John Sablan spent the better part of his adult life being what he now calls the X factor in his family: the one holding everything back. Raised in abuse, living a wayward life, he and his wife stumbled into the Catholic Church, and he settled comfortably into being lukewarm. His marriage came to the edge. Then at a men's conference, with a general confession, and a priest praying deliverance over him in Latin changed the trajectory. In this conversation, John Heinen and Devin Schadt sit down with John Sablan to get at the real roots of what's keeping men soft and what it actually takes to do something about it. Rooted in Thomistic psychology (which he studied under Fr. Chad Ripperger), John defines effeminacy the way Aquinas did: not a personality flaw, but a moral vice. The inability to deny pleasure in order to pursue the arduous good. He unpacks the trap men fall into when they finally decide to get serious: trading softness for stoicism, white-knuckling virtue as a self-improvement project, making the whole thing about proving themselves rather than serving God. They also tackle why "do you want to save your marriage?" is the wrong question.

This stat should shake every Catholic father awake: 85 to 90 percent of kids raised in Catholic homes will leave the faith by adulthood. We've somehow accepted that as normal. It's not. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Greg Popcak, a Catholic counselor with over 30 years in the trenches and author of more than 20 books, to talk about what the families who beat those odds are actually doing differently. Greg walks me through the 12 research-validated habits that families who successfully pass on the faith all share in common, what he calls the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life. We get into why just dragging your kids to Mass and white-knuckling the family Rosary isn't enough if there's no joy behind it, why your kids need to experience the Faith as the source of the meaning in your home and not just the source of the rules. He breaks down what headship actually looks like when it's modeled after the ministerial priesthood rather than a dictator, and he tells a story from his time in Hong Kong about a father who tried to hug his daughter for the first time and she didn't even know what he was doing.

Every man knows the difference between a morning that owns him and a morning he owns. In this episode, Devin Schadt and I walk through a practical seven-point framework for building a morning routine that actually holds. From the heroic minute and the science behind a fixed wake time, to what you put in your body before prayer, to why your evening examen the night before may be the most overlooked factor in how your next day unfolds. We get honest about what didn't work, like falling asleep face-down at 4:45 a.m., white-knuckling 18 months without caffeine, and trying to out-pray their wives out of competition rather than conviction. This isn't a productivity hack. It's a rule of life built on obedience, worship, and the promise that God doesn't bless leftovers. He blesses first fruits.

Men today are doing everything they’ve been told, working hard, providing, staying faithful, yet they still feel disconnected or confused from their wives and children. In this episode, John Heinen and Devin Schadt sit down with Adam Lane Smith to uncover why. Drawing from the science of attachment theory, Adam exposes how a man can be highly capable on the outside while remaining emotionally isolated on the inside, and how that disconnect quietly shapes every relationship he has. They explore the hidden dynamics behind fading desire, emotional shutdown, and why so many men default to solving problems alone. Adam also lays out a clear framework for rebuilding connection in marriage, including the overlooked steps that either strengthen or slowly erode a wife’s trust and intimacy.

We carry pain we can't name. It shows up as anxiety, anger, overwork, or the sense that no matter what we do, it's never enough. In this episode, John Heinen and Devin Schadt sit down with Dr. Bob Schuchts of the St. John Paul II Healing Center to explore what's really driving the unrest men feel and why pushing through it, numbing it, or ignoring it only makes it worse. From the gap between who we are on the inside and who we show the world, to the deep wounds of abandonment, powerlessness, and the need for validation, Dr. Bob opens up about his own panic attack, the moment one tear changed everything, and why healing isn't weakness. It's the doorway to becoming the man, husband, and father God created you to be.

Men using the internet have no idea they are losing a war they never knew they were fighting. The algorithm is not neutral, it is rewarding outrage, feeding pride, and quietly rewiring the way men think, speak, and relate to God. Timothy Flanders, Editor-in-Chief of OnePeterFive, has lived inside this tension for years. He has built a major Catholic journal online while wrestling personally with what the digital world does to a man's soul. In this episode, John Heinen and Devin Schadt sit down with Timothy to lay out what Scripture actually demands of a man's words online, why Christians are often the worst offenders in the digital public square, and how fallen angels use social media to attack Catholic men in ways most would never recognize. Timothy introduces the Internet Promise, a set of commitments rooted directly in Scripture, and offers a concrete battle plan for men who are ready to stop being used by the internet and start using it for the Kingdom.

We get this question all the time, what do I need to do to find a wife or get married? So often we find men waiting for the right woman to find them, the right opportunity to arrive, the right moment to finally step up. The problem isn't that they lack a desire; the problem is that they haven't yet done the interior and exterior work of becoming marriageable. In this episode, John Heinen and Devin Schadt cut through the noise and lay out five concrete frameworks every man needs to examine, from the physical to internal, if he's serious about becoming the kind of man a woman of character actually wants. They cover what a man's physical discipline communicates to a woman long before he opens his mouth, why work ethic is inseparable from self-mastery, how the interior life anchors everything else, what brotherhood has to do with your readiness for marriage, and why posture - how you position yourself in the world - may be the most overlooked trait of all.

Every father eventually faces a moment when his child pulls away. The distance grows, the relationship hardens, and most men respond in one of three ways. In this episode, John Heinen and Devin Schadt use the parable of the Prodigal Son to diagnose what's really happening beneath the surface: why rebellion cuts so deeply into a man's sense of worth, and what the wounds underneath his reactions are actually telling him. But this conversation doesn't stay in the failings we have, it moves toward the father who ran. John and Devin unpack what it looks like to stop protecting your ego and start pursuing your child, how to separate your hurt from their harm, and why asking for forgiveness is one of the most powerful things a father can do.