Trevor Noah Makes My Brain Hurt

This is a very deep conversation that you said you don't like small talk, but no, no, but people, but I, but I put a, when we promote the podcast, we've got a picture of Trevor Noah, and we'll put a little clip and people like, I'm going to listen to this one. It's going to be so funny. I mean, we can still make jokes.

I love to think, but more important, I love to think about things that make my head hurt. I like really difficult, complicated things that there's no obvious right or wrong, which means I love people who make me think about those things. And one of the best people who does this is Trevor Noah. You may know Trevor from the Daily Show and his extended comedian and best-selling author.

What I love him for is for his intensibility to think about things and see things that the rest of us don't see. This episode is intense and it'll definitely make you think and it'll definitely make your head hurt in a good way. This is a bit of optimism. Trevor always a joy to see you and sit down with you. I've never sat down with you ever, ever, ever and not learn something or had my perspective changed about something because of that insane mind that you have that I so a lot of pressure on our conversations now. I feel like one day we should hang out and not talk about anything new or interesting. Just so we have like a, you know, we don't like small talk. I actually like small talk. Yeah, you know why? Because maybe like a few years ago I read on how important small

talk is and how in society we have diminished the value of small talk but we don't realize that small talk is what connects us as people and big talk is what separates us. So if you have the foundation of a lot of small talk, you find similarities, you exist in the same realities but then if you only have big talk, then you, it's like large ideas. So when you go, man, the weather, the other person goes like, yeah, I can't believe how beautiful it is. And you're like, I know, right? Or you go, oh, the weather. It's just, it's been raining. When is it going to stop? I know. In that moment, it's the craziest thing ever. You have literally created reality that you share and now it's easier to say, how do you plan to vote? It's wild. So it greases the skids. Yeah, it does. So I actually like

small talk now. You and I haven't spent a lot of time together. No, I think socially, outside of like seeing each other at conferences and things, we've only ever actually hung out once and it was spontaneous. It was. Yeah. We weren't, we had no plans. That was a crazy day. I've texted with you. I've never called you in my life. Yeah. You've never called me in your life.

I'm not a big caller. No, you're not a big caller. And I don't know if I was driving home and for whatever reason, I decided to call you. Yeah. And out of the blue, I called you and I'm like, hey, what are you doing? And you said, I'm sitting here at this hotel in Los Angeles. And I had just driven past that hotel, turned around and we had a cup of coffee. That's the only time we've ever hung out. Yeah. And it was a great hang. And yet, I feel, I feel like you're a kindred spirit.

I love spending time with you. And it's not because of small talk. It's because every time I see you, we waste no time and go deep. And if other people happen to be at the table, they'll join in. So this is going against the small talk thing. Yes. I can't speak how you feel. But I feel close to you because we always go deep and we find commonality in the deepness and we abandon the small talk. But I think it's because we are of a tribe. So I think that's where small talk is crucial for people. Small talk is not necessary for everybody. But it's crucial when you don't know whether or not you're in the same tribe. So from our get go, I was told by somebody, a mutual friend, he said, you have to meet Simon. You're going to love Simon. You and Simon. Wow. You two

together. So and I trust our mutual friends. I was like, oh, yeah. I mean, let's see if he says that we would get along, we'll get along. So it's like, oh, I'll meet this person. And I assume that you know enough about me because we're friends that I will get along with this person. And so now when we meet, I don't now waste time. If I met you in a different way, I think I would have been a little slower to just jump in with you because I'd be like, small talk is I look, I understand the purpose of it. And maybe I'm sometimes socially awkward in groups and introverted. I'm not good at small talk. And I start with like my opening is a yes or no question, which has been here before.

Yeah. And then and then my mind goes blank. Panic starts to happen. Do it. I'm the same as you. So I genuinely love doing the things that I'm not good at. And then trying to get comfortable in the spaces that I'm uncomfortable. And so what I'll actively try and do, like my first instinct when I walk into a room is to find a corner. Yeah. That's my first instinct or find somebody I know. Yes. Either one of those is fine. Corner immediately. Agreed. And then I and then I enjoy the room. Or a buffet. You'll find me by the buffet because I can disappear and just fill up a plate. It's going through the food. I don't fill up a plate. Oh, okay.

Okay. But if you just go stand up. I just said my point is it gives me something to do that doesn't look like I'm awkwardly trying to not engage. Yeah. It looks like I'm just trying to get food. Okay. Which I see that. Yeah. And then I can sit down and eat. Yeah. That's so that's my instinct. Yeah. But I but I realized over time, I was like, okay, I asked myself a question as I say, all right, Trevor, why are you uncomfortable? I was like, well, I'm uncomfortable because I assume that people don't want to talk to me and I assume that I'm taking up unnecessary space and I assume that these people will reject me and I assume and I assume. And so based on all those assumptions, I threw a lot of therapy and I guess a little bit of introspection. I started realizing

I'm making assumptions about how the world sees me before the world has told me how it sees me. So I just take a moment to see if the opposite is true. And then what I try to do as much as possible, which is hard. And you and I do talk about this is I don't make it about the outcome. So I don't go, if I go speak to people, they will like me. Or if I go speak to people, I'll be come friends with them. I just walk in and I think to myself, all right, try your best.

Just have a small talk conversation with this person. And I'll walk in and I'll go, wow, those are really cool shoes. And the person's like, oh, thank you. Thank you. And then I'm like, why did you choose those shoes for this outfit? And then they'll go, oh, well, you know, it's actually funny. And you'll be shocked at people and they, and you get into the world and you're like, oh, this is an interesting party. You know, I'm awkward. And then they'll be like, oh, I have fun here. I know it's amazing how the world is not oftentimes what you think it is.

It's just what you've told yourself it is because I always wonder what it's like for somebody like you. People consume so much of you, whether it's your writing, whether it's your videos, whether it's like I wonder how many times people don't give you the opportunity to start or have a middling conversation because they just jump straight into like a conversation with your work, which is actually, as an introvert, it's actually been very helpful. Oh, you like that. It's been very helpful because I'm no longer required to start conversations. And people are very nice when they when they come up to me. But what's interesting in you just touched upon this, which is they have assumptions about who I am, what I like, what I do, how I live my life because they judge me

through my work. And for example, people think that I've read every book and that I read every book, right? And they talk to me with that assumption. They're like, anyway, this book, I'm sure you've read it, you know, they'll literally say that to me. And the thing that I held a lot of shame for for many years, and I never was public about it until pretty recently is I'd read no books.

I have seriously bad ADHD. I've started a lot of books. I finished one book excluding having to read my own because I had to. But I've only read one book cover to cover my entire life. And that was the Vinci code, which is so good. But I struggle to read. And so people just assume because I'm I write things and I talk about things that I just voraciously consume books. Yes. And I hear people talk about like with incredible judgment like people who don't read or you know, no, and then I'm like, you know, yeah, yeah. I'm curious what misperceptions people have about you because the persona that you they have of you. I'll say this, everyone's assumption of me is based on the world that they know me from. So I've realized I don't have a common assumption. So South

Africans, I think have like the best idea of who I am as Trevor because their understanding of me was formed through like a sort of natural relationship. I hosted TV shows in South Africa. I did stand up comedy. I, you know, was in interviews or what. So people had an idea of who this person is. Did you have famous South Africa before you came? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I always tell people I go like, South Africa is my country in that way. I'm lucky that I have that as my country.

They have like a like a solid idea of me. A lot of Americans knew me only as daily show guy. So they had this fixed assumption of me. Some still do. And I've learned this by meeting people. It always come in the form of like a backhandedish compliment. But which I still appreciate you know, someone will come up to me with a firm handshake and they'll go, you know, I, I didn't expect to enjoy anything you said because I don't agree with a lot of your politics.

But I got to say I really enjoyed your piece. It was good. That was really good. Thank you. And I'm like, oh, well, thank you very much. I'm glad you enjoy. I'm even, I'm even impressed that as a person you are able to see beyond what you thought. I think that's a high compliment. Yeah. So so there's some people who see me as like a just like a hyper partisan political person who only exists in one world. You know, one of the craziest ones that happened to me is I was in Miami. I was in a strip club for a friend's bachelor party. And some guy in the strip club walks past me and he he looked at me in the eye. And then he's like, Donald Trump 24. That's literally what he screamed at me. And then he looked at and I could see he was looking at me. Yeah.

Like he thought it was going to shot to my world. Yeah. And I looked at him and I was like, and he said, do you where I said, Trump 2024. I was like, okay. And he said, yeah, what do you think about that? I said, my friend, we're in a strip club right now. The last thing I'm thinking about is a presidential candidate. And I said, and you need to ask yourself what your priorities are.

If you're thinking about Donald Trump while you were in a strip club, I was just like, what are you doing? And I, but then I understood I was like, all right, you, you've distilled me to this. So I think people have they misperceive you as being partisan. Some people think I'm only political. Some people think I'm only partisan. Some people think I'm only comedian. But what about your personality? But what about your personality? Like it, it still depends. Like I said, like the fact that people think I, some people think I'm only augmentative. Some people think I'm only affable, but it all depends on where they've seen me. Because the other frequent one that I get is people think I'm very organized. Like if you come to my house, I can see that though. If you come to

my house, my house is much like my brain, which is it's filled with, huh? Shit. I love art. And I, like if there's an empty wall, yeah, I'm filling it. Like there's no empty walls. This color, there's stuff. There's piles. I'm not organized. A friend of mine used to call me a surface abuser. If there was a horizontal surface anywhere near me, I would fill it. And not necessarily in an organized way, like papers, get piles of papers, you know, bowls of things. So like my dining room table, I go through these phases where it gets to the point where you can't see that I have a dining room table. And I'm like, I hate this. And I like clean everything. Yeah. That, I mean, that's common for people. People think I'm, people think I'm super, super organized.

And I just think it's really funny. The impression that people have of me judge through the work. Yes. And I wonder if you have the same experience, which is I think that's part of the appeal that people have for my work, which is when they discover that I'm not Ivy League school educated, read everything like a book a day, you know, that I'm actually more normal and average.

That I think that's one of the reasons I think people relate to it, which is I'm, I'm not that thing that they think that I am. And I wonder if that's the same for you. I actually think it's the other way around for me, funny enough. So I think what will happen sometimes is people have, and this is not, this is not unique to me. People have a misconception about comedians. I think a lot of people do. So a lot of people think that comedians are like nonstop goofing clown people.

Do you know what I mean? They think we're just like walking around from room to room like, oh god. But it's depression. That's what they think. It's a navigation of depression. It's the navigation of depression. A lot of depression. Yeah. So what it is funny enough is so people will meet me sometimes and they'll be like, uh, someone once said to me they were like, you're a lot more fun on TV. And I said, yes, I'm sitting in an aeroplane right now.

We all quiet. You think I'm just going to be turning to all the other passengers and be like, well, let me tell you about the time. No, we're on an aeroplane. Anybody here from Cleveland? This is the funny thing about show business, right? Which is they associate your character with who you are. Yes. But it's what the thing is it's one side of your comedian. It's one side of it. So they want you to be funny all the time. Yes, it's one side of it. And I try and explain this to people who even if they're curious enough to ask the question, they go, hey, you're a lot more quiet than I thought. You seem a lot more introspective or you seem, I go, yeah, because what I'm expressing is the culmination of what I've consumed. But I need to consume. So I spend

most of my time quiet. I spend most of my time observing. I spend most of my time listening, actually. My experience of you, the few times we've hung out, is you're exactly the same publicly and privately. And it's one of my favorite things about you, which is in terms of my personality. When I see you on TV, or on a stage, I'm like, that's what he's like off the stage, and off the camera. I hope so. Yeah. I'll tell you why though, for me. There's a thing that I experienced a very long time ago when I was first starting comedy and stand up in all of these things where this was in South Africa. I bumped into some people who were comedians and they were popular and they were really funny and they were like a nice guy image and all of it. And then

I met them even in the comedy industry and I was like, wow, what a mean asshole. Like the way they treated people, but like this person was like, it's me, you know, the good guy. And I was just like, wow, what a, that sucked. And beyond the moral judgments of it, I remember thinking to myself, it must suck to have to constantly pretend to be someone and then have to act like the person you're pretending to be. That's what I often think to myself. And so then what I thought was even for like my comedy, I wanted to be able to get on stage and even tell the audience, I'm having a terrible day, but not have them go, whoa, this is not what we signed up for.

But my goal was, and still is, to give you the best version of Trevor when I'm on stage. What you see of me on stage is like, that's how I met my best when I'm with my friends making everyone laugh. That's how I am with like a group of people where we're thinking and going through crazy concepts and ideas. That's the best of me. So what I aim to do is sort of aim for the best of me. And then if I don't hit that, I don't hit it, but you give them a striving. Yeah. So I don't I don't exist as one. You have an uncanny self-awareness. You notice the patterns and the absurdities in your own life. When you talk about them out loud, sometimes they're funny, sometimes they're interesting. But I think what they do is the ways in which you found to navigate life or understand

yourself are also valuable to us. And they're valuable to your friends because you're seeing things that the rest of us are missing. So like what are some of the lessons that you've learned that have helped you navigate the world that you think have have had value in the lives of your friends or about it? I think the biggest thing I've learned that has given me the most reward has been consideration. I'm not always able to execute on it. As in like I don't always make the best decisions. I don't always make the right decisions. Sometimes I don't know at the time or sometimes I do. But I do know I always work from the place of consideration. Explain what that means or give an example. When I was growing up, my mom drilled into me through her actions as well,

not just through her words, that we were always to consider others, always, always, always, always, always. So like everywhere my mom went on like the route that she would drive to work, to church, to you name it. Every single homeless person knew her in like a wonderful way. They give her a nickname and they'd be like, oh, mom's oh, which means like like a nickname version of like mama, you know? I was like, yeah, mom's oh, how are you? Yeah, mom's oh, I need shoes. Yeah, mom's oh, and they like know her. They like know her and they know her in like a human way. It was really interesting to me, but she would just consider we would be lucky enough to eat out at like a, you know, because we didn't always when I was growing up, but sometimes we would. And she would say

to me, stop eating. She'd be like, you full. She said, let's save that week. This is a lot of food. We can give this to the guy on the way home. And we would do that. And I'm just a kid watching this. Do you know what I mean? And she would go, there's an old man who's our neighbor, his grass, his grass is getting too long. We must go help him cut the grass. I was like, this lady is insane.

We're going to cut somebody else's grass. We're just doing this. He didn't even ask us by the way. He didn't even seem to appreciate that. We were going to do it by the way. And I remember this one really sticks with me prominently because she said to me, I said, why are we doing this? Like genuinely, this is just torture. And she said, by considering others, you're also able to consider yourself.

And she said, if this man doesn't cut his grass, you're not going to happen. There's going to be rats in his yard. And she said, and you know where the rats go? They're going to come to our house as well. And so she said, I'm cutting his grass for him, but I'm also cutting his grass for us. And so we can live in a world where we say, we don't cut grass for other people.

Or we can live in a world where we say if I'm able to, I'll cut their grass so that I also don't experience the rats. And so she said, so we're able. So I'm going to cut that grass. And I was like, I still don't know about this. But and you know this, I mean, better than most people, but the modeling that a parent showed, like the things they show you for good or bad you learn.

Very loud and very big. But she knows that, you know, she knows that she's even embarrassing for me when, you know, when I'm like a kid in high school, she's like, oh, your mother embarrasses you. Even that for me, I think was a, was a beautiful thing to experience as a child because it showed me that she at least considered how she was affecting me. Now she didn't change it. You know, yeah.

She was like, oh, you must be so ashamed. Oh, you'll look at your mother. I come in. I'm dirty and the guy's horrible. Oh, you must be so ashamed. Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And she wouldn't change it. But at least I knew she was aware. Yeah. And so I think that for me has been the biggest thing. That's a nice one. The alternative is so funny. I'm just sort of playing the cutting the grass example, which is, you know, we don't help the neighbor cut the grass, the rats come, and then we scream in yell and call the authorities so that he'll deal with his rat problem. Yeah. And the irony is, is like a little bit of generosity, a little bit of kindness to your mother's point of view. It's considered a little bit of consideration. Yeah. And this is a

theme that comes up almost every time you and I talk, which is community. Yeah. And that's all that is. I think it's funny when people have less in lower income neighborhoods, people sit on the front porch and raise each other's kids. Yeah. And then as soon as you have wealth, you move in, you move it in the backyard and you sue your neighbor because their branch is hanging over your fence. It is amazing how when you have less, community is survival. Yeah. It is. Right?

Because both parents have to go to work and we kind of for childcare. Yes. But we can rely on the neighbors, whereas when you have all the luxuries and you can afford all of the help, you don't even know the names of your neighbors because you don't need to. Yeah. If we look at the society we live in now, where we feel so closed off from everybody, because this has become the American dream, which is to go to the backyard and block everybody else off.

We become so insular that we now are desperate for that feeling of commuting and belonging, and we're sort of struggling to find it and looking for anywhere to get it. Yeah. And you see it on the political left and then on the political right, whether it's anti-Israel or anti-vax, like I'm going to latch on to anything I can that makes me feel good about belonging to some sort of community and you get all the feels. I feel like my life is purpose and I'm making good friends and I'm sacrificing and all these things, but for the fact that it won't last, like these aren't lifelong commitments to something. Okay. So here's what I think it is. I don't think that those things are unnatural. I don't think that it's zero sum. I don't think it's going to be one or

the other. People always have their politics. People always gravitate towards certain issues. People always form and find different alliances and allegiances. This is the human experience, right? I think the thing that's different now is we have fewer spaces where we blend all of those worlds into something else. Does this make sense? So I think one of the things we're losing as time moves is we're losing communal community spaces where a place to come together. Us being part of church. Yeah, but even not church because I'm saying church is like also an extension of it in my opinion. I think what it is is it's a space where people are allowed to be and are expected to be regardless of how they think or regardless of what they choose because the choice has sort of

been made for them. Okay. So I often think to myself one of the greatest gifts and cursors a person can get is the ability to leave their hometown because you leave your hometown and now you choose to go live somewhere else. When you've chosen to go live somewhere else you're now going to encounter other people who've also chosen to go but then choose to live next to you and you didn't choose to live next to them and so now you go I hate my neighbor. I wish they would move. I hate my neighbor. I need to move. I hate this neighborhood. I need to get out. I hate this neighborhood. I wish they were changing but you exist in a state of constantly wishing for the thing or the people around you to change because you believe it's possible. Right. But there's very few people who have

that same expression about like where they're from from. Oh that's such a great insight. Do you understand? Home is home. You just go like this is what it is. So you go way from arm from a little town in the middle of wherever and and I go like what you go like oh yeah Jimbo. Yeah man Jimbo's like this and he's like that and actually oh Mary I don't like Mary because she's always saying these things to my mom and you don't wish for them to move you don't you don't even you don't hear people it doesn't you don't hear people say that I wish Mary would move move away. Oh this is move away.

This is such a great insight. Like move away which is the blessing and curse of basically what an urban center is. Yeah because there's too much choice. Yes and the main thing is you have been told there is a choice of community and I think what it does is it fundamentally undermines our belief or our ability to understand that you can coexist with people you don't agree with right because now you cannot exist with them right right so I say this to my friends all the time and and I think you know this about me away from mics and cameras I encourage friends to bring up the things that they don't agree about because your friends you trust your friends you love your friends are a community that you know want the best for you yeah so I think it's important

to have discussions where you don't agree because then you can always fall back on the things that you do agree on yeah right you can have what I call like healthy fights and so I'm still friends with my friends who are pro-Israel some people don't like that about me they go like how could you then I go like yes but also how could I not then I'm also friends with my friends who are pro-Palestine and then my pro-Israel friends like how could you then I go like I understand why you say that but I go how could I not because I fundamentally believe genuinely whether it's at the level of leadership or whether it's the level of you in your life if you cannot find a way to exist despite the things you are disagreeing on and because there'll be many of them and some are like

the most extreme and then some aren't so please don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's I'm not talking about Kumbaya I'm just saying there are many things where you sort of have to accept and so when I was growing up in South Africa and we were living at my grandmother's house in Soweto black people couldn't leave Soweto it wasn't like a thing this is the southwestern township this is where you've been put by the apartheid government you cannot leave it so what do you do you live you know your neighbor always plays music loud on a Saturday morning when they're cleaning their stoop oh man you just know this maybe you complain once or twice but you like know this you know every Friday night there's gonna be a bunch of guys who drive cars that have loud

exhausts they're gonna do this every Friday they get paid they get drunk they do this and the weirdest thing happened you you knew that you didn't like it but you also accepted the reality that you were in and I found it was like in a way more tolerable you know what I mean people even tolerated each other and then found a connection with each other you could even tell shit to that person you're like ah here you come with your you know ah man on Friday I don't look forward to seeing you go we like ah baba don't talk about my guy like that why you you just like yeah man you guys with your cars or you with your radio or you with your and I don't know how to explain it but there's something necessary in fact in my opinion in being able to say to

somebody these edges of yours they don't work with mine but yeah I also have to learn that other people have edges so now it raises the question how do we create that community I don't know that we can anymore I think the thing that you had in common is there's a shared enemy right which is a partite South Africa no but I I take it away I don't even think people thought that to be honest no I don't think it's conscious I don't think we think yeah but I'm saying even let's take the word enemy away what we shared is we didn't have a choice Simon this is so that's one take enemy okay okay stated a different way yeah yes what you shared is you didn't have a choice we shared this non-choice and so and so when given no choice you have to make it work if a

plane crashes and everyone survives and everyone's on this you have to make it work we cannot now say how did you vote in the midterms right hey man it doesn't matter right now we have to make it I need you to get those coconuts I need you to help us build a raft so what is it about our current society that we don't feel we have to make it work because it's not like you can just sort of execute half the country be like oh finally they're gone you know short of half the country moving to one part the other half moving to another part yeah like what is it about the current society that we don't feel like we have to cooperate that's what I mean is the gift and the curse we got the choice it's impossible to go back from choice it's and it's one of the great

dynamics nor the apartheid government you can't know but remember there was a confining yeah exactly so there's a confining water yeah water is a con the ocean is a confining factor we are the people of this land and then someone builds a ship and it's like well now do you want to be the people of this land because you can go somewhere else and then what happens someone goes like I'm going to go to this America place because I don't like how the English are treating so what's that's what I know people would like now that people can leave and travel do they are they as talented they used to be now what's interesting is I would argue and I because I don't spend as much time day anymore since my grandmother passed I don't think that it's the same but I still think

a lot of it is the same because now the thing that's forced people is class and income so still many people are forced so the confining forces change that's why I say forget the force I understand but there's still a confining force it went from a government policy to a social economic yeah so now people cannot the people who cannot afford to move out of Soweto still live in Soweto and the people who have left have left and just from my little anecdotal experiment and my anecdotal experiences they're lonelyer they are sadder they feel more isolated they feel less purpose they're caught up in like a drive that never ends but they've just got and it's amazing to see they have more than every generation that came before them yeah and wow Simon they are like

it's and it's amazing to see and and I think this is the thing that's tough is like you can't undo getting something right I grew up religious and what I loved about the Bible is with you think it's real or not the stories are fantastic they truly are once you have eaten the apple in the Garden of Eden you cannot unsee that you are naked and that's like almost what God like tells Adam and Eve he's like oh you guys messed up man before this you didn't know you needed clothes right and now you will spend every day thinking I am naked and he's like that's why I didn't want you to eat the apple but you guys ate the apple this is the the paradox of choice yeah the temptation is to conclude that it's money the temptation is to say but once you have wealth

no but I think that it's more like the absence of struggle in the cases there's some sort of hardship that in all of you think you're playing crash example Soweto example so it's like as hardship is relieved and choice is a relief of hardship then for some reason our ability to cooperate and put up with each other seems to go down so I I will agree with one part of it I still come back to I don't even think it's hardship I think it's just the constraining factor here here's why I say this let's say there is an island of mega rich people and they go hang out together and they're on this mega rich island and they do whatever they want to do right it's the mega rich they're having a great time if they are confined or constrained in some way they will find the same thing

and they do find it temporarily so if you you've maybe been to them I've visited them on occasion but you know you get these places where people go to these like golf resorts and it's like wow what is this place and in that place I have found people have a different level of community a different level of enjoyment a different level of you know it's like people buzzing around on golf cards and people meeting and there's only the four restaurants and all you can do is choose from one of the four and so you just rotate I will do the Spanish place on Monday and then where I love doing the Italian place on Wednesdays and I'll have the eggs again exactly because all of a sudden you're constrained so there's this weird thing that happens I even think about it for my life as I go

the great curse is going to be the choice the great curse is going to be knowing that you can choose so how do you create artificial constraint for yourself to help yourself because I don't think it's about hardship at all I think you can have a good time together but if you cannot change the people or the situation it changes your ability to appreciate or get along with the change or the situation so there's a story about a shoe salesman in Los Angeles in 1950s I can't remember his name but it was a very successful entrepreneur who owned a whole bunch of women's shoe stores yeah a journalist asked him what's your secret and he said two not three and they're like what do you mean he goes woman comes into my store I'll bring her a pair of shoes she'll try them on

and she'll say could I see that pair please and I'll bring her a second pair of shoes and she said could I also see that pair of please and she and he'll say which one would you like me to take away oh because what he found wow is when they had a choice of three they bought none and when they had a choice of two they bought one oh I love that right two not three too much choices overwhelming I need to apply that to my life you see that's brilliant I never when people find the the nexus of what of how you're supposed to do it because I understood it as a concept but that's a it's a nice way to think about it for anything really yeah and so what I've started doing in my life is I've added constraint right and I didn't even realize it until we're talking

right now which is like I've got all these options on the table pick I mean it doesn't matter what it is yeah no I know what you mean and what I'll start doing is I'll start pairing them off I'll be like okay get between these two okay get rid of that one okay between these two okay get rid of that one between these two and the choices become really easy and then I get to the final two I'm like oh it's obvious it's that one where's I'm looking at six or five or four or three and I'm like ah but this one gives me this and that one and I'm playing them off and doing sort of you know that's right I love that but it's you know the trick of the flipping the coin yeah you know I don't know should I do this or that you like flip a coin yeah and you accept fate's decision well

the question is do you want to flip again it's whether you're satisfied with the coin flip or not and it works every time when people are stuck between a choice and you force them to flip a coin you say the coin decides and if they're happy with what the coin decides they go with it if they're unhappy then obviously go with the other one yes because I think to that point because we are so terrified of making the wrong choice and rightly so by the way if you're living your life well you don't want to make the wrong choice no that's why you know when you book something you go sort my price because you're like okay I'll make it a price choice because the world has told me that price is most important but if they added other ones I mean like Google flights does

this yeah they'll go oh here's duration then you're like oh well time is more important to me than the price yeah and another one will be like sort my best value and you're like okay I'll go for value what is the price relative to what it normally costs etc but they at least give you some they give you like a clear distinction and you only look at the first few because that's whatever your hierarchy yeah this idea of constraint is really important so the question is is like how do we add constraint at a social level at a societal level in order to help people better find community or at least get along and maybe that's not possible I think I think it happens naturally whether we like it or not it's the unnatural natural order but it seems not

to be happening right now yeah because exactly your last two words right now we love everything right now in life everything is right now right people think this and I don't agree I think it's always goes to where are you zooming in and where are you zooming out like genuinely where are you zooming in and when are you zooming out right because I think of like everything whether it's markets or whether it's countries or whether it's the world or whether it's yeah it's it's it's terrible but it's the best it's ever been but it depends on and I will never minimize someone's experience because it's the moment that you're in the moment that you're in is the most important moment for most of us and then the larger thing is how you aggregate all of the moments and what you think

of or how you remember them so when I think of the right now I go let's use an example which is a crazy example I'm acknowledging this but let's look at the United Healthcare CEO who was assassinated I found it's fascinating and I'll throw the disclaimers out there so let's just say this is me using like what I like to call like my lab hands yeah I'm thinking of this more like a this is a thought experiment yeah not not a social comment yeah forget forget all of it I just go like wow what a crazy moment where one person was killed and I would argue most of the country was united in in their joy elation frustration is being quote unquote fine with it shodden Freud or whatever you like weird yeah yeah yeah but I think to myself wow what just happened

here yeah I'm willing to bet if you asked let's say we did a cross-section or you know we selected people from all walks of life who are happy or fine or celebrated or whatever it wasn't we asked those people hey what are you what are you happy about here what oh let's do this where you say to them separately do you like it when people get killed they go no no no I'm willing to bet all of them would say no hundred percent against murder yeah and you go like do you like it when people don't like how the world is going and so they shoot someone they be like no no no no no that's chaos that's anarchy no no no no no no no no no no no and if you broke this incident down into many different things they would basically say no to all of it so then I found myself asking what was it about the

collective action that brought so many different people together in a country where we're constantly told people are not together right we always told America's more polarized than ever America's more polarized than ever and I go but why wouldn't they polarized about this and what's your conclusion my conclusion is everybody is experiencing the same constraints whether you are a rich person or whether you are a poor person the healthcare industry in America has constrained you yeah to living in a world where you don't know whether you're going to be able to pay for the next bill yeah where you don't know if you'll go broke because of an incident you don't know if you'll have as even just the even just the frustration of being forced to jump through hoops you see it

doesn't matter who you and imagine that even a rich person goes ah the healthcare industry and so in a way in this moment because of this action we got to see how that constraint works you're like oh because everyone is constrained to this yeah they're all then having the same experience they're coming together in ways that nobody thought people could be and again as I say I'm not like happy no no no no of course of course it's a it's an observation but the the last time I saw this happen and again it's an extreme example but it's just data right was after September 11th after September 11th there was this big concern that the the Muslim world hated America and so that we there was research done they went to the moderate average Arab on the street oh yeah people

or yeah Jordan yeah and they asked them what do you think about September 11th a huge huge number said I think what happened was a part I think it's terrible and then they added but I understand it and that's the part that I found very scary which is the minute that a rational person can rationalize an apparent behavior there's something under the surface that it has to be addressed I got but I understand it yeah and this is this is what's happening now with this assassination which is I think murder is horrible I think that his family less it's horrible horrible but I understand it yeah and it's that part that we need to explore and we all know what it is which is what's happening in the insurance industry in the United States has become so unjust and so unbalanced

that we are able to rationalize and let go of our ethics and morals because of this the opportunity is to somehow understand how it got to this place and try and back away from it because the last thing we want is for these unjust experiences to happen in the world and and then your vigilante justice is the only way to calm because what it is it's frustration it's the shaman Freud it's an alleviation of frustration like I can't solve this problem I'm still stuck in this problem yes but I feel like I got some relief yes which is a horrible thought but but is it though I'll and think of it okay let's flip it the other way around horrible we I think we keep saying that because we don't want to be yeah but let's flip it the other way around this is again what this made

me think about what are laws what are laws fundamentally if not how a society we're a constraints on yeah we agreed upon constraints on our behavior laws are fundamentally a fence that we build around a yard that we choose to agree to yeah so we all go where's the fence yeah for everything where's the fence for the speed limit where's the fence for shooting a person or not shooting where's the fence for food if I go outside that fence I know there's a consequence we end and we agree on the fence right yeah then what happens because of how power isn't equally shared because of how some people are able to manipulate it all of a sudden somebody's jumping over the fence and you're like hey and the person's like yeah we'll look how big I am yeah I'm a corporation and you're like

yeah but we agreed on the fence and they're like yeah well I didn't break the fence I just climb over it and you're like I mean yeah but we the whole point of the fence is that you're not supposed to get over it and they're like no no the law says I'm not allowed to break the fence but I can climb over the fence and then what happens to the people if they can't do anything within the fence yeah they then go okay look you get over the fence I can't get over the fence yeah and then one person this kid allegedly goes actually you know what I'm just gonna break the fence yeah and so then people go actually in a weird way and this is what's so complicated for people to understand especially people if they're in like power or whatever because of how close it is to them they panic

we're gonna live in a world where there's just chaos and and you know why so many people agree with it because it wasn't chaos I think that's what a lot of people are missing and I'm not saying I'm forward but I'm saying I understand we miss it if we don't realize it wasn't chaos we are not we're trying to understand yes why people understand why why people understand yes and we're trying to understand why people are fine yes or at least able to rationalize it away yes because I go they are in many ways going if this had happened to anyone else or to anything else we would then apply the rules in the vet but just like a legal system how we respond to the situation will change depending on how the person responds I think people are missing it's is that he's he's not

a he's not a father or a husband he's a symbol yes and an active participant more than just the symbol you but you're the CEO but the people feel yes a moral rebalancing completely yeah completely and this is why I say in the same way funny like quote-unquote that seems fair which do you know the concept of ethical fading no so ethical fading is a concept where we're able to rationalize unethical behavior and there's a few things that contribute to ethical fading we see this inside corporations okay inside governments so one of the things that contributes to ethical fading sort of peer pressure like well everyone's doing it I mean if I'm not going to do it they're going to do it and they're going to do it and they're going to do it and I won't so

right the other one is that's what my boss wants it's what I need to it's what I need to do the other one is sort of self-talk that rationalizing like I got to put food on the table right right right like I have no choice right and then there's a slippery slope well he did it nothing happened to him so why can I do it and when cultures with weak leaders allow ethical fading to happen what you do is you get Wells Fargo with people opening up fake bank accounts to hit their numbers yeah they all know it's wrong what you do is you get pharmaceutical companies who have patents on essential drugs raising the prices 500% a thousand percent 1500% what you get is insurance companies saying we'll pay for your anesthetic up to one hour of surgery anything more than one

hour it's on you like knowing that most surgeries and they pull numbers at other ass and everybody knows it's wrong it's unethical but in weakly led companies good people because we say things like how can they sleep at night they sleep fine right like good people are able to rationalize away unethical behavior if we're really honest with ourselves and we peel away the onion from a lot of companies and I think it's particularly egregious in public companies ethical fading runs rampant in America today and I think what we're starting to see is a responding to that in the rise of populism and the rationalizing of apparent behavior because we're seeing a rebalancing of you did something that's so unethical to us one point on the side of the team one point to the powerless

right and the question that we have to ask us a society is yes you'll go to jail and justice will be done because he went outside the fence but we have to address the thing but I understand it if we don't all the fears the executives have will all come true unless we actually address the yes but I understand it but I who's going to do that I would also argue this though and maybe okay maybe I'll stop asking you this this is a very deep conversation that you said you don't like small talk but no no but people but I but I put a you know we when we when we promote the podcast we've got a picture of Trevor Noah and we'll put a little clip and people like I'm going to listen to this one it's going to be so funny we can still make jokes so here's the

question I have for you do you think that this alleged shooter do you think that that was an ethical fading no I think the ethical fading happens on the side of the insurance companies okay so you don't think it's of the like the people who even like go like yes we're fine with this oh that's interesting it's that on both sides because we are rationalizing we are okay so the ethical fading is I mean so I'm asking I don't know I'm thinking I don't I'm not 100% sure of the answer so because the definition is our ability to do unethical things make decisions outside of our ethical frameworks rationalizing that they're okay right and so I guess yes so you see that's where I don't think so so this is what this is what I mean so this is this is what I've

been wrestling with no I know you know why okay go he knew what he was doing was illegal he knew what he was okay yes he had an awareness yes that what he's about to do is illegal which is why he took all the steps to hide himself whereas in the companies there is literally a miss like no no but they find everything but they know I argue see his deep deep they know I don't really think deep I think shallow they know okay here's why here's what I think it is let's stick on the healthcare industry because this is like really where most people I think have a low thing you know where people what's brought people together let's take a step back from this story that was in the news let's look at like the opioid crisis where millions of Americans died died lost

family we always forget like the secondary effects right we just think of the earthquake we forget about the aftershock think of everybody who lost a family member we know what that does to a family a breadwinner disappears what does that do to the kids what happens when a community has breadwinners that disappear right and then we look at the people who benefits at the most from it and what happened to them arguably nothing oh they got they lost a little bit of money not all their money by the way not all their money a little bit of their money I always found it particularly interesting that El Chapo would be arrested and the US government would take all of the money that they could all of it and go like yeah it's ill gotten money they wouldn't go like well

El Chapo some of this you earned from interest and some of this you earned from other ventures that aren't actually drugs and some of they just go like no no we're taking all your money but then for the sacrifamily they don't take all their money they go like I pay a fine do you know me pay a fine why not all their money as well look at what they did and look at how many people affect not even jail and so what starts to happen then I think and this is what I think we have to grapple with as a society is beyond like the this is what I always try and talk to people in power about is I go it is easy when you are close to power to assume that the actions of the power lists are devoid of morality because you have the levers of power and so power responds to you

accordingly right but when people live in a country where their health care gets denied they pay insurance believing they will be insured and then only when they're on their deathbed do they get tricked out of it people are like what has happened here and then the recourse is almost nothing there's nothing you can do the difficult thing for us to grasp is when do we say that a person has done something wrong I always think about this with history it like blows my mind the British did not think that the Americans were heroes they did not think that's right when poor via and all these people are riding around on horses the British aren't like ah these heroes man these heroes do you know what I'm saying yeah I'll start territory the Spanish did not go

Che Guevara what a hero fighting for his people ah Che Guevara doing his thing you know what I mean history is littered with examples of people who did the wrong thing by the confines of what that current time agreed on and then afterwards the people were like this was for the greater good and so this is why I'm wrestling with it I'm wrestling because it is a complicated thing because I the one side of my brain as Trevor goes amen I don't want to live in a world where someone goes around shooting somebody because they feel like the thing doesn't work the way they would like it to and it's affected them I don't want that you know what I mean and I would argue that's what a lot of let's say even gang violence is you did me wrong I'm gonna shoot you or you know the mob

did you like justice is not a thing we agreed that's there's one side of my brain that says that completely then the other side of my brain goes yes but we don't seem to have mechanisms that work effectively for when large bodies do these things so what do we do someone be like oh what the legal about we've seen it doesn't work so it's like what do people do and I think that's that's why I'm so interested in answering the question because I think CEOs of let's even just stick in the healthcare industry because that's where the thing is aimed by the way it's not like I love how they're gonna try and make it seem like it's CEOs it's like no no no no let's let's be honest yeah the CEO of Ben and Jerry's is fine they don't have to get any extra security none

whatsoever don't try rope CEOs in let's make it industry specific yeah yeah do you know what I'm saying yeah yeah yeah this is like a you this is like a dictator being like us world leaders we have such a tough time getting the people and it's like whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa yeah there's the world leaders you know what Stalin said right which is the death of one man as a tragedy in the death of a million as a statistic right and that's what we're dealing with here you're dealing with the emotions of a person with a name in a face yes and the emotion of that versus the statistic of how many people have suffered as a result and you it's very hard to compare thousands to somebody with a name in a face one is emotional and the other one is rash

yeah and I that's why I think it's important for us whenever those types of things happen I think it's important for us if we if we want to think of ourselves as thinkers we have to then go hmm what is this actually telling us about society like if I was a lawmaker in Washington I'm thinking less about the fact that a person was killed and I'm thinking more about why my population for the most part thinks that it was everything from understandable to great yeah that's what I would be thinking of I've got like ooh the people yeah exactly I think at the base level I understand it do you see what I'm saying yeah so and unfortunately we all understand it that's the thing and now if I'm a CEO of a health insurance company whatever yes as much as I'll think

about getting security the thing I would think is like whoa how do we change with the way we do business whoa whoa whoa wait a minute wait a minute do I want this company to be a thing that the majority of a country wishes death upon whoa you have just defined politics in America which is regardless of who you somebody voted for if you just look at the way people voted and if you don't understand why they voted for it then you don't understand what has to be fixed in America yeah the person who voted for Trump can say I can tell you why I voted and the person who didn't vote for Trump has to be able to say but I understand it yes and I or even I would even say this though I sometimes pose this way to people who who don't agree with that they'll go no I don't understand

how you could because they go because the the Democrats have a more robust policy for doing that and they're gonna bring the poor up here so I go okay let's do it another way then let's actually do it another way I don't force you to understand let's let's do it another way would you agree that this person's concern is real so now let's not say that they did or didn't do the thing let's not let's not say that you like because you'll go like no but it's not true it's uh uh do you agree that there are fewer jobs and people have fewer opportunities and they can't catch up with inflation and towns are you know falling into disrepair and they be coming do you agree with that yes but I Trump's not gonna fix it okay great but at least now you may not let's go before them understand

but you do see that these things are real and I think this is what we struggle with sometimes in life is we don't realize that issues are real politics are an imagined way to solve the issues right but the issues there issues like a pothole it exists the politics is arguing about who pays for the pothole or how we get to fix the pothole but the pothole is very real and so I think sometimes what we do is we don't spend enough time just acknowledging the pothole and we spend more time arguing about why the other person thinks the pothole should be filled with sand instead of concrete but if we just spend a little more time on that and I've said this to any Democrat I meet twos in power or whatever I go why don't you just make your thing like irresistible you know

it's the same way I'll say like Americans as a concept of democracy yeah yeah I'm like just make it irresistible that everybody wants it you won't have to force you know what's irresistible movies have you noticed that you don't have to go to any country and vomit to force them to watch the Avengers have you noticed that you know how you know this Simon people bootleg movies exactly they stay America has never had to fly to a communist country to a socialist they've never had to fly to any of them to force them to watch DVDs on them and be like you watch these movies those people have bootleg them and translated them into their language without you forcing the why because that thing was amazing yeah the film industry made something that was irresistible and

if you make something that is good people will want it right and so I am because Ben and Jerry's is good people will want people will want it and so I go think of it like make everything good so I say as a Democrat if you are a Democrat you go like okay just find the states where you control you you're the governor yeah you are the senator yeah you are the mayor's you're the just make it you you you so then make your state yeah so irresistible yeah that people are like I want my state like that one I mean the going there where I like my state like that one exactly as opposed to saying we could we could because I don't think that the one has to wait for the other and I think that's something that we take for granted is if the thing is good people

yo people are always gonna come for a thing that is good you don't have to force them to believe in it that is a perfect place to end this this was good and hopefully we won't have to force anybody to come to it the problem with talking to you is I never want it to end I have endless energy my brain hurts a little bit and I really love it it's like you know you're good at gym and you get muscle pain you're like yeah it's much good you know that's how my brain feels right now I I and I absolutely love it the feeling is mutual every time I sit down with you I sit at the beginning I sit at the end I absolutely absolutely love talking to you you have an insight into how the world works and how people work clearer than most people in the world such a joy such a joy

such a joy it's really is it's mutual that's why I love sitting with you and no small talk maybe yeah I mean a little bit but maybe maybe that sort of makes our conversation so great is that at some point they have to end and so that constraint constraint is what keeps them being amazing it's exactly if we did it all the time it wouldn't be as fun thank you my friend thank you take care of each other a bit of optimism is a production of the optimism company it's produced and edited by Lindsay Garbenius David Ja and Devon Johnson our executive producers are Henry at a Conrad and Greg Rudershan

Trevor Noah Makes My Brain Hurt

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