TCO 199 | Life Changing Communities

199: Peloton Reintroduces Promotional Offers plus our interview with Jennifer Storm

Last Updated: April 30, 2023By Tags: , , , , ,

TCO 199 | Life Changing Communities

 

John Mills joins us to discuss Peloton reintroducing promotional offers on bike purchases.

Taiwanese production has interesting information about Peloton demand.

Yahoo Finance feels good about Peloton long-term.

Dr. Jenn – How to not let an illness get you down.

Elle Magazine talks about all the different Peloton fan groups (including The Clip Out!)

The L.A. Times writes about gyms struggling to reopen and Peloton’s impact.

Peloton’s COO sold some of his shares.

Wall Street Journal profiles what gyms look like now.

The sudden popularity of the Peloton delivery driver.

GQ UK has a review of the Tread.

Shape Magazine profiled multiple instructors about their make-up regimen.

The New York Times spotlighted Cody Rigsby.

Peloton Closet – Get Ready For Spring.

Fascinating statistics about Peloton apparel sales.

There’s a new Artist Collaboration with Lauryn Hill.

Jess King is celebrating 7-years with Peloton.

All this plus our interview with Jennifer Storm!

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here

Peloton Reintroduces Promotional Offers plus our interview with Jennifer Storm

We’re getting ready to go on a little romantic getaway. It will be interesting to see what this does with MetPro. 

They’ve been taking all of our carbs and they’ve been inching them up over the last couple of weeks so that as we go on our little getaway and we consume more carbs, then we gain less weight because our body is already used to consuming more. I think this will be fascinating. We’ll put this out there, I usually gain 7 to 8 pounds in a week when we go on a vacation. What do you usually gain? 

10 or 12. I’ll drop a good chunk of that pretty quickly when we get back. 

We usually lose about half of that in the first week. We put all that out there and then we’ll see what it looks like when we get back. In theory, we should gain a little bit less and we should lose it just as fast. It should lose the same amount. If we usually lose about half the next week, we should still do that. 

I don’t know what their plans are for you. They haven’t cut my calories yet, they’ve only ever increased my calories. 

It’s because they knew you had this trip coming. 

When I get back, it sounds like they’re going to start cutting. They will ramp you up before the trip. You do what you want on the trip. You come back and we cut. We’ll see what happens. 

It’s going to be hard for you because when they did the cut for me, they were like, “Get a veggie tray so you can eat as much you want of free food.” I don’t know what you’re going to do. Maybe you get to swim in spaghetti sauce.  

I don’t know. I would rather not eat anything than eat a veggie tray. I will take nothing over a veggie tray. 

That’ll be fun to see.  

What do you have in store for people in this episode? 

There’s lots of stuff for the Peloton. We’ve got John Mills joining us to talk about finance stuff going on for Peloton. We’ve got Dr. Jenn and we have instructors all over the news all over again and our awesome interview. We have a lot to cover. 

Before we get to all of that, shameless plugs, don’t forget that we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure to follow us so you never miss an episode. You can also leave us a review, if you would be so kind, it helps us a lot. It doesn’t just help us, although it does help us, but it also helps the people that come along after you that says, “This is worth checking out.”  

We have a new review. This is from ClickStar13. It says, “Best Peloton Podcast. Absolutely love this podcast. I have been listening to the podcast since episode one while working from home for the past few months. This is hands down the best place to get any Peloton-related news. Don’t know what I’ll do when I’m completely caught up. Tom and Crystal rock. Currently listening to episodes from September 2018. Hopefully by the time I’m fully caught up, Tom will have finally gotten on the bike.” The leaderboard name is #ClickStar. Thank you very much, ClickStar. You can also find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you there, like the page and join the group. Check out our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, you can subscribe to that as well. You’re definitely going to want to check out YouTube, if not this episode, for sure next episode with the 200th episode.  

There are so many surprises for you guys. 

It’s the most jam-packed episode we’ve ever created. There are tons of guest follow-ups. There are tons of fun little messages from other people that you’re probably going to want to see. There are some very visual things. Even if you download the podcast, which we hope you do, you’re definitely going to want to maybe double-dip and stroll over on YouTube.com/TheClipOut. Check that out because there’s a lot of fun stuff that you’re going to want to see as well as hear. If you’re ever wondering what the articles are that we talked about, you can get all of those stories emailed to you in one weekly digest by signing up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. There’s all of that. Let’s dig in, shall we? 

We shall. 

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Joining us once again is John Mills. How is it going? 

Also known as Grandpa Shark with the sweeper.  

You shared your workout room with your grandbaby. You put Peppa Pig on the big screen. To keep the child interested, it takes a lot. Peppa Pig shared that on their own social media channel. That’s pretty cool. 

It made me so happy to see. I love this.  

They hit me up probably a month or two ago. They were like, “We saw you’re posting these things about Peppa Pig and all. We like a couple of them. Do you mind if we use this? Do you have the raw footage of it?” I edited them down. They wanted the actual raw footage and I edited it all. I don’t keep a lot of stuff like these. Once I post it, I figured it’s online. That’s where I’ll get it. I’ll save space on my memory card. I was like, “I’m so sorry, I’ll look but I don’t think I have the raw footage.” I thought they were never going to use it because I couldn’t get them the raw footage and that was it. It’s been two months, I was like, “I’m such a disappointment. I should save this footage,” then all of a sudden, surprise, they posted that.  

I love it. It made my day. 

You had a busy week because you launched your own Clubhouse. He has his own Clubhouse as well so people should check that out.  

It’s not called Run, Lift & Live, though. What is it called? Remind us. 

TCO 199 | Life Changing Communities

 

The club is Run, Lift & Live but I do a weekly wellness check-in. The weekly meet-up is called The Wellness Check-In. It’s intended to be as little stress as possible. It may not work well with the Clubhouse forum format, but I didn’t want it to be a lecture format. I was trying to figure out how to make it just like when we used to go to the studio, we get to be together. We talk about whatever happened the previous week in our wellness journey and anything that’s coming up, and just have a conversation. It went well. 

In the middle of all that, we talked about the Black History stories that you find, the lesser-known ones and share them with people, and you were invited to teach a class at the school. Here you are doing that via Zoom so you don’t endanger yourself or children during a pandemic. That’s always for the best. 

That was really cool. I did lectures in four separate classes of eleventh–grade English honor students in a school in Rhode Island. I did a 45-minute lecture and shared some stories. Basically, it was about aligning my African-American experience in my historical, genealogical research and aligning it with history, and trying to align what struggles we may have today with regards to bias and how that aligns historically. They were reading a book called Stamp. Some of the chapters in the book aligned to my generation. It was cool talking to the kids. They gave me a whole bunch of positive feedback after the lectures. It was a lot of fun. 

I’m glad you did it. I know it was outside your comfort zone, I’m very proud of you for stepping outside your comfort zone and doing it. 

Thank you. I was stressed out. I was like, “I might be too much for these kids.” I’ll be excited and the teachers are going to be calming me down. I wasn’t sure how this was going to go, but it was cool. I was nervous when we first got on because I didn’t know, are the kids in the room or are they at home? It’s all in Zoom. I thought they were all at home, but the teacher, you can tell, is in a classroom. Everyone on the call had a mask on. I started thinking, is it politically correct to wear a mask even if you’re alone? It turns out they have computers in the classroom. It took me until day two to figure that out. On day two, I almost wore a mask. They would have been like, “Why are you wearing a mask?” 

Digging into the world of Peloton, an interesting email was sent out that I noticed of all people telling that they have a promotional offer, “Get free gear with a bike or a Tread+.” I just thought it was fascinating. Delivery times must be getting better if they’re starting to throw enticements out to people. 

It’s interesting. It’s only on the original equipment, right? Not the new Tread, not the new bike, only on the original. That’s fascinating all by itself. 

I noticed when you posted it in your group. I hadn’t paid any attention to which ones it was, but it’s all the original equipment. It makes you think that maybe they’re doing better with the newer stuff and they’re trying to get the older equipment out. I don’t know but that was interesting. 

I think that is it because when you have checked on the delivery dates in the past, I’ve noticed that there started to be a little discrepancy between the new and the old. That’s interesting in and of itself that the new stuff is going to go faster. 

Did you notice they cut those delivery timelines out? You can’t go to the site anymore and check. It doesn’t give you any timeframe anymore. 

I think it’s all your fault.  

I think I broke it. 

I think they heard us talking about it because they do listen. They were like, “We don’t need to make that quite so public.” 

“Maybe that doesn’t need to be a discussion,” or maybe they’ve gotten it down under control enough that they don’t want to call it out anymore. If it changes a little bit, they don’t want to talk about it. If it goes back out to 10 to 12 weeks, then we’ll talk about it again. They’ll put it back up. 

Maybe we just broke it. 

It’s because you were hitting refresh all the time.  

You found an article from Taiwan. 

Money DJ is an outlet in Taiwan and they posted about Rexon, which is one of Peloton’s manufacturers, and how their revenue numbers for January and February of 2021 are triple–digit, I assume percentage, greater in revenue than they were in January and February of 2020. It still lends to lots of demand for Peloton equipment. I thought that was fascinating. In the article, they talked about knowing, I don’t know how they know this, that Peloton still has 500,000 undelivered bikes. 

How is that possible? 

I don’t know how they would know that there are 500,000 bikes that are still undelivered as of March 11, 2021 when this post came out. If it is true, my mind thought, “If they’re catching up from that 500,000 now, what was it in October?” Also, we know that they’re not in the same type of constraint. I keep hearing, left and right, about people saying, “My delivery date was way out here, now it’s next week.” It’s obvious that the times aren’t the same anymore, things are getting back to a normal cadence. 

The complaints are becoming a lot less, they’re fewer and farther between. They need to get to these people that have been hanging out there for like eight months though. It’s crazy. Those people still don’t have their equipment. 

It’s so weird that they don’t have a way to go in and prioritize those people. 

It’s through XPO. At some point, they lose the ability to go and do that. 

If you think at that point, just buy a second bike and cancel whichever one doesn’t show up first. 

Some people have done that, which didn’t help with the whole demand. 

Totally, it’s like with concert tickets and counter holds that I’ve talked about before. That’s probably why they have 500,000 undelivered bikes. 

It seems like the process is working, maybe that’s pandemic normal backlog and manufacturing hold. Maybe that’s not that far behind for them. 

Maybe it is because they have to build to get ready for the next demand. Maybe it’s always that many undelivered so that they can build for the next one. I guess that makes sense. 

Yahoo! Finance sat down with Allan Boomer. He’s a Managing Partner of Momentum Advisors. I thought it was interesting because Allan is a proponent of Peloton. I feel like this is maybe the first stock picker guy. They probably have a more professional–sounding name than stock picker guy. He’s like, “Peloton is here to stay.” That’s fascinating because so many of these stock people have been just like, “They ride it while it’s hot and then they dump it.” He’s like, “Not just a COVID stock.” 

His reasoning behind it makes perfect sense. He starts talking about how Peloton subscribers are so passionate about it. They end up being the ones promoting and selling the equipment and he’s right. Peloton folks, they tend to talk about their exercise, equipment and the classes that they’re taking and they’re out there on social media talking. That dynamic is just so unique to Peloton. He aligns that to, “They’re likely not going anywhere.” Also, in the Wall Street Journal, John Foley was saying a similar thing. He’s like, “I know everybody thinks At Home stocks are going to start going down because of the vaccines,” but he’s like, “Five million treadmills are sold in the US every year, before all of this.” He always gets a little digging, “That’s when it was like dopey equipment.” He always gets that in.  

I love that. We’ve seen how nice John is because how many times has he been taken advantage of? We’ve seen these lawsuits that he clearly was taken advantage of. I like that he gets a little dig in on their dopey equipment. 

John is a cool guy. Don’t get it twisted. I walked up on him in New York one day and he had on these fly Air Force 1 Multi-Color like he was about to step on stage with Run-DMC. I was like, “John, those shoes are fly.” He said he had gotten some advice to get them. 

Like I said, I find this fascinating that many of the stock people are like, “They’re riding the wave,” and this guy is like, “No.” He’s right. When you say about the passion of the community, whenever people talk about that, I’m like, “Go find the Echelon podcast.” It’s not out there.  

I’ve seen them on Instagram. They attempt to create that same type of energy, but you can tell it’s coming from Echelon. They’re trying to reproduce it. 

That’s what I’ve been saying. You can’t recreate it. It’s something that happened organically. You cannot force that kind of thing. You just can’t. 

That’s it for this episode. Thank you for joining us. Until next time, remind everybody where they can find you. 

They can find me on my Run, Lift & Live page or group on Facebook. They can find me on Instagram, @RunLiftAndLive, or they can find me at RunLiftAndLive.com. 

When is your next Clubhouse?  

This Saturday, 2:00 PM Eastern.  

Thank you. 

—

Joining us is Dr. Jenn Mann, 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 was also a five-year national team member in Rhythmic Gymnastics and Sports Psychology for USA Gymnastics and most importantly, the reason our paths crossed, she loves Peloton, which is why she takes time out of her schedule to do this. Thank you and welcome.  

It is my pleasure. Any time I can talk Peloton or Peloton-related things, I’m all in.  

We benefit greatly from that. This episode’s question is from a member of The Clip Out group, Heidi Morgan Skelley. She would like to know your advice for how to not get super depressed when you can’t workout because you’re recovering from an injury or illness. 

This is such a great question and I work with really top-level athletes who have struggled with this as well. Wherever you are on the exercise continuum, this is mostly at some point, unfortunately, going to be an issue for you. There are few things. One, I recommend, if this is a Peloton person, doing the meditations every day at the very least so you can get a check mark and feel like you haven’t lost ground and that you’re not starting over. I know, especially in our Peloton community, we can get a little obsessed about our check marks. I recommend doing the meditation.  

I also recommend asking your doctor, if you have a foot injury, can you do arms? If you have a shoulder injury, can you do walking? If you have a back injury, what can you do? To be able to work on strengthening other parts of your body when one part has you knocked out. Sometimes we tend to be all-or-nothing, “If I can’t do that workout that I always do, If I can’t do a 60-minute run or I can’t do a full-body workout, then I don’t want to do anything,” but injuries are a good time to balance us out. It can be a good time to focus on stretching or on some gentle yoga or other things that can help our body.  

Also, the other thing that I recommend is mental training during that time. Let’s say you have a Peloton Tread and you’re into running. During that time, start to visualize what it’s going to be like when you get back. Start visualizing breaking time, start to visualize running becoming easier. Visualization, when I work with athletes, is one of the number one tools that I work with doing sports psychology. It is amazing.  

They’ve done studies, there’s a study in particular that I remember in grad school where they had people do free throws for basketball players. They had one group that did visualization, one group that did free throw practice, one that did visualization and free throw, and one that did not. What they found was the group that did the best was the one that did the physical and visualization, but followed by the visualization group, which was then followed by the practice group. It speaks of how important our minds are in building us up as athletes.  

That is fascinating.  

TCO 199 | Life Changing Communities

 

I also want to go back to the meditation so you get your check mark piece of advice. I love that piece of advice because it’s so Peloton-specific. We talked about how much you love Peloton and that’s the perfect marriage of your professional expertise with your personal passion. I don’t know that you could get such a great piece of advice that’s so hyper-specific for Peloton users from any other professional. 

Thank you. I am obsessed and I’m not going to lie, I need my check marks but I don’t want anyone to lose out on their check mark because they‘ve had an injury. It can shift your mindset and can make you feel so discouraged and negative. It’s such a great way to be able to get that check mark and also be doing something that’s good for you. Sometimes people underestimate the value of these meditations, especially if you’re injured. I know that Ross Rayburn has healing meditation. I’m sure all of the instructors knew that that’s a good time to do a healing meditation when you are injured.  

That’s a good point. I have been doing more meditations and I would say that I, 100% agree with that because, if nothing else, it quiets your mind. When you feel frustrated about something, like not being able to workout, there’s this space that you make in your mind that lets everything else be calmer the rest of the day. That can be very important. 

For a lot of people, especially right now we’re in a pandemic, exercise binds anxiety. If you’re injured and you can’t workout, especially if it’s at all, which I hope is not the case because usually if you injure one part, you can use another part of you, we need something to replace the thing that exercise served to help us with and a lot of the time, meditation can be that stand-in.  

Thank you so much for joining us. Until next time, remind everybody where they can find you. 

You can find me on social media, @DrJennMann. Also, the InStyle Magazine column that comes out every week, Hump Day with Dr. Jenn, you can find that on my social media.  

Thank you very much.  

—

ELLE Magazine took us Inside the Peloverse. 

I love this. I’m surprised it took this long to have this coverage of all of the different pieces of Peloton. 

The fandom of Peloton. We liked this article, not just because we’re in it, they didn’t talk to us or anything, but we had no idea this was coming. All of a sudden, they linked to us and talked about all the different ways you could engage with Peloton that aren’t from Peloton, whether it’s a Facebook group and they said, “Or an unofficial podcast.” That was exciting. 

A lot of groups reached out whenever I posted this and they were like, “We weren’t one of the groups,” they only said 300, we know there are more than 300. There are so many, you can’t get everybody. I think that it’s cool how they covered a little bit of everything from the perspective of all these different things, like you said, that you can do. I was honored to be part of it. 

The tone of the article, it sounds like they were almost going to make fun of it because it’s, “It’s so silly,” and then the author joined all these groups and then the longer she was in the group, she was like, “These people are pretty nice and normal and they’re not crazed cult numbers. They have a shared love of two things that unite them.” They’re moms, Peloton and their clergy or what have you. The community itself made her do a 180 and be like, “This isn’t as cringe–inducing as I thought it was going to be.” 

Peloton is much more than just a bike. It's about physicality and processing emotions. Share on X

That’s what the Peloton community does. That’s the power of the Peloton community. 

The LA Times had an article about the cycle studios reopening out that way, and can they pry people away from their Peloton bikes? Short answer, no. 

There are always going to be people that are still going to go. I don’t mean that those places are going to shut down, but people who enjoy their bikes are not going to go back to the gym. 

They’re not going to sell it or throw it away. It’s right there in their house. If they’re digging it, why go back?  

They already have to pay for that too. They spelled Peloton wrong in the URL. I see that a lot on the OPP, followed by a hundred comments telling them how dumb they are. 

On the heels of that, The Wall Street Journal has a similar article about how gyms are reopening, but now everything’s different. 

What was your take on this one? 

I don’t have a subscription to The Wall Street Journal. My take on it was, I don’t want to subscribe to The Wall Street Journal. We split up the subscription, you have The Journal subscription, I have The Washington Post subscription. 

I should have read it but guys, it’s been busy. I’m sorry. No one else cares but I feel guilty. 

A quick hit from Yahoo! Finance talking about Peloton COO Tom Cortese, a past guest. He was on one of our episodes, it’s the homecoming episode. He sat down with us for 5 or 10 minutes and told us how much we irritate him when we leak news before they’re ready. Here’s something new, he sold off some of his Peloton stock for a tiny little sum. 

It’s $4.4 million. That’s amazing. Congrats to him. 

It’s great to see these people that got in on the ground floor, rolled the dice and it did pay off big. My guess is that’s not anywhere close to the bulk of his stock, as early as he got in. It’s not like he’s panicking. He’s probably going to buy a house and he’s like, “Why take out a mortgage?” Vox had an article about how the Peloton delivery driver is now the most popular person in the pandemic. 

Sales are up 232%. That’s funny. I wonder how much a Peloton delivery driver gets compared to other companies that they deliver. If you took an Echelon bike, for example, or a NordicTrack bike and they have to be delivered and set up. I guess Echelon doesn’t get delivered, you buy it at Costco, so never mind. NordicTrack, if you just had them side-by-side, do they get the exact same amount of tip or because you have to wait so long and you’re so freaking excited they’re at your house, do you tip the Peloton delivery driver more? 

Do they get tip wars because they’re mad and they’re taking it out on that poor schlub?  

Anybody that’s ever delivered to us, we’ve had XPO drivers. We’ve had five Peloton deliveries because we had the pink Peloton bike and then I got my Bike+, I had my first bike then the Tonal and the Tread. Every single one of those deliveries has been perfect. I have never had an issue. They’ve all been wonderful delivery people and I have tipped well because I’m always so happy with how they handle it. 

GQ UK had a review of the new Tread and they dug it. 

It’s nice. It’s funny, I see two kinds of posts about the new Tread. I tried both of them side-by-side and the Tread+ kicks the crap out of the regular Tread, which I think is true. What’s also true is I have a smaller space so I can’t have the Tread+. The Tread is also really nice. I think Peloton is going to do amazing with this new Tread. It’s going to be great for people who have smaller spaces or they live in apartments where they can’t have a loud and heavy machine.  

I could see it be something that somebody stair steps. When you’re younger, you buy the Tread. As you get older and need something that’s a little bit easier on your knees and presumably as you age, maybe making a little bit more money, hopefully, and having a little more comfort in your life financially, you can upgrade to the Tread+. Also, you’ll know by then too, “I use this thing all the time. I feel more comfortable buying the next level because now I know I’ll use it.” I could definitely see people buying a Tread, having it for 4 or 5 years and then upgrading to a Tread+, when they’re at a different point in their life or when they have their forever home or what have you. 

Absolutely, both of them are beautiful machines. Tom, how is your new journey going with Tonal? Let me tell you, you’ve sold a lot of Tonals. I don’t know why, but people were like, “If Tom is using it, I’m going to go ahead and pull the trigger.” 

I don’t like working out, but it’s a great machine. For me, the big selling point of the Tonal is that I don’t have to think about it. I can just go up to the Tonal, I pick my class and then do a program that’s like four weeks. I don’t have to think about it for a month. 

That’s what speaks to people because there are a lot of people that are intimidated by weights and they’ve never done weights. I joke, but seriously, I think that that is why people have pulled the trigger. 

“If it’s so simple, Tom can do it, who has no experience going to a gym.” 

You don’t like working out and have had a great experience with the machine. 

Even though I still hate that I have to do it. It does what it’s supposed to do well. It doesn’t feel janky. They put that thing into the wall solid into the studs. It doesn’t feel it’s going to pull off the wall or anything like that. I liked the fact that it stair steps you on those weights to where it’s like, “I would never know when to go up on a weight or down,” and it just does it. It doesn’t even make all that big of a deal about it. It quietly does it in the background. Now, you’re lifting one more pound and then slowly over time, you lift more weight. 

If anybody out there has been looking into the Tonal, now is the time to buy. You can visit www.Tonal.com for $100 off the smart accessories when you use the promo code, The Clip Out, at checkout. You can try Tonal for 30 days risk-free. Tonal, be your strongest. 

— 

Shape Magazine had their weekly Peloton article. It’s mandated by law. This one was about the various instructors and their makeup regimen. 

This is a big deal because this wasn’t a paragraph, this was a full–on spread. Each instructor that was featured, there were four of them, Olivia, Tunde, Kendall, Ally and Aditi, all of them were featured. They go through their makeup routine and what their signature makeup piece is. For Olivia, it’s her lipstick. Brows for Allie. Tunde’s everything, her lipstick, especially. Aditi, she’s got the eyeliner game down. She does the best cat eye ever. Kendall, all of her skincare. She does have great skin. She’s got perfect skin. It’s very cool that all of these ladies were all featured in Shape Magazine. Congrats to all of them. I know they were all excited when they were posting about it. Every one of them is super excited because they’re in a magazine. Again, with this level of how the Peloton has just risen to this new stardom. 

If that’s not enough, Cody was featured in The New York Times. 

This article, This Is Your Brain on Peloton was basically an ode to Cody. 

A love letter to Cody Rigsby. 

TCO 199 | Life Changing Communities

 

It was all about how much they appreciate his sense of humor, his ways of dancing and just how he loves Britney. In fact, the person who wrote the article, I believe she has a hashtag that is #FreeBritney, that’s her hashtag. She doesn’t have a bike so she’s on the leaderboard, in the shadow realm, if you will. The instructors can see her, but they can’t see her hashtags. The rest of us can’t see her hashtags. It’s very cool though. They absolutely loved Cody. I like seeing these features and I liked that it was all about one instructor. It wasn’t just Peloton. It was across the board. 

— 

Joining us from Peloton Closet is Torrey. How is it going? 

It’s going great. It’s daylight savings time, and that means it’s time to do one of my favorite things which is Spring cleaning.  

Are you going to get us all prepared to organize all of our Peloton clothes? 

Absolutely. Three ways that I like to go through my athletic wardrobe to organize. I love a good purge, get ready. Swap out the leggings for the bike shorts or the dark stuff for the brighter colors for Spring. Let’s go through the three steps that I like to take. I brought some visual aids to show you my ways.  

Those visual aids will be good if people haven’t seen our YouTube channel yet. If you’re reading this, when you get a chance later, go to YouTube.com/TheClipOut and watch this episode.  

I will also be posting some of the videos and photos that I mentioned on my website, which is PelotonCloset.com. Let’s begin. The first step in the whole Spring cleaning situation for me is to straighten up all the drawers, where I store my athletic clothes. The truth is, my whole brand is misnamed because I don’t have an actual Peloton closet. I have Peloton drawers. I didn’t think about that when I was naming myself. I do store my stuff in drawers. A number of years ago, I read this book called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. There was also a Netflix series by the same woman, her name is Marie Kondo. Maybe you’ve seen that meme where she’s going, “I love mess.”  

She can be a little bit extreme for some people. As far as I’m concerned, her clothing storage tips are completely life-changing, not a misnomer. Before I read that book, I used to stack all my leggings and all my t-shirts on top of one another and if I couldn’t see the thing on the bottom, it never gets worn. I completely changed to the Marie Kondo method. Now, I stack all my things, envisioning a bookshelf. I’m going to demonstrate with a hot pink pair of leggings, it’s nice and bright. I take my leggings and instead of just folding them in half and then putting another pair on top, what I do is fold them in thirds and essentially, they’ll stand up on their own on the bottom of your drawer.  

When you look at your drawer, you’ll have all of your leggings or t-shirts, you can do it with a tank and shorts, everything stands up. It looks like a nice little bookshelf, that way you can see all of your items. For me, when I see the things that I own, then I’m able to wear them. If I don’t wear them, it’s not just because they’re buried in the back of the drawer, but there’s probably a reason. Maybe it doesn’t fit me, maybe I’m waiting to lose the last 5 pounds, maybe they’re scratchy, or maybe it’s time to get rid of them.  

That’s a great way to pick out what needs to go. If you have it very visual, then it’s easy to see what you’re not choosing. That can then be taken to the next step.  

One more thing about storage, I also have a box that I use for sports bras. The same thing, you stack them up. What’s nice about this is in your drawer, maybe you put it another way and flip it around. The same concept, the things that were toward the back are in the front. Again, if you’re not wearing them, you’ll know exactly there’s the storage box. That white item in the front when I flip it around, if it doesn’t get worn, I’m going to know. Just because I’m choosing not to wear, it’s not because I forgot about it.  

I need a better storage for sports bras so this is inspiring.  

These boxes you can get at Target, The Container Store or you can use a shoebox. It does not have to be fancy or expensive. Step two, assess. You see your things and now you’re like, “I never wear that blue sports bra. Those green leggings have gotten no love from me for whatever reason. Maybe it’s time to let them go via a Spring cleaning.” Sometimes we’re not ready emotionally to take that step. That’s where I like to talk about the clothing purgatory. I will pull something out of the drawer and put it in a pile and stick it in a bag. In the actual Peloton Closet, I’ll stick it in there for maybe a week or two and decide, “Have I thought about this thing? Have I cared about it? Do I miss it?” If not, time to go. That’s how I go through my process. It’s really about, “What do I do about this stuff?” You have a few options.  

First of all, giving it away to a non-profit. Check and make sure that they want your stuff. I went online to a non-profit organization near me and they were specifically asking for sports bras and warm socks, not athletic socks. I felt really good about being able to give those specific items to that organization, knowing they had a very real need for those things. Another thing that a lot of people do, especially with those Peloton branded items, is selling them. There’s a huge market. We’re going to talk another time on buying resale. There’s more to come on that. In the meantime, Facebook Marketplace, Poshmark, eBay. If you have some items, especially the Peloton branded clothing, you are going to make someone else very happy when you sell that because they missed out on it and they’ve been searching for it, maybe for a long time.  

Finally, if taking something to a local non-profit or selling it online is too hard, you might want to organize a swap, trade with friends. When I left my last job, people were really sad and I don’t think it’s because I was such a great employee but probably because I was the person who always showed up with a big bag of leggings, tank tops and shorts. I was like, “Guys, it’s free for all. Come and grab some stuff.” All those people were crying when I moved to my new place of employment. You can make yourself popular with friends and neighbors or colleagues if you want to bring things in to share.  

It’s good tips. 

Thank you very much for all that. Until next time, where can people find you? 

I am all over the internet under the name Peloton Closet. Instagram is my favorite channel, that’s @PelotonCloset. I’m on Facebook, not quite as much, PelotonCloset. I have my website which is PelotonCloset. I am on Reddit, PelotonCloset. I am at the bottom of the leaderboard, #PelotonCloset.  

—

While we’re talking clothing, I found an article from PromoMarketing.com, which I thought was very interesting. It says Peloton reportedly sold 600,000 pieces of branded apparel last quarter.  

That is a phenomenal figure. 

Now you see why things like Adidas are jumping in. 

This whole article was about the Adidas collaboration, which we covered in the last episode but it’s interesting to note that this article was also like, “Peloton didn’t do a release at all.” I thought it would happen over the next couple of days and then it never did, but supposedly there’s one coming. 

It shows you why somebody like Adidas wants to partner with Peloton when they’re moving 600,000 pieces in a quarter. That’s crazy. 

Keep in mind, that’s without meeting the demand. It’s still selling out. It’s not like anybody’s thirst was quenched, there’s more. It makes you wonder if Peloton will change their tactic on that. 

—

Bloomberg had an article, Peloton Basks in Celebrity Love While at Bottom of NASDAQ 100.  

What are your thoughts on this? 

They’re talking about the disconnect in terms of how popular it is with celebrities. It talks about Lizzo, Miley Cyrus and Ellen DeGeneres, all being huge proponents of it, but that it’s stock, they think should be bigger, or why isn’t it doing better? It talks about how Nautilus outperforms it in terms of percentages. 

Nautilus started from a smaller point. 

That’s what they’re talking about, that its growth has outpaced it even though Peloton stock price is significantly higher. If you’re a stock guy, you’d rather throw $200,000 at the other one and get that bigger growth in cash right back out. 

If you’re only looking at numbers, yes, absolutely. That’s what people don’t get about Peloton. This person clearly doesn’t get it. 

It is Bloomberg, they’re there to talk about stock stuff.  

Bloomberg is usually positive on Peloton. 

Overall, they’re talking about a little bit of the disconnect. I do think that, as we talked previously in the episode, the passion in the fan base and the passion among the celebrities is what’s going to help drive it long-term. It creates brand loyalty that the other ones can’t replicate. 

Absolutely. There’s no doubt about it. 

—

We have a new artist collaboration with Lauryn Hill. 

I’m looking forward to this. I love Lauryn Hill and I’ve listened to her music for a long time. I’m excited about this one.  

The bike is an amazing synthesizer in terms of behavioral change, particularly anger issues. Share on X

It’s not my thing. Not that I was going to hop on the bike anyway, but it’s like what we talk about all the time. It’s great that they have many different artists to spotlight.  

It’s incredible. I love seeing the breadth of different artists. 

—

It’s not a birthday, but Jess King is celebrating her seventh anniversary with Peloton. 

Seven years. Can you believe that? 2014, congrats to Jess King. 

She has a special celebratory ride that you can take with her. 

It’s going to be on Saturday, March 20, 2021 at noon, Eastern and 30 minutes long. It’s a perfect time to enjoy right in the middle of the day. 

—

Joining us is Jennifer Storm. Jennifer, how is it going? 

Good. How are you? 

I’m good. I’m super excited about this. I feel I’ve seen you on the leaderboard forever. 

I’ve had a bike for a while since 2015. 

You’ve had yours longer than I have. That’s cool. What was your fitness like before Peloton? Do you remember back that far? 

No. There is no life before Peloton. It’s non-existent. By pure background, I’m not an athlete. I have never been super into athleticism at all but I started needing something to process trauma, my own trauma, and the work that I was doing. At the time, I was in victim services and I was doing homicide response which is incredibly intensive and super traumatic. I was finding myself coming home with all these experiences stuck to me. It was bringing up my own crap so I was trying to figure out how to process this. Therapy wasn’t helping and all the normal things that I would normally do weren’t helping to get it out so I started to run and I found running to be helpful. 

I started getting a little older and my knees weren’t liking me too much. I started to dip into spin classes here and there. Dare I say it, I went to Gold’s Gym. That was my first spin class experience and I fell in love with spin. I love the fact that it was low impact but high intensity so I can still get that brain clear that I got from running without killing my knees. I got into spin. I travel a lot so I was doing a lot of different boutiques. I won’t name any of those people. I kept seeing this ad pop up all of a sudden. It was probably in 2014. I would get this ad on my Facebook and I was getting inundated. I feel like Peloton targeted me and stalked me successfully. That’s their strategy. 

I kept saying to my wife, “What if I had it here in my living room? What a great concept.” There was no on-demand exercise at that point. There wasn’t this thing. Finally, I was like, “I’m going to at least look at the bike.” My wife knows me, she’s like, “That means we’re coming home with a bike.” At that point, I’m in Pennsylvania and we had to travel to Virginia because that was the closest Peloton store. We didn’t even have one in Philly yet. 

That’s so funny because in the world of Peloton, that’s 100 years ago. 

TCO 199 | Life Changing Communities

 

I’m an OG Peloton kid and I love it. We drove 2.5 hours to Tysons Corner, which is a huge mall in Virginia. I got on the bike and the first thing I realized was how well made it was. I got on that bike and it felt fierce. I felt secure on it. Probably 4 or 5 pedals though, I looked at my wife and I’m like, “I’m going to need you to get the wallet because we’re going to be getting this.” I did a demo, a quick little five-minute ride and I was hooked. The rest is history as they say. I got it in November of 2015. 

How long was that drive between your home? 

It’s 2.5 hours. 

That’s dedication. You knew deep inside. 

I did. I kept saying to myself, “I need to feel it. I need to get on a bike and know that it feels right.” I knew I was going to get it. 

You bought yours on that day and it comes home. Is this still 2015? 

Yeah. It’s just not here. I know. I feel so bad for people that are dying for their bikes right now. 

It’s sad and I can understand the frustration. It’s crazy how much the community has grown. It’s insane. 

I used to be a member of the Official Peloton Page when you could post on there and engage, have community, and friendships. It got so big that I branched off to subgroups and I spent more of my time on subgroups because it’s massive. 

What has the community been like for you? Since you’ve been around that long, I know that you had to have met some cool people so tell us about that. 

It’s one of the keys to success. I’ve had home equipment. It has turned into clothing racks as people said. I saw somebody post on a thing, “Is this going to become a clothing rack?” I’m like, “No, it will not.” The community is the biggest piece for me at least. When I got the bike, I went on Facebook. I found the community and started posting there. There was so much motivation and fun. There was also accountability. That’s big for me. If I commit to something and someone else knows I’m supposed to do something, it’s the age–old saying, “You’re going to do it. Accountability works. The buddy system works.” I started posting in there and introducing myself. It got me on the bike because if I was laying on my couch having a fat day, I’d see all these posts and I’m like, “Look at that ride. Maybe I’ll do that ride.” Someone did Robin’s and it would get me off the couch onto the bike. Nothing has ever done that before. Nothing’s ever gotten me off the couch to the gym other than my own will. 

You’re like in a club and the admission is riding the bike and you start to feel bad. I’ve seen Crystal do this. You start to feel bad if you’re talking to these people. You start talking about Peloton and you haven’t gotten on the bike for a while. You’re like, “I’ve got to earn this.” I have to earn my stripes. 

People make it look so fun. They’re like, “They had such a great time on such and such ride.” You’re like, “Maybe that’s the one I need.” The next thing you know and three rides later, you’re like, “All I needed was a good ride.” 

It’s funny you can’t go back and take any of those old rides anymore, which is sad to me, but they were so funny. Even the instructors didn’t take themselves as seriously. The hair and the makeup were different. Even their form was different. I won’t name instructors, but there are definitely rides I’ve been on where I’m like, “That’s from another place.” That’s a Peloton no-no. You don’t put your arms on the handlebars and things that were traditional in other spaces. It was the camaraderie there. They’re like the turkey burn. That’s Jess and Robin used to do the Bad Girl Ride, where they would get together when Nicole was on. I adored Nicole and Steven Little and that’s what got me into heart rate and power zones. I started to branch off into the other communities and got even more committed. 

Which other communities have you trickled down to? 

I don’t even remember the name but for a while, there was a snarky subgroup of Peloton. It was funny at first. I stopped going to it because it started becoming a little mean girl-ish. It started to be about making fun of other people and that’s not okay. I forget the name of it, but it’s good that I don’t. I spend my time on the JSS page because I love Jenn Sherman. That’s my girl. The LGBTQ & Ally page is my jam. That’s those two spaces, sometimes Robin’s. There’s Robin’s page. I don’t go to that one as much, but I am a dedicated Jenn Sherman rider to the core. 

That’s where I usually see you on the leaderboard. I feel like we’ve been seeing each other. It’s so cool to put a face with the name. I’ve never known what you look like this whole time so that’s pretty cool. 

I started a bit of a stir on the JSS page because I posted a photo and I have it. I’ve got all the Grateful Dead stuff because I love the Dead too. I had to have them. When it first came out, I was so excited. I put it on and took a picture of myself. I posted it and everyone thought I was Jenn Sherman. Some people were upset. They were like, “We thought she wasn’t allowed back.” Remember back in the day when the instructors were allowed. They were a big part of that. It was so funny. There must have been 200 comments of people thinking I was Jenn Sherman. 

You’re an author as well. 

I am. I write about my own experiences. That’s how I walked into being an author. I was victimized as a young child. I was raped and that experience took me down this tumultuous dark path of addiction. I was lucky that I survived at a young age. I survived a brutal suicide attempt after living ten years in some real heavy drug and alcohol addiction. I got sober young. When I was trying to figure out what this new life looked like, I’m 22 years old. I should be going into bars. However, I had been in them for six years. I went to college and I came out of the closet. I discovered I was gay and that was one of those underpinning secrets beneath my addiction. 

As I started to unravel all those secrets, I started to free myself, but I wasn’t trusting a lot of people in the beginning so I wrote a lot. Writing has always been a real source of solace for me. It’s how I process things. I kept writing and writing. It was around 2006 or 2007 when the memoir genre started getting big so I was also reading. I love to read and I couldn’t find a book that spoke to my story. It didn’t talk about what it’s to be queer in recovery and in sobriety, it didn’t talk about sexual violence, certainly at all. I thought, “I’ve written a lot. Maybe I’ll try to see if I could get this published.” Lo and behold, Hazelden Publishing took my book. Blackout Girl came out originally in 2008. It is going through a repackaging and reprinting so it came back out in September 2020. It’s funny so I published my first book in 2008. Does anybody remember what happened in 2008? 

It’s subprime bubble bursting. 

It was a great time to publish a book. I was so excited when the publishers were like, “We’re going to put the book back out.” I was like, “Yes. It’s going to breathe new life into it,” and the pandemic hit. I have the worst book karma on the planet. 

Books got a glow up in the pandemic, but mine came after the glow up. The glow was early, like March and April 2020 and my book came out in September 2020. I’m screwed. The people who need to get to it and read it, they get to and that’s what matters. 

I want to go back to the group that you talked about, the LGBTQ. Is it called that or does it have a different name? I’m sure people are going to ask about that. I want to make sure we get the full name. 

It’s not a secret group. I’m on there every day. It’s LGBTQ & Allied Group. They have an awesome logo. They have an awesome Peloton logo. I know the Jenn Sherman page hit 10,000 which is amazing. I feel like the LGBTQ one is around 6,000. It’s a great and fun group. It’s about accountability. My relationship with Peloton in the pandemic has completely drastically changed. I used to ride consistently. I was a big member of the 6 AM Live Rides. I would get up at 6 AM and I would ride 2 to 3 times a week. 

I miss that. 

Me too. Do you remember when Robin’s Tabata is on Tuesday? Matt Wilpers would have a Power Zone and I love my boy, Steven Little. I would do Jenn Sherman on Sunday. She was on Sundays, that was her day, but I wasn’t a daily rider. Riding for me has always been about my mind and spirit anyway. It has never done much for my body. I’ll be honest. The pandemic hit. I thought, “This is a respiratory illness and I’ve got the cure for that.” 

I’ve got a respiratory generator in my home and coupled with sheer boredom, I started getting on every day. I have been on that bike since March 2020. I will say almost every day because then there’s a big caveat. I started riding every day. I started getting even more engaged in communities. I started to notice benefits in my body that happened to be these side effects that are great. I lost twenty pounds. 

Most people gained in quarantine. I somehow lost. I’ll take it. I got diagnosed with uterine cancer in October of 2020. I was having some issues over the summer into the fall. I went to the doctor. It took forever to get to the doctor because of everything going on. Lo and behold, I was being scheduled for this radical hysterectomy within two weeks. I’m a sharer, to begin with, that’s how my recovery works. I write books about every horrible thing that’s ever happened to me. I took it to the JSS page and the LGBTQ page. I also do the PeloFondo now because I’m a crazy Peloton person. I don’t only do one ride. Sometimes I do 40. 

I was on the tour and the PeloFondo ride. I posted about it. The outpouring of love and support carried me through that surgery. It carried me through that experience. I had all this anxiety about being off the bike. I thought, “Am I going to not get back to where I was? Am I going to not be able to get to that place?” I was riding every day. I had this core crew of friends here and started in Pennsylvania now, we’ve got a girl from Chicago that joins us. Every morning, we get on the bike at 6:30, we ride but then on Saturdays, we ride like maniacs. We ride for 2 to 3 hours. I’m so excited about the stack feature. We’ll come up with these rides and we’ll do 2 to 3 hours on the bike. We’re texting the whole time and motivating each other. I was so scared that I was going to lose all that. I was back on the bike three weeks after my surgery. 

Did the doctor say that’s okay? 

That face you made says that, “That is not what they told me to do.” 

Not yet. I got on and rolled my legs through. I have taken it easy, but I’m back up to every day. I had my surgery on September 22nd and I was re-hospitalized with sepsis so I had another setback. I got cards from people from Peloton that I only know because of this community. I had many hands on my back supporting me. It was awesome. For my final ride before my surgery, there were all these people, and for my comeback ride. There’s love in this place. There’s community and support that if you find it, seek it and engage is life-changing. 

When they say, “We ride together,” it’s true. Together we ride. 

It’s so much more than a bike. Someone posted in one of the groups, “Is it normal to cry on the bike?” I was like, “Let’s talk about this.” Yes, because it’s not about physicality. It’s about processing emotions. I remember when I lost my dad a couple of years ago. I got on. It was a Jess King ride. I was sobbing probably for my first 7 or 8 rides after he died. It was amazing because the bike is an outlet. It helps you process through so much. 

It’s weird. When I say weird, it’s strange, because that emotion sneaks up on you because you’re riding. All of a sudden, the next thing you know you’re sobbing. You don’t even know where it came from. I don’t know how to explain it, but I understand what you’re saying. You’re not alone. 

I call my bike, The Synthesizer. I’m a big believer because I do a lot of trauma work. I do a lot of healing and hope stuff. In terms of behavioral change, and especially people that maybe struggle with rage or anger issues, the bike is this amazing synthesizer. I remember around the time when George Floyd was murdered, you could feel it in the air, the anger and the rage. That’s when I started to identify that my bike for me is a synthesizer. I can get on it, ready to kill somebody with so much spewing rage. The bike helps me synthesize that into productivity. I can get off of it and I can breathe a little bit deeper. Hopefully, whatever I was upset or mad about, I have a different outlook about it too. As a writer, it’s huge for me. Sometimes I’m literally on the bike writing in my notes section. I do a ton of my writing on the Peloton. 

I’ve heard people say before that they’re their most creative when they work out. I can’t identify with that because my brain is so into what I’m doing that I can’t do that, but I’m not a creative person in general. That’s totally cool. I’m always fascinated when people tell me that. I wish my brain would kick in and come up with ideas when I was writing. I’m all about efficiency. 

It’s not great for your PRs, but it’s super helpful. 

TCO 199 | Life Changing Communities

 

That’s okay. You don’t need every day to be a PR. 

That’s great for your career. 

I have not PR since I got back on the bike. I’m giving that up. My numbers are nowhere near where they were, but I was in such a beast mode prior to the surgery that it is going to take me a while to get back there. 

It will, but you’ll get there when you least expect it. You’ll look up one day and be like, “When did that happen? How did I get there?” 

I have a question about your writing. How does it work with a memoir in terms of how do you get a publisher to know that someone isn’t already an established celebrity? If Ellen DeGeneres wants to write a memoir, people are going to be down her door. If you’re a regular Joe or Jane Q. Public and you’re like, “I’ve got an interesting story,” how did you crack that nut to get their attention? 

It was hard because I was just Jenn Storm living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Four people may have heard of me. What I did was I started querying agents. That was a mess because you get so much rejection. I must have 60 rejection letters on my wall. 

Did you already have a treatment or a book written or were you like, “I’ve got an idea?” 

I probably had about 200 pages written, but I didn’t even have chapters identified. It was my brain dump in a Word document, which essentially was. At one point, I did think, “Maybe I should hire an editor to get it to a manuscript submission place.” I did that. Quite frankly, I would never advise anyone to spend money on an editor unless it’s tightening up and grammatical because the person didn’t know me, they didn’t know my voice and it ended up being a waste of money for me. 

I learned a lot of what I did via Google. You google, “How do you have a manuscript submission?” There’s a format that you need. You have to have a little bit of a marketing analysis, which is not as hard as it sounds. You need to have your bio and a couple of sample chapters so you don’t have to have the book complete, especially if it’s nonfiction. It does not have to be complete. If it’s fiction, it has to be complete. What I started to do is look at the books that I was reading. Who do I read? Who do I love? At that point, it was Melody Beattie. I was into some self-help recovery stuff and I noticed Hazelden Publishing. 

A lot of entities require an agent to bring an author to a publishing house. Hazelden is one of those few that takes what they call unsolicited manuscripts. I thought, “This is an opportunity.” I went on their website. I looked at how they wanted me to submit it and I submitted it to them. They came back and they don’t do a lot of memoirs. I’m only one of a small handful of memoirs, so I feel blessed that they saw something in my story. It was right around that time where memoirs were exploding. Smashed and Prozac Nation had come out and done well. They saw, “Here’s a young girl with a horrible story,” because quite frankly, my story is horrific and it’s a miracle I’m alive. They thought it would maybe put forth some hope. I got lucky. I feel blessed. 

I was also curious when you were talking about all the different things you’ve written about. You were talking about how addiction and recovery are different or is it different is my question for if you are gay or bi or anything. Did it feel like it was different from other people? I was curious if you could expand on that. 

There are a couple of things to unpack there. In it, the use, so much of my addiction, was propelled by this huge secret that I had. I knew I was gay in kindergarten. I can tell you the girl I had the first crush on and there were these points in my life, one being kindergarten, one being fourth grade, and one being sixth grade, where I tried to naturally express what I thought was like, “I like girls.” I didn’t know that this was something you shouldn’t like until I got messages from my parents and from other parents. I remember a teacher pulling me aside and shaming the heck out of me. It quickly made me realize this is not something that I should be engaging in. 

It was one of those other reasons I always wanted to run out of my skin and I didn’t feel comfortable. Drugs and alcohol made me feel comfortable and helped me fit in. When I got sober at such a young age at 22, unfortunately, historically and this has changed, the only place you could meet other gay people were in gay bars. Every town would have that 1 or 2 bars. There might be the gay bar and the lesbian bar, but that was traditionally where we went for community and to meet one another. Being a sober person, it was hard because those spaces weren’t necessarily 100% safe for me. 

Fortunately, I was at college so I engaged and got introduced to a whole queer community in college because most universities have groups. I was able to meet some people and get community that way. I probably walked into far too many bars that I should have and wasn’t necessarily safe, but at the same time, it was safe for me in another way. It was always struggling with those two things. Unfortunately, drinking is a big thing in our community mainly because those safe spaces for us were bars. 

That’s where we had to hide in the darkness of a barroom. That’s changed a lot. In fact, unfortunately, it changed too much to the extent that we don’t have a lot of lesbian and gay bars anymore because it’s become almost so mainstream. I was on the LGBTQ Peloton Page where we were talking about, “Where are the lesbian bars?” There aren’t any places to go anymore because it’s become mainstream. It was a struggle on both ways. 

I’ve heard Dan Savage talk about how things like Grindr have killed the gay bar. You don’t need to go out to meet people. There’s not as much of a need for it. Combined with what you said, which is, it’s more mainstream so it doesn’t have to be sequestered in the way that it did previously. 

I did little dating in the digital age. I’m married. My wife and I’ve been together for several years. There was no Tinder or Grindr. None of those apps existed. I remember I did a little AOL instant messaging like chatroom stuff. Match.com was a big thing. I’ve been in a committed relationship ever since so I have no appreciation of the swipe culture at all. 

We got out of it right before the swiping thing became a deal. 

Plenty of Fish was still big when we got together. We haven’t done the swiping either. We’re like, “Is it left or right?” I don’t even know. 

It’s become so ingrained in the culture, I do know whether it’s left or right. I don’t feel I can admit it to her or she’ll think that I found out. 

Is it right if you like him and left if you don’t? 

Swipe right if you like him. 

That’s what I thought. That makes sense. It’s like a forward motion.  

Do I remember correctly that you said that you have another book coming out soon? 

Blackout Girl came out in September and I wrote a follow-up called Awakening Blackout Girl that did come out in October 2020. It’s a memoir but it’s also much more self-help and it carries survivors through. It’s specific too. If you are a person who used substances as a means to cope with being sexually traumatized because there aren’t a lot of targeted resources like that out there. I’m proud of that book. I processed and healed a lot through writing that book personally, places, even in myself, and in my own relationship that I didn’t even think I could go further on the healing path. I was able to do that and writing it. I’m excited about that book. The audio version of Blackout Girl releases on February 9th, 2021. 

Did you read it yourself? 

I did. This is a lesson in tenacity and balls. When they sold the audiobook, they were like, “We can’t use her. She’s not a celebrity voice. No one’s going to want to hear her voice.” I’m like, “It’s my story. What do you mean?” I fought it out with my publisher and they kept coming back and saying, “We have no negotiation on it. You’re not Ellen DeGeneres,” but they did say, though, that you can help select the voice. I was like, “Fine.” 

They sent me three auditions and they were awful. They all sounded Alexa or Siri on your phone. I got pissed so I recorded my own. I sent that back to the audio company, not the publisher. Lo and behold, I got an email from my publisher that was a little curt. It was like, “While we appreciate what you’ve done, that was not the process, but we wanted to let you know that they liked your audition and now you’re hired.” 

They sent you voice people to read your book because you’re not a big enough name, but they weren’t names that were going to read the book. 

No. They were average people who have voiceover careers and who have done this, but I’m like, “It’s my life.” It’s a lesson for people to never take no for an answer in circumstances where it’s about advocating for yourself because you never know when you’re going to be able to get to that.  

That reminds me because I’m a pop culture nerd, this is similar to a story about a rock band. There was a rock band that had produced their album entirely in their basement and it was this one mastermind guy that did it all. The labels were like, “We like this record, but you’ve got to have a real producer do it.” They flew the band out to LA. They gave him this big–name producer. It was Ted Templeton. Ted Templeton comes in and goes, “Here’s the deal. Nobody’s ever going to make a record that sounds as good at this. I’m not going to touch a track. We’re going to sit here for two weeks. We’re going to tell the label that we re-recorded it. We’ll send it back to them because this album is brilliant. I don’t want to touch it.” That album was the debut release from Boston. You’re the memoir equivalent of Ted Scholz from Boston. 

I was trying to not take no for an answer on that one. It felt so wrong. I don’t even like my own voice. I don’t listen to my own voice but I thought, “If someone’s going to hear my story, shouldn’t it be in my voice with all my inflections, understanding, and appreciation for the text?” 

That’s weird. If I selected an audiobook and I saw the memoir wasn’t read by the author, I’d be like, “This is going to sound like bad community theater.” 

That’s how it read to me on all three of them especially in a memoir. It’s different if it’s fiction. In your memoir, it’s your whole personal experience. There are moments in the book when I knew to laugh and where I was able to bring my own emotion to it that somebody reading it would not have knowledge. They would have no idea. 

Given what you said, I’m sure the memoir goes to some dark places. If you choose the laugh at a moment in it, it’s you as the person who experienced finding the humor in it where if it’s some random person reading it now it’s like, “Are they finding the humor in it? Are they laughing at you?” 

It changes that dynamic a lot. I’m glad you advocated for yourself.  

What is your leaderboard name? 

It’s BlackoutGirl. I use it a lot. I’m on every day. Now, I rarely ride live unless it’s Jenn Sherman. I’m usually on the bike every morning at 6:30 with my little crew. We pick a ride. Every Monday, we do Jess King’s Experience. I don’t know what the heck we’re going to do next. I miss being in the studio. I miss it so much. 

I didn’t get to go to the studio that often. It was once a year. Even being at home, I miss people being in the studio. Not that the instructors are not doing a fantastic job, but it’s a different vibe and I missed that vibe. I miss it a lot. 

It’s a different experience. My first in-studio ride was with Robin and John Michael. It was Friday night. I strategically made sure my bike was not placed in front of Robin for obvious reasons because I’m far too competitive. If somebody challenges me, I’m going to go there even if I can’t athletically go there. I’m going to introduce myself because I’m that stubborn. I made sure I was off to the side, but I didn’t realize that I was in front of John Michael’s DJ booth. Remember when it used to be next to the instructor? I forget what song was playing. It might have been Whitney Houston. I must have been in a zone because I was singing and dancing. All of a sudden, John Michael snapped me with his towel and I felt anointed. It was one of those seminal moments for me in the studio. 

He is one of the nicest people on the planet. 

He’s the sweetest. We’ve connected on Instagram after that and talked a couple of times. He DJed in Philly a couple of times. He’s a doll. They have so much fun together. I love the DJ rides. 

Me too. Have you done any DJ runs? 

I haven’t. I want to treadmill so badly and I was listening to your podcast. They’re all sitting in warehouses somewhere. Is there one I can go and grab one? 

No. They won’t let them out. They won’t let them go. 

I want the smaller one. That’s the one I want. 

It’s March 30, 2021 even for Philadelphia. I was thinking that might be one of the cities that starts on February 9, 2021, but it’s not. It’s March 30th for you guys too. 

I tested one out in Chicago, the bigger ones and it is running on the cloud. I thought, “Maybe I could run again if I got this.” I’m working on the wife. 

I totally understand. Even walking and listening to the DJ run could be a lot of fun for you. I’m throwing it out there. 

It’s like being in a nightclub, but not which is lovely. 

Yes, on both counts. Do you have any advice for people joining the Peloton community? 

I have. I’m a big advocate and I promote Peloton all over the place. I have eight bikes to my name. There are people that have bought bikes through me, but I tell people to get connected. That’s the difference in it becoming a piece of equipment that doesn’t motivate you. It’s the community. Find it. There are many different Peloton communities now and many subgroups. I belong to the mom group too. I’m on that mom group all the time. I love them. 

It’s MPR. The reason I’m laughing for the record because I’m sure I’m going to get crap for it is because people do that about every two days. If you know that’s going to happen, why did you even put it out there? 

I do like that group and it’s fun. I love the MPRs and the no MLMs too. They’re the people who get radical about that too. God forbid you promote anything. I had a friend texted me and she’s like, “You motivated me. I got my bike. It’s coming next week.” I get a lot of that because I intentionally put a story up on my Instagram every time I’m on the bike because of consistency. That’s how you build patterns and that’s how you change behavior. It’s how you change everything. 

For me to be accountable, I do that. They’re always these nasty, sweaty, hot-ass mess pictures, but whatever. It’s about getting connected and finding your own little crew inside those connections. If it weren’t for the crew that I ride with every morning, I don’t think I’d get on the bike every day. My alarm goes off Monday through Friday at 5:45. I’m on the bike and it’s because of them. We’re all texting each other in the morning like, “Morning crew, are you ready?” 

We set our ride the night before so we know what we’re going to ride. It’s become a pattern that I love. I have never met any of these people in person. I love them. They’re like my family. I love them dearly. One of them got married so I sent her a wedding gift. When I was having my surgery, she sent me brownies. We support each other. It’s amazing how virtually and through that, you can change and impact each other’s lives. It is more than a bike. It’s like, “I’ve got to work out,” but it isn’t about that anymore. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to join us. Before we go, remind everybody where they can find you. I can tell that you don’t mind being found. 

Never take no for an answer in the circumstances about advocating for yourself. Share on X

I’m social media oriented. I’m on Instagram a lot. It’s @Storm119 because someone had BlackoutGirl and didn’t go to that page because it’ll probably trigger all kinds of things on your phone. The title of my book necessarily can sometimes get you down a rabbit hole on the internet if you don’t want to go. It’s @Storm119 which is my last name and my sobriety date, which is November 9th so I use Storm119 a lot. I’m on Instagram all the time. My Facebook page is @JenniferStormAuthor. I’m all over there. I have a personal and a public one. I post on both. My website is my name JenniferStorm.com. 

Thank you so much. 

Thank you. 

— 

That brings this episode to a close, what pray tell can we expect next episode? 

Episode 200. There are going to be so many surprises. There are going to be many past guests’ updates and as in several in short duration. You’re going to be able to hear from past guests that you have often asked about, you’re going to hear from some people telling us what they think about our 200th anniversary and of course, we’ll still cover the news and all that good stuff.  

The 200 jam-packed portion is in place of the interview. You’ll still get the weekly news and then we’ll follow it up until the interview with lots of little mini–interviews and well-wishes from other people and stuff. It will be a good time. Until next time, where can people find you? 

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/CrystalDOKeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, the bike, and of course, the Tread, @ClipOutCrystal. 

You can find me on Twitter, @RogerQBert, or on Facebook at Facebook.com/TomOKeefe. You can find the show online, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Don’t forget our YouTube channel. It’s going to come in handy next episode, YouTube.com/TheClipOut. Of course, wherever you’re getting your podcasts from, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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