Thirty years on camera have built Trace Gallagher's career on precision in the moment. His new book, "Turns Out They Were Right All Along," argues that the same craft works against a father when his daughters bring him a problem. The Fox News chief breaking news correspondent says the better move is to stop talking entirely.
Gallagher has two daughters, now 25 and 22. His observation is specific: they do not come to a father for a solution. "They just want you to hear them about the problem," he said. "You need to sit, you need to shut up and you need to listen." He describes his own instinct in their younger years as exactly backward. "I'm a talkative guy. My career is talking," he said. He would explain his thinking. Over time he learned to wait until asked.
The payoff, in his telling, is a particular kind of security. When his youngest daughter took a hard fall during a youth soccer match, she looked over at him. He told her it was fine. She scored five minutes later. "It is soothing for them to know that somebody is really paying close attention," he said.
What the football story teaches
Gallagher traces his patience to a lesson from his own childhood that he could not have named at the time. At eight years old, he wanted to quit football. His mother, whom he calls "Big Red," did not argue the point. She told him to go to practice and tell the coach himself. The coach, Gallagher suggests, saw it coming. He blew his whistle three times, told Gallagher he was late, and ordered five laps. Then footballs came out. Gallagher played the sport through college.
"Kids need to be put in that very same position," he said. "You need to fight your own battles."
The book's wider argument is that good guidance rarely signals itself. "Wisdom, guidance, advice," Gallagher said, "it comes at the most unexpected times." Advice seeps in, he says, sometimes years before the person recognizes it. His prescription is the same whether he is speaking to a parent or recalling his own formation: "Listen. Hear them out." The phrase he returns to at the end is a three-word sequence: "Career, confidence, character."