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" I started out young and idealistic, and it was all about social justice and fair distribution of resources. I didn't understand why everybody couldn't be equally prosperous. "
John Mackey
Fair
Justice
Understand
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" Libertarians are constantly arguing with each other who is the most pure libertarian and who is most ideologically pure. "
John Mackey
Pure
Arguing
Libertarian
" People need to eat whole food plant foods, primarily... whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. That diet supports our lives. We ought to live to be 90 or 100 without getting any diseases. "
John Mackey
Live
Food
Need
" In general, when you travel, you get into a different reality and are able to more accurately reflect on your ordinary life. Hiking does that for me. "
John Mackey
Reflect
Reality
Me
" Back then, before the Internet, you had these paper catalogs that you ordered all the food from. So, we flipped through the catalogs, looked up the food we wanted, called them up, and they would show up in trucks. "
John Mackey
You
Show
Paper
" Snatam Kaur is a yogini, and I find her music deeply spiritual. I feel more love and I feel more peace when I listen to her music. "
John Mackey
Spiritual
Feel
Her
" In many companies, the person who talks the best usually gets the job. I got snowed by a few of those people over the years. I still think communication is important, but I don't think there's always a correlation between being a great communicator and other virtues that make for a great leader. "
John Mackey
Best
Great
Leader
" We believe that business is good because it creates value. It is ethical because it is based on voluntary exchange; it is noble because it can elevate our existence, and it is heroic because it lifts people out of poverty and creates prosperity. "
John Mackey
People
Value
Business
" The great thing about a culture is that once you really get it going, it evolves on its own. It's self-organizing. It's dynamic. It just feeds on itself. "
John Mackey
Own
Just
You
" You can't live if you don't eat, but you don't live to eat. And neither does business exist primarily to make a profit. It exists to fulfill its purpose, whatever that might be. "
John Mackey
Purpose
You
Live
" I learned how to cook, began reading books on food. I began to understand about nutrition. It never had occurred to me that what you ate could affect how you felt. It could affect your health. It seems obvious now, but at age 23 or 22 or whatever I was, it wasn't obvious at all. "
John Mackey
Food
Health
Me
" You have to understand: the narrative that people have about business and capitalism is that they are fundamentally selfish, greedy, and exploitative. Of course, I don't agree with that narrative. "
John Mackey
Business
People
Selfish
" At a lot of companies founded on principles, the notion of making money is almost antithetical to the ethos of the place. From the very beginning, our business has existed to meet the needs and desires of multiple constituencies: customers, team members, vendors, shareholders, the community. "
John Mackey
Community
Team
Place
" I really do believe that America has this weight problem - obesity issues - and we have all these diseases that we get - heart disease, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune diseases - that are primarily lifestyle diseases. "
John Mackey
Cancer
Believe
Heart
" We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state, and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable. "
John Mackey
Company
Live
Legal
" Starting my own business was kind of a wakeup call in a number of different ways. I had to meet a payroll every week, and we had to satisfy customers, and we had competitors that we had to compete with in order to have those customers come into our stores, and we had to compete with other employers for our employees. "
John Mackey
Business
Week
My Own
" I think for any small business that's bootstrapped, the overwhelming challenge initially is getting to positive cash flow. "
John Mackey
Business
Think
Positive
" Examine our every action through the lens of how we would feel if it were to become front page news. "
John Mackey
Page
Action
Become
" Food is intensely pleasurable, and people are afraid that if they change the way they eat, they'll stop having pleasure. "
John Mackey
Stop
Change
Way
" What I know is that we no longer have free enterprise capitalism in health care; it's not a system any longer where people are able to innovate. It's not based on voluntary exchange. The government is directing it. "
John Mackey
Health
People
Government
" A healthy society rests on three pillars: business, government and civil society, or non-profits. Each has a distinct and important role to play, and all three need to work together synergistically to create the most value for society. "
John Mackey
Value
Business
Work
" If you have a mental model that says big corporations are fundamentally greedy and selfish and exploitative, you don't really want to have an exception to that model. It's much easier to say, 'Yes, Whole Foods has been corrupted.' "
John Mackey
Say
Selfish
You
" I'm a huge NBA fan and watch many games each year. Following any sport is kind of bringing us back to our tribal roots. "
John Mackey
Kind
Games
Year
" When we start a new store, we make sure that we transfer enough starter culture from other stores that are already Whole Fooders, who've already incorporated our values and our culture within themselves into the... into the store. "
John Mackey
New
Culture
Values
" Human beings are made up of many different values, and sometimes those values are in tension with each other. "
John Mackey
Different
Human
Sometimes
" It's competition that forces companies to get out of their complacency. "
John Mackey
Competition
Get
Out
" I like games that are complex - the deeper you get into the game, the more there is to learn. "
John Mackey
You
Games
Learn
" It started when I moved into a vegetarian co-op back in the '70s, and that's really when I had my food consciousness awakened. I learned how to cook, and eventually I became the food buyer for the entire co-op. Not long after that, I went to work for a small natural food store in Austin, and I became very excited and passionate about it. "
John Mackey
Natural
Work
Small
" Good leaders need to be able to connect to all of those around them. This is especially true at Whole Foods, where we have a very team-oriented culture. "
John Mackey
Need
True
Culture
" The way most people approach business - and the way they mostly teach in business school - involves the analytical mind. It divides it up and looks at parts in isolation. "
John Mackey
School
Business
Mind
" I always like to say that our brand or our philosophy has always been kind of this marriage between the 'food as indulgence,' and it's also been about 'food as health,' that food is vitality. "
John Mackey
Health
Brand
Food