I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of

the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time to be more fully present.

Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right

now.

I knew of Whole Foods, John Mackie and I were going to sit under the trees for a Super Soul

Conversation. We're going to have to meet at the store first. Wow, this excites me. Yo,

hello. Welcome. John, hi. How are you? Great. How are you doing? This excites me. Thank you so much

for coming. I get excited and produce. Me too. That's probably wanted to start here. Oh my God, it makes

me so happy. Like when I passed the Greens at first. Oh my goodness. It's my favorite section. Me

as well. It's the healthiest section. Do you know that when this Whole Foods was coming, I like a

couple of years ago. It was like the second coming. It was like people were talking about it. We

were so excited about it. Word spread. I know. It's still gratifying that people get excited.

People get excited. Like, did you hear a whole food is coming to our neighborhood. It helps the

stores to get off to good good starts when everybody's anticipating it. It's been said that

stepping into a Whole Foods is a little like stepping into John Mackie's brain. Now, did you have

this vision? Did you sort of have a vision? A vision of something that evolves over time.

Yeah. Right. And so initially the original vision was very simple, which was to sell healthy food,

urinal living, and have fun. Yeah. John says the story of how he helped build one of the world's

largest organic and natural food stores began quite organically. Like a lot of young people in the

early 70s, John was a free spirit at college student in Austin, Texas, searching for meaning and

purpose. He found inspiration in philosophy and religion classes, but felt stifled by the structure

and rules of academia. While his parents hoped he would follow a more traditional career path,

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