Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 242 | our 2024 highlights

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

How is 2024 coming to an end already?! This year was amazing in so many ways. Between the Olympics in Paris to getting in a groove as a family of five, 2024 was filled with so many wonderful memories, both big and small. We are beyond grateful for all of your support and it’s been such an honor to go through this last year with you. Love you guys! Shawn & Andrew Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson  Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. And welcome to 2025, everybody. That feels weird. It really does. Happy New Year. Hope you had a wonderful time with your family. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. I do not know how 2024 is already over. If this is your first episode that you're listening to, then this might be a fun one to learn about what we're all about because we do some interviews here. We have some deep conversations. We have some shallow conversations. but we have fun through it all. So maybe if you enjoy this one, then stick around for next year, subscribe to the show, give it a rating so you don't miss any of the future episodes we do. But welcome regardless,

and we hope you enjoy this one. What a year it was. I don't either. I feel like if I were to say what year it is, I would say 2021. I think that just means we're getting old. Yeah.

We're getting old. That's all that means. I also know, like, I'm starting to get to the age where people ask how old I am and I'm like, huh. Is it 32 or 3? I don't know.

I actually don't know. It doesn't really matter anymore. No. No, we're just in the long game of life right now. I will say an episode I'm very excited to do with you in the next week or so. And I'm really excited for you guys to listen to is how we do our goal setting. I really. Oh, baby.

Really can't wait for you all to do this. Some of our friends have started to do it and they're obsessed. I really do feel like the goal setting system we came up with is picking up a lot of steam, which is really good to hear. love that people are just doing goals in general. And if we can help provide structure or insight into how to do that or how we do that, that's just, it's nice, it's meaningful. But we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about what happened to 2024 and what a year it was. Geez, it really was a gift. So we love doing these year and review episodes because we get to

relive all the episodes that you all love the most from the past year. And honestly, a lot of them are our favorites as well. But before we jump in, babe, you want to just walk through some of the big milestones and highlights of the year? Okay, so some milestones from 2024. I can't believe we got to do all this. We got into somewhat of a group of having three kids. Somewhat of a group. Somewhat. Will we ever get in a true group? We went through some extensive marriage counseling. Some deep counseling. We did it deep, dude. Yes. My gosh. And individual counseling. We've shared a lot about that this past year. Also, would highly recommend counseling in general.

We did a 16-week program that was like multiple hours a week with homework. It was great. Really transformative experience. It was probably five or six hours of work a week. Yeah. Yeah, that was some serious business. Yeah. We went to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

And Sean was a correspondent for Yahoo Sports and you crushed it. We took all three kids. We went to London, Paris, Italy. We were gone for three and a half week. Sean is such a boss. I grew and found a new appreciation for my wife. She was getting asked to do so many amazing, crazy once-in-a-lifetime things. And she was just like, no, I don't want to do it.

I want to be with my family. It's like so impressive of you. Anyway. Andrew's such the ultimate hype man, though, that all of those easy nose for me, you were like, are you sure? I'm like, yeah. I'm a yes, man. and a hype man, but probably both. Anyway, we also got to do some really fun stuff.

Sean helped with the SpaceX launch. Dude. Polaris Don. This was insane. This was the craziest day of my life. So we were, Polaris Dawn was set to launch probably six months prior to when it actually did. And I had the world's greatest honor of live streaming the astronauts from space so that

Anna Menon, one of the astronauts, could read. live from outer space, a children's book that she wrote, down to the St. Jude's Patience. It was so cool. It was incredible. But what was crazy is that the day that it actually ended up

launching, I was flying with the Blue Angels. Yeah, you got to do the Blue Angels. Yeah. Literally, it was Sean on the phone with the astronauts, and then all the Blue Angels pilots in the next room over prepping for flying with Sean. Yes. Really cool. Anyway, we also hosted

an event called I'm Mom Summit in May, in Utah. Which was incredible. We got to meet many of you wonderful people, so thank you for showing up to that. We'll see if we do an event in 2025. I'm not thinking we do, but I'm open to suggestions. We also took our team to do a mission trip in Tijuana, Mexico, which was incredible. It's something we talk about a lot.

We do it every year. We took our babies as well. They're always on site to help build, but it's always one of my favorite things. And we built a home. We built a home. Started with the concrete foundation and ended with drywall. electric furnishings, everything. It was really special to do together with our family,

with some friends, and with our team. We also took a family reunion with my whole family. Your whole family of 70-some people. Yes. We did a siblings trip to Charleston. We also went to East Tennessee and stayed in one huge cabin together with everybody. It was like a renovated hotel

that was turned into an Airbnb. It was so cool. Legitimately 70 people. All my 12 cousins, all of their kids, all of the generation above us. So my mom and her siblings, it was really fun. Anyway, we also launched a second podcast. We really kind of just adjusted the podcast format. We did.

So now our interview channel lives separately than this channel, and people seem to love it. Anyway. I took Drew on a mommy daughter trip to L.A. to see The Dancing with a Stars premiere. And we did it up. We had our hair and makeup done. She got to go shopping for a dress. She got to go out to dinner.

It was a core memory for sure. She still talks about it. I know. We also start a renovation project that our family is pretty excited about. And Sean is making a lot of decisions around. And you're doing a great job with that. Thank you. We are going to be doing a multi-generational property and going to have apple trees and bees.

It could all end in a dumpster fire. We'll see. It could. As of right now, we're not sure. Not because the multi-generational part. But, you know, building a house is interesting. This is what I'm really excited about. We started writing a book.

It's going to be published in 2026. We actually started last year. We sold the book this year, though. And we actually just got off a call with the writer that we're doing it with. Jimmy Soni. Shout out. He's a legend. And I can't wait.

It's amazing. We're really excited about it. It's something we've put a lot of heart into. people have asked us to write a book for many years so we didn't have the why or the topic and we do now and we're very excited um one that i'm very proud of Andrew it does not add any value to you because you are absolutely perfect as you are with you know you don't need titles and other things but Andrew is about to start his dissertation for his PhD I'm pumped I'm actually wild It keeps coming up in conversation.

I'm like, oh, yeah, I want to study that. And you know what's even crazier is like, you laugh that and try to say sometimes that this was like random, and it wasn't random. You start a massive project every time we have a kid. It is a trend. I did finish 45 credit hours of coursework

that then has allowed me to start and begin my dissertation. Pumped about that. We also, darling, had our eight year anniversary can you believe it no how about that we're really doing it big but those were some personal highlights let's talk about some highlights from the show so some of the top episodes from 2024 were answering inappropriate questions you guys were so excited for this it was one of our highest listened to episodes this year not sure what that says about the

audience but a lot of questions about our intimacy and our you know that life Naked time Yeah And it's always hilarious to see What questions come up Very specific questions

Yeah it was It led to some good conversation too So here's some highlight How do you express to your spouse You want to be intimate Do you just say it Or do you have a code word Do you drop hints all day

We've been just saying it kind of I'd say we do all of that It depends on the day It's like There's never like code word But we'll be sly We'll hint at it I do think however you do it, it's important for you to like communicate the ask

and not just assume the other person is on the same page. Yeah. What's the grossest part of pregnancy? Sweat. Another popular episode was a third child birth story. This episode is really special to us. We like we like doing these episodes that happen right after a major milestone in life just because it helps cement some of the finer details of the story.

and it allows us to kind of relive the birth experience that Sean had. I don't even know. It's not my birth experience. I was just there. I get a front row seat too. Everyone has a different opinion of this. I do think it's a we. Like, it's your child, your wife.

You're experiencing all of it as well. Maybe not physically like I am. In a different way. Yeah, yeah. And I'm also glad we have episodes like that to look back on. years from now. Yeah. You know, we do that, we do that sometimes.

Usually around this time of year, we'll, like, sit back and reflect. We'll watch some, uh, clips that we made. We, essentially what we consider our content to be is shareable home videos. And so it's so special for us to look back on moments like that together. Um, and I just had like a flashback to each one. It's crazy. It's really fun. It's also so cool to bring you all along during that experience, uh, because it feels like we are,

very much aligned and similar to the audience. I feel like a lot of the same values, a lot of the same interests, the same phase of life. And so we're kind of all doing it together, which is great. And it is also crazy to see how each birth experience has been so different.

It really was. You have to calm yourself down for a second and be like, okay, you're not going to be able to breathe for a few seconds, but it's okay. It's crazy. So the head pops out, and then they pull the baby out,

and the umbilical cords between the leg. So I'm looking at the gender and I couldn't see. I had to like triple check, kept trying to get different angles. And then I finally said, I was like, no way. It's a boy. I literally could not believe it. I thought 100% it was a girl. And then I said, baby, let me introduce you to Barra Madison East.

And that was the first time we saw you, little guy. And I was in tears. I was more of a train wreck this time around. Just because my dad. I don't know. Life just hits different, you know? I know. And I remember having the same.

feeling I had with Drew and Jet, which is like, they pull them out, they cut the cord, Andrew gets to tell me, you know, I get to hear him cry, I get to see him. They drop the drape so I can see him. And then the, whether it's like, it's like the baby nurses, the baby doctors and baby nurses that are in the room. They take him for a second to weigh him, clean them up, wrap them up, and then lay them on my chest. And that time frame feels like, eternity to me. Because you're just anxious to get your hands on them? It's just like, yeah, it's just,

it's literally less than a minute by the time they get them to me, but it just feels like the end of the world. Our next two featured episodes are pretty similar. They were both about post-baby season of life. The first one was intimacy after babies. And I do feel like the questions you guys asked about intimacy after babies,

I think you expected a different response. but we talked a lot about emotional intimacy and how that can sometimes be harder than physical intimacy. But we had so many questions and we really dove into that and how different seasons of life just look very different in the intimacy world.

Yeah, we get a lot of questions about intimacy as parents in general and we definitely aren't experts ourselves, but our relationship is something that we really work at. We try to be intentional and aware and reflective on and yeah, we get to share it with you all and hear how you do it as well. So NNBC does look different in each season. I think that's important to give yourself

and each other grace depending on the season. I mean, after having just talked about postpartum depression, it's like, yeah, well, of course there's less sex in the postpartum period. Yeah. It's like there's already tension, there's so much transition, there's less time, there's more logistical concern, whatever.

yeah i think um in some ways it's almost like uh an engine that you need to prime first and it's like the it builds momentum is yeah so maybe the first step is sacrificial to use your your term not the first step no the first interaction is sacrificial but then it's like oh hey you know now we're feeling a little more connected next time feels less sacrificial and the momentum The momentum builds. But getting to that first one, or actually, the first, like, I don't know, let's just say five, doesn't feel super romantic. No, you're, yeah, you just got to, like, work on it. Another episode that was popular is getting through the roommate phase.

So it was a topic that we worked on for a while after having our third kid because it really is tough to get out of the roommate phase as parents of young. kids by that we mean just like coexisting together uh instead of living together and like being a family unit you're more there is a phase i think it's a phase that is common to experience where you're just like doing the tasks doing all the chores cleaning the bottles doing the diapers taking out the diapers taking out the trash taking the kid here x y and whatever you get to be more focused on being mom and dad instead of husband and wife and so the roommate phase can really easily fall into place because of that. Yeah.

And we, this was a topic from the listeners, and we resonate with all of you on this, which is why we love doing episodes like this. We love hearing your feedback. Please, if you're listening on YouTube, there's a comment section, which is phenomenal. We also are really adamant on reading and responding to DMs, and we have actually like a team that helps us do that so that we don't miss anything and can help out or kind of surface some of these concepts as best we can. And also we're saying we don't have a perfect relationship ourselves. So we do love constantly being able to address how things like

this are going, like the roommate vibe in the house versus husband-wife. And it allows us to have open communication. So I'm grateful for that. I would say we did. Go through the roommates face. Explain what the roommate's phase is for those listening and myself. I think the roommate's phase is natural to happen after a baby. You go from being husband and wife, pre-baby, to being just mom and dad, who are working on taking care of a little baby, and your life gets really full. full and filled with like the new life that you're trying to figure it out figure out so instead of being husband and wife you're only mom and dad and so you kind of forget about the husband and wife

side so it's like roommates like you're sharing a house you're raising a kid together you're trying to figure out hey who's going to do dishes tonight or you know break down the chores and it's less of romantic friendship maybe it's more like business and getting back to the, like, lovey-dovey husband and wife and seeing your spouse as, like, not just dad, not just like, oh, here's your list of things that we have to get done today. You're sleeping with the baby. I'm sleeping with the bigs.

Make sure you get the grocery. Like, it's roommates. It's just, like, a list of to-do. Next. Postpartum depression. This is one you guys asked about a lot. Ask us to come. cover and talk about and it took us a while it took me a while to get to a place to talk about

this um it was very vulnerable for us to do i started bawling you started bawling uh i think this was truly the first kid um and postpartum experience where i experienced postpartum depression so sharing how that felt and how to put that into words and Andrew and i truly like kind of talking about it for the first time was a very eye-opening experience for both of us. I think we tried to film this episode many times and I think we were still in the middle of it. But when we finally filmed it, I felt like I had gotten past it and was able to reflect and it was. I will say for any mom out there going through postpartum depression, hang in there. I promise it gets better. Please ask for help please share how you're feeling with someone close to you so they can support you and asking

for help does not mean like you're not strong enough to get through it it just means you have someone who can help cheer you on and speak truth into you that's good stuff there yeah we hope that episode encourages any of you please send it to anyone going through it because you will truly see like it's not just a mom talking about something she knows about it like you can see in that episode it is truly something we lived through yeah yeah i think having a baby in the winter it was harder because i was just fighting for my life trying to figure out this little guy and we were butting heads a lot because like i was the only one at the time who could like calm him down because I was nursing him,

which was also really, really difficult. And I just remember there were so many times where, like, you guys would be outside playing in the snow. And I'd be inside with him, and he'd be screaming bloody murder, and I'd finally get him to sleep. And I was just like, oh, I just wish I could go, like, play with you guys. And just, like, the isolating feeling was really difficult and didn't help. And there was this, like, frustration in myself of

I could feel myself like pushing you away and the kids away, which didn't feel good. But there's also this feeling of, I felt like I was like neglecting myself a lot trying to put in so much effort to take care of him that I was like making myself worse. And I didn't even have the space to, at the time. Like, I didn't have space to figure out. I had all these, like, people and doctors and whatever saying like, oh, maybe it's something you're eating or maybe it's something you're doing or maybe it's something you're drinking. And in my mind, I could tell if something was off. And I was like, well, maybe if I could just eat some vegetables or take some vitamins or whatever

or work out it would help it help this like get better but I couldn't do that I couldn't eat vegetables because maybe it was upsetting his belly I couldn't take vitamins because that would affect his belly I couldn't work out because it would dip my supply I it just like there was all these thoughts of I could tell something was wrong with me but there was zero room to take care of me at the time. So I just wanted to cuddle up in the corner and say someone help me, but I needed to help him. I'm glad to say we made it through the valley and feels like we're on the other side. Yeah. At a better place than we've ever been at. We're at the best place we've ever been at. I agree. Nothing does make it perfect. But anyway, we also did some really fun

interviews. One that I am just tickled we got to do was we got to sit down with John Mark Comer. You fan girl. Yeah, we've been really working. for this interview for a while. He's one of my favorite authors. He's a pastor and someone I've admired for a long time. One of his most popular books and the one that we have both read multiple times and often recommend is called the ruthless elimination of hurry. It really was a game changer for us and how we view our work life balance, how we view our family life, our careers, just kind of the structure and operating system of life. It feels like as an adult, where you set your own schedule and okay why is taking sunday off maybe a good idea or you know

different rhythms that we establish as parents as husband and wife as as entrepreneurs whatever but john mark is so wise and we got a lot of positive feedback from you all and if you haven't read his book or listen to the episode check them both out um it was really fun it was an honor all of us want to be happy the reality is though that no None of us know exactly how to be happy. We all want to live, you know, what in the Western world would be called the good life. But we're born kind of without a map or a set of directions for how to get there. And so I think God built interdependence into the human soul.

I think it's because you see that in God himself, in the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So God built us in our unique wiring as human beings to need other people. So I don't think so much the problem is that we search outside of ourselves for help and wisdom and guidance. I think that's humility and wisdom, not a bad move. Next up, Stephen Netarazek. Wow. This is one of our favorite interviews we have ever done. Didn't know what to expect because we hadn't met him.

He is who you might recognize as the pommel horse guy who is also on Dancing with the Stars. And in my opinion, during the finale, should have won based off of his performance. His finale was so good. But we had the honor of watching him at the Olympics and then on Dancing with the Stars and then having him live on the podcast right before the finale. And we fell even more in love with him, just getting to really figure out who he is and how he operates and how he thinks and what he thinks of the world and how the world perceives him and what he's done for kids and people all over the world with being such an icon, I

think was really cool. Yeah. We liked them before the interview. I think we liked them even more after. Yeah. He's got a lot of wisdom, Stephen. So what would you tell this generation of kids who are going, whether it's towards science or going into school or a new sport? What is what is the message you'd have for them? I mean, in general, just like find what you want to do and go after it like don't make excuses for yourself just like find something simple for me when I was growing up like I wanted to be able to do like a hard skill in palm horse it was called a flop and it probably took me three years to be able to actually do it but like I put in extra work every single day to be able to do it and I

think in general like growing up especially you are so much smarter than you think you are like kids they have the malleability of their brain they can really learn things so much better than anyone else like if you as a child wants to learn a Rubik's Cube. You could do that in a week. You could learn how to do a Rubik's cube in a week easily. And I just think like for any kid that's growing up, just like find what your dream is and make a plan. Go after it. And in general, that's kind of just how I've gone through life too. That was a fun one. We also interviewed Hillary Scott, which is the first interview we did on that second podcast, the interview podcast. And Hillary's a lead singer of the band

Lady A. She's a pretty big name. Really well established. Best friends now? I think, yeah. I mean, we've gone to a couple parties with her. We've got to do our double date. I agree. I agree. But we talked all about family life, work, balance life, traveling while being a mom, ambition as a mom. And honestly, she's just so relatable.

I like her perspective. It was a special first interview. And we're glad that it resonated with you all as well. Yeah. I think that, you know, when we would, when I get asked, you know, how do you make it? How did you make it? Tell me something. you know and give me some advice i mean i think you do something towards your goal every day i think

you have to whether it's sitting down to write whether it's picking up an instrument whether it's practicing piano what you know whatever it may be i think to do something towards your goal um is important for sure and i think having people who walk alongside you with those same disciplines is important because you know as a creative i'll say this like my bandmates are so they are a lot more regimented in their day-to-day routines that's something that I feel like I'm going to be

searching for myself for the rest of my life and so having people alongside me who that is more in their nature it's helpful I think identifying what your strengths and what your weaknesses are and then collaborating or walking alongside people who make you better

would be my advice in my And what I would say I've tried to do. And some of it has just been the grace of God, just like who he's placed me next to. Same with my husband. There's all of the things that I look at him and I'm like, how are you so disciplined?

How are you so organized? Like, help me. He's looking at me saying, how do you do, you know, whatever he would say I do. And that's us. Live from Paris. This one was. fun. This was so cool because we got to record it literally live from the Paris Olympics,

which I think we'll be able to even go back and listen to and be like, wow, I can't believe everything that was going on because it was such a blur, but so beautiful. Olympic years are absolutely insane for us because work gets to be so busy and trying to balance that with actually like enjoying an Olympic year as well as like fan girl nerds and alum I think is really special but being able to take our whole family there with us we got to take my mom and Andrew's mom all three babies we got to experience so many like life changing moments especially through the eyes of our children there was a couple full circle redemptive moments too it felt like you know yeah you've you have a lot of stories intertwined with the Olympics and

this felt like a good story to weave in so I'm glad we were able to do it together Being able to sit during the all-around competition in the stance, in the nosebleeds, which I actually thought was so special to the fact that we were there, with my mom, with my husband, and with my daughter, and watch Simone Biles make history in SUNY Lee. It was absolutely incredible. Yeah, that was a lifelong memory for sure. A lot of people think the Olympics are like the Super Bowl, where you have a stadium, and you have activities around it and kind of you can go there and get the vibe the Olympics in person

it's really hard to get the vibe because they take over an entire city or an entire country or like regions to spread out so many events over the course of three weeks that logistically you're never like seeing how do I word this you're never seeing like the Olympics as a whole you're saying like oh that venue looks like there's a game going on and then you drive 30 minutes you're like oh wait there's another the traffic is getting crazy there must be something else like but you don't know one day they i think they had over 30 events yeah one day and it's like so but you don't feel that in the city yeah it's hard to even describe because it's there's just so much going on and it really is almost like a citywide carnival where there's just like random things that you kind of come across yeah we also

made a lot of new friends including but not limited to cost and mayor and so many of you love Costa Mayor from TikTok and Instagram. We were just as pumped as you were for this interview. And we got to interview them in person. And afterwards, they taught us a dance. This is my first dance ever, I ever learned. I think about that dance more often than you would think. What happened?

I don't understand what they were doing. It really humbled me. They're really talented and funny and their choreography is no joke. We hung out for hours after the interview. Yeah, because we really did become fast friends. Yeah. How do you guys stay friends? Yeah.

I think we're going to go to a short break. No, we're one of our sponsor. Oh, that's hilarious. Oh, anyway. I think that is really where, like, our, we find our strengths. Yeah. We're good at very different things, which works for us. Yeah.

It's a pretty good year. all things considered with the podcast. And I really cannot believe that the year's already over, but it was an amazing one in so many ways. Would love for you to comment what your highlight of 2024 was personally so that we can all celebrate it and read it. It's also probably a good opportunity for you to be reflective on that yourself. So between our opportunities to do fun things as a family, to some of the more meaningful work opportunities or videos. that we've been able to make. I'm just beyond grateful for

2024, beyond grateful for all of your support, beyond grateful just to wake up every morning next to a wife that loves me, kids that love me, a dog that's soft and fluffy. What a great life. I will say, I'm so excited

to bring you guys along with us for 2025. I think it's going to be an incredible year. We've got a little girl going to kindergarten. We have a little girl who's falling head over heels in love with her daddy. And I'm so excited to see how that flourishes. Jet man, just growing into his own and bear, becoming a little toddler.

We're going to do some massive world travels to the southeastern hemisphere of the world with our family. I think it's going to be a special one. I can't wait. Can't wait to do it with you, baby. I'm so pumped, and I love you. I love you.

Thank you all for joining us on this journey. We're grateful, and we hope you have a wonderful end of your 2024 and beginning of your 2025. That's all we got. I'm Andrew. I'm Sean. And we'll see you next week.