Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 93 The Holderness Family

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

Get ready to laugh! We had the pleasure of chatting with the Holderness family on Couple Things this week and it was an absolute joy. We talked about how they shifted into the creator world, if there are boundaries on what they share online and the unseen truth about the broadcasting and gymnastics world. 0:00 introduction 4:12 everybody fights audiobook 6:35 advice from their experience 11:46 establishing roles and getting help 14:21 transitioning from news to youtube 16:22 creating with your spouse 19:24 what is too much to share online? 24:16 is it possible to overshare feelings? 28:16 most proud accomplishment 33:03 the fear of diving into a new career 36:16 being an introvert vs extrovert 39:28 favorite tv shows 41:31 the truth about harassment in broadcasting 46:40 speaking out about sexual assault 50:27 navigating mental health 53:20 supporting your spouse 55:05 what they love most about each-other The Holderness Family’s Instagram https://www.instagram.com/theholdernessfamily/ The Holderness Family’s website https://theholdernessfamily.com The Holderness Family’s TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@theholdernessfamily The Holderness Family’s Podcast https://theholdernessfamily.com/podcast/ The Holderness Family’s YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2axinLKd00nMBW6RTASag  The Holderness Family's Book https://www.amazon.com/dp/0785235728?tag=hcads-20  ANDD....WE ARE GOING ON TOUR!! Check out the link below to see if we are coming to a city near you in 2022! Click here to get your tickets now https://www.couplethingspod.com/ We are sponsored by these companies that we love. Check them out below:  Enso Rings ensorings.com/EASTFAM CUTS Clothing cuts.com/EASTFAM Truebill truebill.com/EASTFAM If you haven’t yet, please rate Couple Things and subscribe to hear more. Follow us on Instagram to keep the conversation going at https://www.instagram.com/couplething... And if you have suggestions/recommendations for the show, send us your ideas in a video format – we might just choose yours! Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe for more! http://bit.ly/3rnOdNo 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 http://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

So I found out one day that I can't do that while I'm wearing a hat. Oh my God. I have to take my, I don't know why. I have to take my hat off. And so I texted her, I told her about it. She, like, she made this face. And so I guess that's an example of maybe oversharing. 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 we have Kim and Penn Holderness. The Holderness. say that 10 times fast the holdernesses when I tell you that these people are my mentors in social media without them even knowing it yes I mean it the holdernesses are massive on Facebook they've

been around for years and they do things next level so we talk about this on the episode but they really crush their videos like they their creativity is fantastic and it was you have a man crush I like Penn a lot. Do you have a couple crush? I'm impressed. I enjoyed this conversation and I'm glad to call them what I hope would be friends. But Penn Holderness actually spent 18 years in the TV business before he started doing these Facebook videos. And Kim Holderness, as we'll discuss, was also in the TV business. She was a pundit for Inside Edition. Is that the right way to say that? I don't even know what that works. it. Okay. I'm going to go look up a dictionary. But Kim and Penn just came out with a book called Everybody Fights. Yes. And they talk about some of the arguments that they've had. I would highly recommend listening to the audio book version. I'll link it down below. But it's a real blast. Because it's actually them. Yeah. And they're having like more of a conversation than reading. So anyways, we absolutely love this conversation. We do call them friends now. We ended up talking about so much

that was very lighthearted about their relationship, how they got into kind of the creator work. how it's now their full-time job and then we also kind of unexpectedly took a turn into more dark conversations about gymnastics and the broadcasting world in the world of TV as it pertains to sexual harassment and just kind of all of these things that go unseen which end up being a very very good conversation and we get a lot of parenting and marriage advice from them as well so if you want to find out more about kim and pinholders will link their information down below thank you both for joining the show, by the way. And if you've made it this far as a listener and haven't subscribed or giving the show a rating, then please do so before we move on.

And without further to do, let's go ahead and roll into this one with Kim and Pin Holderness. Pin and Kim Holderness. What a pleasure this is to have you on. Thanks for joining us. We are so excited to be here. Thank you so much. Yes. I got to say, we thought that we put a lot of time and effort and planning into the videos that we create to put on the internet. I love your videos. When we stumbled across your videos, we're like, oh my gosh, they're legends. You guys are really good at what you do. Well, you're nice to say that we've done so many of them at this point that it is a little more plug and play than it used to be. I think when we first got started, it was taking two or three days to put one video out. And we've just, we've done,

we've done so many. I'm like, this is why people are eventually just going to get really sick of us. do a lot of videos, but it's at the point now where, you know, you push a button and it looks fancy. So we're very grateful for technology in that sense. Yes. I will say though, Andrew was like explaining his favorite parts about your YouTube channel and he's like, basically they're like just a lot better than us. And I was like, okay. Pin looks better than I do. No, my gosh. I know Kim, you don't like your voice, but you guys sound better than we do. It's. like you have it down though you're very kind to say that but again like okay obviously we're older than you when I look at you guys I'm like if we had we when our babies were the size of your

babies this was not on our radar at all like we just we started a lot later I love what you guys are doing though oh thank you yeah I don't want to um overlap the book too much by the way I listened to the audio version of that oh thank you it was actually it was an experience unlike any other audio. I'm a huge audiobook guy. And it was like, it was really just like listening in on a conversation between YouTube. Penn kind of just like just interjects whenever he wants to. Yeah. Welcome to my marriage. I'm really sorry. Yeah. And usually it's so funny. Like usually when I interrupt, Kim has, she has, she's close enough that she either kicks my foot or she punches my thigh and she was too far away because we were recording from two different spots. So she couldn't

really control me. But then we were getting feedback that it's actually okay. because, you know, I think there's reading a book to someone and then there's having a conversation. And most people would rather listen to a conversation. Yeah. It's endearing. It's definitely endearing. It's relatable. You like listen and you're like, this is relatable. Well, the audio book was my favorite form of the, I love the book. And I love reading the book. I love writing the book. But recording the audio book was my favorite part of the process for sure. It's actually, I mean, for me, we, I got to do one audio book. And it's kind of intimidating because you sit there for how many hours in your recording. And then you go back and

you have to listen to yourself. It's the worst. And that was really hard for me. I don't know about you guys. No, definitely the first time. So here's the thing, Sean. We grew up in local news. And so we were on television and on camera, but just like you, I'm sure with your with your career pretty early. And we had to kind of work on it. You know, I used to sound like this. I used to sound like this all the time way too loud and too energetic like that was me for the first like two years of my of my news career you're gonna have to like pod that down a little bit i know i'm sorry no but we sucked for a long like i mean we had like we had the ability to suck on a small town without the internet watching for a really long time yeah there was no internet back then which was really

nice because we made some bad mistakes but i also think that if you had to record a book by yourself. I think that would have been really hard to be in a recording studio by yourself and make an audiobook entertaining. I think that's very daunting. So we're talking about the book that came out earlier this year called Everybody Fights. We'll link it down below. I would highly recommend checking it out. But I don't want to spoil the whole how you guys met. We usually do like how you met. Tell us the engagement story. The whole thing. We can do that. It's fine. I just want to use this. I kind of just want to get wisdom from you guys. Oh boy. You mentioned you've been doing this longer.

There's a lot of similarities in our situations where you guys like work together. You're around each other 24-7 and thus the book, everybody fights. So how can how can we learn from you guys? Because I feel like there's a lot. Oh, well, I think if I had, if I was going to give myself some advice, you know, eight years ago. Eight years ago when we started, we kind of accidentally started working. working together. We put out a video and went viral. I mean, I guess that's not true. I mean,

I started a company and then I needed, I wanted to hire him for just video production, just to like shoot and edit videos behind the scenes. And, you know, he worked this evening news schedule. He never saw our kids. So we just, we pictured like this very small local life. And then we put out this video like Christmas jammies and it went viral. And we had no idea that this was an option. We had no idea you could make money on YouTube. Like, I had, we had no idea any of that. So we started in this industry, in this field, not knowing anything about it. And it consumed our lives.

And we had two young children. I mean, they were six and eight or nine. And we, it's all we talked about. It's all we thought about. And like, what if we do this and what do we do that? And we never created any boundaries around, like, this is work. Yeah. And then shut it off.

And then this is our marriage. Just to give a quick example. at night when she was trying to calm down, I would get into bed and be like, you know what? I was just thinking about that video tomorrow and it caused her a tremendous amount of stress. And then in the mornings, yeah, right?

Okay, well, you're about to get tapped back because in the morning, in the morning I wake up and I'm like, Kim gets up like an hour before me and we call it the fire hose. Like I'm still like putting my contacts on and she hits me with like 642 things. So we did establish some boundary. There it is.

See, I saw that coming because everyone's got this, right? so we did we did establish boundaries but not after getting in a lot of fights which is why we wrote the book yeah so now we have very clear like work hours you know it we try to we drop the kids off at school and we come home and we get to work and then it shuts down at five o'clock and we don't answer we try not to unless it's an emergency like everybody it's like sounds very like Hollywood but you have like a manager or an agent or something like that and they're in l.A and we are on the east coast. So it used to be we were getting phone calls at eight to nine o'clock from L.A. And now we just don't answer those. And because it kind of brings us back into the work

world. And I mean, please, we're not, you know, performing brain surgery. Nobody's going to die if I don't call them back tonight. So, and then we don't talk. Our kids are, when they were home more, they were more part of it. But now they're in school and they do sports. And so they're not home until like five or six o'clock at night. So they're kind of annoyed. They're not in more videos but they're not in a lot of our videos um and so we try not to like we don't talk about it in front of them like they don't they know about it but like they're not it's like what we do for a living not what they do for a living you guys even have established uh roles as far as like Kim my understanding is you're the CEO and Penn is the C-O is that does that carry over into like

structuring how you manage the household too like we don't we don't that's a good question yeah all right so all right let's let's let's get back to some other kind of things that we've learned um the the delineation is really important and it gets more and more important as you grow you guys are growing right now like a blind person can see that you guys are growing right now your your audience is growing your opportunities are growing um you're going to be introduced to like not to get too inside baseball new revenue streams and new platforms that you can go on to over the next couple of years because you guys are resonating with the world right now.

So what you need to do is try to carve out some roles. And the next thing you need to do, look, Kim taught me this. And I was very, very, very hesitant. Ask for help and get help early so that you're able to create these boundaries, right? And you're able to fit into these roles. We don't do this stuff by ourselves. Help from who? What do you?

From like, hire people. Like you, I mean, even if it may not be like in your budget, you hire people. You hire people. You bring people onto your team. allows you to settle into a more specific role. Don't lose your authenticity, and I don't think that you will. But, I mean, we were getting set up for this shot, and you saw two other people in this window with us.

It's not just us. The amount of videos that we put out, the amount of videos you guys put out, it is impossible to do without help or you're going to burn out. And I think that there's a difference between, like, just starting out and being scrappy. And then our marriage improved when we got help. And Marie, like, saved our marriage. Really, really helped.

Because I was stressing out about, like, uploading and, like, keywords. and like doing SEO and like I don't know how to do that stuff if you enjoy it do it but I don't know how to like write a you know I write a blog post sure but I don't know how to like write for SEO and I don't know how to like do any of that stuff so when we so what we discovered when we hired somebody is like we were able to do more of the things we enjoy doing and honestly allowed us to be with our kids more because these other people actually enjoy like developing a website I don't know how to do that stuff I was super duper reticent when this happened by the way There's always one person who's like, no, I can do this better.

I don't, there's no one who can do this better than me. I'm the only person who can do this as well as I can do this. And if one tiny thing was wrong, like, see, see, hmm, hmm? And then you just, your wife tells you to shut up and be patient and they are doing better than you and, and check your ego. Yeah. So that, that was kind of our journey. Okay.

I have a laundry list of questions right now because the relatability here is crazy. Um, I want to go back to transitioning into this career though, because you guys posted the YouTube video without the intention of being YouTubers and putting your life on, you know, the internet for the world to see. Coming from newscasting and your very both prestigious backgrounds, you come from perfection. You have hundreds of people who are within the production team, the directors, the, um, the audio guys, you have the backgrounds and the sets. Transitioning into a world where you're now creating that on your own, did you find that, hard to basically go from your hundreds of people for a team to now you're in-home

operation? Well, there are different levels of production when it comes to news. And most people get started, particularly if you're, you know, someone with very little journalist's experience like me, you start in a very small market where you are shooting, you are editing, you are writing, you are on camera, you are doing literally everything. And I did that for the first. I have first two years of my job and you did it for how long? I did it for two years as well. So we said when, yeah, so when you start small, you have to do all yourself. We each got to the position where, you know, I worked at Incident Edition in New York and I wasn't allowed to touch anything. You know, so I got, we both got to that level and he got to ESPN. So we got to that level. But I have to

say, yeah, I did like it. He said he didn't like it. I liked it. I mean, it is what I like most about what we're able to do now is like we have an idea and you guys do this too and then you shoot it and you post it and whereas before when when there were those layers of people it would take you know just take so long to get any original idea out there and it was always workshoped and it was always like I went through rounds of edits and stuff and now we can just do it just go yeah do you guys find there to be advantages in being creative together as a couple not everybody gets to create videos for the internet, but like, is that a, is that a thing that, uh, is a conduit to you learning about each other and like growing closer together? Yes. Uh, I, I,

I would not be much good at this by myself. Nobody, nobody, nobody wants to hear what a 47 year old man is doing on his Wednesday. You're 47? Yeah. Are you 47? Yeah. Are you 47? I am 47. I thought I was 48 because when you get this old, you don't realize how old you are. Like, There's like, Land, no, I'm 47. I thought I was, I was, I want to say, Andrew's proud moment on the show was we had a couple on. And he's like, so you're in your like 40s? And he goes, thank you.

I'm 31. And I was like, oh. It wasn't great. My gosh. It wasn't great. It wasn't great. Yeah. Not even like, maybe you're turning 40.

He's like, you're definitely in your 40s. They said they were married for like 20 years. I was like, I'm trying to do the math. Yeah. That's bad. That's really funny. So 47, not that interesting. Kim is,

Kim is interesting. She's beautiful. She's funny. I think the two of us together when we just kind of let our guard down and talk about how we are feeling, it can be funny. It can be musical. It can be turned into skits.

But really what it is at the center is what we talk about when we get up in the morning when we drop our kids off at school and we go to bed at night. And those conversations are not only funny. they're very real and everyone has them. But I think we are better together. I think that we are, I think we're at our best when it's just us. And yeah,

and we're, I don't think I would be very interesting by myself either. Like I could never, I'm way more of an introvert. This whole, the fact that I'm, I was the last person of my friend group to get a Facebook account.

I thought it was obnoxious. I got a Facebook account like one month before we published Christmas jammies. Like I had no interest in being on social media. I didn't get Instagram until years later I didn't want to be on social media at all So funny story I'm on social media as like this family

I'm not really active on social media In my personal life Like I don't log on and look I just don't have an interest in it So the irony is rich That this is what I do for living And I only do it because it's with them I was trying to find your Instagram account

I don't know if it exists We have an Instagram account We have a public Instagram account Yeah she doesn't have a personal one I have a personal one just yeah I have a personal one just for I on a dare, I took nothing but double chin pictures for an entire year. But, um, I witnessed. And it was, it was entertaining to find you. Well, just everyone else is

just duck facing from like up here. And I'm like, well, no one's seeing all these amazing folds underneath my chin. I'm just going to do that. Uh, and, and, but I don't think I've posted in that in six months. It's kind of those, that thing where like the cobbler's kids have no shoes. Yeah. Right. You're so busy doing it on your day job. You don't do it later on. Wow. I am curious, though, within your marriage and within your faith. family. You guys have figured out how to make a living, for lack of a better way to say it, off your family, which is what we do as well. And I feel like with Andrew and I, something that we struggle with on a daily basis is what is too much to share? Yeah. What is yours to keep and what

is worth sharing? And how have you guys found that boundary of how do you live a moment and know that it's your moment and not work and vice versa. I think we've always been pretty aware and again, you have very young babies and I think it's easy when they're baby babies to share about

like, oh, all the annoying things they do and they drive you crazy. But our kids were a little bit older and yeah, we talked about how they like drive us crazy because it's like this very relatable thing, but we were always very aware to not talk about the stuff they're going through in school and if

they got, you know, one got bullied or this was happening. Like we were just, we, we kept that because I felt like at some point they're going to listen. And my daughter's 14 and has, she's gone back and we have a podcast. She's gone back to listen to podcasts. She has, she just went through our social media. She has her own personal Instagram and she went through way, way back. And like, good for me. Like she couldn't really find anything that was like embarrassing. And I told her, I'm like, is there some videos out there you want us to delete? And she's like, no, you know, it's fine. But I'm always thinking. of like the teenager because a lot of people are like oh when they're teenagers they're going to

you know they're going to be annoyed with you and so far they're not but we're very where and I have to say also on the financial way and you guys are probably already set up like this we got them account they get paid they get paid so if there's any brand deal to the reason why you see them all smiley with jazz hands and any brand I don't know deal we do because we work with brands is they literally say they're like how much am I getting paid and they and I was like and I give them the dollar amount that we're making they get the dollar amount they're making they make more per hour than anyone in like the history of because they work for like 15 minutes and they literally show up and they don't spend much time and they do

their thing and then they leave I mean that we send up doing all the work yeah and we should get all the money no I'm joking no I'm kidding my daughter will pitch my daughter pitches these like videos to do like oh mom let me help you with your makeup or something so we'll do these things she literally watches the monetization on the account because she knows she gets like half of it. And so, I mean, they, that's why I think they love the videos because they, they're getting paid. At the same, at the same time, we, we, we ask them on a regular basis. We check in with them on how they're feeling about these things. And then even, even when they say they want to do it, we watch them when they're doing it.

Because they're going to be times when they say they want to do something and they don't know what they're getting into because my son's 11 and you can't expect him to know what happens. when there's a bunch of cameras in your face. And sometimes in a brand deal, there's a producer or director who's adding some things that they want you to do. Like, you never know.

So, you know, ask them regularly, watch them and, you know, be like every other parent in the world and worry that you're going to screw up your kids. Like, we're worried we're going to screw up our kids. We're not convinced that we're doing the right thing. But I think everybody's worried they're going to screw up your kids.

And I think if you're not worried that you're going to screw up your kids, you should probably think about it a little bit more. You're screwing it up. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting. I mean, I feel the family dynamic is so interesting.

And really, I mean, I was driving down Nashville, like through Nashville and there's an insurance broker who had a picture of his family. And I was like, everybody, it's just like this weird place of involving your family, but not trying to have it too much about like, depending on them. You know what I'm saying? Like, hey, it's still about the work that we're doing, which is a creative video. or yeah and you guys are doing a good from what I see I mean it is it's about your couple life a lot of it and that's what we've tried to do we have tried to make it about the two of us and our marriage and our relationship and our part of that is like our kids appear in them sometimes but if you really look at our videos they're in like one out of every 20 videos for us and mostly like

because of their schedules you know also Andrew I need to add this on top of your national story. When I was in Orlando, a guy gave me a business card. He was a realtor. And on the back of it, on the back of it was a two-year-old girl. And underneath it was a caption that says, buy my daddy's house, please. P-W-E-A-S-E. And I, and like it's, yeah. Sorry, I'll never forget that car. Yeah. So even if you're not in the internet, it's happening. So, okay, I, uh, Penn, you mentioned that the conversations you're having in the videos are you have, day. This is a thought I've been having recently. Um, is it possible in your experience to like overshare feelings between each other. Like Sean and I, you know, we talk about this stuff all,

all day, every day. Do you guys ever like, what is the saying? Kick a dead horse or whatever. I mean, I, I, I, I do. I do. So I'll answer the question like this. As long as you're talking about your feelings and what's going on in your life and you're not talking about, what they're doing or what someone else is doing. I don't think there's any limit to that. I think sharing your feelings subjectively, I don't know if there's such a thing as oversharing. And that includes like,

I'll text Kim sometimes like when I'm taking a dump or something. And there's like, you know, I'm in-so sorry, you guys. Yeah, like, I'll. Sorry, I know this is probably a G-rated audience. Maybe we can, like, bleak that out. But like, I'll tell her stuff that's going on that like no one else should know. And she laughs and she's okay with it most of the time.

Oh, my Lord. Regarding your time on the toilet. I know, it's very emotional. I mean, it's not like super graphic, but like I realized that I can't really. So I found out one day that I can't do that while I'm wearing a hat. Oh my God. I have to take my, I don't know why. I have to take my hat off.

And so I texted her and I told her about it. She like, she made this face. And so I guess that's an example of maybe oversharing. But it's still my feelings and it's what's going on in my life. Stage fright, but only from a hat. You're saying you can't go number two wearing a hat. He can't. Well, I didn't realize it until I just looked down on the floor and I'm like, why is my

hat in the floor? And I'm like, oh, I guess I just kind of subconsciously took it off. He can't poop with the hat on. Oh, my gosh. He's like, oh, my God, we're talking about you. I'm actually super interested about this. Yeah, we should Google it. There may be something, like, maybe it's something in the hair follicles like that I'm

not really sure what's going on here. Are you? So you're not saying like, this has been an experiment of like you can or you can. It's just like natural for you to be hat off, set up. it down. I feel like at this point it needs to be an experiment. We're going to have to report back. We're going to try to.

Yeah. I just realized one time like the hat was on the floor. I was like, why is it there? And I'd pick it up. And I'm like, wait, do I do that every time? I'm, you guys, this podcast, I'm so sorry to those who are watching and listening. Yeah. Yes.

You guys have your hands in so many different projects. I'm curious of all the things that you've done and built together. It could be a video. It could be an award that you want. I honestly, I can't. mention what we do to other people without your names being brought up. They're like, oh, like the olderness family. I'm like, stop it.

Yeah, like no, they're way better at it actually. But yeah, kind of similar vibe. I'm not kidding. You guys are legends. But of everything that you've done together, what is the thing that you're most proud of? Well, first of all, it's very flattering that they would, that we would be in any comparison to you guys. Probably in the way that they compare people who have been dead for 10 years that they're

trying to, like, because we're so old school. older than you guys. They're probably like the holders family. They used to make videos. Are they still alive? Are they? Are they? They're going to like dead or not.com.

Their kids are married off by now. Yeah. I would say I love the book was I think because it was we do work so quickly on things. Like we shot like two or three videos yesterday that we came up with yesterday, you know, and we just like, and they may suck and it may be terrible. Then you move on and it's almost like when you post it on the internet and then it's almost forgotten you forget about it i think the book it took us three years and it took us and we our relation we wrote it in partnership with our like marriage counselor and so it we

revealed a lot but also we've heard from a lot of people that it's helped like we offer kind of like scripts and phrases and things you can say to guide communication and conversation and we've heard from a lot of people that it's helped them and it's not you know it's not for people whose marriages are in crisis. It's for people of really good marriages who want, like, exceptional marriages. And so I feel like that's probably the thing I'm most proud of. So I've never given this answer. I've been asked this before. But I think, like, that would be number one. Number two for me might might be the Christmas jammies video, the first one we did. And let me tell you why, because it was the first one that we did. And it's really hard for people to do that first video.

It's like to get out there and like do that first thing. And I think if more people, took a chance and did that. There would be, you know, 20x great creators, family creators on YouTube. Because it was scary as heck. We're like, we're kind of, we're putting our, you know, we're putting our life out there. We're dancing in pajamas. We're doing music. Are we good at that? You know, we're dancing. And, um, you know, just the fact that we got it out there and that it got to launch our career and our business. Um, I don't really think back about like how nervous we were when we put that out. But it's so funny. We were, like, our babysitter shot that video. Because like, we had to go. We had to go. We had to go. We

like dinner plans that night. Yeah. And like it worked on it for like longer than any other video. Yeah, but we didn't, but when we shot it was like, oh, here, just hold the camera. So, um, no, that's a good answer. Was that an actual neighbor that was featured when she said, she does? No, she, well, she's a dear friend of mine who lives, she lives like seven minutes away, but not a, she was not an actual neighbor.

In L.A., she'd be a neighbor. Neighbors are people who live within 30 minutes of each other in L.A. So yeah, she's, she's, she's a neighbor. was that an actual fear of your like of yours going into this though was you you talk about just posting the first video a lot of people can't even do that much but again the career transition your brand is so much different you you go from being newscasters to a family brand was was there a fear or hesitation within your marriage to kind of dive all into this this YouTube content creation. So I think it took us a while because we're really slow learners. So we put out

Christmas jammies, but we were still just thinking, oh, we're going to produce videos for other people. So it took us two years, two years before we quit that other company where we were making videos for other people before we just full time went into what we're doing now. So we still were making, we still would say like we weren't making our own videos a priority. at all we would do them but it was like once a month um and then when so we it's almost like we he took the risk he quit the job we didn't have a lot of money saved it was super scary that paid off like we had this company we had a good income and then he quit we both quit again to live off of like YouTube and Facebook and who does that like our parents still don't understand that like it's a yeah

It's a weird, weird way to pay the mortgage. So we were, I would say, yeah, we were really nervous about that second leap, right? Yes. The second leap was almost as scary as the first one. That was a leap and we said, we're all in. We're not doing anything but this, mainly because it took so long for us to get there. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Any change is scary. Kim is sort of a, she could be. like ESOP. She has a lot of morals and sayings. She's very good in this sense. She said, she says things like, don't wait until you're ready because you'll never be ready. And that, yeah. Well, leap and the net will appear has been like saying through my life is like if you're prepared and you're passionate leap and it'll, you'll figure it out. And like it always works out. And I have to, sometimes I have to give myself pep talks. I'm like, when is it never worked out? And it is always worked out, even if it's not the way I'd planned,

it's always going to work out. It's going to be fine. And my old boss at Inside Edition, his wife once told me, when I told her like I was quitting and I was, you know, going to start my own company and she had quit journalism and started her own company. And she's like, listen, worst case, you go get a job somewhere. I'm like, oh, but who's going to hire me? She's like, there's always a job for a smart, hardworking person.

A lot of smart, lazy people and a lot of hardworking dumb people, but you're smart and you're hardworking, you'll always get a job. I'm like, And it brings me great comfort. So if at some point they ask us to leave the internet, I know I'll be able to find a job and support my family somewhere. Is that a thing? Is the internet just going to wonder?

Yeah, they may ask me to leave at some point. I would like you guys to leave now. No, you can leave now. Here's your pink slip. And we're done. And we're done. For my understanding, Kim, you wrote a blog post titled to my friends who keep showing up all about how you're kind of this introvert who is slow to respond and, and just you have to

gradually work your way into a relationship. Penn, would you describe yourself in a similar way or Oh my gosh, you guys are getting an apartment together after this. You guys are best friends now. I am, I am such an extrovert that when our marriage counselor, when we were getting married, looked at our Myers-Briggs test that showed kind of the difference between an Ian and I, he was like, okay, Kim, you're kind of in the middle here, but Penn, you are such a, use the word flaming. He said, you're such a flaming extrovert that you're going to turn Kim into an introvert. Like, it's, the, the relativity is going to make her into an introvert. And he was 100% right. By the way, the counselor was my dad. He was a preacher and he did this, this counseling

for us. I, like, I get all of my energy from people that I barely know sometimes. And it just, like just meeting someone new, like meeting you guys and establishing a new connection is my heroin. Um, is that a bad? No, it is like it's my fix. So like during COVID, I was having like major withdrawal like shakes because I could not meet anyone. I couldn't like I couldn't get that energy. Who is there is who's the introvert and extravert here? It's reversed. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, introvert. Oh, I'm such an introvert. Yeah. And it's caused, it's caused quite a bit of conflict because I'm always like one people I would just want a door to be open and like all my friends just randomly you know stumble by like I need to go hide in a black hole for a few hours and

it's like I go to my closet in comfort zones where I'm like yeah come on like the more the merrier and she's like I uh I just need to decompress for a little bit but I don't know if you guys had uh yeah I I I have to say in early in our marriage that was a huge issue because I didn't even realize that was again I didn't realize I was that big of an introvert until I lived with him And then, so we had established in pre-kids, it was like, okay, Friday night, because that, you know, a long day of, or a long week of, like, talking to people and being a reporter, it was terrible. So Friday night's in, we're in. I'm like, you can go out, but I'm not leaving the couch. And then Saturday nights, we would, we could go out and be with people. And then I would again, need Sunday to recover. Like, I had to have like a, and I had to know. And then we are about to go, we fly out tomorrow to go be with some friends for a few days. And then already, I'm freaking. out because we get back and then we're like hosting Thanksgiving and then I they're going to be so I'm like but so thinking like where's my down where's my alone time like where's my on the couch by myself and my sweatpants time and I'm not going to have it for like a week and I'm like

oh no I need a huge conversation between Andrew and I because with every plan when it comes to like hosting or with friends I'm like you understand I need a day off yes we can't go back to back to back to back I can't do that yeah that's good it's good that you know that though I also want to, while we're on the subject of your blog post, Kim, you talked about 10 TV shows to watch with your teen. Number one was Schitt's Creek, two, modern family, yada, yada, yada, yada. What did it make the list was Ted Lassow, Kim. Oh, well, you know what?

That may have been before. That was, I think that was like, we're obsessed with that show. Thank you for bringing that up. We're obsessed. That wasn't an oversight. That must have been published either before Ted Lassow or, oh my gosh. No, we, like, I have jersey. We have jerseys.

Oh, Ted Lasso is like, we quoted in. Ted Lasso is the best show ever made. Yeah. Ever. Three times start to finish already. Ever. Season two is garbage. I'm just putting that out there.

No, it's not. It got off to a slow start. I, like, I've, I've been reading this on the internet. It's still charming as bleep. It's still adorable. I thought, like, they, they dove in more to his anxiety. Like, to me, that was incredibly related, relatable. I live with someone with anxiety.

It's me if you didn't know. That's me. Yeah, he's this, like, he's this great kind of amalgamation of the two of us. He's this kind of crazy optimist who also, uh, is an extrovert who also has anxiety. He's, he's all of us. And season two dove into that more. The relationship with Rebecca, it's spoiler alert, the relationship with Rebecca and Sam is awesome.

So hot. It's incredible. Yeah. Oh my God. I wanted more of that. Well, Lola was like, is he too young for her? And we were like, flip the script, babe. Absolutely not.

My daughter's name is Lola. Look at what's incredible. going like I will say the only I love the second season the only one that was a little strange for me was the night out yes the assistant coach yeah I think they had to like it was one of I read something like they had to create a new episode and like that happened so that was a little weird yeah that feels like a bad anyway so Andrew why didn't you like it videos we have to post a video you got to come up with yeah exactly it's Tuesday we got to have something Hot take.

Ted Lasso sucks. I, uh, you should also, the morning show is one of our favorites. And with your reporting backgrounds, I think, uh, we started watching that. It was too real. And listen, we've, we've watched a lot of shows about news that are complete crap, like up close and personal with, uh, with, Michelle Pfeiffer where she went from like reading, like, from basically taking out garbage to being a network anchor in two days and it never happens. And we get, we complained about that all the time.

Morning show was. I watched it. I watched the first season and I love Jennifer Aniston and I love Reese Witherspoon. It's awesome. But it's so real and it repeats some of the situations that like I have lived through. We were both sexually harassed in newsroom situations. So it was like to like see that abuse like that. I'm like, ooh, too real.

But it's, it is so dead on good. Yeah. Can I be honest? Sorry. No, no. I just don't know how to respond when someone slides in that like. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, we just dropped that.

No, no, I don't know. And we've talked about it before. I don't know how we, have we talked about it? We talked about it on the podcast before. So he was like, serious, he had a female news director that groped him. Not groped. What is it when you put your hands on the shoulder and massage you in Edipay and tell you that you're going to be an attractive older man?

You are. So, um, so I guess it was your, so he, okay, so wasn't in the newsroom where he was groped. You were groped in another situation. No, well, that was one of them. I got harassed. I got full on other in another place. Yeah.

So mine was like the more traditional like, like, I was like in an edit bay and he would come in, which is like they're very small. And he was like walk up behind me and like presses literally at one time presses crotch into the back of my head. And like it was like and I was 22 and I didn't know what to do. And I ended up getting out of there and it was fine. But like not fine. It was terrible. But like that happened a number of times. that I was like, so I watched the newsroom and I'm like, I can't do this.

Yeah, good time. You guys are fine, by the way. Like, you didn't, like, we're okay. We talk about this pretty openly. It actually is a good idea to talk about it openly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and not to go down like a very dark rabbit hole, but similar situation watching

all of the gymnastics documentaries. Yes. We went through all of that. I'm sorry. But what's interesting is, I don't feel like many people have come out. about that show saying the accuracy of it you know which I wish they would

I wish I wish people wouldn't sit there and watch and be like this is so good instead of being like oh this actually went on that yeah not to go down like oh no no no but it did like it and there are so many because I think that we all and we grew up and I say

we grew up but we were like in our early 20s and you just you know it just like you with gymnastics like oh this is the way it is right This is how power is managed and wielded. If you want to be successful, this is what has to happen. And so I just put up with it because he was my boss and I wanted to get off this shift. And if he can get me off this shift, I mean, I didn't participate in anything.

And I was never a willing participant. But like I never, it took me a long time to report it. And when I did report it, the answer was you can leave and get another job. and so I wasn't fired. I wanted to, I'm like, good, I can get out of my contract. Like, let me out of my contract. So, um, you can see your toes in the bottom of the screen. I love that.

This was a, you're not wearing socks? I, so funny. It's really warm up here. I am like a very soft. Like, I don't like bare feet. I don't like to see bare feet. I feel like 80% of my heat is trapped inside socks. And he doesn't wear shoes.

So I'm barefoot on a regular basis. And then yesterday, I can't believe we're going down this. I'm going to check up the. is still recording. You keep talking. Okay, check. So, all right, this is not what you guys signed up for, but randomly Ann Marie was like, I wonder what kinds of things people Google on the internet. And there was like, when you put penholderness, there's like a subsection of penholderness feet. Wait, so you have, you have a little foot fetish community too? Do you have one? I'm sure she does. Oh, because you're always barefoot in gymnastics.

Yeah, I'm sure. Tell me a little bit about that. Close up shots. It's weird. There's a wiki Feet is a thing. That is nasty. Are you featured on there? No, but they're like, yes, there's a sort of. I'm not featured,

but there's pictures, but I am never barefoot, so I am not on there. Yes, Wiki feet is a thing. I also, my feet, can I show you my feet

real quick? Don't please, my feet look kind of like fingers. They're not attractive. They're very long and skinny. And I can pick things up with them like that. See? I have like hands for feet.

I'm a mutant. So I don't understand. Absolutely not. This will be like the foot foot foot foot foot. Like the foot. Fetish people's dream. Yeah, we'll just put that in the title. Foot fetish people dream.

Foot fetish. And then we'll do ASMR over top of it. And now it's, now we're hitting on all cylinders. Hold on. Okay. This was not part of the planned episode at all. But I do want to talk about it because you mentioned Kim like you didn't know what to do,

yada yada, when that instance happened in the newsroom. And Sean and I have talked about this quite a bit over the past few years of like, is there a latent response or realization of, of oh wow this was actually really inappropriate and I didn't realize at the time but like and then how you go about navigating that because that's so complicated I mean Sean I'm sure you feel the same way but I didn't even know because it's just what happened I didn't know that it was inappropriate I know it made me feel disgusting and made me feel unsafe but I didn't really know how to use those words I was so young and I also didn't know that I mean if you

see it happening and it's so prevalent you just don't even know i mean i didn't tell my mom about it i didn't feel like i didn't tell anybody about it because i thought it was also my fault because i was there working late so i shouldn't have been there late so i i think as women or just as a general victim you just make it your own fault and it took me honestly it took me years to i knew it was wrong because i reported it and then i got out of it and i just like shut that i can i compartmentalize really well so just like shut that part of my life and then honestly when all the Me Too stuff and Matt Lauer and like all that stuff in newsrooms came up, I'm like, wait a second, other people had this happen in newsrooms. I had no. And then we sat down

and talked about it and all of a sudden like it had happened to both of us. It's so crazy though, you guys. So we, I'm sitting here. I'm looking at the two of you. I'm looking at my wife. You were a dancer and you were a television news reporter. Andrew, you were a football player. Sean, you were a gymnast. All of those are environments where there is a crazy. pyramid scheme and there is not a scheme of a pyramid of power and there's very little room at the top and in order to get to the top you have to just absolutely claw your way up from the bottom and you're it's it's ingrained into your head that part of that is being treated like a no one who has no rights and who has no power and so it's no surprise that jerry sandusky comes up that u.s gymnastics comes up

that, you know, Matt Lauer and people in news come up. Because, like, we were all in those high pressure environments where everybody wanted to get to the top of the pyramid. Mm-hmm. Man. Well, and to add to that, up until recently, there's been such a stigma around those pyramids, the elite level, where it's just your cliche story

of you have to sacrifice so much and only the very few who are willing, willing to go so far and it's it's that cliche story of what are you willing to do to get there and I think for so long people normalized just doing outrageous and dumb things in whatever manner that was but I think that's why so many people wrote it off for so long of well this is just what it's like at the top I guess yeah and and yeah you're you're so right just to normalize the behavior from those coaches, I imagine, and from our bosses is like, oh, that's what it is and that's what I have to be subjected to to be able to succeed. And it's garbage. And, you know, I, to the point where, you know, our daughter is, she, she started tennis kind of late, but she's really competitive and she's very determined. She plays all the time. And I'm actually trying to ease her off of it because I'm like, dude, just have a life. Just be a normal kid. And she doesn't have the coaching. experience but I know what it takes at this level to be to be a high level athlete and in a

college experience which is where she wants to go like I know how that that works and I just don't want that for my kid anyway there you go okay we went down the rabbit hole well I do want to parlay that into um you guys are both very open about your mental health you have shirts and merch that says ADHD is awesome pin and Kim you uh have anxiety how do you uh have anxiety how do you navigate that? Do you go see counselors independently or what? I don't know that we do navigate it. I mean,

I would, it's a daily conversation I would say and I think that I, we are both very self-aware. So I know when I'm having and the way my brand of anxiety works is that it could be, the sun could be shining and it could be just the most perfect day and everything's great

and boom I'm kind of hit with like okay and I'll just tell them like I'm just having an anxiety day and I'm just going to chill and he'll be like you do you I got I got everything else and he gives me a lot of grace with that or I discovered I'm great in a crisis like I can get us through a crisis and it's like three days after that when I'm like holy crap what did we just live through that all crash and but I'm I can say it now where I think it took me years to be able to like verbalize what that emotion was and he's he gives me a lot of grace I give myself a lot of grace and then we just walk through it and name it like the expression is name it to tame it so like I name the emotion and I name what I'm feeling and then it that really yeah that really helps um so the big

danger issue is when they clash. So if like she is in a peak anxiety moment and I'm at a peak ADHD moment of sloppiness and lack of attention to detail and executive functioning. So that's where the language really helps out where you're like, boy, I'm having a really bad anxiety day. That's when I know I have to snap back into it and kind of get my, you know, bleep together. Um, we, we, we give each other grace like Kim said. We, we have done therapy. We have done therapy. We accept the other person for who they are, but it's our personal responsibility not to use it as an excuse. Okay? So this place is a disaster. Sorry, ADHD. No, I got to work on this. Like, I'm living with it, but it doesn't mean I don't have to work on it. I have to make lists,

you know, I have to like, check myself. I have to, you know, it, this is like a weird thing, but 2021 was the year that I learned how to put the chairs underneath the table. He's still perfecting it. But I used to not do that. So it's like, baby. steps and that took about a year. And so next year, maybe we'll move on to getting the clothes and the hamper. I like the, I like the, the mindset of he's still perfecting. I think, I think that's a good way to approach progress. You just can't make it an excuse. Like, that's, that's the big thing. So this is, I think you verbalized well, part of the frustration of spending all your time together and working together, PIN. Whenever Kim's having a tough day,

I mean, there's videos that need to be shot. There's houses, like the house chores that need to be done. and the kids need to be taken care of. You shoulder all of that for, like, just to watch out for her? Well, he has. Uber Eats is a huge. DoorDash. Because when, when stuff like that hits the fan and I've got all those other things to do,

it's back to that place of asking for help or if not asking for help, like taking some money and throwing it at the problem. Like not, not too much, but enough that that you're not going to completely break down. You know, maybe we're not going to go out to that fancy dinner we were planning on because we're going to get Uber Eats because I don't have time to make dinner because she's having a tough time and that's all okay. And I can and I generally like for my kids can rally and I it does and I know sometimes you can't though. Yes, I'm saying and I know. Sometimes your body just shuts down. Yeah.

But I know it generally like if kids need to be similar if I need to be like I can rally for that. So I try not to abandon him too much. But yeah, it has happened. Well, and not to just use, like, Kim as an excuse. It can go both ways, but I think it's just a beautiful representation of marriage. How, again, we have so many conversations with so many different couples who do things very differently. But there's a lot of times this preconceived, like, notion that marriages are perfect and they're 50-50 and everybody co-exist in a happy way. And it's not always like that.

There are so many phases in life where Andrew will. need help and I'll have to take the brunt of all the work and vice versa. It's just, it's how you ebb and flow through a marriage. And I think it's actually really beautiful to, to hear and see. Pin, what do you love most about Kim? Uh, there's a lot. The new Mitsubishi Outlander brings out another side of you. Your regular side listens to classical music. Your adventurous side rocks out with the dynamic sound Yamaha. Regular U owns a library card. adventurous you owns the road with super all-wheel control regular side alone time

adventurous side journeys together with third row seating the new outlander bring out your adventurous side Mitsubishi motors drive your ambition I'm gonna go with keep it cheery okay um let me think of another one then I really love how self-aware she is I know that's like a that's not a super romantic answer

but like someone who is as much of a smoke show as she is, um, who also is just like funny. Someone who kind of checks all the desirable boxes. She's, she's very self deprecating and aware when, when she's acting crazy or when she's, uh,

tired or when she's not feeling well. And she outwardly talks about it. And it's incredibly endearing that someone that perfect, um, can share some, imperfection with me every once in a while so I don't feel as bad about my imperfections. And I really love that about her. That was really sweet.

Kim, what do you love most about Penn? Aw. What do I love most of? You got nothing. I got nothing. Pretty cute. No. I would say he, in those moments where I mean, you know, for example, like our family's been going through a tough time. My grandmother just passed away. And so we got to like sit with my grandmother and he got to,

you know, he loves all of me, but he also, in those moments, like, we're in hospice with my grandmother, and he is making her laugh. Like, he makes me, like, on a daily basis, like, inappropriate, like, head back laughter every day. And I feel like that is medicine for me, um, with all of whatever's happening here. He's just so flipping funny. And he's such, he is, He quit his job initially and turned his life upside down to be with our kids. So he is to see him, like he's the one on the text string. Like he's on the text string with the moms because I'm the introvert that's organizing like the tennis after season like, you know, awards party.

He's the one that's running carpal. He's the one that's like getting the kids to the birthday parties. I mean, I'm not antisocial. He's just so involved with our kids' lives that like he's just. it's so amazing to see him like as a dad like he turned his life upside down and it's like I look at my kids and like do you know how lucky you are like he's it's it's really cool to see that was thanks for asking that question you guys uh you guys are cool I want to I want to be like you pin when I'm 65 years old oh my it's cool 65 next week you're 50 right you're almost 50

babe. We really do have a lot to learn from you guys. I appreciate you taking the last hour to sit down and talk with us. And for those listening who want to glean more wisdom from Penn and Kim, we will link their book called Everyday. Wait, yeah, every day. Everybody. Am I saying your fight? Right? Every day fights. Yeah. Everybody. Yeah. What am I saying? I freaking, we're going to link the book that they wrote called Everybody Fights down below. I would recommend that. Every day we fight. Every single day we fight. Andrew, don't take too much from us, man. You guys are doing such good work and it's so authentic. And I mean, one thing I'll impart to you is that the next generation of YouTube and all this stuff is like one year away and just keep like keep listening and learning from them because

you guys do things that we don't know how to do. So take some pride in that and keep doing what you're doing. I appreciate that. Kim's probably sitting here after this past hour thinking like how bad of journalists we are having come from inside edition just the no are you guys asked such good questions you were so prepared I'm so impressed no I love every I mean I've been following you guys for the longest time I love everything you guys do I'm like starstruck to be sitting here with you so thank you thank you I'm excited to stay in touch yeah please do please please do if you guys ever have I mean I don't know that we're professionals at this but we have been doing it longer and we've been at the parenting game longer.

So if you ever have questions and concerns about that, please hit us up on that stuff. Again, not that we're experts. Not that we're experts, but we're just like, we're farther down the path. Yeah, we're brand new to it. So we're in thick of it.