268 - Techless w/ Chris Kaspar

Welcome to the Pure Desire Podcast, helping you take back your life from unwanted sexual behavior and betrayal trauma. Hello.

Hello.

I'm your host, Trevor Windsor and you're listening to episode 268 of the Pure Desire podcast. Here joining me as always, is my co host, Nick Stumbo.

ET phone home.

Okay, listener, listen to me. Nick just got back from vacation. He was gone for two weeks. He went to Orlando. I feel like he had an experience there. Okay, obviously anyone who knows anything from any time knows what you're doing, where that's from. I'm just gonna talk about who we had on today, so you can then fill in that. I mean, is there anything else you wanna add to that or.

I would just say my family and I did go to Universal Studios where there is still an ET Adventures and it was built probably 25 years ago. More in connection when the movie came out in the 80s, maybe 30 years ago, man.

Is it still safe?

Oh yeah, totally safe. But it's as cheesy as you might expect a 30 year old entertainment ride to be. The caricatures of the robotic people that are moving and you're on a bike going through these scenes and what I thought was really ironic is, you know, Universal's got all kinds of newer rides and fast and all these screens. The ET ride, you're just taking through these scenes and I thought my kids were going to hate it, but I kid you not, like half my family said that was their favorite ride. That's awesome. And I think they liked just the nostalgia and the simplicity that it wasn't even close to being like real life. But it invited you just to soar through these scenes and appreciate it. So I liked the simplicity of the ride and it kind of connects a lot to what we're talking about obviously as we talk about a very innovative company and a new approach to the phone on today's episode. And so it was a natural connection between my trip and today's special guest.

Awesome. Well, I think you did a great job. Welcome back from vacation. We had Chris Casper, who is the CEO of Techlis. They are a company that's really looking at trying to help people, to resource people with tools to have really digital health. And they are definitely in the space of understanding the connection between technology and sexual addiction, sexual brokenness. And so they very much are in line with what we're doing here. But you got to know Chris a little bit at the Sexual Integrity Leadership Summit and we actually have an affiliate partnership now with them and their product called the Wise Phone. And we had him on really just talk about his company and healthy tech and their wise phone.

Yeah. You know what makes dieting so hard?

Not eating pizza.

Yeah.

Food tastes good and it's everywhere. And the world does not support healthy eating unless you're intentional. And I think that's the connection to today's episode is one of the things that makes recovery from pornography addiction, walking in integrity and freedom so difficult is we live in a world that does not help or cater to it. And so it's an age we live in where anything you want to see, anytime, anywhere, you can see it. And it's just so accessible. And so what I love about techless and this conversation is it's an attempt and one of the only ones kind of in the Christian sphere that's moving us towards tools that could actually help in our recovery. And I was thinking about it. It's like if you were on a diet and the only fast food restaurants you could even walk through all served healthy. All they had was healthy food and be like, well, it's going to be pretty easy to eat healthy.

Sweet.

Yeah. And kind of that same idea with this phone. It's like if the only options you have on your phone are for healthy things, that's going to aid you in recovery. Totally. I love, as Chris said it towards the end of the episode today, it's not the silver bullet, but it's a tool. And it's a tool that can make a big difference. And so I'm excited for people to hear about it, to hear about some of the philosophy and theology behind it. And I really feel like we just had a great conversation.

Yeah. Chris is a great guy. Before we get to the episode, a few things we want to cover. Nick, it is coming. It's next. Really. It's only in a few weeks. The Pure Desire Summit. We are going all in and we want people there with us. Tell people about the event. Like, why? Why is the Pure Desire Summit something we want everyone at?

Yeah, it's just a great time. We're excited. I think it's one of those environments that you can immerse yourself in a recovery community. You can be surrounded for a couple of days by people who are on the same path that you're on, are having similar experiences. Obviously, everyone's story is unique and special and God has to meet you in your own story. But when you're in an environment where everyone is doing the kind of things that you're trying to do, it makes a difference. Quick story. This week, my daughter is at a running camp. And she went to it last year. And for some of you, you're probably thinking, who in the world goes to a running camp? Runner.

A runner does.

Yeah.

And she came back last year and this is the reason she went back this year. She said, I've never been more excited about running. She said, it's not because of the running. It's because of the kids I got to hang around with all week. They all loved running. And so she was into it more. She was excited more. She had more focus, more passion, more discipline going for her daily runs. She was more focused about it. And it was just cool to see that happen for now. And obviously that environment doesn't last forever, but the summit is kind of that same idea. To be around people that share a passion for what you're doing will encourage you. I keep saying it's wind in your sails. And whether you're in your first week of a group or your 10th year of leading groups, we want to encourage you. We want to remind you that you're not alone. And you're going to hear some great stuff from speakers like Jay Stringer and Julie Slattery, members of our team. And we hope that you'll join us. Whether you're actually going to come here to Troutdale, Oregon, at the foot of the beautiful Columbia River Gorge, or you're joining us from home, we promise the content will be equally good and we hope that you'll be a part of it for this year's summer. Yes.

So September 16 and 17 of this year. It's only a few weeks away, and if you want to register, we've got a few different options. As Nick mentioned, you can watch in person, come in person, or watch online. We also have a host site in Pennsylvania. You'll see that on the registration page. We're also encouraging people to do watch parties where you invite anywhere from three to a hundred people to your place, to your house, to your church and watch this event together. You can all register for all of those@puredesire.org summit. All right, a few other things. Real quick. Subscribe to the podcast. We're on all the major platforms. And you know what? Instead of writing a review, what if you shared an episode via text message with a friend this week? Just try it, see what happens. I don't know. Maybe they'll start recovery. Who knows? Also, you can follow us on social media, your desirepdmi. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and also this full episode will be up on YouTube. And I do suggest you watch it because he previews a little bit of what the Wyze phone looks like, what it does. So definitely worth a check out there. Just search Pure Desire Ministries. And with that, here is our conversation with Chris Casper about his company, Techlis. All right, Chris Kasper, welcome to the Pure Desire podcast. Man. We're excited to have you with us.

Awesome. I'm pumped. Nick and I, we had a good hour long conversation last time we met about church and purity and how to do that well. And so I'm excited to be in this conversation.

That's awesome. Well, Chris, you are the founder and CEO of techlist, which is a tech company. I love this. Focused on helping people with digital addiction, pornography and other struggles. We're excited to talk to you about your story about techlist and the products that you offer. And so let's just start out the gate. Can you tell our listeners about yourself, a little bit of your story background and really what pushed you to found techless?

Yeah, yeah, I'd love to dive in. So I'm blessed. I had the chance to be part of a fifth generation family business. I mean not many people get to do something like that. And it was a joy working with my family. And there was this point where I decided I wanted to do something different. I'd worked there for six years, made some meaningful changes. We have a few thousand employees and and I had this blank page moment like what can I do with my life? And just a blessing to be there. And so I kind of came up with all these business ideas and all this stuff. And at that moment when I had sort of this blank page season, there were a few things that came together to sort of create the techless vision. One is my wife and I had foster kids, so we had 10 and 13 year old girls and CPS dropped them off and said don't let them near anything that looks like a smartphone because they'll do some really sketchy stuff with it. So. And so yeah, we were stuck with this conundrum of what do we give them? Because there were no good options on the market, you know, and so there was that paired with the last five years at the family business. We'd done a lot of manufacturing and I had spent a lot of time building error proof systems of things that could not be broken or couldn't have user errors. And so system design, thinking, building and then simultaneously just my whole life I've struggled with discipline. I mean, I get sucked into things that or addictive easily. I mean, I threw, I Bought an Xbox and I had it for three weeks, and then I sold it because I could not trust myself with that thing. And so these three things kind of came together and just birthed this idea of how could we make a phone that empowers healthy device usage, that's safe for kids, but just empowers our will instead of its will? Because so many times our phones suck us away from what we want to do with our lives. Yeah.

Gosh. I meant this, like, this stuff resonates with me. I don't know if you're familiar with John Mark Comer and his book the Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, but that, for me, was kind of the entry point, I think, to this conversation. A little bit too really finding a way to, like, there's this, like, idolatry to phone. And it's not something that we are necessarily aware of all the time, but it is something that. I mean, the stats are crazy, right? Like, you touch your phone however many thousand, you know, like a thousand plus times or something a day, and, you know, thinking about social media and the time that we burn on it. But, yeah, I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you. Out the gate, man. Like, I love the idea of what you guys are doing, and I also love my iPhone. So it's just gonna be a fun conversation, I think, for me.

Yeah.

As we talk through it.

Flesh versus spirit, man. I mean, I see where.

Okay.

Yeah, no, I'm just. I'm just having fun here. No, that. That's everyone, honestly. Totally. We have all. We're just all in the same place.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Well, Chris, I love the idea that you saw a need for something that didn't exist and realized that you had the resources to. To make it happen and to. To found this company. And so tell us more about techless. What do you guys do and how are you helping people when it comes to their tech?

Yeah. So. So when we started, the Social Dilemma, movie had just come out on Netflix and hit it big, and everyone was like, oh, Facebook. That's when Facebook was first labeled as evil and people started dropping their accounts and all this stuff. Well, the thing was, is everyone still today is talking about the problem of social media, digital addiction, and we're growing in awareness, and it's becoming top of mind for people. But not many people are building solutions. It's easy to talk. It's hard to create something.

Yeah.

And so what we really wanted to do is not only just redefine what is healthy technology, because people aren't asking that question. But we actually want to build products that systematically empower healthy behavior and healthy relationship with technology in one another. So that's kind of our high level philosophical purpose here. How that manifests practically is the very first product we made, because the biggest challenge that we're facing is the gateway of our smartphone. So we made a phone. It's called Wise Phone. It's very simple. It calls it texts, it has a few basic tools on it, but there's no social media, no app store, nothing you get addicted to, no access to pornography. But it's just very basic, and it's a starting point for people that want to take a pretty deep step into breaking away from smartphone addiction.

It is pretty amazing that we're sitting on this podcast talking about a phone that functions as a phone. Right. Like 20 years ago, if you'd have tried to explain the conundrum that we're addressing here. People have phones, but the last thing they'll actually think of using it for is as a phone. It'll be 100 other things that suck away their time and their energy and lead them into places they didn't intend to go. And yet that is the need for so many people. And in the conversation that Chris and I had that he referenced at the beginning here was just realizing many, many men and women, when they start into addiction recovery, and this is my story, need a safe zone where they're like, I just. I can't trust myself, and I need to rebuild trust with my spouse that I just simply can't have a smartphone. And I'm. I'm thankful that my journey began, you know, 12, 13 years ago, where there were still more options out there. And if you pulled out a flip phone that only called and texted. Yeah, you weren't like this purple unicorn walking into the room that everyone looked at like, oh, my gosh, what do you have? Because that was still, for sure, kind of the dawning of the smartphone era. And yet now we're in this place where if you are in recovery, you still have things that you need to be able to do for communication or for work, and people are just feeling stuck. And so I love that what you guys are addressing is how do we empower people to live in this world, to do the things they need to do and find health, be on a pathway to recovery. And I'm just so glad that there's some options out there. And that's why we're excited to have this conversation about what Teclis is doing.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. I always think of that. Steve Jobs quote, when iPhone first came out, he said that iPhone is like a bicycle for your mind. It's this magical phrase. But if you really think about it, it's not a bicycle, it's a rocket ship. It is almost too much power. And we don't even understand the consequences of floating in zero G. And so what we're trying to do, in a sense, is kind of create a bicycle, which takes some work. I mean, you got to pedal the pedals, but you're not going a million miles an hour. And in that space, there's some peace that we reclaimed. So, yeah, we're on the track here.

Well, and I'll be honest, we were at an event in North Carolina not too long ago, and one of the illustrations I shared at that event was just I had seen my 2 year old grab my wife's iPhone and was listening to music. He knows how to navigate the music app. And, you know, and if, you know, someone wants to judge me and my wife for our parenting, that's probably fine. We probably could have done a little bit better on that. But a notification, a banner notification hits the top of my wife's screen. He puts his finger on the screen, swipes up, knows how to silence this notification so he can keep listening to Encanto or Frozen. You know, like, and to me, it was a moment where it's like, oh, okay. Like, I really need to be aware of what's happening with technology in my home. I need to be aware that my kids pick up on stuff so much faster than maybe I had realized. And so for me as a parent too, there's that angle of what you're offering here that I think is so attractive and appealing, is how do I train myself to have healthy habits with tech, but also how do I pass that on? Because that's going to be an important element for families today, for sure.

Yeah. And Nick and I, we met at the Sexual Integrity Leadership Summit. And one of the biggest takeaways, I mean, I went to that as a sponsor and just talking to people in this space about sexual integrity. But my biggest takeaway, and it's been powerfully transformative for my life, is that the lessons that I learned for my kids, like, oh, my kid is struggling with pornography addiction, actually applied to me. And so it's almost impossible to enmesh. Like, you're talking about this, this thing that we're working out with our kids in our own personal journeys. Technology for sure.

Absolutely. So, okay, so you have this company that's offering really, a healthy like you're almost retraining people how to view their technology. With some of the research that you have done, what statistics that you found, like, regarding digital addiction, and what are the correlations you see between our tech and unwanted sexual behavior? Because this is more our realm where we live, and there is a connection. But from your vantage point, what connections are you seeing there, man?

So it's hard to not. I mean, everyone kind of feels it and knows it. But I did some research actually for this podcast because I don't talk statistics all the time because they're not necessarily emotional. Um, but one of the things that early on, I think there was a poll two couple years ago, and 75% of people claim that they're addicted to their cell phones. I mean, that's like actually saying, I am addicted. That's a pretty high number. Yeah. Another thing that just is good to be aware of is that seven hours of screen time is the normal average for teenagers. It's nine hours. And that's, you know, 12 to 14. That age, it can go up easily. But the one that really honestly breaks my heart more than anything is just when it comes to phones specifically is how they are such a gateway to evil and a phone more than a laptop. Pornhub, number one porn site in the world. One website, just their ad impressions daily is 2.2 billion ad impressions. And it's just on mobile. I mean, that is just their mobile ad impressions. And if you think about that and just what that means as far as the convenience, the way, I mean, there's a lot built into this.

Totally.

So these are the things that come to the top of my mind. But more than statistics, there's stories that hit me between the eyes or just research studies. I'm trying to think of one that we were talking earlier about phones and just the attention they require. But I think we're were unaware of how much they suck our brain power. I'll just put it that way. I mean, they did this one study where they had two groups. One group was sitting in a room with their phones powered off in the room. So set your phone on the table just beside the room, and the other one had their phones powered off out of the room. And they did a standardized test. And the ones with their phones in the room, just the mere presence of the phone powered off, they did 30% worse on a standardized test than the other group.

Yeah, that's crazy.

So just the presence of this device in proximity of us affects us in a heavy way.

I'm just going to need a minute while I take my phone and put it in the other room and turn it off.

Seriously, though, it is true. I mean, it's one of those things where you don't really realize it. And it's funny because I've heard someone talk about it almost like it's like a phantom limb that we have. Our phone is another limb that we have as a part of our body, because you can't go anywhere without it. You can't, like. And I. Man. So I took a step back from social media a couple of years ago, and it's been really healthy for me. But I remember a time where, and I've heard, you know, even some friends of mine who talk about this, where there's always this pressure of, like, I need to check that notification, I need to check my phone. And it's a really. It comes from, I think, a desire to be wanted or to be seen or appreciated. Like, you know, a friend of ours, Ben Bennett of the show, talks about these longings that we have. And in so many ways, technology gives us that instant access to affirming those needs. But then it becomes an addiction where I have to have those things in order to function day to day. And, man, it's just. I mean, the stat of pornhub is insane. I mean, just on mobile, that's flooring to me.

Well, and it's not even just the aspect of wanting to be noticed or be seen at the chemical brain level, biologically speaking. There are little hits of dopamine that come when we hear that message chime or we hear that alert that, oh, there's something new. And our brain, designed by God, is programmed for novelty, is programmed for excitement, is programmed for something new. All those things are natural. It's not bad to be curious or interested in what's happening or wanting to know what's going on in the world. And so we reach out for those things, and it does just become almost instantaneous of, I've got to check that. And I remember a story in my life when I was with a group of young pastors. I was a young pastor at the time, too. But in this group, we were talking about Internet health and what does it take? And I remember one of the pastors said, the challenge with my smartphone is I'm now one click away from stupid. And I thought that was such a great quote. Because in a lot of our lives, we have the capacity to do stupid things. But usually it takes some planning. There's a few steps we have to take to get into it, and we realize, oh, man, now I'm in a bad place. But with a. A device like our smartphone, one click on those banner ads, and you're in a place you've maybe committed to God, yourself, and others, you wouldn't go, but it was so accessible. And I think also I heard someone talk about philosophically, you know, where as a. As a humanity, we're just asking the question, can I, is this possible? What we're not asking often enough is, should I, is this healthy or good for me? And I combine those two stories in my own life to look at just the truth that I AM not always, 100% of the time, the person I want to be sure. And so if 95% of the time, I am a pretty healthy version of Nick, well, that's awesome. I'm hitting 95%. But that means 5% of the time, I'm in kind of a low place, burnout place, discouraged place. And if I can be one click away from stupid, and there's not only the desires to be seen and noticed and heard, but there's also some dopamine history there that my brain's going, you know, that feels good. It's a pretty powerful attraction there that I think most people just haven't taken seriously until it gets them in trouble, you know, until it's damaging their relationships, until it's damaging their careers. And then we seek out for help. We seek out for recovery. And that's why I think it's just great that your company is looking at, what can we do to help? How can we be part of the solution? And so we're just realizing all of these things intersect, that health isn't just about one thing.

Yeah.

It's having the tools and having the plan to get to that place.

Can I. Chris, let me kind of ask this question kind of off the cuff here. Like, I think someone who might be listening to our conversation thus far can maybe hear that tech equals bad or tech is evil. Can you talk about that a little bit? Like, is that the perspective we should be carrying as, you know, followers of Jesus, as people who are trying to live with health? Is it tech is bad and I should avoid it at all cost, or is it. Is it that I'm bad and tech is just bad in my hands? Is there a middle ground? How would you respond to that? I'm sure you've had this conversation before.

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I want to write a book on this question. I mean, it's a great. It's a great question. You Know, there's a couple responses. I mean, just in the assumption of what we're trying to solve, saying we want to help create healthy tech assumes that there is such a thing as unhealthy, and there is such a thing as healthy. And what we're doing is we're trying to bifurcate the rather complicated answer to that question. And. And the truth is, is that most people, most tech companies, not many people have figured this out or thought about it critically. But if I was to try to simply answer your question in one sentence, I would say it this way. Tech is power. It's neither good nor evil. But if you study biblically what power or mammon or money is, there are major, major warnings, and there's good that comes from it. And it all depends on the heart of the person using it, how they use it, whether they're obed, not. And it's complicated. I mean, there's tons of scripture around money, and most scripture. I'm not going to. I'm not a theologian, but most of those scriptures, you could replace the word money with the word power or technology, because that's what it is. It's raw power at our fingertips to do meaningful things in the world. And that's what money is. And so that's the overarching way that I look at this as we're parsing through it all.

Yeah, it's good. It's a good response.

I mean, even when it applies to kids. Like, would you give your kid a million dollars? That would ruin them. You know, you think about it a little more. You talk to them about it, you train them, you coach them. I mean, people are literate on how to transfer, or at least try to think about it critically, how to transfer money to their kids. But would you hand them a smartphone? I mean, that's a million dollars right there. It's a totally different way of thinking about it, but it's the same concept.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So you're getting into it a little bit here, Chris, but talk some more about the ways that you're seeing technology and digital content meshes with our sexuality. How. How do those two really become intertwined with one another? Because I think most people probably think of them as separate. Like, I've got my devices and my smartphone, my computer, but then on the other side, I'm a sexual being, and I'm married or I'm single. How are these two really deeply connected?

Yeah, I gotta tell you. Okay, so last week I was talking with a guy, he's a documentary filmmaker. And we're just brainstorming, hanging out, and this dude has won some major awards. And I said, hey, could we make a documentary on what is healthy tech? And we've been talking about it for probably a couple months now. But one of the conversations we had last week is neither one of us really want to talk about sexuality because it's so divisive and explosive and it's like instant cancel, right? You take a stance on something and you get your head chopped off. So we don't want to go there, but we came to the conclusion that it is impossible to talk about healthy technology without talking about what healthy sexuality is. I mean, the two are so enmeshed. I mean, we, you know, think about it emojis, like a pregnant person emoji. Just the assumptions built into that tiny little fun, innocent looking character are profound, you know. Now, now, if you pull up your iPhone right now and look at your emojis, there's three genders for everything. You know, that is people making extreme sexuality statements that you cannot remove, you cannot turn off. This is hitting every single iPhone in the world. You know, and then it. And then it ties into complicated stuff. I mean, Etsy, you just go on Etsy, Amazon algorithms. I mean, sexuality is just a completely enmeshed part of technology on every level. So it's one of the pillars, I would say.

Yeah, well, and we all know the adage that sex sells, but in our digital age, people are literally selling sex, whether it's the sex toys or experiences or material. Like, it's all on those platforms. And so not only are people using it to advertise in terms of sexuality, but they're then becoming the funnel to provide whatever you're looking for.

Yeah. One of the things and I've been having. It's funny, I had this conversation last week with a couple of my friends. I went and I just saw the Thor movie that came out not too long ago, and there is a reference to a same sex relationship between two characters. My wife and I were doing some research. We wanted to go see the new Buzz Lightyear movie and take our five year old. But there's a same sex relationship that is elevated. It's one of the. One of the people who's the main character. And it's interesting because for me, I know my kid is going to experience that at some point in his life. Both of my sons are going to have those conversations or be around people who are part of the LGBTQ community, or they're going to have people who push you know those perspectives and opinions on them and, and you know, for me it's hard because it's something. Even on YouTube ads we're watching, dude, perfect. A bunch of Christian guys doing, you know, trick shots and we love their stuff. But the ads that we get, like we're seeing like two dads together or two moms together. You know, there are commercials that show up all the time and it's something that I have very little control over. I can't actually keep my kids from this. And again, not to say that tech is bad, but it's just something that I've learned. I can't allow my kids to sit in a room and watch something without me being around. And I think that's a pretty good principle when it comes to tech and understanding it is that like we have to. As you talked about and even as you were sharing the idea of giving the million dollars, you know, one of our books, Heather Kolbin, Brian Roberts wrote this book called Digital Natives. And one of the adages is that you train your kid how to drive a car before you let him drive a car. And the same thing should happen when it comes to using the Internet and using technology. There needs to be a driver's ed, if you will, for that kind of thing because there's so many things out there that maybe they're not ready to process through and they're not ready to understand completely. And they may be, you know, making faulty decisions based off information that's not actually true. So the more I talk about it just feels like it gets more and more complicated, but it is just a minefield for sure.

Well, and it's a perpetual drip. I mean, just every day, nonstop. And it affects people. I mean, heavily. Like a few weeks ago I had a dad call me and he has, I mean, loving dad and mom, great relationships with their 11 and 14 year old girls. And one of them just decided to, I mean, become a lesbian because of content that she was getting on TikTok just. And you know, their parents are doing all the things you should be doing other than letting her absorb TikTok for hours a day. Sure, but, but it's just nonstop. And so that nonstop barrage of assumptions, that's really what we're diving into is assumption level things. I mean, you know, there's profound assumptions built into even the Google search bar. I mean, when you search for something safe, search is off by default. Someone made that choice. I don't know if it wasn't in a board meeting or if someone said we're going to do it, but that's the way the world works. And so generally speaking, sexuality is pointing to very broken picture. And all the. All the gatekeepers are pointing that direction. And they're not. They don't take a moral stance on this or an immoral stance. We would probably say, yeah, well.

And I know we're quick to think about our kids and what are. What messages are they hearing, but I think just as much so as adults, we have to be aware of the way that our expectations, our desires, our wants and needs are being shaped by what we see. And we deal with it all the time of men and women that are in groups because they have very faulty expectations of what marriage, sexuality should be like, what kind of experiences should I be having, what's normal, how should I look, what should my spouse look like? And like you said, Chris, it's really that drip, drip, drip kind of mentality that there's no one thing that we see it and go, oh, man, that changed my mindset. Now I've got an unhealthy view of marriage. But when we over and over and over see sex presented in a certain way, or what does it mean to be attracted to the opposite sex or whatever it is over time, we're being shaped by that. And I think we deal with the negative outcome of that a lot, where people just have all of these wildly unrealistic expectations. They're actually driving them into fantasy and pornography, because that's the only place those unrealistic expectations can be realized is in a fake world. And they don't realize the problem may not be in the fake world itself. It might be in the expectations that lead them down that pathway.

Yeah, and that. That what you just talked about kind of leads into a much bigger foundational philosophy, which I don't want to get too abstract on podcasts, I like.

All right, we'll get to some practical questions here.

Yeah, no worries.

Yeah, but. But just in general, like, okay, that fake life, you know, you can put up a Persona on social media. I mean, if you think about it, 30 years ago, you could not. It would be very hard, other than if you're a celebrity, to put forth a fake life, you know, or everyone does it a little bit, keeping up with the Joneses type of thing, but that digitization and curation of what we want to pose, I mean, I'm becoming more and more believing that all of our interactions should be local. And, like, I'm disengaging with any and all digital interactions myself, personally, I'm not prescribing that on everyone, but it just is rooted in the reality of the world that we live in. And, you know, you just see this massive correlation between technology and broken sexuality. I mean, it's just so obvious how these two things work together.

Yeah.

And I'm trying to take a couple steps back here. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think about it. My family and I, this last summer, went to Orlando on a family trip. And. And it's just human nature, I think.

What.

What did we post on Facebook? And I don't post much, and my wife, you know, a few times a day. But what pictures do we put up? Yeah, we put, you know, our four kids smiling in front of the Harry Potter bus. What we don't put is the way that two of them were bickering with each other. One of them was complaining, why do we have to take this picture? You know, we don't put the line that then we went and stood in and we were all sweating and hot. We don't put any of those pictures up. The lines of traffic we waited in. How grumpy I got about the traffic. The snarky comments I made to my wife, like, I don't post that. So people probably, if they follow me on Facebook, they were like, wow, you had a great. Amazing. And we did. We had a great trip.

Sure.

But it can easily fuel the sense of. Well, my family's not like that because our kids are arguing and they don't know that. That's all the stuff that happened on our trip too.

Right.

And I didn't ever intentionally think, oh, I want to create this happy family image on Facebook. It's just. That's the stuff I'm going to post. I'm not going to post a picture of my kids being grumpy. Like, who wants to see that? But that's real life.

Totally.

And so even inadvertently, we create those images of what this happy life is, and then everyone's sucked into it and thinking, my life should be more like that.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Totally. I. Back in the day, I did wedding photography, and I had a friend call me, and he was so upset cause he just got his wedding photos back. He's like, I paid $3,000 for this photographer and look at these pictures. They're terrible. And I looked at them all, and some of them were amazing. I was like, dude, this was a good deal. Like, you should have paid her four grand. And I was wondering why he was so upset. And the reason why is because he had Instagram expectations of he was pinning the best of the best of top 1% of 1% to make this perfect little board on Instagram. And it's just so far from the reality of. You got a heck of some really good wedding photos and that's what we see played out times a million in sexuality and marriage. And you're on the front lines seeing it.

Okay, another just off the cuff question. I feel like it's just, it's coming right now. There's this line and I experienced this. I know, Nick, you do too. And I'm sure, Chris, you've had tons of conversations, but this idea of like in the world but not of the world, like cancel culture. No, cancel culture. When it comes to like maintaining. And don't just think, don't just think necessarily sexual health, but overall health, holistic health. Where's the line? In your opinion or as you've had these conversations, you know, in, in your realm, where's the line between, you know, I'm, I'm not going to have Amazon Prime Video, I'm not going to have Netflix, I'm not going to have Hulu, I'm not going to be on Instagram or TikTok versus people who maybe feel like they can be on those and be healthy. Like, where, how do we decipher that? Like, I shouldn't have this in my life or this is an okay element, you know, like, for me, I don't have social media. Nick, you do. Like, does that make one right or the other? No, not necessarily. We've made decisions based on, you know, our own health and what we think, you know, works best for us. But Chris, just in your opinion, man, where do you land?

When people ask those questions, man, the answer is not easy. It's critical prayer and wisdom. I mean, that's the root of wisdom, is the answer to those questions. And the one thing I would say is that people are starting just now to think critically about technology because that's my space. That's what I look at. And so I look at things like Netflix. Okay, we'll just take one of those examples. Or Amazon Prime. Netflix is a streaming service that you pay per month and you don't pay anymore the more you watch. And so it is an all you can eat buffet. I mean, and think about the consequences of eating in an all you can eat buffet where your goal is to maximize value. I mean, just the very nature, the way it's set up. Yeah, you're, you're supposed to gorge yourself. And so I personally have thought through that and I Buy movies, which just sounds crazy, you know, go to walmart and pay $15 for a movie when I can stream 4 for 10 bucks this month.

Right.

But that was a mechanism that I put in for myself. I mean, and it affects everything. I mean, streaming music, how many people like music as much as they did 20 years ago or 15 years ago? I mean, it's killed our enjoyment of some of these things. And so sometimes the inconvenience or the cost associated with doing less is actually the very thing that creates beauty within it. So I don't know, I can't prescribe anything for anyone, but it's. I would, I would say we're missing the boat on a couple things.

Yeah, great ideas.

No, man, I appreciate you engaging there. Okay, so let's kind of turn here. You guys have a product called the Wise Phone, which you mentioned, and you've held up a couple times. So if you're listening to this audio and you want to see it, go to YouTube, check it out, it's going to be there. So tell us more about the Wise Phone and how does it help people struggling with sexual brokenness or a digital addiction?

Yeah, so first thing I'd say, we all can agree that this is a tool. This is not the silver bullet. We know who the silver bullet is.

Good work. Yeah, good work.

And so this is a piece of the equation. But our goal is to give just a season of respite or a place of peace for people particularly struggling with addiction. I mean, and there's nothing you can do on this phone that will get you in trouble at this point. And there's a cost with that. The cost is there's some inconveniences associated with it. But like I said, you can call, you can text, there's a camera, a clock, maps, calculator, and that's it. There's no third party apps. We built everything from the ground up. Yeah. If you really care about accountability, one of the features we have kind of in beta right now, but it's working. Is it all messages, call logs, location history, sync with something we call the family portal. So if you have an accountability partner, they can have the login separately than you and see what's going on. But there's really not a need for it, honestly. Because. Because there's not much you can do to get in trouble. But we have had a few betrayed spouses that their.

The.

The spouse who betrayed them voluntarily said, hey, I want to do this to build your trust. I'm going to use a Wise Phone. You can have access to the family portal and see what's going on. And it's just an easy, simple, trustworthy system. That was the goal was out of the box. Here you go.

Yeah, I mean, you lost me by not having the Nokia game Snake on it, but whatever, it's fine, don't worry about it. Just the great ever invented on phones.

But I was talking, I was talking with the president of Oxford High School, so the high school of Oxford, he called me up, he's like, I want to invest in techlist and you really need to put chess on the game on the phone. And I'm like, no, that's so lame. Like, if you want to play chess, it's a board game, it's physical, play with someone else. That's right, go play chess. And so I've drawn a line on the games to sorry, no Snake.

Okay, that's fine.

It's not like there's a shortage of chess boards in the world or other places you can go and play chess us online. So I love the concept of this because I think what you mentioned there in the conversation couples have is so key and that comes down to the word trust, that very often a betrayed spouse is in a place of saying, I don't trust what you're doing when I'm not around you. And the addicted or struggling spouse wants to re earn that trust. And I think the smartphone is just one place that there's an easy win there for an act to go, okay, I'm going to get a phone where, you know, I don't have the Internet. And if I'm on the Internet, it's because I'm on the home computer that you can see or I'm on my work computer that both have, you know, a lot of safeguards built in because that, that smartphone, let's be honest, it opens portals and doors. Going back to the story I shared where you're one click away from stupid. And if you can eliminate those, what I've told men in my groups, you know, as we talk about building our guardrails, I say I want you to identify the, the most likely scenario in which you would relapse. And 99% of the time, I'd say it's something related to their tech. Their smartphone.

Yeah.

So the concept then is let's cut the head off the snake. Your biggest, baddest fear. Let's complete not just, not just put it at bay, like let's get rid of it. And so as you're sharing, Chris, if someone has a Phone where, like, they literally cannot download another app or a browser. It's like you're actually purchasing. You're giving yourself freedom. And freedom is worth the price if that's what it takes.

Totally.

And as we brought up in our episodes on boundaries and guardrails, that doesn't mean always and forever, the rest of your life, this is where you'll be. But if, for right now, you don't trust yourself with a smartphone or your spouse doesn't, this is a step you can take and say, man, I'm now free. Because I'll tell you, for five years, from 2010 to 2015, I did not have a smartphone. And you know what I mean? I never relapsed on a smartphone because I didn't have one. You know, it's like it wasn't even a temptation because I had a flip phone that did not even have a browser. And so. And when I got a phone with a browser, there were temptations and triggers again. And it was like, man, now I need more boundaries and more accountability and I need to download, you know, accountability software and all those things are present. So I just think if that's where someone is at, there's wisdom there because it creates that safe space for recovery to really get traction in your life.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. And the hope is in that safe space, you can build a muscle. Like, it's not, again, it's not the end all solution, but it's like one bike lock, right? And you can even cut the bike clock. Not on our phone. But like, you can go, you know, there's other methods. You know, we, we were playing, we were talking about some more advanced functionality. We're like, well, maybe some hacker kid could plug it into his computer and hack into it and all this stuff. And I'm like, okay, if a kid is going to plug it into his computer and install the super complicated software and hack our phone, he could go to Dollar General with a $30 bill and buy a phone. You know, it's like, for sure. And the truth is you probably can't hack our phone, but it's just, it's a hurdle. That's what it is. It's a convenience hurdle. And the point is to give you strength and not have a perpetual pressure. That's what it is. It's releasing and to have strength in the moments where you are more vulnerable.

For sure.

So we really encourage people to consider the wise phone, especially if they're early on in recovery or as my wife and I are talking about when our boys get their first cell phone. And not that girls wouldn't benefit as well, but, you know, you've got kids that are in that 10, 11, 12, 13 zone and you're starting to ask the questions, or do they need a phone? And, you know, as parents, we're facing the pressure of, okay, we've got to a kid that one of our boys does swimming pretty much every day. And there are a few times practice ends early and he doesn't have a phone right now. Like, dang, it sure be nice if he had a phone. But we don't quite yet want to hand him an iPhone or something. With all the Internet and gaming and those issues, like, hey, maybe we should consider this Wise Phone. And so for a lot of people, I think that makes sense. But, Chris, what are some other habits or practices that you are recommending to people If. If someone says, well, I don't know that I need the Wise Phone, or I'm not ready to jump to that, or maybe they've already jumped into the idea of a Wise Phone. What are other kind of device or digital kind of safeguards that you've encouraged people to practice as part of their recovery?

Yeah, yeah. And I would say that Wise Phone isn't for everyone to begin with. I mean, there are some major convenience hurdles. I mean, I was trying to park at Trader Joe's. I use a Wise Phone, right? And they require an app to park there. And I'm like, can I. Can I talk to the manager? I love you guys. Y' all are awesome. Can you please change this mechanism so I can pay with cash? So there's some hurdles, you know, to using Wise Phone. And so I get over them by having a laptop that I use. And I get. I mean, I'm running the company and I. I use Wise Phone, but it's not for everyone. And so I would say there's a handful of things, you know, one, first, by just thinking critically for the first time, I mean, really asking yourself, taking a step back and asking yourself, hey, what is this? Why is it built? Why am I? How much am I using this? What's my screen time? I mean, things like that. And I, again, I don't ever want to be prescriptive for people in their life, in their situation. And I feel like God leads us along in incremental steps in our path to sanctification, and so we kind of want to do that as well. But I just. I can tell you things that have helped for me. I mean, I don't put my phone in my Bedroom. When I have a smartphone, I don't look at it until after I go outside for a couple minutes just to look at the birds and the trees and, you know, stay rooted in reality. I try very hard not to ever fub, which is where you're texting while someone's right beside you. I mean, date night, car trips, Like, I'm not using the phone at the table. Like, these are just basic things. We have our phones charging in a single place in the home. Simple little tools here. I mean, you already heard about Netflix, how I handle movies, but I don't know, I'm sure you guys have ideas too, and it just takes creativity to figure out what makes sense for you.

Well, what you're talking about too. And I know Cal Newport is a name in this field who talks a lot about digital health. And I got, like I said, that ruthless elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. That idea that he talks about a little bit in that book that you treat your phone like it's got a bedtime, like your kids do. You don't let your kids stay up at all hours of the night. If your kids bedtime. My kid's bedtime is seven o'.

Clock.

And so if my phone, if I treat it the same way and I'm parenting my phone in that capacity, then you know what? At 8 o', clock, when it's at its bedtime, it goes where it goes. I charge it in another room. Something like thinking through habits. And you know what's funny is there are consequences to those decisions. Like for me, I use my phone as my alarm clock. That means I have to buy an actual alarm clock. Right. And it's weird, they're actually on Amazon. They sell tons of them. They're there. But it's one of those things where there are going to be sacrifices and consequences that you have to make and that you're gonna feel when you make decisions like this. But again, it's positioning yourself, it's making decisions. It's one of those things where it delays gratification. And, you know, I love the language you're using, Chris. Building muscle. Like you're building the muscles that you want to build by making decisions that are gonna hurt maybe a little bit on the front end. But anybody who's been in recovery, anybody who's been through healing, understands that we have to make those decisions in order to get where we wanna be, which is in that health zone for sure.

Yeah.

And everyone needs to make the decisions that work best for them. But I think for Me, it was helpful to realize that this is a device that's created a need for itself because, you know, 25 years ago, no one needed a smartphone because they didn't exist. We all figured out how to do life, and we never touched a smartphone. But what can happen to us is because we've gotten so accustomed to having that convenience, to having that power, as you put it so well, Chris, we're really reluctant to let go of it. And I know for me, when I was starting recovery and my wife was requesting as part of her recovery plan that I need you to not have one, I had all these objections, like, but what about. And what about. And what about. And I realized there was this moment of, like, why need to choose? If. If I'm serious, when I tell her I will do anything it takes to repair our trust and restore this marriage. And she's asking for something, you know, basic, like, change the way I use my phone. And it was not easy. It was like, I got to figure it out. I got to figure out a different way to seek out entertainment. I've got to figure out a different way to look up information. I've got to figure out different rhythms of doing life. And yeah, there was some adjustments, but I just think for a lot of people, they get caught up in the. I need it. It's like it's created a need for itself. And if you really work, you could actually find there are ways you could do life without it. And you could use a wise phone, you could use your devices differently. But it will take an adjustment because it's created a need for itself. And if we're. If we're in a place we need to disengage, it will be work, but I really believe it'll be worth it.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. And back to the whole healthy tech concept. I mean, if you think about healthy food, to eat healthy, there's a cost. You gotta go grocery shopping. If you're driving down the road and on a road trip, you can't just stop for two minutes at a McDonald's, drive through, you gotta sit down. I mean, there's a couple more, but the food costs more. I mean, that there is a real cost to eating healthier. I mean, working out isn't fun. You could hire personal trainers. I mean, like, all this stuff is part of creating a healthy body. And so nobody at this point, from my experience, nobody is willing to pay a cost of inconvenience right now to live a healthy digital life. I mean, buying an alarm clock that costs $30? Well, there's a transformation by moving your phone away from your bed. But that's a $30 cost that most people don't question or would not do. So that's the kind of critical thinking that I'm pushing people towards is think critically about what can I live without? How can I set boundaries and just accept the cost? I mean, if you pay $1,000 a year for a healthy digital life, is it worth it to you? I don't know. Maybe, yeah.

My guess is absolutely yes.

For sure.

Yeah. Well, and if you've got a spouse who's hurt, feels betrayed, and you said to them, honey, I will do whatever it takes, like I did. And they ask you to do something that costs $500 or $1,000, and you're like, oh, well, I can't do that. Then it's like, oh, so there was a price tag on you saying you would do anything it takes. You know, you were only willing to do things up to a certain amount, but not five hundred or a thousand. It's like, what. What is it worth to rescue a marriage? What is it worth to restore integrity? It's like, well, I don't know if you can put a price tag on that. I'm not trying to say it has to cost you thousands and thousands, but it's like if you see, you know, as Chris said, if you see and thinking critically, this is what it's going to take, I think we got to be willing to pay the price.

Absolutely.

So, Nick, I've got a question for you, actually. So back in your non smartphone years, okay. You said, I have to think about finding information. You were talking about some of the inconveniences that you had because of that decision. How did that affect your relationships with other people? I mean, your wife, but others as well, in that moment of not using this convenience system.

I think it was one of the things that God actually used to bring me out of the shame and isolation. Because in recovery, I still wanted to keep control of the information of who knew. Like, my wife knew, my counselor knew, and the group of men I was going through seven pillars knew. But outside of that, it was like, I don't want people to know. But if you have to print up directions to go somewhere from MapQuest and bring them with you, and you're not looking at your phone and people are like, why are you doing that? It actually became part of, I think, what God used. I say, I'm actually in recovery from an addiction, pornography. And it's something that I need to not have access to the Internet on my phone. So I print directions and, you know, pretty soon people, friends, co workers around me, they all knew as well.

Yeah.

And so it just was that initial hurdle of having to explain that interaction. But I think it really helped to just own this is what I need for my recovery and to rebuild trust. And I'm doing what it takes. And it, it was interesting how after, you know, a few months of living without a smartphone, it just. I didn't even think about what I was missing because I developed a new normal.

Yep.

And I think that's my encouragement to anyone listening is right now, if you're in an unhealthy normal, it's still your normal. And even if you change something unhealthy, it feels hard. But you can get into a healthy new normal and you'll realize, oh, this wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. So I think that's what it was for me. Just, it became an opportunity to put my money where my mouth was and do those inconvenient things, but also reminding myself, this is why I'm doing that I made the choices that earned me this opportunity to have these challenging, inconvenient things, but it's also part of how I'm recovering and getting better by making these choices.

Sure.

One of my favorite things about, I mean, that's a beautiful example. One of my favorite things that I've started to realize is that the more we let go of some of these inconveniences that are the power that we could have at our fingertips, the more often it drives us up this relational hierarchy away from digital, superficial interactions towards more meaningful interactions like you had with your friends. I mean, you wouldn't have had those type of probably more meaningful relationships with your friends had you not had. I mean, you might have to call them up, hey, how do I get here? But if you forgot to print your direction one day, and that actually is cool, there's a cost associated with it, but connects you more to humans. And I really love what that does.

Yeah, absolutely.

I appreciate it too. It forced me to be more intentional because, you know, I couldn't just check my email anywhere, anytime. Like, I. If I was going to be on email, I had to be at my desk computer or on our home computer. And so I started to figure out the things like, I'm going to need to know that. And so I'd be looking up directions ahead of time or answering that email ahead of time, because I couldn't just Rely on the convenience that, oh, anytime I remember, I'll just pop on my phone and take care of that. And I think being more intentional is actually really, really helpful in recovery as well.

Yeah, yeah. Feels like it facilitates more discipline in a lot of different areas for sure. Chris, how can people follow you guys, keep up with you guys with what you're doing and conversations around healthy relationships with tech?

Yeah. So number one thing, go to our website, techless.com, t e c h l e s s.com we sell wise Phone there. That's the only place you can buy it. Our newsletter is a great place to stay in touch and I can tell you, you know, if Wise Phone isn't right for you. Now, I'm not going to tell you too much, but we are working on something that might be more interesting or have a bit more functionality. And so if you're in that category, I would Recommend going to techlist.com, sign up for our email newsletter. Of course we're on social, but the newsletter is the way to stay in touch. So.

Yep, cool. We'll have all that in the show notes and nice cliffhanger by the way. Good job. Just invited.

I'm not trying to be, you know, intentionally mysterious, but some of the details are worked out and I've in the past I've leaked information about products too soon and then the products change and people get upset.

Me, we know how that goes.

I'm just holding on until we know what we're gonna build here.

Hey man, you're showing self control discipline right now. It's awesome. Listener, we have a coupon code for you for the Wise Phone. You can take $40 off you use the code PureDesire. 40, that's one word. Pure desire. 40, the number 4, 0, all one word. At checkout you can grab your Wise phone and again, we'll have the link in the show notes and this information on the coupon. It's www.techlist.com. chris, man, thanks for what you're doing. I think this is absolutely a time where this stuff is needed, this conversation is happening and it's cool to see a digital option out there that can be really a tool in the toolkit of health, whether it's sexual integrity or just trying to manage mental health, physical health, all of that. We just appreciate what you guys are doing at Techless and appreciate your time today with us, man.

Yeah, likewise. I love y'.

All.

I love what you're doing. Your impact is profound and so just grateful to be talking about this together.

Thanks man. And wherever you're at on your journey, Pure Desire is here to help create a roadmap for your healing. If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual brokenness or betrayal trauma, go to PureDesire.org and let's start the healing journey today. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and drop us a review. It helps others find the podcast. Each week we're putting out new content to help you on the road to healing and freedom. And lastly, never stop being healthy.

Sam.