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"Every decision I've ever made in my life, good and bad, has been in an effort to get my father to tell me he loved me."
This one moves in three parts: the apology you owe your kids, the dance you are still in with your own dad, and the forgiveness that sets you free. It starts at a kitchen table, where a dad raising his voice over math homework suddenly recognizes the scene, because he lived it at his son's age, on the other side of the table.
Psychologist Dr. Kelly Flanagan takes the question everyone asks after a moment like that, "Did I repair it okay?", and reframes the whole thing: your kids don't need you to be perfect, and an apology is a gift, because it teaches them they don't have to be perfect either.
Then Ryland Englehart of Cafe Gratitude gets asked for a painful memory of his father and lands somewhere more honest: gratitude first, and a dance with his dad's expectations that is still alive today, because a son spends his life trying to prove his father wrong or make his father proud.
And then Michael Chernow, who built The Meatball Shop and Seamore's, answers the hardest version of the question: have you forgiven him? What follows- a father lost during Chernow's addiction, and the moment years later when he finally heard the words he had been chasing- is one of the most powerful stretches of tape in our archive.
IN THIS EPISODE:
🚀 You're building a business—but are you building your family with the same intention?
These books helped us do both.
📘 Grab the list here: frontrowdads.com/books
WANT THE FULL STORY?
All three of these came from full episodes worth your time:
Give your kids enough that they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing.
That Warren Buffett line is where this one starts. You worked hard so your family could have a good life. So how do you keep the life you built from softening the kids you love? This is the first episode of Good Questions, where we pull the best questions dads have asked across ten years of podcasts and member-only conversations, and stack the answers worth keeping. Four dads take this one on: Mike McCarthy on being honest with your kids about your wealth and what the trust will and will not do, Chad Willardson on raising abundance-minded kids instead of scarcity-minded ones, Scott Donnell on why you should let them waste some of their own money, and Dan Miller on how early kids should start working (his answer involves a rebuilt motorcycle and a 10-year-old).
IN THIS EPISODE:
📚 Want to win at home and in business?
These are the books that helped high-performing dads create deeper relationships and stronger lives—without sacrificing success.
👉 Get the list: frontrowdads.com/books
WANT THE FULL STORY?
You can't force a child to make you their mentor. They choose. And most of us are quietly spending that choice on being right.
That's the argument in Hold On to Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate, and it's the book two dads in this community keep coming back to. In this Bookshelf, they take it from both ends.
John Berardi makes the case that a child is always looking for someone to guide them through life, and that they get to pick who. You can make a kid put on clothes. You can take things away. But you cannot make them choose you as the one they learn from, which is why the attachment has to come before the discipline. And if they don't pick you, they'll pick their peers, sometimes as early as nine. His warning about the book is worth hearing too: it's long, and the practical payoff is in the last few chapters.
Hal Elrod brings the one line he pulled straight out of the book and taped to his fridge, where it's stayed for two years: prioritize the relationship with your child above correcting their behavior. Most of us correct constantly, and we do it at the expense of the bond. Yelling doesn't build influence, it spends it. So he bites his tongue and asks what matters more right now: the relationship or catching them doing something wrong. Nine times out of ten, it's the relationship. He also names the trap on the other side: you threaten, they comply, you feel like you won, and that short-term victory quietly costs you the long game.
IN THIS EPISODE:
📘 These aren't just business books.
They're about building a legacy—at home and in your work.
Curated by successful, family-first entrepreneurs.
👉 Get the full list: https://frontrowdads.com/podcast-books
WANT THE FULL STORY?
Both of these came from full episodes worth your time:
The greatest gift you can give your kids has nothing to do with them.
Episode 2 of Walk With Jon. No studio, no script, no guest, no editing. Jon Vroman on a walking trail near his house, thinking out loud, this time with his dog Davy along for the walk. The audio is rough on purpose: wind, footsteps, and a dog on a leash are part of the deal.
Jon has been doing interviews for the Front Row Dads book, due out late 2026 or early 2027, and two of those conversations ended up in the same place. The first was about the tagline, family men with businesses, not businessmen with families, and where it came from. In Jon's words, it was born out of failure: first he needed the $5,000 speech to take care of his family, then how could he say no to $10,000, then $30,000, because he was doing it for his family. The question he asks now: do our kids need that extra income, or do they need dad at home?
The second was with a member whose daughter is about to leave home. Her advice to her dad: figure out who you are, and go do those things. That line is the seed of the whole walk, and where it lands is where Jon suspects the book lands too: "The greatest gift that you can give is self-love and self-respect." Not something you tell your kids. Something you model.
IN THIS WALK:
Jon reads every reply. Send your thoughts to team@frontrowdads.com. And if this one hit home, share it with another brother and start the conversation.
Front Row Dads is a brotherhood of family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. To learn more, go to frontrowdads.com.
Fatherhood is a series of windows that open and close. The one you're leaving usually never opens again.
For years we've been asking guests on this show some version of the same question: what do you wish you knew before your first kid? For the last day of NEW DAD WEEK, we pulled four of the best answers and put them back to back. No commentary, just four dads who've been through it telling you what they'd want you to know.
You'll hear from Ryan Levesque, Michael Dietrich-Chastain, Farhan Rizvi, and Matt Baudro.
Free field guide for the whole week at frontrowdads.com/newdad.
IN THIS EPISODE:
THE FULL NEW DAD WEEK:
Part 1: Listen, don't fix (Jason Kreidman)
Part 2: What no one tells dads about postpartum (Suzanne Yatim Aslam)
Part 3: Put your wife first (Steve Olsher)
Part 4: Sleep survival (Mollie Eastman)
Part 5: This one.
You're exhausted, so we made this one short.
Two things worth your tired attention. First, a nearly free trick for kids' bedtime that works with their biology instead of against it: no arguing, no negotiating, just light. And second, a genuinely kind word for couples who've been short with each other lately: sleep-deprived people are not their best selves, and that's not a character flaw.
This is part of NEW DAD WEEK, five short episodes for expecting dads and dads in the first year. Free field guide for the whole week at frontrowdads.com/newdad.
IN THIS EPISODE:
This one came from a longer conversation about sleep, circadian rhythms, and why sleep is a skill you can build. Hear the full episode: frontrowdads.com/431
This is part of NEW DAD WEEK, five short episodes for expecting dads and dads in the first year. Free field guide for the whole week at frontrowdads.com/newdad.
We asked what advice he'd give a new dad. His answer had nothing to do with the baby.
Steve Olsher's advice for men entering fatherhood is to prioritize your wife, above the kids. It sounds backwards, especially when there's a newborn in the house who genuinely needs everything. But his reasoning is hard to argue with: the most important relationship in a family is the one between mom and dad, and when the two of you are off, the whole house feels it. He also makes an uncomfortable case that nearly every conflict traces back to one thing.
This is part of NEW DAD WEEK, five short episodes for expecting dads and dads in the first year. Free field guide for the whole week at frontrowdads.com/newdad.
IN THIS EPISODE:
Hear Steve's full conversation at frontrowdads.com/199.
Suzanne Yatim Aslam had postpartum depression after her son was born, and in this conversation she tells dads exactly what it looked like from the inside, including the part almost nobody says out loud: for a while, she blamed her baby for ruining her life. Her husband didn't know. She never asked for help. She just kept saying she was fine.
This is part of NEW DAD WEEK, five short episodes for expecting dads and dads in the first year. We built a free field guide to go with it: the main points from every episode plus prompts you can actually use. Grab it at frontrowdads.com/newdad.
IN THIS EPISODE:
A note: this episode discusses depression and mental health honestly. If you or your partner are struggling, please talk to a doctor or a therapist. In the US, you can call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, and Postpartum Support International is at 1-800-944-4773.
Hear Suzanne's full conversation at frontrowdads.com/341
Your wife is struggling, and everything in you wants to solve it. That instinct is the problem.
Welcome to NEW DAD WEEK. Five short episodes for guys who are expecting or in the thick of the first year. We're starting with Jason Kreidman on the skill that matters most early on, and it isn't tactical. It's empathy, which he calls the single biggest game changer in how he parents and how he loves his wife. He also lands on four words that will save you an enormous amount of grief: do you want me to fix it, or feel it?
We built a free field guide for the whole week: the main points from every episode plus prompts you can actually use. Grab it at frontrowdads.com/newdad.
IN THIS EPISODE:
Hear Jason's full conversation at frontrowdads.com/101.
There are two lessons available when something in your life keeps hurting. One is to get tougher. The other is to walk away. Most men only ever get coached on the first one.
WHAT THIS IS
This is the first episode of something new we're calling Walk With Jon.
No studio, no script, no guest, no editing. Just Jon Vroman on a walking trail near his house, thinking out loud. In his words:
"What I don't want to do is stand at my desk anymore at my expensive microphone and try to record the highest quality show. I thought, if we were friends and on the phone and talking to each other, it would sound like this. You'd hear the wind in the background, the crunch of the rocks under my feet. It wouldn't be the highest quality audio, but it would be authentic. It would be real. You would be with me."
So yes, the audio is rougher than what you're used to from us. That's the point. No edits, no stops, no re-records. His words again: "just mistakes, back steps, corrections throughout." In a world where you can't always tell what's real and what came out of a machine, these are his unfiltered thoughts as he walks.
He also asks for two things up front. That you send feedback and tell him what you'd want him to think through out loud, because he's a verbal processor and this helps him as much as it helps you. And that you allow him to change his mind later, because that's what growth looks like.
WHAT HE'S THINKING ABOUT THIS MORNING
He calls it the nut-kicking line. Picture standing in a line where you keep getting kicked, and a coach beside you saying the lesson is resilience. Toughen up. Build grit. Focus your attention somewhere else.
Sometimes that's exactly right. But Jon's point is that there's a second lesson almost nobody coaches, which is that you're allowed to step out of the line. Learning to let go, to say no, to move on, is also a lesson.
He works it through his own three ultramarathons, one of which he thinks genuinely hurt him, and then through marriages, business partners, employees, and kids of divorce who say they wish their parents had separated sooner. Both paths have beautiful stories. Both have regrets. As he puts it: "All of it's true."
The question he lands on isn't which one is right. It's what you'd hear if you got quiet and honest enough to ask yourself.
IN THIS WALK:
Jon reads every reply. If something here landed, or if you think he's wrong about it, tell him. He'd say the disagreement is as useful as the agreement, because it shows you what you actually believe.
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Front Row Dads is a brotherhood of family men with businesses, not businessmen with families. Nearly a thousand men have come through the community in our first ten years. To learn more, go to frontrowdads.com.
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