Front Row Dads with Jon Vroman

Jon walked into a band meeting with seven things to do and walked out with one. Episode 4 of Walk With Jon. No studio, no script, no guest, no editing. Jon Vroman walking the lake in downtown Austin on a Wednesday afternoon, thinking out loud. The audio is rough on purpose: traffic, wind, and footsteps are part of the deal. He recorded this straight out of his monthly band meeting, where he put business on the table. Two things he admits he hasn't always done well: saying his truth out loud instead of withholding it to spare feelings, and being humble enough to ask for counsel. He did both. Then his buddy Tim kept saying the same thing until it stuck: "there's only one thing you need to do after this meeting," and until it's done with excellence, don't do two.   IN THIS WALK: What a band is, if you're new here: four to six men, monthly, real conversations Withholding isn't lying, but it isn't the truth either Lead domino, five whys, communal drive: the FRD core values, and the one he wasn't living Ideation is his top strength, and why that means he needs editors around him The method in one breath: reveal, get curious, lean on your trusted advisors, pick one thing, execute, follow through   Front Row Dads is a brotherhood of family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. To learn more, go to frontrowdads.com.

She calls it puberty in reverse. It can last a decade. And most husbands have no idea it's happening.   LIVE WITH DR. HIRSCH, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8TH.  She is joining the Front Row Dads community for a live session with Q&A on how men can support the women in their lives through menopause. Free for members, and a limited number of guest passes for everyone else. Details at frontrowdads.com/menopause   Dr. Heather Hirsch is board-certified in internal medicine, founded the Menopause and Midlife Clinic at Brigham and Women's Hospital, taught at Harvard Medical School, and has treated thousands of women through perimenopause and menopause. She flew to Austin for this one because, in her words, most of the conversation about menopause happens with women, and it's the men who share a bed, a marriage, and a family with them who never get the briefing. This is that briefing.   She defines the terms every husband should know, explains what actually happens as the hormones flicker out like a failing light bulb, and walks through what it does to sleep, mood, memory, weight, skin, and sex. Then the practical half: how to bring it up without saying "this explains everything," why tracking symptoms beats blood work, the bedroom at 65 degrees, why so many women see five to seven doctors before the right diagnosis, and what real treatment looks like.   Her story is the first 20 minutes. The practical breakdown starts at 19:56. Find a trained clinician: menopause.org or heatherhirschdirectory.com Her books: Unlock Your Menopause Type and The Perimenopause Survival Guide Follow her: @heatherhirschmd   Want a taste of what Front Row Dads is actually like? We run a live Brotherhood Experience most months. Jon and a few other dads, 60 minutes on Zoom, and a real conversation about how fatherhood is actually going. It's not a webinar, and you won't leave drained. On any given week, most dads give support and never get any. That's what this hour is for. It's free, and the next date and your seat are both at frontrowdads.com/experience  

Most of us don't have a plan for our marriage. We have a repair schedule. Something breaks, we patch it, things are fine for a while, and then we sit there quietly waiting for it to break again. Lance Salazar lived in that loop. He describes a defeatist stretch where even when things were okay, he was just wondering when it was going to go bad. So he and his wife stopped fixing and started designing, borrowing the thing they already knew how to do in business: decide what you want, build a plan, commit to it, track it. What came out of that is a framework they call the four legendary relationship elements. You. The partnership. The friendship. The lovers. And Lance is insistent about the order, because a great partnership needs a great partner first, and it is very hard to feel like friends with someone you are arguing with about the garbage.   IN THIS EPISODE The cycle of patch, coast, break, repeat, and why it ends in mediocrity Designing a marriage instead of repairing it Applying goals, milestones, and actions to a marriage the way you would to a company Why you can't run a marathon you never trained for The four legendary relationship elements, and why the order is the point The partnership loop: finances, kids, the trash, and why couples get trapped there after kids Tracking it: ten minutes of talking a day, a planner, an actual checkbox "If you haven't been kissing your wife every day, then you need a reminder" Why it sounds unromantic and why he does it anyway How friendship becomes the foundation for intimacy   FULL EPISODE Legendary Couples with Kids: https://frontrowdads.com/39  

Jon's eleven-year-old had been more anxious than usual, and his wife told him why. You have been more stressed at work. He is a reflector. He picks up on your energy.  Bryan Post takes that and does something more useful than reassurance. Your son has his own part, formed long before this week. You have yours. And the moment you take his behavior personally, you lose the ability to be present for him, because you have made his stuff your stuff. He gives the actual words to use, and the reason they work: all behavior arises from stress; a stressed child regresses to a younger age, and between the stress and the behavior there is only ever love or fear. Then the part most parents get backward. When your kid's fear frightens you, what you do next is control, suppress, and correct, and you tell yourself that is good parenting. It isn't. He finishes with the child who goes quiet instead of acting out, what happens when you try to pry that child open, and the one thing that works instead.   IN THIS EPISODE What Jon's wife told him about his own energy Your part and their part, and why the difference matters "Every communication is energy" Why personalizing your kid's behavior costs you the ability to be present The script: "Dad's been really stressed lately, and I've noticed you have been too" All behavior arises from stress, and why a stressed eleven-year-old acts like a five-year-old Love or fear: what actually sits between the stress and the behavior "You're doing that because you're scared" Turtle children, and why you cannot dig them out with a stick The linchpin, the neuroscience behind it, and the Bruce Lee line that sums it up   FULL EPISODE This is a short cut from one of the best conversations on this feed. The whole thing is worth your time: Love-Based Parenting Is Firm, Honest, and Harder Than Yelling Ever Was — https://frontrowdads.com/531   Want a taste of what Front Row Dads is all about? The Brotherhood Experience is a free, one-hour online session where you meet other like-minded men who are committed to being family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. You will hear the core ethos and values behind the community, and why this brotherhood is a strategy for connecting with your kids, building a thriving marriage, and winning in business. It runs every month. Pick a time that works for you at https://frontrowdads.com/experience

Nobody got married hoping to work on it. That is where Ted Lowe starts. After a long day of working hard, the last thing anybody wants is to work some more, so telling a man his marriage needs more work tends to land like a chore. His alternative is a habit he calls serious fun, built on simple accounting: you cannot make withdrawals from a relational account you never deposited into. And the hard times come, and they require withdrawals. Then he asks the question that gives this episode its name. Jon takes the second half and gets honest about a six-month stretch where his own marriage went into a storm, and the realization that came out of it: he had become boring. Too routine, too practical. So he ran a thought experiment about what he would do if they split up, realized he would immediately become fun and kind and generous for someone else, and asked himself why he wasn't doing that for the person he loves most.   IN THIS EPISODE Why "work on your marriage" is the wrong pitch to a tired man The relational bank account: deposits before withdrawals "Would you want to be married to you? Are you funny? Are you fun?" "We don't date each other. We date each other's PR department" Your best self, and why chasing the perfect couple is a trap Scheduling it, and why the anticipation is half of it Jon on becoming the boring one, and what he did about it Planning to win: your calendar fills with whatever has a who, what, when, where, and how, including root canals Looking at the days around the day, and marriage in seasons "Do you want me to fix it or feel it," and the minivan on the side of the road The scuba diving skins   FULL EPISODE How to Not Make Marriage Complicated with Ted Lowe: https://frontrowdads.com/17