Russell Simmons - The Happy Vegan: A Guide to Living a Long, Healthy, and Successful Life

A ll of my books, at their core, have been about the same thing.

How to be happy.

In fact, that mission has been at the heart of everything Ive tried to do in my career.

When I wrote Do You!, Super Rich, and Success Through Stillness, it was only to help readers become happier.

Just as when I made records with Def Jam, clothes with Phat Farm, and videos with my latest company, All Def Digital (ADD), its only been to bring a little more joy into peoples lives.

Im always thrilled when someone comes up to me on the street and says, Russell, Do You! helped me get through a tough time or Hearing Run-D.M.C. changed my life!

It feels great to know that Ive contributed, even just a tiny bit, to a positive change in someones life. But as cool as it has been to get that sort of feedback, Im expecting a different kind of reaction to this book.

No, The Happy Vegan wont just change your life.

It can save your life. Not to mention save the world as well.

Thats a big claim, but its made with a confidence that can come only from experience. Becoming a vegan hasnt only made me much happier but healthier too. It helped me disconnect from the lifestyle that was making me sick, a lifestyle that has put too many other middle-aged African American males in the ground.

Today, on the verge of my sixth decade, I feel content and centered, full of energy and appetite for all that life has to offer.

Im in a wonderful space. And I credit much of it to my decision to stop consuming animal products.

Its a space, however, that took a long time to arrive at. As those of you familiar with my story already know, I spent much of the first half of my life abusing my body with various toxins. From weed to coke to angel dust, there wasnt a drug I didnt get high off of. Just as there wasnt a kind of meat or dairy I didnt consume. Products that were, in many ways, just as bad for me as drugs.

I finally got sober at the age of thirty. In my late thirties I embraced the practice of yoga, which helped me leave my toxic lifestyle behind me for good. In literally my first class I experienced a sense of serenity and clarity Id never felt before. Yoga helped me see that getting high had been nothing but a distraction. I found I preferred waking up sober to going to bed high.

Yoga in turn led me to meditation, which taught me how to further wipe the distractions out of my mind and focus on my best ideas. My personal relationships and business began to improve. Instead of walking around in a daze, I was looking at life through cleaner lenses. It was a great way to live.

Thanks to that clarity, for the first time in my life I also found myself starting to think about the food I was putting into my body. During my yoga classes, my teacher Sharon Gannon (or one of her disciples) would gently but firmly remind us not to put toxins in our bodies. Every day after class, it seemed, Id meet someone who followed Sharons mantra and had removed animal products from their diet. Inevitably they were in great shape and smiled a lot. I was impressed. I was also inspired by my great friend (and current head of television development at ADD) Simone Reyes, who had been a vegan for many years. Another big influence was Glen E. Friedman, my senior executive in charge of television development at Def Pictures. Through their collective examples, I felt myself inching closer toward a healthier relationship with the world.

I finally took a great leap forward on New Years Day 1997. I was staying on the Caribbean island of St. Barts, where I loved (and still love) taking a monthlong vacation during the winter holidays. Glen, as he often does, was staying with me at a villa Id rented by the islands clear blue ocean.

I woke up New Years Day planning on hitting the beach, but a peek out the window at the overcast sky told me Mother Nature had other ideas. So Glen and I decided to watch a movie instead.

For months, Glen had been bugging me to watch a film called Diet for a New America. Once I watched it, he promised, Id stop eating animal products and never look back. In my heart I knew he was probably right, just as in my heart I knew the yoga community was right too. I was primed to make a change.

Yet for some reason Id been resisting watching the tape. Giving up drugs and taking up yoga and meditation had been a major transformation for me. Changing what I ate on top of all that seemed like just a little too much to think about.

Glen is nothing, however, if not determined (its probably one of the qualities that makes him such a great photographer). Hed brought the film with him to St. Barts in case such a moment would present itself, and now that it had, he wasnt going to miss his chance.