Smartphone or Smart Parent? How to Be Fully Present with Your Family (with guest Joey Odom)

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We're looking at phones at the Thanksgiving table or the Christmas table or family dinners.

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We're clinging to this object. And so this relationship is very, very weird.

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And it's only weird. Yes, it's unique and it's odd, but it becomes problematic when it gets in the way of our relationships.

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Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Family Business with D Alesis. And today is Sunday, Something so special because family is everybody's business. I'm bringing in a new buddy of mine, Joey Odom, the co founder of Reclaim. Well, and we're going to talk a little bit about family. So Joey, you just want to say hi, Chris. So good to be with. I hope, by the way, listener, I hope you're watching on video.

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You gotta. You gotta pick up how good Chris's hair is. It's. It's like I.

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I feel like I'm looking at an NHL player when I look at you, Chris.

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But then when I close my eyes, it's like I'm listening to Bradley Cooper talk.

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You know what I mean? Like, you got that Bradley Cooper vi. So, gang, you got it. You got to watch this one on video. He's just. He's just too handsome for you not to look. I needed a friend like you in high school, man, that would have made me feel much better about myself.

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Meanwhile, he's got locks longer than mine, so I love it.

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But, you know, this is the family business and we're doing a lot of great stuff. And this season we're really looking into just speaking more and more to both the family and the business and bringing in some other people that are in the business of family.

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And you are a unique case because my coach, Chris Hart, connected us because there was a lot of stuff that you were speaking into on one of our calls. And you also run this company that wants to be an answer to the families that want to make the most of every moment. And so I just thought it would be perfect to bring you into the family business because what we call our pawdience, you know, they're wanting to. They might not work with their family, but man, they want their family to work. And so I just thought you'd be a great person to bring on. So why don't you tell us a little bit about you and how you got here today, what Reclaim well does and all that. Yeah, I think, I think the best place to start, Chris takes back. Takes me back to the fall of 2013. So my son, Harrison. Harrison is 17 years old now. My daughter, Gianna, she's 15. My wife Krista and I, we've been married 21 years. But if you go back a few years, when Harrison was five years old, Harrison was playing his very first soccer season. And Harrison, by the way, Chris Harrison is, he's the greatest kid. He is kind, he's sweet, he's empathetic, which are really, they're such great characteristics in life and they're such terrible 5 year old soccer characteristics, right? I mean like he's not the kid scoring goals. The aggressive kids are scoring goals. The kids who appear to be involved in maybe like a halfway house or something like that. Like the aggressive kids who are probably repeat offenders and in the juvenile court system somewhere. So Harrison had not scored a goal. Everybody on the team had scored a goal except for him. And so here we are on another Saturday afternoon, sitting on the sidelines. But then it was kind of late in the first half, in the middle of just the totally ordinary, where something really, truly extraordinary happened. Harrison found himself standing in front of the ball and he had the goal in his sights. He rears back his cute little leg and he kicks in. What happened next, I'll be a little dramatic, but. But what happened next changed me as a father. This ball glides over the grass into the back of the net for Harrison's first soccer goal. And the crowd goes wild. They know what had just happened. They knew that the last kid on the team to score a goal had scored a goal. Harrison's coach runs out on the field. He picks Harrison up, but there was this little split second in between the ball hitting the back of the net and Harrison's coach picking him up. When Harrison did something that five year old boys do, Harrison turned to the sidelines to lock eyes with dad. To see the pride on my face, to see the smile on my face and really to share this magical moment together.

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And it really, truly was magical. Except for one small thing. Oh, no. And that is that I missed every bit of it.

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See, when Harrison turned to the sidelines, all he saw was the top of my head because I was looking down at my phone. So I didn't see the goal.

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I didn't see his coach pick him up. I didn't see his face scan the sidelines for mine. And I didn't see the light in his face fade to disappointment when he realized that I missed his big moment. So that was the moment, Chris, that you mentioned, moments in this. That was the moment when I realized, and I think I have the words for it now, but the word at the time was Just like, ugh, like I, I missed it.

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And the words I have for it now is that this relationship with my phone was getting in the way of one of the most important relationships in my entire life. So I would love to say it would be great to say that everything got better at that point, but it didn't. There were other missed moments. There are probably. There are probably a bunch of other missed moments I don't even realize that I missed because I was looking down at my phone. But it started this process of me saying, something's wrong, something's wrong. Something with this relationship with my phone is getting in the way of the most important relationship.

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So a few years later, a great friend of mine, Heath Wilson. Heath and I started a business called Reclaim well, that helps people reclaim. We want people to reclaim their attention and their moments and their time and their relationships. And they want to reclaim their futures even, and their kids futures. Because as great and necessary as these phones are, they are getting in the way of those areas of our lives. And I'm more convinced than ever, and again, we've been on this journey, I'm more convinced than ever that this thing is getting better and it's going to be better. In fact, I believe, and especially for the listener, just to, just to start this out, there are a bunch of emotions that come out when you start talking about tech. It's mainly shame, blame, and defensiveness.

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That's what people start feeling. We can back off all that. This is the most hopeful opportunity any of us have for anybody listening. This is so hopeful. You can do something about this in your world if you feel a little bit of tension. Maybe it's as bad as I was feeling. Maybe it's just a little tug. I promise you it can get better. And you can start it today and it can get better over time. We've been on this journey for five years and I continue to grow in this area.

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So I'm excited to talk about this. I actually think there, there are such deep spiritual implications for those of us who follow Jesus also that I'm really excited about. And so this is such a cool moment that we all have to begin to get this right, no matter the stage of life you're in.

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Yeah, well, I love that. And that, that story, while it's, it's heartbreaking, we, we all have that. I remember I took Rochelle to our like third anniversary and we, I took her to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and our son is like six months old. And so we're just having this beautiful moment. And you Know, we're all doing that dumb thing, filming every aspect of our vacation. Never gonna go back and watch it, but sat with her because one of the people that we've actually had on the podcast, Lee Doming, you know, he. He had this book, you know, the family meeting to get your family talking. And so I took that book with us, and I sat down, and I asked my wife, you know, what's something I can do better? And I honestly asked that, kind of tongue in cheek, thinking I was killing it. And she looked at me and she said, you know, there are moments where I just feel like you're on your phone too much. And it just. It really did hit me, because I'm a psych guy. I've got my bachelor's in psych.

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So I'm like, shoot, I can understand how I can think. I don't have an issue that I can think. The habit's healthy. And yet those that are watching me are picking up something different. And the leader of our family, my dad, you know, his big thing, was always like, hey, come on, get off your phone. Let's sit here. Let's talk. And so coming across that conversation with her was kind of my moment with Harrison. It was that moment of like, okay, shoot, I.

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I don't even know what moments I missed, but my wife does.

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And so I set out, I was like, I'm not gonna be this guy. And then I started to come across your company.

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I came across your products. I came across the box. And some people might think they could just put a shoebox by the front door, and maybe you can. But having something that my phone goes into when I get home has really helped me turn off a part of my day and turn on a different part, which is why I wanted to bring it to the family business today, because this is the business of family, and being fully present really helps with that. So you've kind of already answered a lot of the questions that I wanted to ask you, but in what ways do you see our relationship with our phone? I love that you said it that way. At what point do you see our relationship with tech and interfering with family life? It's such a good question. I bet you that nobody listening batted an eye at the term relationship with my phone. But, Chris, it's weird.

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This is the unique object in an adult's life that we have a relationship with. I just talked about an inanimate object, this little rectangle, and I said, I have a relationship with it. I put it on the same level as my spouse. And my kids and my friends. That's weird. Hold on. We have a relationship with the phone. And so we've done a lot of research on this, and we've looked into it. And yes, it's weird for adults to have relationships with objects. It is not weird for infants to have relationships with objects. They have relationships with objects like teddy bears and blankies and binkies. And there's a term for this. There's a term in childhood development. There's a term, it's called transitional objects or comfort objects. And they serve a really big purpose in a kid's life. What they do. The child clings to this object in the absence of relationships, in the absence of their parents. They cling to this ob to give them a sense of security, to give them a sense of comfort. But it's just a phase. Before long, the child realizes, hey, I don't need this anymore. I can do this on my own. So they discard the object. So that transitions them from dependence to independence. So our phones have transitioned us back. They reverted us back to a childlike state of relationship with an object. But it's a little bit different. You see, we're Children cling to an object in the absence of relationships. We cling to an object in the presence of relationships. My son may be talking to me, and I may look at my phone clinging to this comfort object where I'm looking at my phone, wondering what the heck's going on with it. We're looking at phones at the Thanksgiving table or the Christmas table or family dinners. We're clinging to this object. And so this relationship is very, very weird, and it's only weird. Yes, it's unique and it's odd, but it becomes problematic when it gets in the way of our relationships.

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We are in, and I believe it is undeniable, we are in an intimacy crisis in our relationships right now. And the intimacy is the bedrock. This feeling of being fully seen, fully known.

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In fact, it's so deeply embedded that we don't even recognize that a crisis exists. We just accept this world we see around us that it is not at all odd for us to phone snub our families while they're trying to talk to us. Not at all. My wife may be opening up to me, and this buzz in my pocket can completely derail me. And so, yes, this relationship with our phone is odd, but it's because it's detrimental that we have to do something about it, that it is damaging relationships. So it's beginning to normalize things. Our families have of us or that our kids have for future relationships. This is where it gets really interesting is that you think about. For my daughter, if she's used to me phone snubbing her all the time or being on my phone while I'm. Trying to talk to her, it's normal when her husband does it. That's right. Or when she's on a date or. Or think about what happens if it's normal for her. In fact, I'll jump in with. On a story on my daughter. My daughter and I, when we were starting this business, May 8, 2020, she and I watched a movie together. And I know that date because what happened that day, what she said to me after we finished this movie, she's 10 years old, and we finished a mo. And she said, dad, did you know that's the first time we've ever watched a movie and you haven't had your phone? Which Chris was like a.

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Just like a total gut punch. Like I'd really like messed up dadding for 10 years. We're all responding in the potty in the booth right now to this story. Yeah, we all know. But it was one of these things that was so interesting. Like she had never really mentioned that before. She had never mentioned before that I was on my phone. But it was clear that she noticed.

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By the way, our kids are noticing machines. They notice, adapt, notice, adapt, notice, adapt. So she just thought that was normal for me to be on my phone during movies. But she mentioned it. It was so notable to her when I didn't do it for the first time. So fast forward. May 8, 2024. I read this in my journal. I'd written it down in my journal. May 8, 2020. May 8, 2024. Four years later, she's 14. I read it in my journal. I asked her if she remembered saying that to me and she laughed and she said, dad, it would be so weird if you were on your phone during a movie now. Wow. So hold on a second.

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Everything that she expects in a relationship had shifted in four years. Normal for her now is my attention full.

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So let's play that out. Let's play that out the next time or the first time she goes on a date in, you know, many, many years from now. But when she goes on a date, if the boy across the table from her is sitting on his phone while they're having dinner, she knows exactly what to do. She orders the surf and turf.

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Yeah. No, no, she does. She's going to get the most expensive thing first. She's Going to get a good meal out of this one. I like. Yeah.

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Surf and turf, dessert, soft drink, the whole nine.

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Let him pay and never see him again. Because she knows what to expect in a relationship. So it's easy when you get on this tech conversation to over dramatize the implications, but this is just reality. We are setting a framework for what our kids will expect in relationships based on what we do with our phones, which, again, you can go down a shame spiral here, and I encourage you not to. I actually look at this as pure hope. Oh, I can do something about that. Oh, I can put my phone away during a family dinner. But we don't really realize that those are such massive things that they actually are so seismic in their impact, but they really, really are. And so I believe this is why I say all the time, it's the most hopeful thing, most hopeful opportunity we have in relationships today. That's beautiful.

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You know, to anybody that might be thinking, we're making a mountain out of a molehill here, Molehill here.

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There's really only three products that I can think of where the actual marketing for the product is. Please use it wisely. And it's alcohol, gambling, and our phones, our phones are putting screen time stuff on it, trying to help you limit the use of their product.

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And that's wild to us. Like, the only other two I can think of that are like, hey, if you're going to use this, use it wisely. Are things that are directly tied to addictions that ruin people's life. Now, I know we said before in our pre discussion, we don't like to use the word addiction, because you're right, there is hope. And I actually, I.

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I would almost challenge people to think that outside of their relationship with God, one of the biggest areas they can reclaim and take back control is by having healthier boundaries with their cell phone. Because I've got this iPad here that has every bit of the technology that my cell phone has, but this does not call to me the way the cell phone does. And that phantom vibration is real. You will walk around and even think your phone's ringing, and you don't even have it on you. So this is something that matters to me a lot. What were you going to say? Well, and there's a real. There's a reason behind that. The reason why there's a difference between your iPad and your iPhone. It goes back to really foundationally how we form relationships at all. Let's think about how you form a human relationship. You're around somebody, you See them, let's say you see somebody at a carpool drop off every day and then you begin to interact with them. And when you interact with them more, then you come to form some kind of dependence. And I'm not saying that in a negative way. Some kind of dependence on them. It could be an emotional dependence. Hey, I've had a bad day, can we talk? It could be a. You depend on them to. If you need some help with pickup, hey, I'm going to be late.

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Can you pick up my child? You form that relationship through some level of dependence. You can depend on that person. So proximity leads to interaction, which leads to dependence, which leads you back to being in more proximity with that person. This is how we formed a relationship with our phones, that it begins with proximity.

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91% of us have our phones with us 24 hours a day.

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That we don't have to move our feet to reach our phones. That's different from the iPad. You're away from your iPad and it's fine, but your phone lives with you. So proximity. 91% of us have our phones with us 24 hours a day. Because of that, we are virtually constantly interacting with our phones. And a lot of people may say, well, just silence notifications, that works. But that only accounts for about 11% of our smartphone usage. 89% of our smartphone usage is self initiated. So my wife and I are talking. It doesn't have to be a buzz in my pocket. It could just be me thinking I'm a big Oklahoma City Thunder fan. Hey, when did the thunder play next? Or how'd they do last night checking the score while I'm in the middle of a conversation. And then that takes me over to the weather and it takes me to Instagram, it takes me to my email and Slack and all that stuff. We all know how that path works. But the interaction is a result of proximity.

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And when we interact with it more, we begin to have this feeling of dependence on it. Feeling like I have to have this with. What if someone called? What if I get a text that I can't miss? What if, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And because we feel dependent on our phones, then we go back to proximity again. We call this the PID loop. This is what I just described as proximity leads to interaction, which leads to dependence, which leads us back to proximity. But the reason why it's different, again, the defining characteristic in our relationship with our phones is our constant proximity to them. So that's why it's different from an iPad is. They're always with us. But I will tell you something, it's going to sound like the most basic thing anybody has ever heard. And I understand that.

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But it's just like, think about when you say, hey, I want to lose a few pounds, what do you do? You move a little more, you eat a little less, count your calories, you move, burn more calories than you consume.

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So just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. So my simple but not easy is spend some time apart from your phone every day, but join the 9% club of people who do that. And when we think about this, and this is a major takeaway. And again, just hear me out, listeners listening to this is if you begin, if you think, okay, I'm going to begin to break this proximity, which will change my relationship with my phone, I would encourage you to not think of, to not think of this as an overnight fix. This is like building a muscle and it happens slowly. I think that's one reason why we haven't made a ton of progress as a culture on this is we don't realize that this takes some time. And that's okay. Gianna's relationship with me changed over four years. And so if you can stay instead of saying, okay, I'm going to go on a, I'm going to go do a, a tech Sabbath, great idea.

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Or you could spend five minutes off your phone away from your phone today, or maybe if you have an RO box, put it in there, or a drawer, put it in there, begin to break that proximity, that, that and get comfortable being away from your phone. Go around, go around the block, take a walk with your spouse without your phone. That's going to feel weird. And that's okay because we've grown conditioned to that constant proximity. So I would encourage people as they're thinking about this.

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You won't get the progress of your steps if you don't have your phone on you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So did it even happen at all? Right. Did you even walk at all if you don't get. If it doesn't show on your app.

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Exactly. So you know all of it, but what you just described. I know, you said it tongue in cheek. You actually just described a dependence. You described back to that PID loop proximity interaction dependence. The dependencies that we feel grow into false dependencies, things like that. Well, I need it for my steps. No, you don't. You can step on your own. I need it for my alarm clock. No, no, no, that's a False dependency. Go buy one. But because we have these, because our environment is not conducive to our goals, because you say, I need it as my alarm clock, that means the last thing you do is look at blue light. And so it disrupts your sleep. The first thing you do is look at your phone in the morning, which fills you with the worries of the day. Even before you've looked at the Bible, before you've even brushed your teeth, you're feeling the worries of the day because you've looked at your phone first. And that's because our environment is not conducive to our goals. And so it's these small environmental changes that are going to. To make all the difference in not just your relationship with your phone, but your relationship with yourself, with others, and with our Savior.

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Yeah, this is. This is so great. And I, And I really do. I would encourage all of our listeners to look at this as a real spiritual issue.

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It's, It's. It's not just. It's a health issue, it's a spiritual issue because the phone has become the doorway to, like, 800 different worlds in an instant. I remember one of the moments where I realized, man, when my wife said what she said, she was probably right, was when I'm driving and I have a kid in the back, and all of the sudden I get a text. I'm like, okay, I'm at a red light. I can answer this text, but then the light's green. I am driving as I'm answering the text, and before I know it, Instagram's open on my phone. And I'm like, how did this happen? And I kind of had that moment of. That was.

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That was the good side of a habit, where it's ha. Like, if you've read Atomic Habits, you can set it up to where your brain doesn't have to think about it, it's just doing it. But that's what's happening with our phones now. And I know all of the convenience that our phones promise, but. But we got rid of landlines because we were so bothered at how many calls were coming in that were spam. Well, we have the same problem now.

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And yet on top of that, we have notifications that are spam, emails that are spam. We don't need to know everything about everybody's life all the time. And I don't remember the exact specific statistic, but I remember seeing and reading about.

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We have been. If you're 18 years old, you've been exposed to more information now than Any generation before you in their entire lifetime.

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And we really have to sit back and think like, is this the pace that God built for us to operate in?

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You know, I remember Bo Jackson, football player. This guy had more torque than anybody ever. But was he supposed to have that much torque because he broke his own hip?

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Zion Williamson, this guy's got more power than anybody, but all of a sudden he blows out of his own shoe.

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And people are like, maybe you're not supposed to have that much power.

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And in the same way I look at it and I go, the law of trade offs is real. And we've made a trade convenience for something else.

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And I don't think we realize what we've lost because of the convenience. Because it's. Let's, let's even get past the familial health of it. Like the benefit to her and to you long term that your daughter has a healthy relationship with you. Let's just forget that part as individuals. The phone.

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Our relationship with our phone is creating other habits that aren't healthy. Like spending a lot of time getting access to information about what's going on on the other side of the world when I'm ignoring my own kid or I'm finding what everyone is doing on social media, believing I have to live up to that, somehow not even recognizing how much information my subconscious is picking up on.

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And so it is a different, it's a different loop too, because you've already talked about a certain loop. But the whole idea of needing comfort so we reach for our phone, well, that phone is introducing us to things that are making us uncomfortable. So we need more comfort because my living room doesn't look like that lady's living room. Or I'm not parenting my kid the way that that guru says I should.

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I'm not managing my money the way this other guy, man, that guy's making a million dollars by walking around and interviewing people on the street. What am I doing with my life? And it's like, I don't. And that only makes us want to spend more time doom scrolling. We want to spend more time wasting away on our phones.

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It feels to me that what it's really doing, it's choking out the fruitfulness of our lives.

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And Jesus talked about this. Jesus.

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Jesus has. I'm sure you're familiar with his most famous sermon on phones, right? It's called most. Most people call it the parable of the sower.

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And here's what Jesus describes. He describes several types of soil, four different types of soils, and the third one he talks about are the thorns.

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And he says that the thorns, they choke out the seed and make it unfruitful. The thorns represent three things. They represent the worries of life, the pleasures of life, and the deceitfulness of wealth.

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Jesus was talking about our phones 2,000 years ago.

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Let's think about the worries of life. The worries of life sounds a lot like our news feeds. We're the day after an election day, the day we're recording this, some people are probably very, very nervous feeling with the worries of life of what happened when whatever election they're sitting in. So worries of life, that's our news feeds. It's our Twitter feeds. By the way, when was the last time you went to Twitter and you scrolled through for about 15 minutes and you said, you know what? Things feel pretty good out there. Like the world feels pretty good? No, no, no. Like, it feels terrible. I have my. My Twitter is completely curated to college football, and I still. It feels worried after and feel anxious after I look at it. So worries of life, news feeds, Twitter feeds, how about our emails, all that stuff. The threat there is to choke out our peace, those worries of life.

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The second thing, the pleasures of life. And by the way, you can go Netflix, gaming, gambling, pornography, any of those things. Other translations call it the desires for other things choke out the seed, making it unfruitful. The desires for other things just sound like everyday distractions. It just sounds like it may even be a glance at the weather in the middle of a conversation. But what does that do? That chokes out that moment that you have with somebody, chokes out the good things you want in your life, then the deceitfulness of wealth. That sounds to me like the comparison that we see on our Instagram feeds sounds to me like if I'm on a great vacation and then I see somebody on a better vacation, then it chokes out that moment that I'm having with somebody else. So Jesus talks all about this. And what's interesting about that, when you think about the. The way the thorns choke out or the thorns representing our phones choking out those moments, it flows within the kind of the rhythms of our day. So the worries of life typically hit us in the mornings. You wake up, you check your newsfeed, you check your email, all of a sudden you're consumed by the worries of life. Out of the gates, by the way, interestingly enough, most of those worries of life that we're consumed by, that we look at our phones are completely inactionable. We talked about the Election, election happened yesterday. There's nothing I can do about it. That is done. But it fills you with worries and it chokes out your ability to be present in the moment or the pleasures of life. Hits us in the evening. This hits us.

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If you're a young parent or something like that, you really probably just want to veg out. Sometimes you want to scroll Instagram or whatever it is. So that hits you at night. Then the deceitfulness of wealth, the money making hours right in the middle of the day. So our thorns are with us all throughout the day and all three movements of our day threatening at all times to choke out the good things in our life. That's why you have to know. You just have to know. Again, I'm not anti phone, I'm very pro phone. But you have to know that your phone over time is going to become a thorn that threatens to choke out the fruit in your life. So you have to say to yourself, just remember this mantra. Just keeping this in your consciousness is such a win that before they attack, I must prune the thorns back.

00:27:53.559 --> 00:28:06.490
Before they attack, I must prune the thorns back. You have to be constantly on guard recognizing that, that over time they're going to creep in again, they're going to creep in again, creep in again. And you're just going to have to constantly just recognize I'm going to have to constantly prune these things back.

00:28:07.049 --> 00:28:14.490
And just because you're not succeeding overnight or you don't feel like you're getting, you're like you've mastered this, that's okay. Because thorns are going to grow.

00:28:14.808 --> 00:28:21.609
And it's okay for you if you feel like you continue to struggle as long as you're proactively pruning these thorns back every day of your life.

00:28:21.609 --> 00:28:35.579
Because, and here's why, Chris. Because it's so darn worth it. Because the fruit is worth it. The fruit of having a great marriage is worth it. Of your kids loving you is worth it, of great conversations is. It's all worth the effort of us pruning these thorns back on a constant basis. It really is.

00:28:35.819 --> 00:28:46.059
And, and I love that you say that. And you know, speaking of my own kid, last night he just thought it was hilarious to chant every single member of my family.

00:28:46.460 --> 00:29:14.079
So he'd just start walking around and he would go, pa, pa, pa. Amazing. And then he'd go to the next one and then he's looking at his toys and he's chanting for his toys. The minute, I mean, he did it for about 15 minutes. The minute I grabbed my phone to try to film it, he stopped. He just stopped. And it's like he knows the difference between he's getting my dad's, like I'm getting my dad's attention and he's 2 years old.

00:29:14.559 --> 00:29:28.259
And you know, we always talk about it like, man, they always do it until I try to film it. Well, maybe even the kids realize there's a break, something just shifted. And we don't think they realize it but, but they do. So let me ask you this.

00:29:29.299 --> 00:31:14.359
I think we've spoken to the purpose of this and, and if we haven't, I think we could for another hour because I, this is probably one of the things I'm the most passionate about. I, I, it made me start feeling bad about people saying, I know you're busy. It, it and this is not, you know, anti tech by the way. Tech's what is allowing us to do this right now and spread this message. It's just also recognizing the law of trade offs. And I would prefer fully enjoying moments with my family over finding out an hour before the trade deadline, did the dolphins do anything? And you know, it just takes me back to that Corey Asbury song like, these are the days I want back. I'm living in a day that at one point in my life I'll miss. Yeah, I don't want to spend that day on my phone. So let me ask you, you, when it comes to, let's start with a parent, when it comes to a parent right now, what would you encourage them to do to start making a difference in that relationship with their phone and the effect it's having on their family? I mean, the, the first thing is you have to recognize how high the stakes are. You have to start with why. You have to understand, you have to understand that the, this is going to get in the way. And if you can, if you think about it, for the implications on yourself, it's probably effective. But really what will change is when you start to think about the implications on others. Smoking in this country did not change until we realized the secondhand smoke hurt our kids. And so when we recognize that, we said, oh, I better stop. And it's because like you got to recognize no matter the age of your kids, your kids, we've gotten into a trap as parents that I call the 3M parent trap is that we, as parents, we, over the last 18 years, since iPhones have come out, that we have modeled a bad relationship with our phones. Again, this is no shame.

00:31:14.359 --> 00:31:56.190
We're learning all of this stuff now, but we have, we've modeled a bad relationship with their phones. We have our phones at the dinner table or we phone snub our kids in the middle of conversations. And then someday our kids get a phone and they do something very unsurprising as they mimic what we've modeled, that they have their phones at the dinner table or they phones in the bus in the middle of the conversations. But then we do something crazy. Chris, with the third M is that we have the audacity to get mad at our kids for mimicking what we've modeled. It's lunacy. And then everybody's miserable if you want to throw another M on there. And so the thing you have to recognize is this is in study. Studies show this is that the number one predictor of how your child will use a phone someday is how you use your phone today.

00:31:56.990 --> 00:34:04.220
So yeah, ask yourself this question. Am I modeling a relationship that I want my kids to mimic someday when you're at the stoplight checking your. When you're at the stoplight checking your. Checking Instagram, I want to imagine my 17 year old son, Harrison. Do I want Harrison checking his phone at a stoplight? Probably not, but they're going to mimic what we model. So no matter the age of your kids, whether they're 2 or 15 or 20, even if they're 20, continue to model that type of relationship that you want your kids to mimic. So I think for somebody who's saying like, okay, where do I start? I really fully believe we have to break this PID loop that I mentioned. We have to break the constant proximity which will reduce the interaction, which will reduce the dependence, which will lead us back to not feeling like we have to be around our phones all day long. So I'm going to give the most basic, basic, basic instruction for somebody today and I'm completely serious when I say it is today, spend five minutes out of proximity of your phone, five minutes physically distant from your phone. Five minutes, that's it. If you got to break it up in five one minute segments, I think you can do five minutes of time. But you got to, that's okay because again, we're all used to being around our phone. Tomorrow, 10 minutes physically distant from phone, it could be two 5 minute sessions, then 15, then 20 and build. Think of this as a long term proposition. Think of it as building a muscle. By the way, if you really want to level up this, if you have your child, ask them to put your phone up for you, hand them your phone and then have Them put it in a drawer. And I would, I would encourage doing this around when there's something to immediately to replace it with. If your son asks you to go play outside, like, oh, I would love to. Will you put daddy's phone in the drawer? Will you put daddy's phone in the ro box? Will you put mommy's phone over on the counter and let's go outside together? Because it's signaling to them that hey, you're most important right now. What it actually is doing is bestowing value on that person. This doesn't just work for toddlers, three or four or five year olds. This works for spouses too. If my wife asked me if we can talk, I'd be like, yeah, let me put down my phone, Chris. I think those are the six most powerful words in the English language. Let me put down my phone. Hey Joey, can we talk? Let me put down my phone. Just say it. And then physically remove your phone from that situation.

00:34:05.339 --> 00:34:24.579
So back to the very basics. Let's make it really simple. 5 minutes today, 10 minutes tomorrow, 15 minutes the next day. It doesn't have to be consecutive, but aggregate that amount of time every day build up to a goal of two hours per day of physical distance from your phone, which probably sounds so massive and huge. I promise you it's not.

00:34:24.579 --> 00:34:28.298
Right now you and I are having a 45 minute conversation. My phone is down.

00:34:28.298 --> 00:34:39.159
I'm counting that 45 minutes to my two hours per day. Here's why I say two hours. And again, two hours built up over time doesn't have to be consecutive but aggregated throughout the day. Here's why two hours is important.

00:34:40.518 --> 00:34:47.159
If you do that, spend two hours a day physically distant from your phone, you will reclaim one month per year.

00:34:48.119 --> 00:35:38.469
So we just said this whole notion, hey, I don't have enough time. Well, you just, you just experienced the 13 month year because you reclaimed one month out of your year. And you mentioned James Clear earlier because it's that atomic habit. It's that 1% better every day. It's that little bit, little daily deposit, daily deposit, daily deposit it. But don't start with two hours. We as dads like to go out of the gate real hard, start slow. It's a walk around the block before you run around the block. Five minutes tomorrow, 10, the next day 15 and keep building up, building up, building up that time. So if there were one thing I would say it's begin to get in that habit and that rhythm of spending time physically distant from your phone every single day. Yeah, And I love that. And I think, you know, I get emails from Reclaim every Sunday that tells me how long I've been off my phone. And I'm not the guy who does it overnight, so none of my hours are overnight.

00:35:38.630 --> 00:35:46.190
But I have seen that be 24 hours before that in seven days of wake time.

00:35:46.190 --> 00:35:53.989
And I don't include work either. This is when I'm at home in my box, 24 hours of @ home time where I did not have my phone on me.

00:35:54.309 --> 00:36:22.719
And I think one of the brilliant things about your product, both your ads and then of course the box is that it kind of gamifies it where I get to go in and be like, oh, I spent this time in my morning routine. I didn't have my phone on me during my morning routine. Or man, this one was a family. This was family time. I accepted a challenge at the beginning of the holidays to do a hundred sessions in the box. This is, as a part of the app, 100 sessions in the box for just family time.

00:36:23.119 --> 00:36:44.199
And I love that you just, I mean, you kind of blew through it, but it's such a good practice. You know those six incredible words, let me put down my phone. I, I've noticed my wife, when we go to dinner and it's just us putting my phone in her purse makes the biggest difference in the world for both me and for her.

00:36:44.679 --> 00:38:10.059
And I, I remember even reading, I think it was Simon Sinek who's like, and this was years ago, but he was like, if you're going out with friends, everyone leave your phone in the car and just one friend bring your phone and you give it to somebody else or you do that whole. I love the game of if you're going out to dinner with friends, everyone put their phone in the middle, first person to grab it pays for everything. So good. I love that stuff. And I don't necessarily know if the trade off for convenience is one that we'll enjoy making. I think the trade off for that 13 month year, that trade off for the relationships, I think we'll like the fruit of that a whole lot better. Let me ask you this, if you are, go ahead. Well, I think part of that is, is just understanding that this is a lifelong process is that this is something that's going to feel it really is hard for people to be away from their phone. If you feel that way, that's okay. Like, don't judge yourself over that. This is, we have learned this behavior and it's going to, it's okay if it starts small So I love the phone swap at date nights. I recommend that all the time, but it's just the little bits of time just beginning to break that dependence. I bet you people who are listening to this podcast, they generally want to be better in life. And so they, if you feel the tension, you're in good company. And so I bet you'd be willing to take a little bit of inconvenience, but do it in small bits at a time and just recognize this is going to take time to change this relationship. And that's okay.

00:38:10.059 --> 00:38:13.500
Don't worry about making it feeling like it has to be a mediator overnight.

00:38:13.500 --> 00:38:17.179
Yeah, well, our friend Chris likes to look at that Bible verse.

00:38:17.420 --> 00:38:39.639
You know, when, when there's no prophetic vision, people cast off restraint. Yeah. And he really encouraged me one day, telling me, you know, that means people of vision have to put boundaries on. They have to put restraints on. They have to make sure if I want to bowl 300, I better put those boundaries up. I better put those little things up because it's going to ensure the ball gets where it needs to.

00:38:39.639 --> 00:38:54.260
And so what would you say if you're speaking to a family? What are, what are some boundaries for a family? You know, we won't have our phone at dinner or something like that. What would you say are good family boundaries with tech?

00:38:54.980 --> 00:39:23.739
Well, I love this, I love this discussion. This is one, this is one thing we recommend as we do talks is in your home to have a conversation around what should our sacred times, what should our sacred places be that are phone free? And this is where it gets fun. So for we as dads again, I'm pick on dads again because I'm one of them. We like to get really excited and we like to go mandate things. I would first recommend you can't mandate until you model. Model at first you can't mandate. Don't mandate first. That's a bad, bad order of things to go in.

00:39:24.059 --> 00:40:02.760
But the conversation you have is really, really great, especially if your kids don't have phones yet and you just say, hey, what would be some. What would be a fun time? You know, if we figured out one place that's no phones or one time that's no phones and the answers you get are fun. So the starting with the times that could be something like even like a date night with your spouse again, try the swap with your spouse. You're not going to doom scroll your spouse's phone. That could be a sacred time. Bedtime with the kids is a great phone free time. It's just like, it's just of course assumed. Another one is how about when someone initiates a conversation with you that all of a sudden became sacred and you just say those six magic words. Let me put down my phone.

00:40:03.960 --> 00:40:35.619
The, the sacred places. The easiest one, absolute easiest one is the dinner table. That's just such a natural. You have a, you have a time there and it's, it's, that's the time I think that it's can become most insid. Haven't for whatever reason. Well, if you just say no, this is sacred and by the way, bring your kids into that, I guarantee you, Chris, if I, if I told your 2 year old that if you told your 2 year old, hey, we're not going to have our phones at the dinner table, they would call you out every time they saw a phone. There's no accountability like accountability with your kids. So dinner table is a great sacred place.

00:40:35.940 --> 00:40:56.389
How about this one? I love this one. I forget who told us this, but how about your child's bedroom with this idea? What if your child never saw you on your phone in their bedroom? How cool would that be if they never saw that or. And this one gets hard. How about your, your bedroom for you and your spouse? What about the bed in your bedroom as that just became hey, that's a sacred place. We just don't have phones here.

00:40:56.789 --> 00:41:34.719
But here's the cool thing about all of that is it's you, it's for you to decide. You get. And it all begins with a conversation. Go out on a date with your spouse and say hey, I'd love to have one. One sacred time, one sacred place. What do you think? What would be a good one? And let's align on it. The biggest reason why people fail in this in families that they're not aligned. And so if you could just have this discussion align together, recognize the value of it, forward this podcast on to someone that you love so that you can align on it together. It becomes fun. This is where you mentioned earlier is that we gamify it, we make it positive. This is all based in Titus. Titus says it's the grace of God that leads us to live self controlled lives.

00:41:35.280 --> 00:41:57.500
It's not the shame, it's not condemnation, it's the grace, it's kindness. It's celebrating good things and not shaming bad things. And that's what causes true changes when we feel really good about ourselves. It's just amazing. The Bible is full of this. When you see parallels between the Bible and the world, James Clear talks about the habit loop. Cue routine result. Reward.

00:41:57.739 --> 00:42:25.099
I'm sorry. Cue routine reward. Cue routine reward. And that's the cycle, the habit loop that goes on. Well, you see something, you act and then you feel good about it again. The grace of God is you do the things and then you feel good. You recognize that I've been given something good and then you're more likely to repeat the thing. So that's a long way to answer your question. But I believe it all begins with a discussion. I believe that you get to choose yourself. And if you needed low hanging fruit, I would say. Kids, bedtimes. Great sacred time. Dinner time.

00:42:25.659 --> 00:42:39.579
Excuse me. Dinner table. Great sacred place. One last bonus one. Is family movie night. So easy. When was the last time we watched a movie without a second screen? It's just an easy time. Is family movie night. Use that as a sacred time. Yeah. Well, I love that. And.

00:42:41.739 --> 00:42:45.179
I love that you can't mandate what you haven't modeled.

00:42:46.219 --> 00:42:56.699
That all means the world. And I really hope people lean into that. I have one more question I want to ask you, but I also. One of the things that we have in our home is we do have a one screen rule.

00:42:57.420 --> 00:43:04.780
If you're on your phone, the TV's not on. If the TV is on, we're not on our phones. And that will apply to people that come over. That's good.

00:43:05.820 --> 00:43:58.239
When people come over, we're like, hey, because our box is literally right there by the front door. Or we just say, hey, everyone, if we're going to watch something together, if we're going to be here, if we're going to do this, let's do it right. If we're going to spend time together, let's spend time together. Right? And so anyone that's come over our house to spend time knows about our box. And the reason I even mentioned that is all of this advice is phenomenal advice. Without any of the products. Wonderful. You could have gone on every podcast in the world giving this advice without creating the products. But there's a reason you guys still made the products, and I believe it's because of the psychology of our brain. So real quick as we're bringing this in for a landing here, can you quickly explain the psychology that led you to creating the products you have? Yeah. Yeah.

00:43:58.639 --> 00:44:34.340
Well, so if you think of what we offer, we have two. Two things that we offer. One of them is the RO box that you've mentioned. The box is. And then the second thing is then the app, the Reclaim well app. So starting on the box specific is the box is one. It's beautiful. So it's a decorative piece. We all know that if you're going to leave something out, that it needs to be pretty. And that's just if you're a married person or if you are a female, you will not put things that are unpretty on your counters. So by purpose, it is really, really pretty, and it allows it to be a decorative piece. But what it does, two things.

00:44:34.340 --> 00:45:12.550
One, it serves an express purpose. It is exclusively built to hold your father. If it could talk to you, it would say, hey, Chris, I see you're about to have dinner. Let me hold your phone for you so you can have a good dinner. So its only purpose is to hold and charge your phone. The second thing is it's a visual cue. It's a visual representation of the person that you aspire to be. So anytime you see that box, you know that that is an invitation to the person you want to be. That's an invitation to presence, that's an invitation to quality moments. And so it serves one purpose and it represents who you aspire to be. So the bottom box is so powerful, and you drop your phone in there. The other thing we have is the app.

00:45:12.550 --> 00:45:33.590
The app is, like you said, it's gamifying time away from your phone. So we do, by the way, we recognize this. We all have drawers, we all have boxes. We can all put our phone somewhere. And if you have that willpower, I'd encourage you to do that. I do think a level up of having the box is a majorly powerful thing. But then the app itself, this begins to quantify the amount of time that you're away from your phone.

00:45:33.989 --> 00:45:47.730
So there's a difference. It's not like the screen time report that shows us how much time we're on our phone. This tells you how much time you're intentionally away from it. Because we measure those things not necessarily in quantity of time, but quality of time. What are you replacing that time with?

00:45:48.369 --> 00:47:00.110
So what you do after you've spent some time away from your phone, by the way, if you just have the app, you tap the app, you flip your phone over, it begins to measure that amount of time that you're away. And then when you're done, you tag the app, you say what you were doing. So I'm going to put in here, after this conversation, I'm going to tap podcast. And I know I was 48 minutes on a podcast or whatever that is. And so then you can look back over time Be like, wow, I've spent a lot of family time together. This is a celebration of you saying, I am spending my off screen time in a highly quality manner. And so it begins to gamify that experience of being away from your phone. And then you have things like challenges that says, like you said, the hundred days of family time or whatever that is to gamify the experience of being away from your phone. That really is just simply to get you in a habit of spending time away from your phone and celebrate the quality moments that you're having apart from it. So it's the two pieces and those can work in tandem together. For people who have the box and the, the app, drop your phone in the box, it automatically triggers the app and it begins to quantify that time. Then you can use it again as the journal of how you're using your time. But both of those, I think whether they're used individually or in tandem, become a tool that you can use to lead you to habits that lead you to the person that you aspire to be. Yeah, well, I have both. I love both.

00:47:00.190 --> 00:47:06.710
To me, this is one of the coolest parts of our home. It's what makes our home different.

00:47:06.710 --> 00:47:32.130
And, and you know, I have noticed that and they have actually found through study that there is no difference from your phone's ability to call you call to you whether it's facing up or facing down. It literally has to be out of your line of sight. So when I'm reading my Bible in the morning and if I'm on vacation, I will put it under the pillow, I'll put it behind my laptop because if I don't see it, I won't think about it.

00:47:32.289 --> 00:48:01.099
But right, my phone's over here. Here. Luckily, I've kind of developed a lack of proximity, so I'm not as attached. But it would be calling to me at the same rate on its face as it would on its back. And the reason exactly. Right. I mention that because this is one of those areas where, you know, we, they always say if you're going to like, go, if you want to start getting healthy, James Clear would say, don't go. Buy a bunch of stuff like buy the shoes and buy the this. Get into the habit first.

00:48:02.139 --> 00:48:11.739
I could definitely see the value of that here too. But I would also say that this is a product that has been perfectly designed to get your attention.

00:48:12.460 --> 00:48:34.630
So you may need some extra help to help break that attention. And this, to any listener listening, if you're trying to get off your phone, there's a reason he keeps saying in the draw drawer because if it's not in a drawer it will call to you. We're not talking about vibrations, we're not talking about a ringtone. It's a psychological.

00:48:34.949 --> 00:48:46.190
I should go check it. If it's in the box, you won't do it. And one of the big things that we've talked in our past convos about is set a timer at 7 o'. Clock. I'll go check my phone for five minutes.

00:48:46.190 --> 00:49:11.309
Yeah. And then I'll put it back in. That was a huge win for me. And by the way way I want to one more bonus question. What do you do about Apple watches? Because everybody thinks they get you off their phone but I don't think that's true. What do you think about Apple watches? And then we'll end See I, I think that I, I don't mind Apple watches for, for this case again for, for developing this habit. There, there is a very real fear that I'm going to miss something.

00:49:11.309 --> 00:49:28.570
People feel that, that what if I miss this over ever important call? What if an important text comes in? So sometimes a helpful hybrid when someone put their phone puts their phone in a box they actually kind of like the comfort of having see it's harder to doom scroll a watch but to see like okay, did I was that text important? No.

00:49:28.570 --> 00:50:18.320
Was that, did I miss an important call? No. And so what you'll learn over time I have found is you'll learn over time like oh, I actually don't need this watch to, to keep me connected with the outside world. So what I found people doing is that actually over time again if you're thinking about building this up as a muscle that you will find that you're going to love the quiet at times and so you, you're going to before long. We hear about people all the time, they just take off their watch and they put it in the box as well. But it sometimes can be a helpful middle ground for people at first just to say I want to make sure I'm not missing something really important. When you realize that we never miss anything important and that's not necessarily a really well founded fear, then you could put your watch away and you can be fully present. So again I would try to really reserve judgment from yourself in this process and how long I might take you and the steps you may need to take.

00:50:18.320 --> 00:50:32.460
As long as you, you build as long as you are chipping away and making small daily deposits and building on those as you go. Man, I wish I would have known you when I first started because I judged the life out of myself. But absolutely through time.

00:50:32.460 --> 00:52:00.789
Yeah, I feel like, because of course there's ebbs and flows. I feel like I have the rhythms and the, and the habits that I need to fall back on whenever things get hard. And I, I find myself on my phone, I, I feel like now, now I know what I have to do to pull myself out of that. And I think whenever I do ask my wife those questions again, she never has to bring up the phone conversation again. And that's, that's a real win to me. So. Hey, I want to thank you for being on here. I want to thank you for the work that you do. I think it's unbelievably valuable to the world and to the kingdom of God. So we want to thank you for being on the family business today. You want to say anything before we sign off, man? No, I appreciate it. I just encourage everybody as you are as you go on this to just keep on just think of it building a muscle. It's a long term process. We're here to help. You can go download the Reclaim well app on the app store or if you're interested in the box, go to goro.com that's g o a r o.com if you're interested in the box. Well, it's been a great episode of the family business with the Alesses because family is everybody's business. We want to tell you if you like this episode, we why don't you share it with somebody? Make sure to like and subscribe as well. We believe this would go a long way in the hearts of minds of the people you share it with. So thank you for joining us. Pray you have a blessed day. Thanks so much for joining the family business today. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow or subscribe. Share it with a friend and leave us a review.

00:52:01.110 --> 00:52:07.190
We appreciate your support and can't wait to have you join us next time because family is everybody's business.