Robin Arzón
Appearances
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I think confidence is a side effect of hustle. I definitely had confidence growing up in certain areas. Oh, I see, I got an A on this test, so I must be good at X, Y, Z. There's the external validation points which only go so far. When I realized my ability to be my own inner advocate was through movement. That was when I realized that I am the director of this story.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I love vision boarding. I do vision boards a few times a year. And on my vision board in my little business work quadrant, I think the majority of the vision board was probably business at that point because I was voraciously searching for ways to pay my rent. I thought I wanted to storytell. And I wanted something that felt modernly disruptive. And I didn't know that meant technology.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I didn't know what that meant. But I thought, I want to make waves. And I want to do it in a way that is scalable. I was teaching spin in a local New York City spin studio at the time, in addition to writing my book, in addition to coaching runners. And I was doing it all at that time. And I thought I need to scale this. I want to light people up more than 20 people at a time.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And then I read a blurb about Ben CEO, John Foley. And I thought, oh, wow, this is it. This is it. And I don't think I would have even been aware of or paying attention if I hadn't done that vision board because it kind of piqued my interest. And then I sent a cold email to the company and I was totally, I mean, really literally cold. They had no idea who I was. They did not approach me.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I approached them. And I think I sent that email like, Late on a Monday night, by Wednesday, I had an audition where I play some songs and I demonstrate my teaching style and things like that. And then I was leaving the following week for India to visit my sister who was living in India at the time. And I said, I have 72 hours.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
So if you want me and you want me when I'm back in two weeks, I need a contract now. So I had a contract in my hands before I got on that plane.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
You know, we definitely, I mean, the team then and now has really ambitious goals. I love it that we are, you know, we're dreamers who hustle. And I really align myself in every relationship business relationship, and honestly, personal relationship that I have, there's an element of hustle and there's an element of grit.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And that's one of the reasons I love GSTQ and I love Danny Garcia, because that is definitely part of their value system and certainly Peloton's, right? And there were high in the sky goals. Some of them we've realized, and then we can, we keep building, we keep building. Like I want to constantly live a life that is redefining possibilities and And in my toolkit, I call it a superhero toolkit.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I've added, you know, breathwork, journaling, vision boarding, you know, movement, of course. And then I now get to share that with the world on a global platform. And when it was, we still have the same grit, honestly, that we had when it was like 10 people on the leaderboard. Now that there's over 10,000 on an average class, you know, or something like that.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
So you have to anchor yourself in values. and real talk and have people who are trusted critics who are willing to tell you like, Hey, like let's, let's have a feedback loop here. Like, let's see, let's kind of break this down so we can build it back up even stronger. And then also continue to dream so big that it makes small minds uncomfortable.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Like I say kind of in jest, but not really that my dreams wake me up before my alarm clock goes off. Like I'm ready. And I'm so intoxicated by my dreams. The moment that I don't feel that I know that I have to keep thinking bigger.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Yeah, I mean, like I said, I was an arts and crafts kid. So I love, like, I will like, I like the pen and paper. I'm sure there's tons of virtual apps and ways to do this on your phone or on your computer. I literally will cut up things from magazines and newspapers. Sometimes, of course, I'll print stuff, you know, if I want something really specific. But I usually do it in quadrants.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
So it'll be like personal life, business. It might be physical health. I was, you know, I bought an apartment with my husband two years ago. So part of the recent quadrants have been like, you know, money we want to invest in our home and renovations and things like that. And really, it's just dreaming.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
It's like putting specificity in visual form and in words so you can kind of focus your dreams a little bit. I always say you have to name it to claim it. So I find that vision boards help me create a pretty picture, but then it's kind of crystallizing a little bit more what I said I wanted and now what I think I want. And they change.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And I look at old vision boards and I'm like, yeah, I thought I wanted that. You know, so you have to give yourself freedom to play and freedom to evolve, right? You are under no obligation to remain who you were just because it makes somebody else uncomfortable.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Well, I was noticing, you know, I really wrote the book that I needed. I feel like a lot of the art that we create, a lot of the businesses that we start are because we need that we needed ourselves.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And I didn't feel like there was actionable training that was kind of talking to me, someone who didn't grow up an athlete, someone who wasn't a five minute mile, someone who did, you know, I didn't even necessarily look like folks at races. You know, I would show up and like, Red lipstick, cat eye, four finger gold rings, like chains. I mean, it was just like, I'm a rock how I am.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I'm going to look good for victory as me. And shut up and run really was, I wanted to marry like practical advice. Like I will get you to the 5k finish line. I will get you all the way up to a 50 miler finish line, actually, which is pretty unusual for running manuals. And I wanted to infuse my story.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
So not just, not only my story of surviving trauma, but also, you know, as a Latina, as someone who believes that we can approach all stages, all chapters of our story with swagger, authenticity, and then also give folks permission to
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
do that on their own terms, like redefine success, redefine what a quote runner with a capital R looks like, or feels like, or speaks like, or walks like, or dresses like, or runs like. There's an abundance of information out there. So I kind of wanted to distill it into something that was pretty straightforward, but honestly, swaggy.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I think confidence is a side effect of hustle. I definitely had confidence growing up in certain areas, right? It's like, oh, I see. I got an A on this test. So I must be good at X, Y, Z. There's the external validation points, which only go so far. When I realized my ability to be my own inner advocate was through movement. It was when I started lacing up for the marathon training.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
It was when I started lifting weights. It was when I started, you know, even slowing down in some regards, you know, doing yoga, breath work. That was when I realized that I am like the director of this story. And that was really terrifying and exciting at the same time. And the confidence that...
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
now really like buttresses like most areas of my life I mean of course there are things that I'm just like oh gosh I'm terrible at that but it's a it's a side effect of the hustle and to put it simply you know like if I'm this morning I was doing like barbell work hang power cleans and I hit like the heaviest weight I've ever done on a hang power clean it's like you can't tell me none
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Like, if you don't think I'm going to ask for 10% more on that contract, you are delusional. You know, like that gives me the confidence that, and then I have more patience with my daughter. I can model things for her in every way. It's the workout is so much more than the 20, 30, 45 minutes, 60 minutes that you put into the workout.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
It's how are you going to remember who you are in the other 23 hours a day? And I believe I always wake up with an invisible crown on my head and it's like chin up, crown on always. Oh, I love that so much.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Thank you for having me. What an intro. I have to bring you everywhere to kind of be a hype woman. That was really great.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
burnout is very real, you know, and as high, you know, it's, I delight in being high functioning and I, and I, and I surround myself with folks like that too. I have a feeling you do too. So we have to be aware and I'm glad that it's more part of the conversation, right? It's like all the work that Arianna Huffington has done, all the work.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I mean, it's just part of now our, our working culture to be aware of burnout. But I also think that I kind of feel like hustle gets a bad rap now because it's like you absolutely should still be working your ass off, but you should also be prioritizing the conversation with yourself enough to know what your boundaries are.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Because without, you cannot set standards for yourself or someone else if you do not know what your boundaries are. Establishing boundaries creates higher standards. Higher standards makes us all better. money, and success, period. So the red line thing goes back to basics. I have a very basic but consistent way I eat, way I sleep. I do breath work for a few minutes. And it's not always perfect.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
but usually some semblance of that gets done. The sleep hygiene thing is really important. And listen, I know I have a young daughter. Like I know that you can't always, you know, you plan, plan, plan, and life just happens. But most of the time, are you doing your best to fill your own cup? Because that the energy that you have is ultimately currency. And I
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
when you're working in elements of teams, right? And it's like kind of everybody's charging together. Everybody's like burnt out together. You can do that for a period of time, right? Like if you're getting ready for launch, if you're really doing the thing, okay. But zoom out a little bit and ask yourself, is this sustainable for six months? Is this sustainable for a year?
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Probably not much more than that in really cortisol filled environments. So you have to establish and plan. Self-care is a prevention strategy. Self-care is not what you turn to when you're At your wit's end. It's what allows for that escape valve. It allows the pressure out a little bit of the balloon before the balloon pops.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
So the framework of our home is the health and wellness of my husband and myself. Because nothing else gets done well enough. or intentionally if we don't take care of ourselves.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
So it's scheduling my workout, scheduling his workout, delegating where we need to, you know, making sure that we have good food in the fridge that makes us fuel amazingly and gives us the energy that ultimately becomes currency. So it's all the little things that we already know. It's like drink a glass of water and eat a vegetable, honey.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Like we've been telling you all this, but when we're in those moments of crisis, it's hard to make the best choice.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, that's so human, right? Like it's, and I think that you have to give yourself grace when that happens. Like, it's like, okay, indulge in the, in the movie, like by the thing, like, don't give yourself so much grief, but I try to often think about future Robin.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Like, how can I, and I try to think of her like a, like a friend, because then I think there's a, there's more effect. It's hard to befriend yourself. We're really, we're easy friends. on our external relationships than we are internally. I make every effort to befriend myself. And I think about future Robin and I'm like, damn girl, what do you need?
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Like, what is it that is really going to set you up to feel at the end of the day that when your head hits that pillow, like, gosh, I did that. Like that exhalation that yes, comes from fatigue also comes from pride. And I live for that exhalation. Um, so hell yeah, of course. Like I, I have like days, sometimes weekends, entire weekends where I'll go off the rails.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I try not to let it go on for more than two days. So it's like, if you're skipping the workout, if you're doing the thing, if you're grabbing for the food that you know, you're supposed to grab, put a 48 hour lock on that, maybe even 24 hours, because then things just start to snowball and you're going to end up feeling so much worse.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Oh, well, so strong mama was really, it was a love letter to my little training partner who was my baby, my baby in utero at the time. And I wanted to send a message actually that centered the caregiver. Most kids books do not center the parents. Parents are superheroes. Like raising small humans is an Olympic sport, right?
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And I know that now, but, you know, during pregnancy, I wanted to, you know, the two values that we really try to live and espouse in our home are that movement is medicine and that self-care is not selfish. And those were the two messages of the book that I wanted to make, of course, like appropriately clear.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
age age related, you know, age appropriate, but also fun and center a center, a pregnant woman, like show a pregnant woman in a book doing bad-ass things because it happens all the time. And that is the reality of many people's experiences. And I wanted to really highlight and showcase that and then have a touchstone for parents to
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
to revisit these concepts, maybe when time is getting hard or, you know, the, you know, a child is saying, but why are you leaving to go do this thing? And why are you marathon training right now? And it's like, let's revisit this.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And then even better, the ultimate goal is of course, for, for young folks to have their own relationship with these concepts and figure out like, gosh, what, what do I do when I'm feeling crummy? Like what, how do I move my body in ways that allow me to feel more powerful? And that actually, you know, ends up opening up things for future books and stuff.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
But that was where my head was at when I wrote Strong Mama.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Oh, thank you.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Thank you for paving the way for pregnant athletes. And it's, I find it so frustrating. And honestly, I think that the paradigm is shifting a little bit. I hope it is, but I still got, I got flack too. You know, it's like, you know, I'm teaching eight months pregnant at Peloton and I was physically capable of doing it. I felt really strong. I felt great. Thank goodness.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
But I just want to invite less judgment and more curiosity about what we're capable of And instead of asking, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? Focus on what can you do? It's a whole lot. You can do a whole lot. So focus on what you can do and use that to prop you up.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
You know, it was a dream. It was definitely a dream. Not when I was a lawyer, but I didn't imagine, I didn't really aspire to be on the cover of like the Bar Association, you know, magazine. But sure, it was a dream of mine. And it's really, it's kind of funny when you realize dreams that you kind of only wrote in your journal privately, you know, years and years later, I still have a
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
So I kind of look at it as like, I'm, I'm the center of the wheel. And then there are spokes of the wheel. And like, one of them is Peloton. One of them is my book writing. One of them is, you know, entrepreneurial things. And then the brand relationships that I have developed over the years with stuff that I'm naturally interested in, right? Like I, Love fashion.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
So GSTQ was an obvious partner for me when I approach or whether it's something like I'm a vegan athlete. So I partnered with a company, Athletic Greens, and I ended up investing in that company and investing in Venus's plant protein line, Viking. you know, happy Viking. So those are natural extensions of how I live my life. I don't really believe in practicing what you preach.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I want to preach what I practice. And then I want brands that do that as well. So that is always like the internal gut check that I'm doing with my team. I now have agents at WME and, you know, a PR team. And when we're discussing this stuff, it's like, I would never, first of all, I have to use the product and genuinely love it. But also the messaging has to make sense, right?
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Like I'm never just going to sign a deal just because the dollars are nice. In fact, I say no to most things. But when things like GSTQ, so my relationship with Danny started a few years ago. Danny Garcia started GSTQ. And GSTQ's event was actually one of the first events I went to after having Thena and when the world started opening up again after COVID. And she had a launch event for her
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
brand for her fashion line in New York City and I just went as a fan and an admirer of Dani and the clothes were so dope I literally came home and I ordered like half the collection and then GSDQ reached out to my team and was like hey we want to work together and this is this is the like the ideal scenario where it's like, Hey, I already spent my own money on the clothes.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Of course, I'm happy to be paid, you know, to wear them now. It's interesting because I always say I traded my suits for spandex when I left law. And now it's such a treat to be able to like rock a blazer and a crop top with like some sporty track pants that are like elevated with platform. You know, it's like, I can now mix. I thought I had to kind of
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
park that part of my identity because I was like, okay, well, this is what a fitness instructor looks like, or this is what somebody in fitness looks like. And it's like, no, like I can do it my own way. And so whether I'm rocking a red carpet or whether I'm going to teach a class, like I'm, I might have like one foot in one world of high fashion and one foot in the other, and I make it my own.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And that's definitely what the GSTQ message is all about. And the clothes are just beautiful. I mean, I, I really, I literally feel like I could work out in the blazers. Like that's how comfortable they are. I did eight. I did like 10 hours in DC the other day. It was like a fast and furious trip.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I got to go to the white house with this group, a nonpartisan group that was there doing amazing work and literally got on the, got on the train that morning in the GSTQ suit. And like 14 hours later, stumbled into the door wearing the same GSTQ suit. Oh, honey, I still look good. I love it.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I want to continue creating platforms that allow people to step into their own power and become self-sustaining fire starters. Whether it's approaching self-care with intention and boundary setting, or one of the projects I'm most excited about right now is the creation of the first health and wellness... club in web three.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I founded swagger society a few weeks ago, and we are going to be minting NFTs in early 2023. And it's going to be a self-actualization swagger society.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
It's like, if you want to be surrounded by folks who want more for themselves, who want to have conversations that light you up and have an environment where thousand or less folks, it's going to be a small, very curated community are really there for each other, engaging in conversation and having book clubs, early access to all the things I'm working on.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
That's really, I'm going to hold space for people's power and for them to broker connections and really midwife each other's dreams.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I am Robin Arson and you can find me at RobinArson.com. I am on social media as Robin Arson, RobinNYC on Twitter. And you can follow Swagger Society as well on Twitter. And that's where you're going to find news about my Web3 projects. And of course, I'm at Peloton, head instructor, teaching there many times a week.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And that was really terrifying and exciting at the same time. And the confidence that now really like buttresses like most areas of my life. It's a side effect of the hustle.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Always, always the straight A student. I was the kid who loved, like, I just loved books. And my mom really modeled that for me. My mom and my dad, my dad was a law professor. My mom is a physician. And the school was kind of the easier part. What I realized later was the story. I told myself the story that I was the straight A student.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I didn't tell myself the story that I could throw a ball or go to gym class. And so that physical activity and movement was really kind of scary to me. And it's clearly I pivoted and iterated a lot for the life I've created for myself now. But I think the larger message is that we really can become the stories that we tell ourselves.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And now I'm really aware of the story that I tell myself and then And engaging with my daughter, Athena, kind of watching how I storytell around her experience. Because once we're kind of labeled or even label ourselves as something or are reticent to own a label. When I started running, I started running when I was in law school.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And for the longest time, I was doing 10Ks, half marathons, marathons. I was like, oh, I'm not a runner. A runner is this or that. A runner is a five-minute mile. A runner has been doing this for 20 years. So stepping into our various identities, I think, can be really, really powerful. And then also being aware of the stories that we're telling ourselves. But yeah, I had examples in my parents.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
My mother, Cuban. My father, born in Puerto Rico and raised in the Bronx. And they really modeled for me self-determination.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Well, there were lots of moments, I think. I don't think for most people there's, sometimes there's one aha moment, but I think that we get thousands of signs and we choose to see them or not. So the reason I started running is because I had a pretty intense trauma occur when I was a senior at NYU. Entering law school the following year, I had already been accepted to law school.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And I mean, I was held at gunpoint in the East Village in New York City when I was meeting girlfriends on a Friday night after work. New York City in the summer can have a magical feeling to it. And it was one of those nights that was that until it very much wasn't. And I was sitting in this wine bar and a man walked in and he was flailing a gun.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And in a matter of minutes, I went from telling my girlfriend about probably the crush I had at the time to being... a hostage negotiator with the NYPD who are outside and time slows down.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
You become, that was actually one of the moments where I became really aware of story, like not in the moment, but when I reflect back on that experience, my internal narrative was very focused, but it was very loud. And I just kept telling myself, this is not the end of my story. Like, this is not like no freaking way is this it. So there's a fight.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I believe in, in every, every, every one of us, there's the fight innate to the human spirit that I hold onto till this day. So that was a moment of powerlessness for sure. And trauma, acute trauma. And over the years I have been able to repackage that story and as a source of strength.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And I think that in a lot of our life's inflection points, we always have a choice whether we're going to be a victim to the circumstance or we're going to be victorious no matter what the circumstance is. And so when I survived that experience, I thought, okay, am I going to just be someone who survived that? Or am I now going to thrive? Because like, damn, I'm here. I'm here for a reason.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
So let's go. And it took a while, of course, for me to process all of that. I mean, I'm still to a certain extent processing a lot of that, but running helped me so much. I started running when I was in law school. So about the year after this hostage incident, and I don't even know why, like I said, as a kid, I was not an athlete. Like I really wasn't surrounded by runners. My mom's not a runner.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I mean, I was a runner now, funnily enough, after having me, supporting me in marathons, but I wasn't surrounded by it is my point. And I I just saw a pair of dusty shoes that weren't even running shoes in my closet. And I thought, I'm just going to jog, walk, nearly crawl to campus today on my way to law school. And I just started getting curious and really uncomfortable, but curious.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And it provided me like a different focus. I had a lot of pain that I was carrying and I wasn't even aware of it. Highly ambitious person.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
multi-faceted multi-hyphenate people can just like get it done but should we always have to you know with that heavy burden and it was through the runs that I really started to use movement as medicine and at that point in time were you thinking okay this is this is a calling for me or at that point in time you were just trying to get escape the pain and try to grow through that
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Yeah, definitely growth. I mean, I practiced law for almost eight years. So I, you know, I had a full, full law career as a corporate litigator. And like I said, it wasn't one aha moment. I think there were like lots of little moments where I was being called to something else.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
Yeah, I mean, it's tough, especially when you have the external pressures and when you have, quote unquote, the dream job and the dream, you know, it was all like young in New York City with an amazing income. I mean, my God, I'd never seen that much money in my life. You know, it was just unbelievable. Those are... really difficult conversations to have with yourself.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
The hardest conversation always starts with yourself. You think it might be, oh, with your partner or your mom or your kid or your boss. The first conversation that you have to have is with yourself or the many conversations. So that's how it was for me. Once I started getting curious about, I was like, wow, I'm really passionate about this fitness thing.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
I don't know how the heck I'm going to do this, but at first I was like, I'm just really passionate as a hobby. And then I realized, huh, maybe there's a way for me to monetize this. Like, can I pay my rent? Like, I don't know. So I started a 10 minute a day dreaming exercise. I set a calendar appointment for 10 minutes every single day. And oftentimes I would journal, I would Google, I'd be like,
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
what does an editor at women's health do? You know, like, and funnily enough, now I'm on the cover, but like, those are the things that I just, I just got curious. And there were some days where I just sat pen to paper and I was like, this is so stupid. I should just go to my next meeting or I should just, you know, and I just, I tried to develop a stickiness to that 10 minutes a day.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And it really was 10 minutes a day for like two years. And I planted seeds. And then when I got a little bolder, I'd be like, all right, I'm going to send somebody an email. Or I'm going to like, you know, ask somebody to meet me for lunch, you know, and those were obviously the bigger asks. And I was told no a lot, but I was told yes too. And the yeses were enough to kind of feel my fire.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And then ultimately I left my law firm two weeks before the London Olympics because I had an opportunity to kind of showcase my experience as a as a blogger, I guess, on social media and some brands were paying attention, like big athletic brands. And I thought, okay, this is my opportunity. Like I have no idea what is going to be next, but this might be a scaffold to something else.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
So I took a chance and the risk was felt really massive. It was massive, but I knew who I wanted to feel in my day to day. I wanted freedom. I wanted agency. I wanted the feeling I have when I'm, you know, in a workout or talking about a workout. And I knew that those were the values and the standards I had to set for myself, even if I potentially disappointed some folks.
Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Discover The Courage Within YOURSELF To Follow Your Dreams, With Robin Arzón Vice President Of Fitness Programming & Head Instructor At Peloton
And ultimately my immediate family was incredibly supportive. There were definitely some doubters, but I think I turned their doubt into determination.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I mean, at this point, it was only probably 10 people on the leaderboard. But you know, it was really, really daunting. And I was starting this new venture. And I obviously wanted to feel great and prepared. And I was neither. But I just focused on what I could control. And I educated myself with this new technology and what I would now need. New medical team, new doctor names, new medical terms.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I asked questions when I didn't know what I needed to know. And I focused on what I could control. The important thing also is to kind of... Remember your North Star? Because I was in a lot of different rooms where it was like, oh, now that you're type one, ultra training.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Oh, now that you're this and that, you know, and it's folks, I think most of the time do mean well, but you can't make decisions based on somebody else's doubt because they're not you. And if I would have listened to the very well-meaning naysayers who I think were just being protective, I never would have continued to join Peloton.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And for sure, I wouldn't have continued to become the athlete that I am now.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
But to get your listeners in up to date or into the story, on a Friday afternoon, I was entering my senior year at NYU, so college age, and I had planned to go to law school the following year. And on the eve of graduation that year, so it was all very exciting times, I was meeting my girlfriends after work. I was paralegal at a law firm doing my corporate gig.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I have no clue how. I mean, listen, I think moms, caregivers, we just figure it out. And, you know, I'm really grateful for help. I mean, my husband is an incredible partner. We did bring our nanny on that trip because otherwise that would have been totally unrealistic for the care. It would have been a disaster. Absolutely. And I think I'm just in the season.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I will look back to this time in my life. I'm certain even the hard days and be like, gosh, what I wouldn't give for that amount of chaos in certain ways. You know what I mean? For me, these are the good old days. So I'm okay maximizing. I'm okay with more. Yes, that requires some element of protecting my peace. There are a lot of social engagements that I say no to because I'm business.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Basically, it's like business and family life. And there's a lot of the in-between, the happy hours, the things, the charity events, stuff that I would love to attend, but it's usually a no. And that's why. And then it's also really understanding very clearly what a yes looks like.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I think before becoming a mother, there would be opportunities that came my way that I'd be like, well, I just have to do this because so-and-so did it or this person, you know, it's just I have to do it. And it's like, well, no, you don't. Why? What does a yes even look like?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I think especially after you've had some successes or sometimes like it begets something else and it's like the next expected thing. It's like you release, you publish one book. It's like, oh, what about the next book? You do one race. Oh, what about the next? And it's like, oh, wait, but what's my yes? I'm proud that I've been able to read the tea leaves, so to speak, for my own definition.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
You know, when that's deciding whether I'm going to do a partnership, whether I'm going to take on a certain brand deal or a certain project. I really try to go internal rather than my initial, oh, I have to do it. I use my no pretty judiciously.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Yeah, being on Necker Island with Richard Branson for the Strive X was... I mean, I think it was an adventure. It was... Pushing yourself physically so you can drop the pretense mentally or emotionally. I think there's always this tipping point with physical endurance and strength and activities that you kind of just, you don't have the energy anymore to have the wall up.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I think for especially high achieving people, that is a really unique environment. Especially when you're in front of somebody like Richard Branson, who if you're going to Necker Island, you admire and know who Richard Branson is. And so you can go much deeper and have much more connected experiences when you have that physical element.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I think the way that we experienced the trip, you know, it was about what, like 30 of us. So just big enough where you feel like you can actually connect with folks. And it was really paired, the physical activities every day, call it four to six hours of activities every day, were paired with really meaningful conversations and workshops at night. So for me, it was like a dream week.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And a great day turned into a horror movie really within seconds. minutes. A man walked in saying that he'd been shot into the wine bar where we were sitting. Tiny little wine bar in the East Village. Basically, it was like there's a before and then an after. That was the inflection point that it became the after.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And yeah, you mentioned the swimming. So I didn't know how to swim. I could like doggy paddle, but I really didn't know how to swim before this. And I was one of the co-hosts of this StriveX event. And I thought, okay, well, I have to do all the stuff, right? Like I can't opt out. And I had about three months of And I was like, okay, I have a finish line, so to speak. And I really learned.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I truly, I hired a coach and I went to the Long Island Sound and I did open water swims. And it was really, really hard. And it's interesting. And I did do the swim. I swam a mile freestyle, you know, no... Swimmies, no honey thing, no unassisted. I was really proud of that. But if you were to ask me, are you a swimmer?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I would still say no, because in my mind, and I remember this point also in the beginning of my running journey, it took me the longest to say I was a runner. And I was already doing races and whatever.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I think in my mind, it's such an interesting example of we become the stories that we tell ourselves because I have done a lot of different things and played a lot of different roles in my life. And swimmer is yet to be. And I think next summer, maybe I'll solidify it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
But I think I need a few more of those moments where I'm just like putting myself in the ocean or putting myself in the pool and remembering that moment. neurological piece of me that I guess developed, but I don't know. It's so funny how we can just, we can do a lot of things, but then there are always these pockets of hard that it takes our identity to embrace.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I mean, I'm sure there are a lot of marketers who have varied opinions on this, but I think that the brand builds itself through consistency.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And for me, it's always been about using my voice even when it shakes and trying to hold space maybe for folks who feel like that wellness isn't for them, or maybe they didn't grow up seeing examples of folks who looked like them or talked like them in some of these spaces, especially traditional white male spaces.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I was held hostage that night by the man who had shot the gentleman who had walked in. And so the perpetrator walks in, he grabs me, then it's chaos, expletives, guns flailing. I mean, it was truly like a horror movie.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And, you know, as a woman, as a Latina, I really try to hold space for lots of different types of communities, but more so it's a value of, I think I live the value of a hustler and somebody who really is gritty but appreciates a work ethic and is willing to define their own finish line. And that really, it still excites me. So I guess reputation becomes a form of wealth.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I think that the brand builds itself when you show up consistently. And I have done that. I've been at Peloton 11 plus years and I've been in wellness for longer than that. So a lot of different moments where you can show up and tell a consistent story in that time.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
You know, I call myself a fire starter. Like I think in a lot of different environments, I can be the spark for somebody's curiosity, for someone's motivation, for someone's excitement. I found that that is my purpose. And the different hats that I wear, whether it's mother, entrepreneur, business person, spin instructor, strength coach, running coach,
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
That is the through line through all the partnerships, all the brands, all the experiences. I want to light fires under people. And I want folks going back to that malaise, going back to that, I'm okay. Yes, being okay is better than being a lot of worse things, especially clinically, but You deserve more. Why not you?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
That has always been, not always, but since adulthood, that's been a very pressing question. Why not you? And then I want to offer folks tools, a toolkit for how. Because if the why is big enough and strong enough and loud enough inside, the how is always going to be achievable.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And by the time the police were called, because bystanders had heard shots from outside, by the time the police arrived, there were probably 20 of us in this wine bar with this man who was spewing hate, wanting to kill everyone that was in there, including me. And I was the person he held onto throughout this incident, literally using me like a human shield.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Yeah. So Swagger Society Media Company is really became a lifestyle membership club that we spun out a year and a half ago to go deeper with folks who are of the growth mindset and who wanted to go a little bit deeper than the traditional Instagram post or Facebook post with me.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And so we have quarterly, we call them queendom halls and we gather and it's an extension of my masterclass outside of social media, right? So we built our own private app and Swagger Society now is taking these conversations to media partners and brand partners. And we host in real life events every single year, twice a year.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And this really becomes an opportunity for the community to gather in real life and connect both virtually and in person and have conversations. So whether it's me interviewing the editor-in-chief of Women's Health, or whether it's bringing an amazing person Former athlete, you know, I interviewed Mark Cuban, for example, you know, as part of a conversation teeing up to agri-society.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
So these are things that if I'm curious about it and I have questions about it in related to leveling up one's life and growth mindset values, then that's under the umbrella. And we're going to be spinning out licensing and merchandise and clothing. And so it's the place that lives for me to play, but also play with purpose.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
It is. 2025 is my big cookbook preparation year. I am literally recipe testing right now. It will be out in 2026. And this is... such a cool... So I'm a plant-based athlete. I'm vegan. I've been vegan for over 12 years. So that means I don't eat meat or dairy, eggs, and I basically thrive on plants. And I wanted to create a protein-packed plant-based cookbook for folks.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Yes, of course, there are plant-based folks who are like, wow, great, but I need more recipes. But For me, I'm taking a wider approach, a broader approach. This is for the person who just wants to increase their protein portfolio. Like you look at your investments, it's like, this is what I want for folks is to think, okay, maybe tonight I'll try one of these recipes.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
You know, obviously I believe it's great for the environment and it's great for our bodies. But as an athlete, I have lived this. And I know as someone who trains, multiple hours a day, six days a week. I know that you can fuel intentionally with these recipes.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
That's the goal is to put something out in the world that allows individuals, athletes, families, and just the plant curious to have a resource. I love that. And also it's very real. Like it is how I cook. It's not like, okay, we need to curate this recipe for 72 hours and then you need this special dish and this pot and this special machine. No, this is like how I cook in my kitchen.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I have 15 minutes. My kids are going crazy. I am starving. This is what I eat. That's the goal.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Oh gosh. There were closed doors and they say like, be grateful for the redirection. I know there's some kind of saying that I'm blanking on now, but the many moments where I felt like I was being redirected and now I look back and I'm like, oh my gosh, if I didn't do this, that wouldn't have led me to that. Then I don't meet my husband. If I don't do this, then I don't end up a Peloton.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And as somebody who's ambitious, as a hustler, finding the way to continue to hustle and but also trust in closed doors and life's timing, that I'm proud of. So I would tell the younger version of myself, you will find the balance of your hustle with life's and the universe's signs and timing. And I wouldn't have believed you
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I became basically the pseudo-negotiator between him and the NYPD who had gathered outside. The incident was a few hours long. And in that time, it was like... going from speaking to this man to speaking to the NYPD to almost having the silent conversation with myself that like, this was not gonna be the end to my story. That thankfully was not.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I would have just been like, but here's my to-do list and here's my calendar and I'm going to force it. And it's just, no girl, that's not it. So I think that there's a more nuanced energy that I have now to the hustle, which gosh, I'm grateful for because that means that my hustle has a long game. Like I'm in this for the infinite hustle.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I don't want to do this and flame out and say, oh gosh, yeah, wow, I had it in me for a year. No, baby. I want to be one of the most badass 90-year-olds you know.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I have two examples. So one, before the Peloton entered the chat, so to speak, I've always been really into fashion and very kind of enamored by design. And I thought, okay, this is back in the day, back in the day. I had already left my law firm and I was flailing about New York City. And I thought, okay, I'm going to start a leggings. I'm going to start an athleisure company.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
as if that's a casual endeavor. And I put money into the company. I was sourcing designers. Fabric was coming from Asia. It was starting to be birthed. but I was also writing my book and I was doing all these other things. And you don't just casually do this, right?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I realized, oh my gosh, if you don't pull the plug, if you don't just eat the cost now, you are going to be such a failure in this. And that inability or unwillingness to see that through really felt like a failure. And then fast forward to now, I am working on an entirely crafted line with Peloton that is going to be coming out later this year. And it is like, right, girl.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
So that distinguishing between a failure and a pivot is really tricky, and sometimes you don't know which one it was until you zoom out a little bit, but I'm very grateful for that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And then a more recent one, a more concrete one, I was signed up for the New York City Marathon in 2024, and I thought to myself, okay, you're one year postpartum, you must run this race, you have this entry, people would kill for this entry. And the long runs just were not sitting well with my body. Like, I think I was still healing a little bit from having Atlas, my son.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And again, it was like four weeks of just like, try again, lace up, do it again. You know how to do this. You've done 27 marathons. You've got this, number 28. And I just had this crushing 10 mile area where I could barely eke it out. And I was like, girl, why? So I pivoted and I pivoted in a way that made my life so much more enriched.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I ended up signing up for a high rocks competition, which is eight 1K runs and eight strength things. And that 2024 training cycle was so much more rewarding because I pivoted. And yes, I might've eked it out. Yes, I might've crossed that New York City Marathon finish line. And to what end? If I was miserable... then what was the point?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I think, yes, there is going to be a level of discomfort in any of these achievements. So you're kind of like, oh, is this discomfort or am I just like cutting out too early? So I don't know. You know, I can't answer that for folks. It depends. But for me, those are two examples of it was totally the right call to pivot.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And a really brave woman named Anne Margaret basically jumped him from behind and that ended the takeover because they basically were able to get him on the ground. And that's when the NYPD were able to rush in. I was standing in front of him. So all of this action happened behind me. So I just felt the sensation falling. So that was it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I think that those are all the right questions. Now it's figuring out what story are you telling yourself and then what story are you telling the world through how you're showing up, how you send the text, how you sign the email, how you show up to the event. These are all branded moments. And so earlier when I said the brand builds itself, it's like, these are the small inflection points.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Obviously education is a huge passion of yours. It's like, how are you educating to stay relevant? Finding the spark, finding the question that you want to answer for the world, that's a big, but once you have that, that's such an amazing aha. That it's like, yo, now you got to run with it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And you might be like run into a few wrong directions and be like, oh, not that way, not that way, not that way. But you still carry that charge with you. And that is so exciting. And I think if you're like, oh, gosh, I don't know. I'm flailing. I don't know what I like. Continue to have the conversation with yourself. Lead with curiosity rather than judgment.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I say this really seriously, develop a running practice, develop a movement practice. These movement practices where we look under the hood of how we're speaking to ourselves, that directly informs how we are showing up in the world.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I continue to feel like a creative person, even in the throes of motherhood and all this, because I continue to carve out those movement practices that allow me to befriend myself. And then on a great day, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm journaling, I'm putting notes in my phone. I'm like, yeah, I've got an idea for this, an idea for that, an idea for that.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Because movement is fertilizer for the brain. So if you feel stuck, move your body.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And that intensity and trauma brought me in a very meandering way to running, which ended up being a very healing journey for me.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I grabbed onto it. And one of my mantras I developed, which I still use, is why not me? I'm in this for the infinite hustle. I don't want to do this and flame out. No, baby. I want to be one of the most badass 90-year-olds you know. You can't make decisions based on somebody else's doubt because they're not you.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Yeah, totally. I didn't realize I was doing this at the time, but I was trying to humanize the folks who were in the room and I guess humanize him. I didn't want to anger him further. And I thought, oh, well, if he understands that we're daughters and brothers and friends and, you know, the folks in here also have loved ones.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And he was talking a lot about his loved ones and he was speaking in Spanish. So I started speaking to him in Spanish. I was just like, I just want him to be able to see us because there was just so much rage. And later, having spoken to real hostage negotiators, I realized that that is actually one of the tactics that they use.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I didn't even know that I was doing that, but that is what I did at the time.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I don't know why running. I was not an athlete growing up, so it wasn't as if I was trying to relive high school glory days or something at a later point in my life. But I was in law school, and I don't know. I think the added acute stressors of law school plus the trauma, it was like something had to give. After this hostage incident, I went back to school.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I took like two days off, went back to school, was back in the grind. And I think ambitious folks get it. It's like, okay, well, I'm just going to focus on the to-do list and the calendar and the graduate, you know, it's like the next finish line, so to speak, figuratively. And a year later, when I was in law school, I was just feeling overwhelmed to say the least.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And that I just looked at dusty shoes in my closet one day and I was just like, what if I just wore them and And I literally put the keys down, you know, my car keys down. I was like, what if I just went on foot to campus? I have no idea why, but I think we all have those moments that start as a whisper, just like a little fleeting curiosity. And I grabbed onto it.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And it wasn't like, and then I was this marathoner and it was this Rocky montage. No, it was like these initial runs for a long time were horrendous. But in those runs, I realized I wasn't thinking about law school stress or almost dying or the trial. What drummed up a lot of emotion as well was this is when the criminal...
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
prosecution was happening and I was a witness, but I was also in law school. It was like a lot. I was unpacking a lot, but during the runs or walk jogs, whatever they were, I wasn't thinking about all that. And then I realized, oh gosh, I have a tool for my toolkit now that was pretty magnificent.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I guess it's this idea that we can choose our hard path. And it was two things. You can choose your hard. And the second is I liked myself better after a run. This was a totally selfish vehicle to befriending myself. And I just needed to like myself a little bit more. And that's what the run did. And then it was like,
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Yes, when I was doing marathons and ultra marathons, and then I educated myself around it, I was like, oh my gosh, there are all these other benefits. But it really started with the conversation in between my ears.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I started learning about amazing endurance athletes like Rich Roll, who's now a friend of mine, or Scott Jurek and Alison Felix, Para Goucher, these athletes who are just incredible. And I got really inspired. I specifically got really interested in the ultra running world. And that is a world... If folks aren't part of that world, it's just really welcoming and warm and accepting.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And it's like, so what? You're not a five-minute mile. Like, let's just go out here on a trail or let's just do it. Let's just put one foot in front of the other. And that was amazing. And also, I liked that you can put training in a calendar and do the work and achieve something. That just felt really... gratifying to me. And it gave me an outlet.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
you
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
At this time when I was doing ultra marathons, by this time I was practicing law in New York City. And it was obviously a lot to balance all of that, but it at least gave me something that wasn't work. The meta message was, you like yourself better. You like yourself more after you've done this. And yes, I definitely took it to some extremes, but that was also out of curiosity.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
It was like, well, if my body can do this, why can't it do that? And one of my mantras I developed at the time, which I still use, is why not me? I, you know, read these magazines and read these memoirs of these runners. And I thought, oh, gosh, well, I don't know if I'll do that. But what if I do my version of that? Why not me?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
It's technically anything over 26.2 miles or like 40, 40 something kilometers, 44 maybe. That can go a lot of distances. You know, I have a friend, Bex Gentry. She ran seven marathons in seven days around the world. So there are obviously lots of ways to do it. My farthest distance has been 100 miles or five marathons in five days across Utah for charity, for MS research.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
But very traditional distances are like 50K, which is around 31 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles. And then there are stage races, which you might do in two, three, four, five, seven days. A lot of miles. Yeah.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Yes, Marathon de Saab is a great example. Yes. Amazing, amazing, amazing.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I was counting down the minutes, the hours. If there are any lawyers who are listening or watching, you know all about billable hours. So you're living in these increments of six minute increments. So I was very aware of time, hyper aware of time. And I would count down the hours until I could run, lift, go to spin class. And I thought, oh my gosh, if I'm working out on a good week, Four days.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Am I really living for like four hours a week? Three and a half hours a week? That felt wild. Especially having just had this experience in my early 20s. By my mid-late 20s, I was like, screw that. If I put all this work to befriend myself, then I should put myself in experiences that I feel excited about, or at the very least challenged by in a way that gets me excited.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And it's interesting because practicing law wasn't like, oh, I hate every day. It was just, I'm fine. And I believe that we deserve existences that are more than fine. And I think that is the distinction that we don't often talk about. It's like this malaise that is pervasive and is, what if you deserve better? We almost resign ourselves to this Oh, it's just okay. No, it's not.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
So that was the impetus. And it was a really slow kind of burn. It was like a two-year slow burn that I thought, oh my gosh, well, how the heck am I going to pay my bills? And I'm living in New York City. And obviously, I'm super, super privileged to have this amazing gig, this corporate gig. And There wasn't a clear path because it wasn't like, okay, now I want to go to business school.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I was truly like, I felt like I was just walking in the jungle with a machete or something. And I read an article about Peloton and I reached out to the company Cold. And that was really what started my relationship with Peloton. And at that time, I had already been writing my first book, Shut Up and Run, as you mentioned.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I was coaching runners and teaching spin classes and doing Jill of all trades, I guess, because I was just trying to plant a lot of seeds and seeing what would sprout.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Energy is such a currency. Obviously these interactions are really great when they're in person, but this happened to be an email and I was putting in the rep, so to speak. I would get into a taxi cab and be like, I love running. Do you love running? Like literally anybody who would listen I went to the 2012 London Olympic Games as a spectator and as like kind of a blogger.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I was just putting in the reps, putting in the reps, recording, writing, talking. Anybody who would listen, I'm excited about this. I have a point of view as a Latina, as a woman, as an urban athlete, as a hustler. And I wasn't seeing it represented. So I was like, let me just find the right partners, the right people who also want to tune into this frequency.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
So I basically poured all of that that I had been honing and crafting into the email specific to Peloton. I was like, I did a vision board in the business quadrant of my vision board. I didn't even know what this meant at the time, but I wrote disruptive storytelling stories. plus technology. And I had a picture of a little Apple computer. I really didn't know what this meant.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
But when I read about Peloton, I was like, oh my gosh, this is it. And truly it was a cold email to like info at pelotoncycle.com. And they read my email and responded a few days later. And then I auditioned. This was before the company had opened its New York City studio. And so I auditioned in the corner of the corporate office that only had like 25 employees. Startup vibes, for sure.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And they changed my life.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
Yeah, I mean, it was decades ago now, but it does feel like it was just the other day. In fact, the other day I was walking by where the incident happened and I was just thrown. It's funny when you look back at your own history and you're like, wow, I was right there, but also I'm a totally different person now.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
So actually on the eve of joining Peloton, and I was like, oh my God, this is it. This is my dream job. I've got a steady income again, doing something I'm obsessed with. And Probably like a week before I started at Peloton, I was feeling really fatigued and lethargic and getting up at night, frequent urination during the night. I was like, what is going on here?
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
And I thought it was ultra training or jet lag. I had just gotten off an international trip visiting my sister in India, who was working in India at the time. And we explain away everything often. And I was trying to explain it away. My mother's a physician. She was like, absolutely not. This is a sign of type one diabetes.
Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Peloton VP, Robin Arzón: Surviving a Hostage Crisis and Building a Relentless Fitness Brand | E67
I didn't even know what an endocrinologist was, but I made an appointment that Monday, blood work and discovered as an adult, my pancreas was producing little to no insulin. And this training cycle for this ultra marathon, I didn't even notice, but I was losing weight, all these things. So that week was really daunting. And I knew I was basically going to be then working out in front of folks.