From AI to AR to Jesus Reality: Luke Richey’s Wild Journey

00:12 - Speaker 1
Hi, this is Paul Louis Cole. You're listening to the Brave Men Podcast. Hey, today this guy is another level. Now he's another level because one of the things he does is work in augmented reality. Did you know there's a difference between virtual reality and augmented reality? I didn't know there was. And this guy's one of the world's leading experts in this. He's got all kinds of awards. You go to his website. Oh, and the cool thing is the name Gravity Jack, gravityjack.com and he builds backgrounds and you know, I don't even know how to describe it. He's going to describe it, but he builds the software, the foundation for video games some of the biggest in the world and is building some of his own never-before-seen mobile augmented reality games, which is awesome.

01:10
And so Luke Ritchie and the story. The reason that we kind of pull all this together is because his story he went from living let me just put it this way he went from living a weird reality to a Jesus reality. He went from living in unreality full speed to full speed, into a God reality and a great guy. I had heard about him. We've got mutual friends and Chris Rainey, and Chris said man, you got to talk to this man and then, when I started looking at Gravity Jack and what it was and what they do, I thought this is fascinating. And then when I met him online met Luke it was like I don't know. It's just like boom, we're in. It's like when you get within the orb and the gravity of Luke which should be gravity, luke when you get within his gravity, it just pulls you in and you're like man, this is awesome sitting here talking to this man. So this conversation is just fire and pretty excited about sharing this with you right now today.

02:23
Hey, remember, christian Men's Network is the sponsor of Brave Men Podcast and if you go to cmnmen you can hit somewhere on there. You can hit the Brave Men email. We'll also put it in the show notes, but three times a week we come out with an email of encouragement. It's about a 90-second read. Boom, there it is Drops right into your email box 7 am East Coast time Monday, wednesday, friday, and I'm not going to look it up and read you some. They're really powerful, they're thought-provoking, if you will. They're parallel to the new book we have called Identity Identity, the story you tell yourself about yourself, and Identity is a brand new book. That's on cmnmen and at the end of that is the same type of thing 40 days of affirmations, in other words.

03:17
Romans 12.2 says this. It says if you want to change your life, you change the way you think. If you want to change your life, you change the way you think. Your system of thinking is perfectly designed to achieve the results you're now getting and you might be on a treadmill right now. You might be working out, driving to Firestone dealership and Flagstaff, wherever you are around the world. That statement is so pristinely accurate when you are today is a result of yesterday's thinking and your system of thinking is perfectly designed to achieve the results that you're getting where you are today. That's why we wrote the book Identity and, to the point of the Brave Men email, motivational email that comes out three times a week, at the back of that book Identity we put 40 days of affirmations and it's read a scripture. Think about it. In other words, rewrite some things in there about it and then speak out an affirmation over your life that day, 40 days of that man. It was a lot of work, a labor of love. I want you to get it, put it in your hand. My friend Eric, his son, cameron, gave it to him for Father's Day a signed copy, and it is very powerful. We're getting great, great response on that. So fired up about that, luke Ritchie, today on oh on the podcast, here's the deal Go wherever you're listening to it right now, go on there and subscribe. When you subscribe to the Brave Men email, it causes an algorithm to go out somewhere in space.

05:03
However, that thing works. It puts us in front of more men and that's the key. That's why we do what we do. Here's the thing. We talked about it when I was in Inspire Church recently. I said you can either build more fathers or build more orphanages. We can build men or we can, you know, build those. You can build more drug rehab houses or you can build fathers. It just fathers change everything. When you and I, as men, accept responsibility, become mature men of God, everything changes.

05:40
And that is what happened in Luke Ritchie's life, and I mean from all out that way to all out this way. It is all out. I love talking to him and appreciated so much him taking the time out of building world-class software, doing things around the world with. I mean this is the thing that's changing the future and we need to use it with men like Luke for the gospel. Hey, here's Luke Ritchie with Gravity Jack today on Brave Men. Hey, so Luke, how in the world do you get into artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, I mean, how does it get To me? This is just such a foreign world and yet it's all around me. How do you get into that?

06:34 - Speaker 2
Yeah, that's so funny. So I think some people get into it, you know, way different ways than I did. I started coding when I was 14. I just had a knack for it. I was hacking you. You know instantly. Um, this was back in the days before everything was encrypted, so it was much easier to, you know, write packet sniffers and oh, I was into everything, like if there was a network, I was in it really. And oh yeah, for banks to like the post, anything you name it actually really yeah oh yeah.

07:03 - Speaker 1
Like you're 14 years old and you're just kind of going through the worldwide web, well you know, and just finding all this stuff, that's crazy yeah, it's bulletin boards at the time.

07:15 - Speaker 2
Uh, oh yeah, and yeah, so you're, you're, you're modeming in and yeah, it was. Uh, it was fun, but what I ended up doing was I just saw augmented reality as an inevitability. And actually, jen and I my wife, the smart side of our company, she's like I was telling her about this and we had sold a company in 2007 to a gaming company and we had to work there for two years and it was about a month before we left and I kind of told her what was going to come and she goes this is the company we're starting, and the gaming company that bought us didn't really have the same principles we did. Even though we weren't christ followers at the time, um, we still had like principles of how we treated people. And uh, she she's like this is we're patenting this, and so I'd drawn out this chart of everything that was going to come, in the order that it would come, because you have to do this.

08:05
And uh, the only thing I was wrong on was the timeline. I thought we were about five years away, uh, in 2009. So we patented augmented reality. Our actual core patents are extremely core. Like they're licensed to places like samsung, orio, there's. There's attorneys talking to some of the bigger boys. They have planned infringement. Though they love to infringe, they don't care if someone walks in.

08:33 - Speaker 1
I mean, apple just had to take a couple of their watches off the market because of that. Hey, okay, so we just jumped from 14 to you've got a company. So you started getting into the internet hacking computers. I don't know what was the computers you were working on back then. Were they like nintendo or? Atari like I had an eight bit something.

08:56 - Speaker 2
I've actually tried to find it because it was. That was what I learned to code on this little tiny screen, and it came with a manual, uh, and in the manual was just here's here's how you can do assembler, here's how you can write some code. I just started writing, uh, and but yeah, then, commodore, I mean all the way you name it all those things.

09:14 - Speaker 1
Yeah, commodore, wow, yeah, yeah, that's wild, I mean that whole world. It in some ways it happened a long time ago and otherwise it happened fast. But I remember I had a uh Apple junior like a I didn't know, it wasn't even a Mac, it was a junior, it was like a one piece thing, yeah, and the dial up back in the day was yeah, yeah. And so now you, you got into it and started doing that as a profession. In that sense Is that right.

09:47 - Speaker 2
Yeah, actually, even that was an accident. I had written a piece of software that I was like at the time you had to open your box to determine what CPU was in it.

09:57 - Speaker 3
Okay.

09:57 - Speaker 2
And so if you bring your machine over to a friend or something and you're like, what do you got their mom's, like I don't know your machine over to a friend or something you had to like and you're like, what do you got their mom's, like I don't know? Um, so I I wrote this piece of software that showed, uh, remotely, what was inside the machine. Now, this is really simple. Every computer can do this. But I call, I called it cool info and before I knew it I had a million downloads, uh oh. And then within a very short time frame I had enterprises calling me hey, we don't want to have to do our inventory by hand. So they'd have an IT guy walk around and do these inventories by hand and I was like I could do that easy, I can do it, I can write a program for that.

10:38 - Speaker 1
That sounds like Bill Gates counting cars.

10:42 - Speaker 2
It was all low-level assembler yeah.

10:49 - Speaker 1
And that got you know it was all like low-level assembler and yeah, yeah, and that got you into it and then, uh, did you go to?

10:53 - Speaker 2
college or anything, or you know, I did in order to be successful, didn't you have to drop? Out.

10:57
Yeah, I totally dropped out yeah, I actually heard the deal, yeah I remember with the yeah, the gal, uh, there was a gal uh instructor and she was telling me that 56-bit encryption was unbreakable. And I'm like I can break it. I just read a science paper from Israel. And so two days later I came back to class and I'm like, okay, send me an encrypted string and I'll break it. And so I did. And then she actually got really mad at me Because, well, also, I was super cocky and egotistical and prideful. I'm like you've got to stand up in front of the class and tell them that you were wrong because you're teaching poorly. And she's like I'm not going to do that. I'm like, well, I'll stand up. And then she's like, well, then you won't be in my class.

11:48 - Speaker 1
Okay, okay. So now this sounds. Now this part sounds like luke the mma guy.

11:50 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that whole kind of piece, well, it sounds like in that whole thing, I was a broken person like I was. I was so damaged by the upbringing I had like this was, this was my way to feel important. It like all these things, these false identities, became my identity. Mma, skydiving, my sport bike, everything that I did was like this false thing, even business. I'm like, yeah, I'm such a good businessman Like I fell into it. I didn't do anything really special, I just kind of fell into having a business because people were buying my software.

12:22 - Speaker 1
Well, because God had given you a gift. So what was it? When you say you were broken? This isn't part of your bio, but it's part of your life, where you are now. What do you mean by that?

12:36 - Speaker 2
Oh, you know. So I struggled with suicide ideation I wanted to die from, like I age seven, just because of the things you know, if you name the type of abuse I went through it. My biological dad was horribly violent. I remember my, my grandpa Jack, who did love me and who our company is named after, even him as a role model. You know, I look back and I'm like man, he maybe wasn't like he's tatted up, uh, just this really aggressive guy, but he loved me so like he was always loving on me.

13:08
But he he had gone to jail for murder, uh, but he was my role model because he told me he's like you don't beat your wife luki, like I know your I know your daddy does that, uh, but that's not what a real man does, uh, so like I had these weird kind of he gave me yeah, but the guy gave you some boundaries.

13:26 - Speaker 1
I mean he he said yes, what a man is. And he loved you and that drew you, that became your model because, uh, you felt the love and the love, because he loved you, he gave you boundaries.

13:42 - Speaker 2
A real man doesn't beat his wife yeah, and well, and you grow up with this thought. So I mean, ask my wife who we we almost separated in 2019. Uh, that's when jesus came and got us separately, um, but you know, 17 years. Like, I just thought I'm a good husband if I give you money and I don't beat you, uh, which is just so. So, not how it is like that.

14:04 - Speaker 1
No, I understand, it's not how it is, but I mean, those are some basics. Yeah, there's some good things, yeah, you know. So this is fascinating. So now you have a company, and we'll come back to this. Right now you have a company called Gravity Jack, so that was named after your grandfather.

14:20 - Speaker 2
Yeah, it was, and skydiving. So the gravity part is that's how I met my wife.

14:25 - Speaker 1
We, you know thousands of jumps and okay, this is fast, really thousands of jumps. Okay, I didn't catch that gravity jack. So I was thinking, because augmented reality and the things you guys are into, virtual reality that had something to do with with, like, jacking up the gravity of culture or something. I was coming up with all kinds of ideas, but that's awesome, it's named after your grandfather. So now you go through this brokenness, you've become successful. Right, you meet Jennifer. You guys met skydiving.

15:00 - Speaker 2
Yeah yeah, she was actually dating one of my friends, who's still a friend, and I even told him that day I'm like gonna marry her, and he's like no, you're not. I'm like I, I guarantee you, I'm gonna marry this girl. All right, that's awesome.

15:17 - Speaker 1
yeah, so you did, so you did. But then there came a time where things weren't going well and and really our business world can cover up for us, it can mask for us, our talent can mask our character right, but at the end of the day, you're living with your character. You're living with you, the real you. So what was that tipping point then? What happened in 2019?

15:44 - Speaker 2
It was actually a little bit before that God had to take me through this process of essentially healing me and then showing me my sin. But one of the first healings, it was actually miraculous. It was the first miracle I experienced, which was I had well, two. I'll kind of describe two really quick. I finally the business was not going well. I was like I don't even know when AR is going to happen and I decided to take my life. I was like done, you know, jen and I aren't doing well, my kids are angry at me. And so I took a bottle of Oxycontin, which was 80 milligrams each, and I'm talking it was almost full. And I took half a bottle of Oxycontin, which was 80 milligrams each, and I'm talking it was almost full. And I took half a bottle of morphine that we had so these are all from these surgeries that I'd had on my neck from accidents and I took eight Xanax, an eight-ball of cocaine and a bottle of vodka, all within a 15-minute period. Oh my God. I wrote F-U-L, my suicide note, and not to anybody in particular, and then I just prayed God don't send me to hell. And then I laid down to die.

16:52
My wife was in New York and I don't know how many days I laid there. But she comes back from New York and the only thing I remember from that moment to that is her pulling me out of bed. I can't really move, my body and my face is all. And she goes what did you do? What did you do? And then I just I cursed God. At that moment I'm like you took my free will, you took my free will.

17:21
We ended up in church about two weeks later and we'd kind of gone on off and I we would go and I'd usually be hung over. Church to me was I'm American, so I go to church, yeah, and like, and my kids go to church, and and the pastor's wife looks at us and she goes don't leave. God told me to tell you something. He's got something to tell you. And this freaks me out. I'm like back in the principal's office. There's no way I want to talk to the pastor's wife. So I tried to leave. She stops us before we go. She's like no, don't go. So Jen and I go back in this back room and she goes God told me to tell you that you're done with the manure of your life and he's going to use that manure for fertilizer for generations. So she doesn't know anything. That's happened. Nobody, like we didn't tell anybody this. And she said and he told me to tell you, there's a reason you have the kids you have, there's a reason you have the wife you have, and there's a reason you have the childhood you had. And then she puts her hand on my forehead and I don't. Maybe people don't agree with this on this, but this is what happened to me. Uh, and she said spirit of death, leave luke ritchie in the name of jesus. Right now.

18:35
Uh, and I felt something at this moment change in my mind, and but not just change like. I felt like it wasn't electricity, but I felt stuff move in your head. I don't know like, uh, maybe in wrath of khan when he puts that whole thing in his ear, but something, something changed and I couldn't say a word. I just I cried, I walked out of the car and I told jen I'm like I can't find suicide. Uh, and she knew what I meant, because when you're an ideator and somebody's listening to this, you know what I'm talking about. It's always in your mind.

19:04
Like I could drive into that truck, I could do this like how could I do this so that I could not harm the people around me as much as possible, um and uh, but it was gone, I mean. So I knew a miracle occurred. I just kind of sat like that for a little while, uh, just thinking about Yep, so the first time in my life, oh since I was seven like you're worthless, you have no value, and that was kind of the first thing. That was like this oh God's real, this is real, and I always believed in him. But he a beauty to it and a complexity that can't be done just from randomness. But yeah, it was all of a sudden like okay, there's a creator, yeah. So that was kind of the first thing.

19:59 - Speaker 1
No, you were delivered, man. This is no different than when Jesus came across the young girl there that Matthew recorded, and she was possessed and he just set her free. It's no different, man. This is real stuff, and we all have these If we're not following Christ. There's these voices that come to people right the enemy, oh.

20:25 - Speaker 2
I heard it all the time.

20:27 - Speaker 1
Yeah, the enemy's always constantly trying to take you out and for some men, the taking you out means it takes you up, puts you in a place, a high place. You feel you're something, you know you have a big fall. Whatever it may be, man, you just you got delivered by the power of the Holy Spirit. Man.

20:49 - Speaker 2
Yeah, I did, and it was. I sat there just like I was just every day in awe Because for the first time in my life, my thinking was right. Remember, I said I was broken. I knew my mental stuff wasn't right, like the way I perceived things, the narcissism like, the selfishness I'm like why can't I love people like that, why can't I care about people? Like what is wrong with my mind? And he brought me all the way to this spot where we were separating. And there was some other really amazing miracles during that time frame where he gave me, so I had no want to die, but then he showed me how much he loved me, uh, uh, in this moment where it overwhelmed me. And then, um, we were separated, jen and I were apart from each other, uh, planning the divorce, and, um, he showed me my sin in another night and this was that just rocked my world. I mean, he took me through my life and just showed me here's, here's the like when you revenge. And then he took me through my marriage and showed me like from day one oh, so brutal to know that from day one I was like I'm talking on our honeymoon, how like the thing, the sin I perpetrated and it's not like my wife was sinless but my responses were always like this, this huge response you know, if you're gonna get me, I'm gonna revenge you a thousand times. I used to believe that philosophy and, uh, and it broke me. I could, I didn't even know what to do. I was like this I'm like, I'm like god. Uh, it was three days later, because I just sat weeping for three days, and not for me this time, but for the things I've done.

22:30
And on March 16, 2019, my parents were in Israel. I'm living apart in my mom's basement and little did I know my mom's shoving our names in the prayer wall at this exact time. This is all happening and I just fell down on my and it was an all-night repentance. I screamed. I was like Jesus, save me, save me. I don't know what to do. I didn't know the words to say. There was no specific prayer. It was just like I need you, I need help. Like you know, there was no specific prayer. It was just like I need you, I need help.

23:06
And, man, I woke up different. I woke up so different. I woke up, I knew I was different because, first off, colors look different and it's like something had just been pulled away from my eyes and I had this thing inside me where I cared about people Like I hadn't. I didn't know people, but all of a sudden I knew that I cared about people and for me that was amazing, because I was a very selfish person. My employees were people I used. They were tools to me to reach a goal. Everything was like this tapestry of how it helped me and that changed in a moment and I didn't know this.

23:43
But I called my wife and I said hey, something happened to me last night. I'm just going to tell you something If we're married 30 more days or 30 more years, it's going to end well. And she said well, we're not going to be married 30 more years. She said I appreciate that she goes, but something happened to me last night too. I laid on my bed and I I asked jesus into my life.

24:06
So the same night I'm doing this, god had moved in her heart and done something, and it took a lot of healing. There was a lot of healing that had to occur. But he moved and because of the drastic change in both of us uh, separately, living independently, not planning on getting back together like stuff just started to happen in our family. A little revival broke out Before we knew it. Even when we were separated, we're still like Sunday's not enough. That's not enough worship, that's not enough time at the throne. So we're all, as this huge family that's all of a sudden experiencing something. A year to the date before they shut the country down for COVID, we're worshiping together. We need like so. For us, when churches shut down, which was horrible, it wasn't really that big of a deal because that was only one day out of our week. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, you guys had this pretty.

24:59 - Speaker 1
you had a jesus renewal you just had, and your children at this point are in their teens and early twenties late teens and early twenties so this is not insignificant. This is not like you've got little, little four and five year olds that don't quite know what's going on. Your children have walked with you through this whole thing.

25:21 - Speaker 2
Yeah, my oldest son really. You know he got the brunt of it because I had him when I was 17 it's not jones um and I just didn't know how to be a dad like. I taught him really, really good work ethic, you know, but I didn't ever give him love, I didn't ever speak to him to be. Now I'm doing that now, and now that god's restored that relationship I actually shouldn't even say restored he has actually built something so amazing and new that you can't even call it restoration.

25:49
Yeah, no, it's like. No, I'm just gonna give you this isn't the story for everybody, but it is ours. And, uh, he, he healed every single relationship between our children, between me and my children, my, my wife and them. And now it's like one of those old, that guy that painted those pictures of these family scenes.

26:12 - Speaker 1
It was always on the road.

26:13 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like that, norman Rockwell, yes, thank you. Yeah, it's like a Norman, we're like what. And so we know we're overly blessed. The other thing that happened was about six months in. I was going to leave, become a pastor or a counselor, trained to do suicide counseling, did it for a while, worked the hotlines, and God's like no, I had you where I wanted you, all along Right. And I'm like no, god, I've wasted my life Like I've learned about the things of man. I want to help people. And he's like I'm going to use you that way. And he's like no, I've put you in tech, I put you where you're supposed to be.

26:49 - Speaker 1
Yeah, we have a tendency, if we're not careful, we move with emotions rather than with the will of God. And God gave you certain talents and gifts and put those inside you and then redeemed them. And so you know, in one sense, you don't kill your ego, you crush it. You don't kill it, you sanctify it. So the same things that made you good at racing, motorcycles or other things that makes you good at what you are now, which you're in a world that'swhat you're doing now with Gravity Jack. So it's gravityjackcom is your company, but what you're doing right now is actually pivotal to what the Church of Jesus Christ will be doing. In other words, how do we share the gospel with 10 billion people if we can barely reach 8 billion Exactly, or if we've only reached 5.5 billion? Let's say how do we do that? Well, it's going to have to be people who understand how to multiply it at an exponential rate, and that's what you're involved in. Let me go back to one other thing. Luke, this is an amazing story. I fully unexpected to what I had in my notes, but it's fantastic. So, uh, but it is everybody's reality, in the sense when paul wrote to the church of corinth, he said when you become a follower of jesus christ, your old person is gone, you become a new creation and it is a redefining of who you are. You're a new person. You're not defined by your past. In fact, as a follower of Christ, I'm defined by my future. And so now, here you are and your family's finding this place and, if you will, restoration really is restoring to the garden, restoring to that relationship, walking with God in the cool of the evening. And the beauty of being a follower of Christ is he brings us back to that original design, which is when I love. What you're doing is and I want to get into that in a second but when Adam was placed in the garden, god didn tell him. He told him one tree, like out of this whole thing, whatever, that is, millions of acres, you're the one tree. Don't do that one, okay, but he never told him here, I want you to put five trees over here. I want you to put almonds over there. I want you to put you know these kinds what color? He didn't tell him any of that. He just goes here. Dude, this is your palette.

29:29
And here's what's going to happen. Is you and I, every night, are just going to hang out. We're going to walk, we're going to sit. We're going to sit by a you know fire pit. We're going to talk a cup of coffee, whatever the thing is. We're going to talk a cup of coffee, whatever the thing is. We're going to hang out and you're going to tell me about your day. And I can just, I mean, I can see it, because when we see Jesus, we see God, the Father. So this is probably Jesus walking without him, but anyway, nonetheless, on that whole thing, the fact is that what did Jesus do with his disciples? He would ask them questions like hey, why did you put those flowers there? Well, because this and this. Have you ever thought about the pollen getting you know whatever, and it's just like a little less, yeah, cross-pollination.

30:19
Yeah, I never thought of that. Oh yeah, you know, I think I'll do that here over the next couple of weeks. I'll move that over there. That's a great idea, you know I mean. And now here you are, living in this creative space, freed of the constraints that would hold you back. You know the constraints of narcissism, the, the, those things. And now you're working in virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial AI. It's a crazy world, but I just believe that God's going to use this to reach more people. What's the difference between augmented reality and virtual reality?

31:03 - Speaker 2
Virtual reality takes you completely out of the environment you're in, so like if I wanted to go to mars and but if I wanted digital content sitting here on my table with me, uh, but I'd still see you, I'd still see. You know that the window, that would be augmented reality. So I put on augmented reality and this is where it gets really crazy, because you'll, you know, you'll put on glasses like you're wearing now. You'll walk out to your car and you'll talk to your AI. Hey, how do I change this tire? I'm assuming you know how to change it, but it'll show you.

31:35 - Speaker 1
That's the first thing I taught my daughter. How to change a tire.

31:39 - Speaker 2
How to change a tire and then from there, I'll take care of it. But it's your real world being augmented with digital content. If you imagine, literally, uh going to a conference wearing a pair of ar glasses that are lightweight. We're not quite there yet, but it's coming, uh, and everybody you you've met before it says, yeah, you had a conversation in 2021 with that person. Here's what they discuss. Here's their kids names. Here's their birthday. Uh, like this, I mean for me, who struggles with names, I mean this is like uh, and it doesn't, doesn't even have to use uh, uh, facial recognition.

32:15
Like it's actually, yeah, your phone is actually like it could be the back of your head, but your phone's emitting, you know, beacon, and so this is this capability that we're moving into, and that we essentially patented in 2009 was these means and mechanisms.

32:32 - Speaker 1
See, this is fantastic because this is what I use my wife and my sister and other people for. It's like who's that guy, you know?

32:40 - Speaker 2
it's like yeah, seriously.

32:42 - Speaker 1
You got to have one of those people.

32:44 - Speaker 2
What's that song Isn't?

32:45 - Speaker 1
there a song like this so that's I, so I love that. Okay, what's the danger in all that stuff? Because that's one of the things that I get hit with a lot is, uh, it's the coming of the mark of the beast yeah, I mean, that might also be true, uh, but it's like it, it would be.

33:08 - Speaker 2
I mean you said it earlier, it'd be like, uh, gutenberg not printing the bible and just you know, uh, printing witchcraft books, like the thing is. And or if we were, uh, there was a big move not to be on the internet, not to, like you talked about, tv was evil video games.

33:24 - Speaker 1
I'm were evil. I'm older than you. When I was a kid I can still remember people, older people, talking about the devil box. They're talking about television.

33:36 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and there is an accurate part of what they're saying, like the enemy is using it. But do we want to cede the ground? Come on, man, the internet we ced. I mean it's 60 of the traffic is filled with pornography and this same technology is used in a way.

33:54
Imagine picking up your bible and, uh, you're reading and it's got eye tracking, so it's it knows the word. You're on that, you're actually reading, and now it sees that you pause and your ai actually knows, because you've used it a lot, that I actually now want to know what the Hebrew is for that. And so it pulls it out and then I swipe and I'm reading the Hebrew reading, but then I'm like I pull down in my scene and I move this up here and now I'm seeing three different translations of that same verse and I mean, so there's, this capability absolutely has purpose and creativity. That's going to come. I mean you're going to do everything different and it makes everybody an expert, like I don't need a fridge repairman guy because Samsung can download a visual manual to me and actually show me.

34:37 - Speaker 1
Okay, well, let's not talk about Samsung, because that ice maker in my refrigerator still doesn't work.

34:43 - Speaker 2
Anyway, yeah, oh, that's, ours broke. That's how I use it as an example. Yeah.

34:48 - Speaker 1
Anyway, yeah, so, hey. So now what that means is I can put you know 500, let's say, for Christian Men's Network, I can put 500 men in a conference setting. I can speak English, they can listen in Ugandan, Luganda, Tagaloo. They can listen, they can pull down visuals and as I'm talking, you know, they're being enriched so that when they leave that time with us and by the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit, they're able to speak life in their village, their neighborhood, their place, at a level that would have taken, you know, years.

35:37 - Speaker 2
It's even better than what you're describing. So imagine so spatial video recording is where I actually capture you as a 3D movement, so like a Gaussian splat point cloud capture. So what it means is I can put you in a space and it actually feels like you're there. So I put these glasses on and let's just say you're having it. But here's why it's important.

36:02
There's a lot of science to back this up because of psychology, and when I see something on a 2D screen, like we're doing now, I have this thing that's happening, where I'm processing what I'm seeing. If we were having the same conversation but you were sitting across from me, I'm still seeing it. But I also have all these emotive and different responses happening in my brain and they've mapped this. And so actually, when you do AR and VR, I have the same emotive responses as if you're sitting with me. Now there's slightly, some less, because there's no smells. There's some other things that change. Reflections might be slightly off, so your brain's like but it compensates.

36:44
And so imagine the power of testimony. The power of testimony is amazing. Uh, you know revelations, 12, 11. And imagine watching testimony now, instead of on 2d screens. I put somebody down and they tell me. This is what god did for me, this is how jesus came in and moved and they actually and this is shown so they're using this in ptsd research. They're doing it right now because people can go relive this. Their brain processes the fear, the emotion, the love, whatever it is exactly like. It's real. So, from a learning perspective, from a biblical perspective, from a preaching perspective, you have an emotive response that you can't have over video, and so there's a power in this tool. That's going to come, that is going to be. We're planning on using it, you know, obviously for the positive things, but if we don't, if we don't own this space as christians, the enemy will and come on, you're gonna have 80 of it be porn and ruining lives and crushing men and okay.

37:44 - Speaker 1
So what do we want? So now you've hit it, luke, and this is why we, as followers of Christ, have to get behind the smart guys. We have to get behind the dropouts yeah, thank you. But seriously, we have to get behind this stuff and we have to say, yeah, we're all for it. We have to invest in your companies and men and women like you and Jennifer who are doing these kinds of things. Because I can, you know, I'm old enough that I remember Christians not investing into television and not investing into films. And now they're crying about, oh, disney did this and this guy did this. Well, yeah, because they own it.

38:30
I remember a push back in a long time ago, back in the 60s, where there was a strong Christian leader who had a deal where he could buy CBS and he just needed every church to put in you know three grand or something like that, and he could have bought it. And I'm like, yeah, think about this, think about that kind of thing, you know. And so thank God for Pat Roberts and guys like that who built these networks. This is old school, if you will, classic technology, but it's what put them in a place now that CBN is now underwriting ministries all over the world doing unbelievable things and essentially doing it in a debt-free manner, because some guy had a vision to do that. But think about those things, so to me it's like I think it's bethel church is doing a programming class in their their school.

39:31 - Speaker 2
yeah, they're both friends of ours.

39:34 - Speaker 1
Yeah, oh good, because I'm like I just I saw that and we go okay, dude, because programmers are going to run the world and so, uh, for me it's like it's like that's what we should be talking to our young people about. And my granddaughters are going to texas a&m next year. She'll be a freshman and her the the major is called visualization, but what she really wants to do is make movies and I'm like, yeah, it's people with the spirit of God in them making good movies, excellent stuff, doing work like what you're doing with Gravity, jack, that's what changes the world, man.

40:13
That's what changes the world, Otherwise we just get mad at it. It's like breaking the printing presses. It's like the. I remember everybody burned their albums back in the late 70s or something because of back masking or something.

40:31 - Speaker 2
So they had big bonfires and they're burning albums and I'm like would have been better as if would have gone out and built new recording studios yeah, and took the space, like we're meant to be creative, and it was really recently in history where we just decided where we're going to peel back. I don't know if it was what theology that drove that, but it's like hey, we used to own architecture, we used to own science come on man every major advancement in culture has come from christians.

41:02
Every single one. Like you can actually boil it down um, even quantum physics, if you actually dive down into it, like in where they got their theories, even you know, look at that. So you're like, why would we do this now, like at the most important time in history, this crux of? Well, yeah, I had to actually go through a whole forgiveness cycle because we're in the process of raising money. We just did a crowdfund, so public offering, and we're doing a private offering, and ours has a very clear element of how we're going to translate the gospel and what we're doing with AI, and I could not get any faith-based investors and I actually just got crickets Like, yeah, we don't even, we're just going to stay so far away from what you're doing.

41:49
And uh, it was frustrating. But then I was like, okay, lord, I released that Cause I was getting. I was starting to get angsty about, like, what is wrong with these people? Uh, but it's uh, and I'm like, well, I, I've got God, so I don't. You know, whatever, he's the one that even implanted this desire in me, because five years ago, I would have never desired. Like, how can we get the gospel out to all nations within five years. And then he gave the means of how to do that and I had the capability to understand what he was talking about. Oh, this is how you do it.

42:26 - Speaker 1
And then I'm like, well, should I do this, god? And he's like, go, yeah, I think there's some things. I think there's some things, luke and, by the way, the website's gravityjackcom, right. I think there's some things that if you've got a relationship with God and you're in a relationship every day, it's like. It's like should I take my wife out on a date? Let me pray about this. There's some things you don't have to pray about. You just know, yeah, like, do you have to? I mean, you don't have to pray about that.

42:58
This is the space that Christians need to be in the middle of, and that's, I mean, that's why we're doing podcasts and that's why we built a little studio. I'm in right now, the Christian News Network Global Media Center, and it's like, hey, let's use every single technology available. And, man, I'm telling you, talking to Luke, ritch, richie and it's r-i-c-h-e-y and your wife, jennifer, family, I mean, I'm praying for you guys to be incredibly successful, luke, praying that that, uh, I mean, if we have the holy spirit, shouldn't we be highly creative, right, absolutely why do we know?

43:38 - Speaker 2
the reason I did reason I asked, I was praying about it is because one it's really big, like the actual ramifications of what we're doing. Like there's this moment of time, like I won't go into all that, but I was like, Lord, this is, this is so much bigger than me, like and the, the things, like the partners I have to pull in, like I can't do that, like unless you're really behind it, uh. And then I wanted to just check like is this something? Is there any ego in this? Is there any pride in this of me wanting to be? Uh, and the? The answer I there wasn't any, because I was really just scared. I'm like this is so huge.

44:16
And then he started bringing the partners we're working with SIL, wycliffe or Roberts University, and in big ways too, not like small ways. So he brought the people that have done the most translation with the best experts, literally as like okay here, because I don't have that piece. I have the augmented reality, all the hardcore stuff, but natural language processing engines and AI I know about, but I don't have the experts. And so I literally end up sitting at a dinner table with one of the head honchos there as an accident. And this is while I'm praying about Lord. You got to show me you really want me to do this. Yeah, wow.

44:59
So, I was like all right, and he understood it. And so the people that really are in, they're like they get it Like this can change the world for bad or it can change the world for good. Yeah.

45:11 - Speaker 1
No, I can see it and probably both. And I think, yeah, well, here's the deal. Television, internet, you go back, print whatever People have people, I mean Playboy magazine, I don't know came it's print, it's like, but the same print is what's also created these, you know, 40 days of purpose-driven life, the same printing press. It's just that God sanctified it and multiplied it. And you know, I just I'm so fired up over this and you're working on a game. You know right, you're working on a game Tribe of Benjamin.

45:53 - Speaker 2
And it's essentially a mechanism to the game itself is a mechanism to distribute, a crowdsourcing engine where we can target unreached language groups, essentially pay them to translate the word, but with small amounts, but it actually has an impact on their poverty levels, and this is not an experiment.

46:13
This is an experiment that's already been done and it works, but there's no permanent input, so we use the input of the finances of the game, so the game makes money, and that's one thing we're really good at is making games that make a lot of money. We've only done it for clients, though, which is just another God thing, because he's like no, you're going to do this for these people. I'm going to show you how to do it, but when you do go do it, it's going to be for me, and I just think it's interesting. But one game we did was making $35 million a month. After nine months and using our code, we'd already handed it off they got up to about $100 million a month. They're still top 20 in the App Store. It just cranks out. It's like a cash machine.

46:55
But now imagine that being applied into poverty-stricken areas for the gospel in a game that's actually incredibly innovative. We got nolan bushnell, the founder of atari, on our board. I showed him. This is the founder of atari. He's like this is going to change. He goes, it'll change games forever. I'm like I know, but this is like this is straight from god, like this is not uh. And so he was like to get him excited I and he's not a believer yet, uh, but to get him excited about what we're doing. I was like. I was like, yeah, thank you, lord, because so every aspect has been validated.

47:29 - Speaker 1
The only thing that hasn't been validated is, uh, but yeah, the raising of funds, but that's, that's coming you know, yeah, but that's coming, you know, because the enemy is going to try to fight this and any time somebody tries to do something good, there's resistance, you know. That's why if you want to live just a mediocre life, it's pretty easy. A mediocre man has no risk Like to say negative things on the Internet, to go on Facebook and say negative things. There's no risk, right. But if you're a follower of Christ and you're a man that's got a pair, you know you want to go do something and knock something down. Blow something up, right.

48:10 - Speaker 3
And that's what you're doing, man.

48:11 - Speaker 1
I get fired up over what you're doing, because this is what we're supposed to be as men, supposed to be as men, and uh, men are uh, designed, you know, designed for protection and and uh, you know a lot of. But one of the things we do as men is we go out and we, we tear down the things that are trying to destroy our culture. So, you know, our role as men is to go out and actually just tear down the stuff that's destroying things. So that's why pornography sure, they went and just got this full-on, like it just went through the internet and all this. And now they're just, you know, I just see right and left, strong Christian men and women just tearing that whole thing down, exposing it to the light, saying here's the victims, they see what the result is Exactly. Now we see over time here's the results, here's the screwed up lives, here's the death, here's everything else that's happened out of this. And just, you know so, joshua Broom, who's on our podcast, and others who are just exposing this whole thing, saying this is what it's about our podcast, and others who are just exposing this whole thing, saying this is what it's about.

49:27
And it takes warriors like you and Jennifer who say you know, what doesn't matter Doesn't matter. It's that old thing that was said by President Reagan when he said it doesn't matter. You know, it's amazing how much you can get done when you're not worried about who gets the credit. Much you can get done when you're not worried about who gets the credit. And that's the power of the life of Christ was humility. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less, and God's going to take men like you, luke, and people like your wife, jennifer. You know.

50:04 - Speaker 2
So, mma, you know, like you did, did cage fighting, like you were in the octagon, yeah, I actually I, I would, really I'd still fight. I actually wanted to do one on my 50th birthday but my wife's like no, like I'm not the one, I'm the one who has to take care of you, because even at 40 I was like I'd get home from three hours of training, I couldn't get out of car and so like I'd take me like 20 minutes to get inside. I'd just jump in an ice bath. But I love it, I really do love combat. But yeah, you just really do get too old at a certain point.

50:32 - Speaker 1
Yeah, well, now you're in combat, though You're in a spiritual combat man, different guy and the enemy's trying to kick you in the nuts every single day and every time you turn around. Yeah, that's what's happening. So, because the enemy is going to try to go to those places that are most vulnerable in every single man's life. So when we talk about that, it's at any point in time. So I man, I'm just I'm digging what you're doing. You're a great inspiration to us as men, luke, and so thank you for going through these difficult times. You know, it's like see, here's the thing. I don't believe everything happens for a reason, but I think there's a reason. Everything happens. You know the stuff your dad had gone through and those kinds of things, but out of all that, what the Bible teaches us and what Jesus taught us, I'll take all of that and I'll make something beautiful out of it.

51:27
I'll take the mosaic of your life and I'll take something and I'll create something remarkable. And so, man, I can't tell you how fired up I am over what you're doing For us. As Christians. Network our goal, like going into India taking our tools for mentoring men. You know, the number one issue in culture in every part of the world is fatherlessness. In many ways, you experience that in your own life, and so healing the father wound is what will heal the trauma of culture.

52:00 - Speaker 2
So healing the father wound is what will heal the trauma of culture and that understanding of who our true father is. I remember when I was like, yeah, almost he even used that like this lack of a father that would love me. But then I find a father who loves me and then I start to try to push these father attributes I'm not like that, I'm not that kind of father. And then the realization to try to push these father attributes like, I'm not like that, I'm not that kind of father. Uh, and it was just. And then the realization to know he's, he's my father, yeah, like he's all our father and like, and then you have this oh, you get a b, I get to be a father, like I had to represent you to these kids.

52:34
Like, what an honor. And then what a scary honor. Like I, I better like up my game. I gotta, I gotta love on them and invest in them and speak into them. I gotta do the things you're doing to me, to my kids. And that's what I think really healed us too was just the change. And this way I approach them, uh, you know there are awesome.

52:55 - Speaker 1
Yeah, we all have fights in our lives and there are times where I fight negative thoughts or temptation, whatever it may be, and quite often my my, if you will, motivation or the thing that fires me up is I'm doing this for my grandkids. I'm doing this because I I've got nine grandchildren. I'm like I'm doing that for william and I'm doing this for casein. Dude, I'm fighting this fight right now, you know, for Audrey. You know it's like I'll never forget Luke.

53:26
I was with a guy that was a pastor of a big church in London. We were in South America and we were at a steak place and he was eating just a salad and some rice or something, I don't know. It was real minimal and everybody else was having steaks. I go, dude, what are you doing? His rice or something, I don't know. It was real minimal. Everybody else was having steaks. I go, dude, what are you doing? Same as Gary. Gary looked at me. This was about 10 years ago. Gary looked at me and says I'm doing this for my grandchildren. I said what do you mean? He said I'm working on my health. He said I haven't been. He said I've become unhealthy.

53:56
He said so the motivation of doing this for my grandchildren. I've shared that with hundreds of men. It's helped shift and change our lives, because our lives are not lived for us or lived for those who come behind us, and what a man does in life becomes history, but what he puts into motion becomes his legacy.

54:16
So what I'm wanting to do in my life is put these things in motion. Dude, I'm so fired up over this AR stuff and I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you program. I mean, it's all ones and zeros, right.

54:31 - Speaker 2
It boils down to that by the time it reaches electrical signal.

54:36 - Speaker 3
But yeah, you code in a higher level language.

54:38 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and then it.

54:39 - Speaker 1
yeah, it's compiled down uh, it's fascinating to me. I don't know how you do it, but thank god for guys like you who are, and those who are coming alongside you, and because I could, just I can see us again. That visual I had, and you said it's even beyond that. It's better, it's like god's grace.

54:58 - Speaker 2
Whatever you think it is, it's bigger well, it's just gonna, it's gonna, it is. Again, it's a bigger game changer than the internet. Uh, and people don't realize this yet. And the apple vision pro not a huge I love apple actually but uh, their apple vision pro is a game changer because you're gonna wear it in your house. Uh, two days pre-order starts. I'm not, I don't work for apple but it's also 35 bucks but anyway nonetheless.

55:26
Yeah, but that people are going to buy it. Because the minute you try somebody's you're going to be like, oh, I don't need my screen anymore on my laptop and now my tv. I don't even need a hundred inch tv because now I got a 200 inch anywhere. I want it anytime, I want it and it'll be. It'll be on your wall like you'll just look over it's still there, but you take these off and it's not. Uh, so there's a change coming. That and in the way we communicate, is that's the most what you were talking about earlier these mechanisms of communication. When I can, when I can add a z-axis or a cartesian coordinate to you as we're talking, the whole communication thing is going to change to a high degree and these are so high resolution. That capability is like just that's really right around the corner if they don't already have it ready to launch as an update.

56:17 - Speaker 1
See now this here's what I love about this we're going to get the gospel out and all this here's. The other side of it for me is, if we're not careful, it individualizes people to the point that they cocoon Right.

56:33 - Speaker 2
Yeah, yes, that's one of the dangers.

56:36 - Speaker 1
And one of my things, because I've heard from guys, you know, nerds for Christ and whatever. They're talking about building churches online and all that and I think all that's great I think, like Joel Osteen and Jack Graham and people that have 20,000 people watching on the weekends, it's wonderful. But the fact is, you know, you mentioned something right near the start of this whole talk about this, luke, and that is that there's no smell and maybe someday that happens. But there's something about, in fact, you know, psychological studies will tell us pheromones and the things of fragrance is how you've chosen many of your best friends. You've chosen many of your best friends. Many of the people you hang out with are because of fragrance and accent, and there's all these things about us so many factors.

57:29
Yeah that for me there is no substitute for the community that comes together person by person. So for me, when we're talking about augmented reality for me, all of this is augmented to that experience that I have. So now I've got best friends in Peru, I've got best friends in Thailand, we've got a best friend in Indonesia and boom, I can be on with them, we can hang and it can be 3D, three-dimensional or whatever. The artesian thing that you said was cool whatever that artesian coordinate, yeah, okay that just sounds cool.

58:06
I gotta learn some of those words, just to sound it's just a z-axis, I mean, technically they're all cartesian coordinates, but okay, at least three so, uh, so I can hang with them, but, but the real place that my life is going to be sharpened is in that brotherhood of person to person. A guy that I can call Luke, that I can call and say hey, my wife is locked out of her house and I'm a hundred miles away. Can you go over and help her get in?

58:38 - Speaker 2
Totally agree.

58:39 - Speaker 1
Right. Yeah, and if this helps that, that's a huge danger, then if this helps that, then it's a win. So now we have to have, you know, proverbs 4, we have to have the wisdom of Christ.

58:54 - Speaker 2
Genuine human connection is critical. I don't think the digital will ever ever be able to fully replace it. And you watched what happened when they they cut us off from each other and you know, in the response and like the suicide rates, like I worked the lines while that was happening and I'm like it was crushing, crushing, yeah, uh, and the level of loneliness, so, and that you still got zoom. And even with this emotional response, you're absolutely correct. I mean, actually in our game, one of our things is we're drawing the nuclear family and like we've got these mechanisms that even make the parents want to play very, very casually, but they will be involved in this thing that they're j and z are doing, um. But then there's the group things that you're doing. You're doing with friends out and about like real world a little there's it's pokemon, go ask, um, but we're like you can't eliminate the human connection, uh. And then we want worldwide connection. That exactly we're talking about global connection.

59:52
But I'd say the actual real world components play more of a part in the game than the others. Uh, in terms of mechanics, um, and it's all about that, how do we create connection between people and show them how to love each other. Uh, like, we start instilling values by the nature of the game mechanics without it feeling like a lesson. Uh, that's where it gets really. Yes, amazing that. Yes, because, because we're all fighting this darkness. Yeah, you know, ai Zazel is the bad guy in our game. We added an I in the Hebrew word AZazel, so, yeah, there's some interesting CS Lewis type. Yeah, we're going for that parallel Without going woke on, you know.

01:00:40 - Speaker 1
Christianity. I'm digging this. No, we're supposed to be awake. Wake up slumber sleepers. I mean, we're supposed to be awake.

01:00:48
I'm finishing a degree, a doctorate, in semiotics. So, in fact, we spent a day at CS Lewis' house in my cohort with my professor, leonard Sweet, last June. And so what you're describing for me semiotics, the study of— it's Sons of Issachar is the best way to explain it Sons of Issachar, knowing the future, knowing the signs of the times. Semiotics is the understanding of the signs of things. So what you're describing to me in this whole world that you're in, luke and I thank God I mean, dude, you had such a remarkable come to Jesus thing and then for your marriage to survive and for you to be in these new levels of relationship with your children. You know, yeah, it's an incredible story, bro, and we just pray that every place you put your feet will be holy ground and everything your hands touch will prosper. And, luke, we need guys like you. And so just know that the Christian Men's Network and all of us who are listening, and part of this man, we're just behind you.

01:02:01 - Speaker 2
We're praying for you, brother, praying for funding, praying for lots of money. I'll do the same for you guys.

01:02:06 - Speaker 1
Amen Praying for millions of dollars to come in. In Jesus' name. Thanks for hanging out, man. Thank you.

01:02:12 - Speaker 2
Yeah, that was so much fun. I hope it encouraged some people, I'm sure it did brother. I'm sure it did.

01:02:20 - Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah, this was an amazing story. I had no idea we were going, where we were going. You know about your dad?

01:02:25 - Speaker 2
yeah, I didn't either I. Sometimes I hop on these and I'm like well, holy spirit, what do you want like out of this?

01:02:30
I really felt too, that somebody might be struggling with some of the ideation and the lack of self-worth, and so I just wanted to speak to that because I'm yeah, I'm glad you did, because the minute that solves, you don't operate from insecurity. The minute you're not operating from insecurity, then it's hard to get offended, it's hard to have an ego. All those things are facades over this lack of true identity of who you are. And when you're a Christian, you're a child of God. When you're not, you're a christian. You're a child of god. When you're, you know, when you're not, you're still made in the image you're still infinitely loved. And so there's this, this pathway. So I want to be a son of god like, yeah, we live with such a negative mindset.

01:03:14 - Speaker 1
You know when, when david fought against the goath, one of the things that happened is he shows up. He's in his mid-teens, you know. He's had to struggle with the rejection of his father, Jesse, who says if anybody's going to be king, it won't be. You had to struggle with some other things that he had in his life things he dealt with his whole life.

01:03:35
I never connected that, yeah. And so he shows up and Saul knows who he is right Because he's played music for him. So Saul goes yeah, yeah, bring David. David says I'll take this guy out. This is an uncircumcised Philistine, which meant he's a man outside the law, he's a man outside God's grace. And here we are circumcised. We're God's men. Who's this uncircumcised Philistine? He says who's this uncircumcised Philistine? He says who's this man that's outside of God's provision. So Saul brings a man and Saul looks at him and this is the thing that I was taught when I was a kid, luke. I was taught that David was this little guy. So Saul puts his armor on him right and it says it doesn't fit. Well, I began to study this a number of years ago and found these writings that talked about David as a man of stature.

01:04:25
In other words, he was like a, I don't know, like a 6'4" 220 guy, you know like the same as Saul I mean think of a 17-year-old D1 prospect, right, yeah, I mean think of a 17-year-old D1 prospect, right, yeah, like he's not a little guy. So David walks in and Saul looks at him and says, oh, my armor will fit you, so here, put it on. Yeah, but what's on Saul's armor? On Saul's armor is his coat of arms, his crest, his insignia, his battle things, whatever. In other words, what was on Saul's armor was Saul's definition. And David looks at him and says, puts it on and goes you know what I'm not putting on?

01:05:10
This definition of despair and debt and discouragement and ungodliness and unrighteous thinking. I'm not putting on that this doesn't define me. And he takes it. Not putting on that, this doesn't define me, and he takes it off. He says it doesn't fit me. And so for me, that's always been the. That's become part of. What's this mindset about? It's about the definition, and what you allow to define you determines your destiny. So anyway, this is great stuff, luke, thanks for taking the time, man.

01:05:39 - Speaker 2
Yeah, well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

01:05:47 - Speaker 3
Brave Men is a production of Christian Men's Network, a global movement of men committed to passionately following Jesus on the ground in over 100 nations worldwide. You can receive the Brave Men motivational email, find books and resources for discipleship and parenting at cmn.men. That's cmn.men. Your host has been paul Louis cole, president of christian men's network, and if you haven't yet, please make sure you subscribe to the brave men podcast wherever you find podcasts or download it. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on brave men. Thanks for hanging with us today. We'll see you next time on Brave Men.