Episode Transcript
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to shifts and ladders with Ryan Robinson. I have my first guest on the new podcast here today.
I have the host of the Joker's shadow, Caleb McCleski, on the phone today. On the phone on the mic tonight, we decided to get something together, and we. I'm excited to have you, man. How you doing?
[00:00:47] Speaker B: I appreciate being here, man. Glad I could be here.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Yes. First of all, his voice is, like, super deep.
So he has the. The podcast voice and everything.
And he's been podcasting. What do you say? About. About a year or two?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: It's going on three years now, so just.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. I've been doing it since, like, my freshman year of college, man. I'm being a senior in a few months. So just. It's a work in progress, man. It's a work in progress.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Nice. Nice. And he's up to almost. He's going to be doing season four here fairly soon, if not now, by the time you listen to this podcast.
But, you know, we've. We kind of bumped into each other, and at a family gathering, I said, yeah. Oh, man. We should just, like, link up because we talks about a lot of things around the individuals perspectives and different worldviews. Right? So for those who haven't heard your podcast, and we'll link it in the show notes, tell everybody listening what the Joker Shadow is all about.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So the Joker Shadow is kind of like, I call it a life podcast pretty much. I'm a journalism student, Ohio University, and I've done a news podcast. I've done a sports podcast. And it's like, let me just do a life podcast. Just get away from all the sports in the news and stuff for a little bit. And pretty much I bring on my. My friends, my family and my coworkers, and we talk about different topics from, like, I guess, like, episode two is, like, a prime example of, like, the friends and their importance. I just did an episode recently about the importance of, like, the truth in the world, the lies of the world, and the secrets of the world.
And I just feel like having, like, those topics, like, really brings people together. And it just, for me, it's always, I like learning, man, and bringing on different people and getting their perspectives just really, it helps me learn and just sees different sides of people. So that's really what the podcast is to me, man.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: That's amazing. I've got to listen to a few of your pods, and I think you got some great perspectives. And this is one thing particularly you. Particularly you being in journalism, one of the things I'm find very curious about is that in order to have, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, effective journalism, you need to be able to depict both sides the story. And usually there is an angle, but effective journalism creates a level of, for lack of a better words, objectivity or should, but there's always some kind of spin. But I find now that you don't get that in a lot of journalism these days. So what do you think is some of the challenges that come along these days with journalism? I think maybe the integrity might be gone or clicks. Is it for whatever, what is it?
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Um, I feel like, for me it's like definitely like what you say, getting both sides of the story is so, so important because you just don't know how that story can impact not only the people who view, but the people who are in that story. Like, I guess an example that would be like if I was doing a story about like a tornado that like hit Columbus or something, and I just did a story about the tornado. It's not just about the tornado, it's about what were the damages, who were the people that were affected. How does that affect businesses in the economy?
And that's just a tornado. Like, we could talk about politics, we could talk about sports, we could talk about culture even. We could talk about religion is kind of a toss up sometimes in journalism, but more times, there are some topics that journalists tend to stay away from. But I feel like getting both sides of story is so important and I feel like today, and this is something that I've taken away from being an OU in the Scripps college, is that fake news has become such a big thing because of social media, because of television, because the advancements in technology give not only journalists, but basically every single person who has access to a cellular device, an iPad, a computer, some sort of technology, they can make their own content and basically just put that out there. And for some of those creators, they don't have a care in the world about who sees that and who that might impact. Like going back to tornado example, like if someone just put out on their twitter and they might be a huge creator in Columbus, that a tornado has hit Columbus and thousands upon thousands of people in Columbus are seen it, but it's like there's no tornado. So not only are you stressing out those people thinking that there is a tornado, but you're also lying to them. And because you're lying to those people, that hurts the credibility of journalists and other creators who are trying to give out the truth to other people. So I feel like for me, I mean, I'm still in school. I really can't talk about all this much. I'm not in the professional field yet. But it's like, those are the type of things that new journalists or people who are putting out content really need to learn sometimes just so that they are not negatively impacting those people's lives in the wrong way.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Got it. So. So what motivates someone?
Is it, I guess, if you're, if you're going into journalism to share news or you're having the. The vehicle of the Internet to share of a particular worldview, what is the motivation for someone to mislead somebody? Again, I'm just. Cause the reason why I'm bringing this up cause it's gonna lead to our topic. Is that what I recall a while ago in history class, I learned that investigative journalism kind of started really getting in its place during like, the Vietnam era because there was a lot of people that did not know what was really happening over overseas and that ended up being portrayed around the same time. We had civil rights around Vietnam and other world things happening, protests, I think, all those kinds of things.
Like I said, if I'm wrong, man, you can correct me.
I'm good. Okay. All right, listen, I was studying. Now, I know a few things. I did go to school.
And so one of the things I'm finding is that at one time, the era of journalism had more of a noble cause behind it, right? Because they, there was a sense of justice to keep, not just politicians, but government systems and financial institutions to be able to do and be held accountable because someone was watching them and studying them and making sure that the truth did get out. Now the truth is getting muddied. So what is the motivation that you think, and again, that you think could be keeping people from really seeking the truth instead of putting their own truth out there as a.
To appease individuals with that particular worldview.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: As much as it pays me to say it. But it's clicks, man. There really is clicks, like getting, how I put this, getting the.
Getting the human eye, getting the attention from people is really how content today is, how content stays alive pretty much in terms of, like, if a person sees whatever your content is, looks at it, likes it, shares it, people are sometimes willing to do things that are not only not true, but also harmful to others. Like, I think I've seen a few YouTube videos lately where people are putting their body in harm's way just to get clicks and stuff. And like if you want to do that, that's fine, but it's like, it's because you don't know when you can seriously get hurt and it's not worth putting your body or your life on the line just to get a few hundred, few thousand views. Like you can do that from, like you do that from anything. I feel like today with entertainment online, you can see people making cooking videos, you see people making houses and stuff, you see people surprising their parents with like gifts and stuff. You see people talking, literally communicating. Like how me and you are having this conversation right now, there are safer ways to put out content. And it's like, yeah.
And can people do it? Yeah, I mean, nobody's gonna stop them. But at the end of the day it's like, is it truly worth it to like really put that content out there with certain things on the line and at least with like, because I feel like what you said about accountability really is true to the point about how there are some organizations, some groups or individuals out there who are not held accountable for certain things. And when those groups are individual, not held accountable, it's like, so basically anybody can get away with anything. Like we don't have certain laws or certain provisions or consequences put in our societies, how our governments are run, and these people can get away with these things. And I feel like for journalists to cover those topics with investigative journalism or even journalists who cover judicial stuff with like crimes being in the courtrooms, it's the stuff like that, that even though as hard as it is with not only trying to get that story but also the backlash behind it because how was a good one? Like, I guess like basically any like courtroom story necessarily, there are going to be like two sides to that story. There are going to be people who read that and are like, yeah, I totally get what the story is saying. These are the facts. This is the truth that are going to be the other people who are like, no, this person should not be in prison, this should not have these consequences. And journalists today, it's like the journalistic world is having a constant battle with trying to please everybody they possibly can, but also not get in anybody else's way or disappoint anybody. But not everybody can be happy. Not everybody's gonna want to see what journalists are able to do in terms of what stories we're putting out, what information we're putting out. Like, and as difficult as that is, like, I feel like there are many professions around the world that have to deal with that like not, not every doctor surgeon is gonna be able to save everybody who's been in an incident or having some critical condition or something like that. Not every contractor or person who making a house. They're not gonna be able to give everybody exactly what they want. They could be close, they could be so close to perfect, but they can't please everybody because there's always going to be one person who has a different idea or different solution or some counteractive statement that's going to make it somewhat that they don't agree with it. So I feel like with journalism today, it's like journalists, I feel like people who stick to true journalism. What I mean by that is not putting those opinion pieces out there, not putting stuff that is false, sticking to the truth, the facts, and if they get something wrong, they got something wrong, they're being accountable for it. They're saying, hey, we got this wrong. It's that reporter and that station or organization who's through them and just take it to the facts. I mean, I feel like if you're able to do that because this all ties back to the original point, is that it's not always about getting stuff out as soon as possible. It's not getting about stuff out as soon as it happens.
People, well, not people. Well some people are able to know when something is true or not. So in order to do that, you need credibility. You need photos, you need videos, you need sources, you need citations.
You are going to need certain things to make it seem like that information is true.
And what's more times than that happens is that when we have these accounts that are putting out fake information or like parodies or like information that may be true but has like false words in it, it makes it hard for people who are trying to do true journalism stay true to what they're doing. So it's like two sides of like the same coin? Not really though, but people are just, it's hard to try and do true journalism when there is that much misinformation out there in the world.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: You know, you bring up a point that I was like you said, it is like two sides of a coin. But honestly what it is is it's instead of calling the heads heads and the tails tails, you just change the name of it.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Yup, right.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: And it's like, oh no, that's actually tails and it's heads really? And you're like, and you say it enough times, people are going to start to believe it. And, and honestly that's actually someone's opinion. Yeah, and what's crazy about it, because I, I know. And there used to be a section for opinion pieces.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Right.
Where people labeled this is my opinion.
And, and now what it does, you can't even find that because someone's opinion is intertwined in there with the facts to get a specific leaning of an audience person. And, you know, I think what happens is when we mix facts up with feelings, we have a way to be able to, I don't think it's, I don't think it's intentional, but I think it is just a consequence of being emotionally tied to what is being written about, because either they have, there's a monetary thing involved with it, there's pressure, because they have a particular audience that they have to appease because essentially their eyes, their attention pays the bills for them.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: You know.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: And again, I don't know if there's even the Internet. I think you brought up, you just said something like a tornado happened. Like, if something were to happen Red. Like, there's outlets, like, I'll just use Reddit, for example. Yeah, like Reddit. It's probably one of the worst places to get, like, any information because someone could take a photo, say something. And the subreddit is filled with people who have an opinion.
And I don't think it's a bad thing that the Internet leveled the Playing Field when it came to Accessibility and Communication.
But what I do recognize is that there's individuals who are never taught how to properly utilize a Microphone. So you know how to, you know how, you know how to communicate all that kind of Stuff. There's some people who get a Microphone and they talking all day long. Right. And they're not communicating well. They holding it all over the place. Like, you know, there's people, like, okay, you've never talked to anyone.
You've never talked to anyone in public speaking, but you're really good at just typing something, right?
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: And again, this isn't something. It's not a bashing of anyone, but it is just the facts. Like, let's be honest, there's some people who just don't know how to yield that kind of responsibility when it comes to communicating, which boggles my mind. I mean, I know the people that are afraid to do public speaking, but I don't think people understand how much information can actually, how much misinformation can actually mislead people, because, like, you could say the wrong thing, it goes viral. And viral doesn't necessarily mean the truth. It just means popular.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: So there's a lot of responsibility that comes with that.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: So, yeah, because I would say, like, yeah, because this is like. Because, I mean, my dad talked about this when I really got in the podcasting. It's like.
And I basically agree with him on this. Like, it's. I feel like it is so important that everybody has a voice as the ability to speak, speak their opinions, but it's just how you use it.
That is what dictates if you're using it right or wrong. Now, right or wrong can mean so many different things in today's world, but if you're doing something that's, like, not.
If you're doing something that's going to harm somebody else, then you're obviously in the wrong. Like, to physically, mentally, or emotionally harm somebody, you're in the wrong. There's no other way around that. Like, yeah, so, yeah, everybody should have their voice. I believe in that. I still do it to this day. It's just how you use it.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. And I think that's.
Most people have to get their arms around that because that. It is a responsibility. I've. There's a quote. There's a quote that was said.
I'm trying to pull it up.
I wish I had it up on top of my head. But the. The person said, I believe the author of the book, it was, is Greg McKeown, and he is the author of this book called Essentialism, the discipline, pursuit of less but better. And he. The premise of the book is that you have to reduce life down to its most essential things. If it's is not a hell yes, it's an automatic hell no, so to speak. Right.
So one of the things he brings up is that now it's more difficult than ever to find out what is essential, because we are inundated with opinions and have opinion overload, because social media has given everyone a microphone to share their opinion, no matter how succinct it is or incoherent, coherent or incoherent, that argument is.
So, yeah, it's just one of the things that he just says, like, it's hard to filter out the noise from the truth. So you need to spend more time seeking the truth. So when you hear something that might be untrue, you have done enough diligence to find out what's the truth and what is not. So basically, owning your. Owning your.
Owning your own responsibility of getting the truth, that's essentially what he's getting at. Yeah, but there's a lot. A lot to it. But with that being said, I think this leads to another point of being countercultural.
Now, these days, being a person who actually holds tension for one side and the other is actually a countercultural concept. Most people think you have to be red or blue. You got to pick a side on everything. There was a chart around the time President Obama was being. Was in the first election, and that was, you consider him, like the first social media influenced president. Right. And one of the things that they said was the comments based on his, his campaigning were more of the middle. Like, there. You know, some people, like, they might have been Republican, but they had some, like, you know, they, they had some, you know, like, oh, I like, like him. I like Obama. Like a couple things. So one of the things is they took all that data and this is, again, early social, like Twitter days, all that kind of stuff when it was Twitter. And. And they basically did a bell curve to kind of see where, how everything was based on comments and all that good stuff. So pretty much whether you are identified as a Democrat or Republican or independent, a lot of the comments kind of were middled. Like, it was kind of in the middle. So if we did a bell curve, most of it typically is in the middle, where it's kind of the law of averages. Right in the middle. Everybody's got the 80 20 rule. So most of the stuff is kind of in the middle.
And it started after, in the second election of President Obama and toward the end of his presidency, you start to see a, this mountain of commons, common ideals start to pick one side or the other. So there, it started to become more radical because the algorithm would just give individuals not just one side, not just both sides, but just one side, and continue to feed that perspective over and over and over again.
There's a great documentary called the social dilemma on Netflix. If you watch that, you need to make sure you're ready, because you will look at social media different. But one of the things that I'm going to talk about, we're kind of expound upon this.
What makes being able to have balance in your opinions so countercultural? I listen to your podcast, and you hold tension for both of these ideas, like for being an introvert and being extrovert. Whether you have both, you know, there's ideas and positives in both. If you know how to use them correctly, be authentic to yourself in your latest pod. But why do you think so many people have challenges dealing with tension of both and have to choose either or?
[00:25:04] Speaker B: I feel like, I think honestly like to put it in a pop culture kind of way like, cuz backstabbing exists, like, like stabbing double agents, whatever you want to call it.
I feel like people who are.
And that goes to trust as well. It's like, so I guess if we're taking that episode, for example, you got introverts, you got extroverts, and if you're in the middle trying to be neutral, some people are going to be like, okay, they're with us, but they're also with the enemy, the opposing side, whatever you want to call it. So we don't know if they're exactly all in or they're all out.
And I see, I feel like with some people that can rub them the wrong way sometimes just because you don't really know if they're going to be with you or against you, there's always that possibility. It's always a 50 50 toss up. People who say that they're neutral or they're in the middle.
And I feel like sometimes it really depends on the topic. I feel like introverts and extroverts. It's like, it's simple. It's kind of like a topic that should not have a whole lot of tension on it. Like, you're either a person who likes being very outgoing or you're like a person who wants to be inside sometimes. Like, there should not be that much tempting tension with that topic. But like, if we're talking Democrats and Republicans, with everything that goes into politics, with your views, your ideas and impacts that come off of those groups, that could pop, probably rub people the wrong way. If you are in the middle sometimes because your views, some of them are with them, it's that other 50% that bothers them because you're not on that same side anymore, you're.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: And in all honesty, like, even though there's red and blue, there's always that purple group in the middle. Like, it's going to be that there are more times than not going to be three groups when it comes to, if it comes to politics, if it becomes people who are a LeBron James fan or a Michael Jordan fan, there are going to be everybody who is going to be in the middle. People are going to be like, I don't know, but if I. There may be some people who are like, I've never seen basketball before, so I have no idea. And there might be people from both sides being like, well, you have to pick one. How are you gonna do that somebody if they don't know who LeBron James and Michael Jordan are? You can't force them into a group, you will probably give them.
Like, if you were to ask me, like, if I was talking to somebody who did not know basketball, I would probably give them the same amount of time it took me to grasp that idea and actually understand it and know both of those players, what they've done or what they're still doing, and then pick a side. But then again, that's not me. Like, if people are Jordan fans of LeBron fans, that's their opinion. That's their idea of those players.
And I feel like the middle ground is just.
Some people think it's.
And I sometimes feel this way when I go to the middle ground. Sometimes it feels like a safe haven. Sometimes it feels like a place where you should not be involved with what's going on. Because honestly, sometimes when I get into some debates with my friends and family about sports, foods, politics, culture, stuff, news, video games, whatever it might be, sometimes I want to be in the middle ground because I want to get involved. I don't want to be a part of whatever's going on that's like, just me personally, like.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: But at least in terms of this topic, the middle ground is.
It's. People just sometimes can't accept it just because of there's that 50% of that person's ideas that are going to go the other way. And for that group who's on that opposing side, they can't accept it because they're not with them, they're against them.
[00:30:02] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, you brought up the LeBron.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: And Michael, the James and Jordan conversation, and I think that is going to.
I think these kind of conversations come up in critical points when it comes to, like, legacy, for example.
It is. What's the, what's the last stand of someone's viewpoint, someone's platform?
And that is where you start finding the tension that you're talking about come through. And some people just don't want to pick sides because there's so many factors to, like the contribution. Like what? We'll just stick with the example because this is. I literally had this conversation about two weeks ago at work.
There's era differences.
Right. The era of basketball in the nineties is way different than the era of basketball that LeBron is in now, let alone what he started in. I mean, he, I mean, he had Kobe, he had Dirk Dabinski, he had.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: D Wade was there kg.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: Wait, Shaq was still playing. You had Paul Pierce, you had Ray, Ray Allen. Like, there were so many guys who I don't even know. I was like, Gary Payton was still playing. I don't think he was. I don't know if he was playing at that point in time. But you had these eras of basketball players that exemplified a particular time period, right? Michael Jordan. I mean, people were like, the fouls in the nineties were like, you got almost punched in the face, almost. It looks like now you can get, you know, they added, what's the flopping? And they've added so many rules to fouling to make sure that someone doesn't get hurt these days.
You know, you can't say they're soft. I don't. I don't know. I don't play basketball. But what I will say is things have changed. Things have changed. And the, um. The kind of ball that's played now is way different. I would even guard, I would even gather to say the level of athleticism amongst just your bench warming player is better than what it was in the nineties. Like, like, there's a lot more talented guys these days than what we see now. I mean, Vince Carter, think about when he was doing the, you know, the dunks between the, you know, between the legs, right? And that was the biggest, you know, slam dunk contest probably ever at this point, because everything is now kind of. Kind of whack. But. But now you see people doing what Vince Carter was doing as a way to just get into the slam dunk contest. Like, they're doing it without even thinking about it. And it's that principle of, like, you know, as soon, I can't remember when might be the 19, 1950s, 1940s, whenever someone completed mile under, there's under four minutes or something like that.
And then a few months later, somebody else broke the record.
And then you just started getting all these people breaking a mile, a sub four minute mile. Believe because one person did it, after that, the whole bar was set different because there was one person that broke it. And now because that one person broke it, there's people that know it's possible, so they're going to work toward what they see now.
I think that's what happened with, with, with LeBron. I mean, just different age of all, but there's so many different factors. That's what I'm getting back to. God, I went off topic. There's so many factors that play into that. Like, you just can't say LeBron Jordan now. Like, no, like, we can't.
I mean, you can't. I mean, you just can't. It's a challenge to do that and.
But, you know, to be able to have that moment of clarity, to say, let's look at the whole picture instead of looking at just the two individuals themselves, you know, stacking them up one another, side by side.
That in itself is counterculture.
No one wants to see the big picture, yet everyone has their opinion to it. And I just find that it's crazy. Like, it, you know, wisdom doesn't have its place that it once did, because opinions are louder. And I think that is kind of, you know, frustrating that it's countercultural to be truth, to seek the truth, but cultural to follow a lie. You know.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: Because I would say, because I talked about this with a very, very old episode with one of my friends from school, is that, I think with your point that you just said about how following a lie can be cultural is that sometimes, unfortunately, not everybody's able to handle the truth. Not everybody's able to look the truth in the face and be like, okay, this is facts.
It really can't be changed unless it's something you have control over. And back to my dad and even my grandmother, it's like, when it comes to an individual, some of the things you can control are your character, your behavior, how you act around others, your language, your tone.
It's the stuff like that that you can't control. And sometimes when you are acting a certain way and somebody called you out for it, you're getting mad at them for calling you out when they just spoke the truth to your face.
Now, some people get defensive. I get defensive sometimes. I've been defensive since I knew what the term defensive was. Do I still do it today? Yeah. But I make sure that I try to control that because I need to process what has just been told to me.
Like, back to the LeBron Michael Jordan thing, if somebody is saying some nonsense about one player or the other and I get defensive about it, that person could be saying the truth about that. Or if somebody's, like saying, last year the Kansas City Chiefs won, and then somebody saying, no, they didn't, that makes no sense. Why are you getting defensive about the truth about factual information?
And.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:38:06] Speaker B: Going back to the behavior thing, it's like if somebody calls you out for something and you're getting defensive about it, sometimes if your friends telling you that or your parents telling you that, they're putting you in check, they're putting you in your place so you don't do that out in the real world and look like a fool.
And it's just because I see it sometimes. I mean, being at college, being back at home with some people, it's like some people still have not grasped that sometimes you have to accept the truth. You have to accept reality. What's going on, what's happening right in front of you at that moment in time. And for me, I feel like I try to, like, take everything as a learning moment. I take every single day, every single hour. This podcast is a learning moment. I remember the last time I've been a guest on a podcast. Like, this is always gonna be a learning moment. This is always a learning moment. And yeah, yeah, it's like if people. Because this goes back to accepting the truth of being accountable for your actions. Like, if you're not able to accept the truth, then you're only going to be able to accept lies. You're only going to be able to accept people lying to your face about something, because it's not.
You only want to hear when you want to, when it's going on. You don't want to hear about the stuff that you don't want to.
And it's unfortunate, but it's the world we live in. Not everybody is going to have the humbling aspect of themselves to stop and actually listen, because sometimes listening and staying quiet is the most powerful form of speech.
That's why when you see certain athletes don't talk smack to another player who is talking smack, more times than not, that following game or that next matchup, we know who the winner is. We know who comes out on top. Most times, it's the person who stays quiet, man. It's being humble. It's knowing that sometimes you have to accept what happens when it happens, but at the same time, just gotta move forward with it. If you make a mistake, learn from it, grow from it, make sure if that it does not happen again. So it shows that you took that moment with some serious guts.
I could say another word right now, but you gotta just, like, you just gotta learn. You just gotta grow. You just got it. You just can't.
If you only hear what you want to hear, you're not gonna get very far in life, unfortunately. Like, yeah, if somebody was, like, trying to buy a house and they only wanted to hear that the house was like $5,000, when in reality it's like a hundred thousand or $200,000.
Come on, man.
I'm blabbing a little bit, but like, I. I spoke my piece about that.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: No, but you know what? You're. You. I think there's a part to this that people think that we ignore is the truth about ourselves. That's so true, because it's impossible to be.
And again, I'm speaking to the choir here for myself. But, like, being, the only way you can accept the truth is if you're truthful to yourself.
And if you.
And if you're not willing to be transparent with you, there's no way that you can ask anyone else to be.
You have an inability to accept any kind of truth because you have. You have not accepted the truth about yourself. So say you, if you have an issue, if you're, you know, you've been drinking or you got like a. If you're a shopaholic and you don't want to hear you're a shopaholic, nine times out of ten, you're not going to stop shopping if you don't admit you need help. But they say the first thing to accomplish or get yourself in the healing process of any addiction or problem is one acknowledging that you have a issue.
And what's dangerous about that is that most people are not willing to see themselves the way others see them. Objectively, I think we're kinder to ourselves because we're it.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: We're us, you know, try to have that positive mentality. We try not to bring ourselves down. We try not to accept the faults in our own self.
[00:43:24] Speaker A: Exactly. Like, you know, if I got something in my nose and someone says, hey, and this is. I'm gonna say, this is one of the things that bothers the heck out of me is that if someone tell. If I got something on my eyelid or something in my nose and no one tells me, I get pissed off at that. Excuse my language, but. Because the thing is, what's happening is you're looking at it, but I can't see myself outside of me.
Now, if I have given myself, if I have given a history of me ignoring when someone has given me, they. Like Abra, you might wanna. You know what I'm saying? If I ignore.
Yeah. If I ignore that, then it's more than likely that they're never going to. To help me out again, but.
And I got it. I got a funny story about this. I had my. I took a class at the.
At Miami University for all those who are. Mindy, I knew I was just trying to find a plug. I could get you in it. Anyway, I was in black world studies class, and we had conditioning early that Tuesday morning, and I didn't sleep all that great. So we get up, we run, we get food, everything.
So I'm sitting in this class and I'm nodding off.
And my. My roommate, he's sitting next to me. He said, amen. Wake up.
And then he hit me again. Cause I'm like. I'm like one of the. I'm, like, on the teeter tot, right? Like, my head was about. I was about to be head banging real quick. Like, you know, I was losing it.
And he's like, hey, man, like, stand up or something. I said, bruh.
I said, leave me alone, man. I'm good.
And my teammate was in the same class. He said, let him go.
He told him, let me go. And, man, about.
It wasn't even five minutes later, man. I was like this, and I was like, boom, boom, boom in the class. And my teammates in the class were like, oh, and the teacher was cracking up. He stopped teaching, and he said, ryan, why don't you go take. Take a walk right quick and come back, get you some air, give you some water, get you. And you come back to class, give yourself a few minutes.
It was one of the most embarrassing things I've experienced in school.
Now, this is the thing, though. I ignored the help, so I got what I got what I deserve because I ignored.
I ignored it because I thought that I could handle.
I couldn't handle what was really being said to me, that you probably need to do something different.
And most of the time, it's usually our own ego, in our own pride, that actually keeps us from taking the advice of individuals who care about us, who want the best for us. And we end up throwing them off to the side because we think we could. We know ourselves better than they see us. And I think that's probably one of the most difficult things to recognize, is that you may not know yourself as well as you think you do, and until you even acknowledge that, you can't get any wisdom.
So I kind of want to. I'm talking about it, but, you know, let's kind of expound upon that thought of, like, being transparent with yourself, even, like, most people just want to talk about the good stuff, but there's some stuff that we have challenges with that are ugly, that are bad, and we got to be able to see those things, too.
You can't be Pollyannie. So, kind of. Let's kind of talk about that a little bit, just how we can, especially with our podcasts and opportunities we have when we interact with people. How can we be better at giving people the truth without using it as a weapon to keep them bound? You know what I'm saying?
[00:48:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: And again, I'm not. Listen, we're not going to be. Not going to cure anything. No, I just do want to say, I want us to kind of ideate on it because I think it's important, because with what we both talk about in our areas is a shift of perspective and improvement, and how can we elevate and grow from the fact that if we're not honest.
Yeah, there's no way you can grow from that, right?
Or if you're not honest, you can't grow.
[00:48:51] Speaker B: That's interesting. Like, because the truth, it.
Everything comes with the pros and cons. The truth can be used as a weapon. Like, you can speak down upon somebody. You can use their truth as blackmail or, like, some crazy stuff like that. But I feel like the best way.
And I've tried to do this sometimes with people who I know personally. It's like when think about this, like, when I try to, like, talk to somebody about the truth or check one of my friends sometimes.
I'm always like, okay, I'll let the moment happen. I'll let it go. I'll let them do what they want to do. Let them do it. But then once that moment is over, I'll be like, hey, can I, like, talk to you for a second? Bring them over. It would just be us. And be like, hey, so, like, what the heck was that?
What are you doing? Why did you just do that? And you're not only embarrassing yourself, you're embarrassing everybody else who was in that room with you.
And if they don't know what happened, I'm gonna explain it to them. I'll be as respectful as possible.
I'm gonna keep my tone in check. I'm gonna make sure I don't got an attitude. Try to. It happens sometimes, depending on how bad it is, and just be like, yeah, be like, what are you doing? Why did you just do that?
And if I gotta, like, explain it to him, I will. But, like, I feel like being calm and being, like, sentimental and also being.
Give that person, depending on what it is, you can kind of give them the benefit of the doubt, because if they don't realize what they did.
Well, that brings up an interesting story, actually. So, funny enough, I was in the second grade. I was at a christian school. I was with my friends. We were doing, like, we're doing a rhyming game. We were doing, like, what rhymes with cow? What rhymes with car? And then, like, one of my friends was like, what rhymes with which? Like, the which he.
I was going down the list, and I was like, a doesn't work that next letter, I said it in class, like, out loud.
Room got quiet. My teacher was like, kayla, come here for a second. And I'm like, yeah. And then she asked me, do you know what that word is? And I'm like, no. I was like, not even. I was on a finger. I was like, eight, nine, something like that.
And she was like, okay, well, just don't. Don't do that again. I'm like, okay. Go back over my friends, and they're like, why did you do that? I'm like, I had no idea what that word was, so.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: It's just having sometimes benefit. The doubt goes into play. Like, if you got, like, a young kid or, like, a person who's not from that area or something like that, I feel like that kind of goes into play sometimes. But when you got, like, a grown person who's been or who gets a little too comfortable, sometimes, that's when you got to do that and you got to do it. And if it's, like, your friend or your family member, sometimes you got to be straight up with them. You gotta lay the hammer down and be like, hey, that was not cool. Don't do that again. Apologize to the people in there.
If it's a person you don't know, it's like, you just gotta play it safe sometimes because you never know what that other person could do. Never know. Strangers are strangers for a reason, and you just gotta be calm with it, man. Just.
And also, like, think about that person's feelings, too. I feel like sometimes we don't think about that sometimes. And we're unfortunately, in this day and age now where some people don't think that mental health or emotional health is important.
And sometimes you just.
[00:53:01] Speaker A: It's a good point.
[00:53:03] Speaker B: You just got to think about that, too. And so for me, it's like, okay, I'm gonna explain to you the truth, but I'm gonna do it in a way to where you not only understand what you did and why you're in the wrong, but I'm not gonna put you down for it. We all make mistakes. It happens. And like I said earlier, and it's learning from that, as long as you're accountable for, I'm not really gonna have an issue with it.
But you gotta, like, know that that's just, it's not cool. You don't look cool doing that, why you decided to do that in the first place. But it's just, for me, it's doing in a call, respectful manner with whoever I'm with. Pretty much, or wherever I'm at.
[00:53:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
And I think you, you said something that's really important is if you have to have relationship with them to be able to, have to be able to share that kind of information. Like, if I don't know you, like, I'm gonna look at you, I'm like, they just really. Yeah, they just made a fool themselves. And then I'll be like, you know, I might be, I'm like, hey, get your homeboy, you know? You know, I'm saying, you'll, you'll say something that'll be like, you can be kind, right. And tell the people around them if they're not aware of it, but you would hope their friends would tell them the truth too, you know? And I just, I'm finding now that because individuals are not willing to tell themselves the truth, they have the inability to tell other people the truth because the truth hurts.
[00:54:45] Speaker B: It does.
[00:54:45] Speaker A: There is a, there's a, an example that I read a ton of books, so, like, there's a name is Doctor Henry Cloud gives this example of hurting and harming someone.
He says, the dentist hurts me. When, when you go, they have to do all the cleanings. They have to go, they got to check the gums. They gotta do, they're pretty rough. Like, you know, we, when you get done from the dentist, like, you're not, if you did a good job, the six months or whenever the last time you did, taking care of your teeth and saw the last, them last is going to hurt. It could hurt worse, but it's going to hurt because why they got a job to do to ensure that things are in shape right now. If the dentist came in and gave you candy and didn't do anything to clean your teeth, that's harming you.
Because that stuff, the sugar, the, all the things that you're not supposed to have may taste good in the moment, but they're really harming you long term.
So you'd rather deal with short term pain and difficulty to deal with a shifted life perspective than take something that's easy, tastes good and all that good, all that stuff and all that good stuff, but then have to deal with accelerated and complex consequences because you ignored, you just wanted it to be easy.
And I'm just getting this, I'm a bit older than you, but what I do notice now, and it works in sports, but I don't know if it always makes the jump over to real life, is that you always want to do the hard thing first.
Because if you do it when it's hard.
Just like, the side of a coin is going to get easier later.
But if you think of anything that you've had to hold out for, and you're like, man, you know, I'm just going to do this tomorrow.
Because you want it easy now it adds up because you don't know what tomorrow is going bring. So you just made something that could have been taken care of in a few minutes now take over an hour, plus everything else. On top of that, you have to do.
I'm guilty of doing that.
[00:57:38] Speaker B: Oh, procrastination. Horrible procrastination.
[00:57:43] Speaker A: And, and the thing is, I think that's what it roots from, is not being honest with yourself about what needs to get done.
And if you don't do it, you're still gonna, you're still, you're still gonna have to do it. Right.
And we all know this up here.
[00:58:03] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: But for whatever reason, and I don't like saying that forever, for whatever reason, because it gives an escape goat. There's no responsibility taken.
And that's, that's fairly new to me to say that. Um, but I find that if you don't give yourself, if you keep giving yourself an out to not do something, you'll never do it. And on top of that, you'll blame other circumstances instead of being honest with yourself and say, I should have got my butt up and did something right. Um, but, yeah, I think that we're getting to a point where, like, that procrastination can, it's just kicking the can down the street, and before you know it, it's filled with rocks and all kinds of stuff. And now it's heavier to move.
[00:59:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: Then dealing with it and, you know, having. Doing what you got to do with it, you know?
[00:59:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, I think anybody who has been in school or does work sometimes it's like procrastination is, it's a blessing and a curse because, like, even though you can avoid that thing, you certain have to do it eventually. Like, just get it over with and then have all the free time you want later on.
[00:59:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I wouldn't. That student, man, I was like, listen, I'm gonna play outside first, then get this homework done.
[00:59:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:45] Speaker A: And then I fall asleep on the couch.
[00:59:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, I feel like, what? At least it's helped me.
I mean, I'm 21. You'll be 22 in a few months. And I think what's helped me is, like, I started, like, doing small stuff that I really, really didn't like doing. And then I kept forcing myself to get it done earlier and earlier and earlier, and eventually it's like, I just do it. It's like, it's not even a second thought that I have to do it because I know it's like, it's got to get done. And I know I'm going to still be busy later on, so why not get one thing off my back that's easy and just not have that issue later? It's like, what's a good one?
Cooking and doing the dishes. Oh, my gosh. Like, the dishes gotta get done. They gotta be clean.
So pretty much anytime that I cook, it's like, okay, you cook, you can eat your dinner. That's fine. You can do that. But as soon as you're done with eating, just do the dishes. Caleb, it takes ten minutes, sometimes 15, depending on how many dishes you got. But, like, it's just a small stuff. And then with, like, the bigger.
With school, with, like, a bigger assignments, bigger essays, bigger projects, those come a time.
And then, like, I mean, I don't. Like, I don't have my own house. I don't have my own place like that. But, like, with, like, cleaning, cooking, and, like, doing the stuff that you really don't want to do, it sometimes gets easier. Just depends. It's that mental mindset. Sometimes just having the out as good as it is can be useful. Sometimes we're tired. Sometimes we're stressed. Sometimes we know we want to do other stuff or get other stuff done, but just you.
[01:01:51] Speaker A: Sit. You said something that I want to. I want to pull. I want to tie everything to.
[01:01:56] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:01:57] Speaker A: You said that it takes.
Instead of doing massive stuff, you did. You broke down the steps in order to get something accomplished.
Perhaps people need the truth in doses.
[01:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:21] Speaker A: What. And what do I mean by that?
[01:02:25] Speaker B: It's like medicine. You don't take it all at once.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, it's. You know, it's a lot. It's. It wasn't a big pill to swallow. That's what they say, right? Like, it's just.
And I. Again, there's the shock value of it, right? Of not. Of delaying, procrastinating to the truth, not taking the proper steps. But if proper.
If proper steps broken down into pieces, perhaps more individuals be. Would be more open to hearing the truth, because it's not. There's no pressure to completely conform and turn 180.
You start probably doing, you know, say we're 90 degrees, right? No, that's a 360. Let me do the math. There we go. So instead of being 180, you're doing, like, I'm gonna do, you know, 200 degrees, you know, I'm doing slow compounding movements, small movements over time that could potentially change the way my worldview is. But it has to. I feel like it has to be taken over time, not.
And then now you're able to handle the truth, right? Like, you're able to do the dishes and do the food. You just jump in and do it. But it was built over time, taking the micro steps and the might. Those small steps to get to what you're looking to do. So I think that's the cost of being countercultural.
[01:04:13] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[01:04:14] Speaker A: Is required in small steps and small doses of truth.
And some people won't take the medicine.
They'll, you know, they'll take a red pill and the blue pill and then go red pill where they're at, you know?
[01:04:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And I feel like with that, that's.
That can sometimes be the problem is that some people feel like that the small doses aren't enough sometimes to really change people's opinion. And that's why they shove all that truth in them or all the information in front of them to really get that swing.
And more times than not, it does work. But at what cost?
[01:04:59] Speaker A: Mmm.
That's good.
That's good, Caleb. At what's the cost?
Taking the truth all at once.
[01:05:08] Speaker B: Mm hmm.
[01:05:09] Speaker A: Shoot. I think that's a good. Good question for thought. We can leave the listeners with. Man, I think that's a good one, man. That's. That was.
I ain't gonna. I gonna drop the mic, but if I could knock it over, that was really good.
And you don't try. You just do, man.
[01:05:32] Speaker B: That's good.
[01:05:33] Speaker A: Um, man, well, first of all, Caleb, thank you for. For jumping on this pod. I think it's just really important. Yeah, man. I think it's just important for us to. To have dialogue and conversation, particularly, as, you know, in your particular. Your Gen Z. Right? You're different generation. Your Gen Z. I'm a millennial, and I think one of the challenges that most people don't here are generations talking about their perception of what's going on in life right now. And I think. I hope that our listeners really grasped or got to just hear a Gen Z and a millennial. All millennials ain't bitter, and Gen Z'ers are not all in there. Computers. They have thought provoking ideas and concepts and ideas because they're watching. And I really thank you, Kayla, for jumping on and having this conversation with. With me.
You know.
You know, I will keep your. We'll put your podcast in the show notes.
Make sure you subscribe to his podcast. They have some incredible conversations in the Joker's shadow, and he probably has one of the dopest covers I've seen on a podcast. I ain't gonna lie.
[01:07:01] Speaker B: Don't thank me. Thank my mom for that, man. That was her over all of her photography.
[01:07:07] Speaker A: Well, listen, that thing was. It's dope. I mean, I'm like, oh. I'm like, I need to re read, rethink my whole podcast cover.
This is so good.
But, yeah, man. So, again, thank you for jumping on. And, ladies and gentlemen, we will catch you in the next episode of Shifts and Ladders. Talk to you. Peace.
Bye.
