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  Winning Balance: What I’ve Learned So Far about Love, Faith, and Living Your Dreams

  Copyright © 2012 by Shawn Johnson. All rights reserved.

  Cover photography by Ryan Towe Photography in Des Moines, Iowa.

  Cover design by Faceout Studio, Jeff Miller.

  Interior corner scroll copyright © TAlex/Veer. All rights reserved.

  Interior floral pattern copyright © Pixel Embargo/Veer. All rights reserved.

  Photographs of Shawn growing up and prom are from the personal collection of the author and used with permission.

  Photograph of Shawn performing at the Olympics copyright © UPI Photo/Pat Benic/Newscom. All rights reserved.

  Photograph of Shawn consoling teammate copyright © DYLAN MARTINEZ/REUTERS/Newscom. All rights reserved.

  Photograph of team with silver medals copyright © Amy Sancetta/AP. All rights reserved.

  Photograph of Shawn holding Coke © Dina Gerson, The Coca-Cola Company. All rights reserved.

  Photograph of Shawn leading the Pledge of Allegiance © MATTHEW CAVANAUGH/Newscom. All rights reserved.

  Photograph of Shawn on red carpet © Steve Granitz/Getty Images. All rights reserved.

  Photograph of Dancing with the Stars © Kelsey McNeal/Getty Images. All rights reserved.

  Photograph of Shawn with young fan © Jonathan D. Woods/Rapport Press/Newscom. All rights reserved.

  Photograph of Shawn seated on ground by Ryan Towe Photography in Des Moines, Iowa.

  All other photographs were taken by Sheryl Shade and used with permission.

  Designed by Beth Sparkman

  Edited by Kimberly Miller

  Published in association with the literary agency of Shade Global, 10 East 40th Street, 48th Floor, New York, NY 10016.

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Johnson, Shawn, 1992-

  Winning balance : what I’ve learned so far about love, faith, and living your dreams / Shawn Johnson ; with Nancy French.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-1-4143-7210-5

  1. Athletes—Religious life. 2. Johnson, Shawn, 1992- 3. Athletes—United States—Biography. 4. Gymnasts—United States—Biography. I. French, Nancy, 1974- II. Title.

  BV4596.A8J66 2012

  277.3'083092--dc23

  [B] 2012007978

  Dedication

  To my parents, for never leaving my side.

  You have always believed in me, supported me, picked me up, and brought me back down to earth when I needed it. You have given me the opportunity to see my dreams come true, and that is the greatest gift of all.

  I know we have had our share of hard times, but through everything, you have given me the world, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

  I love you . . . “to the moon and back.”

  Contents

  A Note from Shawn

  My Lord’s Prayer

  Introduction

  Part 1: Finding Fire

  Chapter 1: Unbreakable

  Chapter 2: Finding My Place

  Chapter 3: Just a Normal Girl

  Chapter 4: Inspiration

  Chapter 5: The Secret Video

  Chapter 6: Not Your Average Summer Camp

  Chapter 7: “Who Is That Girl?”

  Chapter 8: Watch Me, World!

  Chapter 9: A Cast and Some Power Tools

  Chapter 10: Travails and Trials

  Chapter 11: Nothing Is Certain

  Part 2: Champion

  Chapter 12: Handstands at 35,000 Feet

  Chapter 13: The Showdown

  Chapter 14: The Day I Grew Up

  Chapter 15: Do Not Make Bob Costas Angry

  Chapter 16: A Truly Winning Balance

  Chapter 17: More Than I’d Bargained For

  Chapter 18: Last Night in Beijing

  Chapter 19: Proud to Be an American

  Chapter 20: The Best of Both Worlds

  Part 3: Dancing through Life

  Chapter 21: Hollywood, Here I Come!

  Chapter 22: Finding My Space

  Chapter 23: An Arresting Development

  Chapter 24: Little Bullets

  Chapter 25: The Mirror Ball of Glory

  Chapter 26: Learning to Be Me Again

  Chapter 27: Shaping Up

  Chapter 28: How God Became More Real to Me

  Chapter 29: Wipeout

  Part 4: Coming Back

  Chapter 30: Everything Changes

  Chapter 31: The Surprise Announcement

  Chapter 32: A New Identity

  Chapter 33: Just Believe

  Chapter 34: No Regrets

  My Heart

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Photo Insert

  Notes

  A Note from Shawn

  We live by believing and not by seeing.

  —2 Corinthians 5:7

  OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS, many articles have been written about me. Most journalists have gotten the details right, though only a few seem to have truly captured something about who I am as a person, not simply as a gymnast. That’s understandable, since most reporters have been assigned to cover a specific event or to give readers a status report on my training.

  I wrote Winning Balance as a way to go deeper. Though my story is presented chronologically, it is not my autobiography. Instead, I wrote this book as a way to reflect on the lessons I’ve learned during nearly two decades of training, competition, and most important, everyday life.

  That’s why I chose to end almost every chapter with a short reflection called “Lesson I’ve Learned.” Each one summarizes a key principle I’ve gained from my family, my sport, or my faith. I hope these lessons, along with my poems throughout the book, will inspire you as you seek to live your dreams as well. Even though your passions and background may be quite different from mine, I believe there is much we can teach each other.

  Perhaps the greatest lessons I’ve learned so far are these: Everything happens for a reason, and God can be trusted to work all things together for good. I don’t know what lies ahead for me, but I am convinced that I am on the right road. My hope is that something I’ve learned will help you, too, even if you can’t see what’s coming or if life’s pathway has gotten a bit bumpy.

  May we all enjoy the adventure that comes when we walk together—by faith.

  February 2012

  My Lord’s Prayer

  Now I lay me down to sleep.

  My heart is yours to find, to seek.

  You keep me safe and hold me tight,

  Helping me decide what’s right.

  You watch me fall but help me up,

  Never wanting to disrupt

  Life’s set path to which I face.

  Destiny has its own set pace.

  You give me wings and help me fly,

  But always keep your distance—why?

  Why is it you hide in us,

  Causing us to find your trust?

  You surround me in the waves of light,

>   But others find it hard to fight

  The passion with reality,

  Never letting their minds just be

  Natural in believing in you,

  Instead of feeling like the countless few.

  We feel your warmth within our hearts,

  Relying on that so we don’t fall apart,

  Relying on love to keep us intact

  So we can move on and never look back.

  I love you for who you’ve grown to be

  Or who it is I’ve grown to see.

  I pray to you to watch me close.

  Have faith in me; don’t let me boast.

  Watch my family and my friends;

  Guide them in helping their hearts to mend.

  Watch them sleep throughout the nights;

  Stay by their side with all your light.

  I pray you see our hearts’ true beat.

  I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

  Introduction

  Olympics

  August 2008

  Beijing

  THIS WAS IT—THE MOMENT I had worked for with all my might every day for almost as long as I could remember.

  I was standing in the 2008 Olympic arena in Beijing with eighteen thousand people in the stands and hundreds of millions watching across the globe. My friend and teammate Nastia Liukin was preparing to begin her floor exercise and final rotation for the women’s individual all-around competition. I would follow her, and I knew I had to give the floor routine of my life.

  I’d set my sights on the highest possible goal—Olympic gold. The women’s all-around is the most prestigious gymnastics event at the Olympics, the biggest prize of all. It was also the goal I’d had my eyes on since I knew that the Olympics were even a remote possibility. I was competing with twenty-three of the world’s best female gymnasts, who represented fifteen different countries. Just a few days before, I’d taken the top spot in the preliminaries, when ninety-eight gymnasts had been vying for a spot in the finals.

  To win the gold in this all-around competition, a gymnast has to get high scores in the vault, the uneven bars, the balance beam, and the floor exercise. It’s called “all-around” because each of the four events showcases important—and different—gymnastics skills. The vault shows strength, the uneven bars display agility, the beam proves the ability to concentrate under pressure, and the floor exercise demonstrates showmanship. Most gymnasts excel in just one of these disciplines, but the best all-around is someone who excels in all of them. In the Olympics, there would be no higher honor than winning a gold right here, right now.

  I had arrived at the Olympics as the reigning world champion, having won the all-around in Germany the year before, when I was fifteen. Then, back in June, I’d won the women’s Visa National Championships and two weeks later the Olympic Trials. In one sense, these victories seemed to put me in position to take the Olympic gold. However, winners of the world title are rarely able to follow up with an Olympic gold in the all-around. Gymnastics, after all, is the most fickle of sports. So many factors go into whether a performance is medal-worthy—injuries, emotional distractions, rest, diet, the judges’ preferences, and even crowd reaction. With victory depending on so many variables, the competitions are exciting; the results, often unexpected. No one is ever guaranteed a win.

  Mary Lou Retton won this competition in 1984, and I’d been compared to her throughout the Beijing Games. There was something about my muscular energy—as opposed to the artistry of the petite, pixie-like gymnasts—that caused viewers to make the comparison. To add to the pressure, I knew that somewhere up in the stands Mary Lou was watching . . . and hoping I would nail this routine.

  I’d been told a thousand times since we’d landed in China that “this was my moment.” All of the missed leisure time, school hours, and dates had allowed me to focus on preparing for this competition, including the floor routine that was just seconds away.

  Thankfully, the United States, represented by Nastia and me in the all-around, was in good shape. We had both done well on bars and vault. Not long before I had given a clean performance on the beam, sticking my dismount to enthusiastic applause.

  Looking ahead to the floor competition, I was confident that if I hit my routine, I could win the gold. The floor exercise was one of my strongest events, and I could barely wait to get out there, where I could conceivably go all the way.

  Then I broke one of my rules. My coaches had taught me from day one not to distract myself by watching the scoreboard at competitions. But this day of all days, I had a strong urge to look at it. When I glanced up, I nearly lost my breath. Scanning the top names, I noticed that mine was not among them. In fact, I was all the way down in eighth place.

  What had gone wrong? I’d been competing at an international level for several years, and I’d never been so low—even after falling off a beam!

  I’ve always loved math. Not only can I easily figure out how much to tip a good server at a restaurant or how much money I could save by getting the jeans on the sale rack, I can also quickly calculate what scores gymnasts need to receive in order to advance.

  Looking at everybody’s scores after the beam competition, I did a quick calculation. I knew who still had to go up in scoring and what scores they had to get. I also knew what score I had to get to receive a gold medal.

  I tried to push these numbers out of my mind as we warmed up on the floor. After the Chinese and Russian gymnasts had given strong performances, Nastia competed with the seamless elegance she’s known for. Now I was waiting on the blue mat, ready to show the world what I could do. As soon as Nastia’s score was announced, I would be given the signal to go and would have my chance at the top spot on the podium.

  When her score flashed on the screen, my stomach dropped.

  15.525. That gave her a final overall score of 63.325—a full seven-tenths of a point higher than the highest possibility I’d calculated while standing on the sidelines.

  On TV, the announcers were telling the world what my quick calculations had already told me. I would not win the gold medal. Even if I went out on the mat and performed perfectly, my score wouldn’t be high enough to capture the gold.

  My ultimate dream was out of reach.

  Part 1

  Finding Fire

  Find the fire deep inside.

  Watch it burn and stay alive.

  Keep it lit and give it a light.

  Give it life and make it bright.

  Know that what you do is who you are:

  Forever and always you’ll be a star.

  Chapter 1

  Unbreakable

  Other things may change us, but we start and end with family.

  —Anthony Brandt

  THE FIRST SCORE I EVER received was given on January 19, 1992, at Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines. I was one minute old when the doctor took me aside to perform the routine Apgar test, a simple examination given to newborns to determine their health at birth. The Apgar—which stands for appearance, pulse, grimace, activity, and respiration—evaluates the baby’s muscle tone, heart rate, facial movement, reflexes, and breathing. Based on those factors, the test assigns a score from zero to ten.

  After taking medication to prevent premature labor, my mom had anxiously waited for her due date—and then waited some more. Despite fears that I would arrive early, I actually arrived late. When the doctor discovered the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck, he called a neonatal specialist to work on me as soon as I was born. My parents could tell something was wrong by the concerned look on the doctor’s face and the frantic way the nurses were caring for me.

  They watched as the specialist worked on me in the corner of the room before telling my parents that they needed to move me to the neonatal nursery. Dad followed the nurses when they whisked me away. He wasn’t going to let me out of his sight. And I wasn’t looking good. The first thing Dad noticed was that my skin looked gray. The doctor said I had been without oxygen for a while, so I wasn’t
responding the way a healthy baby should. They put me in an incubator for forty-eight hours so they could monitor my health, and I became more responsive pretty quickly.

  Only later, when my parents were going through paperwork, did they see the score of my Apgar test: a big, fat zero.

  By that time, though, I’d recovered from my trauma and looked like any other healthy six-pound, nine-ounce newborn. My parents were hoping I’d be strong enough to one day run and play like other kids, but they had no idea that the nearly seven-pound bundle of joy they were holding was a future Olympic champion.

  After all, even if I’d had an easy birth, there was no reason to believe I’d be particularly athletic. Dad played hockey and wrestled in school, but Mom never participated in organized sports. She did gymnastics recreationally but never competed. However, both Mom and Dad roller-skated, which is what brought them together. They met when they were only thirteen years old at a roller rink in a small Iowa town. Maybe it was the romantic music playing over the loudspeaker or maybe it was just destiny, but soon they were skating hand in hand around that rink.