Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 123 | things i wish i knew as a young adult

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

In this episode, we talk about things like comparison, learning how to do 'adult' things, finding a mentor, and LOTS more. We wish we knew half of this stuff when we were entering adulthood, but you live and you learn! Hope you enjoy! Let us know if there are any topics you'd like us to cover in the comments! Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Twitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/ShawnJohnson Snapchat! ▶ @ShawneyJ Follow AndrewsTwitter ▶ttp://www.twitter.com/AndrewDEast Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Snapchat! ▶ @AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Defender. With a towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms and a waiting depth of 900 millimeters, the Defender 110 pushes what's possible. Learn more at landrover.ca. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. A podcast all about couples.

And the things they go through. Today isn't quite about couples because it's a podcast that you guys have requested, repeatedly on social media. That's right. We did an episode called Things I Wish I knew before planning a wedding. And that sparked some more inquiries about what else do you wish you knew? And the answer is quite a lot. But today we're going to be talking about things I wish I knew as a young adult.

I feel like on Instagram, on TikTok, on Facebook, we have a lot of young, single girls and guys who have requested this particular topic. And I've said multiple times, like, well, how do I even get to that stage of marriage, dating, How do I find someone? What do I need to do with myself before I'm ready for that phase of life? So this is our hot take on things I wish I knew as a young adult. How do you feel not being a young adult anymore? I am.

Speaking to it. I am 16 forever. Speaking of, wait, who was it? We were with Michaela Skinner the other day. And she said, you're 36, right? And that was the first time I was like, I actually feel old. Do I, like, do I look old? Like, that's when I questioned everything.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, babe. And to me, you are the epitome of beauty. Thank you. So, anyway. And you may be wondering, hey, look, this podcast is called a couple things. Why are we talking about things I wish I knew as a young adult? Because we think it's important to touch on things that affect people as individuals because that affects how you approach relationship.

And that affects your relationship if you're in one. That's right. So before we jump into it, please. give the show a rating and subscribe to it on whatever platform you're listening on. We're on YouTube if you want to watch the video. We're on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts. Those are really, I feel like, the main places people listen to us. Yeah.

But maybe you're listening to Google Podcasts. We're also there. That's just left field. Maybe you're listening on the TV. I don't know. Anyway, should we just get into it? We should. Let's do it.

I also want to say to a lot of these things that we have, have read now are things that we wish we had known as a young adult as well. Yes. So it's not just us preaching advice, but things that we've learned over the years because we're so old that we'd like to pass on. So the first thing that comes to mind. Yes. For something I wish I knew as a young adult is that you shouldn't compare yourself to others.

It's just not worth it. We live in a society where comparison is like truly the thief of joy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And with social media being like at the forefront of everybody's like daily life, it's so easy to get caught up in photoshopped pictures and people who only choose to show perfection. And you constantly have this like impulse to compare yourself to them and be like,

why does my life not look like that? Why are they so much more successful? Why do they look so much happier? Why do they? And you just go down this route of being served up by all. algorithms everywhere a false reality and it it is it's terrifying because it makes you feel like you're not enough or you're doing something wrong well it's so easy to villainize social media and i actually social media's fault i actually don't feel that way people have been comparing themselves

since can and able absolutely but i think social media makes it worse it makes it easier to compare yourself yeah but here's my thought on this there's a concept in christianic uh it's the body of Christ, right? Where Sean has talents and weaknesses that are different than my talents and weaknesses. And I think the more that you think about and understand that concept of like, hey, Sean Johnson is my role model. I want to be a powerful gymnast like she is. And if I'm not, I'm a failure. Yeah. It's not the right way to approach it. And maybe this is something that I feel like I've really understood the past couple of years where it's like, I'm good at certain things. Yeah. Which is exciting to realize I'm also bad at certain things which sometimes is harder to realize and keep going and I just

think instead of comparing like celebrating those strengths and helping those other weaknesses like it's a better approach I have an example I have an analogy hit it but it's a very long one uh Nostia lukin is my best friend and she was we are each other's toughest competitors our entire career when we are competing we used to challenge each other encourage each other and root for each other so much every single day i'd be like holy crap you just got that skill well now i have to go work harder and it was like this rivalry that was so fun because we were so proud of each other and then after the olympics we got stuck in this rut of comparing each other we were like oh well she got that why shouldn't i and we ended up like you said vilifying each other to where we were

We didn't speak for eight years. And then all of a sudden a switch flipped in us from you guys, from you. And you're like, how about you just go back to being friends and rooting for one another? And instead of comparing ourselves anymore, we said, I don't know what went wrong, but I love you. I'm proud of you and I'm rooting for you. And I just kind of switched my mentality and went back to being so excited for her and vice versa. And it just truly, that comparison side, if you stop comparing and start celebrating, it just works out better in the long run for everybody.

Yeah, yeah. This is, I mean, it's such an easy trap to fall into jealousy. But I'm reading a book right now called Mindset for our men's group. And it's all about like if you think that, hey, I am a good football player and I'm not a good artist, then that like solidifies what you can and cannot do. And that's not really the right way to approach. anything it's more hey I am becoming a good football player I might have had a better head start than if I'm becoming a good artist and that's where I want to go but like it's what path are

you going down you know um I feel like we feel very passionately about this one topic let's go and I mean I feel like we could talk all day about that but first tip is don't compare ourselves okay because you're great at things yes next up um being happy with yourself before getting into her relationship is really important. Being happy with yourself. Yes, being content with who you are. Being, knowing that you are enough by yourself,

knowing you are enough solo and single, and knowing that you aren't going to be fulfilled or made happy by finding a person. So here's a little background. Sean and I each had relationships before we met each other. and fortunately those didn't work out and I feel like the common thread between at least mine you might have a different story all the relationships that I had that didn't work out are I kept I kept trying to morph myself into what that person I was dating wanted me to be so like hey they wanted me to be a missionary or they wanted me to be a freaking really good athlete which I wasn't unfortunately stop oh my gosh but but it's like or they want me to listen to this type of music or live this type of lifestyle and it's like it takes time i feel like this is where people say timing is important um to

understand who you are and like hey actually well that's cool you like this type of music i that's not necessarily my preference but i do like this type and that's okay understanding that you can like that type of music and i don't have to or or mold myself into having to uh so when shot and i met each other it was like hey you know what uh i'm sick of doing the whole dating or trying to be who you want me to be and so let's just kind of put it out there if it doesn't work out doesn't work out yeah and i think the root of that too for both of us and for everybody is if you are in a relationship trying to morph yourself trying to change yourself into someone that you think someone wants then the root of that is you're not confident enough in who you are and i think

at the end of at the end of the day something very very attractive is someone who's able to stand firm and their beliefs and their passions and be like, you know what, I am so proud that I like... Harry Potter. There you go. Whatever it is. And even if you think that's ridiculous and you're maybe going to make fun of me for it or whatever, that's going to tell me a lot about our potential relationship. Because, sorry.

Go ahead. Because I think in both and I's, both and I's previous relationships, what got so exhausting is, yeah, they were good relationships. But at the end of the day, I was so tired. tired trying to be someone I wasn't. And you can't do that for the rest of your life. I would say, like, if I'm thinking about levels to the game, level one is understanding like who you are and what your interests and preferences are.

Level two is understanding that people have other preferences than you do and being able to respectfully navigate the differences. And then level three is understanding that actually there is a, I think, a boundary and a limitation to oh this is just who I am like you got to own it like there are there are thing the laziness that you've seen in me over the past six years like the goal is to have less of those bad qualities like just unanimously bad qualities whether it be like whatever I don't know just bad things I do whether I'm I'm like too aggressive or whether I am too lazy or whether I like you're saying these I have not said these just so I just want to

make that clear are you saying these are actually I just pulling examples out but you're saying they're accurate no no no I'm saying they're like they're extreme no but I'm saying they haven't been brought up there are things in you that you shouldn't just like embrace and be like this is who I am you know and there's bad things there's for sure so there is a fine line there but you have to at the end of the day like if you are unhappy right now single and you are and you think finding a person is going to fix that, I think that's where things go wrong. I hate the term happy, but let's continue.

All right. Hit pause on whatever you're listening to and hit play on your next adventure. This fall get double points on every qualified stay. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions. Next up is number three is learn how to do adult things early. This includes things like filing taxes, paying bills.

renting an apartment buying real estate etc this I will say you can't really learn this until you do it you know and this makes me so frustrated at the educational like the education system because don't be frustrated baby I am so frustrated it's okay you learn so much in school you learned so many incredible things and I loved school but you should be learning all of these things so much earlier in life so that when you're an adult and you move out and you're living on your own you don't have to just figure it out so i would say read books ask for help find mentors that can walk you through these major lifestones or milestones in life because it can be very daunting and it can be very like hard to get through and to understand so just educate yourself

truly educate yourself yeah and i i a really good way to do that is via experience So, like, if you get a job, then you'll have to pay taxes on your income. And so you'll kind of understand, like, oh, hey, so even though my salary is X, I really only make 0.8X because of taxes. And then, like, you realize how to file taxes. And so I just think practicing these things, having someone there to hold your hand through that. But let's see. Go ahead. I was going to say an amazing way to do that, too, because we live in an amazing generation of just,

content YouTube any question you have that's a good place to start to be honest YouTube it write the question how do I pay taxes this is the thing I think it's more of a mindset because there's so many things that we still are confronted with on a daily basis that we've never it's a problem we've never seen before yeah but developing the mindset of hey this is a problem I've never seen it before but I know how to attack a problem and solve a problem yeah so like hey this is how you solve taxes well my first step in learning or learning how to solve a new problem is uh watching a youtube video about it and then now i don't know the lingo now i know the rough kind of syllabus itinerary of how this problem gets solved and then you actually dig in

and apply it to your specific situation but a couple things that i feel like helped us actually just tangible thing like from a financial perspective um we started using mint when we're about 20 and so that was like you log all your accounts and some people are comfortable with stuff like this some people aren't but like you put your bank accounts you put your bills and it like really gives you a dashboard picture of hey this is how much i have coming in this is how much i have going out this bill is do xyz and like you kind of start getting your legs underneath you also again people have mixed feelings um not everybody who listens to dave ramsie will like this but like building credit whatever that means for you yep um like getting a just a really low capped credit card

so that when you graduate from college or high school, you're able to go rent an apartment because you have a credit score and credit history. How would this is a whole different topic? How would the Dave Ramsey goers go about? Building a credit score? No, no, building a credit score, like renting an apartment or getting a mortgage.

Well, it's, I mean, we could do a whole other. Yeah. Yeah, they wouldn't. Do you want to walk down this path? I don't. We're going to move on to the next time. Anyway, yes. Anyways, educate yourself.

Ask questions. And develop the mindset of, hey, I can figure this problem out. Yeah. Also, there's no stupid question. Let's just remember that. Yes. There's no stupid question. You can get protein at home or a protein latte at Tim's.

No powders, no blenders, no shakers. Starting at 17 grams per medium latte, Tim's new protein lattes, protein without all the work. At participating restaurants in Canada. Okay, next one. Don't worry if your life looks different than you planned. So this is kind of, this is a, I think, an easy one, but a hard one. I feel like so many of us spend so many years in school writing out what our life is going to look like. We're going to go to this school or we're going to have this job or we're going to make this much money. We're going to get married by this age. We're going to have kids at this age. The fun part of life is going down different routes that you never thought you were going to. In a day, adapting as it changes and like looking around at different points in life and be like I never in a million years thought I would be here but let's figure it out let's go with it because it's fun we did a whole episode on core values and I think this applies because the way something looks isn't as important as how you do something right so like like I didn't know that I was going to marry you that looks the style of my life looks drastically different. than if I married the previous girl I was dating. But the core values...

How would that be, Andrew? Let's talk about X. The core values that I'm living out are the same. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So style doesn't matter, but the core values do. That's my hot take on that. Life changes so fast,

and I think having like a loose grasp on the reins and being, like just rolling with the punches could ultimately take you somewhere even better than you dreamed. you just kind of like Sean and I have been you know parenting now for a little bit and the the one phrase we refer to when we're watching our kids like just be absolute minions like Tasmanian devils is this concept of like holding on loosely yeah so it's like hey you know I'm I'm controlling what I can control and I'm doing my putting my best foot forward but it's probably not going to turn out like I think kids probably gonna like bump his head and that's probably okay but like Hold on loosely. Yeah. Next up, we kind of referred to this, but make friends with people who are older and wiser than you

and find a mentor. This just, we could speak on this one for a long time. It's just that idea that if you have wiser people in your life than you, you're going to set a higher bar and a higher expectation for yourself.

I think you, the picture, develops quicker when you have a mentor when I look back over the past five years Dr. Axe for me has been a tremendous mentor before that like growing up my brother was a tremendous mentor just someone there who's who's walking down the path with you I had agents who are amazing I had trainers that were amazing um Jeanette Jenkins was a huge mentor in my life for a very long time and so it's Lindsey Anderson um yeah i think it's true what people say like nobody really knows what they're

doing yeah but but mentors are someone who like there's someone who doesn't know what they're doing still but they've they've been through what you don't know what you're going through right so i mean every aspect of my life i'm now looking for a mentor because of the drastic impact it has had on me and Sean and our marriage and our kids the whole thing question just to ask yourself and answer yourself if you're listening this is my new favorite question to ask somebody is outside of family who are the three people who have had the largest influence on your life good or bad good or bad I mean yeah and I say good or bad because there have been people who have come and gone in both of our lives that we've either kind of respectfully exited

friendships with for that were that it made it was very difficult to like leave but I say all of us I'm rambling because if you look at everybody in your life who has an impact on you or has a direct connection to you you have to truly ask yourself do they make you a better person or a worse person. And even if you are close friends with them, if you can in your gut answer the question and say they might make me a worse person for whatever reason that is, then you should ask yourself if it's worth being in a relationship with them.

And I'm not saying like dating, but like friends, whatever. Just the more clearly defined what do you mean by better and worse. I think like this is where goal, we did a whole episode on goal setting and vision setting. But like, okay, this is what I want my life to look like in 20 years. Is this person helping me get there?

Or are they actually like, hey, they gossip a lot and they're going to undermine all the rest of the relationships in my life? Or they're lazy and all we do is play video games or watch movies and we never actually do these adventures that I'm so eagerly wanting or whatever it is. Or they push other people out of my life. Yeah. Whatever it is. Just truly, even if it helps, like write it down. and something Andrew and I I distinctly remember this one person who was in my life for a very very long time and it was the last one I had to kind of say goodbye to you but I remember just explaining to Andrew

everything's great but it's just when I'm with them I just feel like I'm stripped of like energy and joy and purpose and I just get pulled down and that weight felt very heavy on Andrew and I and it felt very heavy on like just our relationship. So again, just reflect on every single person you have in your life. Yeah, I guess maybe this is a, I'm going to sneak this one in here. We didn't have it written down, but like having self-awareness. Yeah. And this is where journaling helps.

This is where like praying helps, taking a step back and evaluating your life and like thinking about, hey, I probably shouldn't watch as much TV as I do. I watched a lot of TV this past week or I was on social media too much or this person was a bad influence on my life like actually taking taking uh there's a a stoic principle actually like you're the audience member to your own life and like evaluating that and then also always honing in what what you want that to look like um also last thing on mentors I got caught up in this when I was 20 I would look at someone who was 40 and be like oh man I need to be as smart as they are or have read as many books as they do or have as much money as they do right now and so I would

like meet people who are older than me and not understand that like compound interest is a real concept and more things than just finance and if you if you are working every day to become that person that you want to be then like it's amazing how when you fast forward five years 10 years you will get there like you'll get and it probably won't look how you exactly thought but like you'll you'll be closer at least if you're putting in the effort today your life will look drastically different in 20 years. Time is an amazing tool. Hey, so what did you want to talk about?

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Okay, so why did you bring me to the circus? Oh, I'm really into lion tamers. You know, with the chair and everything. Ask your doctor for Wagoe by name. Visit wagovi.c.ca for savings. Exclusions may apply. Next up. This one should be self-explanatory,

but we're going to hit it. Focus on how your life feels on the inside and not how it appears on the outside. I have traveled to hundreds of colleges and given lectures to college kids over the years, and I reinforce this one a lot. 99.9% of us put way too much emphasis on how life appears

the outside what our title is for our job how much money we make what we wear what our house looks like the the appearance of success when we should be focusing on the inside and saying am i do i feel fulfilled do i enjoy what i do am i happy like all of these things and if those don't go together then you're doing the wrong thing tell the story of your silver medal i think it was on the floor yes um um that's an entire lecture that takes an hour and a half um let me summarize it in two minutes uh at the olympics i put so much effort into being an all-around gymnast um that was kind of like my passion with gymnastics i competed the all-around competition at the olympics i gave every inch of my soul i had a blast and i came in second and i had the entire world saying oh well what did you do wrong

I'm the like the interviews that I had right after I was done they were like what did you do wrong what could you have done better what do you regret are you going to come back to defend this title um how does it feel to lose all of these like very negative associations to my performance when internally I felt like I had done the best I had ever done in my entire life I felt very very proud fast forward I went and competed on the beam um I did not do my best performance and I won the gold medal and all of a sudden I had all of these same interviewers saying congratulations you're the best in the world that was the most perfect routine I've ever seen and it just kind of taught me this huge life lesson of everybody's opinion is skewed like I knew internally that I felt more fulfilled from a silver

metal than I did from a gold and I went on to learn that firsthand in every other aspect of life I've made more money doing things that I don't enjoy but I enjoy the things that I do now better so it's just it's just weighing you're going to burn out if you don't enjoy it it's not about the accolades it's about the character yeah and that goes for everything that goes for what are you doing to your body to make to look a certain way so social media can like you better quote unquote like you better what are you doing to draw more attention to you like do the things that make you feel good on the inside not just the outside which bridges us to the idea that your health is important you shouldn't sacrifice

it uh this is something to be evaluated again because people can take this way out of balance but like if you have low energy every day and you're you're just like i don't know it's dragging on you start taking steps to maybe change that like maybe change your diet and hopefully it'll give you more energy or maybe like a little exercise in the morning will give you more energy. I think we're probably more extreme on this than most people, but I do feel like when you feel self-conscious, because whatever, like, it's a drag on how you parent. It's a drag on how you're a wife, you know what I'm saying? Your health will directly affect every single aspect of your life and every single aspect of your future. Every decision you make when it comes to your health

will affect your future. I don't mean that dramatically. That sounds pretty dramatic. I know. I do mean that. Every decision. I do mean that. I do.

Can you impact that? Because I'm a little. I'm being serious. I. Tell me how you feel about this. I mean, the most extreme version is if you make the unfortunate decisions of like going down the drug and alcohol and like all of those routes.

Okay. You are paving a path that will affect potentially your kids and how you raise them and your spouse and your education and your jobs all of that and then when it comes to just your day-to-day life on a smaller scale of your health if you're really stressed out if you are anxious if you are depressed if you um are like any of any of those things it affects every aspect of your life your relationships are affected by it like just Think of the last time you were grumpy with your mom or dad. Talking about two hours like.

Like two hours ago with us. Yeah. Or with your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your roommate or whatever. You snap at them. You're angry with them. You think resentful thoughts. Like you're just not a happy person. Now compound that with if you are, you aren't getting good sleep.

If you are not taking care of your body. If you're eating poor foods, if you're drinking, if you're taking. if you're taking drugs, if you're doing all of these things, it just build it and build it and build it to a point where it affects everything. All right. Admittedly, I was just speaking of physical health, but I really appreciate your perspective on maintaining your physical health, your relational health, your spiritual health, you're like...

Everything. I appreciate that. Physiological help is like as in regards to how you treat substances. Sean and I have had a wild couple months with people in our close circle abusing substances, having addictions, potentially trying to commit suicide. Like all of these different things, we've lost friends.

And it is... And we've seen people's relationships and their kids be torn apart from things like substances, jobs, high stress situations, alcohol. Like, we've seen it firsthand. And this goes back to the Body of Christ. concept where it's like man what a tragedy when someone doesn't fill their potential or their

role because that's like that is a potential contribution to the world that was lost right like hey they didn't they didn't do what they're best at because they got distracted by drugs or they didn't do what they're best at because they just didn't have the energy for it like they were anyway you dig yourself in a hole and I don't know when I I could go on a long tangent about this. I do think I'm becoming more of a hardline, like, disciplinarian as far as, like, what do you want your life to look like? What do you have to, what are the things you need to do to get you to that point?

And then can you do those things on a consistent basis? I'm not like, there's like Jock O'Link and all these, like, hardcore military guys who are like, wake up at 4 a.m. and do it to our work on him, but it's like, it doesn't need to be that intense, but can you consistently do the things? things that you need to do to get you to where you want to go. That's my hot take on it. We could do an entire episode on that. Moving on.

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Last one. This is, I think, probably the most important one. is if you remember everything that we just said take take all that lightly and just keep it in the back of your mind but remember if you don't know what you're doing in life if you feel like you're like lost or you feel like you don't know what to do next that's okay and that is so normal again going back to college lectures I remember talking to so many college kids who are like I just I don't know what I want to do and they were so stressed out by that and that's normal we don't know what we want to do but you shouldn't let that prevent you from doing something yeah I read a book when I was 12 called just do something yeah and it's like dude you got to just engage yeah it doesn't it doesn't matter if this is the path you're gonna end up walking down career wise for the next 20 years like if this is it might not be the job you have for the next 20 years but you should be engaged with it you should be doing something because then

you'll learn and you realize hey I really like that aspect I didn't like this so you just because it's okay to not know what you're doing and if you feel something Yes. For sure. And to like give you an example, if you are in med school and all of a sudden you're like, this is not for me. I want to drop out. Drop out.

Go work at Starbucks. I'm sure it will teach you something. And you'll work at Starbucks until you figure out the next thing to do. I mean, it's just kind of like that mentality of just do something. Just do something. You'll learn something from it. Anyway, I hope this is helpful. I feel like we went on several.

sidecar rants there um any of these hit home and you want us to further them let us know we're also going to be doing several more of these episodes called things i wish i knew blank um probably things i wish i knew before kids things i wish i knew whatever there's like a million different routes we could take so let us know what you want to hear in this series next and if you made it this far we have a favorite ask please subscribe to this show give it a rating and um i enjoyed this one with you, babe. Me too. Not going to lie, we had a bit of a rough morning coming back from our international travels. We're all tired and Sean and I don't necessarily thrive when we're sleeping. We also are, this sounds so ridiculous. Our coffee machine was broken. And we really,

really wanted coffee this morning. So anyway, in case, in case all of this made you think that we're not petty, you're wrong. Sean and I can still be incredibly petty. But that's all we have. I'm Andrew. I'm Sean. We're the East fam. Out.