John Mackey… entrepreneur, vegan, health-conscious, hippy, fan of MDMA, and 44-year CEO of Whole Foods. This story far exceeded my expectations. How interesting can John Mackey be? Well, I was not ready.

John tells a chronological history of the Whole Foods grocery store we know today, speckled with stories about John’s youth and personal life in a very well organized and interesting story. Without any business education, John’s grit and connections helped him turn a small co-op into the major chain Whole Foods over several decades.

I really enjoyed the audio book and learning about John and the chain’s journey from inception to publicly traded company; through acquisitions and expansions; through coups and alliances; to Amazon.

Thank you to Netgalley for the audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5-4 ⭐️

Overall, this was an enjoyable read. The memoir follows Mackey’s business journey chronologically from the beginning and also provides snippets of his personal and spiritual experiences along the way.

I enjoyed the chapters that focused on Mackey’s life and adventures and felt like they added to the overall story. I am not well versed in business, so having small intervals between discussions of investors, board meetings, etc. was a welcome respite at times.

It’s a lengthy audiobook (14.5 hrs), but the story was informative and the audiobook was well done. I had to listen to it in small doses in order for it to keep my attention.

Thank you to NetGalley, RB Media, and Ascent Audio for an advanced audiobook copy of this memoir.

"The Whole Story" is an interesting story written by John Mackey, one of the founders and the former CEO of the Whole Foods Market. This story begins in the 1970s when John Mackey is a young twenty-something, unsure of what to do with his life. He spends some time living in a cooperative housing situation and gets into vegetarianism and opens up his first health food store. The story continues on as John partners with others and continues to grow his brand while staying true to his "conscious capitalism" ideals. This book tells John’s story about his personal and spiritual journey while telling the story about how he grew his business, often going against the grain, especially in the early days, when health food was considered to be some kind of hippie fad. John Mackey may be unusual in some of his beliefs and business practices, but make no mistake. This is the story of a capitalist, one who grew his business and became wealthy by buying up all of the smaller health food stores along his way, eventually selling to Amazon. In this book, Mackey is logical in explaining Whole Foods’ growth and the way he conducted his business.

This book may interest those who are in the field of business. The audiobook is over 13 hours but it was easy to listen to. Thank you to the publisher for the advance audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

I think I got sucked in by the cover of this audiobook, but I did not enjoy this. It felt very much to me like the author was trying to get me as a reader to like and admire him and see him as a noble, scrappy businessman. I cannot deny that the writing was strong and Mackey is clearly a storyteller. However, it felt to me that many of the unethical practices Whole Foods engages in in terms of employing incarcerated people and paying low wages felt entirely glossed over.

If you are interested in reading this, however, the audiobook is very high quality and well done. Thank you to NetGalley for granting me access to an audio ARC.

The Whole Story: Adventures in Love, Life, and Capitalism by John Mackey offers a comprehensive account of the rise of Whole Foods Market and Mackey's personal and spiritual journey. With a runtime of 13 hours and 6 minutes, it truly is the whole story.

As a business management major, I was vaguely familiar with John Mackey, but I got a better glimpse through an episode of the Freakonomics podcast titled 'How to Succeed by Being Authentic (Hint: Carefully)'. I highly recommend it as a starting point before diving into this book, to grasp Mackey's thinking style and see if his ideas resonate with you and if you can handle some of his political rantings. If they do, this audiobook is a good suit for your commute.

I particularly enjoyed his reflections of how much compromising of himself, or backing off his own ideals, he was wanting to do to make space for others in his businesses, and to grow said businesses. Mackey is quite eccentric but very logical in explaining his thinking.

I always find it interesting if when a business leader accomplishes something that their team or others were unsure of or thought was impossible, what lessons they take from that. That is, do they jump to the notion of, 'Oh, no one thought I could do it, I'm a genius, they're wrong,' which you certainly don't learn anything from as a reader. Or, are they of the mindset of, 'Okay, we were playing with fire a little bit there, that was an uphill battle, we really came together and made that work, what do we change for next time?' Mackey certainly strikes me as the latter, emphasizing relationships, collaboration, and personal mistakes in this memoir rather than basking in his successes.

Thank you to RB Media, Ascent Audio, and Netgalley for the advanced copy.