#84 - Voices of Aro: Redefining family time with Aro

Joey Odom  0:03  

Welcome back to the Aro podcast. Hey, it's your good friend, Joey Odom, co founder of Aro and gang. I've just been delighted. I just sat in studio. This is a first for the Aro podcast. In studio for voices of Aro interview with Courtney and Brent Carrigan, and they were just absolutely wonderful. It was like three friends sitting down having a conversation, and I wanted to hear about their story. I wanted to hear about, hey, what was the tension you were feeling behind technology? And their answer was very surprising to me, and I'll let you hear it really from them, but they were already 98% of the way there. It was really, really interesting that it's not like they were in these this desperate situation where their phones were overtaking their lives and they were totally addicted to it. They were in a spot where they said, Hey, I think we need a little help to get better. And I'll let you hear from them. But it was really fascinating. I think my favorite part of the story is when Brent came home so excited he had heard about Aro on a podcast, and he came and he and he told Courtney, with all of his excitement, and I'll let you listen to it. This is the clickbait of the intro. Her reaction might surprise you. It might shock you a little bit on based on what she said, they also talk a little bit about a shoebox experiment, and that's something that for those of you listening who have heard of Aro, who may say, Well, why wouldn't I just put my phone in a shoebox? They actually explain them trying that or them thinking about that concept and what they did about it, you're going to like hearing that as well. Voices of Aro as you know this is for you to hear from somebody who might look like you. And I think a lot of you are going to see yourself in their story, they have a two year old boy, AJ, and they want to be great for him. And for those parents out there who say, hey, I want to be great here, I want to be great. I want to set a great example. I want to have a great marriage, and I need a little bit of help. This is going to be a really helpful episode for you. So for now, sit back, relax and enjoy my conversation with Courtney and Brent Kerrigan gang. We have an Aro first. This is an Aro first. We are in studio with voices of Aro. We have the kerrigans here. We have Courtney and Brent, and I'm just excited to see you. I'm very like, like, legitimately giddy inside, and we're sitting face to face. So thank you for being here. Thank you for coming in studio to the Aro headquarters. So I want to start a little bit. And again, voices of Aro is for people to to see themselves and somebody else and see here's somebody else's journey, and it always begins with attention. You know, there's something when it came to phones, like Something didn't feel right. Will you tell us a little bit about what was that thing? And maybe, maybe that's not, I don't want to totally presume too much. What was that thing? Where you said, I want to do something better. I want to. I want to. I'm feeling attention. What was it? When it came to technology, we said something just isn't quite right.

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Courtney Carrigan  2:54  

So I think for us, there was definitely an acknowledgment of a little too much time on the phones and not liking having it with us, 24/7, but at the same time feeling like there wasn't another way. Like, you know, it was everything. We needed to be connected. We needed to check the text messages, see the emails, maybe scroll on social media, whatever the thing may be, I don't have any social media, and I'm not real big on it, so I a little bit maybe thought it wasn't as much of an issue for me, but when I would see Brent spending a lot more time on his phone, not to say that I'm better than him by any means, or I'm just saying it was different for me, because I felt like I saw it a lot more in him.

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Brent Carrigan  3:35  

And I'm a scroller. I like to scroll. I don't care to post. I'm like, right with anybody like Matt? But like looking at it, I'll share funny videos or whatever, just see what's going on. And so spending, like, a lot of time doing that, even with like the TV on, or just whatever it was, like, this is too much noise that I don't need. And so it's like, kind of being disconnected from her or what have you we were already kind of good about not having it at the dinner. It at the dinner table and then not using it for an alarm clock to sleep or anything, so that'd be downstairs on the counter. So that was something we had already started. Did

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Courtney Carrigan  4:12  

have boundaries in place? And so in some ways, we were like, Okay, we're doing pretty good. But at the same time we were like, No, this still could be done differently in a much it could be better. Yeah,

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Joey Odom  4:22  

so that's really interesting. We hear this a lot when, when people with Aro, it's not as if we that the customer looks like somebody who is just a total abject mess, right? It's for people who already do. They're already very conscious of this, because this requires some self reflections and self awareness. So I wanted, I want to drill in, and you've touched on it, but I want to drill into it a little bit more the difference in your usage, because we also find, we found, and this is just going to sound like the dumbest male thing to say. Men and women use it differently. Like, it's just like, there are different use cases. So will you, I want to touch on that just one more time. Like, how was it? Courtney, the. Found yourself using your phone in a way that you didn't really like, and then Brett's same for you. I mentioned you mentioned the scroll and McCord. We're for you personally, like, I don't like this relationship with my phone or the long question, or was it I just want Brett to be better?

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Courtney Carrigan  5:16  

I think it was some of both. I think for me, yeah, don't like that. I'm spending this amount of time on my phone. I did feel myself getting distracted by it at work when I was like, trying to product, to be productive and get things done, but at the same time, the phone buzzed, and, you know, five minutes later, I'm still doing something else, and it's like I didn't even know what I was doing. But then also, like you said, I wanted Brent to be better as well, but I need, I also needed to be better. It wasn't just like because I don't do social media. It's not an issue for me.

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Joey Odom  5:46  

Brent, did you know she wanted you to be better? Yes,

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Brent Carrigan  5:49  

which I mean part of the reason why I chose Courtney as my wife. Someone made me better because I'm perfect by any means. So I knew she wanted me to be better. I knew I could be better because, like, having my phone on me and buzz, oh, I've got to see what's going on. Like, does somebody need but it had the time. It wasn't, nobody needed me. It's just they're sending something. So it's like to respond to a nut, and I'm like, Yeah, this isn't

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Courtney Carrigan  6:13  

and we had a lot of conversations about it, even even before we got married. It was like a topic of conversation,

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Joey Odom  6:21  

like a preemptive topic, or you saw you already felt some tension. Or was there even in dating, like, Could you, could you feel a little bit of tension, or maybe even foresee a little bit of tension in the future? Or was it just like, hey, we want to be good at this because we know it could be

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Courtney Carrigan  6:36  

a problem. Yeah, I think it was more so. The latter, we want to be good at this, we know it can be a problem. We do want to put some boundaries in place. And I feel like we were maybe good about that for a season, maybe when we first got married, and then things just changed, and things happened. And

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Joey Odom  6:53  

how much did did AJ your son? How much did AJ factor into the tension you felt around your phones? I'd

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Brent Carrigan  7:01  

say before. AJ, we were foster parents, so we had some foster girls that came to live with us for a few months, and we didn't want that to be prevalent. Granted, they had been exposed to lots of other things

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Courtney Carrigan  7:14  

already being the time on the phones and the screen, screens and

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Brent Carrigan  7:18  

stuff. And so we're like, well, we don't want them to see that as this is just what you do. We want them to know like there's so much more to life than what is on this chunk of plastic and glass. So try to be intentional about that and not be on it around them. We weren't perfect by any means. And then when AJ came into play, like just kind of talking about, what do we want this to look like for him? What do we want to model from an example perspective, and then also just like, so we are there and present, versus like, Oh, he's just rolling around on the floor. We can look at her phone or whatever. Like, that's not, was it hurting him? Probably not too much. But at the same time, we want to interact with him because, like, that's gonna help him develop. That's going to help them develop. And so I about two years ago, maybe I'd start listening to this podcast, family goals. And David Pollack had mentioned Aro and that they put their phones in there, you know, certain set time and all that stuff. I was like, I know Courtney kind of wants to, like, not be on phones or be connected as much. And so this could be helpful for me, because I heard competitive aspect as well, and for some reason, I like to be really competitive with it comes to court, any spike, Luna beater, it's not I want to win.

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Joey Odom  8:35  

We'll edit that. Yeah, yeah.

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Brent Carrigan  8:39  

So told her about it, and she was like, I don't think so. I don't,

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Joey Odom  8:45  

I don't really, oh,

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Courtney Carrigan  8:47  

yeah, totally. Is So, really funny. When he first brought it up, he was so excited he heard about it almost like,

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Joey Odom  8:54  

Oh, she loved this. You just crushed his spirit. I

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Brent Carrigan  8:56  

mean, in a way, I

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Courtney Carrigan  8:58  

didn't mean to, and it wasn't intentional. I wasn't trying to shoot him down. And I loved the idea. I thought it sounded great. At the time, we had moved into a new house about a year prior, we were still very much figuring out budget things and trying to rebuild savings and all these financial things that were maybe weighing a little bit heavy on me. And when he brought this to me and talked about, like, another monthly subscription. That's really all I heard. And I was like, I just don't want to talk about adding another line to the budget. I don't want to have another expense, like, we're trying to cut things from the budget, not add more. And so sadly, I was just kind of like, like, maybe not right now.

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Brent Carrigan  9:41  

So then a few months go by and well, and as

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Courtney Carrigan  9:45  

part of that conversation and said, How about this? What if I buy us a shoebox, and we try putting our phones in the shoebox and see how things go, and we can kind of revisit and go from there, said, shoebox never came. Well. Fast forward a few months. There was no shoebox. Nothing had really changed, and that's when I kind of recognized, like, Okay, we we need to revisit this and consider this as a serious option, because clearly, we're not doing anything to fix it by ourselves. We, we need some help. This

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Joey Odom  10:14  

is a very basic question, and it's what did you perceive would be helpful? And then when you got it, why was it helpful? And I know that sounds very, very basic, but yeah, why was this box and the app was it? The app was it, the box was it, the combo was it, the system where you just walked through what it was, where it was, oh, this actually is helpful. Yeah,

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Courtney Carrigan  10:34  

I think the app was a huge part of that, just tracking the time that you've spent away from your phone. And then add in the competitive aspect, like, you can see how long other people in your family have had their phone in the box. Like, I think that was huge for both of us. We're naturally pretty competitive, trying to see who can, like, get the most hours.

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Brent Carrigan  10:54  

But when she sets her mind to something, she's like, to the extreme, like, it's like, I'm gonna do this. Oh, kind of, like, gonna do this or nothing. So that made the competition a little bit more fun for me, because it's like, I'm gonna beat her. I'm going to go in, yes, I'm going to win. Stop saying that I'm gonna win. And sadly, I've only won like, maybe 10 times. Wow. Like

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Joey Odom  11:19  

you measure this on weeks? Like, yeah, giving

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Brent Carrigan  11:23  

me, but we like, how you can, like, categorize your time away. And then it shows, oh, here's how, what I've been able to do without my side. So whereas with the phone, it's like the

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Courtney Carrigan  11:36  

aspects the box itself in the app has been hugely beneficial. The box sits on our kitchen counter, which is kind of that first space you walk into when you walk in the house, like it's right there. You kind of drop your phone in the box right next to the keys. It's like an automatic reaction reflects the

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Brent Carrigan  11:53  

way it looks now, yeah, it

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Courtney Carrigan  11:54  

looks nice. It's not, you know, it's not tacky by any means.

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Joey Odom  11:58  

And you mentioned we were talking before, and I made you stop. I made you stop because I wanted to hear it on air. You said, Brent, you said, you said, RL flip. So this is for those listening. RL flip is where, where you don't need the box, where you can flip your phone and it initiates an Aro session, tracking that time away from your phone. You said, that has been huge for you. And I will you explain why? Because in again, back to this is it's almost like Courtney. It's almost like this, yeah, why don't you put your phone in a shoebox? That's the R box comparison. In the same way we can all flip over our phones. So why is it the Aro flip where it tracks that? What about that? BREM has been a game changer for you.

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Brent Carrigan  12:33  

So one the phone's down, I don't necessarily see if a text message comes through or anything. I don't have those are the only notifications I really have. Or if I've got my own notifications on sudden, if she starts a flip session, so flipping it over, can't see it. It's good for when I'm working, so I'm not like, distracted and be like, I'm just gonna scroll through Facebook, Instagram, whatever kind of thing. But it's good for driving. Like, I don't want our son to be like, oh, you know, they text and driving it. That's just what to

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Courtney Carrigan  13:03  

do. That was something I had recognized, particularly after our son came into the picture. He's two years old now, but really just with both of us, you know, trying to glance at a text message or something while driving. And it did get to a point where I was like, this is something I'm concerned about, and we really need to fix this. And so the flip session was a great solution. I mean, when that kind of first was released, we would have little contests to see who could get the most flip time while driving, just to ensure we, like, weren't on our phones. And

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Brent Carrigan  13:34  

I was winning that that for a while, just because I was driving someone to school in Nashville. So right, got me some good time, yeah, but just being focused on what I need to do and being safe and all that good stuff, you know, just more reason to not be around my or connected to my phone. Not looking at the screen was just so helpful. Keeps me focused on work and just, you know, if we're downstairs and living room, I could if it's not in the box, okay? It's on the table, flipped over. I'm not seeing it. He's not seen it. And our son has this fake, phony play plastic film that does absolutely nothing. Right? It's supposed to, but it's broken and does nothing. He's started wanting to put it in the box. Yeah, so, yeah. So it's like, okay, we're doing something right? First time we did that was a few weeks ago, and we were like, Okay, this is awesome.

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Joey Odom  14:26  

Isn't that amazing? I mean, this is the there's so many, and we think about these comparisons a lot to how smoking was when at least I was growing up, how and it's laughable to think about, but they had candy cigarettes. Do you remember candy cigarettes? And so naturally, you see your parents smoking, and so then you want to mimic that thing, and our kids are the same. And so what if we could change that? We what if we knew that, and then we can, all of a sudden channel that behavior into something good, which is what you're doing with with AJ sees you physically putting your phones down, which let's let's not forget, only 9% of people do that. They spend time away from their phones on a day. Basis, and he's already building that muscle memory, and it's making it normal for him to spend time away from his plastic bone. But eventually he'll probably get a phone. Yeah, right. So I love that. I would love to hear that's one great story. I would love to hear other maybe between the two of you in your marriage. Have you noticed anything, any different kind of connection? I mean, it could just be like, well, maybe I'll start here. Courtney, have you noticed with Brent? You noticed that him before, hey, you got to be a little bit better, big guy. So for you, have you noticed a change in Brent and his behavior with his phone? Yes,

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Courtney Carrigan  15:32  

absolutely, for the better, and it has been so encouraging. I think that ro has helped our conversation to be more intentional and more memorable. Like, I can't tell you the number of times we would be trying to have a conversation, and one of us is glancing down on a phone, only, like half hearing what the other person says, and so it's, yeah, it's made a huge difference. I feel like it has helped improve our communication, and I really think it's improved the quality of many areas of life, but certainly like for date nights, you know, we do try to be pretty intentional about getting out just the two of us at least once a month. Sometimes we're able to do a little more, but once a month is the goal, and so not having our phones with us during that time is just hugely beneficial. We've had a lot more intentional in depth conversation and just enjoyed a lot more quality time together.

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Joey Odom  16:23  

So one quick one question for you is a follow to that people say all the time. What have you got a two year old? So what? How? How do you for the person who's already thinking like, well, ways I can't do that. I have a little one. How could I be away from my phone? How do you manage that, practically, that the fact that you're not reachable on a date night, or, I mean, is it physically, is it theoretically possible? But how do you manage that? Maybe fear of not being reachable when your child's with a babysitter? That

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Courtney Carrigan  16:46  

is a great question. And again, I think the flip session helps with that, because we do still have our funds with us on date night. We didn't necessarily leave it at home, in the box, in the car. A lot of times, you know, if we're going into a restaurant, we'll leave it in the car, flipped over, getting getting ro time. And I'd say, at least, like, after the meal, we'll kind of check in, make sure there's no news. We haven't heard anything. And I mean, up to this point, we never had a situation where there was, like, some huge emergency and we weren't reachable.

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Joey Odom  17:17  

So I love that. That's that's we. We do have a mental construct. Sometimes it says, I got it this 30 minutes, when it's probably 30 to 40 minutes, right? A focused conversation, and so it's manageable. Brent, what about for you? What have you noticed in terms of your relationship together with you? Courtney, since you've, since ours been in your home, yeah, we've

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Brent Carrigan  17:33  

definitely gotten closer. And like, kept that intimacy granted. It's not perfect. Nothing ever is, but feel more connected. You know, like Courtney said, you know, it's not like, half listening, because she'll talk to me sometimes, and if I was on my phone, she's like, Did you she goes, I'm like, yeah. And then she said, like, you repeat the last three words, yeah. And so it's like, that's not great for my marriage. And if I want to model what a good marriage looks like for our son, I can't be half in or halfway part of it. So it's created the ability for me to be all in and connected, and vice versa for her too, you know, she was doing something on her phone, whatever it may be, game or look, selling something, you know, right? She's a big seller and buyer, sorry, retail therapy, it's better than going

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Courtney Carrigan  18:31  

to a store with social media. I was probably spending way too much time on Facebook marketplace and garage sale things like that, so I was by no means perfect,

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Brent Carrigan  18:41  

yeah, but, I mean, that's cut back some. I mean, she wasn't going crazy or anything, just kind of basically, just scrolling, looking around, which is dangerous, involves money, but I mean, we're definitely just more together, yeah.

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Courtney Carrigan  18:59  

Well, and I do want to make the point that it has improved the quality, the quality and quantity, I would say, of our family time together. Our family time together during the week, Monday through Friday is so very limited. I do work full time outside the home. We're so grateful to have family nearby that helps with child care. And we, you know, our son is in a little like two day a week preschool program, which is wonderful. But you know, while we work, we are obviously not together as a family. We get home in the evenings, and our time together usually starts around five or 530 with dinner, and we're getting him ready for bed between 730 and 8pm I mean, he's two years old, so it still goes to bed pretty early, and mornings are a little hectic, trying to get everybody ready and out the door. So those few hours that we have together in the evening are really special. We don't want to take those for granted, and we feel like aro has helped us just make that time more intentional. Love that.

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Joey Odom  19:59  

Yeah. And for the listener, how long have you been using our What did you first bring our own to your home?

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Brent Carrigan  20:04  

I think it's been almost. It'll be a year in August or September, I believe. 

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Joey Odom  20:08  

So still has relevance for you. So it's not as if you get it, you get it down in a couple months. So it still is something that is, that is helpful for you. So Right? Last question, let's pretend like you're you're sitting, you're sitting at coffee with a friend, and they say, Hey, I saw you had, I'd say you had. Ro Do you think? What do you think about it for me, like, for somebody, maybe, who's listening, who probably can relate to you, and hears your story, and it probably feels like you're sitting across from coffee with a friend, how would you describe if you said, like, Hey, I'm thinking about this. What do you think?

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Brent Carrigan  20:34  

I think for me, like, Well, we actually had some friends over a few months ago, and they were asking about the box, like, Oh, what's that thing on your counter? And we're like, oh, it's our ro box, you know, it's where we put our phones for tracking. And they're like, Oh, that's pretty cool. Like, that's so good for, like, mental health and just all these different things. And so they were really interested. Courtney sent some information, and they're looking to put it in the newsletter that they send out to their clients, because they're physical therapists. And they send out this monthly newsletter of, like, here's a health highlight of a local highlight thing or something, and it would include, you know, our code or whatever. And it's just, like, it's more than just, you know, ton of weights. It's a health thing. Like, it's a, yeah, mental, emotional, spiritual, yeah, health thing. 

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Courtney Carrigan  21:26  

And I do, I think anytime people ask us about it, because they have, especially when they see the box in our home, we are always encouraging people to check it out and learn more about it, because it will absolutely benefit them. We do make that pretty clear, like you're not going to go wrong. It's, it's not a bad decision. 

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Brent Carrigan  21:43  

You get more time and spinning loose. 

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Joey Odom  21:46  

Yeah,I love that. Well, one thing I love, and this was a shock to me, that you were resistant, Courtney, to adding this. Then I thought, you have all the money. I'm glad we could shut but, but I but we understand that you don't want to add another subscription. You, you really don't, but, but maybe to to put words in your mouth, we spend money on things that are valuable to us. And if you knew at the outset, if you knew at the outset, this thing is going to enhance my date night, it's going to enhance my conversation, it's going to provide a great model for AJ, for my family, I think everyone would say, of course, I would do that. But you're taking a chance, right? You're you're taking a risk on subscribing to just another thing for the chance that it doesn't so hearing that I believe is an encouragement to others to say, hey, I can do something about it myself, too. And we are firm believers that this, if we can get this right, this, when it comes to phones and technology, we have to stop at nothing to get it right, because this is the precursor to everything good we want in life. Yeah, relationship, relationships, and everything that's good in our life, this is the precursor. And so going to that extreme, which you've done, is encouraging to me, certainly, but encouraging others, others this thing as well. So thank you. Thank you so much for hanging out in Knoxville. It's been wonderful. Appreciate you guys. My money's on AJ, by the way, AJ's got a great future, got great ferrets. So thank you. Thank you all.

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Hey, thank you for joining us on voices of Aro. Hey, if you're an Aro member and you would like to be part of voices of Arro, just shoot us an email at stories@goro.com if you are not yet an Aro member and you want to learn more, go to our website, goro.com or follow us on Instagram at go Aro. Now. Lastly, if you would do me an enormous favor, will you please leave us a five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you so much for joining us on voices of aro. We can't wait to see you next time on voices of Aro or the Aro podcast. The Aro podcast is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. Special thanks to Emily Miles and Caitlin Krings for media and digital support and to executive producers Anthony Palmer of Palm Tree Pod Co And the prince of the low country tides himself, Rich Donnellan.

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