The Families of Character Show
We serve parents who want more for their family. Our show offers research-based parenting solutions to the most common family problems, real-life parenting stories, and authentic support. The host, Jordan Langdon, is a wife, mother, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker who validates what parents go through and offers practical actionable steps parents can implement today to transform their families in joy and unity. Guests are experts in their field of work and provide high-value material for parents and families.
The Families of Character Show
Ep. #157: How to Prioritize Your Family Over Your Phone with Joey Odom {Rebroadcast}
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Have you ever caught yourself scrolling through your phone while your child tries desperately to get your attention? Or noticed an entire room of family members, all physically present but mentally elsewhere, faces illuminated by screens? You're not alone.
In this eye-opening conversation with Joey Odom, co-founder of ARO, we delve into the hidden crisis affecting modern families—the way our devices are systematically eroding our most precious connections.
We discuss:
• Missing life's important moments because of smartphone distraction
• Smartphones as adult "comfort objects" that actually isolate us rather than provide security
• The PID cycle: how proximity to our phones leads to interaction, then unhealthy dependence
• How establishing phone-free sacred times and places transforms family dynamics
• Four practical strategies to change your relationship with your phone
To learn more about ARO and their solution for families, visit goaro.com.
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Hey parents, welcome back to our show. I don't know about you, but I've had this issue where my kids are trying to get my attention and my face is in my phone and I'm like, just a minute, I've just got to finish up this one thing and then all of a sudden one minute turns into 15 minutes, turns into 30 minutes, and then they've disappeared. And when I realize I've totally forgotten about them, the guilt and shame just riddles me. And I also have this issue at night at home with my family. Right, I come home from work and I come in the door and we get dinner and we have dinner together as a family, and then we're getting bedtime, stuff going and I'm ready to connect with my husband and all of a sudden he might be on his phone in bed. Right, he's either checking the news or the weather for tomorrow or scrolling social media, and then I'm like, oh, I shouldn't interrupt him. I know he needs a little downtime, but the connection gets lost, and I know that happens for him with me as well.
Speaker 1:So recently I was at a holiday gathering with lots of family members and we hadn't seen each other in a long time, and I just looked around the room and all of a sudden I noticed that every single one of us had our faces down in our phones.
Speaker 1:We were not even connecting with each other in the same room, but all on our own devices. And so I just thought, man, there has got to be a better way where we're not offending each other but we're able to connect without guilt or shame. And so I started kind of looking around and I ran across this organization called ARO A-R-O rhymes with tomorrow. So I found this great ad on social media Yep, one of those times I was scrolling and I really got this sense of like and that there's this lifestyle that is available and is possible for us as families, where we can set healthy boundaries around these devices and really intentionally connect with each other. So I just reached out to one of the co-founders, joey Odom, and said hey, man, would you join us on our podcast and just tell us firsthand what is behind your community and this lifestyle that is available to all of us as parents and grandparents and kiddos that are using devices in these days? And he said absolutely. So welcome to the show, joey Odom.
Speaker 2:Jordan, it's so good to see you, Really, really excited to talk today.
Speaker 1:This is going to be awesome, guys. Joey's a real natural storyteller, so you're in for a treat. He's a dynamic leader who's known for his ability to inspire and foster deep connections with others, and his own experience with technology as a husband and dad is what led him to help create RO. Alongside his co-founder, heath Wilson, and Joey, you also host the RO podcast, which is kind of a weekly conversation with leaders and influencers who also strive to live really intentionally right.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So, joey, you're married to your wife of almost 20 years and have two children Harrison, age 16, and Gianna 14. Is that right?
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, I'm weeks away from my 20-year anniversary and I've not bought a gift yet, so I think there's a real problem there, but I got to solve that. But yeah, coming up on 20 years here, Congrats.
Speaker 1:That is awesome. My husband and I are celebrating 20 years in September.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:We can give you all the sage wisdom of being married three more months than you.
Speaker 1:So we can yeah, we'll to change and we've got to do something that serves even the larger community.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny. I bet you everybody listening to this podcast, this episode today, I bet you everybody says like, all right, I want to be a family character. And they've had these moments where it's just been like, okay, there's something that needs to change. And mine goes back about 11 years. So you mentioned my son, harrison, who is also weeks away. He's turning 16 in a couple of weeks. He just passed his driver's test this past Saturday, so he'll get that license on May 29th.
Speaker 2:But we were there for Harrison's first soccer season when he was five years old. So Harrison is a great kid. He's actually a great tennis player now competitive tennis player and when he was five years old he was playing his first soccer season and did not. I want to say this nicely, he had not yet learned the ropes of soccer, so he had not yet mastered soccer. And so we did. And anybody who's a, who was a parent of a kid who plays sports, they can relate to this.
Speaker 2:You drag the lawn chairs out, you go, plop them on the side of the which. Do they still call them lawn chairs? By the way, I don't know, I may be showing my age here. Oh, they do, they do, we do. Okay, good, there you go. So bring out the launchers, sit on the sidelines and just basically wait out an hour until the game's over.
Speaker 2:And youth soccer it's not always the most exciting thing, but this particular day something really extraordinary happened. So it was about midway through the game and Harrison everybody on the team had scored a goal this season, except for Harrison. So at this moment, middle of the game, harrison rears back his leg and Jordan it's almost like you picture this scene like a movie, like slow motion cue, the dramatic music. He kicks the ball and rolls over the grass into the back of the net for Harrison's very first goal. And everybody on the sidelines, all the parents. They knew that Harrison had not scored a goal yet this season. This was his first goal. So everybody goes nuts right, the coach runs out, lifts him up, and there was this little split second moment, kind of right, between the coach going and picking him up and from when he scored the goal, when Harrison did something that five-year-old boys do, is Harrison turned to the sidelines to lock eyes with me, to share this moment, right For him to see the pride and the smile on my face and this really, truly magical moment, except when Harrison looked over to the sidelines, all he saw was the top of my head because I was looking down at my phone and so I missed this first soccer goal. And Harrison Harrison swears Jordan, he swears that he does not remember this. I don't think I have a therapy bill ahead of me for that. So he swears he doesn't remember this moment, but I remember it.
Speaker 2:And so the people will naturally ask they'll say, like okay, so you missed this important moment, like surely it was something that you were looking at that was really, really important. You're doing something really important on your phone. And the answer is yes, I was negotiating a domestic terrorist hostage situation, right? No, I wasn't doing anything important, right? Like here I am scrolling social media or looking at ESPN or responding to a group text, like I have no idea what I was doing, but I do know that I can't get that moment back.
Speaker 2:And and it was one of these and maybe the comforting thing I don't know if this comforting or not, but one of the comforting things is we hear parents all the time, like I alluded to, say I've missed those moments, and in fact there are probably a lot of moments that we don't even realize that we've missed, maybe when our kids have looked over to us, when we just haven't seen it. So we don't recognize all these moments. But I realized in that moment that something was wrong and, in fact, when I think about it, I think like what was wrong is that I have a relationship with this device that was getting in the way of what I would claim is one of my most important relationships in my life, and I'd like to say I'd love to say that everything changed at that moment, but it didn't. I still stumbled and I still stubbed my toe. But that's the moment I look back to, when I said something has to change when it comes to my relationship with my device.
Speaker 1:Yes, I can relate to that a hundred percent. I think all of us listening can that man, you're just. You can't get those moments back. I did an episode recently where I was talking about, you know, kids and their little programs that they put on at school or their singing concerts, and how we all have our phones capturing the moment.
Speaker 1:And it just came back to me when you were talking about Harrison looking for you, looking for dad that pride on your face so he could make that visual connection with you, and he didn't see it. Well, how many times do we have our phone in front of our face when? We're trying to videotape the moment and our kids see the back of our phones and not our face, our phones and not our face, I mean just the psychology behind that.
Speaker 1:Being a counselor for 20 years really has me freaked out that our kids are not connecting with our eyes, you know. They're not looking to us as human beings for the support and the you know affirmation that they need, that they're being blocked by these devices. And so it's happening to all of us.
Speaker 2:You're so right, I mean, and you think about from the perspective of a child. You think about, you think about even, I mean think from a newborn's perspective, and obviously they're not like thinking in words at that moment, they're just kind of observing and digesting what's happening with them and then their brains are adapting to it. But you think of it. Then there've been study after study that's come out of the importance of eye contact for for infants, right, and so they have this natural need for connection, right. It's so neat, that's the most innate thing. I mean. You even think about like you think back back in the old Testament, like the story of Abraham and um and his and his concubine, where she runs off, right, and then God finds her and seeks her out and while she's at the well, and she says you're the God who sees me. And so you think back as just that term which I love, that like just this need that we have to be seen is so deep in us. And so you know back to like the oldest of the you know of text in the Bible, that we see that. And so this, this concept of being seen, you think about a child, their need to be seen and their need to connect. And then we insert this unnatural device right in between that, right in front of their need for their natural need for connection, and we're beginning to see and this is really interesting as we're doing our work and our studying, and as we've this company, as we've launched our over the last few years, we've heard these stories of very young kids, you know, 15 months old, two years old, taking their parents' phone and throwing it across the room, or taking their parents' phone and moving it down, or grabbing your parents' face and having them look at you and so, in a way, like kids have felt this, the from a very young age, what happens when you put an unnatural device in front of a natural need for connection? And they're actually, not only is it just like crushing them inside, but they're actually mad about it. They're, they're very angry about it and and I think with with good reason, yes, so we, we, we have this thing and again, when you, when you take a step back and think about it, jordan, it's in a way, and I think I'm very encouraged. Actually, jonathan Haidt has just released a book called the Anxious Generation that everybody's talking about. That really puts into words this tension we're feeling and I love that he's and we're going to look back, I believe, at this period of time now up till, you know, 15 years ago, and say I can't believe we used to do that. I really do think we're going to look at that and be like this is so funny. I mean, in the same way we look back on cigarette commercials and cigarette ads. You have these doctors with stethoscopes smoking a cigarette and these old cigarette ads and they're so laughable. Now we are going to do that now.
Speaker 2:And the people who are the people who are arguing this. I read an article this morning in the Wall Street Journal about people coming out against Jonathan Haidt's book and saying wait a second, there's no connection between teenage anxiety and social media. And you just look at me like you are on such the wrong side of history here. Like what are you talking about? Like, obviously this is something that is absolutely catastrophic to our kids' upbringing, to their natural need for connection.
Speaker 2:And the cool thing about it, about all of it, as dire as it may seem and as everybody talks about it, it's usually with a lot of doom and gloom and despair. I could not disagree more. This is such a hopeful opportunity all of us have. This is such an amazing opportunity for families because we can get it right. The answer is so accessible, the answer is right in front of us and it's not going to be fun. It may not be as interesting as watching cat videos on your phone. It may not be as interesting as watching dance videos on TikTok, but this is the greatest opportunity we have for connection right now, in 2024.
Speaker 1:I love what you're talking about and there absolutely is a connection between social media and anxiety. The other thing I was thinking about the other day I thought, man, when I was back in high school, what was the social media platform back then? It was MySpace, myspace, there you go, facebook, so now it's Instagram and then Instagram's not great, so it's you know this and that TikTok and X and like. We just keep jumping to another platform because we burn ourselves out. We get bored. It doesn't give us enough.
Speaker 1:And so we just keep chasing and people are happy to create a new platform that's shining and will grab our attention. But I feel I don't know about you, but I feel burnt out on it. I'm ready to throw my phone out the window three days a week when I'm crossing Arapahoe Road to go to my house and I'm thinking I just checked my email at the stoplight.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know I'm sick of this thing.
Speaker 1:I have a love-hate relationship with this phone. I love how instant we can get things, but then I hate it because it distracts me from my relationships and you know it gets us in this place of vice versus, you know, a place of self-discipline and self-control.
Speaker 2:Well, it's so true, and I think I think when one interesting thing is we think about this a lot and we you and I have used the term relationship a bunch already, and I think that's for good reason, because it is our relationships that are suffering most from it, our most important relationship, and it all begins with this relationship we have their phones, which whenever I say our relationship with our phones, no one says oh my gosh, what do you mean? A relationship with their phone? That's not a weird thing to say, but we have to take a step back for a moment and realize that's very weird. We're talking about a rectangle that we have a relationship with. We're talking about an object and we're all just universally agreeing that we have a relationship with it and we absolutely do have a relationship with it. But that is unbelievably uncommon in adulthood to have a relationship with an object.
Speaker 2:However, in childhood, that's not odd to have a relationship with an object, and children have relationships with objects that are called transitional objects, another term. You're probably familiar with this. They're also referred to as comfort objects and those are things like pacifiers and blankies and teddy bears. So the purpose that serves is, when a child is young, when they're around their parents, they have no need for this transitional object or comfort object. We'll call it a comfort object. They have no need for a comfort object. But when their parents leave the room, they cling to this thing. They cling to this object, this comfort object, and it gives them a false sense of security, a false sense of comfort. It gives them a sense of comfort, but it's not actually doing anything other than giving them that feeling, and they do that in the absence of their real security, in the absence of their real comfort, which is their parents. Right, yes, and these are helpful tools for children. I mean, these are really good things for them, because what they do is, after a while, they realize oh, I can do this without the blanket. This is transitioning me into independence. I can do this on my own, I don't need the pacifier, I don't need the teddy bear. So they serve a very good, very helpful purpose.
Speaker 2:But when you look at those in the context of adulthood, we have these new comfort objects, these new transitional objects that are called smartphones, and we cling to them all the time. But instead of transitioning us into independence, they're kind of devolving us back into isolation. And the weird thing here is. I don't think I want to think exactly how to say this. Right is is A child clings to a comfort object to give them a false sense of security in the absence of real security, in the absence of their parents.
Speaker 2:We're clinging to these comfort objects in the presence of real security, in the presence of real relationships. We're doing this as we sit across the table from our spouses. We're doing this as we sit across the table from great friends. We're doing this as we sit across the table from our kids. We're clinging to these things, friends. We're doing this when we sit across the table from our kids. We're clinging to these things and so it's putting us back in this state of adolescence. That is very, very unhealthy and that begins with the relationship. Right, so there's. I'll take a pause there. I want to continue on with that, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. I know you're familiar with kind of transitional and comfort objects, but how does that, how does that resonate with you?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, those transitional objects are there for the development, the natural development of a child. I mean that's part of you know, that kind of transitional object or object relations theory, part of their development, and so it's a good thing. But it's to transition them away from it, right. And like you said, as adults we have these connections in the room with us and we are interrupting those connections because of this device. Yeah, yeah, it's the opposite.
Speaker 2:And what's what's so interesting about it? It's, it's so again, I'll take a. I'll probably caveat this about five times. You've heard my story of missing my son's first soccer goal. That's not the only moment I missed.
Speaker 2:Everything that we're saying here is from a place, never from a place of self-righteousness. This is all because we, we needed. I mean, I quit a career to start a company along with my business partner because I was so bad at this. Right, so let's not all of you have to quit a career just to get this right. Right, so let's not all of you have to quit a career just to get this right. Hopefully we've, we've got the company that'll help you here, but but we've done this.
Speaker 2:So as we talk about this this is cause, I do understand it, but as we talk about this, like in very objective terms, as we're discussing it Jordan, it's it it's almost laughable. Like what are we talking about? Like people, people work, so they, they spend most of their their adolescence hoping and praying for a great partner, someone they'll marry someday. That's going to be great. And then the next thing you do is like, okay, well, we don't have kids someday, and having kids can be a very toilsome, long, drawn-out process, and then we finally have kids, and now we're just sitting here scrolling this away, these things that we've wanted all of our lives. It seems so silly, and I understand that, but these things are so compelling and it's almost as if we need to get a picture, though I say compelling, it's like wanting to have chocolate ice cream for dinner instead of having a chicken breast and broccoli. We know the good effects of the other stuff, but chocolate ice cream just tastes delicious, right, and so it's a little bit challenging. But, and so we, we got to ask ourselves like, okay, how have we gotten into this relationship with our phones? And this is something that we, we, I call. We call this the PID cycle, p-i-d, the PID cycle. This is how we've gotten into it.
Speaker 2:So it begins with our phones. It begins with a P, which is proximity, so our phones. It begins with a P, which is proximity, so our phones. We are with our phones all the time. So, statistically, 91% of us have our phones with us 24 hours a day. 91% of us don't have to move our feet to get to our phones, so we're always around them.
Speaker 2:So this proximity that we have with our phones leads us to I, which is interaction, leads us to interact with our phones virtually all the time, and conventional advice says basically, hey, we'll just silence your notifications and then you won't use your phone as much. Interestingly, that can actually be a counter. That can have a counter effect to it. You can actually end up using your phones even more when your notifications are silenced, which is weird. But the reason why is, at least when you're notified of something, then you know when to check it. Otherwise you're just thinking, oh, what's happening in there? What's happening in there, what's happening in there. So it leads you to pick up more, and there's a study after study that's showing this.
Speaker 2:So when and interestingly when we think about our phones, we think, okay, well, it is the notifications that are interrupting us, well. But again, the stats tell us that 89% of our smartphone usage is self-initiated. We are the ones that are picking up our phones to see what's on there. Only about 11% of our distractions from our phones are inbound. Only 11% of our usage is inbound. So when we're around our phones, there's the P proximity. It leads us to interaction, which is the I, which leads us into a level of dependence on our phones.
Speaker 2:Now, this is where it gets a little bit tricky, because our phones are actually really helpful. Our phones actually do really great things for us, right? I mean, I'm learning French on my phone and I can order a Jimmy John's sub and I can use ways to get me wherever I'd like to go. So they do some useful things for us. However, because we interact with them so much, we're also lulled into a sense of false dependency on them.
Speaker 2:So this false dependence, so an example of that, probably the best example we all know that we shouldn't look at our phones before bed. We all know we shouldn't look at our phones in the middle of the night. We know it disrupts our sleep. We know the blue light kind of disrupts our REM cycle and all that stuff. It's bad for us. Yet most of us sleep with our phones in our room. And again, I understand hey, what if someone calls in the middle of the night? I do understand all that, but most of us have our phones with us in there and the reason why is well, I use it as my alarm clock. That's why that's not a real dependence, that is a false dependence. You, that's why that's not a real dependence, that is a false dependence. You can go and you can get a $15 alarm clock that will wake you up in the same way that your phone will wake you up.
Speaker 2:So another one would be and this is maybe this is another one where it's a little bit of a gray area is our cameras. Well, I don't want to miss a moment. I don't want to miss a moment If you really, you really can get around that when you're dependent on your phone, or you feel like you're dependent on your phone, then you don't want to give it up. So what does that do? That leads you back to proximity. Well, I got to be around it, I got to be around it, and then, when you're around it, you're going to use it more, you're going to interact with more, then you're going to feel more dependent on it. So that cycle continues on.
Speaker 2:So an extraordinarily long way of saying the relationship we have with our phone all begins with this proximity piece, that they are with us all the time and that is the defining characteristic of our phones. That leads us into all this interaction, that leads us into all this dependence. And, by the way, there are a lot of good people out there, a lot of good organizations that are solving some of the woes of our phone things like social media, online bullying, all that stuff. We should absolutely address that. That's very important. We really applaud those people that are doing that. What we at RO are focused on is helping people go to this core relationship with we have with our phone and changing that core relationship, because when you change your relationship with your phone, you change your relationship with everyone around you, including your relationship with yourself.
Speaker 1:I love this. I am taking notes over here. Change the core relationship with your phone. That's where it starts. That's like getting at the root of it, not just setting the do not disturb or not, just putting the Freedom app on your phone and keeping your phone with you all the time, which again I love what they're doing at Freedom Help people set some healthy limits, but this proximity thing, Joey oh my gosh, as you were talking about that, I'm like there have been times when I have refused to buy a great pair of pants that I love and look good, because they don't have a pocket for my phone.
Speaker 1:I mean, right, you're afraid to go to the gym with a yoga pants that don't have the phone pocket because you might miss something or you might have to carry it and put it in the locker and then you'd be away from it.
Speaker 1:I mean and and we all do this right Again I have these issues. You've had these issues in the past. We have developed this real dependency on it. I mean, I'll notice myself walking around the house and I've got this phone just in my hand. I just have it in my hand and I'm cooking dinner and I've got it in one hand. It's not nothing's even going on on it. There's no music there's no, no show it's just like this attachment that that I've developed. You know this dependency.
Speaker 2:Which Jordan it's, and it's not like. I think I ought to say this If it, if it were just us having our, if it were just having our phone with us all the time, it wouldn't matter. And I'm trying to think of a good example. Maybe this may be a terrible example. It's not like we say, because we wear shirts all the time, that that's a problem, that we have shirts with us 24 hours a day, like that's a problem. No, our shirts aren't getting in the way of anything other than us just being embarrassed in public. Right, like our shirt, our shirts serve a purpose for us. So the the fact that we have our phones with us, the fact that we have this relationship with our phones, that's not the problem. The problem is the devastating effects it's having on everybody around us, right, and so you think, you think about this concept and we, we strongly believe that that the crisis, the real crisis here, is not a phone crisis.
Speaker 2:The crisis we have is an intimacy crisis in all of our relationships we are, our intimacy in every one of our relationships is being deteriorated by this and it's dying. I mean, you've heard the term death by a thousand cuts. Our relationship, our intimacy is dying. It's a death by a thousand glances when my daughter, my 14-year-old daughter, is trying to open up to me. And, by the way, for anybody who has been a teenage girl or knows a teenage girl or is a teenage girl, it's hard to be a teenage girl, right, there's a lot of pressure on there, especially in an age of social media and body comparison and all that kind of stuff, like it's very, very hard. And so if my daughter Gianna, if she, if she's happened to open up to me one day and says hey dad, can I talk to you about what happened at school today? And I could sit there, jordan, I could sit there for 59 minutes and 45 seconds of full focus, and all it takes is one glance down while she's in the middle of opening up, and that kills the moment. But it doesn't just kill that moment, it kills her willingness to be open with me again. It kills her because she'll remember. Her little neuroplastic brain will remember the last time I was vulnerable dad, I got shut down because he wasn't focused on me. So you can get so much right and just a moment of lack of presence can ruin all of it. And in the same way, you can actually get so much wrong as a parent, and then full presence makes up for all of it. So it's these.
Speaker 2:And let's think about going on a date night with your spouse. You get all dressed up, you go out to a date and then what do you do? You sit on your phones the whole time. Like what does that do for you? Like what does that do for intimacy? What does that do for? And again, I'll point out to the fellas here, like to the guys, like your wife is craving connection with you. Even if she's on her phone a bunch, she is craving connection with you and she's just waiting for your initiation. She's waiting for you to sit down at dinner and say, hey, I'm so excited to have dinner. I got an idea let's switch phones during dinner. Or, hey, will you hold this phone? Will you just? Or you just say hey, will you hold my phone for me at dinner, I want to be here with you. Like just that little thing. She's great.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, at Auro. We get very few returns. So our, our, our product, we have very few returns, but the few that we do, almost universally, there's one answer and it's a it's a wife. So, by the way, our orders are about 65 to 70%. Moms order from ours. They're leading the charge on digital wellness. But of the very few returns we get, the answer is almost universal.
Speaker 2:It says I couldn't get my husband on board with it, which makes me want to go shake the husbands Cause it's like, bro, like your wife has brought something in your home for connection and you're saying no to that. You're saying no to intimacy, like not only is that bad for you, like it's just it's basically subverting all the other things you want in your life because you're not willing to do something that allows connection in your home or sets a good framework for your kids growing up. That's a little bit of an aside, but that's a little bit of a soapbox. However we have, we do know that this intimacy in relationships all across the board is totally damaged by these thousand glances, these death, by a thousand glances in our, on our phones and again, you use this word earlier like self-discipline, having the self-discipline, I believe that any sustainable, effective solution has to rely less on self-discipline and willpower and more on environment.
Speaker 2:So James, james clear and atomic habits says it says basically that he said environment is always stronger than willpower. If you're, if you're just thinking, you're just going to gut it out and you're going to, you're going to, you know, make all the right decisions every single time it's going to give out. But environment he gives an example of. If you want to be a runner, put your running shoes by the door that you walk out every day.
Speaker 2:That's a little bit of an environmental change. That's a small environmental change. So what are these ways? And again, our business is all designed around is all designed around kind of changing that environment so that you can, so you don't have to rely on willpower, so you can kind of gamify the experience being away from your phone. And so if you can begin to do that in curating your environment towards your goals, as opposed to relying on self-discipline, that's where you're really. We'll see sustainable change.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love what you're saying here and at the beginning, when you're trying to change a habit. I love James Clear. That is such a great book Habit Stacking it's so good, but when you're trying to change an ingrained habit of this dependency on this device, it's helpful to have a tool that helps at the beginning until this becomes this natural habit.
Speaker 1:So, I can't wait for you to tell us about this, because I have so many ideas about that little thing on the shelf right behind you. I just have so many thoughts about it that I want to flesh out with you here on the show so you're talking about, like change your home environment? Change what it looks like, instead of you know, having your phones out hanging by a cord from the outlet on the countertop. Well, I mean tell us about this, this, this tool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate that. And one caveat for the listener this is not a product pitch. This is not. I believe that the term RO is a term that means to notice, to turn towards. I believe that everybody listening today can live a lifestyle of RO, can live a lifestyle of notice, noticing the people around them, the beautiful world around them, the beautiful lines in a novel, whatever. That is a feeling you're feeling inside. I think we can all live a lifestyle of RO. So I want to make sure, as we're talking about this, this does not come across as a product pitch, because it's not.
Speaker 2:However, we built this because I needed help, my business partner Heath. We needed help, we needed some help getting this thing out of our pockets, which sounds so basic and it sounds so easy, but we just said it's not really working for me. And in a way, you can compare it to exercise and we all know that you can burn calories for free and you can build muscle for free. You can run around the neighborhood and you can do pushups and sit-ups and pull-ups all for free. Yet most of us join a gym because we need some help removing the friction of doing something difficult. That is valuable, exercise is valuable, but it's difficult. We need a community around us, we need somebody telling us what kind of workouts we need to do, we need a place we go to, we need the equipment, all that kind of stuff. So Auro is a platform designed for families and in fact, we're the only digital wellness platform and solution designed for families. Everything else is kind of just for the parents, just for the kids. This is for everyone, that everybody can participate in. They can be a real team around doing this. So Auro, the platform, it's a combination of a thing you said over my shoulder, this this beautiful home decor piece that holds and charges your phones, and when you put it in your phone in the RO box, it automatically connects to the RO app.
Speaker 2:And what that does? It begins to quantify the amount of time that you're physically distant from your phone, the amount of time that's in the RO box, and so what you can do with that. Let's say, you go finish an RO session. When you take your phone out of the box it'll say, hey, you just spent 47 minutes away from your phone and you do a quick tap of what you were doing. So in doing that, what makes it fun? You're tagging those sessions and then you get to see how that builds up over time. So you're gamifying the experience of being away from your phone. By the way, there are also leaderboards for your family. You can connect your kind of daily ring, almost like a fitness ring, how much time you're away from your phone. You can see how many days of streaks you have physically distant from your phone. So you can do all of that. So that whole that app experience, which is fantastic, and we just released a new version of the app that will really gamify the experience of being away from your phone.
Speaker 2:Now this is all built around the habit loop we mentioned, james Clear, which begins with a cue. You have the visual cue of the box, the RO box, and the reason that's powerful, that there's a couple of reasons for that. One of them, it is a physical, tactile thing. Second thing, is it really not only is it a place to hold your phone, but it's also just a visual reminder of who you aspire to be? You see this in a prominent place and you say you know, for my family, the Odom family, hey, the Odom family, we're present. Hey, we are with each other. We care about what everybody around us feels, and so that's why we put our phones down. So you have the cue. It leads to, the routine of putting on your phone and then you have the reward. The reward is, you know the gamification, the badges, all that kind of stuff that social media companies use to keep you on your phone. We use to keep you off your phone. But the real reward is what happens when you're away from your phone, the life that happens on the other side a great family dinner conversation or playing outside on the trampoline, or having maybe a difficult conversation with one of your kids or your spouse. So we've designed this entire system to go to that core relationship and make it easy to get this phone out of your pocket and into the Auro box. And for my kids again, my kids are 16 and 14. We've been using Auro since before they got phones, so it's made it really easy when they got phones because this is just normal to them. Now your phone doesn't live in the room, it never sleeps in the room with them at night, which is very easy to initiate good behavior versus changing bad behavior. You can change bad behavior, but it's a lot easier to initiate good behavior. It's been easy for them, it's been normal for them. They've seen me do it, they see my wife do it. That's kind of become a normal family rhythm. That's just kind of become like part of the culture of how we live in our lives at home. So it is.
Speaker 2:I'll give one little anecdote that goes along with it. So I was reading in my journal the other day I do a five-year journal, we, my journal. The other day, I do a five-year journal. Um, we, you have the. You know, every year you have an entry. So May 8th 2020, my daughter, gianna, who was 10 at the time, we watched a Harry Potter movie and she said to me at the end of the movie she goes, dad, she goes. Did you know? This is the first time that we've watched a movie and you haven't had your phone. So this is May 8th 2020, which Jordan was a little bit of a gut punch, like he was. Like, have I been this bad of a dad for 10 years?
Speaker 1:Right, you know what I mean, and so it was a gut punch.
Speaker 2:But there was another element, an element of it where I ran this. We had just been beta testing RO, so this is brand new. But there's another part of me that said, okay, like I've done something good, I'm kind of proud of myself. So I read that to Gianna the other day and she laughed. She's 14 now. She laughed. She goes dad, that would be so weird if you had your phone during a movie now. So in four years, what's normal for her has drastically changed. I mean, her normal is completely different. So that's an encouragement from the chief of centers, the guy who used to do it. Worse, If I can do it for everybody out there who maybe feel a little, feels a little hopeless, or maybe I'm not doing it right, or gosh, I'm having a really hard time here, I just promise you from personal experience things absolutely can change your world and your normal for you and your kids can look entirely different.
Speaker 1:I love it. It's the simple things, the small things daily that add up over time. Thank you for sharing that example, because all of us have had that experience of. Oh, you know, kids' movies aren't my thing. I'm going to check every once in a while. They see that they notice, you know.
Speaker 2:They're little noticing machines.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you, and again all they're doing is noticing and adapting, noticing and adapting, noticing and adapting that's all they're doing is from a very young age. So what normal are we providing for them? In fact, we thought that RO. We thought that RO would be for families who look kind of like ours for my business partner, his family or my family with kids, with teenagers, who have phones, and it's been entirely different. It's for families, the people who have adopted the most. It's for all families, but it's really for families with kids don't have phones and you would think that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to change my kids' behavior. Hold on, if you can just establish a normal culture for them to see that your phones are away, in fact, our power users of Aura will hand their kids their phones and have their kids put their phones in Aura for them. So it's kind of initiating good muscle memory for them. So we have found those young kids are the ones who love our own most because they are now getting the full attention of mom and dad. And it really is a beautiful thing when you can change that normal in your home. And this is for people who've said I've tried everything, I felt hopeless. This really has made all the difference. That really is who this is for People who've tried other things, who have great intentions but maybe need a little bit of help following through back of the exercise joining a gym, example.
Speaker 1:Yes, that makes so much sense. And we have an 18 year old who's had a smartphone since he was 13. And we have a 12 year old and a nine year old and they keep asking when are we going to get a phone? And I thought, well, I don't have much to say on this, this episode about my little ones having any devices. They don't have iPads, they don't have their own computers, nothing. We have a computer in our kitchen so that everybody can see what's going on. We have one TV that we all have access to on the main floor. But I love what you're saying about using RO as parents and my 18-year-old son, who docks his phone in our room every single night in our bedroom. But to use that and start conditioning the little ones to know that this is just what you do, like it has a home and it has a curfew.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, you know that's what I was thinking when I was thinking of this beautiful designer box that you've made this charging station. It's like this is its home, it has a place where it lives and it needs to be in the home by a certain time. It's like this is its home, it has a place where it lives and it needs to be in the home by a certain time. It's got a curfew.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think if our phones could talk, they would say hey, will you give me a break, please, can you? Let me be by myself? I need a little bit of me time. Like if the arm we say it all the time Like if the RO box could talk, it would basically say to you, jordan, what's your husband's name, josh, josh. You say, hey, josh and Jordan, it looks like you. It looks like you're about to have a glass of wine on the back porch. Let me hold your phone so you can have a great time together. Hey, it looks like it's Langdon family dinner time. Hey, let me hold your phones real quick so you could. It really is.
Speaker 2:It really is one of those things that is so basic. You said it. It's so simple, yet it is so difficult, and that is not unlike any other thing in our life that's valuable. What do I need to do? What do I need to do as a good husband? I need to speak my wife's love language. I need to be a good listener. I need to initiate a date once a week. I need to you know whatever. Like, it's all very basic stuff. I know the answers, yet it's not that easy, right? These are all easy solutions. None of these solutions, and so we need some help. Like I said earlier, we need some help removing that friction so that we can do that difficult thing.
Speaker 1:Removing that friction. You're so right. You just have to get that out of the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Put it in a place where it belongs a central location where everybody puts their device, so that you can re-engage and connect without the temptation of it being on your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, by the way, it's still not easy to be a great dad, great mom, great spouse when your phone is up, but it's still not easy to be a great dad, great mom, great spouse when your phone is up but it's virtually impossible when it's with you. We're, we're fighting. We're fighting just an extraordinarily difficult battle just by having that around us and we still once it's down. There's still some hard work to do of connection, of being present.
Speaker 1:There is. It's tough but I think, like you said, you need that visual cue. You need to know that there's a spot where this belongs. The other thing I'm thinking is in mom circles we kind of talk about well, what are you going to do when your teenagers come over and teen friends come over and you don't want them being on their phones, you don't want them taking their phones to the basement? You're not sure what they're doing on them. So like it'd be kind of cool to be like guys, we need to log some minutes here, let's deposit these phones in here and have some real connection, and like we can engage the app and grow this, like gamify it, like you said.
Speaker 2:Well, it mentioned Jonathan Haidt before. In the Anxious Generation. Jonathan Haidt talks about a collective action problem, and a collective action problem means that everybody's experiencing the problem and the only way out of it is for everybody to buy into the solution. Because in a collective action problem like this, let's say that all the boys came over to the house and they're all hanging out in the basement. If only one kid puts his phone away, that does nothing for the situation. In fact it could cause personal damage to that kid of being excluded or left out. So it causes damage if just one person does it, but if everybody does it, then everybody gets the benefit from it.
Speaker 2:And in my experience and you may have experienced this as well, when kids have come over to my house to hang out with my kids, when we say, hey, we're going to put our phones here right now they have the best time and I don't care how hooked your kid is on their phone. They still crave connection, they still want connection and they just need some help. And I think as parents we have a cool opportunity to do that, not only for them. We have an opportunity to do that within our own social circles, that we can lead the way. We can model the way, and we talk about we talk about the four ways to change your relationship with your phone, and that's one of the primary ones is to lead the way.
Speaker 2:And so we think that, um, we think that, especially kids, I don't think we're giving them enough credit. I we think like, oh, they need their phones. Oh, they want their phones. Oh, he can't live without his phone, she can't live without her phone. Totally disagree. I actually think they are craving a life without phones and we need to be good enough parents to give them that opportunity. Not all the time. I'm not saying to abstain from phones forever, by no means am I. I'm just saying, hey, when it's friend time or when it's dinner time or whatever it is, let's, let's do ourselves all a favor and let's just remove that from the situation so that we can be fully immersed in it.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you guys have hit the nail on the head by by having the app that goes with it, logging the time right, the time that you're connected, not that stupid notification that comes up on your phone that tells you you've decreased your screen time from 8.7 hours a day to 7.6, you know and you're like, oh, this is so negative, but you're logging time spent together. I went to this retreat one time and they sent us home with a really tall candle and they said this candle will burn like 50 hours. Once you've burned this whole candle, that will have been 50 hours.
Speaker 1:So every time you hang out with your family, light the candle you're doing something all together, light the candle when you're finished, blow it out, and then you can tell how long it takes you to spend 50 hours together as a family of intentional time. And that's essentially, without the fire and the wax, what this device does, right, is it? Absolutely your phones and it logs the minutes that you're spending connected.
Speaker 2:And it's, it's so fun to see Like. So if I go in my ROF right now, I would see a rollup of the last 30 days. How have I spent my time? I tag all that time. So 36 hours and these are your actual numbers in the last 30 days 36 hours of family time, 22 hours of working, six hours of Bible reading, um, five hours with my wife, five hours with my son, so on individual time.
Speaker 2:And so to look and see that roll up of how you're using your time. Because I think sometimes when you, the way we act is predicated on you would know. A lot more about this is predicated on how we view ourselves. Lot more about this is predicated on how we view ourselves. So if I view myself as a crappy dad, I'm probably going to do the things that a crappy dad does, right, I'm probably not going to make too much effort. But if I view myself as a present father, if I said primarily, if I said I am fully in when I'm around my kids, then I'll start doing those things. Whether it's true or not, when I say it, I'll start doing the things that a present father does. And so by looking at that roll up and saying like here's how I'm living my life. Gosh, I'm doing a pretty good job. That's going to only motivate me to do it better again, to do it well again today, to continue on that positive pattern of behavior.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you're. You're so right, you know, if you claim to be that intentional.
Speaker 2:So, right.
Speaker 1:You know, if you claim to be that intentional, then your behaviors. I think having a device or having something this beautiful home decor product or box or charging station is part of that it's like part of the behavior of sticking it in there and closing the door and just being free right Free to connect and to be that intentional parent that you want to be. I did have a question about the five-year journal. Is this part of the app or are you saying you're keeping your own kind of daily journal about things?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I keep my own daily journal. The brand I use, I believe it's called Levenger L-E-V-E-N-G-E-R. Okay, and it's just a. It's a basic, you know, 366 day journal and it has five lines for each year so you can fill in the years I'm on. I'm on my fifth year now and so it's so much fun to be able to look back. This is part of my morning routine. I do every day, just to look back on okay, what was you know? What was I doing on this day in 2019? So now I'm reading through. It was around this time when the pandemic hit and we all went into quarantine a few years ago, so I'm reading about what life was like at that time. So it's so much fun as a look back to see the things you're doing. But that is a manual kind of handwritten journal.
Speaker 1:Well, I love that and I imagine that if, if we spent less time on our phones, we could spend more time like handwriting some of our experiences, which is so helpful for logging these things in long-term memory and also being able to access those experiences just looking back through a handwritten journal.
Speaker 1:So I think that's awesome. I also imagine that with your app, you can also look back at if you're you're tapping it when you pick it up out of the box and you're tapping on what what activity you just did. That was not connected to your phone. You could have a little bit of a log there also to just show yourself like how am I spending my time differently? This is really awesome and I want more of that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, you're identifying, you're almost you're naming, you're giving a name to what you did, which provides, which gives it significance, and you're totally right to be able to look back, whether an aggregate or on an isolated event, and say, oh yeah, we did do that. That's it does. It does make you, in a way, it almost makes things slow down a little bit. You're kind of you're kind of put in a posture of notice again, or meaning to notice, kind of putting in a posture of notice and reflection and time slowing down because you're not caught up in, kind of the monotony and the routine of everyday life.
Speaker 1:You know, it also makes me think if, if you start getting yourself in this behavior of spending time away from your phone and with your family in the evenings, I know for myself personally what I've experienced when I've done this. I used to sleep with my phone by my bed on the nightstand. And then I just got so sick of it, I put it in my closet, which is actually two rooms away.
Speaker 1:You have to go through the bathroom to get to the closet. I put it on a special shelf and like that helped a ton.
Speaker 2:Right, but just like having having a little bit of of space and distance, just did without, maybe with or without knowing it is backed by science. So science tells us, studies tell us, the only way to reduce your smartphone usage is for it to be away from you, physically distant from you and out of your visual field of sight. That's the only way, which in some ways is like yeah, duh, like, of course, if I don't have my phone with me then I can't use it. But again, this, this is what goes back to the whole PID cycle proximity, interaction, dependence. It begins with the fact that it's with us all the time and that just kind of devolves into interacting with more, being more dependent on it than it's more around you.
Speaker 2:So it just continues to go back, but it begins exactly what you just said Just remove it from the situation. You're no longer conscious of it, even if it's in your presence and you're not using it. This is interesting. Studies tell us this, from Dr Maxie Heitmeyer at the London School of Economics. He says that the mere presence of your phone equals interaction with your phone, equals usage of your phone, even if you're not using it, even if the screen's turned off, which is so weird because you're anticipating what might be happening on it at all moments. You're still engaged with it and you're not fully present with whatever other activity you're in at that moment.
Speaker 1:Makes so much sense. There's also a term called attention residue, which means that when you get distracted from something you're talking to your kids and you look at your phone, you glance at your phone because you had a notification. And you look at your phone, you glance at your phone because you had a notification. Science proves that it takes your brain.
Speaker 1:15 minutes to move back to what you were doing when you got distracted. Wow, it's just crazy. If you think about that just over a whole day of work or an evening with your spouse. Every time you get distracted you glance at that thing. It actually takes 15 minutes to recalibrate. Attend to the person again and you've lost what they're saying and you're kind of nodding like you think you're back online, but your brain isn't. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:Another thing.
Speaker 1:I think that people are afraid of Joey really and you probably hear this all the time, is it? It has made me more productive in my work because just yesterday my son says mom, it's Sunday, we don't do work on Sundays. And I said you're exactly right.
Speaker 1:So, what are you doing in there? Checking your emails? And he's like I know. I know I said Sunday is a day of rest, it's a day of refreshment, it is a day for family, and so when I can't access my computer or my phone for emails or texts on a Sunday, I got to be really productive. Monday through Friday.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I've got to figure out how to squeeze my work into a certain amount of hours, because I know I don't have anything beyond those limits, and so I'm actually so much more productive and my team is better for it when I am not texting them at 10 o'clock at night or 4 am in the morning when I'm awake.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, I mean you got me excited about this topic because you're so right that rest is an act of faith. Yes, you are, absolutely it's an act of faith in saying that I'm going to do what I can. I mean, the whole concept of Sabbath in the biblical sense is that God can do in six days what the world can do in seven. Right, that God can do more in six days. So it, that whole concept, is so powerful and I would agree, you know, going back to your comment about people who say like hey, I have this extraordinarily important job and I need to be, I need to be there for it. I couldn't agree more. I really can't agree more with that statement. But it's not the job you think, the job that you have to be present for. The only unique job that anybody who's a parent has is that of a parent. No one else can be dad to Harrison and Gianna no one. That's the only unique job I have. No one else can be husband to Kristen. That's me right.
Speaker 2:So, you do have an important job and it is your role as a spouse, it is your role as a friend, it is your role as a parent. That's the important job. Now, that's not to say we're going to be lazy and we're going to be, you know, going to be slothful, or we're going to put aside work, but I promise you, for most of us and, by the way, I'm not proposing here a hey, be off your phone for 10 hours a day. Right, you know, we actually have a. We have a prescription for how long I think you should be off your phone, but I am saying that during dinner, nope, not. Then you can be unreachable, right then, so that you can be fully reachable in your single unique job, and that's as a parent or as a spouse.
Speaker 1:Thank you for saying that. I can't underscore it enough. We have family mission statements. You're a family of character. You know that God is number one, your spouse is number two, your kids and family are number three and your career comes behind that. The career is a means to support your family. We understand how important it is, like you said, but there's got to be some off limits time where you are doing your most important job, like you said man we are speaking the same language here I'm loving this We've never even met before.
Speaker 1:This is so good I love what you guys are doing in your community at. Ro, this is just fantastic for families.
Speaker 2:I'd love to join, if it's okay, I'd love to. We talk about and, again, in the spirit of this not being a product pitch, I'd love to talk through. I believe that this opportunity is accessible to everybody listening. I think it can begin today for everybody. So we have four with the premise that we need to change our relationship with your phones. And maybe I'll just say it, I'll say that, beginning very directly you, I, we, we need to change our relationship with our phones and what's on the other side of that, the relational benefit, the relational change, is so much greater than what's on a screen. And so I want to give four practical ways for people to change their relationship with their phone. And the first one and these all start with S, and the first one in how to change your relationship with your phone and, as a backdrop, some of you may have read Simon Sinek's book a few years ago Start With why. There's a little bit of a play on that, and this is start with I. This, this problem, your relationship with your phone, is your problem. It's not your spouse's problem, it's not your kid's problem. You must start with I.
Speaker 2:I believe that there's going to be a lot of government legislation that comes in, that you know. We've seen the Tik TOK ban that's been passed. We've seen a lot of other things that are happening. We think schools should ban phones. Yes, we think all of those things. However, we can't wait for anybody else. This is for you, so don't even we tell people when you get RO in the home. Don't begin mandating on everybody else until you have addressed it yourself. By the way, this is hard. This takes a lot of self-awareness to do, but you have to start with. I and, as a parent, kind of the model that we've seen the last few years when it comes to having our relationship with our phones is we call these the three Ms is that we, as parents, model a bad relationship with our phones check our phones at a stoplight or look at them at the dinner table or phone snub somebody in the middle of conversation. We model a bad relationship with our phones. We give our kids a phone and they mimic what we've modeled to them, and then we do something absolutely crazy with the third M is we get mad at our kids for mimicking what we've modeled to them, which makes zero sense. So instead, what if we modeled a good relationship and our kids mimic that good relationship and then we could make memories and make magic or whatever other cool M you can think of, right? So we have to start with ourselves. That's one start with I.
Speaker 2:The second one is I want everybody and this is very prescriptive, I want everybody to spend and that's second S spend one hour a day physically distant from your phone, waking hours. One hour per day and we used to be a little bit more ambiguous with this, Like I'll spend some amount of time. I'm going to give you one hour. That should be your goal, and if you have never done this, you might need to start with five minutes to begin, because you're building a muscle and that's perfectly fine. Begin where you are. There are other people who may be spending two hours, three hours, a day away from their phone. That's good. Also, I want to encourage that group Keep building the muscle, Keep building it up, and this is a muscle. This is a long term If you think about it. Maybe like running a marathon. If you're going to run 26 miles, you got to start with the first mile, so do your best, but keep, and then, if you've already run a marathon, you maybe want to improve your time. I think everybody should spend one hour physically distant from their phones daily. That's two.
Speaker 2:The third one is I want people to establish in their homes either not either, but both both a sacred time and a sacred place. That's phone free in your home and that can be multiple places. So a sacred time could be something like 30 minutes after you wake up in the morning so you can have your morning routine, your mind is fresh. It could be 30 minutes before you go to sleep. That could be in it. That could be your sacred time. Sacred places are really fun and, by the way, sacred time could also be dinner time. Sacred place. This kind of bleeds into into that sacred place. The easiest one is the dinner table. That's the one that I think you can get buy-in from everybody. That has usually a finite amount of time. That's 30, 45 minutes, maybe shorter, maybe a little bit longer, but that could be a. That's a sacred time and that's just automatically phone-free, no matter what you put it. Put it in the RO box, If you have it, put it in a drawer. Get it physically away from you. I said that was sacred time.
Speaker 2:Sacred place If you have young kids, or really if you have any kids. I love this one. This is from an RO member who said in my child's room, I never bring my phone in there. And that was someone who had young kids. How great is that. I remember looking at my phone while my son and I were reading a story when I was young. I don't know how I was looking at phone in a book, but it happened. I messed that one up. But what if you just removed the temptation altogether and just had no phone in your child's room? So sacred times, sacred places and that can be the cool thing about sacred. That whole concept is. The concept of a sacred thing is always a common object that we deem as sacred. You have the power to say this is sacred. So establish sacred times and sacred places in your home. And the fourth one is my favorite.
Speaker 2:This is for all of us to search for moments of connection. Let me explain what I mean by that. We can be on the lookout. These moments of connection, these otherwise common moments, are around us all the time, but it requires us to be on the lookout for them. So let's just take an example. If my daughter walks in 14-year-old daughter walks in her shoulders are maybe a little bit slumped and I take note of that. Maybe something's wrong there. Or if my son says something like hey, dad, it was a tough day at tennis practice. Or if my wife says, oh, I can't, I can't wait to tell you what happened today at, you know, at the grocery store, whatever that is.
Speaker 2:Those are little moments for us where the people around us are asking us to connect with them and we have to be so attentive to it. And when those moments come up, I want you to say something, and these, I believe and this is going to sound simple, I believe these six words are the most powerful words in a relationship in 2024. These six words are let me put down my phone. And when you do that and I know that sounds basic and simple, but it's just a little note to them and when you do that, you go, put your phone physically away, and because the reason that's important is you're physically showing them your full presence, and then don't pat yourself on the back, hey, just let me put on my phone. And when you do that, here's where you're communicating to that person, whether it's my daughter with slumped shoulders or my son, who's had a rough day at tennis practice. Or my wife had something at the grocery store. I'm telling them hey, there are theoretically 8 billion people who could reach me on this phone and right now you're more important than every single one of them.
Speaker 2:So, Jordan, just imagine what that does for a 14 year old girl. The foundational sense of value that gives to a 14 year old girl as she confronts other difficulty, when everything else could go to hell. Everything else can go, everything else can go wrong, but for her she knows my dad loves me. My dad's eyes I felt the power of my dad's eyes on me. I felt the power of my dad being fully with me. What does that do for my 16-year-old son, a young man who wants to become a good man? Imagine that.
Speaker 2:What can that do for intimacy in the marriage with my wife, just by that simple act of saying let me put down my phone, physically removing it and then being all in with that person? So search for those cues, search for those moments of connections. So one start with I. Two spend one hour a day from your phone. Three establish sacred times and sacred places in your home that are phone-free.
Speaker 1:And then four search for moments of connection Joey, this is so good. And when you're talking about number four of just saying let me put my phone down, I just want to emphasize that saying the words and then doing the behavior of getting it out of your pocket and putting it somewhere away, because that communicates there's no competition for my attention right now there's zero competition, right, I am not competing with email, with text, with TikTok, with anything, because when we keep it in our pocket, even though we, we might believe that, okay, I'm fully listening, I'm here.
Speaker 1:You know, even when you put it on, do not disturb. It does a little. They've tricked us right.
Speaker 1:You can set it to not disturb you, but it still does, and and you're not, you're not fully attentive. So I love those four ways to change your relationship with your phone. Start with I always going to come from me first. Right, I can't expect you to do something if I'm not doing it myself. Spend an hour a day away from your phone and then establish sacred time, sacred place. Man, you are speaking our language.
Speaker 1:A family is a character. It's like you've got to have some time, some sacred place that you meet up as a family, where there's no competition. It's all about connection. And so that's your number three. And then let me put my phone down and actually doing that, looking for those meaningful moments of connection Awesome. I love how your organization is all about changing the core relationship with your phone. We are desperate for this. We need it. The whole world is needing this change and actual practical tips on how to get going changing that relationship with our phone. And you brought it all today in a one-hour episode. I'm not surprised, but I'm I'm happy about it. You know, I mean, I've watched your, your interviews on social media and like this is just what you do. You just make it practical for families. You offer a real tool, but you're also saying like, if you don't want to buy this, this product, throw it in a drawer, like, make your own box Right Like you're not married to this idea that you have to buy this thing from us.
Speaker 1:You're saying we care about your family, we care about your connection, we care about your relationship with your family over your phone. And that's what we're all about here at the RO community.
Speaker 2:It's totally right, and this is you know RO. Again, when I I may be the worst salesman in the world, let's just be honest there and saying that like, hey, I don't care if you join or I really don't, I mean because I think you can. I think the lifestyle of RO is accessible to everyone, and this really is. Though, for the person who said I've tried like I've, hey, I've, I've tried something, I've had a hard time with this. I really need some help. This is for that. That's who RO is for. And you say, hey, I need a little bit of help, and I'll tell you that this, this legitimately, will change your life. I know it because of the experience of my life. I know it because that's we hear from thousands of other people who've joined RO. But this really is. This is for the person. If you can do this on your own, please. Difference.
Speaker 1:That's right, and not only help, but just that community and gamifying the experience where you as a family can make it a fun challenge.
Speaker 2:I imagine that.
Speaker 1:Yes, To disconnect, it doesn't have to be. I love when you said you know, don't be saying okay, you know, we've got to all dock our phones and this is like a mandate, right? And if?
Speaker 1:you don't, then this it's like hey guys, we're in this challenge, we're part of this community, let's do this, let's rack up the connection with our family and as a spouse you mentioned weekly date nights Like imagine just the things that are possible when you change your relationship with your phone. You're not dependent on it, like we talked about at the beginning, and then this whole other world opens up to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Joey, thank you for bringing the goodness. Thank you for blessing our families with a real solution and a real community behind it. I would encourage everyone to visit the website goarocom G-O-A-R-Ocom. Joey, you know you're doing a good job when I'm the one promoting everything I'm like sold over here. You're not having to tell people how to get to your website or access your community. I'm doing it for you because I'm a believer.
Speaker 1:So, keep doing what you're doing. I don't imagine this is the last time we'll have contact with each other. We've got to stay in community, continue to help parents do the number one right thing for their family, which is to be present and connected and intentional about this number one most important job absolutely, jordan, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for what you're doing. Uh, it is fun to be so aligned with you and and how you're building families of character. So, thank you, and this was such a fun conversation awesome.
Speaker 1:Check them out on social media during the time that you're not connecting with your family on instagram. Also check them out at go, rocom, guys and joey. Thanks again, and guys, I'll catch you on another episode of the Families of Character show real soon, take care.
