Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - For the Burned Out, Overcommitted, and Perpetually Drained | Robin Arzón

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Say "no" more, audit your calendar, rewire your inner critic, and keep the promises you make to yourself. Robin Arzón is Vice President of Fitness Programming and Head Instructor at Peloton, a 27x marathon and ultra-marathon runner, three-time New York Times bestselling author, the founder of Swagger Society and host of Project Swagger.  In this episode we talk about: Redefining hustle Intensity vs. volume Using jealousy as data Psychological distancing and self-talk Why motivation is a myth Lowering the barrier to entry Planning for the messy middle Breathwork as a cheat code Get the 10% with Dan Harris app here Sign up for Dan's free newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Subscribe to our YouTube Channel To advertise on the show, contact [e-mail] or visit https://advertising.libsyn.com/10HappierwithDanHarris This episode is sponsored by:  BiOptimizers: Magnesium Breakthrough delivers seven forms of magnesium to support your nervous system, stress response, and daily recovery. Try it risk-free with their 365-day guarantee — head to bioptimizers.com/happier and use code HAPPIER for 15% off plus free gifts at checkout. Eight Sleep: The Pod automatically heats and cools your bed, tracks your sleep without a wearable, and their testing shows users get up to 34% more deep sleep. Use code DanHarris at eightsleep.com/danharris for up to $350 off the Pod 5, with a 30-day trial if it's not for you.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. We are in the middle of an excellent series this week called Get Fit Sainly, where we talk about how to take care of your body without losing your mind. And this series is sponsored by our friends over at Buy Optimizers. Bioptimizers make a product called Magnesium Breakthrough, which they say delivers better sleep, calmer days, and more energy. Definitely want to give a big thanks to the folks over at Bioptimizers. You'll be hearing much more about magnesium breakthrough, which they say delivers better sleep, calmer days, and more energy. Definitely want to give a big thanks to the folks over at Bioptimizers. You'll be hearing much more about magnesium breakthrough later in today's episode. Today, my guest is going to be talking about hustle. This is a loaded word. I know. A lot of people hear the word hustle and they think they're going to be told to push themselves beyond their capacity, aim for standards that are impossible, both professionally and personally. But my guest is actually trying to retake the word hustle in she's doing so in ways that I actually find quite convincing. Said guest is Robin Arzon, who is vice president of fitness programming and head instructor at Peloton. She's a 27-time marathon and ultra-marathon runner, a three-time New York Times best-selling author

and the founder of the Swagger Society. She also hosts a podcast of her own called Project Swagger. So today we're going to talk about hustle without burnout, how to rewire yourself talk and counter-program against your inner critic. The upside of jealousy, why action creates motivation, not the other way around, and much more with Robin Ars' own after this quick break. A few things before we hear from our sponsors today, mark your calendars our summer Sunday live series

premieres in just a few weeks. Every Sunday for eight weeks, starting on July 12th at 4 p.m. Eastern. You can join us for a live meditation and Q&A hosted by the legendary meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. This is happening only over on my newish meditation app, which is called 10% with Dan Harris. Every Sunday, Sharon's going to break down one part of a foundational Buddhist list called the Noble Eightfold Path.

You can think of the Eightfold Path as the Buddha's cookbook for human happiness. We will drop replays in the app if you miss the live sessions, but it should be pretty fun to go to the live sessions themselves. Sharon will guide a meditation, talk a little bit about one aspect of the Eightfold Path and then take your questions. This is your chance to both learn from and be in conversation with a true Buddhist. Buddhist master. People always ask me how to get started in Buddhism, and I haven't had a great answer. Now I do. Take this course with Sharon. Like I say, it will be live in the app for eight weeks, starting on July 12th, but you'll be able to take it any time you want thereafter. You can go to Dan Harris.com and sign up for the 10% with Dan Harris app right now to start your free trial.

And we hope you will join the party. We love what we're doing over in the app, and we'd love to have you as part of it. We'll be right back after this quick break. If you carry physical tension that's hard to release, tight shoulders, a jaw you keep catching yourself clenching, our sponsor by optimizers says magnesium supports the normal muscle relaxation process and that persistent tension is one of the things commonly reported when people fall behind on their daily intake. They've got a formula called magnesium breakthrough that They say supports muscle function, stress response, and recovery, and comes with a 365-day money-back guarantee. As always, talk to your doctor before starting any new supplement.

Much more on this later. To learn more, though, you can check out bioptimizers.com slash happier. Use the code happier at checkout for 15% off plus free gifts. Today, Robin Arzon is here to talk about habits, identity, and how small daily things can compound. And speaking of small daily things that compound, I want to tell you about 8Sleep. They make a product called the Pod, which is a smart mattress cover that heats and cools your bed automatically and tracks your sleep without a wearable. It's a habit that runs itself, essentially, which of you've ever tried to build a habit you know really is the dream.

If you want to check it out, use the code Dan Harris at 8Sleep.com slash Dan Harris for up to $350 off of the Pod 5. Robin Ars-on, welcome to the show. Let's do this, Dan. It's so funny to sit here and talk to you because I feel like I know you because I've taken so many rides with you. I've only actually met you one other time, but I'm sure you hear this all the time. Daily. Daily. Because you're in my life in such an intimate way, but of course I don't know you.

And it's a very visceral experience. Like it's different than, you know, watching a movie or even watching a concert. Like you are physically active in that experience. And so there's, I mean, there's a chemical thing that happens as well. Well, it's very cool to sit here with you. I want to talk about hustle. Hustle gets a bad rap, I think, deservedly these days, because of hustle porn and this idea that you should, you know, rise and grind and push yourself to exhaustion, never stop, never stop. But you have really made an effort to retake and redefine the word. So can you say more about that? My version of hustle includes boundaries, includes rest. I think my affection for the word hustle is because I center my work ethic and my values, but they're mine.

They're not, you know, for somebody's accolade or, you know, what my business partner says or what somebody at Peloton says. Like, I think that it does require a certain level of confidence to embrace that word on your own terms. And I recognize that, you know, structures and like kind of work culture doesn't necessarily afford that for folks, that kind of maybe agency. But that's where I want to push the envelope because I think I am tenacious. I am kind of as an instructor and as a leader a little bit of, I inject a lot of tough love. I have very little tolerance for excuses. And I think that's where my affection for hustle comes from.

But it's not leave yourself running into the ground based on somebody else's agenda. and I use the power of no to protect my yes, like a sword. Say more about that. What does that look like? I say no to almost everything. It's a miracle I'm sitting in this show. Yeah, I was just going to say. Lucky you.

No, I mean, I really try, especially since becoming a parent in the past few years, I have two young kids. I try to think, well, first of all, when it comes to a social engagement, if I wouldn't say yes today, the answer is no. I was kidding myself for a while that it was like, oh, in a month and two weeks and three months, I'll totally want to do that thing at 7 p.m. or 9 p.m. or, oh, my God, I'm like, I'm already asleep at 9. So for social engagements, if I wouldn't say yes immediately, it's likely going to be a no. And then for business things, I try to align my yeses with the energy of hell freaking yes. Like, it's a high bar because it's the kind of yes that, like, makes me want to leap out of my seat, even if it's going to be really hard work, aka hustle.

The term full body yes, you've heard about that? Yeah. That sounds like what you're North Star is here. It's like a full embodiment. Initial years of my career, you know, you say yes just to put in the reps and make the connections. And that, I think, serves a purpose in your 20s and 30s. or maybe just in the beginning of any journey where you're really trying to, you know,

put your name on it. But now I'm at a point where I can be a little bit more selected. Back to Hustle, you talk about the difference between intensity and volume because I think that's where a lot of people get stuck. My old version of Hustle personally was work until I couldn't fucking function anymore. And I think a lot of people do that.

They push themselves too hard, and the hustle backfires. So can you just talk about the difference between intensity and volume? Volume begs the question, are you busy or productive? And when I look at my calendar, I'm really proud that my current day calendar reflects who I am and what I'm about. And I think a few years ago, I don't know, I don't necessarily think I could have stood by that, where I felt the need to add things on my calendar just to say that my days were full and I was really conflating busyness with productiveness.

And I think for type A folks who like to do like the checklist, they like the gold star, you know, as a kid, they were the straight A student or aspired to be, of which I was definitely that energy. Checking things off my calendar for the sake of busyness felt like I was doing something. And now I actually purposely create blocks on my calendar where I have nothing to do. And that I find equally as rewarding now.

What do you do? That's creative thinking, that's reading, that's literally reading for pleasure. It's the stack of magazines that somehow piles up every single month that I will just sit there and literally do that. On like a Tuesday? Yes. Really? Yes. Yeah, I don't do that.

I will say I do my work schedule, which I've really worked on over the years. And I want to own both of us have a lot of agency that I think a lot of people listening don't. And help. But my work schedule does have chunks for meditation and working out. But I don't do. And you're a part of the latter. But I don't have like large unstructured blocks. It's interesting to think about.

but I guess I part of my antipathy toward the word hustle is just internally, I'm just constantly focused on checking off the next thing on my to-do list, and I don't like that energy in myself. Well, I think for me, hustle requires identifying what is important for you. And I think other people's fire drills and perception of what is urgent will gobble up your important unless you decide it for yourself. And so when I was defining what hustle looked like for me, it was that. It was like, I'm propping up in my life what's important.

My calendar is going to reflect that. My actions are going to reflect that. My business commitments and my family commitments are going to reflect that. And I very rarely will respond to a quote unquote fire drill in the maybe in the way that others would like. And I think it's that redlining that gets a little closer to other people's fire drills. or previous perceptions or what I think is an outdated perception of what hustle needs to be.

To be clear, I'm down with your definition of hustle. But so let's just talk a little bit about folks who don't have some of the agency that you and I have. How can we protect ourselves, protect our energy, not be sucked into other people's priorities and fire drills, as you say,

in a world where we have bosses and, you know, sometimes not a lot of choice. Yeah, I get that. I protect my mornings. I do think sometimes it requires the sacrifice of not watching that additional Netflix show, you know, the night before. And when energy is misaligned, it really does come down to the basics of how you're sleeping, how you're fueling, how you're moving. And that is going to be a revelation to literally anyone listening to this.

We've heard it a million times. But what rituals and processes are we putting into place to make that happen? and how are we telling the stakeholders in our lives, including our kids and our family members and the people who are kind of just loving energy vampires about those priorities. And especially if your habits are shifting and I used to be the person,

the fun person who used to go out at 10 o'clock at night, and it's like, now I go to bed at 8 p.m. And that's just who I am now. Is that really who you are? I'm in bed by night. I am asleep by 9-11. Like 11, 9-12, according to my aura ring. Asleep.

Oaf. What time you up? 545, 6. The communicating to the people in your life, the setting of boundaries, I think that's a hard thing for many people. We're just uncomfortable with it. We don't want to, you know, we'd rather say yes, even though we don't want to say yes, than do the hard thing and say no. So do you have any thoughts or advice on how to communicate these boundaries to other people

in a way that doesn't make you feel awful? We practice the reps in low-stakes environment. Right? Like I don't suggest you go to the CEO of your company and tell them, you know, can you reschedule all hands because it doesn't work for me? But I do think that we can start with lower stakes environments. And I do think when you frame the value proposition as you are going to get more out of me because this is how my energy system works or this is how my family life is. You know what I mean? Like you you begin with the end in mind. Like what does success mean for the team, for the company, for the KPIs that are relevant to your life? and then work backwards. And I have had those conversations with bosses before. And actually, my Peloton schedule, you know, has adapted over the years because of that. It's like you are going to get more value from this piece of content if I'm filming at this time rather than this time. Like, I'm not going to be good to anybody teaching at 9 o'clock at night, East Coast time for our West Coast, you know, viewers.

So those are little examples of that. A couple of other things I've heard you say that I think really helped redeem the word hustle. One of them is the idea that recovery is part of the deal. It's not a reward. It's a requirement. Can you say more about that? I mean, if you look at the most obvious examples or applications of recovery, they are in our physical state and how we need the recovery to grow muscle. And it's actually not during the workout where you're making any of those adaptations.

It's later, you know, call it 12 to 24 hours later when the muscles are repairing, when your energy system is repairing. when your nervous system is is calming down. And that piece of recovery was actually the long, that was the hardest lesson I had to learn. Because I am a pretty high-octane individual. And up until having kids, really, I thought more is better. Harder has got to be better. Like additional difficult workouts have to be better.

And now I really have a much more polarized approach where I try to keep the hard days hard and the easy days easy, not only in my training, but I think in life, to the extent we can control it. And recovery is a huge piece of that. And I, which is why my bedtime is earlier than it's ever been in the past few years, including having young kids. And I've really created some boundaries around my evening routine and my morning routine.

And those are the hours that I can largely control. Like things that happen during business hours, you know, you're really, you know, at the mercy of what you do for a job often. But for me, it's definitely worth going to bed early and waking up early and having those bookends to my day. Just one more question on on hustle from a slightly skeptical standpoint, just trying to represent the audience here. I hear from a lot of people that like self-improvement has gotten really annoying to them. And not only professionally, but also personally, everybody's telling them you got to track your steps, track your sleep, track your KPI's on Peloton, whatever, get a personal

record, blah, blah, blah. And there's an expression that I like, the subtle aggression of self-improvement. So what do you say to people who feel like, look, I just, I'm kind of depleted? And so we're talking about, you guys are talking about hustle, and I really just want rest. I get it. I think that we've optimized ourselves out of alignment in a lot of cases. I actually just recently started wearing an aura ring and I will have days where I will check, you know, my stats and it'll like subtly enrage me because it'll be nudging things like, don't you want to take a nap? And it's like, if only, you know, like thanks. I didn't think of that. Right. So there are things that I understand in this, especially with the data dump that we're receiving constantly,

I believe that that's never, that's not going away. I mean, we're only going to be receiving more and more and more of these data points, but I do think that we can, with things like meditation, with things like movement practices, turn the volume up on the conversation in between our ears. And I do genuinely believe that should always be the loudest voice in the room. And we have to find the processes that work. for us that turn the volume up on that voice. And for me, for example, I will delete social media for months at a time. And I will only look at social media posts on a computer so I can actually

manage that part of my business. And that's like a boundary that I've created for myself. I did the same thing. I deleted Instagram from my phone because I was making myself so unhappy looking at it. And so now somebody else will post. It has been a gigantic, lift to my spirits to not be looking all the time. Same. I have a bunch more questions about the voice in the head because that is, I know it's something you talk about, our inner dialogue. But actually the first time I met you, the only time I met you, you were filming an Instagram video and you asked a really interesting and provocative question that has not left my mind. The other person who you filmed in that conversation was Peter Atia, who has had some pretty

serious problems since that. Yes. Anyway, so you came up to me and then I saw you do do it with Peter at New York Times wellness conference. And you asked, what is the wellness thing? Such a good question. What is the wellness trend hack or whatever that you personally skip? And I'm curious what your answer to that question is. The leaderboards. Like I skip the outward competition of trying to win the individual class.

As somebody who knows that like the Peloton leaderboard is really motivating for folks or even race results are really motivating for folks. I truly am only interested in competing with myself. And I don't even look at that stuff. So I would say like external validation of competition. It's interesting. I've done the same thing. I'm 54 and I found that I was hurting myself a lot

because I was going for personal records or I wasn't necessarily competing with other people on the board, but I was pushing myself and pulling back a little bit and just doing the 45 minutes, the 45 minute ride without eyeballing every single stat has reduced my injury load and actually made me enjoy the workout much more. If you deal with occasional muscle tightness or cramping, the kind that shows up after exercise or sometimes just out of nowhere, our sponsor today by optimizers, they say that that's one of the things that people often report when they're not consistently hitting their daily

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But if you do want to explore it, they offer a 365-day no questions asked guarantee. To learn more, you can head to bioptimizers.com slash happier and use the code happier. To get 15% off any order, you'll also receive free gifts and some extra savings automatically applied at checkout. In your view, as I understand it, one of the big obstacles to hustle is the intervoy. Can you tell me about the loudspeaker test? I was on a run. I was training for an ultramarathon at the time. And I was, I mean, it was a really far run.

I was training for a 100-mile race. And in training for that, you basically do back-to-back long runs. So that in one weekend, I did a 20-mile run and a 30-mile run, literally Saturday, Sunday, back-to-back. And halfway through that second long run, it was all the way up by past the GWB in New York City. It was just pretty far north from where I was living at the time, actually, not far from where we are right now in the East Village. And I just broke down. My thoughts were super caustic, like just you're a fraud. You're never going to finish this race. And nearby was a soccer field. And there were making all kinds of announcements on the loudspeaker. And I had this revelation that if my thoughts were being played on that loudspeaker, I would be mortified. And this is coming from somebody who, you know, is in the motivation. business and isn't telling folks that they can achieve and be and do all these things. And it was really jarring to me to have that acute awareness that I was, like my own thoughts

were cutting me off at the knees. And I started, I kind of vowed to myself, like, I'm going to, I'm going to take these mental gymnastics and I'm going to learn them. And I started reading a ton. I was already meditating at the time. So I did have an awareness of my inner monologue, but not, But that's sitting, you know, on the floor or on the couch or at a chair. It was the physical pain married with these really, really horrible thoughts that really crystallized things for me. This kind of goes back to what we're talking about before with people's fatigue with self-improvement and wellness. Because on the one hand, like, I get it. I totally get it.

On the other hand, some of the fatigue, I think we have to look closely at it because it can. be undermining dressed up as self-care or self-love. In other words, you're telling yourself, hey, the culture is pushing me too hard, which is true to a certain extent. But it's also true that you do need to, you know, get your body moving and make sure you get enough sleep. And so it's that balance between its understanding, like, what is the right amount of skepticism we should bring to this? And then what is it actually just my ego trying to keep me on the couch? I completely understand that. And I think that we always need a, I think we need an increasingly healthy dose of skepticism to see what works for us. But this is where I always bring it back to

the basics. Like you do need to sleep. You do need to fuel. You do you need to get your ass up and move. And nobody's going to do that for you. And there's no way to delegate that. And there's no going to be, there's not going to be any AI machine, nothing. AI is never going to make me feel how I feel when I lift a heavy barbell off floor ever and it is that feeling of agency that powers my know that a name that says that tells me you are deserving of putting the phone down and going to bed at nine o'clock at night and there's a cascade to that confidence and those are the folks who are redefining hustle for themselves i think that's the key redefining it for yourself what you just said there is crucial it's it it's it's a marriage of something you said earlier which is you don't get stuck into other people's

fire drills and listeners to the show don't need to like follow somebody else's wellness program, but you should figure it out for yourself and go for it, both professionally and personally. What do you do when the voice in your head is serving up really shitty, undermining thoughts? That is when I'm usually depleted. I didn't even realize it. It normally happens when I'm on a book tour. funnily enough, more microphones, more lights, and I'm just like, oh, behind the scenes, I feel like a terrible person, just because I'm depleted. That's when I truly go back to basics, like, how much have you slept? Are you fueling? How do you need, you know, a therapy session? These are

things that are very real conversations, and I have a little checklist. So I affectionately call it my superhero toolkit, and they're basics. There are things. that I'm sure that you've talked about on this podcast hundreds of times. But when we are in the throes of it and cortisol is high and it feels like our body is foreign to us, they're the last thing that we want to do. It's like, okay, I roll. Like, yeah, I'm supposed to drink a glass of lemon water. Give me a freaking break. The world is crumbling. But sometimes it really is that simple. So for you, there are moments when you're on a book tour and everybody's asking you a question. Most recently. Most recently, the last time I felt that way was on my book door. Just because it was a schedule that's usually later for me. It involves travel. I just had to adapt to the demands of those few weeks. But for me, that I could tell that I was misaligned.

Were you having kind of imposter thoughts? I would say more so, not imposter thoughts, but I would say more so having moments where I was judging myself, like you should be giving them more. You should be a more expansive, performative version of this because they expected more. And just feeling maybe, I guess a little bit of imposter, but not imposter and like I don't, I shouldn't be here. More so like imposter, like, did that represent who you wanted to be in this appearance? Or what other people expected. Or what other people expected of it. And sometimes I'll feel like, like, you know, somebody, you see somebody on a plane and I'm just like, oh my God, I just, I literally just want to sleep.

I don't necessarily want to have the Fosse hands right now. You know what I mean? Jazz hands. Jazz hands, whatever it is. Meaning you don't want to put on a show for somebody who's a fan or maybe an acquaintance that you run into on a plane when you're exhausted and you're trying to take care of you.

Sometimes. And it's that last little bit of like 5% of battery life where I'm acutely aware of public expectations versus my own adaptation energy. And then I feel really guilty, feel bad, because I don't want anyone to have a bad interaction with me. Right, and then you get out on the toilet. And meaning, like, for me,

the friend of mine talks about this term, the toilet vortex where you're hard on yourself, take it out on other people, you feel worse about yourself, and then down you go. Yep. Seems like that sounds familiar. In those moments, I think I've heard you talk about

talking to yourself, as if you're talking to a different person. Yeah, I think psychological distancing really helps. I've played with self-talk a ton in the first person. I used to have a lot of mantras in the first person. Like, I am strong. I am capable. And that is pretty good for me pre-race.

But when I'm physically uncomfortable, I actually find you works better. So actually just this morning, I was doing a rowing session that was pretty, grueling. It's actually called death by row. So, uh, intuit what you will there. And towards the end, it got pretty gnarly. And I, I didn't gravitate towards the eye statements. I gravitated towards the you statements. And I imagined that it were, that there were, you know, folks telling me that who I really respected, who I've trained with before. And that psychological distancing takes me out of the physical pain and back into like, what are you capable of if capable of? in this moment. I find this stuff personally, just endlessly fascinating. Psychological distancing,

I believe was developed by Ethan Cross from the University of Michigan, who's been on the show a bunch of times, he's about to come on again, who I just think is awesome. And the idea that you can take this ability that we all have to be a good coach, a good mentor, a good parent, and apply it to yourself in moments when you need it. To me, that's just kind of revolutionary. beyond. And I think it's so amazing that once you start to practice it in real world environments for you, it is absolutely a transferable skill. Like I can take that same, of course I apply it often in athletic context, but you can take that same skill set and apply it when your kids having a tantrum or you're about to, you know, have a tough argument with your spouse or, you know, it transfers. You mentioned something earlier about mantras. How often do you use them? What are they? For me, they are pressure-tested phrases that I have created rituals around, usually in training. For me, it's something that I have to repeat and do hundreds of times and really try to anchor it in the desired state.

So I'll give you an example before I deadlift. There's like a physical trigger for me. I will actually, this is going to sound really, I've actually never told anybody this and it's going to sound, So extreme to your audience, but I will like slap my thighs and stomp the ground and tell myself, be here. And that be here is like, be here, like focus on pulling this bar off the ground. And the physical slapping and stomping is literally contributing to me bracing my core and breathing in and just being ready. And you might even observe, you know, folks will observe like, Aaron Judge, like throwing dirt before he's going to, you know, do something specific on the ball field.

And like a lot of, a lot of athletes have these sequences. For me, it involves both physical and mantra-based. So a statement. It doesn't seem honestly that extreme to me. First of all, be here is going to resonate with every meditator everywhere. The second, the stomping the ground kind of reminds me of like ever seen those, the indigenous folks from New Zealand, and the Maori, they do these kind of like dances. Yeah.

That's what comes to mind when I hear you describe it. Yeah, and there actually is something so guttural, like ancestral about, and I'm wearing lifting shoes. So they have a hard soul. And they, when they connect it with the ground, I imagine it's almost like a tap shoe. Like it's like, you're here. So I hear that. And I'm like, let's freaking rock and roll. That seems scalable to lots of activities in life.

Be here. Like, I got to go have a car. hard conversation, be here, whatever. And it also helps with the catastrophizing of like, well, what if this happens? And then what if this happens and whatever? It's just like, be here. What are you going to control? Go do it.

I was freaking out recently. And I was, I don't know, I was kind of in a spiral on something. And my wife said you should call Joseph Goldstein, who's my meditation teacher, which I recognize it's super privilege that I can call this guy. And I did call the guy. And we're talking about something he that the Dalai Lama once said, which is that if you, if there's something you can do about the problem, there's nothing to worry about. Right. You should just do the thing.

And if there's nothing you can do about the problem, there's also nothing to worry about. And I'd heard that a million times. I never really resonated with me because I'm so attached to worry as a MO, which has not served me well, honestly. or maybe has sometimes served me well, but usually tips over into stupidity. Now, though, I'm realizing, like, just break the problem into manageable parts. And if there's nothing to do about it,

just write it off. I find that the paralysis of worry feels like it's productive. I'm so action-oriented, or to a fault, perhaps, that worry doesn't stand a chance. I truly use action as the antidote, to those feelings of of anxiety.

Yes, as often, I didn't coin this phrase, but I often say action absorbs anxiety. I also often fail to live up to it. I will get stuck in the paralysis. Or the loop or something. Yeah. Yes. A couple other questions about aspects of inner talk

that I've heard you talk about. One thing I've heard you say is using jealousy as data. Like there's a kind of like there's a way we can, co-op our jealousy? Absolutely. You should notice when you have those moments of, oh, I wish I had that. And I don't mean like I wish I had that person's, you know, bag or shoes or whatever. It's more, I think it's more when you're observing a family construct or a social environment or an, or an aptitude for something. You know, you see somebody who's effervescent and social and you're like,

oh, I wish I could be like him. I wish I could be like her. And at least that's how when I observe it in myself when I see folks with qualities that I wish I had or life aspects of their life, work life, social life, or personal life that I wish I had. And I really used to feel this when I was practicing law and I would notice friends who were perhaps in more creative fields and they had more control over their time or what I, you know, this is all perception. I perceive them to have not a care in the world and they could, you know, go to, you know, read for 90 minutes on a Tuesday if they wanted. and I really craved that freedom. And instead of shutting that down,

I actually used, I observed for a few years when I was planning to leave law, I actually observed those moments and then I used them to help paint the picture of where I wanted to land. Even if I didn't necessarily have the path to get there yet, I knew how I wanted to feel because I was jealous of other folks

who I perceived to be already feeling that. or experiencing those things. Yeah, so instead of getting stuck in useless, unhealthy jealousy, you were like, oh, no, this is pointing me where I need to go. Correct. And I do think it's a clue. And especially if it happens more than once. I think that's your intuition. The whispers that we hear are often the biggest clues that we ignore.

And I think when we're thinking about passion and, you know, find your passion. I mean, I believe that the success leaves clues and whispers. And it's up to you whether you're going to go all in or not. Related to jealousy as data. I think you've also talked about this idea of like, why not me? I ask myself that in journal about it every month, probably. Every quarter for sure when I'm doing my vision board. Say more about what that means.

Well, I think that we often view greatness and achievement as other. and we are absorbing and inheriting lots of historical context of what we are capable of. And I especially think, I don't know, as a mom, as someone in their 40s, it's for sure changing a lot of those narratives that I feel like I've inherited. But when one feels stuck, I think that's a very helpful question to ask, why not you to get unstuck? Why not you to become that person that has never done that thing? Again, a lot of sports analogies, because that's more what my world is. But you know, you've got two people just broke world records at the London Marathon, you know, getting sub two hours. Why not them, right?

And now there's going to be a cascade of folks who do that because they, that broke that bubble of potential. And that's an extreme example, right, like the top of a sport in human history. but we can scale that and make it apply to our everyday lives. And I think the goal setting, anytime we're goal setting, that has to be a central question. Why not you? I'm curious, just personally curious, listening to you talk about your goal setting, vision board, striving for greatness. Like, what's on there now?

Like, what are your goals? That's interesting because I just released, if you had asked me this a year and a half ago when I was creating my cookbook, it would have been. my cookbook because I thought, oh my gosh, there's no way as somebody who's not a classically trained chef, I'm going to be able to have a cookbook that is received and it's vegan, right? It's a plant-based cookbook. It felt like the little engine they could. And it did make the New York Times bestseller list. And I was so deeply proud of that because I didn't think it was possible at all. Like I was like, there's just no chance. And that's okay. I'm going to, I poured so much love into that project,

not thinking it was going to get some, you know, button of achievement on the other side. I genuinely did it because I wanted to bring folks into my home and into my kitchen and my point of view on fueling intentionally as a plant-based athlete. Now, for this year, I am giving myself the freedom of not having a short list of I got to do this and I got to do that. You know, there are unscripted projects that I want to pursue. You know, my husband and I have a media company Swagger Studios and we have some seeds that we're planting. I always want to continue expanding into the lifestyle space, beauty, fashion, but it's not like, I think that you have to let things breathe. And I think I want to pursue things out of hunger, not thirst.

And I'm just waiting for a few pangs of hunger. It's admirable in my view that you can wait instead of just hurling yourself into the next thing because there has to be a next thing. I'm so aware of energy as currency, my own energy as currency. And the projects that I work on now, I want them to really reflect that hell yes. And if I'm just going into the next thing of like, oh, okay, well, I'm an author now, so now I should do this. Or now I'm in, I wrote a cookbook. So shouldn't I do this? And it's like, do I want to?

Do the world want me to? Like, what? And that pressure, I actually think people don't talk enough about the pressure of creating the next hit. because success can be just as intimidating as getting to that first successful point. And I'm just going to reclaim my agency back and do it on my terms. Meaning just you don't feel like every next thing you do has to succeed just because you've succeeded in the past. You're willing to do things that might be out of the box or not guaranteed to succeed because that's what you want to do. Correct. Or especially in environments, industries, verticals,

where I'm not expected to be there. And it's like, but I am so high. I think a lot of people listening to this might be like, you know, where does, where do you get the courage to do that? Because, yeah, I think a lot of us struggle with, you know, just finding the audacity. I do think some of that comes from my parents. They both have pretty audacious stories.

I'm a first generation Latina. My dad was born in Puerto Rico and grew up in the Bronx. My mom is a Cuban refugee, born in Cuba and came over in her teenage years, not speaking a lick of English. And so their stories are really, when I think about their stories and I hear them tell it, like, how dare I not? Like, truly. And I, my kids better be audacious.

Like, I didn't work this hard for them to cower in the corner. Like, you better find your thing. I think that I walk into rooms with a straight spine because I genuinely. think I have a thousand abuelas behind me being like, we didn't go through all that for you to cower in the corner. And even if the energy, you know, of my kids, for example, is softer, is subtler, is, you know, it doesn't have to be loud, but it's got to be yours. It's interesting this thousand abuela thing, because I think I've heard you say it and ride. I think about it all the time. I think the old me who was nihilistically skeptical and

sarcastic. I'm still a lot of that. But I think that idea. of like conjuring your ancestors might I might not have groked it but now I really do the idea that I mean my my family tree is actually not super dignified lots of depressed anxious people who you know like I have one of my ancestors was a deserter from the civil war so I don't know how much I strength I generate necessarily from all of my ancestors but the idea that that you do have a wind at at your sales. And there are a lot of actual people in my ancestral line who did amazing things. And it's not that they're not necessarily that I have a metaphysical belief that they're here with me right now, but I can conjure them to produce a tailwind. I think that's kind of what

you're pointing at. Well, I mean, I do have spiritual beliefs that they, you know, kind of are around me and I see signs of it, but I choose to see signs of it. But even if you don't, it's not necessarily that for me that I look back and all of them were perfect icons and, you know, they were, you know, written into the history books. I actually think in some ways I'm doing things differently and I'm breaking ancestral curses and lines and that they're looking at me being like, yeah, exactly. Because you stepped into your purpose and like folks who follow me in my lineage are going to be like, yeah, I did it differently because she messed up in that way. And here we are. And I actually think that that's a beautiful thing. I mean, I guess I don't have faith metaphysically. You know,

I can't pound the table and say my grandpa, Sam, is in this room right now. Well, this isn't going to be a medium reader. Don't worry. I've done that on this show. I have. But actually, in part, doing, having a medium on the show and knowing people in my life who I do take seriously who do take that seriously, it hasn't imbued in me some sort of dogmatic belief that it's true. But it's a kind of openness to like, yeah. Okay.

So if Grandpa Sam, who was a lovely man but flawed and I think cut off a few of his fingers to avoid going to World War II and used to have bouts of depression and was unable to get out of the bed, he did the best he could in the circumstances in which he came up in a viciously anti-Semitic America in the 1920s and 30s and 40s. and a patriarchal, not very psychologically oriented society with a guy who was clearly neurodivergent. He did his best. And so the best version of him is on the other side, maybe, if you want to say that, cheering me on thinking, okay, this guy is doing a better job and had more resources.

Yeah, and what's the harm in that? I guess that's where I approach it. Like, if it helps me go into a business meeting and ask for more money, good. If I'm able to speak a truth that resonates to somebody at Peloton and then they walk into, you know, their business meeting with more confidence, good. And I know that I'm here to light fires in people's lives. And that makes me really proud to contribute to that energy. Like, somebody needs a friend in the group chat that's going to be writing in all caps.

And guess what? That's me. You always know when Robin has a lot. entered the chat because it's caps lock. Or at least one or two exclamation points. I imagine you using a lot of emojis too, like fire emojis. I do, I do. But I like to, I do not like the trend of being grammatically incorrect. I have, I use punctuation, which probably really dates me as a elder millennial.

Right. Well, I'm even as established older than that, I cannot stand misspelling. especially in an era of like auto-corrects. Like we should be able to get this right. A word from 8-Sleep before we get back to Robin. For anybody working on habit formation, the hardest part of any habit is showing up every day, especially the ones with no immediate payoff. Sleep can be the worst offender in this regard.

You cannot will yourself into deep sleep. You can't even tell in the moment whether you got any. The pod, which is a product made by our sponsor today, Eight Sleep, is a smart mattress. cover that goes on top of your existing mattress. It heats and cools each side of the bed independently and automatically, anywhere from 55 to 110 degrees. The AI, which is called autopilot, learns your patterns night to night and adjusts on its own. You don't have to remember to do anything. You just sleep. What I like about this when I think about it in the frame of habits

is that it's the rare habit you don't actually have to manually recommit to every night. The system runs itself, and every morning you get a clean read on how you actually slept. which makes the invisible habit visible. And the way they reported is very elegant. It's on an app on your phone. As mentioned, you don't have to wear anything. It just tracks it for you right there on your phone. And it really gives you a sense of how you're doing

so that you can make better decisions and get better sleep. And the fact that it cools your body down and then actually, if you set it the right way, will warm you back up in the morning. You can also set an alarm and it will gently vibrate. to wake you up in a way that isn't super jarring. And if, like me, you're a snorer, it actually can raise your head up so that changes your airways and can reduce the likelihood of snoring. It's really quite an amazing product. My wife, my son, and I are all marveling

over it in the days since we received it. You can use the code Dan Harris at 8Sleep.com slash Dan Harris for up to $350 off the pod five. 30-day trial if it's not for you. Okay, the last bucket of questions I have for you is about motivation. One of your arguments is that motivation is not a prerequisite for action. Like the action can precede the motivation. Can you just say more about that? I mean, I'll say much more. I think motivation is absolute nonsense.

I think that we feel entitled to motivation and we really, really need to recalibrate that. We feel like we're going to have this overwhelming. emotion or state of being of feeling motivated to take action when it's the action that creates the momentum and it's the momentum that creates the feeling of motivation. And sometimes that motivation never comes. Sometimes you are going through the motions and that feeling of motivation never comes. And I experience that all the time in my own workouts. And as somebody who does that professionally for a living, I can assure you that waiting for the feeling of motivation, you're likely going to stuck. So you have to start anyway. I mentioned Joseph Goldstein earlier. My meditation teacher

has been a massive impact on me, who has had a massive impact on me. He teaches in these little expressions, these kind of pithy phrases. And one of them is effort creates energy. Love that. And I mean, it's scientifically true, I think. And we, I hear the motivation myth most often from folks who haven't even tried yet or tried for a week, you know, especially in a movement context, tried for a week, tried for two weeks, and then they fall off. It's like, what would happen if you stopped giving up? You wouldn't be waiting for motivation. Let's talk about a movement context, because exercise is this thorny area for many people. They just like, just can't get their shit together to do it. I don't have that problem. For me, if I don't do it, the stakes are

so high because I'll just get depressed and anxious. And so, like, I know that I need to do it. So I don't have struggle with motivation, but I have a lot of sympathy for people who do struggle with that motivation. So what would you say? What do you say to the thousands of people who come up to you and say, like, yeah, I love you on Peloton, but I just can't get my ass on the bike or my feet on the tread. Practically, how do you do it if you don't have the motivation?

Lower the barrier to entry. instead of telling yourself it has to be whatever you perceived it, a 60 minute tough thing or even a 30 minute, you know, moderately tough thing, make it five. I would rather see somebody do get back, like create less breaks in the chain. And for me personally, I don't have more than two breaks in the chain. I haven't taken, you know, more than two days off, you know, except for the, you know, birth of my two kids. And that's because I lower the barrier.

to entry. I'm not asking folks to, you know, leap onto a tall building. It's like, can you jump onto a shoebox? Probably, most days. And liberating ourselves from the preconceived notion of what a quality workout looks like. I encourage folks to create a minimum, a minimally viable movement practice that they can do on most days. And when folks are goal setting, you know, they say, I'm going to be the 5 a.m. workout person, but they're doing it like at 7 p.m. over cocktails and dinner and they feel great. Like, set your alarm at 4.30 at the morning on Monday and then decide what the goal is going to be.

Like, make the goal when you're in the state with the potential barriers to, you know, with the potential friction. This thing you said about lowering the bar, as you know, there's a lot of evidence for this. There's tons of research around like what works in habit formation. And we should say from the jump, habit formation. is diabolically difficult. The, I think, skeleton key for all of this that unlocks it is exactly what you said. Do it. Sometimes people recommend for running, for example, just start by putting your

shoes near the door or go around the block. With meditation, I often say, start with one minute. And just, and also daily-ish, doesn't have to be every day, but don't, as you say, don't miss two days in a row. this mixture of structure with doability is, I think, and the evidence seems to support this, the root to establishing an abiding habit. Yeah, like don't let perfectionism enter the conversation because that's when you give yourself the out and then it becomes, oh, well, I didn't do any of this in the ways that I, the exact perfect way that I envisioned. So now me let me just throw it all out.

It's like, no. claw back to one, you know, one semblance. What is a shade of what you were trying to pay with? Like that I would like to see people do more often. What are your thoughts on the fresh start effect, the idea that we can harness the power of Mondays or a new year or a new month or a birthday to get ourselves moving?

Use it and then plan for the messy middle. Using Monday is the example. You use it. Like when you feel motivated, when you have that fresh start, when it's Monday, when it's January 1st, when it's your birthday, use it. But plan the schedule and the routine for the Wednesday at 3 p.m. When you know you are not going to feel great and make that the basis of your practice. And what can, you know, I will leave notes for myself. Like I will write things in my notes app and actually paste them into my calendar for the days that I know.

it's going to be like, you're not going to want to. And that, like, plan for it. Plan to not feel like it instead of pretending like you're always going to feel like it. A couple of much of what you just said is also backed up by the evidence. One of the other conclusions that kind of comes screaming out of the data around the researching to behavior change, as I understand it, is flexibility is really important, like planning for the messy middle in a way that, like, okay, you might, feel like shit. So maybe that's the day that you're going to do less. And so you have this

elasticity in the system that allows you to succeed in a lasting way. And then the other thing is, and we've talked about this earlier, but self-compassion or positive self-talk, having an inner coach instead of an inner drill sergeant is a great way to keep yourself motivated without burning yourself out. The elasticity piece of it is so beautiful because it also takes into account. these elements of burnout that we were talking about. Like, you might have the time to do what you planned in terms of movement, but your nervous system might be on the fritz. Like, women hormonally, like, might be going through a lot.

Like, your kids might have been up. You don't know what life is going to throw at you, but that minimum viable link in the chain goes a long way into bridging towards the identity of someone who keeps the promises they make to themselves. And I think that that is worth the effort. I have worked my way through my voluminous list of questions for you. What did I miss? Anything you were hoping to talk about or would like to talk about that we didn't get to?

Like, what's on your mind these days that I didn't ask you about? Well, what is in my mind lately is using breath. I'm a long time meditator. And now I'm exploring ways in which breath work could more easily get me into different desired states. So it's not just necessarily the mantra or the slapping of the thigh, but it's like, how can I train myself through different breathwork to get into what I know is, you know, I know if I get into my, you know, start saying my mantra and it's a Vedic meditation practice. Like I can be in that state pretty quickly now. And it's like, okay, like, how can I

have a cheat code into different desired states, and especially as a parent, kind of using the physicality of parenting to be a better parent. I think you have toddlers? I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old. Okay, so a toddler and a kindergartner. And you're being pulled in two different directions simultaneously by two little rug rats and maybe you're losing your patience, maybe you're tired, whatever. In a moment like that, you can do kind of like breathwork, like free range breathwork?

Yeah, but also it's the other way. It's if I get home and I'm tired and I can use breathwork to like oxygenate and maybe similar to like a Wimhoff or something type of method that people might be familiar with. I'm sure people are familiar with to give them the 20 minutes they just want with me on the floor. And that's where my mind has been going lately. It's like how I spend so much time training for races. It's like how can I make this applicable to create more meaning in the moments that matter for me? and that's having energy, you know, for my kids.

How does the breath work work? So usually, I mean, I'm still figuring out a process around it. But if my husband is home or if our nanny is home, it's like me going into the bedroom for 10 minutes to like try to lie down and do more like breath of fire type stuff and then coming out and having a little bit more energy for them. I don't actually know what breath of fire is. So I think it's, I mean, I think it's like a yoga, a yogic practice where, I mean,

you're essentially, like, I'm like, by the end of it, I'm like literally sweating. I don't know. I couldn't explain it to you because I have to bring up videos and stuff to actually do it. But it's energizing. Let's just say that. I was talking to my shrink the other day. And he was recommending, I think it's 4-7-8 breathing developed by this guy, Dr. Andrew Weil, who I don't know, Andrew.

You should come on the show. Where you, it's an inhale, count of four. hold for seven seconds and then breathe out through your mouth with your tongue behind your front teeth. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And you just do that a bunch of times, and apparently it kind of like resets your nervous system. That's kind of a calming. Yeah, I think it's a calming thing. So it sounds like it would be quite different.

Well, listen, there are a lot of paths to it. And I think that's what's so cool. And that's just where my curiosity is right now. Can you be teaching Peloton in, say, 20 years? Yeah, because I plan to be a 90-year-old batty being able to deadlift my husband. And you're welcome to join me. Can you deadlift him now? Yes, more than him.

More than I could deadlift him plus. Have you actually deadlifted him? I wouldn't subject him to that. But his equivalent in weight is kind of where the joke came from. Got it. Okay. Yeah, I'm sure my wife would like to do a lot of things to me, but probably not that. Listen, I want, I really do, we're all steeped in the longevity game right now and how we want to play it is up to us.

But I think Peloton is a pioneer and a leader in the space in making it accessible and efficient. And we're increasingly informing ourselves as instructors. I'm as head instructor and with the team of training specialists. We're really trying to marry the technology with stuff that makes sense in people's lives. and you're not going anywhere. I'm glad to hear that because I use it all the time. Can you also just remind everybody of the names of your books and also your podcast? Yes. So my podcast is Project Swagger, your weekly transformation toolkit in 30 minutes or less.

My most recent book is Eat to Hustle. It's a plant-based protein-packed cookbook directly from my kitchen with recipes that I have pressure-tested over 12 years of being a plant-based athlete. I have two children's books, Strong Baby and Strong Mama, with a lot of the values that you've heard today. And I have a journal called Welcome Hustler with prompts that I used to transition from law to wellness. And my very first book was Shut Up and Run, which is a running manual. Robin. Yes. Thank you.

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slash happier, you'll get exclusive bonuses automatically added to your cart, not something you get on Amazon or in stores. Head to buyoptimizers.com slash happier and use the code happier. You'll get 15% off any order, plus free gifts applied automatically at checkout. Thank you so much for listening to or watching the show, and thank you so much to everybody who works so hard to make this show a reality. 10% Happyer is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vassili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer.

Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme. Also, one last thing before you go, remember to sign up for my app, which is called 10% with Dan Harris. You can sign up for the app over on Dan Harris.com. On the app, you'll find a growing library of meditations from many of the world's greatest meditation teachers. Add free access to this podcast and our voluminous back catalog, exclusive live stream events and robust discussion threads.

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