A man walks in with a gun and proceeds to hold the entire bar hostage.
And he said people are going to be leaving in body bags.
So how do you emerge out of that, like physically unharmed, but psychologically and emotionally?
I remember just needing to like choose fear, or a greater faith.
So what does it really take to rewrite your story and turn ambition into unstoppable action and incredible outcomes?
Today we're joined by Robyn Arzone former lawyer, ultra marathoner, best -selling author and Peloton's VP of Fitness Programming to unlock the secrets of resilience and radical self -belief.
I really do fear mediocrity like I think about my legacy.
Like what do I want to be talking about when I'm 90.
I think a lot of people don't look at life that way.
They're constantly like what's the fastest, easiest path to get there.
I firmly believe the jewels of my crown are made of grit and hustle and sweat, and that is because I know that journey, I know that path, it will always be worthwhile to me.
If your job at a health care facility includes disinfecting against viruses, you know prevention is the best medicine.
And maintaining healthy spaces starts with a healthy cleaning routine.
Grangers world -class supply chain helps ensure you have the quality products you need when you need them from Disinfectants and cleaning supplies to personal protective equipment so you can help deliver a clean bill of health Call 1 -800 Granger click ranger .com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees Just ask the Capital One Bank Guy.
It's pretty much all he talks about.
In a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast, too.
Ah, really? Thanks Capital One Bank guy.
What's in your wallet?
Terms apply. See Capital One dot com slash bank.
Capital One N, A member FDIC.
Good Life Project is sponsored by wonderful pistachios.
I am always looking for super yummy snacks that are packed with nutrients, especially protein, and I've been thinking about how those small daily choices add up to helping you feel your best. That is why I am a long time fan of wonderful pistachios.
Each one ounce serving packs 6 grams of protein, that's over 10 % of your daily value making it one of the highest protein nuts out there.
Plus, they bring this perfect combination of protein and fiber and better for you unsaturated fats that help keep me feeling fuller longer.
And what really clicks for me is also how they just kind of fit into any moment.
Whether you're deep in creative work or sharing stories with friends or outside, I often take these in my pack when I'm hiking.
If you're looking just for grab -and -go -ease, they're No Shells varieties.
Give you all that nutrient -rich goodness without missing a beat.
Then, come on, they just taste amazing.
So, if you're ready to elevate your snacking, visit WonderfulPistachios .com to learn more.
Were you the type of kid where it's like you kind of saw parents as a doctor and a lawyer, you always assumed that was part of your path or not so much?
Well, it's interesting because I view the classic American dream through their work ethic and their narrative.
So my mother's from Cuba, my father is from Puerto Rico, and so I literally saw them rebuild themselves.
My mother tells a story about how she taught herself English watching PBS and Sesame Street at the age of fourteen.
So witnessing that and then seeing them succeed, it was like I understood the narrative of of the hard work in creating yourself from a really young age.
And then I just assumed like, if they can do that, I can do that too, and I have to.
You know, I felt, not pressure, pressure's the wrong word, but a sense of honoring where you came from.
Were they both first generation here, or?
Yes, both first generation here.
Got it. Have they shared a lot of the stories, a lot of the sort of their early days with you?
Yes, and it's fascinating because, you know, when I look at these old pictures, especially my father grew up in poverty, But my mother actually in Cuba was, they were wealthy.
They grew up with, in a way that I can't even imagine, with servants and farmhands and just really like elaborate birthdays and all these things.
And then they come to Philadelphia starting from nothing, getting winter coats from the Salvation Army and a true evolution of, you have everything you could ever want, then you have nothing.
And then you're grateful for what the little you do have and you build from there.
so that perspective I think has been always been part of my mother's story and it's something I very much admire Yeah, I mean so interesting to me.
Also that you you said you didn't feel a sense of pressure But like more of an internal sense of honoring.
Yeah, so the choices that you made it wasn't like you were being forced So like I have to live up to their expectation.
It's not obligation but it's sort of like It seems like there's something wired in you that just says like they've worked so hard to be here like something inside has to serve to honor that.
Yeah, I feel like there's something really powerful.
I mean, I was... It's funny that I'm in fitness now cause I used to be allergic to exercise.
So I was the Arts and Crafts straight -A kid, right?
So they really never, and I don't think they even would have had I not been a straight -A student, but I really always had that in me, and my sister as well.
We were always, you know, just the academic children.
But there is an understanding of honoring your ancestors.
like I saw something a meme or something on Instagram and the spirit of it was like I'm going to make my grandmother's grandmother proud.
And I was like, whoa, it stopped me in my tracks.
It gives me full body chills right now because I think legacy is so powerful, and I think about that all the time.
I believe that our legacy is really just comprised of a lot of small decisions.
And when I'm trying to make small pivots in my life, I think like, how will this contribute to my legacy even in a 0 .1 % way?
And I take that really seriously.
Yeah, it's amazing too because I think legacy, a lot of times, it can be a sword and a shield.
On the one hand, you can feel a sense of like, I have to do certain things because the expectation is, that's the appropriate way to honor my legacy.
But on the flip side, it can also be like the appropriate way to honor my legacy is, people who have come before me have worked so hard to create a level of agency and freedom Who am I not to step into my own sense of agency and do like the thing that I'm here to do?
Well, both offer perspective, right?
Because it's like, I would never, you know, what is it?
It was just on the Beyonce Homecoming documentary.
I think she quoted Maya Angelou like you can't be what you can't see.
Like I am so grateful that I was able to see strong characters in my life who were like, you just got to figure it out and do it.
You know, had I had a different understanding of agency.
I might not be sitting here.
Yeah, so you end up then so you're you're the kid who's arts and crafts and also academics.
Where did you go into undergrad?
So I went to NYU undergrad and Villanova Law School.
I was I was in Gallatin.
So at the school you make up your own major, and it was the most amazing intellectual creative freedom I've ever had.
Yeah, you really you you were able to take classes from all different realms of the university.
And so did you make up I studied the social construction of reality, That was my senior thesis.
So I took classes in politics and English.
I took classes in the business school.
I took classes, you know, I knew I was going to be going to law school and the greatest advice my father gave me at that time was study what you're interested in because you're gonna learn how to be a lawyer when you're a lawyer, and they're gonna teach you things in law school that are relevant to that canon, right?
So do things that you're interested in.
And I didn't want to be just a strict English major or econ major or politics major.
I was like, shoot, if NYU has this offering, I'm gonna take advantage and I'm just I was going to, like, let my creativity fly.
And, thankfully, that's exactly what I was supported in that pursuit.
That's amazing. So, you kind of knew going into that, though, that you were tracking to law school.
No. I knew since I was ten years old that I wanted to go to law school.
What happened at ten?
I think... So honestly, I remember watching my dad grade—he was a part -time professor at Temple University Law School at the time teaching real estate.
And I remember—this is back when law students still had exams in blue books.
I'm raising my hand.
I filled out. I wrote so many blue books.
So, I remember him grading the exams in blue books, and I remember being fascinated by like, how do you fill all those pages with a thought?
You know, and at 10, I was like, am I ever going to have that many thoughts?
You know? So, I think it was just this understanding of like, that's a challenge.
I think I could be up for that challenge.
And I just always had it in my head that I would be a lawyer.
That's amazing. So, you end up going to NYU, but before you head to Nova, I guess it was your senior year at NYU where...
Yes, approaching my senior year.
Yeah, where you got involved in something that was pretty horrifying in these fields.
Yeah, I was out with friends and in walks into the wine bar we were at, it was like amazing Friday night in New York City.
The weather is good, people got out of work early, there's just such a vibe in New York City in the summer.
And then unexpectedly a man walks in with a gun And proceeds to hold the entire bar hostage.
I mean, it really was like.
As many times as I've told this story, when I look at the mental movie in my head, it's in slow motion.
So when I replay this, it's in slow motion.
And I can literally see him walking in and brandishing the gun and grabbing me by my hair.
I mean, I had clumps of hair ripped out from my head cause he grabbed me so forcefully.
and it was in this two -hour period that I had an acute understanding of my own like the inner transcript of my own inner monologue or the transcript of my inner monologue as well as again, agency Yeah, what so he comes in.
He's burning a gun He grabs you I was happened to be sitting at the stool closest to the entrance and it's it's it's still there in the East Village And he he grabbed me and he said people are going to be leaving in body bags.
That I was like, okay, this is I always refer to it as time slowing down.
Like really, like I think oftentimes when we experience trauma, we remember it in a myriad of ways.
But for me, it's almost like when you're in a car and you have a fender bender, Like even those things I remember in slow motion and this is like obviously one of the most transformative If not the most transformative things in my life.
So yeah, so he he basically People who were at the bar Went one of two ways the other one straight back, which is the dead end kitchen Which is basically a washbasin in a closet or they may went right and they were able to exit out of a window in the bathroom And I had nowhere to go because I was with him but my friends who were with me, made it out of the bathroom.
And then about 20 of us were in a dead end in this wash basin kitchen area.
So what's going through your mind?
Things are happening in slow motion there.
You're in a dead -end area with this guy.
So he hands me garbage, he shoves me to the ground and hands me garbage bag ties and tells me to tie people up.
They were the kind of sliding garbage bag ties.
and I remember thinking I need to do what he's saying so I don't die, but I also want us to be able to get out of these hand -ties, so I remember doing them just loose enough.
I don't even know how I was like physically able to do it because I'm sure I was trembling or shaking but um yeah so I I did what he said and then he proceeded to spray us with a flammable liquid.
It smelled like kerosene or gasoline.
And I remember the cut in my head burning so much. And I was just like, oh, wow, this is like, he really wants us to die, because he started flicking a barbecue lighter above our heads.
Then he grabs me and says, You're coming with me.
And I was his human shield.
He literally just held me in front of his body, and then kind of showed me to the NYPD who are now outside of the bar.
And so there was probably like, I don't know a corridor length between the front door at 2nd or 3rd Avenue.
I'm forgetting exactly where the front face of the bar is and then where we were in the kitchen.
And it was like he would show me to the NYPD and then he would close the swinging doors into the kitchen area and that was it.
I was just like, okay, is this really the last chapter?
I don't believe this is the last chapter of my life.
And for some reason, in that moment, I realized I have to humanize the situation because he was spewing all kinds of vitriol and he was a lot of times unintelligible and definitely angry.
But it was also that he started talking about his children and I was like, okay, let's talk about the family angle.
Maybe there's something, and I mentioned, like, there are people in here, they have families too, like, what is it that you want?
What is it that you want to get out of this?
I became this like pseudo negotiator at 20, having no idea what I was doing.
But I was like, he needs to know that these people are humans too.
And somehow that let the conversation go on long enough for him.
I don't know, I just wanted to like, keep the clock going, like how long can I keep the clock going until this ends?
No. How do you get ahead of it as it ends?
So it ends. Thankfully it ends with nobody dying, so that's a huge plus.
So a really, really brave woman named Ann -Margit Gidley, she was sitting kind of in, elevated in one of the wash basins.
A lot of folks were on the floor, but she happened to be seated in a wash basin.
And she saw that the perpetrator was struggling with holding me, holding the gun, holding a barbecue lighter, holding my cell phone, which he asked to use, and we were on the phone with 911.
It was just really kind of chaotic.
But she noticed when he would holster the gun in his jeans.
And at one moment when she saw him holster the gun in his jeans, she leapt and leapt him from behind.
And then I think a few folks, my back was turned, so I didn't see this, but I felt the sensation of falling.
And then the NYPD entered.
And and that's when it was over.
So, yeah, it's crazy because it happened so long ago, but it really does feel like it happened yesterday.
Yeah, I think when something like that happens, I mean, I think it's always just beneath the surface.
So we're talking New York State, this is 2002, 2003?
This would've been 2002, because it was the summer before my senior year, and I graduated in 2003 that May.
Okay, so then if you're...
with that timing, you would have been in New York the year before for 9 -11 also Mm -hmm, oh yeah So this is, I mean, this alone is like seriously traumatic, I'm assuming being in college downtown on 9 -11 for you Yeah Was pretty traumatic as well Yeah it was, and I worked downtown at a law firm, I was serving as like a legal assistant event, and I lived just below, like after 9 -11, below 14th Street it was like totally—I mean nobody could even walk, it was like a war zone.
And they had it blocked off and you could only go down there if you showed proof of your address.
I remember like the local like Union Square movie theaters were like playing free movies, and people were just walking around like looking for any kind of connection, like anything.
Just any kind of connection.
And yeah, so I don't—I've never even made that—I haven't even put two and two together that as a young person, that's kind of a lot to go through within a span of 18 months.
I mean, it's like these two life altering traumas are like stacking on top of each other.
So how do you emerge out of that?
Like physically unharmed, but psychologically and emotionally?
Yeah. It's interesting.
Like, you wake up the next day and you're looked down and you're like, well, I've got all my limbs, I'm good.
And NYU was really supportive.
They immediately offered anything I needed, free therapy, whatever it is.
And I went to talk therapy, and I just, I talked it out.
And I had no issue talking it out.
But, um, and I knew I wanted to finish school, and I wanted to stay in New York.
And, I remember just needing to like, choose fear, or, like a greater faith.
And I'm like, I have faith that I'm supposed to be here for a reason, like, I'm just going to keep doing what I do everyday.
But it wasn't really until I was in and I was so in the throes of like getting ready for law school and you know I was busy right so it's easy to kind of compartmentalize it and it wasn't until I was really dealing with the stress of law school that I was like, oh like I'm just beaten down and I knew it wasn't just because of law school and I looked at a pair of shoes, I don't even know if they were running shoes, in my closet and I just said like maybe I'm just gonna jog to campus today.
And I've never had the impulse to jog.
I literally think my mom hates when I tell this story.
But as a physician, I used to like sneak off and take a script from her pad and write notes to get out of gym class like totally illegal.
But I was that I had such a fear of physical activity because I told myself you're not an athlete, you're gonna be picked last. You can't run.
I got made fun it was ironic, I got made fun of by a kid when I was 10 in gym class for the way I ran.
So I always told myself don't embarrass yourself.
Just don't even show up.
That was a very odd thought for me to think, let me just put these shoes on and run to class.
But I did and I just kept doing it.
And I felt like, oh, I'm physically running it out.
The stronger I physically feel, I'm and gaining a little bit of my power back.
And I never before equated power, feeling powerful, with a physical understanding of like space and movement.
And that was a really big light bulb moment for me.
Yeah, I mean, it's also, because you're, essentially it's like you're running the trauma out of your body at the same time.
I mean, on the one hand, you're running into like a place of power.
No, I was running it out.
Right, you're processing out of your body.
And it's like, when you look at all the latest research that I've seen on PTSD, like so much of the therapeutic world around that is coming around to the idea that like, we can't actually just treat the mind alone.
Like the body, it becomes, trauma could become so physically embodied.
That like, you've gotta actually add some level of physicality to it if you really want to process it.
Oh yeah, I'm a firm believer of that.
And I don't think one, I could have done one without the other.
Like, I think it was the right path.
I think for a year I just like, I was like, how many more times can I talk about this story?
And then finally, I was like, well, clearly I've got a heavy, physical, internal weight that I just need to start to chip away at.
And that's what the runs did for me.
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
Good Light Project is sponsored by Climbing the Walls Podcast. So, you know those moments when something that's been hidden suddenly becomes crystal clear?
That's what's happening right now with ADHD in women, and it's a story that needs to be told.
The new podcast, Climbing the Walls, takes us on this fascinating journey and to why countless women went undiagnosed for years only to discover their ADHD during the pandemic when diagnoses suddenly soared.
I checked out the first episode and I was struck by how it illuminates these profound aha moments when women finally understand patterns they've seen their whole lives but could never quite understand and the storytelling is intimate and powerful weaving together science and personal narratives and eye -opening insights about women's health.
So if you're curious about how our minds work or if you've ever wondered about ADHD you need to hear this.
To listen to Climbing The Walls search for climbing the walls in your podcast app.
That's climbing the walls.
Good Life Project is sponsored by Quince.
So I am getting ready for some spring overnight adventures now and I want to share something that's really exciting to me.
I love Quince's apparel and have loved them for years but I just got Quince's all day neoprene duffle bag.
It's so cool. It's crafted from 31 recycled water bottles yet incredibly premium and durable and that's the kind of thoughtful design that makes a difference and I can fit everything that I need in it for a weekend and it just looks great.
Quiz offers beautiful travel essentials, lightweight shirts, I'm literally wearing one now, and shorts from $30, versatile pants, premium luggage, all at prices 50 % to 80 % less than similar brands.
They partner directly with Ethical Factories and pass those savings right to us.
so you're ready to upgrade your travel game, head to quince .com slash glp for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order.
That's q u i n c e dot com slash glp to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince .com slash glp or just click the link in the show notes.
This Mother's Day, turn your card into something truly special with Moon Pig.
Add your fave photos, stickers, even a cheeky message for a card that's as cute, funny or embarrassing as you want.
Everyone deserves a Moon Pig card. Head to moonpig .com and get 50 % off cards with code PODCAST. So the first time you like lace up your shoes, having like really basically never moved your body.
And then also like I've been through law school.
I know what happens in law school like you're just non -stop, heads down, like basically, everything gets shut down, you put on your shoes, and you run, what's the physical sensation for you the first time you're actually like, I'm gonna go and just run.
I'm pretty sure it was horrible.
I think it was pretty horrible.
That's hard. But you know it was out of necessity and I think that's why, first of all, in terms of time management, I'm like, well, I could drive two miles, or I could just try to jog it.
right, and so for me it was like, okay, well this is practical cause I'll still get there and I'll get my exercise I don't have to carve out another 30 minutes of my day to work out.
Not that I really was doing that anyway at the time, it was out of necessity cause I was like alright well I don't have a car and this was like really before like apps and ubers and you could just hail and this was in the suburbs that I went to in Villanova so this was Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania like, there's trains and stuff but it wasn't really that easy to get around if you didn't have a car.
And so yeah there was a practical element like well i've made it halfway i better i better get to class that's too funny did you have books like in the bag with you i would leave my books um so i would either leave my books in the locker or have a friend take them yeah so you start doing this i mean after the first time did you know after that very first time that something had switched for you or was it just like you did it once whatever and then for some reason you kept going back to it i think it was um i remember depositing a check at the bank and seeing a flyer for a 10K that happened to
be the next morning.
I didn't know how far 10K was and again, I didn't have a smartphone, so I wasn't like, I was like, 10K, I don't know, whatever that is, I'll do it.
I didn't look up the distance in mileage and I don't even think I would have understood in mileage like what that even feels like because you don't know what it feels like to run 6 .1 miles until you do it and I did it and it was really tough and I vowed that it would never be that tough again.
So that was the kind of, then I had a goal anchored to the to the experience.
Then I was like, okay, now I know I can physically do this.
There's a distance and a time element.
How can I play with that to make it to maintain this momentum?
So you made the vow, it's never going to be this hard again.
A lot of people will do that and they make the vow, I'm never going to do this again.
Yeah. So my curiosity is like what happens in your mind that's so different than other people's minds, that makes you say, huh, that was really hard. It didn't feel good, but it's gonna happen again and it can't feel the same way, instead of, okay, check that box, that was brutal, never again.
Yeah, that's so interesting.
I think, um, I really associate discomfort with pride.
Huh. Um, what's that from?
I don't know. I just, I really feel, I think like I loved law school.
Like I loved just being like, okay, you have like 500 pages to read tonight.
Like, not from a place of suffering or this kind of like martyrdom.
But it's like how, I love that sense of being gritty and feeling like, how are you gonna rise above this?
And how are you gonna rise above this?
And how are you gonna rise above this?
And it was a unique experience because I actually hadn't had, like I knew how to be academic.
I knew how to go and read and study for a test and write a paper and this was really brand new.
I'm like, I don't know how to do this.
like, and not necessarily in a learned skill.
Like, of course, if you don't learn how to play the violin, you're not going to play the violin.
But this was like something really innate.
Like you put one foot in front of the other, and the simplicity of it was actually fascinating.
Cause I'm like, I can't do this well, but it's also something I've been doing, walking around the world, my whole life.
So that kind of, I think the simplicity of, of running allowed me to enter it in a way that was like, I'm just going to own this in my way.
So what was that way, I mean?
I mean, I needed, so I felt still intimidated by the running community.
I wasn't a track star and I, you know, I saw people at these races with all the fancy stuff and kitted out.
And I like the idea of representing, you know, I wanted to show up with wearing gold rings and black eyeliner and like wearing what I wanted to wear.
like representing what I wanted to represent or how I thought I was having a visual conversation with the world.
And thankfully throughout my running journey, I was really welcomed when I came back to New York and I started practicing law.
I was welcomed by a running group called the New York City Bridge Runners and they are a really amazing cobbled together group of, like, DJs and artists and people who never went to college and people who are lawyers like me and then doctors and, like, it was a mixed bag of mayhem.
And I was like, I can get down with this because we can show up to races like whoever we want to be.
And so can the person who, you know, is wearing the same kit from their high school track meet, like cool, live your life, that's awesome.
But I hadn't really seen a lot of that.
So running as a lifestyle, running as kind of an expression of a lifestyle, really came into vogue when I started falling in love with running.
And then I happened to meet people, people, others, who were willing to express running as a lifestyle and we would go on on runs at 9, 10PM and then go out to gallery openings and clubs and dinners.
And it was just like, we were a crew, you know, and that, that it really emboldened me to be like, I have a voice in this space.
And that was powerful.
Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you hadn't somehow stumbled upon Bridge runners like you think you will still have like with this entire journey had been just radically different and had that that discovery never happened.
I think the path would have been really different right so I think if I would have joined maybe a more traditional running group I don't know if I would have truly fallen in love with running the way I did because I happen to sign up for a half marathon sign up for a marathon simultaneously start to run with bridge runners really feel like I could get into my own with using running not only as a tool, but also potentially a profession.
So I know that I would have been in fitness anyway, but I don't know, I'm certain that the path would not have been what it has been, which is primarily running, then writing a book, and then ending up with cycling and Peloton.
Yeah, I mean, because the phrase running as a lifestyle is really interesting, because that's been around a lot of different ways for a long time, but it's like I think, I often wonder that if you don't find Like, part of the lifestyle is the culture of like that you share with other people who are doing the similar thing, and if the huge part of the existing culture, when you step into something new like that, isn't something that vibes with you, it's like you have two choices, well three choices, either quit or just do it solo, assimilate into that culture or find or create your own group.
So it's not just you always running in isolation, it's you like, okay, so there are people like me in this space who we can actually create like a family around and we can share the love of running and also all the other sort of cultural identifiers and things that are meaningful to us about the way we want to live in the context of running and also the broader life.
And it's like the – I feel like a lot of times it's – that is as important as the actual exercise modality in what keeps you in it.
Oh, yeah, the like – I mean, I think I know community is the linchpin to most movements, and certainly like nobody said it, actual movement.
Like, if you can find a community you feel proud of, you're much more likely to keep coming back.
So you end up coming back to New York, you discover originals, at the same time, you're starting your law career.
New York City, not the easiest place in the world to practice law.
I practiced here also.
Um, and you end up in a giant firm also.
Which, the reputation for a lot of big firms in New York is essentially, OK, welcome to the firm.
Here's a giant paycheck.
We'll take your life.
Yeah. What was your experience working?
I worked my ass off.
But you know, I knew that going into it.
I didn't. And thankfully, like, I was a young person, I didn't have kids.
Still don't have kids.
You know, I was single.
Like I was like, I'm going all in, and I actually have extremely, there were lots of tough moments, but when I look back at that part of my story arc, I actually have really fond memories of the law firm.
It wasn't my passion, and I know that now, but it felt good to be challenged in that way.
Like I liked the challenge of needing to suss out, like even at a junior level, as a junior associate, you know, these day -to -day problems. And it was during subprime and I was working on a lot of SEC cases and like I mean it's just like it's so hysterical because I went to law school so I didn't have to do math and every day I was speaking with like forensic accountants.
I'm like what is happening?
But yeah I mean I left as a rising I think a rising seventh year so and I was a summer associate also at the same law firm Paul Hastings.
And you know so that's a big chunk of your twenties to give to a place and I really had lot of admiration for the people I worked with but there was no way I was gonna continue counting down the hours until I could have like my 30 minute run or my loop around the park or my meet up with bridge runners.
I was like, this is nonsense.
I am literally at the office all day counting down to when I could feel like I'm putting on my superhero cape to like do the thing I was meant to do.
It was definitely a two year slow process of my departure because I like running.
Okay, lots of people like running.
How the heck am I going to monetize this if I'm not going to be an actual competitive professional athlete?
So that was the conundrum.
Yeah, I mean it's funny there's so many parallels.
I started out at the SEC.
I know about your days, gosh.
Which was interesting.
I was on the other side of the emails that you'll be sending and stuff like that.
And we were an enforcement division in New York, so we were constantly investigating people in cinder block rooms and under secrecy.
And then I went to a large firm in Midtown doing securities work and had a similar Jones, I realized that I was physically kind of dying inside.
Mmm and I for me like the wake -up call was I ended emergency surgery when my immune system shut down and Things weren't good and thankfully everything was fine So I had a faster transition after that because my body was literally rejecting my career But for me also, I was a kid who was deeply fascinated with movement and I was a gymnast for the first half of my life.
So, one of the things that I, and this is my curiosity with you, I kind of knew, like once I decided, okay, so I'm out.
I also knew, okay, I've invested a lot of money, a lot of time in this.
I have this powerful, prestigious job and insane paycheck for somebody that was my age back then.
And stepping away from that, there was a lot of internal judgment and I knew I was about to get hit with a lot of external judgement, too, especially to step into the world of quote, fitness.
Where I think a lot of people in the professional world, they're like, You cannot do like, you're you have what everyone wants.
Why would you ever do that?
Did you have those sort of like inner dialogues like when you're doing that to your window or were you just like, nah, this is gonna happen?
You know, it's interesting, and I get that question a lot and I think I just had myopic vision for figuring it out.
So there were practical elements, right?
So like I lived in a walk -up.
My entire locker room, I lived below my means.
I didn't want anything fancy.
I didn't want to be saddled with a mortgage I couldn't afford. I didn't.
I was just like, I'm gonna save, you know, live.
I traveled a lot, you know, I lived.
But I was like, I'm gonna make sure that I don't have to be at this job without having to ask for any support from my parents, which I never did.
And so there was a practical element of like, how you gonna pay your bills, how you gonna pay your rent, how you gonna live?
Cool, so once I felt like I had that sorted enough, a little bit of runway, I took a leave of absence and I kind of started dabbling.
But the external pressures, I think thankfully I was surrounded by people who were doing really unconventional things.
When you're going on runs with graffiti artists and occasional drug dealers, and you know what I mean?
These are people who are just living on their terms and good people, kind people, but like they're doing their thing.
And when you see that, it's almost like, you can't be what you can't see.
When you see somebody running literally to the beat of their own drum, you're like, how can I pave my own way?
And thankfully my family was really supportive.
They always, first of all, like you can't really, I'm not really one to receive a no, very well.
So I'm just gonna keep doing it, you know?
And my family really trusted my instincts and my preparedness.
but the Yeah, there was definitely a question mark of like you're doing what you're gonna go do like, I don't get it Are you a blogger like what do you do?
You know and a lot of those people aren't in my life anymore and some of them now Are on the other side of the screen when I'm teaching a peloton.
I'm just like hey Nice to see you again No, that's awesome.
Um, my first step that was a as a personal trainer Yeah.
Learning the fitness energy because I know I wanted to be an entrepreneur.
I wanted to know the industry and find out what was broke and how to fix it.
And the big concern for me was like I remember literally running around Central Park with clients.
And I'm like, what if one of my old, you know like, zillionaire clients in the law firm sees me in a tights and ripped up a little T -shirt like stretching the client on the grass in Central Park.
And I was like, okay, so there was like, there was just an ego thing that I had to kind of work through.
But what's fascinating about you is like, it seems like you constantly put yourself in scenarios where you are presented with the hard path and the easy path.
And whereas a lot of people be like, ahh I'm okay with the easy path.
You look at the hard path and you're like, oh, I like hard. Like I can, like this, it's an imitation to you rather than something that says, you know, like now go the other way.
I find the difficult path, it beckons.
It really just beckons.
And I've always understood that you have to make it matter in order to make it happen and I think I make the difficulty matter to me.
So whether it's a tough training run or a tough business meeting, or just even days where you're just like, ugh, what is the point of this?
You have to kind of remember.
And for me, I have, I really do fear mediocrity.
Like I think about my legacy.
Like what do I want to be talking about when I'm 90?
Like I hope I have really amazing stories to tell and kids and grandkids to make proud and my mother to honor and my father to honor.
I mean, that stuff like matters to me in a very, very palpable way.
So I've just made that part of my story matter and it is such an overarching thing that sometimes that can be a little bit like vague and overwhelming.
But for me and my micro decisions, I really do think about that.
and then sometimes it's a practical element of like, listen, I have this race to run, just go and do it.
All right, so it's like, I think it's layered motivation and layered kind of, a layered approach to constantly reigniting that fire and constantly flexing that willpower muscle.
And then I have my priorities, I say no to a lot of stuff just so I can have bandwidth and energy and dedication to the difficult path, because you can't be everything to everyone, and I'm okay with not being everything to everyone.
Yeah. Do you feel like that the fact that it's hard is a big part of what makes it worth it?
Oh my god, yes. I mean, if things were handed out, if running a marathon were truly, truly easy and you polled people and were like yeah, 26 .2 miles, no biggie.
And you get the medal, do you feel as proud, or do you treat it like a pressure, you know if diamonds were on every block on the street in New York City, would they be as valuable?
No. It's like you have to earn your value, and I think that there is some kind of, the currency of energy, and hustle, and sweat, and grit.
Like, I talk about being kings and queens, you know?
And this kind of regal narrative of stepping into your power and not letting your crown slip.
I firmly believe the jewels of my crown are made of grit, and hustle, and sweat.
And that is because I know that journey.
I know that path. It will always be worthwhile to me, and even the missteps and even the failures are just feedback.
Yeah. I mean, it's like the power of the long cut.
You know, I think so many people wake up in the morning, and they're like, what's the shortcut that gets me from here to there?
And even if you find it, a lot of times you don't.
But sometimes you do.
But then you get there, and you're like, well, that doesn't actually feel the way I thought it would feel.
It's like it's the long cut.
It's like the doing the hard work.
It's the putting your head down when it really sucks and staying in it, you know, not to the point where it becomes destructive, but it's the fact that you endured that, you know, and then you rose through it.
That like to me that's always, that's what makes the outcome worth it at the end.
So it's like if somebody showed up one day and said, okay, so here it is like, here's the answer, or here's the end, you know, you can check that box and and move on, it's kinda like, okay, then it just doesn't matter anymore.
But it's interesting because I don't, I think a lot of people don't look at life that way.
They're constantly like, what's the fastest, easiest path to get there?
Not realizing that there ain't gonna feel the way you think it's gonna feel unless you've earned your way there.
And it's so, yeah, and it's so ephemeral, right?
So, like, I think we look at life as being punctuated by these big achievements.
So it's like I'm getting this degree or marrying this partner and having this whatever and it's like those maybe moments fueled with pride and joy but that is so fleeting when you can start to find those little moments in the glimmers of all the everyday mundane stuff in the process that's when you truly will achieve that frequency like I just look at it like a like a radio frequency like how can you tune into that a little bit every day Because it's really like you get your degree, how many people are still riding high from their college graduation day?
Like, no, you don't even think about it anymore, you know what I mean.
So these are just moments.
Well, I got to say in the law, like, so many people point back to like whether they made Law Review like 20 years ago, it's like top thing on the resume.
It's a very, very strange, odd, weird thing.
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
This Mother's Day, turn your card into something truly special with Moon Pig.
Add your fave photos, stickers, even a cheeky message for a card that's as cute, funny, or embarrassing as you want.
Everyone deserves a Moon Pig card. Head to Moonpig .com and get 50 % off cards with code PODCAST. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees.
Just ask the Capital One Bank Guy.
It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way.
He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too.
Ah, really? Thanks Capital One Bank Guy.
What's in your wallet?
Terms apply. See capitalone .comslashbank.
Capital One N -A member FDIC.
If you work in quality control at a candy factory, you know strict safety regulations come with the job.
It's why you partner with Grainger.
Grainger helps you find the high quality and compliant products your business needs to inspect, detect, and help correct issues.
And the sweetest part is, everyone gets a product that's as safe to eat as it is delicious.
Call 1 -800 -GRAINGER, click Grainger .com, or just stop by.
Grainger, for the ones who get it done.
So you get to a point where you're like, okay, I'm at the end of my two years, I'm done, Then I'm out." Movement exercise fitness.
Seven years. Seven years.
Right. But then there's the two -year window.
Right, two years, mm -hmm.
You're kind of thinking, okay, so how do I make this transition?
What's the first step out for you?
What do you actually do?
So I kind of put one toe out or one foot out.
I took a three -month leave of absence.
Unpaid but I was still kind of on the books and still have my health insurance which is a big deal at the time.
And I traveled. I did a bunch of races and I kind of put my name out there, I was like, I wanna be able to get paid to like do social media storytelling about running.
I would just talk to anyone who'd listen.
And at the time the running group, Bridge Runners was doing a lot of work with Nike, so I had a lot of contacts there.
And then I was back at the Law firm for a few months and it was just coming up on the eve of the 2012 London Olympic games.
And I had started previously maybe a year or two prior a blog, a Tumblr, to document my first marathon training.
And it kind of got a little bit of traction, the name of the blog was Shut Up and Run.
And I was like, maybe I should just go to the games and like quote unquote report from the games.
And the law firm was like, we're not giving you another law, you know, leave absence either you're in or you're out.
So I was like, gosh, I guess I'm out.
And that was when I was truly like I ripped off the Band -Aid, no more income.
You're living on your savings.
things, you know, the big deal.
And I bought a plane ticket that cost more than my rent at the time for my one bedroom walk -up, cost more than my rent, and I just hustled, I hustled to get interviews, I hustled to get tickets, I just reported in my way, in my kind of like on the ground way when Instagram was just really getting kind of I guess big.
That was my point of view.
It was like, this is the hustlers' point of view of the London Olympic Games as a nonprofessional athlete.
And that gave me a little bit of visibility into just unchecking the boxes and perhaps creating my own way to do things.
And I also look at it as an example of doing your homework and being prepared for the phone call.
Like I often say, a lot of people like talk about Oprah, the Beyonce's or these iconic people that they would love to just like meet or work with.
And my followup question is, would you be prepared if Oprah called tomorrow?
Like, are you ready?
Are you ready to like do the work and have the conversation?
And like, are you ready to meet that greatness with your version of greatness?
And I had read a lot about Mark Parker, the Nike CEO. And I happened to see him in London in a shoe store.
And the only reason I recognized him or knew anything about him was because I had done my research and we just got to talking and he was like, wow, you just approached me.
He was like, you have a great sense of style.
You should have a blog.
And I was like, funny you ask, I do.
And I gave him like this cobbled together business card. I don't even know what it was, you know, but it was just like a reminder of like, you've got to be prepared for the greatness that you're asking for.
And then I just so happened that same, in the London Olympic Games trip, I met someone who was working on the agency side where Nike Women was their client.
And then I basically left London with a job to work for Nike Women on their social media campaigns.
So I left London, I came home with a job, I came to New York City, and I was like, wow, I'm working at this agency, we're doing all this creative work.
And it was at the agency about six months in that I realized, oh gosh, I still don't like this.
I want to tell my own story.
I want to be able to monetize that.
So that second leap was actually much scarier because I thought I had my dream job and I didn't and even working with one of the best brands in the world I didn't want to be behind the scenes.
I didn't want to be that behind the cloak of the great and powerful Oz.
I wanted to be out there doing the thing, like building the yellow brick road.
You wanted to be Oz.
Well, no, because Oz was an illusion.
Right. So like, but meeting you are using that same analogy, I wanted to be like, building the road to the emerald city, a real emerald city, not just this illusion of like, oh, you're writing tweets, and it seems you you're writing about female empowerment.
But like, you don't actually feel empowered.
Because it's still behind the scenes.
Which is kind of interesting, how it comes full circle to the major you created as an undergrad.
Literally building the Alibri.
It's sort of like you were doing, you spend four years fundamentally studying, how do you do that?
Like what are all the universes, like what are all the different domains and how do they come together to help like somebody actually do that, to create that reality?
Well, when I was in school, I loved studying like the different ways the medium contributes to the message.
I mean, the classic McLuhan, Marshall McLuhan stuff.
But it's like, with the printed page, we had linear thoughts, right?
You know, with the bards, there were oral conversations, the stories were circular.
So I really do think about that stuff.
And I'm like, what's contributing to how I'm perceiving this story right now?
Like, I get meta. I get meta often.
And at that point in my life, I'm like, telling the story, like, I'm writing copy.
Like, I'm actually telling the story, but I'm the freaking story.
Like, the light bulb went off, and I'm like, I could literally charge for my opinions as a consultant and be making more money, and it would feel more true to who I am.
And that's when things changed.
I stopped accepting free shoes, and I started charging an hourly rate for my ideas.
And I had no idea what I was doing, and I had no idea what to charge, but I had to just like take that second leap, because that felt more true to the course I needed to take.
And thankfully social media actually had and still has a currency of relevance.
So without that I would have been in bad shape, but thankfully it was part of the time when Facebook and Twitter and Instagram were becoming relevant marketing decks.
Yeah, I mean it's also, you saw that.
You actually had your finger on the pulse of the fact that these things were allowing you to be an entity unto yourself, to have direct access, you know, like both of the people who might pay you as a consultant for your ideas, for your thoughts, for your voice, and also directly to the people who you might go out and say like, come along with me, like, let's build this yellow brick road together.
Yeah. I mean that thing that - It's like it didn't just drop into your lab, you cultivated sort of like the fierce sense of observation to just constantly see what's coming.
It's like you said, when you were in at the Olympics and you bumped into the person from Nike, you used the phrase, um, just so happened.
Yeah. It didn't just so happen.
True. You know, like, I got to believe in, in your reality and the life that you create, like, there's very little that just so happens.
It's like, you're constantly out there making it happen.
And I think that's a, that's a huge difference when you said, you know, like when Oprah calls, when whoever that person is, you want to call like, are you going to be ready?
Yeah. You know, that's not about waiting for the phone to ring.
Oh no, for sure. That's about what you do.
That's about stepping out and saying, I am going to constantly be out there making things happen.
It may not be the ultimate thing that I want to happen, but anything that I can grasp, I'm going to push and make it happen.
So when you finally step out completely on your own at this point, how does the world respond to that?
Oh gosh, you know, on the creative side, like, you know, related to kind of being consultants on photo shoots and things like that, that worked pretty well, and sometimes cast it in campaigns.
But from the writing side, I also fashioned myself like this burgeoning journalist. And I was like, oh, I'm just gonna like, write for magazines, who were having...
Obviously, we all know that industry has had a lot of pressure in the last 20 years, 10 years, especially.
So, I would pitch these articles to editors who may or may not know who I am.
Definitely probably didn't know who I was.
And you know, get quoted rates and stuff and be like, my jaw was just on the floor.
I was like, oh, so this isn't like...
You know, that was a rude awakening, a necessary awakening, but I just kept writing and I just kept writing and I just kept focusing on the ways, the things that I always say this in training, focus on what you can control.
I was like, I can write at a laptop, I can keep pitching.
And that process of like writing and pitching and keep creating and writing and pitching, even though a lot of times I was told no and it never actually got to an engagement with the magazine.
At least I was constantly trying to understand the pulse of the industry and what people wanted to talk about.
And then I would use my own blog and social media to engage in those conversations.
Then my following grew and then my presence grew.
And so it was like I channeled the no's into the only things I can control, which were my own platforms, my own yes's.
And then finally people started piping up paying attention, and then out of really kind of boredom, I decided, I just want to start teaching at my local SPIN studio, because I love SPIN.
And I had already my certification from when I was a lawyer, because I just wanted to geek out on like the science, you know, the conditioning of it, the science of conditioning.
And that just really started because I was like, I have gaps in my day, this doesn't make sense, like, let me just keep doing it because it wasn't necessarily that it was very lucrative.
I just wanted to do it.
And thankfully that, the people there, I didn't know how to teach. I couldn't listen to beats.
When people understood, like my friends remind me of that time in my life when I was trying to learn how to be a spin instructor.
And they were like, oh my gosh, you would come home just like drained and frustrated and not understanding how you passed the bar exam, but couldn't do this, you know.
And I'm sure you have times when you were a personal trainer where you were like, how was I like a high flying attorney and now I can't teach somebody how to do a pushup?
You know it's very humbling because of a very different skillset and it requires precision and it requires hard work.
So thankfully the folks at that studio really, really took the time to teach me how to be a teacher and how to be an instructor, and I'm incredibly grateful for that time.
And that is what then teed up, you know me reading about John Foley and Peloton and reaching out directly and saying, I'm ready for this.
And actually, I want to talk more, I want to dive into Peloton as well, but along the way, you know, it's really one of the things we haven't really shared, is like you're deepening into your own fitness.
You're running more and more and more.
You're starting to run longer and longer races in ultra -marathons, but at the same time, you also end up getting diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
Oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, I kind of, I literally, not that I forget, I never forget but yes, that's a very integral part to the story.
I came home from India after a trip with my mother and my sister, and I was just so dehydrated and I thought it was jet lag.
I'm like, this is weird. And of course, my mother, as a physician, was like, we got to get you blood work.
This doesn't make sense.
And I was diagnosed as a type -1 diabetic.
My pancreas produces little to no insulin.
So I'm insulin dependent, and I have technology now, thankfully, that helps me with that.
But I was already running ultramarathons at the time.
I was already running fifty -milers and more.
And I think I already, I think I had a few races in the next month after my diagnosis.
And the doctor pulls out this, I'm a plant -based athlete, and this doctor pulls out this food chart with this is how many ounces are in a glass of milk and stuff, and I was like, I couldn't.
I was both horrified and incensed.
I'm like, this is not the conversation we're having.
How am I going to run a 50 mile ultra marathon in six weeks?
With diabetes, one plan -based.
Yeah. Yeah, all of it.
I'm like, I'm not changing course, we're just going to have to figure out how this adapts to me.
Thankfully, I think if I hadn't already been an athlete, it would have been a lot tougher because I wasn't...
I didn't... I'm not type 1 because I wasn't healthy, you know what I mean?
It's an autoimmune condition.
I was already very self -aware of like, when I eat something, how do I feel?
What are my energy levels?
Truly, like any biohacking, I was kind of already on that trend, so now I just have to do it as part of my day to day self care.
But yeah, that was really tough.
And it was tough because a lot of folks in the medical community, at least the ones I had access to at the time, they didn't really get it.
They're like, oh yeah, I had a patient once who ran a half marathon, I'm looking at them like, you know, this is my freaking life and I'm way more intense than one half marathon, you know.
I'm going to keep doing this and do it aggressively.
So, it's like I worked so hard to create myself into an athlete.
I wasn't going to let this derail me.
So… So, how do you find the team from there?
Right? Like, so you go to somebody like, you know, your person who's normally… They're great.
They're smart. They're skilled.
They're accomplished.
they're a great physician or team.
Oh, for sure. But at the same time, you're not the average patient.
And they admitted that.
You are on the extreme of what anybody with even the best training in the world is used to dealing with and used to advising and being in partnership with as a health care provider.
So, it's like, how do you then assemble a person or a team who is down with taking this journey with you and capable of just adapting on the fly and being gritty on the level that you are?
You know, it's still a work in progress, right?
So obviously, I have baseline medical care that I get and bloodwork and you check your A1C and all that kind of stuff.
But a lot of it was taking it into my own hands and trial and error.
And people ask me all the time, I don't get it, I can barely go on a 30 -minute run.
How do you do five hours?
I'm like, I take big risks.
I'm not saying people should do what I do, but I was willing to take big risks because it mattered so much to me that it was like, okay, do I totally suspend my insulin, do I not, you know, do I, how much do I need to eat, like, you just figure it out!
I needed to do it on my own terms and take risks and I haven't been, you know, I haven't had any serious medical scares.
Yeah. What's on the other side of that risk for you, though?
Because for you to say, okay, so I take big risks, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go out and grow in five hours.
What's it in the name of?
Like, what in your mind, what are you gonna get?
What are you gonna feel, what are you going to experience that in your mind is like, oh hell yeah, it's worth it?
I don't want to be defined by a medical condition.
I don't want to be defined for the same reason that I don't wanna be only understood as a Latina or a vegan athlete or my title at Peloton or a global ambassador for Adidas.
I don't wanna be known by any one of those things.
I decide who I am. And when I can own my my own agency and and reaction to some of these risks that maybe sometimes they don't always go so well when I can at least own that I Feel like I'm at least dictating the story and it's not being dictated to me Yeah, and that's always gonna be important to me because I I don't need to live for somebody else's title.
I create my own titles.
Yeah So Peloton. You're managing all this and this is just, managing feels like it's like, actually not even doing what you're doing service.
Like that word isn't right.
You're embracing it, you're just fiercely immersed in this process.
And from your experience versus with indoor cycling, how does Peloton happen?
So I've read about Peloton at Ruhl, I've read about Peloton's CEO. First, we should probably explain what Peloton is.
Yeah, so Peloton is a company that offers fitness products, a bike, a tread, and a digital app that offers content married with the hardware, where you have live cycling, tread or strength classes, yoga classes, meditation that you can access right from the comfort of your living room or at the reach of your phone, Yeah.
Or if you are lucky to be in New York.
Or if you're lucky, you can come on down to the New York City Peloton Studios.
So how do you get involved in that?
I read about the company and I thought, this is genius.
This is, this is, you want to talk about story arc.
This is like scaling fitness and entertainment and technology in a way that's never been done before.
Obviously there's lots of...
Even at the time, there were a of digital plays for fitness.
And YouTube was like a black hole of fitness.
But this was modern and sophisticated.
And I had, at the time, a vision board of brands that I like admired and respected and I wanted to work with.
And Apple was on there.
And I remember reading about Peloton I'm thinking, and then even I think the moniker at the time was like Apple of fitness or Netflix of fitness.
And we've well exceeded that, in terms of a definition.
and that's kinda one note, but at the time it was pretty accurate and I thought oh maybe there's synergy here.
So we weren't, this is before the studios were even built.
We were filming, the first bikes weren't even in homes yet.
This was really nascent.
So when was this then?
So this would have been five years ago.
Just over five and a half years ago.
So I started the company five years ago February.
Right, so you were there in the really, really early days then?
Yeah, I mean not as early as the co -founders, But like, yes, this is after, after they got some money, the bikes are being built and now it's the time to hire the talent.
So, I was, I think, the third instructor hired at the company and we were cutting shows, literally from a closet.
We refer to it affectionately as the closet.
And this was, there were 30 people in a room.
It was the co -founders.
I mean, the CTO, like our former Chief Information Officer, Yoni Feng, used to cut my shows.
mean now we hire folks, much more junior folks, to do that.
So it was just like an all hands on deck like we're just going to get this off the ground.
Um, so it was really cool.
It was a really cool time and I remember it fondly because we were and still are like incredibly scrappy.
Yeah. I mean it's interesting also, because if you zoom the lens out, what they're doing as a company, as a brand, fits your mentality about doing the hard thing, because they, like, the fitness space has been really interesting for a really long time and brutally hard, but there've been so many people who've come and tried to figure out and for those who've never tried it also like there's this fantastic programming and you can do in your own home but they've also produced a bike you know their version of an indoor cycling bike that you get at home which is I've ridden pretty much every bike on the planet
this thing just destroys them it is gorgeous yeah thank you it is the best and so but but what they did was they're like people for years in the fitness world they've been trying to figure out how do we How do we create a modality where people can do it at home.
It accommodates everybody.
It's actually fun engaging interactive reinforcing and there's a piece of equipment that is, you know, like a real investment also that goes along with it.
People have been trying to figure out how to crack that nut for a long time and nobody's been able to.
And it's always been considered in the industry super hard. And then Peloton comes along and they're like, we're going to crack that nut, you know, and it's almost like knowing that nobody's been able to do it yet people have been trying for years but if you can you know like this is like the definition of Blue Ocean right you'll own that for a window of time and it's interesting to me that you are attracted to that brand oh it was so goes along with who you are it definitely does and I'm glad they also saw saw the synergy because um they They really accepted me with open arms, yeah.
Yeah, so you've been rolling with them for five and a half years now.
You wrote a book also.
I did. Yeah, during this time I wrote a book.
Right, just because, you know, sometime I got like free time, just hanging out, totally bored, nothing else going on.
I think I'll write it, because how hard could that be, right?
Yeah. Which also takes the name up, I guess, the original blog, right?
Yes, it does. So I can run, right?
So why this? Like with everything else that you have going on, right?
with your fierce commitment also to movement to being out there to being super active and especially like a summer writer I'm a couple of books in also it isn't notoriously.
Oh yeah. You know like sedentary pursuit for a fixed window of time.
Why that? Like where does that fold into your master plan?
Well you know I when I left law I did an honest assessment of my skill sets and I'm like I know how to write I know how to speak I know to engage people.
I know how to lead.
I always wanted to find ways to still honor that because those were the things I loved about being a lawyer.
I actually love writing briefs and stuff, even if the topic was a little mundane.
So I was approached by an agent like, hey, would you consider putting together a book proposal?
Let's see if anybody writes.
It was a crazy summer because I was already teaching at Peloton full -time.
I was approached by this book publisher.
put together a very traditional book proposal but also with more imagery because I knew that my book would kind of be part training manual, part my own story mini -memoir and then you know a visual representation of like how I pursue sport which i think is a very central element to my brand.
Sweating with swagger I think is not only the visual conversation you're having with the world but like how you step into power in your own way and for me that's been – there's a stylistic element to that.
And so anyway, put together the book proposal and then National Geographic contacts me to go on this trek through the Serengeti in Tanzania.
And this was literally all happening, like my book proposal was due, and then I was leaving in two weeks.
And this was the exact time, and thankfully, like, we had some folks, some publishers who were interested in the book, and my agent was like, I'm just going to have to, like, suss this out while you're gone.
It was going to be completely offline, like living in Tanzania for six weeks." And I was like, okay, I trust you.
And then I got back from the Serengeti and I had a book deal.
And they were like, you have till this day.
till this day. It was like, tada, welcome home.
You have four months to do this.
And I'm like, wait.
Oh, okay. It's like, watch what you ask for.
You better be ready.
So yeah, I had to just do it.
You know, I had a deadline.
I treated it like a finish line.
It was like every day you just chip away and you do it and you do it and you do it.
That was a fascinating experience, but a necessary one because I was stretched and I, you know, I look forward to being stretched more.
Well, I mean, the book itself is gorgeous and it's so interesting because to and naturally to know that you did that in four months is kind of mind blowing because the average person takes a lot longer to write a book.
Just the words, just the manuscript and what you created is this like, it's like it's it is so you it's pretty, it's alive.
It's like energetic.
It's beautiful. It's it's filled with motion and images.
And that's almost like it represents your entire ethos, which kind of like takes it all the way back to when you started with Ridgemont.
You're like, you know what, the universe of running has a culture which is pretty well -defined, right?
But that's not you.
Yeah. And almost feels like this is a flag in the sand that says, like, you can be like this, you can like this, this can be your aesthetic, and this can still be for you, and everyone's invited to this party.
Right! Or not, you know what I mean?
Like, I think it's a statement of saying, do you want to show up to that marathon rocking a red lip or not do it.
And that was very important and it was kind of a line in the sand.
It's essential for us to show the ways we can show up.
And I've always felt incredibly proud of knowing runners who were willing to kind of be the kooky ones, be the unconventional ones.
Sometimes the fastest, often times not the fastest. and guess what we're still doing the damn thing and we'll see you at the finish line.
And that emboldened I think an entire pedigree I guess if you want to call it a runner who was just like I'm still going to own this part of my journey even if I'm This Minute Mile or This Minute Mile or wearing this or owning that or wearing you know, I often show up to races and like crazy gold jewelry and that just became like my thing like I had this insane panther ring that I brought with me on the Serengeti, and each person could bring one thing.
Mine was the most impractical.
But I had to. That was, like, my power source.
So I wanted to unpack and demystify running.
It can be as—it's only as complicated as you make it.
And I want people to—I want to meet people where they are and welcome them in.
And so that was incredibly central to my mission with the book.
Yeah, it's funny, one of the questions that popped into my mind was when, you know, when people think of you, what do you want them to think of?
But, immediately I'm like, when I think of you, it's like, there's no one thing.
It's almost like, there's a fierce rebel in there that says, I don't want them to think of.
How do you process that question?
Yeah, that's a great question.
I mean, I do think about it in terms of like, I often think about like, what are my values?
Which then it then goes into what are my brand values?
And how do you post responsibly and speak responsibly?
Right. So like, once you get a certain amount of shine, like you got to take responsibility for that shine.
And who like I, I know, I live via hustlers ethos.
And like that word hustle means a lot to me.
and it means that you're going to continue choosing the sometimes oftentimes harder, more difficult, uncomfortable path.
I also want to be, in a lot of senses, unapologetic about who I am, because that doesn't come, sometimes that might come up from a place of ego, but really I feel like I'm blazing sometimes a path for others to be like, you know what, like, she did that, and she asked for a raise, I'm going to do that too." Like, yes, let's talk about it more.
Let's talk about more about knowing our value and adding tax and illuminating each other's amazingness, because I don't think we do it enough.
Because I think, you know, the most simple example I use is if you see someone wearing like a wild outfit and you're like, oh, I can never wear that.
And then you look at him or her and you think, oh, that's other.
Like, why not you? That is the central question to my entire life is like, why not me?
Why not me? Um, and that is what I propose to people.
Like, why not you? To be that person that you are admiring and maybe even a little jealous of because that means you care.
It feels like a good place for us to start.
It's like we're getting right into the philosophy.
So we're hanging out here in this container in the studio Good Life Project.
So if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?
Whew, to live a good life is to tell stories in your final years that you're incredibly proud of.
Thank you. If you love this episode, say, but you'll also love the conversation that we had with Rich Roll about making the journey from practicing law and dealing with addiction to becoming a sober ultra marathon entrepreneur and successful creator.
You can find a link to that episode in the show notes.
This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsey Fox and me, Jonathan Fields.
Editing help by Troy Young, Christopher Carter crafted our theme music.
And of course if you haven't already done so please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on Youtube too.
If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring chances are you did because you're still listening here.
Do me a personal favor, a seven -second favor, share it with just one person.
I mean if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too but just one person even then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter, because that's how we all come alive together.
Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.
This Mother's Day, turn your card into something truly special with Moon Pig!
Add your fave photos, stickers, even a cheeky message for a card that's as cute, funny, or embarrassing as you want.
Everyone deserves a Moon Pig card!
Head to Moonpig .com and get 50 % off cards with code PODCAST. Are you still quoting 30 -year -old movies?
Have you said, cool beans in the past 90 days?
Do you still think Discover isn't widely accepted?
If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past!
Discover is accepted at 99 % of places that take credit cards nationwide, and every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cashback.
Welcome to the now.
It pays to discover.
Learn more at discover .com slash credit card, based on the February 2024 Nielsen Report.
If you work in quality control at a candy factory, you know strict safety regulations comes with the job.
It's why you partner with Grainger.
Grainger helps you find the high quality and compliant products your business needs to inspect, detect, and help correct issues.
And the sweetest part is everyone gets a product that's as safe to eat as it is delicious.
Call 1 -800 -GRAINGER.
Click grainger .com or just stop by.
Grainger, for the ones who get it done.
My name is Linda and I'm a co -founder of Love & Pebble.
We created Beauty Pops, a frozen facial that melts into nourishing skincare.
I started this business with my husband and we do everything from packing orders, marketing.
Before, it was just me creating videos, but now I have over 2000 affiliates that are working with us.
If we can do it with TikTok ads, you can too.
Want to grow your business fast?
Head over to getstarted .tiktok .com.
