214: Cody Rigsby Buys a Penthouse plus our interview with Tracy Patman

Last Updated: July 4, 2021By Crystal OKeefe (#ClipOutCrystal)Tags: Creative Writing, Dealing With Depression, Hurricane Katrina, Peloton Riding, physical fitness, Poetry Writing

John Mills joins us to discuss the Beachbody SPAC merger.

Echelon inks a deal with Pitbull.

Little Tikes has a Peloton-style bike for the kiddos.

Dr. Jenn – Listening to your body after a major diagnosis.

Cody Rigsby buys a penthouse in Williamsburg.

Ally Love teams up with The Knot for her upcoming nuptials.

Tunde and Common spotted out on the town.

The Cut talks to Ally Love about her wellness routine.

Angelo discusses whether meal replacement shakes actually work.

Peloton launches its own music festival.

You can now train with Allyson Felix on Peloton.

Matty is doing the Strength Stacks for July.

All this plus our interview with Tracy Patman!

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

Cody Rigsby Buys a Penthouse plus our interview with Tracy Patman

There’s been some chatter in different places and it’s about MetPro. People think it’s an MLM and it is not. We just want to take a second to address the fact that we give a lot of thought as to who advertises on the show and who we do partnerships with. We’ve turned down a lot of stuff.

We personally try everything that we talk about and not everything makes the cut. The things that make the cut are what we genuinely like and feel good about. I don’t expect everyone to agree with our thought process.

Not every product is for every person. Some people drink Coke, some people drink Pepsi and some sociopaths drink RC Cola. I don’t even know what’s wrong with you people but you’re out there. It’s a little frustrating because first off, some people do MLMs and they love them. We are not those people. We are not trying to call you out but we are not fans of them. We would not use our platform to feed people into them. When we see that, we’re like, “No, pump the brakes. That’s not what we’re doing.”

It’s a little concerning because it’s just lies. It’s misinformation. I shouldn’t say lies because maybe it’s based on what they think is true. The reason I draw your attention to that is because there are people out there that are not nice to us. Sometimes people say things that aren’t factual to start a drama. Most of the time, we don’t address it. We ignore it because we try not to be petty, but this is a little bit different because this is our integrity. This is saying that we would sell anything. We care more about money than anything else and the yucky stuff.

We both got day jobs. We’re doing quite nicely. If something came along that gross us out, we have been like, “No, that is gross.” Can I address one more thing? I don’t use a fake radio voice. It’s just how I talk.

Do the thing that you do when you are doing the fake radio guy.

“Good morning, everybody. It’s 8:15, 15 minutes after the hour.”

That’s a fake radio voice and I’m sorry that some of you don’t know the difference.

Enough of our bitching, let’s get to the fun stuff.

We have lots of neat things to talk about.

It’s not crazy busy but everything is upbeat and friendly. There’s no sadness or anything. That’s nice. We inserted this just in case you might miss it.

In case you haven’t visited the OPP, let’s bring it to you.

We read the OPP so you don’t have to. That’s our brand. On that note, what do you have in store for people?

Number one, John Mills is back again. We’re back on our regular schedule. I’m very excited about that. We have to talk to him about Pitbull and Echelon. That’s interesting. We’re going to also hit some other things. There’s a new bike that came out that’s specifically made for kids. We got to talk about that. Dr. Jenn stops by and she talks to us about how to listen to your body after you’ve had a major diagnosis. Ironically, and you did not know this prior to having this conversation, but our discussion with MetPro happens to be about MLM. It’s about weight-loss shakes because somebody asked this on our page, so I wanted to get his opinion. Angelo weighs in on that. We’re also going to talk about the music festival that Peloton is doing and all the other good stuff that comes with Peloton and all the news.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeart, Tune-In. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Also, if you would be so kind, leave behind a review so people know that we’re worth checking out. We have a new review. This is from Objective Banker 12474858.

Is that their phone number or Social Security number? What is happening? I feel like it’s a math equation or something.

It says, “Fan for life. I am one of those users who did a free trial when gyms started shutting down last March and have never looked back. I also started listening to the podcast at the same time. I love hearing about what’s going on in the Peloton world and getting the inside scoop with the Peloton Prophet. More rumors, please!!! I also love the John Mills segments. The chemistry between you three is so fun to listen to. Thank you for giving me something to look forward to every Friday morning.” Thank you so much for the kind words.

Thank you very much.

You can also find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. You can also find us on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. You can watch these things in all their HD glory. You can follow us there over on YouTube as well. Sign up for the newsletter at theclipout.com where you’ll get all the links, pictures, and things like that sent directly to your inbox. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

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Joining us from Run, Lift and Live, it’s John Mills.

How’s it going?

We’ll jump right in. You posted in your group something interesting about Beachbody’s SPAC Merger. What does SPAC mean?

Special Purpose Acquisition Company, I think. They merged with Forest Road Acquisition and mixed the bike company and Beachbody. That was completed after a vote of the shareholders of Forest Road on Thursday. Friday, they made it official. Monday is when they rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. The stock ticker FRX which was the Forest Road, changed over to Beachbody and you can start investing. At that point, Forest Road was trading around $10 a share. By the time this all concluded, they went up to $13.50 a share. That value them at around $3.9 billion. Since Carl Daikeler who is the Beachbody CEO has a 43% stake in the overall company, that made him a billionaire. It’s like $1.7 billion of his worth based on his percentage of ownership is gone.

What happened?

The stock went down to $10 a share, which means they’re now back down to being worth $2.9 billion. His 43% is now worth $500 million.

He’s now only a millionaire. In all fairness, that same thing happened to John Foley. He was a billionaire for half a second. He is again, but back at the beginning, he was a billionaire for half a second and then it went away. I think he’s back now. I don’t know. I haven’t done the math. He’s rich and that’s all that matters and they’re doing great.

If one day you’re worth $1.7 billion, and the next day you’re worth $500 million, that does sound a little painful.

You never actually had the cash. For me, I would be more frustrated if I was worth $1.1 billion and then I was worth like $999 million. I would go to the Yacht Club and be like, “Can somebody spot me $10 million so I can be a billionaire? Is that too much to ask?”

It would be debt and it would be worthless. You said, “Spot me,” not “Gift me.”

The next time I say spot me, you’re not getting it back.

Nobody spots Tom.

Nobody spots Tom $10 million.

Were married. If somebody wanted to spot me $10 million, you would also have $10 million.

We had to pay it back. Are you not listening? Tom, this is not how any of this works.

If at some point I’m worth $1.7 billion, I’ll spot you a check. I got you.

Right back at you. John, I got to pick on you a little bit because you totally jumped on board with this. You’ve invested on day one.

Before day one. I was invested back when they were at around $10. The second day, I was looking at my Fidelity account and for a couple of seconds, I’m like Carl Daikeler.

You started at $10, you went up to $13, and you’re back to $10. It will be interesting to see how all this goes. There’s been a lot of buzz about it, but at the end of the day, let’s not forget that they’re selling supplements. They’re not just selling exercise. I’ve noticed that the instructors are still doing that. I was hoping that when Jennifer Jacobs moved over there, she wasn’t going to be selling the shakes.

That’s clearly a big revenue stream for them. They’re not just going to walk away from it.

They’re not going to change that. The interesting stuff will happen in the fall. Once they released the Beachbody interactive stuff, they’re then competing with Peloton where they’ve got live and on-demand classes.

Are you going to jump on all their classes, get on their wall, and fight for that? Are you going to do all that? I just want to know what I can look forward to make fun of you.

If all of a sudden, I’m like Carl Daikeler and I’m worth $1.7 billion, I might take a class.

That’s fair though. I would get that. I would understand it. I would still give you a crap for it but I would understand.

Jennifer Jacobs gave me some good advice early on in my Peloton life back in 2016. She holds a spot in my heart from that advice. I’ll support what she’s doing. Part of this is that.

That’s loyalty and I love that. I have no ill will towards Jennifer Jacobs. I wish her nothing but the best. I’m more concerned about her long-term prospects and Beachbody’s because I know that that’s a major revenue stream for them, but it turns a lot of people off. I’m curious to see this mix like we’re trying to take on Peloton but we’re still going to sell all this stuff. I’m curious to see what it does because there’s a lot of grumpiness about it, in general.

Same here. I’m curious about both of those things. I’m curious about how is that going to play along with when they actually produce? They know how to mix it and produce content. I saw some of their content. Along with what you talked about MLM stuff, I’m interested to see what bringing those two things together looks like. Is it something where you go, “That’s a competitive thing they got there that they can work on?” I know they got three million subscribers on some of the various platforms. If they can do something with that, they’re in the mix. I don’t know. We’ll see.

I don’t know either because I keep hearing from people that the reason they subscribe is so they can get discounts on their shakes. How many people are actually using that content on an everyday basis? Some people love Beachbody and they have some great programs. I am also not down on them about that. I’m just not convinced that that’s going to turn into the bike.

I’m interested. We’ll see how that plays.

It’s all going to come together at some point.

Moving on, Echelon has inked a deal with Pitbull.

What do you think about that, John?

This is confusing me. The article says that he’s a stakeholder, then it says that they formed a partnership, then they imply that he invested but I’m not sure about that. This could be he invested money to become a stakeholder. It could be they worked out a deal, making him a stakeholder if he provides them with some services.

It's hard to describe to people who don't understand how much you find in the community of Peloton. Click To Tweet

That’s a great point because our audience might remember a while back when Echelon put their little bike on Amazon and they were like, “We created a bike in partnership with Amazon,” then Amazon said, “No, we did not.” This is vague language.

They’re saying it in three different ways. It makes me go, “That’s not clear. I don’t know.” In the end, they say that there’s going to be products. I don’t know what does that mean? Is there going to be some Pitbull inscribed leggings?

Maybe a bubblehead you can stick on your bike. I didn’t know what that meant.

I don’t know what it means but there’s going to be products. They say there’s going to be a channel. A channel to what?

Are we talking like a Spotify channel? Does Echelon have channels?

I don’t think Echelon has channels, which is why I got confused with that. It’s all confusing. I wasn’t sure about what channels.

The more you read this article, it’s crafted to sound like he invested in the company but what is Pitbull’s investment in the company? Everything is like it’s a wide-ranging partnership. He becomes a stakeholder. They actually said that he bought stock. It sounds like he agreed to things and then they gave him stock, which is fine. They’re trying to imply that he believes so much so he gave them a bunch of money, and I don’t know that that’s true.

That’s where I’m at now. After reading it a bunch of times, you can think a bunch of different ways when you read all this stuff. It then ended with he’s going to make a theme song for them, which then confuses me too. Where are they going to play this song at?

Is it like you get on the bike and it sings to you? What does that even mean?

It’s going to be the single off of his album.

That then is his theme song.

I also have to ask delicately and I’m not even trying to be catty but does Pitbull still matter on the radio? What was his last hit? I know I would know a song or two if I heard it. I don’t know why I always think Pitbull and Flow Rida are contemporaries. If Flo Rida would put out a new single, I don’t know that the current pop culture environment would care.

I don’t know the answer to that.

I was wondering if the song is hot, would I be cheating Peloton if I listen to this song? Can I have that on my playlist?

You have to listen for research, John, so you have a pass. To Tom’s point, is anyone going to listen to it? Is it going to be about Echelon? I just have questions. I’m not even saying that’s a bad thing. I don’t understand what we’re doing.

Is it going to be like a fitness base song? Is it going to specifically say Echelon?

We have more questions than answers.

You see products that get mentioned in songs and then become a part of a certain culture, whether it’s Crystal and hip hop songs or Fireball and country songs.

The difference is that was organic.

Maybe, but I’m not convinced that all of that is organic.

Maybe not every single one but I’m going to say that the Peloton ones are.

Fireball did not put out a press release about the new 4th of July song.

That is my point right there. Since Echelon has a history of this vague and trying to be something they’re not over and over again, it’s hard for me to assume they’re on the up and up. For most companies, I would assume all of that was innocent. I can’t assume that with these people.

When I initially read it, I formed an opinion on the first read and that’s when I posted it. It took me a day or so to go, “What?” Now, I’m not sure what it’s saying.

It’s funny because people were confused about the headline. I had people who are like, “Wait a minute, Peloton and Echelon are teaming up?” I was like, “No.”

Lastly, I thought you would find this one interesting, Little Tikes has made a Peloton style stationary bike for kids.

After I posted this, I learned that Fisher-Price already has one. I don’t remember what’s the name of that one.

In that case, Little Tikes must have made an Echelon style bike.

I was about to say they should have named it something to sound like Echelon, but then Echelon also sounds like Peloton so I guess they did.

Little Tikes also just signed a deal with Pitpuppy.

At least Little Tikes didn’t make it look exactly like Fisher-Price.

That’s true. They didn’t.

It’s suspended so they even have some differences going on here. You can put your own tablet on it. That’s different from Fisher-Price. All of those things are different. I’m going to have to give Little Tikes some credit here for making this look more like what a kid would expect their parents’ stationary bike to look like.

They call it the Pelican.

Someone sent me a note and she said, “They must listen to The Clip Out news of the Pelican.”

I went and looked at some of their content because that’s out on YouTube.

What was it like?

It’s like an outdoor run with Peloton, except it’s through a mountain and it’s snowy. They have an instructor, which is a person dressed in a T-Rex costume or something. The T-Rex is instructing the child, “We’re passing this. That’s cool.” I’m watching them and I’m like, “This is cool.” I had to catch myself, “This is for 4 to 7-year-olds, John. What are you doing?” I’m stuck. I had to turn it off. If Erica had walked in, I could have said, “I’m just doing some research.”

It’s like he slammed his laptop shut and be like, “It’s nothing, honey, I was just watching porn.” It’s something a normal adult male would do than looking at an exercise video targeting five-year-olds. Thank you so much for joining us again, John. Until next time, where can people find you?

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

Thank you, John.

It’s nice seeing you guys.

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Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family and child therapist, and sports psychology consultant. She was a five-year national team member in rhythmic gymnastics and sports psychology for the USA gymnastics. Most importantly, she loves her Peloton. It’s what brought her to us. She’s not just here on a whim, she loves the topics. Hi, Dr. Jenn.

I am obsessed.

It’s okay. This is a safe space.

I appreciate that. Thank you for being there for me.

No problem. We have another question for you from The Clip Out community. This one is from Crystal Allen. She says she’s struggling with how to reset her goals and expectations. After being diagnosed with a serious auto-immune disease, she’s having trouble knowing how to listen to her body and accepting what it can do now rather than relentlessly pushing toward goals as she has for many years.

I feel for you, Crystal. It can rock your whole world when you are given a diagnosis like that. That means that you’re going to have to make changes when it sounds like you’re pretty type-A and is used to push, push, push. Sometimes when life shifts us that way, it also can be helpful for us psychologically. Sometimes we get caught up in that rut and that type-A focus, focus, focus. Sometimes it can be an opportunity to not just change our workout but change our mindset and to be more gentle with ourselves, and to learn to respect our bodies.

The fact that you’ve been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and you can workout at all is pretty amazing. You want to check with your doctor and see what they recommend and what they advise against, but creating this new plan. You want to make sure that you have things in that plan that you can do and get a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. Sometimes that changes. It’s important particularly in this situation to take a yoga class, for example, where maybe before, you were Ms. Tabata or Ms. Run the Hills gal. There’s value in that and that’s amazing. I respect anyone who does either of those, which tend to scare the crap out of me, even though I’ve taken my share.

Sometimes it means going, “Right now, my body needs yoga. Right now, my body needs stretching. Right now, my body needs some light upper-body weights instead of the heavier weight classes.” Create a program for yourself that is in line with what your doctors recommend where you are physically, and also to shift your mind mentally so that you’re able to appreciate what you can do.

I don’t know if you guys remember from season one of my show, Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn on VH1. We had an amazing woman named Rachel Chapman. Rachel is known as the Paralyzed Bride. At her bachelorette party, a friend of hers pushed her into the pool and she broke her back and has been paralyzed ever since. She and I have remained friends since season one. She’s an amazing and inspiring woman. Anytime when I’m on the tread or I’m doing a workout and I’m not liking it, or I’m feeling frustrated or I’m feeling like, “I’m not enjoying doing this,” I always think of her. She inspires me. She is incredibly inspirational.

She’s paraplegic and she is a mom now. She goes to the gym. She’s been able to get some mobility in her upper body. She’s able to do some workouts. Prior to her accident, she was someone who was very physically active, dancing and all that stuff. I always think of her and it always reminds me to be grateful for what I can do and for what my body is allowing me to do. When you have to take a step back from what you’re used to being able to do, it’s particularly important to remain grateful for what you are able to do.

The studies show that when you practice gratitude, it makes it almost difficult to be depressed. If you can come from a place and in the beginning, it doesn’t even have to be real. You almost have to reprogram your brain. You have to say the words, “I’m grateful that I can do this yoga class. I’m grateful that I can lift these lightweights. I am grateful that I am healthy enough to do this class.” Sometimes you don’t feel it at first, but when you’re able to say it over and over again, it starts to program it in your brain. It helps fight depression, which is a very normal reaction when you have a diagnosis like this. That combination of steps to take and mindset to get into is your best bet.

When you say take a step back, she knows she needs to do that. Is there a specific thing she can do to be more in tune with her body to know, “It’s yoga day. I need that yoga.”

It’s taking your body temperature like doing a body scan and going through your body. I don’t know the specifics of this autoimmune disease but being able to be like, “I’m going to close my eyes and I’m going to check-in. How do my arms feel? Do they feel strong? Do they feel weak? Do they feel sore? How does my stomach feel? How does my chest feel? How do my toes, legs, calves, ankles feel? How does my breathing feel? To be able to say, “Maybe today my breathing is not as good. I’m going to go lighter on the cardio but I’m going to do more upper-body weights.”

It’s doing that check-in body scan. There are so many great Peloton meditations that are body scans. They can also help put you in touch with your body. I’m a big fan of Peloton meditation. Doing body scans, in general, can help you especially if you have disconnected from your body. A lot of times, it’s what we do when we’re ill to get through it like, “I’m going to push through the pain. I’m going to push through the exhaustion.” You have to disconnect to some degree. What you want to do is start to reconnect, pay attention, and listen to those signals.

That has to be difficult because so much about working out is about like, “Push through. Do one more.” Here’s a situation where there’s a good chance that it’s not good advice. You have to be able to call BS on the motivation, which is an unusual thing to have to do.

It’s counterintuitive.

It’s a different way of having to deprogram yourself.

Thank you very much for joining us. Until next time, where can everyone find you?

You can find me on all social media @DrJennMann. I do post on my Insta stories all of my Peloton workouts.

Thank you.

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The New York Post reported that Peloton “King,” Cody Rigsby buys a penthouse in Williamsburg, which I guess is a fancy part of New York.

That’s my understanding as well.

He’s not living in the colonial village.

No, he’s not. I have to laugh because several people commented on the “King” part. That made me laugh when you said that because there was a split of people who were like, “Yeah, of course,” then there were other people who were like, “No, he’s not. What are you talking about?” The article goes on to say that that he’s the king of quarantine. I think it didn’t fit into their SEO title.

Everything that happens, Peloton makes it better. Tonal too, to some extent, but the bike lets you lose yourself. Click To Tweet

That’s a long internet title.

I don’t know why they think he’s the king of quarantine. I don’t know specifically. I’m not saying that he’s worthy of that title. I just don’t know what he did.

I think because there was the Vogue article about him.

Probably. There have been so many articles about him. Maybe they’re referring to that because he’s been everywhere, which is great.

That’s why he can afford this penthouse in Williamsburg.

This is not our first instructor that has bought a new house. We’ve got Emma Lovewell and Alex Toussaint. These instructors have been around for a while. These are the instructors that have been around since the beginning. It’s great that it’s paying off.

I hope that they took those stock options and wrote a check. I don’t think Peloton is going anywhere, but you never know where your ride with them might end. Buy a nice piece of real estate in Manhattan and be done with that part.

I can’t even imagine how you write a check for any real estate in Manhattan. That’s even an “apartment.” That would be incredibly expensive.

They say this one is $1.4 million and 1,000 square feet. My first house was 1,000 square feet and I saved $40,000 for it.

That’s crazy. It’s so expensive in Manhattan but he had a beautiful view. He had a great terrace and he was very excited about that. In the Midwest, we call it a porch.

At $1.4 million, that thing is a terrace now. It might even be a lanai. At $40,000, it’s a porch.

I thought it was a “where we live” thing but maybe not. The building has a gym, a bike room, private storage, and onsite parking. I can’t help but wonder do they have Peloton? If they don’t, will they now?

He doesn’t care because he’s going to go to the apartment complex’s gym to ride the bike.

Maybe they care. Maybe they’re like, “Cody Rigsby lives here.” I don’t know. I’m just talking. At any rate, congrats to Cody. We’re very happy for him. That’s amazing. I love seeing these instructors see so much success, not just on the bike and physically but also financially. It’s pretty cool.

They took a risk too.

They did take a risk. Back then, everybody was like, “Pelo what?”

Ally Love was featured on The Knot.

It’s been a while since Robin got married. She was the first instructor at Peloton that I recall their wedding being featured on The Knot. I don’t remember Robin’s engagement being featured on The Knot. It may have been but I don’t recall. I know that her wedding was covered extensively. Now TheKnot.com is featuring Ally Love and her fiance, Andrew Haynes. It’s going through the planning process with them. It’ll be interesting to see, will they also feature the wedding or will we see that be featured by People Magazine? That’s my guess.

Spitballing as a marketing guy, my guess would be she sold the engagement stuff to The Knot and the wedding to People. That’s a way to double-dip. Not begrudging her that at all, and then the baby photos go to Us Weekly.

Congrats to Ally and Andrew.

Common and Tunde were spotted out on the town.

The Instagram site, DeuxMoi is a pop culture who’s where kind of thing. People post a lot of things to them and then DeuxMoi puts it on their Instagram account, usually in their stories. There have been a couple of times that instructors have been spotted in their stories, but this time it was Common without Tiffany Haddish, but Tunde was there and apparently somebody else with them. They weren’t sure if that was a producer or not. I don’t want to say it for sure, but a lot of times the things at this particular website end up being true. They reported a few months ago that there were going to be all these things coming out with Peloton like they were going to do the series, and now we have the Champion Collections. I think that they were right and now it’s all this stuff with the summer music festival.

Because Common is romantically linked to Tiffany Haddish, we should probably say that it seemed to be a friendly dinner. We’re not trying to create a shit storm.

I’m glad you mentioned that because when I posted about it, I said it’s maybe a new project that they’re working on or just catching up because Common and Tunde are friends and they’ve been friends. This is not abnormal to see them out and about. It means nothing that Tiffany Haddish was not there. We don’t want to be spreading a rumor.

More Ally Love stuff from TheCut.com. It’s a little article about the Peloton instructor who gives her eyes an ice bath every morning.

Journalism is always interesting because this is all about her day and her thoughts on a whole bunch of different topics. Why they chose that one to put in the title, I don’t know.

Probably because it’s different and quirky. People were like, “They’re doing what? What does that mean?” It’s driving clicks.

It’s how she wakes herself up every morning. You can try that but you can also try a lot of the other tips that she gave within the article. My point is that there’s a whole lot of other substance in this article, not just that she gives her eyes an ice bath. I just thought it was funny.

That was their takeaway.

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Joining us again is Angelo from MetPro. Hi, Angelo.

It’s good to see you.

It’s good to see you too. We’ve got a hot topic for you.

You’re always like, “There are lots of different ways to get there.” I’m interested to see what your take is on this particular way to “get there.”

I have no idea what you’re going to ask. I know that these have been asked but I did not read this one. I read just the first word or two so hit me with it.

This comes from Tamari Avery Gibson. She wants to know, “Do you think debunking the health value of MLM shakes that are constantly pushed in the Peloton Facebook sites would be a good topic. Some are full of sugar but marketed as healthy.”

I get asked this a lot because this has been meal replacement proteins, basically shakes or meal replacement shakes. They’ve been the hot thing on the market for years. It was interesting because I did some research on my book where we were doing market trends. Interestingly enough, meal replacement shakes were on the rise. The last data on this was about 2018, whereas over the counter weight-loss medication was going down. In comparison, more people are opting for some form of weight-loss shake over the over-the-counter medication. For whatever that’s worth, the answer is there’s everything in between. The companies that produce these products are weighing a very simple equation. That is the healthy stuff tends to not taste as good as this stuff that also has a little sugar.

There’s no need to beat around the bush, “What is it? This one is amazing.” I know. I tried to make a protein powder once. We used for a time, a combination that included a hemp protein powder. It was the healthiest thing on the planet but tasted like dirt. I’m like, “I can drink just about anything but this was rough. Nobody’s going to drink that.” There are three guys that are hardcore that will maybe drink this. The question is, in comparison to what? Is it healthy? Is it not healthy in comparison to some of the clean ones that don’t have sugar? No, it’s not. Go get a cleaner one.

In comparison to say, “I’m not going to do that. I’m going to end up eating McDonald’s instead and having one of their milkshakes and fries.” It’s good. Do it. You’re not hurting anything. The small amount of sugar is still an improvement. It’s all how you’re going to apply it. I get the sense that when most people are asking this question, they are coming at it from, “How is it being presented?” If you’re going to present something as the ultimate in all-natural health, then you need to look for another channel. If you’re looking for something that is going to be an on the go source of protein that doesn’t have excessive calories or sugar, you might look at that as a middle ground.

I will say they’ve gotten better at protein shakes and meal replacement shakes than bars. Bars are tough to get to be healthy and taste good. Whereas nowadays, if you are concerned with sugar, there are a number of brands that have managed to strike that balance of having maybe a few grams of sugar and are still very tasty. You might do a little bit of research and experiment a little until you find something you like.

Why is it easier to make a tasty shake than a tasty bar?

I have no clue. I’m sure that somebody a lot smarter than me in the actual food manufacturing industry could answer that, having to do with ingredients and how they stick together. Typically, you have something that has either a ton of sugar alcohol, or it has to have some grams of some form of sugar in it to not have a bitter or chalky aftertaste. As I said, there are a few protein beverages that are tasty. My question to you is, why we started taking protein shakes in the first place. It was not somebody who had the idea of, “I want to go lose weight. I’m going to drink this.”

It’s to build muscle.

It was these guys that just got tired. Their jaws were fatigued from chewing on so much chicken like, “I can’t do this anymore.” They’re taking it in a quicker to consume. My question is if that’s not your goal, then maybe we could just look at eating as many whole foods supplement when need be for convenience, but your foundation should be whole foods.

For somebody who admittedly knows nothing about this, I’m always skeptical of the shakes and the bars and things like that.

That’s because most people don’t “need” them.

It is brilliant. They would have been making this stuff up. I’m guessing the late ‘80s based on looking at when this stuff became popular. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in that marketing meeting, where the companies got together and said, “We have this great product. The problem is only 1/10 of 1% of the population are using it. You’ve never heard of it before. It’s called a protein powder and only bodybuilders are using it.” The marketing team, I imagine, was sitting around saying, “How can we get this on the refrigerator of every family and every housewife in America using this stuff? Wait a second, wasn’t there a research paper that came out that said the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism?”

Therefore, faster metabolism equals weight loss, more muscle equals faster metabolism, and protein equals muscle. This is where they made the connections, “Therefore, we have a weight loss supplement, guys.” That’s basically the dots they connected and it worked. Don’t get me wrong. I have two types of protein powder downstairs and I had a protein shake this morning. I am thankful for it. I love it. It’s just interesting when you trace back the origins of the purpose of what something was designed for versus the practical utility. That’s why at MetPro, with our clients, the first thing we’re doing is I don’t want to talk about what product or what’s healthy or not healthy. I want to talk about what you are trying to accomplish. Let’s work backwards from there to determine what’s the right strategy for you. They did include protein supplements.

That all makes sense.

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

MetPro.co/tco. Come check us out, guys. Thank you for having me again.

—

Peloton announced their All for One Music Festival.

It was met with mixed results. Peloton describes this as 25 artists, 40 instructors, 3 days, 1 Peloton. It starts on Thursday. You’ve got all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday. They’re going to have all of these different classes, harnessing the power of all of these different artists. In the past, the All for One classes have been about all of the instructors together on stage. That’s how All for One was introduced to us as meaning. Now, you have to look at it like All for One, we’re in all these different countries, we’re all riding together with all these artists. That’s the new way to look at it. Because there have been a lot of comments, it’s important to remember that it’s 40 instructors in four different countries.

The pandemic is winding down apparently but they’re still probably not super confident about cramming all those people in one room, especially if they’re not doing live classes yet.

It’s important for people to remember that the instructors are Peloton’s lead assets. To put all of those lead assets in a room at one time could be a little dangerous. When this started, there were thirteen instructors. It was pretty easy to orchestrate. Now that we’ve moved on to 40, that’s a big difference. It looks very different. I think that’s why they’re continuing to evolve. Also, Peloton continues to evolve. We all have to learn to go with it. It doesn’t mean you like everything they do, but that’s what they’re going to do. They’re going to keep doing that. Now it’s like a concert. That’s their new thing. There’s a whole bunch of artists on here, 40 of them to be exact and I have no idea who they are.

I’m going through it and it’s like every fourth name is somebody that I know. I’m not their target demo so that’s not a bad thing.

That’s the thing. I think that’s important to remember. We’re all the target demo so there’s going to be a wide variety. I should not like every single band on here because if I do, then they’re doing something wrong. I’m open to all these bands though, so that’s great. It’s a great way for you to try out different bands and to try out different instructors. We’re all together. It might be a little challenge of mine to see if I can get through all of these classes. I can’t do it at the weekend because I’m already exhausted.

I don’t think anybody should do these in one weekend. That doesn’t seem healthy.

It might be a fun little thing to see if I can check that off for the rest of the year, and mix them in here and there.

It was a big enough deal that Rolling Stone reported on it. That, in and of itself is interesting that they’ve reached a place in the music world. They used to get sued and now the arguably biggest music publication that’s out there is covering what they do.

They’ve covered it on multiple occasions. This is just one. Congrats to Peloton. I’m glad that you guys keep changing things up. It would be boring if you did the same thing every year. I will miss having all the instructors on stage at the same time. It was pretty cool and special.

It doesn’t mean that it won’t come back at some point. We don’t know.

One other thing that is pretty cool is they have an official playlist for the weekend. It takes all of those artists and put it together in one ginormous playlist, which you can go to Spotify and get it, or you can find it on Peloton’s blog.

Also, if you sign up for our newsletter, you’ll get a link to it in the email blast.

Get all the links sent right to you.

—

It’s not technically an artist collaboration but close enough. The Champions Collection is going to feature Allyson Felix.

She curated several classes. That’s the new thing that they’re doing with all these champions. They’re having the champion themselves work together with one of the instructors to put a list of classes together. You can train like Allyson Felix. She’s 35. She’s got her life motto which is a quote from Steve Prefontaine who’s a famous runner, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” She loves hype music, anything upbeat. She’s got Kendrick, Beyonce, Missy and Jay Z. Also, did you know that Allyson serves as a member of the Right to Play board, which is raising awareness for underserved children in developing regions? That’s pretty awesome.

A lot of adults say, 'I lost my creativity when I became an adult.' No, we just stopped making time for it. Click To Tweet

In case anybody is wondering how I knew that Steve Prefontaine is a famous runner, it’s because they made two movies about him that came out almost at the exact same time. Because there were movies, I know about him.

It was pop culture, therefore you know. It’s pretty cool. You can go find all those collections. If you go to your collections tab on your bike or on your app, then you can find it there.

—

Finally, Matty is doing the Strength Stacks for the month of July.

He went live with Adrian Williams. They talked through what it’s going to look like. I’m not going to ruin it so you’re going to have to wait. All I will tell you is it’s four days of work and three days of rest. Matty’s got a lot planned to get ready to work hard.

You do the work. I’ll do the rest just like with the show.

That sounds about right.

—

Joining us is Tracy Patman.

How are you all doing?

We’re good. Tracy, I like to always start with people’s background, how they came across Peloton for the first time, and how you decided Peloton was the thing for you. How did that happen?

In 2017, I was working on a competition for bodybuilding. In May of 2017, my dad got sick, so I had to abandon the competition idea. I was still hitting the gym once in a while. I did not like cardio at all. I’d never found cardio that I liked except spin classes. After my dad passed, I was sitting in the living room one day and I kept seeing these commercials for this thing called Peloton. Honestly, I would go to my computer and I’d go to the Peloton page and I would stick the bike in the cart and I would leave my computer. That went on for weeks. I was putting the bike in the cart. I was taking the bike out of the cart. One day I finally said, “I need to get this bike.”

I ordered it and seven days later, it arrived at my door. They came in, and they set it up. They showed me how to work it. I rode three days that first week. This was November of 2017. Through March of the next year, I only rode it eighteen more times. I was getting to this place where I was like, “What the heck did I do? Why did I buy this? It’s going to turn into one of those expensive clothes racks.” I happened upon a discussion about Jenn Sherman in the OPP. It’s the only thing good that came out of the OPP for me was that someone suggested that I go take some rides with Jenn Sherman and join the JSS Tribe.

I did and they were currently doing one of their challenges, which back then in 2018, they did lots of challenges. I got on the tail end of this challenge and another one started up in June. June was Father’s Day and Jenn had a live ride on Father’s Day. I got on the ride and she was talking about her dad while she played Zac Brown Band’s My Old Man. I just lost it. That’s when I realized that I had found my people and the thing that was going to help me through all the troubles in my life. During that same time in that period right after my dad passed, I found out he wasn’t my biological father, which was not a big shock to me, honestly. My hair is dyed now, but I have dark eyes.

Generally speaking, my skin and hair are dark. My sisters and my brother were tow-headed blondes. We moved to Mississippi in 1965, the neighbors would ask my parents where I came from. They would say I was the note man’s daughter. Little did I know then how close to the truth that was. This came out right around the time I got my Peloton, but I learned of this in 2018. I learned had six other siblings that had been looking for me for their whole life. It was mind-blowing, but the bike was where I went to ride it all out. After that, it was over. I was riding every day, sometimes a couple of times a day. That was the changer for me. It was Jenn Sherman, her tribe and back when she was still part of it and you could talk to her. It’s hard to describe to people who don’t understand how much you find in the community of Peloton. It’s why I’m still here past 1,500.

Out of everything you could have said, I would’ve never guessed that in 1 million years. What a connection that you made. It’s such an emotional time, but what a way to make a connection with the community. Did you share what was going on in your life or did you join in?

After that ride, I took to the JSS Tribe, and this was at the time. I was part of Denis’s Menaces too, but it was different. In Jenn’s tribe, there were so many people sharing their various stories. The happy, the sad, the struggles, and the achievements. I decided that it was time to share what I had learned. It was overwhelmingly supportive. People were messaging me on instant messenger and telling me about how they had similar stories, “I found this out. I found my adoptive family.” I’ve always been a positive person anyway, so I used that as a springboard to continue to share positive outcomes from even struggles that you have in life. That’s led to PunkRobb, which you’re probably familiar with.

I ride every Thursday in his group, some post about some theme that usually ends up with some motivation. Every two weeks in Mileage Maniacs, I pick some weird theme. That’s why I said I’m going to use the Adidas theme this time. I make playlists. Sometimes these playlists can be between 4 to 10 hours long. I spend several days coming up with a list of music that will appeal to people with a particular theme. I write about why I picked that particular music. It’s led me to other groups where I’ve found honest, genuine friendships. Ultimately, after riding with Jenn for that whole year, there was a small group of us that teamed up together. We called ourselves the Milestone Maniacs, and there’s five of us.

We were all on the same milestone during the summer of Spin Challenge. We decided that we would always ride our milestones together. We would put these little goofy graphics together and we would all have a different number. There’s a girl in the group. Her name is Miriam Feffer and her leaderboard name is Feffer. You may have heard of her. She would always do the weirdest thing. Her zero was a toilet seat, seriously. We conglomerate this together. We posted in the tribe. I decided that in March of 2019, it was time to go to the studio. There were two groups I was in, JSS Tribe and Pelo-Mellows. The Pelo-Mellows all decided they were going to have meetups. We took the first row and part of the second row to all meetups. It’s total strangers and two of them stayed in my room.

People were like, “What are you doing? You’re going to New York. You’re meeting strangers.” I’m like, “They’re not strangers. I’ve never seen them before in real life.” Years later from when I first met them online, they’re still a constant in my life, always, especially that little core group of the Milestone Maniacs. There are so many stories. I could talk about that forever. The bike is my therapy. It’s helped me through the loss of my dad. When I was riding that ride, I thought about how proud my dad would’ve been of me to continue my fitness journey despite the challenges. He battled diabetes and the way he battled it was with exercise. Every time I’d get on the bike there for a while, it was, “I know he’d be proud of me right now.” It kept me on the bike. I lost my mom in January 2021 and then my favorite cat. Everything that happens, the bike makes it better. Tonal too, to some extent, but the bike lets you lose yourself. Whether it’s a playlist or an instructor that’s saying all the right things, you can get lost in it and it’s wonderful.

I feel like the rhythm, the music, and the instructors are where Peloton shines because you can’t lose yourself when you’re doing a strength workout. It’s different. What a journey you’ve had.

It’s been quite a journey. Peloton has been there for me every day, especially through the pandemic, too. I would have gone stark raving mad if I hadn’t had my Peloton and my Tonal to be able to work out. There’s no doubt. The one thing that fixes everything.

I understand that you have a fascinating career path. Tell us what you do now and how you got there.

I am working in the private industry with Hewlett Packard Enterprise. They derived from Hewlett-Packard. Everybody knows about computers. I am a Cloud Security Architect. What I do daily is I help teams who are building applications or services in the cloud to make them more secure, to make sure that they can’t get attacked or have a denial-of-service cause. The Jenn’s Men were saying, “How do I prevent ransomware?” One guy kept asking so many questions, we decided that he must be trying to find a way to do ransomware, so I stopped talking and then we changed the subject. I’ve been on this career path for years. I started that when I was 50.

Before that, I worked for the Federal government. I started my Federal government career as a student the summer after my freshman year in college. I was babysitting for a man who worked for an agency called the Naval Oceanographic Office. It’s located at Stennis Space Center, which is right here in South Mississippi. He came home one day while I was babysitting his daughter. He goes, “We have this job. We think you might be interested. Are you interested to come? We’re interested in coming to work for Nav Ocean.” I was like, “That would be pretty awesome,” because I was studying Geology and Computer Science at the time. I figured it was a good place to get some experience because I was going to go off and be a Petroleum Geologist. That’s what I was going to do. I started working for them.

If you go to work for the Navy, you have to say this group was to get your feet wet.

I was looking for those words. Thank you. I couldn’t find them. It was a good place to get my feet wet. That’s exactly what I was thinking. Thank you, Tom. Sometimes you need more than one brain when you’re talking. I started out there and I started traveling on oceanographic survey ships. We would go out for 30 days at a time to survey and the bottom of the ocean, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, from ports like Rio, Brazil, Recife, Brazil. I was in Abidjan. I re-coast once in Dakar, Senegal in Guam and multiple other places. Barbados was probably the best port of call I’ve ever had, but we would survey for 30 days. We were literally out there for 30 days. This was before there was email or anything. You have no contact at all. The very first trip I took, I was nineteen. I was also the only woman on board.

You had to find a balance between being friendly and nice and not giving them the wrong idea because they’re all a whole bunch of nineteen-year-old sailors and see what was on their minds. They were wearing Adidas shirts for God’s sake. I did a lot of that. The Jenn’s Men were saying, “What was the purpose of the surveys?” Now that it’s declassified, what we used to do is anti-submarine warfare. What we would discover in the ocean bottom were places where the likelihood that a submarine could hide undetected or where one of our adversary’s subs might hide undetected. That’s what I did for the first several years of my career.

As we moved from mainframes to workstations, to computers, to even smaller computers, I had bosses that were like, “We don’t know what to do with these things. Tracy, why don’t you go figure it out?” It’s like that cereal commercial, “Give it to Mikey. Mikey likes everything.” It was, “Give it to Tracy. She’ll figure it out,” and I did. In the process of that, I weaved my way into computer security. In the last three years of my career, I transferred from Navy to NASA. I was doing computer stuff for NASA. It was an interesting full circle because the whole reason we were in Mississippi, to begin with, is because my dad worked for NASA in the early ’60s. I know that was one of his proudest moments was when I worked for NASA. Despite the fact that he may not have been me biologically, he was my daddy and he always will be. There were all these little signs that were connections that were undeniable.

I retired with an earlier retirement at the age of 50 in October of 2013. Two months later, I went to work in this industry doing applications in cloud security. It’s been crazy. All of that happened due to petroleum geology. When I was working as a student, I worked every other semester. It took me a little longer to get out of school. Around 1985, we had that first real oil glut. There was lots of oil. There were lots of people getting laid off because there was so much oil and nobody was searching for it. There was lots of production, but nobody was looking for more. They didn’t need all these petroleum geologists. They laid them all off. In the industry, there was this huge glut. I knew I would never get a job in petroleum geology starting out in my career because there were so many unemployed petroleum geologists. I decided, “I’ve got this government gig here. I’ll stay here,” and that’s what I did. I had 31 years when I retired at 50. I had a pension, plus I’m making these nice other gigs. It affords us to be able to do the fun things, like take big trips and do fun stuff.

How did you guys get on the subject of cryptocurrency in the middle of all that?

I don’t know. They started asking me about Bitcoin and I said, “I don’t know anything about that.” It’s because of the ransomware. I was telling them about ransomware. The only way that the ransomware hackers will take payment is through Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency because you can’t track it. I don’t remember who was asking me the in-depth questions about it all. It was Howie who said, “We need to stop this conversation because we think he’s trying to figure out how he can get ransomware and get some money.” They asked me something about what I used to do. It was one of those areas that I still can’t talk about because you sign an agreement. Anything that was a secret you can’t talk about for 75 years. Until you die, you can’t talk about it. Finally, somebody asked me a question. I said, “You know I can’t tell you that because I’d have to kill you.” It’s the classic line. I had to do it.

I would’ve thought that came after you guys started talking about chainsaws. I have to explain when we keep saying you guys and who you were talking to because the audience doesn’t know how we became connected. You originally were a mystery guest for the Jenn’s Men Tribe. I was sent messages saying, “You have to interview Tracy. She’s fascinating.” That was after you were a mystery guest for the Jenn’s Men. That’s where this conversation started. That’s how we became connected. At that point, though, I need to hear about these chainsaws because I hear that you guys have a lot of chainsaws. There’s not just 1, you have 5. Why?

Before we lived where we live now, we had a place on the water. Hurricane Katrina came and took that house. We didn’t have to do any cleanup. We moved up off the water to this piece of property. It’s five acres and it’s mostly wooded. We have about an acre of yard and the rest of it is wooded. We have nature trails cut through all of the woods. I have wildlife cams out there so we can see what wanders through our property, like the bobcat and the deer and all the other things that wander through. Creeping neighbor or the creepy neighbor’s children. We’ve had a bit of that. My neighbor keeps saying, when he sat a little bit of tequila, he’s going to get him a Bigfoot outfit and he’s going to go wander around my property. He’ll have to be careful because I might be out there with my chainsaw.

We’re constantly under threat here with hurricanes because I live four miles off the water. If you look right across the road, the swamp of the bay backs up about two miles from here. What we did initially, we bought a chainsaw to have handy in case anything ever happened because we have a driveway that runs through the woods. It’s the only in and out that we have for our property. If we ever had trees fall, we’d need to be able to cut either to come back home or to leave. We had this one chainsaw and it was a twenty-inch blade gas chainsaw for little jobs around the property.

When you get a tree limb to fall and maybe you want to cut up the wood, I had a little electric chainsaw and I had two of them. One with a short blade and one with a long blade. Sometimes you get a limb that’s hanging at a height that you can’t reach, and so I have a pole chainsaw. All three of those are electric. You can’t take those around very far. I saw it on Lowe’s webpage, they now have battery-operated chainsaws that have a lot of power. We took a direct hit from Zeta. About two weeks before Zeta, I tore my ACL. After Zeta, there are at least five trees across our driveway. I go out to the garage and I put the gas in and the oil mix and everything.

I go out and I chop up all those trees. I was up on the ladder trimming this one, and this gas-powered chainsaw is super heavy. I’m up there and I’m cutting. The next thing I know, I lose my balance and down the chainsaw goes. It hits the ground. I pick it up and it still works, but I decided I need something lighter for the basic works. There are still trees all over the property. I have so much work to do in this. I don’t want to carry this stupid, heavy chainsaw around. I got the battery-operated one and did a dance with my battery-operated chainsaw in Mileage Maniacs.

When I joined the Zooms for Mileage Maniacs, it’s always Tracy Patman, AKA Chainsaw something. I’ve heard other women say this, “The power that you wield when you’re holding a chainsaw and you’re cutting something up, not for any reason other than that, it’s just you’re doing it.” You’re not having to depend on anybody else to do it. I love working in the yard and we have so much of it that I’m constantly out there doing something. I built a fire pit. I dug up the dirt. I put down the pavers. I did all of that because it’s the other therapy. I bought a chipper shredder. I promised that it’s not going to be a sequel to the movie, Fargo. People were asking me questions, I’m like, “I have chainsaws and a chipper shredder because I have so much stuff on my property that still needs to be taken care of post-Hurricane Zeta that it’s too big of a job to pay someone else to do.” It would cost thousands of dollars. Plus, I get so much satisfaction from going out there and doing it myself.

It’s also never-ending. It’s not like you would pay that once.

There’s always something falling down that needs to be taken care of. Now I can hook up the chipper-shredder to the back of my riding mower and pull it wherever I need to go. If I ever see Bigfoot or if some bad guy comes on the property and I have to defend myself, I’ve got chainsaws and the chipper shredder.

Relaxation is always on the list because some people never relax. You need to put it on your to-do list because it should be relaxing. Click To Tweet

I have a question. You were telling that story about being on that ladder. You said you dropped that chainsaw. I instantly imagine you falling off of the ladder onto the chainsaw. Does the chainsaw turn off when it falls?

Yes. There’s a dead man’s switch. If you let go of the switch, it automatically stops the blade. Almost all power tools do that now.

The mom in me was like, “What are you doing?”

There is a story of me almost coming off the ladder. I was cutting a limb. I was on the ladder. I positioned this extension ladder. I was up there with the battery-operated chainsaw. I miscalculated the angle. I thought that the limb, because it was so long, the front end of it would fall and it would tip that way. When it came down, it came back towards me. It tapped the ladder. I grabbed the tree and the other chainsaw falls to the ground. The ladder is still partially on the tree, but it’s a lean-in. I had to be careful and my husband would have died because I’m still recovering from ACL surgery and I’m about to fall out of a tree.

I also feel like you shouldn’t call it a dead man’s switch.

Probably not. That’s a good point.

Congrats on not disabling it. My grandfather, when they first came out with the lawnmowers where you had to hold the bar down to make them operate, that was a new thing. My grandma was like, “I’m going to get this to you. You’re always pulling the chunks of grass that are stuck because it was thick and wet.” She goes out and she buys him this, at the time, fancy expensive lawnmower with the handle grip. When you let go, it turns off. The first thing he did is say, “I don’t need that damn thing,” and he takes a rag and he ties it around the thing. When you let go, it won’t release it. He’s had it for 1 or 2 months and some grass gets stuck by the blower part. He puts his hand up there to take it off. It took off three fingers, sent them flying across the lawn. She ran out and put them in milk. In case you were wondering, you put them in ice, in case that ever happens to you or someone you know. He took off three fingers that way. I have horror stories, believe it or not.

I wouldn’t have any tool that doesn’t cut off when I lose it. Even the riding mower, if you stand up or you fall out, the seat has a spring. As soon as you lift up, it cuts the mower off.

That’s got to be problematic if you’re gassy.

It could be. If you need to turn and you’re reaching for something and it starts to stall. You could tape that down as your grandfather did, then you wouldn’t have to worry about it. If you fall off and it keeps going, you’re in trouble.

I don’t know how you have time for all this, though. You mentioned you’re writing a book. When do you have time for this and what is the book about?

I don’t have children, so I don’t have those to tend to. It’s a poetry book. Most of it was written since 2001. I started the process of publication in 2007. I bought a publishing package and I never used it. I was afraid to put it out there. In the process of riding and PunkRobb, I will occasionally throw one of my poems in. All these people are saying, “This is great. You should publish it.” It’s not like poet laureate stuff. It’s not fancy, but it speaks to people. I was in Tonal one day and there was a challenge in Mark’s called The Great Glutes Challenge. I decided to join the challenge. There was a girl in there. Her name is Jacquelyn Menzo, and she’s also a Peloton rider. She was commenting or something.

I went to look at her profile and she had a website and it had a website about publishing. She offered a class on self-publishing because she had navigated the whole process herself. I set up an appointment with her to told her what I wanted to do. I decided at that moment to start the publishing process. I have five of my friends, several of them from Peloton, that are reading the first draft in Word and giving me feedback. It’s like letting your child go but still being afraid that your child’s going to get hurt out there or is going to be mean to it. It’s hard because you’ve poured all yourself into this. I then came to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if other people don’t like it. I want to make sure I get it done because it was something I promised myself I would do. I have enough for a second book. Once I do this one, I will publish the second one. It’s another creative outlet for me. I’ve been writing since around 1982, but I lost my first volume in Katrina.

You are a phenomenal person.

Thank you. I never think of myself that way. I’m always amazed when someone says I’m amazing because I don’t look at myself that way. I’m just doing what I do.

If enough people see it, somebody won’t like it. That’s the first thing we learned.

Tom already knew that, but I still learn it daily.

My whole thing with Facebook and Instagram is to always be a force for good or positive. What I’ve learned is it doesn’t matter what you put out there. Someone’s going to find something wrong with it because that’s all they want. That’s the whole goal in life, to find something bad to say. I feel bad for people like that.

I do too, but it’s also exhausting because you want to put that out there as positive. You try to do something positive and then people question it or they tear it down or they think that you’re silly or they just give you bad feedback. It’s not meant for that. I don’t need your feedback. You have to ignore it, honestly. It’s like, “I’m not for everyone. I know that.”

I’ve seen people post that and I’m like that. It’s like, “I’m different and you don’t like that kind of different. That’s okay with me. I wasn’t meant to be in your world or you weren’t meant to be in mine,” is the way I look at it. One of the first things during the class that you do is to make an announcement that you’re doing it. I got so much good feedback from people that I was finally doing it because I also have a blog that I started right after Katrina. It was my way of dealing with the whole trauma of Katrina because it was extremely traumatic. I hadn’t written on my blogs since 2018. Through riding with PunkRobb, I started writing again. It’s all given me some confidence to go back to doing what I know I love to do. I stopped for who knows why. Depression, maybe because there’s that.

I work at home, so I roll out of bed. I’m still in my pajamas, working most of the day. Sometimes if I have a break in the afternoon, I’ll get my workouts in. I’ll go up to my loft where my Peloton and my Tonal are and I get my workout in. I come back and finish work and then I have time. What I’ve had to do with the creative process is you have to work on it every day. Everybody says, “I’m not feeling creative.” You do it anyway. You try to write and do something. That was something I wasn’t doing. A lot of adults say, “I lost my creativity when I became an adult.” No, we just stopped making time for it.

I started making time for everything again. Maybe losing both my parents, both my in-laws and looking back at their lives and the amazing things they did, I want somebody to remember something good. Maybe it’s the book that’s going to be, “I knew her when she wrote this,” or they get something. They read one of the poems and it makes them smile and feel better about something that’s going on in their life. One of my people that finished doing the editing thanked me because he said his son has had depression for a long time, but he never could quite understand it because he didn’t experience this. By reading some of my poetry, he was able to better understand what goes through a depressed person’s head and where they are at any given time. I wasn’t expecting that, but that’s the thing I’m hoping that people will get out of it. Me leaving a mark that if I can influence even one person where their life is better because I was there, that’s what my purpose here is on Earth.

You’ve inspired me.

You all do that every day or every week. You have children.

They’re teenagers, but they don’t pay any attention to what we do.

They are completely disinterested.

My husband is retired. He’s a retired Meteorologist/Oceanographer. I have my built-in weatherman out there and he’s got this entire setup. He has a Facebook group where he shares his thoughts about the storms when they’re coming because there’s a lot of people here that will wait for him to provide feedback before they’ll do anything. They’ll say, “Do we need to evacuate?” We say, “Yes,” and everybody goes. I have my cats.

How many cats?

I have five now. I had six. We lost our favorite in April 2021. It’s been hard. I tell people he was like the embodiment of joy in the body of a cat. Anytime he walked into a room, he was a happy being. When that light left, it was hard. It’s harder than losing my parents, which is a weird thing to say. People probably will judge me for that. I don’t care. They’re our children. I have a fair amount of free time. The reason I’ve been able to do so much at a weekend because I took Friday off and then it’s a holiday. I built my fire pit. It’s something I’ve been trying to build for months. It’s not like I always have time, but I have ideas.

What I do now is I pick one thing that every weekend I’m going to make sure I get done that’s a household type thing. Whether it’s outside or inside, I pick one creative thing. That’s part of the creative process that I will do. Sometimes that might be putting together a jigsaw puzzle to keep me going. Relaxation is always on the list because I know people that never relax. You need to put it on your to-do list because it should be relaxing. When Fred reached out to me and he was referring me to you guys, I was like, “What did I do? I’ll do it. That sounds fun.”

You have a lot to share. Your life is fascinating. You’re good at explaining stories. I can’t put a story together well. I’m terrible at explaining things. I jump to the point instead of giving the background and you naturally weave that background in, so don’t sell yourself short. That’s not something that everybody can do. It’s a gift.

What is your leaderboard name?

My leaderboard name is YBBlue. That wasn’t always my leaderboard name. When I started with my Peloton, I had no idea what to make of a leaderboard name. I picked my name. My first initial, last name, and year of my birth. I was TracyP63 for a year at least. I was listening to instructors and they’re always talking about catchy leaderboard names and those are more likely the ones that people will see randomly get call outs. I love getting a shout-out. I cannot lie. I live for that shout-out and then I always cry afterwards. It’s weird. I got to think, “I need to do something with my leaderboard name.”

It was at the end of March 2019. I was riding 450. Several of us were riding 450 and others had different ones, but I was like, “I got to do something different because I can’t go to the studio with TracyP63, because that doesn’t even flow.” It’s hard to even say. It does rhyme. I would have been GeekyGirl63, but that was already taken, oddly enough. In 2003, I bought a yellow Ford Escape. It was an SUV. I wanted a Toyota, but at the time, my paycheck wouldn’t allow me to buy the Toyota because it was twice the money. I bought this yellow Ford Escape and it was the embodiment of my sunny disposition.

I was thinking, “I want to get a vanity plate. What should I put on it?” I started thinking about what the sunny disposition means to me. I said, “It means why be blue when you can be happy?” When I was thinking about changing my leaderboard name, it suddenly came to me. It needs to be YBBlue because it means it’s everything about who I am, that sunny disposition. That’s how it came to be. I rode with Jenn Sherman for my 450th ride in the studio with all of my friends. I’ve got a picture I’m going to send you. She’s looking over at me with a smile on her face. I got my hands up where she called my name. She had gone to the whole front row. All of us had milestones that day. Did you ever hear about the JSS Showroom Showdown?

Yes. I was part of that.

I had the trophies shipped to one of the massholes because they won. I ordered these trophies and I had them shipped and we presented them that day. There was a member from each of the top three teams there. With Jenn, we presented the trophies. We talked with Jenn afterward and she was such a genuine person. She told Kelly, “Kelly, how did you meet someone with an accent like that?” We talked about how we met through the tribe and how we wrote our milestones together. She thought that was amazing that you could get people from these disparate parts of the country that suddenly decide to go to New York and ride a bike together when they have one of those at home.

“Why are you going to New York to ride a bike you have at home?” It’s because that’s what you do. That was such a special weekend and I can’t wait to go back. I was supposed to ride 1,000 in a showroom in Birmingham and the pandemic shut that down, so I had to ride at home. For the 1,500, I was going to do the same thing, but they’re still not widely open. Jenn has been my first love as an instructor from the beginning, ever since that ride on Father’s Day. Over time, I’ve come to love a lot of the others. CDE and Ally and Jenn are my three go-to’s for the different types of motivation they provide, but Jenn’s rides, her football rides, the singalongs, it’s hard not to love them.

I love everything about Peloton. I know people around me sometimes are tired of hearing it. I went to a graduation party and their older son walked up to me. I had a Peloton shirt on because it’s pretty much all I wear. He asked me about it and he goes, “I’ve been thinking about it. Is it worth it?” I told him everything about and all the things with the app. I told him my whole journey. I said, “If you think you’re not sure, get the app for free for 30 days. Try it out. Come to my house and try my bike out. You’ll love it. It may take you a few tries before you love it.”

One of the questions that you had given me in my list was what would I tell a newbie. Since we’re talking about that right now, what I would tell any newbie to the bike is to don’t give up in the first few months if you think you don’t like it. You’re going to meet someone or you’re going to find a group within Peloton that changes your whole mindset or you’re going to find the right instructor that changes your whole mindset about getting on the bike and then you’ll never look back after that.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join us. I don’t know if we count as relaxation or creativity. I don’t know where we land on the list.

This is going to be the highlight of my whole weekend.

Thank you. If you’re ever in St. Louis, I hope you drop in. Let me know.

I will let you know. That would be awesome. I haven’t been to St. Louis since I was little, like five.

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

The whole thing with Facebook and Instagram is to always be a force for good or positive. Click To Tweet

You can find me on Facebook as Tracy Middlestead Patman. I’m on Instagram as @GeekyGirl63. On Twitter, God only knows what my name is on Twitter. I don’t even remember, but I only use it for the entertainment value. I’m not likely going to get friends with people on Twitter. Facebook and Instagram are pretty much all I do. I will be publishing a website for my poetry book soon and I’ll make that available both on my Instagram and on my Facebook so that people can go read about it. I’ve started building the website and I’m still coming up with what the name of the book is going to be. There will be a place where you can go to read about my progress and what state is it in. I’ll occasionally have a poem on that page. I have one on there now about this old dirt road we used to go down way back in the day. I’ll be rotating the poem and I’ll publish that too.

Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate It.

Thank you for the opportunity. I loved it. I will thank the Jenn’s Men for the opportunity as well because it’s been such a wonderful opportunity.

Thank you.

—

I guess that brings this episode to a close. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can find me on Twitter, Instagram, on the bike and the tread @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. Check us out on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. It’s just a different way to enjoy the show where you can actually see us. You can sign up for our newsletter at theclipout.com. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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About Tracy Patman

Tracy is a high energy, highly motivated leader who leverages collaboration skills in the delivery of service to customers.

She specializes in the development of solutions which bridge gaps between existing security capability and future needs of project teams and organizations by engaging skilled professionals across the spectrum focusing on security quality improvement, service delivery and customer satisfaction.

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