As a pediatrician and mom, I know firsthand how easy it is to get overwhelmed by standard parenting tips and the pressure to have a perfect family life . In a culture obsessed with quick fixes and curated social media fairy tales, so many couples feel like they are constantly falling short . On this channel, my goal is to share the beautiful, unglamorous reality of making relationships work . We cannot just hope for a happy marriage and connection to happen by chance…we have to be intentional about creating it. That is why I love bringing authentic guests onto the podcast to share real, unfiltered relationship advice.

In this episode, I’m sitting down with Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson East and former NFL player Andrew East to talk about their brand new book, The Courage to Commit. Shawn and Andrew remind us that we don’t have to succumb to public judgment or relationship anxiety . Real growth happens in our everyday routines, like setting core family values, prioritizing weekly date nights, and learning how to celebrate failure . By breaking down the illusion of perfection and working through messy parenting moments, we can move past the comparison trap and build a resilient, peaceful home.

• Why treating commitment as an intentional choice is the key to lasting peace in marriage.

• How choosing fewer things and narrowing your focus can completely eliminate FOMO and relationship anxiety .

• Easy, practical ways to establish family values and protect intentional habits like weekly date nights .

• Why elite athletes, pediatricians, and parents must embrace failure as a necessary stepping stone to success.

• Breaking down the distinct voices in their new book, The Courage to Commit, and the inclusion of data-driven research.

• How a legendary gymnastics coach used reverse psychology to teach self-reflection and grit.

• How to find joy in the mundane, unglamorous preparation phases of parenting and family life.

To connect with Shawn Johnson East and Andrew East follow them on Instagram @shawnjohnson and @andrewdeast and buy their new book, “The Courage to Committ”: ⁠https://thecouragetocommit.com/#pre-order⁠ 

00:00:00 – Commitment vs. The Highlight-Reel Culture

00:01:22 – Introducing Shawn Johnson East & Andrew East

00:03:49 – Behind the Scenes of a Three-Year Book Journey

00:05:49 – Balancing Two Different Voices in Marriage & Writing

00:07:14 – Overcoming the Flaws of Modern Swipe Culture

00:11:11 – Why Society Hacks Relationships but Grinds in Sports

00:15:51 – The Ulysses Analogy: Drowning Out Distractions

00:18:42 – Defining Core Family Values & Setting Boundaries

00:23:07 – Choosing Depth Over Endless Variety

00:30:52 – Why the Cost of Maintenance is Cheaper Than Starting Over

00:37:11 – Knowing When to Persevere vs. When to Quit

00:50:11 – Finding Beauty in the Mundane, Unglamorous Moments

00:54:16 – Where to Buy The Courage to Commit & Final Review Call

Our podcasts are also now on YouTube. If you prefer a video podcast with closed captioning, check us out there and⁠⁠ ⁠subscribe to PedsDocTalk⁠⁠⁠.

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00;00;00;04 – 00;00;22;03

Shawn Johnson East

I think one of the greatest gifts I was ever given very early on in my life was in gymnastics, where my coach told me that I had to fail and fall literally flat on my face a thousand times before I would ever, you know, get one skill, right. And he taught me at a very young age just this gift of his celebrated failure.

 

00;00;22;06 – 00;00;36;01

Shawn Johnson East

He was like, if you’re not feeling, you’re not trying, and you have to fail and you have to try in order to ever be good at this.

 

00;00;36;03 – 00;01;00;16

Dr. Mona

Hey, everyone. Doctor Mona here, your online pediatrician, mom, friend and trusted confidant. I hope in all things parenting. Welcome back to the show The PedsDocTalk Podcast. Have you ever wondered what commitment actually looks like? Not the big dramatic moments, but the quiet, repetitive, nobody’s watching ones. The ones that feel more like showing up tired than showing up triumphant.

 

00;01;00;19 – 00;01;22;07

Dr. Mona

Because here’s the thing we live in a world obsessed with highlight reels, big moments, and bold moves. But the research and if we’re being real, the wisdom in our gut tells us that the small, quiet act of showing up again and again committing is where the real magic happens in parenting, in marriage, and in life. That’s exactly why today’s conversation is so important.

 

00;01;22;07 – 00;01;46;23

Dr. Mona

I’m sitting down with people I can call my friends, which seems amazing and cool because they’re kind of celebrities. Shawn Johnson, East Olympic gold medalist and her husband Andrew is former NFL player and honestly, a human golden retriever in the best way. Together, they wrote a book called The Courage to Commit, and we get into what real commitment looks like in parenting, in marriage, and in life.

 

00;01;46;25 – 00;02;15;10

Dr. Mona

When it stops being exciting and starts just being necessary. Whether this is your first episode or you’re a long time listener, I know you’ll take something powerful from this one, and you have to make sure. Help me out. Help the show out. Make sure to subscribe, download the episode and tag us when you share it on stories. At PedsDocTalk, the PedsDocTalk podcast, and Shawn Johnson East and Andrew X four accounts to tag.

 

00;02;15;12 – 00;02;27;17

Dr. Mona

Let’s get into this amazing conversation. I can’t wait for you to commit to listening to this episode.

 

00;02;27;19 – 00;02;29;17

Dr. Mona

I’m just so excited to have you on the show today.

 

00;02;29;18 – 00;02;31;04

Andrew East

Thank you. Good to see you again.

 

00;02;31;08 – 00;02;31;24

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;02;31;24 – 00;02;33;16

Shawn Johnson East

And yes, we’re friends.

 

00;02;33;19 – 00;02;34;12

Dr. Mona

We are friends.

 

00;02;34;13 – 00;02;35;29

Shawn Johnson East

I feel like we’re together a lot now.

 

00;02;36;01 – 00;02;54;26

Dr. Mona

Yeah. Like, for anyone who’s not familiar. So, Shawn and Andrew have their own show. I’ve been on their show talking about parenting tips and all the things that we do as parents. And then myself and Shawn have worked together with, before this or the RSV campaign. And it just so happened that that’s how we finally physically met.

 

00;02;54;29 – 00;03;14;14

Dr. Mona

And I just felt like talking to an old friend. So for anyone who’s, like, listening and are like, are they exactly how they are in real life? I can tell you that from meeting Shawn. I know Andrew’s probably the same, but Shawn is exactly who you see online, which is really awesome. When you meet someone and you’re like, you’re there’s no there’s no fake aura being put on here.

 

00;03;14;14 – 00;03;21;23

Dr. Mona

This is who you are. I love to see it. So happy to have you guys on and, talk about this next endeavor, which is a book you wrote together.

 

00;03;21;26 – 00;03;27;10

Andrew East

Oh, yes. I would say Shawn’s cooler in person, but maybe you’re cooler. I could be biased, but.

 

00;03;27;12 – 00;03;31;00

Shawn Johnson East

You’re just like a human golden retriever.

 

00;03;31;02 – 00;03;49;09

Dr. Mona

I sense that from the videos that you all do. By the way, I love I love the blend of parenting, but also relationship. You really have hit that sort of 360 on, like, what happens in a home in a very realistic way. And it does seem like he has golden retriever energy. So I love that.

 

00;03;49;11 – 00;04;03;29

Dr. Mona

So tell me more about this book. Like, I, I think, Shawn, you have had books that you’ve written before, but Andrew, this is your first book. So tell me, what made you guys decide to write this book? The courage to commit and how that process has been writing it together.

 

00;04;04;02 – 00;04;23;12

Andrew East

It’s a journey, and it sounds like you’re about to find out. It’s it’s really fun. It takes, about three years to, to do a book, as we’ve learned. And what’s really fun about that time period is you are able to think about and start collecting and curating all the stories and thoughts over, like a really long period of time.

 

00;04;23;13 – 00;04;44;04

Andrew East

You kind of see the world through the lens of the book for, for that amount of time. And so then, you know, we had this process of journaling or making notes and then trying to figure out, does that actually fit or not? And when you have when you have three years to do that, I feel like we have a pretty comprehensive exploration of this concept of committing, which has been really fun.

 

00;04;44;04 – 00;05;05;17

Andrew East

And, you know, we’re not writing this from a book of expertise is very much as students. And so to to like, you know, go through this and, and try to learn about ourselves and talk to have a ton of conversations, read all the maybe correlative books that that are already out there. It’s just like a really fun process that, that, you know, is, is unlike anything else you’ve done before.

 

00;05;05;17 – 00;05;15;16

Andrew East

Because when a book’s printed, that’s kind of like a very final thing and it’s, not editable at that point. Unlike, you know, we could probably go back and edit this podcast or.

 

00;05;15;19 – 00;05;16;15

Dr. Mona

Exactly.

 

00;05;16;17 – 00;05;27;15

Andrew East

Or somehow remove an Instagram video if you need to. And it’s like the book’s pretty permanent, so it’s daunting, but it I think it calls for a certain amount of excellence. So, I love the process.

 

00;05;27;17 – 00;05;29;11

Dr. Mona

Love to hear it. What about for you, Sean? Yet?

 

00;05;29;15 – 00;05;49;28

Shawn Johnson East

I was just going to say it was. It was a fascinating process writing it together. I had written a book or two before this, and so I was familiar with the process solo. But doing it together was fascinating because we have very we have a shared belief in the topic, which is commitment and how it works in our life.

 

00;05;49;28 – 00;06;14;27

Shawn Johnson East

But we have two completely different voices in how we relate to the topic and how we process it, and trying to figure out how to put that into a book for the readers was very interesting. We got to a point where we said, I don’t think it’s possible to blend them. So we actually brought in a third writer and said, the book is comprised of like Us, and then Jimmy Sunny, which is the third writer.

 

00;06;14;29 – 00;06;33;06

Shawn Johnson East

And so you have a chapter that kind of shows Andrew’s face and it’s Andrew’s voice, and then you see my face and my voice, and we have separate text to give very different dynamics. And then you have Jimmy coming in showing a lot of statistics and research and the data that kind of backs both. And it was a really fun process trying to piece that puzzle together.

 

00;06;33;11 – 00;06;35;02

Shawn Johnson East

It’s like marriage counseling the whole time.

 

00;06;35;05 – 00;06;36;09

Andrew East

Yeah.

 

00;06;36;11 – 00;06;55;15

Dr. Mona

I love it. And I love what you said about the permanency of it. Right. Like, yeah, I’m in the process of writing mine. And that is a very daunting feeling because I have so many thoughts in my head. Right. Like, you’re like, I want to talk about this in this book, and I want to do this. And then you’re like, okay, I need to make this something that people want to read, and also something that’s tangible that people want to take home.

 

00;06;55;19 – 00;07;11;18

Dr. Mona

And that also is permanent like that. It has a legacy and that it can, you know, what we call in the world timeless. Like it’s not going to be something that in 20 years is not useful anymore. You know that. So what makes it about this book like, why did you feel like this book was needed? Why now?

 

00;07;11;18 – 00;07;14;06

Dr. Mona

And why do you feel like you both needed to write this book?

 

00;07;14;08 – 00;07;39;28

Andrew East

Yeah. When we thought about a book, there was a couple different routes. And like a lot of our content on, on the internet is, like, very playful, lighthearted. It’s about like, marriage or whatever, parenting. And we’re like, okay, well, there’s a lot of marriage and parenting books out there. Should we give some, like, advice book? Like, we we brush that off pretty quickly because we are by no means marriage experts or parenting experts.

 

00;07;39;28 – 00;08;02;24

Andrew East

That’s why we’re thankful for people like you. Yeah, to help give us really reliable wisdom. And then we’re like, okay, well, what do we want to write a book on? It’s like, well, we love learning. Curiosity is one of our five family values. And it’s like, I think it’d be really fun to kind of just do an exploration of a topic and like, really dig in.

 

00;08;02;24 – 00;08;26;04

Andrew East

And then just what what are the studies and what are other people saying about it? Where do you see them? Pop culture? And then the third kind of lens that we, we aligned, the third Venn diagram circle was like, what do people what would people want to to hear from us? And that was like, oh, people love talking to Sean about our gymnastics career, dancing with the stars, and now the marriage and parenting.

 

00;08;26;04 – 00;08;48;25

Andrew East

So. So then we came up with this, we legitimately took a year to figure out a concept. And we were like, oh, well, we don’t want to write a book because we don’t want to do a marriage advice book. So we said, maybe we just don’t do a book at all. But then as we kind of, you know, we’d have random conversations, spontaneous conversations around the dinner table about if we were going to do a book, what would it look like?

 

00;08;48;25 – 00;09;13;21

Andrew East

And we realized that a through line through our athletic careers, our our, you know, marriage, our parenting, and how we have approached business is like this idea of committing to something and sticking to something. And the idea that like, the readiness in life does not come before the commitment. It comes as a result of it. And so it was like, oh, that’s cool.

 

00;09;13;21 – 00;09;32;08

Andrew East

I think that applies to all these different realms, like those those three lenses that I mentioned earlier. And, so then, then we kind of mocked up, the proposal for and we’re like, I think we have something here. I think this is, really exciting, especially in this time, the day and age that we live in where people are changing jobs more than they ever have.

 

00;09;32;08 – 00;09;51;08

Andrew East

People are, you know, dating with these like these high up and through. Yes. Swipe right culture. And it’s like very quick and oh my gosh I have so I there’s a lot of choices of people that I can married to marry. There’s a lot of, businesses I could start and the opportunities, you know, what do I where do I begin?

 

00;09;51;09 – 00;10;11;29

Andrew East

And what we realized is people weren’t, making mistakes because they chose wrong. They were, like, oftentimes, at least in our life, when we made mistakes, it was because we just didn’t choose at all. And so the whole moral is like, hey, there. There may be several good choices, and don’t stress out about trying to find the best of the good.

 

00;10;12;01 – 00;10;21;06

Andrew East

You commit to the one, and then you make that one that you chose the best option. So yeah, that’s that’s why I feel like, it’s it’s been a really fun topic to explore.

 

00;10;21;09 – 00;10;42;26

Dr. Mona

You know, it’s awesome. So I, I had Alana meyers Taylor on my show. Who won the who’s, like, the most decorated, black Winter Olympian. Yeah. And I love talking to athletes. Like, I love it because I know you said that you’re not an expert in parenting and marriage, but there’s something to be said. And I obviously, as you all know, I was a high school track athlete.

 

00;10;42;26 – 00;11;00;11

Dr. Mona

I wasn’t anything went in. Yeah, but I did where I did good work, you know, I was very proud. And I always take it back to the work ethic that I gained by being a track athlete, right? I mean, I hope that my children want to do something in some sort of sport or stick to something that is difficult at times, but test them.

 

00;11;00;11 – 00;11;22;29

Dr. Mona

And it’s a testament to obviously both of you to be able to take the work that you’ve done as athletes, as parents, you know, being married and to write this book that although you say that it’s not a parenting book and a marriage book, I think just by sharing the expertise you have as highly trained athletes with strong work ethic and commitment, it’s going to be resonating with so many people.

 

00;11;22;29 – 00;11;26;23

Dr. Mona

And so I think that’s a wonderful thing, that this is the book that I think both of you needed to write.

 

00;11;27;00 – 00;11;52;12

Shawn Johnson East

I found it fascinating. We were talking about this the other day, that in culture, it’s so widely accepted and known by everybody that to be an elite athlete, you have to like, devote thousands of hours and time to your craft. And everybody knows that and everybody is like, yeah, that’s how it that’s how it works. If you want to go to the Olympics, if you want to go to the Super Bowl, you need to be grinding.

 

00;11;52;12 – 00;12;02;02

Shawn Johnson East

You even have parents, which don’t get me started, who are putting this pressure on children at such a young age saying, you got to commit to it. You gotta.

 

00;12;02;06 – 00;12;03;14

Dr. Mona

Get started. Yeah.

 

00;12;03;20 – 00;12;08;15

Shawn Johnson East

Oh gosh, I could go on a panel for that. I should write a book about that. You.

 

00;12;08;15 – 00;12;11;19

Andrew East

Should be committing for other people’s lives. Like. Yeah.

 

00;12;11;22 – 00;12;12;22

Dr. Mona

Yeah, exactly.

 

00;12;12;22 – 00;12;13;15

Andrew East

I’m not real sure.

 

00;12;13;15 – 00;12;36;28

Shawn Johnson East

But it’s it’s really fascinating to me that people understand commitment. They understand that in order to have an athlete that need that succeeds, they have to commit to it and they have to go all in. But it’s fascinating that they don’t believe that in any other category of life, they always I feel like culture is preaching this idea of in your relationship and your business and everything.

 

00;12;36;28 – 00;12;56;20

Shawn Johnson East

If it’s not a fairy tale and if it’s not super easy and it’s not butterflies and roses every single day, it must be wrong. And everybody’s looking for this quick fix in this hack. And how can I do it? How can I make $1 million in two days? And yeah, and nobody’s willing to accept this idea of we all know how to succeed at something.

 

00;12;56;20 – 00;13;25;02

Shawn Johnson East

It’s to truly like a grind of it and to like, put your nose down and stick with it. And so in writing the book, as athletes, we’re we’re kind of showcasing all of our failures and all of our successes and seeing and saying like, look, it’s tried and true and it keeps working. If we actually just like, stick with something and we work through the hardships, we work through the valleys, it seems to work out and be so fruitful in the end.

 

00;13;25;08 – 00;13;33;03

Shawn Johnson East

Yeah. And it’s just interesting to me why people don’t want to see that. It doesn’t sound fun, but it actually is more fruitful.

 

00;13;33;07 – 00;13;34;04

Andrew East

In other areas.

 

00;13;34;04 – 00;13;35;07

Shawn Johnson East

Of life. In other areas.

 

00;13;35;07 – 00;13;42;25

Andrew East

It was it was fun. We did a math exercise where we try to calculate, in order for Sean to do a back BMI, flip, how many reps.

 

00;13;42;29 – 00;13;43;20

Shawn Johnson East

Back we want to.

 

00;13;43;20 – 00;13;46;25

Andrew East

Flip. What did I say? Wow, that was what is that?

 

00;13;46;25 – 00;13;50;03

Dr. Mona

You got something new and special. I want to go back.

 

00;13;50;03 – 00;14;11;26

Andrew East

Flip all of them. Yeah. How many repetitions does it take? You know, in the whole build up the foundational skills to be able to do that. And it was something like 16,000 reps to do that. And it’s like, you know, I think athletics are really helpful. In, in the fact that they’re like a very tangible thing that you can create analogies out of.

 

00;14;11;26 – 00;14;39;26

Andrew East

And, and like when you have a goal that you’re trying to achieve like a, a beam on a backflip getting, it’s like, okay, well, this is my immovable endpoint that I want to reach. And if I am trying to get there, then there’s something that must move in me to, to, like, achieve that. And instead of me changing my goals or like saying, oh, well, I don’t want to do this anyway.

 

00;14;39;26 – 00;14;57;03

Andrew East

It’s like silly. And I know I failed a thousand times of the 16,000, but, maybe I’ll just change the goals. It’s like, no, when you have a commitment, that’s the thing that doesn’t move, and then you’re the one who has to make the changes around that and to be able to achieve that. And so it’s like this really beautiful path to growth, I think.

 

00;14;57;06 – 00;15;19;06

Andrew East

And it’s funny, like athletics is helpful. I think money can can also be a helpful analogy. And people are familiar with this idea of compounding, interest. Right. And money, it’s like, okay, well, I know that if I save a dollar a day for a year, then, you know, in 40 years I’ll have $1 million or whatever it is.

 

00;15;19;09 – 00;15;37;03

Andrew East

And it’s because of the compounding. It’s like, I think that same con concept applies to every other area of life. It’s like, hey, how do you have a lifelong marriage? Well, you you stay married for another day and then, you know, that compounds into this beautiful relationship that otherwise you wouldn’t have. Same with friendships, same with, with like, business.

 

00;15;37;03 – 00;15;56;05

Andrew East

It’s like, hey, if you’re movable, thing is that you want to be your own business owner and that’s the goal, then like, commit to that and then maybe you have to make some changes along the way and tweak this and edit that and, you know, learn this yourself. And there’s just like a lot of cool things that happen when, when that’s the, the end goal.

 

00;15;56;05 – 00;16;06;05

Andrew East

And and yeah, I think sorry, I’m, I’m also a, a Greek history nerd. I love the, the, the Odyssey. Homer’s odyssey.

 

00;16;06;05 – 00;16;07;11

Dr. Mona

Nice. Yes.

 

00;16;07;13 – 00;16;29;03

Andrew East

A song, that is one of my favorites. Called Ulysses by Josh garrels. Anyway, the whole concept is this guy’s trying to get home to his family, and he is on a boat, and they have to pass by. The sirens is what they’re called. And the sirens are, like, incredibly tempting. You hear their song, and, like, it’s irresistible.

 

00;16;29;06 – 00;16;51;07

Andrew East

You deviate your path and you and they draw you in, and then your your ship crashes on the rocks. So it’s like this. It’s like this really enticing thing that ends in destruction. And it to me, that’s like a that’s like the perfect analogy to distraction, where it’s like, oh, hey, I wanted to play in the NFL, but I got enticed by all these other different distractions.

 

00;16;51;07 – 00;17;15;02

Andrew East

The siren song of of like the whatever, you know, the, the opportune, the opportunities that come up, whether it be partying or starting this thing or getting distracted by that. And anyway, Homer, Ulysses solution, as he literally ties himself, he commits so much to getting back to his family that he ties himself to the mast of his ship.

 

00;17;15;04 – 00;17;29;00

Andrew East

And like, and says, hey, I’m not going to be. I’m removing myself from the possibility of of making any other decision or steering our ship in any other direction than, than towards home.

 

00;17;29;02 – 00;17;48;06

Dr. Mona

Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show. Oh, I love well, I also love Greek mythology and all of that. And you must be excited about the movie coming out. I think it’s coming out this year, right? Ulysses I think is, yeah. But, you know, you talk.

 

00;17;48;06 – 00;18;04;17

Dr. Mona

This is amazing. You talk about narrowing your focus. You know, that it restores peace. You mentioned already earlier that like swipe culture. I agree with that. You know, if someone’s listening, that’s in that dating realm that does not serve us well because you are not committing, as we had to do back in the day of like, nothing’s going to be perfect, right?

 

00;18;04;17 – 00;18;25;21

Dr. Mona

You have to understand that no humans perfect. You have to understand that no situation is perfect. And then you beautifully said, like with the temptations of other things, when you had a goal of being an NFL player. Right? Like whether it’s partying, whether it’s some other endeavor, and in a culture that can feel very much like, you know, like keeping doors open, or having a lot of options.

 

00;18;25;21 – 00;18;42;21

Dr. Mona

What changed for you both when you stop trying to optimize every choice and instead choose fewer things more fully? Like, how did you decide that this is what my goal is? This is how I’m this is what I’m committing to so that you can drown out all that other noise and not be tempted using your analogy by the sirens.

 

00;18;42;22 – 00;18;55;03

Shawn Johnson East

Yeah, I think for us it all started again. I, I said this so many times, so forgive me how many years ago when we did the, goal shoot for the first time eight years ago,

 

00;18;55;09 – 00;18;57;25

Andrew East

2018, 2018. I just remember you.

 

00;18;57;25 – 00;19;17;06

Shawn Johnson East

Got 20, and I’ll never remember that everything was the story. I did the first time it kind of hit us was in 2018. We were living a beautiful life and it was bouncing around the NFL. We were living in Washington. We were we were like saying yes to everything. Every opportunity that came our way. We were having fun.

 

00;19;17;06 – 00;19;37;25

Shawn Johnson East

It felt like we were living a beautiful life. We ended up we we chose to do this goal setting for the very first time. His dad had sent it to him where we were supposed to sit down. It was like January 1st. Stereotypically, and it was, I want you to write down like what your dream life looks like and all of these different categories.

 

00;19;37;27 – 00;19;57;22

Shawn Johnson East

And in every category it was like faith and family and hobbies. And there were like ten of them. And I remember we sat there for a few hours and we each were writing and, you know, by the time we got to the end of it, we were sharing with each other. And it was fascinating that the lives that we wanted looked drastically different than the life we were living.

 

00;19;57;24 – 00;20;22;20

Shawn Johnson East

And I say that because. The, the, the choice, you know, component that we’re talking about, it’s so easy to get wrapped up in saying yes to things that seem fun, but they actually aren’t getting you to where you want to go. And so from that point forward, we started implementing strategies to kind of protect our long term goals.

 

00;20;22;23 – 00;20;44;11

Shawn Johnson East

And yes, that means potentially saying no to something that’s fun in the moment, but it progresses you closer to like the life you actually want to live. And for us, it actually became more freeing because you get inundated on a daily basis by all these opportunities in life, whether it’s with friends or family or friends or kids or whatever it is.

 

00;20;44;14 – 00;21;11;22

Shawn Johnson East

But it was so easy to then look through this like lens of that actually doesn’t help us in the long run. So that’s an easy thing to say no to. And it just made life feel simpler. But because of that, we started becoming like closer in our marriage and better at parenting. And it felt like we were mission oriented and mission aligned and life and not kind of aimlessly wandering around.

 

00;21;11;25 – 00;21;16;04

Shawn Johnson East

Things just started to kind of like fall into place easier. I think.

 

00;21;16;06 – 00;21;30;21

Dr. Mona

I yeah, I feel like, yeah, like I feel like, I’m curious what one of those examples would be and how you feel like it’s showing now in your life. Like, what is one of those goals that you were like, not doing initially, that now you’re like, this is what feels like I was supposed to do.

 

00;21;30;28 – 00;21;51;23

Shawn Johnson East

I mean, I think something as simple as spending time together. Yeah, I think one very small thing that we both, ended up writing down in our goal is we are so busy in life, we weren’t going on dates anymore. Yeah, and it was like, we’re having fun. We’re going to these events, but we actually don’t have intentional time together.

 

00;21;51;25 – 00;22;13;08

Shawn Johnson East

And that was a very, very easy thing for us to say. Let’s just choose a day. Let’s choose one day every week where we know we’re going to go on a date night. And that was the first time we kind of implemented date night. And it stuck, and it was very fruitful for our marriage. And then another one was later on in life, it was the kids watch too much TV.

 

00;22;13;10 – 00;22;16;23

Shawn Johnson East

I don’t like it. It’s kind of distracting. How do we fix that?

 

00;22;16;25 – 00;22;34;28

Andrew East

And we we really value togetherness. Yeah. As a family, it’s like we want there to be, we want we want to have unlocked the probability of there being all those million little moments of like, hey, this, this, this might be, the moment that, you know, is super small, but we remember ten years from now.

 

00;22;34;28 – 00;22;56;04

Shawn Johnson East

Yeah. And we would just it would be like these little things, tiny things in life, like, that’s not a big thing. And we would look at it and say, okay, how can we solve that? And how can we put in a new routine or rhythm in our life to make that feel, better? And so they’re like little tiny problems that you start fixing.

 

00;22;56;04 – 00;23;06;28

Shawn Johnson East

And over the course of time, it just starts recreating in real your life to be more intentional and purposeful, joyful.

 

00;23;07;01 – 00;23;33;15

Andrew East

Yeah. I, yeah, I don’t know about you, doc, but because I feel like you doctors are cut from a different cloth and like, I really have. No. Yeah, I feel like there’s a calling I that I did not have. Yeah, I was younger and for me, my 20s felt like a time of like, oh, adventure means, not being tied to anything, not having any responsibilities and being able to do whatever I want to and like not being committed to anything.

 

00;23;33;15 – 00;24;06;18

Andrew East

The 30s, so far as felt like, I’m like, okay, you know, we’re we’re doing the kid thing. We got, we got, some businesses, we’re married. Right? Committed to a lot of things, some of which maybe we should not be committed to yet. And so I’m hoping, like my 40s will will change and our 40s will change into only being committed to the things that, like, we really want to be after going through this process of like, you know, experimentation and and then like they’ve been our toes and, and then realizing that that actually is not where we want to head, but the, the funding is what I realize.

 

00;24;06;21 – 00;24;25;06

Andrew East

And that I wish I could tell my 20 year old self, who who was not clear on where he wanted to go, and just wanted to venture is like, yes, there is a lot of excitement when you go an inch deep and a mile wide, like there’s this, there’s this excitement that comes from variety and you’re like, oh, I get to sample all these things.

 

00;24;25;06 – 00;24;42;21

Andrew East

And I, I just get, I kind of bounce around freely. But there is a, there’s a lot of excitement to when you have this depth that you could explore and like there’s a lot of like, just take dating. There is excitement when you go on a date with Susan and then go on a date with Rebecca and go on a date with someone.

 

00;24;42;21 – 00;25;16;11

Andrew East

So it’s like, oh, different personalities. But as I’ve gotten a notion that we’re ten years married, it’s like the the excitement and additionally the meaning because of the depth and the amount of time we spent together, the amount of shared memories, there is a unmatched level of adventure to to like going deep and not and not wide and, yeah, that’s what I, that’s that’s just kind of like how we’ve tried to approach things or it’s like, hey, don’t don’t get pulled away, from let’s just like dig in and, and like, really get to know each other deeply.

 

00;25;16;11 – 00;25;17;03

Andrew East

So.

 

00;25;17;06 – 00;25;33;00

Dr. Mona

Well. I love the focus on values. I mean, it sounds like that’s what that extra exercise was that made you realize, you know what? What brings me peace in my life? Like that is what we all should be striving for. And I don’t think peace should be money like I, I’ve said this to my husband like money will never buy you peace, right?

 

00;25;33;00 – 00;25;59;26

Dr. Mona

But what can money give you? Maybe it can give you flexibility, which is something you may value. And so to your point, what I had done, which really resonated with me and helped me kind of do what you guys did when you figure it out, well, what are we striving for here? Like is our our current actions actually matching what we want in our life was I started doing a gratitude jar and I would put things in my gratitude jar and I would, at the end of the year, go through them and notice what were the common threads of things that I was grateful for.

 

00;26;00;04 – 00;26;20;00

Dr. Mona

And through the three years that I’ve been doing this gratitude jar, the same things came up which I joke about. One of them was being able to take a nap and sleep, which is flexibility, right? Like being able to take a nap at like 2 p.m. on a Wednesday. Because I have the flexibility to do so. The other one was the flexibility to be able to be with my children when with because my job allows it to.

 

00;26;20;01 – 00;26;39;24

Dr. Mona

Right. Like I can go to my son’s performance at school or do a pick up if I need to and move things around in a schedule. And when I started noticing those threads, just like you both, I start to say, well, how can I continue to live a life of commitment to various projects, various things that will always lead me to those values that I find important.

 

00;26;39;24 – 00;27;02;25

Dr. Mona

And I think I love that that you all did that. I think it’s so beautiful to live a value driven life, and I’m sure it also helps you in your parenting, right? Because parenting comes with endless commentary and judgment. So how would you say that you stay anchored in your values when opinions are allowed? Social media is like saying all the things like, don’t do this with your children or do this with your children.

 

00;27;02;27 – 00;27;11;28

Dr. Mona

How do you feel like you’re able to model that kind of grounded decision making in your marriage for your kids? With the principles in the book or kind of what you just said?

 

00;27;12;01 – 00;27;32;15

Shawn Johnson East

I think the first thing that comes to mind is like the strategy we have in place helps us protect that, similar to what you’re saying. And like the gratitude jar, there’s so many things that we’ve implemented into our daily lives that protect us from outside voices and like, changing our routine. And we’ve learned all of these little things.

 

00;27;32;17 – 00;28;17;06

Shawn Johnson East

Over the course of the past ten years. We have had the privilege of, I feel like we learned firsthand in athletics that having really good coaches can change your entire trajectory in your life. And so even in our marriage and in parenting, we have spent a lot of resources to go find the best coaches in the world to kind of help us hone in on how to have a better and more intentional life and within the book, that was the fun part is we’ve always tried to explain everything that we’ve done and all the, little like, not activities, but like things that we do that we’ve implemented, processes, processes.

 

00;28;17;11 – 00;28;38;09

Shawn Johnson East

Yes, for learning your values and how to protect them. And, and in our book, we actually walk through every single one of them and it I could give you a laundry list of things, but protecting, you know, date nights and we do monthly check ins and we do this values based kind of process once a year where we’re making sure our values are aligned as a family.

 

00;28;38;09 – 00;28;54;02

Shawn Johnson East

And there’s so many intentional things that we do that kind of protects our life and makes it feel. Yeah, like like we’re doing it for us and not for the world.

 

00;28;54;04 – 00;29;14;15

Dr. Mona

Yeah. And that can be so hard with being a public figure, right? Like a book for both of you. Right. Because you I know this being on social and I think I’m so proud of you all because that to me is why I feel like you both are very grounded because you figure that out. But I think a lot of people who are not grounded in what they’re doing have not figured out that equation of, how can I be a public figure?

 

00;29;14;22 – 00;29;34;11

Dr. Mona

Take all the stuff that comes with that, but also know that the most important people in my life. And, Andrew, you said it is my family, right? Spending time with them. Sean, I loved you know, I follow I follow you. So, you had you guys had gone on a trip and you had posted, like, something on your stories about, like, how grateful you are to just travel with the kids and, like, as they get older.

 

00;29;34;11 – 00;29;55;00

Dr. Mona

I know those memories are even more amazing, you know, because they remember it. And I just I just again thought about how relatable that is as a mother myself and how much I love being able to take my kids places, whether it’s a weekend locally, whether it’s across the country, across the world to the Olympics. That is so awesome that I get to see that and see that you do that.

 

00;29;55;02 – 00;30;14;06

Dr. Mona

And it’s just nice to see you both as impressive public figures who are building it, you know, have a you’re entrepreneurs. You obviously are former athletes feel so aligned because you really have been diligent. And it’s a good reminder for all of our listeners that this is not just coming out of the air. This is by design, this is by conversation that you all have.

 

00;30;14;06 – 00;30;34;06

Dr. Mona

This is with intention. And I feel like, you know, to your point earlier, I feel a lot of people don’t realize that to commit it requires a lot of intention and thought. It’s not just like you commit and then there’s no thought to it. And do you feel that to be true? Like there’s a lot of checking in with each other, checking in with yourself to kind of see, is this commitment what I want to do?

 

00;30;34;07 – 00;30;52;24

Dr. Mona

Are we going to pivot? Like, how does that look like in terms of realizing, sort of reevaluating what’s working and what’s not working for you individually or for your family? Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show.

 

00;30;52;26 – 00;31;15;27

Andrew East

Yeah, 100% commitment does take a lot of maintenance, whether it be in athletics or relationships or whatever. And I would just argue that the, the cost of maintenance is less than the cost of starting over, you know. Yeah, it’s less than the startup cost. So, like what I realized maybe, you know, not as soon as I would have liked in our marriage is here.

 

00;31;15;27 – 00;31;35;14

Andrew East

I was spending a lot of time trying to strategize my ambitions, you know, trying to be strategic in business. And I was applying very little of that, like, strategy side of my brain to our marriage and, like, game planning, hey, here’s here’s where we’re going to have our meetings, our touch bases, here’s what we’re going to, explore, like, what are we actually about?

 

00;31;35;14 – 00;31;55;26

Andrew East

What are we trying to build here? And obviously, you know, it’s a way different tone and style conversation that you have at home versus business. But I think still, the intentionality, the engagement, the ad time, the way your schedule reflects it, there’s a lot of carryover that you can learn and and being strategic at home and we get we get some pushback.

 

00;31;55;26 – 00;32;17;14

Andrew East

People are like, well, do you ever feel like you’re being too rigid and like, there’s not this whimsical romance that you can have, with all these processes and systems? And I just know that for me, I resort, and, and kind of regress towards being irresponsible with my time when I’m not intentional with it is all like, call my phone and go social media or like, you know, do, watch Netflix or whatever.

 

00;32;17;14 – 00;32;36;02

Andrew East

And it’s like, I would way rather be strategic and intentional with, how I’m building my relationship. The most important relationship in my, in my life, then, you know, just like leaving it up to chance, and, the romance happens, and I feel like us giving it time on our schedule gives the romance a probability of happening.

 

00;32;36;02 – 00;32;57;05

Andrew East

You know, these, like, these, like, really fun conversation or the laughs, the the tears or, you know, whatever. And it, we, we walk through our whole process of, like Sean said, a lot of the different things that we do, one of those is the values. And we realized that, you know, we had these values for our business.

 

00;32;57;05 – 00;33;19;14

Andrew East

And I kept hearing from mentors in that space, like, you got to know what your organization is about. And we did not know what our family was about, but we realized that we each had certain things that would rub us the wrong way or annoy us, and we couldn’t really put a finger on why that would be. And so we went through this whole system that we share in the book of like, what is our what are our personal values?

 

00;33;19;16 – 00;33;38;11

Andrew East

What are the thing like? Where do we feel most comfortable? Like we’re thriving? Where do we feel frustrated at times? And then like you come up with trends and patterns for that and you’re able to kind of like whittle those down? And then we came up with, like, based off of our personal values through that system, an operating system for our family and how we operate.

 

00;33;38;11 – 00;34;00;19

Andrew East

And you asked earlier, like, what does committing do for you? And I think it has allowed us to drown out the noise and like, like you said, narrow your focus. That brings a sense of calmness where you’re not anxiously feeling FOMO, you know, of like, am I doing it the right way? It’s like, no, we’re being intentional and doing it this way.

 

00;34;00;21 – 00;34;18;15

Andrew East

And there is a sense of like, peace that comes with that. There’s like this, this joy that you’re able to unlock because, because you’re just present and you’re not looking over the fence, seeing if the grass is greener. You’re just like taking care of your own. And then there’s this depth that you’re, you know, you’re able to lock in on and focus on.

 

00;34;18;17 – 00;34;35;23

Andrew East

And so for us, that’s been incredibly helpful. And like Sean said, we do have mentors that as you’re deciding what to commit to or who to commit to, like getting outside perspectives from people who are further along the path than you and and can like, can add in. Hey, you know, I’ve been doing this for 20 years. You’re on year one.

 

00;34;35;26 – 00;34;54;01

Andrew East

Here’s some things to look out for. Can be really helpful. And so, you know, you obviously don’t know what what you’re getting into with, with, any commitment, like what the next 20 years could look like, there’s going to be struggles and celebrations that you could never imagine. But, if you’re just, like, locked in on it, then you just realize, like, hey, this is all part of the journey.

 

00;34;54;03 – 00;34;55;18

Andrew East

And that’s what makes it fun.

 

00;34;55;20 – 00;35;11;21

Dr. Mona

So I feel the same way about the book writing process. I mean, speaking about the fact that y’all wrote a book, like when I started writing my book, it’s obviously a new era, new form of media for me, right? And I’m like, we talked about, it’s so easy. It seems easy to do the YouTubes and the social, those can be edited.

 

00;35;11;21 – 00;35;34;05

Dr. Mona

And now you’re like, wow, this is really permanent. And finding again those mentors in that space of like, hey, this is what it looks like. This is what it can be. You have to really love talking about this topic for the next couple of years, because this is what people are going to ask you about, right? Commitment. And I and I love that we can talk about this for so long because again, I’m already getting so many pearls of like how this is transcending into every aspect of your life, like I mentioned.

 

00;35;34;07 – 00;35;52;12

Dr. Mona

And one thing that really, I think, Sean, you’re the one who mentioned at the beginning of this conversation was about people don’t always realize the values that happen to become successful, right? People see the glamor. They see. You get the gold medal, they see you land the landing, you know, doing, a back beam on a flip, right?

 

00;35;52;12 – 00;36;17;13

Dr. Mona

Like they see all of that. I hope you all got that reference. I did, but but from Olympic competition to NFL careers to building a family in the public eye, you write that commitment is not about avoiding failure, but staying present through it. So how has your relationship with failure changed through your life individually, and how does that shape the way you want your kids to view mistakes and failure?

 

00;36;17;15 – 00;36;42;21

Shawn Johnson East

I think one of the greatest gifts I was ever given very early on in my life was in gymnastics, where my coach told me that I had to fail and fall literally flat on my face a thousand times before I would ever, you know, get one skill, right. And he taught me at a very young age, just this gift of he celebrated failure.

 

00;36;42;24 – 00;37;04;07

Shawn Johnson East

He was like, if you’re not failing, you’re not trying, and you have to fail and you have to try in order to ever be good at this. And again, I think our culture is so used to that narrative in sports, and everyone widely accepts that. And they’re like, yeah, I mean, she gave up when it got hard. She didn’t make it.

 

00;37;04;07 – 00;37;27;19

Shawn Johnson East

That’s why it makes so much sense to people. But then why can we not translate that into every other, you know, area of our life? And I think for us, we have a lot of people in a very odd way who are always saying, how can I get a marriage like yours? If only I could just find the right person, then it would be like that.

 

00;37;27;22 – 00;37;52;01

Shawn Johnson East

And we’re just here to kind of prove that in our book and all of these areas and categories that it’s because we worked through failure. It’s because on the days that felt so incredibly hard, in the days where we actually today, you know, literally where we actually say, yes, I feel like we actually couldn’t handle it ourselves. And we had to go outsource more coaches and more help.

 

00;37;52;01 – 00;38;19;04

Shawn Johnson East

And like, it’s because we we aren’t afraid to fail and to try that. We’ve seen so much, just success in each area. And I think for our children, I just want to teach them that, that our culture is saying that failure is bad and there’s the culture tries to paint it as like you should be embarrassed by it, and it should be.

 

00;38;19;07 – 00;38;41;01

Shawn Johnson East

If you actually find your gift, it should be easy and you won’t fall at all. And you know, cancel culture is such a toxic thing because you’re not allowed to fail at anything. There’s no redemption and there’s no. And I think what I just genuinely want this book to convey and what we teach our children is like, what I was taught as a child, failure is a part of life.

 

00;38;41;03 – 00;38;58;11

Shawn Johnson East

And if you can accept that and have grace for someone else in that, you can build a beautiful life that actually is more meaningful because you felt what it felt like to fail and you pushed through it, and now you get to feel like feel the feeling of success.

 

00;38;58;12 – 00;39;21;26

Andrew East

Yeah. We got to interview Aloe Blacc, who, who did the Wake Me Up song with a VCE. And we asked him, are you going to get your kids in the music? And he was like, absolutely. I will get my kids into music because just like a farmer used to teach their kids farming, I will teach my kids music because it’s a thing that I know better than anything else.

 

00;39;21;26 – 00;39;39;22

Andrew East

And if I’m able to teach them this one thing in that process of like if you learn how to do anything, you learn how to do everything really well. So I just, it’s like, yeah, there’s if you go deep enough down the path, you can you can benefit in all areas of your life, regardless of how similar they may feel.

 

00;39;39;24 – 00;39;42;02

Andrew East

But I cut you off. I’m sorry.

 

00;39;42;05 – 00;40;02;04

Dr. Mona

No, I really appreciate your beautiful words about failure. I resonate so deeply because I feel like our generation. I think we’ve done such a great job of parenting children with more emotional intelligence and things like this, but we still are very afraid of our kids failing. And I thought that would be one thing that we would change cultures on.

 

00;40;02;06 – 00;40;18;07

Dr. Mona

And Andrew, you brought up earlier how, you know, you’re talking to me about being a doctor and how, you know, my 20s was very diligent as to compared to yours, which was not right. But the problem that I will admit is that I was not raised with failure being an option. It was not part of my raising.

 

00;40;18;13 – 00;40;43;03

Dr. Mona

And a lot of my peers who go into medicine also had that same mentality. Because if you study and you get the grades you have, the result you get into medical school. There was no failure along the way, right? Like, you just do your work. There was no risk taking involved. And it wasn’t until I started Pedes Doc Talk that I started to see that it’s not always perfect, because this is now when I became an entrepreneur and I was like, well, now what am I doing for revenue?

 

00;40;43;03 – 00;41;13;04

Dr. Mona

What am I doing here? How come I’m not getting views here? This. And it was a rude awakening to get comfortable with not always having things work out my way. And that was a really important life lesson. And you, you both have brought up these beautiful words of peace and, you know, you just feel lighter, like you feel those words really resonate with me because when I started to accept failure, when I started to say I’m still worthy, despite the fact that I may not be perfect right now, was when I started to feel lighter and feel peace again in my life.

 

00;41;13;04 – 00;41;34;14

Dr. Mona

And it’s also when things just start to align better, like you both have said, like I do. But I do agree with you that things start going into place, right? Like the whatever you believe in, whether it’s God, whether it’s the universe, whatever it is, things start aligning. The puzzle pieces start coming together. When you’re very clear on what you want, when you are working hard to get there and you believe that it’s possible.

 

00;41;34;16 – 00;41;53;09

Dr. Mona

And I think a lot of people forget that manifestation is not just thinking something’s going to happen, it’s being realistic, but also putting the work ethic in and saying, I’m going to work hard because I’m very aligned and know that I want to write this book. I know that I want my marriage to work, but if you’re wishy washy on that, of course it’s not going to work.

 

00;41;53;09 – 00;42;12;01

Dr. Mona

Like I love that you are very transparent about marriage being hard because my husband and I always talk about it together. He’s not as he doesn’t like to be on social as much as I’m trying to encourage him, because I think as a male and Andrew, this is a testament to you, it is so important for other males to hear what you have to say.

 

00;42;12;06 – 00;42;32;04

Dr. Mona

You know that marriage is hard. I am working with my wife to figure out what to do, because sometimes the culture is that it’s the woman’s job, it’s the women to do this, and you are really changing the narrative on this sort of mutual respect in marriage. And it’s not machismo, it’s marriage. It’s two people coming together. And so I applaud you both.

 

00;42;32;07 – 00;43;01;00

Dr. Mona

Because I think it’s such an important thing that we need to be teaching each other. But also your kids are leading by your example, and, you know, you both have boys and girls. It’s so awesome that they get to experience dad who supportive mom who’s supportive, healthy communication. I’m sure you guys have had arguments in front of your kids, but healthy repair in front of the children’s and from the children, and from a parenting lens, how powerful it is for children to see that in their parents that not everything is roses and butterflies.

 

00;43;01;00 – 00;43;11;27

Dr. Mona

But mommy and daddy will make things work, and we want to try to make things work, and that’s how they’re going to treat their future partners. And that’s such a beautiful gift that you’re going to leave them. I think that’s wonderful.

 

00;43;12;00 – 00;43;12;26

Andrew East

Thank you.

 

00;43;12;29 – 00;43;29;27

Dr. Mona

I know this is turning into like a love session, you guys, but, like, it really is like, your book is really something that I think is important. And, you know, you also, in the book make an important distinction between perseverance and quitting. Like that balance of like when do you say that I’m going to stay with something because it matters.

 

00;43;29;27 – 00;43;43;03

Dr. Mona

And when do you say it’s not for me anymore? Like, do you have any tips on that? Do you have that in the book on someone who’s like, I don’t know, like, or maybe for your children, like, has that come up where you’re like, they’re interested in something and you’re like, how do my how much should I push and how much do I say, okay, let’s stop.

 

00;43;43;10 – 00;44;07;02

Shawn Johnson East

It is a chapter in the book, and it was one of the hardest ones to write, because you’re right, and we’ve gone through it as well. There is a line there where if something doesn’t fit, like pruning things in your life is really, really important and then pruning things out of your life, you actually can commit more to things that are are better and yeah, that you enjoy more.

 

00;44;07;04 – 00;44;36;01

Shawn Johnson East

With our children. I think we’re learning that first hand. How do you teach that? Because it’s not important to stick with something for life, because you just have to stick with it for life. You actually need to find like a compatibility there with your interests and your values and something. But I do think in the way we write it in the book is like there is a there is a process that you need to go through to make sure that you aren’t just quitting because it’s difficult.

 

00;44;36;01 – 00;45;04;09

Shawn Johnson East

You’re not quitting because you’re frustrated. You’re not quitting because the world has said that’s not the cool thing to do. Like there is a system in line of doing a gut check of why you’re quitting it, why you started it, and and your reasons for it. And I think that’s the hard part, as a parent, to teach a kid because you want to teach perseverance, you want to teach grit, you want to teach them how to commit to something long term and work through hardship.

 

00;45;04;12 – 00;45;37;27

Shawn Johnson East

But you also need to understand and teach them as well. If this isn’t your thing, that’s okay too. So to give you a set of an answer, it’s kind of vague. You have to process a lot of and do a lot of self-reflection on, what to stick with and what not to. But we we did spend probably six months on that chapter alone trying to make sure we spelled it out in a way that makes the most sense.

 

00;45;38;00 – 00;45;55;28

Andrew East

Yeah. And this is where having a coach or mentor to, to help provide perspective can be helpful to like, hey, yeah, no, I’ll never forget, I had a baseball coach in high school was like, hey, you can play freshman year ball. But and you’re doing a great job. I was a freshman at the time.

 

00;45;56;00 – 00;46;12;04

Andrew East

You’re doing a great job as a freshman. I think probably you have a better future playing football. And, like, you know, there’s two ways you can take that. Yeah. One, I’m going to use that as fuel on motivation, which I did whenever someone doubted me in football. But two, you could say, oh, this is like that’s that’s wisdom.

 

00;46;12;04 – 00;46;27;07

Andrew East

But like, you know, kind of just like seeking other perspective can be super helpful because you don’t want it to be a spur of the moment. Like, annoyed. And I didn’t start. And so I’m going to transfer schools. You’re like, no, maybe there’s some growth left here. So let’s stick with it and see what happens. Yeah.

 

00;46;27;09 – 00;46;39;21

Dr. Mona

Sean, in gymnastics, like when you were younger, how old were you when you started being a more, I guess, competitive gymnast. Like, meaning you realize that you were like, okay, I’m actually I love this. I’m good at it. Well, how old were you at that point?

 

00;46;39;23 – 00;46;45;25

Shawn Johnson East

I mean, for reference, I made the USA national team at 12. Yeah. So. So today. Ron, are you saying.

 

00;46;45;27 – 00;46;52;23

Dr. Mona

Can you. I don’t know if you can remember back in that time when you wanted to quit or I’m sure there was a moments where you wanted to quit, correct?

 

00;46;53;00 – 00;46;53;10

Shawn Johnson East

Yeah.

 

00;46;53;10 – 00;47;06;09

Dr. Mona

Oh, yeah. What made you not quit? I’m actually just curious. From a gym like you’re a gymnast perspective. Like, what was it that kept saying to you? Like, I want to keep coming back? Was it the teacher that taught you about failure, or was it something else that just kept coming back to you?

 

00;47;06;12 – 00;47;26;11

Shawn Johnson East

I actually write these stories in the book, which is fascinating to kind of dissect, but my coach had a very interesting system, and I don’t want to get too long winded here, but whenever I would come to him and I would say, yep, this is it, I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t have the interest. He would respond the same way every time.

 

00;47;26;11 – 00;47;50;28

Shawn Johnson East

He’d be like, great, cool. And it was like, no emotion involved. I’m so excited for you. What are you going to go do? And it was almost this reverse psychology that I had even as adults need to where he so clearly made it. Not about anybody else but me. Yeah. Does that make sense in the sense of.

 

00;47;51;00 – 00;48;10;19

Shawn Johnson East

I almost felt like if I went to someone and said I want to quit, they’d be like, no, don’t do that. You’re so good. You’ve invested so much, you know, I love watching you. Your parents love watching you. Your teammates need you. I was expecting that. And so when someone so quickly is like, great move on. I don’t care.

 

00;48;10;19 – 00;48;27;17

Shawn Johnson East

It doesn’t affect me. It makes you reflect on the inside. Oh, shoot. This is actually my choice. You’re not going to persuade me. You’re not going to make me do it. And the system that we had in places, he would he would always be like, great, cool. Don’t come back to practice tomorrow.

 

00;48;27;19 – 00;48;28;20

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;48;28;23 – 00;48;48;05

Shawn Johnson East

Like, we had this system where he would say, take a day after a day, come back to the gym and tell me how you feel. Yeah. And I would take a day. And then if I made it the day, he’d say, great, take a week, come back and tell me what you’re going to go try. And I never made it past the one day, because in that one day I’d be like, you know what?

 

00;48;48;05 – 00;49;12;25

Shawn Johnson East

This is actually what I love. This is what I want to do. Now that, no, it seems like nobody else cares. But it was a it was a really good way to reflect on if it doesn’t affect anyone else. Right, then what is it that I want? And it’s just you got to think about it. You know, I to do a lot of self-reflection and that could not be fun sometimes.

 

00;49;12;25 – 00;49;15;24

Dr. Mona

But I think if that is so beautiful.

 

00;49;15;24 – 00;49;19;21

Shawn Johnson East

In your life, you need to.

 

00;49;19;23 – 00;49;38;29

Dr. Mona

Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show. Oh yeah, and I love I think reverse psychology is the underrated way to communicate. Like it gets a lot of bad rap, but it actually like again, very still very stoic. Like turn it back on you. I mean, that is it.

 

00;49;38;29 – 00;50;00;09

Dr. Mona

I really appreciate that because I also think about that with our children. Right. Like we tend to want to fix things for them. We tend to want to say, well, you don’t exactly what you said, right? Yeah. You’re amazing. But sweetie, but when you just say, okay, like they’re like, it really puts them in a space of like, especially for a 12 year old or like a any kid who’s over ten to be like, oh, okay.

 

00;50;00;11 – 00;50;16;12

Dr. Mona

Like my mom doesn’t care. Like, then I’m going to make a choice here. I think it’s beautiful. And my last question, we could talk about this all day. And I think you guys did pick a good topic that you could talk about for years with this book, is how you kind of navigate the not so glamorous moments, right, with commitment.

 

00;50;16;12 – 00;50;37;16

Dr. Mona

So thinking about parenting, right. It’s showing up tired, repeating yourself all the time, coming back, repairing after hard days. So what does commitment look like for you both in the small, unglamorous parts of whether it’s parenting, life, family life, marriage, and what do you want parents to hear when they feel worn down but have to still show up?

 

00;50;37;18 – 00;50;57;05

Andrew East

I mean, that’s that’s kind of the good part, right? Like the, if you’re able to find joy and contentment in those mundane moments, I think that’s that’s almost like the key to life. If you’re if you see the beauty and the meaning and, hey, I know I’ve, you know, not taken any glamorous trips the last two years of my life.

 

00;50;57;07 – 00;51;19;23

Andrew East

I know that, you know, there’s a lot of other people doing a lot more exciting things, but I’ve spent the two years of my life with this child, and I’ve seen these beautiful day changes, these these little micro changes of yesterday. They didn’t smile. And today I got a Smurf. Or yesterday they couldn’t say they were saying am animals instead of animals.

 

00;51;19;23 – 00;51;42;15

Andrew East

And then today they changed it to animals. And they got that right. And those little moments like that are not glamorous. If you’re able to appreciate those, then you can. I mean, I mean that like, it’s a beautiful life. There’s so much color and, you know, like, there’s there’s a lot of examples of things not being exciting, but that’s the important part is just continuing to show up.

 

00;51;42;15 – 00;52;07;07

Andrew East

You know, the practices for football, we would have nine months of practice and then three months of, of actual season, like where the games and the lights and the fancy highlight tapes are made, but if you don’t do the nine months, you don’t get that, you don’t get the three. And so it’s it’s just seeing the, the long game and being able to zoom out and say, okay, I am building towards something and this is a season that is preparing me for the next.

 

00;52;07;09 – 00;52;13;22

Andrew East

And, yeah, those are important. So stick with them and know that that, it’s a preparation phase.

 

00;52;13;24 – 00;52;42;19

Shawn Johnson East

I would also add, similar to what we spoke about earlier, it’s incredibly humbling as a parent because you’re the parent. Yeah. To say sorry. But I think, again, one of the greatest gifts I was given was a celebration of failure. I want my kids to constantly see me trying. And if that means for 12 days in a row, I’m saying, you know what?

 

00;52;42;19 – 00;52;57;09

Shawn Johnson East

I’m really sorry. Yeah, but I’m going to try harder tomorrow, and I’m going to try for you again tomorrow. I think teaching your children the celebration of trying is one of the greatest things you can do.

 

00;52;57;12 – 00;53;19;06

Dr. Mona

I’m getting a little teary eyed. I have to say one, because I know I told you this at the beginning, but, I know you all said that you’re not marriage coaches. You’re not parenting coaches. But this book is really needed. It really is a powerful testament to the work that you’ve done, not only in your adult life, but obviously all the all the little pieces that have brought you to this moment to write this book.

 

00;53;19;06 – 00;53;43;22

Dr. Mona

And I really appreciate that it resonates so deeply. I love being connected with you all. Like when I look at my ecosystem of like, who’s in my team, right? Like on social media and like Sean when we met the other time and you just shared some feedback on like PR agencies and things like that, your your message of like having the right people in your network, the coaches in your life, it doesn’t have to be grand.

 

00;53;43;22 – 00;54;00;20

Dr. Mona

It can be someone like you are to me with that whole PR and the question that I had for you, you know, like how does it how do you navigate that? I really want to thank you both not only for joining me today, but also being vulnerable for also just sharing your truth. It means so much to me, and I cannot wait for people to get this book.

 

00;54;00;23 – 00;54;20;20

Dr. Mona

Because I just feel it is very needed and not only for a parent, but for someone who’s just struggling with all of those decisions in life. To really find more clarity and using that word beautifully again, just find more peace, because when I talk to you both, I just feel peace. I feel that there’s anchoring in this world.

 

00;54;20;20 – 00;54;29;15

Dr. Mona

I feel that you both have direction, and that is just a beautiful thing to be surrounded by. And I’m sure you have worked so hard to get to that point, so thank you.

 

00;54;29;18 – 00;54;38;04

Andrew East

Okay, well thanks doctor. You’ve been incredibly gracious to us and forgiving. And, you know, we’ve we’ve been through quite a lot together over the last few years, helped.

 

00;54;38;04 – 00;54;43;17

Shawn Johnson East

Us do some of the weirdest medical things that you all don’t. Parents don’t normally go through. So.

 

00;54;43;18 – 00;55;07;03

Andrew East

Compassion. I were talking about this, was it yesterday or two days ago? How your approach is, is so, non-judgmental and it’s like it’s understanding and it’s, it’s, very balanced and, that’s, that’s really helpful in a, in a time period where it feels like every decision is so high stakes and, oh, my gosh, I’m going to mess my kid up if I don’t do x, y, z.

 

00;55;07;03 – 00;55;16;15

Andrew East

You just have more of a, like an, easygoing, approachable, way of doing things. So thank you.

 

00;55;16;18 – 00;55;27;18

Dr. Mona

I cannot wait for people to get this book, tell our listeners where they can go to get the book, when it’s out, how to stay connected with both of you all, your social handles. I’ll be adding all of that, of course, to the show notes.

 

00;55;27;20 – 00;55;38;28

Andrew East

That’s called the curds that can make a fan on Amazon or Barnes Noble. You can go to the courage to commit.com. And there’s a link to all the different storefronts so you can get it at and we’re doing an audible reading too.

 

00;55;38;29 – 00;55;40;04

Dr. Mona

So love it.

 

00;55;40;05 – 00;55;47;01

Andrew East

Oh boy. Voice it doesn’t annoy you. You can check that out. But, yeah. It’s been it’s been a blast. Right. So hub, check it out.

 

00;55;47;03 – 00;56;08;24

Dr. Mona

Yes. And then I will be attaching their, Instagram handles if you’re not following along already. And I’ve said this, quite frankly, I am very particular on who I follow, on social media. I don’t just follow to follow. I’m very intentional, and I love to follow people who have this sort of value system. Right? Authentic, relatable, fun, but also understands that life isn’t always roses and butterflies.

 

00;56;08;24 – 00;56;13;01

Dr. Mona

And Sean and Andrew, you are those people. Thank you so much for joining me today. Again.

 

00;56;13;04 – 00;56;14;12

Andrew East

Thanks for the star.

 

00;56;14;14 – 00;56;17;16

Shawn Johnson East

Good to see you.

 

00;56;17;19 – 00;56;43;14

Dr. Mona

That’s a wrap on one of my favorite conversations. And I know you hear me say that a lot, but listen, I just have the most amazing guests, whether they have 5 million followers on social, like our beautiful Sean, whether they have 2000, I just get so many great pearls and so many pearls came from this episode. But what I love from this combo was what Andrew said is that maintenance is better than starting over, putting in effort and time.

 

00;56;43;14 – 00;57;06;27

Dr. Mona

If this is something you want, whether it’s in sports, relationships and of course in parenting, Sean and Andrew are the real deal. I’m so grateful to call them friends, and I’ve worked with Sean on various projects and campaigns, and the courage to commit is honestly a book for anyone trying to figure out how to show up better, whether that’s as a parent, a partner, or a person trying to make sense of life’s decisions.

 

00;57;07;00 – 00;57;31;14

Dr. Mona

If this episode resonated with you, here’s what I need from you. Leave a review wherever you listen to podcast. It takes two minutes and it helps more people find the content. Subscribe so you never miss an episode and share this one on social. And make sure to tag PedsDocTalk The PedsDocTalk Podcast, Shawn Johnson East and Andrew East so that we know that you’re listening and engage with the post that we’re putting on social media.

 

00;57;31;17 – 00;57;45;25

Dr. Mona

And if social media is not your game, share this with someone in your life who could use a little reminder that commitment is not a grand gesture. It’s a daily choice. Thanks for tuning in and I cannot wait to chat with another guest next time on the show.