Finding Joy In Simplicity With The Happy Pear

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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:06Speaker 01

  What's most important is that we can live the lifestyle that we want and that we're happy. 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.

• 1:17Rich Roll?

  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.

• 1:43Rich Roll?

  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. Longtime 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,

• 2:25Rich Roll?

  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

• 3:10Rich Roll?

  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...

• 4:01Rich Roll?

  Okay, The Happy Pair. 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,

• 4:44Rich Roll?

  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.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 5:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah!

• 5:09Rich Roll?

  That's Stephen and David Flynn.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  And this... Can we say it together?

• 5:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  And this is the Rich Roll Podcast. We kinda had it slightly sexy, like... Can you just say it again? Can you just say it one more time?

• 5:25Rich Roll?

  That's Stephen and David Flynn, and this...

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 5:32Rich Roll?

  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 of 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 of 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.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Maybe we'll take breaks.

• 6:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you guys can exchange the mic and take turns doing calisthenics, I suppose.

• 6:22Rich Roll?

  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 and 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

• 7:07Rich Roll?

  behind how you guys got from there to here.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Okay, great. Love to. So we grew up in Greystones, County Wicklow in Ireland. Dave Rackens is 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 and all that. So that was, you know, that was good.

• 7:53Rich Roll?

  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.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Are you accusing us of spooning?

• 8:02Rich Roll?

  Stephen's got his arm around David. I'm like, what is going on here? All right. We're just getting Go ahead.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  We were once womb mates. Yeah, that's kind of cheesy. But yeah, so I guess 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.

• 8:22Speaker 02

  And I guess we studied business and it was really very money focused. And as 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 aged twenty-one, 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 pockets our whole life.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  You kind of, being an identical twin, you have this support system around you. It's like little force field.

• 8:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't know if I've ever spent any time with either of you when the other one wasn't within ten or fifteen feet of you.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably true, yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, back when we were twenty-one, we, 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 to offer beyond our own social conditioning, beyond kind of money being God and beautiful women and all these kind of allures that society had kind of, we had just taken.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Bought into.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Totally bought into. So I went off and tried to be a golf pro instead. I forget at the time, I was a twenty-one-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.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  Can I talk to you?

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Do you want to tell your story?

• 9:35Speaker 01

  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

• 10:20Speaker 01

  roommates, this guy Scott and this guy Adrian from Australia. He was a cool surfer dude. I was twenty-one, young and impressionable, and he was cooking dinner. 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 did sweet potato like it's, I know what a spud is, but I don't know what that is. Sweet potato, that sounds posh. And a coconut milk, I was, you know, baffled. But I tasted the soup and I was like, wow, that's gorgeous. Geez, those lentil things are fabulous. 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. 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.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  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 were eating, you know, hippie food. At the time, what I was calling hippie food. So we were eating like millet and quinoa and brown rice and, you know, 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. Yeah, something like that. So it wasn't really social media and internet. Email hadn't really kicked off. And we're highly competitive. So I wanted to call Dave up and just like, Dave, I definitely had to have one up and 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-

• 11:48Rich Roll?

  Is that true? Or were you just like trying to one up him?

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Of course I was trying to one up him. No, no, I-

• 11:53Rich Roll?

  But you actually had already been eating vegetarian also, just coincidentally?

• 11:58Speaker 01

  I guess it was the first time I'd been away by myself. So I didn't feel like buying meat. Something 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 was a vegan, I became a vegan. So then he decided, okay, well, if you're a vegan, I'm going to 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, just 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 you got a helicopter to work. He was with a whole bunch of Christians. It was 50 Christians and then there was me. But it was great, really, really wonderful. Great people, made a great time.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  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 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 meditation center. One or the other. And I said, I'll just wait and see what rings the bell first. And it was the meditation center. So I went down that route.

• 13:01Rich Roll?

  At this time- How long was the hair and how was the body odor?

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Well, I guess, yeah, Stephen, we left where we were doing male modeling, 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 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 wanna, so much has changed within me, like, I really wanna try to bring this to more people." And he says, like, "I had this idea, like, do you wanna 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.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  And then he says, "Do you wanna start a vegetable shop?" And this was the furthest thing I thought from revolution, and he was like, "No, we're gonna start from the grassroots, we're gonna 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, we were going places, we had lots of potential, and then we came back as 24-year-olds and we took over a vegetable shop.

• 14:15Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  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, and they really thought we were gone AWOL, they, you know, like as Stephen says, we, they often, you'd hear people whispering, "I think they're selling drugs down the back."

• 14:32Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Which we weren't, of course, but it was...

• 14:34Rich Roll?

  Well, from the guys with the polo shirts and the collars popped and the high and tight and the rugby and the whole, and the business school and the whole thing, to like, the top knots and the veg shop in the van.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  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 wanna inspire people to eat more fruit and veg, to be better versions of themselves, and that was, 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...

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Really grown out from there.

• 15:14Rich Roll?

  Right, so today you have, what, a hundred and seventy employees? You've got, how many restaurants, cafes now?

• 15:19Speaker 01

  Three cafes.

• 15:20Rich Roll?

  Three cafes.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Two shops, a farm, and we've Pearville.

• 15:25Rich Roll?

  You've got Pearville. And you've got, how many products?

• 15:28Speaker 01

  We've about thirty products.

• 15:29Rich Roll?

  Thirty products.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  A thousand stores, and they're starting in the UK next week, so we're super excited.

• 15:32Rich Roll?

  Right, so you've been over, all over Ireland, but now you're expanding across the entire UK. Like, that's the next phase of your world domination plan.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Woo-hoo.

• 15:42Rich Roll?

  And how many cookbooks?

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Uh, three, and it was funny when, when that one came out, cause I remember, like, well, the first one, the yellow one. Uh, like, we'd sat down with Penguin, who are a publisher, uh, but preverts 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, uh, yeah, yeah, um, a recipe for two hundred people, and they'd go, oh, okay. Uh, and after you'd heard people maybe a hundred, two hundred, three hundred times saying, I have a great idea for you, why don't you write a cookbook? And it was like, wow, okay, Dave, we 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 then we sat down with Penguin, and with, we sat down with Michael and Patricia from Penguin Ireland, and it was kinda like sitting down with Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton. And you, you know those friends that you always wished you had, that, like you, that are really articulate and very clever and have read all the right books?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  It was like, I really wanna have friends like this, Dave. Uh, so we signed up and we said, we do a cookbook with Penguin, and they said, pretty much every book they publish is a bestseller. Um, and a typical chef who's on TV sells around two thousand copies. 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. Um, 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 missed. 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.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Totally amazed. Um, and, um, the book came out, and within six weeks, the six thousand copies had sold, and by Christmas, it came out in October, and by Christmas, it was the number one best-selling cookbook that year.

• 17:12Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Then the next year, Jamie Oliver and I, Jella 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 kinda stood for more.

• 17:28Rich Roll?

  And now you just have the third cookbook that just came out a couple of weeks ago, right?

• 17:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:32Rich Roll?

  It's number one in Ireland.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, number one in Ireland and it was number eight in the UK last week.

• 17:36Rich Roll?

  That's so crazy.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  It's really good. 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, we're 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 FoodTube 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.

• 18:20Speaker 02

  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 it, on what makes, what's kind of happiness for us, or what kind of gives a meaning to our lives. And we have a whole section on that, a lifestyle piece, so.

• 18:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and we're gonna get into that in a few minutes.

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, which I love, yeah.

• 18:38Rich Roll?

  But before we, before we do that, I mean, you know, when I first met you guys, I was like, oh, these, these, 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 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?

• 19:21Rich Roll?

  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 veg 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?

• 19:46Speaker 01

  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 centered 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.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  We hold it together.

• 20:26Rich Roll?

  They're fighting over the mic.

• 20:28Speaker 02

  I was gonna say just to break it down into kind of like practicalities, like one thing which we always do is like where our early rise is as, as you know, so we typically get up at 5am 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 kind of, 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.

• 20:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, for those that are listening, this is not just during the summer, this is like 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.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  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, 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.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  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 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. 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's 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. And so dad stepped in and we've kind of got a financial director and a few other people to focus on skillsets that we're brutal at. So it's kind of, I think what's really important is that we focus on what we're good at and

• 22:29Speaker 01

  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.

• 22:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I don't see you guys spending a lot of time staring at a computer screen.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:40Rich Roll?

  It's not like not your thing.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  No.

• 22:42Rich Roll?

  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.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:56Rich Roll?

  It's got to be difficult.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  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, it's relevant for everyone how we, how we walk our own talk and be authentic and yet try to be, you know, be the best version of ourselves we can.

• 23:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  So I think that's the underlying thing. And one of my top tips in that is to get a twin. It's really handy.

• 23:25Rich Roll?

  A twin?

• 23:25Speaker 01

  To support you.

• 23:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  Or to find someone that supports, you know, the way you, Julie, you know, we happen to be twins, so it's very fortunate I have my Julie.

• 23:33Rich Roll?

  Julie and I are not twins.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Very good. But then the upside of you and Julie is you both got different skillsets.

• 23:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Like, we're, we both got the same skillset and same blind spots.

• 23:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Julie, Julie's very aware of my blind spots. I'll just say that, you know. But, but one of the things that's cool about, 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 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 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 what you do. And really like living that in a modern world is it's

• 24:25Rich Roll?

  pretty cool and aspirational because as somebody who lives in Los Angeles, like I don't, you know, that's not the way that like my daily life kind of unfolds.

• 24:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I guess we're really fortunate in that we've always come from a small town in Ireland and we 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 I ended 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 going to be like next level how like we're going to 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 ID list, it was great. But I remember everyone called one another brother and sister and it was all about community. But to me, it

• 25:20Speaker 02

  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 this pocket. 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.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  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.

• 25:57Rich Roll?

  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 gotta scale it, we gotta go, we gotta go big time now. But like, you stay in your town. And that's just like-

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did good.

• 26:10Rich Roll?

  -super important to the ethos of, of what you're doing.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, last year, we got to sit with, Dave wrote his thesis on this, like, Charles Handy, who's written a load of business books and quite a business guru. And he's now eighty-four, and his dad was a pastor, a vicar, a holy man. So he's from kind of good, you know, good integrity. 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? And 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, David written his thesis and read all his books. It was like, what, you're Charles Handy? Wow. And we got to talk 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

• 26:57Speaker 01

  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 then asked to be here more often, and then just go be Mr. Happy Paramount over there. And it's kind of like, wow, Dave, this is hard. Like, I wanna like, I just wanna be able to get up in the morning, go swim in the sea, go train, go break you with my family.

• 27:23Rich Roll?

  And you have a clone.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. 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 five thousand stores. It's about being happy with what we have at the moment, and to do our best with that.

• 27:42Rich Roll?

  And, and what do you attribute, when you just, just take the cookbooks, for example, like the fact that they're outselling, like, better-known chefs, or people that are selling, 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?

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:00Rich Roll?

  And yet, they're, they're connecting with people in a way that's- Kind of unprecedented in your part of the world.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  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 started, we wrote our story of kind of, I guess, our story of our own journey, which was maybe relatable to people, but it's 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's hard to say.

• 28:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Hey, what was the question again?

• 28:36Rich Roll?

  I had something, I had something ready there and then it went.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  No, I, 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 lifestyle factors.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  And I also think the fact that people are, like with the kind of demise of religion in a sense, it is 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.

• 29:11Rich Roll?

  The tribe.

• 29:11Speaker 02

  And I think, as you call it, the movement, like 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 that's definitely part of it.

• 29:29Rich Roll?

  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...

• 30:02Rich Roll?

  Like prosthetic

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Dark houses. That's a big word. Dark houses, yeah. Good word, I love it. Yeah, I think that was one thing which we You're conscious about your, the way you communicate is what I'm saying. 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 gonna 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 realised, "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."

• 30:46Speaker 02

  So we consciously had to realise that, okay, you know, be an example rather than, as you say, try to

• 30:53Speaker 01

  You know that expression, "You'll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar." And so I think it's more about trying to include and meet people where they're at as opposed to, "There must be a vegan," as a total plant pusher, I think.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  And I think that's always been our message right from the start. Like I remember, you know, like community, the sense of community and the sense of like including people. We started our business 14 years ago when you'd never tell anyone 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, 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 a chicken curry thinking, like it would say chickpea, but they'd think it was chicken. And they'd eat that by mistake.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  And then they'd be coming for a month and they'd go, "I never realised 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. Mm-hmm. So then you slowly realised 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 found to be really positive in our lives.

• 32:19Rich Roll?

  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?

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Well, I guess we don't really spend that much time in the States.

• 32:34Rich Roll?

  No, but you've travelled there.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have indeed. I think in Ireland and UK, like, never have we really, in the last few years, like, every day, pretty much, you meet people under the age of 30, coming up, "I really wanna be a vegan, like, I'm really trying to be." So, like, there are people aspiring to be a vegan, where never would you get that, like, that was never. So, like, it's something that's, like, it's in fashion, it's desirable, it's like, "I want that status." Whereas I think our main message isn't, like, that you have to be a vegan or vegetarian, we're all gonna die, I think it's about doing our best. And, like, we used to be total fundamentalists, like, if Granny cooked an apple pie, you know, there was a bit of butter, and I'd go, "No, Granny, 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.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  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 I was...

• 33:29Speaker 01

  I'll context that.

• 33:30Speaker 02

  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, it was like, "No, she's gonna 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.

• 33:46Rich Roll?

  Back to your story.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  Oh, meanwhile, thanks, Steve. So, anyway, here we were one Saturday morning, we were walking up to the Midlothian Grace Downs, 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, uh, walking up the town, and we're walking by the butcher shop. It was 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 town as vegan ambassadors with our kids eating sausages. And it's amazing, now, you're kind of like, "What do we do, Dave? What do I do? Do I let them? What, do I pretend? Do I hide it? Like, what?" And then you just kind of go, "Fuck it, this is just the way it is, let's just be with it and accept it."

• 34:26Speaker 01

  I teach you better than anyone to just, like, life isn't perfect, there's no VIP lounge in heaven if you're gonna be, you know, 100% vegan or not.

• 34:33Rich Roll?

  And so how do you try to, you know, raise your kids with these ideas that are so important to you?

• 34:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, as Stephen said, it takes a community to raise a kid and, you know, when my kids are with their mom, they eat whatever she feeds them. And when they're with me, they eat what I eat, you know, it's welcome to my

• 34:49Rich Roll?

  So you're not making hard and fast rules?

• 34:51Speaker 02

  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, 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 not eat

• 35:17Rich Roll?

  But they're drinking green smoothies all the time, and you see all that kind of stuff.

• 35:21Speaker 02

  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 what real men do. So it's amazing just to see, like, because my wife doesn't like to cook, so I do all the cooking, so it's, yeah.

• 35:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Different kind of role model.

• 35:39Rich Roll?

  And what's, so how, how old is the oldest one for each of you?

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Seven. We're pretty much like good old twins, like, our kids are seven and five.

• 35:46Rich Roll?

  You're kind of, the dads do each other's kids anyway, right?

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, because we're identical twins, so we have the same DNA, so technically, I have five kids, and so does Dave.

• 35:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  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.

• 36:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  Separately.

• 36:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's a reality show.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is a bit of one. You could open up if you, you know.

• 36:11Rich Roll?

  So what do you think are, when you go, 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?

• 36:30Speaker 02

  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 Bacon, thank you for that question Stephen. But I think when you break it down into baby little steps and make it digestible, people think you're suddenly you're part of some exclusive elite cult if I if I stop eating meat or I'm gonna become some skinny hippie vegan character that's like gonna lose my way and I'm gonna have to wear brown sandals and a cardigan and like, you know.

• 37:06Rich Roll?

  Is that why you guys always wear tank tops?

• 37:08Speaker 02

  No, well usually in Ireland it's cold six months of the year, so we've got to wrap up for six months of the year.

• 37:13Rich Roll?

  I don't know, you seem to wear them in the winter anyway.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  If we can get away with it, of course, we love it. 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 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 want all want to be happy, we all want to feel good. And I remember reading a study that Duke University had done where they they were trying to isolate the most central thing to our happiness as humans. And you know, if from watching the telly or reading magazines, you 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 our happiness as humans is health, which sounds so boring, but like those expressions, your health is

• 38:00Speaker 02

  your wealth, didn't come for no reason, so like I think.

• 38:03Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. Good work, good work, don't worry.

• 38:08Rich Roll?

  Stephen.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  Rich. I think I like your, I think it's about doing your best and to try to eat more fibre, because most people don't get enough fibre. Fibre's my my little pet, my dear friend.

• 38:18Rich Roll?

  And and what do you thi- oh, go ahead.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  But I was just gonna say that it's 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 thirteen times a week, well, try to eat it ten times a week and like try to eat a little more porridge and like 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.

• 38:47Rich Roll?

  If somebody comes up to you, and I imagine this probably happens from time to time, and they say, "I love you guys, 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, sell me, like, why should I, you know, why should I follow the way that you guys are going as opposed to what I'm doing?

• 39:05Speaker 01

  I'd say, keep doing what you're doing. You look happy at it. Good on you.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  I'd probably try to bust out a handstand, do a few backflips.

• 39:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, get competitive?

• 39:13Speaker 02

  See if you 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 a

• 39:27Rich Roll?

  An argument.

• 39:28Speaker 02

  An argument, or as you'd say in Ireland, you'd say a pissing contest, or whatever, where, where no one really wins. So I think it's, 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 and a role model that'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.

• 39:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool. One more question, and then I want to open it up to everybody. If, if there is a misconception about you guys, or about this lifestyle that you espouse, you know, what, what is it? Like, would you come up against people who, like, they're just, like, they're not, they're not, 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?

• 40:14Speaker 02

  I would pretty 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, I guess we, we're kind of light in 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, I think life can be so complicated for so many people, and they can overcomplicate things, and get, "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, it's a simplicity aspect of life which can be really rewarding.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Remember that lovely lady we met in England who was saying that they were kind of trying to measure one of the things that help happiness a lot? And she used the term a low, a low, what was it?

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Threshold.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  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 of my birthday, as opposed to I'm happy because that rain feels really nice.

• 41:23Rich Roll?

  And do you think that, that, that a person can cultivate that? Like, are you, were you guys just always like this?

• 41:30Speaker 02

  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 you're great. You know, which was, which really helps, like, you know, like.

• 41:53Rich Roll?

  You're so handsome.

• 41:55Speaker 02

  Well, like, you know, you always had someone in your back saying, oh, he's totally wrong, that person, you're brilliant, well done, David, 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 things 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, 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 planet and society and everyone at large.

• 42:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, yeah. Well said, and I think we could all use, 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

• 43:21Rich Roll?

  to continue to grow, and it's super exciting, and so, God bless you guys. Thank you, Rich. Thank you, thank you. So, why don't we open it up, if people have questions to ask?

• 43:35Speaker 03

  Hi, Justin. Justin Greystones.

• 43:38Rich Roll?

  The first guy's gonna ask a question, actually, lives in Greystones and knows these guys, sorry.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  I'm really interested around, you know, the movement and what you guys do, and if you, one of the things that we find concerning is people who are trying to find health and vitality in their 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 Happy Heart 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?

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Thanks for being here for the question. So, we've got a Happy Heart course, for anyone who doesn't know, and it's an online course, it's a four-week course, and I guess 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, you know, they have heart issues, or they have high blood pressure, or something, and vegan or vegetarian or plant-based wasn't their area at all, and their wife or husband or partner is gonna drag them into it. And through this process, after feeling better, having more energy... You know, you'll see, they'll go, "I know it's over, but like, I'm gonna keep doing this." So it's amazing to kind of...

• 45:09Speaker 01

  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 fumby in town, and this kind of real traditional country Irish guy came in, and he was totally skeptical, 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 gonna 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 cross, or his arms crossed, and then the third night his arms open. 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 bothering me. What do we do for Christmas dinner?"

• 45:49Speaker 01

  So it was amazing just to see, like, how people can change and how it does function as a gateway.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  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 dal, 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 I think any kind of four-week challenge or four-week introduction, like, our Happy Heart course is good when it's online and it's available for everyone all over the world. So if anyone's interested in it, check it out.

• 46:27Speaker 04

  Hi, Tommy here. You're such a happy pair. Do you have a story around your unhappiest pair moment?

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Unhappiest pair moment? Good question. Wow, okay, so Kerbal.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  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 gonna deflect that one and go for the...

• 46:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay, obviously there wasn't one.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  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 gonna 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 have 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, yay, thinking this was great. And we got a really big backlash because we never really considered the consequence

• 47:40Speaker 01

  that we're role models and people look to us and might encourage other people to swim, albeit it was calm where we swam. So I felt really embarrassed and quite ashamed that I didn't think of that. And that was a bit, I felt a bit unhappy that day.

• 47:52Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:54Speaker 04

  Sorry, one more if I may. So being identical twins, have you ever, happy pair, alternate dated the same girl?

• 48:04Speaker 01

  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 walking past just by absolute chance and I went up to say hi to her.

• 48:18Speaker 04

  And you fancied her?

• 48:19Speaker 01

  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 on the lips and I took her hand. We were walking up the road up to the house, you know, we were gonna do some more kissing. And then Stephen showed up, but that was... And I said, "Hey, Steve", and he said, 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."

• 48:42Speaker 01

  So that was as close as we got to dating the same girl.

• 48:49Speaker 05

  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?

• 49:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, brilliant.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  We tried getting a project going a number of times with the 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. And 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 forty years, and she was like a stern lady, really gorgeous and warm at heart. And we were kind of just talking about nutrition, and I was talking about fibre, 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 fibre." And so I guess that was a very...

• 49:48Speaker 02

  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 schools, so kids under the age of twelve. I remember there was, the sixth class came in and they were all eleven and twelve, and at the start I remember saying, "Oh, what's your favourite 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. It was 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.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  I don't know if I answered your question directly at all, but that was a punter. Colin.

• 50:38Speaker 06

  Hey, guys.

• 50:39Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:40Speaker 06

  Hi.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Hi, John.

• 50:42Speaker 06

  Hi. This is, guys, so your energy is definitely contagious, and in today's times, when we're surrounded by negative news, seeing people doing their work with such positivity and energy is really kind of refreshing.

• 50:59Speaker 06

  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?

• 51:26Speaker 01

  I think we're very fortunate because we've always been a we, so whatever he has, I have. You know the way, and I don't mean that like I mightn't have it, but we have it. You know, that way together.

• 51:34Speaker 06

  Is there something?

• 51:35Speaker 02

  I was gonna 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.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  I was getting a little emotional.

• 52:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, I can hear you. Can we hold hands?

• 52:21Speaker 01

  I would say Dave's wonderful ability to kind of just let things breeze over. And 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 what he's doing. So I really admire that.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  Thanks, Steve.

• 52:41Speaker 07

  We got a question over here.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  Colin, Lord of Tea, Colin is the Lord of Tea.

• 52:45Speaker 07

  So, so I'm gonna 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 storeers 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, 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...

• 53:23Speaker 07

  You know, with people like Derek Simnett, or Tim Sheaf, or Ito 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 of mindfulness practice and a movement practice as part of your wellbeing.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  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, okay, movement in terms of happiness. First of all, I know as I get older, I get, like, 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. And so, something that we've found is, like, 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.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  So, as I get older, I try to become more supple, and as I become more supple, I find it helps my wellbeing, 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.

• 54:43Speaker 07

  Do you want to tell that little story?

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Ah, no, it's okay. Okay, and totally anti-yoga, and I remember I was traveling away, and people would always go, "You want to do yoga?" And I was like, "Nah, yoga's for pussies." Sorry, excuse, I'm not going to say that word. That would have been, what, am I allowed to say that, or is that bad, Rich?

• 54:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, 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, 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, has been part of our life since, but, um... 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

• 55:43Speaker 02

  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 wellbeing, you know, and our longevity.

• 56:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and I would say to add to that, if you do watch your Instagram stories, which are, I mean, it's like, you see those little notches at the top, right? And you're like, oh, man, there's like 50 installments of this story, like, you know. But one of the things that that comes across loud and clear is that you're sort of, you're moving throughout the day. It's not like, okay, we did our workout, now we're done, now we're working. Like, 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

• 56:45Rich Roll?

  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.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  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 that we've had that kind of, it's in our nervous system that we need to move.

• 57:13Rich Roll?

  And you've been sitting on this couch for, are you doing all right, sitting on the couch for this?

• 57:17Speaker 02

  And in terms of mindfulness, I know back

• 57:21Speaker 01

  Back when we were travelling around, I got really into meditation and we used to meditate two, three hours a day and we were totally like... What type of meditation? 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 a, I think it was 10 day, yeah, 10 day course where 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, no, 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

• 58:03Speaker 01

  to the market, like total lunas. And then we might meditate again in the evening and, 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 realise what you possibly can fit in. However, I find meditation, that expression that I've, if you've meditated, what is, what, 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? Dada Lama. Dada Lama, yeah. But I think there's a lot of wisdom in that.

• 58:35Speaker 08

  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 that it's awesome in terms of I've tried it, I've learned it, and maybe we'll get a demo.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  Okay, cool. Yeah, I guess we started doing handstands. I don't know why or how, but we just got into them. I don't know, maybe our kids started doing them or something? You were kind of into them, you kind of... I think maybe I was into them more and 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. 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 it brilliant. Here goes Dave, just doing a handstand for any listening there.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  So he's kind of going into Scorpio doing other things, they're trying to do oppressive.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Way to go Dave.

• 59:50Rich Roll?

  Steve.

• 59:53Rich Roll?

  Handstand push-ups.

• 59:56Rich Roll?

  Cole, do we have any more questions?

• 59:57Speaker 09

  Yeah. 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 flak 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?

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:01:19Speaker 02

  Like, and I think there's role models like, like Rich, like with all his ultra, ultra distance running, there's like Patrick Baboumian, these world 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.

• 1:01:47Rich Roll?

  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 the antecedent of that is hunting and 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 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,

• 1:02:32Rich Roll?

  and with the mainstreaming 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 of 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, be a healthier society. And when we look 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?

• 1:03:15Rich Roll?

  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 having it, and there are interesting documentaries that are coming. This movie, The Game Changers, is going to be coming out soon. I think that's going to really force this conversation onto the mainstream awareness in a way that it hasn't yet. And so, I think it's very interesting times.

• 1:03:40Speaker 02

  I was just gonna 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, your tools work far less effectively. So I think, 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 you 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.

• 1:04:23Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 1:04:29Speaker 10

  Hi, I have a question. You mentioned something this morning about a vegan mastery cookery course. Is that something that you're actually working on?

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, we, 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. You know, 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, the tools and the techniques as opposed to how to cook, you know, such and such. It's, it's quite a fun one, because we're quite passionate, as you, as you got from earlier, you know. Yeah, thank you, Beatrice.

• 1:05:20Speaker 11

  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.

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  I know, I know, one, 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, you know, kind of, has a little bit of a belly, and, you know, was never really into what we did at all.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  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 gonna say his name, but we were, 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, 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

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  of culture that, you know, fruit and veg is, is good and, you know.

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  It's cool.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  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. I know we've given away free porridge every day for probably ten 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 fourteen 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 at the back of the shop, which was very not, not the case. But, you know, people are suspicious in a small town and it takes a while to earn them, earn their trust and to realise that you're really, you have their best interests at heart, so.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Another thing that we regularly do is, or of recent years we've only did it annually, was we've baking competitions to celebrate simple things in life. If anyone can remember the great apple harvest of two thousand and six, can I remember that? No, okay, there was a great crop of apples that year and I remember kind of older ladies or, or men would be bringing in apples because they didn't wanna 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 Oher brought in an apple pie and we ate it, we 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 Oher's is much better" and the lady got really offended. We realised like the- There's a lot of competition about apple pies, so we thought, okay, let's have a, let's have an apple pie competition.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  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 one P M. And then we asked kind of local community, like Frank Doyle, who was one of, 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 eighties, who has eaten a lot of apple pies. And then we got some kids involved and put it out, and maybe about forty or fifty people came, and we all celebrated the simple things in life, apples are in season.

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  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 they're 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.

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  And one other thing, sorry, I'm saying lots of stuff here, one other thing 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 at twelve o'clock, does anyone want to come? And someone would actually show up, it 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, 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 five A M.

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  We're going to bring porridge and tea, and that was it. And Siobhan, who was working with us 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 four A M. to get the porridge ready. And it was like, what do you reckon, there'll be five people, maybe ten 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 a hundred and fifty people showed up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all walked down to the sea, we watched the sunrise, and we made beautiful love. That was a joke. Just to see you were listening. But recently, we had one, we had one two Sundays ago, and about 700 people showed

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  up to celebrate, simple thing, the sunrise and like-minded people, free, good laugh, and we kind of gave a porridge on that.

• 1:10:43Rich Roll?

  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, 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 the swim rise. So, any of you guys, I'm sure these guys would welcome you to Greystones to participate in that, too.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  Like, we get people nearly every day from different parts of the world. It's amazing. You're kind of like, wow, it's incredible. I'm often amazed with it, but it's great crack, really, really fun. I hope I answered your question, sorry.

• 1:11:35Speaker 12

  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?

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, cool question. We were doing healthy eating kind of courses or cooking demos, and people would, they'd do it, and they'd have a good laugh, and the food was nice, but they wouldn't make any changes.

• 1:12:26Speaker 02

  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 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?

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  Not really.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  Okay. So we did the course, we kind of, 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 has 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.

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  Oh, you're dying to go in.

• 1:13:07Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  And would it work with Irish people?

• 1:13:15Speaker 02

  And it would, would it work with Irish people? That was, that was the premise of it. And we didn't know it was going to work and, but we were having a total punt at it and we thought, so 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 of it.

• 1:13:35Speaker 01

  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 going to do. I feel really afraid.

• 1:13:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, genuinely, we were really, we, we thought it was going to 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 will 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're, they all talk to. To one another and interact with one another and it's really And we do charge for it, like when we first did it, we used to do it for free.

• 1:14:42Speaker 02

  But people wouldn't do it. And then we found if we charged people fifty quid, they still wouldn't do it. They'd half do it. But when you charge them a hundred quid, it was like, fuck it, I paid my money, I'm doing this. So we found that that you need to charge for people to value it and appreciate it. And it was only when they did that they committed more to it, ironically.

• 1:15:00Rich Roll?

  I have a question. So I can't stop thinking about this idea of a health revolution, a social revolution, that has then kind of morphed into this successful entrepreneurial adventure. And just knowing you guys as I do, I'm curious, do you, like, do you set goals? Like, do you have, do you have, like, what, do you have a five-year plan? Do you have an idea of, like, where you're taking this and, 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, like, trying to make good decisions as you go and just enjoying, like, the moment?

• 1:15:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, great question. I, I think if you looked at it retrospectively, you might think there was some mastermind plan at 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.

• 1:15:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's, this is, that's exactly what I, that's

• 1:15:51Speaker 02

  Like, I guess we're

• 1:15:52Rich Roll?

  My question is a polite version of what you said.

• 1:15:55Speaker 02

  Like, we're master, we thrive in a chaotic environment, like, we really do. We, 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, 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, that was the catalyst behind it all. So I think, when I think of what a five-year plan might be, geez, 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.

• 1:16:35Rich Roll?

  The service part.

• 1:16:35Speaker 02

  And try to have a laugh the whole time.

• 1:16:38Rich Roll?

  So if somebody's listening to this and, and they're You know, 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, you know, trying to put the pieces together to, you know, create a life, create an entrepreneurial adventure out of, you know, out of what they're passionate about, like, what's the advice that you would give to that person?

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  I think first one is to try to do something that passion, but I think first one, try to get help, like, find their twin, so, then that might sound weird, but

• 1:17:09Rich Roll?

  Clown yourself.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  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 like, 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 first one is to try to get support.

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  I would definitely say that finding something you're really passionate about, I think that 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 skillset 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, you know, 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, I think finding, 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

• 1:18:10Speaker 02

  I think fundamentally, if we find things that we're passionate about, and really focus on them, I think magical things can happen.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  And I think last point in that is, if you are starting a business, there's a fundamental responsibility to financially, 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 at the money, we'd go meet, or thrown capitalism at 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, nah, don't really care, I'm not into it. And at one point, like we borrowed a hundred grand when we first started, the investors were looking at appointing a manager because we weren't responsible enough and we were

• 1:18:59Speaker 01

  so anti-making money. And it took about ten 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.

• 1:19:16Rich Roll?

  Yes, Stephen, I think there's something in your core that feels guilty about making money. Like, that's like a thing with you, right?

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  I think you're totally on something.

• 1:19:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. And that, David, you don't have that as much.

• 1:19:28Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:19:46Rich Roll?

  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?

• 1:19:56Speaker 02

  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

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  And they think it's going to be handstands and swimming at sunrise and they don't realize

• 1:20:06Speaker 02

  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 that kind of nature where if we want to create a happier, healthier world, we have to do it within our own business first. So I think that's the constant balance between finding those bits and trying to keep your team happy and content while also not being ridiculous with what you're doing, you know? So that's a really challenging kind of bit as it grows and navigating that path.

• 1:20:38Rich Roll?

  Any questions here?

• 1:20:42Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's the... I think one of the things 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. And 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. Hire a financial director. Okay, they're going to look after the numbers, etc., etc. 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.

• 1:21:38Speaker 02

  But I think making time for yourself is the hardest bit. Like, if I was to say, what Stephen's biggest, 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 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, I think the fact that we sleep, you know, we prioritize sleep. We go, you

• 1:22:23Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  I don't know if we answered the question. I can't really remember the question, but we did our best. Did we do okay? Yeah, just great. Okay, thanks.

• 1:22:53Speaker 13

  You mentioned earlier that you guys had a farm.

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:56Speaker 13

  And my question is, does that feed into your products and 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.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:23:17Speaker 13

  I don't feel many brands will lead with. And another question, do you have an opinion as to why? Is there like too many messages going on? And yeah.

• 1:23:28Speaker 01

  Okay, so the first thing, we have a farm and our little brother Dara started it. He kind of 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 like produce grown in Ireland. If you look in Europe, like the kind of main fruit produce supplier in Europe is Holland. And the landmass of Holland is similar to a quarter of the landmass 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. He, Dave went over to Pocertes 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.

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  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 had taken 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 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.

• 1:24:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a, no, sorry.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  You wanna go?

• 1:24:52Speaker 02

  No, and I was gonna say, like, 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 wanna 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 gonna be, try, 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, and ultimately that all that fruit and vegetables feed into our business. So, so that, that's part of the vision, but it's, it's hard to do everything all at once.

• 1:25:29Speaker 01

  And I loved the Zach Bush podcast that you did was amazing. And I loved his, 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 kinda remind people of the importance of soil and where your food comes from. So, yeah, it's in the pipeline and we're not perfect, but we're doing our best.

• 1:25:55Speaker 03

  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 trying to grow or step outside their comfort zone. The biggest thing that they face is, is fear, you know, and, and how fear impacts them, how it debilitates them. And given the positivity that you have, the creativity that you have, you know, what is your flavour of fear? And when it comes, what do you do to deal with it?

• 1:26:29Speaker 02

  I know I'm scared of snakes.

• 1:26:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's no snakes in Ireland, so I'm quite good. But, um, other than that, like, I think, I guess in business, we're very fortunate that, like, oh, fuck, if the whole thing closes and we've gotta shut up or whatever, we'll find a new game to play, like, you know. So, 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, oh, 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.

• 1:27:06Speaker 02

  I don't know, what do you think Steve?

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd probably second that. I think fear is a good thing, but I guess we're fortunate that we don't give into it, or we'll experience a little bit of anxiety maybe, or a little bit of, what's that word? Before you do a talk?

• 1:27:19Speaker 02

  Anticipation.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:27:31Speaker 02

  I always liked Bruce Springsteen, or someone's story about that, where they said that, you know, there was some guy going to do a talk, and he said, "Oh my god, I feel so bad, like 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, and they said, "How do you feel before you do a talk?" And he says, "Oh, my heart rate increases, I feel like stress and tension, but it'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? 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, that there wasn't any rocket science to it.

• 1:28:16Speaker 02

  He was like, "Yeah, no, you know..."

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  He tried to keep his breath, he tried to regulate his breath, which is mindfulness, which is something dear to your heart. So 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?

• 1:28:32Rich Roll?

  Well, I had a different question I wanted to ask you guys. So, 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, you know, go to school, study hard, and then go right into the workforce, and you're supposed to, you know, 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-

• 1:29:15Rich Roll?

  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 adventure and travel and you know those experiences that you had in relation to what you do today?

• 1:29:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think if I was to give advice to myself, to my nineteen year old self, I would say don't bother like from my own perspective, I'm not using this as a 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 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 what who the hell I was independent of my family and my own society and my own community

• 1:30:38Speaker 02

  so I think travel it's such an incredible way of questioning your own preconceptions and your own ideals so.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  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 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.

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and to go back to your 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. 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.

• 1:31:51Speaker 11

  Hi, I was just gonna say so it sounds like the two of you have had a really amazing journey together what do you 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?

• 1:32:05Speaker 02

  The sense of community the sense of belonging like the thing which makes gives me most meaning in my life is walking down the town where we live and saying aloud to people like honestly if I was to pick my perfect day I'd be walking around by the sea saying ah 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 ah how's it going you know having the chats and then I'd come back to the shop and I'd stand at the front chatting to people sharing fruit and 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.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  Yeah that's a good one yeah. I'll second that one yeah. Good work.

• 1:32:42Rich Roll?

  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 is with a little a little primer on your principles for happiness that we were talking about earlier.

• 1:32:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:32:57Rich Roll?

  Out on the patio.

• 1:32:58Speaker 02

  I think first one try to eat more whole foods most people don't eat enough fibre and fibre is really important for three functions in our body can everyone remember first one? Elimination woo point number two? Weight loss weight loss so fibre 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 been 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

• 1:33:35Speaker 01

  Cherries down in the larder, oh my god, you know, try different fruit that's in season because it's so sweet and wonderful.

• 1:33:40Speaker 02

  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, we get up, we turn on a light switch, we, 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 Buettner'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, like, I think it's consistently building it into your day, and, and cycling, like, as, taking up means as transport that are less in your car.

• 1:34:23Speaker 01

  Even simple things, a friend, Tony Riddle, who's a super cool dude, he, he has 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 is, was originally a rest pose. So I think it's to try to incorporate as much as you can.

• 1:34:39Speaker 02

  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, like it's basic, simple things throughout the day.

• 1:34:53Speaker 01

  And if you, if you have a desk job which doesn't incorporate movement, try to drink lots of water because it means you've got to go up and go to the toilet a lot, and then you're going to be rehydrated and you've 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.

• 1:35:07Speaker 02

  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, 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, 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.

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  A vital nutrient. It's often forgot about. I think point number four is to try to be more authentic in modern day society, your spouses, you gotta be positive and happy all the time. 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 gotta, 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 Paramount, occasionally going, "I feel stressed, I feel confused, I don't know what I'm..."

• 1:36:28Speaker 01

  Or repressed. 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, 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?" And 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 undementally, if you're being more honest, you're being more loving. Yeah, it's scary, it's scary for a lot of people now.

• 1:37:03Speaker 02

  And I think our last point is really love. It's about feeling, you know, touch and feeling, connection, and all those basic, simple things. So it sounds very twee love, doesn't it?

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and not taking things serious. Having a laugh, we're all gonna die. Do our best, not being black and white, "I'm a vegan!" It's to try to do your best, you're gonna 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.

• 1:37:30Rich Roll?

  Stephen and David Flynn, the Happy Pair. Let's hear it for these guys. Thank you.

• 1:37:36Rich Roll?

  Beautiful.

• 1:37:40Rich Roll?

  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.

• 1:37:50Speaker 02

  Thank you. From us, it's been an absolute honor and we're just delighted to be here.

• 1:37:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so the three cookbooks, pick them up. The newest cookbook, can you get it in the US?

• 1:37:59Speaker 02

  I think Amazon or the book Depository Ship all around the world, so as far as I know.

• 1:38:05Rich Roll?

  In Canada?

• 1:38:08Speaker 02

  Yes, I think all the online places are doing it, so.

• 1:38:13Rich Roll?

  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.

• 1:38:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, come join us.

• 1:38:20Rich Roll?

  You guys are easy to find unless you're traveling.

• 1:38:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:24Rich Roll?

  And jump on the iron seat, right?

• 1:38:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:26Rich Roll?

  Cool, thanks you guys. You want to take us out?

• 1:38:29Speaker 02

  Can I say peace and plans?

• 1:38:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, do it.

• 1:38:31Speaker 01

  Three, two, one.

• 1:38:32Speaker 02

  Okay, wait, wait, wait. Right here we go, okay.

• 1:38:34Speaker 01

  Three, two, one.

• 1:38:36Speaker 02

  Oh no, you say it slower. Think of Rich, not you. Okay, can we do it together?

• 1:38:42Rich Roll?

  Go for it. Take two.

• 1:38:43Speaker 02

  Okay, take two, forget that one, okay.

• 1:38:45Speaker 01

  Three, two, one. Peace and plans.

• 1:38:49Speaker 02

  You say it kinda sexy.

• 1:38:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:59Rich Roll?

  Alright, 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 US, 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

• 1:39:39Rich Roll?

  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 US 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

• 1:40:20Rich Roll?

  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, 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 who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production,

• 1:41:03Rich Roll?

  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 Margot Lubin for their help with the graphics on this edition. We did not video it. And theme music, as always, by Analemma. 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. Bye.