Marriage, Motherhood and Gold Medals with Shawn Johnson East

Hey y'all, Hello Sunshine.

Today on the bright Side, we're joined by Olympic gold medalist, author, podcast host, and co founder of the company Family Maid. Yep, we're talking to Sean Johnson East. She's revealing how she overcame a paralyzing fear after the end of her gymnastics career, the secret to winning Dancing with the Stars, and the key to her loving marriage. It's Monday, September ninth on Danielle Robe.

And I'm Simone Boyce and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.

On my Mind Monday is brought to you by missus Myers Clean Day inspired by the goodness of the garden.

Happy on my Mind Monday, Danielle, one of my favorite.

Days of the week.

It's time to start the week off on the right foot with some fresh perspective.

What you got all right on my mind today is an article straight from the New York Times with the headline a life review can be powerful at any age.

Okay, life review. I don't know that I've heard this term before. Tell me more.

Okay, So it's interesting. It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a reflection of your past done through writing. So it started in the sixties to help people at the end of their lives make peace with their legacies.

But this article that you found it says a life review can be powerful at any age. So what is the argument for doing this, Let's say now in our thirties.

This is why I call you smart, Simone. You read into the details, you journalist. You're right, okay. So new research suggests that people at all ages get value from the process of reflecting on past experiences. The process can actually reduce depression, anxiety, and increase life satisfaction. I know it may not sound it because sometimes it's hard to go back in time and think and assess.

But take it from Jane Fonda. She spent the year before.

She turned sixty doing life review and she said it actually helped her cultivate confidence. So I heard about this originally from Jane Fonda, but this article changed my perspective about it because I didn't know you could do this with a professional. So some people do it with a therapist or a facilitator. I guess one of the most popular forms is a guided autobiography. Here's the thing that's cool. If you want to get a professional to do it,

I haven't read those two. That's what comes recommended.

The third book is one that I've personally read and feel really connected to. It's called for You when I'm Gone. Twelve Essential Questions to a life story. Rabbi Steve Leader wrote it and he calls it an ethical will, something that you leave behind for your children or your loved ones. And he has twelve questions or prompts. Do you want me to read you with you?

Yeah? Okay?

What do you regret? When was the time you led with your heart? What was your biggest failure? What is a good person?

What is love? How do you want to be remembered? And what will your final blessing be?

And I actually interviewed Rabbi Leader about this book, and I thought these questions are sort of simple. Didn't you want to make them a little bit more intricate, and he said he made them really simple on purpose, which changed my mind about things.

I actually agree with him.

When you're writing an ethical will or a life review, it's i think, more philosophical. You want people to share stories more than you want like a precise perspective.

Also, an approach that I've used whenever I'm crafting questions in my line of work is thinking about how kids ask questions, because they ask questions in such a simple, pure, straightforward way, and I see a lot of these questions are so basic and so far fundamental that it sounds like my four year old would ask it, like what is a good person?

What is this?

Exactly?

Using the language of children can really point us to the truth. I really love this, this idea of doing a life review. I'm so glad that you brought it up. It's something that I've been thinking about, you know, with our parents getting older, wanting to maximize the time that we have with them and make sure that no stone is left unturned and that we feel like we're just having conversations that are filled with meaning. I know you and I are really passionate about doing that in our

I sometimes think about asking those questions on camera so that my future children can see my parents at this age. I think there's something really special about it. And I know, you know, there's so many things that were told to do, so many.

Hacks or tricks or this or that.

This is one that I think is really doable and meaningful.

Yeah, and with the idea of a life review, it's funny like that. A lot of the examples in here are you know about writing your own autobiography or kind of compiling your thoughts and your sentiments about your life and putting it into an autobiography format.

Yeah.

I actually think of my life in movie scenes. I think because I am, I'm a really visual learner, and that also is a philosophy that's helped me center my own desires in my life. You know, the term main character energy is like so corny, but if you think about what it means to like truly take on that main character persona and center your own desire in life and not suppress it like we've been conditioned to. That's something that's helped me create memorable vignettes and scenes.

I think that's such beautiful advice.

Well, our guest today is someone who's already done all this. She wrote about her life in her twenty twelve autobiography called Winning Balance. What I've learned so far about love, faith, and living your dreams. Shawn Johnson East is an Olympic gold medal winning gymnast who competed at the two thousand and eight Games in Beijing at just sixteen years old, and then she retired from the sport in twenty twelve, just before the Olympic trials. Now her life looks completely different.

There's so many things to talk about. All of it is coming up after the break.

Thanks to our partners at missus Myers. You can learn a lot about a person by their dish soap. Missus Meyer's collection of household products are inspired by the garden and pack up punch against dirt and grime.

Visit missus Myers dot com. We'll be right back, Sean, Welcome to the right side.

Thanks for having me.

Okay, So, we were so captivated by the Olympics. We interviewed a ton of Olympians, a ton of commentators, and we saw that you recently said that experiencing the Olympics with your kids was better than any gold medal.

Did you mean that?

Yeah? I did, I really did.

You have to tell me why?

I feel like I feel like you get really deep, really fast into that. But on a like a lighter side of it, back when I was at the Olympics, I felt like that was the most important thing in life, Like who I was as a person was a gymnast, and all the value I had in myself had to do with performing.

Well.

Yeah, and it was such an amazing accomplishment and something I'm so proud of even to this day. But being back at the Olympics, sitting there watching with my kids, who mean so much more to me than any Olympical medal ever, will was just really special and to be able to like one, I feel so blessed to have like a life where I could take them to the Olympics. So it's almost like a paying tribute to how I'm

And you got to bring them into your world.

I did. I did.

I brought my daughter, my four year old, to the all around competition in gymnastics, and we sat and watched the entire thing, and she was actually really into it. She kept referring to Simone as the best, like she didn't know her name, and she saying, Mama, but where's the best?

And I was like.

What she said, the blue leotard the best. I was like, Simone, It's really funny.

She already knows at four years old.

I think she's also used to hearing me talk about how Simone is the best.

Well, Sean, you were at the top of your game when you decided to leave the sport. I mean you were twenty years old and a star gymnast. You'd earned one gold medal and three silvers at the two thousand and eight Beijing Olympics. Who did you want to become on the other side of that decision to retire.

Someone who had value outside of the sport.

I truly felt like when I retired, where I was either going to push myself to a breaking point in gymnastics where it just wasn't worth it. I knew my mind wasn't there and my body wasn't there. I knew had I pushed through, it just wasn't going to end well. And I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. And I had this whole group of people around me saying, just finish your gymnastics run, like, just finish, go to the Olympics, try to make the team and keep going because like you're almost.

There type thing.

And when I retired and tried to protect myself, I was like, I know, this isn't my thing anymore.

Do you remember the moment you realized it was? What? When did you not was done?

I think Olympic Trials in twenty twelve. I remember walking into a practice one day and we like warmed up and our first event was beam. I don't know why I remember this so vividly, and I remember like getting my assignments from my coach saying you have to do this today, and I remember I got up on the beam getting ready to do like my first assignment, and I just stood there and it was truly like a switch had flipped. I don't know how to explain it

Like I'm done. Wow, I'm done.

And I literally got down off the beam and I told my coach, which I was like, I'm going to go home, which is like one not something you would ever do in our gym. And I literally just grabbed my bags and walked out and submitted like my letter of retirement that day.

And it was like, Nope, we're good, We're done here.

I knew, Sean, the gymnast was done and that was a chapter that was closing, and I needed to go find what was next.

Well, you recently did an interview with l magazine reflecting on that time in your life, and you said this, I only knew how to do handstands. I was paralyzed by this fear of not being good at something or not living up to the Olympic standard that people expected from me. I felt like I couldn't even try new hobbies because if I wasn't automatically good at them, people would be like, well, you're an Olympic gold medalist, you

How did you get over that fear?

My husband one hundred percent.

It wasn't until I met my husband that I don't know what it was about him, and I think that's truly why we connected so well.

But he's just this guy who can.

Make anyone feel like they're on top of the world because he cares so much about who you are as a person. Every single person he meets on the street. He could care less what your titles are, what you've done in life, what your job is. He truly just like wants to know your heart. And when we started dating, he was one of the first people that actually invested in me. He never talked about the Olympics, he never talked about gymnastics, and he made me feel like I

Wow.

And he would have to handhold me through it for a long time before I felt like I could go do it that on my own. But he truly allowed me to rebuild who I was and just encouraged me through every miserable failure that I had, which was great.

Okay, so I want to ask you about your man. You guys were both elite athletes, so you were a top gymnast for seventeen years, and then your husband, Andrew East played in the NFL until twenty twenty two, and you both were transitioning out of being professional athletes at a really similar time. I'm so curious how you supported each other and walked through this.

So we did go through it in very like similar times in life phases, but I will say we are just far enough apart that we did feel like a little up a little down. I was transitioning as we started dating and he was still in college, and then we had been together.

Probably three or four years before.

He went into the NFL, and was in the NFL for four or five years before he transitioned out, So there was a good chunk of time for me to kind of remove myself from the transition of elite athletics and then be able to have gone through all the hard stuff and then watch him have to go through the hard stuff and be able to support him. And I will say it was really really cool being able to kind of ying and yang that together because when we met and he was in his heyday of college athletics,

Having both gone through.

It is hard because we're so competitive and we're so stubborn.

With each other, oh.

With everything, absolutely everything, But it also lets us relate on a deeper level and understand each other on a deeper level.

That helped us get kind of get through those times in life.

We have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with Sean Johnson East. And we're back with Sean Johnson East. So Danielle and I often talk about friendship on our show. We even have a friendship advice segment called Asking for a Friend where we bring in experts to help us navigate tricky relational situations. And it sounds like you're something of a friendship expert at this point as well. Can you give us the backstory on your friendship with fellow gymnasts Nastia Luken.

Oh, I would say the secret to Nasty and I getting past our breakup was ripping off a band aid.

Way to like fix it.

How long did you not talk?

For?

So very long story short, Nasty and I were like inseparable best friends when we trained together for the Olympics. We went to the Olympics, we roomed together. We were best friends, but we were also each other's top competitors. I was sixteen, she was eighteen, and there was this immense pressure put on us from the public and from publicity. They basically took the Olympic Games and pitted Nastia versus Sean.

Oh my god.

And then after the Olympics, the press just ran with it. Every media opportunity, every endorsement deal. It was like her or I, our agents didn't like each other, and at sixteen and eighteen, we just really didn't know how to navigate that. Wow, it was just it just got very toxic, but not from us. It just the world made us feel like we weren't supposed to like each other. It was very odd and it was very hard to navigate and emotional.

When you're a young girl who's you know, maybe somewhat impressionable, your first time in the spotlight there's no way that's not going to have an impact on your friendship.

Absolutely. So we actually went eight years starting from the Olympics and not speaking. Oh but I don't know how to explain this. Like we knew every single move each other was made in life. I knew where she lived. At one point we lived like down the road from each other, and we knew that. Like we were literally just doing life circles around each other, almost on purpose.

And so eight years by we send the email. I was in New York City.

We met up for lunch like a day after this email was sent, and it was almost like not like we hadn't skipped to be and it was just in time. I was getting ready to be married. It was I think it was like a two months before my wedding.

So was was she at your wedding? She was, Yeah, that's so beautiful. Yeah, I'm so happy you guys came together.

I love this story. See it can happen, friendships can come back. Oh my god. Okay, well this is a little bit of a left turn.

But you went from winning the Olympics to winning Dancing with the Stars and that show. First of all, I think it's one of the only shows that families can watch together.

Still, I really like it.

Yes, you like really used the show so well to launch this personal brand of yours. I'm so curious how you went about that, and if you have any refinements or tools that you used or how you thought of it that would be helpful for people listening and us.

I would love to tell you that it was strategic, but it was not. I truly felt like in my gymnastics career I was painted, not in a false way, but I felt like they missed so much because my gymnastics career was very different than like the stereotypical gymnastics career. I went to public school, I went to prom, I had boyfriends, I had a coach that would take me to Dairy Queen after practice every day. I truly was like a kid who loved what I did as an

Well, I think the fun that you're talking about is very evident on your podcast and your YouTube channel. Just a little background, you met your husband during the Dancing with the Star's time, so you guys fall in love. I did you are fools in love? Shall we say?

Yeah?

And then you start this YouTube channel and you have your podcast called Couple Things, and you recently launch Family Made, which is a platform for young parents. And I am fascinated by family content because all my girlfriends say they cannot even get their kids to pose for a Christmas photo. So I'm so curious how you approach kids and social media and how you're thinking about this.

It's an ever changing process because our kids are growing up and we don't ever ask them to be in front of the camera. We don't tell them to pose. We don't like try to include them, if that makes sense. We started doing you too because my husband was on the road with the NFL and I was on tour after the twenty twelve Olympics, and we were doing like family vlogs to almost just show each other what was

Part of their family.

Never a YouTube channel, but like he just videoed life and he always wanted to preserve that, and so that was passed on to my husband and we have hundreds and hundreds of videos that the world has never seen that we just make for family, and the ones that the world does get to see. It's kind of like we're trying to showcase snippets of our life in a way that honors our children, never exposes them or embarrasses them. Or shows you know, weaknesses, but just shows kind of

I need you to I need you che You have so many jobs. What task? Okay, she's a woman for this job.

I need you to invent an app or some sort of software company something that helps parents organize our videos and photos of our kids. I know, because this is the thing I want to be like your father in law. I want to be that parent who films everything. But I just am amassing, like thou, tens of thousands of videos and I don't know what to do with it.

Same.

Also, nobody prints pictures anymore. In putting myself Yeah, and I'm like, I desperately want like photo books.

But how do you go back.

Through fifty thousand pictures of my child from the past five years?

Yeah, and pick out fifty I don't.

Know, Sean.

I was listening to your podcast and hearing you and your husband talk about how you have this weekly non negotiable date night on Thursdays, and I just think this is such an admirable thing that you both do and adhere to, and it's such a great message and narrative for other married folks to hear. How else do you prioritize your marriage while raising kids, Because it's so easy to just allow the focus to be on our offspring and forget about each other.

It takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of commitment. It's I don't just mean commitment to your husband, I mean just commitment in general. It takes a lot of discipline. My husband and I do the weekly date nights, and we have a mutual agreement and we're on the same page in the understanding that if we aren't each other's best friends and on the best possible wavelength as husband and wife, then we cannot be

So my husband and I do a bunch of things.

So we do weekly date nights what we call bevtime every single night. So after we put the kids down, we meet at the dining table for ten minutes. We each have a glass of water or a glass of wine or something. We have one drink and it's just ten minutes to reconnect, debrief from the day, go over the next day and just say hi, I missed you

Bothering ooh with like each other.

Or yeah, be like it's you can bring up anything and it has to be unemotional, unattached and truly just like safe space.

I like that.

We also do couples therapy. We do how often we have been doing. Actually after we had our third kid, we started this. It's like a sixteen week intensive. It's like a couple's sixteen week course, but we meet once a week for two hours individually with counselors.

That then the counselors talk to each other. Uh so it's like marriage therapy but separate.

Interesting.

It has been life changing. Really, it is the greatest thing I've ever done. So, yeah, we do a lot.

What is it called.

It's called rock house. Very cool shout out. It has changed our life.

Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, but we do a lot.

We take it very very seriously because we just think that marriages are so vulnerable in today's society and culture that if we don't work very hard every day, you can see how easily they can fall apart. And we don't ever want that to happen, so we put a lot of effort into it.

Thank you so much for sharing all of that. That's it's all so valuable, yeah to hear. I also want to get your hot takes on a few parenting approaches because I know how we run things in our household. It all feels like very fluid and it's ever evolving, and I'm so curious to hear how other parents handle things so great, first up, gentle versus authoritative parenting both good answer.

I mean why people who say they can only gentle parent.

I'm like, you either don't have a boy or your children are just thank you, yeah.

Thank you, yess looking around to see if anybody here, Caesar, I just.

Feel so seen in this moment. Yes, yes, yes to that.

I also think every child is just so different, so some like my daughter gentle parenting, absolutely, yeah, my son he's just he just lives wide open. He's so larger than life that he needs like clear boundaries.

Yep, I say, gentle parents say for gentle kids, that's absolutely, it's not. It's not for everyone. Okay, what about screen time? How do you approach this?

I mean, I don't.

I melted my children's face off with a screen on an eleven hour flight. Yes, you can have it for eleven hours straight. But then at home, I'm like, I try to say, go outside. Yes, we don't need the screen in the morning. We don't need the screen at night. If I'm home by myself with the kids and I need a cook dinner, cool, go watch a little show. I try to make sure it's like a decent show.

As well, whenever my son's behavior is getting a little bit out of control, I do a check to see, okay, how much TV has he been watching lately, and usually there's a direct correlation. They get like over stimulated, So easy we do. It's a drug for them. It's the closest thing to a drug for them. That's how it impacts their brains. But all that to say, like I'm not villainizing screens. I use them when I need to,

M I think sports are absolutely amazing for children, because I think any child with too much for time, nothing good happens.

Sean, my mom calls sports the anti drug.

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I don't think I don't have any pressure on my children to be good at sports.

I could care less.

I don't have any pressure on my child to be in certain sports or activities. But I think extracurriculars teach kids discipline, responsibility, teamwork, so many life lessons that are so beneficial, and they keep them out of trouble.

Sean, your memoir came out years ago, and in it you wrote and sort of questioned could you find the right kind of success in life? And this was right after your gymnastic career had wrapped. I'm wondering if you feel like you have.

Oh, yeah, absolutely, because I became a mama and a wife. And I'm not saying like that is what my definition of successes for everyone, but for me, I feel very content and I feel very happy, and I feel like I have a purpose that has a lot of value to myself.

So yes, I do.

I love that.

Sean, thank you so much for joining us on the bright Side today.

Sean, You're the coolest. Thank you so much.

Thank you, sir. Are you ladies, It's a lot of fun.

Sean Johnson East is an Olympic gold medalist, New York Times bestselling author, winner of Dancing with the Stars, and one of the founders of Family Maid.

That's it for today's show.

Tomorrow, we're talking to musician, author, and TV personality Cheeky's all about her new show Cheeky Sinfieldtrow and what it was like to accept a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her mother, Jenny Rivera Klas. She even gives us some big sister advice. Listen and follow the bright side on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Simone Voice.

You can find me at simone Voice on Instagram and TikTok.

I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's r O b A Y. See you tomorrow, folks.

Keep looking on the bright side