Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - Episode 7: The Rawest Moment of the Season

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Welcome to today’s BONUS episode! We’re doing two reactions this week so we’re all caught up for the finale next week!! In Episode 7, we were hit hard. Shawn had a very real conversation with the DS about her perfectionism and what it means to keep her emotions in check. Then came the letters… and yep, they turned us into full on blubbery messes. It was emotional in the best way- probably the most meaningful challenge so far. Let us know what you thought about this episode, and we’ll see you again on Wednesday for EPISODE 8! Love you guys, Shawn and Andrew Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ 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. With Sean and Andrew. And welcome to episode seven. I know we got it wrong last time. I think we said episode five, two weeks in a row. And we didn't post episode five. We posted episode six first. That's honestly my fault. I want to do that live stream, which then jumbled up the whole schedule. And then we had... I thought it was a bad idea.

But I think it was worth it. Are we back on track? No. We have to post episode five and then we'll post episode seven. I think we just post episode five and let's have seven. go. Maybe we'll do that. Maybe we'll do that. Maybe we'll do that. Anyways, I got nervous for this episode, guys. Why? Because it's where they finally featured my interview and I had no idea what to expect. It's funny, as we were watching this, in the very beginning, you can kind of see who the episode's going to be about by who they include in the early interviews. And it was like, Cody and

Sean. Cody and me, why does that have to be Cody and me? Whatever. It's great. It is great. There's a lot to debrief here. Before we get to the debrief, though, do we have a any personal life updates anything going on a lot going on my brain feels a little overwhelmed today why is that missed a missed a couple meetings a lot of few people down self-deprecating sean is now coming out you didn't let me down thanks and i love you i love you um there's just a lot it's a really really busy time of year no matter what the fall and holidays as any parent knows is filled with so much magic and so much responsibility. And on top of that, it's our busiest time of year with, like, charity events, the charity events

that we contribute to the most are always at the end of the year. We're doing this small thing called building a house, which is coming to an end. We're getting ready to move. There's just a lot of things. There's a lot of things. But it's exciting. Yeah, and I don't feel like overwhelmed personally. So if you want to give me some of your stuff, I'm here for you.

I don't let me let me be better at being vulnerable here I don't feel overwhelmed I feel disorganized I feel like I have too many tabs open not categorized in the right way in my brain and it's not enough time in day right now but that's okay here's what we're going to do this sounds silly and I didn't understand really what this was before I did it after we're done with this episode you're going to take pen and paper and create a mind map. You're going to just categorize things in groups of what you have going on. You're going to write it down, and then you're going to write the sub-projects associated with each of those things.

And then you're going to cross them off. It's almost like a to-do list, but in a diagram way. But can I tell you one thing fascinating about myself? This is where the ADHD comes in. The second, that pen goes in my hand, my brain goes, we ain't got nothing to do, girl. No. I forget everything. this is why well then that's actually that mission accomplished but then then i'll walk through that door

and it'll be like boom oh frick i got a million things to do go grab the pen girl you ain't got nothing that's fit that means you don't have anything no that means you don't have anything it's not none of it's that important then is my main takeaway that's why because of my ADHD brain i will get it done but i will get it done five minutes before it too because it'll be like immediately urgent And I'm like, I got to get it done. No, this, you got to build a little more margin and cushion yourself to be able to prime. You know how like you prime an engine, like a gas engine, kind of gets the things going? Babe.

You got to condition yourself. I want to be this person. I am telling you, this is one practice of how you could be that person. Freaking listen. I have felt this when I used to take Adderall where I was like, wow, my brain actually knows what to think and how to think about it. But then that just went down a dark hole. No substances needed. Pin and paper, baby. Welcome to the future. Are we hearing each other? No. Try something new. My brain wants to, but it forgets. No, you're just making an excuse before you even try. You haven't even touched it.

Touch it. Touch it. Touch it. Poof. Gone. Dr. Amen needs to explain how my brain works for you. Oh my gosh. It is fascinating. I will literally pull my computer out because he'll be like, I'm going to go make Drew's birthday invitations because you know that's tomorrow and as I'm typing it'll be like Jets speech therapy

my fingers will you type something else and then I'll get into Jets speech therapy and then I'll be like oh well what was I starting at and then midway I'll be like oh Drew's and then I'll exit out of that and I'll get on Drew's and then halfway through Drews be like

frick I forgot I left the fridge open and then I'll go close the fridge and as I'm closing the fridge be like, I didn't eat breakfast. I should make toast real quick. And then we're six hours deep and I haven't done anything. There's a solution to this. I'm excited to work through this together. Will you allow me to have input into this? I need post-it notes on my chest with a pen where I can just be like, okay. Now I see where our four-year-old gets his excitability. Me? He's very excited about jumping from one thing to the next. It's like he sees this,

jumps the hat he speaks my brain so what i am helping him with and what we're actually what's been so interesting to kind of like explicitly share with him is this idea of calmness and white space where it's like um okay what am i doing and nothing's a rush yeah it's the ruthless elimination of hurry and you're just flowing through life not freaking hectic through life it's Speaking of speech therapy, having the consult with Jets, speech therapist. And she's like, do you have any diagnosed ADHD in the family? And I was like, girl, it ain't diagnosed, but I can tell you I got it. I don't know.

I think I have pen and paper and I'm excited to see how this changed your life. That's why you fascinate me because like your brain literally operates with like, boom, idea. Let me do it. And I'm like, how did you do that? How did you actually do it? I do think my ability to focus intensely is one of my greatest attributes. It is. But it comes with, it's also a practice.

But it's funny because, like, I don't have daily focus. I have the ability to obsessively focus. Does that make sense? So it's like daily tasks are impossible to me, trying to organize them and get them done. But like, you want me to do a nine-hour workout? Got you. I will lock in and I will be, I'll forget to breathe. Yeah, you do have that.

Which is our son. Holy crap. What am I? It's like that binge energy. I don't know how to describe it other than like freaking, wow, you overdid it there. And then you'll work out for nine hours and not work out for like 10 weeks after that you know what I'm saying that's why gymnastics was the greatest gift because your brain literally has to think about a million different things in 60 seconds and my brain was like this is

drugs what I what I want you to try is and I think this has drastically helped me in mind mapping is part of this you know how you say my digital organization and hygiene is really impressive yeah my real life hygiene like clutter in our home not so great not great but once you establish establish folders or like groups like a mind map will help with or like google drive i have all these elaborate organizational systems yeah it's it has this wonderful side effect of like when a new thing comes up you put it in a folder and it organizes it and you can say you can prioritize it this is urgent this is not urgent regardless it's in the folder and then you can kind of like know where to reference it even psychologically when you need to so it's like okay

We need to do this sign up for speech therapy. That needs to be done today because the first lesson is tomorrow. This is in the personal child folder. Or we have the home remodel folder. I love this, but then I forget I have folders. No, no, no. But that's why paper is great because it's there. I know.

It's right in front of you. And I have a digital mind map. And this is what I had Dustin do too. And I reference that four times a week. And I just look at it and I'm like, huh, I had that conversation that can go in that folder. I can delegate it to this person. I'm not saying I'm like good at it, but it has worked and I think I'm getting better.

So let's try it out together. Anyway, thank you for listening to Sean and I's, honestly, this is my very thing about our podcast is that it's a time for Sean and I personally to like work through some of these things. Yeah. I have to give you one more example and it's referencing special forces.

But like I so easily forget things that like, remember the challenge where we were going over the dam, we had to remember a number. I can remember things, but only in the form of, so Billy tells me a number, and then he's telling me instructions.

And he tells me the number 0663, okay? And so he tells you the number, and then he tells you instructions. The second that number goes into my brain and I know I need to remember it, I'm like 0663, 0663, 0663. 0663.

Meanwhile, he's telling you how to repelope. And I didn't hear a single thing. Yeah. And I just literally, I'm like locked in, obsessive. I love that. I have two more things before we begin, episode 70 brief. One, I think self-forgiveness for you will also be a crucial thing here. And also, dare I say, forgiveness for me.

But sometimes getting hung up on, getting hung up on what you did or didn't do or what I did or didn't do can create this. block this hurdle that prevents any future progress from being made and like you shouldn't just cash in on the rest of the day if you're able to forgive and flow through that thing you'll be good and then secondly this is transitioning us to special forces it has been such a treat to see everyone's comments and there's so many new listeners to this podcast we're probably just lost some given our little dialogue we just had but it's been so fun to see all the new listeners and see the feedback and people enjoying our dynamic and I also appreciate it because this is like you know this is constructive criticism and I appreciate it as as constructive and not criticism and we're

doing a better job with that. I appreciate it and I want to be better and I need your organized brain to help me never thought I'd say that organized yeah yeah no one doesn't episode seven episode seven so we open with the day of what did it start out with oh we lost we lost christie and mark the within an hour of the day starting yeah we woke up and christie went home first she was coughing so if remember we talked about how murder ball was such a pivotal day because people got injured we lost chenelle the morning of murder ball day then we lost oh so many people got injured and then we lost Eric and then we lost Jesse and then we got back and Mark was already hurt with his ear and Christy was already sick but they didn't leave till the next morning so

we lost five people in less than 24 hours because of murder ball and it just wrecked us I if you'll notice like I start laying on the cot they show a couple clips of it during the episode with my backpack on because my rib was cracked my nose now has a whole gash on it from this I have our day seven schedule is this we woke up at 7 a.m. Christy went home almost immediately she was up all night coughing. So let me give context there. Christy was probably one of the people we were closest with. I actually thought it was interesting that they never showed that dynamic.

Like, we were always together. Especially like Christy and I. But we also were like bunkmates in the sense of we were, we slept next to each other. And she had a cough for a few days and it just kept getting progressively worse. And I will never forget

that night. I, she kept waking up and I kept waking up and I was like trying to help her and I was talking to her and like we would go out to the bathroom and she'd like spit up phlegm and stuff but I remember thinking like I'm afraid she's going to die in her sleep

it sounded like she was literally drowning I think it is it something like it's a lung infection pneumonia pneumonia yeah I think legitimately we're recording this in November I think my lungs are still damage from the desert dirt that we were inhaling you just inhale so much

and you think about I've said this multiple times, but you're not warming your body up. You're just straight going from being cold to intense exercise, like we did with Murder Ball and several other challenges. And so you already have like the Franlung effect that people talk about in CrossFit. And then you add on to that this dirt that we're inhaling constantly, including during bedtime, because our barracks didn't have anything but like. And the cots. If you like kicked your cot, it was like poof. It was just dust everywhere. We're sleeping on a dirt floor. which, like, is not a good thing generally.

So, let's see, Jussie went home for the same kind of reason. Christy had it really bad because of a murder ball. We all kind of experienced the desert cough in some capacity. So 7 a.m., we woke up, Chrissy goes home. Which was so sad, too, because she could have finished. And she wanted that finish, and she wanted that, like, validation. And she was tougher than all of us. She was a beast.

Dude, she was a beast. And such a great teammate. Yeah. 8.30 a.m. We had our beasting, which you see. That was the competition. Is that correct? The race?

I feel like they switched it in the show, but yeah, I think that's the beasting, unless we did two that day, which we might have. We did. Listen, they totally cut another thing out, which we mentioned how episode six was surprising with how they eliminated this insane workout that we did. But 8.30 was a beasting and the race workout, which I was in such bad shape from that because of my rib. I couldn't like get up and down to push it.

I was just excruciating pain as we all were. But then 9.30 a.m. We went to the gas mask training. We did gas mask training. So they actually brought us out to the parade square, handed out the gas mask, taught us how to put it on. They gave us like the filter. Which was so anticlimatic because I don't think even the gas that was gassed was not anything to.

Yeah. I think in previous seasons, yeah. They did real gas. straining and they realized probably shouldn't do that so this was but because of fools like myself who bring a hostage into a gas situation we'll get there we'll get there um so mark went home right at like 10 o'clock yeah right as we were going into that challenge he was so pissed about that too which was so unfortunate he didn't want to leave he didn't like he had cauliflower ear which all the ds were

so um understanding of and they were so bummed as well it was only because for cauliflower ear, they needed a specialist to treat it and it was a very easy treatment. Like he wasn't in severe pain. It wasn't like impacting his performance. But the only way for him to get that specialized treatment was to leave and he had to get it within 24 hours

otherwise that like cauliflower effect was permanent. Yeah, if you've ever seen a wrestler, UFC fighter you see like their ears can have that cauliflower effect and that's because it's not treated. He was so bummed. He was really bummed. We all were bummed. Because he was really bummed.

really tough too like he would have lasted yeah so this is a real life schedule and then we'll walk through the episode but 10 to 1 we did the gas mass hostage challenge and then 4 to 8 we did the hike down the canyon and the jump I think they're still going to show that but that's so interesting it's the first time that they shuffled an entire event out of a day yeah and maybe actually they'll show that workout no they couldn't I'm just thinking the one that they cut out of episode 6 will they show later but I don't know people in there we'll see so then we did this hike that you'll see I guess in some future episode maybe but you basically like hike we hiked miles down a canyon and did this like trust jump over the canyon and went through the water and i got roasted

oh and the workout yeah yeah yeah so that'll be in a future episode but then at 10 p.m. that night we did the letter to loved ones which by the way i was thinking don't know what you think about this but i still have my poem that i wrote you i don't have my letter you have the letter okay you have a letter from your mom. Anyway, I was thinking I could read that whole poem on the main channel as well as some of our, there's comments of people who really enjoyed our letters together. So maybe it just turns into me reading poems. No. Those are mine. Okay. Okay, great. Never mind. Sorry, guys. All right. So that was a real schedule. And then let's talk about the episode, though. Okay. So the gas mask challenge. We get paired. It's me and Cody, Randall and Brie,

Andrew and Gia. Me and Cody ended up going last, by the way. They showed us first for storytelling purposes. But Cody and I go up. Up until now, we all know each other's

like strengths and weaknesses. So by now we know Cody is a great guy. Like he was, you can get the gist from the episode that there was annoyances of like,

he just talked a lot. But one thing, they almost made it seem like we were giving a hard time behind us back. And we were annoyed only behind his back. But it was very much a like brotherly criticism where it's like, hey, you got to stop doing this. Like Brie gives feedback in front of his face.

And it was like it was almost it was very team like esk how we gave him a hard time. It was like for the betterment of everybody together. And we gave everyone a hard time. But Cody and I going into this challenge, we were both very aware. And Cody was very self-aware. And he's like, when I get into these fight or flight situations, I see red and, like, the world drowns out around me. And so before we even run up to the house, Cody and I are talking back and forth. And we are both agreeing to each other.

We're like, we have to communicate. They had selected Cody as, like, the leader of this challenge. So I was like, Cody, you have to communicate. Now, that also requires me to communicate, right? so this is not just Cody's fault it is both of our faults we go running up we hear the instructions Cody has me go in first and we go straight down to the hostage instead of going in the building this is where like we just lose our brains completely we aren't saying a single word to each other Cody grabs the hostage and like we're trying to go back in the house which was a huge

mistake because now we're technically like killing the hostage because it's gassed in there and then inside the house all i remember is like again zero communication the only thing i'm hearing is the ds and they're like find the box find the box find the box and i think in my brain that became my partner if that makes sense and so i was like find the box and then when it clicked that i was like oh frick billy's saying where's your partner and q's saying where's cody i was like that wasn't him. So then I turn around, we go running out of the compound, and Cody's already out with the hostage. And I just, my pissed nature that they showed, they painted it as like all pissed towards Cody. I was just pissed in general that I did so poorly. I think that was your first

fail of challenge. Yeah. And it was just so miserable. Like I did everything wrong. Everything. I was so worried about the gas. I was so mad at myself. And then I was also really mad at Cody because he agreed to be the team leader that time and he agreed to try to communicate I should have communicated more it was just a disaster I don't think it looked that bad

I don't think it was that much of a disaster we also failed yeah but you were such a good team player I want to set the scene in two different ways one if I'm a producer at Fox and I have to paint this storyline they showed your interview talking about how you're a gymnast and that required

perfection and you were lost after like you didn't have that outlet for perfection some ways so then they show me lost so then then like then the story arc makes sense if I'm a producer to say okay she talks about perfection then she fails then what happens next you know what I'm saying yeah I get so so I think like that part of that was amplified you know we also failed and it did not they didn't dramatize it dramatize it as much um and I also want to set the scene like this first of all Mark goes home right as we're walking in this challenge we're up there on this side slope and at this point there's six of us left yeah six left and the tone drastically changed with the DS and us it was very much um it turned way more friendly yeah and they were like wow what happened oh my gosh hey you guys keep going you're doing a great job this was like the first words of encouragement in that sense they were encouraging in pushing us like they were there were good teammates in that sense

but this was like the first time they were they were nice to us in that encouragement. But something that I think bothered me so much about that is we had gotten that far and we had gotten to this point of like almost a mutual respect from the DS and we had hit that next level

and the lashing we got which you didn't see all of it it just felt like disappointment and so it hurt more because of that. Yeah. I remember saying this early on, but like, and they didn't show it. I was pretty happy with like what they showed from my interview, but like disappointment is one of my biggest fears. Disappointing someone, I am a people pleaser, which I should work on, but like disappointing the authority of like the DS who I respected so much felt not like I failed a task.

It wasn't like I didn't make it down to repel. It's like I failed at like core values of what they. no okay that's that's how it felt I was like I left my team I let my team down I didn't communicate I killed a hostage I like I felt like this existential like who what who am I I think that's really insightful and I think it's whatever what however you couple those things like the oh I personally disrespect to these people you you bind that with the oh I failed the mission that thing I think that that buy in is what makes you so great I think it's like that athlete type mentality that we have spoken about

on previous episodes, but I also think it can be helpful in the sense of you're so bought in and so listening and obedient, but it's also, parts of it are not true. Like, you didn't disrespect Billy. You just got yelled at by Billy. No, but you know what I mean.

It's just, it was just like this. By the way, Cody and Sean got ripped a new, they showed a little bit of it on TV, but when we were there in person we were probably like 50 yards away behind this house and they were getting just yelled at we got ripped multiple times

we got Richard Billy and then it was like 15 minutes DSQ came down and then he ripped Cody and then I was just like behind episode four when or day four when Rudy yelled at Nick and Ravi I would say this was close to it yeah this is the worst yelling

and I don't know if that was because it was my first big failure and something that they painted that they talked to me about in my interviews I had multiple interviews by the way and so we can talk about that in a little bit how they spliced them together

they didn't like how robotic I was how I was able to go so numb and like not show emotion and not show who I was and they didn't like that so part of me wondered even in watching it back and remembering the lashing we got if that was a strategy of billies to see if he could

bring something out in me yeah little does he know that actually like shuts me down even more um but that's still insightful i mean it is it's good information to have so we're up there and i think gina and i went second you went last randall and brey went first you guys all crushed no even if you failed it you crushed it was it was so nice beforehand though because they didn't have us in rank and yeah and standing like they usually did in previous challenges when it was whole group it was us like sitting on rocks talking with Foxy about all these challenges. Like he did a marathon a day

in the Arctic for some charity. And it was very relationship focused. And then they call us up. We go run to Billy. We're crunched and crouched outside this house. And he gives us this like quick briefing. So this is setting the context of

why I have empathy for your situation. You're like, you've obviously never been in this little compound that you're walking into. So like in Morocco, how these houses would be is like exterior walls that were like 10 feet tall and then you don't know what's inside. And then it could be like three houses inside. It could be gardens. It could be whatever at one story house, two story house. But he's like going there, keep a level head. You got to

find the hostage and the box. He gave us a code. And he's like, all right, let's go. So you run in there. I think it was probably like three, two or three minutes we had in the compound. And we almost got guided a little bit into the house, I think. But you go into this house. So you're in this courtyard, seeing all this for the first time. Imagine this. And then go through the exterior gates. You kind of get guided into this house. And then in the house, there's like all these tarps. It's very disjointed. It's not like you're walking into an open floor plan. There's like five rooms, five doors. Some have pallets, like wood pallets in front. There's a staircase. And so you're like, okay we have to find a hostage in a box and I'm looking for or I don't know what it is

actually they didn't even tell us it was a box they just said here's a code keep an eye out for it so we're like pulling up all these plastic tarps then the gas goes out and you can't really see that well you're getting yelled at there's explosions there's cameras I remember at one point like I tried to go upstairs and they pulled me back they're like don't go up there And you're like, so there's confusing parts like that that are part of the TV show that probably wouldn't be a part of the real life where you're like, oh, yeah, I can't go upstairs because they're probably don't have cameras up there. And so you're just trying to almost stay within the bounds that they establish while also like looking hard. You know what I'm saying? And this happened with the casualty carry too where you're like, oh, I think this is the way I'm supposed to go.

And they're like, don't go that way. And it feels silly that you would even try to go upstairs in that scenario. Anyway, G and I had no luck finding the code 0749 inside this house. We're pulling out filing cabinets. We're looking under beds. We don't even see, I mean, there's like a bed that's made up with this old blanket. There's random junk thrown all over the, like, there's probably 200 total items. And I don't know what I'm looking for.

So the filing cabinet was the one thing where I was like, ah, there's maybe something written on like a piece of paper on there because that's a filing cabinet. but we were in there for like two minutes and then we started getting yelled at like you can't find the box what about the hostage i think they kind of nudge just out so we go out we go down we were able to find the hostage which again you're like is this a good guy or bad guy they kind of tell you the whole backdrop of be wary of bad guys so you see this guy in a blanket like very well hidden in my mind on this random bed outside this house and so you're like i guess this is a hostage now what do we do with them do i put him on my back. It's all like very confusing in the moment. And so we got the hostage. We ended up

running out a compound, failing the mission. We got, we got like scolded a little bit. It's always jarring when they ask you what the heck happened in there. You're like, freak, you're asking that like I did something wrong. But we failed because we didn't get the box, but it was like fine-ish because we got the hostage and we did the gas. Like we put our mask on as they had taught us and all these things but um i hope like to your point of it being a cluster it was always a cluster for everyone and the instructions weren't like abundantly clear there was so much that could have gone wrong and you're like okay well we just try to do our best and that's all we can do your mind was buffoonery with a capital b you did my favorite part

was when you did your little hands-up panic pace, or I'll call it your pissy pace, where you're like trying to find Cody and then you look at him. That was the hard part. I had seen that face so many times. I actually wanted to go off on him, but in my head I'm like, don't, don't.

So then after we all went, we had probably like a half hour. They were probably figuring out what to do with me and Cody. Down, like we were all talking to that little circle where Bree gives us constructive feedback, which again, I want to bring up. up because it's not like we were talking about anybody behind their back it's not like you really could given the context but it was like how to go for you we all kind of share our experiences

and then um we had some good laughs too like there was it was not like a somber they kind of painted it as a sad conversation they painted my comment of oh you freaking ditched her yeah as like a angry but i was really no we all had like a really good dynamic and like Cody knew i was mad and Cody was bummed too and yeah i was bummed too and i was bummed to and it was just a bunch of stuff. Yeah. So that was the first one. Yeah.

Which was a mess. So we get back in the cars. We go back to the barracks. Barracks. We have lunch. That's when Cody gets called in for his interview. And then we do the beesting. Right?

No. We did the beasting in the morning. In real life, but in the show they showed in the afternoon. Yeah. Yeah. The beasting was brutal. It was, we had to do these relay races. Whoever won got to go back into the barrack.

whoever didn't win had to keep going and that's when I told Andrew it was really hard to watch they laid into Brie and I think at this point in the show they're now truly trying to find the breaking points of all of us whatever they were

and see if anything can make us quit and so with Brie it was this idea of like are you even trying and she got pissed but like they got up in her face and they were yelling at her

you're talking about during that challenge yeah because she was the last one you mentioned that was maybe the hardest one of the hardest parts for you to watch yeah i just i don't like seeing people yell at brie brie's my girl and she had that single tear which is kind of epic to be honest uh it was i can't overstate how uncomfortable and hard and emotional it was to have the ds yell at you no matter of context. But to your point, I think it is, it is revealing how you deal with that. And to Bree's credit, she didn't really give lip back. You know what I'm saying?

She just freaking, you could tell how shook she was. And she just carried on. So with me and the lashing, they like cut to part of my interview where I talk about how if I have a rough day or if I make a bad choice or a bad mistake, I internalize. And I really do. I internalize everything. I overthink it. I go back to think about what should I've done differently? How could I, whatever. And I feel like

at this point in that day, I was internalizing everything. I was like, what the frick? Like, they also, I think at this point had brought me in and shown this interview where I go on to talk about like, um, no emotion. It was good for gymnastics. It was bad for everything else. Yeah. To summarize that, I actually think they showed that very, very accurately to how I was communicating. gymnastics especially because I back in the day it was it was more of a corrupt system and just like the way that we trained I was very lucky to have a coach at home chow who in a weird sense to say this is more like you in the sense of like he really wanted to see emotion we could be playful and we could be ourselves and he wanted us to like have our attitudes in the sense of like

we could be sassy with him and talk talk back in a respectful way but like challenge and And that really changed when I made the national team. I made the national team at 12. And it was just this idea and culture of you are a machine and nothing more. You will perform for our team. You are not a human that has opinions and you are not allowed to voice any opinions if you do have them. And I just remember that became such second nature to me of if I want my dream to come true on that stage, I am void of any human side.

And I was very lucky within that culture to have a coach who protected me against everything. You know, he was my voice, but being put in this situation, it's almost like I went straight back to that mode. I didn't know how to be the adult again around authority that felt so similar to gymnastics. And so in my mind,

I was like shut down don't say anything get it done so when they challenged me to say I actually want to know you and hear you I was like I don't know how to do that can I have some nuance that actually is kind of a revelation I just had yeah that I've never realized about you which there's so many of these I haven't on the show it's really fun but obviously the becoming a machine and having no emotions is in certain ways like to the extreme but dialing it back first of all there are positive to that like being on a four inch wide beam in front of millions of people like you need to be able to distance or buffer the emotions a little bit in order to do anything in that environment so like part of it is necessary

part of it is the extreme iteration of that but i also just hearing you talk like and parlaying that off of how you felt like you disrespected the DS and the gas challenge, I do think in some areas you like over sensitize or over hype the, um, the depth of a situation or like you prescribe more value to a situation than it might actually have. Yeah. Meaning like every situation to you can become the, four inch beam in front of millions of audience when really it's like no we're just doing this gasmatch challenge and it's part of a bigger picture and so then you then you assume that anti-emotion in that situation when you heighten the intensity of it and so just a challenge maybe of

like putting situations in the proper place and knowing this actually isn't this isn't that intense absolutely I agree with all of that and it's something that I need to work on, and that's why I was so confused as to how to make this equation happen there. They hinted to it in part of that interview, but to give you more understanding to why that depth shows itself with my emotion, why I do magnify every situation to be, you know, crisis is back in that culture of the national team I had said this line of like people higher up wanted to see me fail and they would just reiterate and kind of beat into me this idea that I was worthless and I was just told so often all it takes is one.

mistake yeah and so for me that fear-based sport that I mentioned in my interview was truly I was not allowed to make a single mistake and even in the context of a training like a casual training I would have these people glued to me just waiting for one slip-up and so that overvaluing a situation all of these small little things how I handled myself in a hotel room how I handled myself just eating breakfast in the morning

it all came back around I remember being threatened with my title in the national team because of what I ate at breakfast and it just because all of that happened at such a young age as an adult

trying to put things in their proper place feels confusing well we got time to figure it out no for sure and i'm not i'm not saying i have trauma around this i felt like it was such a fascinating thing to happen on the show to have people i respected so much and such a high authority to actually value character because to me it was kind of almost like a healing process i was like what do you mean you actually care about the human side? Like, it, when they show me walking back into the barracks, like, how did I go? And I say, they set them too robotic. In my mind, I was like, how can that be a bad thing? Yeah. When that's all people ever wanted for me. You were very confused

at that. I was. We've talked before in other episodes about how extreme outcomes require extreme inputs. Yeah. And so like, you know, this is the dark side of what it takes to perform at that level and that intensity to that precision, to that consistency. So we got a long runway. We do. And I truly don't think, I really only believe the DS are trying to get, like, get the

best from us. So I liked that feedback. I have thought more about that feedback since that shows in anything because it Is this, how can I, how can I blend it and actually be a human in life and not have to be so afraid of showing vulnerability? Yeah. When that was just hung over my head for so many years. This is what I love about the show and props to Fox for figuring out how to do this.

But like, one, being on the show, the personal takeaways I had that we had together were so deep. Like, this is a decades-long redemption moment. yeah it's really profound and then i hope that parlays into the the viewer like in creating this dialogue or conversation around like oh oh yeah i have that same thing or man i got to watch out for that so i don't have that thing um i think it's really cool i just some nuts and bolts nuances you said that they interviewed you twice which i did not get interviewed twice i don't think and then the opening question they had about like what happened there with the with the gas being such a cluster that's interesting it's the first time i've seen a

clear edit that didn't have to do with that when they brought me in it wasn't right after this cody it wasn't after this challenge it was on a different day they actually brought me in twice my very first interview was with billy and q and then my second interview was with billy and rudy or maybe my first yeah no no my first interview was q and rudy or q and billy um so this was my second interview so they haven't shown my first interview at all but billy starts out as saying what was that today which he never asked and then they cut to a portion of my interview where i'm talking about like i've never been a part of a team yeah and i i say i've never been a part of the team in the sense of i was a part of a team sport like we competed for team medals but only by doing

individual performances it was never like I never even had to watch my teammates that was not my job my job was to solo go out there not think about anybody else and do my job and so it was a different dynamic

which again credit the Fox I think that's important to talk about how they're editing this because you know you hear people on shows like The Bachelor talk about oh they totally chopped that up and twisted what actually happened I actually I've not seen something like that in this show yet.

They haven't twisted a single thing. But they do, like, they cut things up to, I think, distill storylines in what actually happened in an interesting way. It's kind of cool to see. Well, and these interviews that we're having, when they bring us into the room with the bag on, they're anywhere from like 20 minutes to an hour long. Yeah. So they're taking out pieces and trying to cohesively put together a storyline for all of

you guys to listen and understand. But now, the splicing of those interviews together was not forming something new that was not accurate. It was very accurate to everything that they said. Yeah. To Fox's credit, that would be so hard to take, I don't know how many hours of footage and try to make a 45 minute episode out of it. But I just think it's interesting because people do say, oh, you manipulated this or that. And I have not seen that. They do a good job.

So now they've painted the picture on the show if you watch of I'm a robot, I'm a machine. At the end of this, they have to decide if they can trust me and they can't trust me unless they know me. So we have to see your vulnerable side. Yeah. So then they cut to the bluey letters is what they called them. Well, first, we had to, the whole Cody sequence happened, which I feel like it's worth mentioning because they made Cody the duty crew. And you kind of see there his eagerness to. His quirkiness.

He was so, he was so bought in that he was like full sprint every time. I kind of had like a strategic jog Which we all did Cody was freaking full blast Yeah By the way we had such a laugh When they showed the clip of Gia's eyes rolling That was like she did that so often

And it's so iconic Yeah It's so Gia it's so funny And then Brayson Take me out back I was like The funny thing about Cody too Is like there was this quirky side to him

And I don't say this in a bad way It was just like, I don't know if it was like his nervous habit. He never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, stop talking. Like, if you were in like an intense conversation with someone, he'd just walk by. Like, y'all did that. Blah blah blah bled out. And he just never stopped talking or making noise ever. Again, I think the context we were all in was just really fascinating to see.

Because it wasn't like there was bad blood. No. You know, it's like. It was very out in the open. Yeah. It's good. So anyway, I interrupted you. No.

We have dinner. We get to that night. It's been a long day. We've had a couple of workouts, things that they didn't show. Maybe they'll show them. A very long hike, run thing that maybe they'll show at the next episode. Super long. Billy comes in with his clipboards.

We all know what it is immediately. But he says it's called a bluey letter or a death letter. It's something that you have to write before you're deployed. If you're in service where, God forbid, you don't make it. deliver these to your family. They gave us a couple hours to do this. It was probably... Try two hours.

It was late at night too. So he hands him out. We kind of go. He's like, you can go anywhere, write anything you want, write to whoever you want. We each write a bunch of letters. I wrote one to you

and I wrote an individual one to each kid. Andrew wrote a few. Everyone wrote quite a few. And they only showed tiny little clips of that. And then a couple hours later, Billy comes back in and he gives us the order in which we're supposed to out loud read them to each other.

So Cody goes first and then I think they showed that very accurately the order in which he did it. I had to go last. Cody, Brie, Gia, Randall pretty much all made it through

with like very, very small tears. Brie had to take a couple moments. Her letter to her dad wrecked me. There was a couple parts that she just like did a beautiful job at telling these personal stories in a way that like,

oh, freak. And hearing a daughter write a letter to her father, which you having drew and, yeah, everything. It was, and then Randall, hearing. Oh, wrecked me. Randall's letter to his wife and then to his kids was incredible. So then we get through, we get through those four. And it's been few tears, like emotion, but few tears. I was crying the whole time.

I don't know what you're talking about. I was crying the whole time. No, I mean, them reading their letters. Nobody was bawling. Then it gets to Andrew. Andrew reads his letter and poem And you are a blubbering mess We're blubbering

Like gasping for air blubbering Get through it And then I go I they They could have done us dirty with that I could not breathe It took you and I longer to get through our letters Than it did to get through the first four letters

We were a disaster It really did And talk about first time showing anybody emotion I was a disaster but I would actually recommend this exercise to you listening at home actually one of our buddies Ryan just did this as he's putting together like a will including a letter in the package for his wife should she ever need it and he's not there something about again this goes back to priming Billy goes up there and tells a story of how he would write these letters before

every deployment and there's one where he missed a birth of a child I think because he thought he was going to be gone for three days on a deployment and it ended up being like six months or something and he kind of just like he's telling these stories and it gets you in the mindset of oh my gosh what if I never saw my wife again and then you just write different things and different things come to mind with that filter that I would I would recommend you if you have a loved one or mom or dad or whoever you want to write the letter to, it was, I still think about that. And I think having a little dose of that perspective in everyday life is like really good. You shouldn't be in your fields all the time probably, but like just appreciating like, oh my gosh, I get

another day with you. It's probably a good practice. So I loved this part of it. And I also apologize to everyone, Bree, Cody, Randall, and Gia for our tears that we, We just couldn't make it pass. Andrew and I were disasters, you guys. Yeah. You and I haven't cried like that, maybe ever together. I mean, we've cried together with, like, trauma, but, like, that was, like, Yeah, different.

Blubberant. You also know, like, I mean, we're 10, 11 days away from our kids. We miss them. We had all, you have this really intense experience together. And so you're, what? I think I know it's coming tomorrow. Next week. Next week.

yeah i don't know what's happening but well the next time we are that much of a blubbering yeah yeah yeah also cried then but like the intensity of the situation and you know it's on cameras and you know it's like a tv show it's like all very emotionally intent so i think that i'll lent itself to our tears but um yeah that was that was day seven i'm curious how they shuffle around the rest of these days because there's two two episodes left yeah They've got a lot to get in in two episodes. We'll have to see, but there's way fewer people. So I also, there's a couple questions people had.

Okay. I first want to revisit something you said of like Bree getting yelled at. I think in past seasons you've seen people get yelled at. And then there's always opportunity to give your number up. And so they like say, they'll ask you to give you to give. them your number and you could just say no but again it's such a high friction situation that you don't feel like you can't say no but it's like almost having the mental ability to separate yourself like breeded in this episode where it's like no I'm not going home I'm doing my best I'm doing

my best I'm going to stay and they they won't take your number like that but they'll make it feel like you need to so it's it's just really interesting like that escalation of the situation but someone also said what asked when people do go home do they rearrange the barracks or like move the cots around i guess we could have but we kind of kept it the same layout so it would just spots in the barracks would kind of just get uh opened up as cots would leave you just start so picture like a big rectangular room that had 18 cots side by side by side that were pretty sardined in there um for the most part whenever someone left it's just like you just picked up that that caught and walked out nothing else moved and yeah so it started just to feel

very spread out um i also let's see i'm looking for questions if you have any come to mind um sorry in this episode i was it also showed me talking with cody about his lifestyle and i'm glad to actually show that because we had hours of conversation about this and we've talked about how people have strong opinions on a lot of the people that are on the show Cody's one of them um my approach to this was like curiosity absolutely judgment you know like they say in Ted lasso they're in the dark board scene it's like what good does um belittling the past decisions someone's already made do it's like what can we do about it now so it's more of a exploratory process and, you know, it ended up being fascinating to see the difference

in worldview and things like that. But maybe just a good way to approach things as opposed to getting like so offended or aghast or astounded. It's like curiosity. Oh, L. Cooper 244 says, where can we see the behind-the-scenes videos on what channel was another person's question we're getting those edited now so i think on our main channel which is sean and andrew um we'll have episodes one to four posted we'll also do a boxing specific video separately and then we'll have five to nine posted we'll try to do a good job as opposed to just slapping the clips together make it dramatic and do fox a favor there um questions I'm excited to see next week.

I'm excited to fill you guys in on more missing pieces and see what you guys have to say. You're done? That was a long episode. Okay, Sean's done. I love you. I love you, babe. Can't wait to see what the rest has to show.

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So that's all we have today. I'm Andrew. I'm Sean. Until next time.