Five years ago, Kendall Toole moved to New York City and started the “opportunity of a lifetime” as a Peloton instructor, leading cycling, boxing, and strength workouts.
After announcing her departure from the fitness company last month, the 31-year-old is now opening up to PEOPLE about how thrilled she is for the next chapter of her career.
Toole says she is so grateful for her Peloton journey and the community she’s built through the platform.
“It was the opportunity of a lifetime, but I’ve always seen it as a springboard,” she tells PEOPLE. “At this point in my career, I really think it’s time for me to take matters into my own hands, bet on myself, and build the future and the things that really speak to my passions.”
“I’m looking forward to what comes next,” she says.
Toole is now launching her own podcast, Wholeheartedly — dropping July 17 — which she’ll host with her “dear friend” and HGTV star Galey Alix. “Because that’s just how we go into anything… with our whole hearts and our whole minds and sometimes our whole asses,” she quips. “And we just don’t do anything less than that.”
The pair will discuss how they’ve navigated their careers, relationship challenges, and mental health battles. Over the years, Toole has been candid about her past with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety and depression. Alix has also shared her struggle with a “severe” eating disorderand turning to therapy to recover from it.
Because mental health can be a heavy topic, Toole says their podcast will give it its reverence and bring some levity to the conversation. She says she has the opportunity to destigmatize mental health issues — an expansion of what she started doing in some of her Peloton classes.
“It’s a space to be really open and honest and just foster that community and help them feel seen,” she says of her and Alix’s show. “I think it’s really important that if you have a platform, you’re doing something to connect to the world in some way, shape or form. You’re serving the community.”
“Knowing my own personal story and my battles with anxiety and depression and my openness about a suicide attempt, it’s very important to be able to take away the stigma,” Toole explains. “So many people are struggling and hiding in shame, myself included for so many years. And that was my wake-up call to continue this advocacy and this fight to normalize this conversation and to help encourage people to seek community, to seek help and to really enjoy and thrive in their lives.”
Toole admits that a lot of her excitement surrounds her being able to expand her commitment to mental health and the “empowerment” her conversations will give others. She wants her followers to know that “every element of wellness is an important part of the puzzle” — something she’s had to learn over the years.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel here. We have always heard, ‘Mind, body, spirit.’ We’ve always heard, ‘You need your rest days.’ But I definitely think in living a hypercharged life for so long, and also growing with influence and growing the community, I’ve recognized in myself the need to honor my own mental health, to honor those rest days.”
“So I want to lean into more of showing how having a well and full life, it’s extending beyond the fitness aspect of wellness,” she says, also assuring that she’ll still remain “deeply in the fitness space.”
“I’m so excited about this and I’m really looking forward to it,” Toole tells PEOPLE.
Wholeheartedly with Kendall and Galey will premiere July 17 on PodcastOne, with new episodes dropping every Wednesday.
