A few months after we launched this project, we took a road trip down the coast for business (and pleasure) – meeting up with a few key folks and learning about their journey as entrepreneurs, musicians, artists, and family members. The underlying red thread: they were all making an effort to weave their health into their everyday lives.
Meet John
Although this wasn’t particularly one of our “business meetings,” this meetup with a friend ended up being a short story we wanted to capture and share with all of you.
John Mooney is an old friend of our co-founder and Lifestyle Creative Director, Graham. They met back in their early twenties working at Timberland. Yes Timbs (the shoe store). Fast forward twenty years and here these two are, reconnecting about life and everything inbetween. Our time to catch up with John and his beautiful wife, Katie, was only intended to say hey and grab a bite. What we discovered was that he’s actually been on a recent health journey of his own – juicing, cooking more, and getting outdoors…with his bulldog of course. We had no idea how much our story (and our Kale book) had impacted his own path. And candidly, we flipped on our cameras and caught a few moments of our walk together. Take a look…
Life happens
John didn’t always lead a healthy life. When he met Graham, they’d go out to shows, drink, party, and live it up. Dig a bit deeper with John and you’d learn about his graffiti days, eating late nights, and living as if he was untouchable.
His partnership with Katie has always been strong and rooted in family and working together. They’ve been through periods of grad school, moving between the East Coast and West Coast, launching business, closing businesses, supporting parents who were sick, and most recently, deciding if children was meant for them.
Without getting too personal, John and Katie were considering adopting a child – a lengthy process that required their personal health to be of certain standards. When John was checked by his doctor, he was immediately confronted by numbers he couldn’t ignore – not if he wanted to live long. Overweight, John stood in his skin and felt the aftermath of years of “not caring.”
“I just didn’t feel confident,” he said.
Together with Katie, they decided that whether they were going to adopt or not, their time together is valuable and taking care of their healthy food choices had to be a priority. From there, this whole kale and health kick thing has been a lifesaver. Literally.
Reversing negative numbers and statistics of obesity and disease, John and Katie feel better and more alive now than they did early in their marriage. And damn, that’s a beautiful thing.
Reflections
As I stood back and watched Graham catch up with John, I quietly observed the beauty of friendship that’s evolved over years. I was silent long enough to witness the blessings of what brought them to together as ol’ homies in the first place. Now, instead of girls and parties, they catch up about health, babies, family, music, and kale. Yes, kale. And how to make it BOMB in the kitchen.
We shared a few shirts with John and Katie as a gift and asked if they’d be open to sharing their beautiful faces with all of you. Since then, they continue to work together, enroll in new adventures (like yoga and marathons), and cook for each other in the busy-ness of their days.
So – if you are a cool dude like John, or maybe a wife or partner of a cool dude, you can see that together, you can accomplish anything.
With love and light, we send John and Katie years of health, love, and laughter.
Happy National Kale Day everyone. If you’re interested in purchasing a shirt and supporting the project, check out our shop here.
Kale. All Day. Err Day.
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