228. Stewarding Technology for More Intentional Relationships with Joey Odom
“A wise woman builds her home, but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.”
Proverbs 14:1 NLT
**Transcription Below**
Questions and Topics We Discuss:
Will you explain the habit loop for how habits work and share how Aro fits into that?
What are the awesome, relational impacts you are seeing, whether you planned for those or not?
Will you share a few stories to illustrate the changes Aro is making in people's lives?
Joey Odom is the Co-Founder of Aro. He is a natural storyteller and a dynamic leader known for his ability to inspire and foster deep connections with others. Joey's experience with technology as a husband and dad led him to help create Aro alongside Co-Founder Heath Wilson.
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Other Technology Related Episodes on The Savvy Sauce:
Mastering Technology so it Does Not Master You with Dr. Sylvia Hart Frejd
Tech and Parenting with Molly DeFrank
Technology and Parenting with Arlene Pellicane
Tech-Savvy Family with Paul Asay of The Plugged In Staff
Thank You to Our Sponsor: Dream Seller Travel, Megan Rokey
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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”
Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“
Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“
Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
**Transcription**
[00:00:00] <music>
Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here. Do you love to travel?
[00:00:17] <music>
Laura Dugger: Do you love to travel? If so, then let me introduce you to today's sponsor, Dream Seller Travel, a Christian-owned and operated travel agency. Check them out on Facebook or online at DreamSellerTravel.com.
Joey Odom is my guest today, and he is the co-founder of Aro. He is a natural storyteller and a dynamic leader known for his ability to inspire and foster deep connections with others. Joey's experience with technology as a husband and father is what led him to help co-create Aro alongside co-founder Heath Wilson.
This topic always excites me, and it's been a joy to host additional incredible guests who have shared unique perspectives on this topic. So I'll make sure to link other episodes in the show notes as well that are related to why stewardship of technology. [00:01:21] But for now, we get to learn from the kind and creative Joey Odom.
Here's our chat.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Joey.
Joey Odom: Laura, so good to talk to you. Really excited for this conversation.
Laura Dugger: Well, I am as well. I'd love for you to begin by just telling us a bit about yourself and your family.
Joey Odom: Sure. My wife and I, we met... we were college sweethearts. So we met in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is where I'm from. She's from Buffalo, New York, originally. So we met there.
Candidly, a little bit of an unlikely couple. I'm 6'5". My wife claims to be 5' tall, but she's probably just a hair under 5' tall. So we got about a foot and a half between us. But for some reason, she still decided to marry me. So I was grateful for that.
But we lived in Tulsa for years. We moved to Atlanta. We lived there for about a decade. We live in Knoxville now, and we have two kids. We have a 15-year-old son, Harrison, 13-year-old daughter, Gianna. [00:02:21] They were both born in Oklahoma, so they are Okies, just like me. And it's just been great.
We were talking a little beforehand. We're huge Atlanta Braves fans. We love sports. We love being active. In some ways, just kind of living out the dream that I had hoped for all my life.
Laura Dugger: That's incredible. And yes, Atlanta, Georgia, is a city I will forever love. That's where I met my husband. And so we may have overlapped there. But will you just tell us what you did previously in Atlanta? And then also share what led you to move your family to Knoxville, Tennessee.
Joey Odom: Yeah. We were in Atlanta for nine years. I was in commercial real estate. I started my career back in Oklahoma. So then went to Atlanta to head up the company I was with, that office. I always said with real estate, real estate was not... and I bet you a lot of people can relate to this. I had no particular passion for real estate. [00:03:22] I loved what I did. My passion was more about being genuinely who I am, hopefully bringing out the best in people, connecting with others. And so real estate was a great vehicle for that. But I loved it.
It was something that I frankly probably would have never left except for a series of formative experiences kind of crescendoing in a text from Aro's co-founder, my friend Heath Wilson. So I'll take you back when we were in Atlanta. I'll take you back about 10 years.
So at that time, my son Harrison was five years old. So this was an ordinary Saturday afternoon. But that day, something absolutely extraordinary happened. I kind of remember this memory, Laura. I kind of remember it almost like it's a movie, almost like it's slow motion with the dramatic music in the background.
Harrison, my son, he rears back his leg, he kicks the ball kind of... again, this is the slow motion part. I can see it, that ball rolling, the camera following it. The ball rolling into the back of the net. [00:04:23] And this was not just any goal. This was Harrison's very first goal. And the crowd goes wild. They see everybody on the team had scored a goal except for Harrison. So this was a big deal for the last kid on the team to score a goal.
So the coach picks Harrison up, the crowd goes wild. Everybody knew what had happened. But right before that, there was this moment, and it's kind of this moment that's suspended in time, where Harrison turned. The very first thing he did was turn to the sidelines to lock eyes with me, for him to see, for us to share that moment, for him to see the pride on my face, the smile on my face. And honestly, Laura, it was absolutely magical. Except I missed it. I didn't see any of what I just described.
When Harrison looked over at me, he was looking at the top of my head. And I was looking down at my phone. And it was that moment where... and the good news is Harrison says he doesn't remember this, which is great. But for me, I do remember it. It is kind of burned in my mind. Not in a moment of shame. In the moment, it probably was. [00:05:25]
But I just realized something then, Laura, that something was wrong. Something was off. That I had, for some reason, such a compelling relationship with the device in my pocket that it was getting in front of the most important relationships in front of me. So that was a moment when I said... and I would like to say everything got better from there. I had this great epiphany, and then everything changed. It didn't. There were, unfortunately, other moments like that. My wife trying to talk to me where I just kind of missed out. "What did you say again?" All of these moments.
It kind of crescendoed into a text I got one day. And this is coming up now on, gosh, five years now. Almost within a month or so. I got a text from Heath Wilson, who we had met at a small group in Atlanta at Buckhead Church, which is one of Andy Stanley's campuses from his churches down there. I got this text from Heath. He said, "Hey, I have this idea, and I think it could be a big idea."
Little did I know, Heath had grown and sold a business and had done really well. [00:06:26] Frankly, he was retired and was retired for 45 days before his wife told him that he needed to get a hobby. So he texted me, and I sat and listened to this idea. And the premise of it was Heath saying, "I have struggled for years to be present with my family. This is the most important thing to me, and I've struggled. What if we solve this for our families?"
That's where it began. Let's solve this for our families. In fact, Heath said at the time, he said, "I'll spend a lot of money so that we can solve it for our families." He said, "And then maybe if we solve it for our families, maybe we could help some other families too."
At the moment, he wasn't really inviting me. That's the funny thing we laugh about is he wasn't really asking me to be part of it, truly. He was actually saying, Hey, here's this idea. And at the end of it, I said, "Okay, I'm in." He said, "Well, what are you in?" I said, "Well, I'm in." And he was like, "Well, one, I didn't ask you. Two, I don't really even know what this thing is." But it was such one of those things. It was almost like all of your life in a way, like all the paths kind of came to that moment. [00:07:30] And he said, "This is the embodiment of the things I've been struggling with about the intentions that I have.
So from that moment on, we started ideating. We would just come up with a bunch of ideas and talk through it and talk in circles. And then COVID hits and we happen to have a bunch of time on our hands. So we sat on his back deck and we started working on this thing. And here we are five years later, and there's a bunch of life and detail in the middle. But five years later, here we are kind of working on it.
In the middle of that, he moves his family to Tennessee and I quit my career about three years ago and then we move our family to Tennessee. So here we've been kind of working on this project for the last five years. In the meantime, just like he had hoped, it's done wonders in our families, and we're seeing it do wonders in others' families.
Laura Dugger: Joey, that is such a powerful story. There's so many elements going back to Harrison. I mean, just as a parent, relating to those missed moments. [00:08:30] And yet I love that you speak God's grace over it too. That he doesn't even remember that and yet it was used as a powerful catalyst for change in your life.
So now you and Heath partnered together. You launched Aro. The more I learn about it, I am fascinated by all of the intentional layers. So can you share some of those?
Joey Odom: Yeah. From top to bottom, we have a great team around us who helps us really think through all the details. But everything about it has to be very carefully curated.
One thing that we've thought through on this is that our relationship with the phone, it's almost like society talks about it as if it's like, oh, yeah, my relationship with my phone. We talk about relationship with technology, relationship with devices, without taking a pause to say, Hold on, that's weird. We don't have relationships with any other objects in our life. So this is the only thing we have a relationship, which is just absolutely fascinating. [00:09:32]
I see my lawnmower about once a week, nine months out of the year, but I don't have a relationship with it. I don't go sneak in a quick mow when a conversation gets boring, right? But it's a tool that takes me from A to B. Maybe the closest comparison in terms of relationship could be our cars. But I don't have a relationship with my truck. I load some stuff in the back of it when I need to take it somewhere. I take my kids to school in it. But it's not a thing I have a relationship with.
So why is it that our phones are things that we have relationships with? Well, I think it's because of three reasons. I think there are three kind of defining characteristics to any relationship.
One is proximity. That's the first one. And with our phones, let's think about it, 91% of us have our phones with us all the time. So we are proximate to our phones virtually all the time. So that's one key defining the element of relationship.
The other one is interaction. So how much you interact with something or somebody. So we are interacting with our phones all the time. In fact, when it comes to our phone, 89% of our use is self-initiated. [00:10:31] So it's not the inbound things. It's not the notifications pinging us. It's us saying, Hey, I want to see what the weather is, and then we start going down the rabbit trail, and that's when it starts getting in the way of other relationships.
The third thing, and this is the real tricky one, is our level of dependence on our phones. This talk, this message that we have, is so much easier if we could just say, Your phones are terrible. You need to throw them away and get a flip phone. That's a much easier and more palatable thing. But this issue is more nuanced than that. It's not so cut and dry.
Because think about it. We are dependent on our phones for so many things, so many good and helpful things in our life. I take Waze. Waze saved me four minutes this morning on my route. I mean, I could order right now. I could order a Jimmy John's sub and have it to me by the end of this interview, right? I mean, I learn French. I do all these things on my phone, right? So it's a good thing.
But here's the problem is it's getting in the way of our most important relationships. [00:11:31] So for that reason... I think this is a really important... that's a long precursor to say this is a huge issue. It's a huge issue, and it requires the most careful attention to detail.
And the way that we approach this, we are not an app blocker. We don't disable phones or notifications or anything. We get back to the core relationship with our phone. And the question we ask ourselves is, how can we change the relationship we have with our phone? Because when you change your relationship with your phone, you change your relationship with everyone around you.
So let's talk about those intentional things that we have. One of them, the premise of Aro is, how can we get your phone out of your hands or away from your body? Dr Maxi Heitmayer of the London School of Economics talks about this. He says, the only way, the only way to reduce your screen time is for it to be away from you and out of sight.
So the market is not looking for another box for your phones. [00:12:30] Everybody I've ever met either has a drawer or a shoe box. So we already have a place where we can put our phone.
So what the market is looking for is a system that gets us to the point of putting our phones down. So we merge both of those in. Aro literally is a physical box, a device where you put your phone, but it's also the app experience that goes around that gives you those reminders for you to put your phone down and then rewards you and tells you you're doing a good job and builds in all these tips and tricks that social media companies, what they use to keep us on our phone, we use it to keep us off.
So it begins with design. This Aro box is beautiful. It's wife designed, it's wife approved. Luckily for everybody, I didn't design it. So it's a beautiful thing.
And the reason why that's important is because this is the visual cue that stands out in your home. This is actually the physical embodiment of the intentions you have, the values you have in your family. So it's designed to sit in a prominent place for you to see it and for that to trigger something in your brain to actually initiate the habit loop, which is cue routine reward.[00:13:35] We can talk about that a little bit later. But this is the physical embodiment. When I see it, I say, Oh yeah, I'm going to put my phone down. So it has to be beautiful.
If anybody out there is like my wife, she will not let me put out a Nike shoe box on the counter. People will say, well, what about a shoe box? You can do that, but that would last about 48 minutes in my home before my wife says, "Get that thing out of here." So that's the one thing is that.
And then the app experience itself. Again, I think this is really important, how we treat our relationship with our phones. A lot of people will talk about the way we use our phones and they'll use terms like addiction. Now, I'm not saying that people aren't addicted to their phones, but science would tell us that say about 99% of Americans aren't actually addicted to their phones.
But when we talk about it, we'll say things like, and almost ingest, we almost laugh about it, like, "Oh man, I'm so addicted to my phone. Almost like we're giving ourself a pass for how much we use our phone and using it as a crutch. But what we're really saying is, and this is true of addiction.
When someone's addicted to something, what do they do? The first thing they do is they say they're powerless over the thing. And the second thing is they completely abstain from the thing. [00:14:44] That's the only way to handle addiction. You say, "I'm powerless. I need help. The second one is I have to abstain from it.
We're not suggesting that at all when it comes to our phones. We're actually saying, one, you do have agency. You do have power. And the second thing is you don't have to abstain from it. You just have to reshape your relationship with it. An alcoholic can't reshape their relationship with alcohol without abstaining from it. That's not the case here.
So when we say it's a habit, all of the platform of Aro is based around treating this like a habit. So let's help you within the app. We have a great product team that says, okay, what are the things we can do? What are the reminders, the nudges we can send? How can we help people establish these rhythms to establish it like a habit where you have the cue, which is visual or through the app, leading to the routine, the physical act of putting your phone down and then crescendoing in the reward, which again is getting your daily streak or seeing how much time you've accumulated or competing against others.
But we all know the real reward is not an app badge. The real reward is not maintaining a streak. [00:15:43] The real reward is the life that happens on the other side of your phone.
Laura Dugger: Well, you articulate that so well. What happens on the other side of putting down your phone is even part of your name. So can you share what Aro means?
Joey Odom: Yes. Aro is this beautiful term. We're saying it in an Americanized way. It's something more like Aro in the Maori language. We've learned about that culture. Actually, Heath has had a chance to spend some time in New Zealand with some people from the Maori culture. And it's a beautiful culture and language. And that term means "to notice", means "to turn towards", means "to take heed".
And what's cool about that to us, we actually had this original idea that we'd call this company Smarter. It's the outsmart your smartphone. The problem is that there's nothing motivational about putting your phone down. What good is that? Our phones are cool. They're great. Unless there's something greater when you put your phone down. And that's what this is. [00:16:44]
What if we noticed for a moment, even think personally, what if we noticed the feeling inside of us? Something feels a little bit off and you just had this moment... and I'm doing it even physically right now, just closing my eyes and just taking in a deep breath. You think, okay, what am I feeling in there? And you can explore that feeling. You can explore that. And you can go down and chase it down and be like, Okay, here's what's wrong. And then maybe that leads you to notice some disrepair in a relationship. And you can actually go address that.
Or maybe you want to read a book, and you need some time to notice these beautiful words in a book. Or what if it's a time to notice that your daughter may seem a little bit off? If Gianna, my 13-year-old, just something's off, what if I took a moment to notice that and then went and sat down on the couch and explored that? That's life-changing stuff.
And so we all talk about focus and culture, but we can't focus unless we have noticed first. So for us, in a word, it is such a beautiful embodiment of the lifestyle, and here's what's cool, Laura, of the lifestyle that's available to every single one of us is this lifestyle of notice, this lifestyle of aro. [00:17:55]
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Laura Dugger: Joey, what are some of the relational impacts that you heard of people sharing stories, maybe even ones that you never planned for?
Joey Odom: Laura, this is... again, I told you the origin story was, hey, what if we did this for our family, and then what if it helps some others? So when we hear these stories from other families, it's literally a dream come true. It's dreams coming true every single week. We think, we had no idea this would help anybody. We didn't even know if this would help ourselves. So I'll answer that question personally first.
So my daughter, Gianna, who I've mentioned a couple of times, when she was 9 years old, we were watching a movie. We watched a Harry Potter movie. At the end of the movie, and I'd been using Aro and testing this out for probably about a year or so, Gianna turned to me and she said, "Daddy," she goes, "did you know that's the first time we've watched a movie and you haven't had your phone?" Which is a gut punch in a way. At the moment, I was like, I really messed it up that bad in these 9 or 10 years.
But what it really, to me, was this recognition, and this is important for all parents to hear, is that our kids notice every single thing we do. [00:21:02] They notice everything. And what's happening is those are all kind of aggregating into what's normal for them as kids, what they expect from you, what they expect out of life.
So in her mind, she expected that I would have my phone. In other words, and here's a little more of a gut punch, is she expected, she noticed, she was accustomed to my phone being the priority, her being the distraction. But in that moment, something changed.
So what's funny is I told Gianna the other day, I told her I was on a podcast, and I said, "Hey, Gianna, I told the Harry Potter story today about when you said that was the first time I was off my phone," and she kind of laughed. Again, she's 13, almost 14. She goes, "Dad, I can't even imagine you having your phone during a movie now." So think about that. Think about what has changed for her. So let's actually think about the implications of that. This gets me a little excited.
Let's think about the implications of that. In a few years, 30 or 40 years from now, she's going to date somebody. Just kidding. In the next few years, she'll start dating, right? [00:22:00] And what if that guy is on his phone throughout dinner? What's going to happen? She's going to say, "Hey, buddy, pay for my meal, and I'm out." Because what's normal to her is that the person across the table from her is present and looking in her eyes. What a cool reshaping that's going to happen.
Real change happens over three generations. I heard Andy Crouch give a talk on this. Over three generations is when change happens. So she's in the second generation of change right now. And what's cool is that's going to pass on then to her kids someday, and that's going to shape what's normal for them, presence for them, whether it's a phone or VR goggles or whatever is normal then. What's going to be normal for them is full presence because that's what she's learned.
And that, again, let's be honest, I was so bad at this that I had to start a company to make it better. Most people out there aren't so bad they have to start a company. So that's the comfort for everybody listening here. So that's one. I mean, that's personal in my life.
I'll use another one. We have a customer in Houston, and she just commented on Instagram. [00:23:00] She said, "Thank you for changing my life," to Aro. So I said, I've got to find out what this is. So I reached out to her, we spoke, and she told me her story.
So this is the Mitchell family, and she said that she had tried everything, that it was so bad. She wanted so badly to be there for their kids. They have two boys, five years old and three years old, and her husband, he works offshore, so two weeks on, two weeks off.
And when he was home, he had a hard time being present. So they have these precious couple weeks out of every month when dad and mom are home, and their boys would say all the time, and I bet people can relate to this, they'd say, "Mommy, Daddy, put down your phone. Mommy, Daddy, no phone." And kids say different versions of this when they're young. They may tell us, Mommy, Daddy, no phone, put it down. They may grab our face. We hear stories of kids grabbing people's faces. So she was desperate.
And in a moment of desperation, she joined Aro, a little bit skeptical. "Hey, maybe this thing won't work, but it's worth a try." [00:24:00] And she said, in her words, "This has changed my life." She said, What's normal now is for her boys to see their eyes, is for mom and dad to look in their eyes instead of down at their phones.
So think about the future of the shape. And she's afraid – this is funny too – she's afraid that she's created kind of monsters because her boys will physically grab her phone and go put it in the Aro box for her. But how cool is that?
When our kids say, "Mommy, Daddy, no phone," if anybody listening has ever heard that or put down your phone or grabbing their face, if you've ever heard that, I want you to get excited about that. I want you to rejoice in that because that's telling you two things.
One, it's telling you that your kids like you, that they want you to be present with them, that that relationship is intact.
The second thing is – I think this is so powerful, and I hope people really internalize this – when our kids say, "Put down your phone, Mommy, no phone, Mommy, watch me, Daddy, watch me," they believe that they're valuable enough for your eyes to be on them. [00:25:01] They still believe in their inherent value.
Where we should start getting nervous is when they stop asking for those things. Because when they stop asking for those things, and they've been conditioned to believe, just like Gianna felt at that moment when she was 9 or 10, is that Mommy, Daddy's phone is the priority and I'm the distraction.
So if your kids are saying to you, "Watch me, pay attention, put down your phone," what a wonderful opportunity. What a wonderful door that opens up for you.
Laura Dugger: I love that, reversing that script, because they are the priority and the phone is the true distraction. But then I'm even envisioning... our eldest right now is only 10, so we're ways away from having their own phones. But I would think when teenagers do, there's something called the chameleon effect. And so how have you seen that impact these families where the teens are now getting their own phone?
Joey Odom: Well, I will say the right time to change your relationship with your phone is right now, no matter how old your kids are. [00:26:04] We have seen... and this is shocking to me. We thought that Aro would be for families who have kids with teenagers who have phones. We found the greatest adoption we have is families with kids who don't yet have phones because it's a chance to model that for them and build a relationship.
Now, when your kids have phones, that's still the right time to start. It's never too late to start that. Your goals probably change. They're a little bit smaller. But we talk about the chameleon effect. Let's start when kids are young before they have phones.
So the model for us, we talk about the three Ms. The three Ms. And this is how it normally works in families, is that we, as parents, model a bad relationship with our phones. Then we give our kids a phone, and what are they going to do? The second M, they mimic exactly what we have modeled for them.
But then something absolutely crazy happens. We then get mad at them for mimicking what we've modeled. That's just nonsensical. It's hilarious that we do that, but we're just expecting them to do something that we didn't do for them. [00:27:03]
So the reverse of that is we model a good relationship, they mimic a good relationship, and then we make memories, and we have all these great moments with our kids because of that, and we're creating a great future for them as well. Now, again, I'm a huge proponent, younger, younger, younger. That's the greatest with anything, teach somebody younger. But, again, it is right now is the time to do it.
So we heard a story from one of our customers. She has a teenager and she has a 5-year-old. So she was gone one day, and she came home, and she walks in the house, and she sees her teenager's phone in the Aro box, which she thought was a little bit, wow, I figured she'd be on her phone while I was gone. She goes back in the back hammock, and taking a nap is her 16-year-old and her 5-year-old, just in there, cuddled up, taking a nap. What an amazing thing!
We don't give our kids enough credit. Our kids will adapt. I think our kids are craving... I don't think this. I know our kids are craving connection from when they're infants to when they're 16, they're 18. [00:28:04] No matter how old they are, they're craving connection. So we've seen really cool adoption from teenagers as well who do have phones.
Now, I think with teenagers, just a word for everybody is I think you just start with smaller goals. Don't go in and wholesale try to change something that they've had embedded in their brains for a long time. Start with a small goal. And we can talk through some of those practicalities. But if you begin small when they're older, and it goes back to this whole principle, and this is from Scott Kaufman, who's kind of a sage mentor of ours, who says that in addressing phones, do it when they're young, because at that time, the stakes are high, but the pain is low.
As they get older, the stakes remain as high, but the pain gets a little bit more as they get older, but the hope is still there. The stakes are still high. It's still worth it and cool for our kids, they're adaptable, and they will latch on to those things you teach them no matter their age.
Laura Dugger: And even thinking beyond teenagers with this chameleon effect, and the chameleon effect just being when you see somebody else do something, it prompts you to do the same. [00:29:07] I think of random habits, but my husband, when he is flossing every day, I'm like, Oh, yes, I need to be doing this, too. It has a crazy effect on us. So I can see the parents putting away the phone and the teen following suit.
Or even with married couples, what are some stories that you've seen where the marriage changes with the Aro box?
Joey Odom: This is one that I love because our marriages I believe we're in an intimacy crisis right now in marriage. I think divorce rates have stayed about the same over the last few years, but if we're gauging effectiveness of marriage in terms of divorce or not divorce, just in those binary terms, that's not the full picture of marriage.
Marriage is about intimacy and closeness and being fully known and fully loved. And so one piece of advice that we give, so I was talking with an Aro member named Chris, and Chris said, Okay, I'm going to come in, and I'm going to pitch this to my family and tell them we're going to do this. And I said, "Hold on, buddy. Hold on one second. [00:30:07] Don't do that. Just model it yourself." What if you just said, and I said for the first 60 days, don't even tell somebody we're doing that. Don't even tell them you're doing that, but just model that little bits at a time.
One piece of advice we give is looking for cues for moments to put your phone down. So here's an example. So for Chris and his wife, that could be something like, "Oh, you won't believe the day I had." [00:30:30] And if Chris in that moment, if he just says to her, he's like, "Oh gosh, I want to hear about it. Let me put my phone down." Just that, that small thing, that physical act of him doing that, what does that communicate to Chris's wife? It communicates to her that, Whoa, I mean, he almost kind of stands up straight or she thinks on this phone, about 8 billion people that theoretically reach me. And right now, honey, you're more important than every single one of them. That's that subtle little message that you're communicating to her.
So we hear about date nights. This is one cool thing. We have a box for the home. We have another feature called flip where you just flip your phone over and you can start an Aro session. And then I like to cover it when I do that because I like it to be out of sight. We hear stories all the time of date nights where, when a husband will leave and again, I'm talking... this is easy for me to kind of poke at the poke at the fellows, but this goes for both. Where the husband will leave his phone in the car or, and I love this act is that at dinner, you say to your wife, "Hey, will you hold this for me? We hold my phone for me. That will dramatically transform the date night.
So we hear those stories all the time. [00:31:32] And the cool thing is, and I don't have this huge, you know, dramatic, Hey, this completely saved my marriage, but I do have, Oh, we had a great date night last night. So what is that? That's a moment of intimacy and filling up the love tanks.
And we all know this when that intimacy, that closeness, again, that's back to our kids seeing that's modeling that that's given stability in the home, that's giving them safety in the home. So they're going to go replicate that type of marriage they see their parents doing.
And we struggle sometimes of, you know, when you want to give the big dramatic story, but it really is all about, we all know this real change is those accumulation of a million little things all at once. We talk a lot about modeling for kids, but it absolutely is the transformation that happens in a marriage slowly over time as a result of rebuilding intimacy and being fully present.
Laura Dugger: Which is just so crazy to me that it really has infiltrated all of these areas of life. And not to go on too much of a tangent here, but the reason I moved to Atlanta, Georgia was to study Christian sex therapy. So when I was in school, I mean, this was many years ago, but there was evidence to show, get the TV out of your bedroom. [00:32:39] You will connect more intimately with your spouse. But now it's so much more dramatic with the phone.
Was it you or was it Heath? I think you've even, one of you has summed up a formula truly in marriage, less phone equals more intimacy and more sex.
Joey Odom: Yeah. Oh yeah. We never know which part, how racy we can get with that. But believe me, there is absolutely… when intimacy increases, sex increases. There's no question. Sex is that natural outflow, especially for women. And you know this a lot better than I do like in studying it, but that's the natural outflow of feeling safe and feeling intimate, being fully known, fully loved, fully heard.
Again, this is just a... hate to call it a cheat code for the guys, but Hey, it's pretty obvious you are more close and intimate with your wife, you will absolutely have more sex.
Laura Dugger: Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. I think you're just showing, that is one practical benefit that comes. [00:33:40] And then you think of all of the other things relationally with your spouse, with your children, with your friends. I just can't champion this enough.
I've also heard you talk about this Aro box becoming a symbol of family values.
Joey Odom: Yeah.
Laura Dugger: Can you unpack that a little bit?
Joey Odom: Well, science has shown again and again and again how you identify yourself is how you will act. In other words, you become more like the person you say you are. You become more like the person you identify yourself to be.
Let's think about it in athletic terms. If you say, I'm going to work out three times this week, you might do it, but it's a lot different if you say to yourself, first, I'm an athlete. Nike's done a super job of this. They just say that every person is an athlete. If you have a body, you're an athlete, Nike says, which is great. In the same way, I would love people just for a second here, just to say, I'm an intentional parent. I'm a present father. When my wife talks to me, I look at her directly in the eyes. My husband looks at me, I look at him directly in the eyes. [00:34:40] When something is important to my kids, it's important to me.
One of my favorite quotes recently, and I'll botch it a little bit is always listen to the small things with your kids when they're young and then they'll tell you the big things when they're old, because to them it's always been big things. So even if it feels small, to them, it's big. And that means they're going to open up to you later in life. So establishing that early is super important.
So again, the Aro box sitting in your home, there is one purpose for that thing. And that is to hold your phone so that you can be present. That's the only purpose for it. That's another reason why a multifaceted box is a little bit different. And by the way, we're paying for it. This is a subscription. I'm putting money into this because this is important enough to me.
In a similar way, again, back to the athletic analogy, is when you join a gym, that's a little bit of accountability. We can all burn calories for free. We can just run around our neighborhood. We can do pushups or whatever it is. But when we say this is valuable enough that I need help taking some of the friction out of it and one of those friction points is accountability. [00:35:38]
So the Aro box living in your home. And that's something that says the Odom family, this is what's important to us. We value each other. And seeing that that is a constant, whether it's conscious of you looking at it directly, or if you're just walking by it and it's subconscious, that's something that seeps in and says, this is who we are.
It's a great thing again, for families to be able to bring up as a discussion point, especially if spouses are aligned on it and they can roll it out and say, Hey, we brought this in our home because this is important to us because we are important to each other because we're going to value presence. And how many of these things that we have in our home that are physical embodiments of the things that are most important to us? So that's another super powerful element of Aro is that physical embodiment of who you are and what you value.
Laura Dugger: And I think what made me so excited when I initially learned about Aro is anytime I hear of just a slight change or something with minimal effort, that's going to give maximum rewards. It's a no-brainer. [00:36:38]
Joey Odom: What you just described is beautiful because we're walking through life all the time looking for levers. Levers are exactly what you described. A lever is something that gives maximum output with minimum input.
And I'm telling you for everybody listening here, this is the thing in your life. This is the greatest opportunity. There's so much negativity around phones and I just don't subscribe to it because what I see is this is the greatest opportunity we have in relationships today. What a cool opportunity we have right now.
The physical act of putting down your phone can transform a relationship. And by the way, some people may be pushing back on that. You may feel defensive. I bet you haven't tried it because this will change your life. I promise you this thing will change your life. And this is the greatest lever we have in life to do this thing and get a bunch of things that we want in life. Minimal effort, maximum output.
Laura Dugger: I want to take a moment to say thank you. You are the reason our team gets to delight in this work. And we appreciate each of you so very much. [00:37:39]
If you're benefiting from the lessons learned and applied from The Savvy Sauce, would you take a minute to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts? Five-star ratings and reviews help us reach more people around the globe and that promotes our goal of sharing joy. So join us in that endeavor with your valuable feedback. Thanks again for being here with us.
Joey, can you explain a little bit more about the habit loop and how that impacts us with phone usage, and how Aro ties into that?
Joey Odom: Yeah, sure. So the habit loop, there have been several people who have written about this. Charles Duhigg originally wrote about this. James Clear wrote about it in Atomic Habits. The habit loop is simple. The habit loop always begins with a cue. So it's cue, response, reward. Again, with Aro, the cue comes from the app and the physical box.
So the cue is the thing that you see. Again, let's say it's the Aro box, you walk by it, or the app itself sending you a notification that, Hey, why don't you spend some time away from your phone? [00:38:41] So that cue initiates the routine.
In this case, it's the physical act of putting down your phone, so getting away from it, so starting that routine, and then you go live. Then you go live your life, and then it crescendos in the reward. The reward is... again, through the app, we have all these little breadcrumbs of rewards.
It's things like a badge for achieving something or hitting a streak, a multi-day streak away from your phone, or achieving a time goal, almost like a fitness app. I had this time goal. Or it could be competing against your family, whatever that may be. So that's a reward. But again, the real reward, we all know this, those are just breadcrumbs, the real reward is the thing that you have done, the life that happens on the other side of the phone.
What's cool about that, and this is what's neat about people who have used Aro, the biggest descriptor that people say after they've had an Aro session, they say they feel proud. They feel proud about themselves. That's a reward. It's an intrinsic reward in and of itself, that I feel proud of what I've done. I've enjoyed what I've done.
And then what happens? Then you just start the habit loop all over again. [00:39:41] When the reward is greater, then that cue is going to be stronger the next time. And you're going to think back, oh, how fun was that when we played a board game, or when I read a great book, or had a great quiet time, whatever that is, will lead back to the cue, making that stronger, leading to the routine, to the reward. So it continues to cycle on in the habit loop.
Laura Dugger: Oh, it's so good. So if we're on board, want to give this a try, and we get into the habit loop with Aro, and how you said you get rewarded through the app when you're putting it down, and you get to say what you're doing instead, how does that work in relationship with your Apple Watch, or when you're traveling?
Joey Odom: So, great, great question. The Apple Watch has been one of the best kind of accompaniments to Aro that we've seen, because a lot of us get a little nervous when we're away from our phone. If 91% of us are with our phones all the time. It's going to feel a little bit odd to be physically distant from our phone.
On top of that, important things happen on our phone. [00:40:42] We get important calls a lot of times. If our kids are at school, it's going to be hard for a mom to not have her phone with her.
But what about when all your family's home and it's dinner time or something like that? The Apple Watch is a good way to be semi-connected. You don't doom-school an Apple Watch, but you can see a notification pop up, and say, Oh, that can wait for later.
Or, let's say my mom calls at 10 o'clock. She lives in Oklahoma. If she calls at 10 o'clock at night, that's a call I probably need to take. That's an abnormal time to call. So if I see that on my Apple Watch, I can go pick it up, and I can make... and by the way, the Aro Box doesn't disable anything in your phone. This is an invitation, not a mandate. So it's one of those things that we're not disabling. But the Apple Watch is a great way, almost kind of an in-between point sometimes.
We've heard people say they use the Apple Watch for a month, and then they realize that, hey, I can just go ahead and fully disconnect, and leave the Apple Watch in there too. So that's one.
The traveling, again, Aro began as a box in the home, but we have just, within the last couple of weeks, we've launched a feature called Aro Flip. [00:41:43] So you can literally tap something in the app, flip your phone over, and it starts an Aro session. So you are getting credit for the time that your phone is away.
Now, that sometimes is with you. We understand the visual I mentioned earlier. So what I love to do in those cases, if I'm traveling, I'll flip it, and then I'll put it in a drawer, or I'll put it out of sight, or sometimes when I'm working, I just put a piece of paper over it. And just not seeing it is so, so powerful.
So the Aro community has absolutely loved, I'm gonna be a little cheesy, they have flipped over the Aro Flip. It's been a really great accompaniment, because a lot of people have said to us, hey, what do I do when I'm traveling? Exactly what you said. And the Aro Flip helps you accomplish that when you're away from home.
Laura Dugger: I love it. You guys have thought of so many different angles.
Joey Odom: Trying to.
Laura Dugger: Well, on other podcasts, I've heard statistics such as I think it's 75% of our time with our kids is by the time they're 12, and 90 something percent of the time with our kids is before they graduate, which is so startling. [00:42:48] But it makes me think of this post that you wrote about 40 more days with our kids. So Joey, can you elaborate on that as well?
Joey Odom: Yeah. This is gonna get me a little choked up talking about it. I'll back up even more. When Harrison was born almost 16 years ago, it was a long labor for my wife. It was 18 hours. Again, I mentioned she's five feet tall, and I'm six foot five. So natural birth didn't happen easily.
So after 18 hours, they said this baby's not coming out, we gotta go C-section. So they wheel her into an operating room. They had some issue with the... gosh, what's the word? The tap in her spine. So it didn't work. So she actually had to get put under. So she had to have a general anesthetic. So I couldn't be in the room. This is something, obviously, we'd thought about, we'd planned for. And so I sat in this hallway outside the operating room. I couldn't be in there. And I prayed a simple prayer. I just said, I said, "God, this has been the hardest day of my life. Will you show me your goodness?" I asked to see God's goodness. [00:43:52]
Two minutes later, I hear the most beautiful sound of my life. I heard Harrison. I didn't know that he was gonna be a boy. We didn't find out the gender before, but I heard the cries of my baby for the very first time in my life. And I saw and I heard the goodness of God in that moment.
So if someone said to me right now, hey, Joey, you only have 40 days left with Harrison, I would be heartbroken and devastated. I would beg and plead for just one more hour, maybe two hours, what about a day? But we're walking around... Harrison's almost 16. That's the amount of time that I have with him before he turns 18. I have 40 more days. But the power that I just said, this extension of time is in my hands.
Think about the time that I'm on my phone. If I'm on my phone every day, I can double that time. If I just reduce that by one hour a day, just one hour a day, if I reduce that time with him, or on the weekends, I could have multiple hours with him a day, I have to put down my phone. But we're on our phones all the time, and we're missing. We don't see the immediacy of this thing. [00:45:02] But I have 40 days left. What if I could have 80 days left with Harrison? I would absolutely take that.
So when we put it in those terms and see actually what's at stake and the time that we have, the opportunity we have, it will change the way we live every single day. It'll change exactly how we use every single minute when we put it in those terms. And I don't like putting it in those terms. It's a morbid way to think about it. But I don't think about it morbidly. I think about what an amazing living opportunity I have right now to change everything and extend that time I have with one of the most important people in my life.
Laura Dugger: There's so much purpose behind this. So I love how you've been able to vision-cast what is available. Is there anything else that you want to make sure and mention or encourage us with?
Joey Odom: I'll say this. Studies are showing how important self-compassion is. And we've been given grace by God the Father. How can we not give grace to ourselves? So if anybody's hearing, if there's just even a tinge of shame, guilt, messed it up, you gotta get all that out there. [00:46:09] That's not from God.
Where we have to begin here is with self-compassion. No matter what you've done before, here you are today with an opportunity, with life and death. And we can choose life today by forgiving yourself, by having compassion for yourself, and by being hopeful, just recognizing what a cool thing, what an amazing opportunity. The greatest opportunity we have in our lives is right here, right today. We're all wearing the ruby red slippers. We just click our heels and that can happen.
Again, we think Aro is a super effective solution, but I don't care if you join Aro or not. I don't care if you get an Aro box in your home. What I do care is you have moments of Aro, whether that's in the Aro box or in a drawer or whatever that may be, is you knowing that this is an amazing opportunity and to be kind to yourself and give grace to yourself no matter what you've done. The opportunity is today.
Laura Dugger: Well, where would you like to direct us after this chat so that we can all begin applying what we've learned? [00:47:07]
Joey Odom: Well, I'll give one tip. We have four tips on changing your relationship with your phone, but I'll give one right now. It's for you to look for cues. Look for cues to put your phone down. Look for cues in maybe an unsettling feeling or a, hey, I wanna read, or maybe with other people in a relationship, when someone who's important to you starts talking to you. Look for that cue and just go physically put your phone.
When I say to them, hey, I'm gonna put my phone down. I wanna hear this. Something like that. So that's a cue. Now, that's the one takeaway I want people to just start with today. You can start with that right now.
If you'd like to learn more about Aro, please do. You can just go to goaro.com. You can listen to our podcast. It's called the Aro Podcast, creatively. And then lastly, you can follow us on Instagram @GoAroNow, which I understand people scratch their heads on that. Yes, we do have an Instagram account. Yes, we do think there can be some redeeming things on Instagram, but please don't doom scroll our Instagram account. Just take what you want and leave the rest.
Laura Dugger: Wonderful. I will certainly add links to all of that in the show notes for today's episode to make it easy to find. [00:48:08] And Joey, you may be aware that we are called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?
Joey Odom: So I have a recent one, and this is something I actually read yesterday. So this is very recent in The Savvy Sauce, and it kind of hit me between the eyes. Proverbs 14:1, it says, A wise woman builds her house, but a foolish woman with her hands tears down her house. So that hit me really hard.
It's something that I believe we all do unknowingly sometimes, is we build up, we have all these goals and aspirations, and we get married, and then we have kids, and then we send them to violin lessons and give them language lessons and give them sports, and we start them early on going to school and pre-K. So we put all this stuff into building our house, but then we completely undermine our own building.
We do it ourselves.[00:49:10] There's enough out there, external stuff, that can derail us. But we ourselves start to tear down our house when we undermine ourselves with the way we allow our phone to get in the way of it. So I want us all to consider, how can we make sure that we're not tearing down our own house with our own hands, by our own actions?
Again, we're gonna fall short sometimes. Absolutely, have grace with yourself. Have self-compassion with yourself. But let's continue to build that house rather than tearing down by our own choices, by our own actions. Again, I believe the greatest opportunity right now is the physical act of putting down your phone.
Laura Dugger: Absolutely. I love that. And really, Joey, it was such a privilege getting to chat with you today. I admire the way that you've put your convictions into action. It's having a chameleon effect on all of us. So I'm excited also for these countless families and individuals who are gonna benefit from it. And on your own podcast, you introduce yourself by saying, it's your friend, Joey Odom. [00:50:13]
Joey Odom: That's right.
Laura Dugger: It is so true. You just feel like a friend to all. So thank you for being my guest today.
Joey Odom: Thank you. I appreciate you very much. Thanks a lot.
Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.
This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.
But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. [00:51:16]
Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.
Romans 10.9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. [00:52:15]
If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started?
First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John.
Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. [00:53:16]
Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.
If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce
Practical chats for intentional living
A faith-based podcast and resources to help you grow closer to Jesus and others. Expect encouragement, surprises, and hope here. Each episode offers lively interviews with fascinating guests such as therapists, authors, non-profit founders, and business leaders.
They share their best practices and savvy tips we can replicate to make our daily life and relationships more enjoyable!
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