Entrepreneur, Author, Conscious Capitalist, Co-founder of Whole Foods Market, and CEO of https://xitter.cf/t.co/YdfkihRbe7.
Austin, TX
Joined January 2022
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Empowering your team changes everything. When you delegate with trust and clarity, you free yourself to focus on what truly matters: big-picture strategy, culture, and growth.
Living and working with polarities challenges leaders to embrace complexity and move beyond binary thinking. Conscious leaders don’t try to eliminate these tensions. They learn to manage them skillfully, recognizing that sometimes the path forward isn’t choosing one side over the other. It’s learning how to bring out the best in both: johnpmackey.com/why-great-le…
I turned 73 this month, and I've been thinking about a question people always ask me: If you could go back and give your 25-year-old self some life advice, what would you say?
Honest answer: he probably wouldn't have listened. And I wouldn't change a thing. Some of the best lessons had to be earned through mistakes.
But for anyone who'd listen, I want to share 10 lessons: johnpmackey.com/ten-lessons-…
Love is the most important thing in life. That’s why we’re here: to go deeper into love. That’s our higher purpose.
John Mackey retweeted
How do we make sense of a #universe this mysterious? @brettahurt's conversations with @LifeBeyondD, Chris Bache, Manoj Saxena, @MarkGoberAuthor, @JoelSchafer2, @iamjohnmackey, and Paige Britt point to a deeper reality rooted in #consciousness, connection, and love. (link in bio)
I’m an optimist. I always have been.
The lens we look through shapes how we show up, for ourselves and for everyone around us, so let me share why I think optimism is worth choosing, deliberately and consistently:
johnpmackey.com/why-im-an-op…
John Mackey retweeted
The spirit of independence lives in us.
Freedom requires people willing to think independently, challenge assumptions, and defend principles.
Join @adamcarolla @iamjohnmackey @naomibrockwell @RealSpikeCohen @nickshirleyy @cliftonduncan Barbara Kolm, @ChefGruel and hundreds more at #FFest26.
📍 Las Vegas
📅 July 8–11, 2026
📷 freedomfest.com
FreedomFest is just 1% of your year. What you gain can fuel the other 99%.
Conscious leaders serve the business's higher purpose because they're personally aligned with it, and in doing so, they serve all stakeholders to elevate the business to a higher level.
Six months after breaking my neck on the Colorado Trail at 72, I returned to the Appalachian Trail and hiked 171.4 miles. Here's what it taught me about aging and living well: johnpmackey.com/what-a-broke…
John Mackey retweeted
"Capitalism created the possibility of the win win win. It used to be a zero sum game where somebody won, somebody else lost.
It's a prosperity machine that's creating more, not just for those billionaires, but for everything that they're touching.
Somebody like Elon Musk gets a very, very, very tiny sliver of the value that he creates for the whole world."
— @iamjohnmackey
Here are three books I’ve read recently that I keep finding myself recommending to people. They cover very different ground, but each one left a real impression on me: johnpmackey.com/johns-must-r…
John Mackey retweeted
"If you're on a winning team you can make a lot of money.
We gave stock options to everybody that worked here.
We had hundreds and hundreds of people that were able to buy a house and send their kids to college.
These were ordinary people working at a grocery store. Ordinary people who never thought they would have any prosperity in the world.
That is so deeply satisfying."
— @iamjohnmackey
My Conversation with John Mackey (@iamjohnmackey), co-founder of Whole Foods Market.
0:00 Fanatical Entrepreneurs: Why Work Feels Like Play
2:18 The Missionary vs. Mercenary Co-Founder Conflict
6:16 The Shirtless Hitchhiking Hippie and Johnny Rockefeller
8:12 Entrepreneur Confidence: Solving Puzzles and Cracking the Code
10:19 Flying Under the Radar: How Supermarkets Ignored Whole Foods
10:52 Venture Capitalists Are Hitchhikers With Credit Cards
14:03 Builder Entrepreneurs vs. Serial Entrepreneurs
16:31 Time Is the Only Filter I Trust
20:52 How Walmart Accidentally Fueled Whole Foods' Success
24:01 The Jaw-Drop Effect: When Customers First Walked In
27:17 Growth Through Acquisition: Building Geographic Platforms
29:19 Secret Allies: The Natural Foods Network
33:17 Mrs. Gooch's and the Revelation of Scale
34:52 Missionaries Sharing Financial Statements and Building Friendships
38:10 Never Competing Head-On With Friends
41:22 Going Public and Creating Liquidity for the Network
42:00 Continuous Learning: The Michael Dell Principle
44:10 Steve Jobs and Spotting Markets With Second-Rate Products
46:50 The Joy of Watching Team Members Become Millionaires
48:09 Capitalism: The Greatest Thing Humans Ever Invented
55:59 Cult Brands Are Built by Evangelists
58:01 Passion Is Infectious: The Reality Distortion Field
1:00:08 From Busboy to CEO: The Resume of an Entrepreneur
1:02:57 Learning From Near-Death Experiences
1:04:05 Money Means Freedom: Early Work Ethic
1:05:25 Shoe Dog as the Benchmark: Belief Is Irresistible
1:09:16 Documenting Time: Why Chronology Matters in Memoirs
1:11:14 Rockefeller, Bezos, and Musk: The Master Strategists
1:14:39 Using Doubt as Fuel: The Slow Burn of Proving People Wrong
1:20:04 Daniel Ek and Having No Ceilings
1:23:09 How His Father Shaped His Ambition
1:25:52 Firing His Father From the Board: The Hardest Decision
1:28:01 His Mother's Deathbed Wish and Lasting Regret
1:34:47 The Ceremony of Forgiveness
1:36:17 MDMA Therapy and Breathwork: Accessing Deeper Consciousness
1:38:54 The Entrepreneurial Journey as a Spiritual Journey
1:40:45 Conclusion
Includes paid partnerships.
John Mackey retweeted
Community is medicine.
Research consistently shows that strong social connections are one of the most powerful predictors of health, resilience, and longevity. Not the size of your network, but the depth of your relationships. A few people who make you feel safe, seen, and supported can profoundly shape your biology.
Loneliness activates the same stress pathways as chronic disease. It drives inflammation, dysregulates hormones, weakens immune function, and accelerates aging. Connection does the opposite. It calms the nervous system, lowers cortisol, improves metabolic health, and even influences gene expression linked to longevity.
This is why community is a core pillar of functional medicine. Food, movement, sleep, and supplements matter, but without meaningful human connection, healing is incomplete.
Invest in your people. Nurture a small, trusted circle. Shared meals, honest conversations, laughter, and belonging are not soft interventions, they are some of the most powerful tools we have to extend healthspan and quality of life.
Love this post by @risingwoman
John Mackey retweeted
Mamdani’s city-run grocery store is 10x more expensive than Whole Foods per square foot.
This comes as no surprise. Whole Foods founder @iamjohnmackey understands the beauty of capitalism:
"Capitalism created the possibility of the win win win. It used to be a zero sum game where somebody won, somebody else lost.
The biggest mistake people make, intellectuals in particular, they still think we're in a zero sum world. They're obsessed with some billionaires because Bernie Sanders thinks that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk somehow stole the money from the people.
They don't understand that it's this prosperity machine that's creating more, not just for those billionaires, but for everything that they're touching. They're creating value for their customers, they're creating value for their employees. Their suppliers are flourishing, their investors are seeing their capital go up. It can be reinvested and compound.
All philanthropy ultimately comes from business. That's where the profits are.
Where does all the taxes come from? It ultimately comes from business as well.
This is the engine that's lifting humanity out. The entrepreneurs are the drivers of that engine. Somebody like Elon Musk, he gets a very, very, very tiny sliver of the value that he creates for the whole world."
John Mackey retweeted
Whole Foods co-founder @iamjohnmackey: "The American dream is alive and well, and it's never been better. In fact, the dream is not only not dead, it's much better than it's ever been before."
A question I often get asked is why being able to delegate and empower Team Members is such an important leadership skill. I truly believe delegating is one of the most underrated yet most transformative skills a leader can possess. Read more: johnpmackey.com/delegation-a…
