MIKE LYNN | Creating the Digital Destination for Faith (Ep. 401)

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1:18 This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.

1:24 Hi guys, Steve. Got a special guest on the podcast. His name is Mike Lin.

1:27 He is the co-founder and CFO of Pray.com. So Pray.com, if you've not heard of that before,

1:32 that is the world's number one app for daily prayer and faith-based audio content.

1:36 And so they're driven by the mission to grow faith and cultivate community.

1:39 And Mike actually helped start Pray.com back in 2016.

1:43 But before I get into kind of what we talked about in the interview, I gotta be honest.

1:47 Every time I do an interview, I do as much preparation as I feel comfortable

1:50 as is needed in order to create good content, to create a good conversation.

1:54 And so with this one, it's like, well, there wasn't a book to read.

1:56 There wasn't a bunch of YouTube videos I had to watch or anything like that.

2:00 So it's like, to a degree, I was like, okay, what am I going to talk about?

2:02 So I dug into the app. I dug into the reviews of the app.

2:05 You know, I dug into this guy's past and looked at his bio and looked at some different things.

2:09 But I kind of decide, I'm like, you know what, we're just going to kind of wing it a little bit,

2:12 which isn't really my style. I like to have some level of preparation.

2:15 So I kind of have an idea of like, you know, hey, if this guy sucks to talk to at least,

2:18 we'll have my 10 questions that he has to answer and, you know, it'll create some sort of a narrative

2:23 for you guys. But man, I couldn't have been more pleased with how this conversation went today

2:27 because there weren't a whole lot of parameters. I kind of had a generalized idea. But there were

2:30 even a lot of things that I wrote down that we didn't get to because we didn't have time

2:34 because he just kept saying things that like, I guess I wasn't expecting him to say or he was

2:39 just answering things in a way that was unique that kind of opened up all these other different

2:42 things. So I just enjoyed the way that the conversation went because specifically you would think,

2:46 okay, this guy is part of a co-founding group of an app. So he's, you know, he's a tech guy,

2:49 like he's an engineer. Well, no, his background's in Merrill Lynch, you know, it's in financial

2:53 management, asset protection, those types of things. But the story he told about why he got

2:57 into that line of work really kind of gave us a scaffolding for who he is as a person and how that

3:03 basically propelled him to do what he's doing now with Pray.com. But then we get into the founding

3:07 of Pray.com kind of where that came from. And it kind of really was born a little bit out of

3:11 tragedy, but then what the app has been able to do since 2016, how it's grown exponentially,

3:17 how fast it grew, the impact that it's having, he even read a review that man almost like brought

3:22 me into tears while he was reading it because he's saying this is the impact that our app is having.

3:26 But also, I know about you guys, I know about your audience, I know about me. Some of you guys

3:29 are going to go to the app and you're going to be like, wait a minute. There's some people in this

3:33 app that, you know, they're basically heretics, like they're spreading sacrilege and it's a biblical

3:37 stuff and all that. But we engage with that, that topic quite a bit about like, hey, why are there

3:42 so many people on the app that kind of seem to go this direction with theology or go this direction?

3:47 And we engaged on that. I really, really enjoyed his answers to that. But then we talked about,

3:52 you know, why they put the content behind a paywall and how Christians get really, really uncomfortable

3:56 whenever Christians charge money or ask for money or things like that. But we also talk about,

4:00 you know, just the overall direction of where the country is going and how things like Pray.com

4:06 can have an impact on that. Because as I've talked about a lot on the show before,

4:09 a lot of conservatives, a lot of well-meaning nice people just get pushed on and pushed on

4:13 and pushed on. And then they never respond. They never get into the battle. They never

4:17 push back against the darkness and culture. And you have to have people doing that. And certainly

4:21 the guys over at Pray.com are trying to be that. So guys, I really, really enjoyed my time with

4:25 them. So without further ado, let's get into it. Michael and welcome to a Dawn to Life of Man's

4:30 podcast. I'm so stoked. This is going to be fun. Let's get, let's get weird.

4:34 Well, you know what? Here's the thing is when people are stoked from the beginning, that makes

4:38 me feel like, Oh, well, maybe I need to get them unstoked. Maybe I should ask them a bunch of really

4:42 tough questions because I don't want you to be super comfortable there. But you seem like you can

4:45 think on your feet. Is that a fair assessment? It is, it is. And I'm willing to, you know, say

4:50 things that could get me canceled. But, you know, right? Isn't that more fun when you're just

4:55 in an honest with things, right? Yeah, it's not, it's not fun when you're hanging out way over

4:59 away from the cliff. You kind of have to get close to it to peek over the edge to see how close you are

5:03 to potential ruin. But before we get to all the stuff that might potentially get both of us

5:07 canceled, we need to talk a little bit about your background because that provides the scaffolding

5:11 for some of the stuff that you're doing now. But your background really seemingly from the

5:15 outside doesn't have a whole lot to do with what you're doing now. And again, we'll get there.

5:18 Your background is in financial management, political affairs, and asset protection,

5:22 which sounds terrible. It sounds like super boring and awful and all those types of things. But

5:27 apparently you were pretty good at it. So take me through that, you know, what drew you to that

5:32 thing. And you know, why'd you do that for work? Thank you for asking. Let's start off with my

5:38 background. So I'm from Green Bay, Wisconsin. So if you don't know much about Green Bay,

5:42 you probably know about the Green Bay Packers, but you probably don't know anything else. That's true.

5:48 Super small blue collar town was raised Catholic. So that's my faith background. And, you know,

5:55 my father worked in a paper mill in Green Bay for 49 years, literally opened the same door

6:03 to go to work for 49 years straight. And when you grow up and you watch your father grind

6:08 in a blue collar job like that, it shapes you as a person. Your work changes. Like it's ingrained

6:15 in you because you watch somebody just work so hard. And Mike, if I could even hop in here,

6:20 my dad just retired after over 40 years at a blue collar job working at the Goodyear Tire

6:26 rubber company in Oklahoma. And so I know the exact same thing. Like people like to talk

6:30 talk down about, Oh, well, that's that's a blue collar job. That's not why I call her. It's like,

6:34 no, you don't understand what that grind looks like in the sacrifice that those people put in

6:38 for their time for their bodies. Like, it's impressive. That's why I give it up to guys like

6:43 your dad and like my dad. Yeah, well, congrats to your dad. That's an impressive, impressive career.

6:47 And you know, the it is a mental toll. And the reality is growing up watching someone do that,

6:55 you can't complain about things. Yeah, right. You just can't complain. And you know, we didn't

7:00 grow up a lot of money. I was the first person my family go to college at a high school.

7:05 So I went to University of Wisconsin and planned on being a marketing major. So that was the path

7:11 I thought I'm like, I'm gonna get in the marketing. This would be great. This is gonna be awesome. And

7:17 while I was at Wisconsin, my parents got divorced. And in a divorce, there's a separation of assets.

7:24 And we didn't have much assets to separate. But my mom went and took her portion of the

7:29 settlement, the divorce settlement to a financial advisor who swindled her out of a bunch of money.

7:36 And so that's where my path changed. I said, I can never let that happen to my mom ever again.

7:42 I can never let that happen to anyone in my family, my friends. I'm going to change my major

7:47 to finance. I'm gonna learn about money. And that's how I got into into finance is because of this

7:54 this event that happened to my mom, which my poor mom didn't deserve that. She went to a

7:58 professional to help her. And so the next 13 years of my life, I was at Merrill Lynch. And I was

8:04 managing really the some of the top 1% in the country and really in the world. I was managing

8:13 three quarters of a billion dollars of individuals assets by the end of my career. And you know,

8:20 being able to understand money to the point where if anybody ever asked me a question about how to

8:27 manage money, like I would know how to know the answer of how to help them, that's really the real

8:32 gift that I got. And here's the good news of this story, by the way, my mom's all taken care of.

8:37 She's in a good spot. She's hanging out in Green Bay. She's she's living the life. But it was

8:43 certainly, you know, rough waters back then when when that happened to her. So I may be reading

8:49 in this into this a little bit too much. And I'm not a counselor and you're not laying on my couch

8:54 talking to me about it. But it would seem like you can't stomach injustice. And I don't mean that in

9:00 the 2022 sense of like anytime someone asks you where you're from, that that somehow some sort of

9:05 microaggression nonsense. I mean, like real injustice, like your your mom was was as you said swindled.

9:12 Is that something that kind of comes out in your personality? Because people always ask me,

9:15 they're like, God, why are you so loud about the the pro life issue? I was like, because there's no

9:20 more like susceptible person or no more unhelpable person than someone that's in the womb that can't

9:27 defend themselves. So it's like it's the ultimate form of bullying. It's the ultimate form of

9:30 injustice. Do you have kind of a justice streak in your personality? You nailed it. There's a fire,

9:37 like I get angry about it. You know, I'm I'm the CFO of pray.com and we can get into all that stuff

9:45 in a second. But part of my job is protection. Finance is actually risk management. That's actually

9:51 the number one thing in finances. Don't lose it, right? Don't be the, you know, SBS of the world.

9:58 You got to protect people. Yeah. And I think that really started after seeing, you know, what happened

10:04 to my mom, because she was the most innocent of innocent. You know, she she was a homemaker.

10:08 You know, she would do jobs of like, you know, driving the school bus. She would be a substitute

10:14 teacher. You know, she raises his kids and to have somebody who pretends to be a professional,

10:19 do that to her. You know, it really made me angry. And that was part of the reason I got into

10:26 finance is like, here's a doc, here's a job where I can protect people constantly. Like, my job is

10:31 to take the people that don't know what they're doing and go, don't worry, I will protect you.

10:36 I will make sure what happened to my mom never happens to you. And I think that happens just

10:41 outside of finance too. I think that's just in my brain. And, you know, there's tons of topics

10:46 that happen, you know, in our culture right now, that it's like, is this fair? Should this be

10:50 happening? And we can go down the list. You can look at Twitter and all these different platforms.

10:54 That really have throttled, you know, religious conversations as well. And so that is definitely

11:02 in my DNA. No doubt. Well, every worldview is a religion. If you ultimately think about that way,

11:08 because if you go back, you know, there was an apologize that taught me, you know,

11:10 origin, meaning, morality, destiny, every worldview has to answer those questions.

11:13 Origin, where do we come from? Meaning why are we here? Morality, what's the difference between

11:17 good and evil and destiny? Where do we go when we die? And even if you claim to be a secular

11:21 atheist, you have to answer those four questions. Even if you're, you know, just a humanist or like,

11:25 hey, we're all just, you know, monk, you know, highly evolved monkeys that used to be lower evolved

11:29 monkeys that used to be fish that used to be goo that used to be stardust. Like, you still have

11:32 to answer for that. But for you and what I know about your background, Mike, is that it seems like

11:37 you always had something in you that I don't believe that everybody has, which is that

11:40 entrepreneurism bug as well. But, you know, I have familiarity with the financial planning

11:46 world and the insurance world and things like that. And I have a lot of friends that work in that.

11:49 To a degree, you can be entrepreneurial, but not fully, because there's so much regulation,

11:54 there's licensing and all that stuff. And it's like, you can't just go willy-nilly.

11:57 It's to protect people like your mom from people like the person that took advantage over, like,

12:00 so you can't be super, super duper entrepreneurial. But you always kind of kept your eye out seemingly

12:05 for the right idea, like that thing that was going to come. That was perhaps more meaningful to you,

12:10 not to say that your work with Merrill Lynch was not meaningful, but maybe it was that next level,

12:13 that next thing, that next horizon. And then the right idea seemingly jumped out and bit you.

12:20 Okay. And so I won't, you know, ruin the story, but you can take the story from there.

12:24 Yeah. So just to double tap on the finance, highly regulated, highly regulated. Every trade that I

12:31 put in, somebody had to approve it. Every single email that I sent, every single one,

12:36 was reviewed by somebody in an office next to me. And so people would review every single email.

12:42 So yeah, it's entrepreneurial and the fact that you have to get your own clients and you have this

12:46 banner behind you that says, you know, the name of the firm you're with. But to your point,

12:51 it was really never unleashing the true, like, entrepreneurial spirit. It's very difficult to

12:55 do that in that environment. And, you know, I moved from Green Bay to LA in 2008. And the reason

13:03 I moved is I had applied to USC for their MBA program and got in. And the only reason I applied

13:10 is they were the number two entrepreneurship program in the country as a part-time institution.

13:16 So you could go to USC for entrepreneurship as a part-time endeavor, which is, by the way,

13:22 hilarious, because you can't go to college for entrepreneurship. Like, it's the most ridiculous

13:27 thing we can do. And I know that I was like, oh, you know, I don't have an idea. Maybe I'll just go

13:32 to this, you know, these college classes and I'll meet somebody in class and we'll come up with

13:36 something awesome. And so I moved to LA in '08. And while I was there, there was this

13:43 thing in LA that was kind of happening. It was called Silicon Beach. And basically, Silicon Valley

13:50 had a bunch of people that were sick of San Francisco and they moved to LA because it was warmer.

13:53 And all these media companies were starting businesses. Hulu came out of here, Snapchat,

13:58 etc. And it was just this environment where startups were happening, like, all the time.

14:05 And I went to this conference. I was sitting at this conference. It was for USC UCLA entrepreneurs.

14:12 I was not one of them, but I was sitting in the conference and there was this panel of people.

14:17 And I was listening to this panel and there's this guy standing up who was literally owning the room.

14:23 Like, just dominating. Nobody was asking questions to anybody else in the panel.

14:29 Everyone want to talk to this guy. And I'm like, I don't know who this guy is,

14:32 but this is somebody I have to get to meet. Like, I have to know who this guy is.

14:36 And so after the conference, I approached him. I was like, man, like, that was awesome. I'm from

14:43 USC. You're from USC. And I wanted to get to know him as a friend, but also Kyle, I was still

14:48 working at Merrill Lynch. I'm like, do you want me to get this guy's account? Like, this guy's

14:51 successful. He's a serious guy. I'm trying to get business done too. And so I became friends with

14:56 him. And there was a tragic event that happened in his life where his business partner died in a

15:03 plane crash on September 11th of 2015. So this is the genesis part of the pun of

15:13 how we started Pray.com is his business partner died. And it was a very tragic way.

15:19 And I think, I don't know if you've ever experienced a tragic death and I hope you never do,

15:24 where somebody dies younger than they should. And, you know, really, it was an event that

15:32 shook him to the core. I remember him calling me up about it. And I was like, I was shocked just

15:36 as much as he was telling about it. And he didn't know how to cope with it. I think most people,

15:41 when they grow up in a faith background, they have somewhere to fall upon. They're going, oh,

15:46 you know, I understand why this is happening. There's a bigger meaning here. You can fall upon

15:51 your faith to help you get through some tragic things. And he didn't have that. He was, when he

15:57 was raised, his mom was Jewish. His dad was Catholic and his grandma would drag him to church. And he

16:04 just wasn't interested in it. You know, he just never kind of latched onto it. He was more into

16:08 computers and sports and football. And so when he told me about his business partner dying,

16:14 I was like, wow, I mean, I felt so bad for him. I went to the memorial service for him. And I saw

16:20 him just be a stoic leader, just be an absolute stoic leader in this business at 150 employees.

16:28 And he was the CEO of this business and the guy that started the business died. And he

16:33 asked to like take it from its ashes and continue on. And he started listening to podcasts.

16:39 So he started listening to podcasts. Some of it was like Tony Robbins stuff, Deepak Chopra,

16:44 even Oprah Super Soul Sunday. Okay, listen to all this stuff. And when you live in California,

16:50 you do some weird stuff. You go to SoulCycle, you do Power Yoga, like you drink green juices,

16:57 like you do all this crazy stuff to like help you get over, you know, just living here. And yeah,

17:03 so this event happens. He listens to this content and a friend sends him a pastor's podcast out of

17:10 Texas. And the first thing he said, I was like, dude, there's no way I'm listening to this Jesus

17:15 stuff. Like I'm not interested in it. I already know it. Like I'm not going to listen to this

17:19 podcast. And his friend said, dude, you're listening to Oprah Super Soul Sunday. I think he can listen

17:25 to this podcast. Like it's not going to hurt you, dude. He listens to it and he goes, wow,

17:31 this is legitimately helping me get over my business partner dying. I'm listening to it

17:36 every single day. It's like he's talking about me. And that was a moment of change in his life.

17:44 He's like, I didn't even know this content existed. Like I didn't even know you could go find this

17:48 stuff. He's like, why is it so hard to find this stuff? And that's when he told me about it. I'd

17:54 actually call them up to see what he was going to do after his business partner dying. And he said,

18:00 hey, why don't you come have pizza with me up in Westlake Village, which is just outside of LA.

18:05 And we will talk about what I'm going to do next. And as soon as I got there, he said,

18:10 pray.com, the digital destination for faith. Like that was the first thing he said to me. This is

18:16 the summer of 2016 to give you a little context of where I'm at. And I was just like, I couldn't

18:22 believe he said that. I was like, wait a minute, pray.com. Like no way you have that domain name.

18:27 Yeah, how in the world is that available? It's just like, I don't even believe you, man. Like,

18:32 there's no way you have it. The story to that is a friend, an entrepreneur friend of his

18:37 just happened to have bought a bunch of domain names has a book of them back in like the late

18:44 80s when the internet was just coming out. And so he has a ton of domain names in this book.

18:49 And my business partner, Steve, was like, hey, can I just look at that book and just see if there's

18:54 anything in there that could resonate in terms of where I want to go with this, this faith-based

18:58 company. And the first thing he saw in the book, which was not the first thing in the page,

19:03 but the first exact domain was pray.com. And he's like, dude, I got to have that. And his friends

19:09 like, you can have it. But first, we're going to have to set up a contract. And it was a very fair

19:16 contract. And it ended up bringing worth millions of dollars after we got to the point where it

19:23 could be worth that. But he just said, you can't exclude the Catholic church. He's like, you can

19:30 have this domain and we'll set up a contract, but don't exclude the Catholic church from this.

19:33 And we had no intention to, but that was like his one stipulation. So that's the

19:38 little pre-story of pray.com and how we got the domain name. But in terms of the idea,

19:45 when Steve had told me he wanted this place for all faith content, I was like, I'm Catholic,

19:51 man. You're talking about something that really matters to me. By the way, I'm rolling this

19:56 entrepreneurship class at USC. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm supposed to start a

20:01 business and you're talking about something that's getting me super excited. And I told them that

20:08 night I go listen, I'm going to leave my 13-year career for this. I'm going to give up all my clients,

20:13 all my designation, all my licenses I've ever had in my entire life. And I'm going to help you

20:18 build pray.com because I truly believed we have a global impact. Like that's something I knew was

20:23 going to happen. And so yeah, so we started this company back in 2016. There was actually four

20:28 co-founders, two other co-founders, Matt Potter and Ryan Becker, our other two co-founders,

20:34 and they're incredible people. And so we didn't have any technical co-founders. One of them was

20:40 a technical co-founder, Ryan Beck, who also had gone to Bible College of all things, an engineer

20:46 that gone to Bible College. Like that doesn't happen. And then the fourth guy, he had already

20:52 had a business in which they built thousands of apps in the App Store. And funny thing about him

20:58 is his family started a church in the LA area that was like a backyard church to start off with,

21:05 like 35 people. And then now today, it's like 10,000 weekly attendees. So it's a huge mega

21:12 church at this point. So he actually literally started a mega church with his dad as an elder.

21:17 And so it was like the perfect storm of these four people coming together. And boom, now we

21:22 start pray.com. Okay, so I want to keep that moment. I'm going because I wrote down like three or four

21:28 other things I want to talk about that'll completely shoot us off into the nether regions. So maybe

21:32 we can like circle our way back to some of those. So you decide to start pray.com.

21:37 But what does that even mean? I mean, because it's like, you got an idea. And anybody that's

21:41 in the startup world and I've done some consulting for startups and different things like that. And

21:45 my goodness, you have a lot of people pulling. You have a lot of people wanting to give you money,

21:48 sometimes. And then like, there's a lot of people I want to give you influence and want to push it

21:52 this way or that way. And they kind of want to have a hand in it. And at some point, it's kind of

21:56 taken out of the hands of the founders of the people that are actually willing to, you know,

21:59 dedicate their entire life to it. But take me through those early days. Take me through

22:04 the definition of what you're going to do because y'all have the app and the website.

22:09 But some people just do one or the other. You know, did you decide you were going to do both

22:13 from the beginning? But especially what were the biggest challenges in the beginning,

22:16 whether that be the personality fit of the four of you guys, whether that be funding,

22:21 whether that be, you know, the actual building of the damn thing, like, you know, take me through

22:25 all of it. So the personalities right off the bat, shockingly, we're different people.

22:30 In a sense, we all had our different skill sets. And none of us really fought with each other.

22:36 And at the point where we're like, you got actually angry with somebody. It was like

22:40 of respecting angry, angry, where we were respectful to each other. But when we first

22:46 got together, we needed to understand the space that we were getting into. And the vision was

22:53 to create a world where everyone leaves a legacy of helping others.

22:58 So that vision is different than you probably think. Create a world where everyone leaves a

23:04 legacy of helping others. That was the vision of this company. And we were going to do that

23:08 by growing faith and cultivating community. We felt like we could create this environment,

23:14 this platform that people got on this platform. They could actually help other people.

23:20 Part of helping other people is actually getting access to this faith content. We believe getting

23:24 access to this faith content would help people. And when you help people, you can actually create

23:29 your own legacy. Because people will remember you helping them. Right? Now, most people think

23:35 legacy is some building with your name on it. Or, you know, maybe it's some awesome

23:40 home run, you know, record that you set. And that's your legacy. But how are you helping people?

23:47 And that's what we felt like the vision of Pray.com was going to be we're going to create this

23:51 environment to help people. And so that's how we started the business. We literally got together

23:56 and said, this is our vision. This is our mission. Here's our core values. Now, let's go out and

24:01 actually understand this market. So that was the first thing we had to do. And so what we did is

24:05 we went to a pastor's conference, cavalry chapel pastor conference. And by the way, I'm Catholic.

24:13 I have never been to first, I barely know what a pastor means. I know what a priest is all day long.

24:18 I didn't really understand what a pastor did. And I certainly had never been to an evangelical

24:23 church, Protestant and no idea. I walk in and I see, you know, TVs, guitars, band, like,

24:33 just an environment that I had not seen before, where people are in this worship singing experience

24:39 right beginning of church. And I was intimidated. I was like, oh, I don't know. Like, this is different

24:47 than my church. Like, we don't say, you know, you don't raise our hand in the middle of church and

24:53 like praise Jesus like this. This is different. And we started talking to pastors that were there

24:58 because we were at a pastor conference. And that's my fiance. Sorry, she just rolled in. But

25:05 and we're at this pastor conference. And the pastors were telling them what we're going to do.

25:11 We're going to start this platform to actually help them. And we were going to help them get

25:15 their message out to people. And they couldn't believe it. They're like, wait a minute, you're

25:20 here at this pastor conference to help us. We're here to help you. And they said, they started

25:27 calling all their friends around, all their pastor friends around. They started praying for us.

25:31 And they said, oh, we're so happy you're here. We are so blessed that you came to help us.

25:38 Like, we want to tell everybody here that you're here to help us. And that was the first time I go,

25:42 wait a minute, we're in this business where the people that we're serving are praying for us.

25:48 Like, when I was in finance, you know, my clients weren't praying for me. They were telling me,

25:52 made me more money, right? And so this was a different vertical than I had experienced before.

25:59 And so after that, after experiencing that going, wow, okay, we're going to help these people

26:03 get their message out to a large audience. Because, you know, really what they were doing is they

26:10 were going on Facebook or creating these really bad websites that were just terrible places to

26:15 go if you were a consumer. And like, the experiences were just really bad with their content. And we

26:21 were saying we're going to digitize this in a way that's never been done before. We're going to

26:26 revolutionize this space that is really the last vertical to actually

26:30 really have a design change and a technological change. You know, before the pandemic, nobody was

26:39 really live streaming anything. You know, content was really just, you know, your website that

26:45 you might have a video telling people about your church, but that's pretty much it. Right. And so,

26:52 that was the vision for pray was we're going to get this content. We're going to get it to people.

26:56 It's going to help a lot of people. And the amount of reviews that we have and the gnarly stuff

27:03 that people tell us after the user platform would blow your mind. I mean, I could read one here

27:10 just to just to tell you like what people say when they use our platform. So this is a review

27:17 that we got. And here's how it starts. I was going to kill myself today.

27:22 I left my shift today and went home to commit suicide. And then I got a text message from a

27:29 friend with a link to download the pray.com app. And I wanted to let you know you saved my life.

27:36 And I wanted to say thank you. Now, this is a police officer from the Cleveland, Ohio Police

27:42 Department, obviously unnamed. And you see that and you go, this is what I'm talking about legacy.

27:49 Right. How many people has that guy helped and saved after

27:53 him not committing suicide when he had that moment in his brain where he's like,

27:59 I don't want to be here anymore. And so, you know, we're at a place in our business now where

28:07 this happens almost daily where we get these just incredible reviews and you see these things

28:12 happen. And you go, thank God, we started this thing back in 2016. It is helping so many people.

28:18 And it's really just getting access to content in a really easy way so that people can improve

28:26 their mental health, which nobody wants to have to admit to necessarily. But faith content does

28:31 improve mental health. It really does. And it's probably not been thought that way before. But

28:38 that's something that, you know, we've seen just in his reviews for people, it's like, oh,

28:43 this is saving people life. This is this is helping people get through very difficult things.

28:47 I appreciate giving us all that all that detail. Obviously, as everyone knows that he's using

28:53 that the app grew really, really fast. You got a bunch of users. How many users do you have? Do

28:57 you guys have today, roughly? Yeah. So we have 14 million downloads. We don't disclose

29:02 any specific statistics because we're private company, but millions of people use it every

29:09 single month. Okay. So so millions of people that are using it and it got there in relatively

29:13 short order, especially kind of in the app world, because I mean, how many people have just

29:18 created an app and like they downloaded on their phone, their buddies phone, their grandma's phone,

29:21 and then that was it. And so like to have any type of attraction at all is pretty impressive,

29:25 which kind of speaks to the whole initial group, because you can get a group of superstars together,

29:29 but how many bands have you seen where they take the best basis from this band, the best singer from

29:33 that band? And then they come together and they make the worst music possible. And so like the

29:37 creating a super group is not an easy thing to do. But I guess as the app stands right now, so as of

29:43 the recording of this in December of 2022, what is the best way for someone to use the app? Because

29:48 like when you download the app or when you go to the website and you do all those different things,

29:51 some people might be confused about what they're supposed to do and all that. But how is the app

29:56 intended to be used? Daily prayer. So that's the number one usage of the platform is every single

30:05 day, we provide you a daily devotional. It's a piece of scripture. And it's actually read to you

30:13 if you want to hear the audio version of it. And we read a verse and then we explain what the verse

30:19 means. And so every single morning, we have a daily prayer. And that's the number one most

30:26 listened to viewed piece of content in our platform is that people want to start their day off hearing

30:32 scripture. They want to hear something positive. They want to understand the Bible. There's a whole

30:38 host of reasons why people like want this daily habit. But having that to start off your day is the

30:45 number one thing in our platform that people love. And then they go, you know what, there's a bunch

30:49 of really interesting content past that. And you may want to listen to James Earl Jones read you the

30:57 Bible today. You may want to listen to Drew Brees talk about meditative prayers that can help you

31:03 feel better today. Or you've got children and you want them to understand the Bible. And so we have

31:10 kids Bible stories. We even have stuff that helps you fall asleep. You know, sleep is people having a

31:15 hard time falling asleep. So we have content that actually helps you fall asleep through, you know,

31:22 a cinematic, very calming voice. You know, these are professional actors voice actors who are reading

31:29 this stuff. So you're just like, Oh, wow, like this is a story I've never heard told this way in such a

31:34 beautiful way. And so we have a lot of content that can solve different different needs for your day.

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32:05 at prolonlife.com/now. So I appreciate you doing that. Because again, sometimes you know how it is.

32:12 I forget who said it first, but it's like, if your brain has to burn too many calories to figure out

32:16 what message you're trying to get to me, they just move on. That's why things like TikTok and

32:20 scrolling your Twitter, Twitter feed or something like that, you're getting a little bite size things

32:23 and you're not having to really think about it or really kind of figure out what you're going to do.

32:26 But I know you've been asked this question a lot. Obviously, you're the CFO and a lot of Christians

32:31 get very, very uncomfortable when you talk about money. This can be when they're sitting in the

32:35 pew and they look up at the pastor that's talking about the tithe. That makes them uncomfortable.

32:39 And rightly so, there's a lot of prosperity gospel pastors out there that have stolen money

32:43 from people and then pretended like their lives are going to get better and all it was helping

32:47 them buy another Rolex. But whenever you put things behind a paywall and you're a Christian,

32:53 everybody gets really, really up in arms about that. And I've never really understood it because

32:58 I'm a market economy capitalist. I think that the free market is the best thing that we could

33:04 possibly do. What was it? Someone said, capitalism is the worst system possible except for all the

33:08 others. And it's just kind of one of those things that where we get to right now is people get

33:13 uncomfortable with giving Christians money, but they're not uncomfortable being paid for their jobs.

33:17 And so whether they're working as a plumber or a school teacher as a cop or something like that,

33:21 they're okay with getting paid to do their job. But when you as a Christian ask for money or when

33:25 you sell something as opposed to giving it away for free, all of a sudden that's like a violation

33:29 of their very foundations of being a human being. So when did you guys decide to put content behind

33:36 a paywall? Talk me through that because I've read your trust pilot reviews and you know,

33:40 people are kind of [inaudible] off. They're like, hey, you know, I didn't know I was going to be charged

33:43 and then I was paid. I had to be charging all those kinds of things. And again, people just get

33:46 really, really up in arms about that. Yeah. And for us, right away when we started the business,

33:54 we were a for profit business. And the reason we were for profit is to have the impact that we

33:59 were going to need to have, we needed to raise a lot of money. We needed to raise a lot of money

34:04 to create a platform that was going to have the impact that we believed we could have on a global

34:11 scale. But in terms of, let me just get a little misnomer about pray, even though we're for profit,

34:18 80% of our content is free. So when you download the app, you might experience a paywall. You can

34:26 X out of it. You can get all of our content. 80% of our content is free. We don't charge people to

34:32 pray in the app. There are some premium content that we do charge for. So if you want to get

34:37 Drew Brees content, well, we got to charge for that. You want to get Jamesville Jones content.

34:41 We got to charge that. But a lot of our content is actually free. But in terms of, you know, why

34:49 for profit, again, it is very expensive to start a company from scratch and to raise funds and

34:57 raise money. And we believe you can have profit and purpose. We believe you can have margin and

35:03 mission. And, you know, just think of a Christian bookstore. We're like a Christian bookstore. You

35:11 sell books at a Christian bookstore. Those are, they charge you for the book. It's just like a movie

35:17 that you'd watch a Christian movie. They charge you a ticket to go to the movie. And those are

35:22 for profit enterprises. And so we're the same way. We don't charge people to use the Bible in our

35:27 app. You can use the Bible and read the Bible. We don't charge you for our daily prayer. It's

35:31 our number one thing that people use our app every single day. There is no charge for that.

35:35 But in terms of some of the premium content, we also have to cover the cost of, of, you know,

35:41 hosting and all this. And humans have to create all this content. But we're proud of it. We

35:47 think that you can do both. We really do. Well, the thing is, Mike, is things cost money.

35:52 And so like when people, because like we're a donation based ministry, we're not a, you know,

35:56 a 501(c)(3). We're an LLC and like that. That's just kind of how we decide to do things from the

36:00 beginning so that we could be more nimble. So we didn't have to deal with all the things that

36:03 traverse the 501(c)(3) route. And some people are like, well, why are you doing that? Like,

36:08 why are you trying to make this a for profit venture? It's because, well, it's because if

36:11 you're creating something of value, or if you're doing something of value, you deserve to be

36:15 compensated for that. And again, I go back, whether you're a cop or a teacher or a soldier or whatever

36:19 the thing is, like you're doing something that's of value. And then you should be paid for that.

36:23 If you're working in a business and a lot of people don't really understand this,

36:26 let's say you get paid $50,000 a year working in some random business, the business is taking

36:31 the risk that you will be worth at least $50,000 to the bottom line of the business. And most

36:36 people don't don't think of it that way. It's like you're not being paid with unicorn farts and

36:39 fairy dust. You're being paid with money that had to be made. And so how you become a valuable

36:44 employee is that you make yourself worth more than that. Like, hey, you paid me $50,000 a year,

36:50 but I brought in $75,000 worth of revenue. So when you go and ask for a raise, you better have those,

36:55 those numbers ready to go. Because if you're worth half of what you're being paid,

36:59 don't get all been out of shape whenever you're one of the people that's let go during during

37:03 a slowdown or something like that. So I appreciate you being so upfront about the money part on the

37:08 money side of things as well. I feel like this is important. I feel like this isn't really asked

37:11 about as much. I remember years ago, and I'm not throwing stones here because I think this was a

37:15 rumor and I couldn't find anything that substantiated this rumor. But one of the biggest apps that's

37:20 been downloaded in the entire world for all of time is the U version Bible app, which was created

37:24 by the church that I used to attend and, you know, did has done great things and continues to do

37:29 great things. And I know y'all like the guys over there and they like you and Rob. I rise happy and

37:32 skipping through the meadow. But there was this blog that came out that made me pause for a little

37:37 bit. And the rumors were floating around that the U version Bible app was selling people's data

37:42 without telling them in the 74 page long, you know, agreement that you just click on so that you can

37:47 end up using the app. And so it's kind of given me pause about all the other apps that are on my

37:52 phone. And we've heard a lot about TikTok here recently about how the Chinese government is

37:56 using your keystrokes and they're looking at everything, not just when you're inside the app.

37:59 It makes a lot of people nervous. And so right now, I need you to tell me how else is the app

38:05 making money? Are you selling our data to the Chinese? Are you doing something nefarious like

38:09 that? Like help me, we need to clear the air. Now we don't sell, we don't sell our data. And

38:14 the reason that we collect data is to make the content better for you. We want to make your

38:19 experience better. That's why the data is being collected. But we don't, we don't sell our data.

38:25 Of course not. There's no business in selling prayers like that, the data to other people.

38:31 For us, the number one thing is we want to create a world where everyone leaves a legacy of helping

38:37 others. So for us to do that, we need to have you interact with our platform. And as you interact

38:44 with it, what is the content that you like listening to? What don't you like listening to? What's the

38:50 content that you're listening the longest to? And what's the content like? I don't like it.

38:55 Like don't ever bring that up to me again. So data is an important component of any business.

39:00 I don't think any business can operate today without data. There is no business on this planet

39:06 that doesn't have some data. We use that data internally to make the platform better.

39:11 And I understand why other companies sell data. We don't do it. We make our money through subscriptions

39:19 in partnerships that we have on advertising some of the content that we have. So an example would be

39:26 we created this really awesome Bible in a year podcast. You may or may not have heard of it,

39:31 but it's called Bible in a year with Jack Graham. And so we just launched that in October.

39:38 It shot to number one in the religion category of Spotify in its first week.

39:45 Number one. Nice. It was number two on Apple in the religion category.

39:50 And it was like number 54 of all podcasts that existed on Apple. And we had three million

39:57 downloads in the first 30 days. Wow. So there is a way for us to make money there, right? Because

40:05 we know it's on all these other platforms. We'll just have some sponsors of that content.

40:10 They can actually help us pay for the content creation. And so that's another way we make money.

40:15 But in terms of the data, it's all about making it custom to you. We want you to have a better

40:22 experience. What we don't want you to do is come to the platform like these people don't know me.

40:26 Like I'm not trying to listen in this past. Why do they keep bringing it up? So that's important for

40:32 us. Well, it's it's macro versus micro. And by that, I mean, you have a macro thing that's trying to

40:38 have a wide impact for millions of people. And so you have to collect the data so that the experience

40:42 continues to be valuable to people that you're trying to help. Like on a micro side, like again,

40:47 we're about 400 episodes or so into this podcast. We've been doing it for a long time. I look at

40:52 the responses to certain episodes, whether people are posting about on Instagram, the emails I get,

40:58 the commentary I get from my friends that have listened to it, that's data. Like, if you think

41:02 about it, it's not like on a spreadsheet, you know, or something like that. But it's data. And that

41:07 gives me the information I need to where it's like, okay, Kyle, you've talked about this one thing a

41:11 lot over the last six months. We got it. Like you've talked about it, you've beaten the horse to death,

41:17 please stop talking about it. And then I get to make the decision as the content creator,

41:21 whether I go with what the data is telling me, or whether I go against that, right? And sometimes

41:27 going against the grain of the data is actually a good thing because some people don't know what

41:30 they don't know. They don't know that they would actually like this when it's spoken about in this

41:34 way. So so I can certainly appreciate that. But one thing that I will say that I can just hear it

41:39 right now, I can hear my audience right now, that if they haven't heard the app before and they go

41:43 download or they go to the website, they're going to see some of the people in the app and they're

41:46 going to go wait a minute, because you use the phrase faith content a lot. That is a very broad

41:53 category. That's a very big tent of people that don't believe the same stuff, even about the

41:59 resurrection of Jesus. We just elected a guy or we didn't, Georgians just elected a reverend that

42:05 doesn't believe in the resurrection to be their US Senator, right? And so that's all kind of under

42:09 this. And so even as I'm just scrolling through, it's a lot of people that have very liberal theology,

42:15 maybe even woke theology, prosperity gospel. And you know, you're going to not see people like a,

42:20 you know, Vodie Bockum or a Matt Chandler or a Paul washer or Tom Askel or John MacArthur

42:27 or a Joby Martin or any types of guys that are maybe a little bit more on the conservative side,

42:32 some of the more reformed, whatever categories people want to be on. So what do you say to those

42:36 people that are maybe a little bit afraid that not all the content is created equal in coming from

42:42 even a biblical perspective? Yep. Number one, I would say our content that we put in our platform,

42:50 we're very careful about the content. We're also aware that there's a freedom of speech

42:58 component. There's a First Amendment component to our platform. And we're not here to be just

43:05 like any other platform, which wants to censor people and censor speech. It's very important for

43:10 us. You know, we're American founders. We believe in the First Amendment. We don't like what we've

43:16 seen on other platforms, which they throttle, shadow ban, etc. content. And that's why we're a

43:22 platform. You don't have to interact with every piece of content on our platform. You don't have

43:27 to like that Jolo Steens on it. You don't like have to like that, you know, some other pastors on it.

43:34 And but that's okay. You can go on Apple podcast today and all that content's on there. And guess

43:40 what? You still interact with Apple podcasts, right? You can go to Google podcasts. You can go to,

43:47 you know, Spotify and all that content's there. And you may not want to agree with all the content.

43:53 You may go, that's not my worldview. But it's somebody else's worldview. And they may want to

43:59 interact, by the way, with a Matt Chandler. They just did never heard of Matt Chandler.

44:04 And so they may be listening to Jolo Steen because, hey, that's what they saw on TV. And maybe this is

44:09 the first time that it's been exposed to Matt Chandler. And they're going, well, I know that

44:13 praise got Jolo Steen, but, you know, they've got Matt Chandler, they've got, you know, Jack Graham.

44:20 And I've never heard of Jack Graham. And maybe Jack Graham's worldview could actually change their

44:25 current view of how they feel. You know, they're currently being taught Christian concepts. So,

44:32 I understand the the weariness of like move, you know, who's on that platform? It's a platform.

44:39 That's we believe in the First Amendment. Everyone should have the right to put their content on

44:44 their platform. And as long as you're not advocating for violence, then we feel it's okay.

44:49 So one thing that I think people would say to that, and certainly I would as well, because,

44:53 again, I became a Christian as a 10th grader. And I didn't start with John MacArthur, right? I

44:59 didn't start with with any of these types of people that have this very defined theology and

45:04 worldview and all that. So people evolve in their taste. Well, yeah, I kind of listen to this guy.

45:09 Now I listen to this guy. I kind of think think that guy like dude, two weeks ago, I discovered

45:13 who Alistair Begg was, right? He's been doing this for decades and decades and decades. I just

45:17 found him that I've been, you know, really consuming a lot of his his content. You know what I mean?

45:21 I guess the question I would have is I'm all for free speech. I'm all for the First Amendment,

45:25 you know, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, those things aren't separate. I get it. But

45:29 there are people that are concerned about people saying things that are abjectly false. So not just

45:37 this doesn't really align with my feels. It doesn't make me feel good. But it's like, no, no,

45:41 this is not biblical what you're saying. What you're saying doesn't make any sense. It's not

45:46 a liberal reading of scripture. It's a blind reading of scripture. I think that's the thing

45:51 that's concerning to people more so than, Hey, I don't like that that pastor happens to have a

45:55 Bentley. Does that make sense? Yep, it does. And I think that well, wait, one second, Mike,

46:00 one second. So I kind of forgot my question because I got lost before we hop back in here.

46:04 So almost there are people that say Pray.com has a responsibility to correct the record on things

46:10 that are that hair, heretical, I guess you could say. So go ahead, go back in. Yeah, I was going to

46:14 say, again, we we plant the flag of the First Amendment. And the tent that we have is under the

46:22 Christian banner in terms of our content. And I understand your point. I understand your point

46:28 that somebody that is standing up behind a pulpit may be saying things that I don't agree with.

46:37 And I can promise you, I don't agree with everything on our platform. I don't. It doesn't necessarily

46:43 mean I'm going to ban it doesn't necessarily mean that it's not going to help somebody.

46:47 And maybe the Christian light version that might not be something that you would like

46:53 might get somebody in the tent for the first time. It might somebody like, Oh, you know what?

46:58 You know, maybe not be a may not be a fan of prosperity preaching. But I got to the I got

47:04 inside the tent for the first time. Oh, and by the way, there's other people that I can get exposed

47:09 to now that I'm actually inside the tent. And I think that's important for us. We when we started

47:16 this, we knew that we weren't going to sit here and start saying which biblical teaching that we

47:22 agreed with and then ban all others. We planted the flag of the First Amendment. We planted the

47:27 flag that this is Christian content. We're going to go and give access to all this content. And we

47:33 may not agree with it. But does it get somebody inside the tent? Can we get people that are not

47:39 faith based who are not Christian based inside the tent? And I think we can. And, you know, at the

47:46 end of the day, the feet are going to decide the ear balls are going to decide who do they want to

47:52 listen to? And, you know, let each other talk it out and why this person, you shouldn't agree with

47:57 this person and why not? We believe that the free the free flowing of those ideas should have a place.

48:03 I appreciate giving us your perspective on that. One thing that I've kind of heard you say a

48:07 couple of times, and I kind of follow the same thing with my show, I've invited, and I use that

48:12 term specifically, I've invited a lot of people to no longer listen to my show. And that's been

48:16 from the beginning. The show started in 2017 in the way I say things in the force with which I

48:20 say in the content that I discuss. Some people say I talk about culture too much or I talk about

48:24 it not enough. I talk about faith too much. I talk about not enough. Well, I tell people I was like,

48:28 there's like two and a half million podcasts out there. Like, you don't have to listen to mine.

48:33 Like, why are you going out of your way to reach out to me to tell me how much you don't like

48:37 my stuff? Like, imagine going to a restaurant and eating an appetizer that you didn't think was

48:40 very great and demanding to talk to the person that founded the restaurant to let them know,

48:45 hey, I didn't really like this bloom and onion, right? Like, it's just kind of it's a weird,

48:48 it's a weird concept. Like, why why I wouldn't take advice from you? So why do you think I'm

48:52 going to take your critique and change my entire worldview? So so I get that to to at least some

48:56 degree. So one thing that I kind of want to do here is obviously, this has evolved over the last,

49:02 you know, five, six years, the app, y'all are constantly changing it, as you said with the data,

49:06 you're constantly improving it. So I want to know what you guys are working on right now that you

49:11 haven't told anybody about I want the people that are still 45 minutes in here. Like, I want you to

49:17 tell us something that you might get in trouble for telling us like, I want to know like, what's that

49:21 next next thing? Because I know y'all aren't just sitting around, you know, sitting on your laurels,

49:25 just trying to make sure that there's no bugs in the app. Oh, you're going to give me in so much

49:29 trouble. I get all the secrets. Give them to me. I want all the investors yet, all the stuff that

49:34 we're up to. I don't care about them. I'm talking to you. Yeah, I'd say, let me give you a flavor

49:39 of what we believe is important. Growing faith and cultivating community is our mission statement.

49:47 Growing faith and cultivating community. And something that when we originally started Pray.com,

49:55 we've pivoted our business a couple times. When we first started, we were like a close Facebook

50:03 group where you could pray with your church. Essentially, you downloaded Pray.com back in 2017.

50:09 And you would have an experience in which you would pray in like a Facebook type feed

50:15 with just your church. And our retention was actually really good on that. It was incredible,

50:20 which is how we raised the series A off of it because it was actually that good. It was on par

50:24 with Facebook and WhatsApp. It was that retentive. And it's just we didn't grow very fast because

50:31 you'd have to onboard churches by church by church by church. There's no your monetary strategy for

50:36 us to continue to spend a bunch of capital and not bring any revenue. And that's when we started

50:44 this consumer subscription business where we said, great, let's create some of our own content.

50:49 It'll be like premium content and we can charge a subscription for it for those that want to get

50:53 a premium experience above and beyond the content that we were to make for free.

50:57 So next year, we said we need to get back to making cultivating community an important component

51:06 of our business. It's been since 2017 that we made that a real focus. And so what's going to come up

51:13 is in the Pray.com app in the very near future, you're going to have an experience where you can

51:19 actually communicate within the platform. Right now, if you go and download the Pray.com app,

51:25 it's kind of a self-serve on-demand experience. You're kind of grabbing our content and you can

51:32 listen and follow faith leaders of different backgrounds. And we said, you know what, we should

51:38 get back to the core of one of the reasons we started this company is to get the communication

51:44 amongst our users, our members, and get that going again. So what you're going to experience is,

51:50 hey, if I'm following a faith leader, I want to actually talk to them. I actually want to

51:55 communicate with them. And the other 180,000 people that are following this person, I want to talk

52:00 to those people too. And what you find on other platforms is one, you can't do that. If I'm following

52:09 somebody on Instagram and they got a million followers, I, as a follower, can't hit 101.8

52:16 million people up. There's no community for me to talk to those people. In addition, if you're

52:23 sending out a post on, let's say, Instagram to 1.8 million people, not everybody's getting that

52:29 message. Rather show the Panda video, some Panda falling from a tree, then they may want to show

52:37 that faith based content, because it doesn't, it's not getting enough revenue like they could from

52:42 the Panda video. So it really comes back to the core of our company is let's, let's break open that

52:48 community chest again. And let's actually build some features that other platforms don't have

52:53 where communication around this content can start to grow.

52:56 That's interesting. I hope that was a little hard for you that you were like,

53:00 I really have to be careful with what I say. I always like to make people at least a little bit

53:04 uncomfortable. One thing that I've noticed, Mike, over our time here so far, there's just some

53:10 things that you're mentioning that are hitting my ears where it's like, okay, I think there's

53:13 something else there. I think there's almost a level of concern that you're showing for,

53:18 I don't want to be too hyperbolic, but like the direction of our country, the direction of our

53:24 tech overlords, the direction of the people in Silicon Valley that basically get to control the

53:29 dissemination of information. And the thing about it is, is when you live in a postmodern world,

53:34 which we certainly live in now a postmodern West, capital T truth doesn't exist anymore.

53:39 It's your truth and my truth and their truth and like it's, it's that type of a thing.

53:43 And when you get rid of capital T truth, you get to control what facts are, right? You get to adjust

53:48 how people view the world. And you get to basically undergird whatever worldview you have

53:54 with all your own facts. Like it's just, it's a crazy, weird place that we're living in right now.

53:59 Two degree, do you feel like the work that you're doing within Pray.com is to fight against that?

54:04 Cause it's one thing to say, yeah, we're not going to shadow man people. Yeah, we're not going to,

54:07 you know, hold people down and we're not going to ban free speech and all that. But it's another

54:12 thing to say like, no, there's, there's darkness and culture right now. And we're going to use what

54:16 we're doing to push back against it. I love the question because I'm probably the fire brand

54:24 amongst the founders that believe that we're on a dangerous path. We're on a path that there are

54:31 forces and whether they're government or cultural forces that want to suppress faith. They want to

54:39 eliminate the concept of faith. They want to put it into a negative light that actually if you're

54:47 Christian, you're radical, that if you're a faith based person, you're radical. And it's really a

54:55 US phenomenon. I know Elon has coined like the woke virus or whatever right in a recent tweet.

55:03 And I don't know, I can't tell you the list of the things on the woke list. But I know one of the

55:11 things on the list, and as to paint Christians as evil people, as people that, you know, that

55:20 want to suppress the ability for people to live their lives and do all these things.

55:27 And I believe our platform will be the counter to that. I believe when people have access to our

55:35 content and hear the messages of what's being said, they will feel differently. And this is a

55:42 battle. This is a cultural battle. And we cannot sit on the sign lines and wait for our churches

55:48 to be emptied. We cannot wait and sit back for all the people in Silicon Valley. And by the way,

55:55 we have some incredible, like some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, invest in Pray.com.

56:00 So there are people out there that clearly know the power and the impact of our platform

56:04 or where we can go. But in the majority of Silicon Valley, they're not faith-based people. They don't

56:10 care. They have a mindset that's different. And you can see that with the censorship that goes

56:16 around on the biggest platforms on Earth. And so if we don't stand up and do something about it,

56:22 we're going to sit back and we're going to watch Suffer Road. You know, you're doing that right

56:28 now, Kyle. I mean, you probably know it, obviously. Your listeners probably know it. You're one of

56:35 those people. You're the daily wire. You're the blaze. You're the platforms are like, you know what?

56:41 We're not going to sit here and just take it. We're not just going to be quiet. We're not going to

56:48 just let them, whoever they are, and to us, it's people that disagree with our faith-based message.

56:54 And it's a message of love and hope. And actually, it comes from a biblical truth. It does. There's

57:02 a book that was written, and there's truth to it. And we're not going to sit here and let them

57:07 erode it. And I know the guy is a daily wire. I've talked to the blaze. I'm talking to you.

57:13 There is a group of us out there that feel like if we don't stand up and do something about it,

57:21 the norms that we're used to today will become fringe. We'll become the outcast. By the way,

57:29 we're the majority. Even percent of the United States is Christian. We are the majority and we're

57:36 being treated like we're freaks. We're being talked at and being told that our views are archaic.

57:48 And really, what's happening is their messaging is actually demonic. You should not be advocating

57:55 for death to people. And so, listen, our platform, something super interesting about it, Kyle, is

58:04 we've got a bunch of Democrats and a bunch of Republicans. We've done surveys, and it's almost

58:10 50/50. You'd be shocked by it. The reality is the godless portion of America is actually a very,

58:19 there's a sliver of godlessness, and it's actually in the far left, and it's actually white liberals.

58:25 And this is a survey that was taken. Is that something I had made up or anything else? And they

58:30 don't agree with the faith concept. They don't agree with the things that teach faith concepts.

58:39 And so, that's the area that I'd love to actually help. I'd love for them to get our content.

58:44 I'd love for somehow they walk into our content on the internet. And if they do,

58:51 it's going to break down this hardened, like, angry mentality that they have,

58:57 and it's going to soften them up. And I think that we're the forefront. I think what you do, Kyle,

59:03 what we do at Pray, what some of these other platforms do, and I don't agree with everything

59:07 that everybody says. You know, I don't know everything you've ever put out there on content

59:12 land, and you don't know what I've said. But I think we understand where we need to go. And

59:17 we're not going to sit here and just take it. One again, it's what we were talking about earlier,

59:20 Mike, where it's the white college-educated liberals that have never had to pray the prayer,

59:24 give us this day, our daily bread. And they can explain everything. They just need the right

59:28 textbook, right? They just need the right worldview or the right chakra or the right, you know,

59:34 tension on the tree that they hooked their ponytail to that's going to tell them, you know,

59:38 how we got to the world we have today. So as you're saying all that, I super duper agree with that,

59:44 because conservatives now, because of things like the blaze and daily wire, are no longer saying,

59:49 hey, hey, I'll let you push and push and push. But, you know, don't push too far because, you know,

59:54 you don't want to see me when I get angry, you know, because what it's been like for decades

59:58 seemingly as you look at this, Mike, and I'm trying not to be ignorant of history, but it's like

1:00:01 conservatives and well-meaning Christians would let people push and push and push,

1:00:06 and then the war would end. And the conservatives woke up and were like, oh, I, they never competed

1:00:12 in a battle. They never pushed back themselves. The war had passed them by. And here they are

1:00:17 sitting with their sword with no blood on it and their armor with no indentations on it.

1:00:22 And I feel like conservatives are standing up and pushing back in a respectful manner,

1:00:27 but a full-throated manner. And we didn't really get the full-throatedness. And that's

1:00:31 where you get these, these people that think it's a good idea. Well, I want to be known for what I'm

1:00:35 for and not what I'm against. It's like, dummy, when you say you're against the murder of the unborn,

1:00:41 you are also saying that you are for the protection of the unborn. Like you're talking out of both

1:00:46 sides of your mouth, but all this that I'm saying and all this I'm weaving, there's something glaring

1:00:50 for me here that obviously you all have noticed, but you see the respect for marriage act, the

1:00:55 so-called respect for marriage act, where the US government is trying to define what marriage is,

1:00:59 as opposed to what God said it was, you know, millennia ago, you have how that's going to lead

1:01:04 to direct attacks on religious people and religious liberty in this country. The Supreme Court is

1:01:09 currently dealing with some of those things right now, whether or not a gay couple can force you

1:01:14 as a lawyer to represent them in adoption court or force you as a cake baker to bake them a cake

1:01:18 or force you as a website maker to design a site for their wedding. But you guys are located in

1:01:24 California and Gavin Newsom has signaled in every way, shape or form that not only does he, you know,

1:01:32 say that he wants to run for president, but that he is going to shove his leftist godless values

1:01:38 down your throat. And he's going to make you like it that he will use scripture on billboards in

1:01:43 my state of Oklahoma to welcome the women of our state to go out there to have a vacation abortion

1:01:49 where they hang out on the beach, drink a cocktail, and then they take him into the clinic with their

1:01:53 baby and they come out alone, put him right back on the beach. Y'all are literally behind enemy

1:02:00 lines right now. And you're in the crosshairs of these government agencies that want y'all to

1:02:05 not exist. It took me a long time to get to where I don't even have a question, but talk to me about

1:02:10 that. Because I'm not saying y'all should just, you know, tell and run, pop smoke and get out of

1:02:14 there. But my goodness, like those are the people everywhere in the country that are going to try

1:02:18 to take you out. Yep. It's also the state with the largest contingent of conservatives and

1:02:24 Republicans as well. Isn't that funny? Yeah. Right. So you lose sight of that because of the fact that

1:02:30 the majority of the politics in the state have been run, you know, so far left. You know, my thought is

1:02:39 this, we were not afraid to speak up. We're not afraid to have the banner of God behind us in Jesus

1:02:50 behind us. So when you have that as you're on your side, you can't lose, right? You can't lose. And so

1:03:01 we wake up every day knowing that we've got God and Jesus on our side. The other component of this

1:03:07 is, yeah, I'm in Los Angeles. This is one of the most liberal, I mean, less I'm in Berkeley or,

1:03:13 you know, right? But when I look at where we are, there's a point where it's going to be a point

1:03:24 of no return. You're looking at the homeless crisis in Los Angeles, right? And there's a gentleman

1:03:31 named Rick Caruso, he probably never maybe never heard of him, but he was running for the mayor

1:03:35 of Los Angeles. He came down to a stone's throw away from winning. Rick Caruso went to my church.

1:03:43 He's a billionaire real estate investor, Catholic guy, very Catholic, big USC supporter, college,

1:03:50 I went to, and he was in a, he was been a Republican his whole life. In fact, if you have a look, if

1:03:55 you actually look at one of the debates, I think it was, I'm not sure which debate it was if it

1:04:00 was 2020 or 16, he was actually like in the front row behind Trump in like some debate or behind

1:04:06 like the moderators. So he was a Republican his whole life. He switched to Democrat and was a stone

1:04:13 throw away from actually winning. So what is that really saying? And what am I trying to say? I'm

1:04:18 saying the, there's a point where even liberals go, this has gone too far. This has gone too far.

1:04:27 And you can actually see it. We just had a study that came out and it showed Gen Z individuals

1:04:35 under 30 years old voting Democrat and Republican. And for the first time in the last like four

1:04:43 election cycles, it has gone down in terms of the number of Gen Z liberals who are actually voting

1:04:53 for Democrats in terms of that mix is actually getting closer to par for the first time. And you're

1:05:00 thinking your head, wait a minute, that can't be true. I've been told Gen Z is crazy liberal,

1:05:05 there's no way they would ever vote Republican. It's actually shrinking because there is a point

1:05:10 of going too far. And I can see it living in LA by literally the guy that I go to go to church

1:05:18 with me, almost became the mayor of a town in which he would never have a chance, never.

1:05:24 So I do think there is a shift and but part the reason there is a shift is because we're getting

1:05:30 our mic back. Kyle, your mic's on. People are listening. And for far too long, there wasn't a mic.

1:05:38 And there wasn't a platform that people were speaking on because we weren't giving the platform

1:05:44 to speak. And I think that's what's changing. And I'm actually optimistic. I'm very optimistic.

1:05:53 I know that it looks bad when you have crazy billboards in those places saying,

1:06:00 why don't you have an abortion here and come fly and have an abortion in our state. And I truly

1:06:08 believe that call it a reckoning, call it what you want to call it. The tide is shifting. And

1:06:16 it's going to take this is a real battle. And it's a battle of the minds. And just look at the

1:06:22 influence on Twitter. If you've used Twitter today, then you were a year ago, you can tell right now

1:06:27 the voices that are actually starting to dwindle are the voices that were lifted up unfairly.

1:06:35 And all of a sudden, they're starting to get drowned out. And there's a thing about having

1:06:39 influence. When you're not even given a chance to speak, it's hard to be influential. Your

1:06:44 ideas aren't even out there. Guess what? The ideas are starting to get out there. We're one of the

1:06:49 platforms that are doing it. 14 million people downloaded a platform. They listened to our content.

1:06:55 You don't think they were influenced in some way by the content that we have in our platform?

1:06:59 Of course they were. And whatever they listened to, they probably influenced somebody else.

1:07:04 So we got to continue to get out there. We can't be afraid of this train wreck that we see

1:07:10 in which our government continues to do things that don't make any sense,

1:07:15 that we're changing the dictionary definitions of things. And the reality is people really know

1:07:23 what's going on. The fanatics are having an outsized voice. And that will dwindle. That will go away.

1:07:30 They'll have their time and that time will end. But right now, it's the soup du jour. And

1:07:36 we're not going to step off the gas. We're going to push into it, which is why

1:07:40 we've grown this year. We have our platforms bigger than ever. I'm hiring. I'm hiring people.

1:07:48 Most people in tech are letting people off. So it's just a matter of time. You can't

1:07:56 be afraid of it. You got to stick to your guns. And maybe literally a figlet league. But

1:08:03 you got to make sure that you don't let these platforms get away with not having a counterbalance.

1:08:12 And we're going to be that platform. We invest in the latest tech. We use the latest technology

1:08:18 and everything that we do. And we meet with incredible people that give us bigger platforms.

1:08:25 And we will continue to do that, which is why, hey, thank you for having me on this platform.

1:08:29 You're giving me another opportunity for someone to potentially download Pray.com,

1:08:33 become influenced by the faith-based content that we have, and maybe send it to somebody else that

1:08:39 go, hey, actually, this is an approachable piece of content for this friend of mine who I know

1:08:43 would never listen to this stuff. Our founder didn't listen to it. So it's a matter of time.

1:08:50 It will happen. And our content has been around for a very long time. It didn't exist on Pray.com.

1:08:58 It's been around for thousands of years. It ain't going nowhere. And so we're going to push back

1:09:05 on the ungodly people. And we're going to say, we think you're wrong. And I think you need to

1:09:11 listen to this. And you'll understand why. And Mike, I think you're right to point out that this

1:09:15 is a spiritual battle. I mean, go back to Ephesians 6, where we do not wrestle against flesh and

1:09:19 blood. Like there's something else out there that we are contending with. And these are negative

1:09:25 demonic forces that are in our governments. They're in our school systems. They're in, they're in

1:09:28 all kinds of different things that can affect you on a daily basis. And just to be honest with you,

1:09:32 like, I personally need optimists like you in my life, because I'm a pessimist, because I'm the

1:09:37 guy that thinks the sky is falling. It's not going to change how much effort I give to something. Like,

1:09:41 I go into every Jiu Jitsu tournament, assuming I'm going to get smoked. But that doesn't change my

1:09:46 level of preparation. It doesn't change how I compete within the match. And a lot of people

1:09:50 don't understand that negative self talk. But I'm the guy that the sky's always falling and we got

1:09:54 do what we can to catch the pieces before they hit the ground. So I'm glad to kind of hear a more

1:09:58 optimistic perspective. But Mike, we've talked about a lot of things here. We've gone everywhere

1:10:02 in this conversation. I've really enjoyed it. But for now, that's all for me. Is there anything

1:10:05 else you want to get off your chest? I just want to tell everybody, first, if you're listening to

1:10:11 this podcast, share it with somebody. Just do it. Just share it with one person. You don't know

1:10:16 how just this message today is going to impact somebody. So please share this podcast with somebody.

1:10:22 I think that you'll find out somebody is going to respond to you and say, wow, thank you for doing

1:10:28 that. And that may change somebody else's life. So do it. That's all I say. You can go to Pray.com,

1:10:34 you can download our app. We've been talking about it the whole time. But you need to take this

1:10:38 podcast for listening to it and send it to somebody. Well, I appreciate that very much.

1:10:42 I tell them all the time, but maybe it'll work even better when it's coming from you. Well,

1:10:46 Michael, and thank you for coming on Daunton life and man's podcast. Thanks, Kyle. Appreciate it. Take

1:10:50 care. There you go, guys. I hope you enjoyed my time with Mike Lynn. But before we let you go,

1:10:54 we are going to do a quick resilience boost. Adam Daunton life remission is equipping men to push

1:10:58 back darkness with content that for just spiritual mental and physical resilience. So the only link

1:11:02 I've got for you today is the link to Pray.com. So guys, you can go to that link and then from there,

1:11:07 you can go to the whatever app store for whatever phone you're using. You can download the app.

1:11:10 You can try it out. I highly suggest that you do so. All right, guys. Thanks so much for listening

1:11:13 to the show. We do appreciate it wherever you're listening to this. Please subscribe,

1:11:16 rate and leave us a positive five star review. If you want me to come speak live at your event

1:11:20 or on your podcast, you shoot me an email to info@undonton.life. That's i-n-f-o @undonton.life.

1:11:25 Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else,

1:11:28 including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undonton.life.

1:11:34 And as always, we want to thank the band August Burns Red for allowing us to use their music for

1:11:37 our content. The music on this podcast is our song, "Cutting the Tides," which is off their

1:11:41 10th anniversary re-recording of their album, "Leveler." The links are in the description.

1:11:45 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual,

1:11:52 mental and physical resilience. Keep seeking the lion of Judah.

1:12:22 [Music]