John Mackey, Chairman and CEO of Whole Foods Market(R), and Ellen M. Zane, President and CEO, Tufts Medical Center and the Floating Hospital for Children, Offer Advice to Bentley Students at May 17 Co...( Who will create the conscious bus...),Health

"Who will create the conscious businesses of the 21st century? Why not

Bentley graduates? Why don't some of you go out and create conscious

businesses that transform the world? Maybe that's what your heart is

calling out to you to do." -- John Mackey

WALTHAM, Mass., May 17 /PRNewswire/ -- In a heartfelt keynote address to approximately 1,000 Bentley undergraduate students at the 89th commencement ceremony on May 17, John Mackey, chairman and CEO of Whole Foods Market, urged graduates to follow their hearts, to use obstacles as opportunities for growth, and to help create "conscious businesses" in the 21st century.

"We should commit ourselves to following our hearts and doing what we most love and what we most want to do in life," he began. "If you could do absolutely anything in the world, what is it that you would do? Your heart knows the answers to these questions. Even as I'm saying these words right now, some of you can hear the whispering in your own heart. So listen to it and follow it. You will have no better guide in your life than your own heart."

Essential to the journey, Mackey noted, is the ability to deal with fear. "It is fear which prevents most people from reaching their fullest potential in life -- we become afraid that we're not good enough, we become afraid of what the judgments of other people will be. We fear failure ... and some of us will even have a fear of our own greatness because of the burdens it might place on us."

Mackey openly discussed personal and business challenges he has faced over the past year, involving a proposed merger with a competitor and investigations and media criticism over internet postings he made, and the lessons he has learned. "My most valuable lesson has been about the importance of communicating with greater thoughtfulness. 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 wou
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