I want to begin by thanking Bentley College’s President, Gloria Larson, for inviting me to be with you today and for Professor Rajendra Sisodia for recommending me as a speaker to President Larson. It is a great honor to be with all of you on this special occasion. I want to congratulate all of the students who are graduating. You have all accomplished something that I never have accomplished in my own life—finishing college. In the early 1970’s I attended two universities in Texas, Trinity in San Antonio and the University of Texas in Austin. I dropped in and out of these two schools a half dozen times over a 6 year period, piling up about 120 hours in various electives. I only took classes I was interested in, primarily philosophy, religion, and the humanities. To be perfectly honest with you, I spent my late teens and very early twenties primarily trying to figure out the meaning of life, or at least the meaning of my own life. I never took any business classes in school and if someone had told me back then that I was going to become a business entrepreneur when I was 24 and start my own business I would have laughed them out of the room.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to discover the meaning of my life in college and I dropped out for the final time in 1977. My parents, especially my mother were very disappointed in me, but I had dropped out so many times before that they still had hope that I would eventually return and finish and make something worthwhile of my life.

In 1987, just before my mother passed away, it was her dying wish that I get a college degree, because she was still deeply concerned that without that college degree I would probably not have much success in life. At that time Whole Foods was still a very small company with only 5 stores and I felt badly about not being able to reassure her. However, I was doing something that I felt great passion about and know that I made the right decision for myself.

It has taken me 37 years but, Mom & Dad—I finally have that college degree that you wanted me to get so badly! And because it always meant so much to you, with love and respect I dedicate this degree to you and only wish you both could have lived long enough to be with me here today. Thank you Bentley College for fulfilling my mother’s last wish for me.

Honor Your Parents
My first message to the Bentley students today then is to truly honor and appreciate your parents. No one will ever love you quite like your parents do, and although they have no doubt made plenty of mistakes in helping you to grow up, they’ve also done the very best job that they knew how to do. They’ve also made far more sacrifices on your behalf than you will ever really know. Please forgive them for their mistakes and imperfections and fully love them and honor them while you can, because the simple truth is that you won’t always have them with you as you move further along your life journey.

Follow Your Heart
Hopefully many of the parents here today are feeling pretty good about me right now because my next message is one that can be a little bit scary to some people. However, it is also the major pearl of wisdom that I have to share today. The fact of the matter is that life is really very short and death is absolutely certain for all of us. It really is true that none of us are getting out of here alive and we should never forget this fundamental existential truth. Since death is real and inevitable for all of us, how then should we live our lives? For me the answer to this question has been clear since I was young: We should commit ourselves to following our hearts and doing what we most love and what we most want to do in life. This is how I’ve tried to lead my own life since I was about 19 years old. My decision to not finish college, but to start Whole Foods Market instead, was a decision that came from my heart. Although this decision proved to be upsetting for my parents and for many of my friends, for me it was absolutely the right decision.

Now that you’ve graduated from college and are about to launch yourselves in new directions, it is absolutely essential that you ask yourself what it is that you really care the most about? What are your passions? What are your deepest yearnings? If you could do absolutely anything in the world, what is it that you would do? Your heart knows the answers to these questions. It is whispering to you right now this very moment even as I speak these words to you. So listen to it and follow it. It will always be your best guide in life.

There are two important aspects to following your heart. First, we need to develop our self-awareness skills so that we can know when we are truly following our hearts and when we’ve lost our way. It is actually easier than it sounds because when we are truly following our hearts we are tapped into our deepest passions in life. We are doing what we most love and we find our lives full of increased energy, greater creativity, purpose, joy, and happiness. We simply feel more alive and we are moving within the flow of life. How do you know when you’ve stopped following your heart? When the opposite occurs—decreased energy, lack of creativity, no real sense of purpose and you aren’t particularly happy. You have stepped out of the flow of life and are just drifting along. When this happens the solution is simple: Choose again. Reconnect again with your heart. As long as you are alive, it is never too late. You are free in each moment to choose the path of your heart and it never stops whispering to you, urging you to follow it.

The second key to successfully following your heart is that you will need to learn how to deal with fear. It is fear which prevents most people from reaching their fullest potential in life—fear of failure, fear of rejection from people we care about, fear that we simply aren’t good enough, and sometimes even fear of our own potential greatness. Unfortunately no one else can overcome fear for us. Fear is something that you must learn to master on your own. Of course courage is the major strategy for learning to master fear for most people and we should certainly develop courage to the greatest extent we are able to. However, for me the insight that has personally helped me the most when dealing with fear has been to understand that fear is primarily a creation of the mind. I create it in my mind—it doesn’t really exist outside the mind. I can dissolve it there as well. So can you and you will need to learn how to do this if you really want to be free in life and stay connected to your heart.

The Cardinal Virtue of Love
My third message to the Bentley graduates today is to emphasize the absolute importance of love as the cardinal virtue to nurture and cultivate in your lives. I don’t believe there is anything more important in life than love. I’m not talking about romantic love here, or “eros”, which is a very wonderful state of intoxication, but which also tends to fade over time. Rather, I’m talking about love as care and compassion, which actively flows out of our hearts toward other people and sentient beings through empathy and appreciation. This type of love need not fade over time, but is capable of continued growth all our lives if we will consciously nurture it. When we are truly following our hearts we are very likely tapped into the flow of love as well. But love is also a virtue that we can consciously develop in our lives to higher and higher levels. Such efforts are well worth making for nothing enriches us, teaches us, or makes life more rewarding than developing our capacity for love. In cultivating love in my own life I’ve found practicing three other related virtues to be essential.

First is gratitude. Being alive is absolutely extraordinary and there are endless things to be thankful and grateful for. I try to take a few minutes early in the morning to be very quiet and to appreciate the people I love and to express gratitude in my heart for the many wonderful things that fill my life with joy. At Whole Foods we practice appreciations at the end of all of our meetings, including even our Board Meetings—voluntarily expressing gratitude and thanks to our co-workers for the thoughtful and helpful things they do for us. It would be hard to overestimate how powerful appreciations have been at Whole Foods as a transformational practice for releasing more love throughout the company. I enthusiastically recommend you try it in your own organizations and your future workplaces.

Second is forgiveness. Nothing stops the flow of love in our lives quicker than the various judgments we make toward others and the grievances that we allow to fester in our minds against other people. What we don’t fully understand is how much we harm ourselves with our judgments and grievances, because if we did understand we would stop indulging ourselves with them. Instead, we would see them for the poisons that they truly are. Fortunately, there is one virtue that we can practice that will eliminate them from our minds—forgiveness. Practicing forgiveness isn’t always easy, however. Our desire to be “right” is very strong and this usually requires us to judge others as “wrong”, and therefore not really forgivable. We also frequently make the mistake of believing that if we forgive others we are also condoning their harmful behavior. However, forgiveness simply means to relinquish our resentment and anger toward others, it doesn’t mean relinquishing our values and ethics. When we forgive others we free ourselves from the past and allow our hearts to be fully in the present moment, which is where love exists.

Third is generosity. It would be difficult to exaggerate the value of practicing generosity. The virtue of generosity does not merely apply to giving money, but primarily to the gift of ourselves—our time and our service to others. True generosity should not be thought of as some kind of self-sacrifice where what we give to others comes at our own expense—their gain is our loss. Rather it is an extension of love from our own hearts, which takes genuine delight in the flourishing of other people. In my life experience generosity is a virtue that is best cultivated at first with small steps—acts of giving and kindness that may stretch us a bit, but which do not feel like any kind of sacrifice. As we practice generosity over time we will gradually discover that we want to take larger steps and extend our generosity further, because our sense of who we are and what we care about has expanded as well.

Overcoming Life’s Challenges
My fourth message to the Bentley graduates today is that life has many, many difficulties and challenges—it isn’t easy. We all will face many disappointments, frustrations, losses, and injustices, as well as inevitable illness, aging, and eventually death. I believe the best way to deal with most of the difficulties and challenges that come our way are to see them as opportunities to help us grow—lessons that are presented to us to help us go further than we have gone before. I have not found it to be useful to ever see myself as a victim of either circumstances or of other people. Self-pity is a remarkably self-destructive emotion, which you should consciously work to eliminate from your emotional life because it dis-empowers you and moves you away from being able to follow your heart.

I have been particularly challenged over the past year. I’ve seen the Federal Trade Commission accuse Whole Foods of being a monopoly and try unsuccessfully to break up our merger with Wild Oats, been heavily criticized in the media for internet postings I did on Yahoo! about Whole Foods and Wild Oats, been investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission concerning those same internet postings, and fought a proxy battle against activists who sought to remove me from both the Whole Foods Board of Directors and as the Chairman of the Board. I’ve seen an amazing number of negative articles written about me with remarkably inaccurate stories and outright lies being told. Perhaps the hardest thing of all was that I was unable to respond to any of these attacks as the Whole Foods Board imposed complete media and blog silence on me while their own Special Investigation and the SEC Investigation were taking place. I was not able to defend myself publicly in any way and therefore had no way to try to set the record straight.

It was a pretty difficult time for me. Many times I was tempted to lash out in anger at the injustice of the situation and self-pity was frequently a temptation that I had to struggle with. I did a tremendous amount of personal growth work such as counseling, meditation, and integrated breath work to try to appreciate and to understand what the lessons life was trying to teach me were. There were many. One very difficult lesson for me was to learn that I had to simply let go and trust the process that was happening, because I certainly couldn’t control it or stop it. That is not my natural inclination because I prefer to directly confront my challenges. A second lesson I learned was that a lot of people really do care about me and they provided amazing emotional support to me—that was pretty humbling for me and something that I am deeply grateful about. My most valuable lesson, however, has been about the importance of communicating with greater thoughtfulness and sensitivity. I believe that I’ve always lived my life with a passion for honesty—tell the truth as I saw it regardless of how that truth would be interpreted by others. I have always thought that there was far too little honesty and far too many lies in the world. While I still believe that, I’ve now come to realize how easy it is to be misunderstood and misinterpreted. A careless and thoughtless statement may be taken out of context and repeated over and over again—literally sent around the world through digital media. I saw this happen many times over the past year and it has burned itself into my consciousness.

I now apply a couple of very simple rules to everything that I say, write, or do:

1. How will this either help or hurt the fulfillment of my own deeper purpose in life, especially its impact on Whole Foods Market?
2. How would I feel if that was printed on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or The New York Times—because it just might be? If I feel good about the possibility of everyone knowing about it then it is o.k. However, if I would feel embarrassed or ashamed, then I’m going to have to change it. This has been a subtle lesson for me about the refinement of motivation and purpose and it has taken me many years to learn it. If you are able to learn it while you are young you may be able to avoid a great deal of unnecessary pain and suffering.

Conscious Capitalism
My final message to the Bentley graduates today has to do with the type of business organizations that we need to create in the 21st century. I believe that the 20th century will eventually be seen by historians as the great contest between capitalism and socialism with capitalism scoring a decisive victory. Capitalism may have won the war, but it has not captured the hearts of the people. Most people don’t love or trust corporations, who they often see as uncaring, greedy, selfish, dishonest, and concerned only with maximizing profits.

I believe that what the world needs now is the widespread creation of a different type of business organization, one that is a “Conscious Business.” A Conscious Business is one which has two major attributes that define it:

1. It has a deeper purpose beyond only making profits. Just like individual people by following their hearts can discover their own sense of deeper purpose, so can the business enterprise. I believe that great businesses have great purposes that inspire them to higher levels of success. Think for a moment about some of the greatest businesses in the world and ask yourself whether they exist to fulfill a greater purpose beyond only maximizing profits. Certainly Apple does, driven by its intense desire to create “insanely great” technology which transforms our lives in positive ways. Clearly Google does too with its passion for discovery and desire to operate an ethical company. One of the best examples in the world is Grameen Bank in Bangladesh founded by 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammed Yunus, which exists to end poverty in Bangladesh and throughout the world. Every business has the potential to discover and actualize its higher purpose—it has the potential to become more conscious.
2. The Conscious Business also understands the interdependency of all of the major stakeholder groups—customers, employees, investors, suppliers, communities, and the environment—and the business is managed to consciously create value for all of these major stakeholders. Instead of viewing the stakeholders in terms of win-lose relationships with conflicts of interest dominating their interactions, the Conscious Business understands that there is a harmony of interests between the stakeholder groups and that by working together greater value can be created for all of them. At Whole Foods we understand that management’s most important job is to make sure the team members are well trained and happy at their work. The team members in turn understand that their job is to satisfy and delight the customers and happy customers result in happy investors through the prosperity of the business. A virtuous circle is created with all of the stakeholders flourishing together.

Who will create the Conscious Businesses of the 21st century—businesses that have deeper purpose and are managed consciously to create value on behalf of all of the stakeholders? Why not some of the Bentley graduates here today? Why not you?

I have personally found nothing more fun, more meaningful, or more rewarding than creating and growing Whole Foods Market. It was what my heart called me to do and I have followed that calling for 30 years now. To the Bentley graduates today I put forth this challenge: what is your own heart calling you to do? Whatever it is, have the courage to follow it. The grand adventure of your own life now lies open before you. Seize the Day!

Thank you. I have greatly enjoyed being with you today.

As an introduction to this material, I am sharing part of a monthly newsletter authored by Michael Strong, CEO and Chief Visionary for FLOW, a social entrepreneurial group I co-founded. He speaks to the events leading up to the conversation with Michael Pollan in Berkeley on February 27, 2007, as well as the greater meaning of the ongoing dialogue. Strong’s article adeptly references the linkage between this current presentation and my previous blog post on Conscious Capitalism. I invite you to read it with those things in mind while I work on an expanded, written version of my presentation to be posted on my blog in the near future.

Per Michael Strong:

“On Tuesday evening, February 27, 2007, I attended a public dialogue between Michael Pollan and John Mackey in Berkeley. It was an extraordinary event by any standard.

Last April, Michael Pollen’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma was published and quickly became a New York Times best seller and has stayed on the list ever since. It was named one of the “10 Best Books of 2006″ by the New York Times Sunday Book Review.

The book is a meticulous account of four meals: One from McDonald’s, a second from “Industrial Organic,” a.k.a. Whole Foods Market (WFM), a third from Joel Salatin’s organic farm in Virginia, and the fourth one that Pollen hunted, gathered, and prepared himself. Not surprisingly, the dramatic narrative is from the “worst,” at McDonald’s, to the “most authentic,” his own hunter-gatherer meal. In this continuum, the “industrial organic” meal from Whole Foods comes off as better than McDonald’s but still relatively corrupt and impure. Pollan’s book has had a substantial impact on our culture, especially on that sub-culture of people who are especially interested in food.

When Pollan was in Austin for his book tour, John Mackey, Whole Foods CEO, invited him by to have a conversation about the book. John had felt that Pollan’s book was not an entirely fair and accurate perspective on Whole Foods Market, and wanted to talk about the issues directly with Michael Pollan. This first conversation evolved into an exchange of letters between the two, which are available to the public in earlier submissions to this blog. Eventually Michael invited John to have a public discussion with him in Berkeley, and John agreed; thus the event on February 27.

To Michael’s credit, he introduced John by explaining just how unusual this situation was. In general, when a journalist writes a book or article critical of a particular corporation, the corporation either ignores it or sends out a press release to counter the criticisms. For the CEO of a corporation that had been criticized in a prominent book to engage in the writer in an extended dialogue on the merits of the criticism was in itself unprecedented. For the CEO to then appear in public to discuss the criticism was even more unusual.

John began with a forty-five minute presentation (the entire evening, including John’s presentation, may be viewed here). In it he surveyed the history of our food system, thus putting Pollan’s criticisms in a historical context, and pointing out that the much criticized “industrial” food system had, in fact, been enormously successful at alleviating hunger around the world. He then explained Whole Foods Market’s positive role in changing the way that people eat. His presentation went on to explain both existing and new initiatives that WFM is undertaking to make the world a better place.

I won’t summarize John’s talk here, or the subsequent conversation with Pollan, nor the Q&A session afterwards. Suffice it to say that in this history of corporate – press relationships, I am not aware of any comparable in depth exchange of views. It is fair to say that Pollan, starting off as a critic of WFM, was won over by Mackey’s transparency, integrity, and sense of fair play. The Berkeley audience was similarly won over, and constantly interrupted John to applaud WFM initiatives.

John made it clear during the conversation that Pollan’s attacks had been costly to WFM: in the time since Pollan’s book came out, WFM has lost $2 billion in stock market capitalization. Although it is unlikely that Pollan’s attacks are solely responsible for that drop, John did point out that Pollan’s charges that WFM represented “industrial organic” led to a media “feeding frenzy” attacking and ridiculing the idea of “industrial organic,” with WFM the main target. Given that current and prospective WFM customers would be the demographic most likely to have read Pollan’s book and related media articles, it is likely that a book as high profile as Pollan’s was did indeed have a large negative impact on WFM revenues and, consequently, stock price.

Given this context, John’s response to Pollan was even more astonishing. He thanked Pollen for bringing to light justifiable criticisms of WFM that, in the end, led to new initiatives. And at the same time he clearly pointed out the ways in which Pollan’s expectations regarding large-scale natural foods production and distribution were simply unrealistic in historical context. John calmly and appropriately brought the conversation around to a FLOW motto, borrowed from Michelangelo: “Criticize by creating.”

One of FLOW’s programs in development is “Conscious Capitalism.” The goal of Conscious Capitalism is to move beyond the limited purview of “Corporate Social Responsibility,” to a new perspective: One in which corporate purpose, integrity in pursuing that purpose, and transparency with respect to how an organization pursues that purpose are key, along with a deep recognition of the interdependent system of multiple stakeholders in which business functions. In a world of corporations that are purpose-driven, and which are acting out of integrity and therefore willing to be transparent regarding their practices, the reputation of corporations and respect for capitalism will improve dramatically. John provided an exemplary manifestation of Conscious Capitalism on the evening of February 27.

At the same time, we need to encourage Conscious Journalism, Conscious Activism, Conscious Politics, etc., all driven by purpose, integrity, and transparency, and a sensitivity to the interconnected system in which all function. For me one of the most telling moments of the evening was when Pollan expressed his surprise that his book might have cost WFM significant loss in revenues. Pollan’s perspective was that he was simply practicing the art of journalism to the best of his ability. It had not occurred to him that he could cause great damage to others by means of his reporting. If he had actively believed that harming WFM was a necessary and justified action to take, then his journalism would have been conscious. His lack of awareness alone (watch the video and judge for yourself) reveals a lack of conscious action and intention on his part.

John’s mature, relaxed perspective on Pollan’s often misguided attacks are also an exemplary manifestation of the spirit of constructive dialogue. He was sincerely grateful to Pollan for helping him to develop a clearer perception of the path that WFM should take going forwards. May we all learn to become more conscious and thoughtful in all of our actions and responses, and may we all also learn to be more generous to those who fail to do so.”

• The Past, Present, and Future of Food slide show (PDF)
• PETA “Meet Your Meat” video clip shown during Mackey presentation

Much loud and sustained applause

Let’s hope you feel the same after hearing this speech. I went back and forth over whether to play it safe and give a typical keynote speech, but I decided to go for it and see if we can take Whole Foods Market to the next level—on our growing edge.

Today I’m going to paint a really big picture, a picture of “everything,” of how I think the world really works, and where Whole Foods Market and Grameen Bank fit into it. [Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank spoke immediately following this speech.] If I communicate this information in the way that I hope to, I guarantee you will never look at the world in the same way again. You won’t look at Whole Foods Market in quite the same way, either. So that is my goal.

My philosophy is that life is all about learning and growing, and that life can be a real adventure of learning, growing, compassion, and joyfulness. We all have the capability to grow all our lives—if we don’t get stuck—in emotional intelligence, wisdom, consciousness, ethical development, and love. And not only individuals are capable of growth. So are organizations such as Whole Foods Market and Grameen Bank, as well as larger collective societies, such as the United States.

One way to view human development is to see a decline in egocentrism. As Henry Gardner said, “The whole history of human development can be viewed as a progressive decline in egocentrism.” Consciousness development engenders a decrease in narcissism and an increase in caring and consciousness. Humans move from ego-centric to ethno-centric to world-centric as they develop in consciousness. The upward spiral of development is at the same time a spiral of compassion—from me to us to all of us.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

How many people here today heard my talk two years ago in Seattle on self-actualization? [light applause] Well, I’m not giving that talk today. [light laughter from audience] However, it does serve as a springboard for what I want to talk about.

You may recall that I introduced Maslow’s Hierarchy during that talk. Maslow identified a hierarchy of needs [see chart], which is one way to think about the upward flow of human consciousness. As we evolve upward we pass through levels of needs, from our physiological needs to our safety needs, next to our belongingness needs, then to our self-esteem needs, then to our needs for the good, the true and the beautiful, and finally to our self actualization needs at the very apex of the hierarchy.

Maslow’s hierarchy is a good reference point for the information that follows.

I now want to introduce another system from a man who was a peer and friend of Maslow’s and who influenced, and was influenced by, Maslow. This man, Clare Graves, created another system for understanding the way the world works. Graves developed models in “emergent deep value systems” that have been built upon by others, and we now call this model Spiral Dynamics.

Spiral Dynamics is a bio-psycho-social-spiritual framework (I love this word) for understanding core human thought processes. Spiral Dynamics helps identify how people change, organize, develop consciousness, make choices, create strategies, and communicate. This system helps to reveal the hidden codes that shape human nature, liberate global diversity, and drive or hinder social and organizational transformation.

Graves’ work was built upon by a student named Don Beck and his student, in turn, Christopher Cowan. They wrote a book called Spiral Dynamics. Ken Wilber of the Integral Institute has taken the Spiral Dynamics model and incorporated it into his Integral models as a next step. Both of these are the basis for the information I’ll be presenting today.

Spiral Dynamics Overview

Now I want to present a quick overview of Spiral Dynamics. Human consciousness evolves over time, both for individuals and for the larger society. This evolution of consciousness can be understood as a hierarchical spiral that evolves to greater levels of complexity. This hierarchical spiral doesn’t consist of rigid levels but can be rather likened to flowing waves, with much overlap and interweaving. We are not monolithic as we move through these levels.

Within this system model, different colors represent different levels or waves of development, each offering a viewing point for the “real world” according to unique perceptual filters. The colors, which have no significance in and of themselves, are a useful abbreviated tool, to help us quickly grasp the level of consciousness we are discussing.

I want to provide some additional background information to help us gain a common language. Spiral Dynamics uses the word “vMEME” with each color. The word MEME was invented by Richard Dawkins when he wrote The Selfish Gene. The little ‘v’ means “value MEME” to indicate that we are referencing value systems. The Spiral Dynamics model currently has defined eight levels of consciousness, but allows for the potential of new, more complex levels emerging. Ken Wilber’s Integral models address this in more detail.

A graphic depicting the levels of the spiral is shown below.

The vMEMEs are like invisible core intelligences. They are broad orienting paradigms that we use to interpret the world. They are structures of thinking in that you can’t see them.. Life conditions awaken vMEMEs which may emerge, surge, regress, or fade in response to those events that trigger change. No one vMEME is better or worse than another, they are simply less complex and more complex. As I mentioned earlier, the levels are not rigid.

All vMEMEs are good and necessary. To evolve to more complex vMEMEs requires experiencing/living the less complex vMEMEs first. The vMEMEs are not rigid levels but flowing waves, with much overlap and interweaving, resulting in a dynamic spiral of consciousness unfolding. The vMEMEs can express both healthy (for-better) and unhealthy (for-worse) qualities; sometimes it is more beneficial to the individual to be healthy at a lower vMEME than to be unhealthy at a higher vMEME. An individual’s vMEME can brighten and dim as life conditions change; each one of us experiences different things that set us off to the next evolution.

In general vMEMEs follow several trajectories as they evolve. They go from less complex natural, technological, and human environments to more complex. They likewise go from surviving in the bush through the awakening of new consciousness levels to surfing beyond the Internet to even higher levels of complexity, to understanding the entire global ecosphere. Finally, they go from a small piece of land via migrations across land and information terrains to the global village and cyberspace, where a complexity of development through shared information becomes possible.

The First Tier vMEMEs

Now I want to introduce the eight core vMEMEs. The first six are called First Tier vMEMEs, as opposed to the Second Tier vMEMEs, which I will explain later.

 Beige “Instinctive/Survivalistic” vMEME
The first is the Beige “Instinctive/Survivalistic” vMEME. This first arrived on the scene, or “awakened,” 100,000+ years ago. Its basic premise is: Do what you must to stay alive.

The characteristic beliefs and actions of the Beige vMEME are:

• An individual uses instincts and habits just to survive
• The distinct self is barely awakened or sustained
• Food, water, warmth, sex, and safety have priority over anything else
• Beige individuals form into family survival bands to perpetuate life

Where do you find the Beige vMEME expressed? Here is a representative list:
The first peoples, newborn infants, senile elderly, late-stage Alzheimer’s victims, mentally ill street people, starving masses, bad drug trips (if any of you ever had bad LSD trips, you were probably back in a Beige vMEME), and “shell shock.” This vMEME is well described in anthropological fiction like Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear.

The Beige vMEME includes approximately 1/10 percent of the world’s adult population and zero percent of the power.

 Purple “Magical/Animistic” vMEME
As human consciousness evolves, it next goes into the Purple “Magical/Animistic” vMEME. This second “awakening” occurred approximately 50,000 years ago. We’re tapping into this vMEME this weekend at the tribal gathering, because we’re tapping into the power of the tribe. The basic theme for the Purple vMEME is: Keep the spirits happy and the tribe’s nest warm and safe.

The Characteristic beliefs and actions of the Purple vMEME are:

• Thinking is animistic; magical spirits—both good and bad
• Obeying the desires of spirit beings and mystical signs
• Showing allegiance to chief, elders, ancestors, and the clan
• Preserving sacred objects, places, events, and memories
• Observing rites of passage, seasonal cycles, and tribal customs

Although some of this sounds benign, it wasn’t all good, because this was where slavery and human sacrifice came into the picture.

Where do you find the Purple vMEME expressed? Here is a sampling: belief in guardian angels and Voodoo-like curses, animism, blood oaths, Native American Indians were living primarily in the purple vMEME when the Western peoples arrived on the continent, chanting and trance dancing, good luck charms, mystical ethnic beliefs and superstitions, New Age beliefs—crystals, tarot, astrology, and Harry Potter’s magical world.

The Purple vMEME includes 10% of the world population, and only 1% of the power.

The following provides more detail about the typical qualities seen in the Purple “Magical/Animistic” vMEME:

• Characteristics
  • Mystical spirits, signs
  • Safe clans and nests
  • Powerful elders
  • Our people vs. “them” [Whole Foods Market against Wild Oats and Trader Joe's]
• Decision making
  • Custom and tradition
  • Elders’ counsel
  • Signs or the shaman
  • Clan gets the spoils
• Education
  • Paternalistic teachers
  • Rituals and routines
  • Passive learners
  • Family-like learning; oral history to pass down the stories
• Family
  • Extended kinships
  • Rites of passage
  • Strict role relations
  • Protects bloodline
• Community
  • Respects folk ways
  • Honors ethnicity
  • Lets group be itself
  • Guards magic places
• Life space
  • Old country ways
  • Focus on subsistence
  • Fearful, mystical, superstitious
  • Full of spirit beings

Just to explain the rhythm, the vMEMEs tend to alternate between individualistic and community-focused. The Purple vMEME was community focused. The next level is individualistic.

 Red “Egocentric/Narcissistic” vMEME
The Red “Egocentric/Narcissistic” vMEME, the third “awakening,” occurred about 10,000 years ago. Its basic theme is: Be what you are and do what you want regardless—”Nobody tells me what to do.”

Many teenagers are at the Red vMEME. Many of you in the audience probably remember going through this phase.

The characteristic beliefs and actions of this vMEME are:

• The world is seen as a jungle full of threats and predators
• The individual breaks free from any constraints to please self as self desires
• The individual stands tall, expects attention, demands respect, calls the shots
• The individual enjoys himself to the fullest, right now without guilt or remorse
• The individual conquers, out-foxes, and dominates other aggressive characters
• An overly developed ethnic identity can lead to genocidal wars, slavery, and racism
• The individual believes that: “I am special, I’ll live forever, I am immortal, not like the others.”

Where is the Red vMEME expressed? The following sample provides an overview: the “Terrible Twos,” rebellious youth, frontier mentalities, feudal kingdoms, street gangs, James Bond villains—the guys that conquer the world (I always wondered what the big payoff was if you conquered the world. Well, in the red vMEME these guys get all the women, the fast cars, and the money), epic heroes, soldiers of fortune, wild rock stars, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Sauron in Lord of the Rings, Voldemort in Harry Potter.

The red vMEME includes 15% to 20% of the world population, but only 5% of the power.

When adults are residing at the Red vMEME, we often think of them as “spoiled.” But you need Red energy to overcome restrictions and boundaries put on you by other systems.

The following provides more detail about the typical qualities seen in the Red “Impulsive/Egocentric” vMEME.

• Characteristics
  • Raw power displays
  • Immediate pleasure
  • Unrestrained by guilt
  • Colorful and creative
• Decision making
  • Tough-one dictates
  • What gets respect
  • What feels good now
  • Powerful grab spoils
• Education
  • Rewards for learning
  • Tough-love tactics
  • Work on respect
  • Controlled freedom
• Family
  • Gang-like battles
  • Builds us vs. them walls
  • Tests of worthiness
  • Struggles with the system
• Community
  • Predators in control
  • Danger to the outsiders
  • Forms fiefdoms
  • Turf wars and vendettas
• Life space
  • Unconstrained
  • Might makes right
  • Winners and dead losers
  • Attention-seeking

 Blue “Purposeful/Authoritarian” vMEME
After the very individualistic Red vMEME, the next level goes back again to the more community-focused orientation. The Blue “Purposeful/Authoritarian” vMEME, as the fourth “awakening,” began approximately 5,000 years ago. The basic rules for the Blue vMEME are: Life has meaning, direction and purpose with outcomes determined by an all-powerful Other or Order. This vMEME brings discipline to the spiral because you are now “following a higher order.”

The characteristic beliefs and actions of the Blue vMEME include:

• Sacrificing of the self to the transcendent Cause, Truth, or righteous Pathway.
• Allowing the Order to enforce a code of conduct based on eternal, absolute unvarying principles of “right” and “wrong”—there is one right way to live and deviations punished from the path are punished.
• Following the right path produces security now and guarantees future reward; if you don’t follow the path, well, you’ve made your choices.
• Displaying missionary zealotry, which can be short on evidence and long on belief and faith, as well as closed minds. When you run into people with very rigid thought structures, you are dealing with someone who is residing at the Blue vMEME.
• Engaging in pleasurable acts is seen as frivolous; humor is rare; actions are based in judgment not compassion, although there is a lot of talk about compassion.
• Operating from a fundamentalist, conventional, traditional, and conformist worldview.

Where do you find the Blue vMEME expressed? The following provides a sample:
Christian and Islamic fundamentalism, Puritan America, Dickensian England, Singapore’s strict discipline, witch hunts, codes of chivalry and honor, the Spanish Inquisition, the caste system in India, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, Boy and Girl Scouts, and patriotism.

The Blue vMEME includes 35% to 40% of the world population, and 25% to 30% of the power. The figures are somewhat lower in the United States.

The following provides more detail about the typical qualities seen in the Blue “Purposeful/Authoritarian” vMEME.

• Characteristics
  • Only one right way
  • Purpose in causes
  • Guilt in consequences
  • Sacrifice for honor
• Decision making
  • Orders from authority
  • Do right, obey rules
  • Adhere to tradition
  • Righteous earn spoils
• Education
  • Truth from authority
  • Traditional stair steps
  • Moralistic lessons
  • Punishment for errors
• Family
  • Seat of truths and values
  • Proper places for all, respect for parents
  • Codes of conduct
  • Teaches moral ways
• Community
  • Peace-and-quiet
  • Cautious and careful
  • Tidy, green, and neat
  • Born into society
• Life space
  • Law abiding citizen (this was the bourgeoisie that drove Karl Marx crazy)
  • Places for everybody
  • Seeks peace of mind
  • Rewards to come

The Blue vMEME is one the core constituencies of the Republican Party and comprises the “moral majority” in the United States today.

 Orange “Scientific Modernism” vMEME
The Orange “Scientific Modernism” vMEME, the fifth “awakening” began only 300 years ago. Its tagline is: Act in your own self-interest by playing the game to win.

Some of the characteristic beliefs and actions of this vMEME include:

• Strongly expressed individualism; Orange breaks away from the “herd” of the Blue vMEME.
• Developed human rights, legal freedoms, free markets, capitalistic democracies
• Strong faith in science and rationality, which eclipse superstition
• Seeking to live the “good life” with material abundance
• Believe that optimistic, risk-taking, and self-reliant people deserve their success
• Play to win and enjoy competition; very success driven
• Basing principles on ethics, not religion
• Ignoring of inner spirituality to a high degree; the subsequent loss of the sacred

The Orange vMEME is expressed in ways such as the following: The Enlightenment, “success” ministries (such as Napoleon Hill and Tony Robbins), American “Founding Fathers,” Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, Wall Street, Rodeo Drive, The Riviera, the cosmetics and fashion industries, breast implants, emerging middle classes around the world (in India and certain parts of China), Chambers of Commerce, corporate America, Forbes magazine, materialism, and the stereotypical yuppies.

The Orange vMEME includes approximately 25% to 30% of the world population. In the United States, the figure is closer to 50% of the population. Worldwide, this vMEME wields 45% to 50% of the power. Orange is the dominant vMEME in the U.S. today.

The following provides more detail on the typical qualities seen in the Orange
“Achievist/Strategic” vMEME.

• Characteristics
  • Competes for success
  • Goal-oriented drive
  • Change to progress
  • Material gain/perks
• Decision making
  • Bottom-line results
  • Test options for best
  • Consult experts
  • Successful win spoils
• Education
  • Experiments to win
  • High-tech, high status
  • How to win niches
  • Mentors and guides
• Family
  • Upwardly mobile
  • Demands attention
  • High expectations
  • Image conscious
• Community
  • Caters to prosperous
  • Displays affluence
  • Buys into society
  • Security for the elite
• Life space
  • Wants to prosper now
  • Competition always
  • Leverages influence
  • Seeks material things

A few people in this audience may relate strongly to this vMEME. I know I do.

 Green “Communitarian/Egalitarian” vMEME
The response to the somewhat singularly driven Orange vMEME is found in the Green “Communitarian/Egalitarian” vMEME, the sixth “awakening,” which first appeared nearly 150 years ago. The basic theme for the Green vMEME is: Seek peace within the inner self and explore, with others, the caring dimensions of community. Another way to think of this vMEME is as “The Sensitive Self.”

Some of the characteristic beliefs and actions of the Green vMEME include:

• Becomes more aware of the suffering of the world, of other sentient beings
• The human spirit must be freed from greed, dogma, and divisiveness
• Feelings, sensitivity, and caring supersede cold rationality
• Share the Earth’s resources and opportunities equally among all
• Reach decisions through consensus processes
• Anti-authoritarian and against hierarchy; establishes lateral bonding and linking
• All values are pluralistic and relativistic; no one should be marginalized
• Environmentalism becomes a socio-political movement
• A fundamental belief is “All people are good; it’s society that makes them bad.” Highly idealistic.
• Can create cults of victims and censorship through politically correct thinking; can also be politically dogmatic.

The Green vMEME is seen in the following: John Lennon’s music, deep ecology, Greenpeace, animal rights, Woodstock, single payer health care, ACLU, humanistic psychology, diversity training, multiculturalism, Boulder, Colorado, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream company (pre-merger—I have a feeling they are more orange vMEME after Unilever acquired them), The Body Shop, politically correct thinking, deconstructionism, postmodernism, The Utne Reader, Paul Ray’s Cultural Creatives, and the natural/organic foods movement.

I believe that the essence of the culture wars in the U.S. is the differences between the Blue, Orange, and the Green vMEMEs.

The Green vMEME comprises 10% of the world population, and holds nearly 15% of the power; in the U.S. you can double these numbers. The Green vMEME now has more power in the U.S. than the Blue vMEME.

The following provides more information on the qualities inherent in the Green “Communitarian/Egalitarian” vMEME.

• Characteristics
  • Seeks inner peace
  • Everybody is equal
  • Everything is relative
  • Harmony within the group
• Decision making
  • Reach consensus
  • All must collaborate
  • Accept any input
  • Communal spoils
• Education
  • To explore feelings
  • Shared experiences
  • Social development
  • Learn cooperation
• Family
  • Grouping of equals
  • Participative activities
  • Highly accepting
  • All feelings processed
• Community
  • Social safety-nets
  • “Politically correct”
  • Open for insiders
  • Invests in self
• Life space
  • Thrives on belonging
  • Needs acceptance
  • Sacrifice feels good
  • Renews spirituality

The Second Tier vMEMEs

Consciousness continues its upward flow. There is a huge gap between what we have been talking about, and the next wave of consciousness. None of the First Tier vMEMEs can fully appreciate the value of the other vMEMEs. Each believes that its worldview is the only true perspective. However, a qualitative leap in consciousness occurs when a person moves past the Green vMEME into Second Tier, which is also termed “Integral.”

Individuals who operate from the Second Tier are capable of fully appreciating the value and necessity of all the vMEMEs. They comprehend that the health of the entire spiral, or all vMEMEs, is essential. At the Integral level, fear and anxiety largely disappear from consciousness. At the Second Tier, systems thinking becomes the norm, and mental activity consists of joining, linking, and synthesizing in pluralistic systems. Individuals who have achieved the Second Tier find a greatly increased capacity for love and compassion. This is the “Self-Actualizing and Transpersonal” level in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, as presented earlier.

I realize I’m giving you a lot of information. This is all background for what I really want to talk about. I want to provide you with an underlying structure for the discussion that follows. Bear with me, I have just a bit more background.

 Yellow “Autonomous/Integrative” vMEME
The first level within the Second Tier is the Yellow “Autonomous/Integrative” vMEME, which is the 7th “awakening,” and it occurred approximately 50 years ago. The Yellow vMEME’s basic tenet is: Live fully and responsibly with authenticity.

Some of the characteristic beliefs and actions of the Yellow vMEME are:

• Pursuit of learning for its own sake.
• Systems thinking.
• Viewing life as a kaleidoscope of natural hierarchies, systems, and forms
• Valuing the magnificence of existence over material possessions
• Prioritizing flexibility, spontaneity, and functionality (Here at Whole Foods Market, you have long seen that I have a huge bias toward flexibility.)
• Valuing knowledge and competency over rank, power, and status
• Integrating complex systems with ease

The risk at this level of the wave is what Darth Vader from Star Wars or Sauruman from Lord of the Rings faced, which is the risk of the fall downward.

The Yellow vMEME is expressed in the following: Carl Sagan’s astronomy, Peter Senge’s learning organizations, Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time, chaos theory, appropriate technology, eco-industrial parks (using each others’ outflows as raw materials), Fred Alan Wolf’s “new physics,” Deepak Chopra’s Ageless Body, the movie What the Bleep Do We Know?, Wired magazine, Gandalf the Grey from Lord of the Rings, and Dumbeldore from Harry Potter.

The only two companies I know that are operating frequently at the yellow level are Google and Whole Foods Market. There are probably many more, but those are the two that spring to mind.

This is a recent vMEME, and only 1% of the population is found in the Yellow, but it holds 5% of the power world-wide.

The following qualities typify the Yellow “Integrative” vMEME.

• Characteristics
  • Big picture views
  • Integrative structures
  • Naturalness of chaos
  • Inevitability of change
• Decision making
  • Highly principled
  • Knowledge centered
  • Resolved paradoxes
  • Competent get spoils
• Education
  • Becomes self-directed
  • Whole-day package
  • Tuned to interests
  • Non-rigid structure
• Family
  • Shifting roles
  • Expects competence
  • Takes each as is
  • Information base
• Community
  • Does more with less
  • Appropriate technologies
  • Power is dispersed
  • Integrated systems
• Life space
  • Life is learning
  • Intrigued by process
  • Freedom to just be
  • Rarely fearful

 Turquoise “Holistic” vMEME
Beyond the largely individualistic Yellow vMEME, the Turquoise “Holistic” vMEME, as the 8th “awakening,” began expressing about 30 years ago. This vMEME’s basic premise is: Experience the wholeness of existence through mind and spirit.

Some of the characteristic beliefs and actions of the Turquoise vMEME include:

• Experiencing the world as a single, dynamic organism with its own collective mind
• Acknowledging the Self as both distinct and a blended part of a larger, compassionate whole
• Viewing everything connected to everything else as incredibly beautiful ecological alignments
• Experiencing energy and information as permeating the Earth’s total environment
• Thinking that is holistic and intuitive, with an expectation of cooperative actions
• Synthesizing science and religion into a universal spirituality

The Turquoise vMEME is seen in: David Bohm’s theories, McLuhan’s “global village,” Rupert Sheldrake and morphic fields, Gandhi’s ideas of pluralistic harmony, Ken Wilber’s “Spectrum of Consciousness,” James Lovelock’s “Gaia hypothesis,” transpersonal psychology, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s “noosphere,” the White from Lord of the Rings, and Dumbledore from Harry Potter [if he isn't really dead-we are waiting to see what happens in book seven]. Whole Foods Market is evolving towards the Turquoise vMEME as an organization, working with Grameen Bank and our various foundations.

The Turquoise vMEME currently has around .01% of the population, but already holds approximately 1% of the power in the world.

Some of the differences to note are that the Yellow vMEME figures things out on an individual basis, and is very good at figuring out paradoxes on a one-up basis. The Turquoise vMEME goes back into the community orientation. It begins to connect on a global basis to other organizations and individuals that it harmonizes with to magnify the good we can do. With our partnerships with Earth University and Grameen, Whole Foods Market is recognizing that if we really want to help the world to evolve, we have to link up with other organizations with whom we harmonize to extend our influence.

The following qualities define the Turquoise “Holistic/Integral” vMEME.

• Characteristics
  • Scans the macro
  • Synergy of all life
  • Safe, orderly world
  • Restore harmony
• Decision making
  • Blend natural flows
  • Look up/downstream
  • Plan for long range
  • Life gets spoils
• Education
  • Access to world
  • Blends feelings and technology
  • Bring past to life
  • Maximize the brain
• Family
  • Global awareness
  • Grows consciousness
  • Broad interest ranges
  • Seeks outreach
• Community
  • Interconnected
  • Highly diversified
  • Not isolationist
  • Information rich
• Life space
  • Belong to universe
  • Fit into chain of being
  • Do something here
  • As one with life-force

Are there any vMEMEs beyond Turquoise? New vMEMEs will continue to be created as the evolution of human consciousness so requires. Beck and Cowan claim that a new vMEME, Coral, exists but that it lacks a sufficient number of people to be statistically meaningful. Likewise, Ken Wilber believes that vMEMEs beyond Coral also exist. He calls this the “Third Tier” of consciousness. He states that fully realized beings such as the Buddha and Jesus evolved to this Third Tier. Non-dual consciousness and universal love and compassion characterize this level of consciousness.

Spiral Dynamics and Whole Foods Market

We needed to go through all that background information to acquire some basic language in common. Now, how is Spiral Dynamics relevant to Whole Foods Market? Spiral Dynamics is a useful model to understand one’s personal values and one’s current level/wave of consciousness. Spiral Dyamics is also a useful model to better understand what is happening in the world today. In addition, Spiral Dynamics is a useful model for understanding organizations and businesses. Why are we different than most other corporations in the world? Most corporations in the United States are rooted firmly in the Orange vMEME; a few are in the Green vMEME, as are many non-profits. There are very few Second Tier (Integral) corporations. I believe Whole Foods Market is a Yellow, Integral organization. Finally, Spiral Dynamics is a useful model to understand the evolution of our agricultural system over the past 100,000+ years and where it is headed.

What are the limitations of First Tier business models? Large corporations are solidly grounded in the Orange vMEME. Corporations are the most influential institutions in the world today and yet most people do not believe they are “good” or that they can be trusted. Corporations are widely perceived as greedy, selfish, exploitative, and uncaring; they are only interested in profits. Poor, and very public, examples of ethical lapses include Enron, Tyco, NYSE, WorldCom, Mutual Funds, AIG, and Martha Stewart. The Orange vMEME thinks in terms of machine or engineering metaphors; for example: labor, land, and capital are “factors of production,” and are therefore merely means to the end of efficiency.

The Orange vMEME doesn’t grasp systems interdependencies and therefore largely lacks ecological consciousness or a sense of responsibility for other stakeholders. The anti-globalization movement is primarily a Green vMEME anti-corporation movement. Many people are afraid that corporations want to “rule the world.” Corporations and capitalism both have serious “branding” problems. These problems are inherent problems within the Orange vMEME, because it doesn’t communicate well with other vMEMEs, especially Green. It is my opinion that large corporations need to evolve to Green vMEME, and then to the Second Tier (and become Integral). That is why it is so exciting to see Safeway and Wal-Mart becoming more sensitive to their stakeholders besides their investors. They are beginning to recognize that they need to evolve.

What are the limitations of First Tier non-profit organizations? Most American non-profit organizations are grounded within the Green vMEME, creating inefficiencies, waste, and stagnation. I would argue that most are ineffective. Nearly 99% of non-profit organizations are dependent upon donations from the business sector of society in order to exist-they aren’t sustainable on their own. All institutions need inputs of resources, energy and money in order to fulfill their purpose. Ultimately all money is produced through business enterprise.

We need to be asking: “Are altruistic goals by themselves enough to make a non-profit organization “good” or “ethical?” Do these altruistic goals make them effective? Are non-profit organizations able to completely transcend self-interest simply because they have altruistic goals? I would argue they don’t. It is my opinion that non-profit organizations need to evolve to the Second Tier (become Integral), just like business.

We see a basic conflict between the Orange and Green vMEMEs; a perceptual wall between the “good” non-profits and the “bad” corporations. The wall needs to be torn down and the polarities integrated at a higher level, the Second Tier (Integral). Business needs to become “good,” with a deeper and more comprehensive purpose. Corporations must rethink why they exist. They must evolve past machine metaphors and learn how to think holistically. At the same time, non-profits must become economically sustainable and discover that money and profits are good, not evil, and part of the healthy holistic organization. Grameen Bank is a great example of an altruistic organization that has learned the importance of sustainable enterprise. We need to recognize the increasing importance of social entrepreneurship. This will continue to grow.

Once the perceptual wall is torn down, it becomes clear that business and non-profit organizations are much more alike than they are different. They both can become Integral. At the Second Tier, THEY AREN’T ANY DIFFERENT!!!!

Second Tier (Integral) holistic view of interdependence of all stakeholders

Second Tier (Integral) holistic view of interdependence of all stakeholders

When you fully understand the need to simultaneously satisfy the stakeholders, you’ll see that business enterprise and non-profit enterprise are far more alike than different, and they have much to teach each other.

A Quick History of Food Production

I’m going to paint a big picture of the entire history of food in the next few minutes, using Spiral Dynamics to help illustrate the talk.

The following is an overview of the evolution of food and agriculture from a Spiral Dynamics perspective:

• Beige vMEME
  Began 100,000+ years ago—hunting and gathering
• Purple vMEME
  Began 50,000 years ago—hunting and gathering plus early horticulture
• Red vMEME
  Began 10,000 years ago—transition to settled agriculture as main source of food
• Blue vMEME
  Began 5,000 years ago—traditional agriculture established; authoritarian cultures built upon agricultural surpluses
• Orange vMEME
  Began 300 years ago—industrial system gradually applied to agriculture; we began to apply science, technology, and industry to agriculture
• Green vMEME
  Began 150 years ago—in response to the industrialization of food, the natural and organic movement began evolving over the past 50 years in response to the industrial model of the Orange vMEME
• Yellow vMEME
  Began 50 years ago—”Deep Organic” and animal compassionate movements began about 20 to 30 years ago. These movements are still scattered and not well linked together. Part of the Whole Foods Market mission is to link these two together.
• Turquoise vMEME
  Began 30 years ago—its effects on food production not known as yet

Industrialization of our Food

I would now like to discuss the industrialization of our food production, which began with the Orange vMEME. I want to give the Orange vMEME full credit for the benefits this mentality has brought to our food systems before I critique it.

Over the last 300 years the Orange vMEME has steadily replaced the Blue vMEME approach to agriculture. As a result, an industrial model of food production has spread throughout the world. World food supplies have tripled in the past 30 years. World grain production requires only one-third the amount of agricultural land that it required 50 years ago for the same level of production. These massive increases in productivity have greatly reduced the price of food. Cheaper food has enabled individual and societal resources to be spent in other ways to enhance our quality of life. Americans now spend less than 10% of their disposable income on food. In 1950 we spent over 20%.

That being said, there are a lot of negative effects from this industrialized model. The large increases of productivity are primarily the result of massive chemical inputs. Each year about 3 million tons of farm chemicals are applied to the surface of our planet where they escape into the global environment. This has resulted in the degradation of both soil and water. Nearly one-third of the original amount of U.S. topsoil is now gone. Agriculture uses two-thirds of the world’s fresh water resources, and, in many cases, it is polluting and depleting groundwater supplies.

The creation of animal “factory farms” has greatly lowered the cost of all animal products, but it has come at tremendous cost in animal welfare. Most farm animals are now raised indoors in confined animal feeding operations, where almost all natural animal behaviors are denied. Over 12 billion farmed animals are now slaughtered every year in the United States.

Animal factory farms have huge negative effects on the environment. The volume of farm animal waste products is 130 times greater than human waste in the United States, and this material usually does not pass through sewage treatment plants. One big industrial hog operation produces more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles over a year.

Farm animals in the U.S. now consume 70% of all the grains we grow. Including the land used for grazing cows, this means that means that 80% of all agricultural land in the U.S. is used to raise animals for food. That is equal to almost one half of the total land mass of the continental U.S.

Our oceans suffer from the Orange vMEME approach, as well. Industrial pollution and over-fishing cause tremendous damage to our oceans. Coral reefs have declined by 30% in the last 30 years. It is estimated that the total number of whales in the world has declined 90% in the last 100 years. World supplies of cod, swordfish, marlin, halibut, skate, and flounder have been reduced by almost 50% in the last 50 years. We are fishing out the oceans, it is happening in our lifetimes.

Industrial mono-cultures are causing a loss of genetic diversity around the world. And the remaining genes in agricultural crops are being modified and introduced into the food supply chain at an alarming rate. Genetic engineering of our food crops has great potential and great risks. Unfortunately, it is currently being developed almost strictly from the consciousness of the Orange vMEME.

The current obesity epidemic is probably directly related to the industrialization of our food production system. The figures are staggering! Over 60% of Americans are classified as overweight and 26% are considered obese.

The success of Whole Foods Market in the last couple of years has extended beyond our core Green vMEME customer base and has attracted the Orange vMEME customer. This is certainly good in one sense, because it is extending our business mission further into the world. The success with this customer base is also now resulting in increased competition from Orange vMEME businesses—Wild Oats, Safeway, Super Value, Wal-Mart—who are chasing our customers. The integrity of our industry will be under increasing pressure. There will be a competitive pressure to “dumb down” the organic movement.

What are the causes of these negative effects from the industrialization of our food production? One effect is that the Orange vMEME lacks the perspective to think holistically or ecologically about agriculture. The environmental impacts of industrial agricultural production processes are not fully factored into cost models – the pollution of air and water and the degradation of soil. Next is the failure of the market to effectively communicate other values besides prices to consumers. Quality, nutritional value, and the environmental impact of products are not fully communicated to the consumer. The market system doesn’t communicate any values other than cost.

Farm animal welfare is completely ignored because livestock animals are seen as merely a “factor of production” instead of as sentient beings to be cared for. Factory farms are, for most citizens and business owners, “out of sight, out of mind.”

The negative effects of the Orange vMEME in agriculture are most clearly seen in our “Factory Farms.” With this model, all that matters is minimizing costs and maximizing productivity. That, in a nutshell, is the logic of the Orange vMEME in agriculture today.

If Whole Foods Market doesn’t work to correct the horrible abuses of farm animals, then who will? This is factory farming, so you can take a good look at it.

*[presentation of Meat Your Meat, a video prepared by PETA]*

click here to choose your player and download speed and watch the video

[The audience buzzes at the conclusion of the video.]

I hope I didn’t mess up your lunch today!

Evolving Solutions for Agriculture

What are the solutions to the industrialization of agriculture? Agricultural needs to evolve from the Orange vMEME to the Green vMEME and then make the leap to the Second Tier (Integral). Food producers need to evolve to systems thinking—holistic and ecological—optimizing the entire system, not just one part. The U.S. needs to eliminate all agricultural subsidies to agribusiness. Farmers and producers need to internalize the costs of environmental impacts. We need to more fully adopt the tenets of the “Deep Organic” agricultural movement. As a society, we need to support local agriculture. We need to demand the compassionate treatment of farm animals and the integration of farm animals into ecological farm systems.

Organic Solutions
Organic agriculture is certainly one of the solutions. Organic agriculture produces food without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. The organic agriculture movement was originally activated by the Green vMEME, but now the Orange vMEME is co-opting organic agriculture. As a society, we are better served by adopting Deep Organic (Second Tier-Integral) versus Shallow Organic (Orange vMEME) agriculture. An example of shallow organic agriculture would be the labeling of certain brands of milk as “organic.” A factory farm can legally produce organic milk if it is feeding the cow organic feed, but otherwise maintaining factory conditions. By contrast, the Deep Organic world-view sees the farm not as a “food factory” but as a human-managed microcosm of the natural world. The Deep Organic world-view sees the soil as a living system to be nurtured and replenished instead of “mined” and exploited.

Whole Foods Market was instrumental in helping to develop the national organic standards into law. However, we have got to do a much better job of educating our customers and the media about the value of Deep Organic agriculture. We must not compromise our higher values, but maintain the very highest standards. We are going to have to stand strong and fight the corporate movement to dumb down organic agriculture.

Animal Welfare
Whole Foods Market Animal Compassionate Standards are a great leap forward over what exists now conventionally. But we have to do better. Our long-term goal is to develop compassionate standards for all meat, poultry, and fish species sold in Whole Foods Market stores. Duck, pig, beef, and sheep standards are completed and can be viewed on our website. Lobster, broiler chicken, laying hens and turkey standards are planned for 2006, and dairy cows, goats, and fish farms are slated for 2007. We are developing the standards as a multi-stakeholder process, involving major animal rights organizations: Animal Welfare Institute, Viva!USA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Humane Society of the U.S., Animal Rights International, and Farm Sanctuary. We are producing a living document that is subject to revision. Any future product that adheres to these standards will be clearly marked with soon to be developed Animal Compassion logo.

I want to talk briefly about the Animal Compassion Foundation.

Our intention with this foundation is to create a worldwide network of ranchers and farmers interested in improving humane treatment for farm animals. The foundation will search the planet for innovative methods to be studied and provide research money for scientific studies to improve the welfare of farm animals. The foundation will collect information for knowledge sharing on a worldwide basis. The foundation will be funded through a Whole Foods Market annual Global 5% Day.

Moving Forward

In conclusion, I want to say WAKE UP!!! Wake up! Learn and grow! Evolve your consciousness to a higher level. Open your heart wider and extend love, care and compassion further.

Fulfill the mission and core values of Whole Foods Market. Our company is making a real difference in the world. We are making it better. You are contributing to the evolution of the world, by fulfilling our mission.

Think in terms of creating value for all of our stakeholders simultaneously. All stakeholders are interdependent and connected together. When you do this, you are thinking with Second Tier (Integral) consciousness. As you practice this at Whole Foods Market, you are practicing Second Tier thinking. Sometimes it seems as if the Team Members are only thinking about the Team Member’s interests, although many are paying attention to the Customers. It seems like the only ones paying attention to the investors are the Team Leaders. Maybe that’s how they got to be Team Leaders. The trick is to think in terms of creating value for all stakeholders simultaneously.

The final message is Whole Foods Whole People Whole Planet. We are all connected together in an upward spiral flow toward greater health, happiness, peace, love, and ecological sustainability. That is our purpose, and that is what we are doing.

Here are a few resources if you’d like to learn more:

• A Theory of Everything by Ken Wilber
• Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan
• Essential Spirituality by Roger Walsh
• Boomeritis by Ken Wilber
• www.spiraldynamics.org
• http://integralinstitute.org/
• http://www.itp-life.com/
• http://www.flowproject.org/

I’ll entertain a few questions:

Q: You used several terms: arrested vs. activated. What do those terms mean, and are these the only states you can be in?

A: When a vMEME is activated, that means it is starting to “light up.” If you are in a particular vMEME and it stops making sense to you, if something has happened in your life to make you question the values you hold, the next MEME will start to make sense, and will “light up.”

If you are arrested in a certain level, your growth has stopped, you’re not letting other input or information in, your thinking has become rigid.

Are there only two states? No, but can’t think of anything else to tell you right now.

Q: You referenced “power” and the percentages each level held several times in your talk. How were you defining power?

A: They weren’t my statistics (I got them from Don Beck’s book Spiral Dynamics), but I define it as power in society, economic/political/social power. Orange is most powerful level today in the United States. Green growing in power, and Blue is still pretty powerful, but is in gradual decline. You have to view the statistics on a world-wide basis. The figures are different in the U.S., because we’ve got more Green activated.

Q: You identified the need for the entire food industry to move toward a more holistic manner of production; do you believe enough people will embrace having to pay for the additional costs?

A: Yes, I do. Look at how much the industry has changed in 20 years. Many more people are buying organic food, even though it costs more. Look at Wal-Mart, selling organic produce. Who’d have thought that would happen 20 years ago?

Make no mistake, Whole Foods Market will be leading the way; especially if we become more conscious, we can then grow and evolve more quickly; as we network with evolving organizations around the world, such as Grameen Bank and Earth University, we’ll be helping to speed up the evolution into the Second Tier.

At Whole Foods Market, we have a great balance of Orange, Green, and Second Tier energy in an interesting mix. We have many challenges ahead, but let the fear go, people. WE ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE.

Q: Is Whole Foods Market willing to address Population Control in its networking activities?

A: Maybe. I prepared this talk today because I wanted to challenge each level to understand the other. Some of the most important upward movements in the world today are in places like India and China, where people in the Blue vMEME are moving in great numbers into the Orange. As societies move into the Orange vMEME, populations tend to self-limit. I believe population will take care of itself. As economic power grows, the incentive to have many children lessens. I believe population will limit itself voluntarily, or internally by cultures, as a country’s consciousness grows. I don’t see a real need for external controls or programs. I think the answer is to make the whole world prosperous, fulfill Muhammad Yunnus’ vision for empowering the poor, on a world-wide basis.

Q: You talked a lot about Genetic Engineering and how its name would need to change, and how it needed to change. What would you change the name to, and what would it look like at the Second Tier?

A: Genetic Engineering is caught in the crossfire of the Orange vMEME vs. Green vMEME thinking. At the Second Tier, it could potentially become of great benefit to the world, many beneficial things could come from it, but it probably wouldn’t be called GE. If undertaken from a higher consciousness, and from a position of care, compassion and love, and an understanding of the complex systems involved, Genetic Engineering has the capacity to do great good. I reject the Green vMEME thinking that Genetic Engineering must be stopped at all costs. I think it needs to be implemented from a systems perspective, which isn’t currently happening, but could in the future.

I know I will be misquoted and misunderstood. I didn’t SAY that I favored Genetic Engineering. Let’s be clear about that.

Q: As the world goes through the evolutionary process, with half the world still in the beige/purple/red/blue vMEMEs, how much leap-frogging will take place? Must societies go thru each level?

A: Yes, but they may move through them more quickly. I wouldn’t even be doing this talk, except that I’m hoping to accelerate Whole Food’s evolution. If everyone here, if everyone in the company made a commitment toward growth, it could have an accelerating effect on our organization’s influence at the next level.

My generation, which includes the Boomers, was the first that activated the Green vMEME in large numbers. Unfortunately many of the Boomers got stuck there. They didn’t go any higher. You see a lot of the negative parts of the Green vMEME now manifesting in society and this has fueled the culture wars.

I’m most excited about the millennial generation, the young people born after about 1982. These kids are collectively very, very awake. Many of them are moving into the Second Tier already, and they are only 20 years old! The next generation will be moving into the Second Tier in significant numbers. I start to cry when I think about these young people, because they are so awesome and their potential for doing good is so great.

I think this is a good place to stop. Thank you.

What I hope to accomplish tonight is to challenge your thinking about the modern freedom movement. I believe the freedom movement has been its own worst enemy by foolishly limiting its appeal and impact with an overly narrow interpretation about the meaning and purpose of freedom. From a business perspective, the freedom movement faces major marketing challenges, the result of its poor job of branding itself to the world.

My Background
Let me tell you a few brief things about myself as background. Before I started Whole Foods Market I attended two different universities, where I accumulated 130 hours of electives, primarily in philosophy and religion, and ended up with no degree. I never took a single business class. I actually think that has worked to my advantage in business. I spent my late teens and early twenties trying to discover the meaning and purpose of my own life.

My search for meaning and purpose led me into the counter-culture movement of the late 1960’s and 1970’s. I studied eastern philosophy and religion at the time, and still practice both yoga and meditation. I studied ecology. I became a vegetarian (I am currently a vegan), I lived in a commune, and I grew my hair and beard long. I’m one of those crunchy-granola types. Politically, I drifted to the Left and embraced the ideology that business and corporations were essentially evil because they selfishly sought profits. I believed that government was “good” (if the “right” people had control of it) because it altruistically worked for the public interest.

With that background, I felt “well prepared” to launch my business in 1978. My initial business, a natural foods market called Safer Way, was a small 3,000 square foot store that I opened with my girlfriend, with an initial $45,000 in capital. We were very idealistic, and we started the business because we thought it would be fun. We were right-we had a blast then, and we’ve continued to have a great time during the last 28 years. The time has passed quickly.

Along with the for-profit business, I also created a business of “heart” and I think I have been equally successful with that venture. After running Safer Way for a couple of years, we decided to relocate to a much larger building and we opened Whole Foods Market in 1980. No pun intended, but we grew the business organically from there.

At the time I started my business, the Left had taught me that business and capitalism were based on exploitation: exploitation of consumers, workers, society and the environment. I believed that “profit” was a necessary evil at best, and certainly not a desirable goal for society as a whole. However, becoming an entrepreneur completely changed my life. Everything I believed about business was proven to be wrong. The most important thing I learned about business in my first year was that business wasn’t based on exploitation or coercion at all. Instead I realized that business is based on voluntary cooperation. No one is forced to trade with a business; customers have competitive alternatives in the market place; employees have competitive alternatives for their labor; investors have different alternatives and places to invest their capital. Investors, labor, management, suppliers—they all need to cooperate to create value for their customers. If they do, then any realized profit can be divided amongst the creators of the value through competitive market dynamics. In other words, business is not a zero sum game with a winner and loser. It is a win, win, win, win game—and I really like that.

However, I discovered despite my idealism that our customers thought our prices were too high, our employees thought they were underpaid, the vendors would not give us large discounts, the community was forever clamoring for donations, and the government was slapping us with endless fees, licenses, fines and taxes.

Were we profitable? Not at first. Safer Way managed to lose half of its capital in the first year—$23,000. Despite the loss, we were still accused of exploiting our customers with high prices and our employees with lower wages. The investors weren’t making a profit and we had no money to donate. Plus, with our losses, we paid no taxes. I had somehow joined the “dark side” — I was now one of the bad guys. According to the perspective of the Left, I had become a greedy and selfish businessman.

Abandoning Leftist Philosophy
At this point, I rationally chose to abandon the Leftist philosophy of my youth, because it no longer adequately explained how the world really worked. With my Leftist interpretation of the world now shattered, I looked around for alternative explanations for making sense of the world.

I stumbled into reading Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand—I read all of them. I said to myself, “Wow, this all makes sense. This is how the world really works. This is incredible.” Then I became Laissez Faire Books best customer for the next five years. I think I read every book in their catalog. If any of you in the audience have written books, I have probably read them.

I identify myself as a Libertarian. I am one of those people who actually votes Libertarian. I have voted strictly Libertarian since 1980. You sometimes hear that argument, “Why do you vote Libertarian? You’re just throwing your vote away.” I always say, “Gosh, if everybody had that attitude toward their vote, then the Libertarian candidate would get elected.”

What I love most about the freedom movement are the ideas of voluntary cooperation and spontaneous order when channeled through free markets, leading to the continuous evolution and progress of humanity. I believe that individual freedom in free markets when combined with property rights through rule of law and ethical democratic government results in societies that maximize prosperity and establish conditions that promote human happiness and well being.

Unfortunately, despite of all my enthusiasm and formidable debating skills, I have had little success converting people to the freedom movement. Has that been your experience as well? The freedom movement remains a small, relatively unimportant movement in the United States today. The question is, “Why?” I want the freedom movement to sweep the world. So how can we make the freedom movement a more vital and dominant intellectual and cultural movement in the United States?

Selfishness and Greed Are Not Good
I hope to do two things tonight. First, I will critique the freedom movement and highlight mistakes that have greatly lessened its impact and influence in the world. Second, I will challenge the movement to re-think its purpose and values. We need to evolve our paradigm along with the brand that we offer the world. As a businessman who knows something about marketing and branding, I can tell you the freedom movement is branding itself very poorly.

Let’s start with the critique. How many of you have read Ayn Rand? How many of you have been influenced by her? Atlas Shrugged remains one of the five greatest novels I have ever read. Who can ever forget characters like Dagny Taggert, Hank Rearden, Francisco d’Anconia, from Atlas Shrugged, as well as Howard Roark in The Fountainhead. These characters all demonstrated tremendous passions and drive, backed by high self-esteem. Each one inspired this young entrepreneur. I wanted to be just like those heroic characters in Atlas Shrugged.

However, despite her literary greatness and many positive contributions to the freedom movement, I believe that Rand has also harmed the movement. How? Ayn Rand was overly provocative. The “virtue of selfishness” is an oxymoron. Selfishness is not a virtue. Now, I understand all the arguments—I’ve read all the books. I know that self-interest channeled to the social good, as expressed through Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand, is the single most brilliant insight about social organization ever made in history. That being said, selfishness (as opposed to self-interest) is still not a virtue. It is something to be discouraged, and not something to be supported.

Similarly, I find insupportable the idea Ivan Boesky and Gordon Gekko made infamous, that “Greed is Good.” Well, greed is not good. Greed is not a virtue. Excepting a few people on Wall Street and some people in the freedom movement, almost no one else in our greater society will support selfishness and greed as “good” when they see it. So my question to you is, why doesn’t the freedom movement condemn selfishness and greed? If we don’t, we are inappropriately seen as supporters of selfishness and greed. In my opinion, this is a major branding mistake that continues to undermine our movement.

How many people in the audience believe that the only social responsibility that business has is to maximize profits? Before I make my next point, let me boast about Whole Foods Market for a moment. In 2005, we did $4.7 billion in sales and realized $136 million in net profits. With our current growth rates by 2010 we should do over $12 billion in sales. On a percentage basis Whole Foods Market is the most profitable public food retailing business in the United States, with the highest net profit percentage, sales growth, and sales per square foot. I make this boast to prove that (a) I believe in profit and (b) I am quite competent in producing it. I love profit. Profit is good and it is socially necessary. However, some people in the freedom movement have long argued that the only social responsibility that business has is to maximize profits. I believe that profits are an essential purpose of business, but I would argue that they are not the sole, or even most important, purpose of business. Profit is the most important purpose to the business owners. But owners do not exist in a vacuum. I believe the best way to think about business is as an interdependent system of constituencies connected together in a “harmony of interests.”

Is maximizing business profits a goal that customers have when they patronize a business? Are customers coming in thinking, “I’m so glad I’m in Whole Foods today because I want to help you maximize your profits.” What about the people who work for a business? “I took a job a Whole Foods because I was seeking to maximize the profits of the company.” Or the community: “We’re so glad you came to our community and we want you to maximize your profits.” This is ludicrous, right?

Free-market economists, in their legitimate defense of the value of business profits, have often harmed the value of the larger brand of business in our society. These economists have not created a paradigm of business that will ever be fully accepted by society as “good.” Business instead continues to play the role of the bad guy in our society. Selfishness, greed, worker exploitation, consumer rip-offs, and environmental destruction, all in the name of maximizing profits—this is the reality of the brand that business is burdened with in the world today.

I believe that business has a much greater purpose. Business, working through free markets, is possibly the greatest force for good on the planet today. When executed well, business increases prosperity, ends poverty, improves the quality of life, and promotes the health and longevity of the world population at an unprecedented rate. This audience understands these truths, but how many people in our greater society comprehend it?

The freedom movement has also poorly defended the social legitimacy of both business and free market. A new paradigm for business and the free market is necessary—one that accepts the importance of profits of course, but also one that recognizes that business has legitimate social responsibilities that go far beyond merely maximizing profits. That’s all I’m going to say on this issue tonight because it’s a “teaser.” My talk tomorrow focuses entirely on how to create a new business paradigm.

Positioning and Branding the Movement
How many people in the audience believe drugs should be legalized? What about pornography? How many of you believe that prostitution should be legal? I believe all three should be legalized—within certain parameters which protect children. Who among you believes that private ownership of guns should be made illegal? I certainly don’t. Gun ownership is protected by the Second Amendment of the Constitution. It is an important right.

I believe, however, that all four of these issues are far less critical for improving our society than creating educational choice, privatizing social security, de-regulating health care, and enacting meaningful tort reform. The legalization of drugs, pornography, prostitution and guns, as issues, are all too closely associated with the freedom movement. Aligning ourselves with these issues has hurt our brand tremendously, by associating the freedom movement with cultural decadence. Parents don’t want their children’s lives ruined by drug experimentation; or their innocence prematurely lost to pornography and prostitution; or their lives ended with a bullet.

These four freedom issues need to be de-emphasized by the freedom movement if we hope to successfully create a mass movement, and continue to evolve our society in positive directions. How many of you believe that lessening the power of government over our lives is the most important goal of the freedom movement? I believe that the freedom movement’s biggest mistake today is focusing primarily on freedom “from” government coercion as its primary goal. Obviously this is a very important goal for the freedom movement, but I strongly believe it must also be accompanied by an equally important goal: the freedom “to” take responsibility for our own lives; the freedom “to” take responsibility for our own communities and our planet.

Freedom from government coercion is clearly a very, very important goal. But unless you live in a country like China, North Korea, Cuba or Iran that lacks many personal liberties that we Westerners take largely for granted, freedom is not usually a very important goal. American citizens mostly take their liberties for granted. Unlike the people in this audience, most Americans forget that vigilance is the eternal price we have to pay for protecting liberties.

Once we are free, or relatively free, to live our lives in the manner we choose to live them, we must next answer the question, “How then shall we actually live our lives?” Will we live our lives as hedonists, indulging ourselves with various amusements, diversions, and pleasures? Or will we choose the more difficult path of personal development and acceptance of social responsibility?

The freedom movement needs to reposition itself and re-brand itself. Personal freedom may be the first goal we work towards—but we can’t stop there; it isn’t enough. There is so much more to life. Using our freedom to take on greater social responsibility, as well as striving to reach our fullest potential as humans need to be goals that we support just as much as freedom from government coercion. When I was a naive (some people in the audience by this time probably think I’m still naive) and idealistic young man, I migrated to the Left for my value system. Why did I do that? Because the Left provided an idealistic vision of the way the world could be. However, the reality of the Left’s vision proved to be terribly flawed. Its socialist economic system not only didn’t work very well, but in its communist manifestation it justified monstrous governments directly responsible for the murders of over one hundred million people in the twentieth century. Despite the unbelievable horrible track record of Leftist ideology, millions of young Americans continue to migrate to an intellectual bankrupt Left because the Left still seems to be idealistic, and that idealism is magnetic to the young. Idealism will always be magnetic to the intelligent and sensitive young people of the world.

Inspiring Idealism
How sad that the freedom movement often refuses to be idealistic. We usually don’t even attempt to compete. We simply forfeit the field to the Left because we pride ourselves on our “realism” and “toughmindedness.” We talk about freedom and prosperity – and that is about it. We have no real theory of either the good life or the good society except the fundamental belief that if people have sufficient personal and economical liberties (such as in Friedrich Hayek’s spontaneous order) we will create a prosperous society.

Freedom and prosperity are important goals, but they must be only the beginning goals for us. If we are to win the allegiance of the young people of America then we must dare to be more idealistic. We must create a vision of the good life and the good society that is irresistible to the young. How many of you here are familiar with Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs?” For those of you who aren’t, Maslow was a psychologist who did most of his work in 1950’s and 60’s. His theory of human nature is that we can understand human motivations with a simple model. There are various “need” levels and they arrange themselves basically in a hierarchy. At the bottom of the hierarchy are the physical needs: such as food, water, and sex. Once those needs are relatively well met, you move up to the next level in hierarchy: safety needs, such as security and physiological safety take precedence. Next you move into belongingness and love needs: affiliation, acceptance, affection, community and family. Once those needs are met then you tend to move to self-esteem needs: feeling competent, gaining approval and recognition from others, and garnering a sense that you are a worthwhile human being. The next level would be the attainment of aesthetic and cognitive needs, which can be summarized as the pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Finally at the top of this hierarchy is self-actualization which (and the Army’s advertising firm must have read Maslow) is “be all you can be.” This means reaching your fullest potential as a human being. I believe that one of life’s purposes is fundamentally about learning and growing. If we move up Maslow’s hierarchy and don’t stagnate at lower levels, life becomes an adventure of learning, growing, loving and joyfulness. If we are not growing as human beings then we are diminishing.

The freedom movement, in my opinion, needs to embrace the ideal of not just economic growth, but personal growth as well. If we use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as our criteria for evaluating the freedom movement, we see that it is primarily focused on the lower need levels: meeting the physical needs and safety needs through increased prosperity. To be perfectly blunt about it: the freedom movement is largely materialistic in its approach to life, stuck in the lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy. The higher need levels, love, self-esteem, the good, the true and the beautiful, and self-actualization, are either taken for granted or simply ignored.

Study after study shows that material prosperity, by itself, does not create happiness. We have higher needs as expressed on Maslow’s hierarchy and the freedom movement needs to stop ignoring them. The freedom movement needs to consciously create a vision that addresses meeting the higher needs of Americans, beyond basic physical and safety needs.

That is the secret of the success of the Left, despite its bankrupt economic philosophy. The Left entices the young with promises of community, love, purpose, peace, health, compassion, caring, and environmental sustainability. The Left’s vision on how to meet these higher needs in people is fundamentally flawed. But the idealism and the call to the higher need levels is magnetic and seductive, nonetheless. The irony of the situation, as I see it, is that the Left has idealistic visions of higher human potential and social responsibility, but has no effective strategies to realize their vision. The freedom movement has strategies that could meet higher human potential and social responsibility but lacks the idealism and vision to implement the strategies. I assert that the freedom movement can become a successful mass movement today if it will consciously adopt a more idealistic approach to its marketing, branding, and overall vision and embrace a vision of meeting higher human potentials and greater social responsibility.

Changing the Face of Health Care
Now let us discuss some of the ideals and goals that I think we should embrace as a movement. Who among you believes that socialized medicine is the answer to the health care crisis in America? The Left believes this is the answer: equal access to the health care system for all Americans—no one denied for financial reasons, in a single-payer system. Socialized health care seems very idealistic, and as such, appeals to many people. However, as Milton Friedman taught us, there is no such thing as a free lunch—in health care or anywhere else. We know the single-payer system means health care rationing through queuing up in long lines for expensive treatments and denial of some services to many of the elderly as too expensive. We know that uncaring government bureaucrats will run a single-payer system and without the discipline of competitive markets won’t provide quality customer/patient service. We know that health care innovation and progress will slow down tremendously, because much less money will be dedicated to medical research since such research is long-term by nature and easily sacrificed to current budget limitations.

The United States continues to steadily move toward socialized health care partly because the freedom movement has not articulated an idealistic vision of what would be possible if we deregulated health care in America. We have fought a strictly defensive battle on this issue, and that strategy needs to change.

First of all, health is not merely the absence of disease. It is vitality and a sense of well-being. Health is partly about eating a healthy diet. (Therefore please shop at Whole Foods Market!) Also, regular daily exercise and minimizing the poisons we take into our bodies such as sugar, alcohol, nicotine and caffeine are also very important. Health is about getting adequate sleep, and also about having a sense of personal life purpose, and maintaining an optimistic and positive attitude. Most importantly, our health and well-being are our own responsibilities. Our doctors cannot accept these responsibilities. Nor can the bureaucratic “experts” controlling a health care system. The freedom movement must first advocate the ideal of self-responsibility for health. We own our own bodies, don’t we? This is no minor thing because the Left, by supporting socialized medicine, demonstrates a belief that common citizens are too stupid to take responsibility for our own health and therefore need the “experts” to step in and control things for our own good.

Next we must advocate the ideal of free markets and competition in health care. The monopoly that medical doctors largely have in medical treatment must be broken. They should have to fully compete with other practitioners such as chiropractors, acupuncturists, naturopaths, and yes my skeptical friend, John Stossel, even homeopathists. Competition is beneficial in every market and it will be so in the health and wellness market as well. Doctors don’t compete on quality or price right now. They don’t post their prices and it is almost impossible to get any real idea of the quality of their services except through trial and error. We don’t currently have an efficient, competitive market in health care.

The final thing we must do in health care is to change the tax structure. Eliminating tax incentives for health care would change everything. Most companies (like Whole Foods) would stop offering free or subsidized health insurance if the benefit wasn’t tax-deductible. Individuals would no longer receive “free” health care and would start spending their own money. The power of the markets would increase both the efficiency and effectiveness of our health care system enormously. Try to imagine for just a minute how much we could improve the health of Americans if we embrace the ideals that I outlined here: self-responsibility, competition, deregulation, and tax incentives. Let markets truly work in health care and I have little doubt that the health of Americans would improve immensely. I predict that we would see an increase in longevity to nearly 100 years within just a few decades- true freedom and innovation. Are good health and increased longevity worthy ideals for our movement to embrace? I think they are!

Global Peace
Peace. Why should the Left own the peace ideal? Why should the idealistic young turn to the Left to find peace? Global peace is within our reach for the first time in history. Let me quote from Johan Norberg’s wonderful new book, In Defense of Global Capitalism.

“The number of wars has diminished by half during the last decade. Today, less than 1% of the world’s population is directly affected by military conflicts. One reason is that democracies simply do not make war on each other. Another is that international exchange makes conflict less interesting. Cross ownership, multi-national corporations, and investment in privately owned resources make it hard to tell where one country really ends and another one begins.”

Despite the war in Iraq, which looms large in our minds, the truth is that wars in the world are actually in decline. The majority of the world’s nations are now committed to democratic governments and market economies. As this global network strengthens, peace increasingly becomes the world norm. The freedom movement should own the peace ideal; we do not own it now. Let us retrieve the peace ideal, because we know the truth: Democracy + free markets = peace between nations who share these social/economic/governmental structures.

Education Reform
Who in this room believes the United States has an excellent Kindergarten through 12th grade educational system? Who here believes that the way to improve education in the United States is to increase bureaucratic control by the government? Socialism doesn’t work. This was proven beyond a doubt in the 20th century. Nation after nation tried to replace capitalism with socialism and without exception their efforts to improve the quality of their citizens’ lives failed. Most Americans know that socialism doesn’t work as an economic system. We allow competitive markets to produce our food, our housing, our clothing, our transportation and most of the goods and services that we consume. Why then do so many people embrace socialism in health care and education? Because we have not created an idealistic vision of the way things could be if they were grounded in freedom instead of governmental control. What is the alternative to socialism in education? The free-market alternative is competition, innovation and choice. The monopoly of the government over education needs to end. The domination of our children’s education by the teacher’s unions needs to stop.

What other reforms are needed? The following reforms are old news to people in the freedom movement: school choice, through vouchers and tax credits, along with privatizing public schools and selling off their assets to the private sector. What would happen with true competition in school choice, with students and parents becoming truly empowered consumers instead of virtual prisoners and slaves as they are now in the socialized system that exists today? We would have an explosion in educational innovation, and unprecedented improvements as competition and choice systematically eliminated poor teachers and poor schools. In the marketplace, a series of successful educational organizations would grow and spread throughout the nation. We would see incredible diversity in types of schools and styles of education meeting the diverse needs and desires of students and parents, instead of the dictates of the educational bureaucracy and teachers’ unions.

Educational empowerment is a noble ideal and one that I believe mainstream Americans will embrace, once parents understand how their own children will be the true beneficiaries of these reforms. Where the freedom movement has failed is in creating and articulating a vision to promote this ideal. We’re too afraid to be seen as utopian or near-utopian in our thinking. There is so much cynicism in response. You have all heard “it’s not realistic,” and “it’s a fantasy, you’ve got to be realistic.” But for people to give up ideals like socialized education and medicine—equal access for everyone to schools and health care regardless of income—they need to believe the replacements are going to be substantial improvements. The way to lead them to support change is to create an idealistic vision of what is possible. Next, you need to evangelize this vision to create a sense of excitement. Then they will agree to travel down that road with you to create the necessary changes. If there is no exciting, idealistic vision of what is possible, most people won’t bother to join the struggle. Life is simply too short and most people have better things to do.

Environmental Sustainability
Who among you has read Bjørn Lomborg’s book, The Skeptical Environmentalist? I cannot recommend this great book to you more highly. It convincingly demonstrates that the doom-and-gloom, apocalyptic crowd has greatly exaggerated the decline of the global environment in many important areas such as air and water quality and the decline in natural resources. With that qualifier said, I still believe the freedom movement has erred strategically by letting the Left own the ideal of environmental sustainability.

The ideal of environmental sustainability is certainly going to grow in importance over the next several years. It isn’t going to fade away. I personally think it is the “Achilles heel” of the freedom movement and until it is proactively embraced as an important ideal by members of the freedom movement, the movement will become less and less relevant to the idealistic young in American society.

My company currently employs over 39,000 people. I estimate that nearly 100% of them care greatly about environmental sustainability. I know that I personally do. At Whole Foods, Team Members drift to the Left primarily because of the environmental issues.

Maintaining environmental sustainability is in the collective best interest of everyone. No one will argue that premise. The real question is, “What are the best ways to do it?” What are the trade-offs we need to make? When the freedom movement ignores the issue of environmental sustainability, the Left will dominate the discussion of the issues. Remember that the Left’s goal remains to either destroy or cripple capitalism. The freedom movement must embrace the ideal of environmental sustainability, but must bring to the debate its commitment to property rights, markets and proper incentives to effectively resist the inevitable Leftist arguments for more bureaucratic controls and regulations.

Love, Caring and Compassion
Why should the Left own the ideals (and they do own them right now) of love, caring and compassion – especially with their track record? How can a movement that in its extreme form is responsible for the murders of more than one hundred million people, slaughtered in the name of their ideals own these three words? What the Left has done is create a world of victims and a cult of victimology. Then the Left accuses everyone who disagrees with them as lacking in love, caring and compassion. What a bunch of baloney! The freedom movement must embrace the ideals of love, caring and compassion and return these words to their true meanings. Love, caring and compassion do not equate with guilt, and they do not mean pandering to the demands of the various victims of the world. Spreading freedom through the world is the most loving and compassionate thing we can do for people. True freedom allows people to create prosperity and gives them the opportunity to move up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs towards self-actualization. True freedom gives us the opportunity to take social responsibility and to work towards making the world a better place.

The freedom movement needs to support economic globalization. Globalization is the most caring and compassionate strategy we can implement to help the developing world lift itself out of poverty. This is the simple truth. But how many people understand this truth? The Left has convinced the idealistic young that globalization is harming the developing world – a plot by greedy corporations to rule the world. The freedom movement has a responsibility to explain the wisdom of globalization, and to hold it up as a noble ideal to the world.

I began my talk tonight by telling you that I spent my late teens and early twenties searching for meaning and purpose of my life. My strategy was really a very simple one: I decided to follow my heart wherever it took me. My heart has led me to distant places and to great worldly success. What I have learned on this journey is that in the core of my inner being there is endless creativity and there is limitless love. I believe if each of you look deep within your own inner being, you will likely also discover these two passions within yourself.

It is my belief that we should act in this world with open loving hearts, and that we need to channel our deepest creative impulses in a loving way toward other living beings. Do we really want to win the battle for freedom and prosperity in the world today? If we do, then let us bind these words together, as tightly as we can, with the words love, care and compassion.

Freedom belongs together with love. Prosperity belongs together with compassion. This is the vision I hold for the future; this is the world I strive to create. I urge you to join me. Together we can create a world where people have lives full of purpose, love, adventure, a world of freedom, prosperity and compassion.

F.L.O.W.
Now, I have a brief commercial. Along with a few friends, I am starting a new initiative within the freedom movement. We call this initiative “FLOW”, for Freedom Lights Our World. What we envision will bring the idealistic young that are being lost systematically to the Left into the freedom movement. Many of the ideas I’ve talked about tonight are core concepts of FLOW. If you’re interested in learning a little more about FLOW, we have a web site: www.flowproject.org

I am going to end my speech tonight with a quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This sentiment should be memorized by every aspiring entrepreneur in the audience:

“What ever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic.”

Thank you very much.