181: Peloton Cancels Black Friday Sale plus our interview with Beatriz "Bea" Chahin

181: Peloton Cancels Black Friday Sale plus our interview with Beatriz “Bea” Chahin

Last Updated: April 30, 2023By Crystal OKeefe (#ClipOutCrystal)Tags: BeatrizLovesTV, Busy Career, Fitness Goals, Freelance Producer, Peloton Workout, Spin Classes

John Mills joins us to discuss the earnings call.

We have a winner for our pink Peloton bike!

Peloton loses Round 1 in the “Deleted Classes” case.

Peloton cancels Black Friday Sale.

Are Peloton delivery delays shortening?

Peloton introduces Sessions for group workouts.

The Peloton Prophet returns!

GrooveOn allows you to never touch your resistance knob again.

Dr. Jenn – The influence of Robin’s pregnancy on athletes.

Hydrow partners with Fabletics.

Crystal celebrates her Tonal-versary.

The Android app gets a new feature…that isn’t on IOS.

Peloton is sending out gifts to some people who’ve been experiencing delivery delays.

Leanne Hainsby gets featured in British magazine You.

Another Full House cast member gets a Peloton.

The holiday collection has dropped and Crystal has a boutique Life Hack.

All this plus our interview with Beatriz “Bea” Chahin!

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Listen to the podcast here:

Peloton Cancels Black Friday Sale plus our interview with Beatriz “Bea” Chahin

The camera caught me swatting a gnat.

I didn’t even see it. I was wondering what you were doing over there.

People now are like, “Their home is filthy. He’s covered in bugs.” This is a historic episode. It’s your last episode as an Android user, right?

It might be my second to last because I’ll be placing my pre-order on Friday.

You’re getting the big, fancy one.

I am. If you’re going to go and switch, you might as well just go all in. Plus I blame Tim Shaughnessy. You guys ought to see how many bands he has by the way. He made my legging collection look, “Meh.”

How much of those bands compared to a pair of leggings?

I don’t know, but also he shares them with his husband. He asked me, “How many of those leggings do you share with Tom?” I was like, “None. Thank God. That would be weird.”

It’s okay if you are.

It would be weird if you suddenly slid on some leggings. It would be weird for you.

When I say that I would like to get into your pants, I do not mean that literally. I mean that in a dirty way, just to be clear.

Going back to my phone choice, my arm was not twisted real hard. I was like on the fence. Tim was like, “I’ll point these things out.” I was like, “Okay, I’m in.”

What pray tell do you have in store for people this week?

We have an update on our contest for the pink bike. There’s all kinds of information about Peloton. We’re going to talk about a Peloton lawsuit. We’re going to talk about Black Friday sale for Peloton. We’re going to talk about what’s going on with bike delays and the new sessions feature. I have some updates on some features that are going on, some anonymous sources type of things happening too.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget that we are available on Apple Podcasts. You can go there, rate, review, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts from, you should subscribe so you never miss an episode. We have a new review from FSUSeminoleGirl.

Florida State University Seminoles.

The headline says, “Only podcast I listen to consistently.” How about that? “I absolutely love this podcast. I’m not a podcast person and don’t usually listen to them, but I look forward to this one every week. That’s probably because Peloton plays such a big role in my life and I’m also a shareholder so the podcast is relevant to me. Either way, the content is current, helpful, entertaining and all around awesome. Great job.”

Thank you. That’s a sweet review.

Don’t forget that we have a Facebook page, Facebook.com/theclipout. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. You can sign up for our newsletter that goes out weekly. I took overdue. I did last week’s, which is why I was screwed up.

I wasn’t even going to rat you out.

We have a YouTube channel. We haven’t talked about that in a while. Don’t forget. You can go to YouTube.com/theclipout. While you’re there, be sure to subscribe to that too so you get the show in glorious HD and whatever other video updates we put out there. That’s it for that. Let’s dig in.

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People might remember a while back, a law firm was going around searching for people to jump onboard with this class action lawsuit because classes were purged and people were promised classes and now classes are lesser than and they’re mad. Their claim is that they were promised classes and now there were fewer classes because of the music lawsuit, “How dare you? Give us some money.” We have some advancement, not in the class action lawsuit, but in another lawsuit tackling the same subject matter that was running parallel to the class action lawsuit.

John Mills found this originally and on the Run, Lift & Live page, he talked about how this was kind of evidence that there was a personal lawsuit. That was, like you said, happening in parallel with that class action lawsuit. We started digging in and found some very interesting little tidbits about everything.

We found the legal documents online, or I guess we should say John Mills.

I don’t know if I should say who the attorney was but we had some help from one of our attorney friends. I don’t want to get them in trouble. They did everything legally but they might not want the spotlight. All this information is out there, it’s all legal. The interesting thing is that the document goes through all of this information explaining what their case was compared to Peloton. The interesting part of this, right off the bat, is that when you start digging in, you notice that the attorneys for the class action lawsuit and for this lawsuit are the same.

Remember the attorneys because we’ll circle back to that later.

A big reason that this even became public and searchable is that Peloton tried to redact the information in the suit. They wanted to get rid of this saying how many songs had been included, how many songs were taken out and they lost that motion, which is what brought all of these to light. Another interesting thing is that the big piece that Peloton lost on was the term “ever-growing” at some point in their advertising.

In their marketing, they referred to their “ever-growing class library.” When they had to remove classes, they’re saying, “That’s not ever-growing anymore.”

In fact, it was shrinking. Peloton tried to come back and say, “That was general puffery,” which believe it or not is an actual legal term. The judge said no, so that did not work out for them. Here’s how it all came out, the settlement. The plaintiff was awarded, I believe it was $253. Then a $96,000 in attorney fees and then I’m rounding $8,000 in costs against Peloton. Why is that interesting? It’s interesting for two reasons, one, there were only six months that occurred and the cost of the damages, if you will, is six times $39 because that’s the time period that the catalog was not ever-growing. The attorney fees are a joke and Peloton tried to argue those down, but they did not do a good enough job. I don’t know what they said or didn’t say.

Based on results, they did not win that motion.

According to the judge, they did not do a good enough job. I don’t really know what the $8,000 in costs against Peloton are but that’s interesting because if that goes to the attorneys, if it stays with the attorneys, that’s fascinating and that could further their class action. Also, they fought very hard to have all these documents remain the way they were because it will help them in the class action lawsuit. Finally, we felt like we should include the interesting usage of this plaintiff’s Peloton Bike. It’s relevant because he rode his bike 21 times before the class removals. Four of those classes were instructor-led.

For those of you counting, that means all but four. To be clear, the person suing about the class library only used the class library four times. I just want to be clear about that. He had ridden it four times in August of 18 and two times in September of 18. Then apparently he was injured for some reason. Because he was not able to ride his bike for five months, that takes you up to February of 19. When he attempted to resume riding his bike in April of 19, that’s when he saw a difference in classes and could not find a class that interested him. He has ridden it two times in June of 19, one time in July of 19 and he has not ridden the Peloton Bike since August of 2019. Questions that we have remaining, will it affect the shareholders? We’ll have the earnings call. Will it affect the person if they were a shareholder? What if that person was also a shareholder? We don’t know because then you’re on one front and not on another. Does this indicate that the class action lawsuit will not be successful? I think that it does.

It seems like it would. We should say we’re not lawyers.

This is just conjecture.

This is a couple of amateurs trying to suss out legal documents. Don’t make any wagers based on what we’re saying.

The class action lawsuit that we’re speaking of, I just want to be clear, lists a grand total of three people on it.

I think the way it works is that once, if they were to win, then they would solicit like, “Were you affected by this? Would you like to take part in the settlement?” Then people can opt in once that occurs.

That sounds reasonable. I don’t know how it works, but right now, there are only three people right there.

Spending a season on a show with one person is like knowing them for five years. Share on X

It’s not like there was this ground swell of outrage.

There was not but you have to wonder, does that mean other Peloton members will now follow suit and sue Peloton either within the class action lawsuit, jump on that bandwagon you just spoke of, or will they go outside of it and go direct?

It’ll also be interesting to see if that settlement is the same. A lot of times, class action lawsuits get you some discount for future services. It might not be that someone will get $39 times six, a lot of times they award a lump sum and then there’s a pool that you pull from and then the lawyers fees come out and they divide it by how much people say they want money, but they might do something where it’s like, “You get $10 a month off for your next six months or something like that.” I’ve seen stuff like that in the past.

The attorneys are the only winners on this suit. They usually are the only winners on a class action lawsuit. Based on the very limited digging that we did, it appeared that all lawsuits that have ever been put out there against Peloton that are filed in the State of New York and were noticed all appeared to be using the same attorneys.

If not all of them, it certainly appeared to be the lion’s share. We saw this law firm repeatedly popping up with what seems to be a bit of a cottage industry for them.

It’s fascinating, that’s all.

It was an interesting look behind or under the hood to see what’s going on there. Moving right along Black Friday, or should I say Lack Friday? It came out shortly after we recorded that Peloton will not be having their heretofore traditional Black Friday sale.

Back when the treadmill was first released, it did not have a Black Friday sale on it the first year that it was on the market. Only the bike did that year. Peloton’s information indicates that they lowered the price of the original Peloton Bike, that’s a greater value than last year’s promotion. Therefore, we’re not having a Black Friday sale.

You can get the bike cheaper than you used to get it and there’s Bike+, and we have different price points now. I think you can also make the argument that they’re selling so many.

A lot of people said that that was smart because we’re having so much trouble getting them as it is right now. You don’t need a sale, it’s not even a sale.

It was never that great of a sale.

It was certainly an incentive and if you can get it then great, but if you’re already going to spend $2,000, is $250 going to stop you?

If you were deciding to buy the bike in late October, I see waiting until Black Friday. If you decide to buy the bike in July, is it a good enough sale to wait until November 4? I don’t think so.

It all depends on the individual of course.

Your mileage may vary, individual choice, but ultimately I don’t think I’d want to wait six months for that.

You’re getting so many things out of it. Not having to go to the gym, having the convenience of your own home, all of that. I would agree, it would not be worth it but either way there is no Black Friday sale.

Here’s another reason I think they might’ve done it. It’s two-fold but they intersect. One, they don’t like the optics of their bikes being delayed and then they’re offering a sale, enticing more people to make that line longer. Why are you doing the sale when you can’t even get a bike to me? The other thing is, would it inspire cancellations and rebookings. If you bought your bike in October and they’re telling you it’s not going to get to you in December, and November they offer a sale, I’m calling up canceling my order, calling right back and rebooking it to get the free stuff. I am also a greedy bastard.

You really are.

I do think that it could cause a cascade of issues if they were to try to move forward. I think all those things work in concert together. The Peloton was probably like, “You know what?”

I do want to point out also that the note from Peloton that was included in the article we just showed only called out the US and Canada. It did not say there would not be a Black Friday sale in any other country. I don’t know whether they will or they won’t, but I’m just telling you. Also, we don’t know if that’s going to include close or not like if it will be in the boutique. They have kept those separate in the past. They’ve had such a tough time keeping things in stock this year. I have no idea where they’re going to land on that.

Also, I honestly don’t know, is Black Friday as big of a deal in Germany and England? Obviously they celebrate Christmas but I don’t know if they’ve turned it into this retail Superbowl like we have.

I truly do not know the answer to that. I think that there’s definitely a difference in culture and how we spend money.

That there is for good and for ill. John Mills had an interesting article while we were talking about bike delays.

He did and it’s the same article we talked about last episode, but he noticed something, it’s been added to the website now. The article pointed to something, it refreshed and now it’s on Peloton’s website that says that the bike delivery time, your regular bike, 5 to 10 weeks. Bike+ delivery times may exceed twelve weeks.

That could be an insight into one of two things. It could be an insight into the fact that Bike+ is proven to be way more popular than Bike. It could be that they’ve got more Bikes stockpiled than they do Bike+es and they’re still trying to ramp up production.

The other interesting thing is that I’m hearing from store employees that the time period in some areas is starting to be less than it was. We had delivery dates all the way out until January, they’re starting to get adjusted to December.

They’re starting to catch up in some parts of the country.

Again, I was not told like, “Here’s a percentage of Bike+ versus Bike.” I don’t know if that’s only in some areas. I don’t know if that’s only for some bikes. I find it interesting, especially because we know, and this is part of what John Mills had talked about on his page, Roxanne is the exclusive producer of all the Peloton Bikes. December is when they’re going to have their plants on full blast. We also know they were trying to bring stuff online in the last few months. We don’t know where that all stands. I think that I might be repeating myself when we start talking about the earnings call, this part of the conversation may become null and void. When we talk about the earnings call, they may be updating us on this information and where those numbers are coming in, how caught up the factories are, how caught up they expect to be. That’ll be interesting as well. It’s a crazy time that’s for sure, because we still have all those issues in the port of LA. I don’t know where that line is. None of us do. We will learn.

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Joining us is John Mills from Run, Lift & Live. Hey, John.

How is it going?

You just hopped off the earnings call. Give us the scoop.

Their guidance was 1.32 million total connected fitness subscribers and total revenue for the quarter of 720 million. They beat the connected fitness subscribers slightly, they were at 1.33 million. They beat their total revenue by a little bit more. They were at 700 and just under 758 million for the quarter. It was all good. Good news.

Did they talk anything about the delays and shipment issues and any of that sort of stuff?

Yes, they talked about it and they also talked about some things that they were looking to do to improve those logistics delays. They talked about spending additional money on air shipments from Taiwan and how that may impact numbers in some upcoming quarters. That was interesting. Understanding that we knew that there were issues at the port of LA. It was interesting to me that they’re going to spend some additional money to get the bikes here a little quicker via air. They also talked about expansion of some of their existing production warehouses and the timing of the new Mac Tonic warehouse, whether they’re still seeing the same thing later in December.

Circling back around on the shipping them by air thing, people were super worried when they became a publicly-traded company that they were like, “What’s going to change and what’s going to shift?” There certainly have been changes and shifts, not to pretend like there haven’t been, but I feel like if they weren’t a publicly-traded company, they might not be doing that. To me that feels like, “F it. We’ll take the hit on a few bikes to get rid of the optics of we can’t keep up.” That’s stock price-driven.

I think that’s absolutely a part of it, but also they talked about how they’ve got the bike delivery time down to 4 to 6 weeks but Bike+ was much larger, they didn’t say a number, but they said it was much larger. I think that was running on them. They said that was unexpected so I think that’s a part of it as well. They didn’t expect how well the market was going to take the Bike+ so that threw them.

They mentioned a couple of times about how the market is doing very well on Bike+. I thought that was very interesting.

The fact that they didn’t give an order to delivery time for Bike+ told me that’s where their core struggle is.

They were talking about different marketing questions, but one of the things that struck me is that they really haven’t had to do any marketing for Bike+, and they also have not pushed out at all that the Bike is out there for a cheaper amount. They hadn’t even done that. In fact, at one point, John Foley said that he hopes they get to use their marketing campaign for the new Tread because they think that the demand is going to be so far ahead of it, they’re not even going to get to use it, which is just crazy.

It seems like a demand thing, not a supply thing that they did not anticipate how popular Bike+ would be.

That’s what it sounded like to me. They also talked about a future announcement coming of the buildout of production in the US. It’s like they’re trying to solve for this problem of the bikes coming in from China or Taiwan to just produce them local.

Do you think that was related to the announcement that’s coming about retail?

I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not sure.

They alluded to, “There’s something big coming with retail. It’s going to be different and retail is going to continue to play an important part.” I think we’re going to be hearing this announcement very quickly, whatever it is. I’ve heard rumors that the Tread is going to show up in the showrooms as early as November 9th and they said that it’s going to be there by Thanksgiving. Based on the fact that the showrooms are going to play such an important part of the Tread being sold and then there’s this thing being built out in the US. Somehow it’s all related in my head.

I’m glad you said that. I didn’t tie them. Now that you’re saying that, they may be tied.

Might just be wishful thinking.

To your point, Tom, they’re doing a lot to solve for the logistics. I expected to hear more of the analysts hitting them on that and them talking to it and feeling the pain of it in how I was hearing it, but I didn’t. It sounded more like, “Yeah. A lot of demand. Yeah. We’re solving for it.”

I guess ultimately these would be filed under good problems. “Too many people want to buy our more expensive option. We’ll sell it well.”

I get the sense they were almost more apologetic about the fact that, “We’re going to have to spend more money on shipping.” That was where the apology was coming from. Not the, “We haven’t served as well as we’d like.” It was more like, “We haven’t served as well as we like, and to fix that, we’re now going to have to spend some more money.”

What’s interesting to me when they said that, I’m looking at aftermarket and the stock started to dip just as they were saying that peak. I guess it’s financial-based information that might affect next quarter’s numbers. Even though it’s a good problem from a financial perspective, I guess the market didn’t like that news.

Speaking of the aftermarket, I know it’s not the way you were looking at it, but the program that they’re going to have where you take the bikes back, I wonder if you’re talking about the same thing I was because I thought it was interesting, they were like, “Many people ended up keeping their bikes. We couldn’t even get the stock that we thought that we were going to get to start this program because everyone’s got their bikes.”

They were like, “People just bought Bike+s and they decided to keep their old bikes.” I was like, “No, they didn’t. They sold them to somebody for $1,700.”

It was like what you offered wasn’t high enough so they just put it on Craigslist.

In my opinion, it’s not just that it wasn’t high enough, I should say that because it was also like, “They might as well go ahead and sell it instead of letting Peloton get a double dip on them because they’re going to turn around and sell it.”

Now they’re saying, “We don’t have enough inventory for the CPO. I guess we’re going to do that.” They said multiple quarters or multiple years out.

It’s a ways away.

Was it $700? It was just like when you can sell it in a heartbeat for a thousand, and in some areas you could get it way more because people were like, “I’ll buy that because I won’t have to wait for delivery.” This is a billion-dollar company, they should be able to figure out the math on that one easily.

That one was funny. I laughed when they talked about that. “No one’s filling their bikes back. They’re keeping them.”

“Even in a family, they’re either putting it in their other home or they’re giving it to one of their college-age children.” I was like, “No.”

There’s probably some of that like when you get a new refrigerator and now you’re like, “Now this is the beer fridge.” There are probably a couple of people that got a beer Peloton, but by and large, no. It is too easy to sell. It’s not a hard thing. There have been times where we’ve had things around the house and we’re like, “Should we sell this?” We’re like, “Ugh. Too much effort.” With Peloton we were like, “This is going to take ten minutes. Of course, we’ll sell it.”

You know what else is interesting?

What’s that?

Last quarter, they said that they had a guidance for this quarter that their churn rate was going to be under 1%. This quarter, the guidance for next quarter churn rate is going to be under 0.9%. Basically less people are going to be saying, “Forget this Peloton thing, cancel my subscription.” The numbers are going up and you have logistics and service issues, but their expectation churn is going down.

I bet you that’s based on their engagement because they talked about how their engagement is sky high. They said that newer people to Peloton are actually using the classes more than the old-school, like us. They even said that those who have come on board since April 2020 are using it even more than what the people who were the newer users were. I think that’s where they’re basing their churn.

I thought their numbers were always nuts on that. Not them, I know the numbers are right. Us as users, like last quarter, the average connected fitness user took 25 classes in the month. That’s what I get almost every day. That sounded wild to me. This month it’s like 21 classes per person, there are a lot more users of course, but still that’s nuts. People are using this stuff.

Which is funny, the argument that you still see on the internet message boards because I’m a 150. The thing is, “It’s a clothes hanger. You’re never going to use it.” You look at the metrics and that’s absolutely unequivocally untrue.

It’s crazy. The numbers are nuts. It’s wild.

Who had a gym membership that went 25 times in a month? I’m not saying the guy’s not out there but there are many of them.

I just wanted to also point out that we have some other things to look forward to, more verticals coming, more class types, more class content, including the foreign languages. I have a feeling that we were right in our prediction that it’s going to be some Spanish or Latin languages coming next. I don’t know why. He didn’t say that, but I just felt it. Lots of new stuff, they mentioned more strength and that’s still the fastest growing. They said yoga and look for new instructors. They’ve been busy in that area, in particular overseas, we have called one German instructor but I think there’s more coming. They also said there’s going to be lots of lighting changes in the studio, which I found interesting. It’s like, “How do you mess with the cycling studio? You can’t make it brighter in there.”

They just built it, so why do they already need to make changes? What does that mean?

Now that you mentioned that, I noticed on the call that John Foley did talk about how they’re doing different things with camera angles and they refer the analysts to Jess King Experience. I guess they were already doing some new things that they consider to be innovative.

We saw that with Kendall’s movie.

I didn’t take that ride, but I did take Kendall’s Movie Buff ride. At one point, literally, the camera came around behind her and she was like that. It was very cool. I’m guessing they’re incorporating more things like that. I know they had a lot of like smoking stuff. What’s that stuff? Dry ice. Just the new image of the Jess King.

You’ll hurt yourself.

Whatever the appropriate equivalent of that is. It looked all smoky, like for Halloween.

That’s good stuff.

Anything else big and exciting from the call or is that the highlights?

One last thing, they didn’t talk about this. I read it in the PDF that they put out that the prediction is that this coming quarter, October, November, December, they’re predicting revenue for the first time over a billion for that quarter.

For one quarter?

For that quarter.

That’s crazy. Also, I think we need to point out that you were almost dead on, on all your predictions.

That was close.

That was very close.

It’s scary. I keep putting these predictions out hoping that other people will put them out and then I could brag, but then no one else puts them out.

You’re winning to us because look at how many people you’re telling. You’re telling your whole group and then all the audience. That’s a lot of people that you’re telling that you were right. We decided we’re never going to try because we know you got it.

Now someone’s going to do it and I’m going to lose. It’s like when we were trying to predict the Bike+ costs and I was in a different place.

I was like The Price Is Right, “$1.”

We did a competition on CPO Bike price and now we’re not going to know for years who won. I’ve got to remember these numbers for years.

It will be so long, you’ll have to adjust for inflation. You’ll be like, “It’s $69 in 2020, but now it’s 2028.”

It’s funny math and then make it so I win.

You really are a stock market analyst. If you look at the numbers this way, I was right the whole time. Those are all the highlights. We hit everything.

I think those were the highlights.

Thank you so much once again for joining us and until next time, where can everyone find you?

You can find me on Facebook at my Run, Lift & Live page and my Run, Lift & Live Group. You can find me on Instagram @RunLiftAndLive or at RunLiftAndLive.com.

It’s good to see you.

It’s always good seeing you.

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We will now have Sessions on your Peloton.

A Session is like a hybrid between a class and an Encore class. What it does is it takes a class that has already gone live. This is only for on-demand. It would not be possible to do with the live class. It’s like what we talked about before, you can’t go back in time and be a time traveler. My understanding is that this is typically for recent on-demand classes, at least during this beta version, because right now we’re in a beta for those. You click on an on-demand class that’s recent and it gives you this option to go into Sessions. What that allows you to do is it puts everything on hold for five minutes. Anybody can now join your Session. It is a waiting room. In fact, you wait there too for everybody to start at the same time and you get a fresh leaderboard.

Let’s say you wanted to hang out with your friends and I’ll take a class at the same time, you just hop on your bike or your tread, because it’s available on both, and you start a Session and everybody can be there at the same time. You have your own leaderboard. You are not competing with anybody else. You don’t get any shout outs because it’s not live, but who cares? You’re with your friends and are hanging out. You can go high five crazy. It’s a lot of fun. I did it with total strangers. It was on a Matty’s marathoner ride, which is Halloween ride run and we will get to that. It was fun even though I didn’t know those people. It was just a tiny little class. It was five of us in the middle of the day, randomly all high-fiving each other and cheering each other on. It was nice.

That’s a neat little tweak. It’s probably great for people that work together or things like that.

If you wanted to take an anniversary ride together or just a special celebration of any kind. I will also say that I heard from a little birdie that they’re going to probably be using this as a beta version for about three weeks, then they’ll pull it. They’ll do some tweaks and roll it back out. Expect that it will be there and then be gone and come back. Maybe not even for everybody, or maybe they’ll pull parts of it and put other parts back, but expect that in a few weeks, it will look different. They are still tinkering.

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Here’s something we haven’t seen in a little bit. A visit from the Peloton prophet. Why? Whatever could this be?

We’ve got some interesting things to talk about here. One, a while back we talked about how Peloton was going to pull the cadence sensor ability with Bluetooth. I am hearing that that is no longer the case. Apparently the feedback came back and people are not happy. At least for the time being, that is on hold. At the moment, that is not going anywhere. It had been expected to stay for six months. Now there’s no end date. We will see if that holds.

Then what? No word from the prophet for months and now we get two?

The prophet is very mysterious. We can’t control the prophet. That’s what happens when you’re an all-knowing being. Something people have been asking for is creating a playlist of classes and I have heard it, a huge resurgence with the Sessions feature. Think about it. Imagine if you’re writing with five of your friends and you’re doing an all-day event. Now, you can stack your classes. If you were able to do that, make playlists. Rumor is from the prophet, that’s going to be a thing and it’s coming in early 2021. People are going to go excited over that. That has been asked for forever. I’m sure that’s going to be on demand classes only. That’s just how my mind works. No one told me that, that was just me.

It seemed like it would be difficult to do it with live classes and it seems like all these kinds of new things like that don’t affect live classes. I think it’s too much changing.

Those are exciting little tidbits from the prophet.

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Joining us is Dr. Jenn Mann, a licensed marriage, family and child therapist, and sports psychology consultant. You may know her from VH1’s Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn or VH1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn. She’s got her long-running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four best-selling books and she’s a five-year national team member in Rhythmic Gymnastics and Sports Psychology for USA Gymnastics. Dr. Jenn, I thought all that stuff would be super prevalent this time, especially because we’re going to talk a little bit about Robin Arzón.

She’s pregnant and it is super exciting. She’s been very public about her pregnancy. She’s been public about the fact that she froze her eggs and that it was not a successful new journey to get pregnant. We were curious about your take from the perspective of taking that sports psychology, how hard-driving she is as a person and how hard-driving this workout can be and then pregnancy, which isn’t always like something you can control or predict. What are your thoughts on that?

A few things. First of all, I took her tread class and I’m not going to lie, she would hate that I’m saying this, but I was like, “She’s pregnant. Maybe we should go a little easier.” She’s a beast and baby pequeño is not slowing her down, which I admire and respect. There is a whole wave of amazing women athletes, especially these runners you see that are running and winning medals throughout all nine months of their pregnancy. It’s just absolutely amazing. I think that on one hand, it is incredibly inspiring. I have no doubt that Robin will be one of those people that are nine months in and she’s going to be kicking my ass on the treadmill and I’ll be struggling to keep up with her.

At the same time, I also think that there are some women who I worry will push themselves too hard, will not listen to their doctors, who will say, “Robin can do it. I can do it,” but Robin is an ultra-athlete. Robin runs a hundred mile and races in the desert with like a teaspoon of water to get her through. She is an unbelievably well-oiled athletic machine and also mentally she’s amazing. It’s important that we, as women, listen to our bodies and listen to our doctors. At the same time, I think that it is great that she is showing women like, “You don’t have to be sitting on the couch, worried that you can’t exercise the way you did before. Listen to your doctor, get yourself out there, let yourself exercise and enjoy your body.”

I know for me, I had a twin pregnancy and my fantasy of my pregnancy beforehand was I’m going to do walks every day. I’m going to keep myself strong and thin and all this stuff. I ended up with a pregnancy where I was puking my guts out for nine months. For nine months I was literally gagging so much, it took me to the floor. I would fall down and I was gagging so hard. It was horrific and it was hard for me to adjust to this idea of how my pregnancy and my relationship with exercise was going to be in my mind. Also, the reality of that, my body was like, “No, you can’t do that. If you’re good to me and give me lots of water, I’ll get you from the bed to the toilet so you can puke some before you go to work.”

A lot of that is just luck of the draw. That’s why I wanted to talk about your sports background, not just as a sports psychologist, but as an athlete. You go into that in good shape and great shape.

I may say that a lot of it is genetics and a mom who had some nausea during her pregnancy and it was just one of me as opposed to multiples. That is part of it. I think that it’s so important that we listen to our bodies. Also, one of the things that I am enjoying about Robin’s pregnancy is that we’re watching her body change in these beautiful ways as her body becomes a little more rounded and a little more pregnancy-oriented. It’s so wonderful that she’s such a great example of like, “I’m still wearing my crop top. This is me, this is my body.” It’s such a beautiful example for women to be able to embrace our curves, bodies and our pregnancies. I love that aspect of Robin being pregnant. My dream is that Leanne will get pregnant with Ben. My dream is that there will be your Peloton baby that comes from two Peloton instructors and that will be the next generation of Peloton instructors, these incredible athlete babies.

Peloton is thinking so far down the road, they’re just breeding their own instructors.

That’s my fantasy.

That would also be quite the photogenic baby.

Speaking of photos, have you seen the photo that Matty posted on his Instagram? His most recent shirtless picture? You’re going to say, “Wow.”

I always say that about Matty. He’s a good looking guy.

I’m also friends with him, so I may be a tiny bit biased, but there’s no bias when you see this picture. It’s like, “Oh my God.”

Is this the one in the jean shirt? That’s a good one.

That’s airbrushed.

I don’t think so.

I think they’re painting those onto him.

You think those abs are painted on?

I could grate vegan cheese on those abs.

I think if I used those abs it would automatically not be vegan. The last I checked, he is made of meat. We all are made of meat. On that note, where can people find you until next time?

People can find me on Instagram looking at pictures of Matty and also on Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat @DrJennMann.

—

John Mills over at Run, Lift & Live had another interesting thing that he came across.

I also got this information from somebody else. Apparently this was only for people who were VIP members, at least initially. There’s another collaboration, this time it’s Hydrow and Fabletics. People who were Fabletic members who were VIP, they got this offer first. It was a deal on buying the Hydrow. They put out this information saying that Fabletics will now be designing and producing all Hydrow apparel and that Hydrow’s trainers will exclusively wear Fabletics within all content. They say that 73% of the two million VIP members are working out more than three times a week. Seventy-three percent of Fabletics members are working out more than three times a week and they love trying something new and they’re going to bring them this workout. They also threw in a little sting at Peloton, which I thought was funny, that John Mills pointed out, but they said, it’s the best workout that you can get in twenty minutes, Hydrow is, and that it is more effective than running or cycling.

With Peloton, you can do a quick workout even if you only have 20 minutes to spare before going to work again. Share on X

I feel bad because I did not get you a card.

You should feel bad, but you’ve never gotten me any cards for any of my fitness events. I shouldn’t be surprised.

If there’s one thing, all the fitness stuff has taught me, it’s the importance of consistency. You are celebrating your one year anniversary with Tonal.

Four years with Peloton, one year with Tonal. I was able to get 52 weeks in a row. Not only have I had the machine, but I’ve worked out every week since we’ve gotten it. That’s because we haven’t gone anywhere.

No excuses when you’re tethered to your home, then all your workouts wearing a mask. If you haven’t checked out Tonal, you should. It’s a smart at-home gym and it’s weightlifting in your home using electromagnetics and I think just a dash of magic. It’s got a sleek design and it does look cool. It helps with all sorts of things.

Tonal is great about constantly adding things so people are always bringing up feature ideas and Tonal is always delivering. I can’t believe how much they’ve added in a year. When you add it all up, it’s crazy.

That is true. When you talk about all the changes that they’ve made to it all over the last year, just ways to make it work a little better, or the interface operate a little easier or tweaks with how the weights will work in different ways. They are like Peloton and that they’re constantly moving that ball forward.

It’s an amazing machine. It really is.

You can try Tonal for 30 days risk-free if you visit www.Tonal.com for $100 off of smart accessories when you use the promo code, The Clip Out at checkout.

Tonal, be your strongest.

If you needed any more proof that Crystal was about to get an iPhone, they made an update to the Android app that’s only on the Android.

I will say I’ve enjoyed gloating this week. There have been multiple people from the iPhone world who’ve been like, “I don’t have this.” I’m like, “Of course you don’t, how does it feel?” We are talking about new filters only available on Android for now. I’m sure it’s going to be there soon, like within days, maybe by the time this airs, but at the moment there are two new filters. One that is called Not Taken By Me and then No Weights. Both of those are in the cycling, specifically the No Weights. That is key because if you are doing a specific set of classes, let’s say you wanted to take all of Robin’s Tabata classes, I think somebody used that as an example, now you can filter by Not Taken By Me and get a smaller subset. It’s much easier to hone in on what you have left on all of your wishlist of workouts. I want to throw in, they also did an update to Android. One that has been on iPhone since pretty much day one. Now you can see charts and graphs on Android on your workouts. You can click on a workout and there it is.

Peloton is reportedly sending out some free gifts to people.

Several people had a little snafu. They had all these dates lined up for October and then they got these notifications, just kidding. It will be November or December or January in some cases. They started sending out gifts to people saying, “We’re sorry,” which was super nice of them. Peloton is having a hard month. They have too much going on. They’re sending them out to all the wrong addresses. It’s like everybody that has told me about this, “This has the wrong address.” When you go in to look, it’s sent to somebody else across the country. This is clearly a mail merge gone awry. Somebody sorted on something wrong. You may get your gift. You may not, I don’t know, contact Peloton, tell them they messed it up and they’ll fix it. They’ll send it to you, everybody who’s done that. Take a look. If you’ve got one of these emails, check the address because it might be wrong. If you’re wondering what it is, it was a beautiful red stainless steel water bottle and a black Peloton Trucker Hat.

It’s in a nice box.

—

YOU.co.uk.

YOU Magazine.

They had an article about Leanne Hainsby.

They talked about how she became a Peloton star, what she was doing before. It was a huge feature and a big deal. This magazine is quite large in the UK.

The website looks like a GQ or something.

They have Leanne and Ben featured prominently, showing how they’re the Darlings of Peloton. I don’t know why they threw a Robin picture in there, probably for the clicks. They were like, “We’ve got to figure out a way to get to Robin.”

It is specified she’s a former lawyer. Maybe they thought Robin would sue them if she was not also featured.

One of Leanne’s many selfies. They threw in some Cody too, then a little Ben. I think in all seriousness, they were throwing little features in for the rest of the instructors. It was mainly about Leanne but it was also talking about Peloton and all the instructors and how they came to be at Peloton.

In comic book world, we call that an origin story.

That would be a different way to explain it in nerd world.

—

We have a new Peloton celebrity sighting. Yet another Full House cast member has joined up.

DJ Tanner.

Whatever her real name is.

It used to be Candace Cameron Bure and now its Candace Bure. I don’t know why I know that. Actually I do. I’m a huge Full House fan and Fuller House too. I’ve watched every single one of them all. I think DJ is adorable. I think they’re all adorable. Just to be clear, now we have all three of the main Full House characters from the Fuller House Show, all three leading women, they all have Peloton. We’ve got DJ, Stephanie and Kimmy Gibbler, they’re all part of Peloton. Just so you know, you are not alone when you cry on your bikes, this is mostly for the women out there. I haven’t heard of many guys saying that this happens to them, but Candace Bure, she cried on her first ride. She put it on social media. She’s not afraid. Good for her.

—

A couple of ride and run that you took that you enjoyed immensely.

I had to take a quick moment to express my love for Matty Maggiacomo. First of all, for his Halloween run with his alter ego Marathoner, if you have not taken that run, you need to. I don’t care if you don’t have a tread, I don’t care if you don’t want to run outside. Just listen to it and watch it. It is so funny. If you need a laugh and who doesn’t in 2020. You cannot take this class and not have a good time. It’s perfect. It’s Matty and Drag as his alter ego and he keeps the character so well, I honestly forgot it was him a couple of times. I would be like, “That’s Matty.” I had to remind myself. I had a great time. I smiled the whole time and I needed it.

You also enjoyed Kendall’s Bon Jovi ride.

Peloton Workout: Most people who work in television wouldn’t be freelance. You sign a contract for either a pilot or the season and then you have to be invited back.

I did.

Speaking of crying on your bike.

Here’s the thing, my sister passed away and we buried her on my thirteenth birthday. She was six years older. She was very young and I’m old and that means that back then we were listening to ‘80s music, and Bon Jovi was her favorite band. I cannot tell you how many memories I have of laying out on the patio because we did that in the ‘80s. We’d be listening to the boom box on the back patio while we were laying out and Bon Jovi was always her favorite. Every once in a while, I get to listen to music and it’s like I’m there with her and this whole class was definitely that for me. I balled and it was a great time. It was everything you want in a Bon Jovi ride. Kendall did an amazing job. It was very special to me for another reason. Definitely check it out.

Finally, Peloton dropped a holiday collection.

They did all kinds of fun gifts. There were ornaments, scrunchies, Peloton towels, robes and on and on, all kinds of things. Lots of bags, all over Thomas bags galore. In the US, they all sold out really fast. The clothes, especially, there were a few clothing items. Gone.

You wrote on the website about a little life hack for people.

I saw some people chatting about this, which is why you should totally be in The Clip Out Facebook group and The Clip Out Facebook page, because this is how you learn about things. I love your little graphic here, Tom. It’s amazing. This is why though, there are third party companies you can use that you can ship from other countries. You go to Reship.com. You make this little profile, you sign up with them and you can do this once or you can sign up for monthly, depending on how often you want to do it.

Anyway, it allows you, it gives you an address to ship it to, and then it ships it to your house. Right now, if you wanted to go to Germany and go to Peloton’s Germany boutique, you have to have a German address to put in. You can’t just get around that. Some people, they have friends over there, but it’s not something that everybody can do or that you even want to put that on somebody else. This gives you a way to do that, even if you don’t have a contact. This allows you to shop in Canada and Germany and the UK. There are lots of options. If you go now, I’m sure you even have time to still get it here before December 2020. That is key because there were still lots of items left in all of the other stores.

If people start to figure that out, you’re going to want to put a little hustle in your bustle.

—

Joining us is Beatriz Chahin. How’s it going?

I’m good. How are you?

I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember this, but did it drive you crazy when there was that company called Beatrice. They seemingly bought every company in the world. Do you remember this?

No.

They bought all these food companies and stuff. There was this period of time where a lot of the commercial on television ended with, “We’re Beatrice.” All of a sudden, all these commercials had, “We’re Beatrice,” at the end of it. You’re like, “What is happening?”

They were taking over the world. They were the Google of their day.

It was weird.

Princess Beatrice and I are close in age, but I was born in February and she was born in August. People are like, “Were you named after the Princess?”

You’re like, “No. She was named after me.”

Her name is the English spelling of the name and mine is in Spanish spelling.

My first thought when you’re like, “It’s the English spelling of the name,” I’m like, “How did they put a random U in there?” They’re always cramming Us in words.

I’ve always wondered why that is. It’s like colour or humour. There’s an extra U and you’re like, “What is that doing in there?” It’s not often we go down a rabbit hole before we talk Peloton. How did you originally find Peloton?

I had been spinning and cycling before I knew about Peloton. My boyfriend and I were on a work retreat with his work in Arrowhead. I brought shoes to go hiking and all this. I was like, “Maybe I’ll walk by the little gym that they have.” I was like, “They have a Peloton. I’m going to try it out while you’re in a bunch of work meetings.” After that, I was like, “This is great. I could see myself having one eventually.” I was a little concerned about the cost and the commitment to it. Not necessarily doing the exercise, but having it in your home.

The pandemic hit. I had a few friends that had it before the pandemic. My friends, John and Michael, were like, “You are the perfect person to have this.” My friend, also got it a week into the pandemic. After that, I was like, “I’m convinced.” I was like, “I cannot have some form of exercise other than my yoga mat and some weights in the house. I need something to do cardio.” I bit the bullet and it worked out for my roommate and my boyfriend. I talked to my parents about it and they were like, “It sounds like you want one. You should go.”

Where in the country do you live?

I’m in LA.

You had a strict lockdown and early, too.

We did. It started out like a normal week and then progressively got more and more intense. I went to the grocery store with my roommate and my boyfriend. We were like, “This is the apocalypse.” People are clearing out the equivalent of Ralphs here, which is like Kroger and other parts of the country. Supermarket Sweep style, taking all the food and toilet paper. I went to work and then everything after that shutdown. I was like, “I’ve got to figure out how to live 24/7 in a two-bed and two-bath apartment.”

It’s crazy. LA compared to a New York apartment, you have more room, more square footage, even in a two-bed. When somebody tells you, “You need to stay in one place,” I feel like it’s much harder to stay in one place.

You instantly rebel. You’re like, “Now that I’ve got to, I don’t want to.”

You have no concept of time. For me, I was like, “Is it Monday morning? Is it Friday night? Is it Saturday afternoon?” I have no idea.

It’s like that with the seasons. I’m like, “How are we talking about Thanksgiving?”

Where did this year go? It has been the strangest year of my life. I know a lot of people feel that way. Were you active before you got your Peloton? You did spin, but was it on a regular basis? Were you like a sometimes exerciser? How did that work for you?

Growing up, I was into dance. That was my primary form of exercise. I was telling a friend, I was like, “I’m not good at team sports. I was never into that.” My sister played basketball. She’s five years younger than me. She’s good at basketball and a talented runner. I was like, “Dance is my thing.” I did dance for a long time. I did ballroom dance for a year when I was learning my Quinceañera. After that, it became like, “I have to pick between dance theatre and any extracurricular activity.” I ended up going with theater. I fell off of the one thing that was making me active. I wasn’t active.

In college, I was occasionally going to the gym because they had a nice gym. I went to UT Austin and they had two wonderful gyms that I wish I would have taken more advantage of while I was there. When I moved to LA, in the first few years, I wasn’t active. My sister, when she was turning 21, she’s like, “I want to run a half marathon for my birthday. I want the whole family to do it.” I was like, “I love you so much. You’re the only person that I would do this for.” I started training with a friend. He ran all the time. He was like, “I’ll help you.” We went to the park that was close to our house to train. I don’t enjoy the act of running. I like how I feel afterward. I like medals in races.

I thought you meant Slayer. I was like, “She likes the medal.”

I did that, but my knees are not great. I was like, “Running isn’t sustainable.” We did the half marathon for my sister’s 21st birthday. This was back in early 2014. I was like, “I don’t think I can continue to do this in this manner. I have to find something else.” I had friends that had tried spin places. My friends, Lea and Zach, were two of the people who convinced me to get the bike. At that point, she was like, “Let’s go to a charity spin class.” I was like, “I’m down.” After that, I was like, “This is fun.” A lot of former dancers like it because you incorporate lots of elements of dance into the workout. The music and the movement and all of that, I was like, “This is sustainable. I’m much better on my knees.” I then started going to Flywheel up here and was into Flywheel. It ended up closing in LA. I was active there. I was doing that for a long time. I was doing other classes and found a great local studio, but then with the pandemic, unfortunately, everyone had to shut their doors.

I have a quick question. You mentioned ballroom dancing. What other kinds of dancing did you do?

I was doing tap jazz and lyrical. I did ballet for a while. I was learning my Quinceañera dance, it was a combination of ballroom, Tango and all the more traditional dances that you would do in ballroom class.

I will lightly correct you. When you said you didn’t do team sports, I feel like that is a team sport. If you’re dancing in synchronization with other people, you’ve got to work as a team to accomplish that.

A better description would be I’m not good at sports that are keeping score.

I get why you made a distinction because it doesn’t feel like it’s competitive in the same way. It’s more judged than refereed. From a team-building and physical exertion standpoint, it’s checking pretty much all the same boxes.

There’s so much of working together. I’m preaching to the choir here. If you’re not working together, then there’s not a lot happening.

That’s called flailing.

As somebody who has zero rhythm or ability to dance, I can tell you, it’s important.

It’s why she’s not allowed to do it.

You work in TV production. What does a production coordinator do? How did you get into that? Is that something you were like, “I want to be when I grow up?” I’m always fascinated by how people get into jobs.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I knew that I wanted to work in film and television. For my fourteenth birthday, my parents took my sister and I to the movies to see Lord of the Rings. My parents were always into television. We always watch award shows. They appreciate the art. I grew up appreciating the arts as well. They were like, “Let’s see this movie. It’s probably going to be nominated for a lot of awards.” I went and I was completely captivated. I was like, “I don’t know what I want to do, but I want to help make that. It doesn’t matter what it is. I want to help make this thing that I’m mesmerized by on-screen.”

After that, I collected every Entertainment Weekly that came in the house. I was watching any award show. I was watching every movie and television show that I could watch on the weekends. With school and extracurriculars, there’s not much time to do that during the week. After that, I tried to figure out, “What’s my skillset? How can I tie that into film and television?” I knew nobody out here. My mom is retired. My dad owns his own business. They’re both business-minded. They were like, “We support you in whatever you want to do, but we don’t have any idea about what it takes to get into television.”

“We don’t want to write you checks.”

They’re like, “We’ll figure out what we need to do to help you achieve your goal.” I was like, “Good schools and universities do that.” I said, “I’m organized. I like anything revolving around logistics and making things happen and seeing things through from beginning to end.” I’m doing this on the side. My ultimate goal is in line producing. That’s the producers in charge of logistics and planning budget. My day-to-day, I’m a production coordinator in television. That’s one of the tracks to get up to produce some indie films and some shorts and all of that. The production coordinator is on that track in the production department to then move up.

I was like, “What’s one of those tracks? I can start in the office as an office production assistant and then move up that ladder to do that.” In production, we are like the hub of the show or the movie or whatever project it is that you’re working on. Everybody comes to you for everything and you have all of the information. You have to make sure that people get it all. I like to joke that if people know what I do, then I’m not doing my job well because that means there’s some sort of crack in the foundation. It’s getting information out to the right people, making sure that equipment and the products are back on time so that way we are able to do what we need to do to get everything on-screen. Making sure that anything that needs to happen gets done. That’s the short version of it.

You’re a project manager.

It’s project management, but it has a slightly different name.

It exists for a different reason.

It existed before the concept of project management.

I get it now. I put it in my brain.

The whole time you were talking, I’m like, “This sounds like what Crystal does, except fun.”

I agree.

Except about the things I care about.

I love all of your posters. People are talking about all your movie posters. It’s great.

I have another podcast, it’s all about movies. This room, originally, was built for that podcast. There are all sorts of movie posters up in here for different movies that I enjoy.

It has evolved into more.

When it comes to being a producer, is a producer doing those things at a higher level? Are they doing more strategic decision making? I know nothing about this. If that’s a dumb question, I’m sorry.

It’s not at all. No dumb questions. There are many different types of producers. You watch the credits and you’re like, “There’s executive producer. There’s supervising producer.” In television, a lot of the producers are also writers. In TV, the person who gets the produced by credit is the line producer. Those are the people who are making the overall decisions. They’re the boss in terms of who I would report to and go to for everything. There are decisions that I can make. When it involves large sums of money or anything like that, it’s stuff that I have to run by my producer and production manager and production supervisor.

The next question that everyone reading is probably wondering, have you worked on anything that people would be familiar with?

Yes. I have been on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Before Brooklyn, I was in the second half of the second season of The Newsroom on HBO. I’ve done a few pilots. I did the pilot of a free form show called Everything’s Gonna Be Okay that went to series and a couple of pilots that didn’t go for other networks. My first full-time production job was on a show called Go On, also for NBC, that lasted only a year. I loved it. It was with Matthew Perry. My first internship was on Brothers and Sisters, the ABC show.

You’ve been on lots of stuff that people would be familiar with.

Which has been your favorite? Is your favorite doing the freelancing that you’re getting started in? Would you prefer to do that?

This is such a cheesy answer. I’ve been lucky on every show that I’ve been on that it’s hard to choose. This town is small, but you also end up working with a lot of the same people. There are people that I’ve worked with since Go On that also went on to Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I had friends that moved from The Newsroom to Brooklyn at the same time that I did. It’s small. In every project, you learn something different. I feel like every show that I’ve been on, I’m like, “I have the hour-long drama under my belt. I’ve got this present-day comedy set in New York under my belt.” It’s hard to pick. I’ve been lucky because you spend so much time with people when you’re on a show. I had a friend who once told me, and this is accurate, “Spending a season on a show with one person is like knowing them for five years.” Me being on Brooklyn, it’s like, “I feel like I’ve known some of these people for 35 to 40 years.” I’m like, “I’ve not been on this planet for that long.”

Also, it’s fascinating to hear you say that LA is a small town.

It’s an industry town once you crack the industry aspect of it.

You do see the same people’s names over and over again even if you don’t work directly with them or, in your case, you are working with them. It’s funny to think that there are millions of people and it’s a small town.

You run into people everywhere, too. There are a lot of people who associate us like, “We worked together, right?” Sometimes they associate you with a different show and you’re like, “You were on that show, right?” I was like, “No, but I have a lot of friends on that show.” Everybody assumes that I was on Happy Endings or one of these other shows.

That has to be fortunate in your career field to be on a show that lasts 7, 8 seasons. That’s not common. That’s the dream.

I feel like it’s an anomaly because shows don’t last this long anymore. It’s one of those things where I’m like, “I’m lucky.” To do it with a cast and crew, we all have such a shorthand and we’re all close. It’s fortunate.

It seems from the outside, anyway. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a healthy set. It seems like the people there enjoy being there and get along.

Don’t be afraid to try different things. You’ll likely discover something that you didn’t know you love. Share on X

They’re genuinely getting along.

It’s like Moonlighting, back in the day.

I feel like I’ve been fooled by TV shows before. I’ll be like, “They all get along well.” Later, it comes out like, “No. They were all arguing in the set.”

It’s not the case. It’s like a family. That’s what you see. You can tell in the crew that a lot of people have stayed from the early seasons and they’ve continued. That’s going to be telling of, “You keep seeing the same names over and over in the credits, season after season.” People wouldn’t necessarily stay in a work environment that’s unhealthy like that.

Leave and come back. I’m blanking on his name, but the guy plays a captain. He left and then came back.

That was written into the show. It would be one of those things where someone might argue to be like, “No. I don’t want to come back.” That was not the case.

Do you get starstruck whenever you’re hanging out with all these famous people?

At the end of the day, we’re all people. They’re all there to do the job. The most starstruck I’ve been was I met an Olympian who was working with us behind the scenes. Myself and one of my friends, who’s a writer on the show, we were both like, “This is what being starstruck feels like.” We were both like, “We have to ask him all these questions, but we also don’t want to come off too eager and excited. He’s here and he’s cool and nice.” I feel like I’ve been professional. No one has got me starstruck.

You sound like Tom. That’s how Tom is, too. Whenever Tom has had the opportunity to introduce me to whatever famous person, it’s hard for me to not be like, “Eee.”

I’m like, “Dial it down.”

She’s been good. I know inside, she’s screaming. I’m a concert promoter. I meet a lot of rock bands and stuff. It is funny, though. I’ve been doing concerts for twenty years. I did radio for 5 or 6 before that. You meet a lot of people like that. You reach a point where you’re like, “Okay.” It’s always the weird ones that get you excited. It’s people you know, mathematically, aren’t that big of a deal, but they’re a big deal to you. That’s when you nerd out. You’re like, “Why am I like this?” I’m a huge Monkees fan. I talk about that. It comes up sometimes. The first time I met Peter Tork, I didn’t even know what to say. I met Bruce Willis who I know, ostensibly, is a bigger celebrity, and was like, “Bruce Willis, can I get a picture? Thanks. Bye.” “No, you can’t have all that stuff on you.” “I love Moonlighting.” When I met Peter Tork, who I would know, isn’t as big of a deal. To me, it’s a big deal. I get what you’re saying about when you meet the Olympian. That’s a priority for you.

Peloton Workout: Try as many instructors and disciplines as you can. Something that works for somebody else isn’t necessarily going to work for you.

I’m also curious if the Olympian was a big deal for you because you’ve been in active situations. You’ve been active throughout your life with dancing and everything. It sounds like you had an appreciation for his abilities on a different level. I don’t know. I’m reading between the lines there.

That’s valid. I hadn’t even thought about it that way.

Tom’s youngest is into music. He plays 3 or 4 instruments. He’ll try to explain things to me in musical terms and I’m like, “I’ve got nothing. I hear what you’re saying and it’s awesome. I want to be supportive. If you start talking to me with music notes and how to read a sheet, I have no idea what you’re saying. I have no appreciation for it. I am proud of you, but I don’t know how to think it’s cool.”

What’s the difference between the freelance stuff that you do versus the television stuff that you do?

Most people who work in television wouldn’t be freelance. You sign a contract for either a pilot or the season and then you have to be invited back. Any project that I would do since I’m not working in the corporate setting is freelance for me.

That would be a nerve-wracking way to live.

Doesn’t that stress you out?

It used to stress me out a lot more. If I know something is coming to an end, I’m like, “Am I ever going to work again?” I get those feelings sometimes. In a strange way, you get used to it. If we end the season and we haven’t heard if it’s coming back, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable for a little bit and being like, “It could be a couple of months before someone says that we’re coming back for another season.” It’s a bit nerve-wracking. At a certain point, you start talking to friends and seeing if there’s anything on the horizon that’s available and letting people know that you’re available for work after whatever you’re on. It’s still nerve-wracking. I’ve been working and have been in production for several years. I still get a little nervous at that thought or that prospect.

I would assume you have big-name credits on your resume where you’ve worked at a high level. That’s got to make it easier to get the next gig?

Yeah. At a certain point, because I’m a department head or co-department head, I’m also talking to other shows and other people, my contemporaries on different shows on the lot. That expands your network organically. If you’re both on the same studio lot, you might need a favor or someone needs a favor from you, all of a sudden, “I have a new friend.” My equivalent at this other show, we’re already talking about something. Your network grows a little more. Your reputation precedes you. If other people have worked with you, then they pass your name along. It’s nice, in that way, the nerve-wracking aspect of like, “Am I going to hear about stuff?” It subsides because your network has gotten bigger.

With all the COVID stuff going on, have you gone back to work yet? Has it fired back up? Are you still waiting?

I have gone back to work. I finished that pilot. We finished shooting that pilot. We are ramping up for another season of Brooklyn.

Do they have a bunch of COVID rules in place? Is it status quo?

Everyone is taking it seriously, which is great. I still take it seriously. I don’t leave my house on the weekend because I’m like, “I’m going to work.” All of the lots of everyone that I’ve come in contact with, there are teams that are put on different shows to ensure that everyone is abiding by different guidelines. We have to abide by state guidelines. Each studio also has their guidelines and training and things that you have to go through to make sure that you’re ready to return to work safely. Even though I am going back to work in person, I feel safe. We’re all of the same mindset. We want to do what we love. We also want to keep each other safe while we’re doing it.

I can’t say the same for the Midwest. Do you work a lot of crazy hours? Is it more 8:00 to 5:00? How does that work?

The hours are all over the place. It’s depending on what the different scripts called for each week. When you’re prepping a season or when you’re prepping something earlier on, the hours are less because you’re mostly doing things during business hours. Let’s say you’re shooting something overnight, then your hours, all of a sudden, start to stagger and become a little bit different. In pre-COVID times, if you’re doing something overnight, then you could be working sometimes noon to midnight. If they’re doing something completely overnight, sometimes I’ve worked from 8:00 to 8:00 or 6:00 to 6:00.

That Peloton will come in handy.

Yes. That was one of the things that I was excited about. There are also some times where it’s like, “I have to go into work early for some reason.” I thought I was going to have to go at this time, but I’m going in at this time. Maybe I can’t make a physical class that I was signed up for. Now that I have the Peloton, I’m like, “I have twenty minutes. I can do a quick ride. I can do a quick yoga class.” I work out before going out to work.

That’s another thing I was going to ask. Do you do other content besides the bike? You do yoga. Do you use the weight classes? Do you run maybe outside or anything like that?

I love the yoga and strength classes in addition to the bike. I’d never meditated before even though I had a few friends who were like, “You should try it.” I’m like, “It’s hard for me to sit still.” I was like,
“I’ll try it.” It’s nice that there are 5 or 10-minute meditations. I feel like I’ve explored a lot on the app. I tend to rotate through spin and strength and yoga the most.

What is your leaderboard name?

BeatrizLovesTV.

Do you have a favorite instructor?

That’s tough. Everyone is like, “I go to this person in this mood or this person when I’m in that mood.” For spin, my two go-tos are Sam and Leanne and Hannah Corbin, too. If I want something high energy, then I’ll do Robin. Yoga, I gravitate towards Chelsea. My mom and I have done a lot of Chelsea classes virtual or apart. She’ll get on the app and I’ll do it, too. We both had shout-outs from her. That’s exciting.

I find it interesting that Sam and Leanne are some of your favorites because you live in America and those are both UK instructors. That’s fascinating to me. I haven’t heard that come up a lot.

I wonder if there’s a time-shift thing.

I was wondering. That works with your time schedule and then you grew to love them as well.

A lot of friends who are also in film and television tend to gravitate towards them as well. I don’t know. Maybe there’s something that we don’t realize. There’s some subconscious thing that we’re all like, “Sam and Leanne, they’re great.”

I wish we could do a study.

I love their music. I love how they’re positive. They’re good at getting people into a good headspace. They’re encouraging. Same thing with Hannah Corbin. My musical tastes are in line with Hannah, Leanne and Sam.

That is a new one. I’m going to have to add that because I hear a lot of people like groups of instructors. For example, if you’re a big Robin fan like you said you are, if that’s one of your go-tos, then a person might tend to also go to a Cody and Alex. That tends to be a trinity that I see a lot of. If you’re a Matt Wilpers, then you’re into Christine. This is the first time I’ve heard Sam and Leanne and Hannah. I’m like, “This is fascinating.”

Do you have any advice for people getting into the world of Peloton?

I know a lot of people say this, but I would say try as many instructors and as many disciplines as you can. Something that works for me isn’t necessarily going to work for somebody else. Everyone has their instructors and things that they gravitate toward. Because I am excited and eager to get on the bike every morning, it doesn’t necessarily mean that someone else is going to be excited as you. They’re going to be more excited for strength. They’re going to be more excited for yoga. I would say try different things and different types of classes. At first, I was nervous about doing a HIIT class. I took a HIIT class and I was like, “This is fun. I like this.” I would say don’t be afraid to try different things because you’re probably going to discover something that you didn’t know that you love. You have more options when you’re looking for a class to take in the morning.

A lot of people are scared to try things. That’s solid advice.

Before we let you go, where can people find you on social media if you would like to be found?

I’m only on Instagram, and that’s @Beezus218. On the bike, I’m BeatrizLovesTV.

Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to join us. We appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me.

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I guess that brings this episode to a close. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

Another amazing interview. We will be interviewing none other than the world-famous, best-selling author, Elin Hilderbrand.

Until then, where can people find you?

People can find me at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, the Bike, or the Tread, @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/theclipout. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. Don’t forget you should check out our YouTube channel where you can watch the show and all of its video glory at YouTube.com/theclipout. Swing by the website and sign up for the newsletter so you get all the links, pictures, videos and stuff delivered directly to your inbox. That’s it for this one. Thanks for reading. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.