TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

259: Homecoming Recap: The Good, The Bad, & The Glitchy Plus Our Interview With Peter Shankman

Last Updated: May 20, 2022By Tags: , , , , ,

TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

 

  • John Mills joins us to recap Homecoming.
  • Aditi Shah went to the White House for AAPI month.
  • Builtin.com spotlights Emma Lovewell.
  • Becs Gentry was in London doing something secret at the studio.
  • Kendall Toole was at Kendra Scott’s Aloha event.
  • Ally Love is one of Modern Luxury’s Top 100 Social Media Creators.
  • Slash Film mentions Netflix’s upcoming show with Ally Love.
  • Peloton is looking for a loan and people want in.
  • People are having trouble getting “Lil Guy Front & Back” to light up for upper body.
  • Peloton now has badges for private companies.
  • Peloton memberships are a perk for House Staffers…for the moment.
  • CFO Jill Woodworth sells some of her Peloton stock.
  • Hyatt is testing private gyms with Pelotons.
  • Peloton is partnering with The Steve Fund and IPSO.
  • Peloton and iFit end their lawsuit.
  • CEO of Xponential Fitness still thinks Peloton is a fad.
  • Ben & Leanne partner up with Olympic Gold Medalists Laura & Jason Kenny for Ride To Gold.
  • The latest artist series spotlights Dear Evan Hansen.
  • Birthdays – Christian Vande Velde (5/22)

All this plus our interview with Peter Shankman!

 

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Homecoming Recap: The Good, The Bad, & The Glitchy Plus Our Interview With Peter Shankman

We should say before we get going that you have a migraine and you were on the fence as to whether or not you were even going to record. She’s powering through, people. She doesn’t seem like her normal chip herself because she’s not. We get to play a fun game. This is a fun game for people at home. It’s called will their marriage survives recording an episode of The Clip Out while she has a migraine?

I can’t even laugh because it hurts my head. Don’t also make me pout because then I might start crying.

Just some house cleaning stuff before we get started, I want to point out about the Olive & June make-up fancy sleepover party.

It’s not a sleepover party. It’s the MANI masterclass. It’s at 11:00 Central and noon Eastern. You have to do the rest of the math for me for the rest of the time zones. If you haven’t signed up and you want to go, just go to The Clip Out group and sign up at the link. We are all going to have the option to be able to see each other on the screen. I’m pretty stoked about that. That’s going to be a lot of fun.

It does sound fun. It’s not my jam because I don’t paint my nails. Although if I wanted to, I could and no one can judge me. I don’t even comb my hair. It’s the least amount of grooming that I have to do.

Greg, was like, “I’m asking a real question. Why would you do this?” Here’s the deal, Olive & June has a bunch of tools that make painting your nails easier and make them look better. Maybe not everybody needs those tools but I sure do. We’re going to learn from the professionals how to use those tools to the best ability possible. That’s what it’s all about. Getting to see each other on screen and hanging out with each other is the other fun part.

It helps you replicate a manicure done by a third party with that quality.

That’s what I mean. It looks so much better because you’re using all these tools.

I also just want to let people know that no Angelo and no Dr. Jenn for this episode, but they will be back. Fear not or enjoy them not being here if you’re one of those people. What pray tell do you have in store for people?

John Mills is going to be here. We’re going to recap Homecoming. A trigger warning for those who don’t like my opinions about things, I’m going to have opinions. There’s a whole bunch of news. The instructors have been to lots of places. We’re going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about what’s going on with Peloton from the loan perspective, lawsuit updates, competitors, and then some In Case You Missed It and Artist Series.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Tune-In, and iHeart. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a review if you haven’t done that yet, that would be greatly appreciated. It doesn’t cost you anything but a little bit of time. You can also find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. If you want to stay up to date on the things we say in the show, we throw a lot of articles and stuff at you, you can sign up for our newsletter which comes out weekly and you can do that at our website, theclipout.com.

Finally, if listening to this isn’t enough and you just got a look at us, you can also do that by checking out YouTube.com/TheClipOut where these episodes live in HD glory. If you want to see what Crystal looks like with a migraine, this is your big opportunity. This is your moment. This is your time to shine, people. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

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Joining us is John Mills from Run, Lift and Live. How is it going, John?

How is it going?

I was going to talk about Homecoming. We’re going to recap Homecoming. There’s a lot to unpack. I called it in the headline, the good, the bad and the glitchy.

There were a lot of weird things that occurred. We’ll start with the good. The Rower was finally officially teased. You can’t say it was announced but it’s happening. That’s a thing.

People were excited about it. I’m hearing a lot of people that were excited about seeing Adrian on the Rower.

It does make perfect sense, but it is nice to see clearly that he’s going to be the lead Rower instructor. That’s pretty cool. There were two things that stood out to me. One is the red accents on the line where you row back and forth that goes in and out of the machine. That was interesting that they made the cords red. The reason I think that’s interesting is because if those things break or get damaged or whatever, it’s going to be a whole process. That’s going to be a whole thing.

Also, Tom and I were talking to each other about the Rower and it does not appear, at least from the images we saw which were very brief, that it folds up. I did see a still shot of it. It looks like there’s a foot on the end of it. I do think that you’re going to be able to tip it up. I’m not sure if you’re going to be able to fold it before you tip it up. Those were two things that stood out to me about it. Is Danielle getting one after all this?

Danielle says she’s getting one.

You sound skeptical.

I teased her for so long so she had to say she was getting one. I wouldn’t blame her if she does, I’ve teased her so much.

Be careful, John. She knows where you live.

The day it’s available for order, you need to be like, “I’m hearing rumors of an elliptical.”

I want one because I saw Adrian on it and that makes you think, “It’s going to be the existing instructors.”

I definitely think it’ll be the existing instructors. I know that they’ll hire more because they always do.

They got so damn many instructors that they seem to be barely utilizing them. Do they really need to hire more to teach three rowing classes?

I can’t lie. Some of them, I don’t know. Do you remember the days when you knew every instructor and you took every class?

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Not only did I know them and take every class, but I also knew their backgrounds and where they came from. I’ve been working on this secret project that I’m not going to get into but I’ve been learning lots about the instructors. I was looking up Mila from Germany. Did you know, she used to be a surfer? I had no idea.

All I know is in all of her stories, she was surfing. She’s in these huge waves.

I’m going to sound dumb right now. You can surf in Germany?

I don’t even know that. I have no knowledge of the geography of Germany. I barely have knowledge of geography in America.

I know a lot of weird stuff but I do not know geography. Probably because it’s not weird and it’s something you should actually know. I know I shouldn’t reduce Germany to this, but now I have pictures of surfing Nazis.

I think that’s offensive.

That’s where my head went. I’m like, “That means, there were Nazis that were like, ‘Let’s go surfing.’”

They had lots of U-boats back in the day. I wonder if that’s why. They’re surrounded by water. That is what I mean by that. They can get around easily. This is why we shouldn’t talk about geography. We know nothing. We are making it worse.

This is how little I know about geography. I’ve been living in Connecticut since 1998. If you ask me to get anywhere here, I can’t tell you. Don’t ask me outside of my neighborhood or outside of the state. I don’t know.

Thank God they have Google maps because I have no idea how I would get from point A to point B. This is why so many marriages broke up in the ‘70s, they didn’t have Google maps. They had to leave and read a map.

I remember my parents. They’re dead now but before they were dead, they got divorced. I remember going on road trips where my dad would drive and my mom would read the map and it was like whoa.

I remember one time with my dad, I don’t even know how this happened but for some reason, we ended up having to drive to the Chicago airport to drop off dogs for people who were, ironically, moving to Germany. They couldn’t take off from the airport in Central Missouri because it was too hot, but they could take off from the international airport in Chicago. We had to rent a van and drive their dogs to Chicago from Jefferson City. My father is as country as country gets. We were driving an unmarked white panel van through downtown Chicago and had no idea where we were going. We were lost forever. My mom and dad got in a fight. My dad handed me the map at age eleven. I had to navigate us to the airport. It was bad.

I don’t know how we got along without this. When I was a kid, I used to go with my grandmother on these real estate things. She was a real estate agent and I have to read the Thomas Bros Map for her. I was always stressed out, “Grandma, I think you’re supposed to turn.”

Can you imagine being a real estate agent before Google maps?

I cannot. I remember when I started dating after I divorced, I was like, “How do people go on dates? You don’t know where you’re supposed to go?” It’s scary going to meet a guy you’ve never met, and then you don’t know where you are. You don’t know your surroundings. You got to have Google maps. Google maps is a lifesaver.

Anyway, we don’t know where Germany is. We think it might be an island or maybe a volcano.

I’m so sorry for everyone we just offended.

There’s a chance that Germany could be a continent or an outside chance, a planet.

We know you can surf there.

We do know that.

It’s also a lake. That’s what we know about Germany.

A lake with big waves and Mila can surf there. Good for her.

Going back to Homecoming.

They’ve announced Tunde’s Arms program.

We talked about this. When the Peloton Prophet told us details about the Guide, he said that there’s going to be a Tunde Arms program possibly dropping at homecoming. That happened. People seemed to be very excited about it. It dropped on Homecoming. Unlike everything else they talked about, it showed up that weekend, then there was the Just Workout. That is out on beta for some people, where you can do activities outside, you can ride your bike, you can run, you can walk. You turn it on through the app and you’re able to track your progress. This is very exciting for people who like to keep their blue dots streaks. Also, you can listen to your own music, which is super important.

There’s also the Invite Friends that is coming soon. You’ll be able to schedule events. You’ll be able to say, “Let’s take a Mila class together, John. We’ll schedule it two weeks from now. We can invite all of our friends together.” We should do that.

Yes, we should. The Tunde’s Arms thing makes sense. Everybody talks about her in her classes relative to the arms section. That all made sense that that would be a cool selling point, but it’s like the previous Guide specific content once everyone found out that you could get a link and get to it. They want it to be exclusive.

Why aren’t they shutting that down? I don’t understand.

Because at the end of the day, it’s still a link. I don’t know that you can shut it down. They have so much stuff that’s open API. I don’t understand why they choose to do the things they do. There’s got to be a reason. I would like to think this is a well thought out reason.

TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

 

There’s got to be a way to shut it down.

I’m sure there is. Maybe because of their platform issues, they can’t.

Maybe that’s one of the things that Barry didn’t like.

Maybe some talented individuals need to get on that.

Do you think the guy from Netflix would know all about shutting down people sharing stuff?

There’s also the new Yoga Inversion program. This is the problem with being a person who has been in Peloton land for a long time. Do you remember, John, when you and Megan Yarnell had a headstand battle going back and forth? Do you remember that? You don’t even need this yoga inversion program, do you?

I wasn’t very good at the whole inversion thing. Also, back when I and Megan were doing that, they didn’t have the tread yet and I was following Rebecca Kennedy. She wasn’t a Peloton instructor yet. On her Instagram, she would always be doing this headstand thing. I was always like, “I could do that.” You know you get older when you think you can do things like when you’re younger. “I can do that,” then I would try and I almost busted a hole in the wall. That’s when I and Megan started trying to figure that out.

You guys both did it. I remember. I tried to do it. My videos never made it to the internet because no one needed to see that.

It was scary though.

It was, and then there’s the Pick Your Zones program for people who love the Power Zones. This is a new eight-week program using all of the Power Zone instructors, and this is not a simple program. There are lots of different classes. I think it was three different classes every week for eight weeks.

If there’s one thing we know about fans of Power Zone, they don’t like things to be simple.

It’s true. They like all the complicated math.

Do you know what we were talking about in my group? It was like, “Is Peloton seeing what groups are doing and then factoring programs into it?”

I think so. I think it’s a combination of that. You know how they still have the Feature Friday thing over on the OPP, that thread that happens every Friday. I know a lot of people put things that their groups have come up with. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Powers Zone stuff, whether it be more programs or making sure that you tell people what zone you’re in. That’s a big request that I see all the time and things like that. I would hope that they’re reading. That is something the Power Zone folks always want, more math.

It’s like my nightmare, “What if we took exercise and added Trigonometry?” What’s wrong with you, people. You’re all sociopaths.

Why would you do that?

It’s not even just exercise. It’s cardio, which you hate more than just exercise.

How do we make the exercise even more miserable?

It’s like an anti-Tom exercise.

We’re going to add math and the instructor will be your XY.

I love the Power Zone stuff and I know it works. I did it. I had my FTP and then I started doing it and it works, but I don’t like all the math. I don’t like managing all the metrics.

This is not a downside for everybody. It’s just people like me. The downside is that you have to keep doing it. There’s never a stopping point so it sucks the fun out of riding because you constantly have to be pushing to the next level or you lose some of your gains. I just want to have fun. I don’t want to work that. It’s not that I don’t want to work hard. It’s just that I don’t want that to be my only goal. It’s excellent.

The fun is what keeps you coming back. There are a lot of people with Power Zones that the constant pushing is what keeps them coming back. I know lately people feel like we rip on Peloton, but what’s great about Peloton is that it works in so many different capacities for so many different personality types.

When I first came to this community, I remember there was this guy that told me, “You got to be able to motivate yourself. You don’t need all that fun. You just need to work. Grind it out.” I was like, “No, that’s not me.”

That’s not me either, John.

It’s like church. Some people go to church where it’s very serious and buttoned up. Some people go to church where there are video screens and lasers. Some people go to church where they got live snakes.

That’s right. It’s what motivates you. Whether it be church or exercise, it’s whatever works for you.

Like Peloton, I don’t go to church either.

I had a guy hit me up once. He had noticed that I got off of a ride early. He was like, “I’m out here grinding it out. You’re just taking a picture and you’re leaving the class.” I’m like, “I need to go see my granddaughter. It’s m my ride. I will probably be going to get off five minutes early in my next ride too.”

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What a weirdo.

I know but for some people, it bothers them. We were interviewing somebody the other night. He’s competitive on the leaderboard. I was like, “Are you one of those guys that ride for the last minute in the cool-down?” He was like, “Tom, is she going to judge me if I say yes?”

I was like, “Yes, she absolutely will. She has already judged you. The fact that you haven’t answered this question is an answer to this question. We know.”

The thing is I’m honestly not judging. There are people that do get angry about that but I could care less. I don’t even look at the leaderboard anymore. I’m like, “Am I happy?” I look at the leaderboard for me. Am I having fun? Am I accomplishing the goal I set out to accomplish today? I have long since given up. I’m not going to be in the top half. I’m not going to be in the top quarter. I’m just here having fun.

There was a time when I was like, “I got a PR, I got another PR.”

The stages of Peloton and we are past that stage.

That’s a long time ago so don’t be hitting me up.

I know it’s different because it’s Tonal, but I never pay attention to that.

I know you don’t. That drives me crazy because that is your own metric, which is why that drives me crazy.

She’s like, “You got a PR.” I’m like, “Okay.”

He doesn’t take any pleasure in it.

The first time she said it, I was like, “Was that what that noise means?”

I’m like, “Of course, that’s what that noise means. What do you mean that’s what that noise means? You’ve been ignoring that noise this whole time?”

It keeps making this annoying noise.

I’m like, “You just improved.”

I don’t want to encourage her to get rid of things that make annoying noises or we will get divorced. My mindset with Tonal is it adds weight when you get a little better. If you lift weight long enough, you’re able to lift more weight.

It’s literally everything ever. You don’t know how many times I have to tell you that. If you keep doing it and you keep getting better, that’s still something you freaking did. Be happy.

Of course, it happens.

This is our life, John. This is a real conversation.

It’s like, “Of course, it happens. Why am I supposed to be surprised?”

It’s not surprised. It’s pride. Be proud of your accomplishments but he’s not. Back to Homecoming. They also added this disability feedback thing. I am not using words very well, but Kristin Fleschner, many moons ago back on episode 101, was telling us about how Google Talk is available and that Peloton could use that to give more options for people who were disabled. Peloton has finally put that into place or will be putting it into place. I was not clear about the timeframe of that, but it’s in progress. That is exciting. That has been a long time coming.

I was bummed about this. Maybe I’m the only person who is but All For One is coming back as a music festival in August. I’m bummed about this because it used to be for the 4th of July, Independence Day. It used to be all of the instructors and now it’s in August and it’s a music festival and I don’t care. I’m not excited. It was fun because it was all of the instructors. Now it’s just more music collaborations. I don’t know why I’m supposed to be excited about that. It’s not all for one, it’s one person with some songs. How is that all for one? Explain this to me.

That’s a good point because a lot of the excitement about the All For One is seeing instructors’ interactions. You see what the back and forth was going to be, the order in which you are going to see them. That was a lot of the fun.

Do you remember how fun it was to watch the two different instructors get up, and then they would leave, then two more instructors would come out and it was so fun.

It’s like Spider-Man partners up with The Fantastic Four.

You didn’t know what was going to come out. If they put Matt Wilpers and Robin Arzon up there, you’re like, “What on earth are they going to talk about?” That’s fascinating. Now it’s like Robin is up there doing her thing and Matt is doing his thing, but they’re not doing their thing together. I get that it’s a lot harder to do with 54 instructors. I’m not even complaining that they can’t do it that way, but I don’t understand why we’re still calling it the same thing because it’s not all for one anymore.

There you go. You’re right. They got like 873,000 instructors. It would be tougher. I hadn’t thought of that.

Maybe most for one.

They can do it by country and have a German one.

TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

 

A sizable portion for one or a lion’s share for one.

They still need to rename it though because the All For One music festival isn’t anything. It’s a made-up thing. It doesn’t mean anything. What are we all for one-ing? I don’t even know what it means.

Isn’t All For One a boy band?

I don’t know.

I think it might have been. Maybe they’re going to be on the list of songs. I don’t know about the All For One. It’s like the percentage for one. I don’t know what this is about to be. You’re right.

Thank you. I appreciate the validation. Also, can we talk about the glitches that happened over Homecoming? Tom, you might want to pull this up. I have permission to use this picture. Apparently, there were a lot of people that all of a sudden, their picture was showing up on their trainer like they were the instructor. Did it happen to you too?

I was afraid to go to my bike and tread when I saw people start posting these pictures and their pictures. My first thing was, is the camera taking the picture or is it their profile picture?

I still don’t know the answer to it. This is Mr. Cochran and it showed up. That is his profile picture on Instagram, John. That’s likely where that came from.

Do you think that’s something that they were planning to do to surprise people or they’re trying to figure out a way to where you could include your own photo with Peloton stuff?

I don’t know. Maybe it’s still in progress and it accidentally happened. Somebody turned it on and left it on. This has happened before. I don’t know what the heck they’re doing.

That freaks me out. The first one I saw, I thought, “Is that their birthday on it?” It turns out that that was just a date that was placed on every one of them.

They all say 12/31/69. That’s not saying how old everybody is but that’s so weird.

I was like, “That’s how old that person is?”

The other big glitch that occurred, I felt like it was a glitch, is a lot of people had signed up for Homecoming and then they were told nothing. No emails occurred, no anything. I think that that was an accident because I went on the day of Homecoming that it started and it showed it wasn’t going to be starting for another 24 hours. I was like, “That can’t be good.” A lot of people didn’t get emailed that it was happening until after the event was over, and I never did get an email. I don’t know what that’s about. During the keynote address, everybody was told, and this was on the Homecoming website, “You can go to a store and get a memorabilia pin from Homecoming.” Guess what? You’re not going to get one. Do you know why? There was a problem with the manufacturer. It’s not going to happen. They didn’t bother to tell anybody.

When I saw that, I was actually planning to go to West Hartford, Connecticut to see if they had pins. It’s a good thing I didn’t because there were no pins.

Do you think they will ever get pins?

No, and it’s also in the images. There’s a message from customer service. It says, “Sorry, we had a problem. We’re not getting them now.” It’s just not happening. Having said that, customer service has been wrong before. I can’t promise that won’t ever happen, but customer service said it won’t.

In my head, they probably already ordered pins. Maybe they didn’t get them on time so they were like, “Were not paying for them. Cancel our pins.”

It says, “Unfortunately, we had an issue with production and we’ll not have Homecoming pins this year. Thank you for understanding.”

They probably can’t even if they got them. Does anybody want a Homecoming 2022 pin now?

I want it now that I can’t have it.

John, did you take any Homecoming classes this year like any actual classes?

I’m embarrassed to say no.

I’m not embarrassed because the lineup was not exciting. Here’s the deal. People that did, guess what? There’s no Homecoming badge. What the hell is happening?

The supply chain is even worse than I thought. They can’t get digital badges anymore.

Maybe Uncle Barry made an executive decision to get rid of badges, physical and digital.

He’s the guy that was telling you, “You don’t need motivation. You got to do it yourself. In my day, we didn’t have digital badges.”

You guys are onto something. This is a very Barry demeanor type of thing. It matches.

“We don’t need no stinking badges.”

TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

 

“You’re sending badges to the showrooms? Cancel all that. You got digital badges? Cancel them.”

I did not include it in my pictures but the email that came out spelled badges wrong. It was “BAGES.” The email went out to 150,000 billion people. Nobody’s even spell checking. What is happening to Peloton?

I like to think that Barry canceled the pins and then he also canceled the badges, and nobody had the balls to tell him that it was a digital badge. They were like, “Sir, that’s a digital badge.”

That would be hilarious. Tom, the link where it says this glitch and it’s Facebook, that is the link if you want to share that, of badges being spelled wrong. This came out from the recent Guide email but it had nothing to do with Homecoming because there were no badges for homecoming, but the Guide says you can earn “bages” not “badges.”

I don’t even know what to comment about this.

I hear you, and people were going into the app to use it. Peloton ads came up in the app like an ad for Peloton before they could use the Peloton app.

We’re having subscriptions to the Peloton app and their advertising Peloton.

We’re assuming that’s a glitch. I don’t know. Maybe that’s how we live now.

Where does it display there?

It was in the email too. I don’t know that I put it in my images. There were so many images. There were so many things we need to track. It showed up and it said, “Peloton free 90-day trial.” I already own it. I paid for this now. Why would I want this?

Does this mean that we’re about to start getting more advertisements that go broader than Peloton?

That was my question because you have to create ad inventory to be able to display the wrong ad or you wouldn’t have a place to show ads at all.

That’s also fair. That is what the original person said, “Is this what we get now?”

It almost seems like they were creating that ability and they used one of their own ads as a placeholder.

Maybe that is what it is.

That’s what it sounds like to me.

That’s what I think too. Barry’s moving fast.

I don’t know if we’re going forward or backward, John. Let me tell you another thing that happened. Do you know little guy front and back?

Yeah. I like little guy front and back.

Here’s the deal. Check this out. It may not be because of your workouts. I was having a conversation with somebody who shall remain nameless. They were telling me that no matter what they do, they cannot get their upper body to glow blue at all. They did nothing but upper body workouts for three days in a row and they had barely any light blue. Keep in mind that there was zero lower body during that three days. On the fourth day, they took a 10-minute arm and it went to medium blue. They were like, “Solved it,” then they took a 20-minute walk and wiped it out completely. Only the lower body was showing. That can’t be right.

Something is wrong with the algorithm here. Maybe it’s taking pictures and it’s like, “You need to do a lot. Dude, you need more.” I don’t know.

I don’t either but these are all the things. I have been inundated and people have been so confused about what is happening to our badges, to our spelling checks, to our little guy front and back, there are no badges for Homecoming. What is happening? It’s a lot of confusion. I realized for people who are new, this is business as usual and you’re not that concerned. For those of us who have been around for a long time, there’s a certain level of professionalism we expect and this is not. It is not cutting the muster. Is that how you say that?

Yes, it’s muster not mustard.

I did say muster so don’t at me, people.

I’m glad you said that. I might have said mustard. I think they’re trying stuff. They’re moving fast and we’re seeing the effects of it. That’s layman John giving his thoughts.

They did fire a lot of people. Maybe there were a lot of people that made sure things happened correctly and now those people are gone. In general, it’s more people doing more work or fewer people doing more work.

There were fewer people to double-check and they were free and then that happens.

It could just be that simple but it is definitely disconcerting.

It’s a little different. No badges for the Homecoming classes. That’s a little different. I intended to do a homecoming class but I didn’t and I thought that was horrible. What year has passed where I did not do any class on homecoming? That’s got to be weird.

TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

 

There was no hype about it. There was no email.

That’s what you got me thinking. It makes me wonder now, was I not the only one?

You were not the only one. We had a whole thread going in The Clip Out group about people that were like, “I was going to participate, and then I didn’t even know it started, and then I didn’t get any emails about it, and then I couldn’t figure out where I was even supposed to go for all the panels and things like that.”

They knew where to go for the classes but then the classes weren’t labeled this Homecoming. That confused people. It just seemed deflated. The things that I kept hearing from people were lack of energy, no hype, and just a general quietness that we have not seen around homecoming. Even in 2021 when it was virtual, there was a lot more hype than there was this year. I don’t think it’s because it was a virtual event. I don’t think that’s all that was going on.

Do you know what I did do this year that I didn’t do last year? I finally did the member meets.

How did those go? Everybody loved those last year. I didn’t hear so much about it this year. I heard people kept freezing up and not being able to speak. Did yours went well?

I heard that from a few people this year too. They had problems getting in and I had a little bit of a problem getting it as well. My computer was telling me there’s no mic, there’s no video. I had to shut it all down and I had to go back. I had a slight problem but I’ve heard others had other issues. Once I got in, it was cool. I met 4 or 5 people doing the little chat thing. One guy was in North Carolina. He was out on his porch, country dude, just talking to him. It was cool. I love it.

That’s fine. I think we need to figure out a way to amplify that type of moment if we’re going to continue down this road of virtual events. I would have liked to have seen the Peloton instructors do more than an occasional member meet. It would have been nice to have a little bit more interaction. I also think instructors should not post about past Homecomings anymore. They just made me sad.

I hear you. The past homecomings are just a different thing. We’re just not there anymore. It’s different times. There was a guy in my group in 2021 at our Club House. This was the last Homecoming. He came into the Clubhouse. We’re talking on a Saturday and he’s like, “I did a whole bunch of member meets, and every time I went into a member meet, I asked them if they want to do burpees with me.”

I remember that guy, the burpee guy.

That is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m like, “Did they do the burpees?” He was like, “Some of them did. Some of them thought I was weird.” We’re doing another Clubhouse and that guy was on the call. I was like, “Did you ask them to do burpees again?” He comes out and he was like, “Yeah, but this year, we did Peloton Jeopardy.” He had a whole game set up when he went into the member meets, and he was asking them questions for $300. It’s the craziest thing. Ever since he said that, 3 or 4 people that hit me up like, “I got that. It was so much fun.” It sounds like he was setting up a lot of fun for these people.

He’s super memorable. I have no idea what his name is off the top of my head, but I know last year and I bet this year too, everybody remembered him who interacted with him. He is setting the bar high for the rest of us, so I’ll just say, hello.

I thought that was pretty cool. It’s like something you can add to the equation. Maybe Peloton could think of something.

There’s an idea. That’s a thing.

John, thank you so much for joining us. Until next time, where can people find you?

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

Thanks, John.

—

Aditi Shah went to the White House.

She did. She was celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Month at the White House. How incredibly exciting, and look who she got to meet.

She got to meet the Vice President.

How cool is that? That’s so exciting. She looked beautiful. She was all dressed up. She filmed in the car before she got there, then she filmed when she got there, which I’m so glad she did. That was nice of her to share that with everyone. It’s cool.

Builtin.com, I don’t know what that is. Apparently, they’re uniting people in tech.

They also had an article called How Passion and Teamwork Brought the ‘Emma’s Listening Party’ Content Series to Life for Peloton. Emma has a background as a DJ, and also as a dancer. When she came to Peloton, she was super into music. She was able to bring all of those pieces with her. That technology that they talk about in the article is what led to being able to have that Listening Party Series on Peloton.

Becs Gentry was in London doing something secret.

She was talking about it on Instagram live. She was like, “I made it to London. I was at the studio. It’s beautiful and I can’t share what it was about.” I thought maybe it’s for that All For One event that’s going to be in August. I know it seems like a long way.

If she wants to do something while she’s in London, she happened to be there anyway, she can go ahead and knock it out.

You got to work around everybody’s vacation schedules and things. I don’t know what it was about but it made me wonder if it was that.

That seems fair. Kendall was at an Aloha event.

TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

 

I don’t know what this is about. You’re going to have to forgive me because my head is pounding, but it was called the Aloha event. It was sponsored by Kendra Scott. It was her event and it was also sponsored by Spiritual Gangster. Kendall was talking about mental health while she was there. She did a whole speech and she was featured on the Spiritual Gangster page. She was featured on Instagram. They were talking about it. I know that it was a lot of exposure for her and a good opportunity. Other than that, I don’t know much.

We have a couple of quick Ally Love story. She was featured in Modern Luxury’s Top 100 Social Media Creators of 2022.

She was in the top 100 content creators because of her week-long wedding. She did that whole thing. I’m sure that was why, but it was pretty cool to be honored.

Slash Film had an article about Netflix making plans for live streaming unscripted shows and stand-up specials. Ally Love’s upcoming dance show, Dance 100, was featured in the article.

—

Peloton who according to their new CEO is thinly capitalized decided to go looking for people to give them some money or lend them some money.

We talked about this in the previous episode. That was on the earnings call. It seems that the news here, if I’m interpreting correctly, is that there are lots of people that went in on it.

A lot of people want to loan them money.

Peloton has to pay that interest. It’s interesting. Along those lines, that’s where this article is coming from too. It’s like two times the order book of the $750 million that they asked for. I don’t know what this means. By that, does that mean they borrowed more?

I don’t know if that means that they went ahead and took it. Maybe it does. I think it also says for all, “Peloton is dying. People sure wanted to be in the Peloton business when they got the chance.”

It is interesting how many people jumped all over that, given how the market is saying it’s no good. It’s an interesting counter thing.

It’s counterintuitive from the narrative we’re hearing from the financial press that they’re dying on the vine or somebody is dying and they want $750 million. You say, “No, thank you. I’m not going to do that.”

You don’t say, “Here’s $750 plus I’ll give you another $750.

A lot of people with deep pockets think that there’s a lot of money to be made with Peloton still.

That’s what I’m trying to say.

There’s an article from FoodCuisine.com about Peloton and booze delivery perks for Congressional House staffers are drawing plaque from the GOP.

I saw this showing up on some crazy new sites that are not let’s say legit. I don’t want this to turn into a political discussion whatsoever, but it is turning into one. I thought that in and of itself was interesting. It’s not specifically about Peloton that’s the issue. It’s about certain people who don’t have to pay for certain perks. That’s the issue.

From my general reading of the article, it seems like they are mad about people basically having access to the Peloton app for free as part of their job. That doesn’t seem controversial to me. That seems like that’s becoming a more and more frequent occurrence. That doesn’t seem crazy. The idea that you can have liquor delivered as part of your job seems odd to me.

Unless you work for Anheuser-Busch, which even they don’t do that anymore. I know back in the day, they did that though.

Anybody that works for AB, they got a case of beer a week or whatever. I don’t think it’s crazy to be like, “Why can you not only get liquor but have it delivered to your office?” Do you live in an episode of Mad Men? What is happening? That seems odd.

It does. I’m sure there will be more to that.

I have no doubt. Speaking of employers providing people access to Peloton, here’s an example of that. We had someone reach out to us that said that Pfizer does that and you can actually get a special badge. A Pfizer exclusive batch.

In other words, you have to be a Pfizer employee. That is the only way you can get this very special Peloton badge. It shows how many minutes. In this case, for the month of May, you had to workout for 400 minutes to get this badge. I was super fascinated by this because I’m sure there are other companies doing this as well. It makes me wonder if they have to pay for that privilege. It never occurred to me that there might be badges out there that the average person could not get. It’s impossible to be 100% on badge collection from this moment forward.

Unless you can’t hold a job. That’s one way to do it. If you want to see that badge, we are showing it on the screen if you go to our YouTube channel.

It looks generic enough that I bet they’re reusing it.

That’s my guess too. CFO Jill Woodworth sold 4,530 shares of her Peloton stock.

It netted her $71,000.

Do we make anything of that? It seems like an odd time to sell. It’s an all-time low.

I don’t know what to make of it. It was disclosed. Obviously, it wasn’t a big secret. You have to, legally. She still owns 6,500 shares. It’s not like she got rid of them all, but I did think it was strange that she was doing it now. For all we know, she’s getting ready to buy a house or she got kids she sent to college. Who knows? I’m sure people will make something out of it, whether it is something or not.

TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

 

They always do. Hyatt Hotel is test piloting a program where you can rent a private gym and that private gym will include a Peloton bike.

They have it in five of their us hotels and it costs $25 for an hour. You’re able to get not only the Peloton bike but you can also get a Precor treadmill, a workout mat, stretch bands, foam roller, medicine balls, stability balls and hand weights. They’re saying that if it’s successful, they will be expanding and I’m sure it will be successful. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of this.

It’s interesting because they’re using unused hotel rooms. It’s not a diff it’s not a different area or a section of the gym. They’re taking unused hotel rooms and setting up the equipment in there.

Personally, I would rather have it in my room. Why are they not doing that? Maybe because more people can use it, but then they can clean it and keep it.

They don’t have to keep moving it. If it’s $25 an hour, you can rent it 8 to 10 times a day, maybe even more, depending on what time of day you want to workout. I could see it at a conference that you could make your money back pretty quickly. I also think that this could take off because you figure if people are used to using connected fitness equipment and obviously, Peloton is the industry leader in that, and you’re on the road, the idea of going into a hotel gym is daunting. I know as someone who does Tonal and the little bit I travel for work, the idea of going into the hotel gym by myself is a hard pass. If I could rent a room and use a Tonal, I would totally go do that for $25. I wouldn’t even think twice.

I agree. I think this will definitely catch on.

This is smart because you are creating a whole new class of people that want to workout but don’t want to go to the gym. If they don’t want to go to a regular gym, they don’t want to go to your hotel gym. This is a way to not only offer something to those people but also monetize those people. Peloton has donated to The Steve Fund and IPSO.

It’s going to be $25,000. People are asking, “If we had to borrow money, how did we come up with the money for that?” It’s a fair question.

I get that but I think all companies are borrowing money at some point. They have revolving credit.

They already had a revolving so this was in addition to it, but it doesn’t matter.

I get the point but these things are also marketing arms.

It also hits different on your bottom line.

While I get why people can say that, it’s a little bit more nuanced than that in all fairness. We don’t just rip on Barry.

—

Much to everyone’s surprise Peloton and iFit have kissed and made up. They both dropped all pending litigation and they are besties now. It’s interesting because it seems like this litigation over the last couple of weeks or a month or so felt like it was losing steam from all sides concerned, and then now both sides are like, “You know what, never mind.”

Both sides are losing major money not only because of this lawsuit but the world. I feel like they both were like, “Do you want to stop? Neither of us is going to win.”

They both gave up something so they can look like they won. iFIT is disabling certain functionalities on its leaderboard and Peloton will pay to license something that has to do with remote controls. Everybody lost a little, everybody won a little.

We can all move on. There’s that. We all win too.

I’ve got that cool lawsuit sweeper. I have no doubt someone will sue them soon. That’s the way of the world.

I think there are still eight unsettled lawsuits out there. Don’t worry, more to come.

—

Ben and Leanne have a Ride to Gold.

Nope. That was the whole point from a few years ago. This thing happened. It was called Ride to Gold back in I guess 2018. I don’t even know when it happened but it was a long time ago. The point is that those same people that were in the Ride to Gold, which are the Kennys have won twelve Olympic gold medals between the two of them, Jason and Laura Kenny. They were knighted over in the UK. They were awarded honors. That was a neat call back to an event that Peloton had done that included them. We’re just bringing it full circle for people. Sorry for the confusion.

That’s okay. People expect me to get things wrong.

—

There’s a new artists series this time featuring Dear Evan Hansen.

I’m excited about this. I love this show. I think this is going to be great and I can’t wait to see all of the different classes and who will be teaching them. It’s perfect for Mental Health Awareness Month.

—

We only have one birthday and it’s Christian Vande Velde.

He is considered a guest instructor. He has won a whole bunch of awards in the pros. He has taught a ton of classes at Peloton. A lot of them don’t exist anymore, but for those people who have been around in the Peloton world for a long time, you know about his classes and he used to come in and teach them live. Now we are lucky enough to have some on-demand and maybe someday, he’ll be able to teach more classes.

TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

 

His birthday is May 22nd if you’re keeping score at home.

Happy birthday.

—

Joining us is Peter Shankman, a past guest returning. How is it going?

It’s good to be back. It’s good to see you.

Here’s how long ago it has been. You were on episode 46. I thought this was interesting. When you were on last time, we didn’t do videos at the time. We were just audio back in the day. The big story of the week was some rides had gone missing. It was The First Purge, the one with Ethan Hawke.

Only if it was that easy.

Now our CEO has gone missing.

All the rides were in black and white.

I learned some interesting stuff over the past years.

What did you learn?

For starters, I learned that my daughter’s teachers have all lied to me. She is not a pleasure to have in class. That’s number one. It has been crazy. I remember the last time I saw you at the first Home Rider Invasion. You had a little booth there and I was giving a talk. It’s funny. I point to Peloton as the day the world shut down because I got invited and brought my girlfriend to the first of two media rides to open the new studio on 5th Avenue. It was a 7:45 or 8:15 ride. I got there. She and I took the ride. We met the CEO, hung out and all that.

This was on 10th Avenue and 30th Street. We walked out at 9:45 to 10:00 and the streets were empty. It was Thursday, March 12th, 2020. It was the day that the city shut down. Over those years, I’m 1 of the 40 people to ever have to get a ride on that new studio. I looked at that as the day the world shut down. I remember my daughter’s school shut down the following day. That started. For me, it was brutal. I traveled 300,000 miles a year and then that went to 0. It was like going from 120 miles an hour to 0 with no seatbelt. That was tough for me.

The Bike helped. It saved me a lot. I was riding the thing sometimes four hours a day at some point. It was tough. It took some of that ADHD. It took away the only two things they have that centered that, which are traveling and speaking, and then say, “Those are both gone. Have fun. Here’s your kid with you pretty much a little more than half the week with her mom there.” It was a massive adjustment. There were a lot of Legos. I’ll show you the 6,900-pieces Saturn V that we’ve built.

Does your kid do the same thing? I don’t know if this is our kid’s thing. They do the homework and then they don’t turn in the homework.

She turns in the homework but the go-to phrase for her is, “I don’t get it.” I’m like, “I’ve explained it to you and watched you do it.” “I don’t understand it.” I’m like, “That’s why you’re supposed to tell the teachers.” We will walk through it again and she will get it. I’ll be like, “You got it at the beginning.” I’m waiting for her to say, “It was easier for you to do it.”

That’s what she’s thinking.

She’s Tom Sawyer. You just painted her fence.

With my kid, there’s zero question about that whatsoever.

Ours are always like, “I uploaded it but I didn’t hit send.”

I remember telling my math tutor that my parents’ cleaning woman must have thrown it out. The math tutor told my parents that. My parents said, “If you’re going to lie, at least pick dates when the cleaning woman comes, not Wednesdays. If you’re going to lie, work on it. We’re angry at you for the lying but we’re angrier at you for being a bad liar.”

There’s the laziness behind the lie.

Put better lies. No one has sympathy for a child who has a cleaning lady.

I remember taking her to the school where she’s at. She’s got a great school. Don’t get me wrong. They’re phenomenal. They’re a bit much for me but it’s a great school. I was a public school kid in New York City. The fact that she’s in a private school in New York blows my mind. I’m still not 100% okay with it but it’s a great school. They treat her well. Out of all the private schools, I tried to pick the one where she was least likely to come home and ask, “Daddy, why don’t we have a jet?”

I’ll never forget June of 2020. I’m sitting at home. My cell phone rings and I answer. It’s one of her friend’s parents who I became friends with. I hadn’t talked to her in 4 or 5 months. She’s the daughter of a very famous but now dead musician. It’s a different world. She’s like, “How are you and Jessa doing?” I’m like, “We’re doing what we can. We go to the playground when Central Park is open.”

I swear to God she’s like, “Oh, you’re riding this out in the city.” I said, “Karen, we don’t all have three homes. Where are you?” She goes, “We’re in LA.” I said, “You left in March. I wouldn’t want to go on a plane and left in March.” She’s like, “One of my dad’s best friends is this huge man. They didn’t tour so we borrowed their bus and made it into a fun road trip.” I have to hang up the phone. It has been tough.

It’s not like LA was safer. It was as bad there.

When you have a mansion, you never have to leave. It’s convenient.

They got a mansion in New York. They’re not fooling me.

TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

 

There’s one in the Hamptons that our former CEO has bought for $50 million.

He’s trying to unload it. Are you going to buy it?

You should call your friend with the tour bus and see if you can live on the tour bus for two weeks.

We can live on a tour bus for a couple of weeks. That’s what all the cool parents do. It’s insane.

What did your neighbors below you think of the floor?

It did not affect them. The water got into the wood and worked the wood. I had a bunch of dehydrating machines in here to dry everything out for two weeks. Thank God it didn’t affect below. The company’s insurance is paying for this. This is their fault. You have one job. I didn’t hire cake decorators to clean my floors. These guys are floor cleaners.

That’s their whole purpose.

The floor was clean.

That’s one way to put it. It’s the same way if you run a laptop through your washing machine. The laptop is going to be cleaner but it’s not going to work. That was pretty much it.

I didn’t know you could break a floor.

That’s what happened to my apartment. Some people argue that it’s not the right way to think. My logic is I’m very lucky. I still have a place to live and a kid who’s doing well. My parents are still healthy. They’re three blocks away. They got through COVID. There are people who are a lot worse. I know that’s out there. I’m not complaining per se.

You still have your Peloton bike. Are you going to take it with you when you move out for a couple of weeks?

I have to pack everything up. Hopefully, they will put us up in a hotel where there’s a Peloton already. It has been a weird thing. I got rid of the Tread. I love the tread but it was taking up a lot of space in the apartment and I was running outside more. I tried to sell it. I’m like, “Why don’t I see anyone selling the tread?” It’s illegal to sell a recalled machine. I’m like, “Peloton will take it back and refund me. This is like having a tread for three years for free.” That’s exactly what I did.

I’m still on the bike religiously. I’m training for the marathon so I’m running outside now. I was selected in February of 2020 to do the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. I know you’re confused because you’re looking at me and going, “Peter, look at you. You’re watching the movie Iron Man while eating popcorn on your fat ass on the couch.” I was selected to do Ironman Kona. For the uninitiated, it’s a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and a full 26.2-mile marathon all in one day. I’ve done two Ironmans before.

I’m like, “This is awesome.” I was selected by Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I’m like, “It’s a great way to raise a ton of money.” I raised over $100,000 for these guys. I was proud of myself. The 2020 Ironman Kona got canceled. I’m like, “I’m going to do it again in 2021.” I keep training for another twelve months. I’m swimming, biking and running 100-mile rides up to Bear Mountain and back, then 2021 was canceled. Talk about having the rug pulled out under and having your heart ripped out.

I’m supposed to do it in 2022. I want to do it before I’m 50. I’m turning 50 in August 2022 so I won’t make it. I don’t have the mojo. I called Leukemia & Lymphoma and said, “I raised $100,000 for you. Can I switch? Can you give me a New York City Marathon spot?” They’re like, “Don’t worry about it.” They came back and said, “All you have to do is raise $10,000.” I’m like, “What the f**k?” It’s a good cause. Yoake my $100,000 that you didn’t do crap with. You better save a bunch of lives. I’m going to do the New York City Marathon in November 2022 with the premise of doing it for Leukemia & Lymphoma.

It will be good because you can train for a marathon. I’ll do a couple of Half-Ironmans in summer 2022 and have 70.3. You can train for that without having to kill yourself and devote your entire life to it. I just couldn’t in good faith. I was going out at 6:00 AM and dropping my daughter off at my mom’s so I could do a six-hour bike ride. I don’t want to do that again. I’ve got to spend time with her. She started running as well. Jessa now runs with me. I get her up to 1.5 miles on a run.

You can hopefully start traveling this summer. There’s that.

I’ve been on the road already. I got back from a keynote in South Africa. I have a lovely woman I’ve been dating for a couple of years who works in high-end luxury travel marketing. I’ll score the keynote and she can go to the same place where I have meetings. We will wind up in some $10,000 a night lodge in South Africa that we don’t have to pay for. It’s nice and fun. I’ve been on the road. I’m starting to get back to it. I have three keynotes in April 2022 in Honolulu, Montana and Montreal. It’s starting to come back. It’s a nice feeling.

And you were giving your friend crap about traveling to LA in a tour bus.

That’s a little different.

That’s a little different because it’s their life, not yours.

From where I stand, it looks pretty the same.

Let’s be honest. Every conference room looks the same whether you’re in Boise or Bangkok.

When the studios open back up, are you heading back over?

I’ll show up. I am still a huge fan of the brand and the product. Unfortunately, I’m a little too much of a fan of a stock that I didn’t sell anywhere near as much as I should have when it was at 1.75%. I still love the product. I’m still a huge fan of the bike. It has gotten me through some serious crap. There’s no question about it. It got me a ton faster on my races. I love the concept and the product. There were a ton of bad ideas, suggestions and management. I’m not blaming one specific person.

Crap happens. I’ve seen it. I worked at America Online for Christ’s sake. I was there in the mid-’90s when AOL was the internet. Five years later, they were like, “Now we own Time Warner.” I’m like, “What are you doing?” I’ve seen that. I don’t blame one person per se but I still believe there is a very strong case, especially for someone like me who’s massively ADHD, for rolling out of bed in my bike shorts and shirt and onto the Peloton. That is how I workout.

If I have to think about it, I will not workout. I will come up with a reason, “I’m going to go to the gym after work today. It’s 5:00. I read that there’s a meteor orbiting Pluto. Just to be safe, I’m going to head home.” If the alarm goes off and I’m in my bike shorts and socks, and the Bike is 3 inches or 1 foot from my bed, I roll onto it, slip my feet in, and start paneling. Within two minutes, I’m not getting off the bike I’m on.

That has gotten me more workouts than anything else in the world. I still am a very big fan of the concept. I’ll be curious to see this new thing, the Guide, and play with that a little bit. Do I need another device sitting next to my Oculus, Nintendo Switch, and all this crap that I’m going to have to pack up and put in boxes? Do I need another? I don’t know but it looks interesting. We will see.

TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

 

There’s always the outside chance that it will become incredibly dangerous and they will take it back for free.

To this day, I am on Team Peloton’s side for that one. It’s a tragedy that anyone was injured. I’m not making light of that but for God’s sake. I am not a small man. The treadmill can move me at very high speeds. If it can move something like me, not a small man, at high speeds, the premise that it could do that should be enough to tell you, “Maybe don’t let your kid run around on it.”

It equates to the concept of it’s a cup of coffee. It’s going to be hot. You don’t need to have a sign that says, “This is a cup of coffee that’s very hot,” to not get sipped. I had an issue with that but things happen. This is what kills me now. For as good as COVID was for Peloton, if COVID never happened, the stock would still be right around where it is. The only reason everyone is complaining and saying, “It’s terrible,” is because of how far it went.

It’s like if you go out on one date with the prom queen and then she dumps you. How do you equate to that? It’s a pretty horrible example but you get the general idea of what I’m saying. If you have the best filet mignon in the world and then you go to an Arby’s, it’s not the same thing. If you fly private, you can’t go back to coach. They blew up like anything unexpectedly. Now the stocks are at a normal place. It’s like, “This company sucks.” It doesn’t. It’s exactly where they were and what they should have been.

How about the Rower? When it gets announced in May 2022, are you going to get the Rower?

I have a Hydrow. I bought it because there was no announcement and guidance whatsoever on Peloton’s Rower. If Peloton does come out with the Rower, I would get rid of the Hydrow and move back to the family. There’s no reason to pay double fees.

Why pay the extra monthly fee?

I love the Peloton Bike and even the Tread. They’re solid pieces of equipment. I have no doubt that the Rower would be the same thing. I would consider selling the Hydrow and getting the Rower.

It ought to be solid as long as they have worked on it.

You said the same thing about the new Coke. That was a five-year project.

That wasn’t the product’s fault because it won the taste test. That was a marketing problem, but it beats Pepsi in every taste test, be it Pepsi or Coke.

At the end of the day, there’s so much pressure on these guys. Peloton has to come out and say, “We appreciate all the feedback. We don’t give a crap. We’re going to do exactly what we’re going to do. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. We don’t need 55 different advisory groups telling us what we think we should do. We’re going to do what we know how to do.” In the beginning, that worked.

I would appreciate it if they did that. They need to focus.

I relate this to my favorite story. When COVID hit, they started blowing up and believing their own press. They took that press to make tremendous bets on the supply chain, which didn’t fall through and wasn’t needed. When I sold one of my first companies, the Help A Reporter Out, it was acquired by PR Newswire. We made the announcement. I came home the next day because it was announced in DC and I stayed overnight in DC.

I was coming back to my apartment. I lived on 57th Street at the time. I’m in the elevator going into my apartment. For the first time in my life, it has sunk in. I sold this company for a lot of money. I remember sitting in the elevator and going, “I’ve got some money. I did this thing.” For the first time in my life, I started believing my press. I walked into my apartment. I had two cats at the time, Karma and Nasa. I leave them alone for 3 or 4 days at one time and they were fine. I leave them food and water.

At some point, I had a 25-pound sealed bag of dried food. Apparently, Karma or Nasa had clawed their way in. They had both eaten as much dried food and drank as much water as they could, and then puked it out on the entry hallway rug. They proceeded to do this at least nine times apiece over the course of 24 hours. The story I tell is my first three hours as a “millionaire” were on my knees scrubbing cat puke out of the carpet. To this day, I believe it was supposed to happen. That was the universe saying, “Great job. Stay humble.” My cat’s name is Karma for Christ’s sake.

If that’s not sending you a message, I don’t know what it is.

Here’s another thing. You also were better at cleaning floors than the company you hired.

I should have done it myself.

I smell a new company.

The new company I have is a dance class for dads who don’t want to look terrible on TikToks with their daughters. I’ve done a bunch of them and I have some rhythm. She will see the ones with the professional Dancing with the Stars guy and his kid. She’s like, “Dad, learn this and do it.” I’ll learn it and do it. By all rights, it doesn’t suck. She will look at mine and she’s like, “Dad, it’s good.” “That’s what he does for a living.”

At your funeral, the TikTok videos are what they’re playing.

I’m a bigger fan of Instagram Reels but it’s the same premise. I’ve done a bunch of Instagram Reels and blown up Instagram. I’m @PeterShankman. It’s one of those, “I don’t give a crap.” I’m having fun with them. If they blow, that’s great. If they don’t, I don’t care. I’m going to be 50 in August 2022 and I don’t care what people think of me. I’ve been saving for my daughter’s therapy since she was born with me as a dad. I was picking her up from school. There was good music on my headphones.

I walked her. It’s about a 2.5-mile walk. I walk because it’s accessible. I grab her. I’m ten minutes early. I’m outside of school. I’m bopping away and dancing to my music. I didn’t realize that her entire class was at the window on the fourth floor, “Look at Jessa’s daddy.” If looks could kill, she walked out of the classroom and I said, “Hi, honey.” There was a death stare. It’s good though. It’s fun to be a single dad. I’m having a good time.

I remember my time as a single dad.

I’ve got to give a shout-out. It’s funny. My girlfriend, Gabby, who’s also a Peloton rider is a huge fan of yours. It’s the strangest thing to give a shout-out to my girlfriend and then to my ex-wife, Kira, who also loves your show. My favorite story about Kira is when I got the Peloton, she was still a Flywheel girl. I wrote this blog post about how I love Peloton because it’s not Flywheel. It’s not the screaming girls that you get in the Flywheel classes except for Cody’s classes. It’s an actual workout.

I put this blog post and she sends me an email. She’s like, “You jump on the latest trend. It’s nonsense. I’m going to stick with Flywheel.” Fast forward three months later, I go to pick up my daughter at her mom’s. My daughter said something, “Mommy goes into her room and she has this bicycle there.” I’m like, “She bought a bike to ride.” She said, “It’s like yours. It doesn’t move.” I go to pick up Jessa and the door to my ex’s room is closed. I’m like, “Do you have a boyfriend in there?” She’s like, “No, it’s just dirty.” I’m like, “Is it?” I swipe over there and she’s got a Peloton in there.

I owned her on that. She’s pretty awesome. We’re very fortunate. We have a good relationship with that. It was funny. She’s more of a junkie than I am. She would be like, “Do you want a ride tomorrow at 4:30 am?” A couple of times a week, we will do some early 90-minute rides together with some Wilpers or some Jenn Sherman ’80s rides. Years ago, we were the only two people on the leaderboard. It’s fun. I’m certainly going to make the class. I’ll be damned if I’m going to sleep in on her ass. I’m not going to blast her on that, “You’ve slept this morning.” Screw that. I’m going to be up.

She will never let you live it down. We should probably let people know what your leaderboard name is if they would like to find you.

It is like everything else in all of the socials. My leaderboard name is Peter Shankman. I run a couple of hashtag groups. I run the Peloton ADHD Tribe and Peloton Single Dads. Those are my two big ones. They’re a lot of fun. There’s also Peloton Skydivers, which I belong to because I’m a licensed jumper.

TCO 259 | Peloton Through The Pandemic

 

Before we let you go, let people know where they can find you and all the TikToks.

On everything, I’m @PeterShankman on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. My email is Peter@Shankman.com. I’m very easy to find. I’m the only verified Peter Shankman out there. It was funny. When I first started dating my girlfriend, her twelve-year-old daughter comes in and says, “I looked at his Instagram.” She’s like, “What is it?” “He’s verified.” I’m the bomb. I’m Peter Shankman everywhere. I’m still based in New York. I’m starting to be back on the road a lot more, which is cool. I’m always up for meeting people. I’m training for the marathon. If you’re in New York and you want to go for a run or if I’m in your city, send me an email. I would love to do that. I’m slow as hell but I’m funny.

Thank you so much for joining us. We should do this again in four years.

I missed you. I’m glad to know that you both made it through and you’re both still doing well. You both look great. This is awesome. I’m glad to see you.

Thank you.

—

I guess that brings this episode to a close. You made it to the end with your migraine. Until next time, where can people find you?

On Facebook, Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe, Instagram, Twitter, and Peloton leaderboard @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Don’t forget our YouTube channel. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

 

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About Peter Shankman

Peter is one of the most sought after speakers on customer and social economies. Peter has keynoted events for corporations ranging from startups to Fortune 100s in over twenty five countries around the world. He speaks at both digital keynotes and in-person keynote presentations

 

 

 

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