Embracing Authenticity – Joshua Caraballo’s Journey of Self-Discovery

Brad Minus: And welcome back to another episode of Life-Changing Challengers. I am so excited. I have Joshua Caravallo on the, on the show today. Josh is an industrial organizational psychologist, and when he gets to that point in the story, we'll ask him exactly what that is.

And he is an author of a new book called, I'm Not Dead Yet, How I Turned Misfortunes Into Strengths. So, we will talk about that, and we'll go into it. So, Josh, how you doing today? Everything good?

Joshua Caraballo: I'm doing great. Thank you, Brad. And thank you for having me on the show. I really do appreciate it. 

Brad Minus: So Josh, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood? You know, kind of like where'd you grow up? What was the compliment of your family? And what was it like to be Josh as a kid? 

Joshua Caraballo: Absolutely. So, my earliest memories of being a child, I was born in Staten Island, New York, which sometimes is, laughingly referred to as the second Rikers Island.

I like to say it in jest because, You know, to to wallow in the negativity, which we could talk more about later, doesn't seem like the best way to address something like that. When somebody says something, I've heard this a few times. And so I embrace it and I kind of repurpose it and make it fun.

But anyway, living in, Staten Island didn't last too long. We moved when I was about 8 years old to South Florida. But my earliest memories as a child was me actually going up to strangers. And embracing them. And I was so small, what I remember is embracing their legs and just holding tight to them. I know it might sound odd, but in my mind, the only explanation I can have, because this is like one of the mainstays of who I am and what I've become over the years, is just this idea of embracing humanity, embracing human beings.

It has been a through line in my life. So my mom would take me away from these strangers and she would get so upset with me and she would say, you can't do that because one day someone is going to take advantage of that. I had no idea what she was talking about and I didn't want to listen. In fact, I would cry and I would just want to go back to the next stranger that I would see and embrace them.

So again, through the years, this has been one of those sorts of, strongholds or inner values that has stayed with me. Another one that I recall that I really love is I used to put on these plays every year from Bible stories. I grew up as a Jehovah's Witness, so I was in a household that was fairly strict and that, Made sure that I learned a lot of the materials, including the Bible, and other books and pamphlets that were made by Jehovah's Witness religion.

So, that was my life, and as a natural sort of consequence, I gravitated towards the arts and performances without even understanding what I was doing. And that has also been a huge part of who I am and what I do. So because of my childhood, I have a one older brother, seven years older than me. It was a very small family, a family unit, if you will.

But my extended family at that time was the greater Jehovah's witness religion. And one of those teachings was that being a gay man, or being gay generally speaking or queer, was not acceptable in God's eyes. And once I started to understand and figure out, That I had this sort of visceral reaction to the male form of masculinity, generally speaking.

I felt like I was in big trouble. And the more that I was gravitating towards having this affinity, if you will, it put me at a crossroads where I had to determine what it was that I was going to do and who I was going to become. And this came to me at a very young age. And what I decided to do is to fight that urge that I had because I felt like that was the best thing to do.

As one might imagine, psychology has been very helpful for me to understand, like, why I had to go through all the things that I went through and the reactions, but at this particular point in time when I was trying to suffocate, all of those urges, it wasn't very helpful for me.

In fact, The more I tried to make it stop, the more it wanted to flourish. And as I got a little bit older, I started to realize that this is not a force that I could truly fight successfully if I wanted to be authentic and true to myself. 

Brad Minus: That's interesting. And I can imagine as soon as you said Jehovah's Witness, I was like, oh, there's going to be some interesting stories coming out of here.

So let's talk about that first urge when you finally realized that you kind of were attracted to more men than you were to women. And obviously the Bible has that. The, you know, the affinity for marriage being between a man and a woman and you hear, this is getting forced on your throat there, yet you've got these urges and you've got to fight that, put that down and, you know, ensure that, you know, we had gotten past the, the time and era of flogging.

What age was this when you first started to feel like this? 

Joshua Caraballo: Don't remember my age. I would say it had to be before 13, so maybe around 10 or 11.

Brad Minus: Okay, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. Okay. I was, you know, 

Joshua Caraballo: I wasn't sexual by the way. Like, I remember I was scrolling through a JCPenney catalog and I got to the underwear section for men. 

Brad Minus: We're open books over here. 

Joshua Caraballo: We're adults. And again, it was not a sexual feeling because at that time I had no idea what sex was. Neither did I have the ability to have sex at that point in time. I wasn't ready for that, but there was a feeling. This is why I call it like a visceral reaction that I had to the male form.

And I felt it. It was like a spiritual connection, for lack of a better phrase. And I'm not trying to, I hope this is not construed as like being gay as a religion, but what I mean by spiritual is that. It hit something, it hit a chord with my very spirit, with my very soul. And that's really the only way to explain it, because when you feel something like that, you know it is true to who you are.

And it is very rare in your life that you feel something like that. But our bodies, our minds, and our spirits, I truly believe, and this is part of understanding psychology as well, in certain circles, our bodies, our spirits, and our minds are giving us these indications. They are talking to us all the time.

But if we're not ready and willing to listen to what those messages are, we're missing out on them. A lot of times we're clouding those things or misinterpreting those things for something else. Everything that we want to accomplish and be successful and have human flourishing in life starts with ourselves and our relationship with ourselves.

That is a mainstay that will never go away. And so when we fight with ourselves, Whether it be because we learned at a young age, because, this portion of ourselves is wrong. 

We're not talking about those things. We're talking about the typical sort of understanding. With somebody who has a typical mindset that is just striving to make their lives better and love who they want to love and have this idea or concept of human flourishing when you tie that to human values and the core values that you have inside.

None of that is something that is bad or wrong. So nobody has a core value to kill an animal as an example that that doesn't make any sense. So I just want to make that caveat very clear because some. You know, I've heard people give some lash back like, Oh, well, you know, authenticity, if you want to kill someone, you know, it's like, okay, those are the fringes and those are very rare things.

So we're talking about the typical way that people process the world and their life. And some people might think to themselves, being gay and being homosexual, being queer is wrong. There's room for that sort of thinking. Where I draw the line is when those types of people start to impede upon my own life and make it mandatory for me to change my ways to fit more of their belief system, in order for me to continue living and thriving.

That's where I draw the line. The Jehovah's Witness religion, you know, I've really, I went through a lot with them. I had to undo a lot of the pain, I'd even say suffering, because I internalized what I considered to be a lot of that hate, but I don't want to disparage the religion at the same time.

And those are the two truths that I like to hold simultaneously, because I think, although they, I can acknowledge they've done a lot of harm to queer people, and they're not the only religion that has done so. Simultaneously, they've also created a lot of beauty. And excellence and thriving for a bunch of people, for millions of people.

So, and religion has done that on a whole. And so I think this becomes our sort of drive in life if we want it to be, especially for someone like myself. Is how do I understand humanity? How do I utilize storytelling and arts? Because those are the things that are the mainstays in my life, as I had mentioned.

And how do I help myself first, and then others, to find ways to be able to be more accepting of the differences that exist in the world? How do we find ways of loving each other? Despite or in spite those differences. I like despite better. And then how do we find ways of still believing what we believe, but not imposing those things upon others so that we all have the opportunity to thrive.

Brad Minus: I'm about to go on a tangent because first of all, that's beautiful. And I wish, I wish we could, you could get that message out and I'm hoping that you can, because that's huge. And definitely in this day and age, and I think it still will be.

I don't think this is going to change anytime in the near future. But the idea of that loving each other despite different views, because in this day and age. You know, something is, is opinionated as politics are driving people away from each other and in part of that, you know, as far as politics goes, and I'm going to, I'm going to give my little 2 cents here and then I'm going to let it go.

Is the way that, you know, there's some stuff going on in the government. Let's just leave it like that. But there was a time when Mitt Romney was, was running for president and there was a section where he walked into this And he sat down with these two gentlemen, and he didn't know at the time that the two gentlemen were a couple.

Both were wearing military hats, you know, like the sign of the animals in their hats. And one of the gentlemen went to Mitt Romney. And you know that Mitt Romney is very religious. And he said, how do you feel about, gay marriage, and Mitt Romney's looked at him straight in the eye, which I totally like, I gave him props for that, looked him right in the eye and said, well, in my opinion, a marriage is between a man and a woman, and then he turned around and said, well, that's the reason why you're not going to get my vote.

Now, here's the thing. This is where I think the way the founding fathers. Actually wanted this to happen. If I was Mitt Romney or a congressman, or even a councilman in any place, or I was running, I would have turned around to the gentleman and I would have said, you know what, my opinion doesn't matter.

My constituents. Is what matters if my constituents in my area, in my, and now his is the holy fricking United States, that's a whole different story, but if you're talking about, you know, congressmen and senators and stuff, if my, if I believe that marriage is between a woman, man and woman, but my constituents have made it, have made it known that they are in agreeance with, with, same sex marriage, then I will support it in Congress because that's my constituents.

That's what it should be. That's why it's called representative. Because you represent your constituents, it doesn't matter what you believe. But that's where I think that we should go with that. And what you're talking about is something that if, if we were able, if that message was a message that was uniform throughout our environment.

We would see more of that type of representative for our people than what we're seeing today. 

Joshua Caraballo: Well, I would hope so. I mean, that what you have just encapsulated, I believe is sort of the way we should operate in our lives, right? It's the golden rule or the platinum rule where the golden rule is to treat others as you wish that you would like to be treated.

But the platinum rule is what I really appreciate. Because people don't always want to be treated the way you wanted to be treated. Well, yeah, it's biblical for sure, but it's also very individualistic.

Right. It's like, so, if I take the extra step to find out what you, Brad, Want and how you want to be treated. Well, first of all, I can't hold you at a distance Can I I have to get to know you as a person which is like one of the wonderful things of what you're doing here Today inviting people to have this kind of conversation with you so that people can get to know More than just like face value what they what they think they know and that's really important 

but my point is, like, we always have this opportunity when we meet someone. Because we're interacting with them, and so we're treating them in a certain way. And so you might say something or ask a question that might land with me a certain, you know, in a way that I'm like, Oh, wait, why is he saying this?

But if I'm taking the extra time to kind of get to know you as a person, more than likely, I'm going to attribute what you're doing and saying with some goodness. Like, well, you must have a good intent. But if I Don't really know you, or don't want to get to know you, it's easier for me to label you, especially in a negative way, based on what I see, and those stereotypes that automatically come to mind, especially if you put me in a position, or there's a question or a comment that makes me feel a certain way.

So, I think that's on an individual level, and we start to do that as much as possible. Then we're what we're doing is we're spreading a certain sort of standard, if you will. It's an activity that is really fruitful. And that's what I love to do.

So I think, yeah, we want the majority of the people. that live in the United States and elsewhere to have what they want. But sometimes the big engine, if you will, the big machine, when it comes to mass media, when it comes to politics are spinning things in a certain way to where they're using psychology against us to make us want things that are really not in our best interest.

And one of the best sort of analogies that I like to use for this is the junk food industry. We all know that junk food is bad for us. We go to it in some capacity, most of us. And when you have it, it really creates this feeling of like, Ooh, yum, this is good. It's a craving and it's made for us to crave.

It is purposefully done. So it is an institution, if you will. It is a machine that churns out a certain behavior that is in their benefit. So does that mean that we need to burn it down? And no, I mean, I do like chips, but I, every time I engage in that, I need to remind myself that I am engaging in a machine that is meant to keep me in that system so that they win.

And so every time I engage. I need to protect myself. I need to inform myself and I need to take actions that will help me to not get stuck in that because I'm a human being and here in America because we're so like we're so focused on individualistic sort of considerations. There's this phenomenon in psychology that's called, it's when you feel that you're the exception to the rule. And so you engage in junk food thinking, ah, I can have this bag of whatever it is and I'll be fine. They got you because that's where the cravings come in. They know that you're going to use these psychological models, and they're going to use them against you.

So I think it works the same way in other aspects. Of institutions like, politics. And so it's not about disengaging altogether. It's about every time you choose to engage, please understand that you're getting yourself into a machine and that machine. works very well. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.

And it's meant to keep you into a certain mindset and also to keep you taking certain actions. 

Brad Minus: So, yeah, you need to learn that when you realize that you're part of that machine that you need to throw a cog in that machine where it doesn't belong so you can jump out of it. If you remember, I'm not sure about your age, but I think you and I are in the same peer group.

Do you remember Lay's potato chips? 

Joshua Caraballo: Oh, you can't just eat one or something? Right. 

Brad Minus: You can't have just one. 

Joshua Caraballo: Oh, is that Pringles? 

Brad Minus: Lay's.

You can't, you can only, you can only, you can't. 

Joshua Caraballo: They were very transparent. They told you, 

Brad Minus: Hey, we told you, you can't have just one. That's it. You know, so there, so, and I get it, I get it. So, you know, I'm, I'm an endurance coach. So I, you know, I deal with my clients all the time and a lot of them, you know, like I gotta have a glass of wine.

Why do you have to have a glass of wine? Right, right. I mean, you, you know, you're going to, you're, you're going to be training the next day. Why do you need to have a glass of wine? I'm not saying it's bad. But maybe, you know, if that's not doing it for you, then you save that till the next time. But, but so I get it, but let's step back.

Sure. Step back. All right. So high school is right around the corner. So where did you go to high school? What did you do? What was going on in your life at that point? 

Joshua Caraballo: Sure. If you don't mind, I'd like to start with middle school because I think it was, there was an important aspect of that.

Of course I gravitated more towards females during my lifetime. There was something about them and, and a lot of gay men. I haven't really studied this too, too long, so I don't know all the ins and outs of the reasons why from a personal perspective and from speaking to other gay men around my age.

By the way, I'm 47 years old. So maybe we are close to age. What happened was I started taking on a lot of their mannerisms, so I became more effeminate, above and beyond. What was considered, masculine behavior and from a traditional standpoint, we're talking like, I was born in 1977, so I grew up in the eighties and, and early nineties, you know, it was different.

Masculinity was much more important, and I would still say to this day, it still is in certain circles and maybe is making a comeback like on Twitter or X, whatever they're calling it now. You'll see a lot of that sort of like what I consider to be toxic masculinity, which is. Simply stating that a man is supposed to act a certain way from a traditional standpoint, and women are supposed to as well, and there are rules, there are social rules and norms, and if you go against that, then you are to pay the price, and I had to pay the price as well, because One of the things I talk about in my book is I used to stand like a stork.

So if you can imagine my two feet, my two legs, sorry. And then I take one of my feet and put it right up on my knee. Okay. So that it's like kind of resting on it. If that makes sense. And I forget the actual pose that it is. That's that's an actual pose in, I see. Yes. So, I was doing that without even knowing what I was doing.

That was just a pose and that's how I would stand and my my father would come to me and like kinda knock my leg down and say, don't stand like that. Or if I was sitting, I would cross my legs. That was another thing like men don't cross, don't cross your legs, please. Like, just if you are to do anything.

Brad Minus: Yeah, you figure four. 

Joshua Caraballo: Yeah. You figure four. So, I just was doing all, I even had my, my wrists kind of like were, you know, look like they were broken. So, you know, whatever you can imagine in terms of like, the stereotype of a gay man being a feminine, that was me.

And in middle school, I got, yeah, I got bullied a lot. I got into fights, and I didn't win them because I wasn't a fighter. So I would get beat up, and I would come home, and I would cry, and I didn't want my parents to see me crying because then I would have to tell them what was going on. And you know, the whole time, I knew my parents knew, If people at school, classmates were noticing this, I knew that my parents were also noticing it as well.

I don't know if they were hoping that it would just go away, if it was a phase, you know, those typical things that sometimes parents think that you learn about as you get older. But, it was hard. It was tough for me. And, again, what I decided to do was just fight it.

So let me learn how to stand without doing something that comes across as effeminate. Let me try to talk without trying to come across as effeminate. And so I would over emphasize the masculine part as much as I needed to, to survive. And the more I did that, the more I began to hate myself because I was actually becoming something that was counter to who I truly was.

Psychology is great in so many different ways. Another thing that I learned through psychology is that the reason why This is happening and you feel so empty because you're validating a part of you that doesn't exist. So at the end of the day, you're going home and you're safe, but you're having to put on this show.

Which you would think I would be able to do very well because I love acting and I love performing, anyone who learns and studies about acting and performance Is that authenticity is extremely important. And you need to be real. You need to be real to yourself.

You need to be real to that moment. Real to the script. And that's how you bring in the viewers. To believe the circumstances that you're in, although we all know that they are fake. You have to be a murderer, right?

So you have to really find the aspects of yourself that would actually murder in this situation for whatever reasons. There's a justification for doing what you're doing and you have to go there as an actor to be believable. So it's not about being fake.

So that's why when you're validating a fake aspect of yourself and pretending, not only are you exhausted every day, but you're also empty. You feel empty and you're more, more apt to becoming depressed. And just not flourishing in life. So all of that needed to change. And slowly and surely I started to make the process of that during my high school years.

It didn't happen all the way because I was still very afraid. I didn't want to be pinpointed, Or beat up again, but I befriended someone in high school who was a Mormon, and We were the two like outcast Individuals he was not a gay person, but I fell in love with him.

This was also mentioned in my book And I came out to him towards the end of, my house, my high school, years, and he was very, very kind. He was the first person ever came out to. Before even my parents and my family and he just said, you know, thank you. It means a lot, but you know, I'm just straight and I can't change that.

And isn't this such a, a beautiful thing because we talk, I say we, meaning society talks about like two main things that really kind of bother me, maybe three. One is you can change yourself if you are gay to straight, which boggles my mind because This is not everyone, it's just the, you know, these circles that you, you hear and sometimes the loudest voices get the most because they are the loudest, right?

The most airwaves. And if that is the case then, and that being exposed to gayness or queerness, if you will, could actually change, especially youth. Or kids to be a certain way, which boggles my mind because it's like I've been exposed to straightness if you will My entire life and it hasn't done a damn thing To change me and I wanted to change I really did like who in their right mind actually wants to be scolded beat up Told that you don't belong in the world that god's going to kill you You know who wants to live that way when you're told all those things you have every motivation to truly change yourself and become straight.

I have to be who I, who I am. I have to be able to love who I am. The last part of it, that really, the third thing that really gets me is we get distilled down to a sexual nature when in fact, there's so much more to us than just Oh God.

Yes. That sexual act. I hear so many times, especially from religious circles. It's okay to be gay as long as you don't act on it. Well, I don't mind gay people. Okay. As long as they don't do what they do. It's like, wait, what are you, what are you saying? Like you're distilling down our entire experience to, to that?

Why? It's also similar, and this is the last thing I'll say for now. Also very similar to distilling down the trans issue in bathrooms down to what your genitals look like. And policing people's genitals based on how they identify. And I know that might open up a whole can right there just by saying that.

But I have to mention. That as a queer person living under the LGBTQ plus umbrella, this is another thing that really gets me. It's, it's like, if you wanna, when you find yourself distilling someone down to one particular thing, especially if it's something very private, like sex, or their sexual organs, some lights, red lights, and alarm bells need to be going off, telling you, wait a second.

I'm not treating this person as a whole individual, what am I missing here, and what can I do to get to know this person better, to understand, not because I need to be on the same page as them, not because I need to change my worldview for them, but so that I can help just to understand better and leave some space.

For them to flourish. I think that's important, and that's one of the things that I've learned. It's like living under this queer umbrella, especially during high school, started to give me the understanding that I need to be more grounded in who I am so that people can help to see and understand that people like me.

Can do well. But before that happened, I had to do a lot of bad things. 

Brad Minus: I have a B. F. A. In theater, acting, directing and lighting.

I was in the communities. I did semi professional theater in D. C. For years. Then came down here to Florida and I did some, I did some work here to not as much as I did in D. C. But I did a lot here as well. Did some touring companies, musicals, the whole bit so I understand, you know, on the theater side, and was exposed.

Yeah. You know, I've, I've been to Pride parades and the whole bit, but I'm going to ask that about you. If it wasn't ever something that I was ever to ask my, my castmates, they would always wonder, I was always the token straight guy, and I didn't care. You know what I mean? I'm like, these guys are fun.

They're a blast, and they're funny, but I always wondered about, you know, the pride parades is, you know, just what you said is you're bringing people and honing them down to their sexual preference, you know, or who they love. Which we can't, we know for a fact that, we can't control that.

So here we are, we're celebrating the people that are, we're pigeonholing into this sexual preference. And I'm like, that doesn't make any sense to me. You know what I mean? Now don't get me wrong. They're fun. I had a blast at Pride. I'm not taking that away, but it's what it symbolizes is just that, just what you said, pigeonholing people into their sexual preference, not who they are.

And I think that's, you know, that's an issue. I don't think it would be much of an issue, of the whole bathroom thing. If it was always truly someone that was going through a transition, the problem is the amount of people that are using the issue as an excuse for evil, we're having more of a problem with that than we are actually with people who actually, you know, identify going through the process, blah, blah, blah, I mean, Blair White is by far, you know, the lesson learned there, Blair White, Sky Fox, jazz, jazz Jennings, all those who actually have gone through the process and, you know, are living like that and have done that.

Even Caitlyn Jenner, who have gone through the full process and have done years and years of therapy work and, you know, realizing that, hey, this is what it is. And if we knew. For a hundred percent that it was those people that are actually going through the process.

I don't think this would be much of an issue. The problem is that this has come up and there are many more people that would use this. For evil than for just the fact that, hey, I believe I'm a woman. So I'm going to use the woman's bathroom. So I'm going to leave it at that.

You can definitely comment if you want, but I think that was, more of the justification there. 

Joshua Caraballo: I appreciate what you just said. I think it's very important to hold space for the understanding that There will always be people on this earth, as long as there are people living, that will have nefarious sort of thoughts, processes, goals in their mind.

Unfortunately to even harm children, right? That is a fact of life. I wish it wasn't, but it truly is. Here's the thing though. When you look at the data, and I don't study this, but I've read articles from very reputable sources, 

Brad Minus: and 

Joshua Caraballo: I know in this day and age, it's like, what is even a reputable source at this point in time because of everything that's going on in the media?

But, I would ask us to just take a step back and think about this. When you are exposed to stories of individuals who are cross dressing, because I think that's what you're talking about, and not because they fall under the queer umbrella, but because they have some sort of nefarious goal in their mind, how often is that actually happening?

I think, you know, we might have an indication, based on what we're exposed to, that it might feel like it's happening a lot, but is it actually? And I think it's fruitful to question those things. Take away the stats for a second and just think logically. When's the last time that you've allowed a six year old or saw a six year old by themselves in a bathroom?

It might happen, but for the most part, they're with their parents, right? Here's another thing to think about. Who, in their right mind, actually enjoys being in a bathroom and lurking around? Who? 

Brad Minus: Those nefarious people. Okay, but are they all trans? 

They aren't trans, they're using the issue 

Joshua Caraballo: for nefarious 

Brad Minus: purposes. 

Joshua Caraballo: The bathroom is not the best way for them to carry out their goals. 

Brad Minus: I get it. It's a 

Joshua Caraballo: stinky, nasty place where most people go in and they want to do their thing and I want to leave. People who are close to the family, people who have access to the kids without their parents, which is not a five minute bathroom break.

It is happening in places. And spaces where they are actually friends of the family or part of an institution like a religion. That's where the numbers are. And so I think we really need to concentrate on who truly are harming our children instead of highlighting this. Which still has some credence.

Let's not, it's not an all or nothing. But when it comes to if we truly want to get down to who is harming our kids, let's look at all the people who have molested for years and years, children. That's where our focus needs to be above and beyond all these other things. When all we're talking about is bathrooms and this becomes a highlight and it's a national conversation.

Something has gone awry 

Brad Minus: where I am. I'm with you on that. And I did a, I did a speaking engagement where I literally had to research, child abduction and stats. And it was a long time ago, so it wasn't like, but I, I issued. Stats from 1970 to 1990 and from 1990 to 2010. And I had come up with the, you know, the statistics of child abductions.

I wasn't focused on why they were abducted or what happened while they were abducted. It was just pure abductions, you know, and obviously even in both. Now, the interesting part was as far as the full numbers go, from 70 to 90 and from 90 to 10, they were almost. Identical, the number of Children that were abducted and that that now that the stats had moved because there's stats that I had were with, you know, where they alone, you know, for a certain amount of time where they abducted by someone that they knew versus somebody that they didn't know, neighborhoods, demographics, the whole bit.

I had it all lined up. And as far as the numbers go, it was somewhere around 800, 000 per year. And it was the identical except that and the reason why I had done it was because from 1990 to 2010, it had become in this, and that's when the Amber Over was born. That's where all this stuff, and there was a lot more of it.

And it turned out that even though it was the same amount of kids that were abducted, the biggest limiter here was. Think about what happened between 1970 and 1990, you know, you grew up in Staten Island. You had from 1970 to 1990, you had what? Five channels? Oh. You had five channels, right?

And a newspaper. News was only on in the morning and, six, at five and six. Or six and seven and 11, right? That's when the news was. That's when you caught your news. That was it. There was no more. There was no 24 hour channels. 19, started the internet 

Joshua Caraballo: in 

Brad Minus: the 90s. Now, all of a sudden, CNN, US, US, SMBC, da, da, da, da, da.

And 24 hour news stations, podcasts, blah, blah, blah. Everything's going crazy. You got, you know, the birth of satellite radio, 24 hour news networks. I mean, and it was crazy. Yeah. So even though there was no difference, and again, Obviously, portions of this, I'm sure, were, you know, having these nefarious evil, intent.

Well, they were all evil. Well, not all of them, because some of them were, there was a, one of the things was abduction by a parent. Yeah. In a divorce. You know, that there was, I added that stat as well at the time. But so it wasn't always nefarious, but most of it was. And what happened afterwards was not included, right?

But I mean, you've got to assume that a big portion of it, was, in that room. There was an uptick, as chat rooms were, Invented so it wasn't completely 800. It was about 8000, but it was minimal as far as that goes. And now it's 2010. Obviously, I haven't checked out 2010 to 2020 or until now, but that was at the time.

That was the staff that I came up with. Basically, what you're saying is, okay, you're definitely, hearing more about the trans issue in bathrooms now, versus not, you're hearing stats of the nefarious parts more because of this, because we have all of these outlets to send the message and it's not unfair.

Joshua Caraballo: There's also a couple other mechanisms in place or phenomenons, if you will, that tie to psychology. So one of those things is we seek out information. This is called the confirmation bias that confirms things that we already feel. The easiest way to, explain this is the moment you buy a new car, the make the model, the color.

You'll now see all over the place, you don't have to tell your brain to do anything, it automatically does this. And that doesn't necessarily mean that all of a sudden now a bunch of people decided to buy the same exact make, model, color, car that you have. What it means is that your brain is now filtering out a bunch of things and focusing in on the things.

See, and you didn't have to sit with your brain and say, Hey brain, I just bought this new car and I'm wondering if you might just, you know, kind of show me all the other. No, you don't have to do it. It's all happening underneath everything that you consciously are aware of. This is why it's so important to understand how our subconscious mind works.

This is one of the ways that we find ourselves in these echo chambers because There are a bunch of other things happening, but we're filtering them right out. Why? Because, at some point in our lives, We've made a determination whether it's an action taken to buy a new car or whether it is a belief system that we've held for a long time to where your brain picks it up, feeds it to the subconscious, and that's all that you need.

So we have to be consciously aware of that by asking questions. And when we find ourselves drawing conclusions about an entire population, all white people are racist. There's one, right? It behooves us to say, well, that's an all or nothing. What am I missing? What about all the times when I'm wrong? What about all the times where that doesn't apply?

And the same thing can be done for trans individuals, for gay pride events. It's like, I've been to gay pride events, obviously in my life, many, many times. And you're absolutely right. There is this over dramatization or, or, or the way, how should I put it? A focus a lot of times on the sexual portion and sexualizing Our community, but let's think about that.

Is that the only thing that exists? No, I i've been Is that the only thing that's highlighted maybe? And what are we doing? Are we actively trying to question that and ask people and talk to people about that? See i'm a sober person. I wasn't always sober. This is part of my journey as well what I found out Was that I was actually trying to kill myself slowly, although if you would have asked me at the time, Hey, are you trying to kill yourself?

It would have been like, hell no. Are you crazy? But I was! I hated myself, I hated who I was, I had internalized all of that, and I used drugs and alcohol to quiet that, so that I could numb myself, so I wouldn't have to feel any of that. And I'm not saying I was justified in doing that, but that was the journey that I had to go through, and then slowly and surely fall back in love with myself, create a better relationship with myself, my family.

My friends, my understanding of religion, my concept of God, and that's all how I was able to put things together so that I could become a better person and make better decisions. If I am ever reduced down to the addiction portion of myself or the sexual nature, you know, that is an injustice to who I am because that's just not who I, that's a very small portion of my life.

It exists. It is there, but it is not everything. Here's another thing to keep in mind. When you are told something your entire life, the power of suggestion is very, very powerful. There are plenty of studies to show this, but I'll give you an example. You wake up in the morning, you look at yourself in the mirror, and you say, Woo, I feel really good.

I had a great rest. Can't wait to get this day started. You go to work, first person you see, they look at you and they say, Are you okay? That is all that you need to start questioning your reality. That's all you need. And the power of threes, if the third person does it, and this is just an average, so it could take more, it could take less, depends on the person, but let's just stick to the power of three.

The third person who says it to you, most people will start to have a visceral reaction to where they will feel sick to their stomach. That's how powerful suggestion is. We can suggest things and we could tell ourselves, you know, we could talk ourselves out of that.

But when you have a bunch of people telling you a lie, whether you like it or not, the more you hear that lie, the more it becomes your reality. And so we have to be careful about those sorts of things. This is how actors are able to bring something to a believable state. 

I have to murder someone. I'm not a murderer. How the heck am I going to play this believably? Repetition. The more I do it, the more I'll understand. And find it and be able to believably do it because it becomes my reality. And I need to be careful because once I make that my reality, I have to undo that because when the show is done, well then I need to move on and become, you know, I'm not a murderer anymore outside of that.

So that's important. So, every time we are exposed to the machine, If you will, that's trying to give us all the Lay's potato chips that we can possibly. Let's engage. Let's have some fun. Let's enjoy it. But let's also understand that we need to limit that there's a threshold for us. And it's the same thing when we're exposed to mass media.

Brad Minus: I was just thinking about that. When you talk about suggestion repetition, there's a story of the cast of Lord of the Rings. When they would go out, like, after shooting or before shooting because they were shooting in all terrains and all places most of the cast would be themselves.

Joshua Caraballo: They 

Brad Minus: said Viggo Mortensen. Now you could call him Vigo, you could do whatever you wanted, but that repetition stayed and he knew that he had to maintain that repetition in order to, but then they said the same thing is that that's when there was a problem. There's also stories about Heath Ledger.

Which is right. They was might have been the cause, you know, part of the cause of his of his demise. But anyway, but yeah, but just to know that there are people out there. We do have actors and some of the reasons why we see issues with actors and they leave us before their time and they're great at what they do is the fact that they can't leave the lie.

Joshua Caraballo: Right, exactly. And so this is so important because you might think to yourself, Well, I'm stronger than that. It goes back to this exceptionalism sort of idea. These are just words. They're not going to affect me that way. You are a human being at the end of the day, and you are just As vulnerable as anyone else, no one else is stupid because they're caught in a loophole, you know, where they're spinning the same thing.

What do you think religion does? Like being a Jehovah's Witness put me in a worldview to where I couldn't understand or think about. I could think about it, but I couldn't really, like, take hold of anything outside of that. And that was purposeful. We were told that anything outside the religion is considered worldly, and we're not to engage with the world.

We're to stay within the confines of the Jehovah's Witness religion and its teachings. Well, what do you think that is doing, you know? And again, I can still say that and say that I'm not going to disparage the religion, because it's happening all over, all around us. It's happening in politics right now.

Once you're in that sort of ecosystem, it's not the worst thing in the world, just please try to understand that you're in an ecosystem. And then you could, react accordingly. And then again, having that really good relationship with yourself is important because then you can say, does this align with my inner values?

Does it not? And if it doesn't, What changes do I need to make so that I can thrive? I think that's the bottom line. 

Brad Minus: And it's a strength. You're absolutely right. But there is. An absolute strength to be able to pull yourself out and ask the question.

Let's face it. And, you know, let's just be real about it. Social media to it's depending on how deep you are in its ecosystem is a version of brainwashing. Yes. And unless you are strong enough to sit there and go way, way, wait a second. Hold on a second. Yes. Why? Why is this guy convicted on 34 different counts?

Where is the actual trueness to this? I need to be, go back and go, 34 counts on one little thing? Come on, that's just insane to even think about. Let me actually dig into the real story behind it and find out what this was, right? And, and a lot of people just don't do that. They just hear, oh, 34 counts, he's a felon, blah, blah, blah.

Even though And then, and then I've got, I had to look into this as well, as I found out as I looked into the law, right? You can't call him a felon. He's not considered a felon until he is sentenced and he wasn't sentenced on any of it. So he's not a felon. This is a rhetoric and you've got to sit there and go back and go, okay, think about that.

And that's just one person. 

Joshua Caraballo: Really interesting what you say. Coming from someone who is a felon, which is myself. I've learned that even getting charged is all you need to be considered a felon. Now, whether that's right or wrong in the eyes of the law is one thing, but here's how I know that.

Even if somebody can look up the fact that you were arrested for a felony charge, it doesn't matter if you're convicted or not. They can block you from certain things like renting, like getting a job, and it really depends on the state. Like here in the state of Colorado, they have an eight year threshold where you can't go back beyond that.

But in other places like South Florida, there isn't one. They can go back as far as they want to. And so there are real repercussions for people being arrested for felony charges. Now, look, felonies exist for a reason, and I think it should be this way. Like, there are very serious crimes that fall under felonies that need to have repercussions.

The issues I have is that my felony came because I had three DUIs, and I'm not saying that I should be treated differently. I had to go through that. That was a horrible thing for me to do. Those three DUIs. I could have killed someone. Which is more important than even the opportunity I had for possibly killing myself and ruining other people's lives.

So all those things are extremely important. But after the third time, it's considered a felony. Because DUIs are usually not felonies. And so I had to go to prison, so I spent time in prison because of my, you know, that's what I needed in order to become a better person. I had to get through that.

But the thing is, it's like, I agree with you. Let's not label people off the bat, but let's also understand that there's a system in place that has. For the most part, oppressed black and brown individuals for a very long time under that same sort of semblance and understanding. You're a felon and your life is now ruined.

Now, sometimes that is necessary because they've done atrocious things. Sometimes it's not. Like, in my case, I am thankful for the opportunity that I had to really seriously look at my life. But there are many people out there that are stuck in that system where their lives are ruined forever and it could be like a drug crime that they had instead of something so atrocious like killing a human life.

Brad Minus: I agree. I mean, and I agree with you, but I also think there's now, as far as that, that's an HR fricking laziness point right there. If you're going to go and you're going to find you're, you're going to look at the arrest record and not follow through. That is, that's, that's laziness.

I agree with you. That should not happen. And if that's, what's happening, there should be another law on the book stating that. You know, if you find, or putting it together, you know, actually putting it into the arrest record saying arrested, not convicted so that it can, so that the record is set straight or that if they're arrested and not convicted, that it should be stripped off the arrest, you know, that the arrest record should be stripped.

Well, this is the 

Joshua Caraballo: reality. 

Brad Minus: No, it's reality, but I'm saying is that that should be what happens, whether it happens or not is a whole different story. 

Joshua Caraballo: I've had people tell me when I got out of prison. I don't care what your, what your record says. I don't care what you got arrested for.

The fact that you have a felony on your record is all we need to deny your application. We do not accept any felons here. And I've also had everything in between where people have said, well, as long as your felony is, is not, violence related. That we will consider your application. I mean, it's, it's like the wild, wild west, but people are being harmed and being shut out from living a true fruitful life.

I mean, living somewhere is, is an imperative. For us to be able to thrive. And when that is blocked, so I don't mean to go off. It's this whole tangent, but I think it's also part of who I am in my life. It's what I've experienced. And one last thing I would like to mention about, you know, everything that we've talked about thus far from a psychological viewpoint again, is that.

The reason why we think about and contemplate negativity above and beyond positive things that happen in life is because that's how our brains are set up. So think about the friend who's done a million beautiful things and the one time that they really upset you, that's what you remember above and beyond, especially during that moment.

And thereafter, depending on how long it takes you to process these things, everything else gets kind of wiped out for a while. It might seem unfair to the person, but that's how the brain works. And so when you understand that, especially if you want to use this, from a mass media standpoint, to get a broad stroke against people, you focus on the negative because you know that's going to be a powerful force.

Fear is powerful. Hate is powerful And it lasts longer than positive emotions. And so once we understand that, the psychology and the literature is very clear about how we can try to balance that out. And for every negative thing, and these are numbers that you can take or leave because they're averages, so it's different for every person.

Anywhere from three to seven times, in other words, for every time you hear something negative or process something negative, you need three to seven good or positive things to counterbalance that. That's how powerful a negative thing is. So, Whether it's you telling yourself negative things like I cannot do this.

I can't I can't run a marathon That's your reality because you've told yourself that Whether it is something on a mass media scale that's saying these people are wrong or bad whether it be somebody has all these felonies like how horrible he is or they are or Look at how sexual these people are they're deviants That's what the message is that stays, and it happens on both sides.

So, again, how do we counter that? It's not by lying to ourselves. It's about truly seeking out what else is there, like what you had just mentioned. It's like, okay, how do I look into this? And if it's on an individual level, you speak to a queer person. The closer and the more that you speak to that person, the closer you get to them, the more that you will understand them as a human being, and that will break through.

This negative chasm that exists, and I think this is what we need to do on a whole in the United States, especially those who identify on the fringes. 

Brad Minus: And while part of that is the attention span, right? It's like, you don't get something like a Joe Rogan, who he can, his platform is three hours every single day.

You can get to know somebody really, really well in three hours. 

Joshua Caraballo: That's 

Brad Minus: right. But when you're on ABC, you get a 20 minute interview. That's right. You're not going to get that. I always thought about it one way, but now I think about it in a different way, just because of what you said about the 7 3 ratio, I'm a Jew, and in Judaism, we don't believe in open caskets.

The reason for it is so you remember the person while they were living, not while they were lying in the casket. Oh. Right? That's the reason for it. And I never ran a reason how powerful that was until I allowed myself to get peer pressured. I have a mixed family. I allowed myself to get peer pressured into going into the wake room when the casket was open 

Joshua Caraballo: because, 

Brad Minus: because of mixed marriage that a lot of people wanted the casket open.

I didn't believe in it, and I got myself peer pressured into my grandmother's funeral, and once you know it, now don't get me wrong, I have plenty of memories when she was alive, and she was great, blah blah blah, she was awesome, but the first thing that pops into my head, the first one, is her lying in that casket, then after that, I can get to the good stuff.

It's always going to be the last time you heard something, the last time you said something, the last time you saw 

Joshua Caraballo: something. 

Brad Minus: That's what's going to come first, you know, last in, first out, right? So yeah, and what you said is so powerful because that's the first thing that I see. I would need to see her seven more times alive and flourishing to cancel out that one. So, yeah, it's, yeah. 

Joshua Caraballo: It gets easier over time. These are skills that we can build up and I think it's also going back to understanding oneself. It's what are we being exposed to on a daily basis? So my parents would tell me at a very young age, be careful who you surround yourself with.

And I was like, wait a second, all my friends are Jehovah's Witnesses. Like, but even then you have to be careful because there are differences within religions as well. But they weren't just talking about. The people who physically were in my life and they made this very apparent to me. They said, it's also about the books you read.

It's about the music you listen to. It's about everything that you expose yourself to that has some sort of message. What is the ecosystem that I've created for myself and is there any variance in there in terms of me hearing different types of voices, different types of belief systems, and do I think that's important for me to be able to understand the world better?

I do. I think that's extremely important. I don't want to be around a bunch of Joshes. That doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. Like, that would be really boring, and I wouldn't grow and learn as a person at all. And so We may not agree on everything, but who cares? Like, I can still accept and understand and leave space and room for you, Brad, or whoever else thinks and acts like you to learn and thrive and be whoever you are 100 percent and accept that authentically and still do that same thing for myself.

But if I'm only seeking out a certain type, and that's it, and everything that I consume has to be that, that's a problem, from my perspective, anyway. And anyone who wants that to happen in the world, especially here in the United States, I think That's also problematic. But the way that you understand what to counterbalance is by understanding where you stand. Where is your natural gravitation towards? So I'm more of a positive person. So I could use negativity to my benefit.

And it's mostly like, I walk into a room, my brain is already scanning for the anomalies, and am I safe? So that's a good thing. I can feel safe that my brain is helping me to prepare for the worst case scenario. And I could do more of that because I tend to gravitate more, more towards the positive.

I love positive things. I think that's, I wish everything was positive, but it's just not how the world works. And I also need that negativity. To help me appreciate the positive things. But, and that could happen on so many different avenues or phenomenons. Instead of us thinking about it as all or nothing, black or white, this or that.

We can think of it as a continuum where we can help ourselves based on the situation, the circumstances, etc. Where we naturally gravitate towards and how we can balance ourselves out, knowing that a balance for us isn't always a one to one ratio. Sometimes like in the positive to negative aspect. It takes a lot more work on one end to help ourselves truly balance ourselves out or find that synergy, 

Brad Minus: no, I agree. I have a friend, a training partner that I've trained and raced with for years and years. And we are so opposite on the political scale. I mean, when we talk and we get into it and we know that we've got. to temper ourselves sometimes. But when we get into it, I mean, it looks like we're going to go to blows.

I was in a bar one time and we were sitting in the middle and we're having this discussion and we got loud and our significant others are sitting there going, wait, wait, wait, maybe you guys need to, and we both, we both like snapped our heads towards them and went, what are you talking about? And they're like, well, you guys are getting like We know leave us alone because we've always known that we are that far and at the end of it, we say, you know what, we're not going to go any further on this issue.

I think we pretty much decided that we're going to agree to disagree, hug it out, have a beer, move on, and go to another conversation but we love it and we know it, and just the other day we had gotten into it over lunch.

And she says, you know, you are the only person that takes me for me and who I can have these discussions with. And I'm like, I told you this, I've got your back. And I know that we are totally opposite on these and it's another way for me to learn we have, we've crossed and shown each other proof of concepts for our sides of the argument more than enough times that we've swayed.

The other person one way or another, when we actually go to look into it, like you said, is to find that other piece of the pie, right? You've got to kind of look at, the opposite side and see what's there and then determine whether it's fact or fiction. 

Joshua Caraballo: This is why I love research.

Brad Minus: Yeah, 

Joshua Caraballo: the first thing I learned was. You have an argument, you have a, a thought process, a model that you're thinking of, you're, you're trying to see whether you're a hypothesis right or wrong. You need to actively seek out research that disproves your hypothesis. 

Brad Minus: Yes.

Joshua Caraballo: Do that, you are not being an ethical researcher. That's why true research, when you start to understand, that's why it's peer reviewed, that's why there's checks and balances in place. Good research to take place because there's bad research too, but when you're doing it that way you're looking at all angles And you're putting it all out there like a reporter would a good reporter because there's good reporting and bad reporting, right?

But you know good reporting is it's not about inserting how you feel about something you you might have that there It's like what I think might be underlying this This is my thesis if you will But I am NOT just giving you all the tidbits that are gonna support my thesis and nothing else That is an injustice.

What I'm doing is giving you all of that, but also giving you what other people are saying so that you as an informed person reading this material can take a step back and say. Hmm. That's very interesting. Now I see both sides. This happened a lot with, caffeine. For a long time, the literature was like, Oh yeah, have five, six cups.

It's really good for you. It's good for your brain. It's good for all these things. And then some more research came out and said, Ooh, maybe not. Maybe just like two or three cups is best. And then you take this whole thing together, and you say, how does this apply to me?

How does this apply to my family? How does this apply to my loved ones? And it's going to be different for each and every one of those things. And that's a beautiful thing. So am I to sit here and dictate how other people do their coffee intake? I know it's best for me. I can still change. I could do better.

There might be things that happen in my life that will change me yet again. I might talk to someone like Brad and say, Ooh, he likes his coffee a certain way. I have never tried it that way. You know, it's like all these things. I like using something like coffee because it's safe. 

Brad Minus: Right, 

Joshua Caraballo: If we could do that with coffee.

We could do that with anything. 

Brad Minus: Okay. So I am not an affiliate and I am not, I'm not, I'm not a brand ambassador. I'm not any of this stuff, but I'm going to give you two sites. There's San, S A N, which is, crud. It's, it's a network anyway, it's a news network and they've got videos and podcasting on there.

But what they do, and this is like the video side podcast side of it is straight arrow news. Sorry, straight arrow news, san. com. And what they do is they divide up their news in, right, left and center so that you can learn is, okay, what's, what is the, what is the conservative? What are they saying about this issue?

What are the liberals saying about this issue? And there are some reporters that sit in the center. And what are they saying about it? And they can sit there and then they'll look at every single article and give you a score of, Hey, this leans more right, this leans more left.

Then there's ground news, which is the print version of that exact same website, and it's all the print articles that are out there, and it's the exact same thing. Right, left, center. Great things for fact checking. And, you can actually see what is the right saying about it? What's the left saying about it?

What are the conservatives saying about it? What are the liberals saying about it? What are the people in the center saying about it? And what leans left, what leans right? And then they'll give both of them also do another thing called the blind side, where is, this is the right is talking about this, but the left is not even mentioning it.

And the left is saying this, but the right's not even touching it. You know what I mean? So you can kind of see that as well. I'm just going to put that out there. I'll put it in the show notes, just for all of you that are listening. But those are two great little, things. And, I have found myself, this is just me.

Right. And, but, what is it? Stroops? Stropes? Stopes? Oh, 

Joshua Caraballo: There's a fact checking thing. 

Brad Minus: That one seems to be more on the level than factcheck. org. Factcheck. org to me looks like it leans a lot more left. That's when I've used it for certain things to fact check, that's what I've found.

Joshua Caraballo: That 

Brad Minus: just might've been that way, or maybe everything that I was looking at was completely wrong. And, you know, but it just seemed like it moved that way as I was looking around the site. So I'm just going to say that fact check the org, strobes and, I'll put that in there and then sand.

Joshua Caraballo: I think it's Snopes, right? 

Brad Minus: Snopes seem to be both ways. They're fact checking but they seem to be pretty center. 

Joshua Caraballo: Okay. 

Brad Minus: They'll tell you that Trump lied. They'll tell you that Kamala lied.

They'll tell you that Biden lied. They'll tell you that, JD lied. They'll tell you all that stuff. Or they were, exaggerating. 

Joshua Caraballo: Yeah. 

Brad Minus: You know, versus lying or something 

Joshua Caraballo: like that. I think they use pinocchios. Yeah. Are are they the ones that have like the certain amount of pinocchios?

So anyway, 

Brad Minus: that's a good thing for as far as to start your research. 'cause I think that yes, it's a way to go, but I even think that they might be wrong. So you need to continue. But if you could, you, I would start there. You're like, okay, wait, this doesn't make any sense.

Joshua Caraballo: I love what you're saying. 

Brad Minus: No, no, no. I was just going to say that you get to Snopes, you know, like you read something and go, wait, that doesn't sound right. Let me go to Snopes. If it's not there, keep going. If it is there, then you still got to disprove it.

If you really want to get to the bottom of an issue. Right. This takes a lot of time. 

Joshua Caraballo: That's exactly what I was going to say. This is such a wonderful thing. We need to figure out, you know, what's right, what's wrong, what's true, what's not.

Sometimes there's a lot of gray area between things. But what we don't talk a lot about is how To find those things and how to sort through the plethora of information, as you know, that exists, especially on social media and how we can determine what is factual, what is not. And this is getting harder and harder because.

People are spreading this and this information purposefully to try to get people to act or believe a certain way. And so what it means is that we especially need these sorts of skill sets in this day and age more than we ever have perhaps. And I think so that's why it's so important to really Have people like yourself have these sites in place as resources, but also not taking anything that we see at face value, but also understanding that by doing that, it takes a lot of time, energy and resources and we can't do that with everything.

And so we need to be strategic about it. Like. If we're fighting over whether something is a bridge or an underpass as an example and we need to do all this research to figure it out so that we're the right person and the other, we know what the facts are, unless that's what you're into in your every day or the part of how you make your money or whatever, it might not be the best way to spend your time.

Right? But if it's something that actually affects your livelihood. It is a decision that you need to make, then by all means, please, take all the time, energy, resources that you need to make an informed decision. Knowing that, even at that point in time, after you've done your due diligence, if you will, But you still may not know everything about it, and that's okay, because think about any phenomenon that takes place.

From a research perspective, you need at least 10 to 20 years of research to truly understand that phenomenon. And that's from a psychological standpoint, and anything that's social psychologically related. It takes a long time because there's so many questions that you need to answer, there's so many nuances.

is to human behavior in order to truly understand how things work. There are other things out there that are, that don't need so many nuances, like, you know, how your heart pumps blood. As an example, it's like it's pretty clear cut. There might be some questions that we truly don't know, but we know a lot and we know how things work, you know, so think about the realm that you're dealing with.

And in this case, what we're talking about is usually a lot of human phenomenon that has something to do with psychology, social interactions. And those things cannot be answered in one fell swoop. You can't just take one study and say, Here's the result. If you can take ten years of studies that all point, or mostly point, to something, now you have evidence in the direction, showing that this is probably true.

And here's the last thing about human behavior and psychology that I love to share. Nothing is ever proven. Nothing is ever 100%. The threshold In psychology and in social science is usually 95%. So what that means is 95% of the time this is true, and that's a mathematical way of showing that something can work or that some belief system or some model actually does make whatever outcomes it purports to have.

But that's not true of five out of a hundred people, or if it's 99%, which is another threshold. Then that still means one out of a hundred per people will not apply. Right? So that's important to keep that in mind because remember when they were trying to, they had all this research about smoking and exceptionalism came in and people would say, I know somebody who's lived until 90 and a hundred and they smoked every day of their lives and nothing ever happened to them.

Right? So these are the things that we really have to keep in mind. There's training that needs to take place. This is why researchers usually get a doctorate, although you don't need a doctorate in order to understand research. What you need to do though is inform yourself and stop just taking the shortcuts that people give you with the headlines and not reading any further because that's not doing you any justice.

Brad Minus: Yeah, and I agree. And if you're going to go as far as Josh goes and actually I do it for, I do it for, studies for my athletes. Find out if you're looking at an actual study is the two things you need to look at are Who actually sponsored the study? That's right. And is that sponsor got any kind of Play in the study.

So, you know if Gatorade is doing a study on hydration I would take that with a grain of salt. That's right. Cause they've got a stake in it. Right. But if, if Johnson and Johnson did it, I think we'd be okay. Right. You know, or if somebody completely not medical or a university. Right. And as long as it wasn't the University of Oregon, which holds, which, which holds the Gatorade lab, that, you know, I would be a little bit about that one, but anyway, 

and then you just want to make sure that doesn't have a stake because I love studies because you can start with the abstract and actually get stuff. And then when you want to dig in, you can dig in. 

Joshua Caraballo: A really important point. 

Brad Minus: Read your fair share of stuff. 

Brad Minus: And they're not exactly written in the greatest language, you know, don't read them before bed.

Joshua Caraballo: And this is done purposefully. It's actually done in Greek. There are Greek symbols and letters that are used, especially for the mathematics, what we call a quantitative, research or analysis. And that that's done purposefully.

It's a ring of fire, if you will, so that if you're not trained in a certain way, you have no idea. What that means or how they got to the results that they did. And that's really important. Because in a lot of circumstances, the same research papers are being used to make decisions about people on the whole from institutions, and it's not always being used in the proper way.

These decisions are not always being made, with all the understanding and various, evidence that's counter to. Sometimes that's not being taken into consideration, it's just an action is being taken on behalf of people that is not always in our best interest.

The research, I mean. So, that's important as well. If it was easy, we would all have the right information and material that we need to make the right decisions. But that's just not how the world works, that's not how science is, and that's not how it's used.

So I think the more that we could put in our toolbox to help us to navigate through these things, it's not going to be a panacea for everything. We're not all of a sudden magically going to be just the best people in the world. It's just a tool, right? So it's one of those tools out of many, many different things that we could utilize to help ourselves and help others as well. 

Brad Minus: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's, that's a great note to, to wrap up on. This did not go as planned. And, for those of you listening, you know what, I always talked about Life-Changing Challengers being an evolution.

And I think we've taken a step into the evolution. We've got a good portion of, of Josh's, origin story. And he gave us a lot of the things that happened. He didn't go into detail on the story part, which we usually do, but he gave you enough to make, to, to get the lesson and that he's talking about.

And, I am just really grateful that it actually happened this way. Maybe we'll have, Josh back on again and we'll just make sure we start it with, Nope, we're not going into this. We're going to talk about you and the story of you and have it be your origin story.

And we're not going off into a tangent, but I love the tangent. The tannings were huge. A lot of lessons came in out of this ways to research talking about finding the positivity and things. How many times you need to counteract a negative before you can finally start thinking on a positive what you need to do to counteract the negative.

And, you know, just ways to think about things get delving into people as people. Not as specific, things that might be, they might be stereotyped as, you know, and actually going delving and deep and not thinking about when you hear something bad about somebody, does that make them a bad person or what was the story behind it?

What actually happened there? You can't sit there and go, Oh, he did something bad. Therefore, he's now all of a sudden an evil person what happened in there? What's happened since then? What happened before then? A lot of lessons came out of this episode, and I hope that you probably go back, listen again, and pick up on some of the great nuances that Josh has left us with.

Josh, thank you so much for being you, you know, and I do hope that somewhere down the line, in another season that we can bring you back and we'll talk a little bit more about, the insights and how you felt about certain things that happened in your life and the way you got through them.

But you gave us so much to think about that. I think it'd be overload. At this point. So yeah, so I went and that's the only reason why I want to do it right. I think we will, have you back on and I appreciate it. And I appreciate you for everything you did for the rest of you. Go check out if you really, and I can't wait now, I want to know what happened.

So remember I'm not dead yet. How I turned my misfortunes into strengths. And that's available on Amazon. You can also get him on his website and that's drjosh. solutions, which I love that title, by the way. And then he's got a lot of other things going on here that you need to take a look at. He's got stories of himself. He's got a blog with some, blog articles. He's got, things that you can talk to him about.

I think you got a YouTube channel too, right? 

Joshua Caraballo: Oh, no, no. But, there are other podcast, interviews that I've done that are on YouTube that you can find. 

Brad Minus: And he has an account on Instagram and on LinkedIn. So go check out those. I'll also link those in the show notes along with a direct, Amazon link directly to the book.

This has been wonderful. Thank you. 

Joshua Caraballo: Brad. Thank you. I want to thank you for just giving some space for me to be authentic and have this conversation with you today. And I want to also thank you for what you do.

Brad Minus: I appreciate it. If you're watching this on YouTube hit that share, like subscribe, hit the bell. So you always know. When we're coming up with a new episode, if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please leave a review 

if you didn't like the episode, tell us you didn't like it. This way I can help the podcast continue to evolve. Any feedback is good feedback. But with that being said for Dr. Joshua Caraballo and myself, we will see you in the next one.