moonshots ep112 john mackey health ai transcript

when Whole Food started I didn’t think I was entering the grocery business really if you’re not old enough or too old as old as me you don’t know how bad supermarkets were 40 or 50 years ago and and how they’ve changed so much in the last 40 or 50 years partly because of Whole Foods Market I really enjoyed reading in the whole story uh your experience with psychedelic Journeys while sometimes that’s very very healthy and you need that kind of energy to to do a startup you also need you know your next creative Journey you’re on your next startup you exit Amazon I had to let go of Whole Foods to really do love life to get all in everybody Welcome to moonshots on today’s episode I’m going to be having a conversation with an extraordinary entrepreneur and CEO John Mackey the founder of Whole Foods he built the company to $22 billion in SES 540 locations before selling it to Amazon and then that was Act one today he is

[00:01:01] starting his next company love life during this episode we’re going to talk about a number of things how does he think about starting a company a lot of incredible lessons here for entrepreneurs on how he hires how he funds things who he brings in as co-founders there conversations around marketing right this is somebody who built an extraordinary organization starting his next company and we dissect step by step what he’s doing it’s a master class for entrepreneurs we from there we go want to talk about Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk what life is like for them how they think about the world and then we close the conversation talking about psychedelic something that he’s been very open with in his new book the whole story powerful technology that has shaped his life we’ll discuss what it means and where he’s going next by the way if you enjoy conversations like this with moonshot entrepreneurs subscribe all right let’s jump into the episode with John Mackey and the whole story hey John I just finished reading the whole story uh it was an amazing

[00:02:01] book um it’s a book of entrepreneurial Journeys uh and really it’s it’s the whole startup story which I think uh anybody listening on about to start your company or or facing incredible uphill battles uh it’s a it’s a book a master class in how to overcome things so amazing job on that first off thank you so much yeah I question for you uh you had zero background in I still calling you a grosser feels very underwhelming he had he had zero background in starting a global you know uh you know health food store and the question I have is do real disruptions come from entrepreneurs who enter a field from right field right who have no background have no don’t know what can’t be done you know does it does it really take that level of naive to

[00:03:01] come in and disrupt an industry CU that’s what I’m seeing in in so many different places right Bezos had no information on the on the book selling business Elon was not in the automotive or rocket business you weren’t in the you know Whole Foods business it’s a category by itself how do you think about that well I think that’s uh least mostly true there’s always going to be exceptions right I mean you could say Steve jobs was doing some computer stuff before he started apple and Bill Gates was doing some programming before he started Microsoft so they were in the industry but they were both very young Industries right so they they they disrupted them they didn’t I I know it it what say Jeff bezas knowing Jeff a little bit from working at Amazon for five years after whole F was sold to Amazon he actually believes that industry think is one of the things that holds um Innovation back there’s sort of a

[00:04:02] this is the way we do things and I know Jeff’s philosophy is let’s rethink go back to First principles I think first principles is is a way Elon Musk thinks as well what are the first principles here what are the limitations in other words let’s not be stuck in a box and often times coming from the outside you have you’re able to see things like that child who said hey the emperor doesn’t have any clothes on you’re not stuck in sort of a blindness that comes from things being too familiar so yeah I agree with you so you know talking to those entrepreneurs who are like okay I’m super excited about this industry but I have no background in it um is that a good thing or a bad thing and and and how do they enter in your opinion as you know how should they be entering this well for one thing most of the time the entrepreneur doesn’t think they’re entering into an industry at all I mean they’re just excited about something they’re passionate about something and I

[00:05:02] mean when Whole Food started I didn’t think I was entering the grocery business really I mean I was but I I thought Whole Foods was so different than people don’t know what if you’re not if you’re not old enough or too old as old as me you don’t know how bad super markets were 40 or 50 years ago and and how they’ve changed so much in the last 40 or 50 years partly because of Whole Foods Market uh Walmart obviously had a big influence as well as did Costco and uh we didn’t think we just we were passionate about selling healthy food to people passionate about natural organic foods for the helping people to live longer helping people to feel better and so we actually differentiated ourselves we did we didn’t know how the grocery industry worked none of us had an experience in it so we kind of reinvented the wheel in some instances but we were we didn’t we weren’t trapped in that industry think yeah you know I for me it’s uh uh you limit your own thinking

[00:06:00] when you when you’re too knowledgeable in an industry all right I mean I was there when Elon was um was starting SpaceX and he just came to it from two different emotional energies frustration about what was what existed and then passion about what could exist and I think that was probably true for you as well right I mean how I think the ingredients then are are really a vision and and frustration is that fair enough to say yeah I think though that you may be giving me too much credit uh in the sense that when I started the business with my girlfriend Renee we were so young I was 24 and Renee was 20 and we really initially we just wanted to sell we just wanted to have a natural food start wasn’t it was totally wrong we had it in a old Victorian house it wasn’t on a commercial road we lived in the store on the third floor took showers in the Hobart dishwasher and so we were just

[00:07:00] you know people said what why did you start it I thought and the answers are well I wanted to sell healthy food to people I wanted to earn a living and I wanted to have fun and so we did all three of those things and in some ways that’s still happening for Whole Foods today and so the the the dream you might say grew it wasn’t I didn’t have it initially I just wanted I Had a Little Dream and gradually the dream got bigger and bigger and bigger yeah you know um I was curious in reading your book about the fact that you you didn’t fulfill your parents’ dreams of going and getting you know these Advanced degrees and and such and you pursued your your passion and I know I had a not quite the same but I went to medical school but never practiced medicine and for like for like 20 years after that my mom was like when are you going to go and and actually go and practice medicine I like Mom I’m not going to go practice medicine I’m doing my space thing and

[00:08:00] you know for parents listening or for kids who are who are entrepreneurs at the beginning of their career and they’re struggling with that what’s your what’s your advice how how important is um is the education side versus if you found your purpose or passion early uh pursuing that well it’s a good question and I think in my case I’ve always been so passion I’m so curious and I’m I’m a I’m a biblo file I read incessantly uh once I get interested in something I absorb information on it quickly once I got interested in business I read hundreds of business books yeah and I asked a lot of questions I made mistakes and learned from them so if I hadn’t been interested in business and I was taking classes in it I wouldn’t have absorbed nearly as much information so I think that’s that’s partly overlooked I think in addition that um uh in this case I really felt um I

[00:09:01] had I didn’t get the advanced degree that my mother wanted me to do in particular or I didn’t even graduate I mean I have 120 hours of electives I just studied courses classes I was interested in but here’s Peter what I here’s what I believe I really believe in Joseph Campbell’s the heroes journey I love Joseph Campbell so do I and I think I think everyone’s called to a hero’s journey yes and and most of the time we don’t answer the call because of fear fear of failure fear that our parents will disapprove fear that uh our friends might reject us and so people play it safe in life like I I tell the story of one of my closest friends really wanted to be a writer but he was afraid he would you know live in an attic and fail so he became a lawyer he made a lot of money and he wasn’t happy he didn’t answer the call I think when you answer that Hero’s Journey’s call then you’re on your own path to purpose meaning

[00:10:00] um and so that’s what I wanted to do the hell if my mother didn’t want me to do it it wasn’t her life she could do what she wanted to do you figured that out earlier than I did I had to actually get my diploma and ship it to my parents before I figured that out um but uh you know when when do you think I I think that’s one of the most important things that any entrepreneur can hear is when you hear that calling uh go for it right and there’s some incredible uh elements in in uh in in Campbell’s work one of them I remember is like you know uh pursue it as if a man whose hair is on fire pursues water I love that that phrase you know and there’s an an Indian Parable you’ll come across a uh a a a a Gulch you know jump it’s not as far as as you as you seem as it seems how you know talk about answering that Journey does a person actually know when they have it when when they’ve heard the calling I didn’t know I’d had

[00:11:02] the calling for that until I looked back R until I read Joseph Campbell many years later and then I thought hey that’s what I’ve been doing I’ve been on a hero’s journey and didn’t know it so um but I i’ in my own opinion one of the ways you can know if you’re on your hero’s journey is how much Vitality do you have how much passion do you have how happy are you because when you’re fulfilling your purpose every day you feel great every day you’re excited it’s not that you don’t fail sometimes or make mistakes they’re setbacks every hero’s journey has trials and tribulations that need to be overcome or it really wouldn’t be a hero’s journey right you have to overcome the obstacles but it’s an adventure and Adventures call forth the best that we have within us to answer that call to answer the adventure and um you know you’re on it because you’re excited every day you get up and you just can’t wait to get going amen so I talk about having a massive transformative purpose that wakes you up in the morning keeps you going through the today right it’s your my favorite

[00:12:01] quote is uh is Mark Twain who said There are two important days in your life the day you were born the day you found out why and did Twain originate that I I we quoted him in conscious C quoted somebody else in conscious capitalism but Twain was he’s older so maybe he should get yeah I I I’m pretty sure it’s him uh so you know I think measuring your own level of excitement like are you what are you talking about what are you reading what are you watching where does your where do your feet take you is a way of discovering that I would assume I I think so I mean well you know you’re on your path when you’re excited and you’re full of energy and vitality and you just cannot wait to get on with it entrepreneurs by the way tend to be very future focused we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the past or going over our mistakes other than to say well I made that mistake I’m not going to make it again yeah uh we’re we’re about creating the future we’re all into about what we’re creating you know the story quote about Picasso someone asked Picasso once what his F his favorite

[00:13:00] painting was and he said the one I’m working on right now yeah my next one and that and that speaks for Creative people right it’s not what they’ve done in the past it’s what they’re doing now that gets them excited and energized yeah for sure so what’s got you energized and going now so you’re on your next you know your next creative Journey you’re on your next startup uh let’s talk about that um and if you don’t mind you know pick me up you exit Amazon and then are you like hanging out doing nothing or did were you pregnant with this idea I started i’ already started on this idea before I left as as an entrepreneur should what I was what I was hoping I could work out I was hoping that uh I loved Whole Foods I mean I I did it for 44 years I I I got pretty by then I might have stayed there and I just I thought I could bring my M my Capital my wisdom my leadership to life but I thought I could juggle both balls

[00:14:01] and what became increasingly clear is that I had in order to really I had to let go of Whole Foods to really do love life to get all in I was trying to be in trying to do both and it was it I I was not doing good enough in either one so um the answer was in some ways I’ve been thinking about love life most of my adult life I’ve been excited about this idea in the book I talk about way back in 1985 we almost did a smaller version what called Life Works I really I really believe in in um the human potential movement I really believe in uh that humans are capable of evolving and growing and becoming the best version of ourselves and that’s really what love life’s about helping people become the best version of themselves so let’s define it and again what I’d like to do uh because we have a lot of entrepreneurs listening who are in the midst of starting their companies or growing their companies and you’ve had an Incredible 4 4 year

[00:15:00] University at Whole Foods and presumably you’re bringing all of your experience and learnings to this new startup so let’s talk about how you did that and what you’re doing there so what was the the sort of the seed Crystal um that ignited that what was the what was the founding principle around it about for love life yeah you know I think I think um the founding principle has been that uh I just believe we’re we’re on a journey we’re on a Continuum that each one of us can be healthier than we are each one of us can be more conscious than we are each of us can have higher degrees of emotional and spiritual intelligence we have this Limitless capacity for growth and yet most people uh settle they they they don’t uh they don’t continue on it they don’t know how to so that the but

[00:16:00] I’ve been growing myself my entire adult life and and part of the what I try to do in the book the whole story is talk about with all candidness how many mistakes I made what I didn’t know when I was younger what I’ve learned how I grew because I really wanted PE and I’m still learning and I’m still growing the seed of that in some ways is this is what like any good entrepreneur this is this whole topic is something I’m very passionate about I’m very passionate about people being as healthy as they possibly can I’m very passionate about people getting more emotional intelligence higher degrees of spiritual uh realizations and love life aims to do all those things we’re we’re on the surface it looks like we’re you know we’re going to have let’s talk about the components we have a healthy restaurant um we have a state-of-the-art fitness center it’s a gym so we have yoga studio we have Pilates we have uh we’re going to do all kinds of Wellness from Physical Therapy Room to um uh personal

[00:17:02] trainers to we’re going to do everything we can to help to help people to be physically healthy as possible um we’ll have all these recovery modalities so we have a spa so we the spa will have massage and facials not a not a medical spa you can’t do Botox uh then we have um lots of recovery modalities from cold plunges to cryotherapy to red light therapy infrared saas to um uh Steam and uh uh regular saas then we have um we play we have three pickle ball courts you have 3 this is an old it’s big it’s 45,000 square feet used to be used to be a best the multiple centers at different locations very much like a Whole Foods model grow it that’s what I hope we we know real estate we know how to build a chain we know how to operate a large spread out company this is so I’m taking

[00:18:01] all that lot knowledge and wisdom and I’ve got a lot of my old Whole Foods team working with me on it that have retired from from Whole Foods in Amazon and then the most important part though Peter is the medical center so we’re starting out with two medical doctors nurse practitioner and wellness uh coaches so the idea being similar to some of the work that you’re doing is first we got to test people it’s you you you’ve got to know your Baseline if you’re going to improve on it so most most people have no idea and then we have got a good app and so one of the problems most people when they go to see a doctor and they do blood test or they do some other kind of testing it stays in the doctor’s files and they lose track of it in this case this is information is going to be on their on our platform that they can access whenever they want they can give the doctor uh authority to access it and possibly their wellness coach so once we get your Baseline established then we can take them in different in different directions depending on what they want to so let’s say that they’re an aging

[00:19:00] baby boomer like I am I’m going to be interested in our longevity program I want to extend my health span and my lifespan if you ever if you ask people would you like to live to be 100 most people say no I don’t think so because they think of somebody as 100 as being like with dementia sure and and I usually ask them do you want to live to 150 and they and they say no but but um but uh how old do you want to live John I want to live as long I I have I want to live as long as I possibly can uh while maintaining a high degree of mental and physical uh Wellness so I I’m I’m not going to put a I Believe In The Singularity that we’re gaining uh longevity so it’s possible that uh I’ll spend all eternity at age 100 you and I on the same page there then you know I I used to I used to set a goal ridiculous goal of 700 years

[00:20:00] because I had heard that sea turtles could live live that long and then you know and people of course dismiss and it’s laughable and such but you know a lot of people say I want to live to 100 120 150 and the realization was what I really want to do is live till what I call you know longevity escape velocity live to that point where you can live as long as science is continuing to extend your your health span and uh it’s an exciting time I think this is one of the most exciting times s to be in this in this I don’t call it a business I’ll call it into this in this domain and it’s the greatest gift you can give anybody right I mean health is the New Wealth I agree and it’s something people take for granted and it’s just it’s unfortunate and and and partly I think they take it for granted because a lot of people don’t think they can do anything about it and they’re not willing to put in the extra work everybody’s got sort of like uh all my dad and my granddad D died at this age so that’s how long I have and I think

[00:21:02] that’s just a false premise and and that you can you can modify that okay so you’re you’ve been you’ve been cooking this for a while it’s been a passion play for some time uh but there was a point at which you transitioned was it when you to focus on that and this was after you exited Amazon yes correct that’s when I really I was focused on it before then but that’s when I really went all in are you playing the CEO role here in this one I am the CEO all right good that’s good to know I me by the way I think anybody who’s an you know entrepreneur and a baby boomer I mean I’m on my 25th or 26th company and I plan to keep going for the next 50 years I mean I love building businesses it’s a creative art form what’s more fun than that I haven’t found it nothing it’s it’s extraordinary and and by the way entrepreneurs are the individuals who find and solve problems and ultimately make the world a better

[00:22:01] place and I think I know your philosophy because I’ve heard it in my in my audio book by the way I enjoyed uh uh whole story as an audio book so for those who uh who are reading audio books definitely a fantastic my only regret on the audio book Peter is I only read the prologue I know when I was on that LSD trip and I wish i’ read the whole thing but I didn’t and I we’ll call that a minor regret but by the way I I found that a same experience uh I didn’t read my first book abundance and then when I listened to it I was like oh I don’t like the author’s voice the reader’s voice and so I read I’ve read my book since then um and your next one uh you you should read it yourself it’s not bad I mean I like the I I like your voice better but the other the person who reads the book is an excellent uh he’s the professional reader Adam bar he could do one thing I couldn’t do when because there as you know it reads kind of like a novel and we have a lot of dialogue in it he he got the other voices the accents down and way I never could

[00:23:00] have done that so that’s that’s the one plus for having him do the reading for sure for sure real quick I’ve been getting the most unusual compliments lately on my skin truth is I use a lotion every morning and every night religiously called one skin it was developed by four PhD women who determined a 10 amino acid sequence that is a cytic that kills scile cells in your skin and this literally revers versus the age of your skin and I think it’s one of the most incredible products I use it all the time uh if you’re interested check out the show notes I’ve asked my team to link to it below all right let’s get back to the episode um so when so you took the CEO role and that’s great um and I think by the way one of the best longevity Therapeutics in the world is being an entrepreneur and being a CEO and having those challenges and having to learn and having to get up and having that passion every day right I mean that’s what keeps you young yeah because you’re you’re

[00:24:01] basically telling your body hey you can’t get old because you know I have this purpose I have to fulfill so you got to stay with me baby yeah exactly if you ever want and I tell people uh who use the word retirement it’s a four-letter word is I Google the correlation between retirement and death it’s way too high it’s like an average like five years after retirement you die so just don’t ever retire um you did you co-found it did you bring it you brought in so talk about that who’ you bring in oh I co-founded it with some of my Whole Foods Markets uh executive team so the Walter Rob who was my co-ceo for seven years and president before then as a co-founder as is Betsy Foster she was a senior executive at Whole Foods for a long time and then I have those are the three designated co-founders because I started everything with them but I have other Executives at Whole Foods that were there at the beginning Glenda Flanigan who is my longtime Chief Financial off officer AC Gallow who was

[00:25:00] president uh and aming Jim Su did Real Estate so I kind of got the I got the old gang back together I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse I gave them I said I know you don’t want to work like you used to work so just I’m going to pay you this much per hour and you just work whenever you want to and then and then secondly uh I gave them a lot of stock options so that if if it hits they’ll get a good payday how do you think about choosing your co-founder so that’s a story I’m asked often okay like should I have a co-founder when I start my company what should be their attributes and I have a philosophy about it I’d love to hear yours well I don’t think about it quite the way most people do for me um the co-founders and I mean I always felt like I’m the Visionary it’s my ideas that are being actualized I just feel like I can share that co-founder title it’s it it makes a big difference to people they they when they have that title they have more commitment and more passion in in the business and so um I I

[00:26:01] feel like you can be somewhat generous with it by the way that’s a that’s a really good point psychologically someone who feels you know they’re not going to say I’m the SVP of this or the director of that but if they say I’m a co-founder with John Mackey or whomever psychologically it’s a lot more responsibility and you care more about it and it cost you nothing to give the co-founder role away exactly costs nothing but increases commit and morale tremendously and you know I I my mental image and tell me if it’s yours is the people that you start this with you’re going to spend more time with them than you do other members of your family or your other close friends because it is a you’re jumping in the deep end and it’s 247 experience so I assume I assume people that you like and like to hang out with oh yeah is important it is I mean uh one of the reasons I stayed so long

[00:27:02] at Whole Foods for 44 years was I was doing it with people that we shared we shared the setbacks and the failures and we shared the triumphs and the gains and that creates a sort of bonding that maybe like a marine has when they go into combat together they bond with their fellow Marines and and and of course we’re not actually killing people when it’s not life and death however there’s some intense times you go through have you ever heard the saying what one there two emotions that all entrepreneurs have U at one time or another which is complete ecstasy and utter Terror yeah yes for sure for sure um and and it’s and it’s true I mean it’s as soon as things get comfortable you stretch yourself to the point of like uh you know breaking and as soon as get things get anyway it’s just a OS constant oscillation hopefully up and to the right on on the way and and and you tell the story in in the whole story

[00:28:01] about the 100-year flood that took out took out took out your your massive store I mean talk about just uh overcoming disaster I mean you you think you made it everything’s going amazing then and then nature comes at you you know so Peter one of the reasons I actually I’m so glad I wrote the whole story because as an entrepreneur who’s very future oriented I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the past yes but but you know what when you I almost recommend everybody write a memoir because looking backwards you start to see threads continue through your life I didn’t even make the Life Works love life connection until I started working on the book and I thought oh my God this is this is life works I’m bringing into actualization 39 years later after I abandoned the idea and and so looking backwards you begin to see things you see patterns you see um uh things you didn’t see before and it’s a gift that

[00:29:01] you give to your children and your grandchildren and other descendants agreed honestly um you recognize your own resilience yes uh that’s that’s exactly correct that’s that’s thank you for bringing me back to the topic that’s one of the things I recognized oh my God I had all of the I had four coup attempts I had the flood I had I had I had all of these big challenges that went on and I managed to survive all of them and and I I know even in doing some podcasts people would ask me it’s likewell how do you do that and I thought well I guess I just have a lot of resilience I’m not a quitter it’s like a setback is not a a setback is an opportunity to think about okay I’ve made a mistake here what is the lesson here that I can learn how can I be better going forward how can I avoid this in the future so I actually reframed any kind of setback as an opportunity to make me better and growth so so important right not not easily discouraged and I think one of the

[00:30:01] lessons is if you don’t love what you’re doing if it’s not your highest calling if you’re not on a hero’s journey then you’re going to give up when you hit those bumps wow good good point I never thought about that before you’re exactly right the times you know another you know learning I’ve had a few times in my life just I think twice I went after something because I thought it was a get-rich quick scheme good opportunity uh yeah and and it was the closer I start investing time investing time and the closer it got the more I realized this is not easy this is hard and I don’t care about it so I’m going to quit yeah and so everything looks easy from a distance and unless you love it when you you know and when you get into en close and building you’re going to give up and so it really needs to be your highest calling your massive transformative purpose your hero’s journey whatever it is and if it’s not find what that is and go do that yes yeah you know that that’s

[00:31:03] a takeaway for me from our conversation I’m not going to forget that that’s very important Insight thank you thank you pal so take me back to so you pick your co-founders you have a general idea what do you do next I I really want to dissect this for uh for entrepreneurs uh wanting to learn from you uh did you go heads down writing a business plan did you start go pitching it around how did putting meat on the bones and making this real well um I did write a business plan uh how important is a business plan A business plan is is is valuable because it helps you think through the business in a more systemic way um and you have to answer the important questions entrepreneurs have a tendency to be a little bit flippant it’s like I don’t worry about that we’ll deal with yes we’ll deal with it when we get there and while sometimes that’s very very healthy and you need that kind of

[00:32:00] energy to to do a startup you also need you also need the people that are that are more careful thinking about what about this and what about that you just can’t blow it all off or you your your dream may creater before you’ve actually gotten it’s like Elon Musk might have take SpaceX he might have a vision about Rockets but you know what he has to bring a lot of people on the team that uh that lessen the chance of the Rockets blowing up although Elon always gets excited when a rocket blows up because it’s like great we’re not going to do that again but that’s expens it’s expensive it’s expensive to blow up Rockets you don’t want to do it just as a matter of course yeah uh similarly I think that the business plan does help us think through the business in a more detailed way I’ve got I own about 60% of love life I I put in 60% of the capital and friends and family and acquaintances have put in the other 40% at this point I’ve got more dry powder so so you could so so let’s talk about that you could have funded the whole thing yourself but

[00:33:00] you brought you allowed others to invest um how important was is that for someone as an entrepreneur so that’s such a great question because there’s a lot of different ways to answer that question so one of the things that I learned from doing Whole Foods was I I tell I said in the book that when we did our IPO 14 years we started saferway in 78 and IPO Whole Foods in early 1992 so 14 years in those 14 years no one ever got a nickel back for their investment in the company yeah and by going public I felt like you know what everybody that believed in me and believed in our Dream they’re they’re getting they can they can stay in now if they want to or they can take a m a massive payday and most just sold some stock kind of got their Annie out you might say but then realized much bigger gains down the road amazing well I think it’s by letting other people invest I two interesting things happen one is I feel an to them it’s like can’t let this

[00:34:00] thing fail it’s one thing for my own money to fail but now I have friends and people who believe in me again who want me to deliver and so I that’s going to get A Better Effort out of me honestly let me let me double click on that because that is um you know sometimes sometimes you are forced to persist sometimes you persist because it’s your highest calling and because it’s intrinsic drivers but sometimes there’s a safety line that keeps you going like I don’t want to lose my mom or dad’s money or my friend’s money and you push even harder yeah and um and by the way you know every one of my Adventures that I consider a success was an overnight success after 11 years of hard work and uh and and dozens of your dir experiences and you would never never have gotten there had you given up there was so many times it was easy to give up oh my God I can’t go forward but that I don’t want to call it guilt

[00:35:00] but that sense of obligation yeah is another just another motivator to have you focus it’s all about focus and energy and passion right there’s a second there’s a second uh other reason is that by letting my friends invest not only the first thing that I now feel like I can’t let them down but when the business is financially successful I don’t want them coming to me and saying why the didn’t you let me in on this deal that’s a good one I like that um so you you capitalized it initially um 6040 that’s great um uh talk about hiring what have you learned about hiring H who are your first hires how do you think about hiring how many people do you have on board now um well um one thing I’m going to tell you about hiring I’m not very good at it that’s not one of my superpowers okay and so what I’ve

[00:36:02] learned you know why and I’ll tell you why because it comes into having one of my superpowers I really believe in people I see the best in people I see their potential now that’s good because people don’t want to let me down because John Believes In Me and they really want to give me their very best effort but on the other hand I often times don’t see the shadow side in them I don’t see the self-destructive uh but so I somewhat I’ve learned to count on other people one of I learned in Whole Foods we did a lot of group interviews and I always say you can always one person but it’s hard to a whole group um because other people look at it from different perspectives so knowing that I’m not that great at hiring I tend not to make important hiring decisions without having other people that I think are very good at that in the room with me and we talk about it and and so that’s the thing I’ll say about that but I just I just got off a zoom interview for a hire and you know it’s interesting

[00:37:00] to think about uh can you hire someone on Zoom um the in-person cues are so much richer right so I think you have to ultimately meet the person um but I’ve been you know I don’t trust myself like you on a one-on-one interview so I really what I’ve started to do is have at least two other people on the zoom with me and then after the three of us have a conversation how did we how did we feel I know um a friend of mine who used to be Chief product officer at uh at Amazon uh talked about I don’t know if it’s true when when you were there that Amazon had something called a bar raiser um so in the in the hiring function there were individuals in the organization who represented the best in the organization and so those individuals were were were uh nominated as bar raisers and there had to be one bar raiser in every um in every interview decision and they

[00:38:02] had the ability to ni somebody uh against everybody else in other words you’re you’re trying to you know it’s the notion that uh a players you know uh hire a players and B players hire C players yeah that Steve Steve Jobs said that yeah and and it’s it’s true the very the very the very best uh but so who were the first hires you started going after here what kind of position the first people I hired were all the Whole Foods people yeah uh and then so now love life’s done a few Acquisitions so we bought a we bought a restaurant in Miami so where you opening up first by the way uh in the LA oh okay so right near me where we in La El Segundo okay okay our grand opening Peter is going to be on August 10th we’re actually open now but it’s it’s a soft opening we’re not not we haven’t publicized it we just open our doors because that way we we

[00:39:01] can work it’s a complex business model and I didn’t even I didn’t even get all way done with the medical by the way I I’m looking forward to learning more because I’m in the business a little bit figure out how we how we play together can I buy you a coffee when you come to town yeah I’ll be back I’ll be there coming in on the 9th I’ll buy you coffee at my place I’ll give you a tour but uh I’ll be there I come on the 9th and I’ll be there through the 11th that weekend awes basically I was just there for a couple of weeks but I came back last Friday oh so congrats so anyway uh soft open to work out the books on that medical thing to just finish that what we were talking about before so so One path would be uh a longevity path if you’re for physical health secondly if we do the work and we find out or people may already know it if people need to reverse the thing one of the things our medical system does a very poor job of is actually curing people uh that the diseases that kill people to are chronic diseases and they are they’re so heart

[00:40:00] disease has been the leading killer since about 1900 the infectious diseases covid being a sort of a a notable but temporary exception um an outlier for things like uh pneumonia and influenza and things like that that were leading Killers a 100 years ago are way way down in terms of the number of people that die from them so you got heart disease first you got cancer second ironically you’ve got doctors are the third leading cause of death it is so sad yeah exactly iatrogenic death exactly but then you’ve got stroke you got type two diabetes and but it takes a while before you get down to any kind of infectious disease so these are lifestyle dietary diseases that are killing people so the the first thing is is if people have a chronic disease like obesity like type 2 diabetes like heart disease and like most autoimmune diseases we can help them reverse those diseases

[00:41:00] so healing people is one of the functions or one of the path people can go down thirdly thirdly we’re going to appeal to young people and that we’re going to call a maximum performers we can take people on a journey to get into Maxim get their maximum to do the burn to get absolutely as fit as they can their V2 Max to get the to to to do the personal trainer to do the the weight to do the serious weight stuff and the endurance and really get them as fit and healthy as possible uh and then we have a Cony arge program so that people can be all in uh so those are the way they can do in the medical so the doctors are trained in functional medicine integrative medicine and lifestyle medicine perfect so they can do Primary Health Care but but the the whole idea of their primary job is going to be to help people whichever path they want to go down and help support them we’re starting with two doctors and hopefully we’ll grow to more uh fairly quickly but we have two to start amazing um what 10

[00:42:01] years from now in success how many uh love life centers are there in the on planet uh you know it’s funny people always ask me the 10e question and uh uh I always try I always quote back Yogi Vera which is U it’s it’s it’s very difficult to make predictions especially about the future you’ve heard that one before but here’s the thing I if I get asked that question by journalists all the time about know what’s the world going to be like in 10 years and I say well it’s really hard to say because if you go back you know 10 or 15 years ago uh people weren’t using smartphones we didn’t know about AI if you go back 20 years ago the internet was just getting going we didn’t really have most people weren’t online and if they were there on AOL you know dialup modems so new things are always emerging right AI is the latest big thing to emerge and it’s you know the whole it just came into people’s Consciousness a few years ago so the thing that’s underrated by people is new emergence new emergence is always

[00:43:01] occurring we’re and and so when you make a prediction about the future you’re predicting a static world without the changes but the the reality is I don’t think we’ll have that many units 10 years from now Peter because um a we have to learn we’re going to have to be in dialogue with our with our members about what works and what doesn’t work secondly finding real estate is difficult it takes a long time to find a great location and then you have to build it out out it designed it and build it out and that takes a while so I’ll I’ll I’ll go out in the limb and say something like 10 years from now we’ll have 10 to 15 units but 20 years from now we’ll have 100 nice interesting and of course you’re into you’re into exponential growth I am and and and so am I and so the the exponential part kicks in once you get a once you really don’t scale a business model that doesn’t work uh get your business model down first then begin to grow it and then once you take in once you really

[00:44:00] have it you take in massive and you proven it you take in large amounts of capital and you exponentially grow it as quickly as you can I love that and that’s really important right and and by the way you lay that out beautifully in the book right where where you were sort of uh experimenting and trying and turning and and then finally you know when when Whole Foods Market hit um you’re able to to grow how many stores in the final result were there there is no final result but when I left there were 500 there was 540 when I retired all right that’s uh that’s that’s what I meant um you know one of the things I I think a lot about and I write about this my books I call the 6ds of exponentials um I don’t know if you’ve encountered them right when you digitize something in the early days it’s deceptively slow then uh you dematerialize demonetize democratize and then it disrupts things so one of the questions of course I

[00:45:00] think about in my longevity companies and business is how do you fully dematerialize and digitize this because at the end of the day that’s where you get real true exponential growth um though there are some things that you know bricks and mortar and physical elements are are important let May point out a couple things to you to to I I agree with what you said but but here’s what I’ve learned that contradicts a little bit what you’re saying for scaling what you want to do um most people can’t change very easily most people need handholding most people need a community there’s a reason why a AA has been more effective than most other therapies for addictions because you have a community of support it’s very difficult for people to change the way they eat it’s very difficult habits do not change easily and you have all these enablers of bad habits it’s called your family and your friends and so it’s been

[00:46:01] my experience like we had a program in Whole Foods by the way this was one of the things that triggered me to do this so let me go back I just thought of it well we started something in Whole Foods about um about 15 years ago we called the total health immersion and so we’re self-insured so we’re paying all the health care costs there might be a a reinsurer that kicks in you know above a million dollars or something like that but but in general we’re paying it all and and so and what we discovered was about 10% of our team members would spend 90% of our Healthcare dollars so if you target the T some of that can’t be help somebody does get automobile accident or a motorcycle accident has a premature birth or maybe gets cancer by that time it’s too late yeah um and you can’t do anything about those however the chronic diseases like heart disease obesity diabetes metabolic syndrome exactly these things are all targetable and so what we did was we created a total health immersion we did four a

[00:47:01] year around different places around the country you had to um you had to sign up for it we was free to the team members we pay all their cost and increasingly we started paying for their spouse to come as well because without the spouse meaningful change wouldn’t occur and so we did we did that and you know what I discovered that if people would even within one week the human body is so resilient if people will just change their diet and eat real Whole Foods for a week yeah they all their Biometrics begin in Decline the cholesterol begins to go down their blood pressure begins to go down they start feeling better uh and so and then if they stay on the program and and we saw so many people lose over a 100 pounds in a year or less and but here’s what happens uh recidivism is high if you don’t have a community of support it’s all about it’s all about your community it’s all about change and habits don’t change unless you’ve got the reinforcement mechanisms

[00:48:00] around you yeah so I can’t scale I cannot scale love life the way you could scale uh a dig purely digital business U however in the long run or actually we’ll create the communities that you’re going to send people to uh that want to what’s your price point going to be at at uh at love life I I’m not going to tell you that because I can’t find out your price point without talking to a salesperson oh I I’ll tell my price point so so but it’s a different it’s a different level right I do you have MRIs and CTS and dexa scans and all of that in the in your medical facility are you going that deep uh we’re not we have a dexa scan we’re going to uh we don’t have an MRI machine at this first one but we can we can contract out for some of those services but we’re going to do the we have FLOTUS we’re doing our but blood draws uh so we’re not going to go quite as deep as you do but pretty deep I mean the genetics the genetics is pretty is pretty powerful as a learning tool well I think we’re going to end up as partners versus competitors so I love

[00:49:02] that I I I I believe in the win-win-win relationships I I know you do and as as do I um because the reality is so at Fountain you know we people come and do a a full body upload right we digitize you um 150 gigabytes of data it’s a full body MRI brain brain vascular Jer coronary CT with AI overlay for soft plaque a lowd dose lung SE ctexas scan genomics metabolomics everything possible to answer a question is there anything going on inside you you need to know about like right now and what’s likely to happen to you and how do we prevent that all of that’s great you get a concierge medical team to follow through the year but what you’re doing as well is the meat and potatoes the fundamental elements right it’s what I do for myself in terms of um you know food diet exercise sleep all of those things are like the most important

[00:50:00] things to be doing right now you know yes but knowledge is not enough yes knowledge is not enough the support structure around you is critical that’s what that’s what I learned from the total health immersions is that the people that had a good support structure stayed with it never look back changed their lives forever most people didn’t have the support structure they had their food addictions particularly if they’re trying to overcome obesity they didn’t get obese the first day they were born they they ate their way to it and they got food addictions people are underestimating how powerful food addictions are it’s very hard for most people to quit and change they need they need support they they do and and so for example I I run at after my abundance 360 program and after my Platinum longevity trips I run a 22-day no sugar fast um on a WhatsApp group and people are in a community digitally for 22 days just to give them power over their their sugar addiction which is a hugely

[00:51:01] powerful addiction um but I can imagine having a physical you know location and a coach and a community around you is even that much more so so we do a few things online right now just tell you what we’re doing online uh we acquired two businesses so we now have a tella Health business called love life teleah health and uh we we’re licensed in all 50 states to practice medicine and I think in 20 in 23 we did business in 47 of the states plus a lot of foreign countries so we have that digital reach and I think as we grow our brand that the tellah health business will will will grow will that might even scale faster as we get the branding out there we also have an online coaching business for diabetes and weight loss type two diabetes and weight L uh called mastering diabetes and mastering weight loss we acquired that business from a couple of entrepreneurs that I know that wrote a great book called mastering diabetes and I see us opening up online coaching businesses for heart disease

[00:52:02] for autoimmune diseases for cancer for a variety of different things and they get they get medical attention and if we we will be flying people in to or having people fly in for seminars and things like that then once we you do the same thing you send people to um uh Fountain life Gatherings from longevity and whatnot and then and then uh and then they have the relationship with the doctors on an ongoing basis we see see doing something similar to that everybody I want to take a short break from our episode to talk about a company that’s very important to me and could actually save your life or the life of someone that you love company is called Fountain life and it’s a company I started years ago with Tony Robbins and a group of very talented Physicians you know most of us don’t actually know what’s going on inside our body we’re all optimists until that day when you have a pain in your side you go to the physician or the emergency room and they

[00:53:00] say listen I’m sorry to tell you this but you have this stage three or four going on and you know it didn’t start that morning it probably was a problem that’s been going on for some time but because we never look we don’t find out so what we built at Fountain life was the world’s most advanced diagnostic Centers we have four across the us today and we’re building 20 around the world these centers give you a full body MRI a brain a brain vasculature an AI enabled coronary CT looking for soft plaque dexa scan a Grail blood cancer test a full executive blood workup it’s the most advanced workup you’ll ever receive 150 gigabytes of data that then go to our AIS and our physicians to find any disease at the very beginning when it’s solvable you’re going to find out eventually might as well find out when you can take action Fountain life also has an entire side of Therapeutics we look around the world for the most

[00:54:00] Advanced Therapeutics that can add 10 20 healthy years to your life and we provide them to you at our centers so if this is of interest to you please go and check it out go to Fountain life.com Peter when Tony and I wrote Our New York Times bestseller life force we had 30,000 people reached out to us for Fountain life memberships if you go to Fountain life.com back/ Peter will put you to the top of the list really it’s something that is um for me one of the most important things I offer my entire family the CEOs of my companies my friends it’s a chance to really add decades onto our healthy lifespans go to fountainlife decomp it’s one of the most important things I can offer to you as one of my listeners all right let’s go back to our episode talk about what your biggest challenges concerns we’re getting going in this business so you’re entering as a

[00:55:01] as a seasoned entrepreneur CEO you’ve got the capital which a lot of entrepreneurs don’t necessarily have at the beginning but what were you where were any doubts or what were your challenges or what are your challenges yeah going to say we don’t we’re we’ll know a lot more to answer that question about a year from now but I going into it I think the biggest challenge is um when when do most people go see a doctor when it’s too late exactly when they’re sick so we’re trying to change that by having a the whole idea of the doctor is see the doctor so you don’t have to see a doctor right that the doctor’s job is to not give you drugs for when to manage symptoms but to help you never get these chronic diseases in the first place and so but that’s a that’s a disruption that’s a different way of thinking about it how many times if I had a dollar for every time people ask me will insurance cover what you’re doing well it cover the membership and the answer is no it will not cover the membership I mean it

[00:56:00] won’t cover the if you go see a chiropractor maybe insurance will cover some of that but so much medical that’s preventative or or uh helping people to avoid diseases is not covered what’s because the pharmaceutical and medical device and the and the hospital Industries are you know th those are the gargantuan businesses that that that regulatory capture they’re setting the rules in a lot of ways so insurance will not cover it and that’s a change in thinking they can get a super Bill and some of the testing will be covered but we’re not going to be taking their insurance uh in and trying to get collect payments that’s different that’s what I’m concerned about more than anything else you know um I any any advice there well I I think people need I mean people need to realize it is the cheapest money they’re going to spend exactly and it’s and it’s you’re going to spend the money eventually right uh and you’re going to find out about your sickness eventually when do you want to know you know I think th those those are

[00:57:01] the um those are the bullets for me that are are are critical you know the numbers in the US are dismal in terms of current Health Care Systems right it’s just insane Peter do you know about this um company that started up in Sweden by the founder of um Spotify Daniel e that does it’s a full body scan that’s that that’s similar to what you’re doing but it’s very inexpensive and they’re they’re they’ve got three in Stockholm and they’re opening another one up in London I think maybe have opened already this summer I I’m gonna try to go get a scan there myself uh next time I’m in Europe in in uh October I’m G to go to London and get a scan there because I’ve talked with those guys and I mean they I think they charge I think they get the complete Scan they do a blood test they give all the results back to you um within the hour that you’re there and

[00:58:01] then you meet with a doctor for 30 minutes to go over your results and so I think the total cost is like $750 which is I have seen I have seen that and it’s um you know the question becomes ultimately I know the numbers on um on all of these areas so I’m having a hard time uh you know even the capex expense on the MRI machine machine and the doctor sure you can get you can get lower price per the hour doctor but it’s going to be interesting to see if you actually when you decipher it uh how how real is it for us Marketplace well I talked to those guys and it was pretty interesting that they have a very high um uh uh people sign up it’s they got a they got a three-year waiting list in Stockholm so it’s probably worth uh checking it out a little bit I thought those guys were interesting when I talked to them what fears do you have uh right now

[00:59:02] in in getting going I mean an entrepreneur is got Vision uh but is always sort of um really aware of the of the the challenges and the unknown areas how do you think about that for yourself well uh I think one of the challenges we’ve got is if you think every every blessing has a a shadow side to it and the fact that I have a lot of capital and I and I’ve been able to invested that’s a good thing the shadow side is people are are not as Frugal as they should be with capital if you’re if you’re a scrappy startup like we were in the early days of Whole Foods where every dollar is precious you don’t waste it and I feel like I feel like I’ve got my team which is sp kind of seasoned Executives at Whole Foods but they’re used to spending more money and so they’re not they’re not as Frugal as a startup should be that’s one of our

[01:00:00] challenges I think that’s really an important Insight uh I’ve had a few companies I had one company I won’t mention the name of it um I came in as a co-founder and vice chairman uh someone else took on the role of CEO who was a great scientist but not a great CEO and plowed through cash yeah just and and was able to raise money on my reputation his reputation and there’s a point at which when you have too much money um you buy Solutions uh versus innovating Solutions yes yes that’s I had thought about that but that’s true or you look for the easy path but mostly it’s a state of mind it’s an attitude and um I’m a little worried that that um love life is not Scrappy enough yeah um I can but I intend to I intend to change that well I’m I’m sure I’m sure you can I’m sure you will um how do you

[01:01:02] think about Marketing in an organization how do you think about you know sort of creating a a brand um I mean that was an interesting Journey you went through in naming in naming Whole Foods and in in building a meaningful brand uh how important is that for an entrepreneurial CEO to be thinking about it’s extremely important because all the great Brands if you think about any great brand they didn’t build it through advertising brands are built through two things one you have to have they’re built by Word of Mouth by very very satisfied customers who go spread it yes that’s first and secondly they’re built by good public relations in in other words PR builds Brands advertising comes along later when you no longer have an interesting story advertising comes along to support the brand but the brand itself is going to be built through

[01:02:00] excited you want customers that are your biggest marketers because they tell everybody about it you need rabid fanatical fans in other words a really good brand is a cult yes look at Apple people line up at the Apple Stores when they’re going to issue a new iPhone because they want to get the latest iPhone that’s what you want your brand to have fanatical advocates for your brand that love you that love what you’re doing believe in your mission that are aligned with you yeah look at the Harley-Davidson what a you know I mean uh that’s a great brand that’s an iconic brand uh that was built and then you know I mean how often do you see television commercials for Harley-Davidson they don’t need to they do they do other they promote in other ways yeah John in this day of uh of digital employment of uh you know virtual offices uh how where do you come out on that um do you find do you miss the days of having everybody in the same office and the energy of being

[01:03:01] collocated and and working or have you allowed uh love life to go fully virtualized no I mean uh when you and you read my book I that was my ultimately that led my departure from Amazon a big fight about that because I I wanted to bring people back to my office and Amazon said it was too early and we had a big argument about it and that’s was that sort of was the Catalyst for my departure but um let’s it’s it’s got pros and cons right there’s it’s it’s wonderful that people can um stay connected wherever they are that’s just so wonderful that’s something we haven’t had before but I don’t think you can build a really healthy culture strictly from remote people do not have the same kind of commitment they’re not uh they’re not all in uh that’s been my experience so I think I think the hybrid model is the way to go you have to fure figure out a way to to bring the band together frequently for the relationships to be established and

[01:04:02] nurtured and grown trust you know you were talking about you didn’t like to hire just from a just from a zoom interview because you can’t get all the cues well all those cues are important for building trust I mean that how can you tell somebody has Integrity or not if you don’t work with them and see them on a day-to-day basis the things they might say at a meeting or in lunch or U just when you pop by the office and you’re talking all of that stuff is instrumental for building relations and there’s no substitute for it did you go out to venture markets for this first um financing or did you keep it with friends and family and yeah but some of my friends some of I some of my friends are in the Venture business so I did get a little bit of exure money but I did not send out that business plan what’s your what’s your um what’s your advice for entrepreneurs on you know where to get their early Capital um I just did a whole course on fund your purpose um and I’m opinionate about this but so

[01:05:00] am I is you in my book uh I talk about the VCS I have a whole chapter on the remember and and uh they are I call them hitchhikers with credit cards as long as you help them get to where they want to get to they will help pay for the gas but if you get if you wander off and you’re not following the path they will try to hijack The Car hire a new driver generally from Harvard or Wharton or Stanford and throw you out on the side of the road so uh I I think my advice always to entrepreneurs is it’s the exact opposite of what the VCS tell them which is don’t wor just grow sales don’t worry about your Investments they’re all trying to exponentially grow and that’s that’s because that’s very much in the VC they’ve got their seven-year window for their money and they live on a blockbuster model if you get a a hit that really that that can pay for all your failures so they’re willing to tolerate a high failure rate in order to

[01:06:02] get uh so I think they try to scale these companies too quickly and the entrepreneurs lose control of it they they they bring in professional management they then they do cram down rounds I just I just find the VCS to be I always tell the entrepreneur these guys may seem like they really like you just remember they have their own agenda and it’s not aligned with you you have a longer term agenda than they do you love what you’re building it’s your mission it’s your purpose in life it’s everything for you so I I generally urge them pick their VCS carefully as I learned the hard way all money is not the same color and pick your VCS make sure they’re aligned with your strategy and and and and and if they’re not then don’t take their money because they’re going to try they’re going to try to change your business you will you will regret it I’ve had one time particular in my life where I took someone’s money because it was easy but we had a

[01:07:00] different philosophy in life and uh in and it came to haunt me terribly I had to buy them out at the end in order for the company to continue to uh to progress uh so Bezos famously in the earliest days of the company was just focused on Topline revenue and not profits and it was like his famous um uh investor letter that said listen I’m planning to grow this as rapidly as possible profits be damned and if you don’t like it Go invest someplace else summarization of the letter yeah how do you think about that what do you think about you know growing revenues over profits versus um some of the most extraordinary loving experience I’ve had in in business is actually building a profitable company from the beginning well um what what’s your philosophy on those two how do you think about that well I think that Jeff kind of made it

[01:08:00] acceptable for businesses to do that right because he he proved the naysayers wrong and there was a lot of Amazon Skeptics out there but Jeff um kept growing the business and he was able to he was so Evangelical and he was such a bright guy that he was able to sell the market on it at least enough in the market that believed it and guess what and he delivered at the end of the day right he he created he turned the do the knobs once you have enough customers and enough volume and enough everything that’s true in the digital world if you Facebook you can monetize at some point right so TW uh Twitter X similar thing so I uh bricks and more are not so easily to do that you have to you have to have a business model that works you and relatively uh relatively quickly so talk to me so do you do you you know I remember reading in the book right um You were clearly

[01:09:00] monitoring getting to profitability as soon as possible per store basis um is that still how you’re thinking about it yeah well for one thing um so our strategy is to make this first unit successful yes I want to get as much members as possible because you’re fixed overhead in a store that’s 45,000 Square ft your rent your utilities the labor that we have to pay for is all very high so if you don’t have the sales then that’s the end of the story but but but so this is a high fixed expense business the variable expenses are there with labor but relatively not not um they they also will scale as you grow sales so if we can grow sales then the bottom line will partly take care of itself so I do think we have to grow sales as rapidly as possible once we really get launch underway after August 10th and then after we do that if you if we build a successful model then it’s

[01:10:01] going to be easy for us to raise money at favorable terms I will raise money from venture capitalist in the next go around although another thing I might tell the I learned this the hard way um that I’ll tell other entrepreneurs is start your company from the very beginning with class B shares that have 10 to one voting rights uh at the end of the day the VCS are just hitchhikers they’re not going to stay from the long ride I love that line hitchhikers with credit cards it’s so true well so we started love life with the all the founding money that came in has been at a at the 10 to1 voting shares but when we go raise our public round after we’ve proven our business model Works it’ll be they’ll they’ll have class A shares with just one one vote per share you know it it is nice that you have the capital to tell someone to hit take a hike if they don’t like it um I have a lot of you money it’s true know is great that is exactly the right term for it um you know it’s it’s uh it’s interesting John I I knew Bezos from college um I had

[01:11:03] started I was an MIT and started uh something called students for exploration and development space and um grew it from this was my first entrepreneurial experience in my in my fraternity as a sophomore I start this college group at MIT and then I write some letters and I hit a nerve and all of a sudden we have a 100 chapters around the world and uh Jeff was a president of the prince chapter so I knew him as a space cadet during my college Years where were you I was in MIT at the time okay MIT so you’re that’s not too far from Princeton but it was you know this is pre- internet so all the communications are over mail right and we have a a confer annual conference in Washington DC and so I did not see him until God knows a couple of decades later in the in the mid late 90s this is after Amazon has started and so I have a coffee with him um at a coffee shop and I’m like uh uh

[01:12:02] Jeff what what’s up with uh this Amazon business I thought you wanted to do space and he goes I’m going to do this first make the money and then go spend it in space you know yeah but you know what’s interesting about Bezos in this example though Peter is that he goes against typ as an entrepreneur right he’s not he’s not like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Michael Dell or Elon Musk that start he started later he was on Wall Street he was in the financial markets and and uh but he has an entrepreneurial temperament I can tell you that so but he didn’t probably start Amazon till he was in his 30s right early 30s yeah sure that’s that’s a little bit unusual it it is but I just want to be clear I think you can be an entrepreneur at any age it is you entrepreneurs usually can’t wait true true I mean but there is okay listen I’m on my 26th act I think you’re on you know some variation of I’m

[01:13:01] on act two I think your act one had a lot of sub acts in it but uh um nonetheless uh it was it was just it was interesting um uh I won’t go into it I I keep on every time I see Jeff I nudge him about why blue origin the space company is hasn’t launched to orbit yet that that that’s that’s the source spot he’s got that rivalry with Elon my God he does and I think part of it is uh he’s not running it that’s a good point I think he is you know he’s funding it but he’s not running it the funny thing about Elon is how many businesses can that guy run as a CEO he’s he’s he’s he’s disrupting the way we think about uh uh one-pointed Focus he’s able to juggle a lot of different businesses oh it’s it’s crazy I it was a point I remember in 2008 he was on my board at at the x prise foundation and um it was great he funded an ex prize for us early on on Global Learning

[01:14:00] and he since funded a$1 million prize for carbon extraction from the atmosphere in oceans which has been going great but um I got a call from one day saying Peter I really I apologize I have to I have to step off the board I’ve got to focus on SpaceX and Tesla and so I’m stepping off of everything and of course every he did that for like a year and now he’s got a 27 D different directions with uh all that he’s doing and thank God I mean putting the uh politics aside the guy is pushing Innovation at a speed and an audacity that is unparalleled by anybody I think Elon Musk is the most important person alive yeah I I agree uh he’s you know what he needs Peter he needs to either uh he needs to hook up with one of our companies because I’m a little worried about his health oh I’ve had this conversation with him a number of times and I’ve said listen I will treat you at Fountain life please let me you know and we keep on teasing each other on on I’ll call it Twitter because I you

[01:15:00] know um that I say sugar is a poison and he like says I just ate two duts for breakfast and I’m like okay that’s your choice well you know what’s interesting is his brother Kimble yeah he’s in the whole business exactly he feels the same way we do but uh and Kimble he lives in Boulder so I see him uh fairly frequently and he’s uh uh he’s very much into health and wellness and by the way very interested in psychedelics and U uh I think he’s probably the most healthy influence Elon has in his life is probably his brother yeah and and elon’s gone through many stages and the guy you know he said this publicly and I’ve had long dinner conversations about this as well he said people think they want to be me but they don’t want to be me they they want yes exactly I I understand he yeah Elon has his demons right he’s got his shadow side he does but and also he can’t you know someone at that stage can’t go any place said

[01:16:00] the only place I could go is like a biker bar when no one recognizes me but that was five years ago I think everybody would recognize me that’s I mean uh he he showed up at this restaurant I was eating at a couple of years ago and because I was having dinner with Luke noi which is one of the Luke and and uh Elon just walks in and and joins us and I said well this is fantastic you know where where you’re you can still move about the world without bodyguards I think that’s so fantastic he said he looked at me he said John you’re nuts I got all kinds of bodyguards out there they’re just not in here in this in this private dining area but they’re guarding the entrances and watching out for me yeah so you’re right I would hate I still have the freedom to move around this world and not with enough anonymity where I’m free that’s I wouldn’t trade that yeah I I I have what I call minor celebrityhood I get you know minor celebity is good good recogniz in the street once or twice you know in a day but uh God Almighty I would not want what Elon has or Jeff you

[01:17:02] know when when we were when we met with Jeff pesos and his team to talk for the first time about Amazon Foods Market they they searched us they searched our car they checked it for bombs um and it was like wow this is he’s at a level of security that I I desperately hope I never have to to get to yeah it’s um it is the Dark Side of of success yes exactly did you see the movie Oppenheimer if you did did you know that besides building the atomic bomb at Los Alamos National Labs that they spent billions on biod defense weapons the ability to accurately detect viruses and microbes by reading their RNA well a company called viome exclusively licensed the technology from Los Alamos labs to build a platform that can measure your microbiome and the RNA in your blood now viome has a product that I’ve personally used for years called

[01:18:00] full body intelligence which collects a few drops of your blood spit and stool and can tell you so much about your health they’ve tested over 700,000 individuals and used their AI models to deliver members critical Health guidance like what foods you should eat what foods you shouldn’t eat as well as your supplements and probiotics your biological age and other deep Health insights and the results of the recommendations are nothing short of Stellar you know as reported in the American Journal of Lifestyle medicine after just 6 months of following biomes recommendations members reported the following a 36% reduction in depression a 40% reduction in anxiety a 30% reduction in diabetes and a 48% reduction in IBS listen I’ve been using viome for 3 years I know that my oral and gut health is one of my highest priorities best of all viome is aord aable which is part of my mission to democratize health if you want to join me on this journey go to vom.com Peter

[01:19:02] I’ve asked naine Jane a friend of mine who’s the founder and CEO of viome to give my listeners a special discount you’ll find it at vom.com Peter you know you mentioned um psychedelics let’s go there um I’ve I really enjoyed reading in the whole story uh your experience with psychedelic Journey and I really enjoyed the uh transparency that you had uh there um and equally transparent I’ve had really it’s been in the Last 5 Years some some of the most extraordinary experiences in in my life and as you describe it you know in dissolving the ego and and being connected with the Oneness of the universe uh and love being the most powerful experience it’s a beautiful thing and I wish I had experienced it earlier in my life um would you mind recounting a little bit of what you’ve done and what it’s been what it’s meant

[01:20:01] for you well I talk about psychedelics three separate times in the book I start out with it yeah because I’m 22 I just turned 22 and I took a I’m in Austin summer had a birthday just a couple of weeks before and I took a I took a dose of LSD and I’d done i’ taken LSD several times before I did it by myself but of course back in the day had no idea how strong the dose was yeah this was the most powerful dose I’d ever taken or have taken since it was uh it was like I I describe it as it was so overwhelming that you had no choice but to let go I mean I tried to I tried to hold on to that ego but it was like it’s like being on Niagara Falls holding on with one hand to a rock eventually you get tired and you get swept over the falls and then I as only retrospect I describe it as a ego death or ego dissolving simply because there was no separation any longer there was just pure being there

[01:21:00] was uh and and that that felt Timeless I don’t you for all practical purposes it probably measured in this reality it was measured by how much the how long the LSD before it you know started decline in my system before my liver started detoxifying it and but but psychologically it seemed to be endless and it was amazing and it was ecstatic um and so uh that changed the director trajectory of my life because it was soon after that I moved into this vegetarian Co-op I wasn’t a vegetarian I I just want I wanted I was interested in I was a Seeker I was a Searcher and I wanted to um get on with the adventure of my life that was what I woke up to I answered the hero’s journey after that that that that woke me up to it so that’s the first time I talk about it yeah and and you do it in a very beautiful fashion where you it took you through this this uh increasing intensity to a place of fear initially yes and then

[01:22:02] extraordinary connection and and Blissful connection with the universe we’re very attached to our egos we don’t want to let them go so no my my my uh my journey of most profound and my mom listens to my podcast so hi Mom yes I’m talking about this right now um uh was when I did a DMT Journey I’ve done DMT as well I didn’t talk about it in the book yeah and instantaneous right instantaneous so it is um but the most profound I’ve I’ve had you are and and DMT is you know it’s been called the god molecule it’s it’s released by the pineal gland it is uh thought to be uh a molecule released at Birth and at death and in that moment uh and also just to be clear mom there’s no downside physical or medical effects it’s it’s it’s been done I’ve done it with a

[01:23:00] shaman and with a physician on those occasions um and it is uh it’s called the entrepreneurs psychedelic because you’re in and out of the experience in under 30 minutes right 20 minutes sometimes but it’s a complete instant dissolution your ego is gone and um it was extraordinary can I share you one of my one of the images I had during that it um so uh this was probably on the third occasion of doing it I’m coming out of this Blissful loving experience and I see this ocean of energy and it’s an infinite ocean of energy a bubbling energy almost like a a quantum foam um and coming out of the out of that ocean almost a single plane of energy are these two double huses that go up and then come back back down and I was like oh my God that’s that’s that is like you know we we emerge out of the oness of

[01:24:02] the universe into life and then we we come back into it at the end and it was like the most profound experience I I still can visually remember that and it gives me goosebumps thinking about that so so so in that experience that I had in the LSD I experienced uh I experienced the Big Bang we’re in the singularity we’re in this Singularity and it and it was or the Big Bang was just a giant orgasm of self-love self Singularity exploding out forming all the multiverses and and U and then there’s the breathing back in it comes back into the singularity this is the infinite game it goes on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and every every creative possibility is realized we’re constantly in game infinite play so I experienced this on this journey and that’s when I realized after that it’s

[01:25:00] like I am I am an I’m part of all that is I not the ego but the essence of me is Immortal yes and so is everything else right and so there’s nothing to be afraid of yeah not death not life and that’s when the hero’s journey call came and it was like I am on a Grand Adventure I even symbolized it by hit in I’m open for the adventure now I’m going to create this amazing life for myself you know I I had a complete loss of fear of death uh coming out of that um because of the you know the connection with infinity um you know listen I want to live as long as I can I want to live as long healthy life as I can I want to do because it’s a good life it’s an amazing life it’s like the most exciting time ever to be alive right the only time we’re exciting is maybe tomorrow but um but yeah it was incredible um experience I have not had that level on I I’ve tried LSD once but

[01:26:02] it was not in the same reflective um you know I I’ve only the right context only wanted to do this inside of a uh of a a spiritual journey where it’s not for play this is for self reflection self realization yeah yeah um how what’s your advice to entrepreneurs or or individuals uh who haven’t experienced this yet um I don’t know if you want to give it advice well um so so I’ll just say two other times to talk about in the book and I’ll get to the second so I I first time I did MDMA was 1985 it was legal and uh that was a trem had a big impact on me it changed my life because I absolutely knew without a doubt and I’ve never forgotten it that love was the most important thing that we are here to love we are

[01:27:02] here to love and to share love and connect with people and spread love that is that is what we’re here to do that was what I the connective fiber of the universe yes the universe is built on love and we’re but we’re we’re trapped in the ego to a certain extent and the ego is fear and resistance and and a belief in separation so I I experienced that and then after after that I began my spiritual journey in Earnest I started to meditate regularly I started to do breath work regularly I started studying the course of Miracles I really launched on my own spiritual path with a more disciplined focus and then the last time I talk about it in the book is towards the end of the book when I’m about to I’m going to leave Whole Foods Market and I’d been so motivated by Michael pollen’s book um uh how to change your mind yes and Michael’s often times he did it with the omnivores dilemma he’s just he’s he he’s right on the cusp of these things becoming more

[01:28:00] cultural the mainstream and he helps orchestrate that cultural change in because after I read him doing a guided journey I thought you know what I’m going to do a guided Journey absolutely am and I set that up so that just a couple of months before I retired from Whole Foods I would do I did a five-day Retreat five 5 day 101 where your your guide would not let you escap Escape early you were like believe in the process believe in the proc trust the process trust the process and that was a combination of breath work which I did five separate times I got actually more out of the breath work I just can’t encourage people enough uh we’re going to do breath work at life works when I I talked a lot about life Works um on the physical health side but we’re going to be doing uh we want to really help people emotionally and spiritually as well so we’ll be doing breath work we’ll be doing meditation classes we will bring in speakers I really want to help people on this part of their lives and when psychedelic therapy is legal in California like it is now in Oregon and

[01:29:02] Colorado we’re going to want to do that there yeah I do think that should be legal for therapeutic reasons yeah so anyway uh that guided Journey was huge for me because a I was able to let go of some anger I had towards Amazon I was able to heal on that and let it go because it’s the negative emotions that block love Yeah anger fear guilt Envy uh uh these things prevent us from being aware of the of Love’s presence and so as we practice forgiveness and we let those negative uh uh emotions go we come into the Love’s presence more clearly so that was very important for my healing and it also let me let go of Whole Foods I saw that it was time that my hero’s journey was calling me in a different direction now and that this was the right thing to do I’d already made the decision but I got really clear in my heart my soul told me yes you’re on your path this is the right thing yeah so it was I and you’re asking me do

[01:30:01] I recommend it I absolutely 100% recommend a guided spiritual journey under a good therapist yeah who’s there creates a set and setting matter safe place where you’re totally safe there’s nothing to be afraid of where you can with intentions yes we it was very very intentional very spiritually focused uh and and that take and with preparation before you go in and then and you have to do integration afterwards you can’t just have the experience you need to integrated into your life I highly recommend that it’s life lifechanging John before we close out uh uh where can people follow you where can they find out more about love life and about well they can follow me at John pmi.com that’s my personal website John pmi.com they can find out a love life at uh love.if ww love.if love that and of course the whole story uh please if you’re an entrepreneur if you love uh Whole Foods

[01:31:02] if you want an extraordinary uh book uh let me Pitch this for you uh whole life was an amazing book I really enjoyed listening to it uh I’m sure the reading is equally pleasurable but uh uh I assume on Amazon um available the whole story adventures in love life and capitalism is available at on Amazon it’s Whole Foods selling it um and some bookstores are I’m I’m a little bit unhappy that I feel like uh I I defend capitalism so strongly in in my book that I thought maybe was offensive to some people by the way I I brand myself always as a Libertarian capitalist so um I I think uh I think we both have that in common we do uh I definitely uh I’ve kind of moved away from libertarian because it’s it’s beginning the brand is beginning to be stained with you know Nazi fascism which is the opposite of those things right exactly but from original classical liberal yes people

[01:32:00] always want to know what’s a classical liberal and that gives me a chance to expound on the classical liberal principles that that really built our country yeah uh buddy a a pleasure uh and uh and thank you for spending the time with me I learned a lot and hope you enjoyed it as well thanks Peter I look forward to meeting in person [Music]