This was many years ago and by then I was already a vegetarian, maybe a vegan, I don’t remember exactly but I had been hammering into my boss the importance of health, especially if high performance was our goal.
We were in Palo Alto to visit the Cisco CEO, and then we drove to the airport where Michael met us and flew us up to LA on his plane. It was only about a 45-minute flight or so, and the whole time he talked about health, beginning with his diagnosis of prostrate cancer many years before.
In all my years of shadowing what are referred to as “Global Leaders”, I never heard one of them mention a word about health, yet during those 40 minutes, Michael took us on a tour of the body from the most minute biochemical detail all the way up to posture, breathing and yoga.
At his office during our meeting his chef cooked us a vegetarian lunch, using a lot of tofu and gluten free grains, and then later Michael showed me his library. He reached into a box and pulled out two of his cookbooks, signed them both and handed them to me.
In reflection I understand that after thousands of meetings with the world’s Chairmen, CEOs and Government leaders, none of them ever mentioned a word about humanity’s delicate place in the living world, our connectedness with all living creatures, and most importantly, how rapidly the earth and our health are being destroyed by the brutal slaughtering of hundreds of millions of animals a day for food.
Seems to me there should be no other discussion.
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