The Happy Pear Podcast (The Happy Pear)

This week we talk to the delightful Venetia La Manna, a great friend and truly inspiring woman.

Venetia is a podcaster, slow fashion campaigner and co-founder of Remember Who Made Them, which is helping to energise a new solidarity economy in fashion. 

Venetia tries to bring mindfulness and compassion to all that she does. In her new podcast, “All The Small Things” she chats to inspiring people and thought leaders about finding joy in the small moments, and learns more about their routines, habits and rituals. 

Throughout her social platforms Venetia challenges fashion brands who are costing the earth and calls out retailers on their unethical practices in the fashion supply chain. Venetia’s campaigning has been recognised globally, and she’s been featured on BBC Radio 1, Now This News and BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. She has written for The Independent and Eco Age and earlier this year, was featured as one of ID Magazine’s young activists fighting to save the planet. 

In this episode Venetia talks us through the fast fashion industry, it’s unethical practices and how to identify them, and its effects on the enviroment. 

She talks us through effective and simple ways we can make changes to be more conscious in our own purchasing.

“Guilt tripping ourselves is a waste of time we should absolutely do the best we can, but I think it’s of more importance to think about collective action and collectively being active citizens than being conscious consumers”

We learnt a lot on this episode, Venetia is delightful to talk to and her social platforms are a great resource for anyone looking for credible fact checked information on the fashion industry.

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This weeks podcast is with the man who has lived many lives, the infamous, Glen Hansard!

I mean where do we start? For those who aren’t familiar, Glen is an Irish songwriter, actor, vocalist and guitarist for The Frames, and one half of duo The Swell Season Having played roles in the BAFTA-winning film The Commitments, as well as starring in the film Once, which earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

You could say he began his singing career at the age of 13, when he left school to become a busker. He was taken in and his talents were nurtured by an artist and and incredible woman, Philippa Bayliss. From then on Glen seems to have been on track to stardom, breaking bread with the likes of Seamus Heaney, meeting his hero Bob Dylan and eventually touring with him at a very early age.

Glen is a perfect example of someone who has said and still says “yes to life”.

"What I have realised in my life, in the 50 years that I have been here is that, when you follow your gut or when you follow your heart, there is an incredible wave that comes up behind that supports it and when you are not following your heart then there is a wave that goes against you. So it’s really just about catching that wave.”

We thoroughly enjoyed this conversation, so much so it is our longest podcast episode to date! 

We cover everything from his somewhat adventurous route to success, his time on the “Celtic Odyssey” rowing from Ireland to Spain, to his perception of today and the climate crisis.

It really is pure gold from beginning to end, we highly recommend giving it a proper listen.

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What a story! Where to start? A 22 year old armed robber who ended up in highest security prison with two life sentences. Whilst in prison he broke two world records, eventually leading to becoming an ultra athlete. Now Nike sponsored and to top it all off he’s gone vegan!

John has an amazing outlook on life, and is a true example of how the positive impact of sport and movement can have on your well being and even the choices you make.

“If there is hope for me there is hope for everyone, I was in the deepest darkest hole you can be in and I managed to turn my life around.”

In total John served 10 years, one of these years in solitary confinement.

He has been approached by multiple directors and producers for the rights to tell his story, however John is reluctant to let it fall into the wrong hands.

“When I got out of prison I promised myself money would never be my god ever again, I would never make decisions again based around money… film can glamorise crime, so I understand if you glorify criminality to people, some people can get sucked in.”

So many takeaways from this episode. Really hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Big love,

Dave & Steve

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This weeks episode is with our good friend Tony Riddle.

Tony is a natural lifestyle coach, author and record-breaking barefoot endurance athlete.

Regarded as a trailblazer within the field of natural movement and lifestyle, Riddle is the creator of the Natural Lifestyle Philosophy, that encourages modern urbanites to reconnect with certain innate, ‘wild’ behaviours in order to increase physical, emotional, social and spiritual wellness.

Having overcome clubfoot as a child, which involved years of traumatic treatment, Riddle has devoted his life to physical training in various forms – whether it was serving in the army and later establishing himself as a respected personal trainer, pilates teacher and rewilding movement coach, or becoming an endurance athlete in his mid-40s, breaking records for running the length of the UK and completing the Three Peaks Challenge barefoot. 

While running his own successful pilates studio in West London, Riddle began to study the principles of natural human movement and wellness, including the works of Joseph Pilates, Erwan Le Corre, Lee Saxby and Dr Nicholas Romanov, as well as research into indigenous tribes. 

The resulting journey of discovery, which included extensive self-experimentation over 18 years, led to the development of Riddle’s Natural Lifestyle Philosophy, which combines his physical training expertise with learnings across science, social anthropology and eastern spirituality.

A gifted coach and communicator, Riddle has taught the Philosophy to thousands of people worldwide, through talks, workshops, retreats, social media and the NatLife Tribe, an international subscriber-based community launched in 2020 as a result of the COVID pandemic. 

Riddle has been featured extensively in the press from The Times, Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Telegraph Magazine, New York Times, Men’s Health, Evening Standard, and on BBC Breakfast, Sky News, The Rich Roll Podcast and many others. His debut book How To Be More Human will be released in 2022. 

A proud husband to Katarina and a father of four, Riddle considers his family to be his greatest teachers.

We had an amazing conversation with Tony, dare we say it may be our favourite yet! We talk about his past, from his childhood with club feet to his alcohol addiction, time in the army to eventually running the length of the UK barefoot.

He speaks with such knowledge and wisdom that half way through, when Tony speaks of the benefits of deep squatting, we jump off our seats and squat for the rest of the conversation.

"You have just as many senses in your feet as you do in your hands. Up to 200,000 extra receptors reside in your feet. The more information you put between you and your foot, as in the more rubber, the more desensitised that information becomes."

We should all take advice from Tony and remember to use our bodies, we are made to move. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did, there is a lot to be learnt here.

Find out more on Tony Riddle and what he is currently working on:

https://tonyriddle.com/nat-life-tribe/

https://vimeo.com/thenaturallifestylist

References:

Book: Breath by Matthew Walker

Book: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Photo credit Christopher Bake @_christopherbaker

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Philippa Perry, what an amazing person. The type of person you always want on your side in an argument!

She is a psychotherapist and author of many books, including the most recent no. 1 best selling “The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will be Glad That You Did)”

I believe the title says it all! 

In our chat Philippa really puts us in our box and made us rethink our basic approach to parenting, which hopefully it's not too late to start implementing now :)

“Teenagers biologically know they need to find a new tribe, because they know you are going to die first. In order for them to find their new tribe they are going to have to make you horrible, as they can’t leave their first tribe if they think their parent(s) are gorgeous and amazing. So they start picking fights with you… don’t take them hating you personally, they have to hate you to find their new tribe”

We discussed teenagers to toddlers, boys vs girls to restrictions on social media and mobile phone usage.

Again we cannot recommend listening to this episode and more of Philippa in general. A wonderful person and to top it all off she’s a great laugh!

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This weeks podcast is with the delightful Dr Gemma Newman.

Gemma is a friend of ours, a GP with a special interest in the environment, women’s health, and nature. We have had the pleasure of working with her on a number of health courses, including our recent The Happy Skin Challenge.

This was a very informative chat to say the least. We covered so many topics from antibiotic resistance, agriculture and soil regeneration; to the importance of nature.

“The UN warns us that by 2050 we could have 10 million excess deaths due to antibiotic resistant infections in humans, because the antibiotics that we are now using will become ineffective and one of the main ways that we are exposed to antibiotics is through the meat that we eat.”

Dr Gemma is so knowledgeable and was such a joy to talk with. We really really enjoyed this episode and hope you got as much from it as we did.

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This week we are delighted to bring you, YouTubers and VanLifers, Eamon & Bec!

As their title suggests, Eamon and Bec are a couple who spend their time traveling around in their customised van. Earning their money from their popular youtube channel which follows all their adventures.

“The overnight success that took 10 years to build - that couldn’t be more true for us! You could look at our channel now and think wow that looks like a great living… for us it has been a very very slow burn. However, it has shown us that we love it enough to keep going.”

However, it seems things are changing for our favourite Vegan nomads. As for most of us, covid has meant we have had to take a pause, reflect and rethink elements of our lives. For some these have been small reflections and for others, like Eamon and Bec's, it has meant standing still for the first time in years and investing in a solid foundation (one without wheels!).

Eamon and Bec's have a wonderful appetite for life, they are a fascinating couple with an abundance of insights on creativity, living as a nomad, working and traveling as a couple, and now building their own cabin in the woods.

We highly recommend giving this episode a listen, we had a great laugh and look forward to hosting the pair in Ireland again soon.

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For any of you who haven't had the pleasure of listening to Doctor Alan Desmond, this is a real treat.

In many ways, we feel he is our 'Father of Gut Health'! A great friend of ours that we have had the pleasure to work with on a number of occasions, including on our own Healthy Gut Course.

For over 17 years Dr Al has been studying the gut. Not the easiest undertaking as you'll hear from this episode. He voices the connection between your gut, your immune system, your mental health and how the food you eat is the backbone behind your overall health.

"What should I eat could be one of the most important questions of the 21st Century... When you look at any gut health issue the evidence all points to the same thing, the emulsifiers, the junk food, the food-like substances that make up 60% of the food consumed in the western world, these have massive effects on our gut health and gut microbiome..."

He has an amazing way of distilling information in a tangible and relatable way. We talk in length about the importance of gut health, nature, food, and questioning our western approach to health and our current state of affairs in this pandemic.

"The UN report published last August says the number one thing we can each do to reduce the risk of a future pandemic is by removing or reducing the animal protein that we eat every day. Our current western diets with high consumption of animal protein mean that we keep hundreds of millions of animals in badly sanitized closed confined spaces, which is a breeding ground for future pandemic virus"

In 2019 we had the pleasure of going over to Devon where we assisted in the South By South West Plant-Based Challenge, a phenomenal challenge where Dr Al invited more than 70 medical professionals from the NHS to adopt a healthy plant-based diet to prove to them it would improve their energy levels, reduce their cholesterol, and overall make them feel good. It really was an amazingly rewarding experience that has done a lot of good for spreading awareness of our broken western health system. However, we have still so much work to do.

This is an episode that packs a punch! We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Further Information:

For those interested in learning more about Doctor Alan Desmond, he has a brilliant book called The Plant-Based Diet Revolution

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Wow, to say our minds were blown is an understatement! This week we are delighted to present to you our wonderful guest and friend, the mighty brain that is Zach Bush MD.

For those who don’t know Zach, he is a renowned, multi-disciplinary physician of internal medicine, endocrinology, hospice care, and internationally recognised educator on the microbiome as it relates to human health, soil health, food systems, and a regenerative future.

And if all that wasn’t a mouthful… Brace yourselves, you might need a pen and paper beside you for this one! Dr. Zach takes us through chemotherapy, death, the killing of intuition, soil degeneration, dinosaurs, our dying food system, energy, afterlife and somehow manages to link them all beautifully together in an episode that I repeat had us flabbergasted.

“Her intuition was not to put those tablets in her mouth. Her intuition was that there was another cause for her cancer, there was another path she could have taken. And I wore her down over a 45 min period and broke her instinct. I broke her intuition not to take those pills. And when she swallowed those pills, it was probably the worst day of my life as a physician. It was the moment I realised I was breaking human beings intuition to follow my pharmaceutical pathway.”

You won’t regret giving this episode a listen and if you want to find out more about Zach, ION and his work visit: www.zachbushmd.com

Reference:

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben 

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This week's podcast is with the brilliant Professor Paul Dolan.

Paul is a Professor of Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also is an author and hosts his own popular podcast called Duck-Rabbit

We had a great laugh with Paul, our conversation focused on the many facets of Happiness and how one glove does not fit all.

“This idea that one size fits all approach to living well, would be evolutionarily stupid. We would never evolve to be where we are if everyone was the same. So purely from an efficiency perspective, it makes sense that society has different types of people. So it’s about finding out where you are in that distribution…”

Paul uses data and analytics to question our perceptions of happiness and the myths we have been fed or “narrative traps” around stories of love, marriage, ambition, and success. 

He has an amazing way of using everyday examples to convey his points, which makes his work so relatable and brilliant.

“What you want money to be is like a referee in a football game. They always say referees have the best game when no one knows they are there. And that’s kind of how you want money to be, you want it to be there because you need it but not paying attention to it.”

A great episode, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Further reading by Prof Paul Dolan:

Book: 

Happiness By Design

Happy Ever After

Podcast: 

Duck-Rabbit Podcast

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As the first guest of our new season titled Community, we are delighted to give you “Mother Earth” herself - Helena Norberg-Hodge.

To say we were blown away is an understatement - Dave announced at least three times that he was her new biggest fan!

Helena is a pioneer of the new economy movement and recipient of the Alternative Nobel prize, the Arthur Morgan Award and the Goi Peace Prize for contributing to “the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity, and the strengthening of local communities and economies worldwide.” She is author of the inspirational classic Ancient Futures, and Local is Our Future (2019), and producer of the award-winning documentary The Economics of Happiness. 

The impact of the global market on food and farming has been a focus of Helena’s work for almost 40 years, including two books (From the Ground Up: Rethinking Industrial Agriculture and Bringing the Food Economy Home: Local Alternatives to Global Agribusiness, as well as a Local Food Toolkit, which won a prestigious UK award for investigative journalism.

She is the founder and director of Local Futures and The International Alliance for Localisation, and a founding member of the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture, the International Forum on Globalization and the Global Ecovillage Network.

Helena speaks with such wisdom and compassion. Her response to the destruction globalisation has had by way of media, food production etc.. and the impact it has had on businesses and individuals, is truly inspiring. 

"I really wish before I die that we wake up to look at the bigger picture, which is the bigger system that has essentially imprisoned us and kept us running faster and faster, and as we are running faster and faster we are becoming more and more disconnected internally. We are becoming more and more disconnected from others and from nature, from the land..."

There is so much we can learn from Helena, one podcast episode isn’t enough! We need to rethink how we have been programmed in order to recognise the flaws and make the necessary changes to save our own health and the health of our planet. 

This episode is the perfect start to kick off our series on Community. It leaves you wanting to learn more, which we aim to help you with, with our line of equally amazing and inspiring guests.

Each speaker has their own unique experience and wisdom to share with us on a variety of topics, from indigenous tribes to the Blue Zones (areas with the most centenarians), building your own community, farming, and local economics. We cover it all!

Stay tuned each Wednesday for the next episode.

Big love,

Dave & Steve

References:

World Localization Day

Documentaries:

Biggest Little Farm

The Uber Story

People:

Naomi Klein

Zach Bush MD

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For our second episode in our Community series, we are delighted to present the magical Dan Buettner!

Buettner is an explorer, National Geographic Fellow, award-winning journalist and producer, and a New York Times bestselling author. He discovered the five places in the world—dubbed Blue Zones—where people live the longest, healthiest lives. 

Buettner now works in partnership with municipal governments, large employers, and health insurance companies to implement Blue Zones Projects (well-being initiatives applying the lessons from Blue Zones) in communities, workplaces, and universities. The program has dramatically improved the health of more than 5 million Americans to date.

In this podcast, we cover the main correlating factors for longevity in these Blue Zones, and how we can start to implement changes in our own lives to be healthier and happier.

“If you are overweight in America and possibly Ireland it is probably not your fault. If you go back to the 1980s, in this country about a third as many people were obese and about a seventh as many people were suffering from type 2 diabetes. Back in the 80’s they didn’t have better diets or better discipline. What’s changed is there are about 20 times more fast-food chains now, we drive about 60% more instead of being on our feet, a full 40% of all retail outlets, pharmacies and gas stations... all have junk food. We are genetically hardwired to eat fat and sugar and take rests whenever we can, and that's okay when you live in an environment of hardship and scarcity like we have for 99% of human existence but now you throw that same genetic makeup into a cesspool of burgers, fries, pizzas, and package snacks, your genetics are going to win out all day long!”

A great episode to follow from Helena Norberg-Hodge last week. We really hope you enjoyed it!

Further information on Dan Buettner:

His books:

The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, 

The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People

The Blue Zones of Happiness 

Reference:

Richard Leider Calling Cards 

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Bruce Parry, Bruce Parry, Bruce Parry! What a gent!

How often do you get to speak with someone who has fully immersed themselves in 15 different indigenous tribes all across the world?

He ate what they ate including maggots and insects, he slept where they slept at times on hard dirt floors tangled between legs and arms and mosquitos crawling at his skin, he took part in ceremonial practices and plant medicines awakening his soul to all kinds of other realms, but most importantly he opened his mind to old wisdom, other ways of being and thinking which has shaped his existence and shown him new perspectives on life.

"Just hanging out with people who have a completely different perception of reality, different spirtual beliefs, different relationships with each other, different nature beliefs. All these things that I had to go through massive internal shifts to understand. Because you can just carry on looking at the world through your own scientific material prism but when you start taking on board that actually these people have got something else going on and maybe it’s worth listening too because they are not the ones messing the planet up. I started out kind of thinking I knew it all and ended up realising I didn’t know anything and thats a humbling journey."

Bruce is an explorer, indigenous rights advocate, author, former Royal Marines officer, but he is possibly most well known for the three BBC documentary series; Tribe, Amazon, and Arctic. All of which documenting Bruce's exploration of extreme environments, living with remote indigenous peoples, and highlighting many of the important issues being faced on the environmental frontline.

We covered it all with Bruce and to be honest could have spoken for days, maybe even months more, we feel a friendship was been made and look forward to keeping an eye on his progress with his next adventure; an egalitarian community in Wales.

Further information on Bruce and his latest work:

https://www.bruceparry.com/

References:

Viktor Frankl 

Sir Ken Robinson

George Lamb and We Are Grow

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For episode 4 of our Community series, we present to you the very man who changed our own perspective on community living years and years ago. The co-founder of the Transition Network and Transition Town Totnes, Mr Rob Hopkins!

To give you a bit of background on Rob, he is the author of numerous books including, The Transition Handbook, 21 Stories of Transition and most recently, From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want. He presents the podcast series ‘From What If to What Next‘. In 2012, he was voted one of the Independent’s top 100 environmentalists and was on Nesta and the Observer’s list of Britain’s 50 New Radicals. Hopkins has also appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Four Thought and A Good Read, in the French film phenomenon Demain and its sequel Apres Demain, and has spoken at TEDGlobal and three TEDx events.

This was by far one of our favourite episodes. The expression ‘you should never meet your heroes’ does not apply here. Rob was our hero 15 years when we first came across him, and now all these years later when we finally get to meet him, he is still our hero!

"At the moment we measure the success of an economy by how much bigger it is than last year. Imagine with your kids; there is a while in the evolution of your children where the fact that they are bigger than they were last year is a good thing. They are growing in the right direction. If that was the only measure, and they just kept on growing and growing and growing, till they were about 50 metres tall… after a little while you would think something is going really really wrong here. Actually what you want is for your kids to grow, ideally to slightly shorter than you are! And then to start growing in different ways; become kinder, wiser, more skilled, more connected, and more resourceful. We don’t have that assumption for our economy, we just say - ‘is it bigger than last year? Grand!’ The fact that cancer rates are rising, anxiety is rising, and people are less and less able to walk home alone after dark, all the things that we don’t want to happen in a society, we don’t measure, we don’t factor them in.”

This quote says it all, he is a creative thinker who lets no walls or structures limit his imagination and willingness to strive for a better future. The ultimate doer and who leads by example. 

We delve into everything from how Totnes became a self-sufficient transition town to how you as an individual can start thinking outside the box and become the change you want to see happen to your own community.

Enjoy!

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“I am a storyteller; that’s what I do…” Welcome to this week’s episode with the delightful, insightful and charming, Professor Jonathan Dawson.

Jonathan might describe himself as a storyteller, however, in this episode it is not Jonathan telling the story: we deconstruct “The Story” or many narratives that we have all been told, which play a huge part in the cause of our climate crisis.

“The key narrative that we live within, that really needs to be challenged, is that which governs how we experience the other than human world. Because the messaging is, ‘you look at a tree and its timber’, rather than being an intelligent being. This is the critical bit, because as long as we have stories that these are inanimate objects that are out there for our use, as long as we do that we can continue to sh*t on the world, and if we are going to stop, a big part of the story needs to be that we see the world in different eyes and we see ourselves as living within an animate universe as one brand of intelligence among many other forms of intelligence.”

Jonathan is a sustainability educator and a former President of the Global Ecovillage Network. He has 20 years of experience as a researcher, author, consultant, and project manager in the field of small enterprise development in Africa and South Asia and before joining the College he was a long-term resident at the Findhorn Ecovillage.

We spoke in length about the many issues which have lead to our need to redefine how we live, in particular Findhorn, which is an amazing example of how a community can live sustainably.

“People associate having a low foot print with suffering. In Findhorn, nobody needed television as what was happening outside their front door was so interesting. This is what we need to bring, we are not talking about sacrifices, we are talking about retuning into who we are as a species, and what floats our boats and it is not buying whatever gismo it may be, it is reconnecting with people and finding your own place within your community.”

A very insightful episode - we hope you got as much from it as we did.

Big love,

Dave & Steve

Reference

Richard Heindberg

‘Small is Beautiful’ by E.F. Schumacher

Satish Kumar

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Prepare yourself, we are the ULTIMATE fans of our latest guest… 

Steve even claims that in his teenage years he dreamt of being married to one of his songs. If you are over the age of 30 you probably “made out” to at least one of his many hits. The song “Everything I do”, still holding the longest consecutive reign for the Number 1 hit single in chart history!

We are thrilled to announce that this week's podcast is with fellow vegan and animal lover, the wonderful, amazing, and magical - Bryan Adams! Yes THAT Bryan!

Bryan has been a long-term health enthusiastic and vegan for over 30 years. Back when the word vegan was such a rarity that even Bryan didn’t know the term!

We chat in length about food, health and life on the road, and what community really means to Bryan having lived most of his life in the limelight.

“The loyalty I have had with my band members and my manager; I have been with the same manager since I was 18, same road crew since I was 21, so I guess that’s my community, it’s my little circus” 

Aside from his vibrant musical and photography career, Bryan has an amazing outlook on health; 

“I have this philosophy, that what you do today, and how you run your life, whether it be with exercise or diet, you are building the building block for what you are going to be in 10 years. So whatever you do now, if you are caning it now, you are going to feel it in 10 years. So just think about that when you are planning your life. Everything that I have done in the past 30 years has lead me to the health I have today.”

We had such a wonderful chat, we really feel like we made a new friend and look forward to hosting Bryan here in Greystones someday soon. 

So sit back, grab a piece of fruit or celery stick, relax and enjoy!

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This week we are delighted to give you the brilliant John Stewart.

John is a sought-after speaker, author and educator, with over 25 years of international experience. He was the Head of Green School Bali (Voted The World’s Greenest School) and literally wrote the book on ‘Thriving at School'! 

Having won numerous awards within the educational world, John recently took on the biggest undertaking of all by becoming the conductor of Living School Lismor, where he literally repurposed his own house, ripping and exposing walls in order to create a school that redefines all norms. Here, the main goal is creating a love for learning, where the community school focuses on personal and academic exploration for both student and teacher alike.

John strips back the many layers of our global schooling system, where attention is no longer on the enthusiasm for learning and draws parallels to the western prison system with its high walls, regimented structures, and disciplinary systems.

“A lot of schools build themselves around campuses, so then they have stranger danger issues so the put fences, and then they want to make sure there’s a quality educational offering, so they have these teachers who are credited, they have to be professionally developed - all sitting inside these schools. So when you mirror a school and a jail, people actually can’t see the difference.”

We could have spent hours, days, months, years talking to John! Community being such an integral part of our ethos, John really spoke to our hearts when breaking down how essential a school is for a thriving community - it really is at the epicenter.

“This takes us back to the definition of a school, it isn’t about getting a career, getting the best mark you can to get into university or a pathway so that you can make heaps of money. That’s a bit selfish and it’s a bit naive. Schools are meant to improve community… Communities have kind of dispersed, we get communities in cafes, at sporting events, we used to have them in churches (and some people still do)… but where do you have all these different views streaming in to be connected - at school.”

From John’s vibrant past and international experience to ripping apart his own home in order to create his dream school, we nearly covered it all.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we do and get in touch if you like us, get inspired to build your own community school!

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This week we are thrilled to say we have our friend, the eco-warrior, Davie Philip.

Davie is a community catalyst and facilitator at Cultivate.ie, the sustainability cooperative based in Cloughjordan Ecovillage, and a network weaver with ECOLISE.eu, the European network for community-led initiatives on climate change and sustainability. He is the coordinator to the Open Food Hub at Cloughjordan Community Farm and the chair of Open Food Network Ireland.  

Davie brings us through his fascinating narrative from his early eco-warrior, revolutionist days of being arrested, and as he describes "we were more interested in being proactive than reactive" to the foundations of which he and a few others began the Cloughjordan eco-village.

"Getting involved in an eco-village or a community project at this scale is the longest self-development course you’ve ever taken. Because you are constantly learning about yourself. And I think that shift that you just mentioned, Steve - that ego to eco, I think that’s a world view that we need if we are going to survive on a hospitable planet by the end of the century. We need to move from that individualistic just consumerist culture that reduces everything into its parts, to where we actually start to see relationships and connection, and the value and health and wellbeing of the whole is good for me as a part of that whole.”

Davie is seriously inspirational and does not sugar coat a thing, we dive deep into the successes and difficulties of creating a sustainable community, from our political setbacks to the health and mental benefits of co-living and amenities sharing community.

“Community living and land trust show that there are different approaches to living. It’s mad because in Ireland our only two ways to secure a home is a mortgage (a massive dept) 'mort-gage' literally translates to “the grip of death”, or rental with no secure tenure. That’s our options, whereas in Europe there are multiple options, the diversity of ways to secure your home and your home being more than just an asset you speculate on.”

A great conversation and a brilliant addition to our community series. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did and listen out for the 4 simple steps we as individuals can start right now to build on our own communities for a healthier and happier future.

Love,

Dave & Steve x

Reference

thevillage.ie

openfoodnetwork.ie

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Do you talk to strangers?

When you think of the word ‘stranger’, does danger come to mind?

This week we talk to the insightful Joe Keohane, a veteran journalist who has held high-level editing positions at Medium, Esquire, Entrepreneur, and Hemispheres. His writing—on everything from politics, to travel, to social science, business, and technology—has appeared in New York magazine, The Boston Globe, The New Yorker, Wired, Boston magazine, The New Republic, and several textbooks. An avid parallel parker and occasional working musician, he also won a prestigious Screenwriters Colony fellowship in 2017 for a comedy television pilot that remains, sadly, unproduced.

In this episode we talk to him about his latest book; The Power of Strangers; The Benefits of Connecting in a Suspicious World - An exploration of why we don’t talk to strangers, and the wonderful things that would happen if we did.

As some of you might know we are very vocal advocates for ‘loose social interactions’. We love talking to strangers, and any acquaintances we may come across - we simply find people fascinating! So naturally, this conversation was right up our alley.

Joe is hilarious, he realised he wasn’t the best at striking up conversations with random people so he thought he would challenge himself by finding out why, and furthermore, is this is a common thing with most people nowadays in our screen-watching world? So he found a course on the topic (that’s right, a course on ‘how to talk to strangers’) and set off to London to find out how!

“There is a really good technique I learned when I was doing this which is, don’t ask people what they do, ask them what they would like to do more of or less of, and that will get you a really interesting answer. The person might say “I am a chartered accountant” and you ask; “well what do you want to do more of”, they might say “oh ballet”, and then you exclaim “oh that’s interesting! A ballet dancing accountant, that’s unusual” … and then you are off to the races! That gets you to understanding peoples motivation and individuality. Thats the way you can break the script of boring cocktail party chatter.”

From the psychology, to the history, to the practical. Joe takes us through it all in this episode. We talk social studies, individual experiences and for a pair of extrovert-chatty-twins, we even managed to learn a lot!

“There wasn't much difference between introverts and extroverts in the actual study. They seem to have the same experience. The extroverts are more comfortable initiating the interaction but the introverts got the same benefits from it once they started doing it. And my theory is (based on my own research), is that the skills you need to be really good at this are introvert skills. It’s listening, it’s noticing, it’s paying attention, it’s not stepping all over somebody, it’s not doing the thing that everyone does in conversations where you are just looking for a way in to talk about yourself. Those skills are invaluable.

So I feel that introverts can learn from extroverts in the way that extroverts are good at going up to people. But extroverts need to learn from introverts in the way that you conduct the conversation, in the way that you learn to listen to people, and you don’t make everything about you and you ask them questions about their lives etc…”

Give the episode a listen, then go out and strike a conversation with a stranger! Go and explore! Who knows where it may take you ;)

REFERENCE

Theodore Zeldin

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“We are victims of our own success”

Has economic growth destroyed us all? Usually economic growth is seen as a good thing right? Or at least that is what politicians would have us believe. 

In this episode prepare yourselves! Put your seat belts on! As Richard Heinberg does not hold back. There is no softness or sugar coating here, he has been spreading the word of our impending climate crisis for many many years…

Richard is Senior Fellow-in-Residence of the Post Carbon Institute, and is regarded as one of the world’s foremost advocates for a shift away from our current reliance on fossil fuels. He is the author of fourteen books, has written essays and articles, delivered hundreds of lectures and interviews for print (including for Reuters, and Time), television (including Good Morning America, National Geographic, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Al-Jazeera, and C-SPAN), and radio (including NPR, WABC, and Air America). 

Not to mention, Richard has appeared in many film and television documentaries, including Leonardo DiCaprio’s 11th Hour.

Needless to say, when it comes to the climate crisis, he’s the man! In this episode, we jump straight into the core of it all. Richard talks us through everything from the limitations of renewable energy, the growth of capitalism, human ingenuity, to eco-living, community resilience and the power of ascetic beauty.

“Ascetics have been hijacked by capitalism, in biology it’s called ascetic decadents. That’s where the competition of production and enjoyment of beauty takes off on its own and it actually leads to the evolutionary bottleneck in a species. The classic example is the Irish elk. Which is this type of elk that used to live in Ireland and started to evolve bigger and bigger antlers, until the antlers were so large… and it was doing this for ascetic purposes. The elk just ultimately could not persist and they went extinct. Now we are doing the same thing with our ascetic pleasures, they have been hijacked by capitalism and by consumerism, so that most of the ascetic consumption that we do in the modern world, is all based on just making money and trying to think a certain way. Everything is ascetically designed to make us want to buy more so it’s serving the very process of economic growth that is undermining our future. So we have to take back ascetics from capitalism and consumerism, and once again it needs to serve our long term wellbeing.”

Don’t worry it isn’t all doom and gloom! We left the conversation feeling slightly beat up but overall hopeful and empowered.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on social media!

If you enjoyed this episode and want to support the podcast please click subscribe or follow!

Big love,

Dave and Steve x

Reference

Naomi Klein

Helena Norberg-Hodges

Satish Kumar Magazine

Zach Bush MD

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To kick off our new series no better man to have than the wise monk himself - Manchán Magan. And guess what, it was in person! Whoop! Genuinely what a treat, and you can really tell!

His name, Manchán, literally means ‘little monk’ and if you were to meet him, there really is no better fitting name - Even how he holds himself has an air of soft wise intellect.

We began thinking we were going to dive deep into the Irish language and all its nuances but wow did we get so so much more.

Manchán, is the type of person who will keep even the most highly strung business person on edge listening!! We navigate through this conversation from his time on the TG4 travel show taking him to all kinds of weird and wonderful tribes, to mingling with “The Screamists” (a cult who literally spend their time whaling and screaming), to mysterious forgotten histories, and his adventure to beat the mortgage ladder and find 10 acres for 10 grand.

Manchán is a writer, a poet and a deep thinker. His latest book 32 words for a field, has instilled in us a whole new passion for the Irish language. Give him 5 minutes of your time and I swear you’ll be downloading Duolingo beginner Irish!

According to Manchán the Irish language not only holds the secrets to the best places to find fish in the Irish countryside, or how to predict the weather, but also how to really connect. To connect us to this earth, to the people and inevitably to sustainable living.

“During the dark ages Europe lost all of its libraries, all of it was destroyed, all of its central regal systems. A new sort of violent force was taking over, all the philosophy and wisdom was gone, but Ireland still had it in their libraries because they were never part of that. Now that Christianity was male focuses, it was hierarchal, but it had a key. It had a beautiful visionary voice in terms of Jesus Christ at the beginning of it, and particularly Irish Christianity, because when St Patrick came in 430 AD, we took on some of that, just like the Taro Oman mountain runners in Mexico, took on some of the Jesuits stuff (their clothes etc..) but they kept their connection to the landscape. We did the same in Ireland, we took some of the rules of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, but look at our Holy Wells… Our Holy Wells and our Holy Rivers, we realised that nature was sacred, so we brought some of this knowledge back to Europe. You can find it still in Monasteries in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the teachings of Irish Monastic figures.”

A really wonderful episode from a phenomenal character. 

Let us know your thoughts on social media and if you like what you hear, please support this podcast by subscribing and sharing.

Big Love,

Dave and Steve x

REFERENCES

Manchán's Book: Thirty-Two Words for a Field

Zach Bush MD

Taro Oman mountain runners - Book Born To Run

Richard Heinberg - Our Previous Podcast Episode

Helena Norberg-Hodge

Moy Hill Farm in County Clare

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This week you get two for the price of one! Well, actually four if you include us ;)

We had the pleasure of hosting both Matt Frazier and Robert Cheeke, and delved deep into their new book: The Plant Based Athlete.

Matt being an ultra runner and Robert being a bodybuilder - they are the perfect pair to write THE book on a plant-based diet for athletes.

We had a super stimulating conversation. Aside from their own fascinating past, the lads have spent a lot of time interviewing some of the best sportspeople in the world, who are (you guessed it) plant-based, these included:

Venus Williams

Rich Roll

Tom Brady

and many more.

“There were numerous athletes that we interviewed, who were Olympic medalists, some of the best in the world. Who weren’t even consuming protein powders - Do you know why?”

A brilliant episode, particularly as we have just been watching the Olympics!

Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. If you want to hear more and support this podcast, please subscribe and share :)

Lots of Love,

Dave and Steve

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Coined “The Death Metal Irish Baron”, this re-wilding, filmmaking, vegan Lord is not only continuing in the lineage of great ancestors before him but also going against the grain. How? By giving back what he inherited to its true owner: Mother Earth herself… This week's podcast guest is Lord Randal Plunkett.

He has been described as an idiot, a moron and crazy but that doesn’t stop him. Randal is aware of the mantle he must withhold;

“When you are born into privilege, you must live in servitude… I have a responsibility… I must make things better..”

With a lineage of philanthropists, saints and scholars behind him, this is not an easy feat! However, despite the seriousness of the tasks Randal has taken on, he has a great sense of humour and is not what you would expect when you hear the word “Lord”:

“The only time I ever go by Lord is when I am wearing a cape, and yes, of course, I have a cape.”

We laughed, we went deep, we spoke about his past, the hate from locals that comes with the title, the various places he grew up in, the relationship with his lineage, his love for horror, death metal, filmmaking, and how he came to re-wild his estate.

“This is now the most important thing I have ever done."

A fascinating character and a natural-born storyteller, Randal and this episode will keep you entertained, will stimulate your curiosity and potentially even start you on your own re-wilding journey!

We hope you enjoy it and if you like our podcast please subscribe and share.

Big love,

Dave & Steve x

REFERENCES

FILM: The Green Sea by Randal Plunkett

Instagram

Dunsany Natural Reserve

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Have you ever heard of Dr. Melanie Joy? Well, if you haven’t you should! Is it acceptable to say this could be our favourite episode to date?

Joy has an incredible capacity to distill information in the most tangible way. She effortlessly cuts to the core of so many major issues that impact us all. From the macros like climate change or racism to the micros of personal relationships.

“When you look at systems of oppression like racism, classism, carnism/animal exploitation. All of these are expressions of the same type of thinking. Each set of victims of these forms of oppression will always have unique experiences, but the systems themselves are structurally similar and the mentality that drives these systems are the same.”

Melanie Joy, Ph.D., is a Harvard-educated psychologist specialising in relationships, communication, and social change. She is the author of six books, including the award-winning Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows, Beyond Beliefs: A Guide to Improving Relationships and Communication Among Vegans, Vegetarians, and Meat Eaters, and Getting Relationships Right. Joy is the eighth recipient of the Institute of Jainology’s Ahimsa Award, which was previously given to Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama. Her work has been featured by numerous media outlets, including the BBC, ABC Australia, NPR, and the New York Times. She is also the founding President of the non-profit organisation, Beyond Carnism.

Moving from effective and ineffective forms of communication and relation literacy to veganism and her own perfectly coined term, Carnism - We delve deep into her formula for successful relations, and really how attainable it is. 

“Every communication, has two parts to it; it has the content, that’s what we are communicating about and then there’s the process, and that’s HOW we are communicating. We tend to all over-focus on the content “I just want to get the words right, I just want to get my answer out there”, but the process matters much more. If you think about a conversation that you had, 6 months to a year ago. It’s possible that you actually forgot the content entirely -somebody you talked to at a party or something- but you probably remembered how you felt in that conversation. The process determines how you feel and when your process is healthy, you can communicate about anything without arguing…when your process is not healthy, you can’t communicate about anything without arguing. You probably know people who have so much in common, and yet always seem to find a reason to butt heads and argue together.”

A truly awakening episode. Please let us know your thoughts on socials and if you like what you hear, please subscribe and share.

Big love,

Dave & Steve

You can learn more about Dr. Melanie Joy and her work at carnism.org.

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Not a pleasant question, but have you ever wondered what the biggest killer of men in the Western world is? This week, meet Rip Esselstyn, a former professional athlete and firefighter who has dedicated decades to helping people improve their health and fight this biggest killer.

“The number one cause of death amongst fire fighters is heart attacks, not fires!”

But don’t worry! There’s a happy ending to this fact. Rip Esselstyn has helped thousands of people to regain their health and thrive without surgery or spending loads of money.

Did we say thousands? We meant millions: Rip is the Exec producer of the most viewed health documentary of all time, Game changers, which has been viewed over 100m times.

"We are finding that by exercising, eating plant based, optimum sleep… you can really start pushing the boundaries”

Rip embodies commitment to demonstrating longevity and also helping others achieve it. We learnt a lot about health from Rip so hopefully you will, too.

Enjoy!

Big Love,

Dave & Steve

Further Information:

If you want to learn more about Rip, visit his site: https://plantstrong.com/

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What happens when you mix a life of media expertise with the desire to help us collectively look after our health, planet and ‘precious life’? Well, we think you get Sarah Wilson!

We used to call her the Sugar Lady, as she wrote, best selling book, I Quit Sugar and founded 

IQuitSugar.com, a program that has been completed by 1.5 million people in 133 countries.

But will find no mention of sugar in this episode as Sarah is so much more than that we discovered! 

Why? In 2018, Sarah closed the business and gave all money to charity. She now lives minimally, cycling her hand-built bike to red carpet events.

Sarah is also the author or two other books: another best seller, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, and her latest book, This One Wild and Precious Life  which explores the complexities of climate change, coronavirus, racial inequalities and our disconnection from what matters.

Enjoy this delightful exchange!

Big Love,

Dave & Steve x

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Welcome podcast listeners to this week's infamous guest - the impressive powerhouse that is John Joseph!

John is a musician, author and Ironman triathlete from New York City, most famous for his work as the lead singer of the Cro-Mags in the 1980s, '90s and 2000s. He was raised in foster care and grew up on the streets of New York City, dodging a federal prison sentence in the late ’70s by enrolling into the Navy.

A character with many layers to say the least! Aside from his colourful background, he is author to a number of books including the slightly controversial, “Meat is for Pussies”, a book on vegan nutrition, training and a healthy lifestyle.

Whether John is your cup of tea or not, there is no question that he has been through life, he has seen and experienced things most of us could never dream of experiencing. 

“You know people talk about rock bottom… I was below the fucking rocks! I was with the fucking maggots and the worms… and the fucking dead carcasses. I literally had no less than 5 fucking drug gangs in New York wanting to kill me, I burned every bridge... I had nothing.”

From rock bottom to up top - John has an appetite for life that is beyond none. His motto is tough but warranted, “You have to face your demons head on, you can’t run away from it. Whatever it is you are doing, whatever you went through, you gotta face it… show up, work hard and don’t make excuses!”

His book “The P.M.A Effect” delves deep into the power of a positive mental attitude. He has spent much time dedicated to the learnings of the Hare Krishna’s and Bhagavad Gita, which has massively shaped who he is today.

A fascinating and inspirational character. Enjoy!

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Do you want to live to 100? How about 200?!

This week’s podcast is all about longevity and who better to speak to other than Mr Young himself: Sergey Young!

Sergey’s life’s mission is to live to 200—and to find an affordable way for everyone else to do the same. Founder of the $100M Longevity Vision Fund, Sergey has coached people from his own housekeeping lady to Forbes Billionaires, to rethink and redesign their lives with the aim to live as possible.

According to Sergey, the technology already exists, trials are already happening, so it is now only a matter of time and "the biggest obstacle for us living longer is not going to be science, it’s not going to be technology. It’s going to be human ethics and regulations…”

How does that make you feel? What if I was to tell you that a massive part of the longevity game starts now, and requires no science or technology! Sergey takes us through his 3 main widely available and affordable steps to gaining 3 extra healthy years to your life and so much more…

However, we don’t stop there! We go much deeper and battle through the morality of living so long… “Unless we change this world; our relationship with mother nature and the inequality gap, it’s going to be very difficult for us to enjoy the idea of living longer… that’s why my mission is to bring affordable and accessible health technology to the world…I'm really interested to work on that because it's an opportunity to democratise healthcare”

A fascinating episode that we feel everyone can relate to.

Big love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Sergey, his book and his work, visit https://sergeyyoung.com/

This episode is sponsored by WILD

Go Wild today and get yourself this natural, refillable deodorant that genuinely works.  You can order by going to WE ARE WILD dot com to get 20% off your first order when you use code “HAPPYPEAR” at checkout. That’s WE ARE WILD DOT COM and Code “HAPPYPEAR” at checkout for 20% off. Enjoy!

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What if nutritional information was simple and accessible so that people can make informed decisions about the food they feed themselves and their family? Well, Simon Hill has dedicated a decade to doing just that. Through podcast and website, plant proof, Simon has given a platform to world-renowned doctors and public figures. 

During this chat, we learned what happens to the health outcomes of identical twins when they change lifestyles, the potential connection between diabetic dog and diabetic dog owners. Simon also bravely shared the role that a traumatic family incident kickstarted his interest in fighting chronic disease.

This episode is for people who like data, academic studies and want to use evidence based science to make decisions about their health. Lots of insightful anecdotes so grab a pen and notepad!

To find out more about Simon and his work checkout, Plant Proof Podcast and his book, The Proof is in the Plants 

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Is sex a skill? 

How do we get better at sex if we don’t talk about sex?! This week’s electric guest is the wonderful Jenny Keane. 

Jenny is a professionally trained, trauma informed, holistic sex educator and Tantra yoga teacher. A crusader for self love through self exploration and pleasure, Jenny is on a mission to ignite a sexual revolution in Ireland!

“If you want to change the way that you live, change the way that you have sex… Because the way that you show up in bed is more than likely the way you show up in life.”

A fascinating conversation, that has no boundaries; Jenny takes us through the menstruation difficulties that first brought her down this journey of sexual education; how the contraceptive pill changed her libido and even her sense of smell. We explore how in today’s society we are programmed to put unrealistic expectations on ourselves: sex has become a "performance or obligation”. Finally, we dive deep into how “to live erotically is to live in tune with your body”

As Jenny puts it, “there is no recipe for pleasure”. We are all on our own unique discovery and should not shy away from it. Rather, we should educate ourselves and our children so that they grow up with a healthy understanding of their own bodies and its abilities.

So let’s all try and take some advice from Jenny, Ireland’s sexual revolutionary, and slow down, remove the goal, pay attention, learn to connect with our breathe, body and mind; and most importantly have the right mindset! As “all tips are useless if you don’t have the right mindset first”.

We hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we did, we will be continuing this season with more topics all related to sex and relationships, so stay tuned! Please subscribe and share if you like what you hear.

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Jenny and her work, check out her site www.jennykeane.com and instagram page @hellojennykeane

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Sexual longevity - How do we keep going?

When Amy asked her mum at the age of 11, “mum what’s a virgin?”, her mother responded “it’s someone who is not married”. Fast forward 20 years, Amy is now a trained and highly sought after Doctor in Sexual Health, Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine in aesthetics and sexual optimisation.

How did this week’s podcast guest go from a sexually repressive religious background to dedicating much of her life’s work to promoting a long and healthy sex life?

“Sexual health is more like a gateway to other underlying issues. When people come to me about their sexual health, it’s rarely an issue with their genitalia. It’s usually something else like hormonal problem, cardiovascular problem, stress, diet…”

After years of working on the medical ward, Amy soon began to see a rise in patience being more and more interested in their skin and their sex lives. So she took the plunge!

We talk stem cells, nitric oxide, PRP, hormone replacement, nutrition, fitness, how she deals with the topic sex and her own children… we cover it all!

A fascinating conversation! Enjoy!

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Why can’t we talk to our kids about sex?

“Sexual negativity is the lense most of us are born into… we are fed shame”, we are made think it should be a “secretive thing”, we allow judgment and scrutiny of others. 

With this in mind how are we equipped to speak to the younger generation about it - How can we be sure we are passing down a healthy relationship towards sex? The big question being; is our own inability to speak openly about sex pushing our children towards porn for their sex education?

This week we speak to the amazing Dr Kate Balestrieri, a Licensed Psychologist, Certified Sex Therapist, Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, PACT Therapist and Founder of Modern Intimacy.

Dr Kate came into her practice through her involvement with sex offenders. She began to see a pattern amongst these offenders and the therapists allocated to them and felt she needed to delve deeper.

Her out look is one of compassion, open mindedness, and honesty. She gives many practical tips on nurturing a healthy sex life. We talk in length about so many things including safety, curiosity and diversity. As she puts it; “humans are diverse so why would our sex lives be any different”

An insightful listen. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Big Love,

Dave & Steve x

You can find out more about Dr Kate from her IG @drkatebalestrieri and her podcast, Modern Intimacy.

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Despite feeling like clueless school kids throughout, this week’s episode was another reminder of just how grateful we are to host this podcast and that women’s issues are also men’s issues!

“One in four women leave their workplaces or go part time because they have lost confidence, so society does need to take note of menopause.”

Dr Shahzadi Harper is a medical doctor with a holistic approach to women’s health and wellbeing. She is a leading light in the world of perimenopause & menopause and has recently co-authored and published a book called The Perimenopause Solution.

A forward-thinking and dynamic doctor with over 25 years of experience, Dr Shahzadi is passionate about advocating for positive change and a better understanding of perimenopause/menopause by optimising the way it is perceived. 

Dr Shahzadi believes that women from all backgrounds and ethnicities should feel empowered in life and that all men should be educated about how to support them.

Aside from societal ignorance, we talk libido, HRT, supplements, societal pressures and more…

An important conversation, that we hope will encourage you to also have more openly.

If you enjoyed it please like, subscribe, leave a review and share!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Dr Shahzadi; checkout her instagram @drshahzadiharper @theharperclinic , her website https://theharperclinic.com/  and of course her new book: The Perimenopause Solution

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If ever there was an educational episode on this podcast this one is it. Zachary breaks it all down for us, from the multiple labels in modern society to jealousy and safety within ethical non monogamous relationships. 

“If you look at the studies and stats, we are seeing more and more people who are interested in non monogamy or engaging in non monogamy in some form. We are also the gayest or queerest generation! More and more people identifying as gay bisexual, transgender, non binary than ever before.”

A Brooklyn-based columnist and activist, Zachary’s work focuses on sexuality, culture, and the LGBTQ community. You can read his popular sex advice column, “Sexplainit” at Men's Health, ” but his work has also been published in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, GQ, Cosmo, and many others.

To be honest, we felt pretty ignorant throughout most of this episode, but Zachary proved to be a patient teacher and a good laugh. After he brought us through the meaning of the various sexual identifying labels, we discussed his sex column, fetishes, his personal life and his backstory.

A truly open minded and open human being, we really enjoyed this conversation and hope it, too! 

Lots of Love 

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Zachary you can find him on instagram @zacharyzane_

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Apparently, 35% of internet downloads involve porn and 50% of UK adults watch porn, according to the Guardian.

Something so popular and yet never talked about - why don’t half of us openly admit to each other (or to ourselves) that “yes, I watch porn”?

"For most people, porn is what they find on these free online sites and often very misogynistic, aggressive, even racist and not tasteful.”

For this week’s podcast guest, Indie erotic filmmaker, Erika Lust, argues that porn can be so much more than that: “I really think we have a possibility here of creating wonderful, beautiful, and diverse films… I think there is a lot of positivity around watching people have great sex together and seeing how they are communicating, especially in a world that struggles with the language of consent.”

We admit we were a bit nervous going into the conversation, but we instantly sank right in and found ourselves viewing porn from a new lense.

Erika Lust is an award-winning filmmaker who creates sex-positive adult cinema by portraying relatable characters, realistic sex, and offering a more inclusive and cinematic alternative to the mass produced mainstream porn.

Over the past 20 years, Erika has defended the importance of having women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ people behind the camera in all key positions and supports burgeoning talent across the globe by producing and financing female and queer guest directors.

“More and more youth are turning to porn for sex education, whether we like it or not,” says Erika. According to the Guardian, “teenagers are turning to porn as a sex educational tool because schools do not tell them what to do, but focus only on contraception”.

“Young women are constantly coming up to me saying “I am having sexual relations with men and I can’t orgasm, what’s wrong with me?” Many times it is because they are learning about sex through what they see online and they think that is how it should be done - that kind of sex is not stimulating for women.”

From how historically affluent white men made sexual entertainment something only for themselves, to how porn is now run by one dominant company posing as a tech company, this episode with Erika is truly fascinating.

We hope you found it as eye-opening as we did!

Big love,

Dave & Steve x

You can find out more about Erika and her work on her website erikalust.com , on instagram @erikalust and checkout her latest short film out tomorrow, Cooking show on xconfessions.com

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Men’s circles, intimacy, sex, relationships, masculinity, vulnerability, mental health, psychedelics, meditation and more… this week we talk to Dr. Darragh Stewart, an international wellness retreat facilitator, psychedelic speaker and Men's Mentor.

“Men’s circles are about being seen and heard… being able to be vulnerable without the need for 10 to 15 pints. It is a beautiful space for growth and connection.”

Darragh Co-founded Inwardbound, one of the world's first pioneering safe and legal psychedelic retreats in the Netherlands. He specialises in men’s sexuality and intimacy development, psychedelic science and spirituality. Thanks in part to his Molecular Genetics Ph.d. - Darragh’s main interest lies in bridging the gap between science and spirituality. 

Having held men’s circles, retreats and workshops in Ireland since 2018, Darragh has a grounded approach to exploring spirituality: creating safe spaces for people to go deep inwards and to connect to what resonates for them without dogma or judgement.

“When I went on my own personal journey there was only women in these kinds of spaces but now we are starting to see change… predominantly due to the increase in mental health issues seen amongst men”

An important conversation that we hope will inspire more men to open up, show their vulnerability and express themselves in their own authentic way.

Big love,

Dave & Steve x

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It is astonishing to think how badly educated we all are about such an important topic; how much misinformation is out there and how understudied women’s health really is. 

"Menopause is a huge cause of osteoporosis, dementia and heart disease… and the most common cause of death in women is… dementia and heart disease!”

Since our episode with Dr Shahzadi Harper on perimenopause we realised we needed to find out more, especially about the questions around hormone replacement therapy (HRT). So, we decided to dig deeper and talk to “the leading menopause specialist,” according to The Telegraph, Dr Louise Newson.

Dr Louise Newson is Founder of Balance App, the world’s biggest repository of evidence-based and medically approved menopause information. 

Dr Newson is a trailblazer when it comes to empowering women in making informed decisions to benefit their health and wellness. Author of Sunday Times No.1 bestseller, ‘Preparing for the Perimenopause and the Menopause,’ Dr Newson is also Founder of The Menopause Charity and not-for-profit Newson Health Research & Education.

A highly insightful conversation that has opened many questions and made us reflect on our current health system and wonder what can be trusted?

Have a listen and let us know your thoughts on social media!

And if you enjoyed this episode please subscribe and share so we can keep making more.

Big love,

Dave and Steve

To find out more about Dr Louise Newson check out her instagram @menopause_doctor , her charity The Menopause Charity and her APP The Balance APP

This episode is sponsored by Wolfgang Reforest who’s mission is to plant more trees, re forest Ireland and encourage others to do so too.

Give the gift of a tree for just €20 - it only takes 3 minutes - and help restore and re-wild Ireland’s forests.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we talk to “The world’s most influential sex-advice columnist" - The Guardian - who’s graphic, pragmatic, and humours approach changed the cultural conversation about monogamy, gay rights, religiosity and politics.

“The amount of people who write to me asking me if they should dump their partner because they are unsure if they are “the one”… there is no “the one!” There is maybe a 0.67 or 0.64 and it’s your job to round that mother f***er up to number one… and you have to accept that they are doing the same for you!”

Aside from being a sex columnist, Dan is also a podcaster, best selling author, and has appeared on numerous television shows. 

Savage Love, Dan’s sex-advice column, first appeared in the The Stranger, Seattle’s alternative weekly, in 1991. Now Dan has also a weekly call-in advice podcast, the Savage Lovecast and has published six books, his latest; Savage Love from A to Z: Advice on Sex and Relationships, Dating and Mating, Exes and Extras - is an illustrated collection of 26 never-before-published essays that provides a thoughtful, frank, dive into Savage’s trademark phrases and philosophies. This book is for anyone who’s had sex, is currently having sex, or hopes to have sex!

We have a wonderfully insightful conversation on what it truly means to be faithful to ones partner, how one glove does not fit all, and how straight people can learn a lot from gay relationships.

We hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we did, we are big fans of Dan and even more so after our chat!

Big love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Dan, check out is Instagram @dansavage his podcast the Savage Lovecast and his new book Savage Love from A to Z: Advice on Sex and Relationships, Dating and Mating, Exes and Extras

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

60% of women use the contraceptive pill for reasons other than contraception, the majority of this for cramps and pains - The Washington Post.

Speaking to this weeks podcast guest, cramps, period pains, irregular or missed periods could be a result of a much bigger underlying issue, on average it takes between 8-12 years for a women to get diagnosed with Endometriosis - which makes one question are we irresponsibly using the pill?

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack is a certified Fertility Awareness Educator and Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner. She teaches women to chart their menstrual cycles for natural birth control, conception, and monitoring overall health. 

Author of the book The Fifth Vital Sign, Lisa debunks the myth that regular ovulation is only important when you want children by recognising the menstrual cycle as a vital sign. Drawing heavily from the current scientific literature, Lisa presents an evidence-based approach to fertility awareness and menstrual cycle optimisation. She also hosts the Fertility Friday Podcast, a weekly radio show devoted to helping women connect to their fifth vital sign by uncovering the connection between menstrual cycle health, fertility, and overall health.

Lisa is fun, informative and edgy! She has a super holistic approach to medicine, with the ability to recognise where it’s needed and also draw a line on where it is potentially causing more harm than good.

We talk fertility, knowing ones cycle, contraception, period pains and so much more. A brilliant guest, we hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did.

Big love,

Dave & Steve

Produced by Sara Fawsitt & Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's podcast is with us! We decided to talk about the highlights of our first year as podcast hosts. Along with one of our producers, Sara Fawsitt - we chat about presence, sex, communication, parenting, love, porn, relationships, spirituality, community, egalitarianism, menopause, fame, and so much more!

We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did making it. And if you want to listen to the full episodes we discuss we have linked them here:

Dr Melanie Joy

Bruce Parry

Russel Brand

Erika Lust

Dan Savage

Philippa Perry

John Stewart

Dr Louise Newson

Dr Rangan Chatterjee

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are starting off 2022 with a bang! Now, although this is one for any time of the year, there really is no better way to begin dry Jan than with this motivational piece.

“The fear of change and being thrown out of a tribe is an unavoidable instinctive fear.”

Andy is known by many as the godfather of the alcohol-free movement. A former professional footballer, and creator of two major financial brokerages - Andy gave it all up to co-founded the OneYearNoBeer movement, which has now helped over 100,000 people transform their relationship with alcohol. 

Since then Andy has written two books ‘The 28-day alcohol-free challenge’ & ‘Let’s Do This! How to use motivational psychology to change your habits for life’, and delivered a brilliant TEDx talk titled, ‘The pill will make you limitless’.

Recently Andy stepped down from OYNB to create the Arete Group which is a collection of initiatives to help people reach their limitless potential including self-development courses like 'The AreteWay: Unlock your limitless potential', and a world class coach training certification called AreteWay Coach.

As non drinkers ourselves for the last 19 years this episode is very close to our heart. Finding a new tribe, thinking outside the box, questioning culture norms that have been imparted on us at such a young age are some of the topics we discuss along with the serious health scares no one seems to talk about.

Big love,

Dave & Steve x

To find out more about Andy, check out www.andyramage.com or find him on social media via @andyramageofficial and LinkedIn

This podcast was produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do you find meaning? 

In this weeks episode we speak to Jeff Krasno, entrepreneur, author, and podcast host.

Hand-picked by Oprah Winfrey as one of her Super Soul 100 changemakers, Jeff helms Commune Media — offering an assemblage of in-depth wellness courses, podcasts, and other media featuring the field’s foremost experts, including Deepak Chopra, Russell Brand, and Sharon Salzberg.

Drawing on his former career running a record label and a youth spent traveling the globe with his parents, Jeff incepted and created Wanderlust — a series of more than 60 large-scale global events combining innovative yogic instruction and live music that saw thousands of attendees. Featured in media including The New York Times, the events spawned Jeff’s debut book, “Wanderlust” (Rodale), which sold 35,000 copies worldwide.

As host of the Commune podcast, and the author of three books, Jeff presents his audience with knowledge and guideposts to becoming their best selves. Classes, podcasts, and books offer a roadmap to creating a better society through compassion, community-building, and hands-on activism.

Needless to say we go deep with Jeff, finding meaning is only at the helm of our discussion as we meander our way through what it is to truly be present, understanding compassion, trauma, mindfulness and so much more.

We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did.

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Jeff visit his site: http://www.jeffkrasno.com/

This episode was produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When we are not in “the public arena”, underneath our smiles to camera, social media, the papers… what are we really like? How do we really feel?

“My lack of safety is doing something LIVE, like a LIVE TV show, where there is not only instant feedback but also the trepidation of not knowing whats going to come out of my own mouth next.”

This week we speak to our friend, Fearne Cotton. Who’s prolific background needs little explanation - best known as UK’s most popular broadcaster, having started her career at the young age of 15. Fearne has branched out to becoming a best selling author, podcast host, and now most recently known as the Founder of the wellbeing brand, Happy Place. 

The brand was created from her first book released in 2017, Happy, which was a Sunday Times Bestseller and a silver Nielsen Bestseller. This was the first in a series of books talking about her own, and some of the not so positive, experiences with happiness. This was also the premise for her podcast launched in 2018, Happy Place.

Happy Place brand has now extended to include a festival, Happy Place Festival, and in 2021 Fearne also launched Happy Place Books, which has already published some amazing works by Lawrence Okolie & Dr Olivia Remes. In January 2022 Fearne is releasing her new book Bigger Than Us.

A mother of two, and step-Mother of two, Fearne closely supports a range of charities - most notably mental health charity Mind, The Prince’s Trust and Coppafeel!, the latter of which she curates the charity’s music festival, Festifeel.

We really enjoyed our conversation with Fearne, there is nothing false about her, her gritty, vibrant and genuine nature is infectious. Despite a serious topic, this episode will leave you feeling good and interested in finding out about more!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

This podcast is produced by Sara Fawsitt & Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Half of our population haven’t even considered getting more out of life, they just go along, going through the motions day to day and then they die, they don’t seem to have any cognitive desire for change or growth and to have a better life…”

Cameron is the mastermind behind hundreds of company's exponential growth and has earned his reputation as the business growth guru. He has built a dynamic consultancy with clients that include a monarchy and a Big 4 wireless company.  

The author of 5 books, Cameron is also a top-rated international speaker, having spoken on all 7 continents. The founder of the COO Alliance, the World's Leading Network for Seconds in Command, he’s also the host of the Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief podcast, where he interviews COOs and other seconds to share their insights with his listeners. 

Get your notepad and pen ready as this conversation will leave you planning, visualising and motivated to get the most out of this life and put your future into your own hands.

We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Love,

Dave & Steve

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The problem is that we don’t connect history. We are taught about the industrial revolution, we are taught about slavery and cotton harvesting, but we are not taught to make the link. What is all this cotton being made for?The fashion industry!”

This week we had the pleasure of talking to writer, stylist and sustainable fashion advocate, Aja Barber. Who’s work builds heavily on ideas behind privilege, wealth inequality, racism, feminism, colonialism and how to fix the fashion industry.

Not an easy mission to say the least! Aja speaks with such grace, knowledge and wisdom, identifying the historical and current issues that are keeping us tied to the fast fashion industry.

An insightful episode, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Aja and to support her work, check out her website https://www.ajabarber.com/

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“There was a time when I was craving the orgasm, and then at some point it clicked and I started to crave the intimacy, the deeper connection. You get beyond the ego and you start to live from the heart. With food it is the same, you get outside of these immediate cravings for instant gratifications. When I think about sprouts, it’s this intimate relationship with this living force of energy, that's in those seeds that contain the endosperm, the embryo and all of the energy it needs to take a dry seed and grow into a vegetable!”

Doug Evans is a serial health food entrepreneur―selling to the stylish and chic as well as to the rest of us. He founded Juicero, and raised $120 million for the company that made the WiFi-connected home cold-press juicer, "the Tesla of juicers”!

Known as the sproutman, Doug has been an advocate for sprouts and the raw food movement for decades. His passion has been his driving force, fueled by sprouts, he is on a mission to give these growing medicinal foods the love and reputation they deserve.

A vibrant, brilliant and energetic character, Doug brings us through his journey, his success and failures, how he managed to convince people to invest $120 million into his juicer and how we can all become healthier beings by consuming sprouts!

A brilliant episode - we have been eating two packets of sprouts a day ever since!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Doug and his work, check out his Instagram @dougevans

, TikTok @sproutarian or check out his book The Sprout Book

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“In Finland, schools are teaching children how to understand and respond to fake news and misinformation is an important skill in life!”

Do you struggle with concentration or learning new things? Do you find it easy focusing on hobbies and things you enjoy but can’t remember a single maths equation -or something you know you need to learn- but for some reason have a mental block doing so?

This week, we speak with Guy Claxton, an emeritus professor of the learning sciences at the University of Winchester and author. His main publications include Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: Why Intelligence Increases When You Think Less.

Guy is a professional meditator, and deep thinker, having spent months in the presence of gurus, such as Osho. Guy has a very different approach to the education system. He focuses less on the syllabus and more on the environment and approach. We hope you find his perspective as refreshing as we did.

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Guy and his work check out his website: https://www.guyclaxton.net/

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“I loved most drugs, I really loved marijuana, I used to think maybe if I just dropped acid on easter then I’ll be okay… but as time went on I slowly realised that reality was much more interesting than addiction and drug use… getting drunk is always sort of the same, a brief feeling of connection, and then loneliness…”

Judith Grisel began using recreational drugs as an adolescent, her curiosity in understanding the root of why she was addicted brought her to eventually study neuroscience. Now an internationally recognised behavioural neuroscientist and a professor of psychology at Bucknell University with expertise in pharmacology and genetics, Judy’s research focuses on determining the root causes of drug addiction. A recent author, Judy published the New York Times bestseller; Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction.

Judy is incredibly open and honest about her past, she holds nothing back, talks us through her addictions, her rationale, her journey to neuroscience, and most importantly her profound discoveries. 

A fascinating conversation, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Judith and her work check out her book Never Enough

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“If I am not transforming every seven years than I am not living…”

Julie Piatt aka “SriMati” is a mystic mother, musician, artist, chef, author and healer who has lived her life immersed in devotion and expansive creativity. 

Through embracing a plant-based diet and deep meditation practice, Julie healed herself of a large cyst in her neck, which doctors diagnosed as incurable. She shares her wisdom from a multitude of life events that she experienced as processes of alchemical transformation in her member-based community Water Tiger, as well as on her internationally acclaimed podcast, “For The Life of Me.” 

Julie offers musings in her approach to find our purpose, conscious parenting, food as medicine, what it means to live a life of devotion and how to experience deep intimacy in a relationships. She also facilitates spiritual transformations on retreats. Julie’s most recent undertaking has been her own plant-base cheese company, SriMu; Do Life, Not Cheese! She is a powerful living example of how to love ourselves more so that we can live our unique design in full and expansive self expression. 

A powerful conversation from her colourful past to her present day practices, this conversation will leave you looking lovingly in the mirror and embracing your inner self!

Big Love,

Dave & Steve x

To find out more about Julie Piatt aka “SriMati” and her work check out her website: https://www.juliepiatt.com/ or find her on Instagram @srimati

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“When you are in a war you don’t want to hear that the justifications are false. And this is what we were saying, we were saying that the main justification - that this drug is a irresistibly addictive substance - was not true”

Bruce Alexander has spent his life researching drugs and it’s addictions. In his early career he started counselling hard-core drug addicts in Vancouver’s darkest city streets and prisons, thanks to his youthful appearance and curious demeanour he managed to build a relationship with some of these addicts which gave him a fresh perspectives on substance abuse.

Bruce began to conducted scientific research with animals (including the well-known “Rat Park” studies) and human beings. Now he uses clinical, historical, and anthropological studies to document the ways in which addiction is built into the emerging globalised society of the modern age. 

Author of three books including, The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit (Oxford University Press, 2008), since retiring from Simon Fraser University as Professor Emeritus, he has continued public speaking, primarily in Canada and Europe.

An amazing man, with an amazing story! We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did.

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

For more information on Bruce please visit his website: https://www.brucekalexander.com/

Pre-order our new book The Veg Box Now!

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Seanie Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Asking yourself that all-important question "What is Money?" is the rabbit which will lead you down the proverbial rabbit hole of new inquiries, perspectives on socioeconomic reality, and worldview-shattering revelations. Undoubtedly, it is the single most significant question we can ask ourselves in a world drowning in deception. 

This week we speak to Robert Breedlove, a freedom maximalist, ex-hedge fund manager, and philosopher in the Bitcoin space. To him, Bitcoin is fundamentally a humanitarian movement exposing the greatest con in human history: central banking. By learning about the connection between honest money, entrepreneurship, and civilization, we are renewing hope for the future of humanity. To this end, Robert's mission is to restore freedom, truth, and virtue in our world by tenaciously asking the question: "What is Money?”

Robert talks us through “the experiment” which is money and our current fiat currency set up, the history of how we got to where we are, how crypto currencies are not all equal, how bitcoin is the voice for change, and asks some hard hitting questions that we all seem to avoid or take for granted!

A brilliant and inspiring episode which will lead you down a spiralling google search of crypto, bitcoin, fiat currencies and wanting to find out more about Robert Breedlove!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Robert follow him on:

Twitter: @Breedlove22

Instagram: @breedlove_22

Pre-order our new book The Veg Box Now!

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is it safe to say you have heard about the numerous benefits from mediation for both your mental and physical health? But do you actively do it?

This week we have the pleasure of speaking to the meditation master, Light Watkins.

“The reason why we are still talking about meditation and mindfulness thousands and thousands of years from when they were first discovered is because it is the only thing that can get us to that happiness that we all ultimately want to have. Which evidently is found inside, and you can’t pay somebody to give it to you… you have to sit down and do the opposite of what we normally are doing…”

Since 2007, Light Watkins has been teaching people from all walks of life how to enjoy a daily meditation practice. He’s taught thousands through his in-person trainings and retreats, and many more through his bestselling books and online courses.

His book, Bliss More: How to Succeed in Meditation Without Really Trying (Random House, 2018), is still a favourite of the meditation community and was selected by Book Authority as one of the best meditation books of all time. 

Light has also written about the mechanics of happiness in his book, The Inner Gym: A 30-Day Workout for Strengthening Happiness (L&G Publishing, 2015), and most recently he’s writing extensively on inspiration in Knowing Where to Look: 108 Daily Doses of Inspiration (Sounds True, 2021).

“Flow state is earned, you have to act and execute it’s not something that you can intellectualise, you have to almost start out outcome orientated in order to get to that point of being process orientated”

Light takes us on a journey from his colourful past of penniless jumping on one way flights across the Atlantic, near death experiences, to finding his inner purpose and defining the importance of meditation, flowstate and prioritisation.

A wonderful conversation with a wonderful human being. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Light, visit his site: lightwatkins.com

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"All disease begins in the gut" - Hippocrates

Nearly 3000 years ago Hippocrates was attributed to saying this, however looking at modern culture, the western diet and medicine it would appear we didn't hear it?

This week we bring back our friend, collaborator and gut mastermind, Consultant Gastroenterologist, Dr Alan Desmond.

Certified in both Gastroenterology and General Internal Medicine, Dr Alan has a specialist interest in the role of diet in the prevention and treatment of digestive diseases. Having spoken at numerous international conferences, a member of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, Alan has published several influential research papers in the field of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. And now author of the best-seller, The Plant-based Diet Revolution.

With more than 70% of our immune system found in our gut our overall health is fully dependent on it thriving. However, the modern western diet with its processed foods, high sugar content, high meat and dairy consumption is so alien to our gut microbiome and digestive tract that diseases and discomforts such as IBS, bloating, SIBO, constipation, gastritis amongst other gut-related issues are now considered normal.

"One in 5 Americans have gastritis disease"

Yet what are we doing to prevent this? 

A topic that always amazes us, and an area that we are forever curious about, this conversation is packed with life-changing information.

We hope you learnt as much as we did and if you are interested in learning more and improving your gut health we have a special offer on our course The Gut Health Revolution, starting 11th April.

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve x

To find out more about Dr Alan and to sign up to our Gut Health Revolution, visit: The Gut Health Revolution Course

Pre-order our new book The Veg Box Now!

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On average we breathe 25,000 times a day, and yet many of us are doing it completely wrong according to author and journalist, James Nestor.

“The majority of the human population have respiratory problems, chronic sinusitis, sleep apnea, snoring, asthma… we have completely lost touch with our basic bodily function. We can still live by breathing poorly but that doesn’t mean that we are going to be healthy.”

James has spent the last several years researching and writing the best seller Breath, a novel which explores the million-year-long history of how the human species has lost the ability to breathe properly resulting in so many maladies. He traveled the world in an attempt to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it, turning the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head.

Needless to say ever since we recorded this episode we have been consciously breathing! Drawing awareness to how our breath changes from when we walk/run to when we sit to when we are on our laptops. We have been amazed with what we have found out. 

A fascinating conversation that will transform the way you breathe!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about James and his work visit his website: mrjamesnestor.com

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“The world is really bifurcating into two types of people; people who allow their time and attention to be controlled and manipulated by others and people who say NO I am in-distractible, I control my time and attention, I control my life.”

Mastering your internal triggers, leaning into the discomfort, turning distraction into traction, becoming masters of your own time… these are amongst some of the many topics we discuss in this week’s podcast with the genius that is Nir Eyal.

“The self help industry has really done people a disservice by promoting happiness as the goal, it is a completely unrealistic and unnatural goal to be completely happy, if there was ever a group of homo sapiens who were happy all the time, that had everything they needed, our ancestors would have killed them, from an evolutionary basis this makes no sense. You want a species to always want more to strive, to create, to invent… the fact that we are unsatisfied is a good thing. High performers leverage that discomfort to propel them forward, low performers don’t know what to do with that discomfort and they escape it with distraction.”

Nir is the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. Previously, he taught as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Design School, and has sold two technology companies since 2003.

For most of his career, he worked in the video gaming and advertising industries where he learned and applied (and at times rejected) the techniques used to motivate and manipulate users. He writes to help companies create behaviours that benefit their users while educating people on how to build healthful habits in their own lives.

After listening to this episode we guarantee you will start blocking out your schedule with even time to procrastinate, reevaluating how you approach your workflow, how you handle meetings and even how deal with your domestic relationships. 

So much wisdom in this episode we highly recommend you take notes!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Nir and his work check out: nirandfar.com

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is modern medicine and/or culture the cause of period pains, PCOS, Endometriosis amongst other issues? Is there an answer to reducing menopause symptoms beyond using HRT that is incredibly effective?

This week we speak to Dr Nitu Bajekal, MD, a Senior Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist in the UK with over 35 years of clinical experience in women’s health. Her special interests include Lifestyle Medicine, PCOS, Endometriosis, period problems, menopause, pre-cancer, complex vulval problems and medical education.

One of the first board-certified Lifestyle Medicine Physicians in the UK. Dr Bajekal has written the women’s health module for the first UK University based plant based nutrition course. An avid vegan herself, Dr Bajekal is passionate about spreading health awareness, providing reliable medical and lifestyle information for the general public, doctors, workplaces and schools. 

She is the co-author of Living PCOS Free along with her daughter and nutritionist, Rohini Bajekal, available for pre-order worldwide due for release on 28th April 2022. 

Dr Bajekal is a vehicle of knowledge, you will learn so much in this episode. We certainly did!

Read more about Dr Bajekal’s work and profile here: https://nitubajekal.com

Follow her on Instagram @drnitubajekal

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Julie Smith is on a mission to make mental health education accessible to all! To help as many people as she can to thrive, by making top-quality mental health education readily available online, so even those who cannot access therapy can get off to the best start in their recovery journey.

Dr Julie is a clinical psychologist, online educator, blogger, and owner of a private practice in Hampshire, England. She is also the best-selling author of the book “Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before”.

Dr Julie’s short punchy social media post has caught the attention of many followers as she distills serious topics into bite-sized, motivational and visually entertaining snippets.

We really enjoyed speaking with Julie, her message is clear, she is not trying to reinvent the wheel with some amazing hack to mental health, it is in her ability to make important information relatable and tangible. We all want that pill to make us better but sometimes what we really need is staring right in front of us!

From dealing with and managing anxiety, to stress, and critical inner voices, to relationships and external judgements, we talk through many of the challenges we have in todays society and the tools and techniques that can help us navigate through them.

“Your attention is like a spotlight, all these different actors are coming on the stage. You hold the spotlight, you can choose which actor you want to shine it on and which ones you will let pass. Some thoughts will hang around on stage for longer than you wanted them to, but you don’t have to give them the spotlight”

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve 

Read more about Dr Julie's work and profile here: https://doctorjuliesmith.com/

Follow her on Instagram to hear her latest updates @drjulie

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“It’s embarrassing to say: “I was the victim of abuse. I was the victim of domestic abuse.”

As a child her home meant violence, her security and safety was the streets - school did not understand her and wanted to punish her - she moved from one abusive relationship to the next one resulting in such physical damage it caused the death of her unborn child. Drugs and alcohol became her only companions, “I had burnt my life to the ground, I would ruin everything I touched because I wasn’t able to be myself, to be honest with myself.”

At the age of 25 something happened which changed her life…

Jen Healy is a qualified neuroscience life coach, Yin yoga teacher, and cacao facilitator.

Her difficult past has shaped her into the powerful, and inspiring woman she is today. With over 13 years experience working frontline in addiction, homelessness and mental health, “I’ve had the privilege to work with some of the most complex cases as part of a multi-disciplinary team including GPs involuntary admissions team and the Resettlement team for the National Forensics Hospital (Central Mental hospital)”

Jen came down to the studio and brought a bar of “only female touched” cacao, “honing in on the feminine energies”. We sat in a circle, whispered our intentions as we sipped on the delicious warming drink - would you believe, this was our first cacao ceremony?! We might be enthusiastic vegan yogis but the thought of cacao ceremonies had even been too much for us.

We continued to sit and talk for nearly 2 hours during which Jen brought us through her challenging past, and the fundamental moments that has shaped her into being the woman she is today. Through all the depths of what she has been through has blossomed this wisdom, love, generosity, and the capacity to make others feel the emotions of what she and even others have gone through.

“She said: “Jen, victims don’t recover”, and I thought the neck of her! Who does she think she is?! I was fuming but I knew in my gut, this bitch is right… I felt like she had a shotgun of truth and I didn’t want to hear it… “The world owes me I have been wronged” - It was exactly what I needed.”

Jen has a charm and charisma that draws you in, she wears her vulnerability with pride allowing you to feel totally at ease and trust in her company. A powerful conversation that will bring tears to yours eyes, moments of laughter and leave you feeling warm.

Enjoy!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve x

To find out more about Jen and her work visit her site: https://jenhealy.ie/

Or check out her instagram: @yinyogajen

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we have the wonderful Dr Sue Kenneally with us, the weight management specialist!

A General Practitioner, nutritionist and co-founder of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine. Dr Sue sits on the board of Plant Based Health Professionals UK and is SCOPE certified in obesity management, working with the University of South Wales in the study of weight management.

We have known Sue for years, having first met her at The Plant-based Doctor Conference in London where we connected immediately. Aside from her qualifications, Sue’s deep understanding of the difficulties of weight management comes from her own personal experience as well as her empathetic nature, “I am not naturally slim myself, I have to work hard to maintain my own weight, and I know that the challenge is real!”

After our first encounter in London, we kept up our friendship which eventually blossomed into The Happy Shape Course! A 4 week course where along with Dietician, Rosie Martin, and PT, Zanna Van Dijk, the five of us take on what it truly means to have a happy shape, through education, movement, sleep, food, nutrition, community and most importantly having fun! We debunk the myths, ensure you are never hungry or lacking in delicious food and connect you with a group of like minded people so you forever feel supported.

“Getting someone to change their relationship with food is like getting someone to change their relationship with any addictive substance. The only difference is, if I am dealing with a heroin addict I can tell them to stop taking heroin and support them to do that, but I can’t tell someone who is addicted to food to stop eating…”

In this episode, Dr Sue takes us through the most common mistakes people make for weight management, the differences between men and women, why calorie counting is pointless, and practical tips you can apply now.

A great episode! Enjoy!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve x

This May 30th join us on The Happy Shape Challenge! One month, where we all begin together, guided by Dave, Steve, Dr Sue and Rosie through constant live Q&A’s. Come join us and find out more on how you can feel healthier and happier while maintaining your happy shape! Follow this link for more information: thehappypear./thehappyshape

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are the characteristics of a great leader? Are you born with it, or can it be taught? 

From the moment she entered the studio filling the space with warmth; to the leadership roundtable she facilitated at the end, Joanne oozed passion for people and creating a national of leaders “of good character”.

Today, Joanne is dedicated to her social enterprise LIFT, which strives to create positive change in Ireland through values based leadership. With over 30,000 people doing LIFT roundtables since inception 4 years ago, LIFT is the most inclusive positive leadership initiative ever seen in Ireland.

Starting as an entrepreneur at the age of 27, Joanne founded two businesses of her own: The Entrepreneurs Academy and QED The Accreditation Experts. 

What else? From speaking at TEDx and authoring the best-selling “Don’t Get A Job Build A Business”, to spending being elected a Council member of the Dublin Chamber, Joanne has also lived a rich professional life away.

We are very grateful for the wisdom, lessons and kindness Joanne gifted us and believe that anyone striving to be a better leader will benefit from this conversation!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you ever considered what effect lack of sleep can have on things other than your mood? 

Did you know that…

Sleep acts like a filter system for your memory?

Sleeps helps you forget unnecessary information to make room for important information?

children only grow in the first few hours of sleep?

Your ability to gain more muscle is effected by the quality of your sleep?

This week we speak to Dr Oliver Bernath, the ultimate sleep specialist!

We have been aware of the importance of sleep for years, making sure that we go to bed and get up at the same time everyday (or as often as we can!) 

However, when we met Dr Oliver at a conference in London last month, we were blown away by his knowledge and how little we really knew!

Dr Bernath specialities cover: Sleep Disordered Breathing (Snoring, Sleep Apnoea) Insomnia, Sleep Rhythm disorders Parasomnias (e.g. Nightmares, Sleepwalking, REM-Sleep Behaviour Disorder), Restless Legs Syndrome and Periodic Limb Movements in Sleep, Narcolepsy and Central Hypersomnias, Sleep Optimisation and Performance.

fter completing his Medical Doctorate thesis in muscle electrophysiology, Dr Bernath trained as a neurologist at the University of Chicago and completed fellowships at the University of California San Francisco in clinical neurophysiology. He trained in Sleep Medicine in Chicago with Prof Rechtschaffen and then at the world’s first Sleep Disorders Clinic at Stanford University with Prof Dement and Prof Guilleminault. He led the Northern California Sleep Disorders Center at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco and now sees patients at the NHS Sleep Clinic in London.

During this chat, we touch on how complex sleep quality really is, how we are not all the same and how to apply certain techniques in order to ensure you are getting the right sleep for yourself!

We hope you enjoy this and sleep well tonight!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve x

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever heard the expression “use it or lose it”? This week we speak to Dr James Timmons, an Exercise Specialist who aims to live to 100 independent and strong!

We are living longer, “old school thinking was that as you age you slow down, we now know that as you age you should be doing more… There needs to be a shift in the thought process from the government - we need to keep people active longer…”

With 10 years of Strength and Conditioning experience working with clinical populations, Dr James received his BSc in Sport and Exercise Science from the University College Dublin in 2012, MSc in Strength and Conditioning from the University of Edinburgh in 2013, and PhD from University College Dublin in 2018. 

His doctoral studies focussed on exercise training and dietary strategies to support improvements in body composition and physical function in older adults. While carrying out his PhD, he also worked as an exercise specialist in Medfit Proactive Healthcare where his focus was on improving muscle mass, strength and function in adults over the age of 65. 

The owner and founder of www.youagewell.com, James’ mantra is to “match health span to lifespan” with a primary focus on improving movement patterns and quality of life of adults over 50.

James takes us through the many ways in which we can prevent, delay and improve muscle atrophy, osteoporosis, increase muscle mass and stay mobile with practical tips and the data to back it.

We hope that James’ insights motivate you to use and celebrate your body as much as it motivated us!

Lots of Love

Dave & Steve

Pre order our new book now, The Veg Box! 10 vegetables, 10 ways using only 10 ingredients or less. Plant-based healthy eating made super simple, less waste, better for you and the planet!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

40% of men suffer from erectile dysfunction in their 40’s, 50% in their 50’s, 60% in their 60’s… it’s an easy stat to remember! A lot of this is due to age-related changes however "some of this we can control and put on the breaks…”

This week's episode is for anyone with a penis, any friends of penises, and any lovers of penises! An area that is not talked about enough, and yet viagra had some of the fastest uptake and sales growth of any medication, ever, after its launch in 1998. 

We were delighted to speak with Aaron Spitz, M.D a board-certified urologist and a leading expert in male sexual health and fertility. Who has been featured worldwide on numerous tv shows, published many articles on the subject and now is the author of the book called The Penis Book: A Doctor’s Complete Guide to the Penis: From Size to Function and Everything in Between

Just like the canary in the coal mine, ED can be the first sign of something much more major going on in your body. “If a man starts noticing he is getting weak erections or having difficulty keeping erections that most likely means the little arteries in his penis are starting to get clogged up, which means all the arteries in his body are getting clogged up, it’s just the arteries in his penis are much smaller so he is not feeling it everywhere else…yet!”

Dr Aaron has helped countless men overcome these challenges, including erectile dysfunction, low testosterone, Peyronie’s Disease, and low sperm count. He is a nationally recognised leader in microsurgical vasectomy reversal. Dr. Spitz is able to demystify these complex and emotional conditions for his patients as well as for the public at large. Dr. Spitz served as Assistant Clinical Professor of Urology, UC Irvine for 10 years, where he oversaw their training for male sexual health and infertility. 

Dr. Spitz is a national leader in health policy for urologists across the nation. He serves as the lead delegate representing all of America’s urologists to the American Medical Association (AMA). He also is in charge of pioneering the use of telemedicine for America’s urologists. He frequently meets with state and national legislators about topics of critical concern to doctors and patients alike.

As two penis owners naturally we found this a fascinating conversation. However, as Dr Aaron says, this is something that affects everyone, whether it be directly or through association. The more we understand, the more knowledge we have the more we can prevent premature ED and potentially much more serious and life-threatening illnesses.

To find out more about Dr Aaran and his work check out his website www.aaronspitz.com and his book The Penis Book: A Doctor’s Complete Guide to the Penis: From Size to Function and Everything in Between

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, by 70%, and is the number one most costly disease - “It’s not because its happening more often it’s because of bad lifestyle and medications that prolong life but don’t get rid of pathological processes that cause dementia so you have a whole lot of people living with this devastating disease.”

This week we speak to THE ultimate brain-powered couple! Neuroscientists Dr Dean and Ayesha Sherzai are a phenomenal pair, aside from the impressive list of credentials after both of their names, they have dedicated their lives to behavioural change models and brain health initiatives. 

Co-director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Loma Linda University, Dr Dean completed two fellowships at National Institutes of Health, and UC San Diego. He also has 2 masters degrees in clinical research and epidemiology, an executive leadership degree from Harvard Business School, and a PhD in Healthcare Leadership. 

And just when you thought that was already enough achievements for one person, in 2002, Dr Dean was asked by the World Bank to help lead their health delivery project in Afghanistan. While there, he was asked by President Karzai to become the Deputy Minister of Health and focused on bringing together all the stakeholders around the vision of rapid delivery of the basic package of health services and women’s empowerment. This process was deemed by LANCET as the most successful plan in any post-conflict county. This plan also helped empower more than 20,000 Afghan women by making them the only source of health care in the most remote of communities. In 2013, he helped create the Afghan Health Initiative in order to empower the Afghan diaspora with their own health. Currently, along with his wife Dr. Ayesha, they are leading the largest community-based brain health initiative in the world through their online work in Brain Health Revolution.

Dr. Ayesha, also a neurologist and co-director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Loma Linda University, where she leads the Lifestyle Program for the Prevention of Neurological Diseases. Is also a trained plant-based culinary artist.

She holds a master’s in advanced sciences from UCSD. Subsequent to completing her residency Dr. Ayesha completed a fellowship in vascular neurology from Columbia University and is currently enrolled to finish a PhD in women’s leadership.

We think it’s safe to say that when it comes to brains, these pair know what they are talking about!

“There are good stresses and bad stresses. Bad stress is when you are involved in activities that are not driven by your purposes… you don’t have a runway that is yours. Whereas good stress is based around activities that do drive your purpose… our brains are made to be active, it craves to be pushed and challenged around its purpose…”

In this episode, we discuss lifestyle choices, nutrition, purpose, Alzheimers, dementia, food that fuel your brain, activities that fuel your brain and, the data to support it.

It truly is an amazing episode we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

To learn more about Dr’s Sherzai check out their website: https://teamsherzai.com/

And their latest book: The 30 Day Alzheimer’s Solutions

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Would you eat veg with soil on it? But what if it was potentially healthier for you and the planet?

According to the UN’s FAO, over 90% of the Earth’s soil could be degraded by 2050. There are several reasons but “conventional farming” that uses chemicals (e.g. pesticides), machinery and other modern techniques is potentially adding to the problem.

So what’s the solution? Is organic farming (using no pesticides) enough?

Charles Dowding, this week’s podcast guest, is an unsung hero of progressive farming. An author, YouTuber and NO DIG pioneer, Charles started his experimentation with NO DIG back in 1982 and the results were amazing. From the wonderful harvest and reduction in weeds; to the improvement in retention of health within the food he grew, Charles realised he had hit on something special!

Since then Charles has been sharing his findings about the benefits of NO DIG and the movement is catching on! 

Within our own 4-acre farm we also practice the method of NO DIG: we are new to farming in this capacity and so far we are getting so much joy from it.

“Through my experience, I’ve become more and more aware of how soil works, through not working it! I’ve increased my understanding of biodiversity and the need to keep carbon in the soil. Digging, and any form of soil exposure, releases CO2 into the atmosphere. No dig keeps carbon locked in the soil, and carbon in many forms is the building block of soil structure and food.”

We absolutely loved this episode. We hope you dig it, too!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Charles and the NO DIG movement visit his site: https://charlesdowding.co.uk/

Produced By Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“How many people - youngsters going in to do exams, people going to do a public talk…- respond to these stressful situation with hyperventilation, respond with fast, harder breathing, with mouth breathing and with irregular breathing… what is that telling the brain? That it is under threat!”

You could say our breathwork journey started 20 years ago when we began yoga, however we only really began to understand the vast and sheer importance of it in the last few years. 

When we first discover Patrick Mckeown and his work we knew we had to get him on the podcast! This episode is our second attempt at recording with Patrick, our unfortunately ended in technical issues… or was it unfortunate? What was originally planned to be a remote recording resulted in Patrick driving down to us, spending the afternoon with us, having lunch and recording in person. Thank you technology for not always working!

Patrick McKeown is one of the world’s leading experts on breathing and sleep.

Over the last 20 years, he has coached thousands of people to breathe better, to improve their health, mental focus, and sports performance. He has authored bestselling books including Asthma Free Naturally, Close Your Mouth, The Oxygen Advantage and The Breathing Cure, and his research is published in journals including the Journal of Clinical Medicine. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in the UK for his contribution to the fields of breathing and sleep medicine.

Patrick is founder of Buteyko Clinic International, the largest Buteyko Breathing Clinic in the world. In 2014, he created his own science-backed breathwork training program, Oxygen Advantage®, which continues to develop in line with his clinical experience as a breathing coach, and with the latest scientific research. He has trained thousands of breathing instructors in both methods.

We could have spoken for hours. Patrick’s knowledge on breath is (pardon the pun)“breathtaking”! From his back story of overcoming asthma to his extensive knowledge on how breathing affects your anatomy, how you sleep, anxiety, stress, your health and so much more…

A great episode! We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Patrick has also kindly offered 50% off for anyone who uses the promo code HAPPYPEAR50 on either of his books:

https://oxygenadvantage.com/atomic-focus/

https://oxygenadvantage.com/the-breathing-cure/

Lots of love,

Dave and Steve

To find out more about Patrick and his work check out: https://buteykoclinic.com and www.oxygenadvantage.com

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Will Bulsiewicz (or "Dr. B") is an award-winning gastroenterologist, internationally recognised gut health expert and the New York Times-bestselling author of Fiber Fueled and The Fiber Fueled Cookbook. 

“The factor that most people are missing and that the food system is not going to give us, is to eat a wider variety of plants… studies have proven that the people with the healthiest guts were eating at least 30 varieties of plants a week… so stop counting macros, stop counting calories, stop counting grams of fibre and start counting plants!”

Dr B sits on the Scientific Advisory Board and is US Medical Director of ZOE, has authored more than twenty articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, has given more than forty presentations at national meetings, presented to Congress and the USDA, and has taught over 10,000 students how to heal and optimise their gut health.

Needless to say, when it comes to gut health, he knows what he is talking about!

We go deep into the effects the gut has on our moods, our emotional health, and our physical wellbeing, from the micro to the macro!

You’ll come out of it with a whole new perspective on how to approach your health.

Enjoy!

Lots of Love,

Dave and Steve

To find out more about Dr B and his work check out his Instagram @theguthealthmd and his website theplantfedgut.com

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Psychologically safe teams is where everybody feels okay to speak up… sometimes the greatest ideas will come from the quietest voices.”

This week we had the pleasure to sit with our friend, confident and one of Europe's leading minds in resilience, leadership, business strategy, psychological safety and practical neuroscience - Justin Caffrey!

“When people negotiate, everyone wants to win… most people struggle when it’s quiet, when there’s a void someone will fill it… so if you are able to go in calm, conscious of your breath and slowing down… you create this void and the other person filling the void will impart information that often results in you winning the negotiation…”

Justin has taught and coached global talent for over twenty-five years, building and selling million-dollar businesses. His popular YouTube channel has had over 1 million views teaching his techniques.

Holding a Master's in Psychological Interventions using Neuroscience and Mindfulness from University College Dublin. Justin is also trained as a Psychotherapeutic Coach, an Accredited Wellness coach from the Mayo Institute and is a Certified Investment Fund Director. Not to mention he is one of only a handful of Westerners to complete the grueling Masters Training with the Yamabushi in the remote mountains of Shonai in Japan!

In 2010, at the peak of his career as a dynamic CEO having founded multiple investment firms, Justin’s son Joshua died - just before his first birthday. Business carried on as normal until 2014, when Justin had what turned out to be a panic attack in the middle of a crucial meeting. He had failed to grieve his son’s death. 

In the year that followed his life and health started to unravel. The cause was not Joshua’s death, but the trigger. The CEO had lacked the psychological safety to speak about his emotions and vulnerabilities, no matter the situation.

It would be 2016 before Justin started talking about his vulnerabilities publicly. Fearing it would be a career-ending moment, Justin spoke about the psychological vulnerability he encountered after his son's death and the constant barrage of negative self-talk. Awaiting judgement, he received only praise and gratitude. Colleagues, clients, and strangers all found something within his words.

Justin is a skilled storyteller narrating his professional and personal journey in a way that everyone from boardroom to kitchen tables can relate to . We all have difficult events in life, he shares how losing his son at the peak of his city career, was ultimately a blessing, and how we can all turn around any challenges we face in life. 

Despite the tragedy of his son’s death, this episode will leave you feeling hopeful, broaden your awareness of what it truly means to feel safe in your personal and work environment, and of course for any founders, leaders and CEO’s out there, how to get the best out of your employees!

Enjoy!

Lots of love,

Dave and Steve

To find out more about Justin and his work visit his site: https://www.justincaffrey.com/

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s guest needs no real introduction, we were delighted to have Australian supermodel, businesswoman, tv host, actress and our friend, Elle Macpherson on the podcast!

“I was pretty much paid to be whatever they wanted to be, and I was really good at it, but striving to be excellent in my job it distanced me from the capacity to get to know myself, dissociation of who I am and who I was supposed to be… as I have matured I have come to realise that the real joy in life is this authentic way of being which is - what I think what I feel what I do - being all aligned.”

Eleanor Nancy Macpherson, is possibly best known for her record breaking front cover appearance on Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in the 1980s, leading to her nickname "The Body”. Having carved out a modelling, TV and acting career, Elle is now also at the forefront of the wellbeing industry with her natural health brand, Welleco. 

Elle came to stay with us for a couple of days, being a fellow vegan and lover dips in the sea, chats, walks and movement, needless to say we had a wonderful time.

An excellent conversationalist we were fascinated listening to all her stories and nuggets of wisdom. Now nearly 60 it is safe to say she has lived many lives! From substance abuse, divorces, too discovering her true self. She is an inspiring, intelligent, charming and insightful person - this is a great episode that will make you reflect and hopefully get you motivated!

Enjoy!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

To learn more about Elle and her work visit: https://welleco.eu/

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Movement is a giant circle of a diagram, it’s any time you change the shape of your body or even the tissues within your body. Exercise is a specific type of movement… you do it to a mode, or a specific time frame… I am just trying to get people to think differently as we are so sedentary culturally that to exercise every day seems like a tone of movement… but we really require a tremendous amount more than just 1 hour a day and it really needs to be distributed better throughout the day.”

Why you might ask is this necessary?

To be able to use our bodies in the future! To be physically fit enough to be able to do the tasks we do now in the future. “You have to water your garden so it continues to produce”, by continuously moving in different dynamic ways throughout the day “you nourish your tissues”.

This week we had the pleasure of speaking to bio-mechanist Katy Bowman, bestselling author, speaker, and a leader in the Movement movement. Katy is changing the way we move and think about our need for movement. 

Katy’s eight books, include the groundbreaking Move Your DNA, have been translated into more than a dozen languages worldwide. Bowman teaches movement globally and speaks about sedentarism and human movement ecology to academic and scientific audiences. She has worked with companies like Patagonia, Nike, and Google as well as a wide range of non-profits and other communities, sharing her “move more, move more body parts, move more for what you need” message. Her movement education company, Nutritious Movement, is based in Washington State, where she lives with her family.

And to honour this weeks guest, Vivo have granted our listeners a 20% discount on their footwear! 25% of our muscles are from our ankles down, there are more nerve endings per square centimeter in the foot than any other part of the body, and yet we bind them and put a thick sole under them so they feel nothing.

Vivo footwear is part of the solution! Designed wide to provide natural stability, thin to enable you to feel more, and flexible to help you build your natural strength from the ground up. Studies show that foot strength increases by 60% in a matter of months just by walking around in them.

We have been wearing Vivo’s for the last 5 years when we first discovered the importance of foot strength and flexibility! We highly recommend Vivo’s and if you try them and don’t like them, they have a100-day free trail so you can return them and get your money back!

Simply go to their website https://www.vivobarefoot.com/ and type in the discount code HAPPYPEAR20 to avail of your 20% discount!

Enjoy!

Lots of Love,

Dave and Steve

To learn more about Katy and her work check out her website: https://www.nutritiousmovement.com/

Checkout Vivo Footwear and avail of 20% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR20 

Genuinely the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to this week's episode! You are in for a treat… we have done the work for you this week by taking some of the BEST bits from our community series and distilling them into one clear message!

Utopia is achievable! You better believe it!

This episode is packed with so much amazing information. It will leave you in deep thought - the good kind! 

Community has been the backbone of our lives and our business. We would not have succeeded without it. Investing in true friendships that nurture our souls, encourage us to be better versions of ourselves and be true to ourselves has always been important to us. We would not be the people we are today or have succeeded in anyway without our community.

So we decide to dig deeper and invite guest speakers to our podcast who virtually specialise on the topic.

However, what we didn’t expect is how much we would learn. We were amazed by our guests who took us on a much deeper journey than we expected, from explorers who have emersed themselves in indigenous tribes, searched far and wide for the longest living and healthiest people, mother earth herself imparting her wisdom, trailblazers who have taken action and created their own localised community… to journalists and the importance of talking to strangers!

A fascinating subject we will forever be exploring. We hope you find this episode enlightening and with a yearning to learn more.

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Let's talk SEX!

The taboos, intimacy, pornography, vulnerability, communication, monogamy, infidelity, pleasure, orgasms, erectile dysfunction and so much more...

How can we fit so much into one episode you might wonder? Well, we did it again, we decided to make life easier for you by taking the best nuggets from our series on Sex, Pleasure and Relationships and we put it into one bite-sized episode for you!

This topic is fascinating! We all do it and yet we seem to only talk about it publicly when it comes to fertility. Despite the fact that "90% of sex is for pleasure" - Dan Savage

So why is this? Why can't we have good honest conversations without feeling the need to crack a joke or only talk top-level stuff?

And yet according to the Huffington Post, more people watch porn than they do Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu combined.

With this kind of stats, you'd think we would be talking about sex all the time.

In this episode, we explore this lack of communication, we gain some great advice on how to improve our own sex lives, have orgasms, reduce erectile dysfunction and so much more...

A winning episode. Enjoy!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve x

We would love to hear your feedback! Write to us at podcast@thehappypear.ie and we will read out selects in the intro of each episode.

Checkout Vivobarefoot Footwear and avail of 20% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR20 - Genuinely the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Produced by Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you snore, have asthma, struggle to focus?

Do you have corns, bunions, feet pain, ankle, knee, hip or lower back pain?

Do you have a strong immune system? How often do you find yourself ill per year?

In this week's podcast mash-up, we take the best of the best from all our health-focused episodes so far: we highlight the lesser-known but potentially incredibly important health hacks that could help your life.

The remarkable thing is, all of these are FREE: from walking barefoot (Tony Riddle) and nasal breathing (Patrick McKeown); to putting your hands in organic soil (Zach Bush) and deliberately changing seating positions throughout the day (Katy Bowman), simple things can support our health so we want as many people as possible to know about them.

Get ready for a tidal wave of health hacks - let us know if you find any of them useful!

Lots of Love,

Dave and Steve

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Checkout Vivobarefoot Footwear and avail of 20% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR20 - Genuinely the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Think of an argument or confrontation you had last year - Do you remember what was said or how it made you feel?

The last time you were with a family member or a friend - were you fully present or on your phone or distracted at all?

How much of your time do you spend on tasks, activities, and with people that align with your values and your happiness?

Welcome to this week's podcast mash-up, where we take you on a slightly different journey…

A journey of self-improvement. Dave has taken exerts from 3 of his favourite podcast guests (so far) and put them into this one episode for you. Curating them into 3 lessons, that we believe will be super beneficial to you and anyone else you know!

So sit back, listen, take note and let us know if you got as much out of it as we did!

And if you have any feedback for us please email in on podcast@thehappypear.ie

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve 

Produced by Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We have come to the end of our series of mash-up episodes, and what better way to go out with a bang than with an episode like this!

An incredibly important topic. That as a man I (Stephen here) am ashamed to say is not taken more seriously… 

We have had a number of female health specialists on our podcast, from period pains, menopause, perimenopause to fertility. And what we found amazing is how complex it all is, and perhaps polarising?

Should you take the pill, should you not? Should you take HRT, should you not? Should you eat differently to a man? Should you exercise in the same way a man does? The list goes on…

There are many different opinions and the one thing we have come to the conclusion is that not all the information is made easily available to women so they can make informed choices for themselves… 

It also makes you wonder are we lacking in the full picture, why does women’s health bring up so many opposing opinions?

So today I would like to bring you on a journey, a journey all about hormones and women's health and what we know from the studies that have been done. We have taken extracts from some of the female experts we have had to date on this podcast, and broken down the potential health risks, symptoms, natural remedies, and medical interventions that could massively improve a female's life and in some cases even prevent much more serious health risks. 

We hope that after listening to this episode, you, as a woman, can feel much more informed to make the right choices when it comes to hormones. Or to any men listening you gain a better understanding of what a female has to go through and can be better support for your mothers, sisters, daughters, friends, and colleagues. This really is an episode for everyone!

Such an important topic, enjoy!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve x

Produced by Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why do we have a biological clock?

Do you struggle to get up in the morning?

Does sleep affect men differently to women?

How do you know you are getting enough sleep?

Is there a link between sleep disruption and mental health?

“Most people don’t have a sleeping problem, they have an anxiety problem”

Born in Aldershot in 1959, Russell Foster is an award winning professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford and the director of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology. 

For his discovery of non-rod, non-cone ocular photoreceptors he received numerous awards including the Zoological Society scientific medal. He has written numerous books, his latest being -  Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, and How It Can Revolutionize Your Sleep and Health.

According to Russell, when it comes to sleep one glove does not fit all. The notion that we need “8 hours of sleep per day” to be healthy is nonsense says Russell. There are numerous factors that interplay to create a good nights sleep and each one of us is unique to the other.

Russell wants to remove the anxiety associated with sleep and get down to the root of why we sleep the way we do. 

“To understand if you are getting enough sleep the first thing is to ask yourself are you not feeling able to function optimally during the day? Do you need an alarm clock? Does it take you a long time to get up? Do you feel sluggish? Do you need caffeine? Do you need a nap? On your time off do you oversleep? Are you irritable? It’s listening to our bodies! And listening to it carefully as the tired brain can delude itself to think that it’s not tired.

In this episode Russell breaks down the biological clock and circadian rhythm, why certain people are morning people vs night owls, how waking up in the night isn’t necessarily a bad thing, how sleep and mental health are linked, how morning light vs evening light effects us and how different types of work could go against our sleep requirements.

He really covers it all and will put you at ease if you consider yourself someone who struggles with sleep.

A fascinating episode - Enjoy!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Russell Foster and his work, check out his latest book Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, and How It Can Revolutionize Your Sleep and Health.

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot Footwear. Vivobarefoot Footwear have given our listenders an exclusive 20% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR20  

Genuinely these are the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why is it so hard to self love?

Why is suffering our best teacher?

Why is it impossible to quieten the mind?

Known as a ‘teacher of teachers’, this week we had the pleasure of speaking to Gary Gorrow, a Vedic Meditation Teacher, a Qualified Ayurvedic Health Coach, Mindfulness Expert and the Creator/Director of SOMA, a world class retreat in Byron Bay. 

Gary is also a highly sought after Consultant and High Performance Coach. With almost 20 years experience in the meditation space. He has worked with thousands of people from all walks of life and his services are sought after by some of the world’s leading companies for his innovative meditation and mindfulness programs. 

Gary is passionate about empowering people with techniques that enable them to re-engineer their lives inside and out. His approach synthesises the best of modern science and ancient consciousness based practices. His students come from a range of backgrounds and include Google, GWS Giants, celebrities, CEO’s, health practitioners, athletes, entrepreneurs, creatives, grandparents and children.

This episode was a brilliant reminder for us to why we started on our meditation journey so many moons ago. Gary is truly a teacher of teachers, we hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

Get an exclusive 20% off the amazing online platform that is HEALF.com when you enter the promo code HEALTHYPEAR - Healf is where you will find only the best of the best health brands all vetted by their community and validated by experts. We love this platform, you can’t go wrong and it has all our favourite stuff covering the 4 pillars of heath: Eat Move Mind Sleep

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

His life is soon to be a Hollywood feature film, this is our second recording with the wonder that is John Mcavoy. 

Last episode was such a hit, we had to get him on again!

What a character and inspiring human being, to go from serving life in the highest security prison at the age of 22 for armed robbery to a complete switch! Now an ultra athlete who recently turned Vegan! 

Last episode we went through his full back story, a breathtaking story that leaves you hanging on his every word.

Since then we have become good friends, and in this episode we manage to go much deeper with John, into his philosophies of life, what keeps him ticking, his next adventures and how he now approaches sports after years of being an endurance athlete.

What an infectious character with an amazing outlook on life we can all learn from.

Enjoy!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve 

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot Footwear. Vivobarefoot Footwear have given our listeners an exclusive 20% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR20  

Genuinely these are the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“You can manifest anything as long as you are the driving force behind it.”

Have you heard of the number one best seller, Manifest: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life by Roxie Nafousi? A book that will go down in history as one of those books that created a generational shift in perspective.

This week we had the pleasure of having Roxie on our podcast. A single mother, with a colourful past of drug abuse and self doubt who managed to turn her life around and manifest the life she wanted.

“Generally speaking how we feel is a choice, we can choose how we feel and how we respond to the world, that’s not to say that it is always easy too, and it’s not saying you shouldn’t allow yourself to process and feel negative emotions, but you choose whether you indulge in them, process them and let them go and make a conscious decision to choose a more empowering perspective.”

Roxie Nafousi is a self-development coach, inspirational speaker, author, ambassador for the Mental Health Foundation and contributor to Kourtney Kardashian's wellness platform, POOSH. Roxie's commitment to transforming lives and helping to empower others with the tools they need to fulfill their potential has seen her become a renowned and respected figure in the wellness world. She has been named "The Manifesting Queen" by Forbes and “The A-Lists favourite manifestor” by The Sunday Times Style Magazine. A regular feature in many of the UK’s top publications, including British Vogue, Financial Times, The Times Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar & ELLE, to name a few, we caught up with her one Thursday morning to breakdown what it really means to manifest.

“It’s really important to get out of the victim mindset, and thats why the term manifestation can really rub people up the wrong way.”

A truly valuable episode for anyone out there, and a great reminder of how we can empower ourselves to get the best out of life.

We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Lots of Love,

Dave and Steve x

Get an exclusive 20% off the amazing online platform that is HEALF.com when you enter the promo code HEALTHYPEAR - Healf is where you will find only the best of the best health brands all vetted by their community and validated by experts. We love this platform, you can’t go wrong and it has all our favourite stuff covering the 4 pillars of heath: Eat Move Mind Sleep

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On one sunny sunrise swim back in 2019, all the way from Australia to our lovely little island, we met the handsome Sam Corlett, the star of the latest Viking’s series Valhalla.

We approached this Viking-like being (he stood out from the rest of us Irish that’s for sure!) chatted and encouraged him to come join us for a swim again the next day, little did we know a pandemic would soon hit and this foreign man would enter our family circle and become more like a brother to us all.

Fast forward 3 years and now Sam has hit the big screens, an international superstar, the lead of his own Netflix's show and in many ways only at the beginning of his journey. We decided it was time to sit down the three of us and discuss it all, life, wisdom, his journey, how we met, what’s next and what makes his soul truly vibrate.

It’s so special to be able to share someones story who you are so close with, a beautiful conversation, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve 

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot Footwear. Vivobarefoot Footwear have given our listeners an exclusive 20% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR20  

Genuinely these are the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a nomad? To live on the road? Moving from one adventure to the next? 

How about living on the road and raising a family? Something many of us would think is impossible! How would you educate your kids? Give them a sense of belonging and grounding? How would you finance this lifestyle? How would you retain friendships and community?

Four years ago, our friend Marty and his family did just this! They packed what they could, sold the rest and left their home in Seattle for a life of adventure and learning on the road with their three kids. 

Instead of travelling to see places, they travel to find people! Building a network of creative and thoughtful families in fascinating places. 

In this episode we catch up with Marty in person, he explains how the decision to do such a move came about, and how he has managed to keep it up for the last four years and convincing many others to follow suit. Establishing their own boutique travel agency, Quartier Collective, which leverages the network they have created into short and long group travel events for families all over the world, blending learning, community and exploration with a deep sense of curiosity and gratitude. 

This episode will have you rethinking your next holiday, how you approach education, work and life balance. It will leave you with a whole new perspective on living as a family.

Enjoy!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve x

To find out more about Marty, his family and his travel agency check out their Instagram page: @quartiercollective

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“If you are worried about biodiversity or climate change, the single greatest point of agency you have is your food choices, and by deciding to buy this pizza rather than that pizza you have changed the game and you are part of the solution“

Most of you might know Andy Cato as one of the duo, Groove Armada, the English electronic music band. Which achieved chart success with their singles "At the River", "I See You Baby" and "Superstylin'". Having released eight studio albums, four of which were charted in the UK Albums Charts Top 50.

However, the other side of Andy, when he’s not traveling the world on tour, is a mixed arable and livestock farmer and co-founder of Wildfarmed. 

“Once you have seen this stuff you can’t unsee it.”

17 years ago, at the age of 33, on his way back from a gig, Andy was reading an article about agriculture and climate change, and like most people he hadn’t made the link between climate change and how we grow our food. 

This article became the catalyst for Andy to make a change! 

Today Andy, is the first Englishman to be awarded the Chevalier L’Order Mérite de Agricole - the equivalent of a knighthood for services to agriculture. His unique Wildfarmed method brings the concept of rewilding to farming, combining the best of nature with modern technology to create thriving ecosystems and diverse, healthy soils.

Now, Andy is on a mission to take what he’s learned and help other farmers adopt his Wildfarmed system so they can too can work towards restoring biodiversity and producing delicious food. 

How does Andy balance his fame and music career with being an award winning agriculturalist? What was life in the music industry like in those early years, how did he get into it? These are some of the questions we ask Andy and many more, diving deep into his farming journey. It was particularly special being able to record this episode on his farm.

Enjoy!

Get an exclusive 20% off the amazing online platform that is HEALF.com when you enter the promo code HEALTHYPEAR - Healf is where you will find only the best of the best health brands all vetted by their community and validated by experts. We love this platform, you can’t go wrong and it has all our favourite stuff covering the 4 pillars of heath: Eat Move Mind Sleep

Lots of Love,

Dave and Steve x

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oliver Burkeman is the author of the New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller Four Thousand Weeks, about embracing limitation and finally getting round to what counts, along with The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done. 

“We are dissuaded from doing things that add great value to our lives just to avoid discomfort.”

For many years he wrote a popular column for the Guardian, 'This Column Will Change Your Life'. In his email newsletter The Imperfectionist, he writes about productivity, mortality, the power of limits and building a meaningful life in an age of distraction. He lives in the North York Moors. 

This episode is particularly special as it is the first that was LIVE on our app, Healthy Living by The Happy Pear!

“We talk about not wanting to settle when we think we can do better… but we end up becoming a commitment-phobe and don’t realise that both of these are settling. One is settling for an imperfect human being and the other is denying yourself the pleasure of and benefits of a long term relationship… this doesn’t just apply to dating and it’s great to realise this so you stop making decisions motivated by this notion of a perfect outcome.”

We had a wonderful conversation with Oliver, and members of the app got to ask their questions too. We spoke about the issues with time management, our inability to be in the present moment, how to achieve more by doing less, how the concept “to settle” isn’t always a negative thing, and the importance of leaning into discomfort, amongst many other things.

We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did.

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve x

To find out more about Oliver Burkeman and his work, check out: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/

Produced by Sara Fawsitt & Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can happiness be taught?

According to this week's podcast guest, Mo Gawdat, it can!

“It’s not the events that make you happy in life, it’s the comparison that happens inside your head between the event and your expectation of the event.”

Mo Gawdat is the former Chief Business Officer of Google X; host of the popular podcast, Slo Mo, author of the international bestselling books Solve for Happy and Scary Smart; and founder of One Billion Happy.

After a 30 year career in tech and serving as Chief Business Officer at Google X (Google's 'moonshot factory' of innovation)  Mo has made happiness his primary topic of research, diving deeply into literature and conversing on the topic with some of the wisest people in the world.

Motivated by the tragic loss of his son, Ali, Mo began pouring his findings into his international bestselling book, Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy. His mission to help one billion people become happier, #OneBillionHappy, is his moonshot attempt to honor Ali by spreading the message that happiness can be learned and shared to one billion people.

“If a parent only wish is happiness for their children than why aren’t we teaching it in school?” 

According to Mo, happiness is an equation, and gratitude is the ultimate expression that can remind us to be happy.

“You are the one that is setting your expectation. You are the one interpreting the event a certain way, therefore you are in control of your own happiness.”

We had a great chat with Mo, on our favourite topic, you guessed it - happines! A brilliant episode that will hopefully leave you feeling elevated, grateful, and dare we say it… happy!

What’s more, Mo has also offered you a gift! The first 100 listeners of The Happy Pear Podcast to sign up, will get an exclusive two month free access to his membership community. You get all the training material, rieki infused meditations, and live webenars with Mo, his co-author Alice and expert guest speakers. This is worth 50 Euros and you get it for free on Unstressable.com. sign up now and use the code THEHAPPYPEAR to be one of the first 100!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Mo and his work please check out: https://www.mogawdat.com/

Produced by Sara Fawsitt & Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How often do your bare feet touch the earth; soil, grass, sand, stones? 

Do all your shoes have rubber souls?

Have you ever heard of grounding?

For more than 20 years, Clint Over has dedicated his life to improving the health of everyone on earth.

In 1998, after a successful career grounding systems in the cable television industry, Earthing pioneer Clint Ober began investigating the potential to improve human health with grounding.

“I had suffered from chronic pain, unable to sleep for years. After I did this, I went to bed and for the first time since I could remember I woke up the next morning, I had slept through the night and the pain was gone.”

Today, he is the founder of Earth FX Inc., a grounding research and development company based in California through which he helped to develop, and patent, the first indoor Earthing products.

This episode will give you goosebumps and if you are like us you will be rushing off to buy your grounding bed sheets!

Enjoy!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Clint and the grounding movement check out his site: https://www.earthing.com/

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we had the pleasure of speaking to Joe De Sena!

Where to start? What a remarkable man! But would you want him as a partner? Or even a friend? Well not if you like lie-ins, tasty treats or taking it easy… 

We like to think we are pretty good at facing discomfort with our daily sea swims and active lifestyle, but when Joe challenged us to joining him on one of his death races, you can literally hear us squirming in our seats! 

Joe De Sena is the founder and CEO of Spartan, the world’s leading endurance sports brand. Growing up in working-class Queens, De Sena has demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit since his preteens. He built a multi-million-dollar pool cleaning business before moving to Wall Street, where he started his own trading firm. 

In 2001, De Sena fled Wall Street for Riverside Farm in rural Vermont. It was during this time that he discovered his passion for adventure races and endurance events, and Spartan Race was born.

De Sena has built Spartan into a global fitness and wellness brand, with a 10 million+ community of athletes across the globe. Under his leadership, Spartan’s portfolio of brands has grown to include Spartan Trail, DEKA, La Ruta, Tough Mudder, and HIGHLANDER.

A New York Times bestselling author, De Sena’s latest book, 10 Rules for Resilience: Mental Toughness for Families, hit bookstores last October.

A brilliant episode!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve x

This episode is sponsored by our friends from HEALF.com the amazing online platform for all yoru health needs!

Get an exclusive 20% off HEALF.com when you enter the promo code HEATHYPEAR

Healf is where you will find only the best of the best health brands all vetted by their community and validated by experts. We love this platform, you can’t go wrong and it has all our favourite stuff covering the 4 pillars of heath: Eat Move Mind Sleep

Produced by Sara Fawsitt and Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our friend, Melissa Hemsley the self-taught chef, food columnist, best-selling cookbook author, real food activist and sustainability champion joined us this week for a chat!

She is passionate about spreading the power of feel-good food, and has written five cookbooks including Eat Green, Eat Happy and her latest book Feel Good with 100 quick and easy recipes to bring a bit of comfort and joy into our kitchens and beyond. 

We had a wonderful chat with Melissa, she is a great friend who has hosted us many times in her home in London. Having recently been diagnosed with ADHA and been under a long fertility journey, we dove deep into these topics alongside our love of food chats!

Enjoy!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

To learn more about Melissa check out her site on: https://www.melissahemsley.com/

Produced by Sean Cahill & Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When you speak to Manchán you feel that magic is real!

Manchán Magan is a writer and documentary-maker. He writes for The Irish Times on culture & travel, presents the RTÉ podcast The Almanac of Ireland, and is author of the award-winning, best-selling Thirty-Two Words For Field, and Tree Dogs, Banshees Fingers and other Irish Words for Nature. He has made dozens of documentaries on issues of world culture for TG4, RTÉ  & Travel Channel. 

His recently published book, Listen to the Land Speak, was the main topic of our conversation, although we found ourselves diving into all sorts of weird and wonderful topics, from magic, the lost female voice to philosophy and how language is shaped by the land.

A true Irish gem, Manchán lives in an oak wood, with bees and hens, in a grass-roofed house near Lough Lene, Co Westmeath.

We hope you enjoyed this episode as much as we did, it is always a pleasure when we can do them in person.

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve x

To find out more about Manchán and his work visit: https://www.manchan.com/

This episode was sponsored by Wolfgangreforest.ie - how about going GREEN this Christmas by giving the gift of a tree instead of possessions people probably don’t need! With Wolfgang re-forest.

Produced by Sara Fawsitt & Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Walking is the only way proven to stave off cognitive decline - it works. Exercise, from a public health perspective, is an unmitigated failure. The world's longest-lived people live in environments that nudge them into more movement.”

We are huge fans! This is our second episode with the amazing Dan Buettner, who’s new book on the lost American diet, The Blue Zones American Diet, is out today.

Dan’s extensive research on the healthiest and happiest living people on the planet is fascinating, we have personally taken a lot from it and if you are familiar with any of our online health and lifestyle courses (available on our app, Healthy Living) you will hear us quote him a lot!

Dan is an explorer, National Geographic Fellow, award-winning journalist and producer, and New York Times bestselling author. He discovered the five places in the world – dubbed blue zones hotspots – where people live the longest, healthiest lives. His articles about these places in The New York Times Magazine and National Geographic are two of the most popular for both publications.

Buettner now works in partnership with municipal governments, large employers, and health insurance companies to implement Blue Zones Projects in communities, workplaces, and universities. Blue Zones Projects are well-being initiatives that apply lessons from the Blue Zones to entire communities by focusing on changes to the local environment, public policy, and social networks. The program has dramatically improved the health of more than 5 million Americans to date.

His books, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest, Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way, The Blue Zones Solution: Eating and Living Like the World’s Healthiest People, and The Blue Zones of Happiness were all national bestsellers. His new book The Blue Zones Kitchen: 100 recipes for living to 100 is a New York Times Best Seller and fuses scientific reporting, National Geographic photography and 100 recipes that may help you live to 100.

Buettner has appeared on The Today Show, Oprah, NBC Nightly News, and Good Morning America, and has keynoted speeches at TEDMED, Bill Clinton’s Health Matters Initiative, and Google Zeitgeist. His speech in January 2018 at the World Economic Forum in Davos was chosen as “one of the best of Davos.”

Another brilliant episode! Enjoy!

Lots of love,

Sara & Dave x

To find out more about Dan and his work, check out: https://www.bluezones.com/

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot Footwear. Vivobarefoot Footwear have given our listenders an exclusive 20% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR20  

Genuinely these are the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Produced by Sean Cahill and Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can diabetes both type 1 and type 2 be reversed by food and lifestyle choices?

This week we speak to Cyrus Khambatta, PhD, and Robby Barbaro, MPH the co-authors of the New York Times bestselling book Mastering Diabetes and the co-founders of Mastering Diabetes, a coaching program that teaches people how to reverse insulin resistance via low-fat, plant-based, whole-food nutrition. 

Cyrus has been living with type 1 diabetes since 2002, and has an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry from UC Berkeley. Robby was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2000, and has been living a plant-based lifestyle since 2006. He worked at Forks Over Knives for 6 years, and earned a Master’s in Public Health in 2019. 

A brilliant episode that will leave you stocking up on your fruit!

Enjoy!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve x

This episode was sponsored by Wolfgangreforest.ie - how about going GREEN this Christmas by giving the gift of a tree instead of possessions people probably don’t need! With Wolfgang re-forest.

Produced by Sara Fawsitt & Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome!

To mark 100 episodes of chatting to experts, trailblazers, doctors, entrepreneurs, celebrities and psychologists we thought we would do something different. 

We (Dave & Steve) and our two producers, Sara & Sean, get together and chat through our highlights, low-lights and learning's from speaking to such extraordinary people and experts in their field.

We hope you enjoy the episode and getting to know a little better the people behind The Happy Pear Podcast.

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

This episode was sponsored by Wolfgangreforest.ie - how about going GREEN this Christmas by giving the gift of a tree instead of possessions people probably don’t need! With Wolfgang re-forest.

Produced by Sara Fawsitt & Sean Cahill

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we bring you, New York Times bestselling author and internationally recognized professional speaker on a number of important public health issues, Dr Michael Greger, M.D. FACLM.

He wrote the book on How Not To Die & also How Not To Diet! A legend in the nutrition world, Dr. Greger and his team set up Nutritionfacts.org, a science-based nonprofit organisation. That provides free updates on the latest in nutrition research via bite-sized videos. A strictly non-commercial public service health charity. 

Dr. Greger has lectured at the Conference on World Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, and the International Bird Flu Summit, among countless other symposia and institutions; testified before Congress; has appeared on shows such as The Colbert Report; and was invited as an expert witness in defense of Oprah Winfrey at the infamous "meat defamation" trial. In 2017, he was honored with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine with its Lifestyle Medicine Trailblazer Award.

In this episode, we debunk the myths around diet culture and break down how to sustain a healthy weight and lifestyle.

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve x

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot Footwear. Vivobarefoot Footwear have given our listeners an exclusive 15% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR15  

Genuinely these are the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Produced by Sean Cahill & Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dating, partying, socialising, special occasions, holidays… without alcohol does this sound difficult to you?

Could you imagine going sober at the age of 26 without using the excuse “I am on antibiotics” or “I am working tomorrow”?

This week we spoke to the founder of the Sober Girl Society and one of the leading voices on the sobriety movement, Millie Gooch.

At the age of 26 Millie decided to make a big lifestyle change, she quit drinking. After too many binge drinking nights that left her feeling anxious, and insecure. She realised she needed a change. 

Millie has written for a range of publications, and her campaigning work has been featured everywhere from ELLE and Stylist to the BBC and Evening Standard.

In this episode, Millie gives us practical advice for how to date, party and socialise sober. We debunk the myths surrounding sobriety and how having a healthier relationship with alcohol can massively improve your confidence, relationships, productivity and your relationship with yourself.

We loved chatting to Millie, she is a brilliant voice for the movement.

Enjoy!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Millie and her work check out her Instagram: @milliegooch

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot Footwear. Vivobarefoot Footwear have given our listeners an exclusive 15% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR15  

Genuinely these are the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Produced by Sean Cahill & Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Let’s lean into the discomfort by plunging into cold water or sweating through a hot sauna with metabolic scientist and author of Winter Swimming, Susanna Søberg.

We have been jumping into the sea for the last 8 years, we knew it was good for us, simply by how it made us feel: Elevated, alive, new, refreshed, giddy, more connected to those around us and overall a feeling of happiness. Now after so much research we are aware of how truly beneficial cold water and heat exposure is for us, from the serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin hits, to the longevity benefits and the effect it has on our metabolism. We discuss it all with Susanna and even take things a step further into the community benefits. 

Susanna Søberg, PhD., earned her doctorate researching metabolism and has worked for many years designing and conducting clinical studies. Her most recent research and the background for this book have been on fat reduction through winter swimming at the Tryg Foundation's Center for Physical Activity, Denmark. Winter Swimming, now published in thirteen languages, is her first book.

Founder and CEO of www.soeberginstitute.com . Susan has also created a course, The Thermalist Cure, all about how and why to get started with cold, heat and breathwork for better health. The course launches on the 24th January and she has kindly offered our listeners a 10% discount with the code THEHAPPYPEAR 

A brilliant episode that is on a topic close to our hearts.

Enjoy!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot Footwear. Vivobarefoot Footwear have given our listeners an exclusive 15% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR15  

Genuinely these are the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Produced by Sean Cahill & Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it mean to be an explorer?

What are the sacrifices one must take?

What are the benefits of putting yourself through such hard physical challenges?

This week we speak to Damian Browne, an extreme adventurer, peak performance athlete and International keynote speaker from Galway, Ireland. 

For the last 25 years Damian has pursued his human potential, relentlessly pushing his body & mind to their perceived limits; forging himself & his character in what he deems “a crucible life”. 

During a 16-year career as a professional rugby player, Damian donned the colours of some of rugby’s European elite, including Northampton Saints & Leinster; where he won club rugby’s biggest prize, The Heineken Cup. 

Since retirement from professional rugby, Damian has become one of the World’s foremost extreme adventurers; undertaking some of the most demanding physical and mental challenges on the planet, including the 257km Sahara Desert ultra marathon, The Marathon des Sables,  climbed 5 of the 7 Summits, a renowned mountaineering feat & most recently created history by becoming the first person ever to row from New York City to Galway, taking 112 days and in the process become one of only a handful of people to have rowed the Atlantic in both directions.

Damian's drive to explore his physical & mental limits is not exclusive to ultra endurance events and he is a multi-time Irish indoor rowing champion, holding all-time, all-category records for the 500m and 1000m distance.

We were lucky to have had Damian in the studio with us for this episode, a brilliant and deep character, we hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did.

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do we get you to keep scrolling?

This is the aim of the applications on your phone. The more they can steal your focus and attention the more profitable they are.

So how can you take advantage of the benefits of technology whilst not letting it take advantage of you?

This week we speak to Johann Hari, the author of the New York Times bestseller: Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention. 

Johann is an author, executive producer and Tedtalk speaker. His books have been translated into 40 languages, and been praised by a broad range of people, from Oprah to Noam Chomsky, from Elton John to Naomi Klein.

Johann’s first book, ‘Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs’, was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film ‘The United States Vs Billie Holiday’. His second book, ‘Lost Connections: Uncovering The Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions’ was described by the British Journal of General Practice as “one of the most important texts of recent years”, and shortlisted for an award by the British Medical Association.

Johann’s TED talks have been viewed more than 93 million times. He has written over the past decade for some of the world’s leading newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the Spectator, Le Monde Diplomatique, the Sydney Morning Herald, and Politico. He has appeared on NPR’s All Thing Considered, HBO’s Realtime With Bill Maher, The Joe Rogan Podcast, the BBC’s Question Time, and many other popular shows.

Johann was twice named ‘National Newspaper Journalist of the Year’ by Amnesty International. He has also been named ‘Cultural Commentator of the Year’ and ‘Environmental Commentator of the Year’ at the Comment Awards.

A fascinating person who lives half the year in London, and spends the other half of the year traveling to research his books. We caught up with Johann one sunny afternoon and delved deep into what it means to loose focus, the effects it has on the brain, how our children are being affected by technology, and how we can regain focus and become more present.

A great episode!

Enjoy!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

Produced by Sean Cahill & Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do you feel optimistic about the future? 

When a class of 200 graduates were asked to raise their hand if they felt optimistic about the future - No one did. Are you surprised?

This week we speak to Matthijs Schouten, the biologist, ecologist, lecturer and author of Nature’s mirror; the image of nature in a cultural-historical perspective

Matthijs G.C. Schouten B.Sc., M.Sc. D.Sc. studied biology and comparative religion at the University of Nijmegen and Celtic studies at the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands).

He has worked as lecturer at the University of Nijmegen and as ecological project leader for the Wildlife Service (Dublin). He was the leader of the international campaign for the conservation of Irish bogs. Since 1992 he is senior ecological officer at the National Forest Service of the Netherlands; since 1995 he also is a visiting professor of nature and landscape conservation at University College Cork and University College Galway (Ireland); in 1999 he furthermore accepted the chair of restoration ecology at Wageningen University (the Netherlands).

In 1990 he was awarded the International Award for Conservation Merit by the World wide Fund for Nature and in 1992 the National University of Ireland granted him a honorary doctorate.

He has published widely in the fields of ecology and nature philosophy. His latest book Spiegel van de natuur; het natuurbeeld in cultuurhistorisch perspectief  (Nature’s mirror; the image of nature in a cultural-historical perspective) has formed the basis for the exhibition World Nature Art in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam.

In this episode we explore the meaning of nature, how we have become detached and obsessed with the individual, driven by ego, how we need to reinstate rituals of contemplation, the power we all posses to make change, the importance of enchantment, connection and falling in love. 

“Unless we accept how destructive we can be we can’t move ahead constructively.”

We loved this episode so much, Dave has already booked a trip to have lunch with Matthijs!

Enjoy!

Lots of Love,

Dave & Steve

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot Footwear. Vivobarefoot Footwear have given our listeners an exclusive 15% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR15  

Genuinely these are the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Produced by Sean Cahill & Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“A life not reflected is a life not worth living.”

This is the second time we have had our friend and very own life coach, Gerry Hussey on the podcast.

Gerry is a performance psychologist and also in more recent times been coined ‘The Soul Coach’. He has been in the human health and performance Field for almost 20 years.

Gerry has been at the forefront of building high performance teams and individuals in Olympic and Professional, sport and corporate organisations. His vast experience has seen him prepare and lead teams for success at Olympic Games, Heineken cups, World cups, and World and European championships.

He has worked and currently works with some of the world’s leading sport and business teams as well as coaching for high performing individuals.

Gerry is a leading voice that is challenging us to rethink health and performance in a whole new way and his integrated approach is one of honesty, simplicity and authenticity.

Another brilliant episode with Gerry, he really is the modern day sage! 

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot Footwear. Vivobarefoot Footwear have given our listeners an exclusive 15% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR15  

Genuinely these are the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Produced by Sean Cahill & Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Slow aging and improve your health with water!

This week we speak to holistic doctor and author of Quench, Dr Dana Cohen.

For over two decades, Dr. Dana Cohen has been on the leading edge of integrative and functional medicine, guiding thousands of patients through protocols that initiate cellular repair and restore balance to the body.

Her unyielding devotion to her patients has helped countless patients on the brink of giving up hope to finally improve, recover, or completely heal from a variety of severe and chronic health issues.

We jump straight into her recent research and book Quench and discuss in detail the magical healing power of water.

“Proper hydration is the key to unlocking optimal health. But we need to start looking at hydration for what it is: the very essence of your health.”

The benefits of proper hydration can have a dramatic effect on your health, your vitality, and your overall quality of life, according to Dr Dana. Quench will help you determine how to hydrate the right way (hint: it doesn’t involve chugging a gallon of water every day), and then how to get the water you do drink deep into your muscles, cells, and fascia (the connective tissue of your body), where it’s needed most.

A brilliant episode, that will leave you stuffing your face with fruit, veg and lemon infused water!

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

This episode is sponsored by Vivobarefoot Footwear. Vivobarefoot Footwear have given our listeners an exclusive 15% discount when you enter the code HAPPYPEAR15  

Genuinely these are the only shoes you will see Dave & Steve wearing!

Produced by Sean Cahill & Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"No fungi no forest no future. Fungi are as important as oxygen and yet we only think of them as icky things”

The mycelium network, is vast, diverse, intelligent and everywhere! In this episode, we're thrilled to have Fungi Guy, the popular YouTuber, as our special guest.

Fungi Guy, also known as Ali, is a passionate forager and mushroom enthusiast with a wealth of knowledge and experience. He has been foraging for over a decade and has a deep appreciation for the incredible diversity, importance and beauty of mushrooms.

In this episode, Fungi Guy shares his vast knowledge on mushrooms, his approach to foraging, from identifying different species to selecting the best specimens for cooking. He also shares some of his favorite mushrooms and explains why they're so special to him.

One of the things we love about Fungi Guy is his infectious enthusiasm for mushrooms and his commitment to sustainable foraging practices. He truly embodies the spirit of The Happy Pear, and we're honored to have him as our guest.

So, if you're a mushroom lover or just curious about the world of foraging, this episode is not to be missed! Tune in to hear from Fungi Guy and learn more about the fascinating world of mushrooms.

Lots of love,

Dave & Steve

To find out more about Fungi Guy check out his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/thefungiguy

Produced by Sean Cahill & Sara Fawsitt

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.