Power couple Andrew and Shawn Johnson East join Ben Higgins for a candid dive into marriage, creating together, and balancing business, parenthood, and faith. The duo reveal how “The Courage to Commit”—their co-authored book—was born from years of navigating life on and offline. They open up about the realities of sharing vulnerably with millions, boundary-setting, routines, how commitment brings freedom, and when it’s time to prune commitments or even walk away. This episode is full of insights for couples, creators, and anyone wrestling with intentional living. “The Courage to Commit” releases June 9th.
TIMESTAMPS
00:01 Meeting the Power Couple
00:37 Doing Life and Work Together
01:13 Becoming YouTube Creators
03:13 Risks and Early Content Strategy
05:02 Navigating Content and Authenticity
09:27 Vulnerability and Boundaries Online
12:18 How They Structure Work and Home
15:00 Routines, Rhythms, and Priorities
17:47 Why Write “The Courage to Commit”
20:05 The Countercultural Value of Commitment
22:05 Getting to Know Your Spouse
24:19 Systems for Deeper Marriage Connection
27:28 Commitment as a Path to Freedom
29:07 Commitment, Faith, and Sacred Moments
36:25 Knowing When to Prune or Quit
42:58 Making Decisions as a Couple
46:19 Why Read “The Courage to Commit”
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coming from gymnastics, I was forced to be perfect. We've
been given the opportunity to write a book many times
over the years, and a lot of times people would
say would approaches and say we would like you to write.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
A marriage book.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
It was actually the hardest chapter for us to write.
We wrote an entire chapter on quitting and when to
quit and when to know it's your time to move
on to the next day.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
It's important to realize that there's a difference between unhealthy
and hard and like, certainly something is unhealthy or harmful
to you, like leave that as soon as possible.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Welcome to if you can hear me, a space where
culture meets the soul.
Speaker 5 (00:35):
I'm Ben Higgins.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
You may know me from The Bachelor, and you may
know my guests from culture, Headlines and entertainment. This podcast
is about going beyond the surface into something deeper. Each
week we sit down for open conversations about identity, faith,
and the realities underneath it all. At its heart, this
podcast is about creating space for people to slow.
Speaker 5 (00:58):
Down and speak freely.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Not polished interviews or perfect answers, just real discussions that
are unfiltered. I invite you to lean in and enjoy
the conversation.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
Andrew and Sean, thanks.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
For coming on, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
Good to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Ben.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
You know I was saying this to you before, and
I mean it. It's it's rare to meet a couple
that so many people say, Hey, you've got to meet them.
They are awesome. And I always am running into people,
especially within like the faith sphere, that's always pointing to
the two of you.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
No pressure, Yeah, there's no pressure. I want to dig
a little bit into this. We're here to talk because
the two of you are coming out with a book,
The Courage to Commit. It's coming out on June ninth.
I've always been intrigued with this, with the two of
you specifically, and I think it's one of the reasons
why so many people point to the two of you
(01:59):
to like lean on and kind of model after or
after be encouraged by the two of you do so
much together. My wife and I do not. She's an esthetician.
I have no clue what she's talking about at any
point when she's on meta. Uh was this like, uh
an intentional decision or did it just kind of happen?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It just happened, And let me just start by saying
everything you just you just kind of propped us up
on a pedestal. We were literally bickering with one another
as we're signing on to Riverside.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So true that we.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Put on that.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
We tried to share that like people might say, like, oh,
I want that, but like we have all of our
hardships and downsides and stuff too. But no, we never
intended this to happen. It just kind of came to be.
I had retired from my career when we met. He
was just starting his in the NFL. Happened like stumbled
(02:56):
into the YouTube space. We thought that was just for
a hobby while we found our jobs and fast forward.
We spend every literal way things second together.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I mean there might be four hours a week that
were not by each other side. And honestly, yeah, honestly,
I feel spoiled because for the most part we get
along pretty well.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Shut up. I could be annoyed it, but for the
most part we get along.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
We're able to laugh through it all despite having just
been an argument five minutes ago. But it's really cool
to see and understand Sean in the way that I do.
Having spent time with her at home having seen her
skills in the business world.
Speaker 6 (03:42):
And I think we're a pretty good team. I think
we're a pretty good team. So grateful. Yeah, the two
of you.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Are, I think, what And I am going to stop
complimenting the two of you after this, but you you
would be like the definition of a power couple, especially
for like our age group, because I think so many
people have watched the two of you find success individually,
you know, athletically, and then you move into oh.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Oh that is amazing.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Do the husky, Yeah, that's what they think. He's like
a fifty pound desert dog that has coyote and lab
and husky in him, a lot.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Of husky, but it sounds like a husky.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
But literally, Toro can attest every week at eleven o'clock.
The UPS guy just says, hey, here's my time, and
he pulls up and he stumbles around out there and
makes my dog go bonkers for like two minutes and
then he'll leave and we'll be good. But it's brutal.
(04:55):
I should have put him on our room. Hey, why
we're in a little break here. As the UPS guy's
pulling out, go hubs your cubs fans. Huh yeah, baby,
let's go. What a year.
Speaker 6 (05:06):
We're in a little bit of a rut. Though.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
We're in a little bit of a rut the last
three Yeah, I don't know one.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
One guy who'll lived closely down in Spring Hills, Ben
zobras him.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
But yeah, yeah, he's a good dude.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, Jason Grimm, is that right?
Speaker 6 (05:29):
He was a catcher's.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
In a justin Sorry.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
See my brother in law is a picture or a catcher.
He just retired actually last week. But those two trained together,
so I've been able to be around him. It's on
a golf course down there getting bill called Firefly, which
is supposed to be awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
But I saw, dude, that place looks amazing.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
I'm jacked.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
It's one of the ways my wife convinced me to move.
I love Lost, don't get me wrong, but space has
been nice. All right, U he's gone, Here we go.
So you'd be the definition of a power couple. Both
have accomplishments athletically individually, and then you come together and
(06:17):
you launch. We're gonna call it content, and you kind
of did it at a time where it was new,
it was a risk. Like today, I think you get
a lot of creators coming out because the space is
a little bit more familiar and it's hard to separate yourself.
But when you did it, it was new, and I
think the risk was what is this thing and where
(06:38):
does it go? I kind of just want to leave
it there and have you like, why did you decide
to enter into that? You have one point seven million
people that follow you on YouTube, comes with you know,
some strategy, I would think.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Some, not a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
We we've kind of gone through a really big roller
coaster the whole social media content world. When we first
started it. We started because we had nothing to lose.
We were really young in dating, we were just getting engaged.
Andrew was still in the NFL. He comes from a
very long line of people who just video everything and
(07:17):
make home videos, so that was already something that we
did for fun, documenting our life, not to share, but
just like you have. And then a friend of ours
kind of started getting into the YouTube space. I come
from very traditional sports marketing, so you think your like
your old school McDonald's ad and Coca Cola ads and stuff.
(07:37):
I was reading contracts and working in the marketing world
in the ambassador space from the time I was twelve,
and everything that I had to deal with was very scripted.
I had a very specific persona that I was supposed
to portray, you know, NBC News would show my gymnastics
and tell a very specific story. And we just kind
of wanted that freedom to share home videos and actually
(08:01):
not be scripted and just be ourselves. And we dove
headfirst into it, thinking, literally, we have nothing to lose.
This is just for fun. Let's see what it can do.
We kind of fell in love with it.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, it's been crazy. I mean we've been doing it
for ten years now. We'll put out about nine hundred
videos a year, which is pretty fun, and it's turned
into an industry and like a whole beast in and
of its own. But we started in twenty fifteen on YouTube,
and I remember Sean was really like one of the
first mainstream quote unquote celebrities to have like a YouTube channel.
(08:35):
So Sports Illustrated was writing articles we shot this. The
second video we ever filmed was on our bed and
there's a ton of the throw pillows, which I still
think is so really cool. But Sports Illustrated was like
writing articles about Sean Johnson right launches a YouTube channel,
and so it was like, you know, now everyone kind
of have a YouTube channel.
Speaker 6 (08:54):
It was more of a novelty back then.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
But it's also really exciting because I love YouTube and
I had just personally learned so much on YouTube, whether
it be how to like handyman videos or just like, uh,
learning from other creators on there. I love cinematography, I
love learning about the hardware and the editing software, and
so I just like I was kind of deep in
(09:17):
that world. It was also during the vlog era where
it was just so cool that there was actually like
a conversation going on, like a community of people who
like bonded over whatever story, you know, their vloggers were
on that day, and it actually felt like a really
cool corner of the Internet. And that's I feel like
(09:38):
we're still happy to live today. I feel spoiled by
our audience is really really very kind to us, and
we've learned a lot from them and hopefully vice versa.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
That must be nice.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
The uh.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
It is interesting because I, you know, I on The
Bachelor in twenty sixteen and it was so new. I
remember when YouTube channels were launching, and I remember the
excitement and the mystery around them. You were pioneers in
that world. And one of the things you know that
(10:17):
I think I'm so interested when it comes to the
two of you is vulnerability has always been a part
of your video, making your story, the way you communicate
you to me that you know, don't keep a ton
of secrets from the people that watch, So I would
love it for you to speak to that. But then also,
(10:38):
I'm sure there's boundaries set right, Like, you're a married couple,
you've been married for many years. There's days that you
just are like I need to go outside and take
a walk alone today, and I don't want to be
doing a video with you. So where did the boundaries
come in? And then kind of why have you chosen
(11:00):
to be so vulnerable to everybody that watches?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Uh? The vulnerability, I think there's many reasons. Coming from gymnastics.
I was forced to be perfect everything that I shared,
every interview, how I presented myself. Perfection was the only option,
(11:25):
and I believed that to be for a long time
in my life. I believed that to be the expectation
of the world, and that crushed me as just a
person in my health and trying to maintain that. And
so when we started showing more vulnerability, it was terrifying
(11:46):
to me because I thought that's what the world didn't want.
But it was almost like a healing process for me.
The more vulnerability we continued to show show, the more
of the world kind of came out of the woodworks
and said, I can't believe I'm not the only one
with whatever it was we were sharing, and it was
(12:08):
very healing to me. I remember we shared a miscarriage
video which we had zero intention of ever showing with
the world. That was something for us, and I remember
feeling like I didn't know how to communicate with him
about how I felt, so I posted it, which was
very out of character for me, and I would just
sit there for hours reading comments about other women who
(12:28):
had gone through the same thing, and truly felt like
I had a community out of the world that helps
me heal through that process. And we just kind of
had gotten tired, not only as parents but as spouses,
of seeing the world paint these perfect pictures that we
know aren't perfect and it's just not relatable and it's
not real. So we tried to show a very lighthearted, uplifting,
(12:52):
real snippet of our life and like what we go through,
I will say boundaries. We have quite a boundaries. Nothing
can ever be posted live. We actually have to live
it and have experienced it and be present in it.
We video a lot of things. We take pictures of
a lot of things just because we like to see them,
(13:13):
and then we'll go back and resurface a topic or
a memory that we want to then share later. But yeah,
and yeah, nothing can ever be posted or talked about
if it hasn't been worked through. It's always like, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
What we certainly don't do it perfectly. It starts there. Also,
I think like my dad was incredibly curious, and he'd
always like get in the nitdiogriteous home. It's like, hey,
let's let's open up the hood and see how this works.
And I feel like we've tried to apply that with
you know, how does having a good marriage work, or
(13:51):
how does being.
Speaker 6 (13:53):
A podcast or work?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Or like, so, like being vulnerable and talking about the
little details like the nuances and get in under the
hood has always been helpful for us, just kind of
walking in line with that curiosity. I'll also say, like, fortunately,
I think it's almost been like an accountability thing where
it's like it's nice to not really have many secrets
(14:18):
to keep you know, like like as long we try
to keep it pretty like clean, which then by no
means perfect, but like it's not like we're having to
create this false public persona, which is which is nice.
And also we view opportunities where we do mess up
(14:38):
as like things to learn from and hopefully share if
we're able to process through it. But last thought is
we also don't it's interesting on the internet, like it
kind of rewards you for the emotional rawness, you know,
like the unfiltered I'm getting on camera and I'm crying
and like live and we try to not press into
(14:59):
that much to Sean's point, like we try to live
it ourselves and like process things before sharing them, just
because it's almost like a temptation to put out that
just the emotionally raw video that you know is gonna
be hi well and everyone's going to give you love online.
It's it's like that's great, Like do that, you know
(15:22):
at times if you need to, but know that that
the feedback you get in real life and the processing
in real life is more important because you know that's
what you have to live with day in and day out.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
So you know, I'm this is more of a personal
thing for me. My wife does more content creation than
I do. But how do you set up your workday then,
I mean for the two of you, obviously going through
your book in which we're going to talk about the
courage to commit, But then it seems like it would
(15:54):
be hard to kind of turn everything off and be Okay,
we're going to reconnect as a family. We're going to
reconnect as a couple without any expectation for making you know,
for putting this out there. What does that look like
in your daily rhythm?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
So honestly, for the most part, nothing on that we
ever post is fabricated of any kind.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Truly.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Ninety nine percent of the time, if I'm going to
post a story, if I'm going to post anything that
I'm sharing, I'm just scrolling back through things that I've
naturally taken pictures of because we lived them that I'm
then sharing.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Outside of that, we do like.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Dumb couples challenge videos or whatever, and we'll film that
during the day. We've tried to be very rigid with
our schedules to very clearly delineate which hat we're wearing
at the time. Is kind of how we say it,
Like is it business partner or is this my husband?
So our kids go to school, and they go to
school around like from like nine to two, and that's
(16:54):
my workday. I try not to ever work outside of
that so that when my kids when like when our
kids get home, I just get to be mom. Andrew
will stay a little bit longer because you wear a
lot more hats within like the business industry, and so
he'll work until about four. But whenever he leaves the
office and comes upstairs, we know he's dad and it's
not like business time. So we tried to put in
(17:16):
boundaries of like spaces and times to make.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Sure that we can respect each other.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
And we always find there's an issue when I'm expecting
husband and I get met with business partner or vice versa.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
That usually causes tension.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
So we try to make sure we have systems in
place to make that happen as few times as possible.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, there's an awesome book we read years ago, right
after our first daughter was born, our only daughter, the
oldest kid, called Habits of the Household by Justin woodmoll Early,
and it kind of talks about like your routines and rhythms,
our liturgy is the word he uses, but I'll use
a different term like our honoring to your priority. And
(18:00):
so like we've Sean said, we're pretty rigid and routine,
and we are because we want to have routines that
are honoring to what our priorities are. And so like
it's like nine to four for work, and we always
have family dinner like five thirty. Kids start doing bedtime
at seven, seven fifteen.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
They'll they'll be down in bed by seven forty five.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Then Sean and I will have some time to just
like debrief the day, and we call it BEV time,
and it's you know, it's like a glass of wine
or a sparkling water or whatever. And then we're in
bed by like eight thirty and then you know, we
wake up do the DeVos. And it's been like we've
tried to be I just know that when I have
(18:41):
free time and unstructured time, I'm going to resort to
scrolling on my phone or watching Netflix. So we try
to full have a full schedule, not like a busy,
chaotic schedule, but like fully committed an intentional schedule.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Yeah, it's it's kind of a great segue I think
into this book that you guys have co authored together,
The Courage to Commit. One of the core takeaways from
this book is kind of the boring mornings and daily
commitments that the two of you have. You know, I
think for me it's so interesting to see to learn
(19:16):
from people like you, because, as I mentioned, you both
had a very successful career leading up to this new
very successful career and very different career. So putting the
word boring in anything that the two of you do
feels like it's hard for me to understand it, I
guess would be the way to say, because your life
(19:37):
has definitely not been boring. But to start this off,
we've talked about the two of you working so closely together.
Why and how did it come up to where you said,
let's do this book together.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
We had actually been you know, we've been given the
opportunity to write a book many times over the years.
A lot of times people would say I would approach
us and say we would like you to write a
marriage book, and we would laugh and say, we.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Are so.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Not in the physician yeah, to write a marriage book.
We are still figuring it out and we are not perfect.
We are not marriage counselors or anything, and so this
opportunity to write a book kept coming up, and so
we started actually putting thought into if we wrote a book,
what would it be about. And we looked at our
business and our athletic careers and our marriage and our
(20:30):
intentionality around our family.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
And we've spent.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
A lot of effort and time and money and traveling
the world and trying to find the wisest mentors and
systems and intensive sessions to find what it means to
be intentional and to find balance in life and purpose.
And we saw a through line of it all being
just like commitment. So we kind of explore this word
(20:57):
and how it pertains to all these different categories of
our life and how it's bred success in a lot
of different areas. And you can find depth and joy
and purpose when you actually stick with something, which I
think is very countercultural to today's world. Everybody's saying, you know,
the more impulsivity you have, the more you swipe to
the next person or find what makes you happy all
(21:20):
the time, the more joy you might have in life.
And we've just found that it's the opposite to be
right about it.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, I am certainly prone to getting excited by new
shiny objects and like new opportunities. And I think what
I'm realizing is that's not only caused excitement, you know,
in the short term, but also frustration in the long term,
where it's like you keep bouncing from business idea to
(21:52):
business idea to business idea without seeing any of them through.
Or let me start a podcast and I endo the podcast,
let me start a YouTube channel. Now I'm not doing
that anymore, and it's like, you know, I'm not here
to tell you that like that, like follow this plan
and it will be successful. What we're going for is
in order for anything great to happen, like a lifelong
(22:14):
marriage or an Olympic podium moment or making it to
an NFL, you have to like stick with something you know,
you have to you have. That's how you give yourself
the probability of something spectacular happening is like you chip
away at it slowly, slowly, slowly, and like.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
Time compounds in a beautiful way.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
And I think the the excitement that comes from the
variety and like the shiny new objects the next opportunity,
pales in comparison to the excitement and meaning and joy
that comes with the depth of knowing something well whether
it's a person or a craft or you know, like
in athletics. I just feel like this idea of repetition
(22:57):
time after time after time to perfect the skill is
like as a really apt analogy, and it's like, you know,
that's kind of a boring process until you have the
breakthrough and it's not. So that's kind of what we're
advocating for.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
You know.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
One of the struggles and that my wife and I
have been married now for four and a half years,
but one of our struggles is we both have this
deep desire to get to know each other, and it
feels like we consistently fall short on either the questions,
the timing, the language. It's kind of our internal conversation
(23:34):
between us, is hekay, how do we navigate life doing
two separate things coming together and getting to actually understand
each other better and learning each other as we change
and grow and change, you know, differently, and then also
stay the same. I'm sure you talk about in your book,
but do you mind teasing a little bit about some
like key points to getting to actually know your spouse
(23:56):
and we are some healthy ways to do that.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I'm sure you have found two After having a kid,
it changes drastically and you have very few moments and
times to connect with your spouse anymore, and so we talk.
There's many different like even chapters and systems in the
book that help with that, but a couple that come
to mind are rhythms, kind of like Andrew was talking
(24:20):
about the week that we had our first baby, we
implemented almost like a rule, but it was a rhythm
that every single week, every Thursday from that point forward,
we would book a babysitter, whether it was my mom
or our neighbor or someone to come watch the baby
for It could be even an hour or two, but
we would do date night every single week.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And as Andrew has said.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Before, like there are weeks where we really don't want
to go on a date with each other, but knowing
that that hour or two or three or four depending
on the week, is there to reconnect and to sit
and look at each other's eyes and say, I actually
haven't looked you as my husband all week. You know,
it's been co parent or business partner or whatever. To
(25:06):
actually just be able to reconnect for a second gives
you that opportunity to have moments where you get to
know each other better. And so We started with that,
and then it grew from just date night to these
bed times where we have ten minutes after the kids
go down every single night to sit and have that
intentional moment. Whether it becomes an intentional moment or not,
you know, it's there. We got into the rhythm of
(25:29):
having both of those every week, and then we added
another one where every morning we make coffee and we
sit down for ten minutes and we do our devotionals together.
And it's just you're implementing moments where you're giving each
other the opportunity to say, hey, how did your day
go yesterday? I know you had an important meeting and
we didn't get to talk about it, but I like
to know about it now. You know. You just kind
(25:51):
of get repetitions and chances to try a different way
to communicate to each other or try a different question,
and maybe it doesn't hit today, but it hits tomorrow.
And we've just tried to protect our marriage that way
and give intention to time when it's so fleeting anymore
with business and three kids.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, I mean marriage is pretty cool because you got
a pretty long runway.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
Yeah, you got you.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Got more opportunities in the future, so like not being
discoursed discouraged in the short term. But one thing that
struck me is this idea that, Okay, Sean and I
are married. So let's just say there's like three three
components to this marriage. It's me is one component, Sean
is the other, and then our marriage is the third
(26:40):
piece of the puzzle here.
Speaker 6 (26:41):
And I can't I.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Can't change Sean, though I tried for the first four
years of our marriage. I can't like force her to
live life the way I do or see life the
way I do. And I've committed to this marriage that
I will not change, you know, I'm not going to
pull the escape patch on that. So then the only
thing left to change is like my approach, you know.
And we've had two or three things we've argued about
(27:06):
hundreds of times in our marriage, and like, you know,
the first ninety nine I'll be like just trying to
hammer it home the same way Sean, you know, why
don't you see it like this and understanding like this?
And then I'm realizing that, Okay, I can control my approach,
so let me change that. And then you're like, oh,
let me ask this question a little different, or let
(27:27):
me let me ask her a question on why she
sees it like that, and so it becomes this pretty
exciting thing of like, okay, sweet, Now people talk about
self improvement and growth like marriage is the is the
best iteration of that, I think, because you got this
mirror who's right in front of you seeing things clearly,
and like, you know, waking up at four am doing
an ice bath is really exciting and can lead to
(27:48):
a lot of good energy and self improvement. Sure, but
like having someone who who you are forced to change
with and four I mean, that's that's actually pretty beauty
way to live life, I think.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Yeah. And then to do that and also stay attracted
to the person where you want to sleep in the
same bed as them, like that's like, that's pretty you know,
that's huge. Like you, it's wild. Marriage is such a
cool thing where you're growing together, you're changing together, you're
doing life together, arguing together, trying to figure it all out,
and then at the end of the day you're still
(28:24):
in a place most of the time where you're like
and I still like and love you. And that's wild
to me because I've never done that with anybody else
in my life. You know, obviously one of the concepts,
as we kind of mentioned, was commitment for you guys
you're arguing leads to actual freedom and culture today. I
(28:45):
think when we hear the word commitment, and I think
the two of you represent this in such a great way.
Where Sean, you were a gymnast, and I think the
whole world that has followed gymnastics knows that commitment would
be one of the key words that comes up to mind.
And Andrew you obviously playing in the NFL, like you
had to commit to the craft, h and you know,
(29:08):
beat your body down to be able to compete at
that level. And I also think, because this is a
faith show, one of the the words that I really
enjoyed digging into when it comes to the faith is
the freedom that that faith brings.
Speaker 6 (29:28):
Could you hear my daughter there? Your dada? Did you
that's amazing?
Speaker 5 (29:32):
Well, I didn't know if you heard that. Yeah, she
just walked past the room and she just got home.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
It's fun to watch you grow and live life and
get married and have kids.
Speaker 6 (29:44):
So fun.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Congratulations, dude, thank you. It is fun. I'm loving it.
It's the best season. But uh, you know, obviously, because
the two of you have a faith basis. I do
think the word freedom probably comes from a little bit
of your fate background. So what is your argument, like,
(30:05):
how would you convince me that when I say the
word commitment, you actually would say it brings more freedom
than how I think the world would see it and say, no,
that means less.
Speaker 6 (30:15):
Freaking love it.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Then decision, what's the decision fatigue? I feel like with
social media, we are now open every day to seeing
how many options and things there are in the world
(30:36):
for us to choose from.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
It's exhausting.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
You can open Instagram at any given time and see
five hundred different career paths that you could take or
post about, or products to buy or houses to live
in or.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Places to move to or vacations.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
It's exhausting on your brain because in your brain you're like,
I don't know which way to go. Do I choose
that one or this one? And we have just learned
that in our life. We started very simply by saying
we're being given all these opportunities on a daily basis,
you know, whether it's with work or schools or jobs
(31:15):
or hanging out with friends or whatever, and we don't
have enough time, and it's exhausting. Filtering through everyone and saying,
I don't know much one to do today. So we
started very simply in saying what are our family values
and what actually.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Fills our cup?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
And when we look through the lens of what our
values are, it kind of weeds out so many options
that I'm not going to.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Do this justice.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
It makes it It makes the world feel bigger because
you're operating within boundaries, and you know within your boundaries
you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I'm not going to do this justice.
Speaker 6 (31:50):
I'm bet Homranginica.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
It's just it is free.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
I feel like when you filter out all the noise,
it makes you feel like every choice you're making is
actually intentional and for purpose.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I feel like, I mean, freedom is such an interesting
word that is confused a lot of times, and when
people think freedom, they think like this untethered, no rules,
no boundaries, almost like a vacation from life, where like,
oh sweet, no one's telling me what to do and
I don't have to do anything. And you know, if
(32:31):
you live a life like that, it ends up being
more chaos than freedom. I would say, so our definition
of freedom would be more like living life the way
it was designed to be and the way that you
were designed to live it, and so we talk about
you know what that looks like for you as an individual.
Speaker 6 (32:50):
In the book, we.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Talk about how do you find your values, like what
your operating system, the way God made you, what are
like your non negotiable kind of like you're programming the
things that are most core and in your essence. We
talk about like mentorship and finding people that can help
guide you towards the things that matter most to you
and help you live the life that that you're like
(33:13):
striving to lead and they were designed to lead. And
I just think, like, yeah, freedom is not the end goal.
I would say people think it is, And I think
what people are really striving after is peace and joy
and meaning and discipline is kind of freeing.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
And it's like.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
There's the old saying of if you never if you
don't stand for anything, your fall, You'll fall for everything.
And it's kind of like, how do you how do
you find the things that are worth standing for in
your life and like prioritize those out in a way
that frees you up because it's like it brings so
much quiet to your mind. It's freeing because you don't
have the chaos and the noise of like anything else
besides you know what is most important to you.
Speaker 6 (34:03):
And it's a really beautiful process.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
See if I can make this make sense, because there's
something that's come to mind, a lot of studies are
being done right now on this next generation. And obviously
we've heard all the taglines and church definitions of what's happening,
if it's revival or if it's a separation from the church,
whatever it may be, whatever you think it is. And
(34:27):
I am I just read a study last night and
and what you're talking about comes to mind. What I
actually if I, in my layman evening read had any
type of ability to differentiate and define is people are
looking for more sacred moments like they they you know,
within the faith tradition or within without any type of
(34:49):
faith tradition, with any type of belief, they're looking for
sacred moments. And when I think of freedom, I think
of that directly is sacred moments where you know that
you're not the biggest thing out there. You know there's
a God that at least acknowledges that you exist. And
we would say loves and cares and sacrifices. Have you
(35:12):
found more sacred moments with making commitment a priority.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Absolutely hmm. I would say, yes, go ahead. It seems
like you have a thought.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
No, I just I love the phrasing. I mean it's
like not to be nihilistic, but almost like you know,
nothing has meaning besides what you what you give meaning,
and it's like the things that you commit to are
what you'll give meaning to. You'll pay the cost to
show up and like you know, put be married another
(35:53):
day and go to practice another day, and it's like
that's that's meaningful stuff. Seawan's sewn sacredness towards gymnastics or
that feeling of like wow, that was such a holy
experience of like learning all those skills and like bonding
with my coach like that and getting to know my teammates.
(36:14):
That means something totally different to her than does to me.
Sports generally, I can kind of like hint at what
that is like because I did it with football, but like,
but yeah, it's it's sacred because you make it sacred.
And you know, we talk about this day of delight
that we started three years ago in our family, which
is the Sabbath.
Speaker 6 (36:34):
Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Like we take Sundays and we do all the things
that we most enjoy doing in life. We read this
book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which is phenomenal.
If you haven't read, I would read it, and he
talks about like that's what Sabbath is, Like what are
you most enjoyed about life?
Speaker 6 (36:49):
And it's not on a screen.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
It's go make a fire, go take a hike, go
on an e bike ride, whatever it is. And it's like, now,
Sundays are sacred to us and we don't want to
do anything else besides it's those things because because we've
made it so, you know, and in some ways you
can you can dictate what is sacred. And I think
(37:11):
that's a responsibility to be stewarded wisely, you know.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
I think it's I think it's beautiful. Would do you
film Sundays? Is that a workday?
Speaker 6 (37:22):
No? No, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
We we only film while the kids are in school
and like within our like nine to two business hours
Monday to Friday days.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
Yeah, but it's cool.
Speaker 6 (37:36):
Yeah, I guess that's the time to faith.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
We talk about belief and just inherently, let's just talk
about an athlete who's striving to make the NFL, Like
there is this inherent faith that like, if I do
as my coach says, if I show up today and
tomorrow and next week and next month and next year,
and am fully present in that process and giving my best,
(38:01):
then maybe I can make whatever goal I have set out,
Like maybe I'll achieve that. And it was really fun
to like apply that more broadly to this idea of
like the trust the faith of man. I am believing
that if I follow the words, if I seek, then
(38:23):
I will find. And there's like there's this leap of
faith that you have to take with anything, like any act.
I think about the movie Indiana Jones. There's a scene
it's awesome. He's like he's at this cliff and he's
trying to make it to the other side of this
of this cliff, and he's been told that there's this
invisible bridge and he's trying to cross it, and he's like, well,
(38:44):
I don't see it. I guess I have to trust it,
and then like he has to fully put his weight
on this invisible bridge to get to the other side.
And to me, that's such a strong analogy of like
not just our day to day goals or our life goals,
career goal, but also like more broadly life of like dang,
I need to trust that that the wisdom that I'm
(39:07):
being told that someone is sharing with.
Speaker 6 (39:10):
Me is true.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
And it's like it's mind boggling and it's so uncomfortable,
but it's just the way life works.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
It seems yeah, and it's it's I mean, it's so
many of the things that you've talked about today without
your faith, they don't make sense, Like why would you
stay in a marriage if you didn't have some faith
background you know that has communicated to you that this
is the right thing. Why would you raise kids and
(39:41):
be that intentional about who they're becoming and the love
that you show them without you know, there's so many
things that you've spoken about the direct directly relate for
me back to a faith that you guys are living through.
My final question for you, and the final thing I
want to talk about is uh and and again the
to Commit comes out June ninth, co authored by the
(40:05):
two of you. But in today's world, so much conversation
goes around walking away from things, walking away from unhealthy relationships,
which I find to be a very good thing to
communicate when relationships are unhealthy while you know the quietly
quitting became a big trend a few years ago during
(40:28):
COVID when everybody was working online and nobody really knew
how many hours you were putting in. Some of this
is good, obviously, we just talked about two spectrums, you know,
good and the bad. But for you writing a book
on commitment, talking about leaning in, not giving out, what
would be your advice to somebody when they should walk away?
(40:52):
Maybe not in the drastic examples, I just get gave,
But how do you know? How do you navigate this
and filter through all these thoughts when you're tired and
feel and beat up to stay with something.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
It was actually the hardest chapter for us to write.
We wrote an entire chapter on quitting and when to
quit and when to know it's your time to move
on to the next thing. And obviously there are a
lot of situations similar to like what you said, where
you're an unhealthy relationship that fall outside of this.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
You know this idea.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
But we believe that saying yes to something, committing to
something means saying no to something else. Every yes comes
with nos needed because you have to make space for
whatever it is you're committing to. And we actually in
our family call it pruning. We always try to do
a lot of self reflection on what is what is
(41:44):
taking our time right now, and if we look at
all of it, is it all purposeful? Is it all fulfilling?
Is it all things that we feel very passionately about.
And if there's anything that we feel like is compromising
some of our strongest priorities or commitments, we'll have a
conversation and say is this worth getting rid of? Whether
(42:04):
it's you know, a daily weekly rhythm of hanging out
with friends, it's taking away from kids, or a job
commitment that we're not really feeling fulfilled by anymore. We
kind of go through a process and system that we
use personally to look at your commitments and say are
they all worth hanging on to?
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Are some or is it time to say goodbye to
some of them?
Speaker 6 (42:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (42:31):
Pruning.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
You know, it's like a kind of a gardener term.
It's like you're weeding out things that are not intentional
to make room for the things that you want to
grow there.
Speaker 6 (42:43):
And we have a.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Six, four and two year old right now. We sign
them up for like two sports each this spring and
we realize that way too much. Yeah, it's too much,
and we were sacrificing togetherness as a family those couple
of weeks of like trying to do that. So essentially,
you know, we needed to uncommit from some of the
(43:05):
sports leagues and we pruned that out to make room
for the thing that was most important to us. And
it's important to realize that there's a difference between unhealthy
and hard and like, certainly something is unhealthy or harmful
to you, like leave that as soon as possible. But
the thing that like, when when you're committed to something
big and meaningful, there's going to be difficult parts associated
(43:28):
with that. And the more serious the commitment, I would say,
the more thoughtful the unwinding of that commitment should be.
Speaker 6 (43:34):
And so like.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
You know, seek outside council and mentorship and pray on
it and let your emotions cycle through and settle. And
you don't want to you don't want to leave a
ten year marriage in one day. You know, It's like
that should be a process, uh, but sometimes it's needed,
and so you know, it's it's it's definitely true that
(43:58):
uncommitting needs to happen. It's just the discernment that makes
all the difference. And that's what we try to walk
through with this chapter.
Speaker 5 (44:07):
Are the two of you usually pruning things out of
your life together? Like, is that a conversation the two
of you have together or is it a personal kind
of Hey, this is what I'm going to do and
then a communication?
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Mmm?
Speaker 6 (44:22):
The second doesn't sound like us at all.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
It was I heard this term beneficial adversary, you know,
the old the Bible story of Adam and Eve. It
says Adam was sent a help meet, which can also
be interpreted as a beneficial adversary. And I heard that
like two years ago, and it changed my whole perspective
on Sean, where she would say, you're spending too much
time with friends, or you're you're spending too much time
(44:48):
working out, and in my mind, I was like, no, now,
I'm not going to prune these things. These are important
things are generally good, you know, like in certain contexts. Yeah,
obviously I need friends and obviously I need pysical health.
But she knows better than anybody. Am I taking that
to an extreme? And I realized, like her opinion and
her perspective is so valuable, and it's like so beneficial.
(45:11):
She's being adversarial for my good and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 6 (45:15):
So I feel like.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
I feel like more often it's us having a conversation
of like, hey, you know, we we worked like we
were out of whack and we did not get enough
time with the kids, so let's dial back work next time.
Or she'll say that to me, and I'm thankful for that,
even though it's uncomfortable and I'm sure it's awkward for you.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, but not really.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
We also we also see each other as like a
mentor to a certain extent. We speak so openly together
about what our goals and aspirations are and what our
vices are and where our weaknesses lie. So a lot
of times we'll come to each other and say, was
this too much this week? Do you think I should
(45:58):
continue it? I mean, I don't even know what they
example would be, whatever category it falls in, but I
really try to get advice from him on what I
should do. We leave the decisions up to each other,
but we try to make sure we're having accountability for
the direction that we're heading.
Speaker 5 (46:18):
That's beautiful to me because it took me years. I'm
still working through it. But the trust like that comes
from a place of trust in your partner too, Like, hey,
you have my best interests in mind.
Speaker 6 (46:30):
You have.
Speaker 5 (46:32):
You're not saying this because you're having a bad day
and you just want me home suffering with you. You're
doing this because it's been a theme or a trend,
and I see this being the most healthy thing for
you and us as a family. And to get to
that place is so beautiful in the last thirty seconds here, Yeah,
go ahead.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Oh, it's just super fragile because as the person giving feedback,
it is also so easy to abuse that. Yeah, man,
you have to your point, you have to be trustworthy
with that. Like, man, just because I don't know, just
because you want that person home Moore, doesn't mean that
they need to be home Moore. So like you, also,
(47:10):
making sure that your perspective is accurate is important too.
Speaker 5 (47:13):
So there's I mean, there's so much wisdom to it,
and if the two of you are doing it at
that level consistently, I think it's something to model after,
look up to strive for any couple. Hey, as we
close out, I always there's so much good that came
from this conversation. And obviously you do have the courage
(47:35):
to commit coming out. I didn't want this to be
a whole interview conversation just promoting a book, but there
was so much here that did get promoted. I and
I am going to be so helpful, but this is
the time to promote it. If somebody's listening, they're on
the edge of buying it or not reading it, checking
it out, you guys can do it together. One of
(47:56):
you can take it. But why should somebody read this book?
Speaker 1 (48:00):
M I would just say, if you want to find
depths and quiet the noise in your life, I feel
like we worked really hard to figure out a system
and ways to do that that's really paid off in
our life. And I wake up every morning literally saying,
(48:20):
pinch me. I cannot believe the life we're living. And
I would attribute it to a lot of the things
in this book.
Speaker 6 (48:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
We do share a lot of like fun stories like anecdotes,
for sure, but also some like tangible practices that we
have so our whole goal setting system, our whole way
of setting the values. So I think it's a fun read,
but also I think there'll be some good takeaways.
Speaker 5 (48:48):
It's and as you mentioned, you've traveled the world, do
an intensive dive into stuff. Together, it's always a lot
less expensive and more fun to get somebody's summary of
everything they've learned along the way in a project like this. Hey,
(49:09):
thanks for coming on, Thanks for your vulnerability, not only
here but also in the world that you live outside
of this. We appreciate you, and again, the courage to
commit will come out June ninth. You can find it anywhere.
I'm assuming I don't have that note. Maybe anywhere you
can pick up a book. Andrew and Sewan, thanks for
joining today. Thank you Ben, Hey friends, thanks for listening
(49:33):
or watching.
Speaker 6 (49:34):
Would you take a second, follow.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
Subscribe, and drop a comment. It really helps
Coming from gymnastics, I was forced to be perfect. We've
been given the opportunity to write a book many times
over the years, and a lot of times people would
say would approaches and say we would like you to write.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
A marriage book.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
It was actually the hardest chapter for us to write.
We wrote an entire chapter on quitting and when to
quit and when to know it's your time to move
on to the next day.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
It's important to realize that there's a difference between unhealthy
and hard and like, certainly something is unhealthy or harmful
to you, like leave that as soon as possible.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
Welcome to if you can hear me, a space where
culture meets the soul.
Speaker 5 (00:35):
I'm Ben Higgins.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
You may know me from The Bachelor, and you may
know my guests from culture, Headlines and entertainment. This podcast
is about going beyond the surface into something deeper. Each
week we sit down for open conversations about identity, faith,
and the realities underneath it all. At its heart, this
podcast is about creating space for people to slow.
Speaker 5 (00:58):
Down and speak freely.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Not polished interviews or perfect answers, just real discussions that
are unfiltered. I invite you to lean in and enjoy
the conversation.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
Andrew and Sean, thanks.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
For coming on, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
Good to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Ben.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
You know I was saying this to you before, and
I mean it. It's it's rare to meet a couple
that so many people say, Hey, you've got to meet them.
They are awesome. And I always am running into people,
especially within like the faith sphere, that's always pointing to
the two of you.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Wow.
Speaker 5 (01:39):
No pressure, Yeah, there's no pressure. I want to dig
a little bit into this. We're here to talk because
the two of you are coming out with a book,
The Courage to Commit. It's coming out on June ninth.
I've always been intrigued with this, with the two of
you specifically, and I think it's one of the reasons
why so many people point to the two of you
(01:59):
to like lean on and kind of model after or
after be encouraged by the two of you do so
much together. My wife and I do not. She's an esthetician.
I have no clue what she's talking about at any
point when she's on meta. Uh was this like, uh
an intentional decision or did it just kind of happen?
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It just happened, And let me just start by saying
everything you just you just kind of propped us up
on a pedestal. We were literally bickering with one another
as we're signing on to Riverside.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So true that we.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Put on that.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
We tried to share that like people might say, like, oh,
I want that, but like we have all of our
hardships and downsides and stuff too. But no, we never
intended this to happen. It just kind of came to be.
I had retired from my career when we met. He
was just starting his in the NFL. Happened like stumbled
(02:56):
into the YouTube space. We thought that was just for
a hobby while we found our jobs and fast forward.
We spend every literal way things second together.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I mean there might be four hours a week that
were not by each other side. And honestly, yeah, honestly,
I feel spoiled because for the most part we get
along pretty well.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Shut up. I could be annoyed it, but for the
most part we get along.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
We're able to laugh through it all despite having just
been an argument five minutes ago. But it's really cool
to see and understand Sean in the way that I do.
Having spent time with her at home having seen her
skills in the business world.
Speaker 6 (03:42):
And I think we're a pretty good team. I think
we're a pretty good team. So grateful. Yeah, the two
of you.
Speaker 5 (03:49):
Are, I think, what And I am going to stop
complimenting the two of you after this, but you you
would be like the definition of a power couple, especially
for like our age group, because I think so many
people have watched the two of you find success individually,
you know, athletically, and then you move into oh.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Oh that is amazing.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Do the husky, Yeah, that's what they think. He's like
a fifty pound desert dog that has coyote and lab
and husky in him, a lot.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Of husky, but it sounds like a husky.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
But literally, Toro can attest every week at eleven o'clock.
The UPS guy just says, hey, here's my time, and
he pulls up and he stumbles around out there and
makes my dog go bonkers for like two minutes and
then he'll leave and we'll be good. But it's brutal.
(04:55):
I should have put him on our room. Hey, why
we're in a little break here. As the UPS guy's
pulling out, go hubs your cubs fans. Huh yeah, baby,
let's go. What a year.
Speaker 6 (05:06):
We're in a little bit of a rut. Though.
Speaker 5 (05:09):
We're in a little bit of a rut the last
three Yeah, I don't know one.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
One guy who'll lived closely down in Spring Hills, Ben
zobras him.
Speaker 5 (05:18):
But yeah, yeah, he's a good dude.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, Jason Grimm, is that right?
Speaker 6 (05:29):
He was a catcher's.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
In a justin Sorry.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
See my brother in law is a picture or a catcher.
He just retired actually last week. But those two trained together,
so I've been able to be around him. It's on
a golf course down there getting bill called Firefly, which
is supposed to be awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
But I saw, dude, that place looks amazing.
Speaker 6 (05:55):
I'm jacked.
Speaker 5 (05:57):
It's one of the ways my wife convinced me to move.
I love Lost, don't get me wrong, but space has
been nice. All right, U he's gone, Here we go.
So you'd be the definition of a power couple. Both
have accomplishments athletically individually, and then you come together and
(06:17):
you launch. We're gonna call it content, and you kind
of did it at a time where it was new,
it was a risk. Like today, I think you get
a lot of creators coming out because the space is
a little bit more familiar and it's hard to separate yourself.
But when you did it, it was new, and I
think the risk was what is this thing and where
(06:38):
does it go? I kind of just want to leave
it there and have you like, why did you decide
to enter into that? You have one point seven million
people that follow you on YouTube, comes with you know,
some strategy, I would think.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Some, not a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
We we've kind of gone through a really big roller
coaster the whole social media content world. When we first
started it. We started because we had nothing to lose.
We were really young in dating, we were just getting engaged.
Andrew was still in the NFL. He comes from a
very long line of people who just video everything and
(07:17):
make home videos, so that was already something that we
did for fun, documenting our life, not to share, but
just like you have. And then a friend of ours
kind of started getting into the YouTube space. I come
from very traditional sports marketing, so you think your like
your old school McDonald's ad and Coca Cola ads and stuff.
(07:37):
I was reading contracts and working in the marketing world
in the ambassador space from the time I was twelve,
and everything that I had to deal with was very scripted.
I had a very specific persona that I was supposed
to portray, you know, NBC News would show my gymnastics
and tell a very specific story. And we just kind
of wanted that freedom to share home videos and actually
(08:01):
not be scripted and just be ourselves. And we dove
headfirst into it, thinking, literally, we have nothing to lose.
This is just for fun. Let's see what it can do.
We kind of fell in love with it.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, it's been crazy. I mean we've been doing it
for ten years now. We'll put out about nine hundred
videos a year, which is pretty fun, and it's turned
into an industry and like a whole beast in and
of its own. But we started in twenty fifteen on YouTube,
and I remember Sean was really like one of the
first mainstream quote unquote celebrities to have like a YouTube channel.
(08:35):
So Sports Illustrated was writing articles we shot this. The
second video we ever filmed was on our bed and
there's a ton of the throw pillows, which I still
think is so really cool. But Sports Illustrated was like
writing articles about Sean Johnson right launches a YouTube channel,
and so it was like, you know, now everyone kind
of have a YouTube channel.
Speaker 6 (08:54):
It was more of a novelty back then.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
But it's also really exciting because I love YouTube and
I had just personally learned so much on YouTube, whether
it be how to like handyman videos or just like, uh,
learning from other creators on there. I love cinematography, I
love learning about the hardware and the editing software, and
so I just like I was kind of deep in
(09:17):
that world. It was also during the vlog era where
it was just so cool that there was actually like
a conversation going on, like a community of people who
like bonded over whatever story, you know, their vloggers were
on that day, and it actually felt like a really
cool corner of the Internet. And that's I feel like
(09:38):
we're still happy to live today. I feel spoiled by
our audience is really really very kind to us, and
we've learned a lot from them and hopefully vice versa.
Speaker 6 (09:48):
That must be nice.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
The uh.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
It is interesting because I, you know, I on The
Bachelor in twenty sixteen and it was so new. I
remember when YouTube channels were launching, and I remember the
excitement and the mystery around them. You were pioneers in
that world. And one of the things you know that
(10:17):
I think I'm so interested when it comes to the
two of you is vulnerability has always been a part
of your video, making your story, the way you communicate
you to me that you know, don't keep a ton
of secrets from the people that watch, So I would
love it for you to speak to that. But then also,
(10:38):
I'm sure there's boundaries set right, Like, you're a married couple,
you've been married for many years. There's days that you
just are like I need to go outside and take
a walk alone today, and I don't want to be
doing a video with you. So where did the boundaries
come in? And then kind of why have you chosen
(11:00):
to be so vulnerable to everybody that watches?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Uh? The vulnerability, I think there's many reasons. Coming from gymnastics.
I was forced to be perfect everything that I shared,
every interview, how I presented myself. Perfection was the only option,
(11:25):
and I believed that to be for a long time
in my life. I believed that to be the expectation
of the world, and that crushed me as just a
person in my health and trying to maintain that. And
so when we started showing more vulnerability, it was terrifying
(11:46):
to me because I thought that's what the world didn't want.
But it was almost like a healing process for me.
The more vulnerability we continued to show show, the more
of the world kind of came out of the woodworks
and said, I can't believe I'm not the only one
with whatever it was we were sharing, and it was
(12:08):
very healing to me. I remember we shared a miscarriage
video which we had zero intention of ever showing with
the world. That was something for us, and I remember
feeling like I didn't know how to communicate with him
about how I felt, so I posted it, which was
very out of character for me, and I would just
sit there for hours reading comments about other women who
(12:28):
had gone through the same thing, and truly felt like
I had a community out of the world that helps
me heal through that process. And we just kind of
had gotten tired, not only as parents but as spouses,
of seeing the world paint these perfect pictures that we
know aren't perfect and it's just not relatable and it's
not real. So we tried to show a very lighthearted, uplifting,
(12:52):
real snippet of our life and like what we go through,
I will say boundaries. We have quite a boundaries. Nothing
can ever be posted live. We actually have to live
it and have experienced it and be present in it.
We video a lot of things. We take pictures of
a lot of things just because we like to see them,
(13:13):
and then we'll go back and resurface a topic or
a memory that we want to then share later. But yeah,
and yeah, nothing can ever be posted or talked about
if it hasn't been worked through. It's always like, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
What we certainly don't do it perfectly. It starts there. Also,
I think like my dad was incredibly curious, and he'd
always like get in the nitdiogriteous home. It's like, hey,
let's let's open up the hood and see how this works.
And I feel like we've tried to apply that with
you know, how does having a good marriage work, or
(13:51):
how does being.
Speaker 6 (13:53):
A podcast or work?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Or like, so, like being vulnerable and talking about the
little details like the nuances and get in under the
hood has always been helpful for us, just kind of
walking in line with that curiosity. I'll also say, like, fortunately,
I think it's almost been like an accountability thing where
it's like it's nice to not really have many secrets
(14:18):
to keep you know, like like as long we try
to keep it pretty like clean, which then by no
means perfect, but like it's not like we're having to
create this false public persona, which is which is nice.
And also we view opportunities where we do mess up
(14:38):
as like things to learn from and hopefully share if
we're able to process through it. But last thought is
we also don't it's interesting on the internet, like it
kind of rewards you for the emotional rawness, you know,
like the unfiltered I'm getting on camera and I'm crying
and like live and we try to not press into
(14:59):
that much to Sean's point, like we try to live
it ourselves and like process things before sharing them, just
because it's almost like a temptation to put out that
just the emotionally raw video that you know is gonna
be hi well and everyone's going to give you love online.
It's it's like that's great, Like do that, you know
(15:22):
at times if you need to, but know that that
the feedback you get in real life and the processing
in real life is more important because you know that's
what you have to live with day in and day out.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
So you know, I'm this is more of a personal
thing for me. My wife does more content creation than
I do. But how do you set up your workday then,
I mean for the two of you, obviously going through
your book in which we're going to talk about the
courage to commit, But then it seems like it would
(15:54):
be hard to kind of turn everything off and be Okay,
we're going to reconnect as a family. We're going to
reconnect as a couple without any expectation for making you know,
for putting this out there. What does that look like
in your daily rhythm?
Speaker 1 (16:08):
So honestly, for the most part, nothing on that we
ever post is fabricated of any kind.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Truly.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Ninety nine percent of the time, if I'm going to
post a story, if I'm going to post anything that
I'm sharing, I'm just scrolling back through things that I've
naturally taken pictures of because we lived them that I'm
then sharing.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Outside of that, we do like.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Dumb couples challenge videos or whatever, and we'll film that
during the day. We've tried to be very rigid with
our schedules to very clearly delineate which hat we're wearing
at the time. Is kind of how we say it,
Like is it business partner or is this my husband?
So our kids go to school, and they go to
school around like from like nine to two, and that's
(16:54):
my workday. I try not to ever work outside of
that so that when my kids when like when our
kids get home, I just get to be mom. Andrew
will stay a little bit longer because you wear a
lot more hats within like the business industry, and so
he'll work until about four. But whenever he leaves the
office and comes upstairs, we know he's dad and it's
not like business time. So we tried to put in
(17:16):
boundaries of like spaces and times to make.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Sure that we can respect each other.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
And we always find there's an issue when I'm expecting
husband and I get met with business partner or vice versa.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
That usually causes tension.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
So we try to make sure we have systems in
place to make that happen as few times as possible.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, there's an awesome book we read years ago, right
after our first daughter was born, our only daughter, the
oldest kid, called Habits of the Household by Justin woodmoll Early,
and it kind of talks about like your routines and rhythms,
our liturgy is the word he uses, but I'll use
a different term like our honoring to your priority. And
(18:00):
so like we've Sean said, we're pretty rigid and routine,
and we are because we want to have routines that
are honoring to what our priorities are. And so like
it's like nine to four for work, and we always
have family dinner like five thirty. Kids start doing bedtime
at seven, seven fifteen.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
They'll they'll be down in bed by seven forty five.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Then Sean and I will have some time to just
like debrief the day, and we call it BEV time,
and it's you know, it's like a glass of wine
or a sparkling water or whatever. And then we're in
bed by like eight thirty and then you know, we
wake up do the DeVos. And it's been like we've
tried to be I just know that when I have
(18:41):
free time and unstructured time, I'm going to resort to
scrolling on my phone or watching Netflix. So we try
to full have a full schedule, not like a busy,
chaotic schedule, but like fully committed an intentional schedule.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
Yeah, it's it's kind of a great segue I think
into this book that you guys have co authored together,
The Courage to Commit. One of the core takeaways from
this book is kind of the boring mornings and daily
commitments that the two of you have. You know, I
think for me it's so interesting to see to learn
(19:16):
from people like you, because, as I mentioned, you both
had a very successful career leading up to this new
very successful career and very different career. So putting the
word boring in anything that the two of you do
feels like it's hard for me to understand it, I
guess would be the way to say, because your life
(19:37):
has definitely not been boring. But to start this off,
we've talked about the two of you working so closely together.
Why and how did it come up to where you said,
let's do this book together.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
We had actually been you know, we've been given the
opportunity to write a book many times over the years.
A lot of times people would say I would approach
us and say we would like you to write a
marriage book, and we would laugh and say, we.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Are so.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Not in the physician yeah, to write a marriage book.
We are still figuring it out and we are not perfect.
We are not marriage counselors or anything, and so this
opportunity to write a book kept coming up, and so
we started actually putting thought into if we wrote a book,
what would it be about. And we looked at our
business and our athletic careers and our marriage and our
(20:30):
intentionality around our family.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
And we've spent.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
A lot of effort and time and money and traveling
the world and trying to find the wisest mentors and
systems and intensive sessions to find what it means to
be intentional and to find balance in life and purpose.
And we saw a through line of it all being
just like commitment. So we kind of explore this word
(20:57):
and how it pertains to all these different categories of
our life and how it's bred success in a lot
of different areas. And you can find depth and joy
and purpose when you actually stick with something, which I
think is very countercultural to today's world. Everybody's saying, you know,
the more impulsivity you have, the more you swipe to
the next person or find what makes you happy all
(21:20):
the time, the more joy you might have in life.
And we've just found that it's the opposite to be
right about it.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, I am certainly prone to getting excited by new
shiny objects and like new opportunities. And I think what
I'm realizing is that's not only caused excitement, you know,
in the short term, but also frustration in the long term,
where it's like you keep bouncing from business idea to
(21:52):
business idea to business idea without seeing any of them through.
Or let me start a podcast and I endo the podcast,
let me start a YouTube channel. Now I'm not doing
that anymore, and it's like, you know, I'm not here
to tell you that like that, like follow this plan
and it will be successful. What we're going for is
in order for anything great to happen, like a lifelong
(22:14):
marriage or an Olympic podium moment or making it to
an NFL, you have to like stick with something you know,
you have to you have. That's how you give yourself
the probability of something spectacular happening is like you chip
away at it slowly, slowly, slowly, and like.
Speaker 6 (22:32):
Time compounds in a beautiful way.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
And I think the the excitement that comes from the
variety and like the shiny new objects the next opportunity,
pales in comparison to the excitement and meaning and joy
that comes with the depth of knowing something well whether
it's a person or a craft or you know, like
in athletics. I just feel like this idea of repetition
(22:57):
time after time after time to perfect the skill is
like as a really apt analogy, and it's like, you know,
that's kind of a boring process until you have the
breakthrough and it's not. So that's kind of what we're
advocating for.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
You know.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
One of the struggles and that my wife and I
have been married now for four and a half years,
but one of our struggles is we both have this
deep desire to get to know each other, and it
feels like we consistently fall short on either the questions,
the timing, the language. It's kind of our internal conversation
(23:34):
between us, is hekay, how do we navigate life doing
two separate things coming together and getting to actually understand
each other better and learning each other as we change
and grow and change, you know, differently, and then also
stay the same. I'm sure you talk about in your book,
but do you mind teasing a little bit about some
like key points to getting to actually know your spouse
(23:56):
and we are some healthy ways to do that.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I'm sure you have found two After having a kid,
it changes drastically and you have very few moments and
times to connect with your spouse anymore, and so we talk.
There's many different like even chapters and systems in the
book that help with that, but a couple that come
to mind are rhythms, kind of like Andrew was talking
(24:20):
about the week that we had our first baby, we
implemented almost like a rule, but it was a rhythm
that every single week, every Thursday from that point forward,
we would book a babysitter, whether it was my mom
or our neighbor or someone to come watch the baby
for It could be even an hour or two, but
we would do date night every single week.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And as Andrew has said.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Before, like there are weeks where we really don't want
to go on a date with each other, but knowing
that that hour or two or three or four depending
on the week, is there to reconnect and to sit
and look at each other's eyes and say, I actually
haven't looked you as my husband all week. You know,
it's been co parent or business partner or whatever. To
(25:06):
actually just be able to reconnect for a second gives
you that opportunity to have moments where you get to
know each other better. And so We started with that,
and then it grew from just date night to these
bed times where we have ten minutes after the kids
go down every single night to sit and have that
intentional moment. Whether it becomes an intentional moment or not,
you know, it's there. We got into the rhythm of
(25:29):
having both of those every week, and then we added
another one where every morning we make coffee and we
sit down for ten minutes and we do our devotionals together.
And it's just you're implementing moments where you're giving each
other the opportunity to say, hey, how did your day
go yesterday? I know you had an important meeting and
we didn't get to talk about it, but I like
to know about it now. You know. You just kind
(25:51):
of get repetitions and chances to try a different way
to communicate to each other or try a different question,
and maybe it doesn't hit today, but it hits tomorrow.
And we've just tried to protect our marriage that way
and give intention to time when it's so fleeting anymore
with business and three kids.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, I mean marriage is pretty cool because you got
a pretty long runway.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
Yeah, you got you.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Got more opportunities in the future, so like not being
discoursed discouraged in the short term. But one thing that
struck me is this idea that, Okay, Sean and I
are married. So let's just say there's like three three
components to this marriage. It's me is one component, Sean
is the other, and then our marriage is the third
(26:40):
piece of the puzzle here.
Speaker 6 (26:41):
And I can't I.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Can't change Sean, though I tried for the first four
years of our marriage. I can't like force her to
live life the way I do or see life the
way I do. And I've committed to this marriage that
I will not change, you know, I'm not going to
pull the escape patch on that. So then the only
thing left to change is like my approach, you know.
And we've had two or three things we've argued about
(27:06):
hundreds of times in our marriage, and like, you know,
the first ninety nine I'll be like just trying to
hammer it home the same way Sean, you know, why
don't you see it like this and understanding like this?
And then I'm realizing that, Okay, I can control my approach,
so let me change that. And then you're like, oh,
let me ask this question a little different, or let
(27:27):
me let me ask her a question on why she
sees it like that, and so it becomes this pretty
exciting thing of like, okay, sweet, Now people talk about
self improvement and growth like marriage is the is the
best iteration of that, I think, because you got this
mirror who's right in front of you seeing things clearly,
and like, you know, waking up at four am doing
an ice bath is really exciting and can lead to
(27:48):
a lot of good energy and self improvement. Sure, but
like having someone who who you are forced to change
with and four I mean, that's that's actually pretty beauty
way to live life, I think.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Yeah. And then to do that and also stay attracted
to the person where you want to sleep in the
same bed as them, like that's like, that's pretty you know,
that's huge. Like you, it's wild. Marriage is such a
cool thing where you're growing together, you're changing together, you're
doing life together, arguing together, trying to figure it all out,
and then at the end of the day you're still
(28:24):
in a place most of the time where you're like
and I still like and love you. And that's wild
to me because I've never done that with anybody else
in my life. You know, obviously one of the concepts,
as we kind of mentioned, was commitment for you guys
you're arguing leads to actual freedom and culture today. I
(28:45):
think when we hear the word commitment, and I think
the two of you represent this in such a great way.
Where Sean, you were a gymnast, and I think the
whole world that has followed gymnastics knows that commitment would
be one of the key words that comes up to mind.
And Andrew you obviously playing in the NFL, like you
had to commit to the craft, h and you know,
(29:08):
beat your body down to be able to compete at
that level. And I also think, because this is a
faith show, one of the the words that I really
enjoyed digging into when it comes to the faith is
the freedom that that faith brings.
Speaker 6 (29:28):
Could you hear my daughter there? Your dada? Did you
that's amazing?
Speaker 5 (29:32):
Well, I didn't know if you heard that. Yeah, she
just walked past the room and she just got home.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
It's fun to watch you grow and live life and
get married and have kids.
Speaker 6 (29:44):
So fun.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Congratulations, dude, thank you. It is fun. I'm loving it.
It's the best season. But uh, you know, obviously, because
the two of you have a faith basis. I do
think the word freedom probably comes from a little bit
of your fate background. So what is your argument, like,
(30:05):
how would you convince me that when I say the
word commitment, you actually would say it brings more freedom
than how I think the world would see it and say, no,
that means less.
Speaker 6 (30:15):
Freaking love it.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Then decision, what's the decision fatigue? I feel like with
social media, we are now open every day to seeing
how many options and things there are in the world
(30:36):
for us to choose from.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
It's exhausting.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
You can open Instagram at any given time and see
five hundred different career paths that you could take or
post about, or products to buy or houses to live
in or.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Places to move to or vacations.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
It's exhausting on your brain because in your brain you're like,
I don't know which way to go. Do I choose
that one or this one? And we have just learned
that in our life. We started very simply by saying
we're being given all these opportunities on a daily basis,
you know, whether it's with work or schools or jobs
(31:15):
or hanging out with friends or whatever, and we don't
have enough time, and it's exhausting. Filtering through everyone and saying,
I don't know much one to do today. So we
started very simply in saying what are our family values
and what actually.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Fills our cup?
Speaker 1 (31:31):
And when we look through the lens of what our
values are, it kind of weeds out so many options
that I'm not going to.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Do this justice.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
It makes it It makes the world feel bigger because
you're operating within boundaries, and you know within your boundaries
you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I'm not going to do this justice.
Speaker 6 (31:50):
I'm bet Homranginica.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
It's just it is free.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
I feel like when you filter out all the noise,
it makes you feel like every choice you're making is
actually intentional and for purpose.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I feel like, I mean, freedom is such an interesting
word that is confused a lot of times, and when
people think freedom, they think like this untethered, no rules,
no boundaries, almost like a vacation from life, where like,
oh sweet, no one's telling me what to do and
I don't have to do anything. And you know, if
(32:31):
you live a life like that, it ends up being
more chaos than freedom. I would say, so our definition
of freedom would be more like living life the way
it was designed to be and the way that you
were designed to live it, and so we talk about
you know what that looks like for you as an individual.
Speaker 6 (32:50):
In the book, we.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
Talk about how do you find your values, like what
your operating system, the way God made you, what are
like your non negotiable kind of like you're programming the
things that are most core and in your essence. We
talk about like mentorship and finding people that can help
guide you towards the things that matter most to you
and help you live the life that that you're like
(33:13):
striving to lead and they were designed to lead. And
I just think, like, yeah, freedom is not the end goal.
I would say people think it is, And I think
what people are really striving after is peace and joy
and meaning and discipline is kind of freeing.
Speaker 6 (33:37):
And it's like.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
There's the old saying of if you never if you
don't stand for anything, your fall, You'll fall for everything.
And it's kind of like, how do you how do
you find the things that are worth standing for in
your life and like prioritize those out in a way
that frees you up because it's like it brings so
much quiet to your mind. It's freeing because you don't
have the chaos and the noise of like anything else
besides you know what is most important to you.
Speaker 6 (34:03):
And it's a really beautiful process.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
See if I can make this make sense, because there's
something that's come to mind, a lot of studies are
being done right now on this next generation. And obviously
we've heard all the taglines and church definitions of what's happening,
if it's revival or if it's a separation from the church,
whatever it may be, whatever you think it is. And
(34:27):
I am I just read a study last night and
and what you're talking about comes to mind. What I
actually if I, in my layman evening read had any
type of ability to differentiate and define is people are
looking for more sacred moments like they they you know,
within the faith tradition or within without any type of
(34:49):
faith tradition, with any type of belief, they're looking for
sacred moments. And when I think of freedom, I think
of that directly is sacred moments where you know that
you're not the biggest thing out there. You know there's
a God that at least acknowledges that you exist. And
we would say loves and cares and sacrifices. Have you
(35:12):
found more sacred moments with making commitment a priority.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Absolutely hmm. I would say, yes, go ahead. It seems
like you have a thought.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
No, I just I love the phrasing. I mean it's
like not to be nihilistic, but almost like you know,
nothing has meaning besides what you what you give meaning,
and it's like the things that you commit to are
what you'll give meaning to. You'll pay the cost to
show up and like you know, put be married another
(35:53):
day and go to practice another day, and it's like
that's that's meaningful stuff. Seawan's sewn sacredness towards gymnastics or
that feeling of like wow, that was such a holy
experience of like learning all those skills and like bonding
with my coach like that and getting to know my teammates.
(36:14):
That means something totally different to her than does to me.
Sports generally, I can kind of like hint at what
that is like because I did it with football, but like,
but yeah, it's it's sacred because you make it sacred.
And you know, we talk about this day of delight
that we started three years ago in our family, which
is the Sabbath.
Speaker 6 (36:34):
Yeah, and it's.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Like we take Sundays and we do all the things
that we most enjoy doing in life. We read this
book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which is phenomenal.
If you haven't read, I would read it, and he
talks about like that's what Sabbath is, Like what are
you most enjoyed about life?
Speaker 6 (36:49):
And it's not on a screen.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
It's go make a fire, go take a hike, go
on an e bike ride, whatever it is. And it's like, now,
Sundays are sacred to us and we don't want to
do anything else besides it's those things because because we've
made it so, you know, and in some ways you
can you can dictate what is sacred. And I think
(37:11):
that's a responsibility to be stewarded wisely, you know.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
I think it's I think it's beautiful. Would do you
film Sundays? Is that a workday?
Speaker 6 (37:22):
No? No, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
We we only film while the kids are in school
and like within our like nine to two business hours
Monday to Friday days.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
Yeah, but it's cool.
Speaker 6 (37:36):
Yeah, I guess that's the time to faith.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
We talk about belief and just inherently, let's just talk
about an athlete who's striving to make the NFL, Like
there is this inherent faith that like, if I do
as my coach says, if I show up today and
tomorrow and next week and next month and next year,
and am fully present in that process and giving my best,
(38:01):
then maybe I can make whatever goal I have set out,
Like maybe I'll achieve that. And it was really fun
to like apply that more broadly to this idea of
like the trust the faith of man. I am believing
that if I follow the words, if I seek, then
(38:23):
I will find. And there's like there's this leap of
faith that you have to take with anything, like any act.
I think about the movie Indiana Jones. There's a scene
it's awesome. He's like he's at this cliff and he's
trying to make it to the other side of this
of this cliff, and he's been told that there's this
invisible bridge and he's trying to cross it, and he's like, well,
(38:44):
I don't see it. I guess I have to trust it,
and then like he has to fully put his weight
on this invisible bridge to get to the other side.
And to me, that's such a strong analogy of like
not just our day to day goals or our life goals,
career goal, but also like more broadly life of like dang,
I need to trust that that the wisdom that I'm
(39:07):
being told that someone is sharing with.
Speaker 6 (39:10):
Me is true.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
And it's like it's mind boggling and it's so uncomfortable,
but it's just the way life works.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
It seems yeah, and it's it's I mean, it's so
many of the things that you've talked about today without
your faith, they don't make sense, Like why would you
stay in a marriage if you didn't have some faith
background you know that has communicated to you that this
is the right thing. Why would you raise kids and
(39:41):
be that intentional about who they're becoming and the love
that you show them without you know, there's so many
things that you've spoken about the direct directly relate for
me back to a faith that you guys are living through.
My final question for you, and the final thing I
want to talk about is uh and and again the
to Commit comes out June ninth, co authored by the
(40:05):
two of you. But in today's world, so much conversation
goes around walking away from things, walking away from unhealthy relationships,
which I find to be a very good thing to
communicate when relationships are unhealthy while you know the quietly
quitting became a big trend a few years ago during
(40:28):
COVID when everybody was working online and nobody really knew
how many hours you were putting in. Some of this
is good, obviously, we just talked about two spectrums, you know,
good and the bad. But for you writing a book
on commitment, talking about leaning in, not giving out, what
would be your advice to somebody when they should walk away?
(40:52):
Maybe not in the drastic examples, I just get gave,
But how do you know? How do you navigate this
and filter through all these thoughts when you're tired and
feel and beat up to stay with something.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
It was actually the hardest chapter for us to write.
We wrote an entire chapter on quitting and when to
quit and when to know it's your time to move
on to the next thing. And obviously there are a
lot of situations similar to like what you said, where
you're an unhealthy relationship that fall outside of this.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
You know this idea.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
But we believe that saying yes to something, committing to
something means saying no to something else. Every yes comes
with nos needed because you have to make space for
whatever it is you're committing to. And we actually in
our family call it pruning. We always try to do
a lot of self reflection on what is what is
(41:44):
taking our time right now, and if we look at
all of it, is it all purposeful? Is it all fulfilling?
Is it all things that we feel very passionately about.
And if there's anything that we feel like is compromising
some of our strongest priorities or commitments, we'll have a
conversation and say is this worth getting rid of? Whether
(42:04):
it's you know, a daily weekly rhythm of hanging out
with friends, it's taking away from kids, or a job
commitment that we're not really feeling fulfilled by anymore. We
kind of go through a process and system that we
use personally to look at your commitments and say are
they all worth hanging on to?
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Are some or is it time to say goodbye to
some of them?
Speaker 6 (42:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (42:31):
Pruning.
Speaker 3 (42:32):
You know, it's like a kind of a gardener term.
It's like you're weeding out things that are not intentional
to make room for the things that you want to
grow there.
Speaker 6 (42:43):
And we have a.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Six, four and two year old right now. We sign
them up for like two sports each this spring and
we realize that way too much. Yeah, it's too much,
and we were sacrificing togetherness as a family those couple
of weeks of like trying to do that. So essentially,
you know, we needed to uncommit from some of the
(43:05):
sports leagues and we pruned that out to make room
for the thing that was most important to us. And
it's important to realize that there's a difference between unhealthy
and hard and like, certainly something is unhealthy or harmful
to you, like leave that as soon as possible. But
the thing that like, when when you're committed to something
big and meaningful, there's going to be difficult parts associated
(43:28):
with that. And the more serious the commitment, I would say,
the more thoughtful the unwinding of that commitment should be.
Speaker 6 (43:34):
And so like.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
You know, seek outside council and mentorship and pray on
it and let your emotions cycle through and settle. And
you don't want to you don't want to leave a
ten year marriage in one day. You know, It's like
that should be a process, uh, but sometimes it's needed,
and so you know, it's it's it's definitely true that
(43:58):
uncommitting needs to happen. It's just the discernment that makes
all the difference. And that's what we try to walk
through with this chapter.
Speaker 5 (44:07):
Are the two of you usually pruning things out of
your life together? Like, is that a conversation the two
of you have together or is it a personal kind
of Hey, this is what I'm going to do and
then a communication?
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Mmm?
Speaker 6 (44:22):
The second doesn't sound like us at all.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
It was I heard this term beneficial adversary, you know,
the old the Bible story of Adam and Eve. It
says Adam was sent a help meet, which can also
be interpreted as a beneficial adversary. And I heard that
like two years ago, and it changed my whole perspective
on Sean, where she would say, you're spending too much
time with friends, or you're you're spending too much time
(44:48):
working out, and in my mind, I was like, no, now,
I'm not going to prune these things. These are important
things are generally good, you know, like in certain contexts. Yeah,
obviously I need friends and obviously I need pysical health.
But she knows better than anybody. Am I taking that
to an extreme? And I realized, like her opinion and
her perspective is so valuable, and it's like so beneficial.
(45:11):
She's being adversarial for my good and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 6 (45:15):
So I feel like.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
I feel like more often it's us having a conversation
of like, hey, you know, we we worked like we
were out of whack and we did not get enough
time with the kids, so let's dial back work next time.
Or she'll say that to me, and I'm thankful for that,
even though it's uncomfortable and I'm sure it's awkward for you.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yeah, but not really.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
We also we also see each other as like a
mentor to a certain extent. We speak so openly together
about what our goals and aspirations are and what our
vices are and where our weaknesses lie. So a lot
of times we'll come to each other and say, was
this too much this week? Do you think I should
(45:58):
continue it? I mean, I don't even know what they
example would be, whatever category it falls in, but I
really try to get advice from him on what I
should do. We leave the decisions up to each other,
but we try to make sure we're having accountability for
the direction that we're heading.
Speaker 5 (46:18):
That's beautiful to me because it took me years. I'm
still working through it. But the trust like that comes
from a place of trust in your partner too, Like, hey,
you have my best interests in mind.
Speaker 6 (46:30):
You have.
Speaker 5 (46:32):
You're not saying this because you're having a bad day
and you just want me home suffering with you. You're
doing this because it's been a theme or a trend,
and I see this being the most healthy thing for
you and us as a family. And to get to
that place is so beautiful in the last thirty seconds here, Yeah,
go ahead.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Oh, it's just super fragile because as the person giving feedback,
it is also so easy to abuse that. Yeah, man,
you have to your point, you have to be trustworthy
with that. Like, man, just because I don't know, just
because you want that person home Moore, doesn't mean that
they need to be home Moore. So like you, also,
(47:10):
making sure that your perspective is accurate is important too.
Speaker 5 (47:13):
So there's I mean, there's so much wisdom to it,
and if the two of you are doing it at
that level consistently, I think it's something to model after,
look up to strive for any couple. Hey, as we
close out, I always there's so much good that came
from this conversation. And obviously you do have the courage
(47:35):
to commit coming out. I didn't want this to be
a whole interview conversation just promoting a book, but there
was so much here that did get promoted. I and
I am going to be so helpful, but this is
the time to promote it. If somebody's listening, they're on
the edge of buying it or not reading it, checking
it out, you guys can do it together. One of
(47:56):
you can take it. But why should somebody read this book?
Speaker 1 (48:00):
M I would just say, if you want to find
depths and quiet the noise in your life, I feel
like we worked really hard to figure out a system
and ways to do that that's really paid off in
our life. And I wake up every morning literally saying,
(48:20):
pinch me. I cannot believe the life we're living. And
I would attribute it to a lot of the things
in this book.
Speaker 6 (48:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:30):
We do share a lot of like fun stories like anecdotes,
for sure, but also some like tangible practices that we
have so our whole goal setting system, our whole way
of setting the values. So I think it's a fun read,
but also I think there'll be some good takeaways.
Speaker 5 (48:48):
It's and as you mentioned, you've traveled the world, do
an intensive dive into stuff. Together, it's always a lot
less expensive and more fun to get somebody's summary of
everything they've learned along the way in a project like this. Hey,
(49:09):
thanks for coming on, Thanks for your vulnerability, not only
here but also in the world that you live outside
of this. We appreciate you, and again, the courage to
commit will come out June ninth. You can find it anywhere.
I'm assuming I don't have that note. Maybe anywhere you
can pick up a book. Andrew and Sewan, thanks for
joining today. Thank you Ben, Hey friends, thanks for listening
(49:33):
or watching.
Speaker 6 (49:34):
Would you take a second, follow.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
Subscribe, and drop a comment. It really helps
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