BEST OF: Shawn Johnson on Get Real in 2019

Enjoy this best of episode of Get Real from 2019 with Shawn Johnson!

Shawn Johnson started pursing her dream of gymnastics at 12 years old. At the age of 16, she took home the gold medal at the Olympics.  She explains how mental training and visualization was just as important as physical training for her big win. We talk about how she was lost after winning the highest award in her sport plus how it felt to win Dancing with the Stars and why she decided to walk away from the Olympics for a second time just a week before tryouts.  We also talk about our pregnancy’s, fears of motherhood and heartbreak of miscarriage. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Adam Well.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I was just going through some of my previous podcasts
and thinking about what great episodes we have covered in
this podcast over the past nine years. I cannot believe
we have been doing Get Real for nine years. And
one of my favorites was with Sean Johnson. She won
a gold medal. She's an Olympic gold medalist for gymnastics,

(00:24):
and she talked about how she visualized her entire routine
before she.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Actually did it and won the gold medal.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
And I just think that this is such a great
mindset and mentality, and so I wanted to give us
a flashback to this great episode with Sean Johnson.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
So here it is.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Adam Adam, Adam Ada.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Carry Lund.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
She's a queen and talking.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
She gave her not Afraid Favorites episode. So just no
one can do week or a car line is sound
to Calne.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
On this episode of Get Real podcast, I have Sean Johnson,
the Olympic gold medalist. She won a gold medalist when
she was so young for beam and gymnastics, and we
talk about all of it, her journey to the Olympics,
what she learned from being an Olympian, the power of
the mind, how training your mind is so important, and

(01:32):
we talk about Then she went on to Dancing with
the Stars.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
She won that, she went back on All Stars.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
With Dancing with the Stars got second. What it's been
like falling in love with her husband. They've been together
for almost a decade, and how he balances her out.
It's just amazing their partnership. They have a YouTube channel together,
they work together, and they're just perfect. They're a perfect pair.
And Sean is just wise beyond her years. She's gone
through so much and lived so much life to only
be I think she's twenty seven. She started her journey

(01:59):
the Olympics when she was twelve, so she grew up
really fast, and she's learned so many incredible life lessons
at such a young age. Really done a ton of
self discovery, and she's so open and honest about sharing
her journey. We both have been pregnant at the same
time together too, which has been so much fun. We
took a baby bump picture together, so by the time
this airs, I will have had my baby, she'll be

(02:20):
getting close to having hers. But it's been fun to
follow her journey as a beautiful pregnant mama to be
and I can't wait to see what they're having. They're
not finding out, but what her journey continues to look
like as a mom. She also suffered a miscarriage and
so did I, So we talked about that and just
learning from that and what it does to your mind
and working through that. She's just such an incredible soul.

(02:42):
So you guys, get excited. Here is Sean Johnson.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Okay, I am here with the incredible Sean Johnson. Hello.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
What's up girl? Oh?

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Nothing, just baby bumping, pregnant? Yeah, thirty one weeks thirty one,
you're thirty eight, thirty eight.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
This is probably when this airs. Hopefully I will have
had a child. Yes, that is the goal, and you
will be very close to having delivered or about to
go into labor when this airs.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yes, I'm getting far ahead. Really terrify.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Are you scared about the labor process?

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, I'm more scared about.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Having a kid like for the rest of your life. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
I keep saying like, it's not like a dog you
havent for like twelve years. You have them forever, and
they like that might sound really bad.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
No, I hear you though, because it's like they're going
to affect your mental well being for the rest of
your life. We're gonna care about everything our child does,
stress about everything, worry about them.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Like, I'm already thinking about teenage years.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
I'm like, how do I deal with like when drinking
and boys come into play and I don't want I mean,
I'm like, and then I think about college and I'm like,
almost don't want her to go to college because I'm like,
college can be crazy.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
You know.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
I'd rather just become a musician to live on the road.
And people think that's crazy, but I'm like, oh God.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
But she's gonna do what she wants. Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Do you stress about any of that?

Speaker 5 (03:58):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Absolutely all of it. I just stress to be like,
how do you teach your kid to be a good person?
I don't know. I don't know either. Is it just
you have to show by example? But then are we
good enough people?

Speaker 3 (04:12):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
I don't know. I just like I'm scarred by the
whole concept.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
And isn't it crazy because you were kind of talking before,
like you try so long not to get pregnant now
and then we were because we've both been on a
pregnancy journey. Yeah, And I love that you've documented yours.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Thank you. It's actually very hard to get pregnant and
stay pregnant.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah, it's like a miracle because we both actually went
through miscarriages.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
How far long were you? I was really early. I
was like eight to ten weeks.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Same here we were like seven, yeah, weeks seven, eight
weeks yep. But still it's yeah, one of the most
emotional experiences I've personally ever been through.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Same because you, I mean, you find out you're pregnant,
which is like, especially when you find out you're pregnant
the first time. Yes, I've never cried so much my
life ever having or just scared all of it, happy, scared, terrified,
and then you kind of wrap your mind around it, Okay,
I'm going to be a parent, this is it, and

(05:10):
then you lose it and it's just yeah, it's an
emotional rollercoaster. You don't you don't know how to deal
with it.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
What did you What was going through your head when
you were miscaring? Did you take it personal?

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Or yeah? What did you think? Because I felt guilty?
I was like, what did I do wrong? What did
I eat? Like if I can't even take care of
a baby and inside of me, how can I take
care of a child outside of me. It was just
like a rush of guilt. I felt bad for Andrew
because I was like, I lost your baby. It's just like,
I know, what do you feel like? And then I

(05:43):
felt like.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
My biggest struggle in life is that I'm not good
enough yep. And so I was like, see this makes
to cry.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
I think.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
I think I worked through all my stuff and then
I talked about it. I get emotionals, but also we're pregnant,
so it's like I don't deserve to have a baby.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
I like, I'm not good enough to be mom. I
thought about all the like mistakes I've made in life
and like, is this somehow, I don't know, the world
showing me that I don't disserve the baby, and yeah,
oh yeah, it's crazy what it gets to your brain.
Mm hm, I know.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
And then I feel like the universe was telling me
like just kidding, you're not supposed to be a mom.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, And it was just like oh.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
And then it's like whatever be able to hold a
baby like carry one, and then you think about all
the people who never can get pregnant yep, and it's
just like the whole process it is insane.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
And then you try to you start trying to get
pregnant again, and yeah, then it's a whole different rush
of emotion of like do I want to go see
this again? Yeah? Am I going to be able to?
And then it becomes instead of just like this happy process,
it becomes such a like stressor on your marriage and
your life and oh my gosh, it's just get me pregnant.

(06:51):
It's hard.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
It's hard.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
I know.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
I felt bad about that because like we tried for
like ten months and I put so much pressure on it,
and like when I'm ovulating and make sure you like
how sex on this day, and then it's like that's not.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Fun a romantic you know. Yeah, I'm telling your husband
like we have to now.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, now, And then he's like, oh my god, because
he gets his stress because it's like, you want to
make this happen.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
We go to make a baby. I know. It's a lot.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
It's a lot, and then you get through it.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Though. Have you had anxiety during your pregnancy like that
you would lose it or were you enjoy it a
little bit of both. I feel like every day it's
just I don't know. I feel like it took me
a long time this pregnancy to like admit that I
was pregnant or like bond at all, because I was
just kind of like, oh, it's probably not gonna last.
I get that, and I feel like that lasted a
long time. I think like the first Ulder sound maybe

(07:40):
not like the ten.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
Week old show, but like the twenty week that one
I bother like bald like a baby.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
I was like, I cannot imagine not having this, like
having this baby. Yeah, I'm gonna We're gonna be like
crying masses on this. I'm gonna start crying, I know.
But no, it makes it, Yeah, it makes it really hard. Yeah,
you're just like in denial the whole time.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
I know, we didn't even announce that we'regnant until twenty
like nineteen twenty weeks, because I was so scared we
were gonna lose it.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, but then you get all the way to where
we are, it's like the babies can live on their own.
And now I'm like, my back hurts, I got heartburn.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
I woke up last night and threw up that heartburnt
so bad. Oh. You know, it's like now you're on
the other side of it, where it's like you feel
all the all the things with it, but you're also
so grateful to you get to experience them.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Oh yeah, I mean I just started getting like the
really bad hip pain. Oh and I yes, where my
hips are widening or something. I don't know what's going on,
and I can't sleep, and then my back hurts, and
then I feel like Bay's gonna fall out of my vagina.
I mean, it was seriously like, I'll stand up like
it's coming out. It's coming up. John know what it is?
We don't.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Oh my god, y'all are crazy, y'all. It wasn't my choice,
Andrew want to find out. No, I had the ten
week blood test done so you could know.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
I could know. Mallory has my results. She so she knows,
She says she hasn't opened it.

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah. Right, and your best friend's Mallory Early. Yeah, who
is the most amazing your duyser bunny on this planet. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
I don't know how she has so much energy? Oh god, she.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Has more energy than anyone in the world.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, but you have a ton of energy too, now
like her. She that's just the way she is wired. Yeah.
So yeah, I was her judge of the Miss America pageant.
Oh my god, that's how y'all met. That's how we met.
And I literally saw her skip across the stage, not
like pageant walk, but like heine skip, and I was like,
she seems fun.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
So we did an amazing race together, and that was
like I originally met and I've just never met anyone
like her in my life. Was it her and her
dad on your No, it was her third time, and
she was partner in the way that I got here
was partner. She had a terrible experience on the season.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
I was she'd had like the best.

Speaker 3 (09:45):
Experience of her dad two seasons, and then she got
paired with It was a random pairing with another contestant.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
It was not good for her. She did not like it. Yeah,
how did you like it?

Speaker 3 (09:55):
I loved it because I was with my friend Jen
Wayne Okay, and we just we had been in a
band together and so we had been like best friends
for ten years. We really knew how to work together,
and we had so much fun.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
That's awesome. Like, I've always wanted to do that show.
I think you should do it. We would kill each other,
you think. Yeah, we have very different travel styles. Andrew
just he's flighty I don't know.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Well, that's the thing, like a lot of people get
very intense with each other.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, I don't know if everything
comes out. Oh yeah, I'd be better acting with like
a girlfriend or something than my husband. I feel like
we already almost kill each other when we travel.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
You do what what's your travel styles?

Speaker 4 (10:38):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (10:38):
He's he forgets he has a flight booked. Oh so
he's just like he's like, he's like, happy, go lucky,
not worry. Yeah no, he's like, the flight's in ten minutes.
I'll be fine and he'll still be at home.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
Oh how does he plan on getting there? Uber he
doesn't worry about it. Does he miss a lot of flights?

Speaker 4 (10:54):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, he misses flights. Yeah no, he does it all
the time. Are you sick me insane?

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Well? Yeah? Or I'll call him and be like are
you at the airport yet? And he's like no, Like,
you have a flight in thirty minutes.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Say you know that you're supposed to be there an
hour ahead of time. He doesn't care. He doesn't. He
thinks that's a suggestion.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
What about if he's checking a bag.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
He never checks a bag, so he just carries on
so he just used to roll in and roll in
the plane.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
He does not want to spend any extra time there now,
so he's willing to miss the flight.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
On occasion, he'll be like.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
At football practice up until like the thirty minute boarding time. Wow,
and he'll still shower and like go to the airport
like you're out of your mind.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
Does that transferred to any other parts of his life
that laid back?

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Oh? Everything? So how does that?

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Because okay, obviously you are Shawn Johnson, the Olympient gold medalist.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
I swear when when did you win the gold?

Speaker 3 (11:42):
When?

Speaker 1 (11:42):
What year was that? Two thousand and eight? Long time ago?

Speaker 5 (11:44):
No?

Speaker 1 (11:45):
I gymnastics is my favorite. Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yes, And so I remember watching you You're killing it
and it was on floor. Right, that's the hardest one.
I know, it's it's scary. I couldn't do it anymore. Well,
I think you deserve right now. Yeah, but you can
still flip and do all those things once you're not pregnant.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Not really. I can do a little bit. I can
know a little bit, but not nearly what I could.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
Okay, so you are obviously a gold medalist. You have
a very intense work ethic, yeah, and you know how
to uh make it happen. So you want ahead and
married someone who's just the most laid back pund Do
you think you were attracted to that to balance you out?
Probably because I had dated the opposite type type. I
had dated like my style and it didn't work. Was

(12:32):
that too much?

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah, we're way too intense.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
By the way, it's my mouth like red cherries. I
don't really care.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
I'm scooting this board, can it look?

Speaker 1 (12:43):
See? I'm trying.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
John's teaching me how to be a professional YouTuber with
good lighting and how.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
To make video. I don't know. That's my husband, not me.
I need to learn how to do things on it
looks good? Okay, great? Yeah, I think you look great.
Thank you? Yeah you too. Oh.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
I feel like honey booboo all the time. I feel
massive massive, Yeah, I mean my boobs lay on my stomach,
they just flop on them.

Speaker 4 (13:12):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
If I wear like underwire bras, it like bruises my belly.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
Those aren't in my wardrobe anymore.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
I tried once for an event and then to give
yourself a little push. Yeah, then you said they just sag.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
And yeah to do all their stuff now, Yeah, I
actually have milk coming out of my boobs.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Now, why, oh my god. All right, it's amazing.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
That's great. You're gonna really be a VI.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
I started like twenty weeks. It was really weird.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
You're gonna be a nursing machine. Should you start pumping
and putting in the freezer?

Speaker 1 (13:38):
I don't know I actually had the thought, but I
was like, I don't know. It gross as my husband out,
but it's good sign because that means that you can
probably nurse.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
So that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, it started twenty weeks. I was like, I don't
know what is going on. You're ready?

Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yeah, I mean it's happening for you.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
Yeah, Okay, So Andrew's totally opposite of you, So what
is y'all's dynamic together.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
He's just he's just a kid, and I'm the one
that's trying to keep order. But it's fine because I'm
very like, I'm very by nature, just very like strict
and rigid, and.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
You are, well you have to be to be an
Olympian gold medalist.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, and Andrew's just like the happy, go lucky, fun guy,
which brings out like allows me to have more fun
in life. Which is cool. Otherwise I don't think i'd
have any fun.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
Do you think you'd be just too regimented? Yeah, and
I care too much what people think, like me too, Yeah,
that's why people please there. Oh people pleasing is my worst.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
And Andrew's not at all. He could care less, which
I do not care.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Oh, he could care less.

Speaker 3 (14:43):
And he could care less if he's terrible at something,
and he could care less if he like fails at something.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
It's just like something that I envy so much.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
So he's just like a labrador.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
He's just like happy to be here, not worried about it.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
No, something doesn't work out, he's gonna move on. Yeah, hey,
I would be trying traumatized. So he's really rubbed off
on you, and you probably rubbed off on him.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
I tried. But more is it just an appreciation for
the other, Like you, guys both need each other. We
both like push each other outside of each other's comfort zones.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Which is good. And y'all work together.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
We do, so talk to me about y'all's family business.
It's a schmorgasbord of random things we do YouTube, which
sounds weird to say. We're YouTubers. I love it. That's great.
He has this podcast and what's it called redirected?

Speaker 4 (15:31):
Redirected because he is a football player, Yes, and he
just played against he just played for the uh Redskins
Redskins like, but he's played for like ten different teams.
Wasn't this like a big deal that he just played
for the Redskins and it was his first ever season
that he's ever played, so like.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
He's gone through he signed ten contracts. Dang, and he's
gone all the way up until season and then they've
cut like released him, and so last year was the
first year he made it through season? How is that amazing?
It was really cool. It was really cool because he's
never quit, No, never, That's incredible. But for him again,

(16:07):
he could like care less. He's like, oh, maybe I'll
go back maybe not, Like, how.

Speaker 5 (16:10):
Do you not know?

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Is he still doing football right now?

Speaker 1 (16:14):
He's technically still in like the NFL pool of names,
but he's not on a team.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Okay, So how was it that when he played his
first game? I'll documented that too. I like cried in
the stands.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
I was so nervous. He's a long snapper. I don't
know if you know that is. I don't know if
that was. I don't know. You know the guy who
kicks the ball, you know, the guy who like throws
him the ball under his legs. Yeah, that's what he does. Okay,
Yeah right, I didn't know. I know more about that
position than any other position in the NFL now, and
I would like watch him from the stands like, oh

(16:47):
that was bad snap. That was a good snap. I'm like, oh,
is he okay? Yeah? I was dumb, but it was awesome.
I was a very proud wife.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
How is that okay? Because I want to talk about
your dreams and achieving your goals, but how is that
to watch the person you love the most achieve a dream.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
It's pretty cool having gone through my athletic career already
and like been retired, watching Andrew now go through it.
There's so many different like experiences that I can parallel
and I see him like, I don't know, it's really
weird to say, but where he was when he started
his football career is where I was when I was
like twelve and gymnastics, which is just how it works

(17:26):
in gymnastics because you're young and you're really young, and
so I kind of would not coach him, but be
able to sit back and be like, oh, I can
see how this is gonna play out, and this is really.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Funny and cool, and I know what you're going through,
and like we would cry together and it'd be like
it's okay, there's like a bigger picture at play.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
I just remember being at like twelve years old. I
mean I was a child, so of course I wouldn't
know what's going on, but you can't see the bigger picture.

Speaker 3 (17:51):
And it was really cool for me, as like his wife,
to be able to see a bigger picture for him
and see him succeed in it, and it was just
like it was incredible. I feel like proud mom, which
sounds really weird to your husband, but yeah, you're just
so proud of What is it like starting your career
at twelve years old?

Speaker 1 (18:10):
And how did you even start your career at twelve
years old? So gymnastics is different because I started gymnastics
when I was three, just like you would put three Yeah,
well wow, I mean since we're going to be mom, yeah,
you know, like we'll put our kids in some lessons someday, right, Yeah,
My parents put me in gymnastics lessons and you just

(18:30):
loved it, and I loved it, and I just kept
with it and.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
Got to be twelve years old and at a certain
level where I made it to like a qualifier for
the USA National team and I somehow made it on.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
So what is the USA National Team? It's the team
that the US selects from for the Olympics. Okay, So
how many people are on that team? Twenty four total?

Speaker 3 (18:53):
So is it all over the country. Yeah, so it's
like the best twenty four people girls, yeah, all over
the country, and then the Olympics picks from those twenty
four to make how many go on the Olympic team?

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Four?

Speaker 5 (19:07):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Okay, so from twenty four across the country for make
it to the Olympics. Yes, so you made it and
made it? Yeah, obviously you made it.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
What does that feel like? Did you freak out when
you made the Olympic team? At were you twelve? I
was sixteen sixteen. So twenty four of those girls, twelve
of them are fifteen and under and twelve of them
are sixteen and over, just because you have to be
at least sixteen to make the Olympic team. So I
was one of the fifteen and under until I hit
sixteen and then they could select from the sixteen and

(19:40):
higher group. Okay, and it was cool, but again, like
remember back when you're sixteen, you don't really know what
the world is at all, and you can't weigh consequence
and you can't understand the magnitude of a situation. And
I was just a kidney candy store competing at a

(20:01):
bigger arena. To me, it wasn't like the Olympics.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Do you even know what the Olympics were? Really?

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Yes, but again I don't think I understood like the magnitude,
which is like a blessed way thinking about it, do
you think it's kind of a blessing?

Speaker 3 (20:13):
You know? Oh?

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Absolutely. I think that's why gymnasts do so well because
they're so young, is you're just naive. You're not thinking
about millions of people watching and their expectations, and they're
talk about people pleasing. I would have had a heart attack.
I'm literally sweating thinking about it, like what were they
thinking of me? But it's just it's you're just naive.

(20:36):
You're naive to everything, and I feel like your parents
and the coaches try to really protect that so you
don't freak out. Yeah, if I made the Olympic team.
Now I would freak out because you know too much.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yeah, you've seen too much.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
You know too much?

Speaker 3 (20:51):
So how much do you have to practice when you're
getting gearing up for the Olympics?

Speaker 1 (20:58):
So are you okay?

Speaker 3 (20:59):
I'm just you know, just moving this all around.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
We were training about forty hours a week. Wow, so
a lot.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
Are you getting homeschooled?

Speaker 1 (21:11):
I actually wasn't homeschooled. I went to public school my
whole career.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
And then you just train after school, So you'd go
to school all day and then how long would you
go to the gym.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
So there were two different like regimens in routines that
I would have to follow if I was following my coach.
This is a lot of information trying to sort out
how to touch. So the USA national team we only
meet and train together once a month for a week.
The other weeks you're back home and your home state

(21:42):
city with your own coach training your own like system.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
So do you make up your own routine for the
Olympics and everything? Yeah, so you have to have a
great coach. Yes, okay, I'm very good. Where do you
find your coaches?

Speaker 1 (21:55):
My coach I was lucky was just the closest gym
to my parents' house when I was growing up. His
name is Choo. He's Chinese and I trained in Iowa,
d Wine, Iowa. But his system was I would go
to school until public school until two or three whenever
school let out, and then I would train four hours

(22:16):
after yeah, every day, and then I got Sunday off.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
And then would you have to go like approve what
you're what you're learning with Chow to the Olympic board
or team or the coach of the Olympics, so that
once a month for a week, you would go down
to Houston, Texas and train with the national team and
we would train nine hours a day, seven days a
week for a week. And that's when you like show

(22:41):
your skills and what you're working on and you get
everything like approved.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Okay yeah wow yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:47):
So how long does this go on?

Speaker 1 (22:51):
It's like years or months? Years. So do you work
on the same routine for years for the most part, yes, wow,
you would. You would change like little things here and
there over the course of years, but your basic foundation
is pretty much the same.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
Okay. So what is your life like when you're training?
You're here, you are I guess you start training when
you're twelve, and then you do this. Do you train
for four years? I don't know why I picked four years.
How long were you on the team before you competed
in the Olympics?

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Four years? Okay, But you could be on the team
for a year. You could be on the team for
a month. You could be on the team for twelve
years before you make the team.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
Okay, so you made it right away and then the
Olympics are coming up for four years? Yes, so you're
training for four years?

Speaker 1 (23:37):
So what is your life? What are you thinking in
those four years? Like, what are you thinking about life?

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Like what you how are you balancing being a teenager
being in school but you also have this.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Really big thing on the side. I was I don't know.
I would say for the first like three years, it
was just like this after school activity that nobody knew about.
I was just like a gymnast on the side. And
then at school I was a normal high school kid.
But for the most part, like my mind was consumed
with gymnastics. It was like, how soon can I get

(24:10):
my homework done so that I can get to practice
and go to bed early.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
So you loved it? I loved it. Okay, Yeah, the
last year I was psycho.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Like every single person I hung out with, I was like,
how's this going to affect my Olympics. If I went
to dairy Queen, I'd be like, Oh, I can't eat
this because I have to go to the Olympics. C
I was psycho, but yeah, I guess it's what you
need for the Olympics. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
So then you get to the Olympics and what is
that like, because you've been working for this for four years,
Like what do you feel? What goes on through your brain? Honestly,
for me, when I got to the Olympics, I didn't
allow myself to like realize I was at the Olympics
until I was done.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
So you kind of train for years on your like
years on end practice after practice, just training your mind
to kind of go numb. And so I went through
my entire.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
Olympic experience just saying like, oh, it's another practice, it's
another routine, it's nothing new. That was intentional.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
Oh, absolutely, because I mean if you're in.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
The Olympics, you're like, oh my god, I'm at the Olympics.
You probably have a meltdown. So you've really worked on
your mind discipline. Yeah, I think it's majority of mind. Okay,
so you have so you're just pretending like you're not there.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Yes, okay, And I get all the way through the
Olympics and then it's like when you're competing, did you
feel like you weren't there?

Speaker 3 (25:35):
Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
You kind of have to.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
You have to.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
I mean the beam is four inches wide. If you're
on on the beam thinking, oh my god, I'm at
the Olympics, So what are you thinking about? Like exit?
Do you really want to know? Yeah, it's really weird.
My coach. Every coach is a little bit different. But
my coach just like he would teach you a skill

(25:58):
that your body does. He would teach you like every
single word for every second you're like on your apparatus
of what to think. Okay, So I had like an
exact routine in my head that consumed all ninety seconds
of my routine because he always said, like if your
mind ever breaks and gets distracted, you would fall off. Okay,
So what is that routine in your head?

Speaker 3 (26:19):
What is it?

Speaker 1 (26:19):
It would be like like cues for your skill, okay,
So like reminding, reminding yourself to like squeeze your butt
or keep your stomach tight, or.

Speaker 3 (26:31):
For every different move you had a different queue, so
you're your memory. You choreographed the cues as well. Yes,
so that's all you're thinking about. Yes, that's actually great.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
It is amazing because then you don't have time to
like be on the beam and look over and see
Bob Costas like commentating your routine. Right, yeah, genius. Does
every coach do that?

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Or do you think?

Speaker 1 (26:51):
I don't think so. I think so he knew how.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
Important the mind game was.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Oh yeah, we trained. We trained mental more than physical.
So we would spend four hours in a gym training
like your physical skill and your conditioning and your flexibility.
But then he would send you home with four hours
worth of like mental training. How do you mentally train?
Like what does that look like? Okay, So I always

(27:16):
tell someone like, think of think of a skill of
any kind that you do. So, whether it's like writing
a song or singing a song or performing on stage,
and try to picture yourself doing it perfect ten times
in a row. And for some reason, our mind wants
us to see us fail and like make mistakes, and

(27:37):
it becomes this like muscle of the more you work
on it, the more you can kind of visualize yourself succeeding,
and the stronger you can get, and the more you
can picture yourself. And they say that whatever you picture,
your body's actually doing. So if you're not thinking, if
your mind goes numb, your body.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Should be able to take over into like autopilot and
do what you've been picturing. So do you picture the
whole thing? Like would you picture your whole routine?

Speaker 1 (28:06):
I would picture so. An assignment from my coach would
be go home, eat dinner, or go to bed, and
then as you're laying in bed, I want you to
picture yourself walking into the Olympic arena, He would say,
what do you hear? What do you see? How's the layout,
what's the floor look like, what's it feel like? What's
it sound like? Picture yourself walking up onto the floor

(28:27):
and competing your routine.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
How are you going to salute?

Speaker 1 (28:30):
What are you going to like?

Speaker 3 (28:31):
Say? What are it like?

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Everything?

Speaker 3 (28:33):
So you're not no, no surprises. Yeah, So by the
time you get there, you've already done it a million times.
Did it fall into place how you had pictured it? Yes?

Speaker 1 (28:43):
And no, I mean you can never really picture it.
But to a certain extent, like you go so numb
by the time you get to an arena that it's like,
let's get this over with, like I just need to
do it over time. And then it's after you're like
back home rewatching it on TV and you're like, holy crap.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
I just did that.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
So what does it feel like when you win a
gold medal of the Olympics, Like you can't get bigger
than that. It's the most overwhelming and underwhelming thing I
think you could ever experience in your Okay, break that down.
It's overwhelming because it's everything you've ever worked for. I mean,
it's the happiest, the most proud, the most sad you've

(29:24):
ever felt, because like you've reached that epitome of your
sport and you're kind of like, what do I do now?

Speaker 3 (29:29):
You've reached the top?

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Yeah? So I remember like literally being on the stand
thinking like I was sad because I was like, what
do I do with my life now?

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Were you planning on coming back? No?

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Okay, so once you because you won, so yeah, like
I'm done. Yeah, but then like what do you do now?
I was sixteen years old. I was like, yeah, I
don't know.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
What to do. You get on Weedy's boxes and stuff,
you start doing brand things, but like as far as gymnastics.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
I didn't know. So it's this. It's an interesting feeling,
but underwhelming kind of in the sense of like people
paint that top podium as the greatest feeling you'll ever
feel in your entire life, and to a certain extent is.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
But you also stand on the podium just like you've
stood on any other podium. May it be like first, second,
or third, you get a medal, which is looks a
little bit different than others. It's a different arena, but
it's just the same thing, and you're like, is this it?
And then you have to wake up the next morning
and do something else?

Speaker 1 (30:32):
So what did you do? Did you have like a
post PTSD?

Speaker 4 (30:37):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (30:38):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (30:38):
How do you maneuver this incredible like biggest moment of
your life? You've worked years to get here. You got it?

Speaker 1 (30:47):
You actually got it? You know first try? Yeah, and
now how do you deal with that letdown?

Speaker 5 (30:54):
Like?

Speaker 1 (30:55):
What did you know? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (30:57):
I have always said that, Like the morning after I
remember waking up and feeling like I had ran like
straight full speed into a brick wall because everything in
my life was determined by gymnastics, what I ate, how
I slept, who I talked to, who you know, who
I hung out with, my school hours, everything, And again

(31:18):
I'm only sixteen, and for me, it was like I
didn't even know how to operate.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
I didn't know how to go down to breakfast and
order because it was like, do I order egg whites
with spinach? No, I don't need to because I'm not
training for the Olympics, Like, can I get It was
just the most confusing feeling of I didn't know how
to be a human being.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
Yeah, and I've been so regimented.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yeah. And I think add into that the kid aspect
of I couldn't see a bigger picture. I could only
see like what was happening right now. And I didn't
have a goal in life. I didn't I didn't have anything.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
So I was like.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
I felt lost.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
So how did you start navigating that those loss?

Speaker 1 (32:02):
My parents helped. I had an agent at the time
who kind of like put me through the gamut of
sponsorships and shows, and I kind of did that until
I found I found Dancing with the Stars, Which how
old are you when you want on dancing with the
stars at seventeen. So right after, right after.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Was it nice to be in a structured It was
amazing because you're like, oh great, I'm familiar, I'm competing.
It's structure, it's intense working out.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
They tell you what time to show up, what time
to leave. I mean it was amazing.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
So you're feeling great now you found a new place
to put all of your energy into.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yes, and so I rode that and you won that?
I did.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
I mean you're just a winner. No, yes, you are
in very hard things.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Uh, you could win Dancing with the Stars. Oh you could.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
You haven't seen me dance.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
You haven't seen me dance? Yes I have. You've seen
someone push me around the floor and tell me what
poses to like hit, But get me on dance floor.
I can't. I start sweating. Yeah, but you have that
ability to mentally crush. Thank you, thank you. So okay,
So you're so relieved you found Dancing with the Stars.
What did that feel like?

Speaker 3 (33:05):
Did you feel like you'd come home again or something?

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Absolutely, it was a new sport for me. It was
a new Olympics. It was a new goal. I knew
how to train, I knew like everything, and so I
kind of went through that, ended up finishing that and
kind of rode the PTSD again.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
So now you're like, oh great, I feel awesome again.
But now it's the same letdown. So you're having this
pattern of like now you're having huge accomplishments, huge wins,
and then giant letdowns and like what's next?

Speaker 1 (33:32):
So how do you navigate now the the next What's next?

Speaker 3 (33:35):
So I did.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
I kind of lived in that what's next lost life
for probably another year. This is a lot summarized, but
I went skiing on my eighteenth birthday, tour everything in
my leg.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Oh you had an accident.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, it wasn't a bad accident, Like it was like
a bunny hill accident. It's embarrassing.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
So you never hurt yourself in gymnastics, never or dancing
the stars.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
A skiing accident, I'm telling you. I think skinning is
so dangerous. It really is. I don't know why anyone
does it.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
No, I always think that.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
But I go back every year and like, do you
still ski barely?

Speaker 3 (34:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Like I cry the whole time. Yeah, it's just traumatizing. Yes,
but I tore everything in my leg, did a RECONSTRUCTI
knee surgery and then felt even more lost in life
just because I didn't have anything. I didn't have my.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Body, because now your physical body is not able to
was it able to do what it could do before.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Now healed well. So I ended up going back to
gymnastics to heal my leg and like heal my body
and went back to gymnastics kind of found my identity
again because I was like, oh, I have my structure,
I have my coach, I have everything. Tried to make
the twenty twelve Olympics and ended up a week before
Olympic trials retiring just because I was doing it all

(34:47):
for the wrong reasons. I came back trying to look
for an identity that wasn't there anymore.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
How did you realize that that's profound.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Thanks, I don't know I had. I had been back
in the sport for two and a half years. I
made it back to world Championships. I had been pretty successful,
but I just felt empty. I remember doing gymnastics for
the two thousand and eight Olympics and feeling like I
was on cloud nine. It was something I truly loved,

(35:15):
but for two and a half years, I was.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Doing gymnastics because it's the only thing I knew it's
not because I loved it anymore.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
And so I got to a week before Olympic trials.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
I had set myself up to be a pretty good
contender for the team, and I remember thinking to myself,
if I make the team or just like realizing I
was more concerned about making the team.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
And hoping that I didn't then hoping that you didn't
make the team.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
Wait, so you wanted to make the team but you
didn't want to make the team.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
No, I was.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
I was more concerned that I was going to make
the team and you did not. I was concerned. I was,
I didn't want to So.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
You're in this process of like getting back involved with
being on the Olympics. Yeah, but like you don't want
your gut is saying I don't want to be on
the team.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah no, so you're able to hear your gut. Yes, Okay,
So what did did you finally reached a breaking point
and you're like I reached a breaking point where I
had I had I was miserable. I was probably the
unhealthiest I've ever been. Like I was pretty much like
a depression. And I remember my parents just saying like thanks.

(36:19):
I remember my parents kind of watching me struggle and
saying pretty much like as any parents would, like, you
have a week left. You literally have a week and
then you're gonna make it to the Olympics and you're
gonna set yourself up for life, like you've got this.
Like it's just it's just a mental break. Like I
had gone through mental breaks before my career. They kind
of helped me through it, but this one was different.

(36:42):
I just like couldn't I couldn't kick it. And so
I got to the week before Olympic trials and all
my heart was telling me was like I'm done. Wow,
I don't want to be a part of this. I
just I couldn't do it anymore. And when you're in
a sport that's so mentally taxing, where you have to
literally think through something every second of every routine. I

(37:03):
was finding myself like on the beam, being distracted by
this thought of like I'm just miserable. I don't want
to do this. And so I ended up retiring and
feeling the greatest I ever had.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Really, week before you probably would have made the team.
You retired, yeah, and I was ecstatic about it. You were,
oh yes, but you now you still don't know what
you're gonna do next.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
I got a call from Dancing with the Stores. Oh
it was that after, so again, Dancing with the Stars
was gonna start while the Olympics were running the All
star season.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
So back again.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah, So I went through it.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
I went through out.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Yeah, so you've had a love relationship with gymnastics, Dancing
the Stars, Gymnastics, Dancing with the Stars.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Did you go back on dancing? I did you win?
I came in second. I didn't win. Oh my gosh. Yeah,
So how did that feel? Not to win? It kind
of sucks, but it was fine. I had a blast.
And then it was after Dancing with the Stars where
I finally was like I was twenty at the time
and able to see a little bit of a bigger

(38:06):
picture and just kind of saw myself going through this
whole process again.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
And I told myself, I wasn't allowed to go back
to gymnastics, okay, I wasn't allowed to ski, and I
had to like find myself outside of both of those.
So you had now lived through enough highs, enough lows,
and realize that now you have to get something outside
of a organization, like outside of like gymnastics, outside of

(38:32):
dancing stars. You can't just like plug into something. Yeah,
you were gonna plug into yourself.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Yeah, twenty years old, that is pretty wise to be
able to grasp that. Yes, I would say yes and no,
only because at twelve we were started, like we were
starting to be taught to be adults.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
I mean, we had to operate on such a grand
stage that we had to present ourselves like adults.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
And yes, you're still a child. You don't understand the
magnitude of anything. But by the time I was twenty,
I had experienced so much in the company of so
many adults, like other Olympians and other sports, that I
had kind of seen people struggles and talked to them.
And I was only twenty, but I had talked to
Michael Phelps and heard his story and his roller coasters

(39:19):
and just learned learned a lot about the passion of
your sport and what's necessary, and was able to kind
of see that I needed to step away.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
So, okay, twenty years old you found out? How did
you find yourself?

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Then?

Speaker 1 (39:36):
M still working on that?

Speaker 3 (39:39):
You're great things? Was how old are you now?

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Twenty seven? Okay?

Speaker 3 (39:43):
So for the past seven years, what has been going
down in the Shawn Johnson self discovery.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
The first thing I did after Dancing with the Stars
was I started college, which I had deferred for a while.
But I had become certified as a trainer, so I
knew how to work out without a coach. I got
certified as a nutritionist, so I knew how to eat
as a normal human being and not a gymnast. I
kind of like all these things that I was relying

(40:09):
on other people to tell me. I would go and
kind of educate myself on and be like, Okay, I
can handle this. I can go into a gym and
not flip, but like lift weights and just be normal,
kept working, kept doing motivational speaking, and then I would say, honestly,
the best like self discovery was meeting my husband. He

(40:31):
was just able to like cut through all the crap
and he's like, I don't care about the gymnasts, I
don't care about anything, Like who are you?

Speaker 3 (40:38):
And what did meeting him do for your soul?

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Maybe you just feel comfortable and who I was? I
feel like for so long, especially coming from gymnastics, Gymnastics
can be really I feel like, dangerous as a sport
because it's a sport that literally teaches perfection. Yeah, when
a score is literally a perfect ten and that's all
you strive for, it can and it's.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
Subjective to people's opinion.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah, oh yeah, like you can actually be deducted on
how you look. Wow, it's yeah, it's a brutal sport
that way. And I felt like I was living my
life trying to attain perfection. And my husband was just
like the first person who was like, I don't want
perfect like that's the last thing I want. I want
you to just be you. And I think he was

(41:24):
the first person that ever like allowed me to relax.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
So did you even know how to be you?

Speaker 5 (41:29):
No?

Speaker 1 (41:30):
How did you?

Speaker 4 (41:31):
So?

Speaker 1 (41:31):
Did he kind of help teach you how to be you?
Kind of you?

Speaker 3 (41:34):
So?

Speaker 1 (41:34):
How did you learn how to be you? And who
is you now? After all this? Who would you say?
Oh my gosh, who has after everything that you have
gone through?

Speaker 4 (41:44):
Like?

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Who would you?

Speaker 3 (41:45):
How would you define yourself now?

Speaker 1 (41:47):
I have no idea, I have no idea. I don't know.
I feel like with my husband it would just be
like these little glimpses of a personality that he would see.
He always he always described it as like I have
had a game face, and then I had me and
he said, if anyone came around and recognized me from
the Olympics, I would become this almost like cold figure

(42:08):
of I had to be perfect. I had to say
the right thing. I had to look the right way.
I had to you know, I couldn't be seen in
public unless I had makeup. And it was just this perfection.
And with him, he just got really tired of it.
He's like, I don't like that. Why did you act
like that in front of that person? Like, well, that's
what they expect. He's like, no, they could care less.

(42:30):
And he would just like challenge me all the time
to to not put on a facade that was politically correct.
And as for who am I, I have no idea.
Was that hard to not put on a facade?

Speaker 3 (42:41):
How do you break that? Because I kind of get
that on a very different level of being like in
a band forever and being on oh yeah, like you
know how to just like turn it on? Oh yeah,
I have people what they want and especially you said
your people pleaser are me too? Being a people pleaser
on top of it, you can kind of read someone's
energy and see what they want, and like how they
want you to be so it's exhausting.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
It's exhausting, and I think I still struggle with it
me too.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
I mean I think it's probably something, Oh yeah, that'll
always be something to work on, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
But I think the way that I started to work
on it was no matter what event I would go
to or where, you know, I had to be, where
I would usually be on, I would take my husband
with me, and it was always this like comfort of
I'm okay to act like me in front of him

(43:31):
and he wants you to act like yeah, and I
can look at him for reassurance like you're good, just
be you. And I'd start to like turn on again
and he'd be like, you're fine, just be comfortable. You
don't have to do anything, Like I don't know, it
was just he's just been my like token.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
How amazing is that?

Speaker 1 (43:50):
He's awesome?

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Yeah? So what have you learned like the highs and
the lows of being an Olympic gold medalistine spending all
this time, Like what would you say are the greatest
assets that you learned from this intense journey of perfectionist
to what have you learned that you maybe wasn't Maybe
it was a low but it's still a lesson.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Wow, I think one of the greatest things. It's the
most cliche and cheesy thing you could ever like you
learn as a kid, but truly, hard work plays off
and you cannot succeed by being perfect. I mean, it
just will never happen. One of my favorite things about gymnastics,
even now I get to work with like a lot
of young kids, is it's the most humbling sport you'll

(44:34):
ever be in. You literally have to fall in your
face before you can like succeed, like literally yeah, or
split a beam or break a bone I mean, which
sounds terrible, but it just teaches kids that, like you
have to fall in order to attain success, which I
think was the greatest lesson for me to learn as
a kid. But even through like the hardest times, I

(45:00):
would say something that I learned, Like during my comeback
when I tried to make twenty twelve team was a
lot of times we get pressured just by society and
other people to do what other people want, people pleasers.
I had so many people who said, you know, this
makes sense for you. Just finish out the week, make
the team, do all this and you can so easily

(45:22):
fall victim to doing something that you don't love and
that's miserable. And I think it took a lot of
very hard lessons.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
Multiple times, multiple Olympics, multiple Dancing on the Stars to
kind of learn that about myself and learn that it's
okay to say no to people and truly just like
follow your own heart, because I don't think you're benefiting
anyone unless you do that. But it's hard to walk
away from such big things, like these things that you're
walking away from. It's not like, oh, I'm just gonna

(45:53):
walk away from like a job, interview, opportunity, or like,
I don't know something even that feels big, Like I
can't even imagine that you're walking from the Olympics. I
mean that's huge.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
It is, But is it all relative? It's all relative
because it's it's that like again cliche moral like moralistic
story of if you make, if you win the lottery age,
are you really going to feel fulfilled as a human being?
And you probably won't. There's no money, there's no title

(46:27):
that will make you feel fulfilled because you're always going
to want more and it's always going to feel like, oh,
what's next? And I got to stand on Olympic gold
medal podium, and yes, it was the greatest feeling ever.
But I still didn't feel like, oh, I'm fine with
my life being done and I can just go sit
on a couch for the rest of my life and
be happy. So being able to turn down these big

(46:48):
experiences it was all because I knew, at the end
of the day, if you're not enjoying what you're doing,
like it's not gonna matter. Did you have fear that you're.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
Making a mistake by turning down the experience all the time?
How do you deal with that? Because it's like what
if you know, like, what if this was the right choice?
Do you just have to be so in tune with
your gut?

Speaker 1 (47:08):
I think so. I mean, for me, I was sitting
like on my gut feeling for so long that I
knew my gut didn't want to do it, and I
knew the world was saying like you should, and so
I sat on it for probably a year, and finally
I was just like, I can't deny this anymore. And

(47:30):
so when I finally retired and said I was done,
I don't know, I just felt right.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
It felt easier day to day what do you think
the gut feeling is, like, what what do you How
would you define that?

Speaker 1 (47:43):
What does that mean to you? Yeah, like, because it's
it's your inner voice, it is.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
How do you define that? And how do you know
that you're supposed to trust it? Because as humans, I
feel like we want to ignore it a lot.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
I would say, Oh, that's hard. I don't know. I
have like a lot of gymnasts that will come talk
to me and say, like, how did you know when
it was the right time to quit? And I just
always tell people like, if you can ask yourself day
after day, like what is the intention behind it? Did
you have a bad day? Did you meet a bad person?

(48:18):
Did you have a bad experience that's causing you to
impulsively be like, oh I don't want to deal with
this anymore? Or is it a true, like systematic thing
that you want to change? And if you can sit
on your gut long enough and keep asking those questions
and every time come to the same conclusion, I feel
like your gut's probably right. So what does it feel

(48:39):
like to you?

Speaker 3 (48:39):
Like when your gut was saying I'm done, I'm done,
I'm done, Like what was the difference in that feeling,
as opposed to when you went to the twenty twelve
and where you're like, I'm excited to be here, this
is awesome. Like what does the difference feel like? Because
I feel like that's something it's so abstract. Mm hmm,
you know, So how do you put that in words?

Speaker 1 (48:58):
I would say the two thousand and eight olymp two
thousand and eight, Sorry, it's okay. I forget sometimes like
two thousand, two thousand and four. At two thousand and eight,
I had gone through injury, I had gone through failure,
I had had meats where I fell flat of my face,
I had I had a lot of hardships, but they
didn't feel like hardships to me. They felt like just

(49:22):
challenges that I had to somehow figure out and get through.
I would, you know, get a cast on my leg
and I'd be like, Okay, this sucks. I would cry
through it, but it would be my mind would instantly
go to how do we get around this? Like how
can we fix this? What's the process to come back?
Whereas in twenty twelve I almost had to force that.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
And it became it became more taxing trying to get
the motivation to even show up to practice than it
was getting the motivation to you know, work through a challenge.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Challenges to me like roadblocks. I had a sprained ankle
in twenty twelve and it was life like career ending
to me, and I almost felt relieved by it. I
don't know, you can, just like you have to be
able to take a step back and really look at
your feelings and understand a bigger picture. Otherwise I don't know.

(50:23):
It's just what do you do with feeling like you're
letting people down? Oh gosh, how do you deal with that?

Speaker 3 (50:28):
Because you probably felt like you were letting people down
walking away a week before they announced he's going to
be on the team. How do you, especially as a
people pleaser.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
How do you do that? I probably I stayed in
gymnastics probably a year longer than I should have, because
I was terrified of letting people down. I had my dad,
who is like my number one cheerleader my whole entire
career are just saying like, you know, don't quit, and
just those like stereotypical dad things that dad say. And

(50:59):
he was so proud and he loved so much to
watch me compete. And I had my mom and I
had my sponsors, and I had my agent, I had
contracts for like Nike and Coca Cola and all these
people a lot, a lot, and the fear of letting
them down is consuming, like that will keep ninety nine

(51:23):
point nine percent of the population from ever doing it.
But it got to be to a point where I
felt like my well being was at jeopardy trying to
please them, just like my mental health, my physical health, everything.
I couldn't operate in a way that would have made

(51:44):
them proud and done them justice. So even if I
went to the Olympics, I wouldn't have represented any of
them in the way that they truly knew me. And
so I felt like I was I would be letting
them down on both sides, so I might as well
choose the one that makes me happy. And how did

(52:05):
they all handle it? Hm hmm? Some great, some not
so great. My parents were fine, We're like very supportive.
They were a little bit in shock, just because it's like,
what you're a week from the Olympics, Like are you

(52:26):
sure about this? Are you are you sane? Or like
what's going on? But I think my parents could see
such an instant flip of I went from being like
this miserable kid to the kid.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
That they knew and they could see that it was
the right decision. My agent didn't love it right rightfully,
I mean.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
That space for ourself.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
Yeah, the brands didn't love it.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
But and still to this day, there's probably a couple
of brands that I have very that are still resentful
of me.

Speaker 5 (53:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
But at the end of the day, business is business,
and bad things happen in business and it's not personal.
So I think for the most part, everyone got over it,
and then it happened to be one of the greatest
teams in the history of gymnastics. Did you have fomo
that you were not it?

Speaker 3 (53:22):
No, you did it like you didn't feel like No.
So that's how you especially know that you again the
right thing, because you're not like, shoot, I could have
been there.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
No, I was sitting in the audience there. I actually
went to the twenty twelve Games and watched every competition
from the first row, and you had no feeling of
I means that you weren't there. I had the feeling
like any person would, musician, performer of any kind, like, oh,
I want to be out on the competition floor. But
I didn't look at it and say, oh, she has

(53:52):
my spot. It was just kind of like, I'm so
proud of you guys. Touche, I'm good right here. That's incredile. Yeah, dang, Sean. Yeah,
what a journey. Yeah, so how has life been?

Speaker 5 (54:07):
Now?

Speaker 1 (54:07):
How did you get to Nashville? My husband? So I
was the creepy girl that followed him. Did you'll meet online?

Speaker 4 (54:15):
No?

Speaker 3 (54:15):
So, because followed him, I immediately think like Instagram, Oh
probably no followed him here?

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Yeah. So, because I didn't compete in the twenty twelve Games, okay,
and I was a spectator, I got to go to
other events. I went to the USA Cycling event, which.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
Is like Lance Armstrong track cycling, and I met this
USA athlete. His name was Die East.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
We had a very long conversation and he just kept
telling me I have to I'm perfect for his younger
brother and he when we flew back to the United States,
he set us up on a blind date.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
That was it. Yeah, pretty much, so guy knew evidently
yeah away, Yeah, so guy's an athlete as well.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
He's an Olympics siche.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
Yes, dang, I know, y'all are just a bunch of
athletes around here.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
We've laughed though, like our baby's probably gonna be a musician,
which like we are not musically in behind at all.
They're going to be the most unathletic, most artistic, creative,
you know.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Kid out there. So what brought Andrew to Nashville Vanderbilt?

Speaker 1 (55:19):
Okay? Yeah, and I was looking I was I was
looking at going to Stanford. I was getting ready to start,
but I had deferred Stanford four years and hadn't pulled
the trigger yet.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
So you weren't really worried about starting exactly.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
And he went to Vanderbilt and he's like, I'll give
you a tour Vanderbilt.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
And I was like, okay, so did you go to Vanderbilt?

Speaker 1 (55:39):
I was supposed to start And it was like the
first month of when I was supposed to start at Bandy,
I got booked on another TV show? What show? Celebrity Apprentice?

Speaker 3 (55:51):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (55:51):
How was that?

Speaker 1 (55:52):
It was not my favorite show?

Speaker 3 (55:54):
So you know our president?

Speaker 1 (55:55):
I do know our president?

Speaker 3 (55:56):
Are yell buds jockey?

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Vote when politically like all politics aside, he was very
nice on the show.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
Oh I'm sure, yeah, Oh you're fired? How far did
you make it on that one?

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Not far. You didn't. Oh I got fired real soon.
But I couldn't. I couldn't do like the conniving stuff. No,
so I bowed out real quick. Okay, yeah, well that's fun. Yeah,
but Vandy wouldn't work with that schedule, so I ended
up transferring to I went to school and like Penn
State online, it was just like an online program. Okay,
so did you finish college?

Speaker 3 (56:29):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (56:29):
Oh, way to go? Well kind of no, No, no,
I have one more year ish.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
I mean you don't need college. No, my husband need
to go to college. I honestly, I hope our child
doesn't go to college. I know that's weird.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
No, it's not. I I okay, not to disc colleges
out there, because college is great. It was I've never
been more mad at life than doing online college. I
was like, you were eating my money for no reason,
and this is a bunch of crap. Yeah, like just
for piece of paper.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
I got so annoyed with it.

Speaker 5 (57:01):
I know.

Speaker 3 (57:01):
I mean I feel like, yes, if you want to
be a doctor or if you want to be a
lawyer or something like that, that you need the structured
school system or go for it. But no, not everyone
needs to go to college. No, especially if you know
your passion, yeah, or especially like if you like you,
like you've had all these things happened to you that yeah,
you're not really needing college for a career, you know.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
I was, again, though, people pleaser. I was the kid
in school that had an absolute meltdown if I didn't
get straight a's. And I wanted to be a doctor.
I wanted to be a surgeon. I wanted to go
to Stanford, and then gymnastics kind of threw a wrench
in that. So then studied psychology and threw a lot
of money away for online tests that I could google

(57:48):
the answers of I was just Oh, I was so mad.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Oh my gosh, so mad. So what has life been
like for you in Nashville?

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Awesome? I love Nashville. So I came from Des Moines, Iowa,
where it's just like everyone knows everyone and any type
of name. It makes it really difficult, which is a
beautiful thing. Like I love Iowa, not to dis Iowa
at all, but Nashville just became this place where I

(58:15):
could be my own person.

Speaker 3 (58:17):
There's so many people who've had success and like amazing
things happened to them and everyone like respects and loves it,
but no one cares.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
No, one cares, which I love. Yes, I loved how
I could go grocery shopping for the first time and
someone would stop me and say, oh, you know, how's
your mom doing? And how's you know? Western Elementary and
just like all this stuff.

Speaker 4 (58:38):
It was.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
It was great to blend in for a while. And
it's such a good community.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
It's such a good community. It's a it's a very
small community, which I love. But again it's like nobody cares, no,
which is cool. So have you found what have you
found out about yourself now? Because we kind of were
talking about this earlier. I was trying to get you
to really define who you are now, which is a
hard because who can do that? Yeah, But like after
Olympics and Gymnastics, after Dancing with the Stars, after falling

(59:06):
in love with Andrew and him helping to bring out
this other side of you, realizing that you don't have
to be on all the time, Like what.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
How has how? How how do you view life now?

Speaker 3 (59:21):
Because like you said, you were perfectionists for so long
and are you able to drop that?

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Are you able to see life through?

Speaker 3 (59:30):
Like what is the lens that you're looking at life
through now.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
You ask hard questions. I would say for me like
I will always be challenged with my past self, the
people pleasing, perfectionist mentality. It's just it was ingrained in
me for so long. But with the help of my
husband to just kind of like keep me on track,
I feel like I view life as just I don't know.

(01:00:00):
I feel like I'm I'm very like anti what the
world has to say, and I hope that sounds okay,
But I feel like social media just kind of the
world we live in. Everyone's trying to tell you who
you are. And because I went through so many roller
coasters of trying to please people and never succeeding, I'm

(01:00:20):
constantly trying to just do my own thing and show
the world that that's okay, even though like inside, I'm
kind of having meltdowns all the time. I'm like, what
do they actually think I'm reading on my Instagram comments like,
oh my gosh, you read through all the I Okay,
this is really bad. We have a lot of really
young kids because of gymnastics who follow us, so I

(01:00:42):
read every single comment to delete anything that I don't
want a kid to read. That's sweet. It's sweet, but
it's such torture. And it's torture probably for the most part.

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
That people are nice for the most part, but then
you have those people who like and it's easy to
hang on to the bad ones.

Speaker 1 (01:00:57):
Oh, I only hang on to the bad ones obviously,
isn't that crazy? People can compliment you a million times
and one person says something mean and that's the only
thing you'll remember. I know what, I know. Yeah, but
I again, I'm constantly trying to like set an example
for kids of like, don't listen to the world.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
What are your views on social media?

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
I hate it and love it. I hate majority of
what it stands for because it's it allows people to
sit behind a screen and have no interaction with people
and no consequence to their actions. But I also love
it because it is truly a community that has helped
us in so many ways. It was truly the only

(01:01:43):
thing that got me through the miscarriage. I mean, really
being able to read people's stories. I'm not the kind
of person that asks for help and tells people what
I'm going through, which is weird that my life is
on social media, but being able to read people's stories
and hear how they got through it and have that
community really helped me, which I saw for the first time,

(01:02:03):
the good side of social media. But I don't know,
I don't know what I think of it really right
in the middle, what do you think about being a mom?

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Like what are your what are your fears? And what
are you most excited about? What are you most scared about?

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
I'm scared about everything, literally everything. I went to a
baby class last night and they're like, what do you
want to learn? I was like, everything, I don't know anything,
literally scared about everything.

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
How do you teach your kid to be a good person,
a nice person? How do you teach them not to
listen to the world and not to conform to all
these dumb societal pressures and expectations we have And if
we don't know what we're having, so like, if it
was a girl, what is she going to have to
deal with?

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
And if it's a boy, what is he going to
have to deal with?

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
And I don't know, what are you most excited about?

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Right now? Holding our baby for the first time? Oh
my god, I can't even imagine like actually holding the baby.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
I know, and it's getting close.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Yeah, it's I feel that Sam, It's like it could
be today for you. I was hoping it was gonna yesterday.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
I had told her that we were gonna come on
the twenty second, and she's not. She didn't do it,
so she's obviously we're not to make.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
The wives tales like squats squats Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
I asked a lot of pear oil. Castor oil apparently
makes you pooh, it makes your baby come, which I
would do it fine with that, I would do it evening.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
Primrose oil taking, Oh yeah, taking that red Do you
have some?

Speaker 5 (01:03:34):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:03:35):
Okay, I say I have a whole bottle if you want.
Oh great, I'm not taking it right now. You're just ready,
I'm ready. Yes, raspberry leaf tea.

Speaker 1 (01:03:42):
Yes, you need to go see and an occupunture. Yes, Gil,
we have this great acupuncture. Yeah, I need to go
to him. Maybe he can help acupuncture.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
Foot massages because apparently there's pressure points on your feet
that make you go into labor.

Speaker 1 (01:03:59):
Sex. Yeah, everyone says that bouncing on a ball.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
I've heard from some people if you drink a glass
of wine, like it'll make you go into labor.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
And I haven't really been drinking this whole pregnancy. I
started drinking a little bit like SIPs here at the end.
I don't know. I'm not endorsing that one. Everyone who yes, whatever,
it's fine, don't drink wine when you're pregnant. But I
made the mistake about a vlog one time showing that
I had like a couple of steps and oh yeah yeah, yes,
not endorsing it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
No, not endorsing it. But I mean I have heard
from ultiple people it's totally fine if you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
Have a little bit of wine. Yeah, but doctor would
even say, but everyone you do you.

Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Those are kind of the top ones that I've heard.
Have you heard anything else? No, I'm trying to keep
maybe in right now.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
Yeah you want to keep maybe in.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
Yeah, baby's got to cook.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Yeah, baby still cooking.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Yeah, you just need to have a day of like
where you do all of it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
I know I'm going to talk to my kind of
colleges about the castor oil. Kind of nervous about that
one where she.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Gives it to go ahead. Think you've had friends that
have done.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
It, friends have done it and had great success with it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
So just like loops everything up.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
Loops everything up, cleans everything out, gets the contractions going
I mean, I mean, you know, I don't know, we
shall see.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Yeah, okay, So.

Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
I wrap all my interviews with leave your Light. So
you obviously are such an inspiring person and so many
people look up to you in the world. Thank you,
and you're so real and honest, which is amazing that
you share your heart like you do, because I think
that's one of the greatest gifts you can give to
the world, is having a platform like you have and
being real and sharing your soul because it just lets

(01:05:36):
us all know that we're all in this together. And
we put people on pedestals, and when you realize that
someone that you put on a pedestal is actually a
real human, it makes you feel better about your own
experience and not alone.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
So way to go on being that kind of an
amazing person. What do you want to tell people?

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
Just like what you have learned, like some advice, some
knowledge that you have, something that maybe you wish your
twelve year old self would have known that you've just
gathered over the years. Something to inspire people who look
up to you or who are trying to find their way.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
My ass, I can kind of what I've been talking about.
I feel like I'm still trying to convince myself of this.
Like we've been talking the people pleasing, but again, every
single person in the world has an opinion, and everyone
thinks what you're doing is right or wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:06:33):
And the sooner you can learn none of them are correct,
the easier your life is going to be.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
And it's the heart, I think the hardest for both
of us, because we're people pleasers, the hardest thing to learn.
But when you can just like stop trying to please
the worlds, I feel like success comes. I feel like
happiness comes in joy and life just gets easier.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
So I love that, and that is such a hard lesson. Yeah,
but so true.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
Yeah who you sean? Thank you? You're gonna be the
best mom. Oh gosh, so are you. Oh you're gonna
be great.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
What do you think you're having?

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
I think a boy.

Speaker 5 (01:07:12):
Yeah, I know, but I could be wrong. I mean, hey,
you never know us. Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you amazing, Thank you you too.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Okay bye,