Episode 236 (Jason Romano: Part One)Podcast Intro [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads, who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where he teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm going to give it my all.Jeff Zaugg [00:00:39] This is episode 236 of dadAWESOME. Guys, I'm so thankful you've joined us today. My name is Jeff Zaugg and we are in the fifth season of dadAWESOME and we're about a handful of episodes into this season and I want to invite some feedback. It would be so helpful for me to know from you guys. "Hey, what's helpful?" What types of conversations would you like to hear, hear more from? What types of questions would you like to be asked more? What topics have I not covered yet? Guys, I would love to hear your feedback and actually sending me a text message is the best way to gather feedback. So I want to invite you guys, we have, right now it's about a weekly cadence that I text out, some encouragement, a resource from dadAWESOME, but I want to invite you guys to text me that same number. And, and then also I'm going to be increasing trying to move to a handful of text messages each week. Not a huge time suck for you guys, but more, it's a nudge towards being dadAWESOME. So here's the number you can text me, text the number 651-370-8618, and that's going to be in the show notes as well, 651-370-8618 just include the word "dad" in your text and then you'll be kind of like subscribed to this, this text message list around dadAWESOME. Becoming dadAWESOME all this encouragement and these nudges towards just practical ways to be to be an intentional dad, that's how you text in. Then secondly, send your feedback. So you got to do the first text and then I'd love for you to send me your thoughts. And if there's something that's been really helpful or a certain podcast that that was helpful, I would love to hear from you guys and I will be in touch directly, I'm on the other end of that text line. So again, text "dad" to 651-370-8618. All right, today Episode 236 of dadAWESOME, Jason Romano. So I connected with Jason about a month ago, our mutual friend Dave Bergeron, shout out to Dave Bergeron and he introduced me to Jason. He's like, m an, you got to have a conversation. And the timing was perfect because Jason actually is just now stepping into launching his daughter. She's headed off for her freshman year of college. So I love this pivot point of the dad life because it gives just a snapshot at like, man, what how are things going and what are your hopes in this next phase? And I think it applies to all of us as dads. Jason was a senior manager at ESPN. He was an Emmy Award winning producer there for 17 years. And then he made the jump over and now is the director of media at Sports Spectrum. And actually, Sports Spectrum just did an amazing piece on Fathers for the Fatherless. They featured, I'll link that in the show notes as well, did a piece on Fathers for the Fatherless the impact of that ministry. So you guys are gonna love this conversation. Today's about 25 minutes, then part two next week, episode 237, will be the second half of this conversation. Make sure to listen today, this is the set up, the alley-oop, and next week, the slam dunk. We're going to get into his book, Live to Forgive, specific stories about him and his dad. So I'm so thankful you guys are listening today. This is episode 236, my conversation with Jason Romano.Jeff Zaugg [00:03:55] This week on dadAWESOME, I have the privilege of having a conversation through the zoom line with Jason Romano. Welcome to the show.Jason Romano [00:04:02] Hey, Jeff, what's going on, buddy? Good to be here.Jeff Zaugg [00:04:04] Well, it is fun to have you on. And I was just I'm excited for you because you're in a chapter of the dad life of you've got a summer with your daughter and then off to college. How does that feel right now as far as that chapter?Jason Romano [00:04:17] Oh, it's, it's exciting. It's scary, weirdly enough. And then that I don't mean scary in the sense of being afraid. Like, I, I trust God's got his plan and he's going to take care of her, but it's sort of the unknown, right, of sending her out. She's always had me and my wife, she always will. But she's going 12 hours away to Indiana Wesleyan, great Christian school, small Christian school, which I'm really excited about for her to grow in her faith, but she's 12 hours away. We're in Connecticut. She'll be in Indiana. This is going to be a huge adjustment for both her and us. My wife and I, we've talked a little bit, but we haven't gotten too deep in the fact on, you know, if I could do something, anything different in our marriage, I think I would have been less focused on being all in on my daughter and not being maybe always all in with my wife. And obviously, I don't mean that from a divorce standpoint. I just mean that, you know, when you have one child, you just pour everything you have into her, when you have multiple kids like my brothers do and like you do, you got to kind of share the wealth and still be an intentional dad, but share the wealth a little bit. When you have one child, everything goes into that child. And, you know, Dawn and I have made a conscious effort to do the very best we can to give her everything possible, to help her succeed spiritually, you know, emotionally, school work wise, you know, guidance, mentorship, everything you want a parent to give, she's got it all from us. And then she's going to go to school. And it's almost like we're saying, okay, 18 years here, here you go, God, because she's yours now and we're still here to be there for her, but she's going to be in Indiana. So it's an exciting, scary, but joyful time, too. Like, she's just a good kid and I'm grateful that we've been blessed with the kid that we have, the daughter that we have. And I cannot wait to see what happens in college. I'm just so excited for her.Jeff Zaugg [00:06:14] Well, even in our pre conversation, Jason, you you glow when you talk about your daughter, like there's a there's a shine in your eyes and I did I do random research before these conversations not just like, hey, what's the most recent book or hey, what's the most recent podcast? But I, I go random. So I went back six years ago to a blog post that you wrote, which you gotta be careful what you write stuff online and it lives up.Jason Romano [00:06:35] Oh, I remember it well, I know where you're going.Jeff Zaugg [00:06:37] This one is on Abundant Life and we talk about adding LIFE to the dad life, and I see the shine in your eyes. But what, what do you think around encouraging dads who are maybe feeling overwhelmed? Like like, oh, my goodness, what have I got myself into? I have four, four daughters in my case, but it doesn't matter. One, four, ten, we can feel overwhelmed. We can feel like man abundant life is not what I'm experiencing today. Any just thoughts reflecting back on this is what adding LIFE to the dad life could look like or, or maybe how you would nudges in that direction.Jason Romano [00:07:08] My my thought on that is, you know, we're going to go through bad cycles as parents. We're going to go through bad cycles in our jobs. We're going to go through bad cycles in our marriage. Just in life, things are going to happen. I found to find abundant life, first of all, it's only found in Christ, in my opinion, you know, and He says that. He says, I've come to give you life and life more abundantly. So if He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, find it in Him first, right? And so start with Jesus, which I think is an easy thing for me to say. It's not an always easy thing for me to just practically live out when life is coming at you. But I also found that, and this will maybe come around in terms of, you know, some of our discussion, but serving is a big thing. And what I mean by that is serving your kid, you know, and being there for her. And when you take yourself out of the equation and, you know, I just kind of shake my head in all those times where she needed me to pick her up from school or take me here. And, you know, there were moments like, listen, you're interrupting my time watching old Boston Celtics highlights, what are you doing, Sarah I'm busy. But like, it's those times when you say, okay, let's go, I'll pick you up, I'll take you where you need to go. You know, she had all those practices that she had when she was younger playing softball, playing volleyball, she was in travel tournaments, you know, obviously in 9th and 10th grade she didn't have a license yet, so she was going to practice every single day. She needed to be picked up every single day. So it was all of those moments when you just take yourself out of the equation and you just say, yep, this is part of the deal, like this is part of me being a dad and me finding joy in being that dad meant to just take myself out of the equation and to serve her. Obviously there's time for, you know, discipline and and those difficult moments when you have to, you know, put your put your foot down a little bit. But that's how I've found that abundant life, I think, in finding the joy in the moments that she's participating, even in the bad days, like there was a game a couple of weeks ago that she played in softball and and they've had a really good year this past year. And, you know, I think they were 18 and 4, like a good record. Top five or six in the state of Connecticut. But that number one team is just really, really good. And they played them twice and they lost both games, 8-nothing and I think 12-1. And my daughter in the first game, she played against them, she didn't get any hits and she was the very last batter with a man on first and the score was eight, nothing, so there was, or a man on first and third, and there was not going to be a chance for them to come back. But she hit a ground ball and she hit into a double play and it ended the game. And she was she came home and she goes, Dad, I don't want to hear it. And I'm like, what, what don't you want to hear? What do you think I'm going to say? She goes, You're going to talk about me grounding into a double play. And I said, Nope, I'm not going to. I said, I'm actually proud that you even hit the ball off of that pitcher. And I said, what's the difference between eight, nothing and eight, one? It's not much. She goes, well, it would have meant we weren't shut out. I'm like, I get it. But just know that I'm proud of you that you were even playing in the game. The next game they played against that same team, a week later, they lost again because that team is really good. But she got a hit in the game and that was a big deal for her because not many people on her team, even better players on her team than her, could hit this girl. And so let's celebrate the little things here. Even though you lost, I got to come watch you play. You got to put on a uniform. You got to get a hit. And yes, it stinks that you lost. And I'm sure the end result is always something you want to have being a win. But look at all the things that just happened in the last couple hours that you'll never be able to get back. And so I think it's partially me just pouring into her, finding the joy in all the little moments, but then trying to instill in her an appreciation in the little things that she's able to do. Because, yes, big picture, you want to win, but those things are going to be gone in an instant and they're gone, right. Like they're not, you can't bring those back. She's going to go to college. She's probably not going to play softball. She might be a part of a team, who knows? Maybe she'll be a team manager or something, but in all likelihood, she's not going to be on a team, suiting up in a uniform, getting on a bus and going to a game, you know, ten miles away with her team anymore. And so that's kind of how I look at, you know, that abundant life. And just finding those moments, even when life is hard, is to just pour into your kids and be there for them. And I've always said if you are working 95 hours a week, as a father and you're never seeing your kids and in your mind you're thinking that this is a good thing because you're providing for your kids, you're missing out. You're missing out. And I had a really big moment when I was at ESPN where I had to make a decision. When Sarah was four years old, do I want to work the 90 hour work week or do I want to stay in the job I'm in, take less money, but be able to see and be around my kid. I'm not saying I'm perfect by any means, but I knew what I didn't have when I was a kid. And I said, I cannot miss these crucial moments in being a part of my daughter's life. Now, have I missed moments? Sure. Of course. I'm in a job that requires me to be on the road sometimes and miss certain things. But 95% of the things that I've wanted to be for her, I've been able to be at because of different choices that I've made. So, you know, I kind of answered your question in a long winded way, but that's just something I'm so passionate about, is the word intentional, and just being there for your kid and, and being there for her no matter what. Right. No matter what. And, you know, they're going to make mistakes, but always in having them know that you're available to them and you love them. Can't replace that. Just can't.Jeff Zaugg [00:12:58] Well, two things that you said there and many takeaways, but you mentioned telling your daughter you're proud of her because she didn't seem like she didn't want you to say anything. And you're like, well, that's like that's gold. That's a gold nugget right there. And then secondly...Jason Romano [00:13:12] Partially because I haven't always said that, right? Jeff, I'm like, Sarah, why would you hit that ball? You know, that was a high pitch. Why did you swing at that? Because the sports guy in me is like, what were you thinking there? So sometimes you just got to take all of that out and not critique, but just say, I'm proud of you, you know, I'm proud of you. What would your second take? I'm curious.Jeff Zaugg [00:13:30] This sports guy, here it is, you just said it again, the sports guy in you. And again, from the introduction to this podcast, everyone knows, like your chapter at ESPN, now, the sports spectrum, like you're surrounded by the elite of the elite of over the last five decades. These are the athletes that have accomplished everything. And you're seeing up close, there's a drive within them, but there's also a drive, I'm sure, most of your colleagues at ESPN are up into the right. That's the bigger is better, more like and yet you chose to pause that trajectory, am I, am I accurate here. You chose to pause because of family.Jason Romano [00:14:05] I did. There was a moment in 2008 when I was training to become a producer one, these are just titles at ESPN. I was a talent producer, I was training to become a producer one and there was this real kind of light bulb moment, in September, I was there it was the opening night of the NFL. It was a Thursday night, I believe, Washington and the Giants were playing, you can look it up. This was September of 98. I'm sorry, September of 2008, and I was at the office and I was training, and it was the overnight shift that I was training on. And basically all I was doing was shadowing a producer who was working on I think it was ESPN News, you know, three hour highlight show. And I was there and I was kind of shadowing him. I think his name was Brian Tully, so I was shadowing, shadowing Tully, and he was a great guy and a super wonderful teacher, but halfway through that night in The Cowboy or the Giant-Washington game was just about ending. And I saw him go into motion and go into action with the work he was doing, it's great work, right? Where I mean, we're producing sports television. Who, there isn't a better job than that if you love sports. But there's this moment where it's 11:00 on a late Thursday night and I'm like, this is the job that I'm training for. And it's going to be Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday nights, Saturday night, Sunday night, nights. I'll be home Monday and Tuesday and that's it. And I'll be home during the day when she's at school. And I had this moment where I thought, this is a great job, but I can't, I'm in the current job I was in at the time was kind of a Monday through Friday, Sunday through Thursday, working days for the most part. There were evenings where I had to work, of course, but for the most part I was working days. So I was home at night during the week and I was home on weekends. And the job that I was training for was maybe 25 or 30,000 more a year, so it was a good yeah, a good bump. And Producer one at ESPN is a prestigious role, it really is. And I was 34, 35 at the time, and Sarah had just turned four years old, so she was starting to go to nursery school, getting ready to go to kindergarten soon. And I, I thought if I take this job, I am going to be in this game of chess that the producers will play and the people above me will play and putting me on all these different shows. And I'm not going to have any say or any ability to dictate when I can be home unless I take a day off. And, I think it was maybe a couple of weeks later or what was definitely the next day, I came back and I told my current boss, I said, she goes, How was the training? I said, It was great. I'm not going to be doing this job. She goes, what do you mean? I said, There's no way I'm going to work nights and weekends and produce on ESPN News and miss out on being around my daughter. So she was happy because that meant I was going to stay in the job I was currently in. But she understood and she still tells me to this day, she was not a mom at the time, but she's like, I'll always remember the fact that you said that, and I respect that because you could have kept trying to,to better yourself and make more money, and yes, I obviously, I wanted to move up and and have better opportunities and make more money and provide for my family. But not at the expense of missing out on my daughter. And the wonderful thing now, I'm 48 years old, I'll be 49 in September. And I you know, I'm in a situation in a job now where my bosses actually say, if your daughter has a game, you've got to go. Unless it's like an interview that you can't miss, right, you're going to the game. So go like don't miss those moments. My bosses encourage me now at Sports Spectrum to make sure I'm a part of my kid's life. And and that's a beautiful thing. And I'm not saying ESPN didn't, but that's not what they were there for. They were a very corporate, you know, big business company. And I've just seen so many people who work there, who were parents, miss out on so many opportunities with their kids because they were 100% all in, enthralled in their work, where they never could take a break or feel like they could step away. And listen, I was there for a little bit of that, but that moment in 2008 was a big moment for me and I'm thankful God, kind of, impressed upon my heart at that time to do that, because who knows what could happen? I mean, maybe I would have gotten that promotion in that job and it would have worked out. But I just had this uneasy feeling. The Holy Spirit probably just kind of nudging me and saying, You know what, don't, don't go this route. This is not the route that I'm calling you to go to.Jeff Zaugg [00:18:31] As much as I want to ask several more ESPN follow up questions, I want to actually go right way back to when you said something about you and your wife being cheerleaders for your daughter and realizing maybe too much, I don't think you used the word cheerleaders, but maybe too much focus on her, her, her, your daughter versus each other. And the reason I ask is, I think the nudge from the Holy Spirit that that you felt on that job not being, not being the trajectory that you should go. I think some of us felt that nudge when you said that about putting too much focus on your daughter. That's why I want to revisit the question of just like, is there, how can we, like, pay attention to if our focus is too much on dad role instead of husband role?Jason Romano [00:19:14] I don't know if I'm the right person to ask because I didn't do that well, and maybe I am the right person to ask because I didn't do that well. But, you know, when you get married in a little bit of our back story, my wife and I met in 97, we got married in 99, and then we tried to have kids right away. We were a little bit older. I was 26, she was 30, and we both just wanted to start a family sooner than later. We went through four years of infertility, four and a half years, couldn't get pregnant. And I think part of that is, is God's way of saying, you know, I know how much you want to be a dad. I'm going to, I'm going to give you, you know, an incredible miracle here, so you don't take it for granted. And finally, Dawn was able to get pregnant. Sarah was born in June of 2004. And it was just the greatest experience for both of us to see God in action. Even before, my wife didn't really have a relationship with the Lord at that time, and I was very new in my relationship with God. And that was the first time I truly saw an answer to a prayer that we had prayed for, for so many years. Right? When she got pregnant, that was a big deal, maybe even bigger in some ways. But then when my daughter was born, and from that day we just decided, we didn't really talk about it either, I say we just decided we just kind of fell into the idea that our marriage is important, but our kids, just as important. So it was not one, it was not one A, one B or even one and then two. It was equal playing, both were number one. And, you know, looking back and even we never really went through any marriage counseling, sort of Christian marriage counseling, we've kind of learned that along the way as we've grown in our relationship. But watching other people and watching people who I know give that counseling, they always say, when you have a child, your child is second to your marriage, which is very hard for a lot of people to hear. And I would imagine even to this day, it's very hard for my wife and I both to kind of hear that after what we've went through. But I see what happened and I'd have zero regrets on how we parented our kid. I think, you know, my wife and I were as intentional as we could ever have been. My wife is a wonderful mother. She's amazing to my daughter, especially now in this season of life as they've grown older and become even closer. But, you know, we both will probably admit that we took a little bit of a backseat to our marriage and, you know, it's funny I say this a lot now, but I've said to her, you know, we're going to kind of have to learn how to be married again when Sara goes to college. And I say that a lot of times jokingly, because it's a funny joke, you're oh, yeah, you're married again. But there's a lot of truth in that statement when I make that, because my wife and I have just spent 18 years of our life giving all we could to our daughter, and then she's going to be in college. My wife already said she's going to be a basket case driving back from Indiana. She's going be really hard, you know, it's gonna be really hard on her not to have Sarah. What I also hopefully that's a reminder, like, but you still have your husband. And I want to be reminded, I still have my wife. And we're the ones that are going to have to live for the rest of our lives together and make this work. So I don't know if that really answers your question, and I don't even know if that if I have the right answer yet. Stay tuned. Yeah. But I think part of it is I just need to be, I need to go back to the to the Word of God and see that, you know, I'm supposed to love my wife as, as God loves church. Love my bride, as God loves the church. And I haven't always done that perfectly. I've never not loved my wife, but I definitely didn't always have her as the only number one in my life. Now, my daughter might have been my wife and my daughter equally, if that makes sense. And I do love them equally. But there's a, I don't know intentionality of the way I would pour into my wife that maybe was put on the shelf for a little bit that I need to kind of bring back to. So I'm kind of speaking to you right now. You're kind of right in the midst of it, Jeff, to be honest with you, because when she goes to college, we're going to have a 12 hour drive back home. And I'm guessing this is going to come up quite a bit in that conversation. It's like, all right, you know, are we still, you know, saying, I do to each other? Okay then let's keep going here and let's make sure we don't neglect each other, you know, just because Sarah's in college now, you know.Jeff Zaugg [00:23:46] Well, I hear that word intentional and I can I just as you're processing because you're not none of us are have completed or figured this thing out of being dadAWESOME or being in this case we're talking more about being husband awesome. Like I'm a I'm going to double down in that area, so I hear it though, and I'm grateful that you're willing to just process it out, even though it's it's the chapter of entering a new season of intentionality.Jason Romano [00:24:07] As we're going, right? Jeff I mean, that's what it is. It it's not it's not, you know, looking back and telling you what we did and all the lessons we've learned and everything's perfect, you know, and that's happened, you know, there's things that we've learned along the years that we would probably do differently or, you know, or do the same again. But we're in the midst of this right now. And in some ways, we haven't even really gone deep into the processing of it together as a husband and wife, because we're still trying to get our daughter off, you know, and running into this world that she's in. So yeah it's an as we're going thing.Jeff Zaugg [00:24:42] Well and from my, again, my research and getting into your book and and so grateful that you're willing to be transparent and walk, write out your journey, your book's titled Live to Forgive, you Know, A Journey with You and Your Dad. And I know that or maybe I'm assuming, but there's a there's a pendulum, often what we experience, we either copy or we swing to the other side and say, no I'm going in a different direction than what I saw growing up. And you you even reflect a little bit in your book about this unstable environment with your dad. And and so my my guess here is maybe even some of the stability you brought for your daughter and all this focus on your daughter is some of that pendulum swing the other direction of like, no, I'm going to bring what I didn't have. Am I right at all on that?Jason Romano [00:25:26] You're completely on. And that's the thing is because and I think that also stems back to what we just talked about as a marriage, too, because I didn't have the best example of a of a dad who was a good husband either because my dad divorced twice. My mom and dad divorced when I was five. You know, my second my step mom, his second wife divorced him, you know, 30 years ago or whatever it was. So I didn't have the best dad, but I also didn't have the best dad who was a good husband either. So I had zero experience here on how to really be a great husband and doing the best I can there, but also being a great dad. And, what I did in both instances, I think because my dad was an alcoholic, he's sober now, but he struggled with alcohol for years and years and it really caused a deep chasm in his relationship with his three sons, me and my two brothers, and pretty much the extended family of relationships with his own parents, with cousins, with aunts and uncles. He destroyed a ton of relationships all because he decided to choose and then, you know, was addicted to alcohol and chose the alcohol. So when I saw that as I was growing up and I remember when I got married and Dawn and I talked about having kids, you know, I didn't know how to be a good dad. I knew how to be a bad dad because I saw it in my father. So I just said, well, let me live this life and do this fatherhood thing just the opposite of what my dad did for me. So I wanted to make sure that I didn't scream and yell, too often, although I'm guilty of that. I think we all are as parents. Yes. But I wanted to make sure I was present, I was available, that she knew I loved her, that she heard me tell her I love her. I remember even as I became a follower of Christ, Dawn and I had the discussion because my wife wasn't a Christian when Sarah was born, I said, I want to raise this kid to be a follower of Christ. And she was like, well, what does that mean? What church do we go to? I'm like, I'm not worried about church. We'll find our church. And we did pretty quickly, thank God, and we're still in that church today. I said, but I just want to make sure that we're intentional about introducing her to God and introducing her to Jesus. And then my wife was pretty quickly on board with that as well. And she let me, I say let me because she's wired to kind of lead and take charge in a lot of ways, which is a great trait she has. But she allowed me to be the spiritual leader in our home and continue to this day, I think, to be that way. Part of that was every single night from the time Sarah was maybe one year old until maybe 11, and I don't know how old your kids are, but once they hit middle school, something switches. And we can have a conversation about middle school kids if you want to. They become really strange and weird kids when they're in middle school. I still love my daughter to death, but I wasn't the coolest thing in the world. But between ages one and maybe nine or ten, every single night I would go into her bed, I'd tuck her in, I'd probably till about seven years old, eight years old I would read her a Bible story and then I would pray and she would pray. You know, her prayer was pretty much the same prayer every night, but it would just I hope to this day and I hope when she's a mom, she remembers those moments when she was six, seven, eight years old, and I was at her side every single night. Being intentional about raising her as a as a woman of faith, as a young girl of faith. One of my highlights in my life was when she was ten years old, I got to baptize my daughter in our church. And my gosh, if there's anything and I've said this from the pulpit, speaking at big conferences, talking to you, talking to my wife. I really have no desire or worry about what she's going to end up being as long as Christ is at the center of her life. That's the only thing I really pray for and hope is that she follows Jesus for the rest of her life.Jeff Zaugg [00:29:31] Thank you so much for joining us today for episode 236. This is just the halfway point of my conversation, so tune back next week, episode 237, will be the second half. We'll talk, specifically, about Jason's book, Live To Forgive and just be a good step deeper into even practical ways that we can be dadAWESOME for our kids, so tune back next week. I want to remind you guys, we have that text list. If you want to be texting feedback into dadAWESOME and receiving weekly encouragement, text 651-370-8618. Just text the word "dad" to that number once more, one more time, 651-370-8618, text the word "dad." All the show notes for today's conversation are at dadAWESOME.org/236. Guys, thank you for being a part of this movement. Thank you for choosing to be dadAWESOME for your kids. Choosing to learn to be mentor, to say, I'm going to lean into this area, I'm going to love the role of being dad. We don't always love the moments, but I'm going to love and be thankful for the gift that I get to be a dad. Make sure to tell your kids that, look them right in the eye and say, I love that I get to be your dad. Have a great week, guys.