July 1, 2026 • 43 mins
Despite Olympic gold, NFL dreams, and a life that looked perfect from the outside, Shawn Johnson East and Andrew East faced identity crises, hard pivots, and unexpected lessons that came after the applause faded. They open up about marriage, parenthood, and why chasing achievement isn’t the same thing as finding joy. And Shawn shares the surprising reason some of her happiest moments had nothing to do with winning a medal.
"Courage to Commit: Embrace the Radical Power of Sticking with Something" is in bookstores now.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Welcome
back to work in progress.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Friends.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I am so excited today to sit down with a
couple that I frankly adore. I have such a good
time watching them live out their extraordinary dreams, and my goodness,
they have been doing that for quite a time. Today
we're sitting down with Sean Johnson and Andrew East. You
know Sean from winning Olympic gold and Andrew from competing
(00:41):
at the very highest level of professional football in the NFL.
But what inspires me about the two of them is
that their defining moments weren't just back on the balance
beam or out on the football field. They took place
in their quiet daily routines. They've taken place in the
life they've found beyond sport, in the marriage they've built
(01:03):
between themselves, in the family that they have with their
three children, and they really have come to share with
the world what they know and what we can all
do on ordinary days that can be just as meaningful
as once in a lifetime milestones. The way they've built
(01:25):
their life beyond sport, growing a digital platform, navigating a
long distance relationship, and career pivots and all the rest
of it in real time is something that I love
to observe.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
And I know I'm not.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Alone because everyone always asks them what their secret is
to their joyful partnership and the way that they live
their life. What I appreciate about Sean and Andrew is
that they're the first to admit that it takes a
lot of work to make it look as effortless as
it seems. And now they are putting all of that
work down on the page in their new book, Courage
(02:02):
to Commit, which is out now. Let's talk all about it.
Was Sean Johnson and Andrew East Sean Andrew, I'm so
happy to have you on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
How are you both great?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Thank you so much for having us to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, well, I'm so happy you're here. And congrats on
all the exciting updates and big news in the family.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Also, I don't mind my husband, who's dripping sweat like
you're pooring. He just biked our kids to school and
then like belined it here in Nashville, so still sweating.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Oh my goodness, how do you bike them all? Are
they big enough to ride bikes? Or is this like
a toe situation.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
Okay, so my dad wrote us to school. When we
were young, we had a tandem bike and we would
do like time trials with me and my other brothers.
You can ride the fastest. But now we have the setup.
It's a radio flyer bike. So they have like a
little bench seat on the back and it's electric they
that they sit in.
Speaker 6 (03:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Yeah, so it's pretty fun with him and they're like
blasting music and that.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Is so cute.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, Okay, I want to hear more about both of
your childhoods. Sean, I know you grew up in Iowa. Andrew,
I know you grew up in Indiana. What were you
guys up to when you were little kids when you
were eight or nine?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Uh, honestly, I had a very normal childhood.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
It sounds crazy to say because I was so young
when I competed, but around like eight and nine, I
went to public school. I did after school play dates
with all of my friends. I lived on a cul
de sac and it was kind of just an Iowa
Midwest thing. But everybody in the neighborhood would always have
their garage doors open, and their garage doors were like
(04:03):
an extension of their house. Living situation. So every garage
had like a TV and a couch. Sounds very strange,
but all the parents would always like sit in their
garages and all the kids would just run wild through
the neighborhood. So I spent all my time just like
playing in our cul de sac and truly just being
a kid. Outside of I did probably three or four
(04:27):
days a week of gymnastics training, but that was just
like my after school activity that I did. Like you know,
people would run track or do something else, and yeah, gymnastics.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, but how old were you when you started?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I started when I was three.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
You were just like any other little kid would though,
like I didn't me in me classes like recreational classes.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
It was never anything serious.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Until I made I made the USA national team about twelve. Yeah,
so that feels a little abnormal, Yeah, but it felt
very normal to me. My parents worked really hard to
have a very balanced upbringing that I was very grateful for.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, and did you start playing sports really young too?
Speaker 5 (05:09):
So yeah, while Sean was an only child, that was
the middle of five kids, and all of us did
all the sports. My parents had us in, basketball, baseball, football, swimming,
all this stuff, and we would do it together.
Speaker 6 (05:21):
Which was really fun.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
We did boy Scouts growing up, and we'd take camping
trips and go climb mountains. But we just did a
bunch of group activities and a bunch of family activities
and it was so fun. I feel like, you know,
still to this day, my brothers and I have like
this healthy sense of competition. We like to do everything together.
We like to see what the other's up to learn
from each other. And uh, yeah it was. It was
(05:42):
a rowdy household.
Speaker 6 (05:43):
But it's fun still is.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, I'm like one of five, feels like it does
something that never quite goes away.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Right, never does.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
We have eleven eleven or twelve now eleven eleven grandchildren,
not us, but like our children's generation. Yeah, there's eleven
of them under the age of eight. And if it's
not chaos with you and your siblings, it's now chaos
with all of like the cousins.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It's so much fun.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
One that is so cool. I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
It's interesting to hear you say, Sean that the switch
really came, you know, going into being around twelve. Like,
I know nothing about this, to be clear, you guys,
like I grew up playing sports, but also very clearly,
I'm like, I'm not tall enough to play any of
(06:37):
the sports I really liked. I'm not petite enough to
have ever been a gymnast. I have terrible asthma. Like
it just was like not in the cards for me.
But it's crazy, you know, to love someone who's done
some of what you've done. Like, it's hard for me
to wrap my head around what it really means to
(06:58):
go to the Olympics. And then you went, like literally
in the most impressive way in the world. But when
you get recruited so young, you know, like my partner
was playing up on the U fifteen team by the
time she was twelve, and it's.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Like, there's so much.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I think that is incredible about that, incredible about discipline
and the ways that you learn these unbelievable skills, And
it's sort of insane to think about the level you
were competing at, the number of people you were competing
in front of, the pressure. Did it dawn on you
(07:39):
then or did it just still feel fun at twelve?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
It honestly still felt fun.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
I was very, very blessed to have a coach who
he put an emphasis on the fun the whole time.
I feel like The only time it wasn't fun was
when I was with the national team and it became
very serious. But he really tried to like balance those
scales my whole career, which I was very grateful for.
(08:06):
But for me, kind of like anybody would do a
hobby or a sport as a child, whether you're singing
or you know, playing violin or whatever it was, I
just kind of went through the natural progression. I wasn't
skipping levels. I wasn't like exponentially better. I was just
kind of going through the system at a pretty steady pace.
(08:28):
And by the time I kind of came up for
air and looked around, I was like, oh, I happened
to be in the highest level. You know. It didn't
ever feel like pressure or like a job until I
was in the national team setting, where they weren't as
(08:48):
much about fun. They were more about your job.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah I've heard that, so yeah, so I was.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Always like balancing that by the time I got to
the professional level. But I truly was surrounded by people
who wanted me to be a kid for the most part,
and I was just playing.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I remember playing at the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Wow, truly, Wow, that's such a trip. And what an
interesting thing too.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
In this phase of you know, everybody having young kids, right,
you realize that the way you speak to them, the
container you create for them, is the one they will experience.
Like even at this upper echelon of sport, you felt
like you were playing, and it's because the adults in
the room made sure to protect that for you.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
That's where the pressure sets in already as a parent,
because I'm like, that's now our job. We had the
pleasure of interviewing my parents not too long ago about
their strategy and how they went about it, and they
basically said that they said, our job was to protect
you the whole time and to make sure you were
a kid and it was appropriate and it was you know,
(09:57):
not too mature and not too much pressure. That got
harder as I got farther along. But it is hard
now as parents to say that is our job, and
it's hard to now witness it with our own children
when they start putting pressure on themselves for a little
things like how do I protect the innocence of your joy?
Speaker 5 (10:19):
It's so interesting now our daughter does ice skating and
she loved it, and like just the amount of conversations
that start happening when there's like, oh, hey, we're going
to put you in the accelerated program and it's part
of that you're gonna have to do off ice training.
And the off ice training for you as a five
year old is going to be cone drills and push
ups and all this stuff. And then like you get
(10:40):
one step into this and you understand, oh my gosh, wait,
all she wants to do is ice skate, you know,
like that's all she wants to do. She didn't care
about the accelerated program. And so kudos to Sean's parents
honestly for like understanding that, despite conversations with agents or
sponsors or whatever, like they kind of just did insulate Sean.
It seemed really well from all of those kind of
(11:03):
extra curriculars or the the you know, the nonsense besides gymnastics.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I mean, it's crazy to think that five or six
year olds have somebody analyzing, you know, their squat thrust
so they can get a better vertical. You're like, they
are babies. Yeah, like they're good.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I don't know if you've experienced this, Yeah, but like
standing on the sidelines of like a three year old
soccer game. To hear some of the conversations, it makes
me want to run through a brick wall.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Then, like, you need to calm down.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
This is your child's like hobby, it's not yours, and
it's just it's.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Wild to me.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I heard a friend of mine, my god son's already
in soccer and he is so sweet and like, oh
my goodness.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Every once in a while, you know, you have that
moment where you're like running all the other way that's.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
The other team, and and he thinks it's like so cool.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
That is that. You know, his godmothers galous.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
He's always like Auntie Ash, Auntie Ash, give me tips,
and she's like, baby boy, I have to like be
in person with you to put you through some drills,
you know. And it's like I can't imagine being, you know,
watching my best friend as his mom or being a
family figure in his life, like not laughing at that,
(12:29):
taking that so seriously, and I don't know, you're right.
I sometimes I go to his practices and I hear
the way parents are talking and I have to bite
my tongue because, like, you know, again not the athlete.
I really went into the academics part of me wants
to be like, do you know the statistical probability of
your kid making it like to a D one college,
Let alone the pros it's essentially zero, leave them alone.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
He's five. Well, but I don't I keep I keep
those thoughts on the now.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Please don't keep those thoughts.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Then you should share those scream those out, because that's
what we believe too. Yeah, it's literally lightning striking. And yeah,
I don't like to like minimize people's achievements or even
my own, but it truly is.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
It's luck.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
You cannot make it happen, and if you try to
make it happen, I think your probability is actually going
to go even farther down because kids are going to
like fall out of love with it and not like it,
and they're probably going to get injured, and they're probably
going to change hobbies. And it's just like the only
thing that you need to do is love them and celebrate.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Them, Yeah, and then.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Let the rest do it.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, let them have fun, let them score a goal
for the other team. It's not that serious. It's you know.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, I'm wondering.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Too, though, because you say, you know, the probability is
so low and then the giggle is you two both
reached these insane heights in your career.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
I mean you went on the big gold Andrew you
were in the NFL. Like, what was it like for you?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Because I know for girls who grow up in sport,
there is the incredible side of confidence, team building, leadership.
I mean, eighty four percent of women who's sit in
c suites in the corporate world played high school or
collegiate sports. And then there's also, and I'm sure we'll
get to this, the really hard side of the body
(14:21):
consciousness and all of that. And then I feel like
on the flip side, for guys, it's very social, communal cool.
Like if you play football and we've all seen Friday
night Lights, you know, like it's this sort of rare
air space that seems really fun and really popular, but also,
(14:44):
I imagine.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Is really tough.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
What was it like for you to kind of go
from having a childhood hobby with your brothers to realizing
this was something else.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
Wow, you just sparked a lot of thoughts in hyphrase that.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
I mean, it kind of goes in phase this a
little bit, and depending on like, you know, how how
you're performing. Sometimes affects how you feel about the sport
depending on the team that you're on and the guys
in the locker room kind of.
Speaker 6 (15:12):
Can can can you know? Change that? But I did.
I loved football and that's all I want to do.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
My dad played college football or Purdue, and like I
just grew up wearing his old helmet, and I honestly
loved football all the way through college. And then I
started getting attention from NFL scouts and I was like, sweet, okay,
I get it. I could do this for the next
fifteen years of my life, and that would be a dream.
Like I was just happy to make it to college.
(15:41):
That's all I wanted to do as a little kid,
was play college football. But now we have this NFL opportunity.
And then very quickly in that situation, like I again
did all the activities growing up, so I never had
to focus just solely.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
On football, you know.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
And then in college, you're doing doing academics, you're doing sports,
you have the social life, you have all the clubs
and whatever, so it's not all football. But then in
the pros it was like this singular thing that consumes
your entire life. And I didn't know anybody else. I
started on the Kansas City Chiefs, and there I am
in Kansas City, didn't know a soul, and so like
(16:20):
I'd only spend time with the football teammates. I would
only go to the facility, wouldn't go anywhere else, and
you're just kind of like ruminating on this, and then
it was like it became almost like a really unhealthy
part obsession, part like torment of like man, I want
something else to like distract me. Almost, so it was complicated,
and I remember, like, you know, at points, I was
(16:43):
super confident I'd be dabbing everybody up in the facility.
But then with certain teams in the NFL, when you're
just trying to make it like, oh man, I don't
want to get cut.
Speaker 6 (16:51):
I hope today's not my.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
Day to get cut, Like you start having these thoughts
and so I couldn't even I went from you know,
being the guy who's joking around, so I couldn't even
make eye contact because I was so I don't know,
like nervous or anxious or uncertain. So it kind of
goes ebbs and flows, and then you kind of just
kind of find that pocket of like okay, you know
what I've done everything I can to put myself in
(17:12):
the best position. Am I gonna enjoy this or not?
Like I towards the end of my career, I started realizing,
this is like once in a lifetime, you know, like
I'm gonna only be in this locker room for so
many years, maybe only a few more days, who knows,
But I might as well just like have a good
time and like enjoy it. And that's that kind of
(17:33):
opens up the performance side of things too, kind of
like it pulls you out of that rumination. So complicated
to say the least, but I definitely learned a lot.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
We'll be back in just a minute, but here's a
word from our sponsors. It's so interesting the way you
put that, because I was just actually.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Writing about this. When I was in Cool.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
And I started doing theater, which I thought I would hate.
I was like, I play volleyball. I don't do that
like the theater girls. Yeah, my friend does that. We're
not the same, you know. She was like a show
tune singing like adorable human, who, by the way, still
is like you know, now, we've been friends for thirty years.
But I didn't know that it was something I would love,
(18:21):
and then that became my extracurricular you know, started in
middle school, went through high school. By my senior year,
I was so serious about it. And then I went
to college to get a BFA, a Bachelor of Fine
Arts in theater, and one of those things where you
know you have to audition.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
It's like it's like.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
A team tryout. It's so scary, and they, you know,
they admit fourteen people a year. And I got in
and I was like, oh my god, I've made it.
You know, this is my next step. I'm moving through
the system. And I got into that program and I
had the experience for talking about Andrew. I feel like
(18:59):
it made me a basket case because it all I
did was eat, breathe, and sleep theater. All I did
was focus on scripts. All I did was get asked
every decision i'd make, like in a scene testing something out, Well,
why'd you make that choice? What was the motivation here?
And it's not even that the questions were bad, they
(19:21):
could have been opening a compliment, but what it did
was make me so self conscious and I was like, well,
I don't know why I made I mean, it just felt,
you know, and I was reacting to this person and
it sort of seemed like we could the scene's a fight,
but what if they started laughing in the middle, Like,
isn't that interesting? And no matter what felt natural to me,
I worried that I was.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And what you illuminated for me was that once you've
made it on the college team or the pro team
or whatever, everyone thinks you've made it, nobody says, hey,
how are you doing?
Speaker 6 (19:56):
Hey?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Do you need any support? And what I realized I
had to do my second year of college. I was like,
I can't handle this, and I transferred out of that major.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I was keeping a.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Theater minor, but I went into the journalism school and
that was the year I started booking auditions like crazy
because I'd taken the pressure off and then suddenly I
was just like, oh, this is fun, Like this is
my gymnastics, this is the thing I like to do
after school, and I'm actually kind of good at this okay,
(20:29):
And weirdly it it shifted something in me. It wasn't
something anyone else was doing.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But when it's.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Too pressurized, the thing you love can torment you. Yeah,
well said, it's so surreal.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
I feel like you see that in everything that was Like,
if you take the joy away from it and you
lose the reason why you started in the first place,
and you're like forcing it for a different reason, whether
it's success or money or whatever, it lose everything. If
you can't just like have joy with it, then it's
a whole different ball game.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, how do you feel like you both chose to
prioritize that? Because I think about I don't know, rewind
to like twenty twelve before. Maybe the world is also
so insane and you're both navigating these crazy high pressure
careers and I know you know you've you've written about
(21:31):
how success alone wasn't going to provide lasting fulfillment, like
there had to be more. If you think about back then,
in the height of things, how did you start to
consider what your wider vision was for your futures?
Speaker 5 (21:48):
These are great questions, Well things, Well, I'm curious what
your perspective on this is. I feel like the deeper
you get into anything, like the longer your career is.
And sports is kind of unique because it's so intense
and so consuming and so kind of idolized, as is
your industry. But it's like the transition out of that
(22:10):
is super hard, and I think John struggled with it,
you know, kind of by choice. She retired, and then
she struggled probably for like three or four years when
we were dating. And then I struggled with it by force,
you know. I was bouncing around from team to team,
and man if I would have had a long and
(22:30):
steady job, I probably would have kept it. But instead
it kind of like made me think about other things
while I was still getting opportunities in the NFL, and
so I was like, oh, I should probably start assembling
other parts of my life. But it's like it's a
really uncomfortable process because when you're in the moment, you
don't like, I did not feel like I had any
(22:50):
other translating skills from football that would apply anywhere else.
Like everyone says sports is so good to teach all
these things, and I see it now, you were also
in I kandemic.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Yeah, I mean acknowledge that.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
Yeah, And I guess, you know, if I would have
stopped for a second, I would have realized that there
was other things. But I did not feel like I
had anything else I could offer the world except for
my you know, my football skills. And now I see
that there's so many things I learned from sports, but
I had to start learning. You know, I'm gonna I
(23:26):
love video editing. Let me learn this software. And actually
the cameras are pretty cool too. Something learned the hardware
side of it. And then now we started a YouTube
channel and oh my gosh, I love this and you
start to like slowly kindle this other side of you, which,
like to your point, took the pressure off of that
old passion I had of football.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
And then and then both were in a better spotish result.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
I will say, though, I think a huge gift we
are both given was the experience of getting to the
very top and not feeling fulfilled. And I think our
world likes to paint this picture of if only you.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Have X, Y and Z more money, huh a title.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
If you climb the top to the top of the ladder,
you will be happy, You will feel fulfilled.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
That'll be the greatest thing in your life.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
And though winning a medal at the Olympics is absolutely incredible,
it did not fulfill me. I had more joy training
in my gym for sixteen years than I.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Did at the Olympic competition.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
It was very cool, but it wasn't, you know, the
most fulfilling part of my life.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
And I think Andrew was the same way.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
He had so much fun in college and then when
he got to the NFL and he looked around and
was like, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
If this is what it's all talked up to me,
Like this isn't fun. I'm not loving this.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
It made us have a humility when we transitioned out,
though difficult to say, let's kind of get rid of
what the world is telling us we should go do
now and actually go find something that is fun to
us and humble ourselves enough to start over and be
completely horrible at something but truly fall in love with
something again and learn and build, which is what we
(25:14):
love to do. And so we started over, and it
took us a while to find like our niche and
what we liked and what we loved and what we
fell in love with. But I think it was the
gift of athletics, and you know, learning that the hard way,
that that.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Gave us the gift of where we are today.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
You know, when you say you think it's going to
fulfill you, it's such a universal thing. You know, you
get to the Olympics, you get to the NFL, you
get on the show, you do the movie you've always
wanted to do, you you know, whatever it may be,
(25:51):
and then you're still just sleeping in your bed at night,
like gotta go to the grocery store.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
And I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Actually, I'm not sure if I think this is what
it is, but I wonder if part of it is
the way things are covered. You know, the story the
news package on the Summer Olympics, or you know the
blockbuster hit for Christmas or whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
You watch that.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Stuff and you go, wow, look at what those people
are doing, and it's beautiful, and it is, but it
kind of looks like, to your point, the big moment,
the big achievement, and then you think, oh, when I
have that, I will feel fill in the blank. And
then you get whatever your version is and you're like, oh,
this is super weird. Nobody told me I'd still be
(26:39):
anxious and I'd still be like in a fight with
my mom or whatever's going on in your world.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
You're like, this didn't fix me. Huh.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
So it's like and I think the transition out of something,
you know, I remember what it felt like, you know,
to end nine seasons, ten years on a TV show,
like almost no actors get to do that. And I
remember being so surprised because we had all been so
ready to be done. We were like, this has been great,
(27:11):
but we've literally been locked up like in these four
sound stages since we were twenty one and now we're thirty.
Like talk about you know what you were saying, You
leave your life, you move somewhere, you know no one,
you're only insulated with your little group, and like, sure,
that's great, but also it's insane. And I remember leaving
(27:32):
and being like, oh, this is so weird. I can't
stop crying. I didn't think I was sad about this,
and I realized it was both like I was so
happy to go home and I was going to miss
the place that had been my home for a decade.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
And I think.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
The intensity of sport and also the truncated amount of
years you get to do it, Like you are a
phenom and a freak if you make it to thirty
or forty, and you know, playing a sport, right, and
so you kind of have to start over, but you're
starting over so young. Do you think meeting each other
(28:11):
helped you both figure out how to shift out of
one world and into another one.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
So my timeline was I retired technically my first time
after the two thousand and eight Olympics. I was sixteen
years old, and that was the absolute hardest transition for
me because for three years, from the age of sixteen
to nineteen, I had to go finish high school.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Oh right after the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Oh my god, I do go out to high school.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
I had the world telling me I was, you know,
at the top, on the top of the world, and
they expected such perfection in any field. But I was
also just a child and I didn't I needed to
figure out where I was going to go to college
and what I was going to do and what job
I was going to go get, and that was that
was really hard for me, so hard that I ended
up going back into gymnastics because I felt like that
(29:06):
was my safe zone. I didn't necessarily want to, but
in my mind that's all I could kind of compute
to be.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I totally get that.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
So I went back into gymnastics, retired a second time
at nineteen, and then that's when we were introduced. At twenty,
right when I was coming out of my second go
round and it one hundred percent was the reason I
made it through that transition. I remember putting such pressure
(29:34):
on myself to be a perfectionist. And there's this interesting thing,
which I'm sure you've experienced too, where like people don't
care about you. They care about your character. They care
about what they see in the headlines, and that's all
they want to know about. And I remember Andrew, it
was like the first time I had met someone who
actually cared about me as a human, and it was
very It took me off guard because I was like,
(29:55):
what do you mean you want to know what I
eat for breakfast, like as a human and not gymnasts,
And don't you want to.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Know about the Olympics? And He's like, I don't care
about that. I want to know you.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
And so he kind of got to hold my hand
and walk me through that. And then once I kind
of got my feet under me and we had been
dating and then married and he retired from the NFL,
it was almost like I could return the favor.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I could hold his hand through it and say.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
You got me through mine, Now let me be your
anchor and let's walk through this together. But I think
it just gives you that emotional support that you need
when it seems like everything is up in the air,
to give you a foundation to lean back on.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yes, I know that feeling.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
It's also crazy.
Speaker 5 (30:37):
I mean the echo chamber that can happen in your
own brain of like I don't know, just the stories
you can start telling yourself that just amplify and you're
like to have someone else there who's like, WHOA, just
hold on a second. Just that's not the way I
see it, nor is it reality, And so it just
chill it out for a second is really interesting.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
My favorite story, though it was a low point, so
I say this humorously now because we've gotten through it.
My favorite point was Andrew was kind of going through
his exit of the NFL and having like an identity
crisis where it's like, what am I to the world
and what am I to myself now? And you have
a civil engineering undergrad degree from Vanderbilt, you have an
(31:17):
MBA from Vanderbilt, graduated with honors, all these things, and
he signed up to be an Uber driver and he's like, well,
this is all I It's all I have to.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Give the world anymore.
Speaker 6 (31:27):
I would still do it.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
I know you would still do it, And you'd be great,
and a neighbor driver.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Is a wonderful job.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
But it was just I was sitting there as his wife,
and I was like, okay, this is okay, We're gonna
you know, you can be an uber driver if you
would like, if that fulfills you, but.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Just now that it's not all you have. We'll be
back in just.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
A minute after a few words from our favorite sponsors.
It's kind of arresting, though, when when you have anything
that happens to you that feels, you know, like an explosion,
(32:08):
like everything's been sort of flattened, finding your way out
of that is hard.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And I think.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
In whatever way that happens like it can really be
the thing that saves you or illuminates something for you,
or to your point, quiets those voices. And I think
there's an added layer again that you know, you're not
supposed to talk about if you've made it, because you
(32:37):
should just be grateful and shut up.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
But there is the.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Added pressure of an entire digital world talking about you, yeah,
and criticizing you and judging you and assuming they know
things about you, and it can break you. And I
think having someone else with you who knows what that
(33:04):
is is also such a It can offer you so
much salvation because you do have someone to say, I
know that's not true about you. I know this is crazy,
And so I'd imagine that you have like having that
version in your own home where you get to be like, hey,
remember who you are, remember what is true about you,
(33:27):
Remember how great you are, qualified, you are, talented, you
are And if you need a break to like.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Have a Menti bee and drive around downtown, that's also okay.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
I love you like.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
That's that's a game changer because it helps stop you
from getting swallowed by a machine that is so much
bigger than anyone person.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
We interviewed someone who and it has just always stayed
with me years ago, who said, like the human heart
was not meant to digest all these voices that we
have access to anymore. And I remember him speaking on
make sure the voices that you truly let in are
trusted and small, like a small circle. And I feel
(34:07):
like we try really hard to do that. We're both
having mental breakdowns.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Last week.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
It was like it was like I need you to
speak truth to me, and you to speak truth back
and back, and it's just it is they're so it's
the world is so loud now, yeah, and it's really
hard to turn it off.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, and you have to be so.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Conscious about who has the most volume. And I think
we all struggle with this. It's an ebb and flow
of Well, Instagram voice has got a little too loud
for me today and I am about to go lock.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Myself in a room.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Yeah, and I need someone to truly just like tell
me what which way is up?
Speaker 3 (34:51):
And yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
It's interesting because it goes both ways, you know. And
we write in our book about mentorship and having someone
who is trusted voice, who is like a little further
down the path than you are wherever you want to
be in life, like, hey, this is the type of
family life I want to have, Like, and that's this
person is my role model in that because they have,
you know, whatever kids or the family that you kind
(35:16):
of envision uh wanting, And it's like, you know, they
it's almost you can find any opinion you want online
and it's like seeking you will find you know. If
I want someone to hype me up, I can go
find someone and like go like, hey, this person thinks
I'm awesome. And that's that can almost be equally as
unhealthy as someone finding the voice of daying.
Speaker 6 (35:38):
I am a trash football player. I am I lost
that game.
Speaker 5 (35:41):
And you can like be unhealthy on both sides, where
you don't necessarily just want yes men in your life.
You don't just want people who are cynics and skeptics.
It's like you want someone who's lovingly honest. It's like, Andrew,
I think it's probably time that, like you, you consider
other things in football. And here's why I have known
you for twenty years. I've seen your career. I've been
(36:04):
a part of all these conversations, and you've told me
about what coaches are saying their feedback and the scouts
aren't calling as much, and like that is such a
different thing than like Andrew, the tweet that you get
online Andrew never plays football ever again, you know, like
you're terrible, Like that just doesn't hit the same as
someone who actually intimately knows the situation. So I think
(36:25):
it's like finding that fine balance of loving honesty.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, it's like you have to you have to figure
out how to build your own filter out of that
huge funnel that we were not meant to evereah No,
And that's I think that's kind of a task for
our peer group as well, Like nobody wrote the handbook
for this before us, because it didn't exist, and so
(36:51):
we we kind of have to figure it out together.
And I think when you when you are with you
know your right person and you have a good mirror,
and then you have more of those good mirrors in
your extended circle, your family, your friendships, Like that's what
helps you start to do that. And I imagine because
(37:11):
I know you guys celebrate ten years of marriage this year. Congrats,
you know, being married for a decade, having three kids,
Like you've really been through it enough to have I
would think kind of like a routine for how you
do things. How do you feel like parenthood maybe made
(37:34):
you even better at that stuff, Like, because it can
be hard to be nice to yourself, but you want
to be nice to your You want to be the
nicest person in the world for your kids.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Yeah, I feel like your spouse partner, I mean, is
like the best first mirror relationship that you get, where
it can be very humbling when you have someone so
trusted be like, you're not being very nice right now,
and it's like I think you're probably you're a mirror,
(38:06):
so you're probably I should probably listen to that, you know.
And so I think with us having we're married how
many years before through three four three three, having been
married three years before we had our first kid, that
was you know, an ebb and flow that you really
have to get used to and have to You have
to find trust there and humility. But then you take
(38:27):
it up a notch for the child because you want
to give them the world. You want to be the
best version of yourself. Yeah, and it is so difficult
being a parent. It's so beautiful. And I don't mean
that in a bad way of being difficult. It's just difficult.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
You Raising humans is not easy.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
And to see their reflection of you.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Is so pure.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
And there's no judgment and there's no there's no like,
there's no jadedness to them yet. So anything that they
say to you, like mommy, are you having a hard day,
it's kind of like, oh, wow, I need why do
you think that? Like what am I doing? And it's
just made you It's made us way more selfless and
(39:15):
way more self reflective of what our values are and
what we spend time doing and how we are reflecting
that to our children and what we're teaching them. And
they already have so many voices and we are the
loudest ones, thankfully right now. But trying to teach them
their filters already for life is terrifying, and we have
(39:39):
to make sure we have hours figured out, which we
don't are getting better at it. It's just it's a
very humbling experience.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
I think it's also so interesting because you get to
kind of relive your own childhood in ways yeah and go, oh,
I have I have a wound there or oh my god,
I was made for this moment, like this is my
area of expertise, and it's it's so beautiful because you
(40:10):
learn all this stuff I don't think you'd learn otherwise
if you didn't have that little person who is this
pure thing mirroring at you and and to just go
back to the beginning of your point. Yes, it is
the most gorgeous thing. And it is so hard. And
my friends and I are like any any like mom fluencer,
(40:33):
dad fluencer who just makes it look easy.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
You're a trader. You're a trader, You're.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
A liar, Like we have got to be able to
say this is an absolute miracle and also like, what
are you doing to get through this crazy phase or
this you know, struggle development moment? Like, and I think
the more we get to normalize that stuff, the better
(40:59):
for all the parents out there.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
So both and I think there's.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
Something so beautiful about and pure about children and our
world that's so just crazy. Right now, it seems like
we can all agree we want to raise good humans
and we want to protect the puritists and children.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
So I feel like, kind of like.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
You're saying, it's like all the chaos quiets when you
have a child around, because you're like, I want to
protect you, and I want to love you, and I
want to do my best. And so all of us
parents coming together being like, how do we do this?
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Yeah, we all want the best for kids.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, well, I think most of us.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I think it's been a pretty rough time in the
world to realize not everybody does.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah, but my hope.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Actually is that the amount of us who as like
as we spoke about earlier, would literally run into moving
traffic for our children.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah, I hope.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
We quiet all the other noise and simply focus on
how we're going to reorganize the world for them, because
there are some people who don't have that as their
core value, and like, those are people I wish I
could pack into a cannon and shoot out into space.
I'm like, you should be voted off the island, and
I mean the island of Earth. Lately, the last couple
(42:18):
of years have sort of broken my faith in humanity
and also made me be like, if the moms were
in charge, this shit.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Would be fixed by lunch.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Yeah, you know, they would live on Mars.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
They live on Mars, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
I am enjoying this conversation with Sean and Andrew so much,
and I hope you are as well. Tune back in
for the next special bonus episode, where we dive into
all the specifics of their incredible new book, Courage to Commit.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
See you soon,
Hey, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in progress. Welcome
back to work in progress.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Friends.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
I am so excited today to sit down with a
couple that I frankly adore. I have such a good
time watching them live out their extraordinary dreams, and my goodness,
they have been doing that for quite a time. Today
we're sitting down with Sean Johnson and Andrew East. You
know Sean from winning Olympic gold and Andrew from competing
(00:41):
at the very highest level of professional football in the NFL.
But what inspires me about the two of them is
that their defining moments weren't just back on the balance
beam or out on the football field. They took place
in their quiet daily routines. They've taken place in the
life they've found beyond sport, in the marriage they've built
(01:03):
between themselves, in the family that they have with their
three children, and they really have come to share with
the world what they know and what we can all
do on ordinary days that can be just as meaningful
as once in a lifetime milestones. The way they've built
(01:25):
their life beyond sport, growing a digital platform, navigating a
long distance relationship, and career pivots and all the rest
of it in real time is something that I love
to observe.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
And I know I'm not.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Alone because everyone always asks them what their secret is
to their joyful partnership and the way that they live
their life. What I appreciate about Sean and Andrew is
that they're the first to admit that it takes a
lot of work to make it look as effortless as
it seems. And now they are putting all of that
work down on the page in their new book, Courage
(02:02):
to Commit, which is out now. Let's talk all about it.
Was Sean Johnson and Andrew East Sean Andrew, I'm so
happy to have you on the podcast today.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
How are you both great?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Thank you so much for having us to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, well, I'm so happy you're here. And congrats on
all the exciting updates and big news in the family.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Also, I don't mind my husband, who's dripping sweat like
you're pooring. He just biked our kids to school and
then like belined it here in Nashville, so still sweating.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Oh my goodness, how do you bike them all? Are
they big enough to ride bikes? Or is this like
a toe situation.
Speaker 5 (02:59):
Okay, so my dad wrote us to school. When we
were young, we had a tandem bike and we would
do like time trials with me and my other brothers.
You can ride the fastest. But now we have the setup.
It's a radio flyer bike. So they have like a
little bench seat on the back and it's electric they
that they sit in.
Speaker 6 (03:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
Yeah, so it's pretty fun with him and they're like
blasting music and that.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Is so cute.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Yeah, Okay, I want to hear more about both of
your childhoods. Sean, I know you grew up in Iowa. Andrew,
I know you grew up in Indiana. What were you
guys up to when you were little kids when you
were eight or nine?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Uh, honestly, I had a very normal childhood.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
It sounds crazy to say because I was so young
when I competed, but around like eight and nine, I
went to public school. I did after school play dates
with all of my friends. I lived on a cul
de sac and it was kind of just an Iowa
Midwest thing. But everybody in the neighborhood would always have
their garage doors open, and their garage doors were like
(04:03):
an extension of their house. Living situation. So every garage
had like a TV and a couch. Sounds very strange,
but all the parents would always like sit in their
garages and all the kids would just run wild through
the neighborhood. So I spent all my time just like
playing in our cul de sac and truly just being
a kid. Outside of I did probably three or four
(04:27):
days a week of gymnastics training, but that was just
like my after school activity that I did. Like you know,
people would run track or do something else, and yeah, gymnastics.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, but how old were you when you started?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I started when I was three.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
You were just like any other little kid would though,
like I didn't me in me classes like recreational classes.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
It was never anything serious.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Until I made I made the USA national team about twelve. Yeah,
so that feels a little abnormal, Yeah, but it felt
very normal to me. My parents worked really hard to
have a very balanced upbringing that I was very grateful for.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, and did you start playing sports really young too?
Speaker 5 (05:09):
So yeah, while Sean was an only child, that was
the middle of five kids, and all of us did
all the sports. My parents had us in, basketball, baseball, football, swimming,
all this stuff, and we would do it together.
Speaker 6 (05:21):
Which was really fun.
Speaker 5 (05:22):
We did boy Scouts growing up, and we'd take camping
trips and go climb mountains. But we just did a
bunch of group activities and a bunch of family activities
and it was so fun. I feel like, you know,
still to this day, my brothers and I have like
this healthy sense of competition. We like to do everything together.
We like to see what the other's up to learn
from each other. And uh, yeah it was. It was
(05:42):
a rowdy household.
Speaker 6 (05:43):
But it's fun still is.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, I'm like one of five, feels like it does
something that never quite goes away.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Right, never does.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
We have eleven eleven or twelve now eleven eleven grandchildren,
not us, but like our children's generation. Yeah, there's eleven
of them under the age of eight. And if it's
not chaos with you and your siblings, it's now chaos
with all of like the cousins.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
It's so much fun.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
One that is so cool. I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
It's interesting to hear you say, Sean that the switch
really came, you know, going into being around twelve. Like,
I know nothing about this, to be clear, you guys,
like I grew up playing sports, but also very clearly,
I'm like, I'm not tall enough to play any of
(06:37):
the sports I really liked. I'm not petite enough to
have ever been a gymnast. I have terrible asthma. Like
it just was like not in the cards for me.
But it's crazy, you know, to love someone who's done
some of what you've done. Like, it's hard for me
to wrap my head around what it really means to
(06:58):
go to the Olympics. And then you went, like literally
in the most impressive way in the world. But when
you get recruited so young, you know, like my partner
was playing up on the U fifteen team by the
time she was twelve, and it's.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Like, there's so much.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
I think that is incredible about that, incredible about discipline
and the ways that you learn these unbelievable skills, And
it's sort of insane to think about the level you
were competing at, the number of people you were competing
in front of, the pressure. Did it dawn on you
(07:39):
then or did it just still feel fun at twelve?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
It honestly still felt fun.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
I was very, very blessed to have a coach who
he put an emphasis on the fun the whole time.
I feel like The only time it wasn't fun was
when I was with the national team and it became
very serious. But he really tried to like balance those
scales my whole career, which I was very grateful for.
(08:06):
But for me, kind of like anybody would do a
hobby or a sport as a child, whether you're singing
or you know, playing violin or whatever it was, I
just kind of went through the natural progression. I wasn't
skipping levels. I wasn't like exponentially better. I was just
kind of going through the system at a pretty steady pace.
(08:28):
And by the time I kind of came up for
air and looked around, I was like, oh, I happened
to be in the highest level. You know. It didn't
ever feel like pressure or like a job until I
was in the national team setting, where they weren't as
(08:48):
much about fun. They were more about your job.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah I've heard that, so yeah, so I was.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Always like balancing that by the time I got to
the professional level. But I truly was surrounded by people
who wanted me to be a kid for the most part,
and I was just playing.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
I remember playing at the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Wow, truly, Wow, that's such a trip. And what an
interesting thing too.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
In this phase of you know, everybody having young kids, right,
you realize that the way you speak to them, the
container you create for them, is the one they will experience.
Like even at this upper echelon of sport, you felt
like you were playing, and it's because the adults in
the room made sure to protect that for you.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
That's where the pressure sets in already as a parent,
because I'm like, that's now our job. We had the
pleasure of interviewing my parents not too long ago about
their strategy and how they went about it, and they
basically said that they said, our job was to protect
you the whole time and to make sure you were
a kid and it was appropriate and it was you know,
(09:57):
not too mature and not too much pressure. That got
harder as I got farther along. But it is hard
now as parents to say that is our job, and
it's hard to now witness it with our own children
when they start putting pressure on themselves for a little
things like how do I protect the innocence of your joy?
Speaker 5 (10:19):
It's so interesting now our daughter does ice skating and
she loved it, and like just the amount of conversations
that start happening when there's like, oh, hey, we're going
to put you in the accelerated program and it's part
of that you're gonna have to do off ice training.
And the off ice training for you as a five
year old is going to be cone drills and push
ups and all this stuff. And then like you get
(10:40):
one step into this and you understand, oh my gosh, wait,
all she wants to do is ice skate, you know,
like that's all she wants to do. She didn't care
about the accelerated program. And so kudos to Sean's parents
honestly for like understanding that, despite conversations with agents or
sponsors or whatever, like they kind of just did insulate Sean.
It seemed really well from all of those kind of
(11:03):
extra curriculars or the the you know, the nonsense besides gymnastics.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I mean, it's crazy to think that five or six
year olds have somebody analyzing, you know, their squat thrust
so they can get a better vertical. You're like, they
are babies. Yeah, like they're good.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
I don't know if you've experienced this, Yeah, but like
standing on the sidelines of like a three year old
soccer game. To hear some of the conversations, it makes
me want to run through a brick wall.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Then, like, you need to calm down.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
This is your child's like hobby, it's not yours, and
it's just it's.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Wild to me.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
I heard a friend of mine, my god son's already
in soccer and he is so sweet and like, oh
my goodness.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Every once in a while, you know, you have that
moment where you're like running all the other way that's.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
The other team, and and he thinks it's like so cool.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
That is that. You know, his godmothers galous.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
He's always like Auntie Ash, Auntie Ash, give me tips,
and she's like, baby boy, I have to like be
in person with you to put you through some drills,
you know. And it's like I can't imagine being, you know,
watching my best friend as his mom or being a
family figure in his life, like not laughing at that,
(12:29):
taking that so seriously, and I don't know, you're right.
I sometimes I go to his practices and I hear
the way parents are talking and I have to bite
my tongue because, like, you know, again not the athlete.
I really went into the academics part of me wants
to be like, do you know the statistical probability of
your kid making it like to a D one college,
Let alone the pros it's essentially zero, leave them alone.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
He's five. Well, but I don't I keep I keep
those thoughts on the now.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Please don't keep those thoughts.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Then you should share those scream those out, because that's
what we believe too. Yeah, it's literally lightning striking. And yeah,
I don't like to like minimize people's achievements or even
my own, but it truly is.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
It's luck.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
You cannot make it happen, and if you try to
make it happen, I think your probability is actually going
to go even farther down because kids are going to
like fall out of love with it and not like it,
and they're probably going to get injured, and they're probably
going to change hobbies. And it's just like the only
thing that you need to do is love them and celebrate.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Them, Yeah, and then.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Let the rest do it.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, let them have fun, let them score a goal
for the other team. It's not that serious. It's you know.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, I'm wondering.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Too, though, because you say, you know, the probability is
so low and then the giggle is you two both
reached these insane heights in your career.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
I mean you went on the big gold Andrew you
were in the NFL. Like, what was it like for you?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Because I know for girls who grow up in sport,
there is the incredible side of confidence, team building, leadership.
I mean, eighty four percent of women who's sit in
c suites in the corporate world played high school or
collegiate sports. And then there's also, and I'm sure we'll
get to this, the really hard side of the body
(14:21):
consciousness and all of that. And then I feel like
on the flip side, for guys, it's very social, communal cool.
Like if you play football and we've all seen Friday
night Lights, you know, like it's this sort of rare
air space that seems really fun and really popular, but also,
(14:44):
I imagine.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Is really tough.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
What was it like for you to kind of go
from having a childhood hobby with your brothers to realizing
this was something else.
Speaker 6 (14:55):
Wow, you just sparked a lot of thoughts in hyphrase that.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
I mean, it kind of goes in phase this a
little bit, and depending on like, you know, how how
you're performing. Sometimes affects how you feel about the sport
depending on the team that you're on and the guys
in the locker room kind of.
Speaker 6 (15:12):
Can can can you know? Change that? But I did.
I loved football and that's all I want to do.
Speaker 5 (15:19):
My dad played college football or Purdue, and like I
just grew up wearing his old helmet, and I honestly
loved football all the way through college. And then I
started getting attention from NFL scouts and I was like, sweet, okay,
I get it. I could do this for the next
fifteen years of my life, and that would be a dream.
Like I was just happy to make it to college.
(15:41):
That's all I wanted to do as a little kid,
was play college football. But now we have this NFL opportunity.
And then very quickly in that situation, like I again
did all the activities growing up, so I never had
to focus just solely.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
On football, you know.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
And then in college, you're doing doing academics, you're doing sports,
you have the social life, you have all the clubs
and whatever, so it's not all football. But then in
the pros it was like this singular thing that consumes
your entire life. And I didn't know anybody else. I
started on the Kansas City Chiefs, and there I am
in Kansas City, didn't know a soul, and so like
(16:20):
I'd only spend time with the football teammates. I would
only go to the facility, wouldn't go anywhere else, and
you're just kind of like ruminating on this, and then
it was like it became almost like a really unhealthy
part obsession, part like torment of like man, I want
something else to like distract me. Almost, so it was complicated,
and I remember, like, you know, at points, I was
(16:43):
super confident I'd be dabbing everybody up in the facility.
But then with certain teams in the NFL, when you're
just trying to make it like, oh man, I don't
want to get cut.
Speaker 6 (16:51):
I hope today's not my.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
Day to get cut, Like you start having these thoughts
and so I couldn't even I went from you know,
being the guy who's joking around, so I couldn't even
make eye contact because I was so I don't know,
like nervous or anxious or uncertain. So it kind of
goes ebbs and flows, and then you kind of just
kind of find that pocket of like okay, you know
what I've done everything I can to put myself in
(17:12):
the best position. Am I gonna enjoy this or not?
Like I towards the end of my career, I started realizing,
this is like once in a lifetime, you know, like
I'm gonna only be in this locker room for so
many years, maybe only a few more days, who knows,
But I might as well just like have a good
time and like enjoy it. And that's that kind of
(17:33):
opens up the performance side of things too, kind of
like it pulls you out of that rumination. So complicated
to say the least, but I definitely learned a lot.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
We'll be back in just a minute, but here's a
word from our sponsors. It's so interesting the way you
put that, because I was just actually.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Writing about this. When I was in Cool.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
And I started doing theater, which I thought I would hate.
I was like, I play volleyball. I don't do that
like the theater girls. Yeah, my friend does that. We're
not the same, you know. She was like a show
tune singing like adorable human, who, by the way, still
is like you know, now, we've been friends for thirty years.
But I didn't know that it was something I would love,
(18:21):
and then that became my extracurricular you know, started in
middle school, went through high school. By my senior year,
I was so serious about it. And then I went
to college to get a BFA, a Bachelor of Fine
Arts in theater, and one of those things where you
know you have to audition.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
It's like it's like.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
A team tryout. It's so scary, and they, you know,
they admit fourteen people a year. And I got in
and I was like, oh my god, I've made it.
You know, this is my next step. I'm moving through
the system. And I got into that program and I
had the experience for talking about Andrew. I feel like
(18:59):
it made me a basket case because it all I
did was eat, breathe, and sleep theater. All I did
was focus on scripts. All I did was get asked
every decision i'd make, like in a scene testing something out, Well,
why'd you make that choice? What was the motivation here?
And it's not even that the questions were bad, they
(19:21):
could have been opening a compliment, but what it did
was make me so self conscious and I was like, well,
I don't know why I made I mean, it just felt,
you know, and I was reacting to this person and
it sort of seemed like we could the scene's a fight,
but what if they started laughing in the middle, Like,
isn't that interesting? And no matter what felt natural to me,
I worried that I was.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And what you illuminated for me was that once you've
made it on the college team or the pro team
or whatever, everyone thinks you've made it, nobody says, hey,
how are you doing?
Speaker 6 (19:56):
Hey?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Do you need any support? And what I realized I
had to do my second year of college. I was like,
I can't handle this, and I transferred out of that major.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I was keeping a.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Theater minor, but I went into the journalism school and
that was the year I started booking auditions like crazy
because I'd taken the pressure off and then suddenly I
was just like, oh, this is fun, Like this is
my gymnastics, this is the thing I like to do
after school, and I'm actually kind of good at this okay,
(20:29):
And weirdly it it shifted something in me. It wasn't
something anyone else was doing.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
But when it's.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Too pressurized, the thing you love can torment you. Yeah,
well said, it's so surreal.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
I feel like you see that in everything that was Like,
if you take the joy away from it and you
lose the reason why you started in the first place,
and you're like forcing it for a different reason, whether
it's success or money or whatever, it lose everything. If
you can't just like have joy with it, then it's
a whole different ball game.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, how do you feel like you both chose to
prioritize that? Because I think about I don't know, rewind
to like twenty twelve before. Maybe the world is also
so insane and you're both navigating these crazy high pressure
careers and I know you know you've you've written about
(21:31):
how success alone wasn't going to provide lasting fulfillment, like
there had to be more. If you think about back then,
in the height of things, how did you start to
consider what your wider vision was for your futures?
Speaker 5 (21:48):
These are great questions, Well things, Well, I'm curious what
your perspective on this is. I feel like the deeper
you get into anything, like the longer your career is.
And sports is kind of unique because it's so intense
and so consuming and so kind of idolized, as is
your industry. But it's like the transition out of that
(22:10):
is super hard, and I think John struggled with it,
you know, kind of by choice. She retired, and then
she struggled probably for like three or four years when
we were dating. And then I struggled with it by force,
you know. I was bouncing around from team to team,
and man if I would have had a long and
(22:30):
steady job, I probably would have kept it. But instead
it kind of like made me think about other things
while I was still getting opportunities in the NFL, and
so I was like, oh, I should probably start assembling
other parts of my life. But it's like it's a
really uncomfortable process because when you're in the moment, you
don't like, I did not feel like I had any
(22:50):
other translating skills from football that would apply anywhere else.
Like everyone says sports is so good to teach all
these things, and I see it now, you were also
in I kandemic.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Yeah, I mean acknowledge that.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
Yeah, And I guess, you know, if I would have
stopped for a second, I would have realized that there
was other things. But I did not feel like I
had anything else I could offer the world except for
my you know, my football skills. And now I see
that there's so many things I learned from sports, but
I had to start learning. You know, I'm gonna I
(23:26):
love video editing. Let me learn this software. And actually
the cameras are pretty cool too. Something learned the hardware
side of it. And then now we started a YouTube
channel and oh my gosh, I love this and you
start to like slowly kindle this other side of you, which,
like to your point, took the pressure off of that
old passion I had of football.
Speaker 6 (23:47):
And then and then both were in a better spotish result.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
I will say, though, I think a huge gift we
are both given was the experience of getting to the
very top and not feeling fulfilled. And I think our
world likes to paint this picture of if only you.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Have X, Y and Z more money, huh a title.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
If you climb the top to the top of the ladder,
you will be happy, You will feel fulfilled.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
That'll be the greatest thing in your life.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
And though winning a medal at the Olympics is absolutely incredible,
it did not fulfill me. I had more joy training
in my gym for sixteen years than I.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Did at the Olympic competition.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
It was very cool, but it wasn't, you know, the
most fulfilling part of my life.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
And I think Andrew was the same way.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
He had so much fun in college and then when
he got to the NFL and he looked around and
was like, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
If this is what it's all talked up to me,
Like this isn't fun. I'm not loving this.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
It made us have a humility when we transitioned out,
though difficult to say, let's kind of get rid of
what the world is telling us we should go do
now and actually go find something that is fun to
us and humble ourselves enough to start over and be
completely horrible at something but truly fall in love with
something again and learn and build, which is what we
(25:14):
love to do. And so we started over, and it
took us a while to find like our niche and
what we liked and what we loved and what we
fell in love with. But I think it was the
gift of athletics, and you know, learning that the hard way,
that that.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Gave us the gift of where we are today.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
You know, when you say you think it's going to
fulfill you, it's such a universal thing. You know, you
get to the Olympics, you get to the NFL, you
get on the show, you do the movie you've always
wanted to do, you you know, whatever it may be,
(25:51):
and then you're still just sleeping in your bed at night,
like gotta go to the grocery store.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
And I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Actually, I'm not sure if I think this is what
it is, but I wonder if part of it is
the way things are covered. You know, the story the
news package on the Summer Olympics, or you know the
blockbuster hit for Christmas or whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
You watch that.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Stuff and you go, wow, look at what those people
are doing, and it's beautiful, and it is, but it
kind of looks like, to your point, the big moment,
the big achievement, and then you think, oh, when I
have that, I will feel fill in the blank. And
then you get whatever your version is and you're like, oh,
this is super weird. Nobody told me I'd still be
(26:39):
anxious and I'd still be like in a fight with
my mom or whatever's going on in your world.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
You're like, this didn't fix me. Huh.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
So it's like and I think the transition out of something,
you know, I remember what it felt like, you know,
to end nine seasons, ten years on a TV show,
like almost no actors get to do that. And I
remember being so surprised because we had all been so
ready to be done. We were like, this has been great,
(27:11):
but we've literally been locked up like in these four
sound stages since we were twenty one and now we're thirty.
Like talk about you know what you were saying, You
leave your life, you move somewhere, you know no one,
you're only insulated with your little group, and like, sure,
that's great, but also it's insane. And I remember leaving
(27:32):
and being like, oh, this is so weird. I can't
stop crying. I didn't think I was sad about this,
and I realized it was both like I was so
happy to go home and I was going to miss
the place that had been my home for a decade.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
And I think.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
The intensity of sport and also the truncated amount of
years you get to do it, Like you are a
phenom and a freak if you make it to thirty
or forty, and you know, playing a sport, right, and
so you kind of have to start over, but you're
starting over so young. Do you think meeting each other
(28:11):
helped you both figure out how to shift out of
one world and into another one.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
So my timeline was I retired technically my first time
after the two thousand and eight Olympics. I was sixteen
years old, and that was the absolute hardest transition for
me because for three years, from the age of sixteen
to nineteen, I had to go finish high school.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Oh right after the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Oh my god, I do go out to high school.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
I had the world telling me I was, you know,
at the top, on the top of the world, and
they expected such perfection in any field. But I was
also just a child and I didn't I needed to
figure out where I was going to go to college
and what I was going to do and what job
I was going to go get, and that was that
was really hard for me, so hard that I ended
up going back into gymnastics because I felt like that
(29:06):
was my safe zone. I didn't necessarily want to, but
in my mind that's all I could kind of compute
to be.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
I totally get that.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
So I went back into gymnastics, retired a second time
at nineteen, and then that's when we were introduced. At twenty,
right when I was coming out of my second go
round and it one hundred percent was the reason I
made it through that transition. I remember putting such pressure
(29:34):
on myself to be a perfectionist. And there's this interesting thing,
which I'm sure you've experienced too, where like people don't
care about you. They care about your character. They care
about what they see in the headlines, and that's all
they want to know about. And I remember Andrew, it
was like the first time I had met someone who
actually cared about me as a human, and it was
very It took me off guard because I was like,
(29:55):
what do you mean you want to know what I
eat for breakfast, like as a human and not gymnasts,
And don't you want to.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Know about the Olympics? And He's like, I don't care
about that. I want to know you.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
And so he kind of got to hold my hand
and walk me through that. And then once I kind
of got my feet under me and we had been
dating and then married and he retired from the NFL,
it was almost like I could return the favor.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I could hold his hand through it and say.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
You got me through mine, Now let me be your
anchor and let's walk through this together. But I think
it just gives you that emotional support that you need
when it seems like everything is up in the air,
to give you a foundation to lean back on.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yes, I know that feeling.
Speaker 6 (30:36):
It's also crazy.
Speaker 5 (30:37):
I mean the echo chamber that can happen in your
own brain of like I don't know, just the stories
you can start telling yourself that just amplify and you're
like to have someone else there who's like, WHOA, just
hold on a second. Just that's not the way I
see it, nor is it reality, And so it just
chill it out for a second is really interesting.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
My favorite story, though it was a low point, so
I say this humorously now because we've gotten through it.
My favorite point was Andrew was kind of going through
his exit of the NFL and having like an identity
crisis where it's like, what am I to the world
and what am I to myself now? And you have
a civil engineering undergrad degree from Vanderbilt, you have an
(31:17):
MBA from Vanderbilt, graduated with honors, all these things, and
he signed up to be an Uber driver and he's like, well,
this is all I It's all I have to.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Give the world anymore.
Speaker 6 (31:27):
I would still do it.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
I know you would still do it, And you'd be great,
and a neighbor driver.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Is a wonderful job.
Speaker 4 (31:32):
But it was just I was sitting there as his wife,
and I was like, okay, this is okay, We're gonna
you know, you can be an uber driver if you
would like, if that fulfills you, but.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Just now that it's not all you have. We'll be
back in just.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
A minute after a few words from our favorite sponsors.
It's kind of arresting, though, when when you have anything
that happens to you that feels, you know, like an explosion,
(32:08):
like everything's been sort of flattened, finding your way out
of that is hard.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And I think.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
In whatever way that happens like it can really be
the thing that saves you or illuminates something for you,
or to your point, quiets those voices. And I think
there's an added layer again that you know, you're not
supposed to talk about if you've made it, because you
(32:37):
should just be grateful and shut up.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
But there is the.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Added pressure of an entire digital world talking about you, yeah,
and criticizing you and judging you and assuming they know
things about you, and it can break you. And I
think having someone else with you who knows what that
(33:04):
is is also such a It can offer you so
much salvation because you do have someone to say, I
know that's not true about you. I know this is crazy,
And so I'd imagine that you have like having that
version in your own home where you get to be like, hey,
remember who you are, remember what is true about you,
(33:27):
Remember how great you are, qualified, you are, talented, you
are And if you need a break to like.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Have a Menti bee and drive around downtown, that's also okay.
Speaker 6 (33:35):
I love you like.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
That's that's a game changer because it helps stop you
from getting swallowed by a machine that is so much
bigger than anyone person.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
We interviewed someone who and it has just always stayed
with me years ago, who said, like the human heart
was not meant to digest all these voices that we
have access to anymore. And I remember him speaking on
make sure the voices that you truly let in are
trusted and small, like a small circle. And I feel
(34:07):
like we try really hard to do that. We're both
having mental breakdowns.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Last week.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
It was like it was like I need you to
speak truth to me, and you to speak truth back
and back, and it's just it is they're so it's
the world is so loud now, yeah, and it's really
hard to turn it off.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, and you have to be so.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
Conscious about who has the most volume. And I think
we all struggle with this. It's an ebb and flow
of Well, Instagram voice has got a little too loud
for me today and I am about to go lock.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Myself in a room.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
Yeah, and I need someone to truly just like tell
me what which way is up?
Speaker 3 (34:51):
And yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
It's interesting because it goes both ways, you know. And
we write in our book about mentorship and having someone
who is trusted voice, who is like a little further
down the path than you are wherever you want to
be in life, like, hey, this is the type of
family life I want to have, Like, and that's this
person is my role model in that because they have,
you know, whatever kids or the family that you kind
(35:16):
of envision uh wanting, And it's like, you know, they
it's almost you can find any opinion you want online
and it's like seeking you will find you know. If
I want someone to hype me up, I can go
find someone and like go like, hey, this person thinks
I'm awesome. And that's that can almost be equally as
unhealthy as someone finding the voice of daying.
Speaker 6 (35:38):
I am a trash football player. I am I lost
that game.
Speaker 5 (35:41):
And you can like be unhealthy on both sides, where
you don't necessarily just want yes men in your life.
You don't just want people who are cynics and skeptics.
It's like you want someone who's lovingly honest. It's like, Andrew,
I think it's probably time that, like you, you consider
other things in football. And here's why I have known
you for twenty years. I've seen your career. I've been
(36:04):
a part of all these conversations, and you've told me
about what coaches are saying their feedback and the scouts
aren't calling as much, and like that is such a
different thing than like Andrew, the tweet that you get
online Andrew never plays football ever again, you know, like
you're terrible, Like that just doesn't hit the same as
someone who actually intimately knows the situation. So I think
(36:25):
it's like finding that fine balance of loving honesty.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Yeah, it's like you have to you have to figure
out how to build your own filter out of that
huge funnel that we were not meant to evereah No,
And that's I think that's kind of a task for
our peer group as well, Like nobody wrote the handbook
for this before us, because it didn't exist, and so
(36:51):
we we kind of have to figure it out together.
And I think when you when you are with you
know your right person and you have a good mirror,
and then you have more of those good mirrors in
your extended circle, your family, your friendships, Like that's what
helps you start to do that. And I imagine because
(37:11):
I know you guys celebrate ten years of marriage this year. Congrats,
you know, being married for a decade, having three kids,
Like you've really been through it enough to have I
would think kind of like a routine for how you
do things. How do you feel like parenthood maybe made
(37:34):
you even better at that stuff, Like, because it can
be hard to be nice to yourself, but you want
to be nice to your You want to be the
nicest person in the world for your kids.
Speaker 5 (37:43):
You know.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Yeah, I feel like your spouse partner, I mean, is
like the best first mirror relationship that you get, where
it can be very humbling when you have someone so
trusted be like, you're not being very nice right now,
and it's like I think you're probably you're a mirror,
(38:06):
so you're probably I should probably listen to that, you know.
And so I think with us having we're married how
many years before through three four three three, having been
married three years before we had our first kid, that
was you know, an ebb and flow that you really
have to get used to and have to You have
to find trust there and humility. But then you take
(38:27):
it up a notch for the child because you want
to give them the world. You want to be the
best version of yourself. Yeah, and it is so difficult
being a parent. It's so beautiful. And I don't mean
that in a bad way of being difficult. It's just difficult.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
You Raising humans is not easy.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
And to see their reflection of you.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Is so pure.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
And there's no judgment and there's no there's no like,
there's no jadedness to them yet. So anything that they
say to you, like mommy, are you having a hard day,
it's kind of like, oh, wow, I need why do
you think that? Like what am I doing? And it's
just made you It's made us way more selfless and
(39:15):
way more self reflective of what our values are and
what we spend time doing and how we are reflecting
that to our children and what we're teaching them. And
they already have so many voices and we are the
loudest ones, thankfully right now. But trying to teach them
their filters already for life is terrifying, and we have
(39:39):
to make sure we have hours figured out, which we
don't are getting better at it. It's just it's a
very humbling experience.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
I think it's also so interesting because you get to
kind of relive your own childhood in ways yeah and go, oh,
I have I have a wound there or oh my god,
I was made for this moment, like this is my
area of expertise, and it's it's so beautiful because you
(40:10):
learn all this stuff I don't think you'd learn otherwise
if you didn't have that little person who is this
pure thing mirroring at you and and to just go
back to the beginning of your point. Yes, it is
the most gorgeous thing. And it is so hard. And
my friends and I are like any any like mom fluencer,
(40:33):
dad fluencer who just makes it look easy.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
You're a trader. You're a trader, You're.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
A liar, Like we have got to be able to
say this is an absolute miracle and also like, what
are you doing to get through this crazy phase or
this you know, struggle development moment? Like, and I think
the more we get to normalize that stuff, the better
(40:59):
for all the parents out there.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
So both and I think there's.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
Something so beautiful about and pure about children and our
world that's so just crazy. Right now, it seems like
we can all agree we want to raise good humans
and we want to protect the puritists and children.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
So I feel like, kind of like.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
You're saying, it's like all the chaos quiets when you
have a child around, because you're like, I want to
protect you, and I want to love you, and I
want to do my best. And so all of us
parents coming together being like, how do we do this?
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Yeah, we all want the best for kids.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, well, I think most of us.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
I think it's been a pretty rough time in the
world to realize not everybody does.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah, but my hope.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
Actually is that the amount of us who as like
as we spoke about earlier, would literally run into moving
traffic for our children.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah, I hope.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
We quiet all the other noise and simply focus on
how we're going to reorganize the world for them, because
there are some people who don't have that as their
core value, and like, those are people I wish I
could pack into a cannon and shoot out into space.
I'm like, you should be voted off the island, and
I mean the island of Earth. Lately, the last couple
(42:18):
of years have sort of broken my faith in humanity
and also made me be like, if the moms were
in charge, this shit.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
Would be fixed by lunch.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Yeah, you know, they would live on Mars.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
They live on Mars, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
I am enjoying this conversation with Sean and Andrew so much,
and I hope you are as well. Tune back in
for the next special bonus episode, where we dive into
all the specifics of their incredible new book, Courage to Commit.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
See you soon,
Host
Sophia Bush
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