Podcast Transcript
Attendees:
Dr. John Trent, Joshua Boswell, Margie Boswell
Transcript:
Joshua Boswell: Hello friends, welcome to the Happy Family Club podcast. We are delighted to have you here today and we have with us a guest that probably a lot of you are already familiar with. He has written over 30 books. He's got one book that we're gonna talk about that’s sold over a million copies. And just has been… had years of touching lives, lifting people up, pointing people to God, doing incredible stuff. So we'd love to welcome you, John, Dr. John Trent. Just thank you so much for being on this show with us. We really appreciate it.
John Trent: Hey, it's an honor! Are you kidding? And I get to look at Arkansas behind you.
M: Yep!
JT: And I want to see at least one possum go by.
Joshua Boswell: All right.
John Trent: In TCU where I went to school, in Texas Tech. We're playing last week and a possum actually ran out, a wild possum; wasn't let go on purpose. But the only time I've ever seen a possum in the wild is in Arkansas. So there's gotta be some behind you there somewhere.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Come on over we tried to catch some raccoons that were eating up our grass.
John Trent: Yeah. I know and…
Margie Boswell: And we got possum instead! We'll have to have some stew.
John Trent: Yeah cue the deer. That looks so cool back there. That'd be great.
Joshua Boswell: So Margie, you wanna tell just a little bit more about John and then we’ll jump in.
M: Yeah, he's the president of Strong Families organization and he's just really committed to strengthening family relationships, which is what we're all about.
John Trent: Yeah, absolutely.
Margie Boswell: He's been a conference speaker, he’s spoken all over and… best selling author. Like Joshua said he's also got several degrees, master of theology, Dallas Theological Seminary and PhD in marriage and family counseling. And he and his wife Cindy have two daughters and one, is it Carrie that works with you? Yeah.
John Trent: Yeah, yeah, we have two awesome daughters, one's a nurse practitioner and we have two grandkids with her and her husband. And then Carrie has two precious sons and Carrie works with me. And so yeah, we're really blessed. We're like you guys, just have kids and grandkids and the whole deal and just excited to get to work with families all over the country and world. I do a lot with the military. So I'm in a lot of bases all over.
Joshua Boswell: That’s amazing!
M: John, I read a quote on your website of you saying, “Without a doubt, I have the best job in the world” and I want to debate you on that because I think I'm the one with the best job.
John Trent: I mean, how can you say that with 11 kids and all the challenges but man… you're absolutely right. I think you guys are doing a ton to help people and lift up hearts and boy do we ever need it!
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: I mean if you just went by headlines today or all the challenges, you'd be going well why talk about happiness?
Joshua Boswell: right
John Trent: But I'm telling you, what really brings that is that commitment. And it's not always easy and sometimes you're about as happy as your saddest kid, you know what I mean?
M: Yes!
JT: But I do think for a lot of us, boy, we need to grab hold of those things that are gonna really encourage us. So now it's great to get to be with you.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Yeah, thank you.
M: Thank you.
J: So maybe we can start out… I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background, John, and just how you got here. Because again, like you said, you're working with military people, you’ve spoken at who knows how many conferences, you've blessed untold millions of lives. But how did you get to this spot where you're at right now?
John Trent: Yeah, well, I grew up in Arizona and actually we went to rival high schools, your bride and I went to rival high schools. At the time. Now we're not in the same league, but we used to be. I used to play there. but I grew up in a single parent home. So my mom and dad divorced when I was two months old, so I never met my dad till I was in high school. When I did meet him it was right at the end of high school and he was an angry alcoholic. And I used to hate my dad and then I became a Christian and I just intensely disliked him. Yeah, you know what, I mean. And then I began to realize, I don't even know this guy and I'm becoming just like him. And so what I had to do is make some choices. And thank goodness there were some awesome people… Have you ever heard of Young Life? Works with kids like me that we're incorrigible and it's a group that works with high school kids.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: There was a big six foot four ex-Chico State offensive tackle that just came into our family's life and changed everything for us. And so that's really… My twin brother. I have a twin brother. So if you ever see me doing something wrong, it’s Jeff, okay?
Joshua Boswell: It’s Jeff, right.
John Trent: But Jeff, he's a cancer doctor. My mom was real sick. So when we were growing up, Dad bales out, mom is a rheumatoid arthritic. And this is before all the new RA drugs and she's has multiple surgeries…
Joshua Boswell: right
John Trent: And she's gone through… Almost all of high school we were raising ourselves. Today, you'd be arrested but back then it's just the way it was.
Joshua Boswell: Right. Yep.
John Trent: But Jeff is a cancer doctor working on alleviating pain and then I work with couples and families and that's kind of what I try to do is alleviate pain. And just help them realize they really can… even in this crazy world, they really can have a strong family.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: So that it’s, yeah. Married for 40, almost 45 years and precious awesome wonderful wife. And then again a couple of kids, and just that that's the biggest thing. If it doesn't work at home don't export it.
Joshua Boswell: I love that! You know what else I love is that, John, you took what someone would see as just a tragic upbringing, and maybe want to point out all these things about how horrible it was. And I don't know the journey you went through, but eventually you came out and your brother both said, you know what? Let's use this as a way to bless other people's lives.
John Trent: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: I just think that is so incredible and it's…
John Trent: Well, I mean again, we certainly didn't do it out of context, my older brother’s a great guy too. Went into heavy equipment.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: And just a great, great… the world, kind of like Uncle Buck, you know? The big guy, it's three in the morning your car breaks down and you call Joe, my older brother.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: But I had the world's greatest mom. Everybody's mom's the best mom, right? You know, out there…
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: But she was sick a lot and had to be… unfortunately she'd go back to Indiana for all these surgeries where we had family. But she did a great job of encouraging us. And I was a mess. My twin brother’s really smart, we're paternal, I can brag on him. But I was kicked of grade school. I was that angry kid in high school which actually helps in athletics, but it doesn't help you in relationships. But I did have to make a choice. And it's interesting, there's this verse in the Old Testament and it says, I set before you, the Lord says, a choice. Life or death, the blessing or the curse. So choose life.
J: Yeah.
JT: And life means movement, and man I was stuck for a long time with anger and all tied up in knots. And it's interesting that word for forgiveness literally means to untie the knots. And so I had to do that, I had to… And you know, it was a choice. Are you gonna choose life? That means move, you're gonna get moving. Or death that literally means to step away. And are you gonna bless which means to add?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, yeah.
John Trent: Like adding a coin to a scale? Or are you going to curse and the word curse? That's interesting, curse means to dam up the stream.
Joshua Boswell: mmm
John Trent: And again,… that's when somebody could have reached out to you or said something and they didn't. And so it's a choice. So you kind of have to make that choice.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: But boy, it was just a tremendous blessing. To realize I didn't have to do that alone with faith.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: You don’t have to walk it out alone. And then also, man, you can learn something about relationships. For example, even if you never got the blessing that we'll get to talk about today, you can give it to somebody else, even if you never got it.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, totally.
John Trent: And so you really can reverse the curse, get moving. But it's a choice we make.
Joshua Boswell: It is. And what's amazing is that choice tends to propagate into the future. I mean, look at the family you've created, 40 years of marriage and two beautiful children.
John Trent: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And I think that choice… Now I want to ask a follow-up question. This isn’t really… I do want to get to the blessing and some other stuff. But a follow-up question on this is, it's interesting to me that you had the choice. And all of us… I think God puts the choice in front of all of us. It's always there.
John Trent: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And there was something that allowed you to choose a path to follow God and to turn things into a blessing. And I wonder if you could just address that a little bit, because I guarantee you there's gonna be somebody listening to this who's standing on that fork in the road right now.
John Trent: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: And could use some encouragement moving down a path of blessing as opposed to a path of curse. And so what caused you to move down that road and gave you the courage to do so?
John Trent: Well, I'll go back… again, my mom, when there was, just beyond ridiculously good at blessing, encouraging… So single parent Mom, this is Arizona. She's driving an old Ford Falcon.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: Which are terrible cars and maybe you remember them. They used to blow up with the pintos I think. But she would drive home, no air conditioning, three on the tree stick shift, even though she was an arthritic and had a hard time shifting. And so she'd pull into the driveway, and so here would be these three kids that would come piling out. My older brother and my twin brother and I. And I'm telling you, every time, every time we ran out there she would look at you. I'm telling you, just the way she looked at you was like, Oh my gosh, you're the three best kids in the world. And I think probably what she was doing was pulling the car over, for 10 minutes before she got home and just saying, you know… decompressing or something because…
Margie Boswell: Gearing up for it?
John Trent: Yeah, you know what I mean? So it's not like… I think a lot of people grow up… I'm telling you, every kid and every home deserves to have at least one person in their life that's crazy about them.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: Do you remember the name Chuck Colson? He used to have a prison ministry. Actually he was in prison for a while and then his life changed in prison, while he was in prison. But Chucky used to say about people in prison, man, you need two things. You need the Lord and then you need one friend when you get out.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: You need one person that really believes you can do it.
M: Mmm.
JT: So that's what I'm getting at is I was very fortunate to at least have that one person that was crazy about me. And then that makes the choices easier, but I made a bunch of really bad ones initially. But then again once I realized, hey, there is another road!
J: Yeah.
JT: Now my twin brother is the smart one. He figured it out really quick. I got us kicked out of fifth grade.
M: Oh no…
John Trent: My mom had given up at one point because I was so incorrigible. She put us in a parochial school. Oh that'll shape them up.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, yeah.
John Trent: We didn't have any faith at that point. But hey it’s a parochial school. So anyway, I got Jeff and we stole the chocolate milk machine.
Joshua Boswell: The whole machine?!
John Trent: And rolled it off campus. Well, it was a small Christian school and they had a milk machine with kind of a slanted lid, a metal deal. Not real huge. So we rolled it off campus, ate all… you know, drank all the chocolate milk and threw away all the crummy stuff. And then the next day we were realized, there's no milk machine!
Joshua Boswell: Right!
John Trent: So I rolled it back on campus and told them I found it.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. That worked great.
John Trent: Which I know that worked. You can tell that worked. I think it was the milk breath or something.
Joshua Boswell: I'm sure. right
John Trent: So I get Jeff and I both kicked out of grade school. So that's the only blemish on his… you know. But you begin to realize, okay, this isn't working really well.
J: Yeah.
John Trent: And so I hope everybody out there realizes, man, there really is a way to turn around from some of that. And you can make a choice. But it helps to see it. When I met that Doug Baron is the guy, that young life leader that was the old football player… it wasn't old at the time. But it's so important to have people that… who's somebody that's doing it? People are watching you guys and thinking, Well… Okay, I can do it. Nobody's perfect. Your kids aren't perfect. Our kids aren't perfect. Our marriage isn't perfect. But I'm telling you, we have that choice: life over death, blessing over curse.
J: Yeah.
JT: And you just got to choose life. And that's where it really begins. Yeah.
J: So beautiful, it’s awesome.
M: So great.
J: Well I want to dive some more into the choice, and then the kinds of choices that you make after that.
JT: Yeah.
J: Maybe we can start that conversation just by us throwing out the question of, what do you think is a core principle that creates happy families? And again I’m quick to point out, Margie and I never talk about happiness in the terms of just pleasure or fleeting kicks or thrills.
John Trent: Yeah.
J: We’re talking about real, eternal, lasting, Godly joy and happiness. That just tickles you down to the bone and makes you want to crawl out of your skin and run around with joy. So that kind of fun.
John Trent: Yeah.
J: The kind of joy I see on your face when you talk about your wife and your mom and stealing the chocolate machine, right?
John Trent: Yeah.
J: So what do you think’s a principle that really brings that into a family?
John Trent: Well you know, it's really interesting. I'm really old. And back when I was in school, it just had just come out, but today it's everywhere and are you familiar with attachment theory?
J: Mmm. Yes.
JT: So kind of the flavor of the month today, and Sue Johnson with EFT. I'm a marriage and family counselor is my day job and emotionally focused therapy is all about attachment. In business it's boy, how do we build attachment? Well what in the world is attachment? So much of what happens is when you really feel like… Now remember I told the story about my mom running out to…. Or we were running out.
J: Yeah.
JT: The car would stop, mom would get out, and man we were running to tackle her. But how she looked at us, okay?
J: Yeah.
JT: So I have a friend, a guy named Jim Wilder who would be great for you guys to interview. But he's a neuroscientist, a brain scientist out of UCLA and has written a lot about things. But what he says that I just love is in their studies of brain research… Think about this: Love moves at the speed of joy.
M: Aww…
John Trent: That's happiness, but joy is really what you're talking about. That kind of happiness.
J: Yes.
JT: When my mom would look at us. Like oh my gosh, look at these great kids. And we were not great. We were rambunctious boys and just all this stuff. But boy… and it's interesting. I mean, the Bible talks about, in your face in your presence, Lord, is fullness of joy. It's literally in your face is what it says.
J: Yeah.
JT: And so there's that sense in which, man, when we get the idea that God's looking at me like I'm valuable, that somebody else is. And I think part of that, what that joy is, is really based around that deep need we have for attachment. It's interesting, this great theologian, he was actually an english professor, C.S. Lewis, talks about in a book he did called The Weight of Glory.
J: Yeah.
JT: He said all of us… he goes, here then is the secret, is all of us, for all our lives, it's like we've knocked on this door and waited for the door to open. And to be welcomed, to be beckoned in. Now, I mean, think about that. There's a lot of us out there. We didn't get chosen.
J: Yeah.
John Trent: Maybe our parents didn't choose to care for us. They were busy. They didn't know how important it was to provide any kind of attachment. You know what I mean?
J: Yeah.
JT: They're like my dad and he was so… he was an old Third Marine Division guy that came back from the war hating God and man. And God bless him and we're so grateful for his service, but the war really ruined him.
J: Yeah.
JT: And a lot of people, not just him, but a lot of people. Which is why he bailed out and all that stuff. But what I'm getting at is, man, there is that incredible need that we have. But when people do that, when you experience it or when you make the choice to do that, happiness really, love moves at the speed of joy.
J: Yeah.
JT: And where you see that is in… and it starts with the person's eyes.
M: Yeah.
JT: How do they look at you? So that's a good starting point right there. Just say, guy, you want to light up your home? Here's a cool study. University of Michigan did a study in their Library. I’m sorry, Purdue University… Don't send me emails. Purdue University did a study at their Library. So here's what they would do. This is back when you had to go into a library.
J: Yeah, right!
M: Yes. It wasn’t online.
JT: So it's a few years old. So it's not just online. But people would walk in… Remember library cards?
J: Yes.
John Trent: Okay, so they’d take your library card, check out your book, they'd hand it back to you. Now with half of the people, they would hold on to the card. So you're handing the card back, but you're holding it, right? Okay. So what does that make you do? I mean, you're not really looking at somebody, but now? So they would turn and look at them. When they turned at them, they would just brighten their eyes. It says in Proverbs, bright eyes makes the heart glad.
J: Yep.
JT: And they would just brighten their eyes and then they'd let go. And then when they walked outside, there were these people, they were confederates. They were part of the study.
J: Sure.
JT: But they’d say, Hey, tell me what you think about the Purdue Library? The people that now somebody had just smiled at them, they had touched, you know what I mean? That kind of a thing. And they go, oh, it's really good. It was just great.
J: Right.
JT: And so we think it's these big things.
J: Yeah.
JT: Man, the blessing is five little things. Small things, but boy you add them together… and so to me, right at the heart of joy and happiness is attachment. And it just begins with these small things like looking at somebody. And that doesn't mean you're not gonna have hard days. And my mom, there were times with the pain… She was a rheumatoid arthritic, and she'd cry herself… We’d go in there. I remember seven or eight years old, and she’d be crying when you go into her room at night. And she was asleep, but she was still crying. And so now as a kid, you're having trouble processing.
J: Sure.
JT: You can't do anything to help. You know? But she was very real. It wasn’t Pollyanna. But I'm telling you, she made the choice. Even when it was tough. It was hey, I’m going to lean into that and every element of the blessing we got from my mom. So I started right there, just that one person that's crazy about you.
J: Yeah. So if you haven’t… I wanna get into the five elements. Because that sounds super fascinating to me. Especially since it’s little stuff. I like little stuff because I have a little brain and so I can do little stuff, right?
John Trent: Yeah!
J: It’s like…
M: We all can!
J: That’s really helpful for me, right? But you had a mom who just chose to just give you the bright eyes and love you and had the attachment there. And there’s some people who don’t. And I wonder about the impact of deciding to be that person, and does that kinda help fill that void if you don’t have that person in your life?
John Trent: Yeah.
J: I wanted to see what your insights were on that.
John Trent: No, that's brilliant because for so many of us, what we don't realize is that like… Well there's this guy Eugene Peterson. He has a great version of the Bible called the Message Version and he goes… there's one passage where he says, in 1st Peter, The blessing, that's your job. You're to get a blessing and then give it.
J: Give it. Yeah.
JT: And so what I'm getting at is I think for a lot of us… And for me it really did because mom was gone so much when I… you know, I certainly had that foundation with her, but then just realizing, Hey, there's this Jesus guy that's crazy about me. And I don't have to do life alone.
J: Yes.
JT: And it's when you realize that, Okay, you don't have to do life alone. You can really begin to make those choices to do… And when you do choose, it’s kind of like it rebounds. It really is a powerful way to really turn things around, you know?
J: Yeah.
JT: So what we're asking people to do is, it's not just gonna help that kid or that grandkid or the neighbor kid, or if you're a coach. Let me tell you, there's a lot of people who, the first time they really ever… I had a coach in high school that had been at, he was an Army Ranger during the Korean War at a place called Pork Chop Hill, which nobody's ever heard of except, watch the movie with Gary Cooper called Pork Chop Hill. It won an Academy Award. But it was a bunch of Rangers that were cut off and lived through it amazingly and he was one of the few that did.
J: Wow.
John Trent: So tough as all get out. And I remember showing up junior year, and every time I would cuss I'd have to do a lap. And back then I wasn't… I had no moral compulsion about anything hardly. But I just got sick of running laps.
J: Right!
JT: And I remember him asking him one time, I go, what do you really care, coach? I mean come on. I’ll go, I mean I'll go. I didn't know it was a Christian. But he puts his hand on my shoulder and he goes, look, this isn't just about sports. This is about who you're gonna be. And you gotta start making some choices right now. Well let me tell you, he was by far the… until I met Doug Barham, nobody impacted my life, never used a verse, never used any… I didn't know anything about where he was faith-wise until much later. But I think we need those people in our life that can really call us to be more than we think we can be.
J: Yes.
JT: And he was really the first one of my teachers… because Jeff heard that all the time, my smart brother. I must have heard it a thousand times, “Why can't you be like Jeff?” from these other teachers. I go, I don't want to be like Jeff! I couldn't be like him is what it was.
J: Yeah.
JT: But here was somebody looking at you and thinking you could be more than you could be. We don't realize how much that makes a difference, and again that's part of the whole blessing thing.
J: Huge blessing. I love it. It reminds me… my parents divorced when I was pretty young. In fact they divorced, and married again to each other, then divorced again. So I went through two divorces with the same parents. It was great. A lot of fun.
John Trent: Yeah. Yeah.
J: But when I was 19… I guess I was 20 then. I was in the Netherlands as a missionary and I was sitting by myself in this chapel, and I was just… I wanted to be a great husband, I wanted to be a great dad. I didn’t really have a lot of role models, right?
John Trent: Right.
J: And I was praying to the Lord and just saying, Well how am I gonna do this? Like… I don’t even have an example.
John Trent: Yeah.
J: And I remember distinctly feeling the Lord say to me, Look. If you’ll look to me, I’ll teach you how to be a great husband and father.
John Trent: Yeah.
J: And you know, you mentioned that. It’s like we don’t have to do this alone. And even if you have that person… And by the way, my mom was similar to yours. She was just an angel. She tried to figure out how to raise six kids on her own. Five boys, one girl that was more of a handful than two girls and five boys put together. I mean it was just… it was crazy.
John Trent: Right. Yeah.
J: So I SO relate to what you’re saying. And I really want people to hear that like… your past does not have to be perfect to give or receive a blessing that John’s gonna talk to us about.
John Trent: Yeah, absolutely, and it's interesting... Shakespeare has one of his characters in King Lear say he laughs at scars who himself never bore a wound. Now, when you go through what you went through, not once, but twice. And my mom was divorced twice, my dad... We don't even know. At least twice. But the point that I'm getting at is that, Okay all of these tough things… it's not that you just, be like Pollyanna and go, Oh, it doesn't really hurt it.
J: Right.
JT: It absolutely is difficult, but really and truly, man. Once you realize… Well, can I give you a quick example?
J: Yes!
John Trent: Okay, here's a picture of attachment. Okay, so, we start going to Young Life. The Young Life leader’s up there talking about how you can change your life. And he tricks about six of us going to this Billy Graham movie. And I got to meet Billy Graham twice. What a wonderful guy. So nobody send me emails, but it was the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. It was about this lady who gets sick and dies and it was supposed to be sad. And I'm a high school kid. I'm like, yeah… she deserved that. I don't like the movie. But at the end of the movie, this guy gets up and I'm telling you Joshua, this guy he goes… I don't even know all that he said. It was an invitation to come and change your life.
J: Yeah, right.
JT: But all I remember is he goes, Do you want to change the pictures of your life’s story?
J: Wow.
JT: And like you sitting there, and that was at 19?
J: Yeah.
John Trent: You're sitting there at 19 going, Okay… And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, Oh my gosh, I do. And there were six of us that walked down there and so Doug Barham had a… do you remember Gideon Bibles? Those little Bibles?
J: Yeah!
M: Oh yeah.
JT: Okay. He had a Bible for each one of us. Now there were seven of us that went from the football team, six of us walked down there.
J: Yeah.
JT: So he gives a Bible to each of us, but he tells me, he goes, Hey, I want you to read this one verse. I want you to go home tonight, and I want you to read it a hundred times.
J: Whoah.
JT: And I'm going, okay, all right, I'll do it. So I go home. I opened it up and he had put, thank goodness, like a little card there so I knew where to go, and it was underlined. And it's Hebrews 13:5. It says for He himself (that's Jesus) has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
J: Yeah.
John Trent: So that's one. So I'd go, one. And then, for He himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Two. So I go three four five.
M: Yeah…
JT: I get now, because I'm thinking… Now later he told me it was metaphorical, just read it a bunch, but I thought it literal.
J: You took it literally.
JT: Yeah, so I'm about number 64, 65 and I'm weeping.
M: Oh…
J: Yeah.
JT: And that's when I realized. Oh my gosh. Dad had bailed out, mom didn't leave on her own initiative, but she was gone a ton. By then my older brother’s gone. But then I realized, kind of just like you said, all right, if you're sitting here and you're going, Well I didn't have anybody! Well yeah you do. It's just you gotta just look up in faith. And it's not that everything was perfect or anything else, but I have never been really lonely since that day.
J: Yeah.
JT: Traveling or anywhere else, because you realize… Oh my gosh. I can do this, not my own strength. I don't have to do it all on my own strength. I mean, I'm sure there's days where you're pulling out your hair, both of you, and things are not always easy.
J: Oh yeah.
JT: But what a privilege we get to say, Hey, you really can reverse the curse. You really can make a choice.
J: Absolutely. So tell us a little…. Thank you, by the way, for that.
M: That was so great.
J: Because it was beautiful. It is 100% true. He won’t forsake you. We do have that connection.
John Trent: Yeah.
J: So I just… And I love that you went through that and had that experience. It’s so beautiful. So powerful. Tell us a little more about the blessing. Because I would just love to dive in… you said there were five little things that could be done.
John Trent: Yeah.
J: So maybe we could walk through some of those or all of them.
John Trent: Yeah yeah, we'll do it quick. I'll kind of set it up where I first saw it. So in my doctoral program, I'm working in a psychiatric hospital in Dallas. BB1 Memorial. Today… I think it became a Richardson General and now it's… I think it's a Baylor hospital now. I can't remember. But anyway, 24 bed psych unit, my first day on the job… Do you have any good first day on the job stories? And so my first day is I've never even seen a psychotic patient, okay? And so I go upstairs. It's a 13-hour shift, nurses relate to that.
J: Oh yeah.
John Trent: You're there for 12 hours then you've got to do all your charting and so it's really a 13-hour shift. And I walk in and they're showing me around, and this guy goes, Oh hey, we need to admit somebody, you can do that, right? A trained sheep can do that. You just have to go downstairs and get this person and bring him up to the third floor. So I go downstairs. It's this wonderful family and their precious daughter had had a complete break. And so we find out they’re believers, I got to pray with them. It was just a regular hospital, it wasn't like…
Joshua Boswell: Right.
John Trent: But they were hurting and so then I take her up in the elevator to the third floor. Well, how much eye contact do you make with people usually in the elevator?
Joshua Boswell: None, yeah.
John Trent: So I'm not looking at her when the first punch comes and she breaks my nose.
J: Oh…!
John Trent: Which, it’s already been broken twice, so it gets easier when you've done it several times. But if you've ever broken your nose, you can't see very well.
Joshua Boswell: Oh yeah.
John Trent: I mean your eyes well up, you're crying, and so she is taking me apart. And what they didn't tell me as a new intern is that you don't take the violent psychotic patients in the elevator to the third floor, you walk them up the stairs.
Joshua Boswell: Right, right.
John Trent: But they forgot to tell me that. So I’m screaming, she's screaming, the doors open and they restrain her and they have to restrain me because you can't hit her. But she's taking me apart.
Joshua Boswell: Oh yeah…
John Trent: And so I go in and stuff stuff in my nose, you know, try to get the bleeding stopped. Because you're there for, you know, this is 12 more hours. And I remember walking in to the group room, and they go, Just go take it easy for a while and go in the group room and there's this guy about my age and we get to talking and he's so consoling. And basically he reaches over, here's the story and pats me on the shoulder and goes, You're gonna do a great job. Don't worry about it. And his sweater pulls back and his wrists are bandaged. So he was actually a patient, okay?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: But he helped me a lot while I was there. But we sat there for the next probably four hours because, you know, I got to hear his story. And he had tried all his life, so here he is a senior in college, and he had just received his first B as in boy, not d as in dog.
Joshua Boswell: Wow.
John Trent: Think about that. And he knew when… he came from a home where if he didn't get straight A's like Dad… And this was a non major PE course. So he sucked at tennis and gets a B in tennis and went back to his room and tried to take his life.
J: Wow.
M: Oh no.
JT: And you're thinking, oh… are you kidding? That night, and I'm trying to process this. That night I read Genesis 27 and there were these two twins. One that gets the blessing and one name Esau that doesn't.
Joshua Boswell: That doesn't.
John Trent: And when Esau heard the words of his father that he would never get the blessing, he cries out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry. And I'm telling you it was like the scales fell off.
Joshua Boswell: Mmm.
John Trent: And that's when I thought, I got a name for it. That's what I've wanted from my dad was the blessing. What is it? So here's what it is, five things real quick. Can I get you to do something just real quick? Just shake hands, just take each other's hands.
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
John Trent: Okay, all right. Now look him in the eye kind of thing, but all right, but just hold on to each other's hands. Okay. Every time a blessing was given, guess what? There was that appropriate, meaningful touch.
Joshua Boswell: Hmmm.
John Trent: So no fingernails or anything. Just that appropriate touch.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: And then you want to say to them… So just turn to her real quick. This won't kill you. Okay. You're gonna use your words. The second thing is you're gonna say it. Now you can write it, you can put it in a text.
Joshua Boswell: Okay.
John Trent: But what do you say? Well you say words that attach high value.
Joshua Boswell: Hmm.
John Trent: So what's one thing that you really appreciate about your wife?
Joshua Boswell: Oh well, Margie, you put God first in everything and I love that. It's very cool.
John Trent: All right and what's something with Joshua, Margie?
Margie Boswell: He… Joshua loves with his whole heart. Me and our children.
John Trent: Okay. Alright, alright, so you can let go of each other's hand. That's fine.
Joshua Boswell: All right.
John Trent: But here's the deal. Right there are three elements of the blessing. There's that appropriate touch…
Margie Boswell: Mmm-hmm.
J: Yeah.
John Trent: I'll go back to my Jim Wilder neuro biologist friend on brain things. Turn towards each other again one more time. Look at each other right in the eye.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: Now we're not gonna take the time to do it, but here’s your homework assignment. Okay? I wanted to look at each other in the eye for two minutes. Set your clock for two whole minutes.
Joshua Boswell: Okay.
John Trent: You don't have to say anything, but just for two minutes. So turn back. That was five seconds.
Margie Boswell: Five seconds. Yeah.
John Trent: Think about how long that is. Two minutes. Because a lot of times we don't really see people.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: And he said that what that does with a lot of couples is that alone just resets what's going on in their relationship. Just looking at them. So with our touch and that means our eyes and our appropriate touch. Because touch is so broken, you know. But something appropriate like you guys did. Then you want to say it. That's number two. Use your words, say it. And you can write it, you can text them, whatever. And letters are great. That's super. But then what do you say? Well words that attach high value. Words that say, Man, I see something in your life that's really awesome. Well then number four is Special Future. And because of that I wouldn't be surprised, Margie, you're telling her, you do such a great job of… you know. It doesn't surprise me at all that you're such a great mom.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: Or you're gonna do, or you've done such a great job with helping other people. Or you could be a great teacher. Or you could be a… you're something. So the blessing always carried with it God's put something in your life that somebody could use. Because so many of us can't answer that question. Why am I here?
Joshua Boswell: Exactly. Yeah.
John Trent: And maybe it's because God gave you some gifts you can use to help others. Well how do you see that? You see it when somebody says it, and then they attach high… You understand well boy, maybe there is something redeeming. Because I wasn't hearing a lot of redeeming things about myself growing up.
J: Yeah.
JT: But then that helps them understand for special future, well maybe God really can do something with me. And then the last one's genuine commitment. So do we have time for one more story?
Margie Boswell: Sure!
Joshua Boswell: Of course, yeah.
John Trent: Alright. I'll do one story and then one study to kind of wrap it up type of a deal. So genuine commitment is the last one. So with your touch and your words that attach high value and help them picture a special future. Well the blessing was always then, Hey, and so that's a commitment. I want you to know I'm not bailing out. Now some day the Lord will take me home. But until then, I'm not bailing out on you. So there's this great study at UVA. Have you ever been to University of Virginia?
J: No.
JT: Okay, it's kind of like a Liberty University. There's several schools where right next to campus is kind of a big, high hill, okay.
Joshua Boswell: Okay.
John Trent: Not a mountain, but it looks like a… it's a big hill. So there was a guy named Profit that was doing a study and it was cognitive research study. So it wasn't… unrelated, didn’t have anything to do with relationships. So what they wanted to do is they would… you're walking to school. Hey, you want to be in a clinical study? Here's the pass, you can get out of class. Who doesn't want to be in a clinical study? Oh yeah, sure. So they would put a 60 pound backpack on you. That's stout. Ranger school, you're carrying around a 65 pound backpack.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: They run with it all through Ranger school. So that's heavy, okay?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: 60 pound backpack, and now you’re looking up, you've got all the diodes on and you're looking up this hill. And everybody that was by themself, they overshot. They would project. It was a cognitive learning study. How high is the mountain? How hard is it going to be to climb? And every one of them overshot.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: Now they look for people walking on campus that were paired up.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: So there's you two. Let’s say you're dating at UVA, and… Hey, you guys dating? Yeah, yeah. You really like it? Yeah, yeah we like it. And so… or two roommates, whatever, but they would get somebody that you're attached to, okay.
Joshua Boswell: Yes.
John Trent: So now you've got the backpack on, you've got all the diodes on, but now the next person, they put a pack on them. And they put their hand on your shoulder. Because they're going up the hill with you.
J: With you. Mmm-hmm.
JT: And every one of them, the mountain shrank.
Joshua Boswell: Wow.
John Trent: And then at the University of London… ‘cause they’re going, naahh… University of London replicated the study, except guess what they did? You were standing there, then… so the same people that overshot?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: They'd say, Now can you think about who's somebody…? They would just have them picture mentally…
Joshua Boswell: Mentally.
John Trent: somebody that's going up the hill with you. And if they could picture somebody that would have their hand on their shoulder and was going up the hill with them, the mountain shrank.
Joshua Boswell: Wow.
John Trent: So that's what I'm getting at. Our kids are facing mountains. People in our life are.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
M: Yes.
John Trent: And what genuine commitment says is, man, I'm gonna be there for you. I'm putting my hand on your shoulder. And so that's kind of the key to the whole thing.
M: Mmm.
JT: You want me to wrap it all up with one story? I can hit all five of them at one story.
Margie Boswell: Yeah, we’d love that.
Joshua Boswell: Give us that, pull it all together, and then I got a follow-up question or two for you. But I want to hear this.
John Trent: All right. The last story is: So it's senior year, mmkay? My twin brother is super smart. I don't know if I'm gonna graduate. It's the mother of all term papers and I have to pass senior English or I'm not gonna… I’m not walking.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
John Trent: And I work really hard on the paper. I didn't start till the night before. And I'm so old, back then you had typewriters.
Margie Boswell: Yes.
J: Yeah, yeah.
John Trent: I had typewriter ribbon. So I ran out of... So the last two pages I had to hand write.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: So I turned it in, but I thought it was the best paper ever written on the Battle of the Bulge. And I thought they'd publish it, probably, it was such a good paper.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, yeah.
John Trent: I turned it in, and did you ever see the movie The Christmas Story?
Joshua Boswell: Yes!
John Trent: Remember that with a Red Rider BB gun?
J: Yes!
M: It’ll shoot your eye out. Yeah.
JT: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and remember when he's in school and he has to write a theme to the teacher?
J: Yep.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: In his mind, What do you see him doing? In his mind? Okay, there's the teacher, and she reads it and she goes up to the board and she writes A+++++.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: And the kids are carrying him around. That's what I thought would happen.
J: Right.
JT: So she hands back all the papers, the teacher does, and there's red all over mine. Getting more red, more red. I get to the end and there's a huge D- and I still have the paper, but D minus, okay.
Joshua Boswell: Wow.
John Trent: And underneath it she's written, “The only reason I'm passing you is because I don't want to see you next year.”
Joshua Boswell: OH!
John Trent: I would have had her again for a senior English.
Joshua Boswell: Does that fall under the kind words with high meaning category? Yeah.
John Trent: But I'm sitting there thinking, Well I don't want to see you either. They don't just give away D minuses. I'm out of here and I'm acting like… you know. Well what am I really thinking driving home? What a pathetic loser. And I get home… So here's how the story kind of ends is I get home and Mom wants to know, Hey, all right, did you get your paper back ‘cause grandmother wanted to know, am I gonna graduate.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: And I go Oh… I lost the paper. No, you didn't. Sit down. And my mom would do the death grip. So watch the blessing.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: So if you ever seen a hands of a rheumatoid arthritic? They get really twisted up, you know?
J: Yeah.
JT: So she would take your hand. We hated it, because if she held your hand you had to sit right there and talk with her. And if you tried to pull away we’d twist her wrist and she’d cry. So we called it the death grip. And I go, Not the death grip! Yeah, come on, hold my hand. Come on. Because I would bail out.
J: Yeah.
JT: So she makes me hold her hand, and then she goes, Look at me. Look at me. Made me look her right in the eyes. She had beautiful blue, kind of gunmetal blue, steel gray blue eyes. And she goes, Look at me. And so she goes… and she looks through all the paper and then she goes, Look at me. She goes, I don't care what that teacher said. You do such a good job of using words, I wouldn't be surprised if God used you some day to help other people with your words.
M: Oh…
JT: Now think about that. There's appropriate touch, there’s those spoken words that attach high value. I wasn't seeing it from my teacher. It was there in writing, you're a pathetic loser.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: I don't want to see you next year. But she's pointing out a special future. I wouldn't be surprised if God used you. And then, till the day she died, she was there for us. So that's kind of what we wanted do. They're super small things. But man, just how powerful to begin to say, Okay, even if I didn't get this, I can choose to give it.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: And man, we could make a big difference if we start doing that.
M: That’s amazing.
Joshua Boswell: That's so beautiful.
M: What a great story, too.
J: Just out of curiosity, did your mother stay with us long enough for her to see your books and the work that you've done?
John Trent: Yeah. I mean certainly this first book. The first book that I did was the guy in Gary Smalley, a great friend I worked with for 10 years. So she got to see that book. Yeah, so she's been gone for a good while, but yeah, we were blessed. She struggled with all of the medications and stuff, so she went too early.
Joshua Boswell: yeah.
John Trent: But still yeah, you bet. But she was proud of all of us.
Joshua Boswell: That's awesome.
John Trent: When she died… have you ever had to do that? Somebody dies and you've got to be the one to pack up everything?
Joshua Boswell: Oh yeah.
M: Mmm-hmm.
John Trent: Okay, so here's this bookshelf in her little condo thing. And there's on one shelf was a bunch of medical and genetics books, and there's a bunch of counseling books, and then there's a bunch of heavy equipment digests.
Joshua Boswell: For your brothers. Yeah.
John Trent: Yeah. So she took a beginning genetics course, my brother's MD PhD in genetics. And then my books, so she had those. But then also how many 73 year old arthritic women when they died were paid up subscriptions to heavy equipment digests? You know?
John Trent: So she was pretty great at looking at all of us. You’re a heavy equipment operator? That's awesome.
Margie Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: Because it was for Joe, he was really good at it. But you know… You're a geneticist, fine. You want to work with couples, fine. But what is it about them that God could use? So she was great at affirming that.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, I love it. So this leads me into my follow-up question. And by the way, what a sweet angel. Margie and I have both… my dad is still alive, but my mother passed away. Margie, both her folks have passed away.
John Trent: Okay.
Joshua Boswell: And we've been through that and there's a lot there we could unpack. But a follow up question I have to all of this is we live in a really distracted world. I mean, there's all the social media and the news and the constant bombardment of advertisers and all the different stuff that goes on. Not only that but like you said back in the day when you guys were taking care of yourself people would be arrested now.
John Trent: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: So there's a lot more oversight and regulations. There's a lot more complexities in society. And my question really is, what have you seen is helpful for individual to allow them to slow down and to start to see people through this lens? Through the lens of the blessing? Because I think that some people might say, Well I know how to hold somebody's hand. I can look them in the eye. But then how do I actually see what their potential is? How do I speak these words that are, you know, special future.
John Trent: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: I wonder what your thoughts are in terms of helping individuals… They want something but they don't know how to do it.
John Trent: No, that's really good because it is. Water has a hard time rising above its level.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Yeah.
John Trent: There's no three ways about it. And if you've never seen it… But the part that amazes me is I'll walk through those five things. And again, I'm on a military base. I'm speaking at Princeton engineering, you're talking on attachment. You may or may not ever use a verse depending on the group, you know what I mean?
Joshua Boswell: Oh yeah.
John Trent: But it's just, core, basic, how do you walk well with people. And it is amazing, it's like that's what they need so much. It's not for a lot of people. Once they hear it they're going, that's just almost too easy.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: What blocks them is, Well they don't really need to hear it. Really? Then somebody else will tell them stuff about them that pulls them away from you being the one to tell them.
Margie Boswell: Mm-hmm.
John Trent: It isn’t so much that it's missile science.
Joshua Boswell: Right.
John Trent: It’s really more just challenging them just to give it a shot. I was just with a fireman out here in Phoenix. Great guy, but he just was struggling with kind of the whole commitment, and his kids and everything. And so I'm coaching him, and one of the things I had him do is sit down and just give the blessing to his son. So he's got a 10 year old boy.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: And I got him to write it out. He's got it all… and he's going, Ahh… no…. I go, just do it. Just try it.
J: Yeah. And so he's sitting there with them and his backs up… both of them were sitting in the hall and they both had their backs against the wall. And he goes, Hey, I just want to tell you something. And he reads him this blessing and his son starts crying. He's 10.
Joshua Boswell: Wow.
John Trent: And he's going, what's wrong? And he goes, is that really how you feel about me? And he starts crying and he’s going, Wait, you know it is. And he goes no I don't. I mean we just assume it.
Joshua Boswell: No. Yeah.
John Trent: We think… proximity has nothing to do with attachment.
Joshua Boswell: That's right.
John Trent: You got to make a choice to say it. So, I mean we do it… We have it all. They can get the book The Blessing then go to www.StrongFamilies.com, we have courses they can take on how do you bless, or if you didn't get it, how can you reverse things. All that's fine. There's tons of stuff out there on attachment. But biblically, and then just practical terms for so many of us why we're not doing it is because we never got it.
Joshua Boswell: That's right.
John Trent: And then they're gonna watch your show today and go, Okay, I'm just gonna try it.
Joshua Boswell: Just try it.
John Trent: My wife and I are strained out, and I'm gonna set the timer for two minutes, and we're just gonna look into each other's eyes for two minutes. Hey, I wrestled in college. One minute is forever, okay?
Joshua Boswell: Oh yeah.
John Trent: So two minutes is a really long time. And I'm telling you, just try that, just start there.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: Get that relationship going and then start loving on those kids that are there. And then reach out to some other people that need the blessing as well.
Joshua Boswell: I love it. Absolutely.
M: So great.
J: I had two thoughts come to my mind. You talked about the simplicity of it, and I'm reminded of the experience of Moses in the wilderness and all the children will get bitten by the serpents.
John Trent: Yeah. Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: Right the fiery flying serpents.
M: All they had to do was look.
John Trent: All they had to do was look!
Joshua Boswell: All they had to do was look at it. That simple, right? And I'm telling you John, this is what you're doing. You are… I don't want to make it sound like I'm comparing you exactly to Moses.
John Trent: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: But you've thought of this idea, you've got this direction from the Lord, this blessing idea, and it's so powerful. It's so simple. And I… everyone listening to this I just strongly encourage you, invite, entice, just try this.
JT: Yeah.
J: Because it's obviously so powerful and impactful. Very cool.
John Trent: I was just with a couple of guys and we're working. It's a process. I mean, I'll probably be gone when it happens, it's such a long process, but we're actually launching next year on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, a national blessing day.
J: Oh, wow.
JT: And what it is is picture two chairs. And it's a dad and a son and the dad's blessing the son, or it could be the mom. It doesn't matter. But somebody, in this case… and then you got 20 kids looking on, okay?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah. Yeah.
John Trent: Young kids. They're watching somebody else's dad bless them. Then the curtain falls and there's 20 chairs up there and their parents are up there.
Joshua Boswell: Nice. Yeah.
John Trent: Or their mom or their grandparents, whoever they're doing life with right? And they're beckoning them up, and they run up there and sit in the chair. But that's, man, who do you need to sit in the chair and bless?
Joshua Boswell: Yeah.
John Trent: So you never know, one of these days there might end up being a national blessing day. That's what we're working on.
Margie Boswell: That’d be great.
J: Well count us in. We’ll participate.
M: We’ll support it.
J: We'll promote. We’ll support it. You got our vote on it.
John Trent: Sounds good. Alright.
Joshua Boswell: To everyone listening, first of all I want to say thank you to John.This has just been absolutely incredible. We really appreciate your time. Second thing is, I want to strongly encourage you, I mean go to www.StrongFamilies.com, right? Or is it .org?
John Trent: Yeah, www.StrongFamilies.com.
M: .com, yeah.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah and get the book The Blessing and dive into this. This is really powerful. I can say from personal… I mean, this is the first time that I've been exposed to the blessing, John. But I can tell you as I'm thinking about it, like, Oh my goodness. Critical turning points in my life happened when somebody did this for me.
John Trent: Yeah, and you've been probably doing it with your kids just not maybe calling it that.
Joshua Boswell: Yes. Yeah.
M: Or not in that way. Sure.
Joshua Boswell: Yeah, but giving it a framework is so powerful. I had one other thought and then we'll wrap up. But two years ago I read this study that showed that the benefits of a hug, the endorphins that are released from that attachment of a physical hug, happen after 20 seconds.
John Trent: Yeah.
Joshua Boswell: You know, I was thinking about this looking in each other's eyes. And so I decided, okay, I'm gonna start hugging my children longer. And at first and at first they were like…
M: It's uncomfortable.
J: Yeah, Okay, that's enough, dad.
JT: Yeah, I know!
J: But now I'll tell you what, my children are the world's greatest huggers. They just love a long hug from Dad. And I'm gonna have to start looking in the eyes now, just do that.
John Trent: Looking in the eye and then just doing that just brighten your eyes.
M: There you go.
JT: Yeah, I mean, it's just crazy how you think it's such a small thing. But it’s just… Oh my gosh.
Joshua Boswell: Margie’s the best at this. You should see Margie… When I come in the door, it doesn't matter where I've been. Margie comes at a fast trot and her eyes light up. She gives me a big hug and a kiss.
John Trent: Yeah, well hey, love moves at the speed of joy.
Joshua Boswell: Speed of joy. It does.
John Trent: And when somebody looks at you with joy, Oh my gosh. Look who’s here. So that's huge. So well, proud of both of you. Keep going.
Joshua Boswell: Well thank you very very much.
M: Thank you for joining us!
J: God bless you and your work and your ministry.
M: Yes..
J: It is just incredible what you're doing. We really really appreciate all that you're doing.
John Trent: All right we'll get Carrie, our oldest daughter, on with you guys sometime. Or both of us will join you again, that'd be awesome.
Margie Boswell: Yes, we would love that.
Joshua Boswell: Absolutely.
M: Please do.
J: Alright. Thanks a lot, John. Take care.
M: Have a good day. Bye