In 2008, gymnast Shawn Johnson took the Beijing Olympics by storm.
Just 16 years old, she won the gold, but since then, the Olympian hasn't been resting on
her laurels.
Since retiring from gymnastics competition, Johnson's been busy and she's no less inspiring
today than she was as a teen.
What do you do when you have a toddler who never seems to run out of energy?
If you're Johnson's mom and dad, you put them in gymnastics.
They thought the rigorous sport would help calm their daughter down a little, and signed
her up when she was around 3 years old.
Johnson's mom, Teri, said at the Des Moines Storytellers Project event in 2017,
"When you're standing on the beam, you feel invincible.
It's the best feeling in the world.
It's what I live for."
But Johnson's parents never dreamed that she would become an Olympic gymnast.
Instead, Teri said,
Even though she's an internationally recognized superstar, Johnson can't deny her Midwestern
roots.
"Iowa's amazing.
It's the greatest support system and community you can find."
The West Des Moines, Iowa native remains loyal to her hometown even though these days she's
living it up in Nashville.
She told HuffPost,
Johnson is also grateful that her fellow Iowans had her back throughout her gymnastics journey.
She said,
"In order to fly high you have to have a very, very good foundation."
At the Olympics, Johnson was not only happy for the chance to represent her country, but
also her hometown.
She remembered,
Growing up as a world class athlete adds a whole different level of pressure to regular
life.
And like many teens, Johnson struggled with her body image, but under the ruthless scrutiny
of the media.
"Feeling like the world doesn't accept you for who you are, kind of, it hurts your heart."
She told WBUR,
"I was 16 years old living in a fishbowl...It was now about what I wore and how I looked."
The harsh critiques motivated Johnson to advocate for body positivity as a spokesperson for
Dove's "Have Your Say" campaign.
She explained,
Johnson's parents were determined for their daughter to have as normal a life as possible
despite qualifying as an elite gymnast, by limiting her training to 25 hours a week instead
of the typical 45.
"Shawn only trains half of the numbers, but that doesn't mean she trains less."
Shawn told CreditCards.com,
Johnson originally thought she'd be able to return to life as a regular teen after the
2008 Olympics, but that's not what happened.
She told WBUR,
A knee injury derailed Johnson's gymnastics career and prompted her retirement from the
sport in 2012.
For a while, the gold medalist had been staging a comeback and had hopes of competing again
in the 2012 Olympics, but the damage to her knee proved too severe to continue.
She told Inside Gymnastics,
"I also made the second mistake of kind of putting rehab on the back burner."
Johnson retired from the sport a week before the Olympic trials.
She remembered how it all felt at the time, telling WBUR,
"It takes a long time to transition out of something that you've committed your whole
life to.
I don't know if I'll ever find anything just like gymnastics.
So, I'm still trying to find my groove."
Instead of letting her momentum die down after her retirement, Johnson worked on building
up her personal brand, which has made her more popular than ever.
She told CNBC,
And the secret to successful branding?
Capitalizing on your niche.
Johnson's authenticity has kept her relevant and also made her relatable to her fans.
She said,
Gymnastics didn't just lead to Johnson taking home a gold medal, it also helped her find
the love of her life.
Johnson married fellow athlete, NFL star Andrew East, who plays for the Washington Redskins.
Johnson first met East's brother, Guy, at the 2012 Olympics where he was competing as
a track cyclist.
Guy thought Johnson and his brother would be a perfect match.
Shawn told HuffPost,
"We end up spending every waking second together."
"Sometimes it's too much."
"It's a good thing and a bad thing."
The match was, indeed, made in heaven, and the pair tied the knot in 2016.
Johnson told People magazine a year later,
For years, Johnson had worried that she wouldn't be able to get pregnant because of how hard
her gymnastics career had been on her body.
So when she got pregnant in 2017, it felt like a miracle.
And when she lost the pregnancy, she was devastated.
She said on the I Am Second series,
"I had these guilty feelings of, 'If I can't even take care of a child for a week in my
stomach, I can't raise a child on my own.'"
Shawn then added,
"I felt guilty to Andrew that I had lost his child, and I felt guilty to God that I had
lost His child."
It was clearly a dark time for their family.
"It was just this super emotional time.
It was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to go through."
In the end, it was the couple's strong faith in God that pulled them through the heartbreak.
"No matter what you go through, you will always come out of it, and I think if you believe
in Him and have faith in Him, you'll come out stronger than you were before."
Unlike many YouTube celebrities who achieve fame online, Johnson was already famous when
she launched her channel back in 2015.
And the fact isn't lost on the athlete turned YouTuber.
She invites fans to her channel, writing:
Many YouTube stars focus on makeup, music, or some other niche interest, but Johnson's
channel is all about her lifestyle.
And when you're already a household name, you don't really need anything else to draw
viewers in.
"It's a perfect waff!
We did it, we did it!"
"Stop eating.
Do you want a bite?"
While her YouTube following isn't massive, it's still pretty popular.
As of mid 2019, her channel boasts roughly 750,000 subscribers and has amassed tens of
millions of views.
"Shawn, I know they say the Queen lives here, but we all know who the real queen is, right?
Feel me?"
You'd think that after spending most of her life training as a gymnast Johnson would be
a fitness expert.
But after she left the sport, she had to find other ways of staying active.
So she started taking fitness classes because she didn't have a self-guided workout routine.
She told ClassPass.com,
"If you haven't heard yet, I just launched my first ever kind of health and fitness brand."
In 2018, she launched her own fitness brand geared towards women called Fyt Life, with
the "F-Y-T" spelling of "fit" standing for Follow Your Truth.
Clearly, Fyt Life's mission is positivity at its core.
She says,
"Hayley what are we doing right now?"
"Watching floor."
Johnson is all about girl power, and a lot of her work is focused on empowering women
and girls.
"I think we were very fortunate to have Shawn.
Her journey, her dedication really inspired the newer generation."
When asked by WBUR what advice she would give to young women hoping to make it to the Olympics,
Johnson instead decided to dole out some helpful advice to all women.
She said,
Her words echo those she was once given by her coach, which she says is the best advice
she has ever gotten.
She told Lifehacker,
"What are you doing?
Are you serious?"
While Johnson's miscarriage was a life-changing experience, she and Andrew never lost hope
that they would one day be able to have a child of their own.
And in April 2019, the couple announced that they were again expecting a baby.
"We're pregnant!"
Shawn confessed to Us Weekly that they were feeling "guarded" and also "excited" about
the pregnancy, saying,
The couple announced the pregnancy via her YouTube channel in which Johnson admitted
she's "absolutely terrified" because of her previous miscarriage.
"It's natural for anybody who has, like, experienced pain or loss to, like, guard their hearts
when things happen again…
'Cause I don't want to go through that again."
We're looking forward to meeting this happy couple's bundle of joy...A Shawn Johnson mini-me
who might even take home a gold medal of their own someday.
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