The John-Henry Westen Show - Dad of 16 REVEALS Parenting SECRETS to Lead Your Family

00:00:00.000 I threw the cell phone on the ground, and I handed him my axe, and I said,

00:00:03.880 this phone is causing you to sin. Break the phone, son.

00:00:09.080 Hey, my friends, there is a new book on parenting. I know you're going to say,

00:00:13.120 oh my gosh, another book on parenting. We've seen so many. You know what? It's really funny.

00:00:17.240 This guy is someone who really knows what he's talking about. As a dad of eight children,

00:00:22.420 I can tell you he really, really knows what he's talking about because he's the only guy

00:00:26.160 I've ever seen in my life that I could say, wow, you've got twice as many kids as me.

00:00:32.480 This guy is the head of TAN Books. TAN Books is probably like the most, if you don't,

00:00:39.140 if you're a Catholic and you don't know about TAN Books, re-examine what you're doing. TAN Books

00:00:43.000 is where you'll find all the great books, and you're going to want to stay tuned for this episode.

00:00:47.680 Connor Gallagher, so good to be with you. It's a pleasure, John Henry. Thanks so much.

00:00:50.740 I'm a big fan of your show. So is my wife. So are my friends. It's nice to actually be here.

00:00:55.220 Praise God. Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father,

00:00:59.940 and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Amen. First of all, congratulations. And to your

00:01:05.280 wife, to your family. How? Okay. I have to ask right away. What's the age spread? What are your

00:01:10.180 top and bottom ages right now? So 23 down to about nine months or so, eight months, something like

00:01:16.560 that. Problem is, is they always, every year they change their age. So it's kind of hard to keep.

00:01:21.500 Yeah. But even cooler than having the 16 kids and eight boys, eight girls. Okay. So it's kind of

00:01:28.460 cool. Yeah. So I planned that perfectly. You know, I was really strategic on that, you know,

00:01:32.960 but, and actually they're, all the girls are on the bottom end. So I got in touch with my feminine 0.99

00:01:37.340 side as, as I got older, you see. So that's what happened. That was, see, that's my problem.

00:01:42.280 I had six boys, two girls, and I was never able to get in touch with the feminine side. 0.94

00:01:48.160 Yeah. So I got older. I just, I just got soft in my age, I guess. I don't know. But what's cool,

00:01:53.000 John Henry, is I got two grandkids now, which is great. So my oldest two children each have a baby,

00:01:58.680 good marriages, good little babies. And so my wife and my daughter were big pregnant together.

00:02:05.480 And, and my daughter gave birth first. So my grandbaby is a couple months older than my baby,

00:02:12.520 which is just awesome. So I got all these pictures of like two granddaughters, one in each arm,

00:02:17.780 and then my baby in the middle. And I, I just, every time we're together, I take those pictures

00:02:22.740 because very few dudes get to do that.

00:02:25.260 Yes, indeed. And I guarantee you, they will be forcing, is your, your last one, him or her?

00:02:31.320 Her, her little girl. They will be forcing her to say, you're calling me aunt, even though they're

00:02:35.880 younger. Yes, that you got it. You got it. It's awesome. It's a, it's, it's very blessed. We're

00:02:40.720 blessed, but you know, it was no competition. You got a ton of kids and I always make the disclaimer,

00:02:46.280 John Henry, right? Like if you got one kid, your full-time mom or full-time dad, you know,

00:02:51.160 and I'm just, my time's just split up a little differently. We're very blessed. It hasn't been a

00:02:55.460 race. It hasn't been a game. We're not trying to have as many kids as we can. We've taken each one at a

00:03:00.420 time prayerfully consider how my wife's doing. And I think people have been in the modern church,

00:03:06.820 very abusive for the use of NFP. I think a lot of Catholics use it as contraception. So I think 1.00

00:03:13.280 that's a real flaw, which you understand, but you know, we've just been very open to life,

00:03:18.420 but very cautious and prudent each time to make sure my wife was physically, psychologically in a

00:03:23.380 good state. And God has blessed us, you know, tremendously. And you know, it's not, it's not due to us.

00:03:28.260 It's just what he decided to do with us. Yeah. Beautiful. Now you're a CEO of various companies

00:03:34.060 and it's interesting because in your book, this comes across in a big way, but it also, I think,

00:03:39.840 will be fascinating for people to get how to order, you might say, a family, let alone a family of 16

00:03:49.600 children. But because that will take a stupendous amount of organization because it's hard enough with

00:03:57.260 one or two or three, but as you get up there, it, it really does require some principles that I think

00:04:06.740 would help everyone, but you don't really think of that so much when you, you're not, you know, as,

00:04:13.120 well, you know, and you also don't come from that business background. So I, I think that's the

00:04:18.540 fascinating part of your book. You have this, it's called, by the way, the well-ordered family

00:04:23.760 available at 10. Uh, but give us some of that. Uh, first of all, maybe you can tell us what inspired

00:04:31.640 you to, to write this other than having lived it, but what inspired you to write it?

00:04:36.280 Yeah. So first of all, being steeped in philosophy, I have my master's in philosophy and my law degree.

00:04:41.740 I very much fell in love with the idea from Thomas Aquinas that says, grace perfects nature.

00:04:48.960 But, you know, my dad always told me in his folksy wisdom, Southern folksy wisdom, he said,

00:04:55.120 son, God will feed the birds of the air, but he don't put the food in the nest. And what he meant

00:05:01.000 by that is you have to go and, and he would also say, you have to work like everything depends on

00:05:05.620 you and pray like everything depends on God. You know, he told me, don't be so heavenly minded.

00:05:10.720 You're no damn earthly good. Like, so he had this sense of, you got to take care of the natural order 0.88

00:05:17.100 because the natural order is of God natural laws in place. And if you neglect that, it's very hard

00:05:23.920 for grace to flow through an unnatural vehicle. Right. And that's what Aquinas meant by grace

00:05:29.060 perfects nature. So I have seen, as I'm sure you have very well-intentioned devout families that

00:05:35.960 pray the rosary, go to mass, take their kids, send their kids to Catholic schools. They do all this

00:05:40.220 stuff, but the unnatural society that we live in, the unnatural technology, the unnatural social

00:05:47.180 order of things, the, the, the unnatural influences that they're receiving from pop culture, it ruins

00:05:57.300 it. And so the grace from the sacraments, like don't have any place to land, you know? So it's,

00:06:03.060 it's very hard. I think families sometimes miss the natural order because they say, Oh, we're just,

00:06:07.800 we just pray and everything will be okay. We studied the catechism. No, God has an order and

00:06:12.940 structure to the universe. And so over time, my wife and I were very conscious to try to make sure

00:06:18.720 that the natural order of our household was, was running smoothly. And my, that's mostly my wife's

00:06:24.220 credit. She's really good at that. And at business, John Henry, as I learned business principles,

00:06:30.580 well, one of my earliest books was called if Aristotle's kid had an iPod and I took Aristotle's

00:06:36.420 Nick and me, Ken ethics. And I applied it to like raising kids in a digital world. I saw parenting

00:06:41.880 advice in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. I just see it there. That's if I have one unique gift,

00:06:48.520 it's, it's the ability to like connect philosophical dots to everyday real life. That's kind of what

00:06:54.400 I'm good at. I'm not very good at many things, but that's one thing I'm good at. So when I was

00:06:58.420 studying philosophy, I saw business principles when I studied business, because I ended up buying tan

00:07:04.060 out of bankruptcy and I had to learn how to run a business. As I studied all these business books,

00:07:10.080 I saw, okay, Oh, this is how I run my marketing department. This is how I run my finance department,

00:07:14.040 my operations, HR, all this stuff you got to do to run a business. And I also saw, well, this applies

00:07:19.180 to my family. This applies to home life. So that's kind of what I do is I connect these dots that are

00:07:25.660 kind of unconnected. And so when people would say, Oh, I have two kids and can barely handle it.

00:07:30.400 How do you do it with 10, 12, 13, 14, whatever it is over time, I ended up saying, well, look,

00:07:36.920 I don't really raise 15, 16 kids. I manage environments just like I don't really manage

00:07:44.280 every employee that I have. I manage systems and environments so that each person can flourish.

00:07:50.800 Now, when each, if an employee needs something, I zoom in like a hawk and focus on them. If a kid

00:07:56.480 needs something, same thing, but can I build a system and structure and environment, a natural

00:08:01.700 order in which two things are happening? One, it enables me to focus on what I need to focus on at

00:08:06.600 any given time. And it allows God's grace to flow like a tsunami because the natural order is in its

00:08:12.420 place. So that usually leads to an interesting conversation with families about, you need to

00:08:18.720 think about building environments and the structure and order of your family life, not just your kitchen

00:08:24.220 and not just getting the laundry done, but the educational structure, your religious or your

00:08:29.040 church structure, your worship structure, your liturgical life, the devotional life, society,

00:08:34.000 technology is a whole thing. You need to manage like a business executive. You got to manage that

00:08:39.600 sucker or it'll eat you alive. So all of these things, John Henry, are environments that all come 0.99

00:08:45.400 together to make an ecosystem that are feeding off each other. And that's what I've tried to help

00:08:50.720 people do is get order and structure to all of that so that God's grace can flow like a tsunami.

00:08:57.480 And it will if you provide that environment for it to do that.

00:09:01.980 So let's take the technology one because that one seems to affect everybody today. What's your

00:09:08.860 advice there? Because a lot of parents are just at a loss and don't know what to do. They've got a

00:09:13.840 bunch of kids and they're infected with this stuff and it's just, they feel like helpless.

00:09:19.620 It's a really great question. And so like, practically, what do you do? And we could

00:09:23.660 talk philosophy all day about the dangers of technology and statistics. And I guess what,

00:09:28.020 everyone knows that. So the question is like, what do you do tomorrow? And here's the answer.

00:09:33.100 I created the most practical thing in the world. It's called a digital policy builder. Now,

00:09:37.360 the well-ordered family business model is tool-based. It's worksheets, tools or worksheets.

00:09:43.280 So you can go, I'm not trying to just hawk it, but you can go to wellorderedfamily.com

00:09:48.240 and go to the toolbox on the website and you can download the digital policy builder. It's a simple

00:09:54.080 worksheet. And here's the thing, John Henry, your family is different from mine. I'm not going to

00:09:58.660 tell you how old your kids have to be to have a cell phone. Like that's not what I'm meant to do,

00:10:03.780 right? What I want to do is say, you have to ask certain questions. You have to ask certain questions.

00:10:08.760 What technology is allowed? When is it allowed? With whom can they communicate? And where can they

00:10:15.100 use the technology? And from experience, I've learned that the where is actually the most

00:10:19.960 important question to ask because they're probably not going to be watching, you know, adult movies

00:10:26.560 at the kitchen table on their laptop. Okay. But they might be behind closed doors if you don't have

00:10:32.360 the right constraints on your technology or anything. So the where is extremely important,

00:10:36.840 you know, transparency. So fill out the tool. Parents go to the website, get the tool and just

00:10:44.060 fill it's free. Just fill the tool out. I just ask basic common sense questions and you have,

00:10:49.880 here's the thing, conflict with teenagers, John Henry, usually doesn't come out because

00:10:55.700 the kids just lie and cheat and steal against, you know, mom and dad's rules. That's usually not the,

00:11:01.440 if that's the case, you got a bigger problems. Usually it's the teenagers taking an inch,

00:11:07.660 taking a little more, taking a little and breaking the rules slightly. You as mom and dad kind of

00:11:13.460 loosen up the rules a little bit. It starts slipping away. And then, you know, a month later,

00:11:19.480 everything's out of whack. So you need crystal clarity on technology. And I'm not like a detail guy,

00:11:25.020 but on technology, you need precision, like nuclear reactor oversight precision. Okay. It's like the

00:11:34.560 people looking over the nuclear reactors, every detail is critical. It goes kaboom, right?

00:11:39.880 So with the digital technology and your teenagers and middle schoolers hands, you need complete and

00:11:46.280 total precision because it's that important. Their soul, their eternal soul is on the line.

00:11:51.280 So you got to measure, you got to track, you have to have crystal clear rules.

00:11:56.260 You have to love your children and you also have to not trust them. And that sounds hard for people,

00:12:00.980 but you know, I have every right to take the device out of my teenager's hand who lives in my house and

00:12:07.020 take a look and check his history and see what he's doing. And if you start that young, you realize

00:12:11.920 it's, it's not like an invasion of their privacy because they don't really deserve privacy in their home and

00:12:17.780 in my home. It's not a question of like individual rights by some liberal judge. It's not bad at all.

00:12:23.940 It's, I am here to help you remain virtuous. That's why I'm here. So have the policy and then

00:12:30.580 look over their shoulder constantly, take their device, check it out. Of course, put the filtering

00:12:35.560 technology on there. That's very important, but you have to have the guts to take the device out of

00:12:41.440 your teenage girl's hands and look through her stuff in order to help her stay virtuous. And a lot of

00:12:47.560 parents have a very hard time doing that. Wow. Yeah. It's good advice. It's essential.

00:12:53.360 You're right. It is. It's like a nuclear reactor because the same damage that can be caused from

00:12:58.320 a nuclear explosion is the same as the, in a spiritual sense, the same as what can happen here

00:13:04.200 can lead to destruction, worse than destruction, eternal destruction. So yeah, fascinating. Thank you

00:13:10.420 for that. And you, you better bet I'm going to your website to download that immediately after we get

00:13:15.560 off. Secondly, in, in your book, you have these, um, six components of a well-ordered family management

00:13:22.680 system. What are the advantage? Well, tell us about those and what are the advantages of those

00:13:27.120 principles? Yeah. So I'll kind of take you around the wheel real quick. It's six parts. And again,

00:13:31.100 these are parts that I found that work in business. And so I think they work in family

00:13:34.420 because it's kind of like natural law. It applies to every organ. By the way, what's a business,

00:13:38.240 a business, it's a group of individuals coming together to try, try to accomplish a certain goal.

00:13:43.340 And that's real. I mean, and your goal, thank God is, you know, something with the Catholic faith,

00:13:47.220 but that's a, that's a particular, you actually, in the most general sense, have the same goal as

00:13:51.700 the LA Lakers. It's a group of individuals coming together to try to accomplish a certain goal.

00:13:56.340 And that's what a family is like at the most general, that's what every team is. Every organ,

00:14:00.780 every institution of people is just, our goals are different. So I think at the most fundamental

00:14:05.760 natural law level, the same rules apply to an athletic team, to a church, to a family. I just

00:14:13.680 do. Now, so those six components are vision. It starts a vision. Like, what do you, what are you

00:14:20.440 really trying to accomplish? And I help people answer the question, why did God create the Weston

00:14:27.160 family? Why did God create the Gallagher family? For what purpose? Right. And of course, for you and me,

00:14:33.260 that has everything to do with our Catholic faith. Right. But, but, you know, families have to grapple

00:14:38.040 with that question and write it out. And I have tools to help you do that. I also have coaching

00:14:41.680 services that like help people do this. The second part is unity. You know, the great Jim Collins,

00:14:48.900 he's a great business author. And he said, 1% of success is vision. 99% of success is unity around the

00:14:57.180 vision. Right. So, you know, it's, it's one thing for you and your spouse to know that you're on the

00:15:02.340 same page. It's another thing to stay on the same page day in and day out. That's where,

00:15:06.120 that's where the going gets tough. You know, that's hard. How do you keep a teenager

00:15:08.860 focused on your family vision? I got tools to help with that. It's hard, but you can do it.

00:15:13.380 The third part, by the way, so unity, that's where I, I encourage family meetings and like put them on

00:15:19.920 the, when anything's really important and your health is important, you have a meeting with your

00:15:23.860 doctor. You know, when money's important, you got a, you got a meeting with your accountant or,

00:15:28.920 you know, business is always important. So you have meetings, meetings, meetings, but we don't

00:15:32.900 have family meetings, you know? And I think we need that. I think human beings need that

00:15:36.960 accountability. People respect what you inspect. And we do that through meetings. So part three

00:15:42.580 is systems. This is the big macro system, John Henry, of like, what's the organizational of our

00:15:50.340 whole life, our school, our education, our social life, our recreation, how does sports fit into your

00:15:55.700 family? If at all, like these big, the technology, these big factors, that's a big macro system.

00:16:01.520 And then micro system is like, how do you get the dishes done? How do you get the chores done? How do

00:16:05.580 you pay off debt? How do you pay the bills? Ah, you know, all these things. That's the stuff that like

00:16:10.400 brings a lot of stress into your life. So that's systems. Part four is metrics. Okay. Again, people

00:16:15.140 respect what you inspect, what gets measured gets managed, right? So what's on my scorecard at home?

00:16:21.080 Well, we're a Catholic family. We measure how many times a week we prayed the family rosary and we

00:16:27.960 don't pick seven nights because life gets in the way, right? So we actually have like four is our

00:16:31.960 goal, you know? And so we should hit four. And if we don't hit four or something wrong, you know,

00:16:36.080 but seven's a little unrealistic for us. We also try on our, on our scorecard, it's get everybody in the

00:16:41.340 family to confession once a month. And like, if, after you go to confession, check, you check the

00:16:46.260 scorecard. The scorecard is hanging on the wall in our pantry. And so we check that off,

00:16:50.220 you know? And so we, we track, we track certain things there. Um, we have also like, you know,

00:16:57.140 we give kids financial penalties when they don't do their chores well. And so like on the scorecard

00:17:02.160 is like, how many times did you get dinged with a financial penalty? And like, we try like, so our

00:17:06.800 goal is like less than four dings a month or something, you know, we never make that, you know?

00:17:11.820 And so, you know, you're tracking these things. And so it becomes real putting them, by the way,

00:17:16.640 when it neurologically, John Henry, if I give you a concept, you can kind of ignore it. But if I,

00:17:24.020 so if I said like, how fast can you run? That's a, that's an, that's a vague idea in your head.

00:17:28.760 But if I say, can you run a five minute and 37 second mile, like your brain focuses in a whole

00:17:35.740 new way. Cause there's a number like numbers do that to the brain. It forces the brain to focus.

00:17:40.660 So put important stuff on your scorecard. What's important to you might be different than me,

00:17:45.560 but put the numbers on a scorecard. The fifth part of the system is relationships because,

00:17:53.220 you know, family life would be super easy if it wasn't for all the people involved, you know?

00:17:58.120 And so you, but I talk a lot about the Greek temperaments, which you're probably familiar

00:18:02.140 with. I talk about different assessment tests that management uses all the time, strength finder

00:18:07.500 and all these different things to see like, what is this God given personality here? And how do we

00:18:12.580 apply that to children? Hey, it's fun. Spouses love doing assessment tests. Teenagers love assessment

00:18:17.520 tests. Let's see who God made versus who I wish he made, you know? And so that's the relationships

00:18:23.380 component. And I have a lot of conflict resolution tools. Like when you are having the same darn conflict

00:18:29.360 with your spouse over and over again, there's probably a reason. So let's try to figure out what that

00:18:33.680 is. And then lastly, part six is discernment. This is decision-making and problem solving,

00:18:39.420 but with a spiritual bent. And so when you are trying to decide between A, B and C, like buy this

00:18:45.160 minivan, buy this 12 passenger van, buy this school bus, you know, you're trying to make these decisions.

00:18:51.540 There's real good business tools to help you make those decisions. Investors do it all the time.

00:18:57.940 Cost benefit analysis, decision matrix, where you're, you know, weighing different factors.

00:19:04.120 So families have to make decisions, whether it's go on this vacation or do I take this new job or do I

00:19:09.540 buy a new car or do I let the kid get a cell phone? You know what I mean? These little decisions become

00:19:14.780 very stressful for us and mom and dad just churn it in their brains and it creates conflict and stress.

00:19:21.840 And then we go to work and we're really good at making decisions at work because we take it 0.97

00:19:25.760 seriously and we go home and we're dumb. So I want the decision tools that business executives use every day

00:19:32.280 for good or bad purposes. I want to take those tools and apply it to family life.

00:19:36.940 That's discernment. That's my six part system. Sorry. It takes a little longer to go through

00:19:40.500 than I intended, but that's the six part system. It's amazing. I, I, I'm,

00:19:45.280 the one regret I have about it is that I'm most of my kids have left home at this point,

00:19:50.720 but that's incredible. Well, and, and so give everybody the website again so that they can get

00:19:56.760 it. Wellorderedfamily.com. Wellorderedfamily.com. Yeah. I mean, obviously, I mean, at this point,

00:20:03.560 I think everyone's interest is piqued. Um, and, uh, thank you for doing that because I think that

00:20:09.180 is, uh, hugely going to affect a lot of people. For us residents creating will has never been easier.

00:20:16.200 Thanks to my legacy will an online platform free of charge. You can now create your own will and

00:20:23.080 choose to include life site news in it. Specify where your funeral will take place, the number

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00:20:33.760 grateful if you remembered life site news in your will, visit mylegacywill.com slash life site news.

00:20:41.480 Thank you for your support and may God bless you. You're changing lives here because this

00:20:46.060 is a huge thing that so many parents are dealing with and they're well-meaning is just

00:20:52.420 what book can you trust on parenting? I mean, it's, it's hard because there's lots out there.

00:20:59.560 There's a ton out there. And, um, thank you for coming at it from experience and fidelity. That's,

00:21:05.520 that's what people are looking for. They're looking for the experience and the faithfulness

00:21:10.180 in once that's there. Now you've got them across the gamut, right to 23 and married and out of the

00:21:17.920 house, uh, which is really beautiful. The, what struggles have you seen and have you overcome

00:21:25.620 those? Um, you don't have to be super specific, but I'm sure there's been a lot of struggles that

00:21:31.740 you had to deal with that were very, really serious. How did, what's basically some of the

00:21:36.620 best ways, you know, to overcome those or get through those? Yeah. I can't really relate.

00:21:40.280 All my kids were perfect. Born without original sin. We've never had any problems. I don't know

00:21:43.980 what you're talking about now. No, man, it's been brutal. It's, it's been a, it's been a, you know,

00:21:49.220 blood, bloody knuckle, you know, fight for a long time. It's hard. It's really hard. And so I think

00:21:55.520 some of the, um, the hardest, I mean, we've dealt with all the normal stuff. Uh, my kids are

00:22:00.920 exceptional. I mean, I, I do. We're very blessed. We don't struggle with a lot of the same things that

00:22:06.080 everyone else does. Part of that's because we've homeschooled. I mean, that's been a major blessing

00:22:10.400 in our lives. It's not for everybody. I'm not saying everyone has to homeschool, but for us,

00:22:13.960 it's, it's shielded our kids from a lot of negative influence and we can be very particular in who that

00:22:18.260 we, we associate with, but some of the most painful, you know, I have the stories of like,

00:22:23.960 when my, my little kids have gotten hurt, we've never had a serious drama, but like one kid,

00:22:28.780 when he was two, he broke his femur. It was like, you know, ER ambulance all night long agony.

00:22:35.820 Like it was one of those, it's one of those things. And so as a parent, I was able to look

00:22:40.040 at this kid laying in a bed and know if I could snap my finger like that and somebody snapped my

00:22:48.920 leg in half in order to make this kid's leg get better. I would have done it without hesitation.

00:22:53.140 That gave me John Henry, just the slightest indication of what our Lord felt for us. Um,

00:23:00.380 and why he sent his son to die for us. I mean, it just gave me the slightest sense of

00:23:05.520 true paternal love of self-sacrifice. But as the kids grow, I think whenever you deal with

00:23:11.380 dishonesty and lack of transparency, like it's easy for me to deal with a kid that loses his temper

00:23:17.520 or whatever. But if you have a kid that struggles with honesty and transparency,

00:23:21.620 and then it's like a game of like, can you catch them in the act kind of thing? Or can you figure out

00:23:26.840 what they're lying about? I think that's like the most, uh, damaging to the family unit.

00:23:32.680 And we've dealt with it some, not a lot, but I know that that's the thing that really hurts

00:23:37.820 parents the most, which I can relate to a little bit. And so finding ways to keep the open line of

00:23:45.380 communication with your kids to where even they're telling you things that might make you a little

00:23:50.160 uncomfortable or you get them like a little comfortable, you know, maybe, maybe it's uncomfortable

00:23:55.400 for you, but they're telling you some of their shortcomings are telling you their challenges.

00:23:59.720 Man, it's better than hiding. It's better than the lack of transparency. And so,

00:24:05.340 you know, as my kids have gotten older, I've gotten more transparent with them and they've

00:24:09.540 become more transparent with me. I find that very healing and helpful, but lies and deceit are the

00:24:16.200 most toxic in a family. That's my experience. And then just also a lot of that has to do with

00:24:21.580 technology and our technology policies have improved over time. And kids can get around any safety

00:24:27.100 device, any, any safety protocol, you know, that you install. So you have to stay on top of that.

00:24:33.320 And I'm not talking just about like pornography. Okay. I'm just, I'm also just talking about if the

00:24:37.700 kids are talking with their friends too much. So one day, just as a little story, people like this

00:24:42.760 story. You know, I had conflict with my son who continually was talking to a girlfriend that I

00:24:47.400 didn't want him to, that we didn't want him talking to as much on his cell phone around the hours he

00:24:52.540 was supposed, he was just, he was just, you know, texting and, and talking too much. And I got so

00:24:58.360 damn angry that he was not being honest with me about it. It wasn't the, it wasn't so much breaking

00:25:03.060 the rule. It was just the constant dishonesty. I got so darn angry that I took him outside to the barn

00:25:09.800 with his cell phone and I threw the cell phone on the ground and I handed him my ax. And I said,

00:25:15.680 if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. This phone is causing you to sin against your God and

00:25:22.440 me by being dishonest. Break the damn phone, son, right now. And he did. And he took an ax and he 1.00

00:25:27.980 shattered it. Now, a week later, I had to go buy him a new phone, but the symbolism will never leave

00:25:34.400 his soul. It is better to shatter a $400 stupid iPhone than it is to lie to your father. Don't lie to 1.00

00:25:42.220 your father ever, ever about anything. So, you know, I think that kind of, that's what comes to

00:25:49.040 mind. We've had the normal, normal things, but, but parents do everything you can to keep honesty

00:25:54.860 and transparency. And you might get a little angry when your kid makes a mistake this big, but get,

00:25:59.980 get 10 times more upset about the dishonesty. And that's what you have to go after. That's the,

00:26:05.480 I'm not saying get, I'm not saying yell and get upset. I'm saying the thing to focus on is truth

00:26:10.520 and transparency in a family more than anything else. That's, that's what will enable you to help

00:26:15.060 them grow in virtue as time goes on. But if they get in the habit of being dishonest with you and

00:26:21.140 they beat you in that, then you're not going to be able to help them when they become young adults.

00:26:25.300 And because I've been through some of those struggles with teenagers, now that they're adults,

00:26:29.540 our relationship is more open and pure and wonderful than ever before. And now I'm reaping a lot

00:26:34.860 of rewards from being tough on them. Uh, when they were teenagers, I'm closer to my adult children

00:26:40.400 than I ever was, even when they were teenagers or little kids.

00:26:44.100 What's truly fascinating. I've had the occasion to, um, throw an iPhone into the lake, but nonetheless,

00:26:51.580 um, good for you.

00:26:53.460 It was me who did it. Getting them to do it is actually, wow.

00:26:58.080 And my wife was like, you just wasted 400 bucks. And I said, no, it was the best 400 bucks I ever spent. 0.64

00:27:02.820 I mean, I knew I was going to have to go get him another one at some point, but it's the,

00:27:07.440 it's the moral of the story. He would come on here and tell you it taught him something. So

00:27:12.920 parents look for those little symbolic moments, look for the symbolic moments that are long lasting.

00:27:20.120 And I think, I don't know. I think that's the same stuff. Parents deal with it. Whether you have

00:27:24.200 one or 16, you struggle over the same type of these human beings, man, it's human beings, but

00:27:28.900 I am experiencing a reward with having married children, adult children, and having a closeness

00:27:35.820 with them. That's sweeter than I ever imagined.

00:27:39.420 Wow. The investment, that, what you said there, that's so huge. That, that $400 cell phone,

00:27:47.940 it's so worth it. On the other end of the problems that can accrue from all that stuff,

00:27:55.240 you would pay not only $400, not only $4,000 to, to get that back. So that, that really is an

00:28:02.400 incredible investment. You said something fascinating in your book about, and I really

00:28:06.200 love this. I want you to unpack this for us. You, you recommend that parents envision each family

00:28:10.340 member 10 years in the future, taking into consideration their family members' traits

00:28:15.900 and temperament. So how does this exercise work to prepare children for what lies ahead in their

00:28:22.320 lives? How does it work for parents? What is this? This sounds great.

00:28:25.380 So what do you do as a business manager, right? You guys go, you go on some strategic retreat,

00:28:30.300 you know, uh, maybe the spouses get mad because it's a golf trip and they're like, you're not

00:28:34.460 playing golf. You're working, you know, or you're not playing, you're not working. You're just

00:28:36.900 playing golf. Like we all go on these business retreats and we say, okay, where do we want to be

00:28:40.720 in 10 years? What's the picture 10 years from now? And that's great. It's envisioning,

00:28:44.400 by the way, if you look up the word vision and the Oxford English dictionary, you know,

00:28:49.400 the big 13 volume set, you realize that traditionally the word meant vision is seeing

00:28:55.060 that which is not there yet. Sight is, I see the screen. I see this microphone. Vision is like

00:29:02.720 being a visionary. Like Catholics have visionaries. They see an apparition. They see something that's 1.00

00:29:07.960 not kind of physically there in the same way as normal sight. So actually when we say we have

00:29:12.700 2020 vision, we're wrong. We actually have 2020 sight. Um, vision is the ability to see beyond

00:29:20.720 the current surface. And so that's what being a visionary is. So mom and dad, you guys got to be

00:29:26.260 visionaries for your family. And thankfully my wife says, okay, Hey, Connor, you're the visionary.

00:29:31.920 She's more of the nuts and bolts. I'm the visionary. We kind of stay in our lanes. Every family's a little

00:29:37.140 different, but, but so I'm the visionary for my family. And so I did, I did an exercise first about

00:29:44.780 five years ago. And now I try to repeat it once a year at our annual family meeting. And I say, okay,

00:29:50.600 what's going to be going on in 10 years from now? So, so when I first did it five years ago,

00:29:56.160 John Henry, I said, well, in 10 years, oh my gosh, I might, my kids might be married and they might

00:30:03.640 have a kid, which means I'm a granddad, which means I'm going to be climbing in bed with a

00:30:07.960 grandma. What's going on here. Whoa. You know, and it was like my, my world was like, you know,

00:30:13.180 it just made it feel really, really normal. And my wife's the most beautiful grandma in the world.

00:30:18.020 I mean, you would never know she's a grandma, but you take on a different identity. Like since when

00:30:22.960 am I a young guy married to a grandmother? What, what is that about? It's just strange. So, so I,

00:30:29.060 but I then said to myself, here's a practical example of how it helps. If my kid has a kid

00:30:35.360 in the next 10 years, I have to raise my child to be a parent. So I was like trying to help my kid

00:30:43.640 get a, go to college and figure out his career. No, I have the most important thing I can do with

00:30:49.860 my teenagers is help them figure out how to be a husband, how to be a father, how to be a mom,

00:30:56.640 how to be a dad. Like that's be an accountant, be a financial planner. Come on. That's not

00:31:01.640 important compared to being a spouse or a parent. So it, it really did say, okay, I'm raising a

00:31:06.900 parent. Oh, I'm not raising kids. I'm raising a parent. I'm raising a grandparent. One day that

00:31:13.640 kid's going to be a grandparent, a great grandparent. So I started looking for opportunities to show my

00:31:19.860 kids, Hey, this is my imperfection. I'm not a very good dad in this way. And that way, I want you to be

00:31:25.640 better than me. I want you to be a better father, a better husband. Look at how I've let your mom

00:31:29.560 down in these ways. You need to be better than me. You need to be better than your mother. She's

00:31:33.420 amazing, but you're called to be even better than either one of us, you know? And so, you know, I was,

00:31:39.180 I, I changed my focus from raising kids to raising adults, raising parents, raising spouses.

00:31:47.280 And so the 10 year vision made that it just smacked me in the face. And guess what? It didn't take 10

00:31:54.200 years. It took like four and two, two of my kids were married and they had kids. And all of a sudden

00:32:00.320 I'm a grandparent. So you have a five-year-old right now in 10 years, they're going to be a raging

00:32:07.160 hormone at 15 years old with technology, trying to figure out their way in the, in the quasi adult

00:32:12.780 world. You got to prepare that kid now for that. What can you do now to help with that? So I think

00:32:18.800 envisioning the future now, 10 years from now, my 23 year old son's going to be 33.

00:32:23.940 He might have four or five kids. Now he's going to, I know what he's going to go through at 33.

00:32:28.140 He's going to have a ton of bills. He's going to be in the middle of major career decisions.

00:32:33.340 His wife is going to be strung out on four or five kids. Like it's stressful. Like he's entering

00:32:37.900 the most stressful time of his life. How can I help him right now to prepare for that?

00:32:42.220 So visionaries aren't stuck in the present. They live in the future and help pull the present

00:32:49.720 into the future in the right way. I think that's why we do the 10 year, 10 year envisioning exercise.

00:32:56.640 Your children deserve that type of leadership out of you.

00:33:00.500 Get into this temperament thing a little bit. I think a lot of people still don't know much about

00:33:05.900 temperaments. What are they? Where do you have some resources for us on that? And what do you

00:33:10.900 recommend for an approach in not only addressing their temperaments, but also taking advantage of

00:33:15.360 it? We released a book yesterday called Piety and Personality, and it's about the saints and

00:33:20.820 their temperaments. Okay. So there's historically, there's four Greek temperaments, choleric or choleric,

00:33:27.140 sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic. And Hippocrates, you've heard of the Hippocratic Oath,

00:33:33.160 which they removed abortion from, you know, that whole thing. LifeSite News would,

00:33:37.180 if anybody would know about that. And, and so, but, you know, I think it's the most

00:33:41.760 accurate personality assessment test because it's the most ancient and it has stood the test of time.

00:33:47.120 And I think that God just instilled four possible temperaments into the universe. And we, we,

00:33:52.720 we are one more than the other, sometimes a combination of two. So I find that there's a lot of,

00:33:59.100 there's a lot of assessment tests out there. There's something called the Colby index. There's

00:34:02.240 something called working genius that Patrick Lencioni has recently come out with a good Catholic guy.

00:34:06.160 who's a business consultant. There's a strength finder. There's a lot. My favorite is temperaments.

00:34:11.440 And my wife and I have found that it's the best way for us to kind of diagnose, uh, you know, what,

00:34:18.000 uh, like what each child is and each spouse is. So I'm melancholic choleric. Well,

00:34:24.620 kind of drives my wife bonkers because I can be, I'm, I could be inclined towards depression.

00:34:29.740 That's that melancholic in me, but I also have deep thoughts and I'm passionate about things.

00:34:35.400 Melancholics are kind of the dreamers and, you know, they write great poetry, but then they also

00:34:40.860 die early deaths. So it's like, that's the melancholic and then cholerics. My wife is choleric

00:34:46.860 and she makes the trains run on time, buddy. And thank goodness I married that because we would be

00:34:51.760 living in the streets if we didn't. So she's very strong. Um, and she has a secondary of sanguine,

00:34:57.480 which makes her fun to be around. So, and sanguine is kind of that fun loving class clown. Um, but

00:35:03.900 this, you know, you love having a sanguine around because they make the life, life fun. And we got 0.99

00:35:08.860 a couple of those, but then they can also be so lighthearted. They don't take things serious

00:35:12.940 enough, you know? And so each one has a strength or weakness. And then phlegmatics, steady Eddie,

00:35:18.100 the most reliable, but they're also the hardest to get going. Right. So, so it sometimes, you know,

00:35:23.840 that kid that's like, if they start it, they'll go and they'll go, but, and you don't have

00:35:27.460 to do anything once they start going, but to get them up and moving is like, you know,

00:35:31.980 a monumental feat. So phlegmatics are the peacemakers. They hate conflict. So they're 1.00

00:35:36.140 wonderful to have around them. In fact, we do an assessment on every single employee. They take

00:35:40.780 about five different tests and this, I mean, I'm not going to show the details, but I, every person,

00:35:45.480 every person that's an applicant, uh, has to take five different tests. And, and, and the temperaments

00:35:51.100 is one of them. It's quite interesting because without intending, we found out recently that like 80%

00:35:57.440 of our employees are phlegmatic and they make wonderful teammates because they're nice,

00:36:03.360 they're kind, they're peacemakers. They, they do what you tell them to do. It's, it's great,

00:36:07.440 but they're kind of lacking the big engine. Like, so I'm now looking for collar. It's like,

00:36:12.280 where's my lions. I need some lions to go hunt and grow and bar, you know, where are those people?

00:36:16.560 I don't have enough of those, you know? Um, and so it's just very helpful. I highly encourage

00:36:22.720 mom and dad. You, I talk about the temperaments in my book. Tan just came out with piety and

00:36:27.740 personality. Great book about the temperaments in the saints. And our friends at Sophia have a

00:36:32.780 tremendous book by Art Bennett called the temperament God gave you a fantastic book. I,

00:36:37.380 Sophia is a wonderful publisher like Tan. I love them. Um, good friends with, um, Charlie McKinney,

00:36:43.620 you know, a wonderful publisher saved that company. So there's plenty of resources, but here's the

00:36:49.100 thing. Take there's online tests, go find them. Just Google it, Google the temperament test

00:36:54.180 and take the test sitting around the table together. It's fun. You'll have so much fun doing

00:36:59.420 it and get spouses taking it for each other. And you'll start talking a language that really helps

00:37:04.980 you diagnose why we do certain things. And it's non-threatening because there's strengths and

00:37:09.760 weaknesses to both. So it's a very disarming thing. I highly encourage it.

00:37:13.960 What a great idea. It's a great idea. Not only because it's great to do and a good thing,

00:37:19.700 but it's a great idea because it makes for a fun family activity. That's not a movie or video

00:37:25.480 games or God knows what else. That's just great. And speaking as someone who is still stuck in

00:37:30.680 winter and really no possibility of going outside to do things. That's such a great idea. That is

00:37:37.040 wonderful. And there's a lot of assessment tests, take advantage of them, go find them.

00:37:41.540 And just the whole point of the whole thing, John Henry, I'm sorry to interrupt, but the whole point

00:37:45.940 is to learn to appreciate the man or woman, boy or girl that God made and stop with your prideful

00:37:54.520 self, expecting them to be what you want them to be. Appreciate and fall in love with who God made.

00:38:01.260 And when you do that, it makes their imperfections all the more easy to deal with.

00:38:08.340 Connor, I could keep talking to you all day, but we've got to close. Give us your final thoughts

00:38:13.380 and we'll close up because I want you to give us where we can get your book from and

00:38:17.880 tell everybody in detail how to get it. Because a lot of people are going to be super interested

00:38:21.060 right now. But give us your final thoughts first. I think the final thoughts is that your family,

00:38:26.300 if you're a mom and dad out there, that your kids deserve your absolute very best. And I want to

00:38:30.660 talk, I'm a man, I'm going to talk mostly to men for just a second. And it's this, if you're anything

00:38:36.840 like me, gentlemen, you've gone to work and you've tried very hard to be your very best peak

00:38:43.040 performance, impress your boss, impress your employees, your clients, your patients, whoever

00:38:47.920 it is. And then we go home and we're on our B game, our C game. We think it's because it's our

00:38:54.280 place of rest, which it is, that we can kind of get lazy. And what I found in my life, gentlemen,

00:39:01.840 is that I was so concerned about performing at my A game at work. Why? Because money and reputation

00:39:07.720 was on the line. And I'd go home and I was something far less than my family deserved.

00:39:14.600 And so to be the spiritual head of my family, I learned that I could bring some of the principles

00:39:20.520 of business that I've learned and that I do every day at work and being an executive at my office.

00:39:25.160 And I can bring some of those home and try to lead my family in a way they need. So I want to go home

00:39:31.120 nowadays and show my wife what I'm good at, as opposed to going home and acting like I'm the oldest of the

00:39:37.540 children waiting to be told what to do. And so I want my family to see me on my best game,

00:39:44.240 not my worst game. And it's time to start paying attention to your family in that way,

00:39:49.580 as if they're your most important client, as this, they're your most important customer.

00:39:53.860 And if you do that, you're going to perform at your highest. And you'll get to sleep in heaven.

00:39:58.640 You'll get to rest in heaven. And you don't worry about always having to relax and just let your

00:40:03.600 hair down. No, go home and work. Go home and impress your wife. Go home and lead your children. 0.90

00:40:10.080 You read these leadership books for your employees at work and not for your children. You know, so we

00:40:15.880 have a major flaw in our culture where men have forgotten how to go home and be that leader at the

00:40:21.700 house for both their spouse and their children. We do it at work every day. Men go home and be your 0.92

00:40:27.340 very best at home. And if my product can help you, so be it. If not, find something else. But don't

00:40:33.060 just be on your A-game at work. Be on your A-game at home, because that is how God is going to judge

00:40:38.240 you on your ultimate judgment day.

00:40:40.160 Connor Gallagher, give us again that website.

00:40:42.260 Wellordorfamily.com. And then also, you know, I've started my own podcast. So, you know,

00:40:46.220 it's the Connor Gallagher Show, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube. You can just look for the Connor

00:40:50.620 Gallagher Show on YouTube. It'll be launching soon. And right now I'm on the Tan channel,

00:40:55.320 but I'm actually moving over to my own channel on YouTube. But, you know, yeah,

00:40:59.780 please follow the podcast. And I talk a lot about family stuff because it's what's near and dear to

00:41:03.000 my heart. But never listen to the Connor Gallagher Show in place of the John Henry Show because it's

00:41:08.120 great. So I joked with him before the show started, listeners, that I start this new podcast and I come

00:41:15.200 home and say, honey, did you listen to the podcast? And she's like, well, no, but I listened to John

00:41:19.000 Henry Weston. Anyway, you do a great job and LifeSite News is a beacon of light in a troubled

00:41:26.200 world. Thank you for everything you do. I really appreciate it. Praise God, Connor. Thank you so

00:41:31.120 very much. God bless you and God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.

00:41:35.320 Hi, everyone. This is Fr. James Altman for LifeSite News. We hope you enjoyed this video. For more

00:41:45.480 content like this, check the links in the description. You can also connect with us on

00:41:51.100 social media to stay up to date with the latest news on life, faith, family, and freedom.

00:41:58.320 Thank you for watching and may God bless you all.

The John-Henry Westen Show - April 25, 2025

Dad of 16 REVEALS Parenting SECRETS to Lead Your Family

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