Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 123. Nichelle Hines, Actor, Activist & CRO at Cycle House

Transcript

123. Nichelle Hines, Actor, Activist & CRO at Cycle House · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: When the rubber meets the road and we face challenges
0:03
Speaker 1: in life and we overcome them or we find a
0:06
Speaker 1: way through them. Those are the moments that make us better.
0:09
Speaker 1: They make us stronger, and the most important thing, they
0:12
Speaker 1: make us more empathetic.
0:28
Speaker 2: Hey, Hurdler's Emily a body popping in to your feed
0:31
Speaker 2: with episode one hundred and twenty three of Hurdle, a
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Speaker 2: wellness focused podcast where I sit down with inspiring individuals
0:39
Speaker 2: to talk about everything from their big wins to how
0:42
Speaker 2: they've gotten through the old life's toughest moments. On the show,
0:46
Speaker 2: you can expect vulnerability, motivation, and candid discussions with everyone
0:51
Speaker 2: from top athletes to aspiring entrepreneurs on what it really
0:54
Speaker 2: takes to follow your passions. My mission is simple to
0:58
Speaker 2: inspire you to be your best self, move with intention,
1:02
Speaker 2: and have some fun along the way. This week, I
1:07
Speaker 2: am chatting with the ever lovely Michelle Hines. She is
1:12
Speaker 2: an actor and activist and the chief ride officer the
1:16
Speaker 2: cro At Cycle House, which is an LA based spin studio.
1:21
Speaker 2: I'm just going to throw this out there. If you
1:23
Speaker 2: are not ready to be wildly motivated, then maybe you
1:27
Speaker 2: should hold off on listening to today's episode. But seriously,
1:31
Speaker 2: n Michelle is a ball of energy, so inspiring and literally
1:37
Speaker 2: recording this with her, it felt like I was in
1:40
Speaker 2: the Spin studio being encouraged to just be my best
1:44
Speaker 2: self and you're gonna love it. I just know you are.
1:47
Speaker 3: Now.
1:48
Speaker 2: You may recognize her name because Michelle and I caught
1:50
Speaker 2: up last year as a part of a live show
1:54
Speaker 2: out in Los Angeles last January, but we haven't had
1:57
Speaker 2: the opportunity to sit down one on one just yet,
2:00
Speaker 2: and so here we are. In today's episode. Michelle gives
2:04
Speaker 2: me her entire backstory, talk to me about moving to
2:07
Speaker 2: LA from San Francisco to follow her dream and acting
2:11
Speaker 2: only to deal with the two thousand and seven writers strike,
2:14
Speaker 2: a huge hurdle moment just as her career was taking off.
2:18
Speaker 1: She is the.
2:19
Speaker 2: Absolute, absolute craziest story about how she got into teaching Spin,
2:24
Speaker 2: being asked to I'm so serious instruct a class on
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Speaker 2: the spot without any formal training. Totally normal. We also
2:32
Speaker 2: talk about how she landed at cycle House, and we
2:35
Speaker 2: have some really special conversation surrounding the fight for racial
2:39
Speaker 2: justice and how she is showing up in that space
2:42
Speaker 2: these days. Again, so much motivation in this episode, So
2:48
Speaker 2: buckle your seatbelts before I get into it. I do
2:51
Speaker 2: want to take a moment to give some love to
2:55
Speaker 2: my sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens,
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Speaker 2: the socials as you listen this week, I want to
4:39
Speaker 2: know what your favorite takeaway is over on Instagram and Twitter,
4:43
Speaker 2: at Hurdle podcast and at Emily a Body, and this
4:47
Speaker 2: week I am hosting a really exciting hurdle session. The
4:50
Speaker 2: session is how to start and stay running. And if
4:53
Speaker 2: you don't know my backstory, I won't get into it
4:55
Speaker 2: completely here in this intro. But there was a time
4:58
Speaker 2: that I could barely run a and now I'm an
5:01
Speaker 2: eight time marathon er UESCA certified run coach and also
5:05
Speaker 2: pushing that six minute mile. I know it's in my reach.
5:08
Speaker 2: I feel it. For tomorrow's hurdle session, I am talking
5:11
Speaker 2: hurdlers through the lessons I've learned along this running journey.
5:14
Speaker 2: It's great for newbies and veterans a like, and we'll
5:17
Speaker 2: cover everything from how to make the run easier and
5:20
Speaker 2: more enjoyable to smart goal setting. Think of it as
5:24
Speaker 2: the run inspiration you've been looking for. For details on
5:28
Speaker 2: tomorrow's hurdle session, click on over. It's the link in
5:31
Speaker 2: the show notes, and if you're listening to this after
5:33
Speaker 2: the fact, no sweat. I'll also include in the show
5:35
Speaker 2: notes the link to the Hurdle Sessions landing page on
5:39
Speaker 2: the Hurdle website, where you can always backtrack check out
5:42
Speaker 2: past sessions. When you purchase after the fact, you will
5:46
Speaker 2: get a recording of the session as it happened IRL,
5:49
Speaker 2: as well as a PDF of a presentation and any
5:53
Speaker 2: other helpful tools tricks, PDFs, perhaps even a love letter.
5:57
Speaker 2: I love seeing the reviews come in on the iTunes.
6:00
Speaker 2: We are well on our way toward that one thousand
6:03
Speaker 2: ratings goal for the end of August, so as you're
6:05
Speaker 2: listening today, please just take a second to rate interview
6:09
Speaker 2: the show as well, and with that, let's get to Hurdling. Today.
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Speaker 2: I am sitting down with Nachelle Hines. Nachelle is an
6:27
Speaker 2: actor an activist. She's the chief ride officer at Cycle House.
6:32
Speaker 2: I feel like I love the multi hyphen it in you.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I think life just comes at you in
6:40
Speaker 1: so many ways, and you have the choice to either
6:43
Speaker 1: say I can only be one thing or you say like, no,
6:46
Speaker 1: these are all parts of who I am. These are
6:49
Speaker 1: all parts of my personality, and I either gained something
6:53
Speaker 1: from being each of these things or I literally am
6:55
Speaker 1: gainfully employed as each of these things. So it's kind
6:58
Speaker 1: of I used to fight it, and now I embrace it.
7:03
Speaker 2: I dig that. For those of you who may be
7:05
Speaker 2: newer to the pod, and there are many of you.
7:08
Speaker 2: Michelle and I did a live show out in la
7:12
Speaker 2: in January of twenty nineteen, and it wasn't one on
7:16
Speaker 2: one opportunity. So when I was thinking about season three,
7:20
Speaker 2: about some of the things that I wanted to do,
7:22
Speaker 2: the people I wanted to speak with, it was kind
7:24
Speaker 2: of a no brainer for me to have this opportunity
7:27
Speaker 2: with you, to bring you onto Hurdle and just dedicate
7:30
Speaker 2: an hour to you and me and your really really
7:35
Speaker 2: awesome story and your motivation, Like I think we all
7:38
Speaker 2: need your motivation right now.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it's so funny because, like we were saying earlier,
7:46
Speaker 1: with like all the hyphen its, I think when you're
7:48
Speaker 1: doing things that you absolutely have so much love and
7:52
Speaker 1: respect for, and I know that you can attest to
7:54
Speaker 1: this because I don't think of you as like a podcast.
7:57
Speaker 1: I think of you as a writer, as a runner,
7:59
Speaker 1: as a pod, as a female. Like you have those
8:02
Speaker 1: hyphenits too, and I think that people that do that
8:06
Speaker 1: the motivation comes from being called in more than one direction,
8:11
Speaker 1: but being able to give yourself fully to each of
8:13
Speaker 1: those directions. Does that sound Does that make sense? And
8:17
Speaker 1: I think that in society we've been taught, like I
8:21
Speaker 1: was saying a little bit earlier, Oh you do one thing,
8:23
Speaker 1: you do that one thing really well. But those things
8:25
Speaker 1: are related, Like your podcast is related to you being
8:29
Speaker 1: an athlete, which is related to you being a writer.
8:33
Speaker 1: So all of these things I feel like go hand
8:36
Speaker 1: in hand. And I think I'm done with being told
8:39
Speaker 1: that you can only be one thing.
8:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I call bullshit.
8:43
Speaker 1: We can be more than one thing. You know, people
8:46
Speaker 1: are women. You know, hopefully one day I'll be a
8:49
Speaker 1: mother and I'll still have my job. So to say
8:52
Speaker 1: that you can only have one job or only do
8:55
Speaker 1: one thing, well, I think if you're serving every aspect
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Speaker 1: of that and you're giving it everything that you have,
9:01
Speaker 1: and you're finding success in each of those modules, then
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Speaker 1: it's okay for you to do more than one thing. Obviously,
9:07
Speaker 1: if you're running around doing eight million things and sort
9:09
Speaker 1: of being a jack of all trades master of none,
9:12
Speaker 1: then yes, you can certainly get into trouble. But if
9:15
Speaker 1: everything is sort of aligning up together, like I see
9:18
Speaker 1: my activism going hand in hand with me being a
9:22
Speaker 1: leader at cycle House, going hand in hand with me
9:24
Speaker 1: being an activist, which is what I You know, I
9:27
Speaker 1: studied African American literature and I have a minor in
9:31
Speaker 1: African American studies. So that doesn't make me any less
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Speaker 1: of an activist because I'm now the cro of cycle
9:37
Speaker 1: House and sometimes I'm on TV.
9:39
Speaker 2: Well, you did just add another title to your life resume,
9:44
Speaker 2: which is and is that right?
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Speaker 1: Yes, My niece, Ella James, was born one week ago today,
9:52
Speaker 1: and I do have two older brothers in they're up north.
9:54
Speaker 1: But my little brothers, my business partner, my best friend.
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Speaker 1: We lived together for four years. First moved to La
10:01
Speaker 1: So while all of my nieces and nephews are awesome,
10:04
Speaker 1: they're sort of far away, and it feels sort of
10:06
Speaker 1: like a part time job. This feels like a full
10:08
Speaker 1: time job of Auntie. So it's it's a really big deal.
10:14
Speaker 1: It's really special. Yeah, my little brother's my best friend,
10:17
Speaker 1: so it's yeah, Auntie Ella. She's really cute too.
10:22
Speaker 2: Fitness is a huge part of your lifestyle now, But
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Speaker 2: I'm curious, were you always into health and wellness?
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Speaker 1: Okay, so my father is six six, two hundred and
10:33
Speaker 1: ten pounds. When we're out with him, people think he's
10:35
Speaker 1: my boyfriend. Like that's how fit my dad is. So
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Speaker 1: I was born into a super health conscious situation. It
10:43
Speaker 1: was certainly something I followed, but pure honesty, which is
10:45
Speaker 1: why I think I love my job so much and
10:48
Speaker 1: my ability to help people. And I'm not saying people
10:50
Speaker 1: who have never struggled with their weight can't help people
10:52
Speaker 1: lose weight, but in all honesty. During college, when I
10:57
Speaker 1: went I went to UC Berkeley. I was before that
11:01
Speaker 1: at a college prep school where I ran track, I
11:03
Speaker 1: played basketball, I was in musicals, I was in shows.
11:07
Speaker 1: I was hyperactive, and then I went to college and
11:09
Speaker 1: all of that stopped. So, you know, they talk about
11:12
Speaker 1: the freshman fifteen. Mine started as a freshman thirty five,
11:16
Speaker 1: and I definitely polished it off with a solid freshman sixties.
11:20
Speaker 1: So at my highest weight that I know of, or
11:24
Speaker 1: like even sixty five pounds, was two hundred and eleven pounds,
11:28
Speaker 1: And that happened in college. I grew up with you know,
11:31
Speaker 1: brown rice. We didn't have white bread in my house.
11:34
Speaker 1: We didn't have soda in my house. My mom made
11:38
Speaker 1: dessert from scratch and used less sugar, and we never
11:42
Speaker 1: felt deprived of any of those things. But when I
11:43
Speaker 1: went to college, and you remember in the caf. I
11:46
Speaker 1: don't know if this still happens, because college was a
11:48
Speaker 1: while ago where you had where you would like sign
11:51
Speaker 1: in and you'd be on your way out, but then
11:53
Speaker 1: your friends were coming in and you'd just sit with
11:55
Speaker 1: them and like pretty much eat again.
11:57
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you'd be there all day. You'd have four
11:59
Speaker 2: d Yeah.
12:01
Speaker 1: So imagine my body, which is used to insane amount
12:05
Speaker 1: of movements. I did not play any sports in college.
12:08
Speaker 1: I didn't start acting in any shows until like maybe
12:11
Speaker 1: sophomore years, so I probably I tried to like measure it,
12:15
Speaker 1: I would guess Emily, No, Lie, it was probably somewhere
12:18
Speaker 1: between the two to three thousand swing a day from
12:23
Speaker 1: not exercising to eating white bread and drinking soda to
12:27
Speaker 1: having multiple dinners, so it packed on me.
12:33
Speaker 2: How did you feel at that time?
12:35
Speaker 1: Okay, this sounds really crazy, but I didn't know that
12:38
Speaker 1: I was fat, Like I mean, I don't think that
12:41
Speaker 1: sounds crazy. I think that's totally believable.
12:44
Speaker 2: But did you feel any kind of way, like did
12:45
Speaker 2: you feel lethargic or like ever self conscious or anything
12:50
Speaker 2: like that?
12:50
Speaker 1: I think looking back, because and I also think there's
12:52
Speaker 1: a big cultural difference in relationship to bodies. So I
12:58
Speaker 1: think that I thought, oh, I've gained the little weight
13:00
Speaker 1: when I went home. My dad was like, oh, I
13:02
Speaker 1: thought it was the freshman fifteen and not the freshman
13:04
Speaker 1: thirty five. And of course, like and listen, nobody thought
13:09
Speaker 1: of that back then as like fat shaming. I had
13:11
Speaker 1: gained thirty five pounds. You know, I was certainly, like
13:14
Speaker 1: dramatically larger than I was when I left my parents home.
13:17
Speaker 1: So it's no like shade in that respect. I think
13:20
Speaker 1: it's surprising, and I think anybody going through like the
13:24
Speaker 1: struggles with the refrigerator in COVID, which is a bear,
13:28
Speaker 1: an absolute bear of a task to be like next
13:31
Speaker 1: year refrigerator every single second of the day. I guess
13:34
Speaker 1: I knew that I was bigger, but until I saw
13:37
Speaker 1: a photograph and I didn't know that it was me.
13:40
Speaker 2: I've been there.
13:42
Speaker 1: I was like, who's that like? Legitimately, and you know
13:47
Speaker 1: it's I think it's such a touchy subject these days,
13:51
Speaker 1: and we get into things of like fat and I
13:53
Speaker 1: am not here to fat shame anybody at all. But
13:57
Speaker 1: I was not healthy. I did not feel good. And
14:00
Speaker 1: the second that and maybe that kicked in, the awareness
14:03
Speaker 1: of feeling lethargic, the awareness of being super tired, the
14:06
Speaker 1: awareness of all that did that kick in more when
14:08
Speaker 1: I saw a photo, certainly, but I think that maybe
14:12
Speaker 1: I don't know if we've overcorrected or not, like, but
14:15
Speaker 1: have we gone on some level on certain things like
14:18
Speaker 1: too far? I think everyone's born into the body that
14:20
Speaker 1: they're born in. I am a black woman. I am
14:22
Speaker 1: not skinny. It's never been my intention to be skinny.
14:25
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to have you know what, would be
14:27
Speaker 1: considered more of like a voluptuous or like a sexy figure.
14:30
Speaker 1: Like when I think about figures that I like, I
14:33
Speaker 1: think of figures like a Jennifer Lopez. I think of
14:37
Speaker 1: I think of women of color who have bodies. So
14:43
Speaker 1: when I think of and I think that that's a
14:44
Speaker 1: cultural thing. But if somebody says, like Jennifer Lopez circa
14:48
Speaker 1: get Right video in New York City and the freaking coat,
14:50
Speaker 1: do you remember that video with the fur around it,
14:52
Speaker 1: and she was just so gorgeous and so sexy and
14:55
Speaker 1: she had a butt, and she had thighs, and she
14:58
Speaker 1: had breasts, and she looked like a woman. Like to me,
15:01
Speaker 1: like that is the ultimate female figure. And I think
15:06
Speaker 1: that those differences might be like somewhat cultural, but I
15:10
Speaker 1: think that we're going more and more in that direction
15:13
Speaker 1: as time goes on and as we sort of realize
15:16
Speaker 1: that bodies are what we naturally are. And I always
15:19
Speaker 1: say to any client, because I do have clients that
15:21
Speaker 1: come to me for food plans and this and that,
15:23
Speaker 1: I say, what it looks like on the outside is
15:26
Speaker 1: a side effect of what I'm trying to achieve for
15:28
Speaker 1: you on the inside.
15:30
Speaker 2: So then how after you realized that you had gained
15:34
Speaker 2: the freshman quote unquote sixty five. What did you do
15:38
Speaker 2: to work on that for yourself?
15:40
Speaker 1: Actually, I went into a spin class. I was in
15:43
Speaker 1: New York City. I was a grad student at NYU
15:46
Speaker 1: getting my masters in acting, and it was time. It
15:51
Speaker 1: was time for me to lose some weight. And I
15:52
Speaker 1: felt ready and I walked in and I had never
15:55
Speaker 1: taken a spin class, but my father had and he
15:58
Speaker 1: was a big fan. And I said, you know, Dad,
16:01
Speaker 1: it's time and he's like great. He was like, I
16:03
Speaker 1: will help you out. I will get you a membership.
16:06
Speaker 1: And I was like sweet. And I went into a
16:08
Speaker 1: cycling class, and something about the music combined with the movement,
16:13
Speaker 1: it just really didn't feel awful, because you know, when
16:17
Speaker 1: you have an exercise for a long time. I don't
16:18
Speaker 1: know have you ever had that moment? Because I think
16:20
Speaker 1: of you as my like running inspiration. I'm like once,
16:25
Speaker 1: I think I when I got outside and tried to
16:27
Speaker 1: run until my niece told me to stop, I thought
16:30
Speaker 1: of you, I really did. I love watching you tie
16:32
Speaker 1: your shoes to songs, I really do. It gives me
16:34
Speaker 1: a source of joy.
16:35
Speaker 2: It's a source of joy. It's a source of like therapy.
16:38
Speaker 2: I please, are you kidding That moment where you feel
16:41
Speaker 2: like you've never exercised in your life, probably, Michelle, I
16:44
Speaker 2: have that moment maybe once at least a week. Yes,
16:48
Speaker 2: I'm not alone, alone and so many and I think
16:52
Speaker 2: that's like a big misconception, and that's why I appreciate you.
16:55
Speaker 2: And I try to stay real as well when it
16:57
Speaker 2: comes to social like I'll go out run sometimes and
17:01
Speaker 2: I'll go zero point two miles and I'm like, nn,
17:03
Speaker 2: this isn't working for you, and I'll take a walk home,
17:08
Speaker 2: maybe I'll grab a coffee. I'll you know, I just
17:11
Speaker 2: I just do what feels right for me. And just
17:13
Speaker 2: because someone's been working out for a while or they're
17:16
Speaker 2: a total newbie, that doesn't mean that you won't go
17:19
Speaker 2: through these moments where you're like, that's right.
17:21
Speaker 1: And in those moments, how do you lock in? Because
17:24
Speaker 1: for me, how I found a way to lock in.
17:27
Speaker 1: And what I tell my clients is even in those
17:29
Speaker 1: days when you don't want to do it, those are
17:32
Speaker 1: the times where you have to do it most. And
17:33
Speaker 1: what I tell myself is that me doing this, me
17:37
Speaker 1: working out is the highest form of self love and
17:41
Speaker 1: self respect that I can possibly give myself.
17:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think then in the moments where you
17:48
Speaker 2: feel as though like it's just not gonna happen today,
17:51
Speaker 2: the ultimate thing that you can do for yourself, the
17:54
Speaker 2: ultimate bit of self care, is having grace with that
17:57
Speaker 2: decision instead of then being hard on yourself for the
18:01
Speaker 2: rest of the day. Right, So you're not gonna decide, Okay, listen,
18:04
Speaker 2: I need to listen to my body, this just doesn't
18:06
Speaker 2: feel right. Right, and then the rest of your day
18:08
Speaker 2: you're gonna skip all of your meals. Like, that's not
18:10
Speaker 2: what it's about. That's not self care.
18:13
Speaker 1: Nope, absolutely not. And that's why I tell my clients
18:15
Speaker 1: because we I have a target for exercise, and I
18:18
Speaker 1: tell them, I'm like, it sounds really really scary when
18:22
Speaker 1: someone says you should be moving your body every day.
18:24
Speaker 1: Now if we take injuries out of it, right, and
18:28
Speaker 1: we take does it have to be a hit workout
18:31
Speaker 1: every day? Do you have to get on a cycling
18:33
Speaker 1: bike every day? Not necessarily, But what I try to
18:36
Speaker 1: do for clients that are trying to re establish a
18:38
Speaker 1: habit of working out is that first twenty one days
18:42
Speaker 1: at least, I need you to do something every day.
18:44
Speaker 1: So even if that means taking your dog on like
18:46
Speaker 1: a double walk, even if that means like walking one mile,
18:49
Speaker 1: if that means whatever that can be, can you find
18:52
Speaker 1: a way to move your body for a minimum of
18:55
Speaker 1: thirty minutes for twenty one day straight.
18:59
Speaker 2: I dig that. I dig that a lot. And I
19:01
Speaker 2: think also like I had an injury in my hip
19:04
Speaker 2: at the beginning of the pandemic and I pledged to
19:07
Speaker 2: myself to move a five k a day. It didn't
19:11
Speaker 2: have to be a run, and as a runner that
19:13
Speaker 2: was certainly really really frustrating at first. But I literally
19:17
Speaker 2: rain or shine would get out, I would bring my
19:20
Speaker 2: coffee and walk a five k.
19:23
Speaker 1: That's That's exactly it. And how different did you feel
19:28
Speaker 1: even if you didn't want to or whatever happened? I said,
19:31
Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone who's ever regretted a workout. Yeah,
19:35
Speaker 1: who finishes a workout and is like I wish I
19:37
Speaker 1: didn't do that.
19:38
Speaker 2: I feel that. I feel that. Okay, wait, so you went.
19:41
Speaker 2: So you went to the spin class. It didn't feel
19:43
Speaker 2: totally awful, and maybe for the first time in a while,
19:45
Speaker 2: you had one of those moments where you're like, man
19:48
Speaker 2: fitness doesn't need to suck.
19:49
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And I told everyone you have to find
19:53
Speaker 1: the thing for you that doesn't suck. You don't have
19:57
Speaker 1: to be incredible at everything, it's just like life, Like
20:02
Speaker 1: you don't just because I am a cycler and that's
20:05
Speaker 1: what I'm known for teaching that it's okay that in
20:09
Speaker 1: yoga when I walk into a class, I prefer to
20:11
Speaker 1: be in the back of the room. And I have
20:12
Speaker 1: to learn how to give myself some grace. And I
20:14
Speaker 1: think that for me, that's the ultimate challenge and probably
20:17
Speaker 1: why I have an issue with you, because so much
20:19
Speaker 1: of it involves giving yourself grace. And that is where
20:22
Speaker 1: I tend to struggle because I'm a doer. Like my
20:25
Speaker 1: friend is always like, oh, you're the friend. I'm the
20:28
Speaker 1: solution girl, like you call me when you have a
20:30
Speaker 1: problem that you need help figuring out how to solve,
20:34
Speaker 1: because that's who I am. If something is wrong, I
20:38
Speaker 1: want to try to help you find a way to
20:40
Speaker 1: fix it.
20:40
Speaker 2: Isn't it really valuable when you realize that you don't
20:43
Speaker 2: have to fix everything though, because I am just like you,
20:46
Speaker 2: Like I am one hundred percent that friend.
20:48
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and the grace to say I don't know. Yeah,
20:55
Speaker 1: that for me is something that I have to be
20:59
Speaker 1: really honest about that I don't know, and that it's
21:05
Speaker 1: okay for me not to know. And the sooner that
21:12
Speaker 1: we get ourselves into a circumstance where we don't know,
21:14
Speaker 1: in the sooner that we can admit that we don't know,
21:16
Speaker 1: and that's the sooner that we can open up our
21:18
Speaker 1: ears and be open to learning and having a new perspective.
21:24
Speaker 1: And the sooner that you say, there's information out there
21:27
Speaker 1: that can change the way I feel about fill in
21:30
Speaker 1: the blank, particularly for me right now with my friends
21:34
Speaker 1: and my white friends in particular coming to me with
21:38
Speaker 1: everything that's going on right now, and I say two things, honestly,
21:42
Speaker 1: not to sort of segue into this thing, but what
21:45
Speaker 1: I say a lot of times for my white friends,
21:47
Speaker 1: because the number one question, the number one statement, the
21:49
Speaker 1: first statement that they always say is two things. I'm
21:51
Speaker 1: sorry and I didn't know. If you can say that
21:56
Speaker 1: you don't know, that is the door opening for an
21:59
Speaker 1: opera tunity to learn. Humility is the precursor to change.
22:06
Speaker 1: And as soon as we can all be honest about
22:10
Speaker 1: not knowing, and we can all be honest about our
22:12
Speaker 1: complicity in a situation, whatever that may be. Even sometimes
22:16
Speaker 1: the complicity is simply ignorance because I didn't take the
22:20
Speaker 1: time to figure out what that was or try to
22:22
Speaker 1: figure it out, or I'm too busy all of these
22:23
Speaker 1: other things that people come up with about why they didn't.
22:26
Speaker 1: We can put all that aside and just open up
22:28
Speaker 1: our ears and listen. I think that's where we have
22:30
Speaker 1: the opportunity. That's where the good juju is, right, where
22:33
Speaker 1: we can get into something and actually make some change
22:35
Speaker 1: and actually start having real conversation.
22:38
Speaker 2: And I think the first part of that as well
22:41
Speaker 2: is important, the I'm sorry, like owning that, apologizing for that,
22:47
Speaker 2: coming from that place, and then being honest and just
22:51
Speaker 2: saying the I didn't know, right, yeah.
22:56
Speaker 1: Right, and dealing with the shame of not knowing because
22:59
Speaker 1: once you know, sort of like once your eyes were
23:02
Speaker 1: open to where you're like, oh my goodness, this was
23:04
Speaker 1: there all along, and I got letters from because I
23:07
Speaker 1: you know, this whole activism thing was when I was
23:10
Speaker 1: at Berkeley, when I was a student, I constantly participated
23:14
Speaker 1: in protests and all those things, and honestly, I thought
23:18
Speaker 1: that those times were sort of quote unquote over so
23:21
Speaker 1: my activism has been reawakened since Memorial Day more. You know,
23:26
Speaker 1: it started with the Amad Aubrey thing, and I really
23:29
Speaker 1: was It was just it was so heavy on me.
23:32
Speaker 1: It was so heavy on me to talk about it.
23:34
Speaker 1: I did something on my story where I actually like
23:36
Speaker 1: cried about it and I was gonna delete it, and
23:38
Speaker 1: I was like, no, like this is real, So I
23:40
Speaker 1: left it up. And so many people are like, oh,
23:42
Speaker 1: I feel this way too, or my god, I didn't
23:46
Speaker 1: know that this kind of thing was still happening, like
23:49
Speaker 1: many different reactions, and then it just kept happening. And
23:52
Speaker 1: then obviously like the George Floyd thing happened, and it
23:55
Speaker 1: just kept happening. And then we had you know, the
23:57
Speaker 1: Blackout Tuesday, and I wasn't gonna and I was like,
24:00
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I'm black. I don't need to be
24:02
Speaker 1: blacked out today. And I got on an Instagram live
24:05
Speaker 1: with one of my white friends waking up with Ryan,
24:08
Speaker 1: who does like amazing. He's a life coach, a meditation teacher,
24:12
Speaker 1: like all the things, incredibly awakened and enlightened, and who
24:16
Speaker 1: just wanted to listen and learn. And we did that
24:20
Speaker 1: on Blackout Tuesday, and the response was overwhelming, and it
24:24
Speaker 1: just sort of kept culminating from there and I feel
24:27
Speaker 1: like we're in a moment. We have a moment in
24:30
Speaker 1: history right now where eyes are like truly being opened
24:33
Speaker 1: across the board. So that's what sparked my activism is
24:38
Speaker 1: the opportunity and feeling like, is this an opportunity for
24:41
Speaker 1: us to create real and lasting change.
24:45
Speaker 2: Before we go back into your story, I do have
24:48
Speaker 2: a question for you on this note, is that how
24:51
Speaker 2: does it feel for you to be the person that
24:54
Speaker 2: a lot of people are going to either within your
24:58
Speaker 2: circle or perhaps complete strangers just via the Internet for
25:02
Speaker 2: your opinion or advice, Like I would imagine that it
25:06
Speaker 2: can be pretty heavy.
25:08
Speaker 1: It can. And what I say is I believe that
25:11
Speaker 1: black women in particular were made for this moment. I
25:15
Speaker 1: think that inside of us is some is there. There's
25:23
Speaker 1: always a level, right if you take a look at
25:25
Speaker 1: everything that's going on, and there's there's actually a group
25:28
Speaker 1: here in Los Angeles called Black Women Lead and the fatigue,
25:32
Speaker 1: like all, when you have the opportunity to serve a
25:35
Speaker 1: greater good, the fatigue becomes just something that is there
25:40
Speaker 1: that you simply push through. Because Emily, I feel more
25:45
Speaker 1: at any other time in the world, that what we
25:48
Speaker 1: are doing right now is so incredibly important that whether
25:52
Speaker 1: or not I'm tired is somewhat irrelevant because I am
25:56
Speaker 1: so motivated at the opportunity that we have as a country,
26:01
Speaker 1: as human beings to come together. So yes, do I
26:05
Speaker 1: maybe need to go to Mexico when things sort of
26:07
Speaker 1: settle down, or even if I go to Mexico for
26:09
Speaker 1: a week right now, knowing that there's other people that
26:11
Speaker 1: will pick that up and keep it going. Is it exhausting, yes,
26:15
Speaker 1: But is it serving a purpose that I feel like
26:18
Speaker 1: I can see, I can see the vision of where
26:21
Speaker 1: we can go as not just a country, but as
26:24
Speaker 1: a world, And that to me is so much more
26:27
Speaker 1: important than my fatigue. And I know that all over
26:29
Speaker 1: the internet they're like, oh, your black friends are tired,
26:31
Speaker 1: and guess what, Well, I'm a black friend that regardless
26:34
Speaker 1: of whether or not I'm tired, I am willing to
26:36
Speaker 1: have this conversation because this moment is too precious, it's
26:40
Speaker 1: too real, it's too polarizing, It is too important for
26:44
Speaker 1: me to think about whether or not I'm tired.
26:47
Speaker 2: So, to reiterate, Michelle's Instagram handle is at Michelle, she
26:53
Speaker 2: wants to talk to you. Yeah, she does though, And
26:57
Speaker 2: I mean, and I think that's so valuable, and it's
27:00
Speaker 2: so it just speaks to your character. And it also
27:04
Speaker 2: is important what you said about understanding that rest is
27:09
Speaker 2: a part of it. Like, of course, again, you're a
27:13
Speaker 2: solutions person. You're the person people call when they might
27:17
Speaker 2: need an answer. You're the person that people call when
27:19
Speaker 2: they don't know what to do, and that makes you
27:23
Speaker 2: a godsend. But again, for you to recognize and prioritize
27:28
Speaker 2: this idea that at times you are going to need
27:31
Speaker 2: to take a step back and that doesn't make you
27:34
Speaker 2: a bad person.
27:35
Speaker 1: That's important, right, And like I have a life, and
27:39
Speaker 1: obviously during this pandemic, I still have to make money.
27:42
Speaker 1: So it's so interesting, Like so many people are like, oh, well,
27:45
Speaker 1: I have an Instagram for this, And why can't we
27:48
Speaker 1: be like we were going talking to earlier to come
27:50
Speaker 1: back full circle. Why can't we do more than one thing?
27:53
Speaker 1: Why can't I teach classes and be an activist and
27:58
Speaker 1: be an actor? Why do I need to have quote
28:01
Speaker 1: unquote three separate instagrams? Why why do I have to
28:06
Speaker 1: you know, why do I have to be fractured into pieces.
28:10
Speaker 2: I think the things in life that make you feel
28:13
Speaker 2: as though you should be fractured into pieces might not
28:15
Speaker 2: be the right things that fit into your life.
28:18
Speaker 1: Right. Yes, yes, And I want everyone to be able
28:22
Speaker 1: to see that because you're a lawyer doesn't mean that
28:25
Speaker 1: you can't also teach classes sometimes. And don't get me wrong,
28:28
Speaker 1: you might pick one thing and be like, this is
28:30
Speaker 1: my thing. But I'm saying that regardless of what you choose,
28:33
Speaker 1: whether you choose three quote unquote things that you focus
28:36
Speaker 1: on or just one, we are all individuals and we
28:39
Speaker 1: have the right to choose, and neither answer is wrong.
28:44
Speaker 1: If you are good to people, and you are working
28:46
Speaker 1: as hard as you can, and you are trying as
28:49
Speaker 1: hard as you can to do the right thing, I
28:50
Speaker 1: truly don't believe that there is a limit on what
28:53
Speaker 1: anyone in this world can and can't do. There is
28:56
Speaker 1: no limit on your gifts and what you have to offer.
29:00
Speaker 1: You can be all of it. You are allowed to
29:04
Speaker 1: be all of it. Nobody here is just a mom,
29:08
Speaker 1: just a sister, just a lawyer, just a podcaster, just
29:12
Speaker 1: an athlete. We are more. You are more than just this.
29:17
Speaker 1: And when society attempts to put you in that box.
29:20
Speaker 1: You have every right to say no. I can do
29:24
Speaker 1: what I want to do and I can be who
29:26
Speaker 1: and what I want to be. And if you don't
29:29
Speaker 1: think that I can do it, that's fine. That has
29:30
Speaker 1: nothing to do with me. But you can watch me shine.
29:32
Speaker 2: So you run out of the spin studio running into life.
29:37
Speaker 2: What's happening with your life after you're done with school
29:40
Speaker 2: in New York.
29:41
Speaker 1: So when I was done with school in New York,
29:42
Speaker 1: I met a guy who had gone to NYU way
29:46
Speaker 1: before me, and we were in a long distance relationship,
29:49
Speaker 1: and I started acting on shows I did. I was
29:52
Speaker 1: on All My Children for several episodes. And this is
29:54
Speaker 1: a fun fact, I got my sad card on The Sopranos.
29:58
Speaker 2: Love It.
29:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really cute and a lot of fun
30:01
Speaker 1: in James Gandelfhini was so nice to me. And I
30:05
Speaker 1: had an offer to understudy on Broadway, and I just
30:11
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like it was my gig. I was
30:15
Speaker 1: maybe I was young and impetuous and I was frustrated
30:17
Speaker 1: that I didn't get the job or whatever it was,
30:19
Speaker 1: and it just wasn't the way that I wanted. And
30:22
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, and I was waiting tables till
30:24
Speaker 1: four o'clock in the morning, going to auditions, exhausted like
30:28
Speaker 1: doing all of the things. And I had done Shakespeare
30:30
Speaker 1: and Dari and Connecticut, and I said, I don't think
30:33
Speaker 1: I want to do regional theater for the rest of
30:35
Speaker 1: my life. It's just not my calling to sort of
30:38
Speaker 1: jump from town to town and do you know the
30:40
Speaker 1: latest August Wilson player, the latest Shakespeare play. Although I
30:43
Speaker 1: think that stuff is great, I didn't want to get
30:45
Speaker 1: into sort of that trap. That was not my chosen path.
30:49
Speaker 1: And so I packed my bags. I'm from San Francisco,
30:52
Speaker 1: born and raised. And I went home and my dad
30:57
Speaker 1: had his old BMW I was really old, had like
31:01
Speaker 1: over one hundred thousand miles on it. And I took
31:04
Speaker 1: my dad's old car that was just sitting there, and
31:07
Speaker 1: I went to Los Angeles. And I was lucky enough
31:10
Speaker 1: to have booked a voiceover, a pretty large voiceover. Do
31:13
Speaker 1: you remember those Carrot Top voiceovers back in the day,
31:16
Speaker 1: the AT and T commercials.
31:18
Speaker 2: One hundred That was my voice.
31:20
Speaker 1: So I saved the money from waiting tables and from
31:24
Speaker 1: a play that I had done, and from those Carrot
31:27
Speaker 1: Top voiceovers and I moved to Los Angeles and I
31:30
Speaker 1: got a one bedroom apartment in Culver City, and I
31:36
Speaker 1: did it work for a while, and then had a
31:38
Speaker 1: really good year. One of my amazing claims to fame,
31:42
Speaker 1: I got to wear a matching suit with Brad Pitt
31:46
Speaker 1: in Ocean's twelve. You mostly hear my voice more than
31:49
Speaker 1: you see me. So I started working and two thousand
31:53
Speaker 1: and seven was a really amazing year for me. I
31:56
Speaker 1: was in a couple films, I recurred on a couple shows.
31:59
Speaker 1: I was kind of jamming along, and then the strike
32:03
Speaker 1: happened and the show I was on got canceled, and
32:07
Speaker 1: the you know, everything got canceled, and you know, just
32:12
Speaker 1: the work dried up so fast, and obviously I was
32:19
Speaker 1: on my way to superstardom. So I had been spending
32:22
Speaker 1: all of my money and I would go to crunch.
32:26
Speaker 1: I would do the what we like to call like
32:28
Speaker 1: the model actor hour, the mom model actor hour. So
32:31
Speaker 1: I would go to the gym around ten ten thirty,
32:34
Speaker 1: take like a noon class, do a little something before then.
32:38
Speaker 1: And this was when I had gotten fit, and everything
32:42
Speaker 1: got dried up, and I was like, I think I
32:44
Speaker 1: have to get like a real job, again. I thought
32:46
Speaker 1: I was never gonna have to wait another table again.
32:48
Speaker 1: And this amazing woman named Amanda Grandinetti was like, oh wow, honey,
32:52
Speaker 1: NEI a job. Great, you start at Chateau tomorrow. You
32:55
Speaker 1: can be on the catering staff. So I went from
32:58
Speaker 1: multiple movies and multiple jobs on TV to waiting tables
33:04
Speaker 1: again at the Chateaumarmont. Actually I didn't even wait tables.
33:07
Speaker 1: I was doing special events. So people that I had
33:11
Speaker 1: worked with I was now handing them all durs at
33:15
Speaker 1: the chateaum Armont for events. And this was two thousand
33:19
Speaker 1: and eight. This is like pure facts and late two
33:22
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, while strike was still going on and
33:24
Speaker 1: everything was just sort of crumbling. I didn't have an agent,
33:27
Speaker 1: my manager lived in New York City. I didn't have
33:29
Speaker 1: a ton of opportunity here. I was at Crunch. Isn't
33:33
Speaker 1: that funny? Still Crunch. I was going to take a
33:35
Speaker 1: spin class. It was a Sunday morning, Sunday at eleven
33:38
Speaker 1: and the manager of the gym, who obviously I knew
33:40
Speaker 1: because I was always hanging around the gym, ran in
33:42
Speaker 1: and said, I don't know where the teacher is. And
33:46
Speaker 1: I was like, excuse me, He's like, can you teach
33:49
Speaker 1: this class right now? And I was like, what are
33:54
Speaker 1: you talking about? And he's like, well, you know he's
33:58
Speaker 1: not here. Can do you know? Can you he teaches
34:00
Speaker 1: class right now? He's like, you've been here a million times,
34:02
Speaker 1: you can totally teach us. Come on a shell, like
34:04
Speaker 1: because of course everybody knew me at the gym for
34:06
Speaker 1: obvious reasons my mouth and my friend was like, and
34:11
Speaker 1: this guy was old school, he used CDs. He still
34:13
Speaker 1: used CDs. And my friend was like, uh, Todd gave
34:18
Speaker 1: me the CD because I said I liked a few
34:19
Speaker 1: songs from the playlists two weeks ago. I have it
34:22
Speaker 1: in my car. I'm gonna go get it. And that
34:25
Speaker 1: is how I became a cycling teacher.
34:28
Speaker 2: What is serendipitous occasion?
34:31
Speaker 1: Right?
34:32
Speaker 2: Did you feel during that class like you did it well?
34:36
Speaker 2: Or did you feel like God help everyone that is
34:42
Speaker 2: on a bike in front of me right now?
34:45
Speaker 1: Do you want the truth?
34:46
Speaker 2: Or like, oh hell yeah, it.
34:48
Speaker 1: Felt like performing again. It felt like there was an
34:51
Speaker 1: emergency and I had to improv. And really the reason
34:55
Speaker 1: that I said yes is it was a Sunday and
34:56
Speaker 1: I looked around and there were like my friends who
34:58
Speaker 1: actually didn't only have model after time and it was
35:02
Speaker 1: their only opportunity for a workout. Now they were stuck,
35:04
Speaker 1: you know, doing something that maybe they don't like to do,
35:07
Speaker 1: like you're most people were in group fitness. Really like
35:10
Speaker 1: that element and like the way that that feels. Going
35:13
Speaker 1: back to finding something that you love and thinking of
35:16
Speaker 1: these people not having the opportunity to do their workout
35:18
Speaker 1: and like just get up there and do it. I'm like, well,
35:20
Speaker 1: I know how to do it.
35:22
Speaker 2: Well, look at you getting called to serve again though,
35:24
Speaker 2: like look at this for you, Like you're thinking to yourself,
35:28
Speaker 2: well if I don't do this too will and I
35:30
Speaker 2: need to help And this is just this is just
35:33
Speaker 2: who you are.
35:34
Speaker 1: I believe that I was put here to serve. Yeah,
35:39
Speaker 1: that's why I'm here, like literally a living, breathing person
35:45
Speaker 1: on this planet. And whether it's serving as an activist,
35:48
Speaker 1: serving as a cycling teacher, serving as an actor, I
35:53
Speaker 1: believe that when it's boiled down like that's why I'm.
35:56
Speaker 2: Here, I'm sitting here nodding my head. I'm just being
36:01
Speaker 2: very helpful on a podcast.
36:03
Speaker 1: And any time that it comes to that, anytime it's
36:08
Speaker 1: time for that, it's me, and it's like that's and
36:11
Speaker 1: I feel so incredibly lucky. I know blessed tends to
36:17
Speaker 1: be a buzzword for certain people, not for me. I
36:19
Speaker 1: think that we're blessed to breathe there. I think we're
36:21
Speaker 1: blessed to be here. And I think the dogma of
36:24
Speaker 1: religion has tinked at that word for some people. But
36:26
Speaker 1: I think that it means so much more than just
36:28
Speaker 1: you know, you know, religion and quotation marks. I think
36:31
Speaker 1: that blessed means opportunity. I think that I am so
36:38
Speaker 1: incredibly blessed to know that that's why I'm here. That's
36:41
Speaker 1: my default setting, and I think that we all have one,
36:46
Speaker 1: and the sooner that you can just ken and listen
36:48
Speaker 1: to your life and accept that that's why you're here.
36:50
Speaker 1: Whatever that reason is, fill in the blank. But I'm
36:54
Speaker 1: here to serve and that's where I live and that's
36:57
Speaker 1: what I do. So when the opportunity arises to do that,
37:02
Speaker 1: it's just what I do. It makes me feel like
37:07
Speaker 1: I'm contributing to this planet in a positive way and
37:11
Speaker 1: just contributing.
37:18
Speaker 2: Taking a break from today's episode to talk to you
37:21
Speaker 2: about Green Chef Listen. Things have been pretty hectic for
37:26
Speaker 2: me lately. You know, when the pandemic first started, I
37:28
Speaker 2: was doing really great going through cookbooks on Sundays and
37:31
Speaker 2: meal prepping, But lately that just feels stressful, and that
37:36
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Speaker 2: hurdle eighty at checkout to get eighty dollars off your
38:57
Speaker 2: first month plus free shipping on your for a Spox.
39:07
Speaker 2: You teach this impromptu cycling class and suddenly the the
39:13
Speaker 2: skies have opened and you hear the bells, and you
39:17
Speaker 2: say to yourself, Wow, I should stop working at Chateau Marmont.
39:21
Speaker 1: I didn't leave. I kept working there and I started
39:25
Speaker 1: teaching there. And honestly that I started teaching at Equinox
39:28
Speaker 1: because it was like a really nice gym that I
39:30
Speaker 1: could not afford. So I started teaching there so I
39:32
Speaker 1: could go there. And it just became such a It
39:38
Speaker 1: just became this back and forth. I would literally teach.
39:42
Speaker 1: The time slot they gave me to start at Equinox
39:44
Speaker 1: was on Sunday, a Saturday, at four yikes. Yeah, it
39:48
Speaker 1: sounds like a great time to teach. And I would
39:52
Speaker 1: literally teach my class jump in the shower change and
39:55
Speaker 1: go straight to chattau Marmont. So I started living this
40:00
Speaker 1: and this was the thing that was so weird. I
40:02
Speaker 1: was super It sucked not having this entire career that
40:08
Speaker 1: you really felt like you were just at the precipice
40:10
Speaker 1: of taking off. But then I just felt like, Wow,
40:14
Speaker 1: I'm still doing stuff that I liked to do. Like
40:17
Speaker 1: I liked working at Shutta Ormat. I know it's like
40:20
Speaker 1: not the cool thing to say, but like I liked
40:23
Speaker 1: working there. I enjoyed it. I got to see some
40:26
Speaker 1: really crazy stuff. That's another podcast. I got to see
40:30
Speaker 1: some really cool stuff and meet some really amazing people.
40:33
Speaker 1: And can I tell you the amount of actors who
40:36
Speaker 1: I knew were people who knew that I was an
40:38
Speaker 1: actor and was like, hey, I did this too, or
40:42
Speaker 1: this happened to me too, and like it's okay, and
40:46
Speaker 1: it's okay to like, because I was like should I
40:48
Speaker 1: be more embarrassed? Like should I be embarrassed that like
40:52
Speaker 1: I literally have like real credits on IMDb and like
40:56
Speaker 1: doing all the things, and like now I am waiting
40:59
Speaker 1: on people that I literally was in films with and
41:03
Speaker 1: I just wasn't because life is not predictable, and if
41:08
Speaker 1: you just follow the yellow brick road of your life
41:10
Speaker 1: and the opportunities that show up for you and your life,
41:13
Speaker 1: it's really hard to be quote unquote embarrassed about it.
41:18
Speaker 1: I felt like I thought I had a cool job,
41:22
Speaker 1: and sure did it mean that? Like I wasn't, you know,
41:25
Speaker 1: getting as many opportunities as an actor. Absolutely, but I
41:28
Speaker 1: had opportunity, and I was always taught to be grateful
41:32
Speaker 1: for opportunity. And it doesn't matter what your job is.
41:36
Speaker 1: As long as you like it and you're doing it well,
41:38
Speaker 1: then there's nothing to complain about. Like if I had
41:41
Speaker 1: to be a postman, then I would try to be
41:42
Speaker 1: the best postman that I had to be. If I
41:44
Speaker 1: had to go back to waiting tables and I would
41:46
Speaker 1: wait tables to I miss it sometimes I actually really
41:49
Speaker 1: do miss it. I love the energy of it, meeting
41:52
Speaker 1: new people, getting the opportunity to know people. I think
41:55
Speaker 1: that as long as you are doing what you like
41:58
Speaker 1: to do, there is no reason whatsoever to be embarrassed
42:03
Speaker 1: by it. Enjoy it, be grateful for it, and do
42:06
Speaker 1: it to the best of your freaking ability.
42:08
Speaker 2: I feel that, I mean I briefly and we've talked
42:12
Speaker 2: about this before, but briefly taught Spin and I think
42:15
Speaker 2: about it sporadically and how much fun that was. And
42:21
Speaker 2: I'd love to ask you maybe what some of your
42:24
Speaker 2: favorite parts of your role at Cyclehouse have been. But
42:27
Speaker 2: for me, I mean without a doubt, and people can
42:30
Speaker 2: hear it in your voice, with your optimism and excitement
42:35
Speaker 2: and the way that you speak, and it's so motivational.
42:37
Speaker 2: Like I loved that, like I loved the opportunity to
42:40
Speaker 2: help hype other people up. And so I think that's
42:43
Speaker 2: why the podcast is such a great outlet for me
42:48
Speaker 2: because I feel sometimes like I'm back in the Spin
42:51
Speaker 2: studio and so often what you say when you have
42:54
Speaker 2: the opportunity to be in front of a group of people,
42:57
Speaker 2: that's really in actuality what you need to hear too.
43:02
Speaker 1: Oh, one hundred percent. One hundred percent, Because when you're
43:07
Speaker 1: in that room, you're and you're helping people get to
43:10
Speaker 1: the next level of their lives. You have to be motivated.
43:14
Speaker 1: You have to give them a reason to keep going,
43:18
Speaker 1: to keep pushing to do all of those things. That's
43:21
Speaker 1: your gig, Like, that's your job, and how lucky are
43:25
Speaker 1: we that we get to lift people up? We get
43:28
Speaker 1: to tell people that no matter what life is throwing
43:30
Speaker 1: at them, that they have the capabilities to handle it,
43:33
Speaker 1: and that whether it's good or whether it's bad, it's
43:36
Speaker 1: all in how we get to interpret it. And I
43:38
Speaker 1: feel so grateful that that time at Shata Marman As
43:42
Speaker 1: opposed to like being embarrassed or trying to hide from people,
43:44
Speaker 1: or seeing a cast charactor or someone that I was
43:45
Speaker 1: in a film with, I'd be like, Yeah, I work here,
43:47
Speaker 1: and this is what's happening for me right now. Life
43:50
Speaker 1: is not always gonna be the easy stuff. Even now,
43:53
Speaker 1: like teaching classes on Zoom, I reach out to people
43:55
Speaker 1: all the time. They have no way of finding me.
43:57
Speaker 1: How are they gonna know I'm here? And you have
43:59
Speaker 1: every right as a human being on this planet to
44:02
Speaker 1: be here, and whatever incarnation that happens to show up
44:05
Speaker 1: for whether it's COVID, whether it's a you know, a
44:09
Speaker 1: writer strike, whether it's a tough time in your life,
44:12
Speaker 1: whether you got fired or you got rehired, or any
44:16
Speaker 1: of those things, you have the right to be here.
44:18
Speaker 1: You have the right to go through tough times, and
44:20
Speaker 1: you have the right to work through them, so you
44:22
Speaker 1: don't have to be ashamed of that, because every single
44:25
Speaker 1: person on this earth has had hard times, has gone
44:29
Speaker 1: through situations that maybe they thought they weren't going to
44:31
Speaker 1: make it out of, or maybe situations that they thought
44:34
Speaker 1: were going to break them, or all of those things.
44:36
Speaker 1: And whether you're struggling with it from a mental health perspective,
44:39
Speaker 1: a physical perspective, or just an emotional perspective, the fact
44:42
Speaker 1: that you continue to show up and you are here,
44:45
Speaker 1: you are one of the brave ones. So like, don't
44:47
Speaker 1: be afraid of that, don't be ashamed of that. You
44:51
Speaker 1: get to be here, You get to show up regardless
44:54
Speaker 1: of the condition that you're in, and you get to
44:56
Speaker 1: express yourself fully as whoever you are, and you do
44:59
Speaker 1: not have to apologize for it.
45:01
Speaker 2: I just love the term get to Yeah, Like I
45:05
Speaker 2: love it. I love it, and I love how you
45:07
Speaker 2: use it, and I love that that is such a
45:11
Speaker 2: glorious and beautiful takeaway from trouble and what we might
45:18
Speaker 2: perceive sometimes as failure and missteps. It's like, I know
45:23
Speaker 2: it sucks sometimes when things don't go how you want
45:26
Speaker 2: them to go, but like to have that beautiful opportunity
45:29
Speaker 2: to make that mistake, to learn from that mistake, like,
45:33
Speaker 2: how awesome is that?
45:35
Speaker 1: Right? And nobody learns from their successes. We learn from
45:38
Speaker 1: our failures. You don't look back and go, hey, when
45:42
Speaker 1: I won that award, I learned that I'm dope. No,
45:44
Speaker 1: you say, when you know what I mean? When the
45:48
Speaker 1: rubber meets the road and we face challenges in life
45:51
Speaker 1: and we overcome them or we find a way through them,
45:54
Speaker 1: those are the moments that make us better. They make
45:57
Speaker 1: us stronger, and the most important thing, they make us
46:00
Speaker 1: more empathetic.
46:02
Speaker 3: This is, without a doubt, the most hyped episode of
46:05
Speaker 3: Hurdle ever.
46:07
Speaker 2: Like, I hope.
46:08
Speaker 3: That just the DMS blow up, because if you are
46:13
Speaker 3: listening to this right now and you're forty five minutes
46:16
Speaker 3: in and you aren't like stoked on life, then I'm
46:21
Speaker 3: not sure if you.
46:22
Speaker 1: Have a pulse tragedy and the triumph. Baby, we all
46:28
Speaker 1: have a choice, you have. There's that great saying. I
46:32
Speaker 1: think Matthew McConaughey said it, and it stuck with me
46:34
Speaker 1: so hard, which is so funny because Matthew McConaughey, it's
46:36
Speaker 1: so random. And I remember I was watching this thing
46:38
Speaker 1: and he talked about and this is so me, and
46:42
Speaker 1: he said that I think it was his mother once said,
46:45
Speaker 1: you know, when he wake up in the morning be
46:46
Speaker 1: in a bad mood. His mother said to him, you
46:48
Speaker 1: can see the dust on the table or the flowers
46:50
Speaker 1: in the vase. You get to choose. You get to
46:54
Speaker 1: choose in your life whether or not you were choosing
46:57
Speaker 1: to see the dust in the table or the flowers
46:59
Speaker 1: in the vase. Period end of story. And every day
47:02
Speaker 1: that I wake up again, going back to activism and
47:05
Speaker 1: this and that and the other. I gave a speech
47:07
Speaker 1: in the beginning of this. It would have it was
47:08
Speaker 1: like the day after what would have been Breonna Taylor's
47:10
Speaker 1: twenty seventh birthday, and it was so crazy. Emily I
47:14
Speaker 1: heard this voice because yes, I talked to myself and
47:17
Speaker 1: I try to receive every message that comes, and it
47:19
Speaker 1: kept saying, don't write a speech. And I was like, Okay, well,
47:23
Speaker 1: maybe just a couple hundred people come to this thing.
47:25
Speaker 1: It won't be a big deal. I go to Pan
47:27
Speaker 1: Pacific Park and she's like obviously, you know, She's like,
47:30
Speaker 1: you'll probably talk you know, I want you there by twelve,
47:32
Speaker 1: probably start around twelve thirty, twelve forty five. Maybe you'll
47:34
Speaker 1: talk around one outn't know, and I was like, Okay.
47:37
Speaker 1: So we get to Pan Pacific Park and there's maybe
47:39
Speaker 1: like three or four hundred people and I was like,
47:41
Speaker 1: oh wow, there's more people than I thought. I am
47:44
Speaker 1: not kidding you, Emily. In the next forty five minutes,
47:49
Speaker 1: thousands of people showed up. Thousands.
47:55
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
47:56
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh my god, because Babe, I
48:01
Speaker 1: did not write it. And I'll tell you I couldn't.
48:03
Speaker 1: Like the night where I was like, why haven't I
48:04
Speaker 1: wrote wrote a speech? And there was this you know
48:08
Speaker 1: that book You are a badass?
48:10
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they have.
48:12
Speaker 1: She had a calendar, right, she has a calendar with
48:14
Speaker 1: like days of the week. And I put it literally
48:16
Speaker 1: right next to where I brushed my teeth, becau. It's
48:17
Speaker 1: just a nice little reminder after my timid and meditation
48:20
Speaker 1: to m calm every day. And then like I just
48:22
Speaker 1: riped that off. I'm brushing my teeth and read the
48:23
Speaker 1: announcement for the day and I woke up like am
48:25
Speaker 1: I crazy? Like why haven't I written a speech? Why
48:29
Speaker 1: haven't I done that? Like who knows who's gonna be there?
48:32
Speaker 1: And how many people? I mean people? Soific purse like
48:33
Speaker 1: smack deb in the middle West, Hollywood, whatever, whatever. And
48:36
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I ripped it off for the day
48:38
Speaker 1: and do you know what it said? Tell me you
48:40
Speaker 1: can do anything?
48:42
Speaker 2: Yo? Isn't that so scary slash creepy slash insane? Like
48:46
Speaker 2: these books that we might have that have like daily
48:49
Speaker 2: affirmations literally with dates, and you open the page and
48:53
Speaker 2: it says exactly what you need to hear. It blows
48:56
Speaker 2: my mind every single time.
48:58
Speaker 1: As I like to say, my friends always laugh. But
49:00
Speaker 1: it blew my wig back like it legitimately like knocked
49:04
Speaker 1: my socks off. And I literally was like, fine, Brionna,
49:08
Speaker 1: clearly you want to channel through me, so you tell
49:11
Speaker 1: me what to say this and that. And then when
49:15
Speaker 1: I got up there and I'm telling you, Emily, people
49:17
Speaker 1: as far as the eye could see got messages from friends.
49:20
Speaker 1: I had no idea that we're there.
49:22
Speaker 2: I watched part of it, uh on Instagram and I
49:25
Speaker 2: shared that as well. I mean, what you have to
49:27
Speaker 2: say was so powerful.
49:28
Speaker 1: But that was her right. So this life that we
49:32
Speaker 1: get to lead, think about like Brionna Taylor, and think
49:35
Speaker 1: about I'm assuming both of us are over twenty seven,
49:38
Speaker 1: not because you look at girl, but because you have
49:40
Speaker 1: your shit together.
49:41
Speaker 2: Girl, we over twenty seven.
49:43
Speaker 1: And all I could when I got up there, all
49:45
Speaker 1: I could like hear channel or whatever was going on,
49:49
Speaker 1: just like you know, getting that message was think about
49:51
Speaker 1: if your life had ended at twenty seven.
49:54
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
49:55
Speaker 1: Think about all the things that wouldn't have happened for
49:57
Speaker 1: you if you had literally stopped literally twenty six, because
50:01
Speaker 1: she didn't make it to twenty seven. Yeah, and that
50:05
Speaker 1: was what my speech was about. And to the people
50:07
Speaker 1: over twenty seven, you owe it to the people under
50:11
Speaker 1: twenty seven to make sure that you're doing everything that
50:13
Speaker 1: you can to make this world a better place for them, right,
50:18
Speaker 1: we owe it. That's what's happening. I think in this
50:21
Speaker 1: moment that we're living in right now, is everyone is
50:25
Speaker 1: realizing that the world for black people as a whole.
50:30
Speaker 1: And as I like to say all the time, I
50:31
Speaker 1: am not the representative for the entire black race. I
50:35
Speaker 1: am one black woman who knows some things and have
50:38
Speaker 1: some degrees in this subject matter. But what I'm saying
50:42
Speaker 1: is from my perspective, and someone else's perspective could be
50:44
Speaker 1: completely different, and that's okay too. But we are living
50:48
Speaker 1: in a moment where people are starting to respect each
50:52
Speaker 1: other's experience, and if we can as a whole understand,
50:57
Speaker 1: not sympathize, empathize with the black experience, get inside of
51:01
Speaker 1: it and do something about it. So all of these
51:04
Speaker 1: babies under the age of twenty six, twenty seven, we
51:07
Speaker 1: have a duty to make that world better for them.
51:10
Speaker 1: So no, I'm not tired. Because my niece is seven
51:13
Speaker 1: days old, and my other niece is thirteen years old,
51:15
Speaker 1: and my nephew is ten years old, and my other
51:17
Speaker 1: niece is twelve years old and my nephew is fifteen.
51:20
Speaker 1: We owe it to these kids and to this world
51:22
Speaker 1: that we're gonna leave behind, to straighten out all the
51:26
Speaker 1: bullshit that we have handed down. We have a responsibility to.
51:30
Speaker 1: So if I have to help somebody wake up, if
51:32
Speaker 1: I have to wake up myself some more, and no,
51:35
Speaker 1: I'm not tired because that is my journey. Because I
51:39
Speaker 1: want this world for my niece, for my hopefully unborn children,
51:43
Speaker 1: for your hopefully unborn children, or if you don't want
51:45
Speaker 1: that for your niece, for your nephew, for anybody that
51:48
Speaker 1: you want to pass this world onto, I don't get
51:51
Speaker 1: to be tired because I want this world and this
51:54
Speaker 1: life to be better, easier, stronger, more loving, and more
51:58
Speaker 1: empathetic for.
51:59
Speaker 2: The them, And that makes you a special, special human.
52:03
Speaker 2: I mean, I had just Sims from Peloton on the
52:05
Speaker 2: show not too long ago, and she said something that
52:08
Speaker 2: I thought was really special as well, which is that
52:11
Speaker 2: there's not just one black experience. Yes, you know, like
52:16
Speaker 2: you can learn from so many different people in all
52:20
Speaker 2: from all walks of life. And just because you have
52:24
Speaker 2: taken the opportunity to chat with one person who may
52:28
Speaker 2: happen to be black, doesn't mean that you won't learn
52:32
Speaker 2: a completely different thing or get a completely different perspective
52:36
Speaker 2: from another.
52:37
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. The black experience is not singular. That
52:42
Speaker 1: would be like saying all white people have the same
52:43
Speaker 1: experience growing up.
52:45
Speaker 2: Your passion is contagious.
52:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, and thank you. And the sooner that we start
52:50
Speaker 1: acknowledging that and understanding that this experience is one that
52:55
Speaker 1: we are all having in that experience is life, then
52:57
Speaker 1: the sooner we can try to take care of each other,
52:59
Speaker 1: make sure that everybody has the opportunity in life to
53:03
Speaker 1: have the life that they want. And again we come
53:06
Speaker 1: full circle. Whether it's a podcast or an athlete, a writer,
53:09
Speaker 1: an actor, an activist or a freaking cycling teacher, that
53:13
Speaker 1: we all have a fair shot to have the opportunities
53:16
Speaker 1: in life that we want.
53:18
Speaker 2: When do you become a full on, full cycling teacher.
53:22
Speaker 1: I became a full on cycling teacher. Really, it felt
53:24
Speaker 1: like that day I got on the schedule. The next
53:26
Speaker 1: day they sent me to training, and then the ball
53:30
Speaker 1: started rolling. I started teaching at Equinox and Crunch, and
53:34
Speaker 1: then one day a couple of people came up to
53:37
Speaker 1: me and said that they wanted to start an indoor
53:39
Speaker 1: cycling studio. And remember in LA that didn't exist. Soul
53:42
Speaker 1: type had been around for years. There are very few.
53:44
Speaker 1: There are a couple of specialty places, but it wasn't
53:46
Speaker 1: a thing the way that it is now. This is
53:48
Speaker 1: circa twenty eleven. And I was like, yeah, no, Like,
53:53
Speaker 1: I have a kettlebell certification, I teach a lot of classes.
53:56
Speaker 1: I teach kettlebell, and I love teaching spin, but why
53:58
Speaker 1: would somebody go somewhere just like, LA was definitely way
54:02
Speaker 1: behind New York in that aspect, because you could go
54:05
Speaker 1: to your gym in LA and get a fantastic spin
54:08
Speaker 1: teacher and get a fantastic sculpt teacher. And get a
54:11
Speaker 1: fantastic kickboxing teacher. But you know, people started realizing, well,
54:14
Speaker 1: this level of expertise and the way that I want
54:16
Speaker 1: to do it, I need just this space to really
54:19
Speaker 1: delve into the art form, right, And I said no.
54:25
Speaker 1: And again it goes back to Chateau Marmont. I was
54:27
Speaker 1: walking to work and this gentleman that ran Barmarmant's name
54:31
Speaker 1: was a lawn. He ran into me on the street
54:32
Speaker 1: and he's like, how are you doing? Said, I'm good,
54:33
Speaker 1: I'm just a little confused. This place wants to open
54:36
Speaker 1: a cycling studio and he's like, oh, were they just cycling?
54:39
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, it's like I'm French, I don't work out,
54:41
Speaker 1: which was hilarious to me. And he said, but it
54:44
Speaker 1: seems to me it's like everybody that comes in here,
54:47
Speaker 1: you know, takes your class. Because you know, I have
54:48
Speaker 1: a lot of celebrity clients. We're taking my class back
54:50
Speaker 1: in the day at you know, at crunch at equin Odds.
54:54
Speaker 1: He said, well, and this was a very valuable lesson.
54:57
Speaker 1: I learned two really important things that think changed life.
55:00
Speaker 1: And he said to me, what's the worst that could
55:02
Speaker 1: happen if you try and it doesn't work out, I'm
55:05
Speaker 1: sure Equinox would have you back. And I was like, Oh,
55:10
Speaker 1: I can try and if it doesn't work out, it's okay.
55:15
Speaker 1: I can pivot. And I realized I had done that
55:17
Speaker 1: before when my acting career hit the stall button right
55:21
Speaker 1: when you know, when I had to show up and
55:23
Speaker 1: teach this class. Suddenly we can pivot. You can do anything.
55:28
Speaker 1: And I think if COVID has taught us anything good,
55:32
Speaker 1: it's that. I think a lot of people are discovering
55:33
Speaker 1: that they can pivot. There are other things that you
55:37
Speaker 1: can do and other things that you're good at, and
55:40
Speaker 1: the world doesn't end at blank Again, You're not just
55:44
Speaker 1: defined by one thing. And so I said, you know what,
55:46
Speaker 1: I'm going to give it a try. So you gave
55:49
Speaker 1: it a try, and then cycle House and.
55:52
Speaker 2: Then cycle House. So how long have you?
55:54
Speaker 1: Uh? When was that we opened the doors on October eighth,
55:58
Speaker 1: twenty and eleven.
56:00
Speaker 2: Wow, so it's been a minute.
56:01
Speaker 1: It's been a minute now, Yep. What would you.
56:05
Speaker 2: Say has been one of the most transformational parts of
56:10
Speaker 2: your time with cycle House?
56:12
Speaker 1: Hmmm? I think that I learned more than anything at
56:20
Speaker 1: cycle House that if you want to be a leader,
56:23
Speaker 1: and you have to work with other people. Compromise is
56:30
Speaker 1: incredibly important. Putting your ego aside and listening and finding
56:35
Speaker 1: a way to make things work, and finding a way
56:37
Speaker 1: to compromise with other people to in order to produce
56:43
Speaker 1: the best product that you possibly can is not only
56:47
Speaker 1: unbelievably necessary, but the only way that you can produce
56:51
Speaker 1: an exemplary product. Humility, listening. The other thing that I
56:57
Speaker 1: think that I learned is to know your strength and
57:01
Speaker 1: manage your weakness, and to actually put that into practice.
57:06
Speaker 1: I know that my strength is human connection, talking to people,
57:12
Speaker 1: helping people, being empathetic, and trying to understand people. My
57:16
Speaker 1: weakness is I don't know how to make a spreadsheet.
57:21
Speaker 1: I really can barely work a computer. I need help
57:25
Speaker 1: in that arena, and that it's okay for me to
57:27
Speaker 1: need help. There's no use in me sitting in front
57:30
Speaker 1: of a computer for six hours trying to thread a
57:32
Speaker 1: needle with if I don't know what I'm doing, and
57:34
Speaker 1: find someone to help me threat this needle so that
57:36
Speaker 1: I can focus on the things that I know that
57:38
Speaker 1: I can excel at. So I think knowing your strength
57:41
Speaker 1: and managing your weakness, because managing your weakness is very
57:45
Speaker 1: different from I think we spend a lot of time
57:48
Speaker 1: trying to hide our weaknesses. I mean, like, no, no, I'm
57:50
Speaker 1: actually good at that. I can figure that out. I'm
57:52
Speaker 1: good at this. No, have the humility to say like
57:56
Speaker 1: I need help with this. Even for this talk with
57:58
Speaker 1: you today, I had to call someone much younger than
58:01
Speaker 1: me to take a look at this computer and figure
58:06
Speaker 1: things out.
58:07
Speaker 2: Man, do I appreciate you. I also think that that's
58:09
Speaker 2: like such a valuable piece of advice and such a
58:12
Speaker 2: beautiful takeaway is just not being upset or angry when
58:17
Speaker 2: you figure out what a weakness may be and owning
58:22
Speaker 2: that like that takes humility and vulnerability.
58:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and it's not easy. It's not easy sometimes
58:30
Speaker 1: there are other times when it comes to there's a
58:32
Speaker 1: lot of other things where I still have to struggle
58:34
Speaker 1: to manage my weakness that just happens to be a
58:36
Speaker 1: colossal weakness. So I know I can help, but I'm
58:39
Speaker 1: constantly working on that of saying like if this is
58:44
Speaker 1: asking for help for me, And I think culturally for
58:47
Speaker 1: black women in general, is something that we as a group.
58:53
Speaker 1: And again, like I say, I'm speaking for myself and
58:55
Speaker 1: like other women that I've spoken to of color. But
58:58
Speaker 1: asking for help has been one of the most electrifying
59:09
Speaker 1: journeys of my life, meaning learning how to ask for
59:11
Speaker 1: help and discovering God. It's overwhelmed when you do ask
59:16
Speaker 1: for help, the amount of people that run to you
59:21
Speaker 1: and the opportunity like when because I always thought, oh,
59:24
Speaker 1: it's just me, like I like to help people whatever,
59:26
Speaker 1: But when I think about the help that I've received
59:29
Speaker 1: in my life, I am overwhelmed. Because I'll tell you
59:34
Speaker 1: the truth, Emily, when Psychlehoust got closed down on March fifteenth,
59:39
Speaker 1: I was rocked, absolutely rocked because I felt like, Okay again,
59:46
Speaker 1: I found this thing where I have stability like I
59:49
Speaker 1: did with my career again and I don't know if
59:51
Speaker 1: it was like unsolved damage from like that when my
59:54
Speaker 1: acting career kind of imploded on me and then like
59:58
Speaker 1: this imploded on me because my job is literally being
1:00:02
Speaker 1: in front of a bunch of people, like that's how
1:00:04
Speaker 1: I pay my bills, And the amount of clients that
1:00:10
Speaker 1: reached out to me and called me and was like, well,
1:00:13
Speaker 1: here's the deal, like can you train outside or let's
1:00:16
Speaker 1: train virtually? What can we do? How can we help you?
1:00:20
Speaker 1: And I think that the second that you admit that
1:00:22
Speaker 1: you need help, you will be stunned by the amount
1:00:26
Speaker 1: of grace that is available to you in this world.
1:00:31
Speaker 1: And for that I my level of gratitude through this
1:00:35
Speaker 1: entire situation. Those same people that showed up for class,
1:00:38
Speaker 1: that showed up in cycle house open, not people that
1:00:40
Speaker 1: were there from day one that were the first people
1:00:43
Speaker 1: to call me and be like, can you train virtually?
1:00:46
Speaker 1: What can we do? How can I help? What do
1:00:48
Speaker 1: you need me to do? And I think when you
1:00:50
Speaker 1: allow yourself to be vulnerable, which is something that I
1:00:52
Speaker 1: have struggled with mightily in my life, when you open
1:00:57
Speaker 1: yourself up to that support and you see the goodness
1:01:01
Speaker 1: that exists in the world, there is no way that
1:01:04
Speaker 1: we as a people cannot tackle this awful scourge in
1:01:08
Speaker 1: our country and across the world called racism, called systematic racism,
1:01:13
Speaker 1: any of those things. If we bring it down to
1:01:15
Speaker 1: brass tax and it's individuals helping individuals, there's nothing that
1:01:18
Speaker 1: we can't do if we remember that that we remember
1:01:21
Speaker 1: who we really are.
1:01:23
Speaker 2: What advice do you have to offer to someone that
1:01:27
Speaker 2: hears you saying that it is so so wonderful to
1:01:32
Speaker 2: be able to accept help, but then also can sympathize
1:01:36
Speaker 2: and relate to this idea that it's hard to do it.
1:01:39
Speaker 2: What would you say to them?
1:01:43
Speaker 1: I would say, you have to breathe, you have to stop,
1:01:48
Speaker 1: and you have to put and you have to separate
1:01:50
Speaker 1: your ego from you being a human being. I think
1:01:54
Speaker 1: a lot of times an inability to accept or ask
1:01:56
Speaker 1: for help is driven by our ego. I am supposed
1:02:00
Speaker 1: to be fill in the blank, whatever that is for you.
1:02:04
Speaker 1: I think that if we can take a moment and
1:02:07
Speaker 1: put all of that aside, and put our shame aside,
1:02:10
Speaker 1: put our put our shame for having weaknesses aside, and
1:02:14
Speaker 1: you can really just I think honestly, meditation has really
1:02:19
Speaker 1: helped me on this journey slowing down, listening, not being
1:02:24
Speaker 1: so Remember we said before and you and I both
1:02:27
Speaker 1: were so sort of you know, all about driving forward,
1:02:32
Speaker 1: problem solving all of those things. If you stop and
1:02:35
Speaker 1: breathe and say, might not know the answer, and start
1:02:38
Speaker 1: with yourself, start with yourself, start giving yourself that little
1:02:42
Speaker 1: bit of grace. Okay, I only like when you're talking
1:02:44
Speaker 1: about earlier point two miles in, I need to just
1:02:46
Speaker 1: go get a coffee and go for a walk. If
1:02:50
Speaker 1: you can start giving yourself those moments of grace inside
1:02:53
Speaker 1: of your heart, inside of your mind, and look inside
1:02:55
Speaker 1: of yourself and find those moments where you can do
1:02:58
Speaker 1: that for yourself, then, because before I used to see
1:03:02
Speaker 1: that as being a victim. Right before I was able
1:03:06
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that I needed help and acknowledge my vulnerability,
1:03:11
Speaker 1: I truthfully used to see like, oh, don't be a victim, Tochelle,
1:03:14
Speaker 1: Or when other people would ask for help, if it
1:03:16
Speaker 1: was maybe something I didn't want to do, or any
1:03:18
Speaker 1: of those kinds of things. It was about. It's about
1:03:23
Speaker 1: saying no, you're not a victim. Someone that is able
1:03:25
Speaker 1: to ask for help and accept help and can also
1:03:28
Speaker 1: give help. You are becoming the victor every Think about
1:03:33
Speaker 1: how you feel when you give back. Like I'm on
1:03:35
Speaker 1: the bard of the Hollywood Food cool issuit. We serve
1:03:37
Speaker 1: a hot meal to probably over two to three hundred
1:03:39
Speaker 1: people every single night, seven days a week. And think
1:03:43
Speaker 1: about all those times I'm sure everybody has volunteered at
1:03:45
Speaker 1: their time, maybe it was for a neighbor or this,
1:03:47
Speaker 1: even if it was just a gesture holding a door
1:03:49
Speaker 1: open for someone and them saying thank you, think about
1:03:52
Speaker 1: how you felt in that moment. Think about how that
1:03:55
Speaker 1: moment sustained you more than any sort of material good could.
1:04:00
Speaker 1: And I think we build on those moments. So we
1:04:02
Speaker 1: start with gratitude, we start with giving back, and we
1:04:04
Speaker 1: start assigning that grace to ourselves. Somebody once said to
1:04:08
Speaker 1: me when I was like down on myself for saying this,
1:04:11
Speaker 1: or how would you? How would you talk if it
1:04:13
Speaker 1: were me? And Wow, that opened my eyes. The grace
1:04:17
Speaker 1: that you give the people in your life that you love,
1:04:19
Speaker 1: are you giving yourself that same grace? Because if your
1:04:22
Speaker 1: best if your best friend came in with those same
1:04:25
Speaker 1: feelings and shared them with you, what would they say?
1:04:28
Speaker 1: And you have to be your own best friend. And
1:04:30
Speaker 1: when you're your own best friend, and when you're honest
1:04:32
Speaker 1: with yourself and who you really are and what you
1:04:35
Speaker 1: really want and knowing that it's okay, if your best
1:04:37
Speaker 1: friend came to you and said I need help, wouldn't
1:04:39
Speaker 1: you move heaven and earth to help them? You have
1:04:42
Speaker 1: to start seeing yourself as your own best friend. And
1:04:47
Speaker 1: once I started trying to do that, what would I
1:04:50
Speaker 1: say if my best friend walked in and said this,
1:04:52
Speaker 1: or my best friend said I needed help? Would I
1:04:55
Speaker 1: think that they were, you know, a loser or a
1:04:58
Speaker 1: victim or this absolutely free not And as soon as
1:05:02
Speaker 1: I started trying to think of myself and respecting myself
1:05:05
Speaker 1: in that way, I was able to be a better sister,
1:05:08
Speaker 1: a better friend, a better neighbor, a better lover, a
1:05:10
Speaker 1: better best friend, a better aunt, better all of those things.
1:05:16
Speaker 1: The sooner I allowed myself some grace.
1:05:18
Speaker 2: When people come to your social media page, it's always
1:05:21
Speaker 2: interesting because like we direct them to like have an
1:05:24
Speaker 2: impression of us right off the bat right. It's like
1:05:26
Speaker 2: what you put in that Instagram bio and they see activists, actor,
1:05:30
Speaker 2: cro cycle house. When you look in the mirror, though,
1:05:34
Speaker 2: what is it that you see looking back at you?
1:05:39
Speaker 1: Oh? Wow, I see I see someone who still has
1:05:45
Speaker 1: so much more to give. I see someone with a
1:05:52
Speaker 1: capacity for love that is deeper than the ocean. And
1:05:56
Speaker 1: I see someone who wants to continue you to have
1:06:01
Speaker 1: this human experience and grow and learn and serve and shine.
1:06:10
Speaker 2: What's next for you?
1:06:13
Speaker 1: Wow? Next for me is going back to my acting career.
1:06:21
Speaker 1: Next for me is finding a way to expand on
1:06:26
Speaker 1: the people that I'm able to touch from a fitness
1:06:29
Speaker 1: perspective and from their food, embody, goals in a bigger
1:06:34
Speaker 1: way than just like this small community. I'm trying to
1:06:37
Speaker 1: find a way to take what I have to give
1:06:40
Speaker 1: in that capacity to motivate people to be healthier and
1:06:43
Speaker 1: better and stronger to the next level. So I think
1:06:46
Speaker 1: that it's those two things, and I see someone that
1:06:50
Speaker 1: is helping in her small way people learn and empathize
1:06:58
Speaker 1: with each other in a bigger, stronger, better, more empathetic way.
1:07:04
Speaker 1: And take that little tiny bit and take her little
1:07:07
Speaker 1: circle of the world and help change it and make
1:07:09
Speaker 1: it better.
1:07:11
Speaker 2: I think it's safe to say that hurdle moments happen constantly,
1:07:15
Speaker 2: like we're constantly dealing with hard stuff. But over the
1:07:21
Speaker 2: last hour and change, you've talked about a couple of
1:07:24
Speaker 2: specific experiences that seem to be truly ones that rocked
1:07:28
Speaker 2: your world. You have an opportunity to offer yourself a
1:07:32
Speaker 2: piece of advice looking back at those hurdle moments. What
1:07:36
Speaker 2: is it that you tell yourself?
1:07:40
Speaker 1: Stay open to all opportunities that life represents, Stay humble
1:07:49
Speaker 1: because your humility often reveals opportunity, and always stay grateful
1:07:57
Speaker 1: and loving.
1:07:58
Speaker 2: I appreciate you, I appreciate you.
1:08:01
Speaker 1: I'm so glad we did this I know, I listened
1:08:04
Speaker 1: to Hurdle, and I think that it's amazing. And really,
1:08:08
Speaker 1: I watch you. I watch your story every day, I
1:08:11
Speaker 1: really do, and I love seeing how far you run
1:08:14
Speaker 1: and the things that you do. And you know, as
1:08:17
Speaker 1: I think that so many times people think of coaches
1:08:19
Speaker 1: as not needing someone to watch and to look at
1:08:23
Speaker 1: and to look up to. So I am grateful that
1:08:26
Speaker 1: like you're one of those people for me.
1:08:27
Speaker 2: I think what you said about a coaches needing coaches
1:08:31
Speaker 2: and also like looking to others for inspiration, I had
1:08:34
Speaker 2: and I'll be like really honest about this a moment
1:08:37
Speaker 2: earlier this year where I had to stop and ask
1:08:41
Speaker 2: myself who am I looking to for inspiration? Because I
1:08:46
Speaker 2: think that sometimes when you're so go, go go, and
1:08:50
Speaker 2: I'm sure you can sympathize with this, it's like you
1:08:52
Speaker 2: don't take the time to take a step back and
1:08:55
Speaker 2: like find that for yourself because you're so worried about
1:08:58
Speaker 2: your output, right yeah, So I think what you have
1:09:02
Speaker 2: to say is just it's so valuable. And I also,
1:09:04
Speaker 2: I mean, thank you so much for what for the
1:09:07
Speaker 2: kind words that you have to say to me. I
1:09:08
Speaker 2: mean I feel the same way about you and That's
1:09:11
Speaker 2: why I think that this made for such excellent content,
1:09:14
Speaker 2: because I'm just sitting here continuously nodding my head at
1:09:18
Speaker 2: everything you have to say, and you came into my
1:09:21
Speaker 2: life for a reason. And I think that after listening
1:09:24
Speaker 2: to today's episode, that a lot of the hurdlers will
1:09:27
Speaker 2: feel the same way, and that they'll continue to look
1:09:30
Speaker 2: to you for motivation, inspiration, and so so so much more. Yeah,
1:09:37
Speaker 2: please take a moment and leave a quick review by
1:09:39
Speaker 2: clicking to the link with the description to this episode.
1:09:42
Speaker 2: We all face multiple hurdles in life, and I want
1:09:45
Speaker 2: to hear about yours. Reach Out to me at Emily
1:09:47
Speaker 2: at Hurdle dot us, connect with the podcast on Instagram
1:09:50
Speaker 2: and Twitter at Hurdle Podcast. Michelle, how do they find you?
1:09:54
Speaker 2: Give them the details.
1:09:57
Speaker 1: At Michelle, it's inn ic che l l e. So
1:10:00
Speaker 1: it's just at Michelle and Instagram is going to be
1:10:02
Speaker 1: the quickest way to connect with me. Have the website
1:10:05
Speaker 1: Michelle Hines dot com, but Instace is really the easiest way.
1:10:09
Speaker 2: You are like a modern day Oprah at Michelle. That's it.
1:10:17
Speaker 2: That's it, That's all I am. At Emily Abodi another
1:10:21
Speaker 2: hurdle conquered. Catch you guys, next time.