[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:37] Brad: In this episode, I get the chance to talk with Jon Vroman. He’s a philanthropist, speaker, author, podcaster, ultra marathon runner, and in his words most importantly, husband and father. I got the chance to know Jon personally at a Dad’s retreat last year that he ran with his good friend, Jon Berghoff who we had on our last show. And Jon has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I’ve ever met and has a truly inspiring story. After an incredible start to his career in the sales industry where he climbed the corporate ladder very quickly one day back in 2005, he made the decision to literally step into his boss’s office and quit so he could start a charity.

This led to him co-founding the Front Row Foundation which helps create front row type experiences for those suffering from life threatening illnesses. This has included past recipients literally sitting front and center and often meeting their favorite athletes or entertainers. Performers like Justin Bieber, Jason Aldean, Garth Brooks, Jimmy Buffett, Carrie Underwood, Bon Jovi and Alan Jackson. Along with professional athletes like Steve Nash, Johnny Damon and Derek Jeter.

Jon shared some incredibly powerful stories during our conversation on how they’ve been able to impact others that are battling for their life, but also how these experiences have impacted his life in return. Be ready for some emotional moments as Jon had me literally on the verge of tears multiple times with the stories he shared in this conversation.

For many of you Blueprint listeners who have helped us raised over $25,000 during our past March Madness charity events, I’m proud to announce that we’re partnering with Jon and the Front Row Foundation this year. So if you’re moved by this conversation, we’ve made it easy to help create a front row type experience that will help someone battling a life threatening illness. In fact, we’re still accepting nominations if you unfortunately happen to have a friend or family member in this situation. Go ahead and send me a personal e-mail, brad [at] bradleyjohnson.com and I’ll be happy to share with you how you can nominate them to potential benefit from what we’re doing through the March Madness Charity.

Also, for those of you that just want to give towards this cause, we’ve created a special page for this year’s event. Go to www.bradleyjohnson.com/charitychallenge if you like to help us make a difference for someone in need. So besides running a charity that’s raised over one million for those in need, Jon also happens to be a world-class professional speaker and has been named “College Speaker of the Year” multiple times.

In this conversation, we also dive into some incredible tips on how to, one, be properly introduced as you take the stage, two, captivate your audience, and more importantly, how to drive engagement if they aren’t captivated, and three, craft a compelling story and utilize that story to drive appointments. You guys are going to love the ideas Jon shares here.

Lastly, in typical Jon Vroman fashion, he did something special for all you Blueprint listeners and set up a page for special pre-release pricing on his new book, “The Front Row Factor: How to Transform Your Life With the Art of Moment Making”. It’s due out March 28. And in this new book, Jon distills all the life lessons he’s learned from sharing moments with those who are fighting to stay alive. All pre-release purchasers also get some special bonuses as well. You can check those out at www.Front Rowfactor.com/brad. And go out and grab your copy there and get all the bonuses that come along with it.

As always, you can find everything, including links to books mentioned, people discussed, everything else in our show notes at www.bradleyjohnson.com/17. Thanks for listening. Without further delay, my conversation with Jon Vroman.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:04:19] Brad: Welcome, everyone, to this episode of The Elite Advisor Blueprint podcast. I have my good friend Jon Vroman here with us today. Welcome, Jon.

[0:04:29] Jon: what’s up, Brad? Thanks for having me, buddy.

[0:04:30] Brad: Happy to have you, man. So I was playing around. We were chatting here before we went live. And I’m not even sure how to introduce you, man. You’ve got so much cool stuff you’ve got going on. And tell your wife to come back in.

[0:04:30] Jon: Awesome. Thanks, buddy.

[0:04:46] Brad: So just for you listening in the audio here, Jon’s wife was delivering tea. His getting over a little bit of a cold here, so always great to have people in your corner. Right, Jon?

[0:04:46] Jon: For sure, man. Absolutely.

[0:04:46] Brad: So, as we were chatting here as far as how to introduce you, I mean, you do so much cool stuff and we have the chance to meet at the Dad’s retreat that you hosted in Philly with Jon Berghoff. And my buddy, John Ruhlin, kind of introduced me to the whole retreat. That was amazing. Then, I find out you run your own charity that you started back in 2005, the Front Row Foundation. Then I found out, oh, by the way, this guy is College Speaker of the Year, two years in a row. And it just goes on and on.

So rather than have me butcher it, can you share a little bit of your story with the listeners that might not know who Jon Vroman is and just kind of, maybe even back up before the whole charity thing, how you met the whole crew at Cutco and where that’s led you to today?

[0:05:41] Jon: Yeah. Oh, this would be a good personal challenge. I’m looking at the clock now to see how fast I can do this and have it make sense. Yeah. So, well, the whole journey began in an awesome family, military dad. He was a captain in the Navy. We moved around a bunch in life. And I think that may have been the place where I really found a passion for connecting with and meeting new people, which still is a big part of my world today. And everything was normal up until I would say where I got to high school where I was really uber short. Like I’m talking tenth grade, 4’10, 85 lbs. And I had the bone age of a nine-year-old when I was 16.

That caused something to happen that would later serve me in life, which was that I felt very insignificant. I felt shy. I felt like I was not playing the game of life. I was terrified of people, I had a lot of fear. And so, I lived that way for a number of years until I had some experiences in my life that would transform and change that. And that’s sort of the journey of what led me to the start of the Front Row Foundation. I talk about this whole thing where I give the example – and we can get into this later. But I talk about the perfect storm in my life where I had these three incredible experiences which would change the way I’d view the world, ultimately leading to what happened in 2005 which was the birth of Front Row Foundation.

And for all your listeners, Front Row Foundation is a wish granting organization, much like Make a Wish, where we help kids and adults who have a life threatening illness to get a front row experience at the event of their dreams. And that was in 2005 that that all began. And that moment where we began the charity was truly a transformation in my world because since that moment when we began it, everything in my life has become about being in the Front Row. And that’s the metaphor that we teach about being close to the things and the people, or whatever it is that inspires us in life, what makes us come alive, as we say.

And so since then, since starting the charity, I kept asking myself the question, how can I let my professional life serve the charity at an even greater level? And what was a beautiful and natural fit was keynote speaking. And so, in 2008, I became a professional keynote speaker, full-time, where I would travel the world and share the Front Row message. And essentially, what that means is everything we’ve learned about living life from people fighting for it. And the tremendous mindset that they bring to each and every day, especially dealing with some very challenging circumstances, and I feel like everybody listening, whether you’re fighting a life threatening illness or not, we understand challenging situations in life. And so, we can learn a lot from people who are facing some really difficult times in how they overcome and move through and find higher purpose and deeper meaning in all of what they do.

And, ultimately, that leads us to this moment where we’re talking today, because my entire life is now built around helping people live life in the Front Row. I do that professionally and I do that through the charity. And it’s all integrated into one giant message. That was three minutes, buddy. How did I do?

[0:08:47] Brad: That was impressive. It’s like you speak for a living or something.

[0:08:51] Jon: That’s right.

[0:08:51] Brad: So take me back. Because what’s interesting, obviously, this is a podcast for financial advisors, many of them have helped people give to charitable causes. Many of them have their own foundations they’ve set up. So back in 2005, and tell me if I’m butchering any of this, I actually had a chance to grab dinner with John Kane who I also know is a Cutco guy that’s inspired you and help you get where you are today.

If I remember right, you kind of had a pretty direct conversation with John. You had had a lot of success inside Cutco and I believe you’re leading a team at that point. But it was kind of like, “Hey, I think I’m called to go this route into charity.” So was there something that was a turning point there that caused that specifically or was it just one day you’re like, “I just want to go do awesome things for awesome people.”?

[0:09:34] Jon: Yeah. So to give that even some context about Cutco, so throughout my 20s, and this was a hugely influential company for me. If anybody’s listening, it’s a high-end kitchen cutlery company. They do direct sales. And I started selling Cutco at age 19. We’re talking like a thousand dollar set of knives. You sit down across from usually a couple in their home and present this product. And then you’d ask for referrals and go sell another set of knives.

And at 19, that’s amazing sales training, learning how to manage your calendar and to work with people and build rapport and show value, and then ask for the sale. And so this was my life for a number of years. And you’re right. I ended up landing in what I consider to be the dream job. I was executive at Cutco. I was making great money. I was traveling the world. My job was to create contests and then take the winners on big trips. I mean I took 400 people to Italy for a week. I took people to Argentina. I traveled to a dozen countries around the world at the nicest resorts with hundreds of people.

And I had a corporate credit card and was living the dream. And for people on the outside looking in, they’re like, “Why would you ever want to leave that?” But what happened was it wasn’t that I didn’t love the company or the people that I worked with, it was that ultimately, when I looked at what an ideal life looked like for me, I was not able to create that within the position that I was in. And that meant ultimately serving Front Row Foundation at the highest level.

And so, yeah, I had a conversation with my buddy, John. He was like, “As much as I want you to stick around, you need to go. And you need to go do this thing.” And so, in 2008, I took a leap of faith. I was like, this is not the success story that most entrepreneurs want to hear. But I left my work literally almost like I left on great terms with the company. But I went out without really any backup plan. It was just like, “I’m going to go speak and coach for a living.” The first year, I paid $100,000 to call myself a speaker and a coach.

Then next year, I went $100,000 in debt calling myself a speaker and a coach. And the third year, it took off. And I was back. I was making six figures and working on paying off that debt. And then, it was never turning back from there. But there was a big leap of faith there in 2008 to go pursue all of this full time.

[0:11:51] Brad: Wow.

[0:11:52] Jon: That’s what you call burning the boats behind.

[0:11:54] Brad: That’s right, man. That’s right. Of course, 100%. So let’s go down the charity front. And what’s so cool about this, I didn’t realize we were going to be having this podcast when we first met. And now, our team here and the group of advisors we work with, something called, we started it a few years back was we started the March Madness tournament challenge. And I don’t remember what inspired me but I was like, “It could be cool if we could do this for an awesome cause.” And so, we started putting all of the funds towards a charitable contribution. And when I met you out in Philly at the Dad’s Retreat, I was like, “I don’t think there could be a better charity that’s been designed for a March Madness tournament.”

Front Row Foundation, really, when you dig in, you were taking people in really tough situations, life-threatening illnesses, and they happen to also need to be big fans of something, whether it’s a sporting event, a concert they want to go see, but you’re literally putting them in the front row. And not only did you do this and said, “Yeah, we’d love to support you, Brad, in the March Madness deal.”  But you also went the extra mile and you said, “We’d love if your advisors could make some nominations of some people that we might be able to serve through this.”

So I’m incredibly excited, buddy. And I know we’re just still starting to work through all of this. But I just can’t wait to let our clients, our advisors, see the impact of what you’ve been doing since 2005. So with your book coming up, I want to work that into the conversation because you’re taking these experiences that you’ve experienced firsthand since 2005. And some, just, I’m sure tear-jerking stories. And your packaging this into a book. Can you share a story or two of what that charity has done for you since you started in 2005?

[0:13:38] Jon: Yeah. Well, what started out as wanting to give to people who were in need, I feel like in some ways, I’ve been the biggest beneficiary because being witness to their incredible lives, I’ve learned so much about what it means to live life to the fullest, or to live life in the front row.

And I go all the way back to the very beginning, Brad. This was all about making a great day for somebody who really needs it and deserves it. But what’s happened since then, it was so much more. We didn’t see it coming. I would love to claim that it’s a brilliant vision from the get-go that I saw this whole thing laid out perfectly. But a lot of our discoveries came by trying these things and watching what was working.

So as an example, one of the things we didn’t notice was the power of hope that we would give somebody when we told them that they were going to see an event. I remember this guy, Thomas Kay, who wanted to go see the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. And when we told him he was going, he was in physical therapy at the time and he was in a wheelchair, and I remember hearing from his family that he was putting in extra effort at the physical therapy appointments because he was like, “I will stand for the national anthem.”

And what we learned about this whole experience was that the power of hope brings the future into the present moment. So it’s not wishful thinking that we sort of hope we wish things would be different. Hope brings the power of what’s possible into the present moment so that we can take action today. We notice that people were acting and behaving differently when they had something to look forward to.

We also noticed that after the event, there was a tremendous amount of celebration that would occur that we didn’t anticipate either. And I didn’t see this coming. But I remember one of our, a mother of a four-year-old girl, who we created an event for, she had said to me that one of her greatest fears was people would forget about her daughter because her daughter sadly had passed away.

And she told us that one of her greatest fears was people would forget her. And so, holding the memory alive was so important to individuals. And one of out every two of our recipients passes away after their front row experience. And this day becomes so important to their families. So we didn’t anticipate the celebration not only for the individuals but their families for a decade and beyond to come.

That was very powerful. I remember hearing from one of our event coordinator, his name is Carey, they went to see a recipient named Mike in the hospital shortly after his even. And Mike was sadly in the final days of his life. But he was sitting in his hospital bed flipping through his photo book, looking at his day and smiling ear to ear reminiscing. And we realized that we could bring the power of the past into the present moment. And we could bring that energy we once felt into the moment now to experience life differently.

And that, ultimately, at the end of the day, it was all about living life differently in the present moment. It was all about now because no matter how many days we have, it’s making the most of each one. And that’s sort of cliche to say but it’s so important for people to recognize that there’s nothing you’re going to do today to earn or deserve tomorrow.

In other words, yes, you can work out and eat healthy. But as much as you might do that, when your time is up, your time is up. And there’s not a single thing that any one of us listening on the podcast or you and I will be doing today that somebody else wasn’t doing when it was their last day.

You could wear your seat belt. But if the time is up, the time is up. And so, knowing how important and critical each moment is has really transformed me. And I’ll give you one last quick story. It’s dangerous when you give a public speaker the mic, isn’t it, Brad?

[0:17:12] Brad:You keep talking and I’m about to cry. So I’m just warning you right now.

[0:17:15] Jon: I want to give you one other quick story because this is one of the most important, I think, and recent stories. So about a month ago, I was privileged to take a woman named Nikki and her husband, John, to a Dallas Cowboys game. And I was so happy to be her event host, we call it, the person who takes the pictures and the video. And make sure that everything is taken care of so the person can just focus on having a great time, and documenting the event, which is one of the most critical things. We give every recipient a full color photo book and video.

But when we were in the limousine on the way to the event, Nikki was explaining to me that she said, because she was going to chemo. She had stage four breast cancer, that she had lost all of her hair and she normally wore a hat. But when she went out in public without her hat on, she said, “People will look at me with disgust.” And when she said that, I was like, “Oh man.” My heart just broke. Then she quickly followed it up with, “But it makes me really happy for them.” And it was like somebody scratched the record. And I was like, “What?”

She said, “It makes me happy because in order for somebody to look at me with disgust means that they have no context to what I’m going through meaning they’ve never gone through it themselves and they certainly have never had a family member or friend go through it. Because had they, they wouldn’t be looking at me that way. So I’m happy that they have no frame of reference for what I’m dealing with.” And I was just totally blown away about the mindset that she brought to that situation, the way she was able to see the world. And that’s what see time and time again, in different ways from different individuals.

But this book, Brad, is a collection of the most amazing stories that we’ve witnessed from nearly a hundred of these front row experiences. It’s the science that we included to back it up so it’s not just like, “Oh, that’s a neat idea.” Hope sounds really light and fluffy. But we bring science to talk about how that’s so powerful. And we give some strategies about how we can all be moment makers in life. So we want to be moment makers for these recipients. But we want to teach everybody how to be moment makers in their lives.

We want you Brad, and everybody that you’re a part of to make the most of the time you have because I think that’s what it’s all about. It’s about maximizing each and every moment that we’re given and making it the most successful for you and others however you define that. And this book packages exactly how people can do that. And that’s what it’s all about.

[0:19:35] Brad: That’s powerful man. What’s interesting is you’re speaking about people facing something that none of us ever want to go through, a terminal illness. And I was sitting here, well, I’m like, what’s interesting is a lot of the listeners to this podcast being financial advisors, they deal with this on a little bit different perspective. But they’re helping retirees take these experiences. Well, most of them have worked 20, 30, 40 years to build up this nest egg. And now, it’s like, “OK, now what?”

And how do we take this money that is essentially just a fuel for experiences, right? And how do we apply that to the rest of our lives? So as different as these two scenarios are, it’s interesting how still a lot of similarities can be applied.

[0:20:18] Jon: Oh, I think, by the way, I want to comment about that too, Brad. I think that’s so powerful, especially for financial advisors. I have a friend who’s a very successful financial advisor, you included in that category of very successful financial advisor friends. And I said to them, one time I said, “I remember reading this incredible research study about how people that visualize their future in great detail and having hope for what their future would look like and seeing that in great detail would change how they invested their money today.” So it’s literally, this was the point of the research study was to see how having hope for the future or envisioning the future would change how much money they would invest today.

So developing a relationship with our future self, being able to use that future power into the present moment, changes the way they invest or spend their money now. I thought that was so fascinating because we did a lot of research into future thinking. And that’s what we realized was how much it changes our behavior today.

[0:21:21] Brad: You’re speaking inside of the book. You pulled a lot of this from research.

[0:21:24] Jon: That’s right. Yeah.

[0:21:25] Brad: I know why you’re saying this.

[0:21:26] Jon: Yeah. And I think that’s just a great example of how that type of thinking relates to somebody like  a financial advisor. Like I would want to understand that future thinking and how that impacts the client in front of me.

[0:21:37] Brad: Yeah. It’s interesting because, in financial services, name any product out there that’s ever existed. And some people love it, some people hate it. And here’s the reasons for each side of the equation. The things that nobody ever hates are the benefits, right? So if you could speak to, here’s a product that allows me a paycheck for the rest of my life. So I don’t have to stress every time the market corrects, right? I want that. But then, when you slap a label of annuity on it, “Oh, I don’t want an annuity. Never mind”, right? So it all goes to the benefits of why people want the things they want, whether it’s in life or in financial services or wherever they’re at.

So you just intrigued me so much, man. I’ve never connected with somebody so quickly where you just get this genuineness that just oozes out of you. And even going to a lot of people talk about things. You know, a lot of people say, “I want to be more charitable. I should give more money to charity.” You thought that and you went and created your own charity.

You quit your job and created your own charity. The Dad’s Retreat, a lot of people say, “I want to be a better dad.” And you’re like, “I want to be a better dad.” And you look around and you don’t see what you’re looking for. So you start the dad’s retreat. And you fly 40 guys into Philly. And you find people that have awesome frameworks to share to be a better parent, right? So what is it in you that? You’re a doer. You’re not just a sayer, you’re a doer. What created that? What instilled that in you?

[0:22:59] Jon: I think a fear of getting to the end of my life and wishing I would have. You know, Marianne Williamson has a great poem which said, “When we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.” She talks about your playing small does not serve the world type of thing. And it’s this idea of wanting to express yourself in a way that honors the gift that you’ve been given with this life. So honestly, it’s fear. I remember sitting down one time and thinking, “All right. If I were just to draw on a piece of paper and I have this in my journal, I could literally show a picture of it.” I drew a dot on the left that said, “Birth”, I drew a line two-three inches across the page. I put a circle. I wrote “death”.

And I said, “All right. Let’s just guess that I live to be a hundred.” I mean, we could be optimistic and say it’s 120 or whatever. But let’s just guess it’s a hundred. And I said, “Out of those hundred years, how many great years do I have?” Like, I mean, full, physical abilities. What would be  just reasonably guessing, I don’t know, 80-85? Let’s say? If I really take care of myself, I could be a super active up until that point. So maybe 85-ish, whatever. I drew a line and I was like, “Where am I now?” And I was about 40 when I did this and I just put that little dot there. And then I looked at it and I saw my whole life on this timeline. And I thought, “Man, that’s so important that I do stuff now.” Not to the point to where it’s like I neglect what’s important. It’s to the point to where I focus on what’s important, to the point to where I wouldn’t say every minute matters. And lots of people have done this exercise in unique and different ways.

I remember hearing about one guy who had a bowl of marbles, two bowls, in fact. And what he said was he said, “All right. Listen. If I lived to be a hundred, and I have this many Saturdays in my life, I’m going to put a bowl of marbles over here that represent the number of Saturdays.” And then he started by moving the number that have gone past into the other bowl. And every morning on a Saturday, he wakes up and he moves a marble from one bowl to the next. And he just sees his life being either wasted or utilized. And you’ve heard people say this that I think Tony has said this many, many times is that your life is either a warning or an example in many ways.

And I wanted to make sure that the greatest gift that I could give to my kids or to my friends to show up a certain way, that if I want people to feel valuable, if I want to feel worthy, if I think that the answer to the greatest problems in life is that everybody shows up with their thing and does it with excellence, then I have to be an example of what that looks like. You start by thinking about what does ideal look like? What would a life fully lived? What is a life in the front row look like for me? And then, what do I need to do in order to achieve that. But more importantly, Brad, is who do I need to be in order to do that because if I’m being a certain way, I’m doing certain things naturally.

If I show up being powerful and courageous, my actions tend to follow suit. And then, also to celebrate it along the way because it can’t always just be about action and more, and stacking more on it. It has to be about honoring what’s been done. So it’s a little bit like, yeah, let’s get to where we’re going. But let’s stop and smell the roses along the way. Both need to happen simultaneously. Yes, I need to drive forward to the next city. But, yes, I need to love the one that I’m in and appreciate where I am. I think a lot of people go through life wishing they’re at a different party, thinking that if they were at a different party, it would be a lot more fun versus saying, “How do I make the party I’m at great?” And, yes, let’s design where we go to the next party but it’s both.

And so, I think what makes me come alive is the fear of knowing that this ride could end any moment, and the desire to want to contribute to the world in a way that my kids look at my life that they’re proud of the one that I led. And that they’ll use that as a great example.

[0:26:33] Brad: You made me think of Cameron Herold was on the show a few shows back. And he said he changed his perspective. He said, “I don’t think about wasting my time anymore. I think about I’m wasting my life.” And what you just said is spot on with that. I think a lot of us sign up for things that we’re maybe not all in on. And when you really change the frame or the lens that you look through and you’re wasting your life, not just your time. It will make you choose a lot more wisely.

I’ve gotta ask you just based on your book coming out and the Front Row Foundation, have you read a book called “When Breath Becomes Air”?

[0:27:06] Jon: Yeah. For those listening, I’m holding it in my hands right now.

[0:27:12] Brad: You didn’t plan this either, by the way?

[0:27:13] Jon: No. I’m holding it. So this is on my reading list.

[0:27:17] Brad: Just speaking of, you never know when. I think the neurosurgeon, that’s his memoir, that wrote that. I think he was 36 when he found out that he had terminal cancer. And I’m 36, so that kind of really hit home to me. And I was literally on a flight out to San Diego with tears just coming down. And I was listening at audible. I had to stop at multiple times because I thought the lady next to me was going to like, she thought I was having a nervous breakdown or something. It’s a powerful, powerful book. So when you get the chance, that’s going to validate a lot of stuff that you do in your life for sure.

[0:27:51] Jon: Well, I think that’s easy. We’ve heard people do this death analysis many different ways, like if it were your last day, what would you do? And it’s this idea of saying, “If you were to write your own eulogy” or however you view this, it’s bringing death into the picture as a way to create vitality and inspiration in your life. I don’t look at it as, “Oh my gosh. That’s so depressing.” I look at that as like, “Hey, what a great reminder that this is not permanent.”

And I think one of the greatest challenges in life is that people don’t think that their moments matter because they think they’re always going to have another one. And that’s because they’re really conditioned to know that the likelihood you’ll wake up tomorrow and get another chance is there. And that’s good. We need that, right? We need to know that we could try again tomorrow and start over again tomorrow.

The problem is when we go into that mode too much to think, “Well, these moments don’t count because I just get another one later.” And we waste it. And that waste drives me crazy. I just don’t want to waste it. And I think that doing some type of exercise for everybody today. Just do what I did. Take a piece of paper out and just write that little timeline and see it. It’s very different when you visualize it. Or ask yourself, “How many days, if you lived to be a hundred, do you have left?” Because if you’re listening to this and you’re 50, if you say to be a hundred and you’re halfway through. It’s halftime. What are you going to do? Bring it up all the way back to the game analogy where we started this? It’s like how are you going to play the game for the rest of the time that you have because one day the game will be over.

And I think that’s really important for everybody to be reminded of. And as a financial advisor, I think what’s powerful about that is that’s a way to bring purpose into what you do because providing financial stability long-term, legacy type financial stability for your families and for the things that matter most, whether you’re putting money into certain funds that support initiatives or people, or whatever it might be. The idea of investing, whether it’s money or energy or time or whatever, into what matters can be very purpose driven, if we allow that to be the intention.

And when we bring nothing matters much until we bring a meaning to it. And it’s up to us to define that meaning as financial advisors or moment makers in other industries or creators, we define that moment. We tell that story. We have to become expert storytellers and question askers to be interested in people’s stories and their values and what they want that legacy to be. That’s what we do. I understand people’s values by knowing what event they want to see and then making that dream come true and then showing them how they can use that every day in their lives to make it work.

[0:30:29] Brad: Well, super honored to number one, that you guys would partner with us for our March Madness experience. It’s going to be incredible.

[0:30:35] Jon: So much fun.

[0:30:36] Brad: And thank you. I want to say you guys bent your rules, but you definitely opened it up to where, hopefully, this can directly impact someone that’s close to their life. So thank you for doing that for us.

[0:30:47] Jon: And I should mention right there, Brad, that they can nominate somebody through the website, www.FrontRowFoundation.org. If you happen to know somebody right now that has a life threatening illness, you could nominate somebody. And even if you wanted to mention where you heard about that from or perhaps you’re part of Brad’s team or you heard about it on the podcast, whatever it might be, feel free to mention that in the nomination.

[0:31:07] Brad: Thank you. All right. So I want to switch gears a little bit on you.

[0:31:10] Jon: All right. Let’s do it.

[0:31:11] Brad: So not only do you do all this charity stuff and write books in all your spare time. But you also are an incredibly good speaker. I’ve witnessed it first hand. And I know you were College Speaker of the Year, named a couple of times. You run Speaker Trainer Experience. And so, for many of the listeners to this podcast, many of my clients, a lot of financial advisors do a lot of public speaking, whether it’s at dinner seminars, whether it’s at client events, whether it’s at charitable events. And so, I just want to pick your brain a little bit. And maybe if you’ve gotta a framework or two. I guess I’ll set the stage a little bit and then I’ll just let you run.

So knowing what we’ve talked about to this point, a lot of our advisors are standing at the front of a room, with a bunch of strangers that typically have never seen them before. Maybe they heard their radio show. Maybe they got their mail or invites to the event. But other than that, don’t know much about them. And really, their challenges at the end of that hour with them, that audience member needs to like and trust them enough to be able to sit down, set an appointment, sit down, have a conversation with them on a topic a lot of times they haven’t even talked to their children about it. I mean, family finance is a lot of times, that’s kind of a taboo subject. So I guess I’ve kind of set the stage. You can go wherever you want with this. But thoughts on engaging with the crowd, getting to the end goal of setting an appointment. What are your thoughts there?

[0:32:37] Jon: Yeah, good question. And what I’ll do is let me offer up a couple of ideas that anybody listening today can take and implement on a speech that you’re going to give tonight that would make a difference. And I will tell you that they don’t have to be new ideas to be effective ideas. So whether or not you think you’ve heard this before, I would challenge you that if you have, to not say that’s old news, but ask yourself how can I dig deeper with that to achieve mastery. Like maybe you’re being reminded of this for a reason.

And here’s what we teach at our event and here’s what I would challenge peo