Leanne Hainsby | Extraordinary Life Stories

0:13Leanne. Hi. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm buzzing to be here. Me too. I can feel it. Your energy is like magnetic. I feel the same about you, which is why I'm super excited about our chat today. So tell me, who is Leanne Hainsby? I am a wife. I am a dog mum. I am a Peloton instructor. I love my family. I feel like my life is kind of split down the middle of looking like super glamorous and fitness and sparkly and then in my home life I'm super simple I love to go for long dog walks I just like to chill and watch Netflix I I really am obsessed with my calm era at the moment I can imagine because you're on the back of huge amount of stress and trauma if you like to be in this flow state yeah I've I've had a really rough few years and I think this chapter is so underrated like it's I said this a couple years ago actually in an interview when when it's over it's never really over and by saying that I'm talking about my cancer journey and my journey with grief after the sudden loss of my best friend and these happen really close together right yeah I I mean they happened within six weeks of each other and it takes a really long time to heal it takes a really long time to figure out who you are after something like that how you build a life around the waves of grief and trust in your body again and it's a really an intense journey and so that's why I it feels like a badge of honor for me to be able to say that I feel calm now because that's through a lot of therapy and really being kind to myself I don't feel the need to rush or pick up the life I used to have like I'm just not that person anymore and was that your life previously because going back to energy you can feel your energy you can see it in your eyes but also there was like a physical energy you were probably thousand mile an hour taking life on yeah at that speed you pull back from that you're more choosy what you're doing now I moved at a thousand miles an hour I said yes to everything that would be in my personal life in my social life I'd be the last person at a party because I was having the best time ever I didn't really leave I was so in the moment all or nothing I was all or nothing and I if I look back now I'm not 100 % sure like my energy was never fake but I'm not 100 % sure I was happy then but my energy was telling me that I was and actually now I feel like this is I think what happens when you go through something life-changing I'm sure we can get into this more is that the I think the life I was living before was a perfect life I was not obsessed but it really I wanted everything to be perfect and actually when you go through grief and you go through a cancer journey where you look very very different in the process and you're worried you're going to die you have to let go of that idea of perfect and so what's happened now is that I don't care about that and so it's so liberating I can feel that coming off you yeah it's so liberating like I you know with all of this I stopped drinking I really changed so much in my life and I'm really okay with turning up somewhere just being myself I'm okay with that being what people get and I think before my energy would be still the same as it is now but maybe with a bit of a frantic edge because I wanted to make a good impression I wanted everyone to like me I wanted everyone to have the best time whereas now I just feel way more comfortable that that's who I am without needing to you know really panic about it and I can feel that and actually it's amazing how big a community you've got you've built this massive following if you like on social media and I'm interested because you did that organically you did that through being almost like a face of peloton you know people I know even people outside knowing who you are for that to sort of inspire them and motivate them if you like being that person like come on that energy if you like to then go through real trauma real suffering and actually share that and then did you find that you know I'm sharing to you how I can feel but did you feel that you got that outpouring back of people that are like you've supported us you've inspired us now they're giving back to you did you feel that yeah it was there's so many layers to that and I think by sharing my health journey I became I think before that maybe the members had put me on a pedestal and it was like that's our perfect Peloton instructor and I never put myself there but I felt this pressure to just be like like a power ranger to the peloton community and you know during my treatment so I didn't share that I was going through chemo I did three months of chemo 12 weeks once a week and that was the first part of my treatment I then went on to having surgery and then radiotherapy and this was for breast cancer and I didn't share for the duration of my chemo I always it was a decision I made in the beginning because because I am so big on energy I felt adamant that I couldn't let anyone else's energy in until I knew that I was going to be okay because I feel it so much I the people you know people's empathy towards me people's stories I just didn't have the capacity to take that on I mean when I started my cancer journey I just lost Danielle and so it was like I was already at rock bottom I couldn't take on anybody else's story or their journey so you were protecting yourself there I wanted to ask you why you initially didn't share yeah it was actually just you were probably more worried about how you would react if you then had an outpouring of on you to then actually have to face that and i was terrified of not being the person i thought that i thought people would feel sorry for me and actually what my job was giving me at the time was a space for me to be sparkly for me to have the energy for me to show up and be myself and not a cancer patient and that was very important to me and I didn't want anybody I didn't want to have that moment that was so precious to me and I think vital during my cancer journey to still feel like myself in some capacity I didn't want anyone to take that moment from me by saying I'm so sorry to hear about your journey or your friend or so I just really kept that as like my sacred space what was the catalyst to then share i used something called a cold cap during my chemo journey which really was amazing for me i managed to keep half of my hair i lost half but i kept half for me i thought if i lose all of my hair i'll have to share because i'll look like i'm going through something but i you know i strategically placed my hair.

8:14So people, I think people knew something was going on, but they, you know, like I've said, I was also really in the early stages of grief. So I think people were just unsure of where I was at mentally or physically. But the catalyst for me, I'd finished my chemo. I'd had my surgery. I'd had a cancer nurse say to me at the beginning when I was first diagnosed, and honestly that was the most terrifying moment she had said to me cancer is a mental game your body will go through what it needs to go through but it's a mental game so you need to get up here right and that for me was just like I can do that and she said to me the things that you're worrying about now for example I was like I'm gonna lose all my hair I'm gonna lose my hair and you know obviously as well as feeling like I was maybe gonna die but I was I didn't want to lose my hair because I didn't want to look sick.

9:08And she said, you won't care about that. And so then what happened is when I got to be, you know, once you finish chemo and everyone's like, great, you finished your chemo, it's still in your body for weeks. And so you're still losing your hair. You're still having the side effects. And so I felt very, very poorly and very weak at the end of my chemo. And then I had my surgery and I went to an event and it was a beauty event. and I just felt like it would be a lovely thing to do but I didn't have any lashes, I didn't have any eyebrows and I put so much pressure on myself to try and show up to this beauty event looking beautiful and I was just like why am I doing this?

9:51I've just like I'm an absolute b****. I've just been through chemo, I've had surgery, I've been told that the chemo worked so like I know that I'm going to be okay and here I am giving myself a hard time because I can't turn up to a random event looking perfect and so that was the catalyst I was like this is this is not how I want to be I want to own that I've been through something. Adjusted your priorities? Adjusted my priorities and also there was this strength that I had knowing that I was going to be okay and so for me because everything is about energy I was ready to let people in and the outpouring it was so strange actually when I shared I mean it was odd in some ways because people would message me as if I died it was like we loved Leanne and I was like oh guys I'm still here and then other people you know I'd been in a on a chemo ward not seeing anyone that looked like me actually and but always being told people are getting breast cancer younger and younger I didn't feel seen and so sharing and then having an influx of women or people that came my way saying hey I've been through this or here's some advice it was like the support I didn't know that I needed at the exact right time I love that because in all respect to your husband your family he would have been there for you that social media that can get such a bad rep actually gave you a huge amount of social and probably stopped you feeling so isolated and so alone which was almost again going back to that giving back where you've been pumping them up you've been firing them up yeah and they probably feel like they know you my journey of social media is a weird it's a weird one I love it I'm so grateful you know I have had far too many women say to me that they have been diagnosed since reading my story which I'm happy about because obviously that was one of the reasons I shared because I wanted to raise awareness but I obviously don't want them to be going through their own cancer journey but like that is the power of being able to share something someone looking at me thinking well if she can look fit and healthy and doing the job she does and get breast cancer then maybe I will go back and advocate for that lump that I felt that a doctor told me I was too young to have on the flip side once you have shared something you can't take it back and so now being you know a few years on from that journey I still meet people all the time and that's our connection and they you know might tell me about whoever they know that's been through a cancer journey and whilst I really appreciate that they feel that we have this closeness it's sometimes hard when I'm at a different stage in my journey and wanting to move on it's like I've been the poster girl for people at that stage of life and so that's something that I'm really trying to navigate at the moment I'm sure you're doing that really well and I think there's that back to that whole sort of force for good you know that relationship you've got with social media you use it as a force for good and that's how you almost sort of control it and you're so clearly very authentic that that's something you're able to control and people can can feel you mentioned that you were able to sort of when you were told it was a mind game you said i can do this i want to know that you've always always prioritized fitness the love of dancing coming into then that sort of personal training the whole thing with peloton how much of that resilience that you already had let alone then developed in spades going through that period of your life prepared you if you like for and how important is physical exercise to you?

13:53I haven't really ever known a life where I haven't moved my body. So I started dancing at three. By the time I was, you know, eight, I was doing all the dancing competitions. I went to the Royal Ballet as a junior associate for three years. I then knew as a teenager, this is all I want to do. So kind of got through school. School wasn't really for me that way of learning. in a classroom sat down it's just it just wasn't for me I can relate to that I do I really actually don't have any friends from school I wasn't it wasn't that I didn't have friends but it just I I've never missed it I've never um what you learn I mean there's there's fitness and there's competitiveness there which comes back to the resilience you don't learn that in the classroom don't learn that in the classroom and so for me it never mattered because I always had dancing and I always knew that was the route I was going to go.

14:51So at 16, I left and that was kind of unheard of at my school. I went to a really good school. It's like everyone stayed until 18, but I was like, I'm out of here. I've just always known a life where I've moved my body. As soon as I went to performing arts college, I was like, these are my people. This is the life that is for me. But I never went to the gym. I never, I always danced. but the kind of the feeling I get from working out now from lifting weights from having a strong body that was actually a very different feeling to what I had from being a dancer maybe culturally it just it wasn't really the thing I had I was strong as a dancer but that's very different to the feeling I like now which is you know maybe a bit more low impact or just lifting weights it's a it's a very it's a very different feeling but what I recognize now in hindsight is when I started to become unhappy in my dance career so I had a dance career for nearly 12 years professionally I ticked off everything I wanted to do as a as a dancer I worked in the commercial side so it was like back in dancing for artists touring Saturday night tv shows when I started to lose the love that's when I turned to the gym and I actually started to go and do some spin classes because I didn't feel that happy mentally I was burning the candle at both ends and this was something that I really enjoyed that was separate to dancing which as much as I was moving my body it was also a job so you're just you're worried about the money and the next job and staying on top of your game and so it's hard to love it as much as you used to because it went from a passion and a hobby to my job yeah and so I really recognized that then working out was giving me it was pumping up my energy it was like an energy booster that I was lacking in my dance career which was worrying for me because it was all I had known from three until my early 30s and so I loved it so much that I then started teaching spin classes and then I was just in this really weird you know we could talk about energy all day long but I was just in this really weird place in life I was in a super unhappy relationship I would be on stage at the O2 arena with my last job as a professional dancer was with a band called Steps and we were doing a reunion tour and I was at the O2 which was always such an amazing moment for a dancer like that you know you want to perform at the O2 I just wasn't feeling anything and so I then got poached by an instructor in in New York and asked to audition for Peloton and it just came at the exact right moment you were probably looking for it as well you put out you put out you put out that energy and you've got that energy.

17:52I put it out there, the mindset, the energy, because on my days off from the tour, I had two little windows of time off and I would still go back and teach my classes, even though physically I was really tired, but they gave me a different bit of energy. And for some reason I was like, I need to just, I need to do those classes. I just had this feeling that something was coming my way. And I spoke to my parents about it. I said, and my parents were so supportive I couldn't ask for better parents and they didn't have it easy when they were younger and so much of my resilience and my grit and my work ethic comes from them and they were like but what are you going to do how are you going to get out there and I was like I know this sounds crazy but something is coming to me but you were putting it out there in physically as well so a lot of people be shattered after what could be a full day so but you then went on and did other stuff.

18:45And sometimes people will in any way sort of call people lucky. And we can talk about success now, actually, in that sense of look how well you've done. But actually, you know, where people might have gone home and put their feet up and watched Love Island, you then went off and did stuff that created the next opportunity. Yeah. What would you say sitting here now is your definition of success? I'm so different to what it used to be. I wondered that. If I go back to like the teenage version of me, success is like big house I'm married at 26 I've got two kids I've what I'd whatever you know win every dance competition yeah and and then I think I was a bit lost actually from maybe my my 20s I was just really in the moment I probably at the time felt lost I didn't really have a sense of direction when you're a dancer unless you want to become a choreographer or start your own agency you're not really moving up a career ladder you're just doing the same thing and chances are the industry changes and the budgets are cut so you're doing better and better jobs and the money is less and less but I lived so in the moment like I was so present I loved it and I'm so grateful for that because then when I lost Danielle we there's no regrets we lived to the max in the moment and so although at that chapter in my life I couldn't have defined what success looked like I'm okay with that because I was living life in the moment and now you know that one of the closest people to me isn't here anymore that that was success right that's you know being able to be present with success.

20:34Now, my answer would be so very different. It would be good health, a calm life, good people around you. My version of success is so simple. And I don't want to mistake that with I'm very driven, I'm super ambitious, I want for lovely things and I want to help people and I want to do well in life but when it actually comes down to it and I've been in that position where I've felt like I'm going to lose it all so then it's like so what is what is success and it's it's good health if you don't have good health you don't have anything and so for me it is good health good people around you and the ability to strive for great but know that ultimately a calm life when you come home and you close the door and you're actually happy and calm that is like the ultimate success for me you articulated that so well in such a calm way and I can feel that ambition and and that kind of almost relentless drive that's just simmering underneath you but actually there's no destination you are enjoying the journey and even in your 20s when you're in that flow state of just going with that flow um at least you didn't then have a moment where at some point very recently you have told yourself you're going to die and you can feel from you that you now really live that's something i've comparable other people that i've met and filmed with do you feel that now do you recognize that when you meet other people and you see they're living in a certain way and you feel that empathy 100 % I have people that come to my classes and even though there's a million things going on during a live class I'm looking at the cameras I'm looking at my notes I'm looking at the leaderboard I'm trying to engage with people in the studio I will be drawn to that one person whose energy is banging whose energy is just like they are taking that moment that they've waited for and that they've been excited for and they're going for it they're singing along they don't care what they look like they're just in the moment and when I meet them after I'm never surprised if they've told me that they've been through something really hard I'm never surprised I can't explain when you're in a position where you you know for whatever hardship it is that you've been through for me it was sitting in a room being told I had cancer I can't explain what that does to your brain and if you have a moment in life and for me I've always said I have so many gifts from cancer and I think sometimes along the way that's been quite odd for people to understand but like I was never short of having a zest for life but when someone is telling you actually you know you have cancer and and we're going to do this treatment and hopefully it works you're like no I want to live and that you can't that is something that's like I don't take my health for granted I've always and this stems from my nan actually she would always notice the small things and I think I've always been like that I do notice the small things my husband's always laughing about it I'm like wow this is my favorite tree on our dog walk and listen to the birds and this and I've always been that way but now I just I really don't take anything for granted and heightened it's heightened yeah and I love that because I can tell you always that way yeah but it's just amplified now amplified and probably as you said earlier blocked out certain things that are not so important and you really notice the blossom or the things that are like stimulating yeah and that is such a gift what would you say so someone who who is either watching and getting to know you for the first time now or knows you through all the kind of motivating um pt side of things and palatine but struggles with that daily discipline and i can relate to this i keep fit i try and do some kind of routine every morning but there's mornings recently on but i've gone to bed too late I pushed it too hard and I just don't want to do the workout or go to the gym or do the things that I know are good for me but I feel good for and then I I fight through that but where someone might be they'll give in they'll go and eat the bad food they'll make the wrong decisions almost kind of like what advice would you give to them through that kind of discipline you've got and the focus you've had to encourage them to do it well chances are there's something deeper going on there it's the kind of we're not loving ourselves enough if we don't want to look after our bodies and so sometimes that a lot of that is to do with pressure it's outside pressure it's instagram it's it's all of that stuff that's telling us that we need to be doing a million things before 7am in the morning and if you don't do that you've failed and we're really living in a world that feels like it's like against us before we've woken up because someone woke up at 5am and did like a 12-step routine and so what I would say on days like that remove the pressure and just do one thing whether that is if you didn't get the workout in could you get out for a 10-minute walk if you can't do that when it comes to your dinner that evening could you make something at home that's slightly healthier than what you were planning to do could you pick up the phone and speak to a friend that might boost your mental health that day because maybe that was the thing that was holding you back a bit and if someone wants to take it a step further for me my PT sessions and this was all the way through my cancer treatment as well I mean obviously they looked different I wasn't trying to get any PBs or anything like that but I have and had those scheduled in as like non-negotiables as like a meeting that I would not miss in my week because they made me feel good and so you build that habit I just built that habit and so you know for example you used as as one of the reasons like you went to bed a bit late it's sometimes we're trying to do everything all at once but maybe in that day it's like I'm just going to try and go to bed a bit earlier tonight because it made me feel really rubbish last night that I went to bed late I didn't function today how I wanted to and if I go to bed earlier tonight then maybe that PT that I've or that workout or that walk or that healthy breakfast I want to make I will have more energy to do that I really just think we there's so much pressure on us to do a million things.

27:41Discipline, I don't always believe in being motivated, but I am disciplined. So big difference, isn't there? Big difference. Yeah, like the whole sort of January, um, year's resolutions and everyone's faded with the discipline. The motivation's there, but the discipline. Yeah. What's your kind of morning routine? Of course, a lot of people will know, um, and their morning routine could well be a workout with you, right? But if you just wave the magic wand, then you could have your own morning routine that suits you both for mental and physical fitness what does that look like oh if i could have my my actual routine and my days look very different sometimes i'm at the studio super super early but my perfect morning would be waking up at about 6 37 and having a little bit of time to just potter around usually i move at the speed of light so me time a little bit of me time I would love to have the luxury of doing like a big hours dog walk we um go to Wimbledon Common a lot which is near us and it's so beautiful and and especially early in the morning you can hear the birds it's we get lost in the woods and that for me is such a gorgeous time to get my thoughts my you know I'm big on energy but I'm I have a million thoughts all the time I my I find it really hard to kind of control my thoughts or or steady my brain and it's just always it's always going a million miles an hour so for me that is such a great way to ground myself in the morning I'd come back I'd have a lovely breakfast and I'd just take maybe like seven till ten to just really not do a huge amount but just move at a pace that feels really lovely I feel like if I move at that kind of pace which would be an absolute luxury for me I can have a bit of a clearer thought process throughout the day when I get up and I'm moving quickly I find it really hard to kind of think straight throughout the day which I don't mind because my brain is super creative but it does mean that I either move really quickly and then find it hard to slow down or I'm not always as productive as I'd like to be because my body's got moving before my brain has had a moment to collect the thoughts yeah I totally I find it fascinating because I I'm doing more of that now and yet I'm still trying to do some kind of exercise earlier so when you go for that walk you never mentioned getting your steps in you mentioned the birds tweeting and it's fresh air isn't it it's that taking the spatial awareness time for me it's time it's and I'll always say that's a luxury I think it's one of the biggest gifts it's the biggest gift you can give someone and that you can give yourself yes but people will know you for being fit you know that that girl that's just beasting them and looking fit at the same time and actually doing what they need to do when would you then fit that into the ideal day and I'm asking from a Leanne point of view but also like people looking in saying I love the sound of that I love that kind of perfect morning when do I get my spinning in when do I do my exercise for me my ideal time to work out would be late morning if I could I have one PT session just because of the way it works around my schedule at 11 a.m that for me is the perfect time I've got up I've got moving I've got myself sorted so I feel like I can give my full attention to that moment um other days due to time I'm up and I'll train at 7am and the gym's already packed then I'm already feeling like I'm late then so I don't I think maybe because of the nature of my job and years of dancing before I can kind of switch on that mindset of of working out whenever I have the window to and because working out for me is so important if I am better if I do it first half of the day I'm I'm because you know I'll say about motivation and discipline but it is so easy if you don't get it in in the first half of the day to be like I'll do it later your day gets so busy that's why I ask you 100 % and I'm guilty of that I just push it back and I'm human too and I can be guilty of that too but if I let that go on I think the difference here is that I am human too and I let those moments go and actually I forgot to cancel my PT this morning I was giving myself a hard time about it if I let them those moments go a few days in a row I'm so intuitive to the effect that has on my mental well-being that it's not worth it I'd rather just keep the discipline get to that session make it happen because that makes me feel better and in my mind and so that's the payoff for me and I know that's not as easy for everyone if people have families at home or things that are going on they can't always make that decision but maybe I say to people even if you had a crazy morning maybe you could get off the tube one stop earlier for work and just get that little moment there like I read somewhere years ago and honestly I feel like it runs through my brain on the daily it's like when the walls are closing in remove the walls and so it's as simple as that like get outside and have a walk if that's getting off the tube one stop earlier if that's a great thing to do which you know when the weather's a bit nicer in London is something that me and Ben my husband are loving is going for an evening walk we can sometimes at the end of the day be so tired that we'd sit in front of the tv and you're laying there and and actually we'll have dinner and maybe it's nicer because we've got the dog and the dog loves going out but I love that I think that's just such a lovely way to kind of wind down a bit and that kind of my sleep hygiene now and the winding down which I in my 20s let me tell you I never cared about but I'm just at a stage in life where that is part of you know learning to trust my body again has been a massive journey so there are things that I will do that make me feel safe in my body and so a good wind down routine in the evening is key for me that's brilliant I mean that whole discipline side of things is so important and just just you know re-emphasizing that whole like if I go for a day or two without doing what I feel I know I need to do I I get really critical in my head but I bring it back it's it's discipline again it's like right whatever I'm doing that's stopping me yeah make time to go back to the things that I know otherwise you break that habit you know you've ended up going into dangerous territory right it's difficult to get back to it yeah and it's and and start small I think you know you mentioned about kind of the beginning of the year and and how we can put pressure on ourselves there and I will always say to people like start small one of the biggest ways to feel like a failure in January or at any time of the year is to set unrealistic goals if you if you're like I'm going to work out five days a week and you know you really can't do that you're just setting yourself up for failure you're going to feel rubbish about yourself if you think I'm going to get 320 minutes in I'm not I don't mind what that looks like one day it might be a walk one One day I might do yoga, one day I might do a spin class.

35:17But if you really know you could commit to that with ease, you might need to move those sessions around, but you can commit to three, 20 minutes in a week. You'll feel good about yourself. And once you start feeling good about yourself, you can start to add to that. Maybe then you add the healthy dinner to it, the extra hour of sleep. It's a knock-on effect, but if you start small, you can build it up. But if you, you know, unrealistic goals, you're just going to feel amazing people do that yeah yeah super good advice i'm conscious of time i'm also conscious because i could talk to you for so long there's clearly huge ambition uh still your harbored inside of you i really feel like everything you said's consistently been about being present and enjoying the journey is there a destination is there anything you really now want to achieve and has that been heightened through what you've been through almost like a cork out of the bottle now where you're like this is what I want to do yes I don't know exactly what that looks like you're still searching for that it's not that I'm searching for it but I I mean I could tell you 100 % what my focus is and what I'm going towards which is making a difference in women's health that is making information more readily available to women that is making information treatment advice more accessible to women and that is you know women's health as a whole and I could go kind of granular in that and talk about you know I mentioned earlier that I used a cold cap for my hair during my cancer treatment the area that the cold cap covers you have better chance of saving your hair the hair that I lost was in areas that weren't covered so why are they so badly made and so there are things like that that I think I could make a massive difference in I spent so much time learning about how to fuel my body through food whilst I was going through my chemo and due to my treatment I was put into a medically induced menopause and so I was brought back out of that but it was my body went through so much and I learned so much I understood how women felt that were going through their menopause I then understood when my cycle started again wow this I got so used to feeling like this every month and this is debilitating for women and huge perspective now I've got huge perspective and so that is my big goal but I've also never been somebody that really has had vision boards mood boards um you know a five-year plan I'm very much go with the flow meet connections see what happens there I don't like the pressure I I feel like because I now live in a world where you don't know what can happen tomorrow I like to be present and I have ambition and I and I know the direction I'm going in but I don't want to set a limit on what that destination is I just think that can keep evolving as as time goes on and that for me keeps the excitement I think if I just I'm like that's the destination for me for some reason that becomes boring I like the excitement of oh where are we going I know the direction we're going in but I don't know what that looks like it's all part of a journey that you're enjoying yeah and you've got such a purpose there to help you know with your lived experience and perspective with the energy that you've got that's almost doubled from where it was which is formidable and I'm super grateful that you made time to talking to me today i know when i reached out to you and explain why i wanted to film with you today i hope you can you can feel why i've loved our conversation i've loved it and i really appreciate the space to share this and yeah you've got great energy too i think you're a force of nature and your time and what you choose to do is you know now sort of heightened and so important so choosing to come and spend time with today i thank you so much thank you thank you so much