#81 - Balancing marriage, parenting, and public life with Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson and husband Andrew East

Shawn Johnson (00:00:00):

I went professional at 12 and went through this wholemedia gamut, limelight world all the way until I was probably 19 or 20 when Imet Andrew. And I had had an entire career where I learned firsthand as a kidhow easily the world around you swayze you and changes you. And I went throughdepression and anxiety and all of these different things in those years andlearned firsthand. You have to protect yourself. And I remember when I firstmet Andrew, it was like the first week we were dating, he took me to his lakehouse and I could tell I cared for him so much immediately in my biggest fear.And I had this mental breakdown, panic attack in front of him. I was like, youdon't understand what social media will do and will try to do to us. And I saidthat way back then.

Joey Odom (00:00:54):

Welcome back to the Aro podcast. Hey, it's your goodfriend, Joey Odom, co-founder of ro. And hey, before we get started, did youknow that you can try Aro for free? If you've heard of it, you haven't yettaken the plunge, you can try Aro for free for the first time ever. So do me afavor really quickly before we get going. Go download the Aro app and just tryit out for seven days. See if it works for you. Join the thousands of otherpeople across America whose lives have been changed by Aro and how we manageour screens and our relationships with our devices. So go download the Aro appright now. I'll wait. It's okay. We'll be here for you when you're ready. Okay,today's episode, one of my favorite episodes we've ever had. And of course it'sOlympic season right now.

(00:01:38):

You've probably been watching a lot of Olympics andgymnastics and all that fun stuff. And we have one of the greatest gymnasts inUS history and that's Shawn Johnson and her husband, Andrew East. Shawn andAndrew are incredible people and they're just super intentional parents.They're intentional in their marriage. You probably listen to their podcast, acouple things and their new podcast, second Cup, you go listen to both ofthose. But they joined us. This is a while back on the Aro podcast. They joinedus and it was the first and only episode of the Aro podcast where we had acompetition. One of them will win this episode. It's such a fun episode. Butthen we go deep about parenting and we go deep about relationships and how theymanage everything. They're just very entertaining, they're very fun, and we dohave fun. We have three rounds of games, so it is a competition true to theOlympic form of both of them. Shawn, of course, in the Olympics. And thenAndrew in the NFL. You're going to love this episode. Please do listen to theirpodcasts. For now, sit back, relax, and enjoy my great conversation with us.Olympic Gold medal winner, Shawn Johnson and her husband, Andrew East

(00:02:54):

Gang. Do you know what happens when you take a commodoreand mix it with a golden magic happens? That's what, and no, I'm not talkingabout Lionel Richie, the Commodore or Betty White, the Golden girl. I'm talkingabout two people who have come together to create one power couple. She'sAmerica's sweetheart and he's an American ninja warrior. They call her peanutand they call him Powerade. While she was dancing with the stars on a, b, C, hewas deep snapping with the stars in the NFL first. They made a family and nowthey're family made. They literally made a jet together and a drew and areright in the middle of a third creation. So buckle in because this won't beyour typical conversation. True to our guests. This will be a competition. Atthe end of the show, we're going to crown a winner of this conversation. Butfor now, let's talk about a couple things with Peanut and Powerade. ShawnJohnson and Andrew East. Friends, welcome to the Aro podcast.

Andrew East (00:03:50):

I'm so excited for this what just

Shawn Johnson (00:03:51):

Happened. I think that might be the best introduction I'veever had of my life.

Joey Odom (00:03:54):

I was very excited.

Shawn Johnson (00:03:56):

That was really

Joey Odom (00:03:57):

Good. I did everything I could to not send this to youbefore because I was so proud of it. How

Shawn Johnson (00:04:01):

Did you find Peanut?

Joey Odom (00:04:02):

I did. No, we went. I had to go on the dark web. I had togo real deep to get it.

Shawn Johnson (00:04:06):

That is real deep dark down there. But that is a thing.

Joey Odom (00:04:10):

Peanuts, I mean that was your original nickname,

Shawn Johnson (00:04:12):

Right? That was my original nickname.

Joey Odom (00:04:13):

Okay, so let's hear about

Shawn Johnson (00:04:16):

Peanut. The head of the USA Olympic team. I startedtraining under this coach when I was 12, and the first day I walked in, shejust called me her little peanut immediate and peanut was it stuck for a long

Joey Odom (00:04:33):

Time until America's sweetheart. That kind of took over.

Shawn Johnson (00:04:37):

You go, yeah, that one's hard.

Joey Odom (00:04:38):

Yeah, you don't want to give that one up. That's a prettygood one to take. People called me that before you if

Andrew East (00:04:44):

That.

Joey Odom (00:04:44):

You may not have known that.

Shawn Johnson (00:04:45):

I did. I did.

Joey Odom (00:04:46):

You did. No, but it's okay. I give it to you. Thanks.Thanks. And I got to hear, now this is an interesting one of me, Powerade, thisnickname Powerade. I mean, and listen, everybody's talking about it. I can't goanywhere. There's like, oh yeah, Andrew East. They're like, who? And I waslike, Powerade. They're like, oh, Powerade, I get that. What the heck? How didthis take off so quickly? How is it so big? This whole nickname Powerade that'sreally catching on right now. Yeah,

Andrew East (00:05:13):

I mean they parallel the rise and fall of that nicknamesimilar to NFT. That whole craze. Well, for those listening, it's a nicknamenew as of about three weeks ago, created by our very own

Joey Odom (00:05:25):

Joey. No one knows where it came from. It just

Andrew East (00:05:28):

Happened. And it's my initials, which they say, you're notcreative, Joey. That was

Joey Odom (00:05:36):

No, no one's ever said that, but yeah, I get you. But

Andrew East (00:05:38):

You're incredibly creative. So you took my nicknames, youshoved it into a international brand. And then next thing you know, I get a,what do you call a crop top?

Shawn Johnson (00:05:48):

I don't know what

Joey Odom (00:05:49):

A lace, it was a fish. It was was some lace in it. It wasa fishnet or lace. Let's call it a fish lace

Andrew East (00:05:55):

With Powerade printed right there. Top

Joey Odom (00:05:58):

Silk Tank top. It's Powerade.

Andrew East (00:05:59):

Thank you very

Joey Odom (00:06:00):

Much. So again, Andrew Dean East, that's the a, DE. Andobviously you're a very powerful man. So Powerade, it makes sense. When I firstheard it, I thought of course, and then heard it from

Shawn Johnson (00:06:09):

Sweep. I don't even call babe or husband anymore, it'sjust Powerade.

Joey Odom (00:06:12):

Yeah, they were just dropping aid on him. Hey. Yeah, no,well listen, a couple of great ones. Peanut and Powerade. I don't know thatmany people except for maybe my parents will understand that. Lionel Richie,the Commodore. Do you guys get that reference? I don't. Do you even know whoLionel Richie is? Yes. So he was in a band called the Commodore. Really?Powerade here was at Vanderbilt. At Vanderbilt Commodore you as well were acommodore for the time. Yes. And you were the golden girl because you won a goldmedal and Betty White played in the show Golden Girls. Yes,

Shawn Johnson (00:06:44):

I knew that one.

Joey Odom (00:06:46):

And I got to be on, we may need to cut that because youreally lose all the pizazz of a joke and you explain it. So I'm sorry. Sothat's all on me. So we we're in the middle of a studio takeover. This is thecouple things. Studio, we're in Nashville, we got the Aro sign behind us.You're going to want to check it out on YouTube just to see it. And so we're inthe middle of a takeover. So thank you for having me here.

Shawn Johnson (00:07:04):

Thank you for being

Joey Odom (00:07:05):

Here to talk to you guys. I'm very excited. And Shawn,you're used to takeovers because Andrew a k Powerade, he takes over your housewith his friends all the time. What is this like to have just seven grown menjust walking around your house all the time? Generally after getting out of thesauna or something like that, you're used to takeovers.

Shawn Johnson (00:07:28):

I have just gotten used to it when we first starteddating. By nature, I'm very introverted. I'm very cute to myself, don't love alot of company. And over the years, I think you've broken me to a certainextent, babe. I love it. Our house is literally Hotel East. We say we haven'topen door policy. We probably have on average seven people at our house everyother day. And a lot of the times it happens to be sweaty, shirtless men, whichI've had single women, girl friends come over and they're like, what is, I'mlike, I don't know.

Joey Odom (00:08:08):

Stepped into a dream or something, huh? Yeah,

Shawn Johnson (00:08:11):

Yeah.

Andrew East (00:08:12):

It's funny. One of my friends was over the other night andthey were like, I can't believe Shawn lets you spend this much time withfriends or that Shawn's so social. And it's funny because Shawn's not naturallysocialist she was alluding to, but it's like I guess in marriage you kind oftrain each other a little bit.

Shawn Johnson (00:08:26):

Well, and I do think the compromise that has happened is Ilove to host. I'm a very hard guest because I feel like I'm out of place, but Ilove hosting, so being able to open up our home to other people is one of myfavorite things.

Joey Odom (00:08:42):

When you say if you feel like you're out of place whenyou're a guest, what do you mean by that?

Shawn Johnson (00:08:47):

I don't know. There's something about opening up my home.I feel like I have confidence in hosting. I have confidence in helping andserving. I have a really hard time being served. Interesting. I dunno how to dothat. And I don't know why. It's probably a flaw. Compliments just make mecringe. So I think it's just that dynamic. That's kind of where we found ourcompromise. You can have as many people over as you want to our house.

Andrew East (00:09:12):

You should look into that though,

Shawn Johnson (00:09:14):

Probably. That's

Andrew East (00:09:14):

Okay. Taking a compliment better and being morecomfortable as a

Joey Odom (00:09:18):

No, you know what? I think you're the best person I'veever met at taking compliments. Now I'm going to ga love and in your eyes andjust see how uncomfortable

Shawn Johnson (00:09:24):

I can

Joey Odom (00:09:25):

Make you. Thank you. I do know what you mean on thatthough. There is a certain comfort in being your home turf. That's your thing.My wife is a very similar way, Andrew and I, again, very comfortable in acrowd. I think I share that. But then my wife is very much a one-on-one person.Yes, probably to the point where it seems like she's either shy or maybe evenborders on rude. Sometimes same, but it's just more like, no, I just feel alittle bit uncomfortable. So it's impressive that you've adjusted and you'vegotten broken in allowing that many people around you at all times. I

Shawn Johnson (00:09:57):

Also rely very heavily on Andrew. He is my crutch I've hadto host before without him and it's not the same. Having the social butterflyand having my teammate there help

Joey Odom (00:10:10):

Andrew. Was that always from day one, just never met astranger, all that kind of thing?

Andrew East (00:10:17):

No, it really wasn't. I feel like it started, shoot. Imean I was pretty introverted myself until When did it change? I mean sincewe've been married for sure.

Joey Odom (00:10:28):

Be right around when you started walking. Eight, ninemonths. Yeah. I will

Andrew East (00:10:32):

Say since high school I've found it really exciting to bearound people with different perspectives. And I think that's life's greatestadventure is just understanding someone and how different, but maybe similarthey are in certain ways. So I did sports all through high school and then mysenior year I wanted to do theater just because I was like, these people are sodifferent than me. That's awesome. And then in college I ended up joining. Iwas super anti frat because I was like, I don't get it. Why would you ever joina frat? So then I was like, actually I'm going to join a frat. I don'tunderstand it at all. I love that.

Shawn Johnson (00:11:09):

None of this sounds like an introverted human,

Joey Odom (00:11:11):

By the way, an introvert. We

Andrew East (00:11:14):

Love getting all these different people thrown into oneroom and then seeing how they interact. And then when you have an engineer withan athlete, with a theater kid, with a finance, whatever it is, it's almostlike a self-selecting process too where it's like, Hey, they were reallywelcoming to everybody. Let's spend more time with them. You know what I'msaying? So it's not strategic that way, but it does kind of filter itself out.And I just love broad perspectives.

Joey Odom (00:11:45):

I feel like that is something that we could use more of. Ithink that's one thing. I mean it's just very, the current is to just findpeople who are similar to you, look you. And that requires a bunch to actuallygo seek that out. Mean especially as you get older, it's you just findyourself, you go to similar, you go to the same school and so you find yourpeople or your kids go to the same school. That's a real challenge. And thediscussion today is really on intentionality and I want to break down in threedifferent phases. The first one, just as a couple talking about the two of youand then as parents and then as friends, friends with others. And we're talkinga little bit about that now. But the whole thought of intentionality I think asa backdrop for this discussion with you all is the fact that you are known.

(00:12:30):

So you're known, you obviously everybody in America knowsyou and everybody. You have a big following I think in Peru. Is that right?Which is great. No, you guys are, you really legitimately are a power couple.Everybody knows who you are and you're one of you, I won't say who is America'ssweetheart. You're the face of a media company. So again, not that everymarriage doesn't require intentionality, but I would assume this is a questionand then as a backdrop, I would assume it requires maybe a little bit moreintentionality for you all to not get swept in those things and then say, wellhold on, it's Shawn and Andrew. We are together and this is our bedrock, andthen it's Jet and Drew and number three on the way, and then we have our circleof friends. Do you think that, and you can't compare to anybody else'sexperience, you only have yours, but do you think that does require moreintentionality to not get caught in that current

Shawn Johnson (00:13:29):

A million percent. And I think it's something that we'vebeen aware of and tried to keep reality checks in place ever since we starteddating. I felt like before Andrew and I started dating, I'm going to go backfor a second, I'll try to summarize it quickly. I went professional at 12 andwent through this whole media gamut, limelight world all the way until I wasprobably 19 or 20 when I met Andrew. And I had had an entire career where Ilearned firsthand as a kid how easily the world around you sways you andchanges you. And I went through depression and anxiety and all of thesedifferent things in those years and learned firsthand. You have to protectyourself. And I remember when I first met Andrew, it was the first week we weredating, he took me to his lake house and I could tell I cared for him so muchimmediately and my biggest fear and I had this mental breakdown, panic attackin front of him.

(00:14:37):

I was like, you don't understand what social media will doand will try to do to us. And I said that way back then. And I remember tryingto explain Twitter to him and how people are going to dissect his life and isthis actually something you want to do with me? And I think from that momentforward, I've just had this obsession with checking in and being like, are wegood? We need to make sure we're good before the millions of voices that wesubject ourselves to every day have an opinion on whatever it is or what it iswe're doing in our life. Let

Andrew East (00:15:15):

Me tweak that a little bit, if you don't mind. Please. Iwas thinking about this on my drive today. One, in a lot of ways we'refortunate because our content, our podcast, our conversations that we havepublicly are largely about marriage and parenting. So it's almost like anaccountability thing where it's like, Hey, I want to be a good example of this.So it starts with us and then when we learn whatever we learn, we'll journaland then we'll share it, right? But I also would say that even though our circumstancesmight be unique, it's like not everyone's an Olympian and not everyone's beenin the limelight since they've been 12. I think everyone has a current thatthey're trying to fight with intentionality, whatever that looks like. Andfortunately, I think it is so beautiful that Shawn at a young age was presentedwith all of the bells and whistles of life signing the six figure contracts atage 12.

(00:16:19):

Joey, she's like on the Ellen show at age 15, and it'slike these lifelong goals people have all front loaded in Shawn's life, andit's been so beautiful to see her not get caught up in all those now. And nowshe knows what the best things in life are. And so all of these otherderivatives that can get people hung up, whether it be money or fame orwhatever it is, it's like she knows that that's not the end game. And if itwasn't for Shawn, me and my big head would gotten caught up. And so I admirethat more and more as every day goes by about Shawn,

Shawn Johnson (00:17:01):

Okay, you're going to have to cut us off. We're going tobounce back for a long time your big head wouldn't have whatever.

Andrew East (00:17:09):

Don't talk about my big head.

Shawn Johnson (00:17:11):

Whatever you were saying about yourself, you would'vegotten carried away. It's not that. It's not that

Joey Odom (00:17:21):

Big. Yeah, yeah. It's like an eight and a quarter, right?Whatever. Yeah, people talk about it, but don't worry about it.

Shawn Johnson (00:17:27):

I think the only perspective difference that I was able tobring to our relationship was I went through it as I feel like every naturalhuman being does. And I was able to kind of take a step back and not coach youthrough it, Andrew, but say, I kind of see you're wanting to go down this path.I went down it, I learned every hard lesson and I can tell you how I felt whenI got through it. I'm not going to stop you from doing it, but I just tried togive perspective. And I also want to add, you say we have these reality checksall the time because our content is marriage and it's like this accountability,but we learned that the hard way by doing purposeless content for so long.Interesting. And we did things only to make money and we chose career paths andcareer decisions at different points that didn't intentionally help each other.We learned things. We aren't just like this perfect couple that startedmarriage content from the beginning. We learned it the hard way where we kindof felt empty and we're like, this isn't a good decision for us, so let's makesure that never happens again.

Joey Odom (00:18:43):

As you were doing that, was there, how did you sync up onthat? Because it's one thing to say, no, no, no, it's not as great Andrew. Thisis not as great as it's cut out to be. But if you're built like me and I thinksimilar to you and my brother says the whole time, the worst thing for me wouldbe to ever get famous because I'd just be a terror. You know what I mean? Itwould go to my slightly larger head. I do think I'm a little bit bigger head,but I do think it would. So it's one thing to say it. And then another thing,obviously you trust Shawn Andrew, but when it was a hard, difficult moment oryou're putting out purposeless content, was that a difficult process to sync upon that or were you really in line or were there difficult discussions insaying, no, I'm pumping the brakes here and the other one wanted to hit thegas?

Andrew East (00:19:35):

I mean, it's been a fun process of becoming self-aware andwhat is my purpose or what is my interest in this? And for me it was like Ifell in love with making videos, editing videos. And so it started out as thelow hanging fruit was gymnastics when we first started, YouTube was crushingand it was like, Shawn, let's make gymnastic videos. We're going to dominateand we're going to make so much money. And Shawn was like, I'm not going to dogymnastics videos. And so there's probably, I dunno, freaking two years offriction where I was like, gymnastics, gymnastics, let's do it. Let's do it.And then at some point I was like, oh, well I actually really don't care whatthe videos are about as long as we're doing it. I just love the world and theculture of the platform. And so it was like as long as we're making videos,Andrew's happy and as long as it's not about gymnastics, Shawn's happy. Soboom, what's our phase of life in right now? And that's our interest. Shawndives full in with whatever phase she's in, whether it's athletics or dancingor parenting, it's like she's bought in all the way. So it's like that's whatwe're doing.

Shawn Johnson (00:20:42):

I think it's been a series of trial and error and Andrewsaid, friction of we've been really good both of us since day one at some pointhitting the reflection button of let's talk about what we've been doing for thepast six months and see what's working and what's not. That's something I thinkyour dad was really good at and your dad encouraged in your family and you didwith us from day one. But those kind of reflection points just kind of becamemore and more frequent and we could almost do 'em in the moment now. So it'skind of like we did slime videos for a long time. They were crushing theinternet. And I remember just having a conversation on our third video and Iwas like, why are we doing this? This is not serving anybody for the betterexcept frivolous content. And I said, I just kind of feel empty doing it.

Joey Odom (00:21:42):

Interesting.

Shawn Johnson (00:21:43):

And we would have a discussion be like, okay, what couldwe film otherwise or whatever. But having these reflection moments of what isour purpose? What is our goal? Where are we trying to go? And just gettingbetter at communicating that thought.

Andrew East (00:22:00):

Have you heard this? Apparently Adam and Eve and Genesis,the Hebrew word for eve means beneficial adversary. Oh god, that's good. Iknow, dude. So I just heard this. I underst within the world. I mean we'reseven years in a marriage, seven and a half years, and this is a revelationwithin the past four months of Shawn and I being married, whereas we talkedabout the friction. It's like you argue and it's like whether it's finances orsetting a budget or with parenting, geez, we've butt heads about that and itused to be black or white. Why isn't she coming over to my side of theperspective? She doesn't understand what, and then it's like I heard this thebeneficial adversary thing. I was like, oh my gosh, this whole time I have oneperspective that's valuable. She comes at it from a whole different perspectivethat's valuable. And it's like both are needed both color in the reality of thesituation and probably the best compromised of a decision moving forward. Howcan we use both perspectives as opposed to just getting caught up and angry toactually make each other a better team? And we're both better off anyway. So Ifeel like we've gotten better at that,

Joey Odom (00:23:18):

Which is such a good, in the moment I received thatconcept of beneficial adversary like, oh my gosh, that's amazing. I can't waitto get home and Kristen argue with me about something. You know what I mean?No, I really do. It feels, in a way, it almost feels like a heroic thing thento be sharpened. But then when you get in the moment, that's not that easy toembrace the term beneficial adversary. So that's a hard thing. And I'm curiouswith that as you guys are so synced up maybe on the business side, is there anydifficulty in separating out the you and me?

Shawn Johnson (00:23:59):

Oh, all the time,

Joey Odom (00:24:00):

And how do you do, what are some of those that mayberhythms or even guardrails that you put in place to make sure that it's notlike you're not on a date and you're just talking about what's going on in thebusiness?

Shawn Johnson (00:24:11):

So our rhythms that we've kind of locked into our life atthe moment. When did we start the yearly thing? You were

Andrew East (00:24:19):

2018.

Shawn Johnson (00:24:20):

In 2018. In 2018 we had been Andrew, we had bouncingaround the NFL for four years and we were kind of doing social media, we werekind of doing YouTube and we had this idea of doing this meeting where we satdown and wrote down all of our New Year's resolutions, our yearly goals, but wewent through every single category in our life, philanthropy, marriage, work,personal interests, finances. We broke 'em down into 10 different categoriesand we sat at a coffee shop for six hours. And in 2018, everything we wrotedown looked drastically different than the life we were living completelydifferent. Where we wanted to go was nowhere where we were headed. And thatkind of set into motion these rhythms that we now have in place where we dothese come to Jesus meetings once a year. We do monthly check-ins with eachother

Joey Odom (00:25:26):

On the annual plan. So it's the monthly,

Andrew East (00:25:28):

Monthly checkups started before the annual thing, whereasit was more of a Shawn and I as opposed to us griping in the moment all thetime, whereas you're standing at the sink, you didn't do the dishes. It's likeyou let patterns reveal themselves over time. So it's not just this emotionalreaction. I like that. So it's like over a month, if there's a pattern that Ineed to bring up to Shawn, it's a little fair. Usually you're removed, there'sless emotion. What? Do

Shawn Johnson (00:25:54):

You remember how these started?

Andrew East (00:25:57):

No.

Shawn Johnson (00:25:58):

When we were dating, Andrew kind of already had thisrhythm in place but didn't notice it. Every so often I would get a text or acall and he would say, do you want to meet me at Frothy Monkey? It's thiscoffee shop here in Nashville for coffee. And I knew in that sentence alonethat there was something he needed to, it was a sensitive topic that had to dowith us that he needed to talk about.

Andrew East (00:26:24):

Frothy Monkey was the spot.

Shawn Johnson (00:26:26):

It was the only time we would ever know and he nevernoticed it, but I was like, what did I do now? And he's like, what are youtalking about? It's like you called me back to Frothy Monkey. So that kind ofbecame this joke, but rhythm we had where once a month we're going to go to getcoffee, we're going to talk about anything that we need to. So we still dothat. We do the annual and then we try to have check-ins daily just of how arewe doing? We've been talking about recently maybe doing a quarterly or halfwaythrough the year checkup on the whole annual stuff.

Andrew East (00:26:55):

It's really funny though, because the first time we didthis, I pulled up the goals. So now we have a Google Doc of all of our goals,and so 2019 you'll see a good amount of stuff, whatever. Maybe that's twopages, but every year that's gone by. So this is the most recent every yearthat's gone by. It's just gotten longer and longer and longer. And it's almostlike having a higher resolution vision for where you want to go. The first yearwe did it, it was a cluster. It was like, what do you want? I don't know. It'slike let's go on dates five nights a week. Okay, great. And you're justthrowing something at the wall, but it's super helpful. Then the next year yougo back and say five date nights a week's way too much. Let's do one a week.Let's have one night that we hang out with couples. And so we have all thisalmost a game plan for every week, month and quarter laid out in all aspects oflife. So I don't even know what your original question was.

Joey Odom (00:27:53):

No, it was about this. It was about the rhythms androutines. So is that something that has become so natural? So take the datenight example. Does it feel unnatural if a date night doesn't happen? Is itpart of the rhythm or is it still like, okay, I got to go to the schedule.There's real value in scheduling as well. Do you have to go to the schedule? Isit that literal or is it just fall within the rhythm?

Shawn Johnson (00:28:15):

I think it feels really unnatural. Every Thursday night wego on a date night and if we miss that, you can tell, and even last night wasdate night, we didn't have anything planned. We were like, oh my gosh, I kindof forgot, but it's still date night and we had a blast

Andrew East (00:28:33):

Last time was so much fun.

Shawn Johnson (00:28:34):

But if we go a week without a date night, it feels likeour rhythm is off. We haven't had that time for each

Joey Odom (00:28:41):

Other. I bet Andrew gets so needy if he misses date night.Oh my gosh, I can't imagine.

Andrew East (00:28:47):

I'll say it. It's funny. We got asked by, we did a livetour a little bit ago and someone had this question, they're like, do you guysget worried that you're going to lose the whimsical, adventurous side of lifeby being so routine oriented? And that's a great question. Honestly, I thinkthat our natural tendency is to do way too little and be way less intentional.So we're going to over index and every week on Thursday it feels less romanticmaybe to say we're going to do date night every week. So it's not like this. Ilove you so much and I surprised you with, it's like, no, we're going to dodate night every, but you know that we're going to go on date night and somedate nights we don't look forward to because there's something we need todiscuss. And there's an argument going on. Some date nights are like last nightwas just pure fun and some date nights are quiet anyway. It's just like I wouldrather over index on routine and intentionality than fall into the normal of,

Shawn Johnson (00:29:45):

But it also to a certain extent, protects that whimsicalside. Absolutely. Because every Thursday night we know we have date night andthen it's kind of like, okay, what do we want to do? We've got a babysitter forfour hours, this is cool, this is fun. Or we know within our annual goalsetting all of that, that we want to go on three trips this year. Okay, now weactually get to dream of these three trips. We know what our budgets are, weknow when we're going. Now we just get to dream of what that's going to be.

Joey Odom (00:30:17):

See, it makes me think of Andy Stanley, pastor in Atlantawhen he talks about giving and generosity, he talks about planned generosityand he said, the most generous people don't just get moved by something andgive. That can be generosity, but the most generous people pre-plan that thisis the thing that we do in our lives. So to your point, it's not like you havethe same table at Olive Garden every Thursday night. It could be putt putt, itcould be a bunch of different stuff, but just having that placeholder and thenallowing, then that's when the creativity comes in. It just takes the decisionfatigue out of it. Also really like that.

Andrew East (00:30:51):

It's almost like I view it as you put someone on thecalendar to give yourself the highest amount, the highest probability offeeling that whimsical romance or whatever. It's like, okay, it's either notgoing to happen or I'm going to make a window for us to hopefully have thosefeelings. And I think part of it too, I think it's like a cost bias or maybeit's called selection bias, where it's like when you commit so much effort andtime into something, it's like you are then going to be bought in more. It'slike they say that in a parent child relationship, the parent is more investedin that loyalty than the child is because the parents invested more into therelationship. So it's like the loyalty follows the commitment. You know whatI'm saying? That

Joey Odom (00:31:40):

Makes so much sense. That's so interesting. It is funny. Iwas thinking as you're talking about the parent-child relationship, that makestotal sense. Yeah, it could just be routine for child. They didn't have noinvestment. They just show up. Okay, we're going to take a pause for a secondand we're going to play game one of three. Okay? So this is going to be fun andI know inside of both of you it's brewing that Oh yeah, this can be fun, but Iknow both of you want to win. So that's what makes this great. So I gotwhiteboards yes, with toilet paper eraser there.

Andrew East (00:32:10):

Beautiful.

Joey Odom (00:32:11):

So we're going to play a series of game and they are all Shawnand Andrew themed. Great. So the first one we're going to play, you guys arefamiliar with the price is right? So we're going to play the price is right,but it's tailored to you guys. So the goal is, the goal here is I'm going tosay something. You're going to name what you think the price of that thing is.Okay? And we're not going to prices, right? Rules are you can't go over. That'sokay. We're going to say closest to the pin here and I hope it doesn't requiretoo much math on my part, but whoever can get closest, you're going to writedown your answer. Okay? So five questions, Shawn and Andrew theme. Andrew, youwent to Vanderbilt Gang. What is the current annual tuition at Vanderbilt?Annual tuition current and not room board. Just tuition. Current annual tuitionat Vanderbilt.

Andrew East (00:33:02):

Okay, are we going one at a time? We're going to answerall that.

Joey Odom (00:33:06):

Yeah, we'll go one at a time. There's going to be noerase.

Andrew East (00:33:08):

Okay. Alright.

Joey Odom (00:33:09):

Okay.

Andrew East (00:33:10):

64,000 is my guess. 56,000. I think 56 is what it was in2015. Could be

Joey Odom (00:33:16):

Wrong. Andrew, you are $69 off. It is 63,931. Holy wow.This could be trouble here.

Andrew East (00:33:30):

One for Andrew.

Joey Odom (00:33:31):

Wow, one for Andrew. Okay, score. This one's right up. Shawn'salley. Shawn, how much does a pork chop on a stick cost at the Iowa State Faireverybody? You're from Iowa. The most popular food item at the Iowa State Fairis the pork chop on a stick. It's good. Is it good you've had it? It's

Andrew East (00:33:47):

Great. Oh

Joey Odom (00:33:48):

Boy. Here we go.

Andrew East (00:33:49):

Oh, I don't now. Hope

Joey Odom (00:33:50):

You guys get a case of pork chop on its stick just fromthat question. Alright, are you guys ready? I feel pretty good about me. Let'sreveal our answers.

Andrew East (00:33:56):

$7, $12. No way, babe. We're talking Iowa. It's not goingto be, but they're huge.

Joey Odom (00:34:02):

It was $8. No, Andrew

Andrew East (00:34:05):

Gets

Joey Odom (00:34:05):

It again. Goodness. Oh boy. This could be quick here. It'stime to step it up. Alright, this one and this one's now in Andrew. I knowAndrew's Lane, pun intended. How much you're from Indy? Indianapolis? Yeah.Indianapolis or just Indiana? Indianapolis. Indianapolis. How much does ageneral admission ticket to the indie 500 cost? General admission. Just get inthe Gates General admission ticket from the box office to the Indy 500 cost.

Andrew East (00:34:34):

I don't know. Let's

Joey Odom (00:34:35):

Reveal our

Andrew East (00:34:35):

Answers. $25. What? Shawn. Okay. Shawn, you're $55.

Joey Odom (00:34:40):

$59. Very

Andrew East (00:34:41):

Good. Shawn. Shawn

Joey Odom (00:34:43):

With the W there. That's big.

Andrew East (00:34:46):

See, that's like a, that's a big event. Yeah,

Joey Odom (00:34:49):

We got to say that was a must win answer for you.

Andrew East (00:34:51):

I had, yeah.

Joey Odom (00:34:53):

So Shawn, you've been to Beijing before? Yes. I believeyou had a pretty expensive necklace around your neck in Beijing when you wonthe gold medal. How much is a round trip ticket from Nashville to Beijing?Nashville to Beijing right now. Nashville, Beijing. Round trip ticket onaverage.

Andrew East (00:35:17):

I feel pretty good about my guesses. Yeah. Is it firstclass like Joey flies? Wait, there's way too many variables

Joey Odom (00:35:30):

Here. I know, I know.

Andrew East (00:35:35):

I'm ready. I'm locked in.

Joey Odom (00:35:37):

Locked in. Okay, let's see. Let's see your answers.

Shawn Johnson (00:35:40):

1100, 12 50.

Joey Odom (00:35:43):

The answer is 2000. Shawn wins that

Shawn Johnson (00:35:45):

One as well. Oh my gosh, they're tied up. I was going tosay 1800

Joey Odom (00:35:47):

By, I will admit that was pretty arbitrary.

Shawn Johnson (00:35:49):

I just did quick Google search I was like, is

Joey Odom (00:35:50):

Hard. It's far from Nashville

Shawn Johnson (00:35:52):

And I don't know how much they're wanting tourists these

Joey Odom (00:35:54):

Days. Oh, that's a good point. Oh, very good.

Shawn Johnson (00:35:58):

Wow, you went way

Joey Odom (00:35:59):

Down the rabbit hole. So this, we could not have plannedthis any better. This oh is a tie. Comes down to we got a tie. This is therubber match here. The rubber question. You all got engaged at Wrigley Field.You got engaged at Wrigley Field in 2016. You may remember the Cubs played inthe World Series. Actually went to game three. That was very fun. I went togame seven. Did you? In Cleveland? Yes.

Shawn Johnson (00:36:23):

Very nice.

Joey Odom (00:36:24):

Epic. Oh that is amazing. Go ahead. So let me ask youthis, what was the average resale price for a Cubs World Series game at WrigleyField in 2016? So let's qualify this. This is a resale. So this is not from thebox office. This is what was on StubHub. The average resale price for a singleticket to a World Series game at Wrigley Field in 2016.

Shawn Johnson (00:36:49):

I'm basing it off of the Nashville SC game with messy comeinto town. Do you have it

Joey Odom (00:36:55):

Written down? She's ready. She's locked in. She's ready towin.

Shawn Johnson (00:37:00):

Do you need a thing? You got it?

Joey Odom (00:37:01):

No. Alright, let's see. Our answers

Shawn Johnson (00:37:03):

$400 seven 50.

Joey Odom (00:37:05):

The answer is $3,800.

Shawn Johnson (00:37:07):

Oh my God.

Joey Odom (00:37:08):

John wins that round.

Shawn Johnson (00:37:10):

That's $3,800.

Joey Odom (00:37:12):

Wow. 3,800.

Shawn Johnson (00:37:13):

I was just saying because messy the starting ticket is400, but that's not a championship of any kind. Oh my God.

Joey Odom (00:37:21):

I think one of my absolute favorite stories that I've toldon multiple occasions is from Sam in Chico, California. Sam emailed us and hesaid, we received our Aro yesterday and by this morning it was already havingan impact. Said, I wake up early, I sit by the fire, drink my coffee and digthrough my phone. My son, eight years old, typically wakes up a little aftersix and heads to the kitchen for his morning bowl of cereal. This morning I gotup from the couch, put my phone in the Aro and sat next to my son while he ate,he said, Sam said the next 17 minutes would change his life because they talkedabout two things. They talked about sharks, they talked about how things getinvented and that's it. Sam said when he was done, I retrieved my phone andrecorded 17 minutes of breakfast with my son time.

(00:38:07):

It didn't take long for my aha moment of how impactfuleven 17 quality intentional minutes a day could be over a lifetime. I'm wishingmany more of these minutes for me and others who use ro. Sam, thank you forthat. It is one of my favorite stories because it's true. We don't really haveto go reduce our screen time by hours a day. How about just 17 minutes, 17 memorableminutes, carving out a little bit of time with the people who are mostimportant to us. That's something you'd like to experience. Just go to goro.com to learn more about Aro or follow us at goro now.

(00:38:47):

Okay gang, we got a tight one here and it's probably goingto be hard to keep the two of them focused on anything but the next two games,by the way, that was just appetizer by the way. We got a couple doozies and Idon't use the term doozy lightly. So let's talk about intentionality asparents. So we just talked about you and as a couple by the way, this is just aquick plug. This is again, this whole conversation is an appetizer foreverything you do on family made media. What you're talking about is stuff thatyou all are talking about all the time on a very deep dive basis. By the way,we need you to write a book. We need a lot of stuff from you all because you'reputting out such great stuff that people need to hear. They're in a spot wherepeople need to hear a bunch.

(00:39:28):

So people who are listening, I'm sure they probablyalready listen to you, but please do because you're going to get much more ofthis. This is just again, just a little nibbler relative to what you guys putout. A family made. So intentionality as parents, you have, when I said in theintro, you made a jet, you really did. And he's a cutie and you made a Drewfirst and she's a cutie. And I want to talk about the differences in how youare raising a sweet girl who wears her princess dresses and just all boy ridingthe bike all over the back and just probably already just bulldozing folks. Iwant to hear about the differences broadly on. How are you approaching thosetwo differently?

Shawn Johnson (00:40:12):

First I have to say, Andrew and I were both lucky to beraised by phenomenal parents who paved a really great path for us. But inraising Drew and Jet, I don't know. I think it comes from my little backgroundin coaching. I've gotten to work with a lot of kids over the years andsomething I learned from my coach is no two kids are the same. And from acoaching perspective, if you coach everyone the same, you're only going to seteveryone up for failure. And so I feel like Andrew and I really try to approachour kids as individuals and cater to their own interests and the way theylearn, the way they communicate. But that's hard. I mean,

Andrew East (00:41:00):

No, I mean up until two weeks ago, this was new to me torealize that I need to raise them differently.

Shawn Johnson (00:41:07):

We had to come to Jesus doc,

Andrew East (00:41:09):

She was like, you should treat Drew differently than youtreat jet. Jet. And I will run around the house screaming, tearing things upand Drew's like a princess. And

Shawn Johnson (00:41:16):

How has it gone in the past two weeks? Very good.

Joey Odom (00:41:19):

How's

Shawn Johnson (00:41:19):

It? Oh, night and day different. And it's so cool to see,

Andrew East (00:41:24):

But it's fun. I think my perspective on parenting is it'salmost like a treasure hunt where I don't know, they have their own things andinterests. So what can I do to explore that with them? And it's like a reallyfun process as opposed to me trying to say, Hey Drew, ride your bike. She'sjust not that into it. It's like she's more into barbecue. Great. Okay. Lemmetry to empathize with that and to know us to love. So lemme try to know that alittle better so that I can love it. But

Joey Odom (00:41:57):

Anyway, Shawn, you mentioned the last two you lit up wheneveryou said he's done it. How have the last two weeks gone? What have you seendifferently in Andrew in the last two weeks as he's had that epiphany on doingthings differently?

Shawn Johnson (00:42:08):

I have just seen Andrew's a phenomenal father and is sointentional about spending time and celebrating our kids. But I have seen youdesperate for this special bond with Drew for a while and she's just very timidtowards, and Andrew, he tends to be loud and silly and wants to wrestle andplay and he's just a big kid. And I have just noticed from Drew from kind ofday one, she doesn't respond to that. She's very, she's just this littleempath. She just wants to be like, oh, she's a feeler. I don't know. And I kindof had this conversation with Andrew. I was like, I would just encourage you totry things a little different. She's just different that way. And you did, youswitched things up completely in the past two weeks. Drew is all in on daddyand Daddy is her favorite person now and it's really special to see her grow inher confidence with their relationship and vice versa.

Joey Odom (00:43:17):

Fun.

(00:43:20):

Two thoughts on that. One of them is we were at yourhouse, Heath and I, our co-founder were at your house a month ago or so and wewere seven shirtless dudes hanging out and then we were going to go to dinnerand you did something. I just loved it. I really just loved it. You go, Hey, Ineed to go on a date with Drew. And she was jumping up and down. I'm going on adate with Daddy, I'm going on a date with Daddy. I'm going on a date withDaddy. Then how would you not do that?

(00:43:51):

I don't know if this question is going to make sense inseeing her response like that. Do you in some ways project that onto like, Ibet Shawn May or may not jump up and down on this, but if I made Shawn feelthat special, I know that my little girl responds like that. But if you takethat same level of initiation with your spouse, do you think that, I thinksometimes we don't like, no, she's a grown up. I've been married to her foreight years, but I think, and actually I see you're nodding your head, Shawn,do you think that's the case if he took that same level of just full confidencein initiation with you that you would have a similar response to that?

Shawn Johnson (00:44:33):

We both do. I know we have date nights scheduled everyThursday, but we even try to do these small things where one week I'll plan allof it and it'll be a surprise for him or vice versa, or Andrew will go getflowers or I'll leave them a note or whatever it is. It's like whenever you dosome sort of intentional act for your spouse that's completely unplanned, nomatter how long you've been together, it makes you feel amazing.

Joey Odom (00:45:08):

Sometimes it feel, I really do feel like an idiotsometimes because it's such low hanging fruit. It doesn't take that much.

Shawn Johnson (00:45:14):

I know, but I mean it's so easily forgotten from both ofus. You get into the motions of life and you're like, they know I love them andI know whatever, but

Andrew East (00:45:23):

I was just listening to this long interview with a divorcelawyer and he was talking about how there's a sense of charity in arelationship. It's like generosity, just the willingness to believe the bestabout the other person that's really fragile. And as soon as you lose that,then you're like button heads a little more and then that kind of snowballs.But one thing he said was like, how much effort does it take to write ahandwritten letter or pick up flowers on your way home? And I was like, dang, he'sfreaking right. It's better to do constant maintenance on something than try toreset fully or the startup costs. It's like, wow,

Shawn Johnson (00:46:05):

I'll write the letter. The intentionality of parentingwith this, we've learned firsthand in the past few weeks with Andrew askingDrew to go on a date and kind of changing his tone with her. And then you,Andrew took our son to go buy flowers for me and Drew and within a one weektime span, one that was the most special thing ever to see Jet be so excited togift flowers to mommy and Drew. But then a week later my mom was over at ourhouse cleaning up some flowers that had kind of died in a vase and he jet ranover, grabbed one and went running around the house looking for Drew and gaveher this flower. And it's just like to see it at the most innocent level, likeyou said, it reminds you of how that makes your spouse feel.

Joey Odom (00:47:03):

It's so true. And maybe one of the reasons why we thinkthat it wouldn't be that impactful is because our spouse has put up defensemechanisms against it because they're not used to it. And so this is, I'mwriting notes for myself here on flowers and date nights and stuff. And again,back to our point of scheduling, you can schedule in Friday mornings, go getflowers or go bring, I heard a recent story of a couple who the husband was outto breakfast and his wife asked for him to bring her breakfast and he forgot.

Shawn Johnson (00:47:38):

I was like,

Joey Odom (00:47:40):

Oh my gosh, that was you guys. Okay, we're good. Okay,that's that's embarrassing. I was going to give an example of some things likeyou probably shouldn't do.

(00:47:48):

So maybe the point is remember to bring your wifebreakfast if she asks for it, even if she doesn't ask for it. I do think the, Iwant to ask a question. You mentioned it before and no, this is not a, by theway, Shawn just did the sweetest thing. I just completely threw Andrew underthe bus and you know what she did? She reached over and you need to watch onYouTube. She reached over and just grabbed his hand, just said, honey, I loveyou. Okay, this is not overly, and I'm not asking for you to even talk aboutro, but I am curious on how you are managing technology currently, how you hopeto manage. That's maybe too far off to how you hope for them when they getphones on the younger age, but how are you managing technology within yourfamily right now as parents?

Shawn Johnson (00:48:34):

So after our interview, we had been working on managingtechnology of turning it off, not having it during dinner, not having it aroundthe kids. And after our interview you said that teaching kids the importance ofmanaging technology is really important and one way you can do it is have yourkids put your phone in the box. And we've been doing that and it's beenawesome. It's been good. And Drew put my phone away the other night and shewent and found daddy and she's like, daddy, I need your phone. And it was just,it was so sweet and I feel like we forget at such a young age, they aren'ttelling us yet, can you put your phone away? But you're kind of teaching themthat. So it's been

Andrew East (00:49:21):

Special. It's been an ever evolving process. We last yearhad a TV in our dining room or our living room, which is right by our kitchenwhere we eat. And I love sports, dude, so I don't care what sport it is. Ifit's a competition, I want to watch it and we would just have it on and I lovedit. But then we, under Shawn's recommendation, remove that TV and just put art,which I'm not that big archive, I'm starting to get art and it's like, it'sinteresting, but Drew's way more into the art and she recognizes, she's askedabout what's the tree for? And again, it goes back to, okay, I think having apurpose for whatever you're doing. So I think our goal with screen time islike, well, let's hopefully have them learn something, whether it be Biblestories or math, whatever it is. But if you just have it on in the background,there's no explicit purpose for that. So let's remove that aspect of it andwe'll put it in another room so that we have to make more of an effort, whichthen creates almost like that split second hurdle for you. Okay, well what am Igoing to turn on? Okay, well let's make it something that has the kid helps thekid learn. Yeah,

Shawn Johnson (00:50:48):

We have a TV room now, so if you go watch tv, it's in theTV room. It's kind of isolated from the rest of the house a little bit. Andit's like an intentional decision,

Joey Odom (00:50:59):

Which by the way creates. There is a, my 15-year-old son, Harrisonand I, we have a list of 200 movies we want to watch together that's sick andthat's a shared experience. And I think his love language is watching movieswith me. So that's a new one. But we love it. We love it and it's stuff andit's cool. We can start watching things like that. I watched when I was in myteenage years and Shawshank Redemption and Braveheart and great movies likethat. And so it creates almost by having that separate movie room for you allthe TV room, it almost creates, that's an experience in and of itself to go dothat, a shared experience together rather than just something that's just on inthe background. Yeah,

Andrew East (00:51:41):

I'm reflecting on our conversation, but do you think aboutthe difference of Netflix and chilling, right? Where it's like, Hey, let's justbinge watch a TV show until it's the next morning or hours have evaporatedversus the experience of buying a movie ticket and showing up. It's like thedifference, the act is the same. You're just sitting there watching the screen,but the whole experience is drastically different. There's this form ofanticipation when you're going to watch a movie, you're a little more locked inand dialed in focused. You're not going to probably be on your phone as much inthe theater. And so it's like how can you create more of those enhancedexperiences that mean more than just mindlessly doing something,

Joey Odom (00:52:26):

Taking some common, but making an extraordinary, I lovethat you're handing your phones, your kids, your kids are getting trained totake it. It creates, it does a couple things that they value themselves. Theysee, oh, I'm more important than mommy and daddy's phones. And it creates amuscle memory in them that when they get a phone, it's not going to feelawkward to them for it to be distant from them because they've seen it in youand it'll be such a natural part of them. And then the cool thing I think aboutthis, my kids and coming up in the next decade, within dating years of it willfeel awkward to them if they go on a date with somebody and the person they'redating is on their phone all the time. And so then they're going to have enoughvalue in themselves be like, nah, just pay for my meal and I'm never going tosee you again. And so it does a cool thing in terms of what they expect forlife. Even in the same way buying flowers for the girls, Drew's going to expectthat, no, this is how a man treats me. This is how they treat me. I

Andrew East (00:53:19):

Do have to say though, Aro has been pivotal in that, andwe were chatting about this a little bit, but our friend Justin early wrote abook called Habits of the Household where he breaks the day of a parent downinto 10 different phases. So it's like the morning phase, the breakfast phase,the loading, the car phase, and it just gives you a sense of awareness orunderstanding of, okay, this is vocabulary and kind of a framework that I cannavigate this certain area of life in. And Aro has been that for us in screentime where it's like, yeah, now we're more intentional because we have thisthing sitting on our countertop and the kids can interact with it. And wetalked about it provides a lot of value in starting a conversation when we'rehosting someone else. Like, Hey, what is that thing? Why do you do it? It'skind of like a novel concept to a lot of people. Like, oh, you're going to lockyour phone away. And then that starts a good conversation. But it also is atool that we can point to and be like, Hey, sorry, we're not doing phonesbecause we are using ro. You

Shawn Johnson (00:54:30):

Would've been really proud yesterday we did an interviewsitting here where it was two friends of ours, but the guy was getting upset atAndrew and kind of venting and he's like the worst texter in the world. AndAndrew is like, no, it's just me being unapologetically unavailable. And I waslike,

Joey Odom (00:54:50):

That was good. That's really good. Which funny enough,that makes you unapologetically available to the people with you. So I lovethat.

Andrew East (00:55:02):

When did it become assumed that we were just going to beat everybody's beckoning call

Joey Odom (00:55:08):

To the detriment of those around us? Yeah.

Andrew East (00:55:11):

What It's like, I just use the phone as a tool to be insituations. I want to be in real life. So it's like the phase of life I'm in,it's like my wife and my kids. If you share the same last name as me, I'll pickup the phone. That's my mo, but I'm not going to be talking to you aboutfantasy football or chatting it up about did you see? It's like that's notimportant. That's just not the

Joey Odom (00:55:34):

Which. It's so great when you have a relationship thatunderstands that I shot you a text yesterday and then I went to bed early. Igot my glass of warm milk and then went to bed early. Just an older gentlemanhere. But then I saw your text this morning, and by the way, it was totallyfine. It was like, yeah, of course. My assumption was he's in the middle ofdoing a bunch of stuff, not the least of which is being a great husband, beinga great dad. So I love that that rhythm is built in. I think it's time for gamenumber two. Let's go. This could be the make or break one, and I'm not going tolie, I'm kind of pulling for Andrew here. So game three will be interesting. Sothis one is a version of the Newlywed Game. If you're familiar with theNewlywed Game, you ask questions,

Andrew East (00:56:19):

I'm excited,

Joey Odom (00:56:20):

And it's a little bit of a spin. It's a competitive,usually the couples are working together. You're working against each otherhere. So we're going to have the written round. So I'm going to ask you thequestion and you're going to answer the question for yourself. So if I were tosay, what's your favorite color? You'd write down your personal favorite color,and then after we have the written round, then we'll go to the verbal where youwill guess what your partner wrote, if that makes sense. So

Andrew East (00:56:47):

Write one for myself and then for

Joey Odom (00:56:49):

Her then you'll actually verbally do. Verbally do the her.Yeah, exactly. The first one is, what is the name of your personal high schoolmascot? So Shawn, write the mascot of your high school. Andrew, write themascot of your high school. Just your own high school. Okay, now verbal round.Andrew, I want you to guess Shawn's high school

Andrew East (00:57:17):

Tigers.

Joey Odom (00:57:18):

What do we got? Let's see it. Valley

Andrew East (00:57:19):

Tigers.

Joey Odom (00:57:20):

We got the tigers. Okay. Oh, oh really? Okay, Shawn, guessI

Shawn Johnson (00:57:26):

Don't think you've ever said

Joey Odom (00:57:29):

It. Was it North central High? It's north central. Northcentral High,

Shawn Johnson (00:57:31):

North Central.

Andrew East (00:57:35):

Oh my gosh, babe,

Shawn Johnson (00:57:36):

You've never said it.

Andrew East (00:57:38):

Panthers.

Joey Odom (00:57:39):

The Panthers.

Shawn Johnson (00:57:41):

I had no clue.

Andrew East (00:57:41):

Where do you think that came from? Now you

Joey Odom (00:57:44):

Get it. Here we go.

Andrew East (00:57:45):

Yeah.

Shawn Johnson (00:57:47):

Wow. So much makes sense. Now

Joey Odom (00:57:51):

Andrew gets that round. Okay, so then second question,what is your partner's most annoying habit? So Shawn, you're going to writeAndrew's most annoying habit. Andrew, you're going to write Shawn's mostannoying habit,

Shawn Johnson (00:58:12):

But it's like what we would say.

Joey Odom (00:58:13):

It's so beautiful here. Listener. They're taking so longto even think of anything that annoys them about their partner. Oh no, they'reright now. Oh boy. They're writing a lot. There is a lot of writing. Okay, so Iwant to start here. Shawn, what would Andrew say is your most annoying habit?

Shawn Johnson (00:58:39):

My OCD tendencies.

Joey Odom (00:58:43):

OCD tendencies. Alright, what did we write? I said

Andrew East (00:58:46):

Cleaning up all my stuff while her countertop andeverything.

Joey Odom (00:58:50):

Do we? We're going to give. Okay, so we're going to sayyou got that. I think that's it's you go Now, Andrew, what would Shawn say isyour most annoying habit?

Andrew East (00:59:00):

Her recent gripe has been shoes on the counter. Is thatnow what you wrote down? Oh shoot. Did Shawn get a point? What'd you writedown? What did she write

Shawn Johnson (00:59:08):

Down? I put self-deprecation or hygiene.

Andrew East (00:59:11):

Oh, okay.

Joey Odom (00:59:11):

Okay. Or what was the second part? Hygiene. Hygiene. Ohboy.

Andrew East (00:59:15):

Yeah, kind

Joey Odom (00:59:16):

Of yucky. Alright, so this is question number three andwe're going to say we're going to take you back, let's say pre-pregnancy forthis one. Okay? Pre-pregnancy. How many pushups can you do, Andrew? How manypushups? Again, this is just like you just before, you have to just totallycollapse on the ground. So Shawn, how many pushups can you personally do,Andrew, how many pushups can you personally do? Okay, got

Andrew East (00:59:43):

It.

Joey Odom (00:59:45):

Shawn, how many pushups can Andrew do?

Shawn Johnson (00:59:49):

80.

Andrew East (00:59:51):

62 is I wrote down.

Shawn Johnson (00:59:53):

Wow, that's such a specific number. That

Andrew East (00:59:55):

Was very specific. I think I just tested this. We did it.Someone challenged me. They're like, drop done. How many pushups? Of

Joey Odom (00:59:59):

Course you've recently had. Who else has recently done apushup contest?

Andrew East (01:00:04):

Are you talking gymnastics, pushups? Because those don'treally count your little wide grip. I'm going to say 45.

Shawn Johnson (01:00:12):

Okay, I said 50

Joey Odom (01:00:14):

50. Okay, that's going to go point to, it's going to go tothe point to Andrew there. Andrew gets the point. Okay, question number four,who is your personal celebrity crush?

Shawn Johnson (01:00:28):

My personal

Joey Odom (01:00:29):

Yours? Yeah. Who's your celebrity crush? Andrew. Who'syour

Andrew East (01:00:31):

Celebrity crush? Ryan Reynolds is Shawn's. She's

Joey Odom (01:00:33):

Already

Shawn Johnson (01:00:34):

Writing it. Blake Lively is his.

Joey Odom (01:00:36):

I actually had seen that answer already, so, okay, thatone's wow.

Andrew East (01:00:39):

So wash.

Shawn Johnson (01:00:39):

We always said we want to have em on Couple things realquick and it might be the most awkward situation of our

Joey Odom (01:00:43):

Lives. Wait, what's that?

Shawn Johnson (01:00:44):

I said we want to have them on couple things as thecouple, but it might be the most awkward situation ever.

Joey Odom (01:00:51):

It would be hard for me not to want to sit next to Ryan.He's a handsome gentleman. Okay, last one on the Newlywed Game. What is themost romantic thing your partner does for you? So Shawn, what's the mostromantic thing Andrew does for you? Andrew, what's the most romantic thing Shawndoes for you? Keep it pg.

Andrew East (01:01:19):

I like the question Shawn. Shawn's going to say backscratch. Dang

Shawn Johnson (01:01:30):

It. No, but that's a solid one.

Joey Odom (01:01:32):

That is solid. That

Shawn Johnson (01:01:33):

Is as solid as the one I wrote.

Joey Odom (01:01:35):

What did you write? I

Shawn Johnson (01:01:36):

Said makes me coffee every morning.

Andrew East (01:01:38):

That's what I said. Coffee.

Joey Odom (01:01:39):

You angel.

Andrew East (01:01:40):

I said coffee. Is that a wash or did you get it?

Joey Odom (01:01:43):

Oh, you didn't give her a chance to guess.

Andrew East (01:01:47):

Oh yeah, I didn't.

Joey Odom (01:01:48):

Oh boy.

Andrew East (01:01:50):

I was sorry. Do you have backup?

Joey Odom (01:01:55):

S Can we be honest? What would you have guessed

Shawn Johnson (01:01:59):

For Andrew? Yeah, I was going to say make coffee ordinner.

Andrew East (01:02:04):

Oh, convenient. Convenient. Well that is, that's a wash.All

Joey Odom (01:02:09):

We're. We're going to go wash. We're going to go. Alright,so we're going to go. Alright, question number five. We went to the judges. Iwant to hear what is your personal dream vacation spot? Oh shoot. Personaldream. Vacation spot. Yeah, for yourself Shawn, where would Andrew want to goon his dream vacation

Shawn Johnson (01:02:31):

In this phase of life right now he wants to go to India.

Joey Odom (01:02:36):

What did you write? What did you write? I wrote

Andrew East (01:02:37):

California.

Joey Odom (01:02:38):

Wrote California. Okay, look, kind of lower expectations.What I

Andrew East (01:02:41):

Do want to take a week

Shawn Johnson (01:02:42):

Long train your dream

Joey Odom (01:02:44):

Vacation. Let's just say we would say Memphis orsomething. It's like your dream vacation. Just over here. Probably just likeEast Nashville.

Shawn Johnson (01:02:53):

My answer is more correct than his

Joey Odom (01:02:54):

Answer. Okay, so that's actually a good point. So nowwhere is Shawn's? Blackberry? Blackberry. Wow. Not

Shawn Johnson (01:03:03):

Streaming

Joey Odom (01:03:04):

You.

Shawn Johnson (01:03:05):

Do you understand the

Joey Odom (01:03:06):

Question? Hey, did you know the planes can go over oceanBlackberry for the listener? Blackberry is right outside a, it's an hour and ahalf sitting here in Nashville. Oh, has he been on the plane?

Shawn Johnson (01:03:17):

Where is my dream vacation?

Joey Odom (01:03:19):

Vacation Bali. No, you

Shawn Johnson (01:03:21):

Can't just keep the dancer Maldives. There you go.

Joey Odom (01:03:25):

Alright, we're going to go ahead.

Shawn Johnson (01:03:28):

So that's a

Joey Odom (01:03:28):

Wash we're going to. That is, but I

Andrew East (01:03:30):

Won two.

Joey Odom (01:03:31):

That is a wash. Yeah, that's right. So we have, okay, sowhat we needed to happen happened. We have a split series here. I want to talkreal quick. In the last In

Shawn Johnson (01:03:41):

California.

Joey Odom (01:03:41):

California, California.

Shawn Johnson (01:03:44):

Well we're fulfilling that dream next week.

Joey Odom (01:03:46):

Where in I feel like where would be Sacramento orsomething like that. We're some real cool. The

Andrew East (01:03:53):

Bay.

Shawn Johnson (01:03:54):

The bay is beautiful. Yeah,

Joey Odom (01:03:55):

I know it's beautiful. I know. But

Andrew East (01:03:56):

Mountains

Joey Odom (01:03:57):

And dream. No, California, that's

Shawn Johnson (01:03:58):

Not your

Joey Odom (01:03:59):

Dream. There's no disparagement of California. Californiais

Andrew East (01:04:01):

Awesome. I'm a national park guy. Why is no one believing

Shawn Johnson (01:04:05):

This? Because your long list of bucket list dreamvacations. Why widely international for before it would ever

Joey Odom (01:04:14):

Be you got Myrtle Beach, that's the one that you want togo to. I know you've always wanted to go to Myrtle Beach, which seems reallyawesome. Tulsa, where I'm from, you can head out to Tulsa. Tulsa, great spot,go to Tulsa in the falls, go see the foliage in Tulsa. Well, I want to hearabout friendships real quick. We've taken way too much of your time. I want tohear about friendships. I want to hear first you got to talk game night, butthen I want you to segue into, that's great as a group. Then I want to talkabout the individual. Where do you go when it's like heart showing time tosomebody individually? Let's talk game night first. Group friendships. How'd itstart? What's the purpose? How's it going?

Shawn Johnson (01:04:55):

Long story short, game night started. We were living inNashville, Los

Andrew East (01:05:00):

Angeles. Okay,

Joey Odom (01:05:01):

Sorry. It must have been a dream. You're right.

Shawn Johnson (01:05:03):

It started in Nashville because we were living a life inNashville that we were so isolated. We had our ride or die best friends that wespent every waking second with, but we never saw another human soul ever. Thenwe moved to LA and I might have that backwards, but it's fine. Moved to LA andthis community took us in and they did weekly game nights on the rooftop oftheir building. And it weekly, it was like potluck. It was bring a dish and wewould just play werewolf or do all these things. You

Andrew East (01:05:42):

Played werewolf. Dude, that

Joey Odom (01:05:44):

Sounds

Shawn Johnson (01:05:44):

Scary. I love that. And it was the most random group ofpeople that, I don't want to say misfits, but it's not like we all sharedcommon interests of any kind, but we all had so much fun together. So when wewere back in Nashville and we had our first kid, we kind of started to feelisolated again. We said, let's do game nights like we did in la and it was thatmentality that we talked about at the beginning of the interview where I don'tneed you to believe the same thing that I do. We don't need to be the sameperson or have the same hobbies or interests. We just want to get along, havefun and build our community and we put it into our yearly goals where we do itmonthly, we have a budget for it, all of these things. But it's truly been ableto build a community for us and for other people. It's been really special.

Andrew East (01:06:31):

It's so fun.

Joey Odom (01:06:32):

That's awesome. I mean you have 70 people, is that right?I mean load 'em. We have a lot of people now and there's only one winner,right?

Shawn Johnson (01:06:39):

Correct. Only one.

Andrew East (01:06:40):

We did do a Boys versus Girls night the other month. Sothat was a change up. But

Joey Odom (01:06:46):

Let the record show a little.

Andrew East (01:06:48):

No,

Shawn Johnson (01:06:48):

We could talk about that later.

Joey Odom (01:06:51):

It's just such a cool, the whole idea, and I know as youall have talked about it, is this is the age where, and Justin earlier youmentioned our friend says that you start getting into this age where you becomebusier, wealthier people who used to have friends. And what you're doing isagain, fighting against that current to just create a commonality, create asafe space, a common space for people to come, just have fun, be themselves. SoI love that. I love the group setting and just making people feel comfortablewhenever it's time to, and maybe this is enough and this season of life ishaving the group. But what about when it's needing the one-on-one actually thevulnerability, the openness, the intimacy with a friend. How do you managethat? That's challenging.

Andrew East (01:07:38):

I'm actually not in a phase where I'm having a lot ofone-on-one. Usually I save, maybe we get one or two nights after the kids godown to hang out with friends. We usually go to bed at 8 45. So we have Goodfor you. Yeah, maybe we have an hour, hour and a half after the kids go down tohang out. So I'll try to group everybody together. But I have a men's groupthat's changed my life where Heath has a similar group where you sign acontract, you show up and you see each other twice a month. So it's not a lotof one-on-one sharing. But it's like a group of guys who've known me for years,played sports with 'em. They've seen my whole train wreck and getting backtogether and they just know me on a deeper level and challenge me, which is I'mso thankful for. So that's what it looks like twice a month we have that.That's awesome.

Shawn Johnson (01:08:33):

And recently, so like he said, his group of guys are allcollege guys that have known each other for 15 years. They're all married andhaving kids now. And so recently all of the wives of that group started theirown. Oh, cool. And we meet on the same days that the boys do. The boys meet inthe morning, we meet at night and we're in the process of building that bondand that trust that allows that. But we know how close our husbands are intheir trust level. So it's kind of like we're doing leaps and bounds, butthat's our group as

Joey Odom (01:09:10):

Well. That's such an interesting thing. You can't rushhistory, right? You build up history slowly and you gain trust. And even ifthere's a mistrust, I've heard of you in a moment where if there's a moment ofmistrust, it's like draining a bathtub and then gaining trust is just ateaspoon of water back in at a time with every good interaction. So that's neatthat you all are doing that and taking your time and being intentional and justgiving a little bit more as you go along. One the thing is we were talkingabout the way you are with friends and game night, you're modeling again thatto your kids and what friendship looks like. That's what just one of the themesI think is emerging here is just the way you're telling your kids a bunch ofstuff too, I'm sure, but you're just modeling the way and I think that'sreally, really neat and I think you're also modeling for them.

(01:09:56):

Just super competitiveness. Which leads us to our thirdgame. Let's go. You got third game. The tiebreaker. I got to admit, this is myfavorite one. This is my favorite game. This one, this game is called Longsnapper or gymnast. So I'm going to name two names. There will be five rounds.Andrew is the long snapper at Vanderbilt in the NFL. Obviously Shawn was agymnast. So I'm going to give you two names. One of them is a long snapper, oneof them is a gymnast. Okay? And each one just, there's no pattern to it. I'vejust gone alphabetical and last name. So round one you're going to have to tellme is this person, are these people? Which one is a gymnast? Which one's a longsnapper? Pat Hurst and Harper LaBelle. Pat Hurst and Harper LaBelle. By theway, I went to the Olympic website like search in the fifties. So I'm hopingyou don't recognize any of these names. Pat Hurst. Harper LaBelle. So who's agymnast? Who is a long snapper? Okay, let's hear it.

Andrew East (01:10:58):

Gymnast is Harper.

Joey Odom (01:11:00):

Gymnast is Harper.

Shawn Johnson (01:11:01):

Gymnast is LaBelle.

Joey Odom (01:11:03):

That's the same

Andrew East (01:11:03):

Person. Harper.

Joey Odom (01:11:05):

Yeah. Harper LaBelle was a long snapper. Harper LaBelle.Long snapper. No one gets a point. Wow. Round two. What? Long snapper orgymnast?

Andrew East (01:11:15):

Wow.

Joey Odom (01:11:16):

Now I'm going to skip this one. That was really good.Round two Long snapper gymnast, Kendall Gammon and Theo Weed. Kendall Gammon.Theo Weed. Who was a long snapper who was a gymnast.

Andrew East (01:11:32):

Kendall's a gymnast. No, Kendall Gammon. Iss. A long timefrom Kansas City Chiefs. Was there 12 years? Oh

Joey Odom (01:11:38):

Dang. I am sorry. I was hoping that I didn't do anyRecogniz. These are good though. Thank you. These

Andrew East (01:11:45):

Are good.

Joey Odom (01:11:46):

Round three, we got Bert Cronin and David Diaz, Infante,Bert Cronin, David Diaz, Infante. One of them is a long snapper. One of them'sa gymnast. Bert Cronin, David Diaz Infante.

Andrew East (01:12:04):

Do you know this Shawn? I've only known one of the sixnames that have been tossed

Joey Odom (01:12:10):

Out and I'm disappointed you knew any of them. Alright,who was the gymnast? Who was the long snapper? Burt Cronin. David Diaz.Infante. I'm

Andrew East (01:12:16):

Going to say

Joey Odom (01:12:17):

David. David was what?

Andrew East (01:12:18):

The gymnast.

Joey Odom (01:12:19):

David was the gymnast.

Andrew East (01:12:20):

I had that as well.

Joey Odom (01:12:22):

David Diaz Infante was a long snapper.

Andrew East (01:12:24):

Oh my god. David Diaz,

Joey Odom (01:12:25):

Long snapper. Alright, round four. Couple great names herewe got Blair Bush and Willie Welt, Blair Bush, Willie Welt. One of them is along snapper. One of them is a gymnast. Blair Bush and Willie Welt.

Andrew East (01:12:42):

These are great names.

Joey Odom (01:12:43):

What do we got?

Andrew East (01:12:44):

Gymnast was Blair Belt. What did I said? Or Blair Bush

Joey Odom (01:12:48):

Gymnast was, let's clarify you mixed names.

Andrew East (01:12:50):

Gymnast was Blair Bush. That's what I said.

Joey Odom (01:12:52):

Blair Gymnast was Willie Welt. Sorry. Gymnast was WillieWelt.

Andrew East (01:12:55):

Oh my gosh. Dude,

Joey Odom (01:12:56):

Where did you find these names? Now let's remind everybodyit took some time. Let's remind everybody where we are. I just wanted, this isthe last question we have. The price is right. Shawn won Newlywed Game. Andrewone. Andrew is up one to zero on the very last question. I do have bonus if weneed him. The last one, long Snapper, a gymnast, Jorgen Hos and Wolf Guard.Vass, Jorgen, S Wolf guard, Vass. One's a gymnast, one's a long snapper. Oh,Andrew's looking. Who's

Andrew East (01:13:33):

Looking? I'm going to say no. What did you say? I wasgoing to say Wolf Guard is a gymnast. I had Jurgen who I'm pretty sure is along snapper.

Joey Odom (01:13:41):

You're both. You are correct. Very nice. Very nice. Sothat means Andrew has won. He has won the Aro podcast. That's a winner. Wow.Let's just see real quick. I want to throw out the bonus just to see what wouldhappen. It doesn't mean anything. This question is only for Shawn. Shawn whowas the 2023 Super Bowl MVP

Andrew East (01:14:05):

2023.

Joey Odom (01:14:06):

2023. Our most recent Super Bowl. Who was the MVP?

Andrew East (01:14:10):

Was it Patrick

Joey Odom (01:14:11):

Mahomes? It was Patrick Mahomes. Nice Andrew. Good work.Who was the 2020 Summer Olympics balance beam gold medalist? That's a goodquestion. Who won balance beam gold medal in 2020? Summer? That's way

Andrew East (01:14:24):

Harder than Super Bowl. MVP

Joey Odom (01:14:26):

Joey. It depends on what's important to you. So would yourwife

Andrew East (01:14:29):

SUNY Lee won the all around, but I don't think she won thebeam. So So who

Joey Odom (01:14:32):

Won Beam?

Andrew East (01:14:33):

Jordan Childs didn't win the beam. Simone didn't even dothe beam at, I think it's a Brazilian girl.

Joey Odom (01:14:38):

Good knowledge. I

Andrew East (01:14:39):

Think it's Rebecca

Joey Odom (01:14:41):

I'll give credit for.

Andrew East (01:14:44):

Or is that a fighter? No, that's

Joey Odom (01:14:47):

Just

Andrew East (01:14:47):

Lock. Go ahead. Sorry. I don't know.

Joey Odom (01:14:49):

SUNY Lee. SUNY Lee won the balance beam. I didn't know.Good job, suny. I know you're listening. Hey guys, thank you. This was a lot oftime for you to hang out. It was wonderful. I'm glad you're here. I appreciateyou guys. You guys do inspire me even though I'm much older, but so glad tohave you as friends. So glad to have you on the Aro podcast. And I wanteverybody to go out. Let's say your, but all the ways follow you on the gramhere. The kids are calling it that. The Gram Follow Family Made Media onYouTube. Why don't you answer Where all should people go here? We'll, youraddress, you can

Andrew East (01:15:25):

Find@family.com. There's also a YouTube channel orpodcast. We have 15 different shows all tell hopefully a different aspect.Family life, so adoption, parenting, special needs, being a widow. We try tocreate a slate of shows that represent that. And then Shawn Johnson on allplatforms. Andrew East. Yeah, I got to say, Joey, it's been a great treat ofthis year. A highlight. Dare I say, getting to know you, bro. You make megiggle and it's freaking hilarious. It's been a fun few months getting to knowyou and I look forward to more of this. And I'm so thankful for Aro both in mypersonal life, just giving vocabulary and knowledge on how to navigate screentime, but then also with our family too. And it's an accountability partner sothat I can be the best dad that I can be and father. So I'm thankful for you.

Joey Odom (01:16:19):

Well that's very nice. Thank you. And I share the same.It's been super fun getting to know you guys. I'm super excited about babynumber three, little Joey, and I'm grateful for you guys. Thank you very, verymuch. Thank you. Thanks. What a power couple. Shawn and Andrew are the realdeal. They're great parents. They are a great couple. They're very intentionalin everything they do. Whether it's taking care of themselves, physically,mentally, spiritually, or their marriage or their kids as parents. They're justgreat, great people. And I would encourage you once again to go listen to theirpodcast, listen to the second Cup, which is their new podcast that's comingout. And then a couple things with Shawn Johnson and Andrew East. Like Imentioned at the beginning of the show, go download the Aro app. The Aro app isfree for a seven day trial for the first time ever. We would love for you toexperience ro. And thank you for joining us here on the Aro podcast. We can'twait to see you again next week. The Aro podcast is produced and edited by theteam at Palm Tree Poco. Special thanks to Emily Miles and Caitlyn k crs formedia and digital supports, and to executive producers, Anthony Palmer of PalmePoco, and the Prince of the Low Country Tides himself. Rich Donnellan of Aro.