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Thank you. We're super excited to be here. Now, I'm so excited for this because first off, too, I just want to say this is not like a paid thing that's happening. This is because it's like a company I truly believe in. Just things that we've discussed and visions that we have are very aligned. So it felt like the perfect time.
Well, thanks for having us. We're excited to be in Nashville. We've been hanging out with race cars over the weekend. I know. I was supposed to be there, and I'm not going to lie. So I had to go see my dad just because of everything happening right now. I was a race car driver in my past life. It's amazing. 100%. Okay. I just went to Vegas in August and raced on the track there. And it was like a 1.3 mile track. I did it in, what was it?
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 58 seconds. Wow. And I had the fastest track time. I was like, guys, I was meant to do this. Okay. Yeah. That's impressive. So you were here for the race. Yes. And tell us about that. Because that was a big deal. Yes. First time in history, right? Yes. So there's an amazing driver. His name is Stingray Rob.
Is that his real name? His real name is Stingray. Like birth certificate real name. Real name. Stingray Rob. That's amazing. And he's a young guy out of Ohio, a devout Christian. And he was looking for, you know. focus for his team this year. He's like, there's nothing that focuses more than Jesus. And he was looking for sponsors that made sense for him and his focus. And we got approached and we said, hey, you know, would you guys be interested in being on our car?
And we're like, you know, when Matt and I and our two other co-founders started prayer.com, there was nothing on there that said we're going to be indie correspondents. Yeah, totally. And so it was really just this incredible God moment where. We got together and we said, absolutely. And we've been with this team for this year and it's been incredible. We've been to so many races all over the country, and Stingray has had ups and downs, crashes and flying through the air.
leading the Indy 500 for like 20 laps. Yeah. Holy cow. And this is the last race of the season is in Nashville. And we're like, we've got to be here for the last race. And it was really incredible. And it was a beautiful.
time we we got middle of the middle of the pack in terms of how we ended okay um but we're really excited about it and we're really happy with how things turn out i love that especially too with being in the entertainment world as a whole even i mean racing cars entertainment but
to have the belief system of like, all right, I want a Bible verse on my car. I want pray.com on my car. Or because as Christians, especially in the past few years, you have seen an uptick in just persecution of Christians.
especially when money's on the line. And I hate to say that, but like if people are honest with themselves that are in this realm, it's like, it's sad because it's like, all right, I either have to like stand for Jesus in my beliefs and lose money or i don't stand for it and i gain the world but what do i really gain yeah you know and it's expensive to run an indie car i mean this is like
I think most people think, oh, they just, you know, do they earn money every race? And it's like, yes, they do, but they don't earn enough to actually cover the cost of actually running an IndyCar. I mean, this is like a $10 million minimum, you know, commitment. And they have to get sponsors to run those cars. So.
You know, I think it's easy to find, you know, the big names to to back your brand, you know, just like, oh, let's just go find, you know, Toyota or let's go find Kellogg or something. Right. And I think it takes a lot of courage to go, you know, we're going to go to the masses. Yeah, we're going to, you know, think of a different way to have people support our cars. Well, because pray.com, what was it? You guys have reached 17 million people. That's right.
17 million people. Yep. Which is absolutely insane. It's incredible. Yeah. When we started prayer, I think Matt and I, we didn't know. When did y'all start it? It was October, 2016, I believe. Yeah. Holy cow. So it's really. It's new. It's new. It hadn't even been 10 years, which is coming up on 10. It is. It is. It is. We're really fortunate. I think when we started the company.
we didn't know the things that we were going to be able to do. We just didn't know the impact we would have. Cause when you started it, like how did the idea come about? I mean, what were you doing before you started pray? Yeah. Matt, why don't you start? Yeah. So it all started actually with Mike and I's business partner, Steve. Steve was running the world's largest aerial production and surveillance company in California. And so if you ever saw a movie with a helicopter or a plane in it,
That was Steve's company. And he was the 29-year-old CEO of this massive aerial production and surveillance company. Unfortunately, they were filming a movie called American Made with Tom Cruise in Columbia. And they were flying around with Tom all day in the jungles. And at the end of shooting of one of the days. Steve's business partner got in a plane and was taking it back to the hangar and unfortunately it crashed and he died.
And Steve grew up to a single Jewish mom on welfare, didn't really go to church, got maybe dragged to church on Christmas or Easter by his grandma, but really didn't have faith as a part of his life. In that grieving process, a former Navy SEAL that worked at the company with Steve gave him an audio sermon from a pastor and it changed his life. And he became a Christian. Yeah. And so...
And when that happened to Steve, he said, why did I not know about this? Why didn't I know that this existed? Why didn't I know about pastors and all of these faith leaders? Especially coming from an underprivileged. Absolutely. And so... he, he was just set out to want to help people just like him. And he,
You know, why is there no ESPN for Christians? We've got the digital destination for sports ESPN. Why don't we have the digital destination for Christians online? Why does that not exist? Why is there no brand putting that together? And yeah, so that's. That was Steve telling me that at a coffee shop. And my background is.
in the church and in apps. My mom was a 15 year old girl who got pregnant and she was on her way to an abortion clinic. And on her way to that clinic, she popped into a church. to talk to the pastor about some advice on the biggest decision she was going to make in her life up to that point. And the pastor was a little nervous to talk to the girl. And so he called his buddy in Los Angeles who just planted a 20 person church and said, Hey, like, what should I tell this girl?
and he said well it's providence you just called me i'm counseling this christian married couple who's been trying to have children for 10 years they're in my office wow go back in there and ask that girl if she'd be willing to give her baby up for adoption
So I got adopted because of these two pastors that were no way. I was like, that is a God thing. You can't, you can't. Yeah. So it's Providence. Right. And then, um, Fast forward a few years, I got the really unique opportunity to meet Steve Jobs. And Steve is also not many people can say that. No. Yeah. Yeah. So my sophomore year of high school got to meet Steve Jobs. I didn't know he was adopted, but he inspired me.
And so when I went to Boise State and Steve launched the App Store, I dropped out of school and I started a company that builds apps for real estate companies. And so I built like 8,000 apps in the app store for all the major real estate companies in the United States. And then...
I had achieved everything that I wanted to achieve after building that company for over a decade. And I called my pastor and asked him how I could help and give back to the church. And he said, Matt, like we're opening a new campus. Why don't you be a campus pastor? And I was like. I'm an introverted tech entrepreneur who didn't go to seminary. That's terrifying. That's terrifying. So he said, pray about it. And the very next day I was at a coffee shop in my hometown of Westlake village.
And I ran into Steve Gatina and. Steve and I went to, we played on rival high school football teams and he had told me what just happened to him and the story, how his business partner died and how he wanted to build pray.com, the digital destination for Christians. That is like truly divine intervention. Absolutely. And it keeps happening to us constantly. It does. That's the thing. And what's so crazy about even just today and us doing this, I had a conversation before.
with my boyfriend this morning on the phone. And I was like, hey, I was like, you know why we're like why we're having these issues in our lives right now? we keep trying to fix it ourselves. Like we keep, I was like, you would work. You would like, you're so quick to just like want to fix it. And on this fast track to fix it. I was like, and you know why it seems like we just keep running the rat race. I was like, it's because we're.
we're lacking in that relationship with God. Like in this phase of our life, we're trying so hard to fix everything instead of looking to the one person to fix it. And that is God who's saying like, Hey, I know you're really trying to fix it, but like, until you look to me, it's not going to get fixed. That's right. And things will come to you. Yeah. That's the thing that we found is like,
The fact that four of us got together in all of our different backgrounds. So the two of you guys. So at the coffee shop. And then I didn't know that Steve had already. talked to Mike and to Ryan. And so when we were at the coffee shop, I was like the last person that got brought onto the team. And Steve asked me, hey, Matt, will you co-found the company with me and Mike and Ryan? And I said, yeah, absolutely. And he said, well, you got to meet Mike and Ryan. And so.
The next day I got to go and meet Mike and Ryan and I'll let Mike tell you that story. Just quick background on me, I'm from Green Bay, Wisconsin originally. So obviously a massive Packer fans. I just have to get that out there. But, you know, I grew up in a blue collar family. My father worked in a paper mill for 50 years. So we literally opened the same door for 50 years straight going to work.
And, you know, I didn't grow up a lot of money. I was the first person in my family to go to college. And I thought the path for my life was like marketing. I was like, oh, that sounds like an interesting thing. And I went to the University of Wisconsin. And while I was there, my parents got divorced. And it was really impactful on my life. And, you know, when there's a divorce, there's a separation of assets and also separation of people. Yeah. But my mom. The largest asset.
Yes. And my mom went to an advisor who ended up swindling her out of a bunch of money. We didn't have much money as it is, let alone have somebody take some from. Yeah. And so the path of my life changed. I said, I'm going to make sure that never happens to my mom or my family ever again. So I went and worked for Merrill Lynch for 13 years and I learned a lot about money.
Oh, yeah. And by the end of my career, I was managing three quarters of a billion dollars of assets. So I got to work with incredible people and... You know, I moved to L.A. from Green Bay, which is obviously a natural thing people from Green Bay do. And I was going to USC for business school. And that's how I met Steve Gatina, who we're talking about here. And, you know, Steve experienced a tragic loss of his business partner in a plane crash.
And he didn't know how to cope. And he said, Mike, I'm going to do something else with my life. Let's go have pizza. in the summer of 2016, just to give you some timeframe for it. So we go have pizza and he's like, Hey man, I'm going to start this company called pray.com, the digital destination for faith. And I was like,
Wait a minute. Did you say pray.com? Like no way you have that domain name. Yeah, there's no way. This is 2016. This is not like 1999. Yeah. And I was like, okay, this is incredible. Like, first of all, we're in LA. No one talks about their faith in LA. No one. Nobody. LA is the most. discouraging and I just got back from there so it's the most discouraging empty place. Like I've never seen so many people or been surrounded by so many people to feel so empty.
And I think the topic people are most comfortable talking about is politics. And I'm happy to talk about politics, but the most important thing for me is faith. And to have somebody else bring it up to me in a conversation, I'm like, whoa. Like the fact that we're even talking about this, like in people here is, you know, like people are gonna get upset and, you know,
Three hours later at this pizza shop, we had come up with all these incredible ideas to make pray.com an incredible place for people to go. And I told him that night, I go, listen, I'm going to leave my 13 year career, all my clients, all my licenses, my designations, everything I've built my whole life.
to help you build pray.com well and what you built was hard to get to super hard yeah um the failure rate on venture-backed startups is incredibly high yeah first you have to actually get the money which is incredibly difficult and then when you do get it you also have to actually be successful on it And the funny thing is like, I have no technical background.
We had Matt who actually built apps. We're like, whew, like this is helpful. But there was a missing piece is we were not going to be CTOs. And one of our co-founders, Ryan, who has a really interesting background who, you know, we've talked a little bit about, you know, he grew up is to a single mom and he got in a lot of trouble when he was younger. enough trouble that he went to prison when he was young. And, you know, while he was there,
His cellmate said, hey, like, do you want to be a big shot in prison or do you want to be a big shot in the golf course? Like, what do you think matters? And he's like, oh, OK, like maybe this crime thing in my brain. I should just walk away from that. And he's like, let me show you the Bible. And so his cellmate taught him the Bible. And it was such an impact on his life when he got out of prison, which was within a year, he went to Bible college and he was gonna become a pastor.
And if you know anything about engineers, they're not great pastors. Yeah, no, because everything is like, well, why did this happen? What happened at this time? Very analytical mindset. Very analytical. Not very talkative. So, you know, being a pastor wasn't his thing. But the church that he, you know, had sent him off to Bible college was like, hey, you should just go to a regular college and, you know, do whatever you think your passion is.
And so he majored in philosophy and engineering, and then he became our CTO later on. And he just happened to meet Steve randomly in a Mexican restaurant.
and Steve all remember Steve all he remembers of Ryan is like you were the bad boy guy that got arrested like in high school like I saw you like get taken to prison like I'm not sure I want to like first talk to you yeah and then when ryan asked him hey like what are you doing with your life and steve's like well i'm gonna start this company pray.com ryan's like wait a minute like do you understand how important faith is to me like i will do this for free like whatever help you need
And that's how four of us got together. That's amazing. We went to Silicon Valley with a PowerPoint slide deck, basically. And that was before Google Slides, which everyone uses now. And we just had an idea and a piece of paper. And literally the most prominent Silicon Valley investors are like,
We want in. Wow. And so that's the start of how pray.com got started and kind of where things. That is crazy. So when was it that you guys like, did you have a moment where you looked at each other and you were like, we did it.
No, because we haven't done it yet. Yes. We have a lot more to do. Not yet. We have a lot to do. You have touched at least 17 million people way more actually uh our podcast just hit 120 million downloads in the last 14 months yeah exactly like that's like a big like we did it yeah There's 2.5 billion Christians on planet Earth, and there's over 8 billion people. We haven't done it yet.
You got to keep that fire. We got a lot of work to do. I would say there's been a lot of really cool moments. Absolutely. Obviously being on this podcast, being number one. Thank you. I knew it. I knew it. But second and third were, you know. Going to the Vatican, being invited to go to the Vatican. Yep. That's amazing. This is pretty incredible and seeing how that operates. You know, during COVID, we had the President of the United States on.
Joe Biden. And we had the former vice president of the United States, Mike Pence. And that was like the first bipartisan event that took place in our country on any platform where both sides got on and said like, hey, like this is serious. Like we should be praying for each other. And there's been a lot of like really incredible things. I mean, this IndyCar thing, like it was just so cool. There's a laundry list of interesting things. But what's been incredible is the feedback.
Yeah. Feedback. What has been the feedback? well there's been you can go to the app stores right now and look actually look yeah and there's been hundreds of thousands of people that have wrote in to tell us you know how they feel about using pray.com and for us we didn't know the impact we would have on people Until all people just started running in and telling us like, hey, this has really impacted my life.
And some of the stories we have heard have been some of the most incredible things like you can imagine. You know, I remember just two off the top of my head. Matt, you probably have some too, but. There was a police officer in Ohio who was going to go home and kill himself. because his job was that stressful. And he's like, I can't do it anymore. And he received a text message from a friend that said, Hey, you should check out this app, pray.com.
And so he did. And he wrote us to tell us like, hey, I got this message and your platform saved my life. Which is like, wait a minute. Like, I'm never going to meet this person. Someone just wrote this in. And I feel like. And if there's one And it's not really Our message though
Yeah. You know, it's it's. Well, that's the thing is the app is more than just like, hey, come read the Bible. Like, it's not like, yes, there are tools to help you like, oh, I want to read the Bible in a year. I want to read it and whatever. But there.
actual sermons and messages from pastors and just people who want to make a difference and to help guide your kids at night to it's more than just like here here's a bible have fun right it needs to be entertaining i mean we have to compete with billion-dollar enterprises that want your attention. And so what people don't realize is I was listening to a podcast last week when I was driving.
And it was just about the medical field as a whole and how everything is so intertwined and how you've got, you know, Bayer, who is one of the largest contributors to Roundup. Why is that? Because the cancer that Roundup causes bear treats. So when you start and then you look at Coca-Cola, how much money they give to the Diabetes Association. Well, why do they do that? Because their product causes.
So when you look at it and there's all these billion dollar enterprises and it's like, They don't necessarily give money to causes they believe in, but they give money to causes that help what. leads to there it's a side effects that they want to say well but we're helping with those side effects yes uh you know what the side effect of faith is What? You feel better. Yeah. You're spiritually aligned. People don't necessarily want that there. And that's the tough part. Like, have you had.
Has there been a time that someone or some big corporation has come along and said, we want to give you X amount of dollars. And you had to look at it and say, whoa. This is going to hurt to not accept this, but it also doesn't align with us. It's been more of the places that don't want us. that tell us you can't be here um and in 2024 and i'm happy to name names because i'm not shy
There was a point that TikTok was like, we don't want any faith-based advertising on our platform at all. None. I can see that 100%. And they changed their policy. I have to feel like it's because we did some PR. Yeah. Push that. Good for you. Yeah. I believe it's ABC won't allow faith-based advertising on their platform. Mm-hmm. And I can tell you that I was told, um,
I was told that advertisers just don't like conservative. Okay. Advertisers don't like conservative. And when I was told that I was like, Whoa. And. faith-based stuff tends to lead conservative, you know, like that. And so that was very interesting to me when I was told that and I was like, this is, And two, when you have platforms such as TikTok, such as ABC, such as, I mean, I see on Fox all the time, faith-based programming all the time. So I can't, you know, but.
When you see all these platforms that reach hundreds of millions of people and they say we don't. that should scare people yeah absolutely that should scare people yeah i mean countries say they don't want it like we were banned in china so you know there's whole countries not just and what happens when that occurs like what when was the moment that you were like, oh crap, we're banned in China? Like, We were notified by the app store. You're being removed from.
this specific specific country yeah so like that's how we get notified it's just an email it's not a phone call it's not like hey you know some big explanation it's just literally an email it says you've been removed from the app store and did you already were you A part of the app store in China and removed. So did you already have a ton of subscribers in China at that point?
It's not even that. It's the fact that we got enough attention somehow over there. Because we have installs all over the world. And we have people listening to us all over the world. So there was a point where something happened where they got notified of us and they're like, they need to be stopped. Remove them now.
um but in terms of the even that's scary yeah really but our platform isn't a conservative platform we actually did a survey of our audience and we're like actually you know what is our audience we'd assume it might be conservative yeah but it's actually 50 50. that's crazy yeah it's 50 democrats 50 republicans and but at the same time
Having a relationship with Jesus shouldn't be a Democrat or Republican issue. It's not, you know, it's a people issue. And that's why it's like when we spoke about, because we met at. CPAC at CPAC. And that was how, when was it that we met during that whole thing? I don't know if you're about to go on, but I was just hanging around. I think I was so nervous. I was hanging in the green room and I think you were just like just chilling there. I was like.
I'm going to go talk to her. Yeah. Oh, I remember that. Yeah. She's up to you. Yeah. And, um, Yeah, I think it was just, you know, as soon as I heard you talk about your family, though, I was like, oh, we got to do something about this prison thing. Well, I think what I loved about you was you were just so just. chill about everything and it was like when you gave me your card or your number however we connected I was like oh he was like
One of the founders of pray.com. And he, you just like spoke, like spoke about it just very casually. And I was like, okay, that's like a big deal. Like you can make waves with that, you know? Um, and.
then it was just something clicked and now I look back and it was like you said about how all four of you met like that weekend was when I met Brett Tolman and now who represents us and then I met you that weekend and now we've all three been on zooms together talking about all right how can we make a difference moving forward and when we started talking about the prison thing I was like wait
And you know how that came about is we talked about mental health. Mental health. Yes. And we talked about some clinical studies that we put together in which we wanted to prove. That when you use pray.com, it has a material impact on your mental health. I think most people of faith understand that. you know, it is something that if you practice it, it will make you feel better. Yeah. Wouldn't that make sense though? When you work out, it makes you feel better. You physically see results.
Now when you're praying, when you're truly putting in the effort and the time and allowing yourself to hear things, that aren't, that you can't see, that you can't feel, that you can't, when you allow it in, you will feel a difference. Well, we're created in the image of our creator. And so wouldn't it make sense, the connection to your creator prayer?
some physical things to happen with your, with your body, with your mental health, with your spiritual health. Yeah. Wouldn't that just make sense if you connect with your creator more? Well, and that's what I. I will say like, and I've been open about it on my podcast before, but at 15, I tried committing suicide. I had written a letter. And I was in such a phase of life of like, God, why me? Why me? Like, if you are like, if you are real, you wouldn't allow bad things to happen. Why me?
And literally the morning I came home from the hospital, there was a devotional in my dad's email from Joel Osteen. And it was Romans 828. That basically every hardship and adversity you go through, I'll turn it around and use it to your advantage. And it literally went from a why me moment to a why not me moment. And it was in the snap of a finger. And I'm like, that was a God thing. Like, I still have that paper that my dad printed out. I still have it to this day.
Love that. What? Almost 15 years later. Like, I still have it. So that is if you allow yourself to pay attention to the signs. I think a lot of it is we don't pay attention to the God wings. as I like to call it like we don't we just act like oh well this happened because I did it or because no it happened because of God And when we connected about, like you were saying, mental health, you guys have some of the first and maybe only studies that show how.
faith-based content can improve your mental health. That's right. Yeah. We have received all these inbound testimonials and reviews. And it was very clear to us that we were improving people's mental health just by what people were saying. And so there's another app called Calm. And it's really Buddhist teachings. And we knew the chief science officer over there. And so we said, hey, could you do some studies with Pray.com and the same studies you did with Calm and do it for us?
And so we commissioned these studies with Biola University and there was a cross-sectional study and then two clinical studies. And the results were very clear. We kind of knew what was going to happen because. I mean, if you're people of faith, you know, but it came in and the first foundational study was very clear. that when you use digital prayer applications, specifically Pray.com, it has a material impact on stress, anxiety, and depression.
And what we found in the data was very unique as well, was certain marginalized groups in the United States. actually had an outsized return on using pray.com and their mental health than any other group. So we said, let's commission another clinical study to see if that data is accurate. So we did another study and that study confirmed that black and Hispanic Americans, when they use Pray.com, They have an even better return. on stress, anxiety, and depression when they use prayer.com.
And so we were like, we got to get this information out of here, which I think was what I was telling you about, you know, in the green room there. I was like, hey, like. And when you said that, because you were speaking about mental health and then you look and right during this time, it was like, I want to say it was.
maybe right after right before the um director of the Bureau of Prisons spoke in front of Congress and stated that over half of the deaths within the federal bureau of prisons were all due to suicide so when you look at that and you say okay how are we housing these people and over half the deaths in the system are due to suicide well we're in a mental health crisis we knew that from the pandemic. And now you're looking at it in our prison system.
And we're doing absolutely nothing to help these men and women. And with pray.com, all it is, it's an app. That's right. It's literally an app. And our prison system is now giving these men and women tablets. to be able to communicate with their loved ones on. Granted, you have to pay for all these things. So it makes it really difficult. But why can't I remember thinking, well, if they're getting tablets, Why can't we put this app on their tablet? Absolutely. Why can't we?
Give them the opportunity. Like I know when my mom went into prison, they didn't allow her to take her Bible with her when she walked in. Makes no sense. Now they allowed my dad to take his, but they didn't allow her to take hers. And so when she got there, then I was able to send her a Bible, but they wouldn't let her take her Bible in. And I'm like this, something about this is messed up. And so when you look and you see, you take your studies and now I would be interested to.
Like we've said, do a study of giving these men and women the tool of pray.com to say like, all right, this is where they started. And now this is where they're at. Let's see if it reduces recidivism because if it can reduce recidivism, then guess what? That's less people in prison and we're putting people out back on the streets, back into society. in a safer manner by educating them and giving them something to believe in.
And it's clear, like we have a mental health crisis in America with people that are free. Yeah. I mean, now chunk it down to people that are in prison in the most stressful environment probably created. Yeah. You would think that... And I would also be interested, and it goes to like connecting all the people, but do you know Dr. Amen? No. Okay. So Dr. Amen came on my podcast. I don't know, maybe a year ago at this point.
And he all of his studies, it's all in the brain, like he will analyze your brain, you can see physical trauma, emotional trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression, ADHD. And he Kind of touts himself on being able to reverse the damage, but it would be interesting to do a study. of someone's brain because what i'm now saying to him is like hey i want to do a study of these men and women in prison and the effects it has on their brain it would be interesting to do a study of the brain
Pre pray.com and post. Let's do it. Absolutely. Like pre and post to see. how what brainwaves come back what how they operate how like i am so because i just truly believe like i say if it wasn't for my faith like i wouldn't be here today the A daily prayer practice has a change in the gray matter density in your brain, specifically around emotional regulation. So if you're more calm, if you can handle your emotions more, you're gonna be able to treat people better.
Um, you know, when you leave church, you feel good. Like it's actually hard to like. you know, wipe the smile off your face. Like church, if you know that experience, which I know you do. And I know you do. And so we want people to have that same experience after pray.com. We want you to feel good after using pray.com. Now our studies prove that.
But inherently, you know that. And what happens when you feel good? Are you going to treat somebody worse? No, you're going to be more empathetic. You're going to be nicer to them. Yeah. So now we're spreading niceness. We're spreading that happy feeling that you get when you leave church. And, you know, the more people we can get access to this.
You know, we have that testimony from insidepray.com. Our co-founder experienced that personally in prison. I cannot wait to talk to him because the lack of programming within our prisons and. Also, I know firsthand that in a lot of prisons, they withhold religious practices. Like I know it to be a fact. And when you run into issues like that, you're like, Oh my God. Like it makes you honestly sick to your stomach as someone who is,
a Christian and someone who believes that like, wait, we're withholding this. We are. And I find it interesting because I have heard people say like, okay, so you know if you were to partner with someone like this what about people who maybe are Muslim and don't practice, you know, don't practice the Bible. What, how do you reach people like that? Yeah. Well, first off, um,
You have to take a bite of a sandwich one bite at a time. You don't just put it all in your mouth at once, right? And so that's the same thing with faith. It's massive. I mean, 7 billion people pray every day. There's a lot of different faiths out there. We're Christian founders, so we're going to focus on one area we know well. And when we think about how do we introduce this topic, we went from the idea that everything is about the science.
Right. Especially in the government, especially in the government. Everything is about the science. Show me the data. And that's why. That's why we said like if we can show you like, hey, this reduces recidivism by X amount. It's a no brainer. You can, people can argue. All day and all night when it comes to opinions and beliefs and what I think and you think.
You can't argue with numbers. No. So now you know why I was at CPAC. Because I was going around talking to politicians saying, I have the data. Here is the data. I need you to focus on this. I need you to get this in front of people. I need this to be important. And you were one of those people. You're not a politician. Right away, this was important. Yeah. And so, you know, I go to D.C. a lot now. I'm there almost once a month at this point. And.
I'm getting access to pray.com to people with mental health issues. And, and again, it's not a left or right issue. This is one of those bipartisan things. First, it should clearly be a bipartisan thing. Clearly. Now it's not necessary there. You're going to have people who are like, Nope, I don't want it. I don't, you know, I believe this, whatever. But
All you're wanting to do is love people and love people well. And this is the way you do it. That's right. And how we approach it is there's a menu of things you can do for mental health. There's a menu of things, right? There's drugs. There's, you know, therapists. Big Pharma is not going to like you. They're not going to like you. They're not going to like us. They're not going to like us. You know, if they want to.
partner with us and they want to promote us. But I think the, the way that we think about it is, that, you know, we need to get access to this in people's hands. The government has a lot of opportunity to help us get there. It's going to help a lot of people, and that's going to reduce a lot of stress in this country. You know, we got people taking shots at the president and former president. So that was we know there's a mental health crisis going on.
I'm starting to think you and I are bad luck because I think it's happened. Every time we talk, there's an assassination attempt. Like every time. Okay, I don't know what that means. No more talking, you two. Yeah, no more. But I think. And again, and that's just to say, I mean, people clearly know where I stand, but. Joe Biden that was being shot at. Like it's the same feel like.
We should all be afraid that a president of the United States is trying to be assassinated. Not once, but twice in 60 days. Like, again, it's a people issue. Like my heart hurts for the fact that. Joe Biden is in the position that he's in and that like I look as if that was my father and like didn't know things that he should know and was standing up on stage looking.
lost and look like my heart hurts for him. I don't have to believe that's the thing with the world that we live in. People think you have to believe exactly what that person believes. to have empathy for them or to love them or like I can love you and us disagree. Yeah. Like it's that simple. Yeah. And there's, what's been great is there's been so far.
Bipartisan support. There are opportunities for us to work with the government to do government studies. And we're in the process of doing that so that we can finally get the government to go. Yes. faith-based platforms are proven to help people and circle really far back to the question of like, what about other faiths? We're going to focus on Christianity. That's our focus. There are other opportunities for other face. And again, it's back to the menu of options.
Yeah. We want to provide a menu of options. You don't have to do. No, that's the thing. It's like, and that's where a lot of people love to say, well, this is going to violate my rights to, you know, no, you have the right. To your religion and what you feel and believe. We would not force this on you, but we want it to be given as an opportunity for you to. As an option. As an option. And we want it to be there in case you're questioning like,
You know, I've never been exposed to this. I don't even know what it is. I kind of want to know what it is. Well, guess what? It's right here. And that's why like within our prison system, first off, there's no place more dangerous. Where there's no hope. Like a hopeless place is the most dangerous place. That's right. And so when we're giving an opportunity for Pete to restore people's hope.
And to say, like, guess what? I can be better than what I came from. I can be better than my circumstances. I can be better than my mistake. We've got not only a book here, the Bible that's telling you like. Filled with people that made mistakes. Exactly. Filled with people, person after person after person that has made life altering decisions. But guess what?
Like God says he's going to leave the 99 to go to the one. So like, that's what we want to provide people with. And when I look at it and I hear the stories of these men and women, like. One thing I'm fighting so hard against right now is our program in prison, which is the residential drug and alcohol program. And it's a congressionally funded program. Millions and millions and millions of dollars go to this program. It's supposed to help rehabilitate people, but it doesn't.
All it does is abuse person after person by tearing them down, making them. I mean, I literally have audio recordings of this so-called doctor in this program. comparing these men to rapists and murderers who are in a white collar camp and saying you're never going to be anything in life you're not like this is what congress is paying for wow
When we could be supplying them with something like this, that's actually going to better them. And it's not just a Bible. Like we said, you've got sermons, you've got all different practices on the app. So it's really like I saw it and I was like, we need this. Like we need it and we need it bad. And it's going to be interesting to see.
how the government wants to take and use it because it's not like you're asking them for much really you've done the hard part yeah like you've done research scientists on staff yeah like this is important to us Have you seen, and too, cause it just reminded me in California, everything happening now with the VA and the Brentwood school. Have you followed that? Uh, the Brentwoods? I don't think so. What's going on with Brentwood school? So, and again, I've.
I don't have all the facts, but there's been litigation going on for years of how there's obviously a lack of housing for our veterans and how just the homeless, homelessness crisis in California and. The VA association has said, like, we need more housing. You promised us more housing. You haven't given us all this stuff. And come to find out the land that the multimillion dollar.
athletic facilities were built on was leased. And that was supposed to be for veterans housing and a judge just ruled that Basically, all of those facilities will be torn down and there will be housing for our veterans built on it. And the judge was a former.
veteran wow okay yeah so like he it's when you start reading into it would be interesting to see how, and I don't know, with you guys being in California, has the state of California been very accepting of pushing Prey.com's product out i haven't talked to anyone in the state of california um the Most interested parties are in the Bible Belt. Yeah. You know, Senator Langford and I have had multiple conversations about this opportunity. And, you know, I don't want to share too many secrets, but.
There's some bills that are going to be passed here shortly. And those bills have mental health as a component, especially on the VA. That's awesome. We have veterans as part of our company. We love what they do. And it's, you know, every quarter we work with the Navy SEALs and we actually have our pastors come out and we do some crazy Navy SEAL stuff with the pastors. And next time. Come on. Come on. October. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Do you want to shoot guns from helicopters? Yes. Do you want to jump out of perfectly good airplanes? Yes. I have a video of me doing it. We're doing it. Well, that's October. You're coming. I'm doing it. All right. us and pastors and you yep let's do it that's the thing is And for people listening, I don't want people listening to feel discouraged and feel like, OK, I'm looking at three people who.
Pray.com and who have all their crap together and who it just seems like there's this imaginary person who fixes it all for them. Because I can only imagine how that feels for people listening or watching of like. it's just impossible for me to get there, you know? And I think for people listening, it's, First off, I am not perfect. I have said I'm not a model Christian. I've said I love Jesus, but I'd love to cuss a little bit. Like I don't have the like we all know this about me. OK.
Christianity is not a place of perfection. No. Like it's a place to come as you are. Yes. And as you are. is more than enough. If we were all perfect would be Jesus, right? Exactly. And, and, and, you know, to your point, like, you know, people are watching and listening three people that, you know, have it all together.
changing lives, millions of people's lives, but really it only takes one person that you reach out to. Mike talked about a police officer in Ohio who's going to go commit suicide. He didn't because a friend of his shared him something from the app. and it changed the direction of his life. Mike and I didn't do it. Yeah. A person downloaded the app and shared a devotional with this person, this police officer who's going to go home and commit suicide.
Anybody can help people. It just takes that one moment, that one share, and you can save someone's life. You don't have to invite them to church. You can invite them to church if you want. But if you know someone in your life where something's going on, just you telling them that you're thinking about them with a prayer or a devotional, you don't know the butterfly effect that you're having by saving someone's life who is thinking about.
killing themselves. Yeah. Without a doubt. And I think too, for And then you take it on the opposite spectrum too of people listening that are at the top of their companies who, whether it be fortune 500 companies or you. You've made it far.
but you feel like you're at a, like a roadblock. And I think the best part I've said about the past two, three years of my life and totally getting canceled by people is I feel and it's like sitting here, it's like all clicked of, I believe God allowed that to happen. So that I, because he knew I wasn't strong enough at the time to truly come out and be firm about my beliefs. Because it was so easy. Like I was making money. I didn't want to do anything to ruffle the feathers.
But the amount of success you can have when you truly embrace your own opinions and beliefs is absolutely insane. So don't be afraid, I guess, is really the message. And the Bible doesn't say if you face trials of many kinds. It says when you face trials of many kinds, he will develop perseverance in you. And that's what's taken place. And then back to your Romans 8, 28, right?
Yeah. For the good, which is what you've been doing with your podcast in your life. That was the craziest part of like literally that morning. it's like overnight i went from god like i basically like i don't believe in you like i went to a private christian school my whole life because if you are real you wouldn't allow bad things to happen it was literally overnight right and then you look and it's like all right
I follow my life and I look at just popularity on our show and social media. And then even to this day, when everyone has tried to cancel us, everyone. I'm sitting here like that. That's nothing other than God. And that's believing when it's almost impossible to believe that it's happening for the good. Yeah. Well, I just. I love you guys and what you stand for. And I'm so happy we made this work. Can you tell people what they can do to find pray.com, how you download? So.
What's great about pray.com is the domain name is in the name. So just go to pray.com. Take a look at the app. You go to the app stores, Google, Apple app stores. And what's great if you're listening to this. We'll give you a year free if you go to pray.com slash Mike. Pray.com slash Mike. We'll give you a year free. And what does a year free even mean? Because most of the content is actually free on the platform, except we have some really cool content with like.
Dr. Phil, he'll do like a prayer therapy for you. We have Drew Brees. We've got James Earl Jones. So we have some incredible content. You're going to have to connect me because it's funny. I think this is another God thing. Because I have talked about Dr. Phil before and not in a positive light because of his how he improperly He did a special with my older sister, older half sister, and never one time gave
the opportunity to share our side of the story. Interesting. So I think, and I've spoken about it publicly before, so I think it's funny that that was the first person that you named that I'm like, all right, this is God's way of saying it. I'm like, oh, we're going to, we're having a conversation one day. But so a year free. Yes. Pray.com slash Mike. Yep. Yep. And you can.
Access all the really awesome content, even from Dr. Phil, guys, even from Dr. Phil. We also did something called biblical sagas where you can hear all your favorite Bible stories come to life. in cinematic audio from David and Goliath to... the resurrection. We also have incredible kids versions. That's what I was about to say, the kids versions. Which we released for free during the pandemic for parents.
who had their kids home all the time. And then if you have trouble falling asleep at night, I have trouble all the time. You know, we did a really cool series of sleep Psalms. and bedtime Bible stories. That's awesome. They're meant to listen to before you go to bed to help you.
calm your mind and the anxiety and the things of the day and the next day. Well, it's just like, why do they say? I remember being taught in school that like, all right, study right before you go to bed because then you'll sleep on it and your brain will retain the information. Yeah.
The dreams get cool when it's biblical. That's right. That's right. A lot of fun. Like we challenge you to get through it, actually. It'll be tough because we make it so you have to fall asleep. That is awesome. Well, thank you so much. Guys, go to pray.com slash Mike to get a year free. And I'm excited to hear your stories and how it impacts you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
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For years, Tim Ballard has been championed as a modern day superhero. The first time I saw one of the kids from the video and it like changed my life. He was the face of Operation Underground Railroad, a movement that inspired hope around the world by rescuing children from human traffickers. However, Ballard's crusade to save innocent lives has always hidden a darker secret.
Oh, I think he's a pathological liar. Beneath the accolades and the applause, a dark storm has been brewing. I mean, I can't find a time that he's told the truth about anything. Shocking allegations of sexual misconduct have surfaced, casting a shadow over his reputation.
I am host Sarah James McLaughlin, and in this new season of The Opportunist, we explore the rise and the fall of Tim Ballard. Join us this October for Tim Ballard Unmasking a Hero. Subscribe to a new season of The Opportunist now. wherever you get your podcasts.