Episode 237 (Jason Romano: Part 2) 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] Hey guys, welcome back to dadAWESOME. Today, episode 237 is the second half of my conversation with Jason Romano. Last week was the set up, kind of gave his backstory, the set up to his current chapter of dad life with his daughter headed off to college. Today, we're going to go deeper and we're going to focus in on his book Live to Forgive, talking about his relationship with his dad, and this is going to be helpful for all of us. So I'm so grateful you joined us. Definitely jump back, though, and listen to episode 236, first, before today's conversation. I want to remind you guys, Sports Spectrum, which is where Jason runs their media. They did an article on Fathers for the Fatherless, so it's going to be linked in the show notes. But our Fathers for the Fatherless bike rides, we ride 100 miles on behalf of the fatherless, we give locally and globally to amazing partner organizations. We are now over 500 men have participated on one of these rides and we're we're right at the edge of being over a half a million dollars fundraised for the fatherless. We're so grateful this is our fourth year, but there's a couple of deadlines coming up this weekend, in early August. The New York deadline to register is right around the corner on Monday at midnight, August 8th, is the New York deadline. And then our Scottsdale, Phoenix deadline, for the early registration rate, that's on Sunday night, the 7th of August at midnight. So if you know any men, again, we believe the call on God is for all men to be fathers, for the fatherless. We include all men to ride 100 miles with us. If you know any men in the New York area or in the Arizona, Scottsdale, Phoenix area, send them the link f4f.bike to learn more and encourage them to register soon to make sure they get it on the New York ride or the early rate for the Phoenix, Scottsdale ride. Guys, I'm so thankful you joined us today, though, the second half of my conversation with Jason Romano. We're going to jump right in with him talking about his daughter, talking about his daughter's faith and this journey of launching her out to college. So let's jump right back into my conversation with Jason Romano. Jason Romano [00:02:56] That's the only thing I really pray for and hope is that she follows Jesus for the rest of her life. But if she's following Jesus for the rest of her life. My job, if you will, or my life will be completely fulfilled in a way. And I pray that, and I'm glad she's going to Indiana Wesleyan. I know she loves Jesus now. She's been really intentional about that in school, which is a hard place to do that. And now she's going to college and they're so intentional about spiritual growth and development that I believe she's going to become an even greater follower of the Lord and servant for God, but there's never a guarantee, 100% guarantee. But that's really all I desire in and hope for. And that all stems from me seeing how my dad acted and me just saying, you know what, I got to do the opposite. I got to do the opposite. And it's funny because my dad loves sports and I love sports, and I ended up with a career in sports. And that stems from his love of sports and to this day, the relationship that my dad and I have, mostly is because of sports. You know, we don't get into deep philosophical conversations about, you know, intentional parenting. Right. I'd love to with my dad, but that's just not what our relationship is or who he is. It's more focused on how are the Boston Celtics doing, making it all the way to the NBA finals this year. How are, you know, how are our baseball teams doing? What's our football team look like before the season starts? And we just talk sports for 30 minutes, which is great, but sometimes that's exhausting for me because I just want to talk about, you know, real life stuff that matters, as much as I love sports. And I didn't have that with my dad and I hope to continue to have that and have those conversations with my daughter. Jeff Zaugg [00:04:44] So what was the, what was the point of deciding all this, that areas of hurt or areas that your dad didn't bring, that we really that he should have he should have that that that the role of a father should bring? Why did you make a decision to forgive? And then secondly, why would you take the extra decision, I'm going to write a book about living to forgive and the journey like tell me both steps. Jason Romano [00:05:06] The second step I can tell you was not of my doing. You want to I want to talk about God's plan. My decision and my desire to write a book was never there. I'll tell you the reasoning why I wrote the book in a second, but the reason to forgive my dad and a lot of it just stemmed from the pain that he had caused with everything I described earlier, you know, with the alcoholism, he was very verbal processor when he was drunk. He was never physically abusive. But my gosh, was that man verbally abusive. He said things to me and my brothers and to others that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy to say. So when you hear those things, there's a lot of deep rooted pain that stays there. Those wounds run really, really deep. And now I call it boxes in the attic. All these memories and these wounds and these, you know, things that I had to walk through. I would kind of store them in a box and put it up in the attic and store it away and then move on with the rest of my life. You know, get married to Dawn and, you know, eventually get the job at ESPN and have had a child like all of those things sort of were wonderful things in my life. But I'm still going through these, you know, I guess demons, if you will, that I was walking through in the relationship or lack thereof with my father. So my dad comes to a point where he's at the end of his rope, basically the end of his life. And I don't know what happened exactly as far as me making the decision, because I remember telling him when he was in the hospital, he was in a psych ward, he had tried to commit suicide. He was unsuccessful. And he was at the bottom of his life, like the alcohol, the addiction, and then the mental, mental health issues that he was dealing with at 62 years old, he tried to end his life and thankfully he didn't. But it took that like deep, dark, low moment, rock bottom moment for my father, for me to see him completely differently than I ever saw him in the first 40 years of my life. What I mean by that is, you know, I had been a Christian for 12 years, at the time when my dad was going through his lowest moment. And even though I knew about forgiveness, I understood it as far as Jesus and me. You know, I needed to ask for forgiveness of my sins. I wasn't able to do that other part that Jesus talks about forgiving others who trespass against us. And I thought I was a pretty good person who forgave in general, but not with my father. And that moment, that day, that low point, as I heard his voice on the phone, I saw my dad the way God sees him and me as his child. And I developed something that I never have from my dad before. And honestly, Jeff, it was something I believe is the great game changer. It's been in my life moving forward, but I think in society as a whole. Empathy is the great game changer and I never had empathy for my dad until that low moment. And that empathy led me to a point where I verbally finally said to him, Dad, I forgive you, don't worry about what you're going through, we're going to figure all this out. It's going to be okay. And I didn't know that for certain. What that word forgive or those three words I forgive you, what that helped me process and realize was that forgiveness was never about anything that my dad had done to me. Forgiveness was always about me and my relationship with, with God. So if I chose not to forgive my dad for what he had done to me, I was basically putting a hand to God's face and saying everything that you've taught, everything that you've done, sending your Son, everything that you've, you know, expanded on in your Word through all the different people in God's word that speak about forgiveness. You know, Paul talks a lot about forgiveness in Ephesians and in Colossians. Everything that you've, you know, put together in this, you know, this grand plan of yours, I'm basically putting it to a side by saying, sorry, I trust in You as my Savior, but I can't do that with my dad. And so it was that that moment when the empathy kicked in there, when I said, oh, my gosh, this is never about, been about about my dad. This has been about me. This is about the pain that I'm in. This is about the change that I've built around myself. This is about the poison that I've been drinking and thinking that it was effectively hurting my father. It's actually that I'm the one being hurt. And so I was stuck in these chains that when I forgave my dad, there was a moment that it started when I forgave him, but then it's been this process for nine years now of every single day waking up and saying, God, thank you for forgiving me of my sins, but then help me to continue to forgive others who have sinned against me. Even my dad, who hasn't really sinned against me in nine years because he's been sober, praise God. But to continue to forgive him because those wounds don't go away, those memories don't go away. That leads to to 2016, a couple of years late, and I give this talk at my church for the first time on forgiveness on a Sunday morning at the pulpit, by the way, and that's a great responsibility in its own right. And I chose to talk about forgiveness and share the story of my father, and I didn't realize this when I said, or I believe God told me to say yes to this opportunity. But when I shared about my story of forgiveness, I had all these people come up to me after and say, Oh my gosh, I'm struggling with what you're struggling with, or I had a dad like yours, or even I was your dad, and I'm struggling because I hurt a lot of people in my life. And by the way, when I've given that talk now probably 40 or 50 times in the last five years, even just a week and a half ago, I gave this talk and I had all these people come up and say the same thing again. And I realized at that moment, this is not just a Jason thing. This is a universal thing. Everybody struggles with forgiving someone who's hurt them. And then through that, somebody heard my talk, who is an author, buddy of mine, and he said, Hey, you ever think about writing a book? I said, dream on, that's not happening. Yes. And of course, now we have a book and just save you all the details, it was that initial nudge from my buddy who thought about me writing a book that it might help a lot of people, that I began the process. And I remember going to my dad and saying, hey, you know, I know we're in good we're on good terms right now. What do you think about me writing a book about all the bad things that we went through and hopefully it helps a lot of people. And he said, Jason, be as open and transparent about what you went through. If it makes me look like the bad guy, because I was the bad guy, that's fine. He said, but if it helps one person, if our journey, our story, our conversations, our messy moments can help one single person, you need to write this book. And so now we have a book. Seems to be helping people, but I still am not sure if it truly, I don't know, I know it was what God wanted me to do. It's the most proud I am of any work I've ever done, anything, ESPN, writing a book about my dad is easily the hardest thing I've done and the most proud of any work I've put out there. But I kind of still think it's like, is it really helping people? Why did I decide to write this? Who am I? I don't have the platforms of some of these huge name authors and people. Who am I? But all I have to do is have one person come up to me and tell me that they read the book and it's helped them and that's worth it. And I thankfully had that. Jeff Zaugg [00:12:57] Well fathers who step into forgiveness, you don't carry that baggage, the attic full of boxes locked away. Fathers who step into forgiveness, become free. Use the word captives before and in a generation of free fathers, I believe, will raise up generations and future generations of of daughters and sons who walk in freedom, which will last. That's the game changer. Jason Romano [00:13:24] That's why I, you know, you talked about the moment on making the decision not to continue down the path my dad was doing. You know, I was just trying to be exactly the opposite of what my dad was to me. But I was thinking, you know, as I started going on this journey and eventually becoming a dad, that there's generational change that are being breaking, broken here, because both my brothers and myself, not just me, but my brothers, have made the decisions in their own worlds not to drink and not to follow the same path with my dad, to forgive their father, and to raise amazing kids. My dad's or my brothers are amazing dads, so I watch them. And my one brother, Chris, who's the one that led me to the Lord, has five kids. My other brother, Damian, who was the second in our family to be saved, has four daughters like you. Yes. And then I have one daughter. And I see how great of a dad that they both are and I think only God could do that. But the ripple effects of their kids, my daughter, that's ten total, right? Ten total Romano kids that are going to hopefully see a different future than what we had to see because of God, but the decisions that thankfully we all, all three of us made to not go down the same path that our father did and my dad did. And you're right, it's I believe there's chain breaking and and discipleship making. Just to rhyme a little bit. Jeff Zaugg [00:14:54] There we go. Jason Romano [00:14:54] It going to take place. Yeah, it's going to take place with our kids, all because we just wanted to be intentional with them and not have them experience what we experienced. And it's funny because my daughter still hasn't read my book. And she came out when she was 12, I think, and now she's 17, or she was 13, I think, you know, again, that middle middle school doesn't even want to like my presence of me. Gosh, stay over there don't even acknowledge me. But I would hope someday, and maybe it's college, she has the wherewithal to sit down and read what that life was like for me when I was growing up and being her age and even appreciate even more the life that she was given by myself and my wife and how good God is and the grace that He's shown all three of us because of what I went through and because of what my brothers went through. Jeff Zaugg [00:15:52] And just to call out for a second, your dad, what's what's his first name? Jason Romano [00:15:56] Joe. Jeff Zaugg [00:15:57] Joe. So Joe's courage of saying yes to you asking, of saying yes if it helps one, like that, courage forward to all those grandkids that you just mentioned, even to your daughter when she gets married, her future. So his great grandkids, the would be great, great grandkids. So the the generational side of the courageous moment of saying my story, if it can be used to help one. I just I think sometimes we work on projects that are the hardest, you said it was the hardest thing you ever done, right, the writing is that sometimes the project actually is for could be for a future time. That's the cool thing about this podcast in a book is that it lives outside of us. You know, we don't have to speak it into it's already been spoken or written in that case. Right. So the gift for so that's that's one of my just outside observations is I have a feeling you've you haven't seen much of the actual long term impact and it's coming because...Jason Romano [00:16:51] You know, it's so great that you say that because a few people have encouraged me in that. And, you know, I'm a numbers guy and a results guy and a sports guy, and so, you know, people have asked how many books did you sell and all these? And I'm like, well, you never got to the New York Times bestseller list so it wasn't that many, you know, maybe in the thousands or whatever. And that's way more than I would ever think anybody would want to buy my book. But a couple of people have spoken the same thing you've spoken, Jeff, and said, listen, it's not about the number of books that you're going to sell, it's about what could happen when somebody picks this up in a random place ten years from now, and who knows who that could be? Or the fact that your kids and some of my nephews and nieces have read the book, but not all of them. But what if they're kids, what if my daughter's daughter in 30 years, I'm making this up? Yeah. When I'm, you know, whatever I'll be 78 at that time, picks and reads this book and says, Oh, my gosh, grandpa was like going through it. But look what happened on the other end and who knows what that could turn into. So that encourages me, I just want you to know that because I think a lot about, you know, purposeful work and things that are going to have much more of an impact than just writing another story or doing another interview on a sports show, which I love that I get to do and I hope those things have ripple effects as well. But like I said, the most important work I've ever done, obviously, outside of being a father and a husband, and a brother and a, and a son is is writing that book. And I just hope it does whatever God wants it to do. Jeff Zaugg [00:18:33] Well, we we talk about the dadAWESOME dashboard. I've been working on trying to figure out how do we give dads a peek at, at encouraging out like it's working, even though we don't see it working. And it really it's continue to fail. Like the dadAWESOME dashboard has continued to fail, like my project of trying to come around. What are the metrics? Because I, I had a dad that kept stats at all my basketball games and I knew right at the end of the game what was my percentage of shooting and how many rebounds, how many steals. Like, right, like short term stats are very encouraging or depressing, it could go either way. But the the reason I bring it up is, I think one key metric of the success of dadAWESOME. Does this ministry matter? Does the impact is there, is will dads do courageous, will they take courageous, long sighted decisions? So like your dad's decision to say yes, like your decision to write the book, like we mentioned earlier, counseling, like will, will a dad take the courageous move to go to counseling or the courageous move to take his wife out on a date night even though they're not feeling it, like the so that's that's a big hope, just take a courageous step. And even though the dashboard keeps failing, I don't have an easy one size fits all dadAWESOME dashboard. But I want to read a quote from your book to kind of end our time, because I do believe this gets after dads who take courageous steps. You said this around emotions. "Though, my emotions are not always reality, I've learned that my emotions can point me toward reality, especially re-occurring emotions." And this is the part I want to dial in on, "Our emotions can be an enter sign for the internal work that we need to do, we have to do, or an exit sign for a situation that we need to get out of." And the idea of enter sign, exit sign, I think courageous moves are maybe to enter some internal work or exit a situation like a job or a situation of like this is not going to help me add life to the dad life. So maybe just to kind of end our time, any just thoughts around, I mean, you wrote it, but the enter sign, exit sign, and just being courageous. Jason Romano [00:20:37] Well, I think, you know, in life, there's going to be moments that we have to make decisions that could have ripple effects, you know, mean we've used that word. I think emotionally we can get caught up in, you know, what our feelings are. And I think our feelings are important and they can help us, like I wrote there. But I think there's moments when we just have to step out and, you know, I think of different moments like, you know, leaving ESPN was, for me, a courageous moment. It was a moment of stepping out. And, you know, it didn't make sense at first, even my daughter was like, Dad, why would you leave ESPN? It's such a cool place to work. But she sees now, like the benefits, I think, that have come to that over the last five years because of the moment we hang up on this call, I'm going to go watch her play softball. And that might not have happened before. You know, when I was at ESPN, where I couldn't just hang up, close the computer and go watch her play softball. So those are, I guess, bold and courageous moments. Those are moments that I entered into. There's also moments when I've exited out of and, you know, I think the ESPN part was entering into a new phase, but it was exiting out something that I've been a part of for 17 years. And, you know, I think when I was writing that, what I meant with exiting was if you're in a situation that's unhealthy or uncomfortable, you need to be able to say, hey, I've got to step out of this, I got to step away from this. And I did that with my dad multiple times, as I got older, I was like, Dad, I need to take a break from this. Yeah, from just you and I, when he was in a bad, bad space. And, you know, I think I think my encouragement for people would be don't let your emotions be the beyond, end all of every decision you make. But let those emotions tell you which direction you want to either enter or exit into. Right? And sometimes that's relationships, sometimes that's your relationship with God, you know, maybe it's the rhythms that you're in and you just don't feel or emotionally don't feel connected to God. Well, maybe that's a step exiting out of what you're into and step stepping into something different that might help increase that relationship. Right? Maybe it's a parental thing and you're like, okay, I'm I don't feel like I'm getting this parenting thing right. I want to take a bold step. Well, what is that bold step? Sometimes it's exiting out of what you're doing to go into something else, but sometimes it's just going a little bit deeper on, in a different way to what you're already in and maybe that's tone, maybe that's just the way you talk to your kids, or maybe that's, you know, being a little more physical. It's weird. My daughter, I was very physical touch with her for a long time. Big hugs, lots of kisses. As she's gotten older, I think a little bit embarrassed, maybe she's like, I don't like, you know, I don't what are you doing? You know, it feels weird for her for me to just come around her and wrap my arms around her and give her a kiss because she's 18. But I still try to do it occasionally, but I know there's some times when that that's making her uncomfortable. I still want her to know I love her, so I'm going to still hug her. But maybe not just be the way I was five years ago and be able to show her that other ways, you know? So I don't know if that fully answers your question, but my encouragement would be just to just to let the emotions not run your life, but just see if there's a, if it's a GPS to help you get to the next place. Right? Jeff Zaugg [00:24:00] Yeah. That's helpful. Well, I'd love to invite you, Jason, to pray over all of us dads, listening. Just a short prayer of encouragement. And again, really grateful to have you on this week and grateful to cheer on and link out your book for, for the dads listening, to pick up. Jason Romano [00:24:15] That'll be amazing. Yeah. Jeff, I would love to close in prayer. Thank you, buddy. It's been an honor to be on your show. Let's pray, Father, thank you that you brought us together. Jeff and I didn't know each other until right now. And, and yet I feel like I have a friend now that I can talk to and certainly his podcast, and it's been helping so many people and I pray that it continues to help people. But Lord, I just pray for those listening who are fathers, who are in different places and seasons of life, right, you can be a father and be a grandfather at the same time and parenting somebody who's in their thirties and forties or fifties. Or you can be a brand new dad with a baby at home and you're just trying to stay awake and trying to keep those eyes open long enough to even try to love your kid when you're exhausted. Lord, I just pray for all of the dads listening. God, I pray that you would be the center of their lives. I pray that you would be the example that they would look to the perfect Father that loves his children unconditionally. That's always their, present all the time, never leaving us, never forsaking us. God, I just pray that we would look to you to be that Fatherly example for all of us and not have us look to any earthly person as that example. We might have mentors or or people that have inspired us, but God, you are the perfect Father and you're the only one that we can truly look to, to have that perfect example for us in our lives. So I just pray that for all the dads listening that they would look to you first, they would seek you first. And I just pray a blessing on all of them. I pray a blessing in all of the different seasons of life that they're in the good, the bad, the ugly, the difficult, the middle school parenting, God, you know how hard that was for me. But God, you are good and you are holy, and I just pray that you would be with each father as we close out here and each father that's listening, I just thank you that you tuned in. God, we love you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Jeff Zaugg [00:26:15] Thank you so much for joining us for episode 237, the second half of my conversation with Jason Romano. Want to remind you, the show notes, all of the links, some quotes, the transcripts for this episode are all at dadAWESOME.org/237. I also want to invite you guys, we're gathering feedback right now on the podcast, would love to know what's working, what would you love to see more of, who would you love to see me interview, what questions or topics have I not gotten to yet? Text message is the best way to get feedback my way, simply text the number 651-370-8618. And if you'd like to receive future updates from dadAWESOME, just that that same number, you're going to text the word "Dad," so if you just text the word "Dad" at all, include the word "dad" in your text message to 651-370-8618, you'll be in the loop on future kind of nudges, encouragements, reminders to be dadAWESOME for your kids. But then that's the same number that you include feedback, ideas, ways to make dadAWESOME more valuable. So guys, thank you for being a part of this movement. Thank you for choosing to add LIFE to the dad life. Let's go have a great week with our kids.