I LOVE Peloton so I was excited to receive an advanced copy of Alex Toussaint's book! This is half-memoir, half-advice/self-help book. As such, only half of the book worked for me. AT has an interesting story. I enjoyed learning more about his background at military school, his childhood, and how he arrived at Peloton and became one of the company's most beloved spin instructors. I was particularly interested to learn more about AT's time at Flywheel; Flywheel was the company that first made me fall in love with indoor cycling, and it was charming to see what an influence Flywheel founder had on AT's career. The advice half of the book fell flat. Honestly, I skimmed several advice sections to get back to AT's life story. It all was incredibly trite; AT kept repeating the same phrases over and over (many of which he uses in his classes). His signature nuggets like "This Ain't Daycare" and "Feel Good. Look Good. Do Better." work well in Peloton classes, but there wasn't enough content there to build it out into a motivational book. AT also has no authority to be dispensing such lofty life advice, as he's not a licensed therapist. I grew tired of the platitudes, but I enjoyed learning about the specifics of AT's life and how he achieved success.

Thank you to Henry Holt & Company and Netgalley for giving me a free ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. It was awesome to read this early! Activate Your Greatness releases on October 10, 2023.

Inspirational books are usually overrated and cheesy, but Alex Toussaint got to me with this one. Truly motivational.

“How we do anything is how we do everything.”

I don't ride as much with him on the bike so only knew a few parts of his story and wanted to learn more. Appreciated the talk about vulnerability and him sharing his purpose, but the self-help parts could have been consolidated to a single chapter (they're repetitive and able to be snippet-ized for the bike) and the rest could have been a memoir. Like that he reads the audio for his own authentic voice, which as he says, is fantastic for an audio narration.

A good book for the new year. While I sometimes take issue with Toussaint's all or nothing at all approach to everything (I've found that you can't be great at everything all the time), the book had lots of good ideas for how to approach goals and think about challenges. His story is inspiring and helped me better appreciate where he is coming from in his classes and with his philosophy for this book.

AT mentions Jay-Z a lot, and tbh same.


Great book, so many great notes, messages and stories of growth.

Alex Toussaint is one of my favorite instructors. His Last Dance ride is still one of my all-time favorite rides three years later.

This is book is equal parts memoir and motivation. I liked his story telling and his candor in how his struggles as a young man formed who he is today. I also liked how the book was structured around his philosophy of Feel Good, Look Good, Do Better. I especially liked how he encourages his readers/riders toward Do Better as part of a whole. We all Do Better when we do it together.

Definitely recommend for Peloton fans. I know there are a lot of Peloton instructor penned books on the market today. This is the only one I've read as a fan of Alex.

Thank you to Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley for this advanced reader copy. I am required by federal law to disclose this.