Episode 302: How to Achieve Your Family Goals in 2020

Hal Elrod: Hello everybody. We had I think 591 registered for the masterclass today. This is Hal Elrod and I want to welcome you to today’s special masterclass which is brought to you by the Achieve Your Goals Podcast and this will air as a special episode of the Achieve Your Goals Podcast. It’s also brought to you by Front Row Dads and the masterclass today is on how to achieve your family goals in 2020. For me, getting cancer a few years ago was a huge wakeup call that I said family was my number one priority but if you looked at my schedule, it didn’t tell the same story. There was a misalignment in that family I valued more than anything, yet I was putting them on the back burner for work way too often. And it took my good friend here, Jon Vroman, who founded Front Row Dads, which is a mastermind for men, I should say family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. And I think far too often as an entrepreneur or in life in general, right, as a dad, you often get focused on work, on being a provider, and you lose sight of the fact that your kids aren’t going to remember how many paychecks, how many mortgage payments you made, or how much money you accumulated, or how many achievements.

If you’re an entrepreneur that you got under your belt, they’re going to remember how much time you spent with them and the impact that the time you spent made on who they became and their character and their emotional well-being. And as we all know, you can’t get that time back. You can always make more money. You can’t make more time. And ever since I’ve been a member of Front Row Dads, which is since the beginning, Jon, what year did you start Front Row Dads?

Jon Vroman: It would have been October of 2016.

Hal Elrod: October of 2016. So, we’re on so over three years now. So, I’ve been there since the first retreat. And ever since then, it’s the number one thing now that Jon and I talk about. Every time we talked before, we talk about business, and it was embarrassing. My wife would always go, “Hey, so how’s Tatyana and how are the kids?” And I go, “I have no idea,” and she goes, “You were just talking to Jon for like an hour.” I’m like, “Yeah. Well, we don’t talk about family. We just talk about business.” And sadly, that’s too often the conversation. And again, it’s going, “Well, family’s my number one priority,” but I don’t talk about them. I don’t put them first in my schedule. And so, Jon really decided that he wanted to step up in his own life and because if family was going to be number one, he needed to find a way to align his work with that value. And so, he founded Front Row Dads, and it’s been hugely transformative for me and hundreds of other members of Front Row Dads over the years. And I’ll tell you how today’s masterclass came about and then we’ll dive right in. We’re going to flip the script. Jon’s going to interview me.

So, if you’re listening to the Achieve Your Goals Podcast, you’ve heard this like once or twice. We’ve done this before with other people but Jon said a few months ago we were talking or a few weeks ago about family and about what we’re going to do differently in 2020 and I was sharing some radical changes that I am making in my life like radical changes that were very difficult to make that now I’m so happy that I did. And he said, “Hal, why don’t we flip the script and I’ll interview you and you share, like, how you came to these changes, how you’re making such difficult changes that will give other people permission and courage to really put family first in 2020 and achieve all of their family goals.” And I said, “That sounds fun.” I took the script. “You can interview me.” And so, Jon, I’ll turn it over to you and I don’t know if you have anything that I missed there in the introduction but otherwise, we can get jump into questions.

Jon Vroman: No. I mean, that’s perfect and I’m so excited about this. You know, I’m thinking about some of the things that you shared recently, just days ago, at Best Year Ever Blueprint in San Diego from the stage in front of 500 people and the amount of comments that I had heard both directed at me, I overheard the comments directed to you about what you’ve shared and the impact of that, and I can’t wait to get into some of that today. So, I just want to say thanks for making time because I know this is something you’re really focused on, buddy, is where you invest your time. And I think what’s really cool about this is that as we’ll sort of unpack, family being one of your highest values and I say one of your highest – oh, something just crackled a little bit there.

Hal Elrod: All right. Is it uncrackling?

Jon Vroman: Yep, yep, yep. Yep.

Hal Elrod: I was fixing my light on. Here you go.

Jon Vroman: Because family is one of your highest values. And what I was about to say is that I say one of because I think we’ll get into your values and how you’ve ranked them and there’s a reason why I say one of your highest values. So, I’m excited to get into that and see how things change. So, how cool is that? As somebody, you are very well-read, right, you have explored a great deal of content and information and you’ve dug deep into yourself. I can’t wait to see what we’ll find out because many of us have been on this journey with you, buddy, and I can’t wait to see the evolution.

[INTERVIEW]

Jon Vroman: So, let’s, first of all, get into let’s talk a little bit about the year. I think that it would make sense to start because we’re recording this in December, depending on when people are listening if you’re live or listening on the recording. It’s December and we’re closing out not only a year, but a decade, right? And so, let’s take a moment and look back and say, “What was this year about for you and what can we celebrate with you in 2019? What were some highlight moments, if you will?”

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Well, I’ll start by just being real transparent in that. As you know, this was the most difficult year of my life and a big part of that started with me losing sight of my values, right? I mentioned that when I was on the cancer journey, I got really clear that I was a workaholic, I was working way too much and in putting that first. And what happened is I got a book deal for The Miracle Equation with a traditional publisher and then I had all these deadlines that were for six months that just stressed me out and I realized that I had taken a huge step backwards in living my values of putting family first because I had to have this book done and I had to have this chapter was due and all of a sudden, I’m staying up late to write and I can’t make it to be by my wife’s side at our family, you know, friends. You were there sometimes, right? My poor wife was by herself with the kids. And once I had committed, I was like in the middle of it, I couldn’t undo it. So, the year started off really rough for me in that regard.

And then I got really clear from that learning the hard way that I have gone out of alignment with my values. I’ve unlearned the lesson that I had learned throughout the cancer journey that I was on. And so, once the book was done, I went, “Okay. I got to dive into family,” and, yeah, there are some high moments in terms of like my daughter Sophie for her 10th birthday. I took her to see Queen with Adam Lambert. I made it a Front Row experience. You know, I flew her first class like we went all out, picked up in the limo like never done anything like that for the whole family let alone just me and my daughter, really a special time. But that’s not the highlight to me. To me, the brightest moments from this year really are found in the daily, the weekly, and the monthly rituals that my wife and I have put into place to ensure that our family, we are strengthening our bond and our connection. And I’ll give you a few examples of these that you can model in your own world or in your own way, in your family.

The first is I now have two hours scheduled every morning with my kids. So, before they go to school, so the first hour at 6 AM, I wake up and I wake my kids up, I do the Miracle Morning with them. And we’ll see how long this lasts because we did it for a few months but this has come and gone before so I’m not saying this is going to be forever. Hopefully, it will be this time. I feel like we found our groove but from 6 AM to 7 AM we do a Miracle Morning together. From 7 AM to 8 AM, I help my wife get the kids ready. So, my wife, Ursula and I, we make lunch as a family and I help them make breakfast as a family and get the kids out the door. And then two days a week I drive them to school. So, Tuesdays and Thursdays I take the kids to school, which extended until about 8:30. So, from 6 AM to 8:00 or 6:00 to 8:30 it’s family time in the morning.

And I mean, Jon, you know me and I think for most entrepreneurs like that’s not how it used to be. My wife, I used to delegate it to her. “You get the kids ready. I’m working. I’m paying the bills. I’m providing for our family.” And, Jon, you’re the one that said that to me years ago when you were founding Front Row Dads that you realize that your kids are not going to remember or value or be shaped by how many mortgage payments you made or how many books you sold, or how many speeches you gave, right? It was about the impact that you made in their lives and the only way to do that is through quality time. And I can’t thank you enough for inspiring and living that as an example for me because that changed my world more than almost anything.

So, the daily rituals, I wake them up in the morning, spend two hours of quality time in the morning, and then I now only work. This was a big one. I only work when the kids are in school. So, I get off every day at 3:30 and so that when they get home, I can greet them. We can go play ping pong or go shoot hoops or play a board game or whatever but again, it’s realizing we’ve heard it from all the parents that have kids that are grown, “Man, I wish I would have spent more time. I can never get that time back. I shouldn’t have worked so much. I shouldn’t have traveled so much.” And it took me a long time to get that. You know, there’s a little bit of like my daughter’s 10. I’m like, “Why didn’t I figure this out when she was one?” But you can’t go back in time and change the past but you can change everything else. So, I only work when the kids are in school. So, that’s from 8:00 to 3:30.

And then last but not least, I put them to bed every night. I read them a story every night before bed and help with their bedtime routine. And so, I like bookending the day with some quality time with both the kids. Then the one other thing I wanted to share is we finally started doing weekly family meetings a couple months ago. This was a tough one to get. My wife on board and then she’s like she run away with it. Now, she runs the meetings, which is so great, because I’m great at getting things started. I don’t like running stuff. So, she actually is taking over and she’s like, “We’ve all got journals and printed with our family meeting and we’ve got an agenda.” And the meeting is essentially to give everybody in the family a voice to talk about what’s going well? What are we grateful for? What do we appreciate about everybody? But then where are we struggling? What are some areas in our kids have said some things to us? I’ll give you a real specific example. We asked our kids, “Hey, is there anything that mom or I do that you don’t feel great about?” And my seven-year-old son said, “Well, sometimes you guys fight in front of us and I really don’t like it. It really scares me and it makes my stomach feel tight.”

We look at my daughter, and she’s going, “Yeah, I get really tight in my stomach too,” and I’m just going, “Oh, my God.” My wife and I looked at each other and so, now, if it wasn’t for these family meetings, these weekly rituals, we wouldn’t have been conscious. Because the point of that is to create a safe space where everybody can share what they might be afraid to share. And that goes adults, kids. And so, since then, we’ve limited screen time. The kids actually came to family meeting asking for more screen time and we explained why they needed less screen time and they agreed and they’re like, “That’s amazing.” We’re like, “Wow, if it wasn’t for the family meeting.” And then monthly we do the date nights and things with the kids and quarterly we do the family board meetings, but those rituals to me are the high points of our life because it’s not about the vacation. It’s not about the trip. That’s not what shapes your kids’ character. It’s how are you showing up every day? What’s the quality time that you’re spending with them every day? How connected do you feel?

And maybe most importantly, I got this from a book I’m reading right now, Hold on To Your Kids. The most important thing from a parent and a child, it’s not about their behavior. It’s not about, you know, we’re always trying to change behavior. It’s about the strength of the relationship. That gives you influence in your kid’s life. How much do they feel loved and connected and respected by you? Not disciplined. And so, that’s been a huge game-changer is to spend that quality time where they really feel a deep connection and we feel it too.

Jon Vroman: Hal, you know, when you talk about your schedule and talk about getting off at 3:00 every day, I can imagine that if we share it, that some people that you might share that with might have the reaction and say, “Hey, that must be really nice. I wish I had a life that I could do that.” And I reflected on that for a second and thought, “Okay. So, 10 years ago, I was leaving a corporate position and starting a new journey into this entrepreneurial space. I spent all my savings. The year after that, they were foreclosing on my home. I share that because I’ve been in places where financially it was a wreck. I’ve also been in places where I was making more money and had more choice in my daily schedule. I had the freedom to be able to do some things that maybe I felt I couldn’t do it other times in my life. But the one thing that I also recognize in my own life and watching other people is that regardless of their position in life, that time with their kids or investing into their family is it really comes down to a choice.

Because I’ve seen people in other words without the financial means spent a lot of time with their kids and I’ve seen people with a lot of financial means not spend time with their kids. And so, I just wanted to bring that up because I think that’s a really big distinction that a lot of this does come down – and we’re not talking about the dire strait situations where, listen, of course, food, safety, shelter, those things are basic human needs. But once those are met, it’s too easy to get into startup mode with your business and say, “This one more thing, this one more quarter, this one more launch, this one more activity,” and for all of us, I think and I’ve seen this again, with all different financial demographics as people that make choices. So, do you see the same thing?

Hal Elrod: Absolutely. I mean, when my daughter was born, my wife and I moved back in with my dad because we were broke. My house was foreclosed on. I had nowhere to live and no money and like we just moved in with my dad. You know, it was humbling. I was 30 years old moving back in with dad with my wife and our soon-be-born daughter. So, we’ve been on both sides as well.

Jon Vroman: Let’s talk about values because I want to go back to the comment I made earlier about family as one of your highest values. What are your values and how is that now starting to shape and shift things in your world presently?

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I’ve gotten really clear that what has caused all of my problems and every challenge that you face, you get my coach, Jeffrey Williams, he says that, “Every challenge you face is filling your day with things that are not in alignment with your values,” right, things that you don’t love to do, and that cause you stress and usually there are other people’s values that are being thrust upon you and you’re not blocking them. You’re taking it and you’re doing it. So, for me, I’ve gotten really clear on my values and it’s been a long process to live them. I wasn’t able to just rip the band-aid off and just go, “Okay, these are my values and I’m living them.” You might, for example, realize that you value something that your work is not in alignment. Maybe you don’t love your work. It’s causing you stress. It’s not your passion. Well, it doesn’t mean that you quit tomorrow but I would say it should, I mean, that you should plan your exit strategy. Life’s too short to do something that you don’t love doing. So, for me, my three top values are health, family, and freedom and I would prioritize them in that order. And health is only really above family because without my health as I almost learned the hard way, you can’t be there for your family. So, that is my highest priority but the family in my heart, right, that’s really my top priority.

And then what I’ve done this year and this is actually maybe the most important lesson I shared at our Best Year Ever Blueprint event last week, which is that you have to get clear on your values. And then here’s the lesson or that’s one lesson but it’s just shut down everything that is not in alignment with your values. And so, what that looks like for me it was big, major changes. It was our Best Year Ever Annual Event. You probably heard I made this the last one because I realized it took so much time and energy and stress on me and my body that it was counterproductive to my health and counterproductive to time with my family. It took me away from them. Now, freedom it provided income. So, that was part of the hard reason to shut down and letting down a lot of people with this great event. I run a mastermind. We shut down the mastermind, another huge part of my business. I canceled three international speaking engagements, which were some of my highest profile, highest-paid speaking engagements. One was in Russia, one was in Ukraine, and one was in Santorini, Greece, the number one travel destination in the world but they all fell on my kids’ holiday breaks and it didn’t work out to take them with me. So, I thought if I’m going to be in Russia or Ukraine or Greece versus at home with my kids, it’s a no brainer. And that to me is the lesson.

Once you’re clear on your values, you have to love yourself enough and love your family enough to shut down everything that conflicts with your highest values. Because if you don’t, life’s gonna pass you by and you look back and go, “What the hell was I doing that all for? How could I have let that happen?” And it’s a hard thing to do and it’s not overnight. But if you can do those two things, write down a list of what are my highest values, write down all your values and prioritize what are your top three and I would imagine if you have a family, family is up there, whether it’s the family that you were born with, born into or created, or the family that you chose, friends and circle of influence, but get really clear on what are your highest values and then start looking at what do I need to shut down that is conflicting with these values because you that’s where fulfillment comes. Fulfillment comes when you shut down the things that don’t align with your values and you start living a schedule that you love to live, time doing the things that mean the most to you.

Jon Vroman: Yeah. I want to ask you in a second, Hal, about saying no because that is such a difficult thing and I want to talk to you about how do you say no because I hate disappointing people. I know you got to. So, let’s get into that in a second. But before we do, I just also want to mention to anybody that’s with us live that if you have a question and you want to post it, we will be reviewing these towards the end of the call and we’d love to try to get to as many of those questions as possible. So, feel free to you should have a Q&A option there on your screen for anybody that’s joining us and feel free to post a question there or if you’d like you can post it in the chatbox as well. So, Hal, let’s get into how do you say no. What have you figured out about that?

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Once you’re clear on your values, so I gave these lessons and again, my coach, Jeffrey Williams, actually inspired this as well. He’s adding a lot of value in my life. So, we’re talking. He’s big on the cause of disease is dis-ease from not living in line with your values, right? You create stress in your body and if you don’t stop that, your life will stop you from not living in alignment with your values. So, he gave me a really simple framework. He said, “Know yourself, love yourself and be yourself.” And know yourself is to – and already we touched on this, but it’s to know what your values are. Get really clear on your values. Love yourself is to be love yourself enough and your family enough, I said this earlier, to shut down everything that is not in alignment with your values. And then number three, be yourself is to create a schedule that is filled with things that you love to do. And like I said, this isn’t an overnight process but here’s the reality. Anything is possible if you’re committed.

You can change anything in your life no matter where you are now. There’s nothing that’s preventing you other than our own limitation, self-imposed limitations, limiting beliefs from going where we want to go, creating what we want to create. So, it starts with being willing to scheduling time and being willing to sit down and go, “What are my values? What are the things I do right now that are not in alignment with these values? What changes do I need to make?” So, know yourself, know your values, love yourself, shut down things that aren’t in alignment and be yourself. Start living true to your values because that is your authentic self and that is where happiness is. That is where joy comes from. It’s where fulfillment comes from. And so, when it comes to that, so that’s the setup and then how do you say no? Once you’re clear, you’ve got to have those tough conversations and you just have to tell people exactly kind of what I say. You say, “Hey, I’ve gotten really clear. These are my values and I’m no longer willing to say no or to say yes to things that don’t feel right to me.

And as much as I love you, right, today was actually my last team meeting. I disbanded my team, another huge change. I’d built a team all year and I said, “Guys, I’ve got to cut it off. I got to focus on health and family this year and doing what I need to do minimally to support the family but not changing the world and growing this movement right now. I got to kind of put that on pause while I take care of my mental, physical, and emotional health.” And so, that was it. It was just being really clear, “Hey guys,” and it was drawing the line in the sand. Here’s the deal. I was too wishy-washy for quite a while. I was like, I kind of need to step away but I don’t want to hurt your feelings and you guys have put so much time into it like that’s how I was. And so, we just kept having meeting after meeting after meeting and I would be stressed out going, “Why are we having this meeting? I don’t know what to talk about. I’m trying to end this.” And a good friend of ours, Amber Vilhauer she said, “Hal, it’s like an ex-girlfriend.” She gave me an analogy, “Hal, it’s like an ex-girlfriend that you’re still calling that you know it’s not right. She’s not in line with your values, but you’re still calling her because you love her and you feel bad to break up with her.” She goes, “You need to have your final meeting and go, ‘Guys, I love you but it’s time to end this at least at least until further notice.’”

And so, it’s being willing to love yourself enough to not only shut down the things but part of shutting down the things that are out of line with values is being willing to have those difficult conversations and if you need to script it out. Here’s three bullet points. These are my values. What we’re doing is not in alignment and here’s what’s changing. I’m sorry that hurts your feelings but I’ve got to do it. And you have to be courageous. And I’ll tell you, it was so scary to do it, Jon. You know, it took me months to shut down all these projects and things I’ve been doing but now I’m like, oh my God. I’m so grateful to you, to all the support of our friends, the Front Row Dad members, the band members because you guys were a big part of helping me to get clarity on this. You know, my neighbor, Tim Nicolai, Front Row Dad band member of ours. All of you guys really helped me to, you know, you supported me to have that courage and now that I just did it and it was all those conversations were painful and difficult to have. But I’ll tell you on the other side of those conversations is liberation, is you getting to actually live, fully express the way that you want to live.

Jon Vroman: Also, I want to clarify for anybody who might be new to this conversation of what is a band, right? And a band for everybody is, within Front Row Dads within our brotherhood, this applies to everybody, men and women. It could be any category, any topic, any business, any industry, whatever. It’s a small group. So, our role is four people meeting monthly, preferably in person, but sometimes virtually, and we have, of course, guidelines and intentions set in place for our band. Ours for our group for everybody is no business talk and we take turns in leading the group, so each one of us leads for three months, and then we pass the baton to somebody else. And that way over the course of the year, each person gets a chance to lead equally. And we’ve had reviews of each other, “Hey, where do we see strengths in one another? Where do we see blind spots?” For us, the band concept was a play on both a Band of Brothers but also literally like a band where people bring new talent to the table and as a result of that, you make something better because of the group playing together.

And what I want to honor, Hal, is that you show up to those meetings, to those breakfast meetings with such authenticity, such you’re open, you’re vulnerable. And the reason that you hear the message is because you ask great questions and you receive information. It’s not always about agreeing with everything everybody says. It’s about that great debate that happens where you discuss things and you look at it from different angles. But it’s been said so many different ways that we can’t see the label from inside the jar. And that’s been said by lots of people and lots of different ways but the concept is there where we have to need people in our lives that we’ve invited in, we’ve created a safe space to have that dialogue. We should have that for our businesses and we should have that for our personal lives, things that are important to us. We should have crafted conversations around those subjects. And so, this was missing for me. I feel fortunate to have had lots of friends in life, right, to have lots of great conversations, lots of fun asking, and I would go deep with friends and great conversation, but nothing’s been quite like what’s happened over the last year with our band where we have momentum and things are building. And to me, that’s really, really exciting.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, isn’t it? I mean, earlier, before we started the recording today, I was like, “Jon, hey, I need to have some Front Row Dads one-on-one time with you like just discuss some challenges that are going on in my family and have a brother, a friend that I can count on to give perspective.” I mean, it’s been a game-changer for me.

Jon Vroman: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk about these values, Hal, also and as we do, I’d invite everybody who’s listening to consider your own values. So, maybe to carve out some time, especially this time of year to sit down and, say, “What do I value and how have my values maybe shifted?” But your values, health, family and freedom, correct?

Hal Elrod: Yeah.

Jon Vroman: And when you look at those values, when you think about health, let’s stay there for a quick moment, this applies to everybody, right? Because they say when you have your health, you have 1,000 dreams but when you don’t have your health, you have just one.

Hal Elrod: Yeah.

Jon Vroman: And so, let’s talk about your health a little bit and I want to talk physical and mental health, which are two huge subjects. We can add the spirituality to that too or any other type of health that we want to consider but talk to us a little bit about where that journey has taken you and how is this so important to achieving your family goals? Why is health mental and physical for you so important with achieving your family goals?

Hal Elrod: Yeah. So, my health, so quick status update on my physical health is great. I’ve been tested for cancer. I’m still tested. I’ve been in remission for the last couple of years. I get tested every few months. They’re not finding any cancer cells or precancerous cells so that’s very good news. But I am still on chemotherapy for five more months, which it’s more difficult every month that goes by. My mental health this year has been the first time in my life where it has been excruciating. I’ve developed and I talked to this at the Best Year Ever Blueprint but about a year ago, I started building anxiety for the first time in my life. I’ve never had anxiety, and I’ve gone through some tough stuff, right? My car accident when I was 20, told I would never walk again and I’m a super positive guy. I’ll be the happiest person you ever have seen in a wheelchair. And then I’m diagnosed with cancer I go, “Best thing that ever happened to me. I’m sure I’m going to learn and grow.” So, interestingly enough, physically, the cancer journey was the most difficult thing I’ve ever endured in my life. I lost 40 pounds and I’m a skinny guy, to begin with. You know, 6 feet tall, I was 127 pounds. Lost every hair on my body. I looked very sickly. I looked like a cancer patient. And I was on death’s doorway many times. You know, many times they had to delay the chemo treatment because my body couldn’t have handled it.

So, that was the hardest physical time in my life. Well, I never anticipated the mental and emotional challenges that would follow a couple years later but I started building this anxiety and it really came to a head and you were there for me. In fact, the Front Row Dads, you and Tim and Justin were really there for me, my group, my band. A few months ago, and I’ll just say this, I said it on stage, I text my wife. I was laying in bed for a couple hours, I couldn’t fall asleep, I was just overwhelmed with life and business and all the projects I had and I had taken on a goal to solve every problem that humanity is facing. That was my goal that I was working on. So, yeah, so every problem humanity is facing, my team, they’re like, “Okay, that’s what we’re doing. Whatever.”

Jon Vroman: Quick pause for a quick second on that because I think that’s really important to clarify. What types of problems? Because you don’t have to get super into it but that’s really big. There were some specific things, right? You are watching some movies. You were having some breakthroughs. You were having a level of awareness that previously maybe you didn’t have.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. For me, so I’m a believer, like one of my first quotes that I ever wrote in a book was the moment you take responsibility for everything in your life is the moment that you have the power to change anything in your life. And I think a more specific way to say it is to the degree that you take responsibility for everything in your life determines the degree of power that you have to change anything in your life. And that that popped in my head and I think I was watching a documentary on the plastic in the ocean, which you’ve taken on yourself and seeing how much plastic. It was actually called Inside the Garbage of The World. And that was kind of what sparked it, and I just went, “Wait a minute, I need to take responsibility as a member of humanity to solve every problem that humanity is facing.” I said, “I think we should all take that level of responsibility.” And I thought, “Not that I can do it by myself.” I’m not gonna go out and fix everything, but I’ve got connections and a platform and a level of influence that I could probably and I know a lot of people like connections I probably like put together the team of people like, “Hey, let’s figure out who’s working on these areas and kind of get us all working together.”

And so, that I became where I was racking my brain, I was googling every day, like, what are the biggest problems humanity is facing. And I’m watching documentaries, and I just went deep down the rabbit hole and that on top of trying to be the best husband and best father I could be and lead this team that I never led before. And we had launched like 12 new projects. We have the movie coming out, we have an event we’re planning for, we have mastermind meetings that like it just came to a head one night and I text my wife and I said, “Sweetheart, I don’t want you to worry, I’m not suicidal. I’m not going to kill myself, but I feel like I want to die. I cannot handle life and I don’t know what to do.” And she came in and comforted me and said, “Hey, I think that, you know, sweetie, you’d have a lot on your plate. You need a good night’s rest.” And I was like, “You’re probably right, you’re probably right.” And I woke up the next morning and I had a flood of anxiety to the point where you and I were supposed to play volleyball. We do Front Row Dads Volleyball every Saturday and I text you, I’m like, “I don’t think I can come.” You’re like, “Are you sick? What’s going on?” I said, “I can’t explain it, but I can’t see anyone right now. I don’t want to see anyone.”

And Jon got worried like, “Oh my God, when your friend is like hiding, what’s going on?” He said, “Why don’t you come out? You know, being around friends is probably good.” And I couldn’t explain. I never suffered anxiety where I didn’t want to even talk to him right then. I didn’t want to face anyone. I just wanted to hide from life. And thanks to our Front Row, you and our band member Tim and Justin, we got together and we kind of white boarded my life and realize that I had way too much on my plate. And, of course, when you’re trying to save the world, I also have the distinction that I have this thing that I think I need to save humanity. I just need to save my family. And somehow, in my mind, quantity had come above quality where it’s like, well, but the world needs me. I go, “No, no, no, this woman that I married and pledged my life to and our two babies, 10 and 7, they’re still babies to me, my daughter and son, they need me and it’s more noble. It was a real paradigm shift. It’s more noble for me to go deep with them than to try to change millions and millions and billions of lives.

And so, I remember the question that you asked, but I mean, that was it. And so, based on your help and Tim’s help, the next day, I emailed my staff. I’m like, “Hey, I let half of my staff go.” I called Jon Berghoff a week later, my buddy, and I was so scared to call him. I’m like, “He’s going to hate that I’m telling him we can’t do the event anymore. People love this event. it makes us money.” And he was such a great friend as well. He’s a fellow Front Row dad and we shut down the event and then the mastermind. And then I canceled my speaking engagements. And you know, one by one, I kind of kept canceling these things and now I have freedom in my schedule to actually focus on what matters most to me, health, family, and freedom. And by committing to all these things and all these people because I didn’t want to hurt people’s feelings, and also my suffering in silence. I don’t want to let that go by. I was suffering in silence. This whole year, I’ve had anxiety and depression and I’m the positive guy. I’m the guy that helps other people, inspires them. So, I didn’t want to burden anyone with my issues. Everybody’s got their own stuff. I don’t want to burden you with mine. And I think I also didn’t want to, you know, make people feel like I couldn’t handle it because I was trying to help them handle it.

And it was once I stopped suffering in silence, it’s such an important lesson for everybody that too many of us are suffering in silence. And some of the best advice I can give you is to be vulnerable and be willing to ask for help and the people that love you they will, you know, for me once I asked for help, I got more of it than I can handle it. It was amazing that the wisdom I needed to solve all my problems were in my circle of influence. It was in my friend group and in my family.

Jon Vroman: Hal, I love your honesty, man. It’s something that I just hear it from everybody how much they appreciate that. And I remember feeling that when you were in the business of saying no, so that you could say yes to the most important things. I thought how this is going to be one of Hal’s greatest gifts to his community because so many people are overextended. And the thing is, all those things are great things. There’s so many great charities in the world and people to meet and so many places to travel to. I mean, imagine picking your next travel destination. It’s like there’s tons of places that are wonderful to travel to. And when you try to do it all, when you try to see it all, feel it all, hear it all, walk into a room and meet everybody that’s there, it’s so overwhelming you can get nothing done. And that ability to focus in and to be able to really be present with the one person in front of you and the project that you’re with and to feel into that is so important. And I think that as a society, as a human race that our ability to slow down a little bit I think about Joe Sanok and his Slow Down School. I think how many times earlier in my life I was trying to speed things up. How much more fast could I be? How much more productive? How much could I get done? And now it’s going so fast at age 44. I look at my life and say, “All right. Well, how do I pump the brakes? How do I slow things down?”

What to me productivity is when I’m pausing more that purposeful pause in life to just feel and see and experience and realize you can’t know it all. You can’t do it all. You can’t, right? So, I just love you for that, man, so, so much. Thank you.

Hal Elrod: Thank you.

Jon Vroman: I want to acknowledge, by the way, Benjamin posted a question that I think we should get to here in just a few minutes, which is, oh, sorry. No, Benjamin, I answered your question about the Family Board Meeting, read a book written by our mutual friend, Hal and I, friend Jim Sheils. Great, great book. Check it out. It’s an audiobook too. That’s a game-changer. And then the other question was about your family meeting that, you know, what is a framework for a family meeting?

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Great question. You can google this, how to do family meeting, which is where I started and there’s a book on it as well. But the simple structure is we all start by sharing a win for the week, something that went well, and something we appreciate about each person in the family. So, you know, my daughter will go and she’ll say, “I appreciate that mom takes care of us every day and she’s always there when I’m sad or hurt or I need someone to cry on kind of mom. I appreciate dad, always makes us laugh, and has fun with us and plays ping pong with us.” So, she go around the circle. And then what actually, Ursula, my wife does it’s like, “What was your rose?” I think I maybe mess this up, your rose, your bloom, and your bud or something. Basically, what went…

Jon Vroman: Rose, thorn, and bud.

Hal Elrod: You know that. Yeah. Rose, thorn, and bud. Yes. So, it’s like what went well, what was challenging and what are you excited for coming out? Since my wife’s take over the meeting, we did the rose, bud, bloom, thorn, flower thing. And when I did it, it was much more left brain, win, loss. But, yeah, so that’s how we start and then everybody writes down we have a journal throughout the week and we can write down things that we want to talk about. And so, we’ll usually then go down the journal and usually, my son or daughter starts first and, “Hey, what do you guys want to talk about? Anything that you have on your agenda?” And so, they usually have something on their agenda and then what my wife and I started doing recently is we actually do a meeting a day or two before to talk through what our issues are and what we think needs to be talked about and actually try to kind of get on the same page versus just springing it. And I think I made that mistake the first few meetings because I’m like, “I think we should do this,” and my wife’s like, you know, will give me the look like, “You should have cleared that with me. Don’t bring that.” “Oh, my bad, my bad.”

So, now we actually have a little marriage meeting before the family meeting, right? But, yeah, that’s it. And then we’ll usually end with planning an activity together or engaging in an activity. So, that’s one tip we got and one of the articles we read whatever which is like make sure the kids always end with something that is exciting, right? So, go out to dinner as a family or go out to the park and play or whatever. So, we’ll go out and play and before the playing is go planning so we’ll plan our next date night typically, plan the next date night, plan the next family board meeting, that sort of thing.

Jon Vroman: Very cool. Guys, thanks for the questions. Hal and I will dig into a couple of those right now. Does that sound good, buddy? Can we do that?

Hal Elrod: Yeah, whatever you want.

Jon Vroman: Okay, cool. I want to answer this next one from Jeff Stein, and sorry if I’m mispronouncing anybody’s name. But Jeff’s basically, I’m summarizing his question here, which is shifting focus with work and your Miracle Morning. And what he’s saying is that it’s a very busy time of year for him workwise. And so, sometimes he’ll shift down on his Miracle Morning time and devote more of that to work time. And he’s wondering, do you have personal criteria about how you might adjust your Miracle Morning time based on the seasons of life or time of year?

Hal Elrod: Yeah. So, what I will do is, yes, there’s absolutely the big answer, big picture is there’s flexibility in the Miracle Morning, right? I mean, make it fit your lifestyle and serve its purpose. So, some ways I will do it is I will do a shorter Miracle Morning in the morning. So, I’ll do 30 minutes. That’s one option. Sometimes, depending on what I feel like I need from the Miracle Morning and this is true always, not just when I’m busy, I will pick one of the SAVERS and go deep. So, some mornings, like if I have like before a family meeting, you know, I will read this book I have on the family meeting or I’ll just read that. If I’m spending time with the kids or I really feel like I need to focus on my marriage, I’ll just read for an hour a marriage book, right? So, if there’s an area of my life that needs or a business book. If there’s an area in my life that needs focus, I will dive in on one of the SAVERS. When I was writing The Miracle Equation, my last book, I just saw it right there. But when I was writing The Miracle Equation, scribing is one of the SAVERS, I would often do a very short, I would read my affirmations for like five minutes that were focused on that book, why I was writing it, what my purpose was in writing it, the mindset that I needed to be, the mental and emotional space to be able to be at my best to write.

And so, I’d use like, you know, five minutes get myself in that state and then I would scribe for the next hour. So, I would literally write the book, which really is just a way of saying that was my work. So, my Miracle Morning is flexible. I’ll do a shortened version often if I have extra work time or I’ll do less of the SAVERs and also can be shortened in that just to make sure that it really supports what I need that particular day.

Jon Vroman: Hal, next question comes from Benjamin and he wants to know about maybe alignment with your spouse when it comes to improving your family’s situation. And so, let me layer on a little bit of my own to this question as well, which I think whether you’re listening to this, you’re a man, you’re a woman, married or not, this is a relationship question in some ways, and business owners or you’re on a team, right, and the question is, how do you align with people? That’s what I hear from this question. So, especially, maybe if you have somebody where you’re not as aligned like one person’s a planner and the other one’s not. You’d like to have a two-hour family meeting and somebody else is more of a 10-minute family meeting. How do you strike common ground? How do you align with the people that are most important? And one thing I want to mention about this is that we just posted a poll to the live attendees. And the question is, what category of life if improved upon would have the biggest impact in your family? And I’m not shocked to see, by the way, that of the five options that we gave, marriage is the number one. That if improved would have the biggest impact on your family overall is your marriage. And so, maybe how you can sort of loop in together here thoughts on marriage, and especially as Benjamin’s question says, like, “Hey, how do you kind of align to improve your family situation?”

Hal Elrod: Yeah. It’s a great question and I think you got to get your partner on the same page. And I’m not so masterful where I was just like, “All right, sweetie. Let’s do this,” and she’s like, “Great, great.” So, there was definitely some, it was a long process but here’s what I found. Here’s what I’ve found is that it’s about timing is that they say timing is everything. Well, here’s what I find. My wife, you know, I have a bad memory so I always bring things up as they happen, right? Jon can tell you that, like if we’re talking and he’s like, “Oh, we should text somebody someday.” I’m like, pull my phone and just do it. Right? Like I just take immediate action because I don’t trust I’m going to remember later. And so, if my wife does something that I feel like I don’t align with or I feel like it might be not so positive or I have a differing opinion or we shouldn’t feed that to the kids, whatever, I would always bring it up in the moment. And that would, I found, I learned the hard way after I don’t how long it took me, probably years, until we finally had a conversation about it and she goes, “Look, I understand you. You want things done differently and you have your idea of how things should be done than my idea. But when you bring it up every single day, like it’s weary. You always point this.”

She goes, “I’m just waiting for you to say something,” and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t want you to feel that way.” And so, we finally agreed that I would write it down. And as long as it wasn’t urgent and the kid wasn’t in danger, which is never the case, that I’d write it down and that we would talk about it once a week when we have a one-hour marriage meeting. And we go to a coffee shop and we chill. Because here’s what she said, what it allows her to do is to get the mindset that, okay, there’s going to be some feedback and some might be constructive, critical, whatever you want to call it. But she gets in that mindset versus she’s frantic trying to get the kids ready and I am harping on something she’s doing that I don’t agree with, right? And it’s like that’s not the right time. So, that’s been the biggest thing is to create some structure, some rituals for you to get aligned with your wife, or your husband. And then in the same thing, so there’s the marriage meeting that we do every week and then there’s the family meeting that we do every week.

And we’ve only doing, I mean, these are relatively new for our family. It’s like three months old, maybe, but they have been game changers on, you know, the kids are giving us feedback and we’re going, “Oh, my gosh, we didn’t realize that our behavior was affecting you in that way, or that your brothers behaviors to my daughters affected you or vice versa.” And creating that safe space where the purpose of the meeting is to be open about, “Hey, here’s how I’m feeling. Some of its great, some it’s not so great.” And so, as a couple and as a family, that has been more beneficial for us to get on the same page than anything else we’ve done is that weekly structure, those meetings, and that space where the purpose is to grow as a family. And I love the quote. I heard from Robert Kiyosaki that he said he and his wife do the Miracle Morning every day so they can grow together, so they never grow apart. And most couples grow apart as time goes on, but as long as you keep growing together, you don’t grow apart.

Jon Vroman: Yeah. Hal, one of the things that I have realized in my own personal life is that the reason Tatyana, and for those of you who I haven’t met yet or don’t know, we’ve been married for 11 years. We have two boys. Tiger’s 10. Ocean’s five. She didn’t want to have weekly meetings with me. And the reason being, as I’ve discovered, as I become more self-aware, one of our pillars of Front Row Dads is emotional mastery, which is about self-awareness and self-control and how it’s not what we’re saying. It’s how we’re saying it. That for me, it was learning that my tone, my intensity, the energy that I brought to those meetings was not one that was really fun for her. Until I realized that it wasn’t the meeting that was the problem. It was how I showed up to the meeting. It was my energy that I brought that was until I was sensitive enough or dialed in enough on that and learned enough about her, how she interpreted that, that we were then able to have more productive meetings and it’s still not perfect. It’s not very good at all but we are definitely making progress.

Hal Elrod: So, that’s weird. Mine is perfect.

Jon Vroman: One of the things I want to share real quick is that this was something that I heard from JP Sears, who we just had time with recently in San Diego. And I think this is on one of his recent videos. It was a Rumi quote that says, “Raise your words. Not your voice.” Raise your words, not your voice.

Hal Elrod: It’s profound.

Jon Vroman: It is, man, and I have it hanging right next to me right now at my desk. And this has been something that I’ve really been working on this year is that to me a Front Row dad or a Front Row mom or a person who is really elevated in their state, they bring an energy to a situation and so much of what we can resolve and how we can evolve is based on the energy that we bring. And then being able to energetically choose our words more carefully and not try to use that intense energy to move something or push something forward, but to invite people into a conversation, to let them choose to step forward and to be engaged with you. Because if you are a high-performing hard-charging entrepreneurial dad, which we have so many in our group that oftentimes trying to bulldoze your way through something and force it into your family, into your kids, into your spouse, it’s not going to work that way. So, I just wanted to offer that in my own personal experience with that.

Hal Elrod: Well, I can completely relate. My wife didn’t want to do family meetings, either, or marriage meetings because she felt like it was just a dump on my wife. Right? Because I’m the one keeping the running list. She’s kind of like…

Jon Vroman:  I have a checklist to all the things you’re doing wrong.

Hal Elrod: Yeah, exactly. By the way, here’s a really quick actionable step for you guys on what does that look like. My original list for the family meeting of the marriage meetings used to say, “I think we should… I really think we need to stop being on our cell phones in front of the kids. I really need you to think that we need to stop feeding the kids anything out of a plastic bottle.” And then I erased the “I really think we need to…” to “how do you feel about…” “What do you guys think about mom and dad not being on our cell phone?” This was last week’s. It was one of our topics, “Not being on our cell phones when we’re in your presence unless it’s for like an important thing like we need to text you know somebody but not playing a game or not getting into Facebook,” whatever which you would occasionally do. You get into a Facebook zombie mode. And of course, the kids they’re like, “We would love that. We would love that.” That’s an example of how simple yet beautiful a simple question, “What do you think about us doing this and how would that be better for you?”

And then we check in every week, by the way. We go over one other piece on the structure of the meeting for the family meeting. We go over last week’s all the topics, “Hey,” it’s my son, Halston, “You shared that you don’t like mommy and daddy fight like how do you feel like we’ve done since last week?” Unfortunately, the answer wasn’t as positive as we had hoped. And then, “Sophie, you said like how do you feel?” So, we check-in and then we like renew commitments and, yeah, it’s similar to like a coaching call if you’re in life coaching, right? Like you make a commitment, I’ll do this and then your coach checks in with you and you keep it moving forward until it becomes a habit.

Jon Vroman: So many of the elements of achieving your family goals over the course of the year come down to nuances. It’s not always about working double the amount of hours. A lot of it is nuances and I really want to express that because we see that in sports and other areas of life where it’s just even a good quote. You know, a good quote is just a little change to the word, remove one, add it, can either make or break a quote or a joke. In sports, it’s a little tweak and boy, you find that sweet spot and that’s where it’s at. It’s not swinging twice as hard. Alright, it’s not that. It’s nuances. And I think family is the same way.

Hal Elrod: Yeah.

Jon Vroman: Hal, I’m looking at the clock here and I want to be respectful of everybody’s time including your own but if you can talk a little bit about community for a moment going forward and specifically, you know, you mentioned it at the beginning and let’s talk about this because I’m imagining people have heard us talk about Front Row dads and bands and going into the New Year, part of what I would believe to be true of achieving your family goals is who are you going to be partnering with. And as we say in the Front Row Community is who’s in your front row? So, when you think about Front Row Dads, maybe you could speak to that for just a moment about how are the people in your life going to help you move forward holding you accountable, having great conversations. How is that part of your best year ever?

Hal Elrod: Here’s what I realized when I joined Front Row Dads. I realized that I had a lot of friends like you said. We’d occasionally talk about having our marriage or being a dad usually when shit what’s going wrong. Like, “Oh my god, did I tell you what my kid did?” or, “My wife said…” That was usually the only time it came up. And what it made me realize is that the arguably, not arguably, I mean, the most important area of my life like my family, my people. You know, I said this on stage at BYEB and it’s actually was shared by a friend of mine but the idea that life is just a game like we put so much pressure on achievement and success and the reality is all that matters is you and your people, your family, your friends like that’s it. That is all that matters. And what Front Row Dad made me realize is I invested a lot of time and money into my business people. I was going to masterminds. I was leaving my kids to justify that I need to go to this four-day event in California because I need to learn how to do better in my business to make more money. But what am I doing it for? What matters is at home. Why am I in LA?

And so, I was investing time, money, and energy into my business that was taking me further away from what I valued most. And when I joined Front Row Dads, I realized that that was the first time I had invested time, money, and energy into my family for my kids, for my wife and that’s been it, man. Every time I go to a retreat or we have our monthly band practice and the four of us meet, the Front Row Dads band, I just walk away reminded, renewed that not only is family is so important to me because often like we usually share it at our Front Row Dads meetings what’s working well, everybody shares, what’s not working well. And the not working well, you’re like, “Oh thank God I’m not the only one.” You have somebody you kind of go brainstorm and talk to you but I tell you, the what’s working with well usually in the first hour of any Front Row Dads anything, I’ve got like a list of, “Oh my God, here’s 13 things. I’m going to start with one but I’m going to start implementing. These are all things that could change my life as a dad.” And I love that one of the rules that Front Row Dads anything is we’re not allowed to talk about business. I love that. Now, sometimes we’ll like sneak off in the bathroom.

Jon Vroman: I heard you.

Hal Elrod: But for the most part like we adhere to that and it keeps what matters most at the forefront of your mind so that you are living in alignment with what matters most to you. Yeah, that’s been Front Row Dads for me. It’s been and I say this unequivocally. It’s been the most valuable investment of time, money, and energy that I have ever made. And that’s one of the reasons that we’re here today because I believe so much, Jon, in what you’re doing to the point where I’ve been jealous. I’m like, “Dude, can I be like a co-creator like I love what you’re doing and, in my heart, it’s what matters most to me.” And so, yeah, man, I just want to share it with every dad on the planet.

Jon Vroman: Well, I think it’s obvious everybody who’s listening that you are co-creating it. We are building this thing and I’m so happy that these conversations are happening. Because as I shared from stage at Best Year Ever, that one of our buddies and a guy in our band, Tim, your neighbor, he had said to me a couple years ago, we were having an honest conversation. I said, “Right, let’s be really honest. What’s the thing that you could tell me that maybe nobody else wants to say, but might be true, right? Where’s the blind spot for me?” is what I was asking. And he had said, “Hey, you talk about being a great dad and all those things, but I can see room for improvement there still. You’ve made improvements but I still see room to grow. And here’s an example, here’s an example, and I see this.” And, boy, that type of honest conversation was a game-changer for me and the idea of not hiding – I was really good at hiding, hiding at my computer, hiding on stage giving keynote speeches. I was good at hiding wherever. But this was a place where I really was getting better because I was having these interactions that were causing that.

The thing is that we said it during the show, it’s kind of a theme, that you’ll never learn everything, but you can learn something and that one thing can change everything because it is a lead domino, because it is a keystone piece of the puzzle that holds it all together. By doing this one thing, it changes everything. That’s what we’re after. We’re not after 12 new ideas every single week. We’re after that one or two ideas even over the course of a year that could be absolutely massively influential for you and your family. So, Hal, I’m so grateful that you’re a part of it. I love doing life with you and welcoming these other guys into the group. You know, big vision is we see it one day where there’s 100 countries, we say, you know, hundred thousand members, and this network for men that has never existed before that is really focused on family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. And whether you’re out there listening again and you’re a woman, a man, wherever state you are in your life, this is about community. This is about finding a community that aligns with your highest values. And you can kind of see, that’s been the theme of our call today.

If anybody wants to learn more that I would say be an investigator in any area of your life. If you’re thinking, “Hey, this is the thing I need to do for a business,” great. If this is the thing you need to do for your family, great. Chances are this is the thing you need to do for your family if you have one and what I mean by that, by the way, is your given family and your chosen family. So, regardless of where you are on this call, you can choose your family and then choose how you’re going to show up and support them this year.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. Jon, so if somebody wants to join the brotherhood and be part of it because I’m with you, I really feel like this is, you know, I told you this probably a few months ago, but my mission in life is to elevate the consciousness of humanity one person at a time. And it occurred to me one day, in fact, it was when I was having the idea that I need to solve every problem humanity is facing and I was like Jon Vroman is solving the problem of bringing families together and elevating their consciousness as a father and then as a family. And I called you and I said, “Jon, like it just hit me. Like you are elevating consciousness one father at a time, and then, therefore, one family at a time.” It’s funny that Front Row Dads is like when I used to go to all these business conferences, my wife was like, “No, why are you going to another business conference?” “Sweetie, I need to learn a new trick on how to like a new strategy or whatever.” This is the one and I hear this from wives of Front Row dad like, it’s the one event that she’s like, “No. Go, go, go like you’ve forgotten all this that you learned at the last retreat, like, go and come back,” and then I come back and I’m better than ever, and I’m renewed and our marriage is renewed and the family and all of that. So, yeah, so where do people go if they want to get involved?

[CLOSING]

Jon Vroman: Yeah, absolutely. So, we put together a special invite for the Miracle Morning community and the Achieve Your Goals Podcast listeners. If you go to FrontRowDads.com/BYE, that’s an abbreviation for Best Year Ever. So, it’s FrontRowDads.com/BYE gets you to a special page just for the Miracle Morning community. We only open up enrollment a couple of times a year for Front Row Dads and this open enrollment is not being broadcast in my audience or anywhere else. It’s literally just for the Miracle Morning community. So, if you’re listening, by the way, if you’re out there listening and you’re listening on behalf of your husband, you know, this is something that you might want to share with them and if you feel like you are somebody who aligns with the idea of our five pillars are intentional parenting, right? How do we become the primary educators for our kids’ lives?

You know, Dan Martell says whether home everybody’s homeschooling their kids, whether they realize it or not. This is, you know, integrated living, which is really work, life, harmony. How do you get both to succeed at a very high level? We have thriving relationships, which is marriage. We have emotional mastery, as I mentioned, self-awareness, self-control, and then vibrant health mental, physical, spiritual. If you value those conversations, then this could be the community for you. So, FrontRowDads.com/BYE, you’ll see there’s an online program that you can just access on-the-go, you can join our live monthly calls, or you could even apply to come to one of our retreats. And this is we have the one in the spring and one in the fall. We get together for a couple days and talk about the most important areas of life. So, that’s how people can get it, FrontRowDads.com/BYE.

Hal Elrod: BYE, Best Year Ever which is from Best Year Ever Blueprint Event. Awesome. Well, everyone that tuned in, I want to thank you for your valuable time and energy and attention. And I hope that you hearing me share a little about the radical changes that I’m making in my life this year and going into next year, I hope that was valuable for you. And if I were to sum up anything to take away from the call, it’s those three ideas, know yourself, love yourself, be yourself. Know yourself, get clear on what your values are, your highest values, so that you can begin living in alignment with them. Love yourself, love yourself enough to shut down everything. Maybe not today, maybe it’s a six-year exit strategy on some of the things you got to change. Mine wasn’t overnight but shut down everything that is not in alignment with your values. That’s the key that unlocks the door to fulfillment and freedom.

So, you love every day because you’re every day waking up and you’re doing things that are in alignment with your highest values and loving yourself enough to shut down things means loving yourself enough to have the difficult conversations with people that you don’t want to let down, that you don’t want to burn, that you don’t want to miss their expectations but you’ve got to do what’s right for you. Put your oxygen mask on first, as they say. And then number three, be yourself. Create a schedule that you wake up every day and you’re excited to live it because you only get one life. This is it. We get one life and make sure that yours is one that you love to live and those are whether your mom, your dad, or neither. Thank you for joining us. Hope you get a lot of value. And, Jon, any last thoughts or comments before we hang up/wrap up?

Jon Vroman: No. I would just say that thanks to everybody for being here and investing time and wanting to achieve your family goals. You know, if you want more content, more information, if you like podcasts, and you happen to be listening online for this, check out Front Row Dads’ podcast as well, where I’ve interviewed Hal and other men on the subjects, the pillars that I just discussed. So, we’d love to go deeper with you on those areas to support your family and a couple people were asking about moms. They’re saying, “Hey, when’s the moms group coming to life?” So, if you want, you could check out FrontRowMoms.com. You can enter your name and your email and there is a group building around that. We should have more information about that down the road. And for everybody else, if you didn’t get your question answered today on the masterclass, please go to Facebook and you could go to the Front Row Dads community there on Facebook. You could post a question. You could get support.

And if really, we just didn’t get to it and it’s not any of the other places that I mentioned, just send me an email, jon@frontrowdads.com and I’ll try to help you and I’ll just shoot you a quick video message or give you a resource or a connection if I can be supportive. So, that’s it, buddy.

Hal Elrod: Yeah. I do want to say that the Front Row Dads Facebook group is phenomenal because you have all these members that are in the group that are learning from each other. And it’s such an engaged community, like give a dad question or a mom like post it in there and whether it’s on marriage or parenting, you can get a lot of support.

All right. Well, goal achievers, members of the Miracle Morning community, fans of Front Row Dads, we love you, we appreciate you, and we will talk to you next time. Thanks for joining us today.

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