The Rich Roll Podcast - Finding Joy In Simplicity With The Happy Pear

Episode Date: July 20, 2018

Conducted live during our recent Plantpower Italia retreat, this special mid-week edition of the podcast features my third conversation with Stephen & David Flynn. Longtime listeners are well-acquainted with these Irish laddies. Stephen and David first appeared on the show back in June 2016 (#RRP 233) and again in November 2017 (RRP #331), a conversation captured before a live audience at Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin. For those newer to the show, David and Stephen are the joined-at-the-hip identical twin brothers behind The Happy Pear, a family run chain of natural food stores and cafés in Ireland as well as a robust line of organic, locally harvested plant-based food products available across the UK. The face and voice of Ireland's quickly growing healthy food revolution, the twins are omnipresent on social media and the bestselling authors behind a series of runaway smash-hit plant-based cookbooks, including The Happy Pear* (of course), World of the Happy Pear*, and their most recent release, The Happy Pear: Recipes for Happiness*. The Happy Pear isn't just two energetic twin brothers. It isn't just a series of cafés, cookbooks and food products. It's a movement. A movement rooted in family and community with one singular goal — to make healthy food and lifestyle mainstream. When the super fit dads aren’t making pre-school breakfast picnics on the beach, engaging in impromptu handstand competitions, conducting community-oriented health education courses or traveling extensively for public speaking, they enthusiastically guide a vast and devoted global audience of wellness warriors across every social media platform from YouTube to Instagram with an endless stream of highly entertaining, quality nutrition and fitness tips, recipes and daily slice-of-life vlogs with inspiration for miles. Picking up where our last conversation left off, please enjoy my exchange with two of the most charismatic and emphatic advocates for healthy living I have ever met. Final Note: During my recent visit to Dublin a few weeks ago, I co-hosted another live event at Smock Alley Theatre with the boys. So if you enjoy their company, you can look forward to that conversation & audience Q&A, which I will be sharing here in the coming months. Peace + Plants, Rich

what's most important is that we can live the lifestyle that we want and that we're happy that it's not about having this massive business with 5 000 stores it's about being happy with what we have at the moment and to do our best with that that's stephen flynn or is it david flynn does it really matter if they're inseparable identical twins that call themselves the happy pair what does matter is that this is the Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey people, what's going on? How are you? What is happening? What is the good word? My name is Rich Roll. I am your host. This is my podcast. Welcome. Got a great show for you guys

today. Today marks the return of Stephen and David Flynn, the identical twins that identify as the happy pair. Why? Because these two guys are indeed happy, very happy, and they are also a pair, an inseparable one at that. Long-time listeners know these lads well. They first appeared on the show back in June of 2016. That was episode 233. And then again in November of 2017, where I shared the audio from a live event that Julie and I did with them in Dublin, and that's episode 331. So check those out if you haven't already. For those unfamiliar, David and Stephen are essentially the face and the voice, and I use the singular pronoun intentionally, of the healthy food movement in Ireland. And that's a movement that's rapidly growing

beyond the shores of the Emerald Isle. And their journey began with a small family-owned veg shop and natural food cafe in their small hometown of Greystones, which is about, I don't know, 30 or 40 minutes outside of Dublin. And now includes a large line of organic, locally harvested plant-based food products available across the UK.

They are a prominent presence on social media, on Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, where they share their enthusiasm for living a fit, healthy, active, and engaged life. And they are also the authors of several cookbooks, the latest of which is called The Happy Pair Recipes for Happiness. The lads were kind enough to drop in on our retreat in Italy a few months back to hang out with us, to share their love and wisdom, to teach some plant-based cooking and do some handstands, of course, as well as sit down with me for a chat that we recorded live before our group of retreaters. That's coming up in a couple few, but first...

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You know I love these guys. I love their outlook on life, their passion for fitness and healthy tasting food, their commitment to community, to inspiring and empowering others, and to this food revolution we're currently seeing grow more mainstream every day. And I'm delighted to be able to offer you guys another conversation with them. For their full backstory, once again, I suggest going back and listening to our first episode.

That's episode 233. As this one picks up where our second podcast leaves off, getting a little bit more granular on their mission and how we can all move towards healthier eating and living. And I should say, as a final note, that a couple of weeks ago, I was in Dublin and I did another live event with the boys at Smock Alley. It was amazing, super great and awesome. And I'm going to be sharing that audio in the next, I don't know, six weeks or so. So keep an eye out for that if you enjoy this one. All right. So here we go. Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast.

Yeah! That's Stephen and David Flynn. And this is the Rich Roll Podcast. We kind of had it on a slightly sexy, like... No. You can take it over if you want. Will you just say it again? Will you just say it one more time? That's Stephen and David Flynn. And this...

Is the Rich Roll Podcast. All right, good. Very good. You can take it over. Super good to have you guys here today, Stephen and David Flynn, the happy pair. The first time that we did a podcast together was almost exactly two years ago,

and we've seen each other a couple times since, but we are here in Italy. You were kind enough to visit us during our Plant power italia retreat and i could not let you guys leave without holding you hostage to do another podcast so my first question is i have a couple questions my first question is are you going to be okay sitting down for an hour and a half if it makes you uncomfortable you can get up and do handstands or something like that. Maybe we'll take breaks. Yeah, you guys can exchange the mic and take turns doing calisthenics, I suppose.

But I thought it would be great to not only do this podcast in the round, in the midst of all of our retreaters here, but to kind of do a hybrid podcast slash Q&A. So we can talk for a little while, and then I'll ask you a bunch of questions, and then we'll open it up, and all of you guys can ask questions that perhaps we couldn't get to earlier

during the cooking demo. How does that sound? Cool? Awesome. So for those that are, for the benefit of new listeners of the podcast or for people who, for whatever reason that eludes me, did not listen to our first podcast conversation, I think it would be beneficial to kind of give the thumbnail background story behind how you guys got from there to here. Okay, great. I'd love to.

So we grew up in Greystones, County Wicklow in Ireland. Dave reckons it's quite like the shire. So it's kind of like, you know, there's mountains on one side, there's sea on the other side, and it's a small little village where everyone knows everyone. We grew up in a kind of lovely middle-class family. There were four boys. God bless my mother. And we went to an all-boys school. We kind of ate typical meat and two veg. We had a lot of energy, so mom pretty much just, any sport, she'd get us out, get out there and play that,

get out there and play that just to kind of burn off energy so she could manage us. And we went to an all-boys school and loved, kind of when we went to school, happiness was kind of getting drunk and chasing women. And if you caught any woman, you know, you got respect from the lads, so that was good. Just for a visual, though, I want, anybody who's listening right now, you guys are literally almost sitting in each other's lap right now.

Are you accusing us of spitting? Stephen's got his arm around David. I'm like, what is going on here? All right. We're just kidding. Go ahead. We were once womb mates. Yeah, that's kind of cheesy but yeah so I guess we

we grew up eating meat and two veg and it was sport and it was you know we were totally bought into the American dream

and I guess we studied business and it was really very money focused and like Stephen said our definition of happiness back then

was all money focused it was all about you know trying to meet a pretty girl and it was getting drunk like that was happiness to us and then age 21 we kind of got fed up with this so we went on a we split up as identical twins we split up and went our separate way which was a huge deal because we lived in one of those pocket our whole life you kind of have been an identical twin you have this support system around just like little force field

yeah i don't know if i've ever spent any time with either of you when the other one wasn't within 10 or 15 feet of you. Yeah, probably true, yeah. Well, anyway, back in year 21, Mom kind of forced us and strongly encouraged us to go in our own separate way. So we went off to see

what else life had in offer beyond our own social conditioning, beyond money being God and beautiful women and all these kind of allures that society had kind of, we had just taken, you're totally bought into. So I went off and tried to be a golf pro and said, I forget the time, I was a 21 year old. And I really found that that wasn't fulfilling in any sense. I thought there was much more I could give to life. And Steve ended up going to Canada. He ended up going... Can I talk about this? Do you want to tell yours too? Yeah.

I went to Vancouver. We were born in Canada. Up Canada? Up Calgary? Yeah. We were born in Calgary, Canada. So we had a Canadian passport and I remember when we were travelling around Europe the summer previous, we met a couple of guys that were able to go out and socialise and not

get drunk. And as an Irish male, that's like an exceptional skill. You don't meet that in many people. So I wanted to go off and just see what was beneath the surface of these guys. So I went and stayed with Mark Shatford for maybe a week and I kind of, I got a good idea there. And then I found my way up to Whistler, which was a cool ski resort. And I remember when I was younger, seeing a movie and it was all parties and pretty women. I thought that's a good place to start. So I arrived in Whistler with very little money, but I met a guy from Greystones called Connor and he said I could sleep in his floor in his apartment. And I was in his apartment and there was this, there was kind of, he had a couple of

roommates, this guy Scott and this guy Adrian from Australia. He was a cool surfer dude. I was 21, young and impressionable. And he was cooking dinner and he was cooking dinner with sweet potato, coconut and lentils. And coming from little Ireland, I didn't know what the hell a lentil was I didn't sweet potato like it's I know what a spud is but I know what that sweet potato that sounds posh and a coconut milk I was you know baffled uh but I tasted the soup and I was like wow that's gorgeous jeez those lentil things are fabulous um and we got talking further and he told me he was a vegetarian and I'd never met a man that was a vegetarian I didn't know men could actually be vegetarians uh so it was totally it was like wow this is cool

and then we got talking more and he really thought about his food and where it came from and I'd never really considered food food was just fuel so this was a whole new horizon so I kind of decided I asked him could I eat what he did for the week so we're eating you know hippie food at the time what I was calling hippie food so we were eating hippie food. At the time I was calling hippie food. So we were eating millet and quinoa and brown rice and black beans and lots of different curries. I'd never really eaten a curry. And at the end of the week

I called Dave up. This is 2001 was it? Yeah something like that. So it wasn't really social media and internet or email hadn't really kicked off. And we're highly competitive so I wanted to call Dave up and just like, Dave, I definitely have one up in you. I'm a vegetarian.

Yes. And I said, Steve, that's really nice. But actually I'm more evolved than you know. I've been a vegetarian for two weeks now, Steve. Well, it was like two days or something. But we'd kind of like... Is that true? Or were you just like trying to one-up him?

Of course I was trying to one-up him. No, no, I... But you actually had already been eating vegetarian also, just coincidentally? I guess it was the first time I'd been away by myself, so I didn't feel like buying meat. Something had shifted inside me and I wanted to try something different. And I suppose the seeds had probably planted before we left. And then I guess both of us kind of were talking on the phone. And then within a week or two, I became a vegan.

So then he decided, okay, well, if you're a vegan I'm gonna be a righteous vegan so he became like an arrogant kind of up on his high horse righteous vegan and then I got into raw food and fasting and cleansing and then kept meeting like we were both kind of traveling really trying all sorts of different things so like you were tree planting in northern Canada where he got a helicopter to work he was with a whole bunch of Christians it was 50 Christians and then it was me but it was great really really wonderful great people made a great time then I remember I was at Burning Man

and I remember I hitched up with this girl that had hitched around America and I remember I was I was leaving there and I said I'm either going to go I'd heard about some island in the Caribbean called Hedonism or else I was going to a meditation centre one or the other and I said I'll just wait and see

what rings the bell first and it was the meditation centre and at this time how long was the hair and how was the body odour well I guess yeah Stephen we left where we were doing male modelling we were playing semi pro

we were like short back and sides hair same for rugby same for rugby and we were you know we were very into image or whatever and by this stage we were stinking hippies we had trinkets we had rings we had painted fingernails and we had a very strong offensive body odor because as Stephen says soap is bad man and this was the thing this is 2001 and uh then all of a sudden Steve kind of one day calls me up and he says, Dave, like, I've got this idea, like, I really want to, so much has changed within me, like, I really want to try to bring this to more people. And he says, like, I had this idea, like, do you want to try and start some health food revolution? He used the word revolution.

And it got me kind of thinking of Che Guevara and, like, you know, really exciting kind of stuff. And then he says, do you want to start a vegetable shop? And this was the furthest thing I thought from revolution. He was like, no, we're going to start from the grassroots. We're going to start ground up. And lo and behold, here we were. We came back. We left, as we said, as we left with quite a bit of social status because we were playing rugby.

We were like, you know, we were going places with lots of potential. And then we came back as 24-year-olds, and we took over a vegetable shop. Right. Yeah, we drove a red van. So it was like to mom and dad, they thought, oh, Jesus, the lads have totally lost their way. And to most people within our village or our town where we grew up in, they really thought we were gone AWOL. You know, like as Stephen says, you'd hear people whispering, I think they're selling drugs down the back. Right, right, right.

Which we weren't, of course, but it was... Well, from the guys with the polo shirts and the collars popped and the high and tight and the rugby and the business school and the whole thing to, like, the top knots and the veg shop and the van. Yeah. Yeah.

And the idea of creating a movement. It was always, right from the start, it was always about trying to add value. Like, Stephen always used the idea, he said, like, let's try to set up and use business as a vehicle for social change. Like, we really want to inspire people to eat more fruit and veg, to be better versions of themselves. And that was the whole catalyst right from the start.

So it was about, you know, when we tried to articulate, it was about health, happiness, and community. So we started 14 years ago with a little vegetable shop, and it's kind of really grown out from there. Right, so today you have what, 170 employees. You've got how many restaurant cafes now? Three cafes.

Three cafes now. Two shops, a farm. We've got Paraville. You've got Paraville. You've got a couture at Paraville. And you've got how many products? We've got about 30 products. 30 products.

About a thousand stores and they're starting in the UK next week so we're super excited. Right, so you've been all over Ireland but now you're expanding across the entire UK. That's the next phase of your world domination plan. And how many cookbooks? Three, and it was funny when that one came out, because I remember...

Well, the first one, the yellow one. We'd sat down with Penguin, who are a publisher, but preverts is that people used to regularly come up and they'd taste dinner and they'd go, geez, that was lovely, do you have a recipe? And you'd go, yeah, yeah, I've a recipe for 200 people. And they'd go, oh, okay. And after you'd heard people maybe 100, 200, 300 times

saying, I have a great idea for you, why don't you write a cookbook? And it was like, wow, okay, Dave, you really must do this. And we were offered a contract from a publisher in the UK and for whatever reason, it didn't feel right. And we were offered a contract from a publisher in the UK and for whatever reason it didn't feel right. And then we sat down with Penguin. And we sat down with Michael and Patricia from Penguin Ireland

and it was kind of like sitting down with Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton. And you know those friends that you always wished you had, like you, that are really articulate and very clever and have read all the right books. It was like, I really want to have friends like this, Dave. So we signed up and we said we'd do a cookbook with Penguin. And they said pretty much every book they publish is a bestseller. And a typical chef who's on TV sells around 2,000 coffees. And at the time

we weren't on TV at all. And not only was it, it wasn't even a normal cookbook, it was a vegetarian cookbook. And the book came out, and I remember I was in Spain on holidays when it came out. And I remember calling Dave up so afraid. I was like, Dave, Dave, what's happening? What's happening? And Dave told me, you wouldn't believe me. Some fella drove for the last four hours and he wants me to write my name on the book. I was totally

amazed. The book came out within six weeks. The 6,000 copies had sold. It came out in October and by Christmas it was the number one best-selling cookbook that year. Then the next year, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson

and lots of other better-known chefs brought out new cookbooks. We outsold them all two to one and it was the best-selling cookbook the second year running. So we were kind of amazed

to see the appetite for kind of health and something that kind of stood for more. And now you just have the third cookbook that just came out a couple weeks ago, right?

Yeah. It's number one in Ireland. Yeah, number one in Ireland and it was number eight in the UK last week. So crazy. It's really cool. It's called recipes for happiness. And it's, I guess it's more,

we have a hundred vegan recipes, of course, and we have, uh, we really focused on simple ones. It was kind of, it was really based on about back two and a half years ago, Jamie Oliver,

we started, he invited us to be part of his food tube network. So shooting videos with him. And we used to shoot two videos a week and upload them so we've done that for the last two and a half years and put up 400 recipes so through that kind of process we've learned so much about what people like what the audience wants what what works what doesn't and through that process we've had to make it super engaging so we learned how to cook stuff really quickly and really practical with less ingredients so this book is the kind of distillation of that.

And I guess we built on that and we focused on something that's so important to us. Like we started our business and called it The Happy Pair. And happiness is something that's so... When I think of my own daughters, all I want is for them to be happy. So we kind of started a dialogue. In this book, there's a whole section on what makes... What's kind of happiness for us or what kind of gives meaning to our lives. And we have a whole section on that, a lifestyle piece. Yeah, we're going to get into that in a

few minutes. But before we do that, I mean, you know, when I first met you guys, I was like, oh, these brothers, and they have this cafe, and it's in this little town, and people seem to be talking about it, but I didn't really know that much, and we went out, and we visited you, and I got a glimpse of what's actually happening, and that was two years years ago and to see kind of where you were then to where you are now I mean you're the same guys so a lot is the same but also a lot has changed and in sort of reflecting on you know the roots of this the the core idea which was to incite a health revolution right to really be social activists for positive change. And, you know, when I look at the work that you've done and the legacy of that already,

like you're making that happen, right? So I guess I'm curious about how you make sure that you maintain that core value system or value proposition as you continue to grow and scale this from just two guys in a vet shop into like this larger enterprise that's selling products and you know the social media and all the stuff that gets built into that so how do you maintain that kind of like core integrity um i think it's a challenge it's a work in progress we're not perfect like anyone and we kind of do our best to navigate it and I think fundamentally what we really focus on is that each of us manage to feel happy and kind

of centered as much as we can because as you know a growing business and we've young kids there's a lot of demands and then you know that we're kind of getting known more so you're no longer Stephen and David it's Mr. Happy Pear Man and this type of thing so it's I guess it's quite a challenge but one thing we always try to focus on is that we feel centred and happy ourselves because if we feel happy it's a lot easier

for the business if we're meant to be the heart of the business and represent the soul of the business it's fundamental that we walk our talk thank you

we hold it together I was going to say just to break it down into kind of like practicalities like one thing which we always do is like wear early risers as you know. So we typically get up at 5 a.m. and we swim in

the sea at sunrise. And I guess some people are into meditation and others are into mindfulness. And for us, this has become a practice which kind of is a marriage of both, really. We meet a bunch of people and we swim in the sea at sunrise and it's the cold Irish sea. So it's, in that sense, it really brings you back to the present moment swimming in this cold sea every morning and yeah for those that are listening this is not just during the summer this is like yeah 12 months out of the year except when you had that huge storm and it was like against the law to go into the sea and you guys got into a little bit of trouble but I've made this joke with you guys before but I'll go on Instagram stories just to make sure that you jumped into the sea.

So it's like, okay, all is right in the world. Like there they are, they're walking down to the sea and they're jumping in. It's like, okay, now I can like start my day now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's one thing we do. We always swim in the sea and then typically we'll train.

We'll do some form of movement because for us as all humans, like movement is so central to our happiness and we're certainly hardwired that way that we really need to move it makes us feel good it reminds us who we are and it releases loads of endorphins that make us feel good so there are two kind of things which we really try to anchor our days with no matter what and then one other thing regarding the business is we realized like we're identical twins and unfortunately we both have the exact same blind spots so we realized like we're very good at unfortunately we both have the exact same blind spots so we realized

like we're very good at kind of leading or being you know enthusiastic about what we do and we're very creative but we're really bad at structure order control and so maybe it was about two years ago was it we borrowed a million and a half so that we could grow the business and at that point it was kind of like I don't want to be responsible for that and Dave said the exact same so we asked our dad who'd been kind of advising us and has a lot of experience running business dad you run the company as a dad stepped in and we've kind of got a financial director and a few other people to focus on skill sets that were brutal at so it's kind of I think what's really important is that we focus on what we're good at and we still have

kind of board meetings every week to kind of connect in that you know we're being as integral as we can yeah I mean i don't see you guys spending a lot of time staring at a computer screen no it's not like not your thing like how do you grow a business when when you know you're you're running around like doing like what you're doing with us right like being ambassadors being evangelists of this movement at the same time as trying to actually be responsible for an enterprise yeah it's got to be difficult yeah yeah and i think it's the same for you i'm sure trying to balance the navigate your way through when there's more demands on you and there's you know you've got to produce content and you know you want to be a

role model and be the best person you can in each moment. So I think it's relevant for everyone, how we walk our own talk and be authentic, and yet try to be the best version of ourselves we can. So I think that's the underlying thing. And one of my top tips on that is to get a twin. It's really handy. It just supports you. Or to find someone that supports you. You know, you, Julie, we happen to be twins,

so it's very fortunate I have my Julie. Julie and I are not twins. Very good. But then You know, you, Julie, you know, we happen to be twins, so it's very fortunate. Julie and I are not twins. Very good. But then the upside of you and Julie is you both got different skill sets. Like, we both got the same skill set and the same blind spots. Yeah, Julie's very aware of my blind spots. I'll just say that, you know. But one of the things that's cool about, you know, having spent some time with you guys in your natural environment is that you've kind of set up your own blue zone like on this subject of

happiness it's like when you when you drill down on the key principles of what makes somebody happy and you kind of look at the work of somebody like Dan Buettner and the blue zones you kind you guys can check all those boxes I mean you literally live like right next to where you work it's a small community where everyone knows everybody very well you're all about cultivating community that's like a core central principle in in what you do and and really like living that in a modern world is it's it's pretty cool and aspirational because as somebody who lives in Los Angeles like I don't you know that's not the, like, my daily life kind of unfolds. Yeah, yeah. I guess we're really fortunate in that we've always come from a small town in Ireland,

and I didn't really realize how strong the community was until we went away traveling, and I'll tell a quick little story in that. I remember, like, as when we were 21, we went off on a voyage of self-discovery, as we like to call it, and up in a rainbow gathering it was an international rainbow gathering in Costa Rica so I thought this was utopia squared like I went with oh my god this is gonna be like next level how like we're gonna live as a society in 20 years and I went with huge aspirations and hopes or whatever and I remember going along and everyone called there was no money and it was like a whole lot of people kind of living half naked in the woods and it was like pretty super hippie like for a 21 idealist it was great um but i remember everyone called one another brother and sister and it was all about community but to me it just felt so unauthentic or it's felt so like

it didn't feel congruent to me in any sense because i'd come from such a small little town where everyone literally knew everyone and people had their backs and there was a real sense of community so i think we're really fortunate in Greystones where we live that there's there's so much accountability and responsibility which in one sense is kind of hard because everyone knows one another's business and there's a bit of that living in one of those pockets but in the other sense you really feel people support you and have your back which I think is something nowadays in society is quite like people are struggling with a sense of belonging and a sense of community and connectedness, and I really feel very fortunate

that we've always had that. Yeah, I mean, I think it wouldn't, nobody would have been surprised if once your business kind of hit a certain level that you guys, like, moved to Dublin or moved to London, to like, oh, we've got to scale it, we've got to go big time now, but, like, you stay in your town,

and that's just, like, super important to the ethos of what you're doing. Yeah, last year um we got to sit with dave wrote his thesis on this guy charles handy has written a load of business books and quite a business guru uh and he's now 84 and his dad was a pastor a vicar a holy man so he's from kind of good you know good integrity um and we were asked to be part of a twin photography kind of project that this lovely lady called Liz Handy from England asked,

could we be part of it? I was like, okay, cool. And she came over to photograph us. And her assistant was Charles Handy, who was like one of Dave's idols, who'd kind of written, David written his thesis and read all his books. It was like, what, you're Charles Handy?

Wow. And we got talking more and we kind of told him how our business was going. And he kind of said, well, it seems like you're at a crossroad. Because when we borrowed talking more and we kind of told him how our business was going and he kind of said, wow, it seems like you're at a crossroad because when we borrowed that one and a half million, we'd plan on opening loads more shops and really kind of that type of thing.

We went over to Cambridge to sit with him and it was to kind of address the question, what's enough? And like, what do you really want? And we kind of decided like, as we opened our third cafe last year, we were kind of asked to be there more often and asked to be here more often and then just go be Mr. pair man over there i was kind of like wow day this is hard

like i want to like i just want to be able to get up in the morning go swim in the sea go train go brekkie with my family and you have a clone yeah exactly yeah yeah totally um so we kind of we kind of decided like i don't want to open more shops for a while like what's most important is that we can live the lifestyle that we want and that we're happy, that it's not about having this massive business with 5,000 stores. It's about being happy with what we have at the moment and to do our best with that.

And what do you attribute, when you just take the cookbooks, for example, like the fact that they're outselling, like, better-known chefs or people that are selling, you you know sort of more mainstream dietary protocols like what do you attribute the success to when it's like these are vegan cookbooks right yeah and yet they're they're connecting with people in a way that's kind of unprecedented in your part of the world yeah i think maybe maybe because there's two of us and we're different and people go oh that's those two weird lads that wear shorts those happy lads I wonder what they're on about or something

you know and I think certainly when we first wrote it we wrote our story of kind of I guess our story of our own journey which was maybe relatable to people but it certainly spread via word of mouth rather than because we were on the telly or whatnot it happened slowly and burned slowly so I think maybe

I don't really know it it's hard to say. Hey, what was the question again? I had something ready there. No, I think it's down to the change as well. You know, everything has a time and a place. And I think right now there's a huge shift of interest in plant-based diet, more kind of aware about the impact of what we eat and how it affects the environment. You know, things like your podcast, things like Netflix, What the Health, Cowspiracy are all kind of awakening people and the fact that there's such issues with ill health and disease due to the lifestyle factors. And I also think the fact that people are,

like with the kind of demise of religion in a sense, certainly in Ireland there's much less of a hold of religion. I think people are looking for other things to feel belonging or feel a sense of meaning. And I think, as you call it, the movement. I think that people are looking at healthy living and kind of positive life force and this kind of community and tribes which you can build around this.

And people are really identifying with this and finding a means of connection and a community and a sense of belonging, which I think is, like, I think that's definitely part of it. Yeah, well, I think also you guys lead with enthusiasm, right? Like, you're coming from a place of of happiness like we were talking about earlier and just this infectious nature like look how this is fun we're having a good time like this can be fun living healthy can be fun rather than proselytizing or or talking about like how the environment is being destroyed and all of the

sort of negative aspects of living in contraposition to the way that you're living right like so you're sort of being lighthouses as opposed to uh like proselytizers i guess that's a big word word rich good word i love it so uh yeah i think think that was one thing which you're conscious about your commute the way you communicate is definitely definitely and that only comes by making lots of mistakes like i know Yeah, I think that was one thing which we... You're conscious about the way you communicate. Definitely, definitely. And that only comes by making lots of mistakes. Like I know certainly when we first started our business, we used to do healthy eating talks.

And I remember we'd be a bit fundamentalist and we'd be quite righteous. And it wasn't until a friend, a good friend, Damien, was sitting there one day and he says, lads, jeez, you should really soften things up. Like you're really, you're just making people feel guilty.

No one's going to like change. People are, you're just making people feel guilty. So it was only through that process that he kind of gave that awareness to us that we realized, oh my God, people, no one likes being made feel guilty. No one likes, like I hate it when someone tells me what to do or tries to make me feel bad about something. So we consciously had to realize that, okay, you know, be an example rather than, as you say, try to... You know that expression, you'll catch more flies example rather than, as you say, try to... You know that expression, you'll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar.

So I think it's more about trying to include and meet people where they're at as opposed to they must be a vegan as a total plant pusher. And I think that's always been our message right from the start. Like, I remember, you know, like, community, the sense of community in the sense of, like, including people. We started our business 14 years ago when you'd never tell anyone it was vegan or vegetarian because certainly in a small town...

You wanted customers. Exactly. There's no way we'd still be in business today. So we always kind of said, oh, we just sell healthy food. And we'd be out in the street talking to people and being friendly and really encouraging people into it. And it wasn't until the last few years that you'd even mention that word vegan because it kind of immediately made people not feel at home. And what was quite funny is you'd

see people come into the shop and they'd come in and they'd have a hot chocolate or a coffee, and then you'd see them two days later and they might have a soup. And then you might see them a week later and they'd order the chicken curry, thinking like it would say chickpea, but they'd think it was chicken. And they'd eat that by mistake. And then they'd be coming for a month and they'd go, I never realized this was vegetarian. Jeez. And then you knew it was going to have a positive impact. And then you'd see them six months later and they were doing yoga. So then you slowly realized that you were having, you know, there was like little impacts. You're brainwashing people. I don't know. There was no, there was no intention of that other than to try to share

what we've, you know, what we find to be really positive in our lives. Are there differences in where the movement is in Ireland or the UK versus kind of the state of the union in the United States? Do you have a sense of that? Well, I guess we don't really spend that much time in the States. But you've traveled there. Yeah, we have indeed. I think in Ireland and UK, never have we really, in the last few years, every day pretty much you meet people under the age of 30 come on up,

I really want to be a vegan. I'm really trying to be. So there are people aspiring to be a vegan where never would you get that. That was never. So it's something that's in fashion. It's desirable. It's like, I want that status. Whereas I think our main message isn't that you have to be a vegan or a vegetarian.

We're all going to die. I think it's about doing our best. We used to be total fundamentalists. If Granny cooked an apple pie, there was a bit of butter, and I'd go, no, Granny, I'm a vegan. Whereas now, if Granny cooked an apple pie, thanks a million, Granny,

and I'd eat a little bit, and it was gorgeous. Can I'm a vegan. Whereas now, if granny cooked an apple pie with that, it's, thanks a million, granny, and I'd eat a little bit, and it was gorgeous. Can I tell a story on this? So I remember, like, where obviously I've been eating a vegan diet for 16 years or whatever, and I remember, it's not until you have kids

that they really start to round you. And I remember we were walking up the street, I had Izzy on my shoulders, and now... Context, though. Okay, yeah, context. Oh, yeah, quick, quick. Like, when my daughter May was born,

she's now seven, I was adamant to my wife, Justine, I was like, no, she's going to be vegan. Like, this is really important to me. And you kind of quickly realise, you know that expression, it takes a community to raise a child, and that I'm only one person,

albeit very important. Back to your story. Oh, meanwhile, thanks, Steve. So, anyway, here we were one Saturday morning, we were walking up to the middle of Greystones, where we're like total ambassadors for vegetables

and for eating a vegan diet or whatever and I had two kids I had my two daughters and me and Steve had three kids hanging out of them so we were walking up

with like kids hanging off us and walking up the town and we're walking by the butcher shop and Saturday morning so he had his little pan out the front

and he was frying off sausages for people to taste and we'd all five of our kids ran up and got a sausage and we walked up the stand as vegan ambassadors with our kids eating sausages and it's amazing you're kind of like what do we do Dave what do I do do I let him what do I pretend do I hide it like what and then you just kind of go feck it this is just the way it is let's just be with an accepted life isn't perfect there's no VIP lounge in heaven if you're going to

be you know 100% vegan or not and so how so how do you try to raise your kids with these ideas that are so important to you? Yeah, I think, as Stephen said, it takes a community to raise a kid. And when my kids are with their mom, they eat whatever she feeds them. And when they're with me, it's they eat what I eat. It's welcome to my agenda. So you're not making hard and fast rules. No, no. I think the most important,

they've got a very healthy attitude to food. Like, they eat everything. They try everything. And they understand, you know, daddy's a vegan. Oh, daddy wouldn't eat this. Daddy wouldn't eat that. But for them,

they've got to go to parties and eat their own things and eat their cocktail sausages and do whatever. And obviously, it would 100% be my preference if they followed me and ate a vegan diet.

But I've got to let them come to their own place at some stage. They love animals. At some stage, they might make a connection and decide to to not eat but they're drinking green smoothies all the time and they're yeah they see all that kind of stuff yeah they're yeah my little lads like ned's one and a half and theo's five they think all men cook and it's really cool to chop courgettes and like i need to cook with dad because that's a real man dude so it's amazing just to see like because my wife doesn't like to cook with dad because that's what real men do. So it's amazing just to see

because my wife doesn't like to cook so I do all the cooking. So it's yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Different kind of role model. And so how old is the oldest one for each of you? Seven. We pretty much like good old twins.

Like our kids are seven and five. You're kind of the dads to each other's kids anyway, right? Yeah, because we're identical twins. So we have the same DNA, so technically I have five kids, and so does Dave. Right. But that's weird.

But that sounds weird. So in reality, I have two kids, and he has three kids, and we don't have them together. Right. Separately. Yeah, it's a reality show. It is a bit of one.

You can open up a few, you know. So what do you think are, when you do a lot of traveling you're you're constantly doing these demos and you're in front of crowds of people all the time what do you think are are the main impediments that people face in terms of of making that leap into healthy living and making it stick i think the first one is the idea that it's going to be so hard. You know, it's such a big step.

Whereas I think if you can break it down into baby steps and kind of go, okay, like, do you eat porridge for breakfast? Do you eat, you know, there's a high probability you don't eat rashers and sausages and whatever every day of the week. So I think... What kind of rasher?

Bacon. Thank you for that question, Steve. But I think once you break it down into baby little steps and make it digestible, people think you suddenly, you're part of some exclusive elite cult if I stop eating meat or I'm going to become some skinny, hippie

vegan character that's going to lose my way and I'm going to have to wear brown sandals and a cardigan and like, you know. Is that why you guys always wear tank tops? No, well, usually in Ireland it's cold six months a year, so we've got to wrap up for six months a year. I don't know. You seem to wear them in the winter anyway if we can get away with it of course we love it you know but but I think I think really it's like people have most people have their own

things but I think it's usually around the that they that they'll lose themselves or that that it's it's only for a certain type of person whereas I really think it's everyone wants to fundamentally underneath it all, we all want to be happy. We all want to feel good. And I remember reading a study that Duke University had done where they were trying to isolate

the most central thing to our happiness as humans. And you know, from watching the telly or reading magazines, you'd think, oh, it's like loads of money. It's like having a beautiful wife or husband or like having no mortgage or whatever it might be. Whereas they found the most central thing to happiness as humans is health, which sounds so boring.

But like those expressions, your health is your wealth didn't come for no reason. So like I think... Okay. Yeah. Good work. Good work. Don't worry. Stephen. Rich. I think it's about doing your best and to try to eat more fiber because most people don't get enough fiber

fiber is my little pet, my dear friend and what do you think but I was just going to say that it's not necessarily about vegan or vegetarian it's all of us, as you always say, to become a better version of yourself and if that means you eat meat currently 13 times a week well try to eat it 10 times a week

and try to eat a little more porridge and if your body if your body functions better, there's a probability you'll feel better. And therefore you'll probably be a kinder, nicer human to other people. So, so it's making little steps rather than trying to, trying to take that big leap into something which seems inaccessible. If somebody comes up to you and I imagine this probably happens from time to time and they say, I love you guys, but but you know I'm on the keto diet and it's working for me or I'm on the paleo diet like and that's working for me you know to you know sell me like why should I you know why should I follow the the way that you guys are going as opposed to what I'm doing I'd say keep doing what you're doing you look happy at it good on you I'd probably try to bust out a handstand, do a few backflips, see if we can attract them in that way.

No. No, like, I think as Stephen said, he probably wouldn't, he'd go, oh, cool, good for you. Tell me a little about that. And kind of like, you know, rather than try to go ahead, you know, I think going head to head

against someone doesn't, no one's a winner. It turns into like an argument or as you'd say in Ireland, you'd say a pissing contest or whatever, where no one really wins. So I think it's more about kind of accepting people where they're at and and as you say try to be a lighthouse or try to be an example you know if you're an example in a role model it's attractive and seem to be having a good time people little by little will you know if it

seems like the truth for them they might come on the journey too yeah cool um one more question then i want to open it up to everybody uh if if there is a misconception about you guys or about this lifestyle that you espouse um you know what what is it like do you come up against people who like they're just like they're not they don't they're they're not getting it they're not understanding where i'm coming from like what is the biggest misconception that you have to confront? I would probably say people sometimes see us as like happy, clappy kind of people. And they might think we're a bit simple

and there's no substance behind it. So I think that's something which is, you know, I guess we work on a light nature. There's two of us. We're fun, we're playful, we enjoy life. And sometimes people might go, oh, they're just too simple. Like they're simple creatures or whatever.

But underneath it all, like we really really i think life can be so complicated for so many people and they can over complicate things and get so i need this i need that i need that whatever which is i don't know like i think there's a simplicity you know to have a simplicity aspect of life which can be really rewarding like i remember that lovely lady we met in england who was saying that um they were kind of trying to measure one of the things that help happiness a lot and she she used the term a low a low what was the threshold a low threshold for gratitude as in you're you're happy with really simple things like it's like wow look i found a euro on the ground wow it's a sunny day look at that flower as opposed to i need a million dollars to be happy you know the way where if you're happy with really simple things it's a lot easier to find joy in every day as opposed to needing something special like i'm happy because it's my birthday

as opposed to i'm happy because my that rain feels really nice and do you think that that that a person can cultivate that like are you were you guys just always like this i think we've always been fortunate because there's two of us. And I guess Steve often says, he says, like, people often spend their life looking for their other half. And, you know, that expression, oh, my other half. But I guess we were born one person that split into two. So we've always had that other person

to support us. And no matter what's going on, you always had someone telling you we're great. You know, which was, which really helps. You're so handsome. Well, like, you know, you always had someone in really helps like you know like you're so handsome well like you know you always had someone in your back saying oh he's totally wrong that person you're brilliant well done dave or well done steve you know so so it's always made life that much easier so in a sense we haven't we've been really fortunate that we haven't we haven't taken that

much thing seriously like it's always been about having a good time and trying to enjoy life and i guess to bring it back to the movement i guess sometimes people might go oh they're just two loonies we're a bit inaccessible because we're smiling and having a good time and people might think we're like from the circus as opposed to we really do feel passionate about what we're doing and it's so important for us to try to get people to eat more fruit and veg and to be happier and more evolved content versions of ourselves i think for the sake of this fruit and veg and to be happier and more evolved content versions of ourselves i think for the sake of this planet and society and everyone at large yeah well yeah well said and uh i think we could all use uh you know some of what you guys have because for those that are listening

and for everybody that's here today i mean you guys got an up close and personal experience of what these guys are like. And it's not just when, you know, the camera's on them or, you know, it's the Instagram story or whatever. Like this is how these guys are all the time. This is how they live. They are truly happy people. Their energy is infectious. And I just want you guys to keep doing what you're doing because that idea of a social revolution, a health revolution, that fueled this whole thing that you guys are doing way back when, is bearing fruit now. And it's only going to continue to grow.

And it's super exciting. And so God bless you guys. Thank you, Rich. Cool. Thank you, thank you. So why don't we open it up if people have questions to ask? Hi. Hi. Justin from Greystones.

Justin. The first guy who's going to ask a question actually lives in Greystones and knows these guys. I'm really interested around the movements and what you guys do. And one of the things that we find concerning as people who are trying to find health and vitality in our lives is the lack of nutrition that we find in the medical profession and if you go and see your family physician it's not spoken about I think the the happy hard course that you do where you've got this online community who are changing their lives through following you guys through that medium do you think that's a place to bring people into healthy living to bring them into vegan living is it like

below the radar because you're bringing your cholesterol down and then you can build other stuff in on top of that uh thanks for the question uh so we've got a happy heart course for anyone doesn't know and it's an online course it's a four-week course and I guess we we see it as an introduction to for people you know people might want to be prepared to make a full change or a leap into eating a plant-based diet or whatnot but it's a good place for people to dabble and put their foot in you'll get a lot of people kind of will come to it from the point of view that uh you know they have they have heart issues or they've high blood pressure or something and vegan or vegetarian or plant-based wasn't there at all. And their wife or husband or partner has kind of dragged them into it.

And through this process, after feeling better, having more energy, you'll see by the end, they'll go, I know it's over, but I'm going to keep doing this. So it's amazing to kind of... Yeah, it's funny even like... Sorry, this is Steve here, the other twin. It's funny, like, say, we used to do classroom courses all the time before we kind of got too busy. And I remember one particular course we did in the Fumbly in town.

And this kind of real traditional country Irish guy came in and he was totally sceptical. And, you know, arms closed, legs closed, going, I'm not into this crap, lads, at all. But I got really high cholesterol, so I'm going to try it. So we did it for kind of two or three weeks. And he seemed to be like, the first night he had his arms and legs crossed and the second night it was only his legs or his arms crossed and then the third night his arms opened and then the fourth night he came up and he said lads like I'm really into this like this is amazing like I'm really this was in February we did the course but like there's one thing on my mind that's really bothered me what

do we do for Christmas dinner? So it was amazing just to see like how people can change and how it does function as a gateway and I think the benefit of that is that it's experiential it's not theoretical because you could read all the books that you want but it's not until someone's feeding you porridge or eating vegetable soups or you're eating dhal and kind of learning what a lentil is and how to use it and through this process you realize oh my god this is so much easier than I thought because you know the course naturally holds people's hands through this process so realise oh my god this is so much easier than I thought because you know the course naturally holds people's hands through this process so I think any kind of four week challenge or

four week introduction like our happy heart course at Goodwin it's online and it's available for everyone all over the world so if anyone's interested check it out Hi Tommy here you're such a happy pair do you have a story around your unhappiest pair moment unhappiest pear moment? Unhappiest pear moment.

Good question. Kerbal. Wow, okay, kerbal. Can I come back to that one? Okay I'll come back to that one. I can't even... Okay, okay, go for it. Okay, different question.

So we're going to deflect that one and go for it. Yeah, okay. Obviously there wasn't one. I can go with one little tiny one there. Like recently where I felt quite embarrassed and kind of a little ashamed. We swim in the sea every day and there was storm warnings for Ireland. The Irish government recently got in the habit

of putting a red flag, a red flag warning as in like, you shouldn't leave your house, don't go near the sea, it's going to be too dangerous. Like kind of nanny state type thing. and we being a little bit brazen a little bit stupid or not stupid but a little bit kind of i guess ignorant and we went down to the sea because we swim every day and we've great respect for it and it was totally calm we went swimming and i took a picture and put it up on social media and we were joking it was called stormophilia and i remember getting in and kind of going yeah thinking this was great and we got a really

big backlash because i didn't we never really considered the consequence that we're role models and people looked at us and might encourage other people to swim albeit it was cam where we swam so i felt really embarrassed and quite ashamed that i didn't think of that and i that was a bit, I felt a bit unhappy that day. Right. Sorry, one more if I may. So being identical twins, have you ever, happy pair, alternate, dated the same girl? Oh, great question. We've never dated the same girl,

but I remember when we were 15, Stephen was going out with a girl, I won't say her name, and I think he was meeting her down the end of the road and I was was walking past just by absolute chance, and I went up to say hi to her. And you fancied her? Of course I fancied her, she was very attractive, and I went up and said hello to her, and she thought I was Stephen, so it was great, so I gave her a little kiss in the lips, and I took her hand, we're walking up the road up to the house, you know, we're going to do some more kissing, and then then steven showed up but that that was and i said hey steve and he said uh he kind of looked at me and he kind of got it straight away and was like he would have done the same thing too so so that was as close as we got to date the same girl um i wanted to ask a question about school nutrition.

In the United States, the school nutrition is far from ideal. I was curious if you've had any involvement in school nutrition in Ireland. Yeah, brilliant. We tried getting a project going a number of times with local schools to get a pilot project. We met the Minister for Health, who's kind of the head of the government, and sat down and talked with him about how we could get a program going and he was all gung-ho um i remember sitting down with the principal of one of the local schools and it was interesting

her name was sister kathleen and she'd been like kind of a nun and she'd been principal of the school for about 40 years and she was like a stern lady uh really gorgeous and warm at heart and we were kind of just talking about nutrition and i was talking about fiber and she was going yeah really interesting in the last five or ten years like normally there'd be no people going home with this but she said in the last five to ten years pretty much every week there'd be five people would go home sick due to the fact they've constipation due to the fact they're not eating enough fiber and so I guess that was a very yeah but to answer your question directly we go to schools all the time we were in one a couple of weeks ago and it's amazing once you're in the school

and talking about, this is primary school, so kids under the age of 12. I remember there was, the sixth class came in and they were all 11 and 12. And at the start, I remember saying, oh, what's your favorite fruit and veg? And I remember one little smart lad goes, chocolate. And then someone else says, sweets.

And you're like, okay, cool. And then at the end of it, they were literally fighting over avocados. They were fighting over courgettes. And they were all trying to do handstands so it's amazing to see the influence once they've got different role models and people espousing different things so i know a big focus for us in september is to go talk in schools much more regularly particularly you know secondary schools where people where they're ripe and ready for a different message and i think they're ready for change so I don't know

if I answered your question directly at all but that was a punter Colin hey guys hi this is guys so your energy is definitely contagious and in today's times when we're surrounded by

negative news and seeing people doing their work with such positivity and energy is really kind of refreshing. You are identical, but even spending a day and a half with you guys, there are some differences, and we start seeing them. But one question to each of you. Is there a personality trait in your brother that you wish that chromosomes

were on your side and not his? Is there something which you look up to your brother and vice versa? So it's all positive. One trait that you look at your brother and say, wow. I think we're very fortunate because we've always been a we.

So whatever he has, I have. And I don't mean that I mightn't have it, but we have it. You know, way, together. There's just something. I was going to say, quite interesting, like we'll,

because we spend so much time together. You know that expression that man and a dog, when they start hanging out so much, they start to look like one another? And it's a bit, it's a bit like us, people will say,

oh, I met one of you the other day. Which one's the more outgoing one? And it totally depends on the moment because we kind of duck in and out. One leads and one doesn't lead. But if I was to say something about Steve, like sometimes he's the older twin, so he naturally leads a little more than me.

And he can be a really good leader, which sometimes I go, I really admire it. And I go, good man, like he's really, he's front and center. And he's like, I'd follow him into battle no matter what. I was getting a little emotional. Yeah, yeah. Can we hold hands?

I would say Dave's wonderful ability to kind of just let things breeze over him. Like mom, no, I won't say that. But I remember just even with the business stuff, it doesn't bother him. He just lets it fly over his back and carries on with what he's doing. So I really admire that.

Thanks, Steve. We got a question over here. Oh, Colin. Lord of Tea. Colin is the Lord of Tea. So I'm going to start referring to myself as the Lord of Tea. So I've noticed that you guys are like power Instagram users. You might be the most prolific Instagram

storyers in Europe I don't know and you seem to start every day aside from the swim with a mindfulness practice and also with some form of compound or composite movement or calisthenics or yoga or

stretching or something and I'm wondering if you know there seems to be this movement within form of compound or composite movement or calisthenics or yoga or stretching or something. And I'm wondering if, you know, there seems to be this movement within the vegan community or in general around, you know, with people like Derek Simnet or Tim Schieff or Ido Portal or all these people teaching different forms of dynamic movement. And you mentioned the importance of movement in happiness. And I'm wondering if you could say something about the role of those two, a mindfulness practice and a movement practice as part of your well-being. Yeah, brilliant. We do use social media a lot.

We love it. I guess we've always felt we had a strong message to share. And that's why we feel very comfortable with social media. But in terms of movement... OK, movement in terms of happiness. First of all, I know as I get older, there's a propensity to be more stiffer. I meet some friends that we played rugby with,

and wow, it's like, wow, jeez, you can barely throw a ball anymore. So something that we've found is, say I meet older people, typically they're more narrow-minded or close-minded, and they're generally physically stiffer. And I see my kids who can literally bend this way, that way. They're literally made of rubber. And they're as open-minded as they can. So I don't know if there's any studies showing a direct correlation,

but to me it makes a lot of sense. So as I get older, I try to become more supple. And as I become more supple, I find it helps my well-being, my mind, and I feel better. So we try to do, and we're always trying to mix up our movement because we started out doing yoga for about 14 years and Dave was totally anti-yoga because we came from rugby backgrounds and you want to tell that little story oh no it's okay okay and totally anti-yoga I remember I was traveling away and people would always go you want to do yoga and it was like nah yoga's for pussies sorry excuse I'm not going to say that word. That would have been,

am I allowed to say that? Is that bad, Rich? Can I tell that story? Can I tell the story? But okay, we're going on. And a slight tangent here, but I remember, so we grew up playing rugby and I remember going away traveling and I was 21, this is 2001, and I kept everywhere I went, someone was saying something about yoga or doing yoga. And I was like, go away yoga. Yoga's not for men. And I was like, so anti-yoga. And I remember then one really pretty girl asked me to do yoga. And I was like, sure, I love yoga, of course. And yoga then has been part of our life since. And I remember we got super into Ashtanga yoga, but it wasn't until the last kind of three years that we've moved away from that kind of rigorous, straight form kind of thing

to where we mix it up all the time. Not consciously in any sense, but we really do move. We run sometimes, not that much, but we do a lot of calisthenics or animal movements or handstands. And flexibility is one of the main ones because as we get older, you know,

we realize that we start stiffening up. And even leading studies now are saying that it's not vigorous exercise for one hour a day it's much more consistent movement throughout the day is much better for our health and well-being you know and our longevity yeah and i would say to add to that uh if you do watch your instagram stories which are you i mean it's like you see those little notches at the top right and you're like man, there's like 50 installments of this story. But one of the things that comes across loud and clear is that you're moving throughout the day.

It's not like, okay, we did our workout. Now we're done. Now we're working. You're working throughout the day, but there's always these breaks for movement, whether it's just a handstand here or you're doing squat jumps or whatever it is like five minutes here five minutes there 10 minutes there or just a walk like hey we have a meeting in an hour and we're traveling and we're here but like let's walk down to the sea for 10 minutes and maybe sit for a meditation like it is built into the fabric of how you're living your life throughout the day every

day and I think that that what I what I read into that what I see into that is a mindfulness about that being a priority all the time yeah yeah and I guess we're super fortunate that we've always moved and mom always cultivated us like we're mom you know we always needed to move a huge amount so I guess we've been hardwired that if we don't move we don't feel as good so we're really fortunate we've had that kind of it's in our nervous system that we need to move and you've been sitting on this couch for a while are you doing all right sitting on the couch So we're really fortunate that we've had that kind of, it's in our nervous system that we need to move. And you've been sitting on this couch for a while. Are you doing all right sitting on the couch for this? And in terms of mindfulness,

I know back when we were traveling around, I got really into meditation. And we used to meditate two, three hours a day. And we were totally like, Vipassana meditation. So it was kind of, you know, it was quite like 12 hours a day. You did a first course,

which was a free course. I went to one in Texas. And I hitchhiked my way there. And I remember getting there and it was like you had to do it. I think it was 10 day. You had 10 day course. You're meditating 12 hours a day and no talk. And to me, it was like, what the hell? But I found it amazing.

And I know I won't go into that, but I found it really, really amazing. And I found it incredible. And I hit new levels of experience that I never thought I could experience. And as a result, we got really into it. We used to go to the market at half four in the morning, the vegetable market, and me and him would get up at half two and meditate for two hours before going to the market, like total lunos. And then we might meditate again in the evening. But then since having kids, you know, if I hit 15 minutes a day, it's a pretty good day. You know, I guess you realize what you possibly can fit in. However, I find meditation,

that expression that if you've meditated, what is it, Mark? One of the lads, some man in history once said that they normally pray for an hour a day, and if they have an extremely busy day, they pray for two hours. So I think there's a lot of,

what was that? Dalai Lama, yeah. But I think there's a lot of wisdom in that. Oh, great. This is Marty here. Thanks for your story. It's awesome. From the US.

This is building on the movement. And you described in one of your books your four simple steps on how to do a handstand. So I'd love to hear how that came about, how many people have actually come back to you and said it's awesome in terms of I've tried it, I've learned it, and maybe we'll get a demo so okay cool uh yeah i guess we started doing handstands i don't know why or how but um we just got into them i don't know maybe our kids

started doing them or something you you were kind of into them you kind of i think maybe i was into them more and um it's just become something which we do now and we've got super into trying to do one-hand ones and trying to do different moves and I guess now our daughters are seven and they're we're trying to stay ahead of them so that's really what we're trying to do really when it comes down to this stage and but I find them a great way of waking up and inversion

the blood's coming to your head you immediately suddenly feel awake I find that brilliant here goes Dave just doing a handstand for any listening there. So he's kind of going into Scorpio or doing other things or trying to do oppressive. Way to go, Dave. Steve.

Handstand pushups cool do we have any more questions I wanted to ask you about the perception that people have between meat and masculinity because you're a couple of very manly Irish lads and I imagine you may have had this flack from some of your friends at some point

and we're raising two boys. And everyone in our community is very supportive at the moment, mostly. And my worry is as they get older and go into secondary school, teenagers and so on, that they're going to face that sense of you're not a real man if you don't eat meat. So have you faced this sort of question? And how do you deal with it yeah i think it's such a it's a social preconception you know that men need meat and it's a very masculine kind of associated thing but i think there's so many different role models nowadays that you can

deflect them to like when people ask me about it i think your actions speak louder than anyone anything you know like what is the role of a man nowadays you know it was typically in certainly Irish society was very you know my preconceptions of my father and men around then it's changed so much over over my generation so I think what it is to be a man is to I think that's changing so fundamentally as well like I think nowadays when I think of myself as a man and how I want to be I want to be a kind, connected, gentle man, rather than the typical macho role, which was previously projected onto what a man should be. So, so I think it's all changing, like, and I think there's role models like, like Rich, like with all his ultra, ultra distance running, there's like Patrick Bobomian, these world's heavyweight lifters, there's, you know,

so many boxers and athletes that are just breaking the mold and really breaking down all these preconceptions that people have so I like I think it's changing and shifting and I think there's a different kind of acceptance now yeah it's a super interesting time I mean somewhere along the line in history, you know, we conflated this idea of masculinity with eating animal products. And I presume that that, you know, the antecedent of that is hunting and, you know, what it meant to be a man and how hunting and sort of bringing home the food for the tribe or the village was associated with virility. And that's, it's really not how we live today. But that myth has perpetuated and it's so infected the very fabric

of how we associate gender roles in our culture and it's become toxic, right? And I think what's happening right now culturally is super interesting with the Me Too movement. We're looking, and with the me too movement we're looking and with the sort of um the mainstreaming of of transgender culture and gay marriage and gay rights and everything that's kind of occurring right now we have a lot of work that still remains to do but there is a conversation happening now that wasn't happening even a couple years ago and I think it's forcing us to confront in a very real way what gender really means fundamentally and how we kind of interpret

gender roles so that we can be more functional you know be a healthier society and when we look at at diet preferences as a marker for gender identity when you really break it down it doesn't make any sense at all it's kind of insane right like what you eat should have no bearing on whether you're a good man or a bad woman or whatever right so this is a conversation we need to have and we're we're having it and there are interesting um documentaries that are coming there's this movie the game changers is going to be coming out soon i think that's going to really foist this conversation onto the mainstream awareness in a way that it hasn't yet. And so I think it's very interesting times.

I was just going to say basic down to, you know, the hardware in which we have, you know, when you think of a man, you think of the foods that make a man a man. And you think of like, oh, it's red meat. Yeah, it's meat and it's bloody meat. And then it's alcohol, and it's cigarettes, I'm a man.

But all those things make you less of a man, like it makes your tools work far less effectively. So I think, like the most basic things that as a man you want to be virile, you want the blood to flow really well around your body, and you want things to lift up when you need them to lift up. So like, the things that do this are not the foods that society projects on as masculine they're like you know eating vegetables getting your sleep you know things which are typically deemed as not masculine or not sexy those are the things that make your body function better as a man so yeah thanks uh hi i have a question uh you mentioned something this morning about a vegan mastery cookery course.

Is that something that you're actually working on? Yeah, so we have this online Happy Heart course, and I know we were looking at doing more courses, because people like mine and Stephen's time is quite limited. We can't really influence that many people. So we've started doing an online vegan cookery course, which will hopefully roll out sometime later this year. We've been shooting videos for it and writing content for it. And it's more based on... We have so many recipes online, but this is based on the actual skills behind it. So it's the tools and the techniques

as opposed to how to cook such and such. It's quite a fun one because we're quite passionate, as you got from earlier. Thank you, Beecher. Hello, it's Noelle from Colorado. You guys obviously have been doing this movement for 14 years, and it sounds like you come from a very small town. So share some stories about how you've impacted your town,

whether it be through food or through mindfulness, through movement. It'd be great to hear some good stories, success stories. I know one story comes straight to mind is that there's a local councillor. So he's on kind of the local government and quite a traditional man and kind of has a little bit of a belly and was never really into what we did at all

and always was quite resentful. And you just got the general body language of like fecking hippies you know this type of thing he exuded I'm not going to say his name uh but we're I was going down to the sea one day and himself and his wife stopped me and said I was watching your video on how to make turmeric milk and I was like oh my did you actually say that to me you know and I was just like you are totally someone that would never be into anything we do and he was watching a video on YouTube about how to make turmeric milk I was like my god something has shifted in society but I was gonna say just to break it down to things of what we've done in our own little town like right from when we started we used to go to all

the local schools at least once a year to do demos or talks or try to inspire the kids and try to create a kind of culture that you know fruit and veg is good and you know yeah try to really try you know if Coca-Cola could be sexy why can't carrots and broccoli and apples and things like this

you know it was really to try to create a different positive association to things and I know we've given away free porridge every day for probably 10 years which is something which you know it started out as just something we did for a week and it ended up, it didn't cost us a lot, but it really helped to build a community. It got to earn people's trust because certainly in a small town in Ireland 14 years ago, people

were very suspicious of us. They thought we had some hidden agenda and as Stephen said, they thought we were probably selling illegal substances out the back of the shop, which was very not the case. But, you know, people are suspicious in a small town and it takes a while to earn their trust and to realise that you're really, you have their best interest at heart. So another thing that we regularly do is, well, over recent years we've only done it annually,

was we've baking competitions to celebrate simple things in life. If anyone can remember the great apple harvest of 2006, can anyone remember that? No, okay, there's a great crop of apples that year. And I remember kind of older ladies or men would be bringing in apples because they didn't want to see them rot in the ground. And they'd bring them in and then it was like, we just started giving them away for free because it was like, there's way too many apples. And one day, Joan Orr brought in an apple pie and we ate it. It was like,

that's lovely. And the next day, another lady brought in an apple pie and we ate it. It was like, oh, that's lovely. And the next day another lady brought in the apple pie and was like, it's very nice, but Joan Orr's is much better. And the lady got really offended. We realised there's a lot of competition about apple pies, so we thought, okay, let's have an apple pie competition. So we did up a poster and we put it on lampposts because there was no social media at the time. And then we went to the biggest local kind of amplifier we could find.

It was the church bulletin, So we put a little note, you know, apple pie baking competition, entries in by 1pm. And then we asked kind of local community, like Frank Doyle, who was an ex-butcher to come and judge it. And Betty Lowe, who was my landlady, came, who she was an elder. She was in her 80s, who has eaten a lot of apple pies and then we got some kids involved and put it out and maybe about 40 or 50 people came and we all celebrated the simple things in life apples are in season but they didn't come they all baked apple pies and everyone came down and we'd abandon we all ate apple pies and it's a really fun community basic simple things but i guess it's true and we've had chocolate ones and banana and it's a fun kind of community events

where all the family kind of come together and it's true those kind of things that i think you build a sense of community and earn people's trust and and quite interesting on the back of that people people will bring their kids in for for you know a hot chocolate and a chocolate biscuit and they'll think they're being healthier and then little by little they'll be eating soup and then they might be eating dinners and then you know you see people shifting little by little and one other thing sorry i'm saying lots of stuff here one of the things we do is we swim in the sea every day at sunrise and i remember i got really into snapchat a couple of years ago and many people think snapchat just means naked pictures but there's more to snap that than just naked pictures and i got really interested that was quite immediate it was very like we're having dinner

12 o'clock does anyone want to come? And someone would actually show up, was like, wow, someone was actually watching it. There's a human there. I was amazed with it. And we'd regularly get messages from people saying, wow, I saw you swimming in the sea,

it looks gorgeous, can I come and join you? And they didn't realise it was minus one, the water was freezing and there was a wind that would have skinned you. So I kind of went, it was on a Tuesday morning, I put it up on Snapchat,

going, we're going swimming Thursday morning. We're meeting at the shop at 5 a.m. We're going to bring porridge and tea. And that was it. And Siobhan, who was working at the time, said, lads, we put that up on other platforms and see what happens. And it was like, okay, cool.

So we put it up on Instagram and on Facebook and on Twitter. And I remember I met Dave at the shop at 4 a.m. to get the porridge ready. And it was like, what do you reckon? It'd be five people, maybe 10 people. So he said, actually, we'll do a bigger bowl of porridge. It's only oats. So we made a big bowl of porridge,

and we made a cup of tea, or a few cups of tea, and we brought them out. And I thought there might be a few people. There was about 150 people showed up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all walked down to the sea, we watched the sunrise, and we made beautiful love. Okay, that bit was a joke.

Just to see you were listening. But recently we had one two Sundays ago and about 700 people showed up to celebrate Simple Thing, the sunrise, and like-minded people, free, good laugh, and we kind of gave out porridge and that. I had the good fortune of experiencing that. It was one of the earlier ones that you did, I think,

and it was amazing how many people showed up. I think it was the first organized one that you did I mean you were doing it every day, but the first one where you kind of opened it up It was unbelievable and I will also add that as a result of You guys coming and visiting us during the Ireland retreat now like some of those retreat attendees have found themselves in Greystones and Have been participating in in the swim rides. So any of you guys, I'm sure these guys would welcome you to Greystones to participate in that

too. Like we get people nearly every day from different parts of the world. It's amazing. You're kind of like, wow. It's just, it's incredible. I'm often amazed with it, but it's great crack. Really, really really fun I hope I answered your question, sorry Hi, as you know Hi, I'm Gemma and I'm a doctor based in the UK your energy, your zest for life, your enthusiasm and your knowledge is just

outstanding, so thank you for that today just a quick question I've been so inspired by your Happy Heart course that you talked about and I'm just really curious about your motivation behind that because you're both young virile you know fit and I'm assuming that you were that way as well before you decided to eat more plant-based so what was it that led you to do your research to decide to help others in this health arena more than the ethical aspects and

other things that you treasure yeah i think cool question we were doing our healthy eating kind of courses or cooking demos and people would they do and they'd have a good laugh and the food was nice but they wouldn't make any changes so dave kind of had the idea i wonder can we come up with a course where people can measure the improvement in their health and and kind of dave kind of did a bit of research and saw heart disease was the biggest killer in the West and that it's largely a lifestyle disease and that I wonder, could we try it? And do you want to tell the story? Not really. Okay.

So we did the course. We ran our first course as an experiment. We didn't know what the hell was going to happen. We'd seen research from Dean Ornish, Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Caldwell Essison, who Caldwell had subsequently become a friend, that they had kind of proved in trials that they could reverse the indicators

of cardiovascular disease. And I remember going, I wonder, like... Oh, you're dying to go in. Yeah, yeah. I was just going to say that they had kind of done it over a year, and we kind of wondered, would it work over four weeks? And this was the first... And would it work over four weeks? And this was the first...

And would it work with Irish people? And would it work with Irish people? That was the premise of it. And we didn't know it was going to work, but we were having a total punt at it, and we thought, what have we got to lose? Like, four weeks, people are probably going to feel better anyway. So the first time we did it, we were totally taking a punt at it.

It was like, the whole idea was, what happens if people eat fruit and veg for four weeks? Will they be better versions of themselves? And that was the whole premise. And our skill set eat fruit and veg for four weeks will they be better versions themselves and that was the whole premise and our skill set was that we're chefs we know how to cook this this is our life we can feed you we can put doctors on to talk about the science and let's see what the hell happens and i remember angela came and measured people's blood pressure cholesterol and weight first night they came up for four weeks and then they came back in the last night i remember feeling extremely nervous because it was like everything we

represented was in the line it was like Dave if this doesn't work like I don't know what I'm gonna do I feel really afraid yeah yeah genuinely we were really we we thought it was gonna negate everything if it didn't work but it was you know obviously it was a huge success and we've subsequently had thousands of people from all over the world do it so it's it's amazing it's such a simple thing but I think it's nowadays, people want someone to support them. You know, most people know what to do. You know, if I ask you,

what do you do to be happier? Most people say, I probably need to sleep a little more, probably need to be less stressed. Everyone kind of knows, but it's more the support, someone to support them to do it. And I guess this course,

the whole purpose is just to hold their hand and build a community of people. Like there's a community of people all over the world that now interact with one another and we just have to go in the pot every now and again and just stir it up a little bit. But they all talk to one another and interact with one another and it's really well done. And we do charge for it. When we first

did it, we used to do it for free, but people wouldn't do it. And then we found if we charged people 50 quid, they still wouldn't do it. They'd have to do it. But when you charge them 100 quid it was like, feck it, I paid my money, I'm doing this. So we found that you needed to charge for people to value it and appreciate it. And it was only when they did that they committed more to it, ironically.

I have a question. So I can't stop thinking about this idea of a health revolution, a social revolution, that is then kind of morphed into this successful entrepreneurial adventure. And just knowing you guys as I do, I'm curious, do you set goals? Do you have a five-year plan? Do you have an idea of where you're taking this and things that you haven't yet achieved that you want to realize? Or are you just sort of reading the energy as it comes and trying to make good decisions as you go

and just enjoying like the moment? Yeah, great question. I think if you looked at it retrospectively, you might think there was some mastermind planet play here. But if you spent a day or two with us or spent a week with us, you go, oh my God, your lives are pure chaos. You guys are just adapted.

My question is a polite version of what you just said. Like, we're master, we thrive in a chaotic environment. Like, we really do. We come into our own when there's, like, we're not good with systems and structures and all these things. So, in terms of a five-year plan, we've got a collection of ideas. But we'll typically make just about every decision from our gut. It'll be like, you know, when we talked about why we started our business, it was almost like, but every decision from our gut, it'll be like, you know,

when we talked about why we started our business, it was almost like, I feel I've got so much energy inside me or something inside me that I really need to share with as many people as I can. And that was the catalyst behind it all. So I think, when I think of what a five-year plan might be, jeez, I don't know, we started to create a happier, healthier world. So, like, we're really talking as big as we can create this thing, provided we're adding value.

Like, it's all based on how can we add value to people and try to, you know, make the world a better place. The service part. And try to have a laugh the whole time. So if somebody's listening to this and they're trying to start a business or they're enthusiastic about their own version of a health or social revolution

and they're hard at work trying to put the pieces together to create a life, create an entrepreneurial adventure out of what they're passionate about, what's the advice that you would give to that person? I think first one is to try to do something they're passionate about. So I think first one, try to get help.

Find their twin. That might sound weird, but find someone that will support them, someone that will bring something different to the table. Because there are times that are tough and you're struggling and you're wondering, where am I going to get the next money? But if you love it, you're going to continue it. And if you have someone that supports you, they'll prop you up when you feel crap, you hope.

So I think the first one is to try to get support. I would definitely say that finding something you're really passionate about. I think the days have shifted so much since we were in school and we used to go to the career guidance teacher and she'd say to you, oh, I think you've got the skill set to be a great engineer or, oh, you're a builder or you're a butcher or whatever it was. Whereas nowadays, like you can create anything you want and earn a living from it. So I think it's, I think when I think of my own daughters, what I want for them is to find those things that really ignite them and make them super passionate about it and really fuel those and to try to find a way to turn that

into make a living from that. Because I think that's going to be more fulfilling and therefore if you're more fulfilled, you'll probably inspire other people to do the same thing. So I think it's difficult for all of us because we have all these responsibilities, ideas that we need to do this, that or the other.

But I think fundamentally, if we find things that we're passionate about and really focus on them, I think magical things can happen. But I think fundamentally, if we find things that we're passionate about and really focus on them, I think magical things can happen. And I think last point in that is, if you are starting a business, there's a fundamental responsibility to be financially buoyant and congruent.

So I think if you're not good at numbers, get someone on your team that's good at numbers. Because ultimately, if you exist in capitalism, you need to pay your bills. You want to be responsible. You need to make some degree of profit to continue to grow. Because I speak from experience

because I wanted to start our businesses at a charity. And although I had a degree and a master's in business, I had thrown capitalism out the window. And we'd go meet our accountant at the end of the year. And she'd go, do you want to know how you do? I was like, no, I don't really care. I'm not into it. And at one point, like we borrowed 100 grand

when we first started. The investors were looking at appointing a manager because we weren't responsible enough and we were so anti-making money. And it took about 10 years to kind of really make peace with it. But I fully understand how important as a business is to be financially, and it's so basic and so fundamentally important. So I'd say to get someone that's good at figures if you're not good at it on your team. Yeah, Stephen, I think there's something in your core that feels guilty about making money. Like, that's like a thing with you, right? I think you're totally on to something. Yeah, yeah. And that, David, you don't have that as much. No, not as much. No, well, I think, like, as Stephen said, we live in the world of capitalism.

If you want to change the world, capital tends to help. You know, it really does. I think you can influence more people with, it's not essential. Like, look, Gandhi had such an impact on the world with, I don't think he had a huge pot of money. But I think in modern day, it really helps. And what is the biggest problem

that you guys are facing right now or tackling or, you know, obstacle that you're trying to overcome that you're facing? Like, what are you working on right now? I think because me and Stephen started the business and people who come to work with us think they're going to be working really closely with us, but we're out front. And they think it's going to be handstands and swimming at sunrise and they don't realise.

And they think it'll all be sunshine and lollipops, but there's, like, we're all front-running and off doing all sorts of things and the difficult, challenging bit now is to create a culture where it really it accentuates our values and and that kind of nature where if we want to create a happier healthier world we have to do within our own business first so I think that's that's the constant balance between finding those bits and trying to keep your team happy and content well while also not being not being ridiculous with what you're doing you know so that that's a really challenging kind of bit as it grows and navigating that path.

Any questions here? Kind of along those lines, I'm curious how you continue to scale but make time for yourself and for your family and not burn yourself out. Yeah, I think that's the, I think one of the thing is trying to, like Rich is a perfectionist,

we are really not perfectionists. So I think it's that 80-20 rule, at least suits us really well, to try to do as much as you can with that 20% of time to get that 80% return. And then delegating, we're really good at delegating. I'm not good at managing people in any shape or form, but going, like,

Dad, will you run the company? Great. You know, that type of thing. And we hire a financial director. Okay, they're going to look after the numbers, et cetera, et cetera. But I think that that was very important to us and something to prioritize.

I try to every, if I can, if I'm at home, I try to have breakfast with my family every day, bring my kids to school, try to be home, put them to bed, and try to hang out with my kids three to four hours a day, every day when I'm at home, if I can, you know, within reason. But I think making time for yourself is the hardest bit. Like if I was to say what Stephen's

big toughest thing is, he's got like, his family is so young and so demanding as well as the business that he never has any time for himself. So he's, you know, that's his thing, which he's constantly working on. He was like, oh, Dave, will you help me plan so i can have a little more time for himself but it's really the morning like whatever way our morning routine really tends to be the anchor of our day and i think the fact that there's two of us gives such a sense of i i don't know whatever way we can be we're fortunate enough in that and for me personally i find it's you know having space and finding that balance between not burning out and not emotionally feeling drained all the time that's the kind of constant challenge which we

haven't mastered but we're um I think the fact that we sleep you know we prioritize sleep we go to you know we get up early but we really go to bed early like we really do sleep well we eat really well you know we're surrounded by really good people the vast majority of the time and we do something we absolutely adore that we feel it's a real sense of mission and that kind of thing so I think if all those things align it tends to be a lot easier to just go full throttle and where our full throttle is pretty full-on for most people so you know we're really fortunate in that sense I don't know if we answered the question I can't really remember the question but we did our best did it. Did we do okay? Okay, thanks. You mentioned earlier that you guys had a farm.

Yeah. And my question is, does that feed into your products in your cafes? And also, where does the sustainability of the supply chain like feature into your products? Because a lot of vegan brands lead on health and happiness, which is great. But I'm curious in like the supply chain and sort of that energy that goes

into the food, which I don't feel many brands lead with. Another question, do you have an opinion as to why? Is there too many messages going on? Okay, so the first time we have a farm and our little brother started it, he started as a little brother washing the pots and doing the bins, the kind of less glamorous jobs. And then he got his degree. He did a degree in environmental science.

And he was very upset with the lack of produce grown in Ireland. If you look in Europe, the kind of main fruit produce supplier in Europe is Holland. And the land mass of Holland is similar to a quarter of the land mass of Ireland. So Ireland, and we import pretty much all our vegetables, the majority of our vegetables. So Dara was like adamant, I want to grow more veg. So he started with a farm. Dave went over to Pockertays

and he paid for mom and dad, which is kind of a health and wellness place where it's all based on trying to build up your immune system. And one of the cornerstone of it is living food. So it's foods that literally, you go to eat them and they're living. So like wheatgrass and sprouts, and by that I don't mean Brussels sprouts, but like alfalfa, pea, fennel, fenugreek, radish, clover, broccoli, etc.

So Dara started out growing wheatgrass at home, and the family would take it. And he was doing triathlons for Ireland at the time, and kind of at a really high level. And he found wheatgrass, like as Rich, you know, the time and kind of at a really high level and he found wheatgrass like as Rich you know the holy grail of athletic performance is recovery and he found wheatgrass and sprouts really helped him recover quicker so he started a farm growing them and started just delivering to the happy pair and then before we knew it he was in 80 shops and it's uh

yeah that's uh no sorry um you want? No. And I was going to say, so our farm currently at the moment is sprouts and wheatgrass. We're starting to grow mushrooms from coffee grinds because we're super into mushrooms at the moment. And I definitely want to try to move that more into functional mushrooms. And I know our brother has given notice

and said, okay, I'm happy to work in the business for the next year or two. But then he wants to set up a community farm, which is going to be as a role model for farming in Ireland. He wants to really focus on horticulture and look at the Dutch kind of practices and really make it a role model where kids can come, where there's an education centre and ultimately that all that fruit and veg will feed into our business. So that's part of the vision, but it's hard to do everything all at once. And I love the Zach Bush podcast that you did was amazing. And I loved his final words.

What would you do if you were Surgeon General of the States? And he said he'd set up that everyone has to do a year farming as an organic farmer. So I think Dara's goal is to set up a farm whereby people come through it a lot and you kind of remind people of the importance of soil and where your food comes from. So it's in the pipeline.

And we're not perfect, but we're doing our best. food comes from so it's in the pipeline and we're not perfect but we're doing our best um guys i think like health and wellness is is such a big part of what you do and health and wellness is also such a massive contributor to to mental health and for for entrepreneurs or business people who are trying to build or try grow, or step outside their comfort zone, the biggest thing that they face is fear, and how fear impacts them, how it debilitates them. And given the positivity that you have, the creativity that you have, what is your flavour of fear?

And when it comes, what do you do to deal with it? I know I'm scared of snakes. There's no snakes in in Ireland so I'm quite good. But other than that like I think I guess in business we're very fortunate that like oh fact if the whole thing closes and we've got to shut up sure whatever we'll find a new game to play like you know

so I think having that approach you can't really lose in a sense you know that and not to be flippant about it but like there's not a huge amount of fear in our lives you know like if I think of everything got washed away and whatever as long as steve was there to be grand we just how should we go find something to do we can skip around you know so so so i i don't know how that applies to anyone else like but i don't know what do you think steve uh yeah probably second that i think fear is a good thing but i guess we're fortunate that we kind of don't give into it or

like we'll experience like a little bit of anxiety maybe or a good thing, but I guess we're fortunate that we kind of don't give in to it, or like we'll experience a little bit of anxiety maybe, or a little bit of, what's that word before you do a talk? Anticipation. Anticipation, or excitement, or nervousness before you do a talk, but I think that's good, because you don't take it for granted, you know, that way. So I think fear is good, but we kind of, I guess because we're fortunate

there's two of us, and our attachment to things is quite low. I always like Bruce Springsteen, or someone's kind of story about that, where said that you know there was someone some guy going to do a talk and he said oh my god I feel so bad like my my heart rate increases and like I feel so much tension and I feel so stressed and this was his idea of what stress was and then they were talking to Bruce Springsteen they said how do you feel before you do a talk he says oh my heart rate increases I feel like stress and tension but it's's like excitement. It makes me feel so good. So I think it's like how you look at different things.

And I think they can really reframe things in a sense. And I don't know. I don't know how the hell we do it. We're quite simple creatures. I remember sitting in a talk with the guy who was the big wave surfer. He was, remember your man? Yeah. He was like one of the big wave surfers in the world.

And he was asked to do a talk on fear. And it was very interesting to see his approach to it, that there't any rocket science to it he was like yeah no i you know he tried he tried to keep his breath he tried to regulate his breath which is mindfulness which is something dear to your heart so he he was very aware of his breath that as he became fearful his breathing became a lot more shallower so he tried to breathe deep and calm and he found that to be very beneficial what do you reckon rich well i had a different question i wanted to ask you guys so so uh people ask me all the time like what advice would i give to my younger self or to younger people and i usually i generally say something along the lines of live lean and invest in adventure and

experience and in our culture, we're sort of encouraged to go to school, study hard, and then go right into the workforce. And you're supposed to know exactly what you want to do and be by the time you're 19 or 21. And in my experience, that leads to a lot of unhappiness in a lot of people. It certainly did in myself. And you guys made this choice to invest in adventure and experience and you went I don't know how many years you you guys like went on this walkabout where you had all these crazy experiences and and really had the courage to go experiment and live in different communities and try different things and I can't help but think that that was a core like informative principle

that allows you to do what you do now so that when you concluded that chapter you had some clarity about what was important to you that you had had some experiences that kind of informed you about what was important to you in your life and what you wanted to express so what do you how do you think about um adventure and travel and you know those experiences that you had in relation to um what you do today? I think if I was to give advice to myself, to my 19-year-old self, I would say don't bother going... From my own perspective, I'm not using this as for anyone else, but I'm just saying that I would say don't bother going to university or college

because in my own experience I found it to be just more the same. It was more in the treadmill and what I should be doing and where I should be going and I need a job and I need to quick and hurry up and be making money to buy a house to get married. And I think I would encourage my younger self,

if I go back, I'd say, just go wander around the world. Go get lost for a little bit and start looking under different rocks and go experience life because I found, in my own experience,

I found it opened me up to so many different things and number one, I got to find out what I was interested in and who the hell I was independent of my family and my own society and my own community. So I think travel, it's such an incredible way

of questioning your own preconceptions and your own ideals. And travel doesn't necessarily mean going to different countries. It could simply mean traveling inside yourself to different aspects of your own mind through meditation or whatever it might be, or to travel to do different, meeting people in your own town that speak different languages.

Whatever it is to take yourself outside of yourself so you can question your own conditioning and find out what you're really interested in. So I would be more brazen to go, keep trusting yourself. Don't listen to what anyone else says. Go out and find what you're into

and keep doing more of it. Follow your nose. Trust your nose. You know what's right to make yourself happy and stop doubting yourself. Yeah. And to go back to your question of what advice would I give to myself, like we're pretty brazen and fearless in a lot of sense but if I was back I'd say don't fear a thing, like I would I would have gone way harder in terms of like looking under more rocks and investigating

different things and really getting a full sense of experience because I think you know fear holds us back in so many different ways and it's only looking back retrospectively that you'd go, I'd go much harder and I really would be far less afraid of things that when I look, you know, to other people I don't seem like I'm afraid but each of us are fighting our own little battles inside of ourselves each day. Yeah. Hi, I was just going to say, so it sounds like the two of you have had a really amazing journey together. What would you say you're most proud of out of everything you've done over these last 14 years?

What would you say you're most proud of? The sense of community. The sense of belonging. Like, the thing which gives me most meaning in my life is walking down the town where we live and saying hello to people. Like, honestly, if I was to pick my perfect day, I'd be walking around by the sea saying,

how are you? Wagging my tail like a dog. Like, that's the most, like, that sense of community. Like, wagging my tail, how are you? Oh, how's it going? You know, having the chats. And then I'd come back to the shop and I'd stand out the front chatting to people,

sharing fruit. Oh, did you taste this? Did you taste that? And I think that sense of community makes me feel as good as i could ever feel i think you know yeah that's a good one yeah i'll second that one yeah good work well good we gotta we gotta park this happy pair bus but i think a good way to kind of wrap this up and close it down um is with a little uh a little primer on your principles for happiness

that we were talking about earlier. Okay, great. Not on the patio. I think first one, try to eat more whole foods. Most people don't eat enough fiber. And fiber is really important for three functions in our body. Can everyone remember? First one?

Elimination. Elimination, woo! Point number two? Weight loss. Weight loss. So fiber will really help with weight loss. Point number three was? Microbiome. Microbiome. So it's known as a prebiotic. So fiber would really help with weight loss. Point number three was? Microbiome. So it's known as a prebiotic. So I think to try to eat more whole foods. So it's

not necessarily being a veggie or a vegan. It's literally making small changes. So it's maybe eating oatmeal occasionally. To trying to choose brown bread instead of white bread. Wholemeal pasta instead of white pasta. Just little shifts. Even try eating an apple once. And if you hate apples, try fancy fruit. Like right now we're in Italy, I saw cherries down in the larder. Oh my God. You know, try a different fruit that's in season because it's so sweet and wonderful. Beautiful. Thanks, bud. Point number two on our five tips for happiness, I would say is movement. You know, as mammals, we all need to move. We forget about it because society is set up where we get up, we turn on a light switch, we

heat our breakfast, we get in the car, we sit at the computer, and it's set up for us to be sedentary. It's set up for our own convenience. But I think if you look at all the Blue Zones and Dan Butner's work, it's people that live a life of inconvenience. They're the ones that live the longest. They're the ones that are healthier and happier for longer.

So I think it's almost, it's this kind of consistent movement throughout the day as opposed to this, oh, I work and I sit at my desk and then I go sweat for an hour in the gym and I take my Instagram photo. Where it's,'s like I think it's consistently building it into your day is and and cycling like as taking up means of transport that are less in your car even simple things a friend Tony Riddle who's a super cool dude he's no furniture in his house and he's all

about squatting we should be sitting like this whereas this is a yoga pose I'm doing yoga now whereas originally this right now I'm squatting but but this, whereas this is a yoga pose. I'm doing yoga now. Whereas originally this, right now I'm squatting, but this was originally a rest pose. So I think it's to try to incorporate as much as you can. And I think on that movement one, I think the most basic simple thing is to start counting 10,000 steps a day. Really basic simple thing and set up an alarm that if you haven't moved in an hour, get up and walk.

Spend five minutes walking. Like it's basic simple things throughout the day. And if you have a desk job, which doesn't incorporate movement, try to drink lots of water because it means you got to go up and go to the toilet a lot. And then you're going to be rehydrated and you got to move. And if you're going to go to the toilet, try to go to the one that's further away. So it means you get more steps in. And take the stairs. Yes, it's all habits. And point number three, I would sense community. Find a sense of belonging, a type of people or a tribe that you feel a kinship in, where you feel you can be your authentic self, where you don't

feel like you're putting on a show. And I think that's been the richest thing for us, the sense of community and the sense of belonging. And if I could, I think as Stephen often says, he says, we all know that granny, that 97-year-old lady that drank a bottle of whiskey and smoked 50 fags and she didn't eat healthy but she surrounded herself with people where she felt at home with she probably laughed a lot and she probably had very little stress in her life so i think the sense of community is so fundamental to us as humans as social creatures the vital nutrient yeah that's often forgot about i think point number four is to try to be more authentic in modern day society it espouses you got to be

positive and happy all the time and And emotions are good or bad. Whereas in reality, all emotions are good. And we have a full array of emotions and we need to express them all. Like in Ireland and England, you're asked every day, how's it going?

And pretty much everyone says good or fine or tired. That's about the extent of it. Whereas we have a greater range of emotions and if we don't express them, they tend to grow and they tend to come out, express in different ways that mightn't be quite as well.

So I think we've got to, or I try to, at least myself, is to try to be more honest with how I feel instead of being Mr. Happy Clappy, Mr. Happy Pear Man, occasionally going, I feel stressed, I feel confused, I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah, repressed, or whatever it is, to try to actually name an emotion, which is quite hard for me, coming from my condition. You're Irish. Yeah, repressed or whatever it is, to try to actually name an emotion, which is quite hard for me,

coming from my condition. You're Irish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But in doing so, we give other people permission to. So I think it's to be more authentic with how we feel, not be a smiley, happy, clappy, hey, how are you? When in reality, you feel lost, confused, and in despair. I think it's to be honest and go,

I feel lost, confused, and in despair because you're showing your vulnerability. And vulnerability, as many people say, is real strength and honesty. And I think love is honest. So, fundamentally, if you're being more honest, you're being more loving. Yeah, it's scary. It's scary for a lot of people. And I think our last point is really love. It's about feeling, you know, touch and feel and connection and all those basic simple things. So, it sounds very twee love, doesn't it? Yeah, or not taking things serious. Having a laugh.

We're all going to die. Do our best. Not being black and white. It has to. I'm a vegan. It's to try to do your best. You're going to die. Have a laugh. Enjoy it. Let's spread a bit more joy and let's have a good life together. Well said, boys. Much love, my friends.

Stephen and David Flynn, the happy pair. Let's hear it for these guys. Thank you. Beautiful. You guys are a gift to humanity. I love you both dearly, and I really appreciate you guys making the time to come down and spend time with us. It's been amazing.

Thank you. From us, it's been an absolute honor, and we're just delighted to be here. So the three cookbooks, pick them up. The newest cookbook, can you get it in the US? I think Amazon or the book depository ship all around the world, so as far as I know. In Canada?

Okay, cool. Yes, I think all the online places are doing it. Right right so I'll put links in the show notes to all of that everybody should pick it up if you find yourself in Greystones or Dublin

drop in yeah come join us you guys are easy to find unless you're traveling yeah yeah and jump on the Irish Sea right yeah cool

thanks you guys you want to you want to take us out can I say peace and plans yeah do it okay three two one oh wait wait wait

okay wait wait right here we go okay three two one peace and plans? Three, two, one. Wait, here we go. Three, two, one. Peace and plans. You say it slower. Can we do it together? Take two. Forget that one. Three, two, one.

Peace and plans. Nice. Yeah. Alright. Lance. Nice. Yeah. All right. All right. I hope you guys dug that. What's not to love about those boys? Let the lads know what you thought of today's conversation.

Hit them up on any social media platform at the happy pair, basically everywhere, Instagram, Twitter, and the like pick up their new book. If you're in the UK, the happy pair recipes for happiness. If you're in the U S pick up one of our books, the plant power way, the plant power way, Italia, this cheese is nuts or my memoir finding ultra. And if you're looking for additional nutritional guidance beyond just a cookbook or inspirational stories like the happy pair, you might want to

check out our meal planner, go to meals.richroll.com. When you sign up, you get access to thousands of plant-based recipes, totally customized based on your personal preferences and needs. It's really an amazing program. It helps you generate unlimited grocery lists. We even have grocery delivery in most U.S. cities, international delivery in certain cities rolling out soon. We have incredible customer service seven days a week, people who really know what they're talking about available to you to answer any of your questions. And all of this is available for just $1.90 a week when you sign up for a year.

I think that's what I'm most proud of, to offer such a robust and helpful program at a really affordable price point. For more, to learn more and to sign up, go to meals.richroll.com or click on Meal Planner on the top menu at richroll.com. We just passed our one-year anniversary mark on this offering. And over the last 12 months, we served over 250,000 plant-based meals. Super proud of that. People are really enjoying it. The feedback and the reviews are amazing. So have a look. And if you would like to support my work,

please subscribe to this show on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts or on whatever platform you enjoy this content. It really helps us out with the show's visibility and just share it with your friends and on social media, grab their phones, subscribe them to the podcast. I want to thank everybody helping on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. I want to thank Tyler Pyatt, my son, for helping out with the audio on this particular episode back in Italy.

Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for their help with the graphics on this edition. We did not video it. And theme music, as always, by Analema. So thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here in a couple days with Brian Rose, the host of London Real, for another great conversation. Until then, eat well, move more, love more broadly, serve your community, and be happy. Peace. Thank you.