 Yeah, well, yes, thank you guys so much for not only attending the art show, but for our first live taping of out of bounds We are very sad that Amy couldn't be here and obviously like all the tornado anyone affected We feel horrible for them, and we just hope everyone's okay, but we do have miss Shawn Johnson an Olympic gold medalist Thanks for having me thank you for being here of course Okay, so Jamie and I met you at a game. Yes a few weeks ago. I guess yes, and your husband is Amazing he's like the most he's an energizer bunny. He is yeah, he's like the ultimate hype man He's like can't turn it down. Yeah, he like made me feel amazing. I mean he's like, oh my god I love your jacket. Where'd you get it? Hello, who are you? Okay, where did you guys meet where we meet? Oh my gosh long story tried to summarize it So I went to the 2012 Olympics to work So there was this Olympics after mine, and I went to a USA Track cycling event so think Lance Armstrong, but on like a track-and-field track pretty much. It's strange And I met one of the USA athletes his name was Guy East and we got to like talking I was interviewing him for a show and at the end of it. He said you have to meet my younger brother I think you guys would be perfect for each other, and I was like you're ridiculous. I this is weird and awkward Fast forward like a few months out. We were back in the United States and He and his younger brother right now my husband Flew out for a blind date, and we went on a blind date. How old were you? I was 20 and he was 21. Wow. So yeah, we were babies. We were babies. I was 19 when I met John Yeah, he was 24. I think yeah, we were babies, but two two babies later. It worked out the blind date worked out Yeah, they're so cute. How are the kids now? My daughter is to she just turned to and our my son our daughter our son is four months So yeah chunks. Yeah, my my son is little Hulk man He is huge and so is my daughter, but they are absolutely precious. Thank you Thank you. Okay. We have to get into the gymnast great things I have so many questions about just what that was like what age you started how many hours you trained I mean, I know you're not doing it anymore, but yeah I'm long since retired So I started gymnastics when I was I think like two years old So it was however old you have to be to do like mommy and me classes Essentially the same time you would start kids and like a swim lesson or ballet class I started gymnastics and my parents put me in it because I was a crazy toddler Who ended up in the ER every other two weeks because I believed I legitimately could fly So I like jumped off of the stair banners stairs and off of tables and like it was bad Wow, I probably should have seen this like chiatrists. It's true like that. I see her being like that Yeah, she gives me a heart attack. She does. She's like that. So my parents put me in what they called a padded playground and yeah, scary and I found the trampoline which further convinced myself that I could fly so I fell in love with the sport and I did so many other sports to growing up by ran track. I played soccer. I tried softball basketball, which is a joke I danced I swam I did literally everything and just through the years as they progressed and got more serious I kind of had to weed things out just for time and gymnastics is what stuck by the time I was on like the Olympic year Olympic level I was training probably 30 hours a week, but I attended public school at the same time So you still went to school. I did so what age do they say? Okay, you have the potential to meet like in the Olympics A coach or myself? A coach will probably be a lot of Not truth to you A lot of people try to say that you can tell at a very young age if someone has talent and I do believe that I do believe I can see little kids and I'm like, oh, they're very talented in gymnastics But there's so much more that goes into it. It has to be you know a passion It has to be something that they stick with there's a lot of luck involved They have to care like they have to stay healthy and not get hurt. It's just like there's so many things So my coach at the time that I was going to He told my parents like she's very good at gymnastics, but I also just loved it And so I think year after year are kind of progressed and made it but I think it's a lot of like Worlds have to align Like we were talking about this earlier and it's amazing like, you know, you see kids saying I want to be in the NFL I want to be a Olympian Did it ever feel far-fetched for you or was it just something that you were like, I'm gonna do this I so I was that kid where like you would see on Questionnaires that you write in school. What do you want to be when you grow up? And I was like I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. I was a sophisticated child And I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast And so I was definitely that kid that had like that aspiration, but I never in a million years thought that was possible Yeah, it was always like the dream. Yeah, it was like being Cinderella or something Mm-hmm, and I even remember my coach asking me like what did I want to do within the sport? and I said I wanted to go to the Olympics and Year after year, it was still just like a pinch me moment I would I continually progressed year after year and made it to a different level and kind of kept climbing that ladder And I still remember being at world championships being selected for the Olympic team and I like laughed I was like, what are you talking about? This is an absolute joke. I'm standing next to Nostia Luke and you like I had beat at the time and y'all are y'all are still like Yeah, but I remember the first time I like beat her and I was almost like this is your medal I don't know what I'm doing So it felt impossible all the way up until I was competing. I still didn't seem real How old were you at that point? I was 16. I was a baby. I didn't really do it that young Yeah, so what are you still going to public school at that point? I was cheese. So it was Another very long story. I could not bore you with but I think it's pretty fascinating for like three hours My coach is Chinese and he moved from China from being a world and Olympic gymnast in China to the United States with the American dream of Starting a gymnastics gym and raising Olympians that were also able to have a social life and be children Being a Chinese athlete. He kind of had his whole life taken from him. He wasn't allowed to live with his parents He never got to play at a playground so many different things and his dream was to raise these gymnasts these successful gymnasts who also got to go to public school to got that got to have birthday parties and Skip gymnastics practice to go to school dances And so I truly got to be able to be a kid and I think it's because of that that I was so successful Yeah, because I was able to enjoy it a lot more So what was your training like if it was 30 hours? So you wake up in the morning and they're like traditional stereotypical Olympic gymnast kind of regimen would be to train nine hours a day and do private school at the gym So you would wake up and basically go to the gym train four hours do school and train five more hours For me with my coach's like different Technique he I would wake up and I would go to a full day of public school and as soon as public school was out I would go straight to the gym and I did four hours every night I did Monday to Friday, and then I did five or six hours on Saturday Mm-hmm, and he had a very strict rule that there was you weren't allowed to do anything active on Sunday You had to like rest and sleep and go to the movie theaters and go shopping and eat ice cream That's great. He'd be like did you have pancakes or waffles? And I'm like I had pancakes great He was he was an incredible coach. That's awesome. Well with that being said about the pancakes and the Did you have to be on a strict diet and? Mm-hmm. How hard was that being six years old 16 years old? Yes, and no so I was never required to be on a strict diet with my coach Everything changed when I made the USA national team because after you make the national team you then go under observation basically of the United States coaches and it gets very confusing and political back then because My coach was still technically my coach, but the Corolles oversaw my coach and things were so political back then to where I Could still do my own thing But if I didn't kind of skew it in the way that they wanted The political side was our teams were hand-picked and if you didn't play that political game You wouldn't be hand-picked at the end and so When I made the USA national team everything kind of became more pressure and higher intensity and the national team required not a diet, but a look that required a diet and They didn't provide the nutritionists or anything. So I went on very strict diets just on my own Yeah, that were very unhealthy. Yeah. Yeah, I hear right now. So my daughter is a cheerleader. I'm not competitive Yeah, just strictly school But I hear of other cheerleaders like in college levels that they have to weigh Oh, yeah, once a week which in my opinion that is not what we're going for in this day and age You do not do that to kids young adults. You just don't do that. Absolutely not We were I don't want to say lucky because there were so many things going on But we were fortunate enough within the diet realm that we didn't have to do weigh-ins However, looking back on it just from like my perspective now I almost wish there was something more tangible like that that we could have done so that a coach could have said Okay, you're this and I want you here It still is very unhealthy and it still is something I do not agree with But back then all I had was this this idea in my head that they wanted me skinnier Right, like always and it was never enough and there was never that finish line that I could get to It was just always get more always get more and because there weren't any resources that were Offered to us because we were so young. I think it was assumed. Oh, they just don't need it I had to kind of figure things out on my own and I internalized that and turned that into unhealthy eating disorders and and everything but I do think it's skewing now because Girls have been so open and there's been so much come to light that they're now offering Psychologists as they should and therapists and nutritionists and anything that they could possibly need which is really good How did you do transitioning from a strict diet and from that training? I Describe it as running full speed into a brick wall It was the hardest transition of my life because for 16 years of my life I every decision I made on a daily basis was Catered to gymnastics. It was catered to my goals and my aspirations and the finish line of the Olympics and what what? Visually, I wanted to be in everything who I hung out with and when I finished with that and I quote-unquote retired Transitioning to be a normal person who wasn't training to have an Olympic medal in gymnastics. I didn't know how to operate I didn't know what to do at 4 p.m. Every day because I truly had never been outside of a gymnastics gym at 4 p.m I remember driving down the street on Monday at 4 p.m. And I was like Wait, I don't know what I don't know where to go I don't know what to do. I didn't know how to work out unless it was in a gymnastics gym with a coach I didn't know how to eat because that whole part of my being was gone and it took me many many years I remember I went two years just kind of aimlessly wandering around The world trying to figure out what to do before I was like, you know what? I need to go back to gymnastics because I feel too lost. It was the only thing I felt comfortable with I tried to make the 2012 team I Competed for two years and made it to Olympic trials and just knew that it wasn't for me So retired right before Olympic trials and went on another two-year journey trying to figure it out But it was very hard. There's an identity that you lose that you have to kind of rebuild Yeah, well in 2012 when you decided not to go for the Olympics again That was kind of like your like what I would say Simone Biles moment, right? Like not as public, but you like chose yourself over the sport Yeah, and when she did that I thought it was just like so cool that so many young women saw that what were your thoughts? Oh my gosh, I have so many thoughts on that. I thought it was a historic moment I know there are a lot of opinions in the like in the moment of of her choosing to step down I remember even hearing people around me and friends around me be like, uh She's representing the United States. She just needs to like just a few more days. She's representing us Yeah, they saw it almost as a failure Where I saw it as truly a stamp in history and time there has been So many things come to light about USA gymnastics And how corrupt it has been for so many decades and even longer I think for so long every single gymnast within that sport never had a voice They had zero control over anything that pertain to them their bodies their voice their health and For Simone Biles the greatest literally of all time and I have said this a million times I don't think anybody will ever touch her. I I've never seen that kind of Talent and separation and in a sport period let alone gymnastics and to see her show up on the stage and say, you know what? I'm going to make a stand and I'm gonna do this for me because it's what's in my best interest I think paves a way for every single little girl in that sport from here forward She truly empowered them to be able to say I don't care what age you are Or to what level you get to control your your choices in yourself Yeah, I'll tell you it's in it's all little girls and I got permission from my tailor So I have a 16 year old Taylor. She's been dancing since she was three years old She is She has a lot of issues autoimmune issues type one diabetic alopecia rheumatoid arthritis So the past couple of years has really been a struggle for her Last year she couldn't go to dance nationals because she hurt herself and she had a back injury and it was it was a big ordeal so this year she decided to to dance again and Try it out one last time and she was stressed and I had to come get her from school She was having a panic attack. I'm like what is wrong? Well, I mean not everybody's blessed with this, but she made her first be She's a sophomore in high school and she was like mom. I'm dancing four hours a night I I don't know if I can do this anymore And I'm like well, you know do not look at me and your father and we have no This is your Your issue this is not our opinion you do what you want to do And she cried and she I mean on a very minor level like you not like you yours was major But she was like but I'm a dancer. That's what everybody knows me I'm I'm gonna lose my identity at that and I'm like no Your your mental health is more important. I'm like, do you want to dance after school? She's like no not in college. Yeah, I'm like, okay Well, if you stay and dance you need to come down from these AP courses. Is that worth worth it for you? She was like no, I want to go to these Ivy League schools I want to be a doctor and I'm like well, there's your answer and She stepped down and it was hard and I come in Simone for Letting these girls know that it's okay. It's okay to step down, you know your mental health her poor little body She was hurt all the time All the time. Well, and I've I've talked to a lot of college kids I used to do like seminars with college kids across the country and we used to talk about this a lot that a Lot of times as a kid and I put college kids as kids We put them in this bucket that as adults we know better We know that if they just stick to it they can become the lawyer if they just stick to it They can make the Olympics if they just push through they can become That famous PNS or whatever it might be and we we would always talk to these college kids and say You're probably on a path right now that someone put you on and at the end of the day as a kid You actually have more control and more knowledge about what it is you want to do in life than anybody around you Yeah, and there are so many times in my career that I felt pressured To become something and I would I would go home to my mom and daddy be like I'm done I don't want to do gymnastics anymore. I feel too much pressure. I feel like you guys I feel like my my coaches are expecting me to do what X Y and Z And my parents would just kind of chuckle and they'd be like honey You don't need to like I understand the challenge. They said you don't have to do gymnastics We can quit tomorrow. Yeah, my mom would even be like, I hope you quit because we can go shopping I was my daughter back. Um, I get it to go on vacation or there There are many times where my mom was like, do you want to play hooky today? Like we don't have to go to gymnastics and I just think as kids you have to reiterate over and over and over again that There are so many different things you can do out there and just because you're good at something doesn't mean you should do it Right. It's almost like the opposite. Right. Yeah, and I'm so incredibly proud of her because Number one, I mean, I'm just gonna throw it out there. I was not a studious person My mom who's sitting up front. Look at her. She's giggling She says I graduated and find you I mean It is what it is and I did But I commend her so much for knowing at 16 years old I want to be a doctor. I really want to go to Duke But I can't do it while dance in four hours a night. Yeah, that's that is really that is really incredible Yeah, yeah, how do you think you'll like raise? No? Like if Drew wants to do gymnastics or jet wants to play Football and you're not talking about this a lot first. I still don't know how I have children Like how the world allows me to have kids like I still feel like a child myself I remember leaving the hospital. I was like, you mean I can take yeah, we all felt like this I think we all were like, do you know me? Do you all come home with me? Yeah, so I'm still working through that but my husband and I have talked about this a lot because we have a lot of Fears around football and gymnastics with our son and our daughter because I feel like the world Will not allow them to be anything less than great in those sports. Yes I I can already hear, you know gymnastics coaches being like, oh It's Shawn Johnson's daughter. Yeah has to be good and I am a firm believer that Especially as a parent you have to allow your child to fail and fail miserably because it's the only way you learn That was a huge thing that my coach taught me is that the only way you can learn success is by Falling and falling flat on your face a million times the most humbling sport in the world is gymnastics because you split a beam You fall on your face you fall, you know a million times over before you ever learn a skill correctly And I think that's beautiful for kids and to have The idea that like my daughter will walk in the gym and a coach will expect her to be good as a toddler It freaks me out. Yeah, that being said Andrew and I have agreed that like our kids will put them in everything that we can possibly find and if They end up choosing football and gymnastics Lord help us But we will sit in the stands and be the the best cheerleaders for them and staple our mouth shop You would never coach never really why? I Have a lot of friends in the sport that Had that father daughter or mother daughter relationship within They are also coach and they were they were mom and it worked for some people But I think for the most part it was a very it was a struggle to kind of especially at that adolescent age within Gymnastics to find that boundary I think kids should be able to come home to mom and dad and I think it's also very hard for an adult to find that Separation, yeah, and I just don't think I'm capable It is and I want to be able to have my kid vent to me about how coach was being a yeah, you know turd that they yeah For lack of a better word I I do I just I want to I don't think I have that ability to do both and yeah, I want to stay mom Yeah, I love that. That's awesome. I know I I get go I look at mom But I don't think I could be with you 24-7. Yeah, it's much as I love you, mom I will say though I have had my brain go down that route of like drew chooses gymnastics And I would my coach coach Chow who is My second dad. I truly believe he's the best coach in the world And he now coaches the Chinese national team and I've already told him I'm like if my daughter chooses gymnastics, you have to come home Yeah, yeah, like you you're the only person that can coach her Such like a balance it seems like yeah, which is rare and especially when you go to the Olympics, but Well, let's talk about what you're doing now as we know that you know, you're an Olympian And you will always be but you've moved on to Amazing things to you guys have a podcast we do couples things. Yes, okay I was watching some last night and I was like, this is so cute Yes, I got nominated for a people's choice award, right? We did we did we did not win, but we got Thank you Thank you. You always look stunning, but that was perfect. Thank you so much That was I had nothing to do with that. So really good. Someone told me to wear this Yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, so tell us what it's about a little bit just for anyone who hasn't so it's called couple things It's all about couples and the things they do my husband and I are very very open and transparent about our marriage and that marriage is hard And relationships are hard and we got really really tired of society and Hollywood painting these pictures that Relationships are easy and that if they aren't easy, you need to leave And there are definitely reasons that you should leave. I Obviously, but we got really tired of that because we love marriage and we love families and There was just a doomsday picture painted on family and we really didn't enjoy that and so we thought why not start a podcast and Interview families and couples about how they do it And it's been really eye-opening that every single couple does it a different way and figures out how to make it work And I think it's really a beautiful thing to kind of show the world. Yeah Marriage is I mean John and I will be married 20 years in February. Yeah, I have no clue. Yeah, I mean, I know how he did it I mean, you're a very great couple. I mean, and I'll be the first to tell you that I went to counseling Oh, yeah, and I mean, it's tough. Yes, and it is and it should be and I even like We just could go on a tangent about that But I remember reading magazine after magazine and it would be like 10 tips to Finding the one and it would paint this picture of you're gonna know some day who the perfect person is and if it is the perfect person It'll be the perfect relationship And you'll never argue and you'll have this fairytale wedding and the fairytale ending and if you do argue It's probably the wrong person. So you just made the wrong choice and you should just leave and go find the one and We just hate that. Yeah, did you when you met him? Did you think he was the one? I Personally have never believed in the one really my mom and dad are Taught me not to believe in that because they said if you try to look for the perfect person Yeah, you'll never find someone because you can always find flaws in people and I remember meeting Andrew and thinking Right away like I could marry this man, but I knew that I could probably feel that about different people Yeah, I agree. I don't think there's just one. Thank you. Yeah, I call my mom after our first Applebee's date I called her I said mama. I'm mad. I'm I met the man. I'm gonna marry That was after our first date. Let me tell you a little cute little story so my mom's from New Zealand and my dad was in the Navy and they were in Sydney, Australia and she was working abroad and My dad was on leave. He was about to come back from He was about to come back to the States They met knew each other for three days Talk about finding the one that's incredible That's incredible new each other for three days. My dad left sent her a plane ticket She came and she got married within a month. That's amazing So I will say though like that's an incredible story and I do believe in like the one in that aspect I just believe that there are probably multiple people out there that you could spend your whole life with and make it work Yes, I don't think there's literally just one. Yes. Otherwise people will get lost. Yes. I agree. I Know but I think you do now you have a punch for sure Now let's talk about the two of you for a second y'all are completely opposite. Oh, yeah, right? Yeah So Mallory Mallory Irvin told me cuz they're best friends You're actually quite shy very and we all know Andrew is not no. How do you do that? I don't know I Think I needed someone like him though because I I am very shy. I'm very reserved Crowds make me very nervous. I don't usually like sharing my life. So Lord knows how I got on the stage But my husband has kind of worked at that and not intentionally But just seeing how confident and how extroverted and how just full of life He is I'm so envious of it and I haven't since day one It's something that I think I find very very attractive Mm-hmm, and he's really challenged me over the years to kind of slowly get out of my bubble and be like you You don't have to be nervous. You can have conversations. You can kind of get out of there, but yeah Yeah, it was a struggle at first. We would have like arguments because he'd be like, why are you so quiet at this function? It's my friends, and I'm like, I don't know Like I'm sweating Yeah, I could see that he's so outgoing Yeah, but that takes so much confidence Like I don't know to just walk in a room and be like this is who I am take it or leave it I still have yet to like Believe that there is any ounce of self like doubt or insecurity in my husband, which is So beautiful. Yeah, so coming from gymnastics. I think where it was such a critical sport where we were taught to literally judge ourselves He is just The opposite yeah, and I hope our kids get a hundred percent of that. How did you fall into the tick-tock? YouTube world because It's I mean you guys are absolutely hilarious you make like the coolest content, but what I don't know Like what were the steps to get to that point of like okay? This is what we're gonna do now My husband yeah, that was all my husband so I was in sports marketing for years So I made the USA national team when I was 12 and had to hire an agent and a professional like public like publicity team Where from then on I got to work with incredible companies like Coca-Cola and McDonald's and Nike and Represent as like a sports ambassador, but from the time I was 12. I was taught Within these partnerships what to wear how to look how to talk how to be politically correct how to kind of live within a box that was acceptable with the world and I learned how to kind of be a different person for so many years and so when I met my husband He saw that I was almost bipolar Literally go to an event and I would become a different person and he'd be like what is this mm-hmm Like stop putting on a front for people and I was like well that front is what I've been taught to do and so He was bouncing around the NFL at the time and he started a YouTube channel. Don't know why just for the heck of it Because he's Andrew if you met his dad it would make sense His dad films literally everything everything everything he has really everything. I mean He could find at any second they're like You're like I need to see Andrew at two years five days in one minute Walking down the stairs He has everything archived and so my husband naturally filmed everything So he was filming all of his bounce around with the NFL and started a YouTube channel And he's like babe. We got to do this and I was like absolutely not I'm not gonna post videos of myself Whatever fast forward It got to be a love-hate relationship and now a passion of mine because instead of having the world tell me who I was allowed to be we actually got to show things from our perspective and we got to edit them and actually tell the real story and We we kind of did both sports marketing and social media for about two years before I quit every job that I had And we do it full-time which is crazy. He even quit the NFL to do it basically. I love it I enjoy it. I enjoyed a lot It's a lot of fun. It's really fun. It looks like you guys have a lot to challenge But yeah, it is a hundred percent my husband. Yeah, yeah his ideas people walk up and they're like, I love your tiktok I'm like my husband runs our tiktok. It's every it's all of his ideas. He edits it. He's like babe I have an idea for a video. I'm like So how do you guys sort of balance working together having the kids is it totally 5050 like You have two so it's just like man-to-man it is a hundred percent Man-to-man 5050 we spend every waking second together with our babies working and big mom and dad. So it's Who do you got today pretty much? Yeah? Yeah? Well, thank you so much. I mean we we know how busy you are and Just being here today. It just it means the world to us. Oh, it really does. It was truly an honor When you guys asked like, yes, this is fun. Oh, you're so sweet. You have such a great story Before we before we in this how did you like being at the? The 12th man. I was so nervous I I pictured myself tripping running onto the field. I Pictured myself dropping the sword and like impaling The sword was about your size. Yeah, and then big and then standing back there with all the players I was like, I feel really awkward I was like you guys go do your thing. I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm here It was so cool. It was so sad to miss that game. You look so cute Okay, so we're like what's the best place for people to find you I know because you also do a toy Store like an online toy store. I just found that and I was like, yeah Shop here. So we have a toy store called teddy and bear It was just a little passion project my husband and I did for our kids and now we like sell toys somehow But you can find us literally on all platforms under the East family or Shawn Johnson or Andrew East family, okay? Yeah, tick-tock YouTube Instagram all the things all of it podcast podcast. Yes. Yes. Oh my gosh Well, we're excited to see what you do next and support you But we appreciate you and we appreciate all of you. Absolutely Listening to out of bounds with Jamie and Abby live. This was a new thing for us This is cool. We need some of the training she got like in her With our outfits we need all everything. I need outfit I've got your girl. She changed my life. Yes. I mean, this is like super cute. It's amazing. I love it Now it's just gonna be girls Okay, but thank you guys