Welcome to How Leaders Lead. I'm Kula Callahan, here to bring you another edition of three more

questions with David Novak. David, the guy we're talking about today is a self-proclaimed hippie

who started a billion-dollar brand while living in a commune. Well, leadership comes in all form, shapes, and sizes. And he's a great

example of that. But I had to tell you something. The thing that impressed me the most about this

guy is he's just an incredible learner. He didn't go to college, didn't have an MBA. But when he got into business, he started reading everything he could about business,

learning accounting, learning about supply chain, you know, talking to people who could help

him, you know, figure out what to do.

And this guy is what I would call in my book How Leaders Learn an active learner. And it really made

him successful. In fact, if I would have done this podcast before I wrote the book, I guarantee

there'd be a John Mackey story or two in it. Oh, there's no doubt about that, David. We are

talking about your conversation with John Mackey. He's the founder and former CEO of Whole Foods, which is a grocery chain that is

deeply loved by so many people in this country.

And John's story is amazing.

So if you haven't listened to the podcast episode, I highly recommend it.

And by the way, he really did start the idea for Whole Foods while he was living in a

commune and is a self-recllaimed

hippie. He's obviously brilliant, though, and super successful. So, David, I'm going to get your

take on some of the concepts that you two talked about in today's episode of three more questions.

Here we go. Question number one. In the episode, John talks about how, as a young entrepreneur, he never

really played it safe and didn't let fear dictate his decisions. He even describes the process

of building Whole Foods with one word, play. He said play was his motivator and starting his first

ever grocery store, And though they were

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