Front Row Dads with Jon Vroman

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Ryan Levesque runs meeting rhythms for a living. So he installed one at home, and he knew that if he walked in announcing it, it would go badly. 
He rolled it out the way he rolls out anything at the company. One piece a week for six or seven weeks, with his kids at four and seven and his wife the skeptic. What they ended up with is seven parts, every Sunday morning after breakfast, thirty to forty-five minutes. The date. Wins. Gratitude that has to be specific. A weekly challenge, which is how a seven-day vegan week happened at his son's suggestion. Family values the kids wrote, nineteen of them, cut down to five. Family goals that cannot come top down. And the week ahead.
Stay for the last three minutes. He and Jon trade the dinner-table games their families use, question of the day and happy-crappy-healthy, and he finishes on the question that decides whether a ritual stays: but is it serving?
 
IN THIS EPISODE
Rolling it out with micro-commitments so nobody revolts
All seven parts, named and walked through one at a time
The weekly challenge, and the seven-day vegan week his son proposed
Letting the kids write the family values, and cutting nineteen down to five
Family goals distilled from an annual vision down to pages read this week
Why none of it works if it comes top down
Structure as the banks of a river
Question of the day, and "happy crappy healthy"
Knowing when to add something, and when to stop it
 
FULL EPISODE
https://frontrowdads.com/143
 
Looking for something to do as a family tonight? We crowdsourced a list of the best board games, card games, and everything in between from our own community — games that get the screens down and the family playing, laughing, and talking trash together after dinner or on a rainy Saturday. Some you can knock out in ten minutes. Some are a two-hour epic. Get the list at https://frontrowdads.com/games

Mark Groves is 46 years old, and the conversation he keeps coming back to happened in a car when he was in his twenties with his father. 
He had gone to his father complaining about a girlfriend, and he had said something to her he is not proud of. His dad told him that a relationship is a separate entity. There is you, there is her, and there is the thing between you, and that third thing has to be cared for. Mark still remembers exactly where he was sitting.
 
That is the point of this one. A father's influence does not switch off when his kids leave the house.
 
IN THIS EPISODE
The car conversation: a relationship is a separate entity
Why a father's influence does not stop at eighteen
"Nothing will ever divide this family," and what it did to hear it
Learning to drive, the standard lines, and the egg under the gas pedal
The construction site rule, and what happened when mom found out
His father's first marriage, and "that's what I learned from it"
Getting caught, and the grace his dad offered on the drive home
 
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: https://frontrowdads.com/experience

Jon asked a pediatrician of thirty-five years for the formula for influencing your kids. She gave him three words.
Dr. Meg Meeker, author of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, says her job is to speak to dads on behalf of their children. So Jon asked the question every man here eventually asks, which is some version of just tell me what to do. She gave him a list. Attention, affection, acceptance. Whether your child is two or twenty-two or fifty, they want the same three things from you, and the third one is where most of us quietly fail.
The part that will sting is the grocery store. You are listing what your daughter has done to someone you ran into, straight A's, varsity as a sophomore, and she is standing right behind you. "She doesn't feel accepted. She feels like a performer."
 
IN THIS EPISODE
Why a pediatrician speaks to fathers on behalf of their kids
The formula for influence, and why men want it as a checklist
Attention: whether your child is 2 or 22 or 50, they want to be seen
Affection, and how it changes shape without going away as a daughter grows
Acceptance, and the grocery store conversation that turns a kid into a performer
The elite swimmer whose whole relationship with her dad was built on the sport
What acceptance means when your kid genuinely disappoints you
"If our acceptance of them is predicated on them turning out the way we envision, we're cooked" 
 
FULL EPISODE: https://frontrowdads.com/459
 
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Every couple has a dance, and most men have never seen the steps written down.
One of you closes the distance and gets louder. The other creates distance and shuts down. What makes it a loop rather than an argument is that each one's way of coping is precisely the thing the other cannot tolerate. Mark Groves names it, then takes it apart: Gottman's four horsemen, why men stonewall more than women do, and the single sentence that breaks a defensive pattern even though saying it feels awful.
Then the harder half. Groves admits he spent years in a relationship with someone who needed exactly the skills he teaches, and asks the question underneath it: what if you need the problem to be there? What if the fixing is the point?  
 
IN THIS EPISODE
The dance: the distancer, the escalator, and why the loop holds
Gottman's four horsemen, and why men stonewall
"I can see some truth in what you're saying," and why it tastes terrible
Behind every criticism is a desired behavior
"Our defense strategies live beside our greatest wounds"
The kitchen, the deal breaker that kept moving, and what he said instead
What happens to the fixer when the addict gets sober
Why nobody should be 100 percent in with someone who is 99
Unconscious commitments, and needing a battle to fight
Jon on creating problems at home to have something to bring to the room
 
FULL EPISODE
How to Co-Regulate: The Science Behind Relationship Harmony: https://frontrowdads.com/474
 
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

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.