We All Need ‘Delusional Confidence’ — Ex NFL Star and Olympian Explain Why
By Movieguide® Contributor
Olympian Shawn Johnson East shared what it takes to become an Olympic athlete in a recent conversation with Sadie Robertson Huff, Christian Huff and Johnson’s husband, Andrew East,
Sadie prefaced the topic with something she and Christian talked about a few weeks prior called “delusional confidence,” which is essentially when someone fully believes they can do something extraordinary as long as they put their mind to it.
“I think anybody has that potential,” Shawn added. “It’s just you have to devote such an almost unhealthy obsession to it for such a long period of time to reach that level. So I think we all have that ability. It’s just there are few who truly tap into it. So if that high school volleyballer decides to be obsessive in their sport and just like continues to train for the next five years, yeah, I bet they have a shot at making the team.”
“I actually have strong feelings about this,” Andrew, a former NFL long snapper, continued. “Here’s the thing, we’re writing a book that should be out in like maybe 12 months about this similar topic. I actually think — not to suck all the fun out of this conversation — I actually think that delusional confidence is required to achieve almost anything meaningful.”
He explained that in building a lifelong marriage, for example, “it’s kind of delusional to think, ‘Yeah, I could stick with this one person through all the ups and downs and losses and wins.’ Like it’s kind of delusional.”
“Or the delusion of a young 6-year-old girl who looks at these amazing people on TV at the Olympics and thinks, ‘I want to do that,'” he added. “Like somebody has to do it, you know, and to me, it almost correlates back to faith where like you have to have this ability to believe in something that is not yet a reality and that’s how you achieve anything.”
Faith is at the heart of the Easts’ marriage and parenting.
Earlier this summer, Shawn reminded her daughter, Drew, that God made her on purpose.
“Okay, so Drew and I were talking about value…how she has infinite value no matter what; she doesn’t have to do anything. She doesn’t have to, like, earn it,” Shawn shared in a YouTube video. “It can’t be taken away because God made her on purpose, and she was like, ‘What does that mean, ‘on purpose?’”
“‘God, when he makes all of us, hides these treasures inside of us and we get to spend all of our life finding them,'” she told her daughter, “and she’s like, well, ‘What are the treasures?’ I was like, ‘That’s the cool part.’”
The couple also took their kids to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“It is really exciting,” she told PEOPLE. “It’s this weird, cool, cliché, full circle moment where I get to go back to the Olympic Games with my husband and my babies and watch gymnastics. It’s really, really sweet and exciting.”
Movieguide® previously reported on the Easts:
Shawn Johnson East confirmed that she would allow her kids to pursue sports at the Olympic level, but she’s not going to force them to go that far.
“My husband and I have talked a lot about this,” Johnson East told the “Pop Culture Moms” podcast. “We feel such an immense pressure as our children’s parents to help them find what they are meant to do.”
“My daughter loves art. My daughter loves singing. She loves fashion. She loves ice skating,” she continued. “My son loves BMX and motorcycles and all these things. And I think if [my daughter] came to me and she [was] like, ‘Mommy, I want to go to the Olympics in ice skating,’ I’d be like, ‘Cool. I’m your biggest cheerleader. I will support you. Let’s figure out what the route is to that.”
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