Why the Most Devoted Men Quietly Destroy What Matters Most with Jon Vroman

Jason [00:00:00] Welcome to The Living Question. I'm your host, Jason Lee. Today we have Jon Vroman. This is a person who's built real things—businesses, communities, stages, and impact. And when you ask what they want on their tombstone, they don't hesitate: “Father.” Not as a consolation, as a choice. Spend time with Jon Vroman and you'll realize that tombstone isn't the whole story—it's just the clearest window into how they move through everything: with intention, with heart, with a willingness to stay present even when it's uncomfortable (and especially when it's uncomfortable).

Jason Jon is the founder of Front Row Dads, a community for men who refuse to let ambition quietly consume what matters most. But what you'll find in this conversation isn't a person teaching from a finished place. They're someone who trips, stumbles, and keeps choosing to get back up—someone who, when fully present with you, will surface the thing you actually need, even if it costs them something.

Jason [00:01:00] That kind of person is rare, and this conversation reflects it. This is The Living Question.

Jason All right. Welcome to The Living Question Podcast, where we look for the gap between knowing and living. Today we have Jon Vroman here—Front Row Dads. You’ve done a lot of things, so I’d love for you to give your own mini intro, and then we can get into what it’s all about.

Jon Yeah. The way I like to say the intro now is: dad, and then other things. That feels better. I spent a lot of time in my earlier years trying to give the big bio of all the stuff, but maybe what’s relevant to this particular show and our conversation—which will be a very unique way to back into the bio—is that I’ve been infatuated with questions for a very long time.

Jon In fact, one of my best friends in the world, John Bergoff, early on—probably late twenties—when I was really getting into the entrepreneurial space, was like: “You need to write a book around questions.” I owned questions to connect.com, and this was my identity: questions.

Jon [00:02:00] Nothing excites me more than great questions—deep questions, light and fun questions. When I think about the highlights of my life, most of it has begun with a new and interesting question.

Jon I’ll give you one as an example, so there’s a little meat to this bone and not just a concept. Back in… 2000… 2006—now 2006.

Jason Mm-hmm.

Jon The question came up on a run with one of my best friends, Jamie Bogger (who now produces the Front Row Dad podcast, by the way, and is still one of my best friends).

Jason Yeah, he called me the other day.

Jon Yeah, it’s cool. He said, “What’s your greatest fear? What’s your greatest love?” Those questions led to ultimately—

Jon [00:03:00] My greatest fear was having my life end early and not having all the moments that I’d wanted to live out. That was my greatest fear. And my greatest love was the moments that I could look back on and be like, “Remember when we did that?”

Jon Greatest fear, greatest love. Identifying the power of moments—the fear of losing the moments or the pleasure of gaining the moments—led to this idea of being a moment maker in my life. That became my identity in my thirties: being a moment maker. Which led to the start of Front Row Foundation (a charity that puts people in the front row with their favorite event), which led to Front Row on Campus and college speaking, which led to Front Row global and national speaking for companies.

Jon And then that led to Front Row Dads, when I realized that all those moments that I was trying to make for other people, I wasn’t making it home. Front Row Dads was born 10 years ago, and that’s what led us here. Those questions—what is your greatest fear and what is your greatest love—are what brought us to this moment today, where we’re gonna get a chance to live through some other questions.

Jason Yeah. And being a part of Front Row Dads now for a couple years, the change and the community within that is so valuable. What’s the term? It’s like community is currency.

Jon Yeah.

Jason And it’s so true. When I’ve spoken with other guests and I’ve asked them, “What made it happen for you?”, there’s always a community component. They’re either like, “I called up all my girlfriends so that we could do this together,” or “My community came around me and held me.”

Jason Life without community is… it’s not a life.

Jon Yeah.

Jon I just read—I don’t know if this is true, so don’t quote me on this—but I just read about James VanDerBeek just passed. And they talked about his home, and that many people thought that he might’ve just been absolutely loaded, but he wasn’t getting the royalties maybe that people thought—so people were curious why they were doing a GoFundMe for a celebrity like James VanDerBeek.

Jon [00:05:00] What happened was that his community rallied to buy the farm for his family to then carry on with. I thought that is just a beautiful way to show the power of your community and your friends showing up for you.

Jon Especially when—and I’ve said this a lot in Front Row Dads—there’s some weight put on this: “Who shows up to your funeral?” At the end, who shows up to your funeral? And in Front Row Dads, I want to explore that a little bit further, which is: who shows up for your family after the funeral? When the big moment passes and all the other moments need to happen, who keeps showing up? That, to me, is the real community in the brotherhood.

Jason Yeah. That’s big. That’s real community.

Jason And that leads into the first question of where we want to go. What we always start with in The Living Question is: let’s talk about a decision point when logic wasn’t enough.

Jon That’s… I feel like that’s an easy one.

Jason Yeah. Because what I’m looking to explore here is an understanding of: I used to always be in my head, and I have started to move to the heart. When logic doesn’t even make sense—or when I can’t plan and strategize my way to the thing, but I’m faced with a decision that I need to make—can you share with us a moment like that for you?

Jon You know what comes to me immediately is getting married. Back in… when did we officially… 2008. Getting married.

Jon [00:07:00] How I met Tatiana to begin with is I placed an ad on roommates.com. I literally was looking for a roommate to rent a room in my house, and Tatiana applies to rent this room very quickly. We fall in love.

Jon I remember at that moment I used to ask the question, “How do you know when it’s the right one?” Because I was dating women prior to Tatiana and had some longer relationships, and I had friends getting married. I would play with the question: “How do you know? How do you know when you’re supposed to pop the question?”

Jon What I concluded after I met Tatiana was that you’ll know when you don’t have to ask that question: “Is she the one?” You’ll know when you don’t have to go to a buddy and go, “Do you think she’s the one? Should I do it?” That’s when you know.

Jon I don’t feel that was a logical question. I didn’t sit down and weigh out pros and cons. It was like my spirit—my soul—was like, yes. And there are other things, by the way, that made no sense. From a compatibility perspective, I knew very early on: I’m super organized and OCD, and she is super—like, the more knickknacks the better.

Jon [00:08:00] I saw that early on and I’m like, “This is gonna be tough.” But I remember thinking: I could hire somebody to tidy my house, but I can’t hire somebody to be in love with. So I put my logic aside and I just leaned into love.

Jon Through that love, there were so many lessons with Tatiana and so much growth—and two beautiful boys that have come through this amazing relationship: Tiger and Ocean. That’s what comes to mind. I’m not sure that’s where the spirit of the question was rooted, but that’s what shows up for me.

Jason Yeah. It doesn’t matter where it was rooted—we take it where we take it. What I’m taking from there is a sense of assuredness, of certainty. If you were to express how you felt that in your body, what did that certainty feel like?

Jon I think it’s what’s not in your body in many ways. What’s not there is the anxiety or the apprehension. It’s the absence of a question.

Jon [00:09:00] How that feels: there’s an aliveness. And in a most extreme example, sometimes I’m playing with this butterfly feeling and wondering what that might be indicative of. But: free. “Free” is the word. It feels easy and in flow.

Jon There’s no holding of my breath. I realized recently when I look at social media, sometimes I catch myself holding my breath when I’m scrolling and seeing intense stuff. I’ll stop and I’ll go, “I’ve almost been holding my breath.” There’s tension that comes with that.

Jon I can also tell there are other moments when I’m laying in bed—sometimes I’m tense when I’m going to bed or tense when I wake up; I clench my jaw. But there are other moments when I feel like I’m melting into my bed, and I can almost feel my heart slow down, and I can feel my body relax.

Jon Paying attention to the sensations that are yes feelings for me… and that does get tricky. Like “where do you feel it in your body?” I remember my first coach, FEMA Zenke, when she asked me that question. She goes, “Where do you feel that in your body?” and I’m like, “What? Feel it in my body? There’s a place for this?” I don’t know, man—I’m giving you an answer. I’m giving you a word.

Jon But I’ve noticed the greatest feedback for me is tension. Am I clenching my jaw? Am I squeezing and shallow breathing? Versus: does this feel happy, light, let go? That’s how I would answer that.

Jason And how I’m hearing that too is: for each person, no matter who’s listening, we all have our own tells—and it’s up to us to learn it.

Jon That’s right.

Jason So as you’ve learned tension versus openness and freeness… when I think about what’s a yes for me, I feel like my core just feels dropped in. I was just talking to Preston and he said when he feels that, it’s like when he questions it, but the answer is still there. And you said the opposite: where there is no question. So other people listening might be like, “What the hell is happening? Is it this or that?”

Jon [00:12:00] I think they’re data points. It’s when I do this thing, the music turns on. And then all of a sudden you realize: “Oh, when I do [this], the music turns on,” or whatever. You’re piecing it together.

Jon I think that’s what we’re doing with our bodies in life: noticing patterns over time. When I feel this way and I make a decision, and then it turns out bad—what’s the pattern there?

Jon It’s like my kid sometimes: Ocean will be like, “I don’t feel good.” And I’ll say, “What is it? What doesn’t feel good?” And he goes, “It’s really hard to describe.” I remember that as a kid. You’re just really trying to give voice to all these different emotions.

Jon Over time, I think you start to create patterns of: how does your body feel when you make a good decision?

Jon I’ll give credit to Tim Nicolai, Front Row Dad—he’s in my band. (Band is small group in Front Row Dads for people who don’t know.) He learned this from Jim Dethmer of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. When somebody asks you a question or you have a decision to make, he would pause and feel his body.

Jon He started to identify that if he feels something in his shoulders, that’s anger. If he feels tension in his shoulders, it’s typically anger. If he feels here, it’s sadness. He started to identify emotions to locations in his body: what is actually my body telling me?

Jon I don’t think anybody’s got it, that they have figured out what every emotion feels like in every human body. I think there are some patterns we can learn from, and that’s a great place to start—like Jim’s work—but it’s just being conscious and aware enough to see the pattern over time.

Jason Yeah. And for each of us, that’s the study we take.

Jon That’s the study, man. That’s why life never gets boring. It’s shifting too—becoming more and more aware over time. The longer people travel down the road, the wisdom is: they trust their body more. “My body is guiding me in this direction. My gut is telling me this.” Versus my logical brain, or my ego, or whatever.

Jason Was there a shift for you where you became more guided by your body than your head?

Jon Definitely. I thank Tim for that. I thank the brotherhood for that. The more you watch other people do it, it becomes a thing.

Jon [00:16:00] Sometimes I’ll pause, put my hand on my chest, and just pause for a minute. I used to want to answer the question really quickly, and now I give a little room.

Jon I got that from a guy named Ryland Englehart. When he owned Cafe Gratitude in SoCal, we would go there all the time. You’d ask him a question and Ryland was the most intense about this: he would close his eyes and he would breathe. The first time it happened, I was like, “What is this dude doing?” But after a while, I really respected his checking in on the answer. I honor that.

Jon I’m sure people have been modeling that throughout my life, but it really wasn’t until early to mid forties that I started to pay attention.

Jason And when you started to do that—not just in relationships—were you also doing that in your business?

Jon Everywhere. Once it becomes a thing, you do it everywhere: with kids, with my spouse, with my business—everywhere.

Jon That is, to me, Viktor Frankl: in the moment between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space is our ability to choose. That pausing became where I was making so much better decisions. You really are responding and not reacting.

Jon That can eliminate a lot of generational traumas, dad especially. Being able to breathe into it and see how my body feels.

Jon I can say now to my kids, “Hey, I can feel myself getting a little activated and I just need a minute. I love you. I’m coming back. Just give me like 10 minutes. I’ll be great in 10 minutes—but right now I can feel I need to sit and shake it off a little bit.”

Jon Now that I’m doing that with my kids, Ocean’s doing that too. I can watch him start to get a little tense and he’ll go, “I’m gonna need a minute.” And I’m like, “That’s great. Good for him.”

Jason It’s a proud papa moment.

Jon Yeah.

Jason And I think it’s about honoring that request both ways.

Jon Yeah.

Jason I can do it, but when other people do it first I used to be like, “You gotta hurry up. We need to speed up this pace.”

Jon Doing it with love and receiving it with love are the keys. You can take the space with a big “F you,” like “I’m gonna freak out, so give me a minute.” That’s one way to do it—and I can tell you how that goes, because I’ve done it before.

Jon The loving way: catch it early enough. Pay enough attention to your body, catch it early, and then you’re like: “Look, I love you, but this is not gonna go well for me if we stay on this path, so I’m gonna catch it early.” Not abandoning you—that’s the key.

Jon [00:18:00] Can you catch it early enough to say these words? The problem is ignoring your emotion too long. Your body’s sending you the signal, and then because you’re like, “I’m a patient man. I’m a good man. I’m a tolerant man. I have strength in the backbone,” you push it long enough, and then all of a sudden you look and you go, “That’s enough.”

Jon It was Dr. Kelly Flanagan—I was talking about this with him—he wrote a book The Road Less Triggered. He was talking about: “Hey Jon, I think you push it too hard because you’re an achiever.” You’re like, “I can handle this, I can handle all the noise,” until all of a sudden you’re harsh. He goes, “If you could back up two steps and bow out earlier, then you don’t have to get to the traumatic harsh.”

Jon I was telling him that when I get to that place, I can feel Ocean… I see the spirit leave his body when I get too harsh.

Jason So that’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about things that way—where being tolerant is sometimes detrimental to expression. Whereas I thought, “Kids will just be kids,” but if it’s bothering me now and I have enough patience right now to weather it, I can still ask them to stop while I still have the patience.

Jon Yeah. That’s exactly right. It’s better timing.

Jon This happened literally. I was vacationing with Tim Nicolai and his family in the south of France, in Nice, this summer—six months ago, eight months ago.

Jon [00:21:00] There was a moment when I was standing on the corner. I’m with his two daughters, and Tim’s running to get something from the store. I’m holding one of his daughters in my arms, and the older one’s standing next to me and playing with my watch.

Jon It’s later at night. I can feel my patience—it’s just a little. I love these girls. I’m Uncle Jon—or in France, I’m called Bon Johnny. She’s playing and rattling my wrist a little bit, messing with the watch. I’m like, “Oh, she’s so adorable.” I genuinely want her to have fun.

Jon What I didn’t pay attention to was: there was a little bit of “That’s annoying to my wrist, to my skin.” It’s like a fly. It’s not terrible, but after a while, you swat a little harder.

Jon I didn’t say anything. Then I said something like, “Okay sweetie, enough with the watch.” I don’t remember exactly, but it was probably that.

Jon My face must have changed. I think I delivered it with the sweetest tone—anybody listening would be like, “You were so sweet.” But after it happened, I could feel my body settling down.

Jon The thing about anger is you shame yourself too: “You shouldn’t be angry because a little girl wanted to play with your watch—you weak human.” You start shaming yourself for your anger. But anger is just an emotion your body’s feeling until we give it a label.

Jon She looks at me a minute later and she goes, “Are you mad about something?” She must have read the micro expression on my face. I thought there’s no way she could have seen that; I hid it so well. But she got it.

Jon The truth is, if I would’ve backed up 30 seconds, 60 seconds—when I noticed it—I could have said, “Hey sweetie,” in a nicer tone and not have had that energy. That’s the art of life. You don’t even know where that boundary is until you break it a few times—until you go past it, experience the anger, and then you can tune it back.

Jon Can you back it up just a little bit? Catch it a little earlier. Feel the emotion a little more. Know what it’s telling you. That’s maturity. That’s time. You gotta give yourself space to learn that.

Jason I’m especially learning that through parenting right now.

Jon You are in the dojo of that right now, man.

Jason It is a dojo. The biggest thing is it doesn’t end. As it’s begun, it’s like the ball’s just rolling. As I’m hearing you, I can think of all these times with Arden that I was like, “Oh yeah, I think I was a little too much there.” There’s times when I was definitely too much, and: I need a repair. I need to correct. And never do that again—for real.

Jason As I’m passing through this experience, nothing has been more expanding, and nothing has been more challenging—to put to the test my ability to hold space for my family. It’s a growth opportunity like none other.

Jon Yeah. And I believe that’s why we need other men who are in similar seasons, right? So that we can talk about these things. And men that are in front of us, and men that we can potentially lead—we need both.

Jon [00:24:00] We need somebody right where we are. We need somebody a few steps ahead. We need somebody who we can send the elevator back down for. That’s an essential part of community.

Jason A big part is, there was a time when I was just doing my best. It was like: we’re doing this for the kids, I’m holding space, tantrum over here, tantrum over there, not sleeping at night—all of this stuff happening at the same time. My wife’s stressed because they’re not sleeping.

Jason I was just like, “Okay, let’s keep going along.” Then I was speaking with another dad, and I told them what I was up to, and they looked at me and they were like, “Dude, you’re doing good.” And I was like, “Really?” Because it felt like I was in isolation. And what they said landed me.

Jon My request to men out there: if you are a dad and you have other dads in your life, do that for another man sometime. Put your hand on their shoulder, look them in the eyes, and be like, “Bro, you’re doing a great job, man.” Catch them doing the right thing. Catch them in the moments of showing up and shouldering the weight of the family in the ways that they can. Those are powerful words. We need to hear that.

Jason Yeah, absolutely. I needed them.

Jason As I’m realizing that more and more: this is the power of community. Most recently it’s been on local community. It’s so cool out here in Austin—another friend, Eric Farewell, introduced me to Front Row Dads in the first place, and he’s on this never-ending mission to recruit people to Austin.

Jon Totally. He’s responsible for raising half of the house prices.

Jason Single-handedly.

Jon Yeah. “Get to Austin.”

Jason But it’s that local community. Seeing the Front Row Dads community out here: you’ve put in the time, the energy, the heart— not just you, but the whole community—to grow this vibe.

Jason [00:27:00] For me, I’m out here in LA and it’s cool that a few more Front Row Dads have joined. Most recently there were two new guys—they were both Chinese, both Taiwanese. Someone introduced one of us, and the other guy found me through the membership. For about a year I was like, “I really want a local thing.” Not only are they local, they’re culturally the same.

Jason One of them is in a band with me, and the other guy I’m gonna meet up with later. Building that local community has still been the more challenging part. From your perspective of building community—what do you think about that?

Jon Local part? Yeah, I have thoughts on this. One is the question: “How big is my backyard?” I used to think: I got what I got—who’s my neighbor? But then you start to think: my neighbor could live in the next state over if I get creative enough. That could be my best friend. I can travel to meet them. We can find unique ways of hanging out.

Jon When I started having this “how big is my backyard and how can I scoop people up and have them over for quote-unquote dinner,” then it brings us to events where I realize that if I want to get specific about the type of human I want to hang out with, I desire to be around certain core values—like our core values in Front Row Dads: curiosity, execution, and community.

Jon I want people that are humble learners. I want people that keep asking questions. I want people that do stuff—take action, ambitious humans. And I want people that value the tribe—that want to be in community.

Jon So I reached out further and tried to bring them all together. I both value my literal neighbor, and I value expanding my locality.

Jon I was listening to a podcast with a really interesting human—Jonathan Goodman—and he invites one of his neighbors over once a week for dinner. Literally in his neighborhood, he extends a hand and says: “Come over for dinner.” That’s a beautiful tradition, a wonderful way to build community.

Jon You could do it other ways—have a fire and don’t worry about “every week” or “every month.” Try it once and see how it feels, and if it feels good, do it again. Morning fires—6:00 AM or 7:00 AM—with coffee. Not just evening fire. Morning coffee around the fire is an epic way to hang out.

Jon Get together and cook dinner together. Get together and play games together. Have a game night—anything that brings people together.

Jon [00:31:00] I highly value that. I value expanding my locality by finding men all over the US who are epic and then bringing them together a couple times a year to do fun stuff. That’s the spirit of Front Row Dads and how it began.

Jon Both: invite your neighbor literally next to you, or have some local. Don’t be a snob at your kid’s school. Shake hands. You’re not too good for anybody. Learn from everyone. And cherry pick the people that you’re most committed to.

Jason What showed up the most for me in terms of building community has been setting the intention and then acting through it. Instead of “I wish there was a men’s community local to me,” I flipped it: “What if there was?” Let’s say I’m in a community—what would need to happen? They gotta meet somewhere, somehow. My schedule’s random. Once every one to two weeks, I usually get some time away from the family.

Jason So maybe I’ll start shooting out invites to men I want to hang out with and see who shows up.

Jason I tried it. It was Friday night and I found out Mel wanted to take the kids the next day to do something I didn’t want to do. I would love to opt out, and she was like, “Fine. That’s great”—in an accepting way. Literally that night, I texted a few guys and said, “I’m gonna go hike the steps over near our place.” One guy came out. We went. Great start.

Jason Part of me was thinking, “What a men’s group—one other dude going on a walk together.” And all these other guys never responded—shame on them. But not really; it was last minute. I started to do that whenever I got pockets of time I could commit to having other people in it, because I need my solo time too. That started to give me this feeling of: there’s a community brewing—especially locally.

Jon Good, man. There’s a guy—I won’t say his name because I don’t have permission—but he recently came to the conclusion: “I need men friends in my life.” He realized he knew a lot of people, had a lot of business transactional interactions, but no real friends and brotherhood.

Jon He intentionally pulled that together—organized dinners and hangouts. He succeeded at that: deep vulnerability, deep connection, deep friendship. It’s awesome when a person can claim: “This is what I need.” You’re a badass. Yes, you can do so much on your own—but at some point you gotta lock arms with somebody and a crew, and choose to go deep like this. You can go a mile wide and an inch deep, or you might have fewer people, but you develop consistency and go deep.

Jon My encouragement: there’s a texture to trading up people that feels yucky in my body. If somebody else walks in the room that has more Instagram followers or a nicer car or whatever metric of success that you’re obsessed with, and you go track them down—you lose the opportunity to have people in your life that are forever friends.

Jon Not everybody’s a forever friend, but you can make a choice and be like: “That person’s not perfect, but I’m gonna love them.” If you’re always waiting for somebody more perfect, you never get that.

Jason That’s catching me thinking. I remember Pastor Rick Warren talking about his small group that had been meeting for… forever—since he was in his twenties starting Saddleback. I was always so impressed by that. It was so easy for me to lose touch with people. I went to college, I traveled, I was always moving around.

Jason Now I want to plant roots. We see other kids our daughter’s playing with and we’re like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if they knew each other for the rest of their lives?” In my head I’m like, “I never had that,” but it’d be cool.

Jon Benefits to both. I grew up in a military family, moved around all the time—benefits to that. Benefits to collecting lots of friends all over—benefits to that. There are benefits to being like, “This is my home, my community, my tribe. This is where I’m going all in.”

Jon We need to weigh it out. I see it in the mastermind community: community hoppers. They hop into a mastermind, scoop up a couple friends, hop out, hop to another, pick up a couple friends. Massive benefits. But it’s like dating versus being married: constant variety and novelty. There’s also something powerful about being married or being with somebody for a long period of time, where you get a chance to be found in new and interesting ways and really know somebody.

Jon [00:37:00] I’m not saying one is better. We all need to determine what amount of each we have in our lives. We should keep exploring: how much is local and how much do I travel? It shifts through seasons. It’s healthy to look at the pros and cons.

Jason I used to be one of those community hoppers. There’s a note to that: when you’ve graduated it, there’s no time to stay. And it’s been earlier and earlier for me—stronger knowing: I’m looking for the community, and the second I feel like it’s not, I know it’s time to move.

Jon It’s like being married. If you meet somebody at 30 and you’re like, “I love this person, I want to start a family,” you could make the case that if you waited until 35 you’d know more about yourself and likely find a better partner. If you waited until 40, maybe even more so. But there’s also a thing about marrying the imperfect part and growing through those differences and lessons.

Jon I have friends that are single that have never been married—they live wonderful lives. I have friends that are married and probably wish they were single. It’s all available to us.

Jason I added a star to this because something I admired about you was… a pretty big pivot. I saw how you intentionally built Front Row Dads in a way where you wouldn’t be the face of it. Most recently it feels even more community. Was that intentional design from the beginning?

Jon [00:41:00] Yeah—very much so. Even from the first Front Row Dads event, I said: “I am not attempting to be the guru. I’m not gonna be the coach people come to learn from.” That’s not my role. I started a community I wanted to be a part of. I want to be in this with you guys, learning alongside you.

Jon The wisdom’s in the room. We value conversation over gurus. The wisdom comes from interviews and conversations, small group conversations, one-to-one conversations. Occasionally we bring somebody to the table that has found a framework that works for them.

Jon The first event we brought in Jim Shields, who wrote The Family Board Meeting. Jim created a program called the Family Board Meeting: he would take one-to-one time with each of his children for four hours every quarter. He wrote a short book. It sold thousands of copies. We’ll put Jim in front of the crowd, have him teach what he does, and people can ask questions.

Jon But the vast majority of what makes Front Row Dads work is not gurus, and certainly not me. I raise my hand constantly: I need help. I struggle in my marriage. I struggle with my patience. I’m learning with all the guys.

Jon I share what works for me, what doesn’t. In that way, I’m a teacher—we’re all teachers. If we reveal personal experiences, we allow somebody else to learn from and with us.

Jon It’s intentional from the get-go. I wanted it to be something where I wouldn’t be captive of the podcast or the business. I don’t want to have to run the retreats or events for them to be valuable. We’ve tested that model and it works: we’ve had events without me, we have a podcast that doesn’t always have me as the host, we have member-to-member interviews.

Jon From a business model: members get to know each other, they run an interview, they record it, we put it out, the rest of the world benefits. They get to know each other, and I don’t have to be the guru.

Jon That gives me time in my life—which is what I want every guy in the group to have too. It would be absurd if I worked my ass off to serve Front Row Dads and told them to be family people first, and then didn’t do that in my own life. My business is a representation of what I hope we all do: leverage ourselves so everybody can win, and you don’t have to be the person grinding to get it done.

Jon Nothing would make me happier if 20 years from now Front Row Dads has thousands of members all over the world and somebody says, “Who started Front Row Dads?” and another person goes, “I don’t know. Anyway…” That would thrill me. That would mean the community and frameworks are working, and it doesn’t matter.

Jon [00:45:00] When we talk about legacy: how many people in that room know their great grandfather, great-great grandfather, great-great-great grandfather? Some do, but 98% don’t. Our legacy is what happens right now—not the egoic thing we worry about living on for hundreds of years. The real legacy is how you show up today.

Jon We could get involved in politics, start businesses, do all these things. But Mother Teresa said: “If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.” That’s the difference between getting obsessed with scaling and having a ripple. Your ripple is your children. The ripple is the hug at home that reverberates, not whether your founder label makes it on something you built.

Jon I wanted to keep it in check. I was inspired by David Packard of Hewlett Packard. At his funeral there was a picture of him on a tractor, and it said: “David Packard… rancher, et cetera.” Huge bio, tons of accomplishments—and it said “rancher, et cetera.”

Jon At my funeral, I hope there’s a picture of me with my family and it says: “Jon Vroman… family man, et cetera.” That’s all I really want.

Jon I hope Front Row Dads lives on and the band program and the way we gather continues to help people gather—but what I really want is people to be friends. Deep friendships with trust, integrity, love, courage. I have that, and I want that for others seeking it.

Jason Before the final question: if the audience wants to find you, how can they learn more? Are you on socials?

Jon You can find me 10 minutes outside of Dripping Springs. Front Row Dads—frontrowdads.com—is the easiest way. And the Front Row Dads podcast. If somebody wants to learn about fatherhood or see if this is of interest, those are the two places.

Jason Perfect.

Jason Final one—what is your current living question?

Jon [00:49:00] What just came to me is: how can I pursue hard, healthy?

Jon I’ve realized that I’ve done things in my life that are hard, but they’re unhealthy. The way I’ve explained this recently is our mutual friend Hal Elrod, who fought cancer years ago—really aggressive, the type where they’re like, “If you don’t start this in a week, you could die.” It was acute lymphoblastic leukemia with a genetic rare T-cell mutation.

Jon Hal would tell you cancer taught him a lot—gratitude and appreciation—but he would also tell you his body is not healthier as a result of it. All the chemo and radiation was not a healthy thing for his body. That was hard and unhealthy, ultimately, even if it led to good lessons.

Jon On a simpler level: somebody running a marathon, but they’re abusing their body. It’s hard and unhealthy—you’re destroying your body. Not all marathon runners, but people that shouldn’t be running, but their ego wants them to run. Over time you’re beating your body.

Jon I call this the dark side of devotion: hanging in on something too long because you claim to be a devoted person. I’m a great example: back in 2006 when we started Front Row Foundation, Jamie challenged me to run a 53-mile marathon in 16 weeks. I’d never run three miles in my life. I basically had to abuse my body to get it done. I took an obscene amount of ibuprofen on the run—27 pills or whatever—and did damage to my liver, my body, my knees. But I was persistent. That’s the dark side of devotion: ignoring what’s unhealthy because you’re “devoted.”

Jon People do this in relationships. I’ve done this in relationships. You stay in a toxic, unhealthy relationship because you’re a devoted person. The most loyal, committed people often abandon themselves—they reject their own emotions or inner knowing—to stay, and then they’re praised for it. There’s a dark side.

Jon So: how can I choose hard, healthy? Life’s gonna be hard. Lots of things are hard. But they can also be healthy for you. Going to the gym and lifting reasonable weights for a reasonable amount of time, a reasonable number of days a week—that’s hard. But at the end of the week, month, year, you’re like: that was healthy. I’m grateful I did that.

Jon Having difficult conversations with your spouse, your kids, your business partners—direct, kind, not nice—those are hard and healthy. A confrontational conversation can be hard and healthy.

Jon What can be hard and unhealthy is waiting too long while somebody plays with your watch. Because you’re like, “I’m patient. I’m devoted. I don’t get triggered. I’m chill.” You abandon yourself, and then you explode—that’s unhealthy.

Jon How can I choose hard, healthy? You’re always gonna get your level of hard in life—you can’t avoid it—but you get to choose the one that is healthy for you. If it’s healthy for you, it’s likely healthy for everybody else too. They might not like it, but it’s likely the healthy thing.

Jason What comes out the most of that is those conversations. They’re hard. Setting the standard of: this isn’t terrible now, but if I wait… sometimes by not speaking about it, we give permission for it to continue and get worse.

Jason Having it in the moment—even with self-doubt—there’s a real feeling in your body: this is happening, this is something I’m feeling right here.

Jason I love that: how can I make it hard, healthy?

Jason My favorite part is leaving it unresolved, so we’re just gonna set it down.

Jon Dig. It means there’s room for more later.

Jason Exactly. Thank you for tuning into this episode of The Living Question. It’s been great to have you. Thanks for coming, Jon.

Jon Yeah, man. Thank you. It was awesome. Great stuff.

Jason That was fun.

Jon That was great.