school. Um, but my parents did love me, and even though they were, my mother was trying to manipulate me really through guilt. Um, she did love me, and she did accept it. And we did reconcile. So, um and I think maybe one of the reasons that made a little easier for me is my parents were depression parents, right? They were born in the early 19 twenties and they when there's teenage years, when the depression, they got married young and then the World War Two started. And my dad was in the military when he was 20 years old. I guess he was. He was in the military in World War two, and and then after that, they had they had their first child when they were very young, my sister and and they held this responsibility. They just grew up really fast, and they and they and they sacrificed for their kids. So much, and I always felt my dad. I always felt sort of his support for me to go out and be a little bit more adventuresome because he wasn't able to do that. And so I always felt kind of sort of this tacit support from my dad. I never really felt it from my mom. I think she was very scared. She, uh, in fact, I'll tell you one other very personal story. This was 1987. The last time I saw my mother was on her deathbed. She was dying, she'd had a stroke and and it's the last time I ever saw her on the deathbed, she said, John, I want you to make one final promise to me before I die. And I said, Well, sure what? Anything. Mom, what do you want me to do? And he said, I want you to promise me that you'll stop doing this whole food stuff and you will go back to school and get your degree and make something of yourself and stopping a grocer. Your father and I gave you a fine mind, and you're wasting it. Being a grocer, you could be so much more than you could be a doctor. John, you could be a lawyer. You could be a make a success of your life. Please do that for me. That's my dying wish. And you know, I have a minor regret, because Thio I didn't I didn't lie to her because I think now what I wish I would have done is just a simple white lie. Thio let my mother go toe to the grave and peace. I just said You know what? I'm gonna do that. But I didn't. I was young. I was in my early thirties and Whole Foods was was becoming successful, but she just wouldn't. She just thought it was a grocery store. And it was so stupid. Hippie grocery store. That's what she thought it waas. And I guess it kind of was, but it was becoming successful. Uh huh. I said, I'm not going back to school. I said, You know what, mom? I'm going to get an honorary degrees someday. Someday some university is gonna honor me with with a doctorate, you'll see. And that did happen. So I was able to fulfill that deathbed promise, but that that kind of spoke. How My mother kind of was always trying to manipulate me in some ways through guilt, and I just finally wised up to it and she stopped manipulating or I stopped letting her manipulate me. I think that's the right way of framing it, right, because we are on Lee. We're autonomous. We choose which way we move our arms and legs and what we think about. And and yet the folks, especially people who we care about in our lives that they have the opportunity to put those constraints on us. But we have to accept those constraints and accept You're absolutely right. That's very brilliant. But it Zbyszko awful to hear your story because between the two of us here and the 1000 or so people there listening that that is such a blocker for so many people and the fact that you overcame that and I feel like I might be putting something in your mouth now, but I'm going to ask you to respond to it. Was it based on values what you saw in, you know, for you in your life or or was it something else? It seems like you had a value of adventure you had a value of independence and of exploration. And is it fair to say that you started making decisions based on your values as a is a vehicle? Thio Get away, It's it's It's such a good question and I can only you know, I'm trying to recapture that feeling tone that back in those days I'm gonna go back a long ways. E. I think it was part of the generation that I was part of. I'm a baby boomer and this is the counterculture that's burgeoning in the in the late sixties and early seventies. And I'm very feeling that energy, the rock and roll you're listening to the animals, wrote a song called It's My Life and I'll Do What I Want To. There was a lot of that rebellion against the values and moors of our parents, and it was like we're a new generation and we're, you know, enter the young was another song and that the association did and there were so many songs that you know, I mean, young people are very much influenced, influenced by their music musicians, the poets they read and their friends and their peers. And there was there was a super energy back then, about, um, we can make this society better and rejecting a lot of what our parents were doing. I mean, the society was very racist back then, for example, and far more racist, back in the sixties and seventies than it is today in America. And there was, um, we're still not there yet. Clear? No, of course not. Of course not. And there was we had a Vietnam War going on. That was, of course, the biggest instigator that we didn't to rebel against that to rebel against war, rebel against draft that was taking us to fight in another country and kill people we had no beef with. So that was all part of that, that sort of era and that, and that's all influencing you. You know, you're just a young person confused, but you asked about the values, and I think the most important value was that it's my life and I want to do what I want to do, not what other people want me to do. And there was just this passion and determination to make the most I could make out of my life and take control of it, and that's really the dominant value back then At that age. I'm very young. I'm not that same person now, although there's that that route of it's still there. But I've I've developed and grown and and I'm very, you know, it's much different person than I was when I was in my very early twenties. Well, this idea of values, what you said a bunch of times and what I know about course, uh, your new book and which is conscious leadership if you're just now joining them here with John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods. And this what I know again about about your life and what I've read is a concept of, um, treating business and leadership with care and and commitment and love. You use the word love, a bunch of passion and love and positivity and integrity. These your words, that air regularly, a part of your vocabulary, all the interviews that I've watched and and I'm wondering if you could you know, maybe this is a leap, but we're going from values and the things that were embedded in our, you know, early decisions and for you to start the grocery store and to, you know, go hitchhiking and do things that your parents didn't want you to do. But are what role did? Did love and integrity play in you deciding to start the grocery store? And what role do they still play for you today? So Oh, yeah, these air spiritually experiences that have occurred over over my lifetime and to a certain extent, I don't I don't want to share some of them. They're very deeply personal. And I don't because I'm I'm sort of I'm a little bit well known. I don't want some of this stuff to be out in the media and how it could be twisted and misinterpreted. So I'm gonna be a little bit careful here, but I have had several sort of profound what I would call spiritual awakenings in my lifetime. And without a doubt, the most important awakening is the awakening to love. Love is the most important thing in life. When we get to the end of our lives, we're not gonna be thinking I'm not gonna be thinking. Boy, I wish I'd worked a little bit harder at Whole Foods market. I wish I made a little bit more money. It's gonna be about relationships. It's gonna be about love. It's going to be about the people that I've loved. It's going to be about the people that I may be hurt and that I have regrets. And hopefully I will heal all that before I before I die. I think I largely have because I've made it great efforts to do so. And I just think that is by far if people want to know the meaning of life. In my mind, there's no question with the meaning of life in the meaning of life is love. That is the most important thing. And I just was very fortunate that I discovered that of a reasonably young age and there's not enough love in our planet right now. There's not enough love in America where each other's throats there's not enough love in business. It's in the corporate closet and love is needs to be released and you can't release it when people are so frightened. Fear is the great enemy of love because we we were scared and we wanna we wanna be safe And, uh, right now people are so scared. This pandemic has got people scared and we have a lot of protest, all the anger. And we got a got a lot of cancel culture stuff going on that scares people. And, um, it's a very fearful time. And so there with fear. There's a lot less love being manifested and we need to lead with love. That's why we made that the second chapter of her book Lead With Love. Why check Lovat the door in Corporations? It's I'm not talking about romantic love. I'm not talking about sexual of I'm talking about. Those were probably maybe best left at that. When you chuck in the corporation doesn't get you in trouble. But the love of really caring about people and helping people and being generous and compassionate and caring and in practicing forgiveness, gratitude these air, these are what make us human. These are the things that give us the most lasting satisfaction in life. The love of our families, the love of our Children, the love of our friends, the love of our colleagues at work. And, you know, without a doubt, when people ask me Well, why have you been doing this for 42 years? Yes, I have a strong sense of purpose with whole foods and foods we saw. But that's not really the real driver at this point. Are the relationships that I've had with the people that I've built this company with? I just love people at Whole Foods. I love our team members. I love my team here in Austin. Um, when you do things, it's kind of like Marines kind of feel. I think they have this deep bonding with people that they, you know, they go through an intense experience. We're building a business is an intense experience, and, uh, I just so madly in love with so many people in Whole Foods market that we're still hanging out and doing stuff together. And, uh um, that's probably more than anything else has kept me hanging around for so long, and I do think you can lead with love, and I do think Whole Foods market has a tremendous amount of love that's been released in it that we are. We do a lot of things like appreciation. At the end of our meetings, we do lots of rituals and practices that release love. Love. Just I was just gonna say, can you can you share? You just rattled off a couple, but I think it's so important for people who because, as you said, love is sort of in the corporate closet and what are some manifestations of those in the workplace? And this could be true for you when you're listening right now, whether it's just you working with your vendors or collaborators or co conspirators. But it also could be if you're a leader of ah company of 10 or 100 or 10,000. What are some ways that you feel like you brought love into the workplace in a way that, as you said earlier, doesn't get you in trouble but is also inspirational and connecting and all the best sides of love that we weaken, uh, bring to bring to bear? Yeah, so one way I love is an emotion, but I think in this context what I'm trying to get you to think about his love is really a skill. It's something you have to practice if you want to get good at it, and one of the practices you need that we do a whole foods, which is if you got nothing else out of this talk. But you remember this one thing I'm about to tell you and began to do it in your own organizations, you would find that it would release love. It would take it out of the closet. We we finish our meetings at Whole Foods with depreciations their voluntary. Nobody has to do them. We simply appreciate the people that we work with, the people that are in that room or some other team member that we know that it's done something. We think it really deserves to be called out and appreciated and what I have found. What we've found is that they're voluntary. They have to be authentic. People know when you're just blowing smoke. They know when you're really authentically appreciating. But it's impossible to authentically appreciate somebody without opening your heart. And when you open your heart, you are sharing love through that appreciation and that the person that's getting appreciated, it's amazing. I don't know how many times I had thought maybe had a bad relationship with somebody, and then they lay this big appreciation on me and I know it's genuine and I know they love me. I feel it. I never think about them the same way again. I don't judge them any longer. I don't the petty stuff that we do. It just disappears because it's like, Wow, she is amazing. I had no idea that she could cared about me that in that way And eso friends, friends for life as far as I'm concerned. But the biggest beneficiary from appreciation is when you do it yourself, because to do unauthentic appreciation is to open your heart and let love flow out of it. And so when you're doing this with your team, everybody's connecting and bonding and in fact, that whole foods sometimes we have to cut. Appreciation is off because we get in this sort of loving and we've had times where I've actually time to where we did appreciation for a couple hours, and it's like, Okay, they've got do some work here. So we're gonna let we started limiting you to three appreciation. You can only appreciate three people, and then even that was too long, she said. Look, choose wisely. You get one appreciation here, so make it a good one. But that's all you get is one. Take the other appreciation and do them in private with people not in public, so we can get focused back on the business. It's very, very powerful and it's very easy to do. It's not rocket science and if you're the leader, you're the one that has to do it. You have to embody it because you have to give other permission to do it, so you can't just talk about it. You've got to be the leader of the appreciation. But if you do, you will be releasing love in your organization and it'll spread and it will grow well, that is a I love that the tactical aspect of it. And I think we've all either been a part of a team or a movement or ah, been in a situation where, when you're as you said, business is a is Ah, it's hard, right? It's You go through things that you are going to go through with people that you probably alright with home are at home. And um, I think this connection that as a leader you can demonstrate lead by example. I think those air are It's just very, very wise. Andi, if you are in a position where you've had this experience with a team or something you've been on, What would it be like? I want you to ask yourself, What would it be like if you brought that into your workplace and inspired your team or employees or co workers or collaborators? Um, John, go ahead. I think you wanted to say something. I want to say one thing I want to say. One other practice that you can do that's completely transformative for yourself, and it's so easy to do, and you can do it every day and I do it every day. So it's practicing gratitude. If you practice gratitude, I almost guarantee you you're gonna be happy if you want more happiness in your life. Practice gratitude and the reason people are so unhappy is because people start to be worried about their problems. The challenge this they have. And when you start obsessing about that, your consciousness contracts down on yourself and on your problems, and it's easy to adopt kind of a victim narrative, and then you're not happy. But when you practice gratitude, you break out of that trap. You, you you're expanding and gratitude is so easy because there's such the simplest gratitude you can practice is just simply the amazement of being alive. How amazing is it to be alive? There's so much beauty in the world. There's so much to learn. Nature's incredible. We get to taste and touch and see and hear and move. We get to love. We get to have friends. We get to do things that may make a difference in the world. And it's such a gift because it's so brief. It's so amazing to be alive. And so I start my day off. Honestly, when I first get up, I start off with a gratitude practice, and then I do a meditation, and then I'm kind of I'm in a good space for the day because I'm I've got my heart open and I'm ready to get going so you can practice gratitude in the morning. You can practice it before you eat a meal. It doesn't have to be a big deal. Do it for 15 or 20 seconds. It's not a huge burden, but if you do unauthentic gratitude, exercise or if you'd share it with your family, it's a great thing for Children to do. It's a great thing to go around and have the kids tell you what they're grateful for that day. It's a great practice for them. Your life's going to change. You're going to be happier because you're going tohave your consciousness wider and open wider. So practice gratitude. It doesn't take much time, and it will transform your life. I love that. That is a A through thread to so many of the important conversations we've had on this show over the 10 years. There's a consistent, like some sort of a meditation of mindfulness and or gratitude practice that is a very common thread. And I love thank you for sharing that you do that first thing in the morning, and I do love the idea of asking the kids and your family, or it's an amazing exercise when you're out to dinner with some friends and just want to interrupt the meal for a second and say how thankful you are and just go around the table for it is a beautiful as I think you're This came out of our conversation about love and connection, all the things that you want for your business, but I want to connect this. What is clear to me, John, about your work is the, um, the connection that you have with your humanity and then what you've done to bring that to business. There's a There's a line in some of your work elevating business through humanity and elevating humanity through business. I was hoping you could dissect that a little bit and share with us what that means to you. That's the subtitle of the book. So it's conscious leadership elevating humanity through business. And I don't think people appreciate how much business has elevated humanity. Business has a negative narrative that it's selfish and greedy, exploitative. But if you look back, if you look at the history of the last 200 years 200 years ago, 85% of everyone alive these air easy data to check 85% of everyone alive lived on less than $1 a day. The average life span was and 90% of the people alive on the planet Earth were illiterate. It has been business. It has been capitalism that has really literally lifted people out of the dirt. Business is elevating humanity. However, so much of that's been done in unconscious way. And so there have been. There also been some unintended negative consequences as well. As we see those today that there's like in some environmental damage, there's been, there's obviously there's still inequality on this planet. We can be more conscious, and if we arm or conscious as leaders, we can elevate humanity with less of the unintended negative consequences that occur when were blundering around unconscious. So that's why that's the subtitle of the book Conscious leadership is elevating Humanity. I could say elevating humanity through leadership, but that doesn't sound is catchy when your title is conscious leadership. But that's really what we're trying to say that we need more conscious leaders. We need them everywhere. We need him in business. We need him in politics. We need them in government. We need him in health care. We need him in education. We need him in the media. We need him everywhere. And that is a subtext that I took from the pdf that you sent over the early edition of the book, which is Leaders are everywhere and there are people right now. You might not be thinking of yourself as a leader, and yet you're at the helm of your solo preneurs journey. You're a leader. Maybe it's of one, but you're leading your product or your company or your and this idea of looking around for leaders. Sure, you could do that. But if not you, who? Right And and there's this transferrable understanding that we are all leaders of something, whether it's a family or business or whatever and just appreciated that leadership in the way that you talk about it is not just Fortune CEOs. So I'm wondering if you can, um, you know, in writing the book conscious leadership, help me understand how someone who is, um, listening or watching. Right now they have zero employees. And maybe it's this person who I said earlier was locked in the air there, there in in their basement in Ohio and their underwear and, like, what? Um, I you know, how can I advanced humanity? What am I leading? I'm not leading anything. What would you say to that person who has that view of their their their life? Do you know what the hardest leadership act will ever do in life is no share it with us leading ourself. That's the hardest. If we can lead ourselves until we can lead ourselves, we can't really leave anybody else or we shouldn't be because what kind of leader we going to be. We have to begin our leadership journey by first leading ourselves and committing ourselves to being a better human being, to being more loving, to have a sense of purpose, to have integrity, toe sequin, win, win solutions, these air. And so it's a journey that we are each on to lead ourselves. That's the first and hardest journey will ever take. And if we can master that, then maybe we will be fit toe help lead other people so you don't have to be, Ah, Fortune 500 leader. But you know what? You'll never be a good one if you yourself can't lead yourself. And I, most of the people that I've seen fail it leadership and over the years were people that were really screwed up. They just never got their own stuff together, so they eventually self destruct. They basically commit kind of leadership suicide because they didn't they didn't understand their motivations, their emotions. They didn't develop emotional intelligence. They never mastered fear. They couldn't hold their anger in check when it was appropriate. And so they were bouncing all over the place with inappropriate actions and motivations and emotions. So first and hardest is toe lead ourselves. So everybody listening to this, that's the challenge I put to you. Can you lead yourself and you committed to doing that? Do you have the commitment to do that? And so, um, I love it. I love it And there's you said a couple of things that I also want to tie together. One is this concept of win win win. And then you also talked about this sort of stigma or use. That word may be loosely, this stigma that business has for being cutthroat or, um, undermining her or ignorant to the impacts of some of the decisions or choices that businesses make. But in you know, your previous book and in this one, this idea that business isn't, uh, cutthroat, that it can be as you say when, When, When, What do you mean by that? First of all, competition is greatly exaggerated in business competitions, part of business, but most of the people that are trading with the business let's take whole foods, for example. You know our customers could care less about competition. They just want to get good food. And our team members, they don't care about competition. They just wanna They're having a job that they want to serve. People are suppliers were the same way. They just want to sell us food that we put on ourselves and we sell it. Thio Assault to our customers Uh, it's on Lee, the senior leadership that's obsessed with competition in most organizations. Three great majority of people, customers, employees, suppliers, even investors they don't. The whole competition thing is part of business. But it's not the essence of business business, the essence of businesses creating value for other people. That's what it's about. And so the whole competition thing is a narrative that that is gotten out of control. It's like it's like a Frankenstein monster that's completely out of control. And not really, uh, you can't really understand business thinking about it and primarily in terms of those metaphors. But the competitive metaphors keep love from being in the marketplace, because if you're a war or you're in a survival game, Darwinian survival of the fittest and you don't really have much of a place for for love. But let me talk a little bit about finding a win win win solutions because, yeah, one of the frameworks that people have about life and about business a zoo say it's cutthroat competition. But they also have kind of a binary, they thinking through its, um, with these polar with these polarities, like it's win lose if somebody when somebody else's losing or if somebody's getting rich, somebody else is getting poor. If there's somebody is good, then there's evil to counterbalance it. There's light. There's darkness there, these opposites. But business isn't really a win lose proposition. It's actually a win win win proposition because all of the people that are exchanging with business, all of the major stakeholders are are trading with the business voluntarily, so customers win. When I don't get a Whole foods, this example, our customers come in, they trade with whole foods. Nobody's making them be there, there, there because our particular combination of quality service, food, atmosphere and price meets their standard. And so they're shopping with us. At least that day, Uh, and they're gaining from now. They wouldn't do it they're winning the people working for us, our team members. They're working for us because at this particular time in their lives, it's the best job they confined at the rate of pay, the quality of the experience, the overall atmosphere, learning the opportunities they choose to work there. Nobody's forcing them to. It's the best job they confined Right now. They're winning or they wouldn't be there. The suppliers, the tens of 1000 suppliers that whole foods traits from all over the world. They don't force them to trade with us. They trade with us. We come to an agreement on prices. We negotiate. It's a win for us. It's a win for them. Same with our investors. When we were before Amazon bought us, we were public company and we're private. Before that, nobody had to buy our stock. They bought it because they like the company and they thought the stock would go up and if they didn't like it, they could sell their stock. They were winning, too. So everybody is making these exchanges with business, and it's not a win Lose. Customers win. Team members win, Suppliers win, Investors win and the communities that were part of a winning as well. Business is fundamentally a game of win win win win, and it's so misunderstood because they think about it and win lose framework because people have a win lose framework. Business needs to be re conceptualize. The narrative needs to be changed. That's what stakeholder theory is trying to do. But stakeholder theory is misunderstood. It's put back in a win lose framework. Oh, at last the investors were going to lose. They get too much money, and then we're gonna take the money from them. We're going to redistribute it to the workers or to the customers or to somebody else. The social responsibility, the communities, but the investors, investors we're gonna lose. But it rightly thought about in stakeholders your developing strategies will. All the stakeholders are winning, including the investors. They're not. Profit is not bad profits, good profits, how the economy advances. It's how we make progress. It's how we innovate. Profit is absolutely essential for that. So the idea that profit is somehow their exploitation or evil is wrong. It's based on voluntary exchange for mutual gains, and profit is what makes the system progress. So business is fundamentally good it and it could make. If it's conscious, we could make it even better. We could make it even better at every level. We could make it better by being more conscious. So we need win, win, win thinking, um in our society chase, because think about this. Our society is that if our throats right now we have these, it's the most divisive. It's probably been since the Civil War. We desperately need win, win, win, thinking we needed in our government we needed in politics. We need to seek the higher ground so that we can find ways toe every all Americans toe win so that we can. Everybody can go along and take this upward right and no one should be excluded. But we need to start thinking in terms of win, win win instead of win lose and we're still caught in that die economy, we need to move past it. If America is going to heal up and go further and we need, we need conscious leaders in these different areas of life that can show the way upward and frankly, that's one of the reasons we wrote the book and part of why I'm talking with you today is because I'm trying to inspire people to start thinking that way. We get enough people thinking that way we will get out of this trap that we're currently in. We desperately need to get out of this trap so well said. And as I opened with, that's just incredibly well timed and having written books myself, I know how long they take. So kudos to you for seeing around the corner for this. There's another part of your thinking that has inspired me, and I'm hoping you can share the role that it's played for you and in turn, inspire s o many people listening today. And that is the role of long term, how so many of us can't afford or we tell ourselves a story that we can't afford to think long term because, hey, I got bills to pay or I got you know, the the taxes or do or whatever reason. But help us understand the role that long, long term thinking has played in your success and how you would coach, uh, anyone listening to think in that long term way. Well, the one thing to realize is that right now, in this moment, we're living what used to be in the past, the long term both the good and the bad or based on decisions that occurred in the past that have led us to this particular moment. And I guess I got into learn long term thinking a long time ago. And I think partly it is easier for a retailer because whole Foods market always has to sign leases for property that usually 20 year leases with options to go on for another 20 years, 20 or 30 years. So we're signing were committing to rent a property for a minimum of 20 years. And so we gotta be very careful about that, because we don't. If you get a bad location, you're gonna be stuck with it, and you're gonna be paying this rent for a long, long time. And I remember the first time I signed a long term, a long term lease. It was in our before that were mostly five year leases. But when we went to Palo Alto, California, we signed our 1st 20 year lease, and I remember thinking about it. I guess I was about how old was I back then I was about 30 34 or 35 something like that. And And I remember thinking, Oh, my God. 20 years we're gonna sign this lease for 20 years. That seems so long away. I seems so long ago and we'll never get there. And, uh And then I remember when we passed that 20 year lease back in, I guess and eight or 2009 and I thought, Oh my God, Palo Alto the least it z expiring. We have to. We have to renew it. We have to get new options for it. We have to negotiate new options for it. And then even those options have expired because we've been in that store now for 31 years. And that and that's been a great location for us. It was a huge location. We got it. Now. It's one of the smallest locations in the company, so we had to think long term. So it became easier for us. And But the reality is thinking. And you know, I'm very happy to be part of Amazon in the sense that Jeff Bezos and Amazon always thought really a long term, they've always they plan at least 10 years into the future and sometimes longer than that. And, uh, so that's been I've I've really admired their ability to do that consistently. It's hard as a public company. You're under a lot of short term profit pressures. Whole foods always felt those short term profit pressures to make the quarters so the stock doesn't get killed. And Amazon has always been able thio to resist that temptation. So I think that Z I think a lot about their ability to think long term and Jeff Bezos his ability to think long term. But in life, the decisions we make, the habits that we do today will determine how we how we do tomorrow. For example, if you want to be. If you want to retire with money, you have to start saving money and you and you know what. It's not that hard to save money. You just you just have to pay yourself first, take the 1st 10% of what you earn and save it and invested. You say I can't afford to save 10% of my money. Well, you know what? Of course you can, because you used to live on 10% less money than you have right now used to live on less money so you can because you used to and someday you'll be making more money than you're making right now. But what what we tend to do in America's we ratchet up are spending to whatever money we earn. And all it takes is a simple decision to think. Long term is I'm gonna save 10% of my income the rest of my life. Whatever I make, I'm gonna pay myself first. The 1st 10% goes into those savings, and the power of compound ing is so amazing. By the time you get Thio, I guarantee you do that, do the math and do the power of compounding. If you start doing that when you're in your early twenties, by the time you get to be in your sixties, you're gonna be a millionaire. That's just a simple power Ofcom pounding. If you put that in a an index fund, Vanguard Index Fund and let the compound by the time you get to peace in your sixties, you're gonna be quite wealthy. Um and you can prove it if you just do the do the math, and we should be teaching people that, by the way, we should be teaching that and our high schools and colleges because very few people understand that, and it would be transformed people's lives if they did. Another example of thinking long term is your own health if we make investments and our health in terms of our rest or sleep. We have a chapter on that in the book called Regularly Revitalized. And if we will practice those type of habits rest, movement, healthy diet were our bodies are going to be incredibly vital and healthy when we get older, and if we don't do that, they're gonna break down. Most people are very few people actually make the investment in their long term health. But it's the smartest thing you could do, because really, at the end of the day, it's not how long you live. It's the quality of your life while your life and when we're healthy, when were vital when our bodies were functioning Well, there's just sort of this inner joy that you feel in being alive and you don't want to lose that, so you have to take care of it. And you have to think long term about your health and your body are last brilliant. Brilliant thinking, John. The last guest we had on this show. What? James Clear, The New York Times best selling author of Atomic Habits. Um, he said the problem with short term thinking it tends to make us feel really good. It's like, Am I gonna eat this cookie? It's sweet, and it tastes good, and we and yet it has long term negative effects. So these short term winds tend to have long term negative effects. And if you could just, like, flip this this reward mechanism to longer term award and maybe eat kale instead of the cookies, it's just amazing how some of these things that are the best things in life really take time. And, you know, you you cited Bezos. Now your you know, your new owner, um, newish, I guess, depending on what new means to you. But, uh, what I one of things I appreciate about his long term thinking, and I'm curious what role this played for you is, I think, he said, you have to be willing to be misunderstood for long. periods of time in order to truly do something great. And I'm wondering, is that a role that you had to negotiate with with your mom, for example, who thought you had a little hippie grocery store and you were willing to be misunderstood? Clearly because, you know, here you are 40 years later this September, uh, and and still doing the thing that you did then and and obviously have created Not just a lot of wealth for yourself and your shareholders, But you've impacted so many areas of life, and you talked about good food for folks. So what role succinctly. Here. You know what role has I'm thinking? Long term played for you in in business, for example, or in being willing to do something that could have very powerful, long term, say, compounding effects like the money you talked about. But in business, you know, it Z kind of way of thinking. It's just like finding win win win Solutions is a way of thinking. Um, leading with love is a way of thinking, and so is thinking, long term. That is also a way of being in the world, and there's a great couple great stories about Warren Buffett that that you know, there's a guy that really thought long as long term, and Buffett really saw the power of compound ing over long periods of time. So whenever he would spend money because he had a brilliant mind and he could, he could do calm pounding in his head. He didn't think he was like, uh, just buying lunch. He would calculate out, well, this lunch, actually, in 25 years, and I'm spending this $10 on lunch in 25 years. That's gonna be worth $15,000 if I if I invested instead of eating the lunch. And that's a very powerful habit to be thinking about. Okay, like a Starbucks coffee. I'm drinking. If I was to not drink it and I save this money and it compound, what would it be worth in a certain period of time? That could turn you into a miser, and you never spend any money. But it is a fruitful way to think, and it's also interesting thing. I just read this recently, and it's kind of a statistic that I'm still getting my head around. I read recently that Warren Buffett, for example he made 90% of his net worth right now happened after he turned 65. That power of count com pounding over a long period of time on and also power of living a long time. Warren Buffett's, I think, 89 or 90 now. So. But it's a framework. It's a way of thinking, and we don't think that way. You're absolutely right. We think about the short term pleasure, and we don't think about the long term consequences. But I think that's where habits are so important because you take food, for example. One thing I learned it was very important because when I was a kid, I had junk food and I didn't eat healthy food. I took me a long time to learn to eat healthily. But one thing I did learn is that whatever food you eat, you will come to like all you gotta do is expose your palate to it about 10 times or so, and you'll start to like it. I taught myself to love every vegetable. I love vegetables. I didn't eat any vegetables when I was a kid. I hated them all. They were vegetables. They were boring I wanted, you know, wanted hamburgers and french fries and chocolate shakes and fried chicken. Uh, and cookies, chocolate chip cookies in particular. So I learned that you might as well teach yourself to eat the healthiest food in the world because you're gonna love it once your palate gets used to it. I don't have any loss and pleasure. I I promise you, I probably enjoy eating than anybody you have on this call, and I eat just super healthy food. I've just taught myself I re educated my taste buds. It even take that long. And so you can teach yourself to love any food. Why not teach yourself toe love the foods that are going to nourish you right back and give you not only know loss. In short, there won't be any long. There won't be any loss in pleasure because your palate will evolve. But there's a tremendous payback and long term health, so not to challenge. I'll put to the listeners. Why not teach yourself to eat the healthiest food in the world? You won't lose pleasure in the long run. You're gonna gain pleasure, and you're going to gain health and longevity. It's a great trade off and there is no trade off in the long run. The last thing that I want toe cover. I think you touched on one thing that I had a big star next to in my notes for this, and that is taking care of yourself. You talked about it through exercise and moving your body, and we got to it through long term. And, of course, um, food. And in a way, it's related toe s. So I feel like we traverse that ground. But I want oh, you know, bring that along to this last bit, which is service being in service, whether it's to your stakeholders or two, you know, the mission or vision you have for your life or company. I want to know what what service means to you, because I think that's a pretty like fuzzy term for a lot of people. How do you define it? And how has it been important in your journey? Yeah, services. I mean, I'm Albert Schweitzer, one of my heroes who won the Nobel Peace Prize and I don't know, 1970 or something like that. He's long been passed, but it was an amazing guy, and I'm not gonna tell his biography because I take you don't have the time to do it. But Schweitzer said, and I unfortunately can't remember that quote perfectly. So I mean, but he basically said, the only ones of you who will will no true happiness are those who have found how to serve others. And that is a profound statement, and I don't know if it's completely true or not. But I will tell you that service is deeply rewarding when you do it from, ah, heart that wants to serve meaning, ah, heart that wants to love. And here's the paradox that I'm going to tell you, but and I'm gonna try to explain it. But some people will get it right away, and others will have to puzzle on it. It's sort of a truth. It's a deep truth, the deep spiritual truth that whatever you give to others, you give to yourself first, because the act of giving yeah authentic giving there's a hard opening that goes along with it to truly give, and so in a sense, you are giving to yourself when you give to someone else, so we tend to think if we give something, there's this loss. There's this trade off. They got what I have now I don't have it. So I've lost and they've gained. Except that the act of giving is this hard opening authentic giving, not guilt giving or dutiful giving, but giving out of generosity a general spirit. You have to open your heart to do that. And when you do that, you're in a sense, giving to yourself first. So giving and receiving are actually one and the same services the same way. When we give service, truly give it not again out of guilt or duty but because we want to, because we want to serve others. There is this opening that nourishes ourself at a deep level. And so that's why Schweitzer says, those of you that have truly learned how to serve are the ones that will truly be happy because service opens the heart and there's the flow of love and love is creates happiness. So that's that's my paradoxical truth for you here, and service is yes, I believe in service. I have to be in service. There are things that I have to do because if I don't do them. I won't be happy. I've got else to put it. I have to serve because I I know that if I don't, I'm going to be deeply unhappy and deeply dissatisfied. So it's a paradox because somebody said, Well, you're just serving. You're serving selfishly Think about that years of serving to make yourself happy and it's sort of true, except it's not selfish if you're giving to another. But it's a win win. It's no longer binary, It's a win for them. And it's a win for me. And that's not self sacrifice, because in the giving and in the service, I am benefitting tremendously from doing so and they're benefiting to. That's perfect. Oh, uh, lessons in life and business is what I'm gonna probably call this talk when we published this on the audio version, because I feel like we've gone to school here. John and I want to thank you. There's Like I said, it was the last question, but I always wanted to eat one more in here, and it's it's emerged as you were talking because you you just said as an example, like, I know that about myself. I need to do this in order to be happy. And let's go back to the beginning to you walking out of your parents house and going to hitchhike. You knew that you had to do that. And that was a calling. And you were willing to ostensibly turn your back on your own family in order to be able to do that. So it's Ah, I think it was Socrates that said no, that itself. I'm just curious. What has your personal journey been on around self awareness? Are there some particular practices that you would suggest? Um, how important has that been to you? And it's clearly, you know, and meshed in the fabric of of your life knowing who you are, What makes you tick? Is there any advice that you could give to our listeners about how you've done that and how they might think about a constructive framework for doing it for themselves? Um, meditation. Self reflection? Uh, most people do not understand what motivates them. They don't understand their emotions. They don't understand why they do what they do. So we have to pay attention, and we have to be able to reflect upon what we're doing, and we have to be able to quiet the mind chatter. We have, Ah thought stream that goes on continuously and we're most people, most of timing. We get lost in it and we're no longer in the present moment. It's in the present moment that love exists. It's in the present moment that we connect truly with others, but we can't connect while we're lost in our mind stream. We have to be able to quiet the mind down. And here's another thing. When we quiet our mind down, we will find that there is a deeper, quieter voice that's whispering to us inside our own being. And that quiet voice is our deeper self. It's our heart. It is the love that wants to show up in the world. But we can't hear it most of time because the mind shatter is drowning it out. But once you begin to quiet, the mind shatter, we begin to connect up with that deeper, quiet voice that can be our life guide that's guiding us to do the right thing, guiding us to love, others, guiding us to make good choices for ourselves. Ultimately, that's been my secret, really I got in touch with that quiet little voice when I was younger, and I lose it sometimes because I get afraid or I start doing things that air that aren't, you know, I get out of touch with it, but I always find my way back to it again. The best way to find it back is to try to quiet that, quiet the noisy thoughts in your mind and just be present in the moment. Be here now, be in the moment. In the moment, the voice is clear in the moment. There is love, but we have to be in the moment. And that sounds easy. It isn't easy to be in the moment. It's the hardest thing we could do. Right presence is like, Well, Rhonda's be here now like that. So he spent a lifetime trying to be in presence, right? Yes. But you know what? It's something we practice, and the more we practice it, the better we get at it. It's a skill we develop, and there's no easy way to do this stuff. We have to do the work. We have to do the practices, and if we do, the rewards are tremendous awesome. John, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. I want to say congratulations on did encourage anyone who's listening watching Thio get a copy of your new book conscious leadership, elevating humanity through business. I read conscious capitalism really enjoyed it, and this also is a new chapter, and it's so well timed and to be clear again. John's not talking about leadership being out there and others, we need people to rise up from whoever you are. You're leading someone, even if it's yourself, as you said earlier. So I want to say thank you for being on this show. Um, any particular coordinates. We wanna point thio out there in the world that you want people's attention focused on. Clearly the book is something that you're excited to share. Anything else that you'd want us are people listening or watching to know about? Um, just try to move past your fear and be in the moment and love other people because America need we We've got to get Pat. We're stuck. We gotta get we gotta move on and we do that. We're gonna do it through waking up and loving mawr not through hate. Not through attacking, not through fear, not through judgment, but through truly connecting back into our own personal, higher purpose and to follow our heart, toe love and the sequin win win solutions. It's That's why I wrote the book. I hope you read it. Thank you so much. Ash and Barbara and M K and Timothy and Safe. And Tony and Todd. So many people from the world. Thank you for our conversation today. And for those of you listening at some point in the future in your headphones, it's been an honor to be in your ears. John, thank you so much for being on the show. And, uh, congrats and and continued success to you. Thanks, Chase. I really enjoyed our conversation. You're pretty amazing guy. I appreciate it very much. Thank you so much, John. And signing off. Everybody listening will stay tuned till the next episode. Until then, don't forget John's book and be well, um, yeah,