Joe Rogan Experience #1569 — John Mackey Transcript

Transcript

0:00 The Joe Rogan Experience. No one's ever brought me food here. Does it taste good, or is it good for you? I really just like almonds. But you're sending me mixed signals. And Conscious Leadership, a sequel to Conscious Capitalism. Yeah, I'm not in that classification. In fact, I think the opposite. Karl Marx called it capitalism. ever taken a look at that book? No, I haven't, but I'm a big fan of a lot of his work. Yeah.

4:06 more affordable or free making education more affordable or free but you gotta human beings I mean, it's not like socialism hasn't been tried. Yes. listed one place below the United States. It's like number 12. Sweden's like number 20. United States is like number 13 or 14. socialism before it moved away from it. They're still living in the 60s. And yet they tried it

6:41 Yeah, I wasn't driven out of it because of that. are acting like autocrats and they're they're i mean there was a recent ruling where he lost in court How is that stopping? and I'm like, this place is fucking doomed i think you're i think you're telling the you know eating with no mask on inside no social distancing all the things that he tells everybody

9:40 And it's disgusting. that it seems feasible, like COVID, and maybe even possibly tried to talk about opening up alternative hospitals like, small villages. And people are generally healthier there too. that should be making the decisions not the government a hundred percent i couldn't agree I got tired of running from fires, too. And the fact that they closed all that down.

12:34 Chicago has Second City, which is It used to be Boston had a big part of it, Yeah, I did Stubbs Barbecue at Chappelle last week. I know I'm not interviewing you, but when you were like a kid, were you the class clown? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. This is who I am. Because you're demanding attention, and you don't deserve it. act and your act is... It's, you know, it gives you an opportunity

15:54 And I sort of adjust on the fly. laugh i hope these comedians are funny like you go there with like a little bit of a smile on your i love their creativity do you learn a lot from other comedians yeah you do yeah you do you learn Yeah, I do all my own writing. Maybe. It's a secret? Why are you making me uncomfortable? Because for whatever reason, they had this longing for that kind of raw comedy that you really, it's hard to get in a lot of places.

19:01 They should go in disguise. You know, like the prosthetics and all the stuff that they can do today. I haven't. i don't have to remove myself from the like like as a fellow comic i'll judge someone's delivery It's become more popular now. I think because in a market society, which has been rare in history, Elon Musk or Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos. college and they get a degree in business and they're in a fraternity and they make a lot of

22:52 to do things to connect with people uh there's emotional intelligence i'm merely saying they're you don't think Elon Musk is intelligent. assume that someone have to dedicate most of their life just singularly to that task to be able to They're obviously two of the great entrepreneurs of this particular era. Well, a lot of people don't like innovations. It's threatening. It changes social status. It

25:28 you're the good guys here. You're not the bad guys. Do you debate people about this? profit, but it's the value creation that comes first. The profits come second in exchange, Greed is endemic to the human nature. I think I do understand it. and then our growing circle of relationships that we develop. in Conscious Leadership. We have a chapter called Find Win-Win-Win Solutions. The metaphors that we

28:59 Benefits are paid and they do that voluntarily, not forced to work for any particular company. that back to a win-lose game. And that's why it always fails. But we're going to take away the incentives for business to really flourish and succeed. you've got a negative impact in some way environmentally. No one. You also take away agency from people.

32:09 business can innovate and create solutions to those environmental problems. So this is where I think a lot of people have a valid argument against capitalism. The sad truth is that humanity is not perfectible. because that's what people want. It's win most of the time, but with some negative consequences that are better than the alternative. We have been able to clean it up.

35:37 Is it possible? that were wild, and if you're going to graze cattle, that's going to have a negative impact land under cultivation. You're going to mow down the jungles. And if you're these incentives creates better alternatives for people in these very simplistic packages, like win-win-win. And I don't necessarily think that's a... So it's a win-win.

38:34 And the point is, and he told me, he said, look, it's simple. I want to get my message out there. You guys started here, right? I'm an entrepreneur. You guys started But then once you have become really successful and you're making a lot of money, You just shit on yourself in a way that I never – all I heard was Whole Foods. turned uh negative so to speak i still see that pretty much all the time although since our

41:33 short-term oriented, you pay a heavy price in the short term for reducing your prices. And Amazon When you have $150 in the bank, $150 billion, what keeps you going? I've got plenty of money, Joe. I don't need to work. I just like it. It's fun. There's no question about it because I was putting a lot of 80-hour weeks in year after year after year after year.

42:53 The grocery business wasn't quite that hard, but we did put a lot of 80-hour weeks in. That seems like not a lot of time to sleep. that's 48 hours divided by seven that's almost seven hours a night if all you did was work and But if you're doing it right, it's easy to make a company like Tesla? Do you think it's easy to make a company like Tesla? business people and they say that is the exact wrong approach because that's actually going to

45:21 They're not going to waste that money. In some sort of cosmic way, that's unfair. They would say, well, when you get to that sort of a position, like a Jeff Bezos, where I think that's a powerful argument. If he was, boy, would they come after him because he's balling so hard. And very interesting, the FTC has their own court. I'll take the FTC to the Whole Foods Court. Right? But, you know. Like the People's Court. You don't win in the FTC court. Don't you wish you had your own court? I'll take you to Whole Foods court, motherfucker. I'll take the FTC to the Whole Foods court. Right? But you know-

48:31 And then after that, if they want to, they would go to the Supreme Court if they'll take it. They want you to do it. He's going to try to steal that money from you. We ended up, they let the merger go through and we agreed to sell off a bunch of stores. rich guys should make the government do that with all their power yeah you know if the rich guys are

50:18 Of course not. It's very important. It's very important. Yeah, it's very disturbing. Yeah. I'm very curious to see how this all pans out. Well, I think The Social Dilemma is a good movie and a lot to learn from. And that's the second. And now we have a progressive worldview So they have dignities and disasters. take the best things about each one of these worldviews and integrate them together so that

54:58 And it's not perfect. at both sides of things. You might say that you can see each of these worldviews comes out of And so part of it is we have to solve those problems. The things that progressivism, the things that resonate with a lot of people It's actually done a very good job, but it hasn't finished the job. These are the aspects that I identify with.

58:58 then a lot of the arguments against capitalism Yes, and Roger Sassodia. time like i know you have has this shaped your perspective in any way like having to formulate I haven't been traveling that much. But if you're progressive and you only read the New York Times and watch CNN and MSNBC, So do I. The clothes are not me. worth because they disagree with my views. No, they're just saying they don't like the clothes

1:02:32 You've got to free your mind. know you're wrong, you feel like a loser. Like inside your head, you know you're full of shit. Nobody's seen as infallible, as all-knowing, as never right, always right, never wrong. That's just not something I see politicians do very often. He didn't anticipate photos coming out Who knows? I like Governor Abbott, too.

1:04:56 that and I'm not even the governor. I'm not even telling So you don't see Governor Cuomo in New York saying that, gosh, I should never send those out of him. Clearly he made a mistake. and a lot of them die. I think it's over 50% in the United States or close to it. But we don't know really what the governor might have been thinking. talking to a nurse and she was explaining to me she's a nurse in a covid ward and she was explaining

1:08:00 And I go, well, how do you protect their family from getting it? growth, for dealing with law enforcement, Please don't. half the country hates you. Look how many people because of the fact that you've been a leader of a corporation for so long? As I say, I have a lot of scars, but they've made me better too. and every year we're hiring 10 to 20,000 new people.

1:11:26 How have you done that? things that people want at work above all else. I mean, they want to earn a paycheck too. But And to the degree people are friendly, it's partly because they're experiencing both of Leadership, is lead with love. Love is something that we don't think about in It's the only thing. It can't hide out in the closet. Let's let love be what we build our organizations around.

1:15:17 you want to be as amped up, as aggressive, as motivated, That's why the business exists. concept called central market and that was back in the early 1990s. And it took a lot of Whole Foods' ideas and expanded them and made them bigger stores. Take one of my favorite sports, tennis. Because that pushed them to get better and better and better. And by the way, that is the beauty of capitalism versus socialism. There is competition.

1:18:03 Yeah, and all be all. You can compare against them and you also can study them. Yes, very collaborative because that's taught like from the beginning particularly in jiu-jitsu in jiu-jitsu it's there's no secrets But when you actually go to a competition, you want to smash that person. You don't want to love They are yin and yang they they they work well

1:20:32 But the ideas are – a great example is collective agriculture. And as a result, starvation, mass starvation occurred. And then they realized, like, hey, this is not working. And the answer is because it's too damn big to do it that way. What do you think about the concept of universal basic income? Right, but when you have a situation where they can't stand on their own two feet because they're literally not allowed to work, like California.

1:24:01 lock everything down for five weeks. I don't go outside. I stay away from everybody. Well, congratulations to you but some guy who runs some whatever figure out whatever store it is A couple million at this point. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. And there was no governmental, not nearly the same level of. Speaking as a man who was once a little boy, little boys need to play.

1:27:50 Motivating or motivated. you've done over 50 tests way more than so you'll be an early adapter of the uh of the vaccination Are you an anti-vaxxer? fucking measles. older than you i had measles i don't know if i hadn't i had all those diseases as a kid because And when I was a kid, when someone would have chicken pox, you're not going to be a guinea pig. No, but there's people that have already done that.

1:31:34 It's just essentially delivering your body this sort of message that encoded with a common cold virus, that what it does is it makes your body develop the proteins I do worry about stuff though. He's had like some serious problems and fatigue If you want to look at like well this disease has so many unknowns to it. It's still there. That's one of the things that freaks me out.

1:35:02 That's a lot of viruses. co-evolving with viruses for They tended to go one of two directions. They lost weight. Their immune system got strong. And then I had other friends. They were isolated. I always say that it won't be good for my business if I die of a heart attack. Are you a healthy eater, or do you have a few bad habits? i do okay well i'll yield forever cheese has been a dairy product there's cheese that's made from

1:38:32 I'm happy for it to come up with a different name. You hesitated. I know. Well, by deficient, meaning the reaction to their body, are their bodies optimized? I would say no. Yeah. I mean, Americans eat about twice as much protein as they actually need. You're talking about glucogenesis, when you're eating meat. Take a look at it. I was vegetarian in my early 20s, and then I added fish.

1:41:49 nervous systems, so they may not be able to experience pain as we know it. By the way, really, we're talking about things like, to be clear, Exactly. fuck do you know what that what I'm talking about there's a fantastic They're one of the coolest animals on the planet. There's no doubt about it. They are. and actually saw an octopus how big was the octopus and how big were the sharks well the octopus was basically the same

1:44:54 They eat a lot of things and kill a lot of things, but they're mostly cleanups. Okay. And he's a free diver, no tanks. Yeah, here it is. There's a shark. Sort of like the spiders do? the male has to be like real skittish about it. and sneak into a female's den. I have a big problem. Some of them quite literally mate at arm's length. There's a lot we could learn from octopus.

1:48:20 Either way, their arm is most certainly a penis. I mean, there's a divorce metaphor in there somewhere. Oh, you mean humans do that? Yeah, they have a better chance. that's the one you don't want to offer up maybe maybe you're tired of it it's got a special tip It has to go all the way. Her ovaries are in the back of her head. Yeah, they really are.

1:51:31 Like male feminists. technically wow they just reach in and just get into her brain what a bizarre method of mating Is intelligence one of the variables you use in determining what animals you'll eat and not eat? Oh, yeah. other animals and domestic animals and livestock and like, yeah, they're invasive. But I will eat them, and I will kill them. devastation these things do when they move in and find a crop like so if they'll have a crop of

1:55:23 grocer who sells meat but i'm a plant-based guy who doesn't eat it so you've got me i'm a grocer who sells meat but i'm a plant-based guy who doesn't eat it so It was very pure. all natural and organic foods, but a full spectrum that we became successful. If you try to stand above the marketplace and you're too pure for the marketplace, then you're not going to help anybody.

1:57:18 The world's different today than it was in 1978. used to have a joke about it where you'd be on it was in river oaks it was across the street from trade issue no it was uh we just um didn't think it was a healthy food so we didn't sell it and Mental stimulant Absolutely unless you got infected physical withdrawal symptoms of headaches that lasted, horrible headaches that lasted

2:00:24 Yeah. Exactly. You should have done it however however after 30 days after 30 days There was a study on it recently vitality. And having compared the two states, this is a preferable explaining like what would have to be what would have to go wrong in your system for you to tax I've read possibly different studies and articles than you have in different books.

2:03:01 That this proven to reduce heart disease, that that's not true either that this proven to reduce heart disease that that's not what's This is not epidemiology. I don't know if that's true. So my studies are in the book. Well, five Blue Zones, their diets are remarkably similar. That may be your choice, Yorba Mate. They exercise every day. None. Well, don't they fuck up lions with spears?

2:05:50 Okay, but stop right there because that's not normal. The Blue Zones doesn't claim that it's just diet. You're saying whole food, plant-based diet, like eating vegetables. Absolutely. Yes. But epidemiology, we can't do controlled studies on people over the long term. this. And all I would say is, where are the epidemiological studies that support your point

2:09:35 Are you saying that people that consume animal foods You're getting meat, but you're also getting sugar like what like what are the what are the studies you're talking about i can you'd like me to send Eating horse shit and drinking soda, it's not good for your body. If you're making someone fill out a form. which are hard to do in nutrition, does not make them worthless.

2:12:20 Yeah, depends on which people. digestive system. Not completely different. I'm so excited when they kill monkeys. general, we were mostly gatherers foods. We were mostly eating plants with a little bit not much of it even toxic most whereas if they can catch an animal and eat it and I can get tomatoes and all kinds of avocados, We ate massively diverse diets when we were out foraging.

2:14:58 that there's probably a lot of different plants. And that's directly correlated to an increase of brain size. There's an equally theory that probably when we became root eaters is when we really got brain. You watch Bugs Bunny. Yeah. We know from the blue zones that the people that eat mostly plant-based diets live the longest. And that there's a direct correlation between physical activity and longevity and health benefits.

2:17:37 They all have families and communities. Yeah. A vegan diet reverses heart disease This article here, though, currently goes into deeper studies excess salt, fruit juice, avocados, and nuts. But not just eat plants and a plant-based diet, but also remove processed foods and sugars. They cut out the things that were killing them. I think the problem is these things that we haven't been eating since the beginning of time.

2:21:04 Okay, so what you believe from the shit you've read is that you could eat a high animal food diet That is probably where we part company. Because I think that's what the science shows. The high fat content of the meat over time clogs up your arteries, yes. But people that are plant-based tend to lean on that one factor. I bet we would see similar results.

2:23:52 Now, maybe others will work as well. you cancer we don't know is that meat gives you heart and I'm saying that meat Now, maybe meat was neutral. But no studies have shown that. Ornish changed. you have to go back to the sugar industry, No, that sugar... This has been proven. I don't believe it's been proven that sugar causes heart disease. big deal man. It changed the way people think about diet because people were

2:28:21 You don't think the dairy industry, the egg industry, Right. And in their mind, meat became saturated fat. We are eating more animal foods than ever before. Because it wasn't sugar that was giving people heart disease. carnivore diet and reversed a lot of symptoms that they've had with being ethical and honest. I think human beings, biodiversity in human beings is pretty extreme.

2:31:39 But the burden of proof is to give me one study where that's not true. If you wanted to say it's been shown that a whole foods plant-based diet plus eliminating all these toxic things have been shown to reverse heart disease, I'd be right there with you. You go to Whole Foods and you fill your shopping cart? And if you read my chapter on heart disease and the whole foods diet, you know what?

2:33:31 all of the good foods that we know, ideological discussions of meat versus plants and this is where things people tend to sort of But I think what's doing the good but it's i think what's So he didn't have exercise in his program. So no toxins because those are all whole foods. is a whole foods meat-based diet eliminates all these toxins, they're eating a vegan diet and they have all these health problems? They're eating a junk food

2:36:47 Sure. I love it. Yes. Because I'm saying you can eat some animal foods and have a really healthy, healthy diet and lifestyle. well I'm not a big fan of these they fall into these little groups like this this this aligns with my religion so i'm there are in food now. And then also there's a mindfuck going on. Homeopathic medicines. Do you know how chiropractors were invented?

2:41:01 Doctors, like when you go to a doctor of chiropractic, how much time do you think they spend in medical school? Right. anything to you physically. They're closing in on fixing that. See, so you can't say that doctors are not good at treating cancer because they're constantly working on it. Researchers have demonstrated that CRISPR-Cas9 system is very effective in treating metastatic cancers,

2:44:11 Look around. Yeah, but there's babies that get cancer. But that's why it's fascinating when doctors and researchers can come up with treatments, novel treatments like this. There's so many doctors that are experts in their field that have helped people. Well, I agree with you on that. It's sneaky. Orthopedic surgeon, if you have a blown knee. And he thinks that I was really small when I got to high school.

2:48:03 I don't have any real pain in my hips occasionally. Correct. A business model that I'm kicking around investing in would be a business model where you have doctors and you have a whole team. I think that is going to be a big future business model. Have you ever thought about implementing something like that for employees at Whole Foods? If you're interested, you get a higher discount.

2:50:45 Why not just do their body fat so you know that it's just muscle? Yeah. We call a bronze, silver, and gold levels. And then blood pressure under 115, under 75. You get 30% discount. Do you give them any sort of a gym membership or something along those lines? The problem is we actually do locate close to gyms, and sometimes our stores work out deals with the gyms to consent people to use the gyms.

2:53:25 Yeah. Have you really? It was great You have this deep bonding you have with people traveled with people that work on ranches and you try to keep up with them and like you just It depends on how – it could be if you go for a 30-minute walk around the neighborhood, it's not too hard. So when you say backpacking, so you're sleeping out there in the wilderness.

2:55:50 that are aspiring CEOs that want to be some big-time baller like you and they hear this like They're not mutually exclusive. like i know how far you walk you have to plan it it out and when you're going to resupply. On the first couple of days, I'll definitely take some whole foods like apples uh maybe even some snap peas and peanut butters and stuff like that yeah i do i do i do

2:57:59 And I have to say, I'd like to spend one, take one day a week off and go into a town, get a massage, not surprising at all. When you get used to certain types of diets, like that's what your Yeah. How come no one's figured that out yet? Yes, we're escalating. Garbage. Garbage. That's always been humanity's major problem. And so we've evolved a palate that craves calorie-dense foods.

3:01:26 But it was just scarce. Somebody said this to me once, and it really resonated, like that this is the only time and they just take better care of themselves. I just sit down. I'm good. So it's like fat sends a signal to our systems to say, wow, that's a big load I've got in there. There is something about that food in particular, pasta with tomato sauce.

3:04:56 is why you're you see that this you're tempted by these foods that are actually really unhealthy for It's like Auntie Something's. There is an Uncle Eddie vegan cookie. Those. And trying to get enough calories is a problem because I'm hiking 10, 12 hours a day. They're just not healthy. What's wrong with you? the milk you you could drink it with some bullshit almond milk.

3:07:17 It is my enemy. I'm not – when I'm eating pasta, I generally buy – what is it? and I'm very fortunate that I don't have that desire my wife and i we eat we eat a brown rice pasta. Tastes really good. And then homemade delicious pasta sauce. I've been eating a lot of hemp pasta lately. But it's something I like about knowing that it's bad for me. But again, I buy that on Amazon as well.

3:09:41 It's one of the best, most complete proteins in terms of plants. We have a microbiome that's increasingly become aware of how important that is for our health. But if I was their coach, I would say, you know what? I probably wouldn't be able to digest it. It'd be interesting to watch. I think you're just a guy that's, you know, you're just living a big life.

3:12:01 Well, gluttons have a passion for life. doing it well you have to make a deal with your wife not to have it in the house there's no deals The mouth pleasure that I get, there's times I'm just going to accept it. And I see it now. I see the statistics. Those are really good. I've heard of those well i love to this one because it does this. the real pleasure of something like red wine is when it's convivial.

3:14:49 I'm not sleeping as well. lowered and you're like look i'm home i'm not going anywhere look Look, look, look, look, look, look, look. What I do in order to not do that is I have my glass, Yeah, that's the problem is you have that third glass. I never have tried that. Shout out to Dr. Gordon. That's just a glutathione as an amino acid yes yeah it aids in your body's ability to process alcohol does this give you the excuse you need to drink more no but it does help

3:16:56 You know, interesting thing I discovered about you today is that your man has these very great passions about things. I'm not lying. Well, not that bad. elk meat i'm eating are you getting those pigs uh i haven't here i have in the past i've shot It was a rough, rough, rough couple of days in the house. I eat eggs for my own chickens. So every time I was talking to the media, they always wanted to ask me about the chickens and the eggs. And I always had to explain it. And I got so sick of

3:19:57 I just was bored with the question. It's such a free ride. But do you ever think about frying one of them bitches up when no one's around? Because eggs have a lot of good things in them. Well, you also just get people that think they're 100% good for you and people that think they're 100% bad for you. that way are very healthy and then a lot of people that eat vegan are healthy it's like

3:22:26 basically do when i have big bowls of pasta or sit down with a bag of cookies i don't think it's bad Yes. Yeah, that's Ray Kurzweil's been making that singularity, right? life that that's all disease and that what's the disease that we've accepted we call it old age Just out there free and happy. And so DNA is immortal. but the holder of the DNA is expendable. And so DNA is immortal.

3:25:01 And we're not. But I think, as you said earlier, that the average age that people died at used to be 30 or whatever it was. But the essence for what it relates to what we're talking about is the people, we sent some people to Mars and they evolved over time and they came back to the Earth. because as we get older, we do tend to get wiser. would start to disappear because we just become older and wiser as a species.

3:27:47 Some people live longer and don't necessarily get wiser. That's the thing. You can afford to have half the people hate you. It's no big deal. The Tea Party then was doing bicots. my scar on that one is, Someday when I retire from Whole Foods, I'm going to be unleashed. seen a lot of things and they've had to navigate a lot of things. And it's like, okay, well, you're entitled to your opinion.

3:31:02 But we don't identify our opinions as an essence of who we are. It's not good. It's the most At the end of the day, things are going Yeah. It's the most bizarre political time of my life, or at least as an adult. I'm sure it's manipulating me in some way, though. interesting things. You know what? You need to learn the lessons from your social media

3:33:58 Usually it's a craving, and usually it's when I'm tired. But again, I don't do it enough where i get fat but i And when you're, when you're, when you're full of passion for whatever it is, It's the problem is that when I decide God, I let myself do that? No. He's a big guy. at least six five wow i would imagine how tall is he like officially six five ish but he's enormous

3:36:34 I don't think he intended to be comedic. that many calories in it. Well, there you go. But you go to that guy's social media, and he's in the gym every single day. So it's actually using it to push him. we're not editing nothing conscious capitalism john mackie