Why Whole Foods Founder John Mackey Is Tackling America’s Health

Summary

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The Dr. Hyman Show

Episode: Why Whole Foods Founder John Mackey Is Tackling America’s Health
Date: August 20, 2025
Host: Dr. Mark Hyman
Guest: John Mackey (Co-founder of Whole Foods, Co-founder of Conscious Capitalism, Founder of Love Life)

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Episode Overview

This episode features a powerful conversation between Dr. Mark Hyman and John Mackey, exploring Mackey’s journey from co-founding Whole Foods to launching Love Life, a new holistic health center. The discussion delves into Mackey’s philosophies around food, health, conscious capitalism, community, and love as a force for healing. Together, they examine chronic disease, the failures of the American healthcare system, lessons from psychedelic and spiritual experiences, the business of wellness, and strategies for transformative societal change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Whole Foods to Health Care: A Personal and Professional Journey

• Early Days & Transformation

  • Mackey recounts his early life, studying philosophy, experiencing existential angst, and having a transformative LSD trip at age 22 which dissolved his sense of separateness and awakened a purpose-driven approach to life.
    (06:19 - 09:41)
  • "I realized I’d always existed. There was no beginning and there’s no end. And I realized that life’s this adventure, and it’s like, I can make it whatever I want it to be. I can create whatever I want to create. And so that was so life changing. That changed my life." — John Mackey (07:04)
  • His food consciousness was awakened by moving into a vegetarian commune, working at a natural food co-op, and learning to cook and value nourishment over mere fuel. (09:41 - 11:56)

• Founding and Evolution of Whole Foods

  • The first store, Safer Way, was idealistically pure but struggled until evolving into Whole Foods Market, broadening its selection yet focusing on natural and organic foods to massive success.
    (11:57 - 12:24)
  • “It became the highest volume natural food store in the United States, six months after it opened.” — John Mackey (12:19)

• Pivot to Holistic Health Care

  • After 44 years as CEO and selling Whole Foods to Amazon under pressure from shareholder activists, Mackey retired yet felt a renewed sense of purpose: “How could I not do that? Would I get to the end of my life with the regret?... I’m a very purpose driven human being. I feel like I needed to be contributing in some way to helping.” (04:56)

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2. Philosophy, Psychedelic Awakening, and the Power of Purpose

• Dr. Hyman and Mackey swap stories of transformative psychedelic experiences, early hippie communes, vegetarianism, and spiritual searching, including Buddhist and philosophical studies, and how these laid the foundation for their careers in medicine and business. (12:48 - 14:43; 53:51 - 55:15)

• Following "Notes from God":

  • Mackey urges people to listen for "little post it notes from God"—opportunities or callings that appear if we pay attention and are not led by fear. (16:31 - 17:27)
  • “The thing about the notes from God is that they’re always being written and even if you haven’t been listening to them before, you can start listening.” — John Mackey (17:59)

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3. Love Life: Reimagining Wellness Centers

• What Is Love Life?

  • A 45,000 sq. ft. flagship holistic wellness center in LA offering nutrition-focused cafes; co-working and community event spaces; a state-of-the-art gym; yoga, Pilates, and meditation studios; spa amenities; biohacking recovery modalities; and deeply integrated medical and functional health testing.
    (18:28 - 22:13)
  • “We’re about all things to help people be the healthiest version of themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually.” — John Mackey (21:13)

• Comprehensive Approach

  • Full spectrum health testing (blood, gut, oral, fitness, body composition, genetics); integrated primary care, functional medicine, and personalized plans; extensive tracking with wearables and digital platforms.
    (22:13 - 26:56)
  • “First we test, then we create a plan, and then we track... but mostly, it's about the care team problem.” (25:41)
  • Focus on ongoing support and community engagement, not just transactional appointments.

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4. The Chronic Disease Crisis & Failures of American Healthcare

• Sobering Stats

  • The U.S. spends nearly 18% of GDP—over $5 trillion—on healthcare but ranks 48th in longevity. (27:47 - 28:24)
  • “73% of Americans are overweight and 43% are obese. The trend lines are continuing. The standard American diet is killing people.” — John Mackey (27:55)

• Plumber’s Model of Medicine

  • The current system addresses only acute problems (“when the sink's broken”), utterly failing to prevent or manage the real killer: chronic, non-infectious disease. (26:58 - 27:25)

• Community as Medicine

  • Insights from Whole Foods’ internal “Total Health Immersion” retreats: rapid, profound health improvements when group support is present, but lasting change needs ongoing community. (29:29 - 31:53)
  • “The human body is far more resilient than I realized... If we just stop poisoning it, it starts to heal.” — John Mackey (30:11)
  • “Most people need a community of support—100%. And so Love Life aims to be that community.” (31:06)

• Chronic Disease Is Contagious

  • Not just genetic or environmental, but socially contracted: you are as healthy as your five closest friends. (32:13 - 32:52)
  • “Just as chronic disease can be contagious, you’re more likely to be obese if your friends are overweight than even your family’s overweight.” — Dr. Hyman (32:19)

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5. Business Innovations and Barriers

• The Insurance Conundrum

  • Love Life is primarily out-of-network, but utilizes super-bills and supports HSA/HRA payments. Mackey predicts insurance will be the last domino to fall, but envisions business-to-business (B2B) self-insured employers as a key catalyst. (34:44 - 35:35)
  • “Give us your sick people... and we can help them heal pretty quickly.” — John Mackey (35:35)

• Collective Change Through Community

  • Group medical visits, as seen at the Cleveland Clinic, achieve 3x better outcomes at lower cost—a replicable model aligning with AA or Weight Watchers. (37:09 - 38:13)

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6. Conscious Capitalism: Business as a Force for Good

• Four Principles
  (40:47 - 43:08)

  • Higher Purpose: A company must serve a higher purpose beyond profit.
  • Stakeholder Integration: Everyone matters—customers, employees, suppliers, investors, community, environment.
  • Conscious Leadership: Leaders must be purpose-driven and servant-oriented.
  • Culture: Businesses must create environments where people flourish.

• “Being loved by all your stakeholders and having a higher purpose is good business.” — John Mackey (40:47)

• Win-Win-Win

  • “Seek a win for them, a win for yourself, and a win for the larger whole.” (46:58)
  • Win-win business and social models outperform competitive or extractive models and support long-term happiness and broad societal benefit.

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7. Love, Abundance, and Awakening

• The Power of Love

  • Discusses the abundance mindset, law of reciprocity, and how choosing love over fear is a repeatable, trainable practice. (50:04 - 55:52)
  • "If you love everyone all the time, don’t—we forget that every day? ...But what I’ve learned is that the past doesn’t exist any longer. All that’s real is this moment. And no matter how many times I forget, I can go back in the next moment and choose love." — John Mackey (53:59)

• Psychedelics, Freedom, and the Meaning of Life

  • Both share how psychedelic experiences broke old patterns and instilled a sense of freedom, authentic connection, and purpose. (55:15 - 56:52)
  • “The meaning of life — the purpose of life is to get free so you can be love.” — Dr. Mark Hyman (56:08)

• Presence, Daily Practices, and Relationships

  • Mackey shares his daily routine: morning spiritual reading (A Course in Miracles), gratitude practice, affirmations/intentions, meditation, healthy eating, exercise, and cherishing deep relationships—especially his 35-year marriage to Deborah. (59:46 - 64:16)
  • “Love is the essence of what we are. But it gets blocked by anger, fear, judgment, attack... But if we practice forgiveness... the light begins to shine through us again.” — John Mackey (53:59)

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “I was a manifestation of the one being—as are you, as is everything. Because that’s all there is, is the one being.” — John Mackey (07:04)
• “How could I not do that? Would I get to the end of my life with the regret?... I’m a very purpose driven human being.” — John Mackey (04:56)
• "If we just stop poisoning [the body], it starts to heal." — John Mackey (30:11)
• “Most people need a community of support—100%... Love Life aims to be that.” — John Mackey (31:06)
• "Just as chronic disease can be contagious, you’re more likely to be obese if your friends are overweight than even your family’s overweight." — Dr. Mark Hyman (32:19)
• “If you pursue happiness, you probably won’t find happy... Happiness comes from, it ensues from love, from goodness, from compassion, forgiveness, kindness, generosity.” — John Mackey (40:50)
• “The more love you give, the more love you receive, the kinder you are, the more kindness comes back. If people could understand that we are all connected, we are all one, that when they attack someone else, they're attacking themselves.” — John Mackey (50:04)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 06:19 – Mackey’s existential LSD trip and awakening
• 11:57 – Founding of Safer Way and transition to Whole Foods
• 18:28 – Introduction to Love Life and its holistic approach
• 27:47 – U.S. chronic disease and health expenditure statistics
• 29:29 – Whole Foods’ “Total Health Immersion” retreat outcomes
• 32:13 – Disease as socially contagious; power of community
• 40:47 – Four principles of Conscious Capitalism
• 50:04 – Mackey on love, abundance, and social healing
• 55:15 – Choosing love moment-to-moment as a path to happiness
• 59:46 – Mackey’s daily health, gratitude, and spiritual practices
• 64:16 – Mackey’s dream of meeting his wife and notes on partnership

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Memorable Moments

• The anecdote of Mackey’s LSD-induced meeting with his philosophy professor:
  “Are you very happy? And he looked at me and he said, no, I’m not very happy.” (09:27)
• Mackey’s “refrigerator biopsy” on his first date with his wife:
  “First thing I do is I'm nervous... ‘Hey, mind if I look in your refrigerator?’” (62:44)
• Mackey’s advice: “No matter how many times I forget, I can always remember in the next moment. I can be free in the next moment.” (55:52)

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Conclusion

John Mackey’s post-Whole Foods journey is a testament to the intertwined nature of food, health, community, business, and love. Through Love Life, he’s seeking to redefine wellness by uniting holistic health care, personal transformation, and communal support—built on philosophies of conscious capitalism and the deep, recurring practice of love over fear. Dr. Hyman’s probing questions and shared experiences make this episode both a soulful journey and a practical guide to personal and societal healing.

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Transcript

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman Show.

You founded Whole Foods. It's changed the face of food in America for the better.

[John Mackey]

First store was called Safer Way, changed the name to Whole Foods Market and it took off. It became the highest volunteer natural food store in the United States six months after it opened.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Why have you sort of turned your attention from groceries and food to healthcare?

[John Mackey]

I had a tab of LSD and it was incredibly powerful. The strongest dose of any psychedelic I've ever taken. And I basically was swept away. John Mackey, co founder of Whole foods.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Market, grew one store into a $22 billion natural foods empire and champions conscious capitalism to elevate humanity.

[John Mackey]

Today, chronic diseases, non infectious diseases, are what are killing us.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Chronic disease can be contagious. You're more likely to be obese if your friends are overweight than even if your family's overweight.

[John Mackey]

We spend almost 18% of our GDP, but where are we in terms of longevity? When I checked it out Today, we were 48.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

You started basically a movement called conscious Capitalism.

[John Mackey]

We had some shareholder activists that trying to take over the company. Basically Amazon was the best solution for us in that very situation where we didn't have a lot of good solutions. Conscious capitalism has four basic principles to it.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Mark.

[John Mackey]

First principle is.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

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Okay, John, welcome to my podcast. We've known each other a long time. It's great to see here. We're in la, actually, we both live in Austin, so I don't know how we ended up in LA doing a.

[John Mackey]

Podcast because we both had some business here.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

You founded Whole Foods, which everybody now knows. It's changed the face of food in America for the better. You know, you sold food, but now you're kind of focused on healthcare, which is really interesting. And, you know, if you understand that food is medicine, it's not such a big leap. Right. But it's interesting. Why have you sort of turned your attention from grocery groceries and food to healthcare?

[John Mackey]

Well, I do think it's a continuum. They're both about helping people to become healthier, to be the healthiest version of themselves. And I mean, I did. I co founded Whole Foods. I led it as CEO for 44 years.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

44 years.

[John Mackey]

44 years, exactly. We sold it to Amazon. Not because we wanted to sell out. We were independent, publicly traded company for 25 years. Well, for a long time in 25 years as a public company. But we had some shareholder activists that were trying to take over the company and Amazon. It's a long story which I detail in my book, the whole story, the short version of that is basically that Amazon was the best solution for us in a very situation where we didn't have a lot of good solutions. So I signed on for five years with Amazon to help integrate Whole Foods into Amazon, make sure that the culture or the values of Whole Foods were Protected as best I could protect it. And then those five years were up and I retired from Whole Foods. And also I didn't want to work as hard, to be honest. I mean, I was getting older and I wanted to play more pickleball. I want to play more pickleball. Exactly. And read and travel and spend time with my wife and friends and family, et cetera. That's how I got out of Whole Foods. But here's the thing. It's like I really felt like I knew how to help thousands of people and maybe in the long term, millions of people be healthier to live a healthier, more vital life. How could I not do that? Would I get to the end of my life with the regret? Yeah, sure, I could lay on a beach and read and do whatever I wanted. I'd made enough money. But I don't think that would be fulfilling for me. I'm a very purpose driven human being. I feel like I needed to be contributing in some way to helping.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So you, you, you start out your career basically working at co op, you know, sweeping the floors. Moved to create, you know, one of the most iconic brands in America that has really improved the health for so many people who shop there. And now you're, you're, you know, 72 and you're still at it.

[John Mackey]

Hey, I've got three weeks before I'm 72.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

You're biologically 60, but you're, I'm gonna.

[John Mackey]

Enjoy them as well as I can.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

But you're, you know, you're really now focused on a, on a new venture which is very ambitious. And, you know, I'm just curious, what was your early experience in your life that, that shifted you to think this way, to, to have this philosophy around food and health and consciousness and because you're not only, you know, done, you know, the work you've done around creating a business like Whole Foods, but you started basically a movement called conscious capitalism.

[John Mackey]

I'm going to give you like a three to five minute history there.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Great.

[John Mackey]

In my book, the Prologue.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

The whole story.

[John Mackey]

The whole story, exactly.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Everybody's got to get a copy.

[John Mackey]

Adventures in Love, Life and Capitalism and starts out the Prologue. I just turned 22 years old and I'm living by myself. Not in a very good space. I'm an atheist studying philosophy. Existentialism.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That'll make me depressed.

[John Mackey]

I took a very, I didn't know it because back in that day you didn't know what you were getting in terms of dosage. But I, I had a tab of lsd. I Took it by myself. And it was incredibly powerful. The strongest dose of any psychedelic I've ever taken. And I basically was swept away. I use the metaphor. It's like imagine Niagara Falls and you're hanging onto a rock with one hand. How long can you do that? Not that long. And so I got swept away. And then I found my ego dissolving, basically, that separateness. You're Mark, I'm John. It's water. It all disappeared. There was really no thoughts. I'm now reflecting back on that state of consciousness when there was no thoughts. Really, there's no separation. And what I realized, I realized that a. I was a manifestation of the one being, as are you, as is everything. Because that's all there is, is the one being. I realized I'd always existed. There was no beginning and there's no end. And I realized that life's this adventure, and it's like, I can make it whatever I want it to be. I can create whatever I want to create. And so that was so life changing. That changed my life. So there's a funny story about this. So I'm coming down on the trip, and I'm walking around this neighborhood now, and I run in to my.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And you were in the east coast somewhere?

[John Mackey]

No, no, I'm in Austin, Texas. Oh, in Austin, Yeah. I'm walking around and I run into my philosophy professor that I idolized. He was my intellectual hero. A guy named Bob Solomon, Robert C. Solomon. He's written 40 or 50 books on philosophy. And he was an existentialist. And he was at that time, very influenced by Sartre and Camus and Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, and he believed life was absurd, that there was no purpose and meaning to life at all. And so I ran into him and I mean, I think I ran into him. I think he was there. I had a conversation with him and I asked him, I said, professor Solomon, it's John Mackey. I'm one of your students. I've been taking a few courses from me. And he kind of vaguely recognized me, but he didn't know my name. And I said, so, Professor Solomon, I have two questions. First question is, you know, you teach that life's absurd, that there's absolutely no meaning whatsoever to life, that we're just sort of thrown into here. It's all been random chance and we're going to die, and that's it. Our consciousness is extinguished. There's just really no purpose. But you take sort of a romantic stance to that. You said there's no real objective Meaning, but we can make something up. So we can be romantic, we can sort of throw our fist against a cruel reality and make our life into an adventure. And I said, is that what you believe, sir? And he said, yes, that's what I believe. And I said, I thought so. But let me ask you a second question. Are you very happy? And he looked at me and he said, no, I'm not very happy. And he looked at me.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

He's honest, at least.

[John Mackey]

Yeah, he looked at me and I looked at him, and we went our separate ways. And what I realized after that point is, I just had this. I was still having actually this incredible.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I mean, you were in the trip.

[John Mackey]

When you were in the trip. Well, I was coming down, but what I don't know for sure. Was he still part of that trip or had I come down enough where he was? Actually, what's the difference? I mean, it's all a dream anyway. It's all my. Anyway, I'm having this conversation. I think I was down enough. Point is, that changed my life. And you know what I started doing after I had. I stuck on my thumb and I started hitchhiking across America. Not across America. I was open for adventure. A guy picks me up and he says, son, where do you want to go? And I said, wherever you're going, I don't really care. So he says, well, I'm going home. Great. He drives a couple of miles up the road and he says, this is home. I'm getting out. I'm looking around, I'm thinking, okay. So then I start walking back. And that's actually when I ran into Professor Solomon. Anyhow, after that, Mark, pretty soon after that, I moved into this vegetarian commune co op. And I wasn't vegetarian at that time. I really didn't know much about food at all. I didn't eat vegetables or. I really ate the standard American diet. I was a junk food eater. I moved in and I had my food consciousness awakened. I don't know how else to put it. I started to cook. I learned about natural and organic foods for the first time. I began to realize, my gosh, I'm not just a machine that needs fuel. Driving to McDonald's and fuel up, I'm a living being. I need to nourish my cells with nourishing food. And that was when it began. I went to work for a small natural food store. And I worked there for a few months. And I came back home, went to the co op. My girlfriend Renee, I went to Renee and I said, hey, Renee, what Do you think if we opened up our own natural food store? What do you think about that? And she said, I think that'd be cool. So we did it. I was 20, 23, and she was 19 at that time. Incredible. So we didn't know what we were doing, but let's just say we made a lot of mistakes, and I was a fast learner. First store was called Safer Way. And Mark, it was so idealistically pure. It was a vegetarian store. We didn't sell alcohol. We didn't sell coffee. We didn't sell sugar. We didn't sell white flour. We were very, very pure.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Love that.

[John Mackey]

We didn't do much business. Safer Way really struggled, and then we relocated. It merged with another small natural food store, changed the name to Whole Foods Market. Started selling meat, seafood, beer and wine, coffee, tea, sugar, and some products with white flour. But then natural, organic focus. And it took off. It became the highest volume of natural food store in the United States. Six months after it opened. It was a huge success.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I've driven by there. And it's downtown Austin, right?

[John Mackey]

Yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Amazing. I had a similar experience. I actually had a psychedelic experience in college, very similar to that. And then I moved into a house with eight vegetarians.

[John Mackey]

Really? You're kidding.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

In Ithaca? Yeah. That was where Moose would Cookbook.

[John Mackey]

Moose would cookbook. That was one of my cookbooks.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's right. Well, Moosefood Restaurant was in Ithaca.

[John Mackey]

That's right.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And so we used to go there, and then every night we had to cook. And we took our backyard, which is. We rented a house in town, and I had a room for $100. And then.

[John Mackey]

How old are you?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I was 19. You know, and we took the backyard, we tore up the grass, and we planted a whole garden. One of the guys, we had these maple trees on the street in front of us. He was tapping the maple trees, and we made like, a pint of maple syrup.

[John Mackey]

Oh, my gosh.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And we had to cook every night. And so we rotated. So every night we had basically a family dinner. And one of us was a chief chef. And then one of us was like the helper chef.

[John Mackey]

Right.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And then. But we got fresh, delicious vegetarian food every night.

[John Mackey]

For how long did you stay in that community?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

We lived together for a couple years. And then I ended up moving on to a abandoned commune in Ithaca and lived in a yurt with no electricity or running water.

[John Mackey]

We both were hippies.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

No electricity, no running water. I had to take my water from a well like a quarter mile away with these two five gallon Buckets.

[John Mackey]

What motivated you to become a doctor?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Oh, well, I don't know if you know this, John, but I was a student of Buddhism.

[John Mackey]

So you had that first.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, so I was studying Buddhism and I.

[John Mackey]

Did you still practice? You do vipassana still?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I do meditate and I still. A lot of the principles are kind of ingrained in me as sort of just my.

[John Mackey]

You've got a more eclectic approach now.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. And I was. Ended up taking a course called the Medicine Buddha and about, you know, the kind of the healing framework of Buddhism, which is really healing of the mind.

[John Mackey]

Yes.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And. And I was like, well, I don't really want to become a monk, so what am I going to do? So I graduated, you know, basically with what am I going to do with a degree in Buddhism, and I ended.

[John Mackey]

My degree in philosophy about as useful.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. Taking a hike for a. In the Shenandoah Mountains. And I took Moby Dick and just me and myself and I. And ended up realizing maybe I should try to go to medical school and see if. See if I liked it and if I didn't like it, I would quit, you know. But so far, so good.

[John Mackey]

You have a doc met either a parent's doctor?

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

No, no, nobody. My. My. The story was that my great. My grandfather's grandfather from Russia was a doctor to the Tsar, Last Tsar, but I think it's probably made up. I don't believe it.

[John Mackey]

So. So you were. You were not pushed into the.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

No, no, no.

[John Mackey]

You were. You will say you were led by your.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, I was led.

[John Mackey]

You're led by your heart or your soul, your deeper spirit.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And I was studying all these ancient healing systems, and I learned Chinese and studied Chinese medicine, and so I was very much thinking differently from the beginning.

[John Mackey]

Mark, you have to write your story.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I know. I will.

[John Mackey]

You've got a lot of books out there.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I will.

[John Mackey]

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

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, it's true. I think you're right, John. You can't always tell going forward where things are connecting. But looking back, you can see all the threads and all the choices and all the decisions that led you to the moment that you're doing what you're doing.

[John Mackey]

It helps you actually, I think moving forward as well, because when you're clear about those patterns, then you have less sort of uncertainty.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I think people live a lot in fear. I think it's one of the challenges.

[John Mackey]

Fear is what keeps people from following their hero's journey. I think we're all called to a hero's journey and all in our own unique ways. But, you know, we're too scared. It's scared we might fail, scared of ridicule, scared our parents won't approve. Blah blah, blah, blah. I just did it anyway.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[John Mackey]

And so did you.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. I don't know what makes some people like that and others not. I was always like that. I actually, I have a title for my memoir which I've started but I haven't really finished yet, which is called Notes from God and Stumbling toward the Truth. And it's basically this shouldn't tell that, Don't.

[John Mackey]

That's such a great title. Keep that title to yourself.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

You can actually, you can write Moby Dick. Nobody can change nobody copyrighted title. So it's okay. But the, the idea is basically that, you know, when you're moving through life, there's these little doors that open, these little post it notes from God, let's call them. And you can choose to go through or not. You, somebody gave you a tab of acid and you're like, I'm going to try this and look what happened. And then, you know, you need a job. So you went, you know, you worked in a whole natural food store and just one thing connected the next. But you chose to actually do those things. And I think people live less from fear and more from love. Which is why I love the title of your new company. The name Love Life.

[John Mackey]

It's not an accident.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

No, it's not an accident. And those, those moments we often don't pay attention to in our life, those little, those little notes from God. But I think the more you pay attention to those and listen to those things, the better your life's going to be. And I think what's happening around chronic disease in America is that people are not listening to their bodies or not listening to their conversation that they should be having with their soul. And so they end up in this narcotized, polluted self that's sick and unable to think clearly and feel right 100%.

[John Mackey]

You know, the thing about the notes from God is that they're always being written and you can, even if you haven't been listening to them before you can start listening to it.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's true.

[John Mackey]

It's always so you just have to quiet. You have to be still, be quiet. And it's always speaking. And even if we make bad decisions, there's new notes.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's like totally true.

[John Mackey]

It's always waiting for us to listen to it and follow it. I had been thinking about love or something like that for a long time.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I was just replacing what is Love Life?

[John Mackey]

Love Life is a holistic health center. A one stop holistic health wellness center. It's big. Our first flagship location here is in the LA area. It's down in El Segundo, Manhattan Beach. It's an old Best Buy, so it's big. So we have 45,000 square feet in there. So just real quickly you go in and, and of course I want to get you there. I'd love to give you a tour. And you go in first. We have a healthy cafe. So healthy food is one of the foundations for people to be as healthy as possible. So starting with food, then we have sort of this whole community space, co working space, but also a big gather room, community room where we can do lectures. So let's say you were to come do a talk on functional medicine. Then we would invite members and the outside community and we can get in that expanding it in the cafe. We'd probably get 75 people in there pretty comfortably. Then you go into a fitness center. So we've got like the category most people try to fit us into is like a gym because we have a really nice gym. But of course that's just one little small part of what we're doing. And then in that fitness center we're sort of state of the art, like Equinox in a way, sort of upscale. Lots of the most recent cool technologies in there. We have a physical therapy room, we have a physical therapist on staff. We really think physical therapy for many people that have injuries is very, very efficacious.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

For your pickleball injury.

[John Mackey]

Well, yes, we have lots of sort of biohacking stuff which I'll get to in a sec. Speaking of pickleball, we have three pickleball courts there. So I did hurt myself on the court. One of the, one of the biohacks we have, there's a pimp machine. So I went, I did that a couple times and I think that's helped.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's post electromagnetic frequency which helps to sort of reduce inflammation.

[John Mackey]

Yes, yes it does. I think it helps a Little bit of the circulation and starts to move some of the inflammation out of the injured. In my case my calf. So then we've got a yoga studio, we've got a Pilates studio in that yoga studio. We do breath work besides yoga. We do breath work, we do sound baths, we do meditation classes. We're about all things to help people be the healthiest version of themselves physically, emotionally and spiritually. Those are all part of the love life vision. We have a really nice spa. So for. You can do things, you do it in any really nice spa with lots of different kinds of massages, facials, wraps. It's not a medical spa per se. We're not doing Botox or other type of medical injections in that way. We have all this recovery stuff and all these sort of biohacks. So we've got our pimp machines, we've got two hyperbaric oxygen chambers, we've got cryotherapy, we've got four red light beds, we've got four infrared sauna rooms, we have a huge steam room, we have six cold plunges and we have the biggest sauna you've probably ever seen. And jam like 40 people in that sauna if we had to. So those are for the recovery things. And then of course, what the real thing that sets us apart is that we have, you know, we have primary health care, we have a center. We do, we do very comprehensive testing like function health, blood tests. We do a comprehensive blood test. We add a gut gut test because we work with, partner with viome. So we do a gut test, we do oral test. We do, we're checking, you know, we're doing, checking the feces. We're doing a VO2 max.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's your fitness level.

[John Mackey]

Yes. Trying to grip strength. We're doing a, we're, we're doing, we're doing lots of stuff.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Body composition.

[John Mackey]

Yes, body composition. We have a DEXA scan.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's really one stop shopping. It is all things health and wellness.

[John Mackey]

One thing we don't have, although we have access to MRI because we have a deal with Prinova on that one. Like functions bought a company there.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[John Mackey]

But I think in our next center, which we plan on that being in Austin, although we don't have the location yet, we will put the MRI in because we really want to have that executive health. So you can come and do everything there. Bring a dermatologist in, maybe do a colonoscopy and just so people can get a complete report card in depth. But after you get the testing now we Sort of know where you're at. You get your baseline, but that's the starting point. I mean, unfortunately, I've learned kind of the hard way. Knowledge is not enough to get many. Some people get the knowledge. That's all they need. They never look back. Others, that's interesting. Interesting, but they don't really want to change anything they're doing.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I want to eat my ice cream.

[John Mackey]

That's right. I want to eat my ice cream. It tastes good, I like it, and I feel okay.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. If you're feeling anxious or down or mentally foggy, it's easy to blame stress. But sometimes the root cause runs much deeper, all the way to your DNA. There's a gene called MTHFR that plays a huge role in how your body processes folate. It's a key nutrient for making neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. And if you carry a specific variant for this gene, your brain may struggle to stay balanced. It also affects a key process in your body called methylation, which has many, many things it does in your body, including detoxification and neurotransmitter function. And if you have this problem with methylation, it leads to a buildup of something called homocysteine in your blood. A compound linked to inflammation, to mood disorders, even cognitive decline like dementia. And I see it all the time in my patients. Low energy, anxiety, brain fog. And it's often tied to this one gene. The good news is you can test for it and then you can support the function of this gene with the right nutrients. And that's why we built Function Health. It gives you access to over 160 advanced lab tests, including genetic testing for the MTHFR gene and many others. I use it myself, and I use it with every patient. Who wants real ANSWERS, go to functionhealth.com mark and use the code HYMEN100 to get $100 off. And this only works for the first thousand people to get it this week, so sign up right away. Your mood isn't random. Your genes are talking. Function helps you listen.

After my recent back surgery, I was looking for ways to gently support my body's recovery. And one of the most helpful tools I found is the infrared PEMF mat from Bon Charge. It uses low level infrared heat combined with pulsed electromagnetic fields to support circulation, ease tension, and encourage the body's natural repair processes. I've incorporated it into my routine after physical therapy and long days on my feet. And I found it to be a helpful part of managing post Surgical discomfort and promoting relaxation. It's simple to use. Just lie down, breathe and let the warmth and pulses do their work. I've noticed it helps me wind down and feel more at ease, especially in my lower back. If you're navigating pain, stiffness or just want to support your recovery at home, it's a thoughtful tool to Explore. Head to boncharge.com and use code Dr. Mark for 15% off your order. That's B O N C E. Code Dr. Mark.

[John Mackey]

Most people actually I found actually don't want to get tested because they don't want to know because they don't want to change anyway. So once we've got that, we now have a well care team. We have a medical doctor that is function medicine trained. We have a nurse practitioner. She can do IVs. Well, she can do everything the doctor can really just we don't have to pay, pay quite as much. We've got a registered dietitian, nutritionist who really knows her stuff. We've got medical assistants, we obviously have DEXA scan operators, we've got a whole well care team. And so then the whole idea is first we test, then we create a plan and then we track, we track through additional testing. But also we can download into our app their Oura ring results, their Apple watch results, Garmin. We've got like, I don't know, 10 different devices we can put in. Continuous glucose monitor and put that data in there. That's another thing we test by the way, is as we have people wear that for a couple of weeks. So we've get all that information now, comprehensive. But mostly it's about the care team problem. You know, Mark, what's wrong with our medical system is basically, I call it, it's a plumber's model. Yeah, it's when you get a plumber.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

When the sink's broken.

[John Mackey]

When the sink's broken or your pipes clogged. Exactly. Most people don't go to a doctor until something breaks. And that might have been fine 150 years ago, but today chronic diseases, non infectious diseases are what are killing us. And so we know heart disease is our number one killer. Then we got cancer. We know medical care itself is one of the leading causes for death for too many prescription drugs, mistakes made, infections they get in hospitals, et cetera, et cetera.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's true. People don't realize that, but I think it's the third or fourth leading cause of death.

[John Mackey]

Third leading cause of death, then obesity, Americans are, sad to say, is that 73% of Americans are overweight. 73% and 43% are obese. And the trend lines are continuing. It's not like we've peaked. It's still going up. The standard American diet is killing people.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. I mean, when I graduated from Medical School in 1987, there was in a single state that had an obesity rate over 20%. Now there's not one under 30 and most are over 40.

[John Mackey]

Is Colorado and Utah over 30? They were the two best time I looked at it.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, yeah, I think they're popping over.

[John Mackey]

30 now those trend lines keep going up and basically America, the United States, as you know, spends far more than any other country on health care. We spend almost 18% of our GDP.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Almost $5 trillion.

[John Mackey]

Yeah, exactly. But where are we in terms of longevity? When I checked it out Today, we were 48.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, it's bad.

[John Mackey]

So most money on healthcare. We have terrible results.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I think we're worse than Cuba. I think we spend $184 a year.

[John Mackey]

So I'm saying all that because Love Life, we think, is one of the solutions. We want people to join Love Life. We want them to enter into our medical programs. We do primary health care. We will see them. It's not a concierge program, but besides the doctor times to go over your test results and work on your plans, we have 10 acute visits a year you can use that are part of your membership. As part of the membership, Exactly. I'll tell you one other story. So how I got to this thing.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, because you know, at Whole Foods.

[John Mackey]

We were self insured, so we paid means we had UnitedHealthcare might've been the administrator and they might've had a network, but we were actually paying all the cost of it. What we discovered was as we tracked it was that 10% of our employees, team members, were spending 90% of our healthcare dollars.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's right.

[John Mackey]

So we began to think, how can we take these 10% if we can get them healthier? That's gonna be a win, win, win. Right. Be good for them and it'll be good for Whole Foods.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's right.

[John Mackey]

And it'll be good for everyone else as well, their families and everyone else connected to it. So we began to create what we call a total health immersion. And we worked with four different sets of four doctors and we worked four different times a year. And we would invite any team member to apply for it. We'd cover all the costs, of course. We favored those who we knew were in our magic 10%. What ended up happening was pretty extraordinary. We'd go in a retreat setting for a week. And my biggest takeaway from the retreats was, did you know, I mean, you know this. The human body is far more resilient than I realized, 100%. If we just stop poisoning it, it starts to heal.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Bingo.

[John Mackey]

It's incredible.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, it's.

[John Mackey]

I had not known that personally because I sort of been on this gradual health journey for decades. Right.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[John Mackey]

So I never had any radical improvements. But what we saw in those weeks were people that if they were obese, they generally lose 7 to 10 pounds in that week. We saw type 2 diabetics that could actually, in even just a week, normalize their medicine, normalize, and get off their meds. We saw people's cholesterol drop 30 to 40 points in that week, and we saw blood pressure and sometimes drop 30 to 40 points.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's what people don't realize, John, is that people are just a few days away from feeling better.

[John Mackey]

They are.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And they don't know it.

[John Mackey]

They don't know it.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's like Dorothy in the ruby red slippers.

[John Mackey]

You know that's right. That's what's so powerful about a type of retreat like setting. Because now here's another takeaway, though. Again, like knowledge, we taught people the principles. We showed them what to do. Some took that knowledge mark and they never looked back. Their life was transformed. I'd travel around and visit our stores and they'd come up and hug me and say, thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Mackey. Changed my life. You know, I'm going to see my grandchildren now and I'm playing with my kids. It's so great. Thank you so much. And others who were apologizing because they had. They lost weight and then they gained it back because they went back to their diets. And the takeaway was, when you look a little further, was for people to really make lasting change. Some people can do it on their own. Most people need a community of support 100%. And so love Life aims to be that community of support for people who really want to become the healthiest version of themselves. If just like I say, like, let's say you're an alcoholic and we send you to rehab for 90 days and you come back sober, you don't crave alcohol any longer. But if you go back into the same social network, yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

All your friends are all alcoholics.

[John Mackey]

Right. And you're going to be back off, you're going to fall off the wagon pretty quickly. So you need a new set of friends. Basically. We found that out and it's like, that's my takeaway from that. Total health emergence. We need community.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And how did you apply that at Whole Foods after that? Because, you know, I think that you're hitting on something that's very important, is that we call chronic illness non communicable disease. But that's completely wrong. It's not infectious, but it's contagious.

[John Mackey]

Yes.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And just as chronic disease can be contagious, you're more likely to be obese if your friends are overweight than even your family's overweight because you're basically as healthy as your five closest friends. You know, if all your friends are drinking green juices and going to yoga as opposed to drinking beer and having burgers and fries, you're going to be healthier, Right?

[John Mackey]

Yeah. That's why they, you know, like if you're, if you were a teenager hanging around kids that smoke, you more likely become a smoker.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. And community is medicine. And we did this at the Saddleback Church with Rick Warren. We got 15,000 people lose a quarter million pounds by doing it in community.

And it was powerful.

And I'm curious how at Whole Foods you did the community pieces and behavior.

[John Mackey]

This was the flaw in the program. We're still doing the program. We still have follow up with people afterwards. Here's the problem. We've got over 100,000 team members and they're from all over the country and Canada and the UK for that matter too. So they might go back, but the people they met, the community of people that they were with, they are scattering. So that community is not together. Now if some of them came from the same store, then they have a little bit of community support. We could put them in touch with others that were on the journey, but again, they're so spread out, we didn't solve for it. It's still a problem, it's still a challenge. I really do think what Lovelife's doing and what other wellness centers, holistic health centers will create will be also social places for people to go and hang out. We've designed it in that way. When you see our space, you'll see the co working space, the community areas, the cafe, the couches, the comfortable chairs are all set up for people to hang out, work, network with their friends that are there. You know, most health clubs formula is to get people to become members and just keep paying, but hopefully never come right. We have the opposite philosophy. We really like people to spend a couple hours or more every day At Love Life. Come, come in after work, do some of the recovery modalities or do a workout, do some recovery, have a meal, meet some people, play some pickleball, take a class. We have all kinds of different classes there. There's so many. Stay around for one of our talks or one of our events that are happening. We really want to nurture community.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And how do you see this intersecting with healthcare? Because, you know, people have their health insurance and people aren't very motivated usually to pay out of pocket for healthcare, which they think this should be.

[John Mackey]

That's the biggest challenge, to be honest. Of course everybody asks about that. We do create super bills for people, but most of our docs, our doctors are out of network, most likely for them for a lot of the testing that we're doing. You can also use your125, your HSA, your HRA. Those can all go towards this. I was talking to somebody about it recently and I just said, you know what? Insurance will be one of the last dominoes to fall. It won't change until the market demands that it change, until people are complaining and then until the government maybe steps in and starts saying, you need to cover this stuff too.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

But also if you, if you track your data at Love Life, you can see longitudinally how people do.

[John Mackey]

Oh, we do.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And that way you can actually show payers how this is actually saving them money. And that's going to change reimbursement.

[John Mackey]

I really do think before we get the insurance companies to change, now we have, we are, this is a, we think a B2B potential is big there. Like remember I told you about how Whole Foods was self insured. We think we can go to big employers in the area and do two things. We can say, look, give us your sick people because we know if you're self insured that like Whole Foods, 10% are spending 90% of your money. Give us those people that are motivated, only the ones that want to come. Because we can't do anything if people don't want to heal themselves. And we can help them heal and we can help them heal pretty quickly and do that on a fee per person basis. But also we'd like to go to those same corporations and say, now give us your up and comers, your executives, and get them a optimized gold membership at Love Life as a perk, as a benefit. These are the people you're counting on to make the most important decisions in your business. The healthier they are, the more vital they are, the better their decision making. They're going to be, and the less likely they're going to leave because this is one of your perks that competitors are not offering. So there's two ways to approach the B2B. I think the, again, the insurance will change, but it's like, it's just not, it's, it's that we got to go for the low hanging fruit first.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, no, I agree. I think you're right. And you know, I think the, you know, the, the question is, can you kind of force people into collective change together? I don't know the answer to that. But I know in America, I know in Cleveland Clinic we had a waiting list of 3,000 people for our center for Functional Medicine.

[John Mackey]

Wow.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And so what we said was, you can't get into a one on one appointment, but you're getting into a group visit. And we were able to put people in group visits who, you know, necessarily maybe wanted to see someone privately, but they were willing to just get in. And what we found was that the health outcomes were three times better for the same condition treated by the same doctors in the same clinic. And we compared, you know, a doctor treating diabetes in a group versus a doctor one on one, same. And there was three times better outcomes in the group. And the savings were far more so better outcomes, lower costs is what healthcare is. The holy grail, like value based care. So it was interesting because not everybody kind of really opted in. I mean, I guess they sort of opted in because they couldn't get an appointment, but it wasn't like they were motivated to be in a group. They actually were motivated to be seen. And that just was what we found. So I think, I think if we can kind of encourage people to do that. And AA is a great example, Weight Watcher is a great example. People change in a collective.

[John Mackey]

Totally agree. And that's why in the B2B approach, if we can get a group of peers that are coming in from the same company and they're motivated to try to heal themselves, we have a much better chance if they come in as a group, you might say.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So you're sort of an unlikely character. You're like a hippie from the 70s who started a health food store and now they turn into Whole Foods. And then you help build this movement around conscious capitalism, which is sort of. I'd love you to sort of talk a little bit about that because I think it's part of what you're doing with love life, which is a business, but it's also bringing more light into the world. As opposed to darkness.

[John Mackey]

So conscious capitalism is a movement. I co founded and I wrote a book called Conscious Capitalism, co authored that with my good friend Raj Sisodia. And as I built Whole Foods, what I began to realize was that because I didn't have a business background, I hadn't worked for any corporations. I began to realize that Whole Foods was very different than most other businesses and that we had this higher purpose. We really cared about all of our stakeholders. We were trying to create these cultures where humans were flourishing. We wanted to lead with love. It was. And these were just, you know, I just thought we were sort of just kind of one weird. A weirdo company. And then I read a book called Firms of Endearment by my co author of Conscious Capitalism, Rogers not terms, but firms, firms, firms, companies, Firms of endearment. And what 30 that he identified, he and his co author identified. And the firm of endearment was one. All the stakeholders loved the firm, not the shareholders, but the shareholders do too. Shareholders love them too, because they all prefer really well economically, but the customers love them, their employees love them, their suppliers love them. They're sort of universally loved. And so Whole Foods was one of those 30 companies. And you know what got me excited when I read the book? I said, I'm not alone. There are other weirdos out there too, doing similar stuff. And so I got together with the authors and said, listen, can you put me in touch with some of these other people? And so they did. And. And I started to realize, this is great, this is great. And I realized more people need to know about this because all of these people are financially very successful. Being loved by all your stakeholders and having a higher purpose is good business. It's a way to make more money. The money comes from practicing those principles, in other words. So people think there's this dichotomy between.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's like, honestly, when you're not motivated by money, you make more money.

[John Mackey]

Yes. There's a good metaphor for it. If you pursue happiness, you probably won't find it happy because you'll just. If people that pursue happiness the hardest oftentimes end up being narcissist. Yeah, Happiness comes from. It ensues. It ensues from love, from goodness, from compassion, forgiveness, kindness, generosity. You become happy because of. Not because you're pursuing it directly, but because it's a byproduct of these other qualities. Meaningful work, caring, loving, family. These things lead to happiness. So anyway, it's the same way with money. Ultimately, profits come from creating value for customers or Members or patients or whoever you're working with. That's the ultimate way profits come about. They're indirectly come about from creating value in the world. So conscious capitalism has four basic principles to it. Mark. First principle is higher purpose. Every business has its potential for higher purpose. For example, my body has to produce red blood cells or I'm going to be dead. But it doesn't logically follow that my higher purpose is to produce red blood cells. Similarly, businesses must make money or they will die. That's not why they exist. The purpose of creating value for their customers is. And Whole Foods is higher purpose was to nourish people in the planet. Love life is the helping people to become the healthiest version of themselves. So every business has this higher purpose. Then you have stakeholders. They all are important. They all matter. Customers matter. Employees matter, Suppliers matter. The investors matter. The community matters. The environment matters. And business has to create strategies where they're all simultaneously winning. Third is leadership. Leaders can't be in it just to line their own pockets. Leaders have got to be those who are purpose driven, are serving the stakeholders, and they're ultimately servant leaders. And finally, we create cultures. A conscious business, a conscious leader, creates cultures where human beings flourish, where they are happy, where they're fulfilled, where their work is meaningful and they're part of a community that cares about them. That's conscious capitalism in a nutshell.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, that's beautiful. And has it taken off? I mean, you heard.

[John Mackey]

Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I think the guy who's. I think Larry Fink, who sort of writes this letter every year, one year wrote a letter about how we need to think about our stakeholders, not only our shareholders. But I wonder how much that's really filtered into the business world.

[John Mackey]

Well, you know, it's interesting. It has filtered in. So when they had that roundtable, business Roundtable came out basically checking off the principles of conscious capitalism. That got a lot of pushback, a lot of controversy in business circles. I found out later that women that had been the leader of that conscious capitalism had been their framework. The book had been their framework for those principles. They did not credit us. But nevertheless, what any author wants to hear is that their ideas are having an impact and influencing things. So speaking of Larry Fink, so I'm going to. We're having a special conclave down in Cabo for CEOs of very large corporations. There'd be about, I think, I don't know, 30, 30 or 40. And Larry's hosting it down there. And we're not calling it conscious capitalism. It's principles of responsible Business or something like that. Anyway, I got an invitation, so I'm going to be going, excited to talk to some of these other, there's some big names going down there. So I'm excited to be, be part of that.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. Because we live in such an extractive world and we have extractive capitalism, it's the opposite of conscious capital. Like we have extractive agriculture, we have extractive healthcare.

[John Mackey]

It's just, they don't take a systems approach. And really what we're talking about with conscious capitalism is viewing things in a larger context, the larger system that, that actually leads to better business. It's harder, it's harder to do it. Think about, it's like you think about healthcare because that's what we've been talking about. As you say, that's like extractive healthcare because it's just dealing with symptoms, it's not dealing with root causes.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Right, right.

[John Mackey]

I mean, functional medicine, you're probably the leader in functional medicine that's going to root causes and trying to root them out and help people to heal at the deepest levels. That's revolutionary medicine. It's a really, really big deal. So you should be really proud of what you've done.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Thank you. Yeah. It's sort of what drives me is how do I. And needless suffering for millions of people because.

[John Mackey]

Exactly.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

So many people don't have to suffer. Like you're talking about before when you would bring the team members of Whole Foods to these retreats and they would have this radical transformation in a week and they were suffering before and then they ended up in a short period of a week not suffering. You know, and I, I think that, you know, I, I, I created something called the 10 day detox diet, which essentially it eliminates all the processed food and crap. It adds in all the good foods and it, and it's, it's so powerful.

[John Mackey]

And 10 days, it's like the seven day. Yeah, 10 days is even better because it's three days longer.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's right.

[John Mackey]

30 days is better than that.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I know, but if I called the 30 day diet, no one would do it. That's, that's right.

[John Mackey]

People, you know, you decide. 10 days was kind of the sweet spot for the sweet spot.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah. And it, and it was, it's amazing to see that. And I think when people have the experience of what it's like to feel good, they, they, they actually can connect to something and come back to it. Even if they kind of beer those.

[John Mackey]

Notes from God are a little more, you can hear them a little bit better.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Exactly. Yeah. And I, I think, you know, the work you've done around this conscious capitalism moving is, is so important because so much of the things that are happening in our world are all because of, of a lack of consciousness and a lack of awareness and a lack of understanding that value creation isn't just about the bottom line. It's about multiple bottom lines where everybody wins, where the planet wins, where you win, where your community wins, you know.

[John Mackey]

Where win, win, win. Yeah, I just did a TED talk a few months ago on win, win, win.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

And what were you saying in there?

[John Mackey]

The win, win, win is seeking and simplest. It's looking for everyone you interact with. You're looking a win for them, a win for yourself, and a win for the larger whole that we're all part of. If all three aren't bad strategy. So it's kind of giving your mind and your heart permission to go down that path. And so if you unleash your mind to look for the win, win, win, it will find it. And we generally make trade offs and we generally approach it win, lose. We're in a culture where sports and game metaphors are somebody wins, most people lose. Hey, that's the way life is. No, that particular approach to life. And it's not the best approach for your happiness or for the betterment of the world. The win, win, win strategy, I argue, is a universal ethical system. I challenge you to think of any ethical, any ethical dilemma you're in where win, win, win isn't the best way to approach it.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

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It's hard to get people out of the scarcity mindset and into this idea of abundance. And I find that the more I give, the more I get. The more I give money away, the more I give my time away, the more I give my love away, my energy away, the more it comes back to.

[John Mackey]

Because the universe is a mirror that reflects exactly back what you're giving. The more love you give, the more love you receive, the kinder you are, the more kindness comes back. If people could understand that we are all connected, we are all one, that when they attack someone else, they're attacking themselves. If we can understand that love is the deeper reality and that we share love, it comes back to us. We help light somebody, somebody lights the candle of love in us, we send it and give it to somebody else. And that's how this planet's going to heal. It's going to heal ultimately through people waking up and being more conscious about how they show up in the world and how transformative love is. I'm a big apostle of love.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I think you're right onto something. But we live in such a divisive world now, and I feel like we're less connected and more divided.

[John Mackey]

And so it starts with yourself. Only you can transform the world. I don't mean that in a narcissistic sense. I mean as we offer love and peace, it is offered back to us. And right now I can't worry about absolutely the whole world that just puts you into despair. All I can do is show up every day. My wife has a mantra that I try to follow. It's just love everyone all the time, no exceptions.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's pretty good.

[John Mackey]

Exactly. She says, john, it's so much simpler. You don't have to worry about, well, I'm mad at him. I like her. I'm not so sure about this guy. She says, no, don't have all those comparisons. Just show up open hearted and love everyone.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[John Mackey]

And yeah, she's my teacher.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's actually an incredibly powerful way to live. And I don't know if I do that all the time in my regular life.

[John Mackey]

Most of us don't. But as a doctor, that's how you show up.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I sort of reflected on like, what is it that makes me good at what I do? And, and why do people keep coming back? And I think when I meet with someone, because when you're a doctor, you get to enter this sacred space with someone where they're sharing their vulnerabilities, their suffering, their fears, their relationship, stuff like whatever their life story. And I take a very deep life story. I'm not the eight minute doctor visit. I spend a couple hours with people initially and then I get to know them.

[John Mackey]

We can offer you a job at Love Life. You're the kind of doctor we're looking for.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I know. I wish I had more, more of me to go around. What I let myself do is, is love. Every patient is, is to see who they are as a human being and no matter who they are, where they're from. I mean I used to work in the Idaho State Penitentiary, you know, when I, and, and I mean as a part time gig when I was a doctor in Idaho and I would walk.

In there with murderers and rapists and.

People who've done horrible things and I would just try to meet them and see who they were and love them. And what was really actually shocking to me is most of them were just, just scare little kids that didn't grow, ever grow up and they did these horrible things out of their own trauma. And to be able to sort of see that and you know, and if you just stop and spend enough time with somebody and talk to them, like.

The homeless guy on the street, you.

[John Mackey]

Were helping heal them because you're, you were actually, you're being present like that and open is love.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[John Mackey]

You, you were radiating love to them whether you're conscious of it or not. That was probably helping to heal them.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[John Mackey]

Because that's what everybody wants I'm sure.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I'm sure. And also, it also, yeah. Help them to, you know, feel safe. And it helped me to actually, you know, care for them enough to, to really work hard to figure out what was going on. And it's, it's like I. I don't know why I started out like that, but I just, I've always been like that. And I, I remember being like 3 years old and, and seeing all these grownups who are just so unhappy and not nice and not acting out of love. And I'm like, didn't. I didn't get it.

[John Mackey]

I literally remember you're three years old.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

My three year old self, I'm like, like I just was full of love all the time. And I didn't get why everybody wasn't all full of love all the time. You know, it's like that's our natural state.

[John Mackey]

Yes. You know that's right. Love is the essence of what we are. But it gets blocked. It gets blocked by anger, fear, judgment, attack, envy, resentment. All those type of emotions clouded over so that the light doesn't shine through. But if we practice forgiveness and we work at opening and being present, the light begins to shine through us again. Here's an interesting thing that I've learned. It's maybe one of the most important tips I will give. If you love everyone all the time, don't we forget that every day? At times we go back into judgment. We judge. You're driving over here. Somebody cuts me off, asshole. I'm not very loving when I'm thinking that or saying that. But what I've learned is that the past doesn't exist any longer. All that's real is this moment. And no matter how many times I forget, I can go back in the next moment and choose love. I can choose to be present. I can choose to let my heart open. Even if I forget it next moment, I can choose it. If I forget it next moment, I can choose it. I can practice going back to it. And it's kind of like meditating. The more you practice it, the more skilled you get at it. The more you practice being present and opening to love, the easier it gets.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's such a simple idea. Choose love over fear.

[John Mackey]

Yes, choose love over fear. Kind of like that massive LSD trip I took. There's nothing really to be afraid of. Because the things we're afraid of, like death or suffering or pain, in an ultimate sense, those things really aren't real in any ultimate sense. We make them real through our own minds, our beliefs. Are what keep us in prison. And anyway, I found that. Anyway, important thing that I've learned is that no matter how many times I forget, I can always remember in the next moment. I can be free in the next moment.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Isn't that the truth, John? I mean, I thought a lot about death in life because I almost died recently and I realized that the real secret, the meaning of life, like the purpose of life is to get free so you can be love.

[John Mackey]

Right.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

It's like most of us are in a self made prison of our beliefs, of our thoughts, of our perceptions, of our ideology, and we're always in this trap. But there's actually a way to get free. And when you're free, all you want to do is love. It's kind of like a magic trick.

[John Mackey]

You know, I felt that about you the first time I met you. I felt like you were a very loving person.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Thank you.

[John Mackey]

You had a very open heart and you're very caring and I, I felt that vibe from you.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah.

[John Mackey]

And you know what, here's the good news. It's a lot stronger now than when I first met you. So.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Yeah, well, I've gotten more free. I've gotten shed all the old stories, all the bullshit and oh my God, it's hard work, you know, but I think, you know, this revolution in, in, in health and well being that you're part of and this revolution in mental health, which in, in some ways love life is really helping to solve because you're building community and loneliness is this big one of the biggest causes of illness. And you know, it's like the community aspect is such a big piece. And for me, at the end of the day, it's just about how do we, how do we sort of always move into the space of, of love.

[John Mackey]

Rather than fear we'll forget, but we can choose it the next moment. Just remember, no matter how many times you forget the past, you don't, you don't have to bring the past into the present. Yeah, you can be free of the past by just letting it go, realizing it's not real. And in this moment, be present, be conscious, let love flow.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I think the psychedelic revolution, and it was your awakening and certainly it's part of mine. And I think a lot of people's, to be honest with you, if you look at like Steve Jobs, it's what.

[John Mackey]

Knocked me off the path my parents had programmed into me.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Exactly. And you know, when you think about some of the big corporations that are going on, I think the people don't talk about it but like Apple came out of psychedelics, right? And I think for me, and I think increasingly like for the population at large, it's this sort of psychedelic revolution around. Psychedelic therapy is part of the answer to helping people to let go of the idea of separateness and to let go of the idea that they have to meet life with fear or that they are stuck. And I think I wish everybody could. I mean, I wish I could literally just take, take a giant bunch of mushrooms or LSD and put it in the water in Congress.

[John Mackey]

That would be scary to people. One way to think about it, I read this book a long time ago, which, it was a real simple little 50 page book and it basically said the Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Oh yeah, I remember that book.

[John Mackey]

And it had one big idea in it and that big idea was you're either expanding or contracting. So expanding opens our consciousness and opens our hearts for love. Contracting closes it down. So fear, judgment, hatred, anger, these all contract the heart shut us down and then forgiveness, love, generosity. I practice gratitudes every day. Gratitude is a huge expansion in everything. No matter how my, my little petty problems that might be there at work or whatever, practicing the gratitudes in the morning is always expansive. It always reminds me that's petty stuff. This is what really matters. I do think the daily practices are important for people if they want to help, not get lost again.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Why don't we sort of close by having you share with us your practices. How do you keep yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually on track?

[John Mackey]

Sure, I start out my day pee, and then I weigh myself. But then when I. Then I. Then I do my spiritual practices which involve reading some type of spiritual text. I'm a longtime student of a course in miracles, so frequently that's what I'm reading. Then I do gratitudes. The expansive gratitudes. And I just let my mind go whatever I feel ungrateful for and, and let that go as long as it feels right. Then I put forth. We can call them, you can call them affirmations, you can call them prayers, intentionality. I put out there things that I would really like to see manifest. I put it out in a clear visualization of it and then I meditate. After that I'm going to go make a smoothie. I start every day off with a smoothie. It's 50% fruit, 50% vegetables. It's got some protein in it, but it's extremely nutritious. I make a whole two liters of that Vitamix and I'm going to have Two glasses for breakfast and then the rest, my wife will have a glass and the other glass will get finished off sometime later in the day. And then I exercise. I'm usually going for a walk. I'm playing pickleball, I'm doing Pilates, I'm doing yoga or I'm doing a couple of those. Then I will go. I might read or I might go off to work, depending on what's going on. Or I might have meetings. I will try to do some other kind of exercise at the end of the day. Now for food for me, I am ethical vegan, so 100% plant based. So I try to eat a whole foods, plant based diet. Minimize salt, minimize oil, minimize processed foods of all kinds. Not perfect in that regard, but probably compared to most people, I'm very high up the list there. I really think fruits and vegetables are extremely healthy. So I would say I'm on a high complex carb diet. I'm eating because I'm eating a lot of fruits, a lot of whole grains, a lot of beans. I do get a lot of protein because I really do eat lots of foods that have a lot of protein in them. Greens, I eat tons of greens. I think my diet's healthy for me. And I think work. I think having purpose. I read a lot also. I think having purposeful work, like love life. I'm on six boards, so I've got other distractions that way. And so. And then I spend a lot of time with my wife. She's kind of my spiritual.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

You guys have a remarkable relationship. I mean, you've had Whole foods for a long time, but you've also had this marriage.

[John Mackey]

I've been with Deborah for 35 years now and she's, you know, I tell the story in the book. The woman in the dream, when I met her, she was seven years younger than me. And I considered myself, my ego being what it is, thought I was a pretty conscious dude, but I was just blown away on the very first date. Talk about the notes from God. My whole soul was saying, this woman is the most awake person you've ever come across. Don't blow it, don't screw it up. John I pretty much did because I was so nervous. First thing I did when I picked is a blind date.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

I never met her before.

[John Mackey]

First I pick her up and first thing I do is I'm nervous. She's the most beautiful person woman I've ever seen. And I said, hey, mind if I look in your refrigerator? She says, that's weird, but sure. Refrigerator biopsy well, you can tell a lot about a person in your refrigerator.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Bookshelf. In the refrigerator.

[John Mackey]

I went to the bookshelf. Second. That was more socially acceptable. She ended up being the great love of my life. And I will tell you a story that I tell in the book I call the chapter in the Woman in the Dream, because I had had a recurring dream in this dream that I had many times. I'm going to this park, Pease park, in Austin, near where my house is in Central Austin. And I'm going there and I'm there. It's in the morning, and I'm looking, and this beautiful woman is walking to me, and she's naked and she's radiating, she's shining. And she comes up to me and I break up a conversation. I start a conversation with her. I say, so who are you? And she says, you know who I am. I said, okay, well, what are you doing? She says, goes, I've been waiting. What have you been waiting for? I've been waiting for you to catch up to me.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Oh, wow.

[John Mackey]

Well, why? And she grabs my hand and she says, so we can run together. And we take off running. And then I wake up.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

That's amazing. Beautiful dream.

[John Mackey]

After I'd had the blind date, I had the dream again. And the first time I knew who she was, it was her. Deborah.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Wow. That's incredible. I got chills from that story.

[John Mackey]

I know. Incredible story.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Beautiful note to end on. I'm so just really honored to be able to know you and your wife and being awesome with you and look forward to playing pickleball and more things and more conversations.

[John Mackey]

I really, I really admire what you're doing, making a big difference in the world. I'm very appreciative and I wish just love and happiness to you in all ways. Thank you so very much.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

Thank you, John. Thanks for being on the podcast.

[John Mackey]

Thank you.

[Dr. Mark Hyman]

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I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the Dr. Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on the Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness center, my work at Cleveland Clinic and Function Health where I am Chief Medical Officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness center at ultrawellnesscenter.com and request to become a patient. It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public public. So I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening.