Ep 44: Healing The Boy So The Dad Can Show Up, with Jon Vroman

Tony Cooper sits down with the founder of a brotherhood built to help dads stop hiding at work and start showing up at home. This conversation with Jon Vroman, founder of Front Row Dads, is one of the most honest looks at modern fatherhood this parenting podcast has done yet. Jon shares how a comment from his wife, that he was more of a moment maker for everyone else than for his own family, led him to build a community of hundreds of dads across ten countries.

We get into why most men never study fatherhood the way they study business, why marriage keeps resurfacing as the hardest pillar even for successful men, and why healing childhood wounds together, as fathers, might be the real work of raising strong kids.

Key takeaways:

• Why Jon built Front Row Dads around relationships first, resources second, results third
• The six pillars of Front Row Dads: intentional parenting, thriving marriage, vibrant health, emotional intelligence, business evolution, wealth and legacy
• Why most marriages hit a wall around the time a kid turns seven
• How inadequacy and abandonment wounds tend to marry each other
• Why loneliness, not inadequacy or abandonment, is the original childhood wound
• How modeling family values matters more than writing them on a wall
• Why kids respond instantly to a dad who has done his own inner work
• The difference between venting and actually healing

If you enjoyed The Dad Manual, leave us a rating on your podcast app! If you loved it, share this episode with a Dad! Send your questions to [e-mail]. Connect with Tony Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thetonycooper/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro to Jon Vroman
00:56 Meet Ocean and Tiger
04:27 Choosing unique education paths
08:49 What matters more than curriculum
13:00 Jon's upbringing and early wounds
17:04 Why healing starts at eighteen
19:41 Modeling family values at home
24:27 Why Front Row Dads began
29:47 Relationships, resources, results
34:12 Why marriage became the real focus
37:05 Jon's honesty about his own marriage
41:50 The seven year relationship pattern
48:16 Inadequacy, abandonment and loneliness
51:40 Advice for a brand new dad

Creators and Guests

Host

Tony Cooper

Tony Cooper is the founder of Playing the Game of Business, a business coach, father, and podcast host.

What is The Dad Manual?

The Dad Manual is a fatherhood podcast hosted by Tony Cooper, featuring honest conversations with dads about the real, unfiltered journey of parenthood. This parenting podcast for dads explores everything from the excitement of being a first time dad to navigating the teenage years. As one of the best podcasts for expecting dads and experienced fathers alike, we dive deep into what it actually means to be a modern dad—the struggles, the growth, the mistakes, and the moments that change you forever. Whether you're looking for a new dad podcast or seasoned parenting wisdom, this family podcast delivers the honest guidance you won't find in books.

Tony Cooper 00:00
When I first started this podcast, I heard from a number of people that I absolutely have to talk to this guy, Jon Vroman, and it turns out they were totally correct about that.
Tony Cooper 00:09
Jon's one of the few people who takes this conversation we're having on the podcast out in the world and builds vibrant community around supporting men to become great dads.
Tony Cooper 00:21
He runs an organization called Front Row Dads. He's awesome. You're going to love him.
Jon Vroman 00:30
Foreign.
Tony Cooper 00:34
I'm Tony Cooper. This is the Dad Manual podcast and I'm really excited to talk to my guest today.
Tony Cooper 00:41
He is one of the few people I know that's actually built community around being a dad. And I know that so many dads, like really hunger for that.
Tony Cooper 00:49
Like, that's the thing that's really missing. So I know that Ocean and Tiger call you dad. Will you please introduce yourself?
Jon Vroman 00:56
I'm Jon Vroman and I'm a great dad and I've got some wisdom to share.
Tony Cooper 01:01
Thank you for being here, Jon. Thanks for taking the time. I know you're a busy guy, so I appreciate you sitting down having conversation with me.
Jon Vroman 01:08
Awesome, man. Dude, it's going to be fun.
Tony Cooper 01:10
Yeah. So a couple of reasons. One, you are a great dad. I want to hear all about your kids. And as I mentioned before, you've done something with dads that has been such a missing part of most the experience of dads.
Tony Cooper 01:23
When we talk about parenting groups, it's always mommy groups. Moms are really good at forming community around it. When they talk about it takes a village to raise your children.
Tony Cooper 01:34
Yeah, that village doesn't often really include dads. So before we get into all that, I definitely want to hear, you have two kids.
Tony Cooper 01:42
One's a full on teenager, one's on the verge of becoming a teenager. So tell me about Ocean and Tiger.
Jon Vroman 01:49
They're great kids, young men. Now Tiger is driving around, girlfriend, job, just really doing well.
Jon Vroman 01:59
I don't see him as much anymore, but the time that I do, I cherish. And he's a great human.
Jon Vroman 02:05
I love him so much. And then of course, Ocean is still here, very much in my care this year.
Jon Vroman 02:12
Kind of adventure homeschooling program. Both of my kids have had unique educational experiences which we could talk about if you want to.
Tony Cooper 02:21
Yeah.
Jon Vroman 02:22
So I'm excited for Ocean and you and I bonded over the fact that we just got back from a trip that we took together to Japan, which was very special.
Jon Vroman 02:30
So they're both doing great. They're both boys. We have our challenges as, you know, dads and kids do and as brothers do.
Jon Vroman 02:40
But overall, man, a lot to celebrate.
Tony Cooper 02:42
It's an interesting age gap, too. So it's about six years, is that right, between them? So what's that dynamic between them? Yeah, they're brothers, but that's, you know, that's a whole life cycle in between them. So what's been the dynamic between them, and what have you seen?
Jon Vroman 02:59
When they were younger, it was no big deal. It was, you know, they played, they hung out. It was great. So, you know, if Tiger's, you know, 10 and Ocean is four going on five, you know, that works.
Jon Vroman 03:12
When Tiger turned, you know, 14, 15, and then Ocean's 9, 10ish, that was a harder gap.
Jon Vroman 03:21
And now that Ocean's about to be 12, Tiger has sort of made it through this season of finding his independence in a way, and now coming back to Ocean.
Jon Vroman 03:32
So they're playing a little more, talking a little more. Ocean's growing up. Tiger's understanding where Ocean is and kind of meeting him in that space.
Jon Vroman 03:42
So I'm looking forward to the time when it doesn't matter.
Tony Cooper 03:46
You know, eventually, right? They get there. But that's such an interesting portal, right, where Ocean is just about to become a teenager, something dramatically changes.
Tony Cooper 03:57
It's, you know, I talk about it a lot as, like, that's the third phase of childhood. It's the last phase you have before they become adults.
Tony Cooper 04:03
But they change because their focus becomes more external. Like, they're just curious about who they are in the world.
Tony Cooper 04:10
And so it's easy to. Then, you know, whatever's happening in the family becomes a whole lot less interesting. And so now what you're saying then is now Ocean's about to.
Tony Cooper 04:20
We're starting to walk through that portal into the next phase. So it's sort of like Tiger's like, okay, we can relate again, I guess.
Jon Vroman 04:25
Yeah, exactly.
Tony Cooper 04:27
So what is the education? So that's. I haven't really talked a lot about that on the podcast, about the education that you care about or put forth for your kids. So what's it been for them?
Jon Vroman 04:40
It's been something new in every season. And what I mean by that is that it wasn't that we chose a path, like Waldorf is our thing and Montessori is our thing and classical education is our thing.
Jon Vroman 04:53
And then we're just going to ride that K through 12. That was not the journey that we chose. We said, in any given season, we'll ask who is the child, what resources are available and what's the best fit within that particular opportunity?
Jon Vroman 05:09
And so both of our kids have done a variety of different programs. They've been in different schools.
Jon Vroman 05:17
Tiger went to a place called Whole Life Learning Center. It was very nature based. And we actually found it when we were living up in New Jersey and looking at schools all over the country to ask a bigger question, which is if you could be anywhere and choose any school, what is available in the world versus what's available in our neighborhood?
Jon Vroman 05:36
And so from Philadelphia, we looked at schools in Austin and we found this school. And it just happened to be that my friend was moving to Austin around that time and we came to visit and fell in love and then ended up moving and participating in that school.
Jon Vroman 05:50
That was a really awesome experience. But then both of our kids have dabbled in public schools, each of them, Tiger, when he was younger, about 13.
Jon Vroman 06:01
This was right about at the time that the world was shutting down or had shut down already, and people were looking for unique forms of education.
Jon Vroman 06:11
They were forming pods and groups. And being that I'm deeply immersed in the entrepreneurial community with these businessmen, they often will just find the solution and go build it.
Jon Vroman 06:22
That's in their nature to do so. So several of my friends got together and formed a junior high program called Peak.
Jon Vroman 06:30
And it was for their kids that were around that age. And they hired a guide. They used one of the houses that one of the dudes owned down the street that wasn't being occupied, and they put a program together.
Jon Vroman 06:42
And these are men who, you know, one of them was the professor of the year at Acton Business School and another guy who had been in Acton Business School.
Jon Vroman 06:52
So these were men who were not only successful entrepreneurs, but they were great dads and had a love for education.
Jon Vroman 06:59
It was a unique perfect storm situation. But the program they ended up putting together was just fascinating with sprints of focused time where they would then have autonomy to move through the day with a guide that was there to support them.
Jon Vroman 07:15
And then they would present after these sprints, these six week sprints, to the parents, what they learned, where they were challenged.
Jon Vroman 07:22
They'd create these presentations they would give to the parents. And it was wild. And the peak experience of the peak program was the kids all got together and went to Nepal for about a month with one of the parents who was a donor to some orphanages over there, built schools and they hiked in the Himalayas.
Jon Vroman 07:42
They bungee jumped off the 10th highest bungee in the world. And this is all when they're like 13. Wow.
Jon Vroman 07:49
And the rule was they're not allowed to call home except for once in the middle of the trip and they had this wild adventure.
Jon Vroman 07:57
So I'm giving you just a little window into the world of what some of our kids' schooling situation looks like.
Jon Vroman 08:05
And that's a pretty big example. And then all the way to like right now, Ocean, his school last year was not a good fit for him.
Jon Vroman 08:14
And mostly because I believe that the teachers were not right for him, not that the curriculum wasn't right.
Jon Vroman 08:22
But I'm much more of a fan of, is the coach, the type of coach that brings out the best in the child.
Jon Vroman 08:29
I actually am not as concerned about whether it's a Waldorf or Montessori or classical or whatever form of education, even whether or not it's online or in person.
Jon Vroman 08:39
That matters less to me than does the teacher see the gift in the child? Can the teacher meet that child where they are, help them to develop a love of learning?
Jon Vroman 08:49
Because if a child has good self esteem, self respect, right, if the child believes in themselves and believes they can learn anything and they love learning, there's no greater gift that you can give for the rest of their life.
Tony Cooper 09:05
What I love about your saying is it's really counterintuitive. A lot of people look at programs and wonder where can their kid fit in?
Tony Cooper 09:12
And what you're looking at is what does my kid need in terms of an education or support or society or community or whatever around them and how do we go find that or create that?
Tony Cooper 09:25
And then if a kid isn't working in whatever program they're inside of, there is a big push. And this is, I think, sets kids up for a frustrating life, which is, you need to fit in, you need to follow the rules, you need to change yourself so that you become acceptable in whatever environment you're in.
Tony Cooper 09:43
But you've taken a different approach to that. You've looked at what's in your kid and goes, how do I bring out the best in my kid regardless of whatever the situation is.
Jon Vroman 09:53
Yeah, it's a blended approach and it's always a yes. And it's never one thing only. It's taking many things into consideration.
Jon Vroman 10:01
And it's okay if a kid doesn't love something or a teacher gets frustrated with them from time to time. That's a normal rub of life.
Jon Vroman 10:10
And so you can teach resiliency and leaning in and not quitting also. Right. Like, hey, things in life aren't always picture perfect, and you just gotta lean in and get it done.
Jon Vroman 10:18
So grit is also important. But the point is, most challenging situations, if it's too easy and the weight is too light, you don't develop muscle.
Jon Vroman 10:31
If the weight is too heavy and you're lifting too much, you just get crushed and hurt yourself. So finding the right amount of tension, I think, is the answer.
Jon Vroman 10:40
But the question is, is it healthy? And what you can tell is that over time, is the child thriving over time?
Jon Vroman 10:48
Not do you have a bad day or a bad week? But over time, is the child in an environment where they're thriving?
Jon Vroman 10:54
That, to me, is the litmus test. And just because it worked for one kid at one school, by the way, doesn't mean it's going to work for the next kid at that same school, because the teacher and the kids make up a big part of it.
Jon Vroman 11:05
It's not just, we love the Austin Waldorf program. It might have worked for one child and not for another.
Tony Cooper 11:12
Yeah, specifically Waldorf, too, because a lot of the programs have a teacher that you walk through the entire series of grades with. So if you got a great one, you hit the jackpot. Otherwise, you're screwed. Yeah.
Jon Vroman 11:26
Yeah, that's right.
Tony Cooper 11:28
My kids went through Waldorf, and it can be really entertaining. Like, they do a very good job of doing multi.
Tony Cooper 11:34
Disciplinary approaches to learning. And it always amazed me because you'd be watching some play or watching some musical performance.
Tony Cooper 11:43
And, you know, in my mind, it was always like, yeah, these are the theater kids, or these are the musical kids, or these are the athletic kids that are playing sports.
Tony Cooper 11:50
You're like, it's the same kids. I really love that they stretch them in all those ways, and then they get to a little later in life where it becomes less about entertaining the kid and more about educating the kid in a little more serious way.
Tony Cooper 12:03
I remember one of my kids came home, and he was just complaining. Leo came home, and he was just complaining about the teacher was boring or wasn't capturing his interest.
Tony Cooper 12:11
And it was like that endurance, that discipline, that rigor that you're talking about. I was like, look, in the same way I always say, don't outsource your own entertainment.
Tony Cooper 12:21
Like, it's your job to entertain yourself. In the same way, it's your job to educate yourself. They're a facilitator of your education.
Tony Cooper 12:27
That's why I love what you were talking about before, in the Peak program, they call it a guide, which implies that you're doing the work, they're showing you the way, as opposed to you're there receiving everything.
Tony Cooper 12:39
And so I was like, it's your job to educate yourself and never give that power away to another person.
Jon Vroman 12:44
That's exactly right.
Tony Cooper 12:46
Appreciate all that. What's your background, like, your upbringing and your experience as a child of your parents, and what impact did that have on you as you stepped into your fathering journey?
Jon Vroman 13:01
Yeah, great parents, man. Love them both. They're still alive, they're still married. They live in Virginia. And I was super blessed to have my mom and dad.
Jon Vroman 13:08
You know, if they were here today, they would tell you that they made their fair share of mistakes. They've owned that and apologized over time.
Jon Vroman 13:18
But I'll tell you, man, I have nothing but gratitude. They did an amazing job. They showed up, they were committed.
Jon Vroman 13:25
They're incredibly high integrity humans, full of love. They were just really great community members, leaders, givers.
Jon Vroman 13:36
My mom volunteered at the hospital. That's how I remember her. My dad was a military man of service, right?
Jon Vroman 13:42
They both gave. That's their brand, was giving and showing up for people. My dad gave me bits of that by example and by his messaging.
Jon Vroman 13:52
To me, it was like, we show up for people when they need it, right? My dad always taught me to care for things. It wasn't owning new things.
Jon Vroman 13:59
It was not buying the next car. It was, how do you maintain the car that you have? There was a lot of respect from my father.
Jon Vroman 14:06
That was one thing I learned, a lot of integrity and respect. So childhood was in many ways very normal.
Jon Vroman 14:13
And then there were the things that would make your childhood unique. My dad was in the Navy. We moved every couple years. I have wounds.
Jon Vroman 14:20
I felt like my mom didn't listen to me like I wanted her to. So it was normal, right? And I was a pretty normal kid up until about high school, when being short became, like, the thing that I was hung up on.
Jon Vroman 14:33
Like, I was just not tall for my age. I wasn't growing. And that created a whole set of dynamics for me, which I think the interesting part of the story was just that I craved attention through my life.
Jon Vroman 14:49
I found unhealthy ways to get attention, and I had made some mistakes through that process of compromising values to meet needs.
Jon Vroman 14:59
Right. I would compromise a value that I had to meet the need of connection. And that was a part of my journey.
Jon Vroman 15:06
And then when I found, in my early, wow, actually I was 18 when I found Cutco, the kitchen knife company, the direct sales company.
Jon Vroman 15:15
And I got involved and that's what changed my life. So 0 to 18, a lot of it was normal and great and I have so many good memories.
Jon Vroman 15:23
And I could tell you story after story of just being raised by two loving parents. Kind of wheels fell off in high school.
Jon Vroman 15:30
And then I found my way when I found a company that had a really positive culture that nurtured my desire for personal growth.
Tony Cooper 15:39
Yeah. What did you get from that experience?
Jon Vroman 15:42
I got learning, man. I fell in love with learning again because I was motivated by success in business, by making money and standing on my own two feet as a man.
Jon Vroman 15:53
Right. I was motivated by that. And this company was really great at teaching you the skills to go after life on your own.
Jon Vroman 16:01
So time management skills and mindset, those were things I hadn't learned in school before. Nobody was teaching.
Tony Cooper 16:07
Yeah, they don't teach that. Nobody teaching.
Jon Vroman 16:09
They weren't teaching.
Tony Cooper 16:10
Yeah.
Jon Vroman 16:10
They weren't speaking in a way that spoke to me. And then I found, in my mid-20s, Tony Robbins. I found the CDs on the infomercial and then I started listening in my car and I was like, this is how I want to be taught.
Jon Vroman 16:24
I want this level of enthusiasm and excitement and challenge. And the delivery mechanism worked for me.
Jon Vroman 16:31
And I got very excited about what could I create in my life. I started dealing with my own limiting beliefs. And then that's where things really started to change.
Tony Cooper 16:40
Yeah. Yeah. There's such an interesting thing you point to. Like you say, I had this great childhood.
Tony Cooper 16:47
And the reality is a lot of us have great childhoods, but sometimes we get hooked on a couple of things that quite didn't work and that becomes our entire recollection of it.
Tony Cooper 16:59
So for you to be able to have that perspective, because nobody's going to get out of childhood unscathed.
Jon Vroman 17:04
Right.
Tony Cooper 17:04
It's not a trauma free situation, for sure. But what you did is, as soon as you became 18, you were like, I'm on the path to start healing that.
Tony Cooper 17:13
That's beautiful because most people never do that. And a lot of people wait till much, much later in their life after they've caused the damage.
Tony Cooper 17:22
And, you know, that's what a lot of the conversations that we're having on The Dad Manual is about. A lot of times dads don't even really start doing that work until they become a father.
Tony Cooper 17:31
Because you really get shown who you are when you step into being a dad in a way that has you take account of your patterns because you can see, well, maybe I didn't care that I'm struggling with a lot of relationships in my life.
Tony Cooper 17:45
As soon as it's your kid and you start to see you're imparting that into them. Like, I remember the first time I yelled at my son the way I got yelled at, because, you know, programming, and he just started bawling instantly.
Tony Cooper 18:01
And I was like, oh man. What a gift to get that moment. So an absolute commitment in that moment.
Tony Cooper 18:10
I'm like, I'm never doing that again. That was my one major fail and I'm not going to do that again.
Tony Cooper 18:16
I've certainly come close in a lot of ways over the years, but that awareness. So to be able to get out of childhood, to take account, your parents did the best they could, whatever it was, and sounds like you got a great set.
Tony Cooper 18:30
What I love about it is, you know, the nature versus nurture conversation. I really believe it's something like 95% nature.
Tony Cooper 18:37
Like, they just are who they are. And we have as parents, as dads, have an ability to impact them like maybe 5%, maybe 10%, I don't know what the number is.
Tony Cooper 18:48
And I kind of go, man, just at the very least, just don't mess up your kid, just with that amount. But if you're doing that work on you, and it sounds like you did a lot of that work even before you stepped into fatherhood, and then what you can really do is impart that into your kid, that this is their life, this is their journey.
Tony Cooper 19:07
If we're doing a good job breaking the generational trauma and just not passing the lineage of pain down to the next generation, but literally stopping it and doing the work on myself, you actually get to create an environment where the kid's really going to just deal with the thing that they're here to deal with, whatever it is.
Tony Cooper 19:23
So I think it starts to come up usually around the age of seven. So both of your kids, certainly, whatever it is that they're here to deal with in their life, they're both on their journey around it.
Tony Cooper 19:33
And so you've been on a path of personal transformation. How have you imparted that to your boys so that it supports them and what they're going through?
Jon Vroman 19:41
You know, one is, of course, modeling it. You could just say all that you want to say and give your TED talk, but who you are, how you live, how you go through the day, a lot of that is energetic, a lot of that is subtle, and some of it's just in your face.
Jon Vroman 19:58
But modeling is unquestionably the way to go. That is the primary path.
Jon Vroman 20:05
Live your message, whatever it is. You can write down your family values and hang them on the wall, but if you're not living them, then it looks more like nonsense than anything else.
Jon Vroman 20:18
Your family's not going to value things because you wrote it down and hung it up on your wall. They're going to value it because of how you did it.
Tony Cooper 20:26
Do you have family values?
Jon Vroman 20:27
I have personal values.
Tony Cooper 20:29
Have you brought that to the family when you talk about modeling all the time?
Jon Vroman 20:34
And my boys could actually tell you what my values are. They could repeat them, but like I just said, it's more important that they see how I'm living that.
Jon Vroman 20:43
So my values are truth, love, respect, and responsibility. Those are my four core values as a man. I wish I had. Oh, by the way, hold on.
Jon Vroman 20:52
All right. I'm going to show you two things, because we talk about what they see and what they feel.
Jon Vroman 20:58
I'm not discounting what hanging something on your wall means. My point is that it looks inconsistent if what you hang up is not how you live.
Tony Cooper 21:09
Right.
Jon Vroman 21:09
And that's my point.
Tony Cooper 21:11
And we see that in families. We see that in companies. It's the same thing, right?
Jon Vroman 21:15
Exactly. Yeah, but this is in my office. This one's burned into a piece of wood.
Jon Vroman 21:21
I'm holding up what looks like a tablet of wood, and on it, this is my dad's handwriting, by the way.
Jon Vroman 21:27
That's the original handwriting that my dad wrote. This is 1980, and it says family cornerstones.
Jon Vroman 21:34
We Vromans believe that a happy life has its foundation in a happy family and a happy family as a result of the following basic principles.
Jon Vroman 21:42
Number one, consideration of each other's needs and feelings. Number two, mutual trust and honesty.
Jon Vroman 21:49
Number three, self respect and respect for each other. Number four, doing things together and sharing a good time.
Jon Vroman 21:56
Number five, treating each other as we would like to be treated. And then he had us all sign it at the bottom.
Jon Vroman 22:04
So this is in my office right now, along with, so my boys can see this, right, is also a picture of my dad in his military.
Tony Cooper 22:13
In his military.
Jon Vroman 22:14
In his military, yeah. And I'll tell you why this is important for me, because there's a couple of things.
Jon Vroman 22:22
One, they know my dad, right? My dad has a relationship with my boys, and they see me respecting my dad.
Jon Vroman 22:30
Like, I call my dad from the car on speakerphone with my boys because I don't want to drop my boys and then call my dad.
Jon Vroman 22:38
I want to call my dad in front of my boys as an example. And I want to show my dad respect. So rather than demanding respect from my children, which I will require respect, right?
Jon Vroman 22:50
And if they are disrespectful, I will call that out because that is part of being a man and raising children, is holding a line, right?
Jon Vroman 22:59
Having a spine, having boundaries. But I want them to see this. I want them to see it in my office. I want them to see me call.
Jon Vroman 23:06
I want them to watch me live these values that my dad lived. These values that my dad wrote down, though what I want to say is he demonstrated those unquestionably.
Jon Vroman 23:20
I could literally point to story after story after story of how he did all those things, right?
Tony Cooper 23:27
And that's when values become real. They live in actions. They don't live in concepts, they don't live in platitudes.
Tony Cooper 23:34
And so the behavior that it's identifiable and observable becomes teachable. And it also becomes self regulating.
Tony Cooper 23:42
Because if we get it out of, like, truth as a value, but what does that mean in practical terms, then we can self regulate and see if I'm living our family value or not as a way to.
Tony Cooper 23:54
If I really care to, then I have a path back to it, as opposed to right, wrong. Values are often, like, down, like the.
Tony Cooper 24:02
From Mount Sinai, like Ten Commandments or something like that. It's like, no, it's a living way. It's a doctrine that we have within our family.
Tony Cooper 24:09
So that's beautiful. That's beautiful. I want to also talk about Front Row Dads, because when I found out about what you've been doing and the impact you've been having, it really has spoke to me in terms of what's missing in our culture as fathers.
Tony Cooper 24:27
Because there's lots of business leader groups, there's tons of those. There are church groups, there's lots of things.
Tony Cooper 24:34
But just built around being a dad. And I think the anchor you have is like, don't be in the last row.
Tony Cooper 24:40
Be in the front row of your life. So will you walk through what you've created, where it came from, and the way you do events, the way you do gatherings, the way you build community, and what's the impact that you are making on dads?
Tony Cooper 24:55
And what's the takeaway for anyone who's listening to this?
Jon Vroman 24:59
I'll start with why this began. Why. So this is 10 years ago. Tiger is what, six?
Jon Vroman 25:06
Going on seven or seven, and Ocean's in the one-ish range, right? That's where I'm at in life. And I had been working my butt off to be an entrepreneur, provide for my family, show my kids how to chase their dreams.
Jon Vroman 25:19
That was where I was. And I had just landed my biggest speech of my life. And I had this book that was out. I had a charity that I was running.
Jon Vroman 25:27
Like, arguably, my life was really good. And my wife said to me at some point along this journey, about this season, she said, hey, you're doing a great job out there in the world, but just don't forget about your family.
Jon Vroman 25:42
And I think her line exactly was, you know, at times, you're more of a moment maker for everybody else than you are for our family.
Jon Vroman 25:51
That was my brand. That was my book. That was my speech, was be a moment maker. And so that hit.
Jon Vroman 25:59
And then when I started looking, I found evidence that she was right. So I would be at a networking event, and somebody would say, hey, John, what do you do?
Jon Vroman 26:11
And my internal answer wanted to be, I'm a speaker, I'm a coach. I run a charity. Look at all this.
Jon Vroman 26:18
I ran an ultra marathon. Look at how amazing I am, and can we do business? And can you hire me for your next speech?
Jon Vroman 26:26
And I thought, what would it be like if my answer was, I'm a dad and I'm a husband, and then I do some other stuff?
Jon Vroman 26:34
So then when I started thinking through this, how I see myself and who I am, am I a businessman who happens to have a family on the side, or am I a family man with a business?
Jon Vroman 26:46
Where are my priorities? Because at this point in my life, the best hours of my day were going to my business. In fact, I would say that to my wife.
Jon Vroman 26:54
I would wake up in the morning and I would say, I got to go to the coffee shop immediately, because my best hours are the first four hours of a day, and I need to go grind it out and get my business work done.
Jon Vroman 27:05
So I would leave before the kids would get up, so I didn't get trapped by the kids. So I could go to a coffee shop and work on my mission so I could provide for my family.
Jon Vroman 27:16
But what happened? There's an element of truth to that. Do I want to put food on the table? Yeah. Am I driven by the fear of not protecting and providing for my family?
Jon Vroman 27:24
For sure. But I also was hiding at work. I was also hiding there because it was fun for me, because home life was difficult at times, because sipping coffee in a cafe, working on my next book felt pretty awesome compared to dealing with a screaming child that didn't want to eat his breakfast, right?
Jon Vroman 27:47
So I started to see all this and I was like, oh man. I started talking to my friends about it. And then my buddy Hal, he said one time that he was talking to me on the phone and he got off the phone with me and his wife goes, how's John's wife and kids?
Jon Vroman 28:01
And Hal was like, I have no idea. I have no idea. I don't know.
Jon Vroman 28:07
We just talked for an hour about business. Okay, so it goes on and on, right? You look at your computer, how many files are for your family versus your business.
Jon Vroman 28:15
Look at your calendar, how many meetings are for business, how many of those conversations are actually focused around being a great dad?
Jon Vroman 28:22
And why do we think we need to pay $10,000 to go to a business mastermind to grow our business, but somehow we need to spend $0 on being a better dad?
Jon Vroman 28:31
Like that, we're just supposed to know, that we would just do it all by ourselves inherently. Just be amazing at it without studying it.
Jon Vroman 28:39
You have to study business and go to all the conferences, but you just, as a dad, you just show up to dinner and just be like, I love you guys, this is great.
Jon Vroman 28:46
Love being a dad. All right, so we put 30 dudes together in a room back in 2016 and the only request was like, guys, you talk about your business non stop.
Jon Vroman 28:56
Just talk about your family, talk about your children, talk about your wives. These were all guys who were successful, multi, six figure, even seven figure earners.
Jon Vroman 29:04
There were millionaires in the room, right? There were people who had exited businesses. There were people that. These were intelligent men.
Jon Vroman 29:11
It's not like they didn't have the wits about them or the smarts about them or the resources. Many of them had nannies at home and traveled with their, like, they were already winning.
Jon Vroman 29:20
So I want you to keep in mind, these are not men who were deadbeat dads, but they were guys who were like, I want to be better.
Jon Vroman 29:27
I know there's a shadow there. I know I want to be excellent at everything I do. And yes, I'm taking pickleball lessons and golf lessons and yes, I'm going to the business mastermind, but I'm going to put equal attention to my family.
Jon Vroman 29:39
Yeah, and that was 10 years ago. 30 guys. And now we're hundreds of men operating in over 10 different countries.
Jon Vroman 29:47
And we have events throughout the year, online, in person, small retreats, bigger conferences, bigger.
Jon Vroman 29:54
We have all these programs that we've built and the whole goal is this. It's the three Rs that's my driving force for business. Relationship number one.
Jon Vroman 30:02
We are not a content company. I am not a blogger of fatherhood. I am not making professional videos around fatherhood.
Jon Vroman 30:10
That is not my goal. I am a community builder. I put outstanding men together who want to become brothers over time to find men with similar values.
Jon Vroman 30:21
So relationship is first. Once you develop a relationship, all the resources get shared amongst men who trust each other.
Jon Vroman 30:29
Every book recommendation, every coach recommendation, every therapist, every go here, do this, talk with this person, let me make an introduction for you.
Jon Vroman 30:38
All of that happens when real relationships have been built and then you get a result. So no, you're not going to chatgpt your way into being a great dad.
Jon Vroman 30:48
No, you're not going to Google your way into being a better dad. The best way we learn is by being in community with great like minded people who share our values, sharpen each other because they won't let us hide.
Jon Vroman 31:03
And then we grow. And by the way, that's why it's worked. It's why 80% of the people who come to an event of ours come back a second time or a third time or a fifteenth time.
Jon Vroman 31:13
Because we're a brotherhood. We're not a churn and burn membership group. We're not a, you'll come in and kick the tires for 90 days and then bounce.
Jon Vroman 31:22
Guys come and stay because we know who we are, we are clear about who we are. We tell the world who we are and who we're not and the right men just find their way to us and we do no advertising.
Jon Vroman 31:34
This is all by word of mouth, this is all by recommendation. And the impact is this. Dads take time out to focus on themselves and the fathers they want to be, the husbands they want to be, the businessmen they want to be, and then they go back home better.
Tony Cooper 31:47
So there is relationship, resources. And what was the third order?
Jon Vroman 31:50
Results, results. Relationships, resources, results in that order.
Tony Cooper 31:54
And results, it's a good one too, because so much of what being a man is, is really too focused on the results.
Tony Cooper 32:02
But results are just simply the measurement of how everything upstream is working. And if you don't like the results, people tend to focus more on, like, we'll do more, or, well, where did we miss upstream?
Tony Cooper 32:14
So that's a good order. The other thing about what you're talking about, you're providing a possibility that didn't exist before.
Tony Cooper 32:21
Right. When we learn, there's the stuff that I know, the stuff that I know that I don't know, and then there's the I don't even know what I don't even know.
Tony Cooper 32:29
And I think for so many men, the idea that you could literally be a great dad, like, you could focus on that, you could put attention toward that, you could build community around that.
Tony Cooper 32:40
It doesn't even exist as a concept for most people. Like, where would I have ever seen that before? So it sounds like what you're doing is introducing more than anything the possibility of something they never considered.
Jon Vroman 32:51
Yeah. And the other thing, so this group does not exist currently in the United States. There is no dads group like ours in the US. There are free dads groups.
Jon Vroman 33:03
Right, that are awesome, by the way. I'm just going to say right now, like, this is not putting anybody down. There are amazing groups out there that serve men at all different levels of life.
Jon Vroman 33:12
But there was this group that I wanted to give attention to, or these hard charging, high performing, entrepreneurial men who had success in their life.
Jon Vroman 33:21
And they were like, I want to hang out with that group of guys because we share similar problems. Our ambition gets in our way of being a great dad.
Jon Vroman 33:29
That's the guy I want to talk to, is the guy who has a problem stopping the grind, not getting going. I don't want to network with the guy who's like, I can't find the motivation to work.
Jon Vroman 33:37
I want to talk with the guy who's like, it's hard for me to find the breaks of my mission. I want to talk to that guy because that's my problem.
Tony Cooper 33:45
Yeah.
Jon Vroman 33:45
And so we tend to have an affluent, successful group of men who've come together.
Jon Vroman 33:51
And our price point says that, like, if somebody looked at what we charge, they'd be like, you're crazy. And I'm like, maybe we are, but we also have a bunch of guys who are like, if another man is willing to invest that much money into becoming a better dad.
Jon Vroman 34:05
I want to be around him.
Tony Cooper 34:08
The other thing that you focus on with dads is the marriage, the relationship.
Jon Vroman 34:12
Yeah.
Tony Cooper 34:13
Or the relationship if there's not a marriage anymore. Because so much about being a dad is how we're impacting, like you were saying before about values, how we're impacting our children by our actions.
Tony Cooper 34:24
They're always watching, they're always looking. And the Italian author Umberto Eco said, what we become as men depends on what our fathers taught us when they weren't trying to teach us anything.
Tony Cooper 34:36
And because we're always leading by example. And so what's the focus you bring to relationship?
Tony Cooper 34:42
Because, man, one of the things about raising children and being an adult is that we want them to have very successful lives.
Tony Cooper 34:49
And we can focus on the business part of it and even being a great fit father. But the quality of the relationships that we have with their mothers, whether it's a boy or a girl, massively dictates what they're going to seek out in their life.
Tony Cooper 35:04
So what's the focus at Front Row Dads do you bring to the relationship part?
Jon Vroman 35:08
Yeah, so I'll say a couple things. This is great, by the way. Great question, great focus. Because at our very first ever event, we're all there to be a better dad.
Jon Vroman 35:16
It took about 90 minutes to realize that most of these men wanted to talk about their marriages. It took about 90 minutes to realize these guys are like, man, I.
Jon Vroman 35:25
You know, the thing. My kids and I are great, but my marriage is the tough one. And that became so obvious.
Jon Vroman 35:32
So that actually led to the development of our six pillars. So the guys were like, well, what do we want to focus on to be better dads?
Jon Vroman 35:39
And they collectively came up with the six pillars. So intentional parenting, of course, right. That's where it started. Thriving marriage was the second pillar.
Jon Vroman 35:48
Then it was, I need to be healthy as a man to do all this, to shoulder all this. So vibrant health was number three.
Jon Vroman 35:54
Number four was emotional intelligence. Guys were like, how do I deal with my anger? How do I be patient? How do I regulate my emotional state in my home?
Jon Vroman 36:03
Because shouldering again so much, but then it's like, I want to succeed in business. So business evolution was there, because if you're stressed in business, you're bringing it home, period.
Jon Vroman 36:13
And then wealth and legacy. Hey, if we're making money, what are we going to do with that? And what's generational wealth look like? Do I let my kids inherit all this money type of thing.
Jon Vroman 36:22
Right. So there's that as well. Or how much do I give my kids so they're not entitled or spoiled. All right, so six pillars, and each of those, they break down into three categories.
Jon Vroman 36:32
The man, the family, the business. That's what it is. You, the man, then your family, then your business. All right. So at our first ever event, it became painfully obvious that marriage was the one.
Tony Cooper 36:41
So I. Yeah, yeah.
Jon Vroman 36:43
Leading the charge was like, guys, marriage has been the hardest thing in the world for me and still is to this day.
Jon Vroman 36:50
I've been public about it. I've told people a lot. I could say you and I could have a three hour conversation around marriage.
Jon Vroman 36:57
I am in the middle of a marriage crisis right now. And by the way, I'm so happy to tell everybody that.
Jon Vroman 37:06
You know why? Because I'm not here to make things up to anybody. I founded Front Row Dads, but that does not exclude me from dealing with life issues.
Jon Vroman 37:15
That does not mean, because I started the dad's group, I got no problems as a dad, no problems in my marriage, no problems in business.
Jon Vroman 37:22
I have as many problems as any man faces who's just waking up and doing life, if not more.
Jon Vroman 37:28
My marriage is the middle of a crisis right now. As we speak, my text messages with my wife, we're in the middle of a crisis.
Jon Vroman 37:37
But it is not because we don't love each other. If you saw us this morning, I was hugging her and kissing her and adoring her.
Jon Vroman 37:45
And we are confronting some things in our marriage right now that are very big and very real and require therapy.
Jon Vroman 37:55
And it's just too much for me to even get into. And I couldn't even give you all the details because it's also her life.
Jon Vroman 38:01
And I have to respect her world too. Right? So I can tell you, though, that it's challenging and I share that with you.
Jon Vroman 38:08
Because the point of our membership, the point of our community, is to be real with each other, because a lot of times there isn't a safe place to talk about that.
Jon Vroman 38:16
Because I will tell you, not every man wants you to win. Not every human wants you to win. They want to take your truth and use it to hurt you.
Jon Vroman 38:23
They want to steal your kingdom, take your stuff. Not everybody is cheering you on. They love to see a good man fall. Right?
Jon Vroman 38:31
So I will tell you that it's for me, though, in my community and with my closest brothers, I get a chance to explore this kind of stuff.
Jon Vroman 38:38
And even now, to explore this season of my life that I'm in, 51 years old, I would say I've gotten my ass kicked this last year in a very healthy way to remind me that I am human.
Jon Vroman 38:51
But I can also tell you with absolute truthfulness, that I am also in the best place I've been in in a very long time right now.
Jon Vroman 39:02
And I am crushing it. It's not perfect, but, dude, I'm killing it. As a man, in my health, with my kids, with my relationship, even though it's hard with my business right now, I've never been more dialed in, more focused, more loving, more truthful, more decisive, more confident in my yeses or nos than I am right now, dude, in those six pillars because of these men, because they have sharpened me, and they all know, man, I never positioned myself as the guru of this group.
Jon Vroman 39:30
I never said sign up and come learn from me. Never. You won't find a single time I've ever said that in 10 years.
Jon Vroman 39:38
I did say sign up and come learn from each other. The wisdom's in the room. Yeah, that's what I have said.
Tony Cooper 39:46
Yeah. I mean, you and I, we're running similar agendas, which is this is not about me and my wisdom that I'm imparting.
Tony Cooper 39:52
Every single guest gets on here and says they're a great dad and they have wisdom to share because we all do. We all have different life experiences.
Tony Cooper 39:58
If you're in a long term relationship, that relationship has to reinvent itself because of the way the cycles of life work.
Tony Cooper 40:05
About every seven years, there's a very particular pattern of where relationships fall apart. And it's usually about the age of when your kid turns 7, that's the first massive struggle point, if not before.
Tony Cooper 40:18
It's where, you know, when you have a kid, your relationship is so focused on each other. But as soon as you have a kid, you go side by side, right?
Tony Cooper 40:25
You're focused outward and then you go through that. So focused on the kid. You go through your own life cycles.
Tony Cooper 40:32
You're not the same people. And when all of a sudden you go, the police state is over and we can take our eye off the ball and actually come back and relax.
Tony Cooper 40:39
And you look at each other and you have no idea who each other is, totally don't recognize each other. And that's the moment where if you're going to do this work, pillar number two, and have a healthy, thriving relationship, you say, okay, let's go to work on us.
Tony Cooper 40:51
But what sadly too many people do is they go, I don't have any skills toward that. I don't have any experience toward that.
Tony Cooper 40:58
They haven't been doing personal transformation work since they were 18, so they didn't even know the first thing about it. Therapy is for weird people.
Tony Cooper 41:04
And they go, let's just go back to doing what we were just doing before, which is just put our attention on our kids. And that's the moment the relationship ends.
Tony Cooper 41:12
But it doesn't come out until like seven years later when the kids now leave, start to be focused outward. And then they go like, all right, let's stay together for the kids.
Tony Cooper 41:20
And then the kids go off and they divorce. It's like the pattern, it ought to be trademarked. It's so predictable. And in Front Row Dads.
Tony Cooper 41:28
Is it simply just opening up to, it is something that we struggle with, and it's something we have to really put our attention on or it's not going to thrive.
Tony Cooper 41:36
Or what specifically do you focus on relative to the relationship?
Jon Vroman 41:39
This is such a great one, man, because it's so my world right now. Dude, everything's the mirror.
Tony Cooper 41:44
Yeah.
Jon Vroman 41:45
That's the whole point, right? It is about your spouse because they are the mirror. It is about your spouse because they might be the trigger, that they say the words that hurt.
Jon Vroman 41:56
They do the things that are painful. So, yes, it involves them. You are part of a system that is affected by the rain, right.
Jon Vroman 42:06
And the storms and the weather that's around you. We are part of this, but it's all for us.
Jon Vroman 42:14
That's the whole point. So what Front Row Dads isn't is a place where men get together, smoke cigars, drink a beer, and talk about their wives behind their backs.
Jon Vroman 42:21
That's not what it is, right? Let me just have a place to vent and complain. Now, is venting necessary at times?
Jon Vroman 42:30
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you just gotta say it, right? And you gotta get it out without being judged. And you're like, I just need a minute to rant.
Jon Vroman 42:37
And I'm gonna be a victim for a second. I'm just gonna say some stuff. I get a release, right? There's a release to that.
Jon Vroman 42:43
That's fine. But not living in that. We would never let a man live there. We'd let the man throw the tantrum, punch the bag, yell, scream, stomp his feet on the ground.
Jon Vroman 42:54
Because that's therapeutic for a moment, for a period of time. And then once we ground ourselves, then the question is, what is this revealing about us?
Jon Vroman 43:04
Where is the learning from within? Where was the original wound as a child? What did we not get from our mothers and fathers, right?
Jon Vroman 43:13
Where were we hurt that was never repaired, never healed? How can we repair it ourselves? We have an event coming up in Front Row Dads in November, and the whole thing, it's a three hour online event.
Jon Vroman 43:26
We'll literally have a hundred men there online with us that are all members of our community. And do you know what we're talking about?
Jon Vroman 43:32
Parts work. IFS, internal family systems. We have a man in our group who's done very well for himself.
Jon Vroman 43:40
Right, again, wildly intelligent, multimillionaire, exited his business, travels with his family.
Jon Vroman 43:47
Best dude I know. Heart centered, loving, amazing father. If you went out and had lunch, you'd be like, best guy ever. He's done incredible parts work on himself. He's done deep therapy for years.
Jon Vroman 44:02
And now he's bringing that to our mental from his own experience. He's bringing the wisdom.
Jon Vroman 44:08
This is, guys, this is what's happening for me. This is what's going on. And so we're bringing IFS experts, we're bringing the concepts, we're bringing the conversations.
Jon Vroman 44:16
Men will talk with each other about what this means and how it shows up so that we can then be better husbands, better dads, better brothers to each other.
Jon Vroman 44:24
But dude, most men are not having these conversations when they get together with their buddies at a barbecue. And by the way, I know it because I'm friends with a lot of the guys that are doing the work, but when we're barbecuing together, the conversations aren't going here.
Jon Vroman 44:37
Now, do we sometimes get a little deep?
Tony Cooper 44:39
For sure.
Jon Vroman 44:39
But when the kids are around and we're constantly interrupted and our wives are walking around, do we go as deep as we could then if it was just men with room to go deep?
Jon Vroman 44:49
Right, dude, that's what's happening. Mirror work, looking within, having a dude who you know isn't there to coach you.
Jon Vroman 45:00
We don't coach each other. It's not like, hey, man, let me tell you what you're doing wrong. That's not it.
Jon Vroman 45:06
But we say, man, I feel you. I've had something similar in my life. Would it be okay if I shared my experience around something similar that I went through?
Jon Vroman 45:15
It might be valuable to you. Then we have some witnessing. Men want to be seen, heard, valued, respected.
Jon Vroman 45:23
They don't get that in a lot of places in their life.
Tony Cooper 45:25
Right.
Jon Vroman 45:26
They also don't always feel comfortable talking with their neighbor about their spouse because they're in the neighborhood. Right.
Tony Cooper 45:34
Because people don't know confidentiality or how to hold any of that.
Jon Vroman 45:38
Yeah, they talk with their buddy, but their buddy's wife is friends with your wife. And then it gets, you know what I mean? It's like.
Tony Cooper 45:43
Right, right. And so just being able to model that too. So it's so funny, I've noticed that when you find the one, you know.
Tony Cooper 45:53
That you wind up going, that's the person I'm going to marry. At a very transformational level, I think what's actually happening is your deepest wound is the thing that perfectly triggers her deepest wound.
Tony Cooper 46:06
Her deepest wound perfectly triggers yours. Like a plug in a socket. And you're like, that's why we come together, because we are here to break through and become the next best versions of ourselves.
Tony Cooper 46:19
Which brings me to your pillar number four, which is the emotional intelligence. And the emotional intelligence is that knowing that the only thing that's actually upsetting me or triggering me or throwing me off my ways is me.
Tony Cooper 46:33
I'm the one. Now, are there external factors that are scratching that itch to make it happen?
Tony Cooper 46:40
Absolutely. But those are the opportunities. So I'm also hearing in the Front Row Dads community that you get to model what emotional regulation looks like, the ownership of my trigger and things like that.
Jon Vroman 46:52
Yeah, we're just practicing the thing we got to do when we get home. So we have a guy in our group, listen to this. His name is Kelly Flanagan. He's an amazing writer. He's written several books. Do you know him?
Tony Cooper 47:01
No.
Jon Vroman 47:01
Okay, so he wrote a book called Lovable. He wrote a blog that went totally viral, landed him on the Today Show, got a book deal.
Jon Vroman 47:08
And he's a psychologist. Right. He and his wife are both psychologists and have a very successful practice. Loves to write, has now written four books.
Jon Vroman 47:16
The last one is called Triggered. Right. So it's all about triggers. Well, he's a member of Front Row Dads. So he's the type of guy that's in the room as a member, which is wild.
Jon Vroman 47:26
And then our members teach each other. So he actually taught at our last retreat in San Diego. There were 45 men in the room.
Jon Vroman 47:33
And he's teaching that you will have one of two wounds, basically inadequacy or abandonment.
Jon Vroman 47:40
Those are the wounds. Right. Either not enoughness. Right. Like, nothing I do will ever be enough for you, or you're going to leave me and I'm going to be all alone.
Jon Vroman 47:52
Those two wounds almost every time, marry each other.
Tony Cooper 47:55
Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Vroman 47:56
And those wounds are formed very early on. Mine is inadequacy, and my wife's is abandonment.
Jon Vroman 48:03
Her father left when she was 2. I was very short when I was a kid, and I was like, never enough. So there is nothing I'm ever going to do for Tatiana for her to say, you're enough.
Jon Vroman 48:16
In a way that I will be healed. And there is no amount of me telling Tatiana that I will never leave that will heal her abandonment wound.
Jon Vroman 48:24
So we beat each other up over the years trying to heal each other's wounds. But Dr. Kelly teaches something that I think is fascinating.
Jon Vroman 48:32
And this is the work within Front Row Dads, and is where you can heal, is through meeting each other in the original core wound, which is not inadequacy or abandonment.
Jon Vroman 48:43
It's actually loneliness. The original wound of every child is when you are, everything's secure. The mother's there.
Jon Vroman 48:50
Right. There's always food, there's always milk, there's always care. There's always, but at some point for every child, there's a moment when you're like, I'm alone, or.
Jon Vroman 49:00
Or I'm separate from people. And there's a real break in that point. And if we can meet each other in our loneliness, that's where our healing can happen.
Jon Vroman 49:11
And so the loneliness, first of all, begins with male friendships. That's where we can start the healing process.
Jon Vroman 49:18
So what you don't do is you don't have to go home and heal at home, although you will and you can. But the starting place for us is let's get together as men and work on bringing a healed version of you back home.
Jon Vroman 49:35
That's actually where most marriages, I think, do their best work.
Jon Vroman 49:35
And this isn't my thought. This is me repeating other people's thoughts. Is two people not healing like this always, but actually the man going and healing, or the woman going and healing, and then bringing a healed version of them back to the relationship.
Jon Vroman 49:50
Not that you can't heal together, because I get, we're hurt in relationship, we heal in relationship. I understand that. But I also understand the focus of men healing other men.
Jon Vroman 49:59
And what I realized, dude, was that we're not even doing men's work. We're doing boys work.
Tony Cooper 50:04
Yeah. Huh.
Jon Vroman 50:06
A lot of these men are healing their childhood wounds together.
Tony Cooper 50:10
Yeah.
Jon Vroman 50:10
Right?
Tony Cooper 50:11
Yeah. A guest of mine said that becoming a father is an opportunity to reparent yourself, which is exactly what you just said.
Jon Vroman 50:18
That's it. A thousand percent.
Tony Cooper 50:20
To do that in community with other men who are all doing that work together. That bond has a way to start really bringing massive healing to communities, to the world.
Tony Cooper 50:30
Because look, all the wars, all the competition, all the hatred, a lot of that is male originated.
Tony Cooper 50:39
And if we can do work together and heal each other in that way, we get to raise these families and children who actually are looking to create the opposite in the world when they come out there.
Tony Cooper 50:48
It's beautiful.
Jon Vroman 50:49
And it's not about raising weak men or soft men. It's about raising capable, strong men who can be forceful if they need to, but they are healed from within.
Jon Vroman 51:00
And their attention and their energy and their discipline and their power is directed with safety.
Tony Cooper 51:09
John, it's been fascinating. Yeah, you're right. You and I could go on and on for a long time. So maybe we schedule another one on another topic because I've loved this conversation.
Tony Cooper 51:20
So wrapping it up, I like to finish with, you've opened up so many boxes. And so if I were to simplify that all down, and if I'm a brand new dad, just about to start on this journey, everything that you've learned, what's really good advice, like, if you simplified it down to what is it that we wish men who are starting this journey really had in their knowledge base?
Jon Vroman 51:44
Look at your shame. Get with some dudes who you trust and start looking at the shame that you carry.
Jon Vroman 51:52
The stuff you did when you were a young man, that was just wrong. You wronged people, you lied, you cheated, you stole, you hurt people.
Jon Vroman 52:01
Right? Men have so many pieces of themselves that are rooted in this shame.
Jon Vroman 52:08
I was bad, I did a bad thing. Right? And sometimes we think we dealt with it. We're like, I went through that, I dealt with that.
Jon Vroman 52:16
You go, yeah, maybe, maybe. But what I often find is that this piece of shame, it keeps showing back up, right into their 30s, their 40s, their 50s.
Jon Vroman 52:30
And so one of the ways that we stop the generational trauma, one of the ways that we can heal, is to look at our shame.
Jon Vroman 52:41
And I don't think you're supposed to do that completely on your own. You can go sit by the river and you can commune with God around it.
Jon Vroman 52:50
And I imagine you will have some healing and you'll have some downloads and you'll connect in the ways that you are destined to connect with yourself, communing with nature.
Jon Vroman 53:00
Right. I get it. That's great. I also, if I just look at data points, that's done with professionals, in communities, in one to one conversations, in small groups with men who have also been willing to look at that.
Tony Cooper 53:17
And what's the value if you dig in and uncover that shame? What's the value of going through that exercise as you're about to start your fathering journey?
Jon Vroman 53:27
Self love, man. Self respect. Because what we really bring to our kids is a vibration. You've probably heard it said before, and I don't know who to give credit to for it. It's this thermostat, thermometer concept, right? And yes, we want to be the thermostat of our home.
Jon Vroman 53:41
And I'll leave you with a story because I know we're wrapping this up. And here's what I will tell you. The last year of my life, I've done the best work I've ever done in the shame camp, in the self love and the self respect.
Jon Vroman 53:53
I love and respect myself more now than I ever have. And I know, I feel that from the inside that my truth, and it's the way I move now through the world with other people because I'm safe, because I am rooted in self love.
Jon Vroman 54:12
People around me respond to that and they don't even quite know why. They're just like, I feel safe with this man, and I don't know why.
Jon Vroman 54:19
The best kind of test for this is children. And I'll give you an example, because I think their truth meters are great.
Jon Vroman 54:27
I think that they will read your energy so fast. I was up visiting my buddy Steven up in Colorado, and now I love Steven and his family, and I officiated Steven's wedding, but I don't see him a lot.
Jon Vroman 54:39
And I don't know his daughter, who's now five, but I stayed at their home. And his daughter, within 15 minutes of me being in his house, was sitting right next to me on the couch with her head on my shoulder.
Jon Vroman 54:53
As we went to the kitchen, she walked holding my hand. And my buddy Steven was like, John, I've never seen this before. She's that way with my.
Jon Vroman 55:01
My dad, her grandpa. She's that way with my best friend who lives here and sees her multiple times per week, but no other man has she ever been this way with, this safe with.
Jon Vroman 55:14
And I said, brother, I'm honored. And I'm also not surprised. The reason I'm not surprised is I know how safe I am right now inside.
Jon Vroman 55:25
I know that when I look at her, I look at her where I see her beautiful spirit and I see her soul, and I'm easy and I'm not scared of her.
Jon Vroman 55:35
And so she's not scared of me. Dude, some men are scared of children. They can't even look them in their eyes comfortably.
Jon Vroman 55:44
They don't know how to talk to children.
Tony Cooper 55:45
That's because they're carrying fear from their own childhood.
Jon Vroman 55:49
That's exactly right. That's exactly right, brother. That's exactly it. But I wasn't needing anything from this little girl.
Tony Cooper 55:56
Right.
Jon Vroman 55:56
I wasn't. I wasn't forcing cool Uncle John, you know, vibes of like, you must love me, I'm going to put on an act for you.
Tony Cooper 56:05
Yeah, right.
Jon Vroman 56:05
I wasn't performing. I just saw her and my spirit said, I see you, young one.
Jon Vroman 56:13
I see your beautiful spirit and you're safe with me. What are you interested in? What's your favorite toy? I saw her and the only reason I could see her, the only reason I had space for that was because I've been able to see myself.
Jon Vroman 56:27
The only reason I could hold her little one is because I've been able to hold my little one. That's it. So what I want from men to be present with their families is for them to heal inside so that their presence can just be felt.
Jon Vroman 56:43
Because if they're wrestling, if there is a war from within, if there is a fight or flight happening in their soul and in their spirit, they're not going to be present for their children or their spouse or their friends or their neighbors or even in their business.
Jon Vroman 56:58
But when that healing takes place at a core level, and it's going to happen at the right time, because everything's on time, they'll get it.
Jon Vroman 57:04
Whether it's now or when their kids are 10 or 20, it doesn't matter. If you're hearing this, by the way, maybe this is the time.
Tony Cooper 57:10
Yeah. John, I just want to honor all the work you've done in your life to create that safety, to create that well being, to heal the wounded child inside.
Tony Cooper 57:20
I want to thank you for building community for dads to take this job really seriously and bringing healing to so many men who are going to bring it to their families, who will bring it to the world.
Tony Cooper 57:32
And thank you for your time here today. I really appreciate it. I loved our connection. I imagine we're going to be doing a lot more of this in the future.
Jon Vroman 57:41
Love this, brother. This was really fun. Yes. Great questions. You weave everything together well. You're an amazing host.
Tony Cooper 57:47
Oh, thank you. All right, well then, until next time, I just want to thank you for listening to this episode of The Dad Manual podcast and for supporting dads to become the best version of themselves as they strive to bring healing and inspiration to their families.
Tony Cooper 58:03
I'm looking to grow a community of fathers who are ready to change the world, but I need your help. It's super valuable to the podcast when you like an episode, when you leave us a rating and subscribe to our YouTube channel, when you follow us on Instagram at The Dad Manual Podcast, and maybe even the most important, when you share the podcast with the dad you love.
Tony Cooper 58:24
Also, you can impact what we talk about here. If you've got questions or topics you want me to explore, email them to me at dadmanualpodcastmail.com. I would love to answer your question on our next episode.
Tony Cooper 58:37
And until next time, I'm Tony Cooper and this is The Dad Manual Podcast.