Trevor Noah: My Depression Was Linked To ADHD! America Hated Me!

it felt like life was meaningless I would think to myself I hate this this sucks I don't know what I want to do with life anymore and that's sometimes where the depression would kick in but I didn't realize that the depression that I was suffering from was untreated ADHD depression and so I've learned rules now for myself and for anyone out there if you are suffering from this ask yourself a few simple questions Mr Trevor Noah the former host of The Daily Show he gained a massive following for his humorous yet incisive take on politics

and Society I was born to a black mother and a white father in South Africa at a time when it was illegal in the country they were scared the police were going to take me away and then my mother met my stepfather and it became an unsafe household your mother had been shot point blank in the head by this man yeah and from that day onwards Everything Changes you arrive in America to pursue your dream as being this comedian you are very hardworking to say the least which led to you being the host of The

Daily Show but it didn't go so well at first it was absolutely terrible people would just be like go back to where you came from death threat it was really hard but I persevered and I would get home at 9:00 p.m. work until midnight get back to the office at 7 the next day and do it all over again and then The Daily Show went on to become a smash hit but was the cost of it I had made my life about work and I had made everything else secondary and to be honest with you

a lot of people are doing this we've neglected connection and I think we're experiencing a generation of men in particular were not just isolated but not practiced in the art of connecting and it's affecting Society now so those men that asked struggling where do they need to start this is a lesson that I've learned if you're struggling with this so you this has always blown my mind a little bit 53% of you that listen to the show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the show so could I ask you for a favor before we start if

you like the show and you like what we do here and you want to support us the free simple way that you can do just that is by hitting the Subscribe button and my commitment to you is if you do that then I'll do everything in my power me and my team to make sure that this show is better for you every single week we'll listen to your feedback we'll find the guest that you want me to speak to and we'll continue to do what we do thank you so [Music] much Trevor what are the

most important things that I need to understand about your earliest years to understand the man that sits in front of me today well that's that's a tough one because I I feel like my perception of what the most important things are or may not be the most important things I could say it would be my sense of humor and then it might be where the sense of humor comes from which might be my family or my country it might be which schools I went to it might be where I've lived or where I've traveled to

it's a yeah it's it's one of those you know if you ever try to break down a food or or something that you consume and you go like what is the most important ingredient what are the ingredients that really make it what it is it's like is it the crunch is it the assd is it the salt is it the fat is it what what what is it I I don't know I I genuinely don't if I knew then I would be able to either create more of me or or um or maybe like you

know figure out which parts I want to tweak but I honestly don't know the answer to that question I often think of uh everyone that I meet but also myself through the context of like a I guess a similar analogy like a set of ingredients that came together that were then put into an oven and like right the heat was turned on and we were we were baked not to say that we can't be changed after that moment but um what are those ingredients so my mother South African and HOSA woman uh my father's Swiss

from Switzerland but was living in South Africa so those are those are the the parental ingredients you know my grandmother I think is a key ingredient because I spent a lot of time with her as a young child uh my grandfather was a crazy funny man was by polar but we didn't know at the time I think we knew towards the end of his life but it made him wildly entertaining um yeah it's it's it's an interesting and tough one you know because I because I often think as much as we're baked to what you're

saying I think that we're baked but then we are very much a product of the people that we then come into contact with you know so I think of most people sort of like a like a sponge cake like most cakes are very basic most of them and then what really makes them special is what the Baker does to them afterwards you know but the fundamental cake is is is pretty much the same and I think people are like that yeah there's there's certain things you know like you the color of our skin and tone

of voice and all of that but then I think it's everyone we come into contact with that gives us the icing that gives us the the shape that gives us the the dynamic texture that makes us who we are you know and so I I I strangely enough I feel like it's all of these people that I was lucky enough or unlucky enough to bump into that that gave me a little bit of of of that texture and shape and I think that's the same for everyone you know that's that's probably why I'm so um

so conscious of choosing my friends because I I think that's me actively choosing the people who are going to keep shaping me as as I as I live my life I've seen you on TV I've seen you all over the place over the last 10 years of my life but I had no idea of your early context I had no idea and it's funny because sometimes you kind of see I don't know Domino 35 in the all these dominoes that fall but those early dominoes I think often lead a lot of Clues as to the

Domino 35 that we see on oh yeah yeah definitely definitely so for someone that might not know your earliest context like I didn't what do they what should they know to understand you so I mean you know first of all I was I was born and raised in South Africa right um I was born in 1984 so that was you know six years before paride ended born to a black mother and a white father at a time when it was illegal in the country um and it was strangely unique you know I guess because it

was illegal you know so so I grew up in a world where I didn't see many people like me who had my background I I saw some people who looked similar to me but they had a completely different background you know South Africa's racial Dynamics are very complicated and sometimes throw people off especially like internationally you know um um but yeah that I think that's that's one of the you know that's that's the beginning of me and and then I I think you know I look at these ingredients which which aren't necessarily the best in

in in in choosing your starting points but then there would there was there was a series of of Lucky breaks you know the dominoes as you say there was a series of Lucky breaks so one one of those was atite ends you know so apte ends when I'm 6 years old and I I always think to myself about how much that changes my entire life because if if a parts side let's say a parts side went for 10 more years then now I'm 16 and I I haven't been able to go to the schools that

I went to because you know only white kids were allowed to go to them and and you know children of color black children in South Africa were restricted from going to the same schools and weren't allowed to live in certain areas and your your whole life was defined by the color of your skin in and and so that becomes like one of the first dominoes that I didn't have anything to do with that changes my life people that are growing up today aren't aware of what the apartheid is no no no I've had to research

as an adult to make sure I know what it is I was born in '92 so for anyone that doesn't know what it's like to be a child that has a a white father and a black mother growing up in apartheid South Africa where as it says on the front of your book you're considered a crime yeah because your father and mother have different skin colors what does that environment feel like emotionally for you so I was lucky I was lucky in that I think at least on the surface I didn't feel it you know

because one of the most important things I've learned from my upbringing is a child's reality for the most part is defined and created by their parents or their caregivers you know so I I didn't know that my world was strange I didn't know that my mother wasn't legally allowed to have me um you know when when to to to understand the apoide system I always try to break it down for people you know people think of like racism and they go like oh okay it's racism and I'm like no it's it's a it's a it's

a much more Insidious system that was designed to oppress People based on the color of their skin so where America just said this black and and whites and if you had like one drop of blood that was black you were black and it was a very simplistic system the aparte system was a was a culmination of all of the worst ideas from around the world in an around race you know so the The Architects of AP parites explored what the Australians did with the Aboriginal people um they they explored what the Dutch did that's where

the word aparte comes from um they they looked at what the Germans did you know during during um the the the the rule of the Nazis in in Germany like Nazi Germany they looked at they looked at every type of racism including in the US you know they they it's it's crazy how much effort they put into doing such a terrible thing I often joke with my friends and I go if they put that amount of effort into making a great country South Africa probably would have been like one of the most powerful countries in

the world by now because there was a lot of efforts and it it's it's a genius system but just in the wrong direction um so what that meant for me was I could I could be born by by my mother you know I could be the seed of my father but I couldn't live with him we couldn't live with him we couldn't live together he couldn't live in our areas I could you know technically speaking my mother my father and myself weren't allowed to live in the same area that's that's how granular the system was

so I was considered Superior to my mother and then my father was cons considered Superior to me you know and so when I was really young for instance I'm still I'm still an indoor kid and I think a lot of that is because when I was young when I was with my grandmother for instance and my mom was working my grand would lock me in the house I couldn't go outside and play with the other kids I would Escape now and again she'd always tell me stories about how I would like dig a hole under

the gate to go and to go and play with other kids in the street but she was terrified and I thought it was just because she was strict and she loved me but it was because she was scared the the police were going to take me away if they found me running around in Soto which was a Township where only black people were supposed to be and so in the apartheid system this skin color wasn't considered black it didn't your culture didn't matter all that mattered was your shade and and that was instrumental in keeping

people keeping a majority as broken up as possible to ensure that they were oppressing many minorities as opposed to one majority of people so it's it's really complicated I mean and you know you've read up on it but it's it's a it's an infinitely complex system around a a ridiculous idea so you weren't allowed to be seen in public with your mother no no no no not at all and you weren't allowed to be seen in public with your father no no my mom so when I when I go out in public with my mom

she would she would I I don't even know where she came up with this but she would act like she was supposed to be with me but not related to me you know so she would um she would dress up as uh you know everyone has different words for these in different countries but like nanny maid domestic worker and she would just act like she's my caretaker you know so it would look like my parents I guess have hired her to look after me and so that's how she'd move seamlessly with me in the streets

because nobody would suspect it um couldn't be with my father at all in public that was that was just out of the question a second ago you said you didn't feel this environment or at least you didn't feel these things to some degree I I sat with a guy called Gabel mate I don't know if you of course yeah yeah and one of the things Gabel talked to me about from his early childhood was this moment when he was sh where because his he was um Jewish his I believe he's Jewish his mother had to

give him up just for a couple of days two or three days because the the Nazis were going to come and take her away so she thought to save him I'll give him give him up it turned out she was okay so she went back and got him now he cites that moment of trauma of losing his mother just for a little while as being really pivotal to his life but also in the development of his ADHD right and a lot of his sort of internalized shame and when he said that to me I was

quite shocked that even a couple of days away from a parent a subtle feeling of neglect at such such a young age he cites as sort of putting shame into his soul but also being responsible for some of his ADHD in the context that he thinks of ADHD as being this thing where we learn because our environment is so externally stressful we start to avert our attention to to other things sometimes now the reason I say this is because it highlighted to me the chance and the probability that maybe we might not feel it consciously

but maybe subconsciously at a deeper level these things shape us in a way that's harder to spot I I wouldn't disagree with that um I'm sure I'm sure his instance was probably harder if he a remembers it and then B is separated from his mother MH you know I I I'm not an expert in the field but I I think your mom holds a very different place in your life as a child you know I I I think we're wired that way and then I was lucky in that I was I was seeing my dad

does does that make sense so so being in public with a parent is is is not really something of consequence if there isn't that in the world you know and so when I when I think of like how we shape realities I had no other reality to compare it to so it's not like I was seeing other kids thinking oh wow I'm I'm left out there were many other kids you know even when I talk about my story I always say to people don't think of this as a as a as a like a unique

and and special story it's just that I happened to be in a place where people talk to me about it but I am but one story of many others I knew many kids whose dads had been killed by the police or had been arrested by their aparts side police or had left into Exile and so they couldn't be with their dads for other reasons so I in a weird way I used to think I was like the lucky kid I I knew my dad you know my Dad loved me and I I would see this

man and it was so like the the the feeling of that I think at that age maybe wasn't wasn't apparent for me I'm I'm sure I've been more affected by things that happened in my latter years because I was more aware of them but as a child I'm just having a good time I'm spending time with my mom I'm never not seeing her and if I'm not with her I'm with my grandmother which is again normal you know in many cultures all over the world but there was never a moment where I I'm I'm separated

from this person because of the system and she was brilliant to figure out how to do that and so I that's why I say I don't I don't disagree with what you're saying but I think everything affects us and everything can be thought to affect us negatively and positively and you know I I've yet to meet a human being who's had a perfect existence so I'm very careful to then sort of like point to everything as the reason for because everything is already the reason for which does that make sense sense yeah yeah your mother

and your father were they in love in your view oh yeah definitely definitely she eventually married someone else yeah she eventually Mar she well she she was never married to my dad so okay they couldn't get married because of the laws and then I think afterwards my mom was just like well we we are where we are and then I think there was a there was a seminal moment in their lives you know where she became very religious and my dad was not at all and my mom was like well I'm going down a religious

path and and so this is this is my new life you know and he and he was called Abel yeah that's that's my stepfather your stepfather yeah I read about the relationship your mother had with him and it was uh it seemed to be very complicated at times violent relationship yeah yeah it really was do do you understand what that means at that age it's you know it's it's tough it's tough to process because I don't even think I fully know what it means at this age you know like love um violence domestic abuse these

are things that I don't think anyone fully comprehends even when I talk to like therapists about it it's always like a it's a theoretical understanding it's not it's not a fact it's like we think that this and this could be because and this could cause and therefore that could be you know and and and we have Brilliant Minds who think on what this does and how it creates and you know but man I you know I I I will never take for granted what it was like you know for myself and for any other kid

who's experienced it growing up in a home with there domestic violence like it's it's one of the worst things you experience because you live in a world where your parents are like the president in a weird way you know when you're a child your pres your your parents are the most powerful beings you know in your head no one is more powerful than them and if you ever have the the you know the terrible Fortune of seeing your parents most most times your mother being in a position where she's being violently harmed I mean it

it rocks your fundamental understanding of what the world is you know so for me I I mean that's something I still deal with in therapy today you know because I I'm I'm always trying to chip away and trying to understand what is still on me and and what what is callous that I don't wish to be and and then what is too soft or what is like I'm always I'm always trying to understand it because I I don't think there's one concrete um answer for what the experience does to you is there anything still on

you oh definitely I think I think there always will be you know because you know I didn't see ever see that in my home but I can only imagine how much that would have exacerbated my further um my early perception of what a relationship and what love means to some degree so so you see like my my curiosity my question to you then is like when you go you didn't experience it I go but what did you experience and this is this is the weird thing about the mind right is I find whenever whenever I

speak to I mean like brilliant thinkers and you know the therapists and and you know psychologists and all these people what I find fascinating is is how sometimes your traumas or your perception of your traumas is is directly proportional to what you lived in your in your life so in a weird way you might have the exact same experience that I have it's just that mine might have been more physical does that make sense 100% it's an interpretation right it's it's I'm I'm always fascinated by that like by how I can connect with somebody where

in their house it was it was more about like fighting and bickering and people saying things to each other and and shouting and I didn't grow up in that kind of house but then I've met people who did and we seem to be kindred spirits because we've both both experienced fundamentally an unsafe household you know the the feeling of an unsafe household and I think that's something that that many adults are still dealing with or not dealing with but as a child I you know I don't think we're sitting there with a little notepad going

well nothing physical happened here and that was only words and this was because of stress and no we're just experiencing an unsafe environment I only really learn about myself um in this context through my triggers as an adult and then kind of matching the cards there's this game where you like match the cards together and go snap and it was you know me pursuing a young lady the young lady turning to me after me trying to get her to date me for like 3 years and be like let's be in a relationship and then the

feeling I got matched the feeling I had when I was like six or seven and I watched my mother screaming in my father's face I was like and that happened enough times me avoiding romantic relationships oh that's fascinating rejecting everyone the on the minute of connection the minute where we were about to form a relationship rejecting oh this is that feeling from my childhood they're the same how did you how did you match them because the way I would described the feeling was impending prison time time of my life I've seen like prison time was

watching my father sit there passively as as screamed at and thinking why doesn't this guy leave why does he why is he why is he with her and so that's kind of where I formed the hypothesis and once I had something to aim at I could resolve it and I resolved it wow but I I don't know no that's interest you see yeah on on my side it was the other way around it's like I think you know I I think when I looked at how I saw relationships and love in that way it was

like I I I never saw it as like a prison but in a in a in a similar way I think you know in a way that sort of informed my avoidance it was it was more me realizing I don't have an opportunity or I'll never have an opportunity to hurt you if I don't fully give to you you know what I mean so it was a that that's why I say we can be in the same boat but realize we have we have different tickets that brought us here you know the the outcome is

the same but we sort of end up in the same place and so in my world I'm without a doubt um think that seeing a relationship where somebody was hurt because they allowed somebody into their lives affected my ability to allow people into my lives because I was like oh if if that happens to me then what what happens are you a prisoner like are you are you subject and and and you grow up in a world where people just don't seem to take it seriously you know this is still a problem in South Africa

till this day I mean this is a problem in many countries around the world I was in uh where was I recently I was in Amsterdam recently and I saw they had this huge campaign around femicide and gender based violence and it's it's it's it's a problem all over the world where people sort of don't take it seriously you know they call it a crime of passion you know a woman goes to the police and says you know my husband beat me and they go like oh but what but what did you do this is

between you and your husband go home sort it out figure the whole thing out and um I think that definitely left me as a child even though as a child looking at the world going like oh wow okay so the world thinks this is normal then you know then that that means the world won't keep me safe either does does that make sense you went through something that again really really horrific and you got a phone call one day that your mother had been shot by this man yeah and he she'd been been shot point

blank in the head by this man yeah how old were you then 20s when this happened let me think that no I was in my I was closer to my 30s because my younger brother was old enough is to drive but shouldn't have been able to drive so maybe he was like 14 so yeah maybe I'm like 24 at the time somewhere there 24 you get a phone call from him your younger brother yeah saying mom's been shot what goes through your head in that moment when you get a call like that what went through

my head was I knew I knew exactly I knew exactly who did it I knew what had happened I like it's it's you know one of the worst things that comes with growing up in a in a house of domestic abuse and a house where you're dealing with an alcoholic is you become hyper sensitive and you become really good at at predic things you know so I mean my friends know till this day like I'll be the kind of person I'll tell you when we should leave a party before a fight breaks out I'm never

around for the fight because I can I can feel it I can feel energy I can feel and not like woo woo like no I just start noticing people are not having as much fun as they were 20 minutes ago and a few of the guys are stepping on each other and the ratio in the room has gotten bad and the music's not connecting with people I'll just I'll be like it's time to leave you know and I I think that from what I've understood in in in you know in therapy and and working with

people who do the research around this is children start to develop an an acute sense it's like a spidey sense you know you you hear the sound of a car and you know which car is bringing danger to the house you know I would know by the sounds of of the footsteps whether or not my stepfather was sober or drunk just by his footsteps I Knew by the way he would close or open a door I would know whether to be on edge or not and so when I got that call everything in me let

go like it was it was one of the most still is it's like a painful memory you know is is like the first thought I had was damn it it it happened I thought it would but not like this but it it it happened it happened yeah what is the cost you know because you described that spidey sense it almost sounds like a gift and the interesting thing to some degree it can be a gift I think every gift is a curse and I think every curse is a gift and what is the curse that

comes with the gift so the curse that comes with it is I exist in a space where I am too aware of how other people feel you know and and as I've come to understand it what happens to a lot of children who are in abusive households is they develop their hyper sensitivity as a tool to protect the parent because they start in the same way you were saying with your dad why is he just sitting here what happens in in a household of domestic abuse is a child goes oh my parent does not know

when danger is is impending and so I then need to be on alert for them because if if they don't know then I need to be alert and if I'm alert I can keep everybody safe and so you you develop that acute sense you develop you know your nervous system doesn't doesn't rest I would sit in a room and I would I could feel the people and and I still have that I have to like I now have to practice letting that go and so part of it is is probably why I'm a good comedian

but it's like it's like learning when I want to use it and when I don't so learning when to ignore it did you have a choice yeah yeah you do you definitely do you know I think emotions you don't really have a choice about your emotions most of the time but you do you do choose how you react or or how it affects you and so what I'll try and do is genuinely sometimes I'll be even in a conversation I I practice it when it's low stakes I'll be with friends and I can feel the

conversation getting heated and I can feel someone's going to say something that'll hurt somebody else and then what I'll practice doing is just keeping quiet and breathing whereas what I used to do was I would jump in immediately I would jump I would I would interrupt I interrupt interrupt you know and I'll be like be oh did you guys see the and I would diffuse and I'd find a way and I was very good at it I still am but now I'll just breathe and I'll be like well let's see where this goes I know

my friends are not going to hit each other but I now breathe and go like it's not my job to protect everybody um and so I just try and breathe through the feeling and see how it turns out sometimes I even do it as a game to see if I am right because sometimes you're predicting what one of the outcomes and it may not be the outcome you know and and I I then trust that they can also resolve things themselves and that's probably one of the hardest things is as a child because as you

said you're not understanding how your father's a prisoner on this chair getting berated and I as a child am going I don't understand why my mother doesn't understand the danger why doesn't she leave and and why why is she even getting into a conversation with this man he's not sober why is this happening many children experience this and then you you then go this person cannot protect themselves so I have to do it for them and how do did you try and do that sometimes I would I would I would just I just disrupt anything

you know I would I could disrupt a conversation I could I could find a way to to you know sort of like um distracting yeah you know like like Chris Pratt with those with those Raptors in Jurassic Park just find a way to like Snap and you know just pull attention um find ways to it it sounds ridiculous but literally it was it was me just thinking of ways you know do you close a door that then has to be open that then alerts more people to the presence of somebody or or do you turn

the TV up in this way or do you say something to him so that he you know his mood might shift in a certain way do you you know all of all of these things I I was I was thinking of and this is me thinking of these things at the age of let's say 9 10 11 12 you know all the way through and does it ever go the other way where you're also trying to cheer up your mother at all or take care of her spirits or no no um I think my mother's

my mother's gift and and curse has always been the fact that her religion has has powered her through you know and if you know somebody who's very religious you'll know that their connection with God and their purpose pushes them through you know obstacles that most human beings would never be able to survive never never never so there was never like despair on the other side that I could feel from my mom I never felt like I had to like cheer her up you know um the house definitely descended into like a like a doom and

you you could feel there was a there was a palpable sense of tension post what had happened that day you you presumably rushed to the hospital yeah um you arrived there you speak to doctors I imagine yeah did you speak to him did you did you tell the police about him did you call yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean this is all happening in the chaos and the Panic you called him I don't remember if I called him or if he called I I don't remember how it happened did you speak to him after this

event no no and then you find out that there's been a bit of a miracle I guess because the the bullet has missed all of the Fatal parts of that I mean find out is a it's it's it's such a um it's such a drawn out feeling and moment because you know time is weird in that it stands still when you're experiencing the worst of it and it it flies when it's the best of its and so that that moment it even when you say the word you you to find out or go like no

that it what felt like forever was us waiting for the inevitable news that you know my mom our mom was dead like that that seemed like the the conclusion I mean I've watched movies you've watched movies someone gets shot in the head and it's over you know so that was a yeah that that was me grieving it's a very strange experience to have because I grieved somebody I grieved the loss of my mother but then she didn't die but I completely grieved her as if she was gone like I I genu I cried because she

was gone I didn't cry because she was hurt I didn't I was like it's over it's finished every thought ran through my head I was like wow I'm raising my brothers now I was like okay I guess now I'm the head of the household it's amazing like my brain spun in every day I was already now thinking 10 years ahead I was like oh man okay where where are we living what are we doing how's this going to work and you know where's my little brother and what do I tell him and how do I

you know in that moment you you must you're so interesting because you get to see in the most horrific way the fragility of the most important relationship of your in your life to come out the other side and realize how fragile that because you know you talked about our parents almost being these like presidents you also live under the assumption that they're always kind of going to be there yeah and in that moment you got to see that that's not that's not guaranteed yeah and that curse ended up being one of my greatest gifts because

from that day onwards I have never seen my mother the same way you know I I've never like I I every time I look at her I'm I'm grateful that she exists every time I I hold her I like I hold her like it's the last time I she even like pushes me off sometimes like I I hug her hard hug her hard and I hug her for long and I think this is extended to other people in my world to be honest with you is I I I'm very cognizant of the fact that this

thing is is ephemeral I don't know when it'll when it'll disappear so it has made me more appreciative of that I don't assume you know I I I hope and I think there's a possibility that we will meet again you know what does they say in Arabic inshallah God willing I I don't know and it was a bit of a miracle I was reading because you're right yeah no it was in movies you hear someone get shots in shot in the head you never hear that they survive a bullet to their head yeah whereas in

your mother's case she survived it by some yeah that that's where we have to go miracle and that's where we we still joke till this day you know because because my mom's very religious I grew up very religious but very skeptical of of religion or anything really and I was taught to question ironically by my mother you know my mother taught me to question um she still questions things she doesn't she doesn't like follow blindly so so I think I I was I was in this position and I think many of us were where I'm

I'm seeing what I think is is is the end the doctors are saying to me we we're going to try what we can but it looks terrible and then we find out that the bullet entered the back of her skull went through her head and then exited it like it it shattered it went it basically missed the bottom of the brain mhm you know went went past the um you know the spinal cord all the way through and then hit her cheek bone which then deflected the bullet and then went out of her nose so

it like cut off a little piece of her nose but the exit wound wasn't as bad as it could have been and yeah and they the doctors couldn't do anything so there was no brain surgery there was no opening of it it was just stopping bleeding closing wounds and now praying and and the doctor was the one who said miracle and he he said I he said I hate this word because I'm a man of science and I'm I'm a doctor he said but the this was a miracle said this shouldn't have happened like this

and then my mom was like yeah of course of course it's a miracle and of course this is how it was going to happen she like you know my my Lord protects me so he didn't go to prison no no I didn't H how how does how does that so in South Africa um I don't think it's Unique to South Africa as well you know I've when I've traveled to other African countries I've I've learned this is unfortunately true the crime that a man commits against his wife or his partner isn't given the same validity

as if it were committed against a stranger you know the court system doesn't treat it the same the the law is somehow not applied with with the same level of ferocity as if it were somebody else and so in this instance you know they they basically ruled something to the effect of like oh it was his first offense and uh you know would he repeat it or not and it was but it just it was it's it's a failing of the justice system that has meant that many women in South Africa and other parts of

the world don't feel like justice gets served you know you you see it time and time again um you see it in the US all the time unfortunately you know you'll see man kills wife or wife and family and themselves possibly and the case just isn't treated with the same it's always seen as like there like a oh ah that something went wrong or in a in you know in a tragic love affair it's it's always it's always labeled like that and I think that's affected our ability in society to um yeah I think to

treat it the way we should when you described the miracle that that bullet traveled from the back of your mother's head through through her her head and then out her nose it made me think about what we said at the start of the conversation about dominoes and how tight in this case millimeters change the course of your life because as you say the responsibilities you would have then had to assume you see the life you would Everything Changes by millimeters yeah everything changes I probably don't move to America I don't explore the world in the

same way I I take on a whole different role in my life it everything changes what about anger towards him towards Abel oh geez that yeah that's that's been a tough one for me because I I because I experienced every emotion you know I I talk about it in my book like I I've experienced every emotion because I mean fear was the first one the idea that this person could take away you know the life of of someone who arguably I loveed the most um then like rage helplessness um even even like shame feeling like

I didn't protect her like I because I knew from the beginning you know I IAL literally IAL WR writes about this in the book my grandmother would tell us stories of how cuz she had the best memory in the family she would tell us stories of how when I was young when my mom first met my stepdad she like I was I was saying to the family I was like this guy's great and everything but I don't think this is a good idea I don't think he's a good man I don't think we should trust

him I like I was saying this as a child you know and and the the one thing that I think confuses people sometime sometimes when it comes to domestic abuse is that we we think of it as a binary you know so people go like how can these bad men live these lives but they don't we don't realize that often times the moment of bad is a is a you know is is the the explosion but everything around it is charisma and charm and and and jokes and you know and I laughed with this man

most of my life you know had some of my favorite experiences with him as a human being when he was wonderful he was the most wonderful human being you'd ever meet and it it took me a while to to understand how to um how to consolidate those ideas how how to you know how to resolve the fact that somebody who you love someone who treated you with with with with respect and and joy in in some moments was also the person who brought you the most pain you know um so I definitely anger was like

a big one for me I I I I thought everything anger at myself anger at my mom for for staying to to the point that that could happen anger at him anger at the system for not protecting anger just like just everywhere and then anger dipping into pain and anguish and then you know crying it out and then being angry again and then being scared and then just just going through waves and waves and waves of that um and so that that was a lot of my time in therapy and a lot of my time

having conversations with my mom you know and my mom would always always say to me she'd be like you know over time you learn to forgive and I was like I don't think I could ever forgive and she was like yeah she's like but you know forgiving doesn't mean forgetting it means letting go of the thing that the person is holding of you as opposed to you know you it's not you letting them into your life it's not it's just going like yeah that happened I feel for them I understand many of the things that

made them do what they did and then trying to let go of that that that anger that's like burning inside you that rage um and I'm glad my mom did that because in the years since I've you know I've spent more time reading about domestic abuse and learning about domestic abuse and speaking to experts about it but unfortunately there's there's a reason there's the Vicious Cycle you know a lot of young boys who grow up in homes where their moms are abused grow up to then become abusers themselves even though they hated the very idea

of what they were experiencing um and so I to your point I think it's because of that now un unreleased and unrealized anger that they didn't get to express when they were children because they weren't safe and and then now at some point it comes out of them and so I I I genuinely had to deal with that I had to even accept the idea that I was as angry as I was angry and helpless which is a Terri combination for a human being to experience have you forgiven him I think in moments yes I

think I I have I think the the the levels of my forgiveness won't reach my mom's because she was in love with him you know to me this was still a person who came into my life you know he's not my biological father so I think my I don't think I I've ever reached like the level of like pure like I forgive you but I do understand you know I think I understand a lot of it um I think I I think I feel sorry for him I think I um yeah I've learned to come

to terms with it but like pure forgiveness I'd be lying to you if I'm like yeah I've forgiven I'm like no I I think so sometimes and then other times I go like no actually actually I don't that experience has left fingerprints on you in some way oh definitely and how do those fingerprints still show up today in your day-to-day life in your profession oh I I wouldn't I wouldn't know the answer to that question because because the strange thing again I think about the mind is that the things that affect us sometimes may not

be the things that are as obvious to us as we may think you know you can get into a car accident and experience an Ute trauma that you and you know how this affects you and you'll be shocked that many of the other things you're dealing with in your life where you're struggling aren't actually from that car accident they're from like the minute moments in your life where somebody rejected you um you know you weren't chosen to play on on a team as a kid um you failed a test you you were bullied you and

and I I don't say this like dismissively I I say it cautiously I go like oh I I I I would be careful to put all of it on that moment because in in a weird way that moment moment was contained MH you know it came with many other other instances but but yeah as I've sat and explored my my myself and my brain and my my mind in therapy I've realized that some of the things that you think will affect you the most might not they might stay in that in that world and then

there's all these other things that affect you way more than than you would ever think they even have the right to so I I wouldn't know to be honest with you I wouldn't be able to say to you oh I'm like this because of that or I'm like that because of that no I do think appreciate people more you know I um I'm I'm very present when I'm with my loved ones um yeah but other than that I I I couldn't give you a concrete answer that would be that would be genuine you said something

about young men struggling which is um came to mind as you're talking about you being that young man who seemed to be quite confused with a a variety of emotions and um less experience about what the correct Outlets were for those emotions you said recently in fact one of the big things I've been worried about recently is young men and how angry they've become how alone they've become how isolated they've become and then ironically how they've turned the anger isolation into a community there's a couple of words there that seemed to fit the shoe that

would go on your foot anger isolation um as a Young Man loneliness C can you relate to to what young men are going through in the sort of modern world today because the stats on young men is are quite shocking yeah this the mental health stats the suicide suicidality stats the depression stats the stats around purposelessness and I wondered to know how you're looking at young men today I get asked all the time by people that listen to the show they say they've got a young son and the Sun is struggling they don't know who

they are where they belong with their purposes how to make friends is a big one how what what are you seeing when you look out into the world the state of young men so I think I can empathize with a lot of it and I think I can relate to some of it but on my side you know other than the anger let's say I wasn't isolated I didn't feel isolated at all I because because I got to play with other kids and because I was with other kids and because I had my cousins and

everybody I never felt isolated you know so even when I was talking to you about my grandmother I think you used isolated but I didn't because I genuinely never perceived it as that because I was in the home with people it's just they were Granny's so do you get what I'm saying so I didn't feel like isolated in that way um definitely felt like an outsider though which is a different feeling that's adjacent I think it occupies the same lexical field but it isn't isn't the exact same thing you know because isolation I think can

come with it like a a certain Solitude and and certain you know a feeling of like knowing that you are in this thing alone because you are in this thing alone but then being an outside is a different you know it's it's a different type of torture and I think that's maybe what a lot of men are experiencing that I can relate to I think for a long time we've lived in a world where we've told people what they're supposed to do how they're supposed to do it and it was sort of easily realized right

and now I'm not I'm not a I'm not a historian I don't know every you know history that we've gone through but from the little that I've read and and from from the the historians that I have spoken into you know Society goes in these waves and we move through these waves and I think we shouldn't take for granted now that there was a whole generation of young men who were given a purpose by War a lot of war and war is one of the most powerful thrusts of purpose that a nation will ever experience

young men are told what they're supposed to be doing your country needs you you need to go and fight young man you need to protect this country and you're like I need to protect this country now even if you don't want to dodge the draft you've been given a a purpose in a strange way even if you you're like I'm anti-war now you have a purpose your purpose is to be against the war your purpose is to oppose the war your purpose is to spread love and peace the other person's purpose is to survive the

war another person's purpose is to win at the war but you have a purpose and that purpose is powerful and it propels Nations forward you know and then you enter into a period of what we would argue is relative peace and I say relative because there are many parts of the world where there're just like these constant chronic Wars that are waging but for most people what are you what are you doing you know you're sitting in a world where there is no draft and there there is no imminent warn it's it's a choice now

do you want to go to the military or do you not and you don't have to and and then also things aren't just given to you you know you before when your parents were like go get a job it meant there was a job to get you know if your parents like go get a job you you you you could it was almost harder to not get job back in the day than it is now in a strange way because like it was just like this thing you do you know it was doing I sweep

I clean I you know I collect I fix I it was it was so simple and I think now we're living in a world where many young men are are are experiencing a purposelessness because it's sort of like not laid out in any way shape or form and I think we've created such a narrow a narrow scope of what people can do or can't do or you know like we've rewarded so few things that I think we've we've exacerbated the problem you know gone all the times when being a painter a philosopher a you know

some sort of artism is like celebrated in that way you know gone on the days where skills are passed down from generation to generation and it it seems like that that's that's less and less becoming a thing and I from from from what I've been told a lot of it can be tracked back to like industrialization and this consolidation of of um manufacturing you know so an interesting point of this you were talking was is because more women now are graduating with college degrees and because of the equality movement that's that men and women now

are both in the workforce at high level positions I mean even in that there's going to be less jobs available for those men who would clearly before in the past have much yeah and also this is really interesting thing that lady was talking to about my podcast where she said that um there's still a stigma in society that a man is to be the provider yes but in a world where they're less able to get those top jobs to provide and women are earning more which no one's got an issue with at all um there

no one not no one yeah yeah some people have an issue with that that's true yes I don't have an issue I don't think you do but um but it they were referring to it as the you could say the short man problem or the T tall girl problem huh effectively they were saying that women want to date up and to the right which has been shown in the surveys but there's less people up to the right now and so and there was another survey that said 70 or 80% of women want their husband to

be a provider but math the math doesn't math here because there isn't that many men up there anymore so and when you look at the dating stats the sex stats the age in which men lose their virginity now the amount of men that haven't had sex in the last year it effectively looks like just the top 10% of men are having all the fun and the 50% have been right disenfranchised by the system yeah but I so I I I I think about this all the time and I you know I I try and spend

as much time reading thinking and discussing with people who are far more brilliant than I'll ever be and what I've come to realize is we may now be experiencing a culmination of The Dominoes you know we're experiencing The Dominoes of a declining middle class and govern around the world no longer propping up the middle class because anyone who's real about economics knows that like the middle class is an invented thing really and it's governments actively saying we're going to create it right so as that has declined over time and people have sort of created this

illusion that no everyone can just get there on their own Merit and like nothing needs to be created for you we've seen the middle class decline what happens then is there's a gap you know between the rich and the poor then there's another Domino that falls and it's like the consolidation of wealth you know these Mega corporations around the world that find ways to not pay taxes that find ways to pay like slave wages to some people and then sell you a cheap product and then give you credit that you shouldn't get and then put

you in a debt cycle that you shouldn't be in and that's one Domino you know and then politics becomes more polarized and more extreme because of algorithms and the way we say that's another Domino that's another Domino that's another Domino that's another Domino companies find ways as you said to hire fewer people to get more out of them or hire different people that's another Domino and and in a strange way I I think of this sometimes I go you see gifts and curses this is purely anecdotal in my life it's not research but I'm I'm

willing to bet on this and I'm willing to stand by it one of the curses that women experience because of being pushed out of the workplace and being like forced to stay at home and for such a long time was they learned how to find purpose in what most people would consider mundane and maybe even meaningless you know women have found ways to like fill their time with community and with connecting and they found ways to like look after their bodies and and work out and do things and it's different in different communities like knitting

clubs book clubs and just just think about that it's like it takes up your time it gives you a purpose we're going to read this book and then we're going to discuss it and we I mean fundamentally it's nothing but it's something you know and it drives you forward it makes you feel like you're supposed to be somewhere you're supposed to doing you're supposed to be doing something and then when the workplace opened up the women are like oh we can go and work as well and you know I don't know about you but in

school all the girls were smarter than we were in class anyway and so now they're they're comfortably working especially in an office environment which sort of like designed perfectly for them in that in that way and then guys I think we haven't practiced that I don't know many guys I don't know about you I don't know about I don't know many guys who know how to just sit with their male friends and just be not do a thing be like just be and I and I find and I you know I'll be careful in saying

this but I have found that it the the the degree of comfort in just being is is different depending on where you're from in the world so like my friends who are from third world countries developing nations you know whether it's South Africa and we're in the township or whether it's my friends from Trinidad or it's my like in Trin they even have a word for it liming they say they say let's lime and lyming means spending together with no purpose whatsoever that's literally what my triny friends said they're like yo we're going to lime

on Saturday that means we're doing nothing it doesn't mean we're going to go see a game it doesn't mean we're going to watch your we're going to Lime it means your friend is going to come they're going to sit on the couch and you're just going to be you'll talk and then you won't talk and then you laugh and then you won't laugh and I don't know about you but I I feel like guys are we're not as good at that you know like I I I read something the other day that was great and

it was talking about how guys always need the third thing there's always the third thing there's you there's me and there's the third thing hey what are you doing on Saturday um why don't we uh you want to go fishing it's like why why do we need the fishing why can't we just sit like this and be like hey what's what's happening in your heart Stephen what's what's going on what's happening in my heart or let me tell you about what's going on women can do that and some may argue that it's you know maybe

they've been genetically coded but I also think they've been forced to practice that because men were like you can't come to the you know the factory the office the everything for so long long and then women are like all right and I think I think that's another thing that men are struggling with but it's not like their fault it's the Dominos when I was young we used to go to the mall we us to go to the mall and we'd hang out with other kids and then now malls aren't really a thing and then kids

don't really hang out anywhere and everything's become about money and transactions think about how few places you can go to connect with people without money now you know what I mean but when I was growing up it was it was quite common you just went and you hung out with other kids kids and that was just what you did it didn't involve money and I think I think we're starting to experience that Domino affecting Society now do you have money for a video game console no oh then you can't meet up with your friends on

fortnite you know do you have money to to go to a mov no you don't or and movies have gone up yeah you you can't hang out with your friends at the movies can you afford an Uber ride no you can't can you all these things now have meant that I think we're experiencing generation of men in particular who are not just isolated but not practiced in the art of just like connecting with another another male for no other purpose than to just like share hearts and and be human beings I've heard you talk about

how you think where're a sort of continuation of our ancestors and their sort of legacy is that kind of you heard you talk about this before and as you were saying about this idea that women are able to um connect without the third thing it made me think you know I think a lot of women have had that modeled by another the generation that came before them whereas I don't know about you but I didn't have that modeled in my I never saw my dad sit with a guy and that's what I mean he didn't

even talk to us like we didn't even have those conversations I call him by his first name yes and I mean he would even he's like an awkward hugger you know like a guy you might get get the [ __ ] off me but we we don't have that modeled so where do we learn the skill yeah and you'd be weird if you said to your friend well most people be weird if they said we just want to sit down and just what's in your heart yeah to be like what's wrong with you yeah my

my friends treat me like that I still do that now I think they've softened to it you know my friends have sort of um they indulge me um and I think they enjoy it for the most part but like I I do that with my guy friends just be like man let's just take a moment does it come naturally to you just look into my eyes and let's just take a moment well here's the thing funny enough I spent most of my life with women so I spend most of my time my mom with my

grandmother with my grandmother and my grandmother's friends because I was in the house with them I'm just sitting around with these women just like talking and sharing I spent very little time with like the the men in that way so those men that are struggling they they'll probably be hearing you and thinking that you're so far away from them in terms of that ability to be emotionally expressive and just to check in for a lot of them it's uncomfortable yeah um what is it they need like where do they need to start is there a

place to start I think it is difficult but I also think we have tools to make it easy you know so I'm I'm I'm very hesitant to very quickly just say to every man hey go out there and be vulnerable and whatever because the the sad truth is a lot of guys have punished a lot of guys for being vulnerable and being themselves and we have to acknowledge that as well you know there's so many times when a guy will go to their friends and say man I'm sad people like sad oh what are you

[ __ ] oh look at the guy sad what do you me she broke up with you come on get out there man and now all of a sudden the circle that you had that you thought was protecting you has revealed to you that if you show your vulnerability you're ostracized from it it's not safe yeah so you don't want to be there and then sometimes it even turn into a fight you know now all of a sudden people are slapping you or hitting you or punching you because you've admitted that You're vulnerable and so

I I think I think that's another place where young men struggle is like we have to maintain this bravado and then we see all these these influences online who keep telling us like yeah you're a tough guy that's all you got you got to be a tough man you got to be a tough man that's what you got to do never once are they saying to you like yo what do you feel how do you get rid of those feelings or how do you deal with them how do you process them who's your friend that

you can like literally sit with and cry with do you have one but I do think we have tools you know I I think again you know gifts and curses the curse of the online world is that it affords everybody anonymity and so they can be the worst of themselves I think the gift is also the anonymity you know I think a lot of people will be shocked at how you can connect to a person online in like a really honest and beautiful way because you you you're safer in a way you know I I've

I've made some of my best friends playing like war zone you know when like when the pandemic hits I was like God everyone was playing war zone I was like I'll jump on I'm not really like an FPS guy and I jumped on and I was decent at it but I made friends playing this game and would talk to people and you'd regularly meet with them and some people were [ __ ] but a lot of them weren't and the ones who weren't I would relink up with and we'd play and then it goes from

talking about the game and talking about your loadouts and then all of a sudden you're talking about your family and your life and how are things and how's your week been and how's work been and what's going on with your boss and that promotion and that and to this day one of my friends one of my closest friends a person who are like considered like a brother to me is from that video game I never knew what he looked like all I knew was what he sounded like and we we like know each other because

we we explore a world that was full intents and purposes fake and yet the most real experience that that that that we could have and I think you know I look at like Reddit for instance I think Reddit is one of the most beautiful communities I've ever seen where a guy can get on reddits you can write a post and you can say anything you can say I'm struggling with this I'm having suicidal thoughts I feel like I don't have a purpose I feel and you'll be shocked at how many other guys will jump on

and go hey man I'm in the same boat hey I'm also struggling I I'm also sad I I also my parents I don't have a good relationship with them I you'll be shocked at how that Community comes around you because there is the safety of knowing that you're not exposing like your name and your face but you are exposing the thing that's inside you and so is it a shame that we can't do that in person as well oh yeah definitely I think it's it's the biggest thing that's limiting men you know I think it

truly is it's one of the biggest thing that's limiting men in society is that we don't we don't have an outlet for our emotions we don't you know so if we if we're not fighting or competing then we're just bottling it comes with a cost doesn't it if you bottle things yeah yeah it does it never really stays inside the bottle it's like the bottle's got a hole in it or something yeah exactly you said something I really related to which is you said you didn't feel like you belonged when you're younger and I wondered

when I was reading you you say this in your books and in other interviews you've done if that was at all related to your skin color I'm assuming it was in part but um I I grew up with the exact same feeling like there's there's a reason why I don't know anybody from my hometown where I lived for almost until I was 18 years old wow because I just always felt like we were different we were all we were always different everyone's white We're the black poor family and Al we just talked different I had

different ideas of the world and dreams and um but even now I still don't feel like I I belong I was with so where do you feel like you most belong then no like almost nowhere no but where do you most belong there's got to be a place where you feel like you most belong well I'm alone oh oh wow that's when I feel like I'm that's when you can truly be whatever the [ __ ] you want to be maybe yeah maybe when I'm alone I guess that's when you feel like you you most

belong okay let's take it away from alone I'm saying with other people or even in a place is there a city you go to is there a group that you're amongst is it you're telling me there's no way that you go to where you think to yourself wow I I belong here I definitely not a city um I'd say maybe when I'm with my brothers at Christmas um just because they also didn't really fit anywhere so we kind of all don't you know and they kind of I think that's the only thing but there's a

lot of people that don't feel like they belong and they're trying to find their place in the world you were a kid from South Africa that didn't feel like he belonged have you found your place in the world so I haven't I haven't I I just find places and moments where I feel comfortable and and and and I feel like I'm yeah I feel warm is the best way to describe it and and this is a lesson that I've learned actually if if you're struggling with this it may not apply to everybody but I think

it can help sometimes the feeling of being alone is exacerbated by the fact that you are trying to connect with people based only on you and yourself you know so you go I'm alone I don't feel like I belong and then you want to go meet somebody and you and you're just like I hello I'm me do I do I belong to you do you belong to me and they're like what who are you what are you doing here you're weird like you and we we we don't know how to belong and how but what

I found works wonders is finding things you enjoy focus on finding things you enjoy like like things that you like doing MH activities and I mean anything running um playing a sport uh reading like any activity with your hands you fishing fishing find it find the thing that you love find it I want to really I want to show you some um some graphs that I was I was just thinking of um as you were speaking I'll put them on the screen for anyone to look at but have you seen these grass before have you

seen those graphs before people keep us oh yeah I've seen I've seen something similar to this yes in terms of our age and then who we're with in our lives yeah and I was particularly looking at the friend graph there yeah so the amount of time you'll spend with different people as you age and it when I first saw this it was really really shocking to me and actually this graph changed my life a lot because it made me realize that if I if I don't do anything the sort of five best friends that I

have yes will drift away from me yeah and I I I saw this in your story that your relationship with friendship and connection has evolved over time yeah what has that Journey been like if you take me back from when you left South Africa you you arrive in America to pursue your dream as being this comedian how did your priorities shift as it relates to friendship and connection I think because I spent so much time alone as a kid I loved other people you know what I mean I loved being alone I love spending time

by myself but man I I when I can dig a hole under that gate and like connect with other kids I'm in heaven and when I when I became a young adult and I and I was and I was starting to work I really appreciated the people who would come into my life and what they would teach me and you know what what what they would remind me of myself which is like an important thing to me I think I think fundamentally that's what great friendship is is somebody who sees a part of you that

you wish to grow more of and then every time you're meeting with them they're encouraging it and they're they're reminding you of it you know and that's why I warn people about bad friends because a bad friend can do the same thing you know like if I say to you like think of think of the kid who bullied you in school think of that kid who was really mean to you yeah I bet you if you met them to I don't care how successful you are on this podcast there's a little bit of that kid

that got bullied that they still have oh 100% you know what I mean 100% like this there you go and Where I Stood when he called me the N word exactly exactly and it's amazing how that happens to us but it's because they they they hold us in a moment you know and some people hold you in a negative moment and some people hold you in a positive moment there are some friends I can think of where no matter what is happening in my life if I meet them I'm smiling I'm thinking I'm being creative

I'm laughing I'm loving I'm sharing I'm feeling I'm I can't control it you know it's not something that I'm actively trying to do because they are constantly seeing that part of me that I wish to encourage and so how do you define a bad friend like how do you know how do you spot one I don't think you spot them I think you feel it you know and I think it's a lot easier for us to spot than we think it is one of the easiest ones is can you be yourself you know sometimes they're

not a bad friend they're a bad friend for you because you are not revealing yourself to them and so they are being friends with the idea of you but they're not being friends with you and then you leave thinking I don't feel good but they don't even know you so you can't blame them for being a bad friend you know I I almost don't think there's such a thing as a bad friend I think you're just in a bad friendship you know you you because they could be a great friend to somebody else so I

wouldn't even Define them as being a good or bad friend I just go this is a bad friendship for you MH and what I learned very early on was like the value good friendships you know and I I learned because of my mom I remember once I was um this was I was 1920 I just finished high school so I was yeah I was 19 and just finished high school and I spent all my time hanging out with like friends of mine in in the hood you know and that's we just did nothing the whole

day we got up to mischief and we like how do we make money how do we hustle how do we do these things and then my cousin went to University and then I because his university like had this like open-ish policy you could just hang out on campus all day and so I started hanging out with him on campus pretty much the whole day when he wasn't in lectures and then I I went home one day and my mom was beaming you know I walked in with my cousin and my mom was like oh how

are you boy and she's so happy and she's like oh nice to see you and and she said oh I'm so happy I'm so happy that you guys are spending this time together and I said why are you so happy and my mom said because you you spend all your time at at the University and I said to my mom I was like Mom I don't go to university I just hang around and I do nothing and she said yes but the people you are hanging around and doing nothing with will inspire you to do

more with your life because they're doing something with it and I was like what and she said to me she was like you cannot be around people who are moving and not wish to move whether we like it or not the people around us are affecting how we see ourselves and how we wish to be seen and that stuck with me I don't think I took it immediately but it definitely stuck in my brain and the friends that I have today are still I have new friends you know as I grow in life but the

friends that I have today my core group of friends you'll see them with me at the Grammys you'll see them sometimes like when i' be like you know backstage at The Daily Show you'll see them with me at random events in the world you'll see them backstage at my comedy shows you these people have literally been with me on a journey where they've got their own lives but our Journeys have been intertwined because they always make me want to be more and do more and grow more and change and and I think I do the

same thing for them and we're constantly challenging each other and and encouraging each other and playing with each other and and and that that has been I mean that's been immeasurable for me you know that that's I even value that more than I do like let's say success on the subject of success friendship sacrifice the moment when you come to the United States um you are very hardworking to say the least in fact when we sat down you know you've flown from Portugal to where was it Seattle Seattle to Vegas yeah then here to New

York in the last couple of days or say yeah it's four days I think in to yeah yeah four days you don't have to do that you don't have to do that I mean you don't I mean I don't know what's in your bank account but I would haard a guess that you don't need the money so I often wonder what is it that's driving you today someone said to me the other day on the podcast they said they referred to my driving force in my life as potentially being toxic Fuel and I've never had

the phrase toxic fuel before but the definition of that is this sort of combination of seemingly negative forces that pushes you to to prove something whether it's to yourself or to others or okay and Sh shame is a big part of that you see it a lot I think with first generation immigrants when they come to a country they they know what it's like to be without so they're driven by this toxic fuel how does that land with you and it can you relate to any of that at all I can but I don't think

that's been my case um if you spoke to me 3 four years ago and you said Trevor you went to Portugal you went to Seattle you went to Vegas and now you're in New York and it would be yes because I went to work here I went to work here I went to work there and I went to work there you know now I was in Portugal with my friends that's why I was in Portugal you know I was in Seattle because I was working I work with Microsoft but it's like on it's like a

passion project you know I get to work on Tech I get to explore technology and ideas and work with engineers and you know just enhance my mind and then I was in Vegas doing work and then in New York I'm having a conversation with you but this is not like in a work world so I go like oh I'm going to have a great conversation with you and I also love being in New York cuz my friends are here and this is technically where I live so like if you if you said to me let's

do this interview not in New York I would have said no but because you chose a city where my friends are I can I'll say yes to you and it didn't used to be the case so now I have made one of the like determining factors of how I live my life I think of it through the lens of friends first because I think that Community is literally the most important thing in everybody's life not just my life everybody's life I some people be like my family I'm like hey you think that and it is

true but as you said on the grph you'll see at some point you're going to get old and your kids are going to go off and live their own lives and do their own thing and then you're going to be shocked at how it's you and your spouse if you're lucky and you all of a sudden you're alone and you're like where are all my friends where are all these people but friendships are you know they're they're little piggy banks you're putting money in and they're putting money in yours and every now and again you

get to break them open and enjoy what's inside but that's the most important thing that's that's how that's my like literally That's My Success now now yeah that's my success now before it was just because I loved solving any puzzle that somebody would put in front of me that's all that drove me and that's that's a lot of what still drives me now I just love puzzles and what was the puzzle that brought you to America oh so the puzzle was can somebody host The Daily Show when they're like not from America and you know

it's like just all these things can can you even do it can you go host a show in America like well this is a crazy puzzle seems impossible so let's try it was money or fame or anything part of that cuz Fame is often associate with a form of like validation no no no that's the curse of what I do I often say to people I you know I I'm unlucky that a part of my job comes with Fame I don't like that part of my job why because I I don't need it nor do

I want it what's the cost of it the curse oh I mean you I'm sure you're starting to experience exper this in many ways in your life but like it's people will never appreciate the Beauty and the and and the Tranquility that comes with anonymity the the ability to write your story whenever you meet someone you know when when you meet a stranger let's say you're at a bar at a restaurant in a train station wherever you can look at somebody and you can say hello my name is and you can tell them who you

are and what we never seem to realize as people is every time we meet a new person we are writing our story from the beginning and from that moment in time you know and and you think about this like I think of it through the lens of like like characters characters sometimes I go like if Luke Skywalker met you before Luke meets you know Yoda L what is Luke Luke is just like some random dude who lives on like a Dusty planet hi my name is Luke I live on a Dusty Planet you meet Luke

many years later like Luke's like hi I'm a Jedi what a different way to live as Luke and what a different way to be you know and and I think that's the beauty sometimes that we have of of that we take for granted as people is the ability to rewrite a story or to write it from a different perspective because we've moved on and we we've gone somewhere else when you are now known your anonymity is gone people have a different idea of what privacy you deserve ve or don't deserve um I've had many friends

who won't go out with me in public because they go hey man I want to have a meal and not be disturbed I want to wear whatever clothes I want to wear without worrying that they'll take a picture of me standing next to you and then I'll look terrible or you know I don't want to think about these things and I get it I get where they're coming from you know I I I think many of the the downsides of Fame are the facts that as my mom even puts it you are now owned by

the world you know people have this idea that no matter what day you're having you should engage with them no matter who you're with you should afford them the time and I understand it from their perspective because for them they seeing you and they're encountering you what a beautiful experience you know but it's hard for us to imagine that that person is just having a day you know I I remember once joking uh with an ex of mine and I saying it's amazing how like when we're having like dinner or lunch in public we can't

even tell like an animated coners story to each other because if someone just sees us from far it look like we fighted you know so now we're sitting there and I can't be like yo this guy I was like and if someone takes that picture and goes like Trevor no fighting with his and it's like no and and that becomes a thing in your world and now friends are where are you fighting and other people you'll be shocked at how pervasive it is and I think it's why so many um celebrities or famous people or

people in the public eye have lived very depressed lives have lived lives where they're isolated have lived lives where they don't leave their homes and you know and then you find them you know passed out in their bathtub overdosed on something think about how many times you've heard that story a really famous person has died you never hear that they've died in public you never hear that they've died while with their friends no it's always them alone in like hotel room yeah hotel room a bathtub you know a hot tub but it's always like a

such a solitary like ending for somebody that the and then the whole world cries for them and with them it's like oh I can't believe this what what do you oh this is so sad and I'm like yeah because you'll be shocked at how lonely being well- known can actually be because it means you can never be alone in many places and that's where I think core friends are very important you said in there that you what they don't know is that you're human and that you're going through life in all the same ways as

everyone else yeah well no not in the same ways but in different ways and I think that's that's the you know I I you talk about awareness yeah I'm very careful I you know I and maybe it's because of how I was raised as well very careful to not make it like a woe is me thing I'm not like Fame has hurt me and it's harmed me and you know there are many things that have come with it every gift is a curse you know but but many of the things that I came with I

did not want nor did I need I like waiting for a table at a restaurant I genuinely do and I don't mind that you know I I don't care for I've never been somebody because my friends have always been the thing in fact one of the days I learned the lesson in in in one of the most practical ways was I love I love roller coasters and I love going to theme parks and I used to go with my friends and you do the usual thing you stand in a line for an hour and then

you ride for like 60 seconds and then you walk for like 30 minutes to the next one and then you do it all over again and I loved it and then one day I was going to a theme park and then the theme park knew I was coming and now as the host of The Daily Show and they're like Hey listen um we heard that you you're at theme park we would like to take you around to all the rides and there's like no skip you skip the lines and you you get to ride as

many times as you want and I was like this I was like this is it The Daily Show has paid off finally finally all the death threats are worth it and we went and we rode on the rides and we were just manic we did every I mean we did every ride that you couldn't do in a day and we we finished a park would probably take like let's say 8 to 10 hours to finish we did it all multiple times in like the SP span of like 3 hours I had a headache my friends

were dehydrated we had had seldom a conversation amongst us we and it was so strange getting back in the car and this felt like the most depressing theme park experience we'd ever had and we got back to the house and I guess because my friends and I like doing this we we sort of tried to understand and analyze what have gone wrong we're like why do we feel like this and we came to the conclusion we're like oh we assumed that the theme park we love the theme park because of the roller coasters what we

didn't realize was we love the theme parks because it forced us to stand in line for an hour as friends and just be and we just talk this literally you can't do anything else you have to stand there for an hour and just like talk to each other and then you hear people screaming and and they've designed them now like once I did that I started like learning about theme Parx and how brilliant ones do this to you on purpose they make you wait in certain ways and in certain places and then the screams of

other other the writers make you anticipate something and become excited and and it's all the ingredients for like living a good life I feel is instead of chasing like what seems like the exciting roller coaster thing you spend your time with the people you love and you look forward to amazing things that you're going to do hopefully with them or maybe just for yourself and then when you get there you enjoy it and then on the other side you take a long walk and you commiserate and you share the experience with each other and you

get to process what has happened to you so that when you do it again it becomes novel and interesting and beautiful and and and so that's that's like where I realize like the downsides and the upsides and the I so I I appreciate many of the things that have come with my life don't get me wrong but I I won't lie to you I have as much fun in a comedy club with 70 people in it as I do in an arena with 12,000 people in it in fact I have more fun in the comedy

club it's so paradoxical that adding friction to an experience can make the experience better but that's kind of what you've described and as you were talking about it I was thinking about this study I read ages ago where they took one group of people they they had this Bor boring Community Forum yeah and they took one group of people and they let those people straight into this boring Community forum and then they asked them in a survey after how was the community and all the people said boring and they took another group of people and

they made them wait to get into the forum they made them complete tests and go through this rigorous process to fight to get into the forum the people went into the same forum and then in surveys after they described The Forum as being so much better that's than the people who weren't made to go through the The Gauntlet to get in and it's this idea that friction adds value to the thing we like fight for it like the 40 minute queue is what makes us so grateful for the the roller coaster and when you get

robbed of that because you get to play Life in Easy Mode or exactly that's exactly what it is that's the curse yeah it's crazy but also yeah the point about connection I never thought that so much of the enjoyment of going to the theme park is standing there and just small talking being for an hour with my friends it's just being you mentioned the word death threats on The Daily Show yeah when you did get on to the Daily Show which was a real first for a show like that um it didn't go so well

at first oh yeah it was terrible I didn't realize this I was looking at the stats and I read that there was it was absolutely terrible it was like man was it was you know when they say be careful what you wish for because I was like oh I'd love a challenge and this will be an interesting and oh oh it was a challenge it was absolutely terrible because I stepped into a role that I quickly learned wasn't just a position but it was it was almost um it was almost I don't know how like

it was like a Post in a way it was it wasn't just like you're hosting a show no no very quickly learned like John Stewart to many people you know he was the most trusted man in America and he there was the voice of a generation and he you know the politicians who sort of Look to Him and they're like well what would John Stewart think and wow I mean that that was and even if you remove the legend that is John Stewart's just taking over any show comes with a moment where people don't like

no one likes change you know so like when Johnny Carson handed over people weren't happy you know when when when Leno Handover people weren't happy it it always happens is race an element in this I'm sure for some people and but I think it's you know I'm careful to say like it's about race and I think it's more it's all the things that make you different yeah you know so me being different in my color to John Stewart probably makes a person feel like I'm more different to him when I'm sitting in the in the

desk the show has changed the show has been really yeah and and I that I love if there's one thing I love it's understanding or trying trying to understand human beings cuz I think we we're very complicated but we're also simple at the same time and that was a wonderful moment for me to like learn like wow even people cuz these people who were hating by the way it's not like these were conservatives or anything those was like liberal people who are you know and some of the things they were saying to me in emails

or like on onlineemail yeah yeah oh yeah people they'll they'll find ways but you I I would sit there and be like wow you really hate me I've done nothing to you but you hate me but then I realized no you hate the idea of me and you hate what I've done to your world I'm the I'm the representative I'm the idea of how your world has changed here's this idea that you've loved John Stewart he's now gone and I am the reason he's gone even though that's not the case I am the reason he's

gone and because I'm the reason he's gone you are now Angry death threat oh yeah but I mean that was extreme and you you get that because the Daily Show is involved in politics you know or we comment on politics rather and and and when we do that man you know people would just be like you go back to where you came from you you know who who how dare you and you're coming here and end with this and blah blah blah and blah blah blah again my gift and my curse was that I came

from South Africa so I know like top quality racism so you know like when I came to America and like people were saying these things to me I was like oh oh I was like okay this okay this interesting you know but but it it was really hard and I'm lucky that I had the people I had making the show with me because they really really really taught me or I learned from the experience that you genuinely you cannot choose what's going to happen to you but you almost definitely can choose who you're going to

handle it with and that is the only thing that I now do in my life and it determines everything I will take a [ __ ] job if I'm going to work with great people because a great job with the worst people is not going to feel great on the other side of it you know and and even thinking of it makes me happy I think I think about the terrible times we had together in that building you know like reviewers hated us and people calling for the show to be canceled and and we were

just like there commiserating trying our best and doing our best and and now when people see it as a success story they go like oh you won the emys and you you know and it was this and was successful and then the digital footprint of the show changed everything and all of a sudden you you know these billions of Impressions and whatnot so yeah that came afterwards and now that's that's easy to see as an end product but when we were in the trenches there was there was none of that you know what was if

I was a fly on the wall in the worst day in the trenches is there a day that Springs to mind a day where you make maybe considered reconsidered your decision a day where you you didn't want to get out of bed I was reading the stats around this to give people show had lost 700,000 viewers a night when you first took over by the every night don't say like that no no no you just made it sound like like we lost them every every night not every night it's from interv you GQ so I

know I know and by the H 100th um episode it had lost 37% of its viewers listen it went on to become a Smash Hit across this digital no no but you're right but I think that's important I think it's important context cuz I didn't know that I just watched the show I saw it on social media and I thought he's killing oh no man no it was it was a it was a mission uh yeah and there were there were many days again I mean I'm just so grateful and I'm so lucky there were

days where I remember there was one day we like made a joke on the show not even on the show no someone on the team had tweeted something on the show account and now there were like articles written about it and they were like this is why Trevor Noah shouldn't be the I wasn't even the person who tweet it's the show accountant but I you know I'm not going to come out and be like that's not me we're a team whatever my name is on the show and I remember turning to um one of the

writers Dan amyra who's still the head writes at the show and um I said to Dan I was like man I like I think I should just quit I was like it'll just be easier for all of you because you guys were having a great time I come along I've made your lives terrible like I should just quit I should just go you know and then I'll never forget Dan he just he just looked at me and he's he's very dry one of the funniest human beings you you'll ever a meat really dry in his

delivery and he looks at me and he goes but if you leave this thing might get shut down and then I don't get lunch anymore I said I'm sorry what I'm like pouring my heart out here and he's like I like the lunch here you you can just what what are you talking about and he and he said it to me in such a like matter OFA way and I remember being stunned and I looked at him and he said um how do he say it to me again I don't know the exact words but

the sentiment was basically he said he said these people don't like you right and I was like yeah clearly and he said so if you leave are they going to like you I was like no then he's like so if leaving won't make them like you and staying won't make them like you I want to just stay he's like because I like working with you so just stay and that was just like one of those many moments where you know you talk about millimeters it was just him saying to me just stay just stay and

I stayed and now everything seems obvious but that building was full of people who told me to just stay that building was full of people who were like I know one of them was John Stewart like I'll never forget like John one of the best things he ever did for me was it's almost like he predicted this that's why I call him Yoda I call him my Jewish Yoda you know because we we have this relationship where it's like like I came into this order where I was learning this new thing called you know like

the force and being a Jedi and it seemed impossible and he was this ordained figure in a way but I remember he he called me into his office one day and he said to me he said I want to I want to show you something and he showed me an article that someone had written about him leaving the show like he was you know because he was this was just before he left and the article was like why John Stewart cannot leave the show and why American needs him and why John Stewart has to and

it was just this effusive article about like the 10 ways that John Stewart is the heart of American Pol he cannot leave and John showed me that and he's like huh and he's John's like doesn't take himself seriously at all so John was like huh and I was like yeah and he's like huh huh and I'm like yeah congrats you you crushed it he's like no no I crushed it I'm important to America and we laugh and then he goes hold on now and he types something in and then he pulls up an article from

like years ago years and years and years ago but it was like not wait it wasn't that far it was like it was like three years prior two years PRI so he was like at his prime but it was like two three years before that and it was like why John Stewart needs to leave The Daily Show it's over for him he's the worst of America it's he's not good for this country was this whole article just like slamming him and he's like you see and I was like oh yeah I guess you know things

he's like no no no you're not looking at the right thing and he's like look who wrote it and it was the same journalist so when John was in they were like this guy needs to leave and then when John was leaving they were like oh this guy needs to stay and he looked at me and he said to me please understand that to me he said to many people I have I have always been obvious but he said I know my road and I wasn't and he wasn't you know when John took over the

show Craig kilborne had been the previous host people thought John couldn't do it if you said that today people would burn you at a stake be like are you crazy what do you mean John Stewart can't do it that's what people said about him and he was one of the those people who said to me he like hey man I've been there and maybe people don't remember it because it we like pre- internet but he was like put your head down and this is part of the journey and I leaned on him I leaned on

the other people and it was just like you know just like a slow you know boring slog you know filled with many funny and sad moments and then one day it seems obvious to to people from the outside and when you go home on those days and you're alone in your apartment or at home in your house and you're not around the guy that wants the lunch and the the colleagues at work what is that like I read that you're someone that suffered with depression periodically throughout your life your adult life as well were you

suffering in that period when you were alone I didn't realize at the time that the depression that I was suffering from was ADHD depression it wasn't like depression depression and I I've learned since that there's a difference so I I related to many ideas in and around depression but I remember been confused cuz I was like I'm not depressed perpetually but I I definitely experienced these moment I didn't know that ADHD can do that to you I didn't know that it can be like a byproduct of untreated um ADHD and not knowing that you have

ADHD so that's just like a sort of like a footnote there but um but it's funny you say that when you went home and you see I wasn't alone and that's probably the reason I survived so David was with me every single day he had moved from South Africa we started like a comedy night together that's how long we had been working together so we would walk out of that building together on the hottest nights in New York and on the coldest nights in New York and we would go back and we live together in

the same apartment and then we'd open like our notebooks and we'd be like all right what could we have done better and we would just sit there and we'd be like what could we have done better and we'd get home at like 88 or 900 p.m. and then we'd work until midnight go to bed get back to the office at 78 the next day and do it all over again and then we'd come home in the evening be like what were the wins what could we have done better and we would just do this over

and over but I was never alone and so I never think of it you know that's that's why I wish like more people would share their stories in that way is because I think we live in a world where so many people sell an idea of perseverance as an individualistic Pursuit when it's not I think too many people forget the pets on the back and the hugs and the encouragements and the load liftings they forget all of it they see their suffering they see their success and then they go out and sell to the world

how you got to persevere let me tell you what in the darkest times let me tell you what I did Stephen I looked at myself in the mirror and I said Trevor you're going to do it Trevor you're going to be the man at The Daily Show you're going to yeah but everyone forgets they're like no your friend was there going like man do you want to go get some chicken wings let's go get some chicken wings there was somebody accepting you despite your failure there was somebody who was reminding you of that part of

you that you always wish to be which is somebody who can solve a puzzle is somebody who enjoys what they're doing is somebody who perseveres but they're they're looking at that side of me and so I wasn't alone was me it was David was Joseph opio guy who was random is now one of my best friends a writer from Uganda who did The Daily Show like a version of The Daily Show in Uganda what a like this weird world coming together you meet us today you'll think we've known each other our whole lives but he

was also he was just there and he's like I Believe in Us he's like I think we can do this I think we can do it I think we can do it and but if you were going home alone oh then I wouldn't be here with you I I I will put all my money on that I would not be here with you but I don't even think I would have taken the Daily Show I wouldn't have done the Daily Show when you say you wouldn't be here with me what do you mean by that

oh you wouldn't be calling me here to have an interview with me because I wouldn't have done the things that I've done because I couldn't have done them alone because nobody could have done them alone nobody has done the things they've done alone you know like everyone I've seen people tell these stories of climbing Mount Everest and Maya sent and my yo all those sherpers that went with you let's talk about them no one's climbing Everest alone no one's discovering you know the the the South Pole alone no you weren't in fact the the person

who was the guy who like like first navigated the South Pole was led there by somebody you know what I mean all these stories that we tell self-made oh I love that phrase it's my favorite self-made billionaire oh really oh it's an interesting choice of words so you just did this all by yourself huh you made the thing by yourself with your hands you made many more of them by yourself you drove the trucks you thought of all the ideas you put it in the stores you gave it to the people you took the money

you invested it you grew it all by yourself all by yourself all the ideas were from your head all by yourself and then you got there all come on there's there's no such thing and I don't think it diminishes your achievement I just think it's important because it helps people understand that they need other people to get to where they're trying to get to and maybe sometimes the reason you're not experiencing that is because you're trying to do it alone I hear people all the time go like I'm gonna put my head down and I'm

GNA I'm going to crush it okay alone good luck good luck and I think it creates an unrealistic expectation for people people who studied together in school got better marks there was just like a simple thing that we learned in our school when I was growing up if you had a study partner you just learned more the idea of the sherpers is such a good analogy because the sherpers never really get the credit in the story they never mentioned in the article but they're lifting most of the bloody weight and they're literally keeping you alive

yeah they've ascended Everest more than the most celebrated Everest Ascender how are they not the ones it's the equivalent of finding out that like somebody ran carrying you same bolt but then we don't consider them the fastest man alive yeah you know and and so I I don't know that so I I'm I'm always cautious to think of that because it doesn't like I say it doesn't diminish what you've done but man you're not doing it alone and that and to to realize that I think helps you to understand why it's important to have those

people and why it then brings Joy why did you leave The Daily Show because the moment you left the Daily Show you'd won these huge Awards the show was had caus this sort of digital Revolution which we hadn't seen before where the The Daily Show had become you know from my experience of The Daily Show was much more of an online show than had ever been before um most of the time I watch The Daily Show I'd be watching it on YouTube or I'd be watching it on clips that were going around the internet and

you know the billions and billions of views it was they doing it that point why would someone leave that situation I don't know why someone would leave it why did you leave it because it it was time it was just time how'd you know I don't know that's that's something I've always felt I've known in life life and I don't know why like the fight yeah but but not in a negative way this is this is more okay so so here's the thing I think part of it comes from where I am from and maybe

you'll relate to this as somebody from from the UK in South Africa TV shows end we've never had a TV show except maybe like one soap opera but we've never had TV shows that run for 10 Seasons or 20 season that's not a thing it it ends and it doesn't end because it's bad it ends it just ends and I I look at some of my favorite creates of things you know like I look at like Seinfeld they were like all right it's done the network was like we can we can give you more we

can do more they're like yeah but we it's done we we just feel like it's done you know sometimes things can be done and and for me I think there were there were multiple reasons you know one was definitely the pandemic I took for granted that the pandemic was a moment where many people were forced to be at home but then you know the the silver lining of that terrible period for many people was that they got to like just like pause for a moment you know many people will tell you the story of how

they're like man during the pandemic I just like paused and I you know we didn't I didn't I was making the show from home and I was I was just going at it and I I I'm I'm really glad and I'm Lu that I got to do that because it it sort of shielded me from some of the panic that came with the pandemic of what are you doing what are you not doing where's life going I was just like I'm just doing my show I'm just doing the show I'm doing the show I'm doing

the show find a way to do it from home shoot it using iPhones we didn't even have like cameras we didn't have a crew we didn't have anyone it was just me David cuz he lived in the same building and then the other David and it was just three people you know physically making a thing that's supposed to take many many many people you know but here you are and you're doing this but you but you're virtual and you're not in the same room as people and you and you can't travel and and I was

I was experiencing all of this I I couldn't go back to South Africa I couldn't travel the world I couldn't and one of the big things I learned during the pandemic was I had made my life about work and I had made everything else secondary right so I would see my friends if I did not have work I would travel with my friends if I did not have work I would come to your wedding if I did not have work but work was the thing and everyone in my life knew this they were like oh

yeah work you know Trevor if you're not working can you they'd almost say that to me and on the other side of the pandemic I realized I was like I I can do the daily I looked up and I was like wow it's been it's been eight years of me being at The Daily Show seven years of me hosting one year of me being a you know a contributor at times when John Stewart was there but I was like you sort of can do this forever but but maybe but what what else can you do

where else can you be how can you spend your time what what would you like to do and how would you like to do it um I learned so many things at The Daily Show I'm eternally grateful for them but I also would like to learn more things even in the years that I haven't been there I've relearned and reemed that politics isn't a binary it's not blue and red that's that's an illusion there aren't two ideas for every problem that's that's fake there are there are a multitude of ways to discuss any issue and

any topic but if you stay in one place for long enough then in a good way and in a bad way you start to perceive that as as reality and so you know there were many things when it when it came to me leaving The Daily Show but I I just felt like yeah it's time you you scared scared yeah of of sometimes people get scared when they have such a high Post in soci Society um that they might be losing something they could never get back or they might you know it oh that's fascinating

I'm thinking about the average person listening to this now who's in their job and they make might might be a lawyer who's climbed the ladder yeah and they've got this sort of internal voice saying something isn't right here but this fear that keeps them trapped in places the loss aversion even if you're miserable this this the power of loss aversion can just hold people people in place I read this crazy study with Dr Daniel kman I believe it was Daniel kman the famous yeah yeah right going he he did the studies where if you drop

like a dollar on the floor yes the pain of losing the dollar is equal to the pain of finding three yes so in life you don't just need you know equal reward to to sacrifice something you need two or three times the reward to leave well I will say this first and foremost I was lucky I wasn't miserable you know I wasn't like I I I didn't have like a ah I hate this or I no but but I did want to turn and focus my life on something more more yeah like I wanted to

spend more time with my loved ones I wanted to spend more time with my people I wanted to spend more time in South Africa I wanted to spend more time learning other languages and traveling I wanted to spend more time practicing comedy in other countries was that a feeling yeah and what is that feeling that because yeah I'm trying to understand the feeling or the emotion that tells you that so I I guess it goes to the Now sort of cliche but still I think very apt phrase You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's

Gone the pandemic showed me like all the things I I I even talk about this for people it it it showed me all the things that I didn't value that I should have like when the pandemic hits If we're honest we didn't care that we couldn't go to the movies or we couldn't like it's not it's not about the stuff is that we couldn't do it with our people you couldn't see your friends you couldn't be with other human beings you couldn't be in a space together where people are cheering or singing or laughing or

you you couldn't be with people and I don't know about you but during the pandemic I wasn't sitting there thinking to myself ah I I work work is the thing I could do more of no I was thinking to myself wow my people my all my friends that are Sou AF were trapped in South Africa couldn't leave couldn't come to me I couldn't go to them couldn't see my family and I wasn't even big on that it's not even like I was like I've always got to go home to see my family I just go

when I'd go but now I realize like wow this this is just again it's fleeting and you and and I had to ask myself Trevor what are you trying to achieve in your life where where do you want it to go where do you want it to end you know what's more important to you the the ratings and the success of this show show and this idea or the ratings on the success of your friendships and your relationships you know and I and I do think in life you have to let go of something old

to to grab onto something new and that that was a decision for me that because I I couldn't I can't be in two places at once and The Daily Show is all consuming you cannot be you know sort of part-time in it as an idea you know in fact John and I joke now but now he gets to do it weekly and I think if anything he'd never go back to doing it daily because he knows how all consuming it can be like I I didn't just do The Daily Show when I was there I

would do The Daily Show when I was there and then I would leave and I would read the news and I'll keep up with the news and I'll try and keep up with all the news and I'm reading the guardian and I'm I'm reading BBC and then I'm reading like right Wings sites I'm reading bright Barts and I'm I'm reading what's on conservative media and then I'm reading you know the Telegraph and The Economist and that's all I'm doing consuming news news news news news news news news get get more news get more news barely

read a fiction book in year just like more news I need information and news Okay economists analysis what's happening how how do I put this together what's happening elzero okay okay think about that what's going on in them Times of India what's happening what's happening what's happening what's happening it's a lot yeah aot the brain it's too much and especially for someone with your brain if I say so myself from what how you've described it someone who's so sort of hyper sensitive and aware um and it's someone who appears to me to be a little

bit of an empath I you said you know when we said you're good at you feel things yeah I the the you know what it did teach me and this is something I I tell everyone till this day give yourself a break from the news give yourself a break we've we've we've been told and we've been conditioned to believe that we all need to keep up with the news it's a lie it's an illusion you'll know what's happening in fact if you read the news once a week I promise you you will be as informed

as somebody who's reading it every single day you know why cuz when you're reading it every day you were caught in the cycle of it trying to discover what it doesn't know yet developing story developing story developing story you'll be shocked that what you learn when you just read a story that sort of had the time that it needed to breathe there's there's less there's less predicting there's less guessing there's there's less pontificating this it's just like this is what happened and this is what we know and that's it when was the first time you

went to therapy first time I went to therapy was uh 2015 2014 somewhere there yeah why did you go to therapy I I asked this because um for a set of reasons really but um men in particular and in fact if you look at the stats men of color are often the least likely to go to therapy and there's a complex reasons why that is but I think it's quite important for men that have been to therapy including myself to to talk about why they went and also um so sort of the journey they've been

on with it but also the role that it's played so I'll I'll say it in two parts I so I went to therapy because I fell in love with the idea that I could learn more about myself and why I was the way I was from somebody who was skilled in in understanding it in the same way that I loved Physical Therapy mhm you know I I was like wow you you can like move your body differently if you've ever had physical I therapy you know what I'm talking about and if you haven't you should

go one day if you have anything wrong with you long before you consider surgery and things you'll be shocked you'll be shocked at how your neck hasn't been moving the way it's supposed to you'll be shocked to realize that your back has been like like stuck for a while you haven't been breathing you you'll find that your knees haven't been like you say no but really it's it's actually crazy to realize how much over time you've settled into a restriction that's stopping you from being yourself fully physically but mentally as well patterns and as you

said games of snap where you don't even realize you're now just reacting things are happening and you're reacting to them and I read a bunch of books I was like wow this is fascinating but I was like none of it like tells me about me per se it's very Broad and so I decided like let me go to this place to try and learn about who I am or if there's even a puzzle that that I can learn a little bit more about how did that feel the first time you went but also telling your

friends that you're going to therapy because there especially in 2015 it's kind of Fallen away slowly as more people talk about it but there is a stigma associated with it and stigma well everyone asked me they said what why what's wrong that's what everyone said to me every everyone said the same thing what's wrong one of my favorite ones this wasn't a friend but I uh I I did an interview with a um a British newspaper uh I forget what which one it's called maybe it's the telegraph I'm not sure it's it's slightly conservative but

but any anyway we did this interview I'll never forget this and the woman was very British very Posh you know older woman and she said to me she's like you you've been quite outspoken about about going to therapy and do do you still go to therapy and I was like yes and she's like why what's wrong with you and I said do you do you go to therapy and she said I don't need to and I was like well everyone can benefit from therapy she's like I I respectfully disagree I think I think the the

therapizing that we that we're currently experiencing in the world is completely unnecessary and sometimes you you just need to take it and move on and I was like that is the most British thing I've ever heard in my life um but but I get it that's what a lot of people felt and think you know they be like why what are you doing what I've come to realize is that therapy as an idea holds a stigma but the thing that it is doing is not just necessary but it's actually welcomed by everybody when you go

and you have a conversation with your friends and you commiserate about something that's going on in your life it's a form of therapy you know when you confide in your loved one the two of you are in bed at the end of a long day and you you're telling them about how stressful your job is and you you you know you're telling them about your doubts about staying in it or not that's a form of therapy and I think because we've given it this formalized title that's associated with like psychotic breaks on the most extreme

things we've now made it seem like it's reserved for people who are only like broken broken broken MH but we've forgotten how necessary it is you know like you you you go around the world and you see cultures many of them cultures of color had the idea and and the and the tradition of therapy long before it was formalized as a concept in African cultures you would speak to the elders that's what you do you go and you sit down with the elders you tell them about your problems you go there with your wife you

go there with your family you go any dispute you go and talk about it there and they give you their advice and it's based on generations of knowledge and it's based on a communal understanding of who you are and who they are they've known you since you were a child even it's a form of therapy you know and so I think because we given it this this like the label people I go to therapy I realized if if you just change that take that sentence out and tell it to somebody and go oh yeah no

there's um a wonderful Elder who I speak to and and they give me advice you all of a sudden like half the people who look at you f you be like that's very good you must listen to your elders that's very good you know and then in another culture you say to somebody oh I go to somebody who um spiritually understands how like my brain works and they and they connect me with myself they be like that's very good you do that we we we all do it you know bartenders have been therapists for hundreds

of years you know people have gone and gotten drunk at a bar hairdresses yeah hairdresses it's it's a natural thing it's just you know I understand the stigma because there's a terrifying notion that comes with saying that you're broken but I I don't think it's about saying that we're broken it's just about like understanding our cracks did you understand your cracks from it I think I understood them um theoretically my problem was never understanding them my problem was never like understanding them on a on a on an intellectual level I think I've I've always been

good at that maybe even too good the thing I've had to learn in therapy is the feeling part not the thinking Parts what do you mean by the feeling part so I I've always been very good I would be able to break down any situation to you as as thoughts and you know an analytics in a way mhm you go like Trevor what happened there I would even be able to explain like an outburst well what happened was clearly over time this action had been repeated and I didn't appreciate it and so at that point

I'd reached my breaking point and I reacted like this you know and it's but I didn't realize until I went to therapy that I limited how much I was saying the feeling that I was having I felt sad I felt mad I felt and then like you said about tracing it back you then now once you understand that feeling and once you acknowledge it you're then able to now and then even ask yourself why do I feel this thing why do I even feel and start realizing that some people can make you feel when others

can't two people can say the exact same sentence to you only one can have an effect why and and that was that was and continues to be my journey and my my my joyous challenge it's like learning how to like feel not just think through everything it's like really just feel how do I feel I'm tired oh I'm I'm resentful wow I'm I'm sad about that oh I'm feeling a little hopeless I wow this this feels a little melancholic this is like really getting into those feelings men don't do that do they they just just

drink or they just go yeah men just get like pissed masturbate gamble yeah porn like I'm I'm angry at you when was the last time a male friend looked at another male friend and said I you hurt me you know hey man that hurts I know you think my haircut looked funny but the way you said it in front of those other people it hurts hey the way you commented on my job and how you think it's it's the dumbest thing that hurt me that it like it hurt me cuz I love how you see

me and I want to see myself being special in your life and it I felt insignificant you hurt me man men are terrified of that you know and so we'd rather say you pissed me off punch you in the head I because that's that's acceptable in society we are that you know you said your therapist or therapy helped you to identify this link between ADHD and depression when did you find out you had ADHD I got diagnosed two years ago my friend got diagnosed first told me about it changed his whole life and then when

he was describing some of the symptoms I was like huh I was like well that that's weird that sounds a lot like me and we very different person personality wise mhm and then I asked him I said I said I don't understand you I've never noticed these things in you and he was like yeah he was very good at hiding them he was very good at masing them and it it was it it hit home so much that it made me think I I need to get diagnosed I was like let me go and see

I was like it could it might not be but let me go and and and find out and then I I I remembered that when I was a kid my school told my mom that I need to go for a psychiatric evaluation because when I was really young the teachers complained they said I was just I was just all over the place and my mom took me to a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist diagnosed me with ADHD but back then it was called hyperactivity and my mom the the therapist like oh your son is you know

has ADHD or is hyperactive and so you must stay away from these foods and must do this and you must do that and you should could give him treatment and my mom was like we'll pray for him let's keep it moving she did she just didn't know and she was like no this is not a thing you know and then I now as an adult went wait a minute was that what that was and then I went went through the like real assessment like I mean not like an online quiz you know the one where

you sit down it's multiple visits you do different types of tests multimodal tests and you go through it all and then I learned about my ADHD and I think that's another thing like I'm a little worried about now in society is just like when we talk about and Ai and everything we flatten these these these words and so what then starts to happen is now I meet people everywhere everyone's got like I've got ADHD I've got ADHD I've got I can't watch a movie for more than 10 minutes I've got ADHD I lost my keys

yeah and it's like no you can be forgetful and not have ADHD you can have a short attention span and not have ADHD you can you can be many things and not have ADHD right but even when you have ADHD you don't all have the same ADHD mhm you know some people are inattentive some people are hyperactive some people have learned coping mechanisms some people haven't in women and men it it it it presents differently at times so I think we must also be careful you know like now it's just become like yeah and then

like on Tik Tok hey how how to deal with your ADHD it's like wait wait wait wait wait let's you know it's it's good that we're talking about these things but let's not be quick to you know to all have it and have the same version of it and all think that all of our treatments are exactly the same Etc but that yeah that's so I think I mine was I think it's now 3 four years ago this link between ADHD and depression I've you're the first person I've interviewed I've heard about this before but

you're the first person that I've spoken to who has said that their Depression was linked to their ADHD yeah can you explain to me the link and how that sort of manifests so I I didn't understand it but you know as I understand ADHD now what what fundamentally happened in my brain and I guess it'll happen to some people as well is I would have an inability to choose where to place my focus right one of the things so I would either be hyperfocused by something that I shouldn't or I would have no Focus for

the thing that I should so I could be having a conversation with you here and let's say there was a car outside revving its engine at some point that's all I'd be able to think about even though you're speaking to me that's all I'd be able to think about is like who's revving this engine who's driving this car what is going on out there what kind of car is that sounds like a V6 is that a truck what are they huh something wrong no it's and now you'd be talking and then at the end of

the sentence I just hear the last three words you said and then I'd try and like put it all together and act like I was I was paying attention but what my brain was also doing in that paying attention thing was it was focusing on a recurring thought or recurring idea that I couldn't let go of and that's sometimes where the depression would kick in is that I would be perpetually stuck in a loop of either meaninglessness or what I like to call personally it's like my my zoom was stuck on my lens you know

like I think I think the way you see life is is literally like a lens I shouldn't have done that with my hands in a video that's going to be we can photo yeah just going to meme that but anyway like I think of a of a lens right and what you're doing with a lens all the time when you're getting focused when you're zooming is you're trying to place your focus on the object that you're trying to place it on if you zoom out too wide you can't see the object if you zoom in

too much you also can't see the object you've got to find the right Zoom so that you know okay we're now looking at a cup if you zoom in too much you just go like I'm looking at a at at Silver I'm looking at a color you zoom out too much you can't even see that we're in this room MH you know I'm looking at people they like no there's a cup oh I didn't see it and so what was happening in my brain was I would get stuck in a zoom and I would just

Loop so sometimes it would be me going huh that was an interesting day at work oh I go to work tomorrow then I go to work the next day then the next day and then the next day then there's a weekend but then I'm back at work then wait a minute it's just weeks and weekends Forever This Never it just keeps on going and then and then one day you're like you're 90 and then and then you're dead and wait what why am I going to work tomorrow what what's the point of what what is

happening here this makes absolutely no and then I'll just sit there and I couldn't get that out of my head I I literally could not get that thought out of my head and I would just sit there like what is the point of this what what are we doing couldn't get it out of my head and how does that feel when you can't get that out of your head what is the feeling for me it felt like life was meaningless like the concept of it was meaningless I was like we're a blip what are we

doing here all of this means nothing all of this is pointless you know is that an exact example of something that would make no this is an exact example this is something that would get stuck in my head because I because I because I didn't know with ADHD like that I was hyperfocusing on this thing so in the same way that I could hyperfocus on you know learning about I don't know a discipline you know industrial design or artificial intelligence I would just you you know what I'm talking about with that I'd get hyperfocused and

then I'd learn everything about it and I'd read every book and I talk to every person I could and I would watch everything and I and all of a sudden you know in like 3 months you'd meet me and I'd go like yep I've read that book I've read that book I've read that and I'm obsessed with this thing and then one day it just disappears now that's fine for like learning let's say but it would be terrible for oh gosh an idea of like sadness or an idea of feeling like life is going nowhere

or it can't be good for pig famous it's like the worst thing because you have con like meaningless feedback and the brain is trying to interpret a lot of it exactly if you get one of those things stuck in your head gosh yeah and then mine also like it depends on some people have it some don't but like patent recognition people with ADHD are generally can be very good with patn recognition probably why they're good Comedians and so what happens then unfortunately is you can also start to see the patterns in life that can make

life seem meaningless but once I once I got my ADHD diagnosis and once I understood what was happening I really did start to see it as as a lens and anytime I find myself in those moments now because I don't I don't take medication you know I took medication like once or twice I like it didn't help me in my comedy I actually need to be erratic and unfocused when I'm doing comedy and I'm lucky that I live a life where I don't have to be in an office at a time and do a thing

in a certain way and you know but in coping or in like learning how to deal with it I've learned just about like that lens and I'll talk to myself you know I go there's me and there's the Observer like I'm the Observer of my thoughts I'm not the thoughts and then I I'll talk to myself so I'll be like man you do this tomorrow and then the next day and then life is me then I go like it is it is meaningless unless unless you zoom in and then if you zoom in a little

bit more all of a sudden wow it's almost like the most meaningful thing this conversation with this person is the most meaningful conversation you will ever have in your life this is it this is everything that it is this hug that you're getting from your friend is the most important thing you will ever experience this meal that you're having just taste these ingredients what what is taste feel it on your on your on your taste buds and and like one of the tools they they teach you like with ADHD sometimes you know when when it

when it makes you go into anxiety or depression is to just notice things practice being present walk down the street and like look like really look and say out loud what you're seeing and at first it's very stupid that is a red door that is a green roof that is a pigeon sitting on the gutter that is a gutter that is a gray car that is driven by and you'll be shocked at how just doing that gets your brain out of that Loop and then something's going to catch your eye or something will spark and

by the end of that walk you won't be in the mood that you were in when you started that walk did you ever feel hopeless when you spiraled into this sort of rumination was there ever a moment through this journey of understanding your depression that you felt hopeless I didn't I didn't I this is this is going to sound really weird to you the I have this I have this strange thing that will happen to me sometimes in life where where I feel like it's it's I go it's all meaningless and it's nothing and it's

whatever it's very very random often times I've just learned sometimes fatigue you know I've learned rules now for myself and for anyone out there really especially if you have ADHD before you go through anything or before you think about anything like in intently and intensely when you're struggling ask yourself a few simple questions have you slept have you eaten well like have you eaten good food have you moved your body and have you spent a little time breathing if you answer yes to all of those questions you can continue to pontificate about the meaning of

life and everything that you're going through if you have not just fulfill all of them and then see if you're still feeling the same on the other side and you'll be shocked how often times you aren't so the one thing that happen to me this is this is so ridiculous I know sometimes when I'd be in that place I'd feel a little hopeless right and I would think to myself I hate this this sucks I I I don't know what I want to do with life anymore never like suicidal but just like I just don't

know if this life thing what is this and then I would go if if it was going to end tomorrow then what what would I do like today then be like you know what I'm going to do I'm going to go on stage I'm going to tell that joke that I've been terrified to tell just going to say it because I'm leaving anyway life is ending it's going it's all going away because it's all going to [ __ ] right just go and say that go tell that joke I'll be like you know what I

should also I should also I should also throw a party I mean your life's ending anyway it's just throw like one just like one just like [ __ ] off party that you just like go into it and and and I think of all the things and I I mean this genuinely I think of all the things that I would do with like giant middle fingers on my way out and the smile that it brings to my face I can't explain to you because every time it makes me realize that that's all I should be

trying to do not in a in a way where I don't I don't consider other people but it's what I should be trying to do and it's made me realize that at times not everyone but for me and I think some people would probably feel this sometimes what's happened in our lives and I know I had this is like you feel like you don't you don't realize that you've stopped sort of like running jumping smiling screaming you've stopped being everything you can be and you've just You' started existing as one version of yourself and sometimes

just having the idea of just like you know what I mean take all your clothes off and run through the streets screaming and and what would you say and who would you say it to and why would you say you'd be shocked at how that gives you an inkling of what you're not doing for yourself some people might be like I'll tell my dad to go screw himself I would say to you oh this is probably you realizing that you don't set boundaries with your dad and you don't communicate well maybe you don't tell your

dad how you hurt your feelings or I man I'll I'll go to work and I'll well yeah maybe this is not the job for you you know I'll I'll party all night maybe you're not taking enough time to have fun I you'll be shocked at how like sometimes you not not a tantrum but it's just like your your screw you choice is what you sort of should be doing in a in a in a in a responsible way and and that I promise you now in all those moments where I felt like it's hopeless with

the moments where I'd come back even more I think to myself huh maybe I should try aiming to get to that place and therein in a strange way lies the meaning for me it's such a beautiful thing that they can be really important answers in such a desperate state but but I completely understand what you're saying cuz I played out the example in my head that this was my last day I thought what are the things I'd love to do and again it's such a so clear to me that those are the things that I

I'm missing right now from my life my experience exactly you mentioned dads in there and you did reunite with your biological father yeah sort of 24 years old 25 years old when you reunited with him I believe yeah 20 something somewhere there what's that like is that is that com licated or is that oh definitely definitely and why did you why did you reunite with him because well I reunited with him because my mother gave me a key piece of advice which was valuable and she said to me she said don't take for granted the

answers that a person can hold of you that you may not even know you needed for yourself you know and I think parents have that with us especially if parents are willing to engage with you you know if these are human beings that that have fundamentally shaped you you are you are half of them you know they are half of you it's it's it's a weird thing that you that you can take for granted and so for me like the the gift of reconnecting with my father was reconnecting with him as as a man a

young man all be at a man you know are you scared I scared isn't the right word I I was I was unsure but I wasn't scared you know it's like it's that that feeling of the unknown what what's going to happen what are we like will we get along will we not get along I remember him but as a boy and does he even remember me does he even like me does he you have all these ideas is there a part of you that wants to know if he if he loves you if he

cares about you I think I think definitely and I but I but I think we don't even think of it like that and I didn't even think of it like that does that make sense because because I assumed the love cuz I'd seen it my whole life from him so I assumed the love but I didn't I think the thing that's adjacent to that love is the choosing yeah you know sometimes you you assume that parents love you but you're not sure that they choose you maybe uh and so that was that was interesting for

me and then seeing parts of myself that I didn't even know came from another person it it it's it's fascinating frustrating and liberating at the same time although he wasn't around all the time did you learn lessons from him when you met him when you started to sort of rekindle your relationship with him I think I did but not lessons that were taught lessons that were witnessed I think most of the lessons that we learned from our parents aren't taught to be honest what did you learn from him I definitely think from him I learned

how important it is to maintain your friendships you know he he's lived a long life he older than my mom but even as he's gone into his old age he still has friends he still has Community he still has like he he showed me how wonderful that thing is you know because friendship I feel like friendship has has in many ways been been given the short end of the stick in in the world of relationships you know people understand the value of like parents and children and then people understand like romantic relationship they go oh

that's the most of course your spouse your but your friendships are one of the few relationships that don't necessarily rely on like a like a a transaction in a way it's like purely Choice whenever I speak to entrepreneurs there's one problem that always comes up but today's sponsor LinkedIn has a solution and I think you'll want to hear it connecting your business with the Right audience can be tough you can spend a lot of time and money trying to get it right and still regardless fall short of that especially when it comes to B2B marketing

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doac c24 terms and conditions apply Patricia she is so C she's your mother yeah she's so Central to your story um to much of the wisdom you have you talk about continuing the legacy of her Legacy I guess and everything that she's instilled in you she um she she sounds like a superwoman in every sense of the word the the the the apparent resilience and I say apparent because I don't know how to define the perseverance in the face of so many struggles other than using the word resilience is astounding I found I won't show

this picture either but I found this beautiful photo of you which reminded me a little bit of oh that one you can because I've posted it online there you go one of the things I've struggled with is with the disconnect between me and my parents is I've I've struggled with the thought that there's going to be words unsaid oh and I I asked some of my guest gu this about this because I think because I'm trying to navigate it for in myself and within my own life if you had a 60-second phone call with Patricia

and you knew it was going to be your last what would the words be what would you choose to say oh I I think it would just be I love you I love you thank you thank you thank you thank you I love you I love you thank you so much I love you that's pretty and genuinely that's pretty much it because uh I'm I'm really lucky that I've I've said and I continue to try to say you know most of what I should um to my mom and there's always new things that come up

and then I try to say them and we we have beautiful conversations you know like these days we take like drives like drive her to go and buy a new chicken for her he's got like a little chicken it's not even a farm I don't even know what to call it it's like a little Squad of chickens but I just I'll just take her for a drive and then we just talk about life and we we just we talk and we share and we laugh and we but we like it's like the nothing moments you

know no agenda no like there's no thing we have to do or not do I sort of slip into her life you know I find her in the garden and I just stand around while she does her gardening and then listen talk share but really that's if if that was the call now it would just be thank you thank you I love you so much thank you very much I love you I love you thank you so much and I guess that early experience where she was shot by yeah your um really kind of allowed

you to get the perspective yeah yeah definitely for most of us us would that definitely have the perspective she sounds like a remarkable person when you talk about continuing her Legacy how how' you do that well she would challenge me and say my my goal is to improve on her Legacy you know um my mom's definitely remarkable um but as she would say it's you know by the grace of God it's not by her hand alone and I think one of the things that I've Loved most about my relationship with my mom is that I've

come to learn that part of what makes her so exceptional is the fact that she's a flawed human being she's not perfect the there are some wounds that she's inflicted on me that I need to now deal with in my life because she's been my parents you know and and this is this is sometimes the Paradox that we struggle with in in our lives as people I think we we've been we've been so indoctrinated into this like binary way of thinking that we then want to go we had great parents or we had terrible parents

sometimes you had a parent who was great at some things and terrible at other things you know and if they did love you they were doing their best sometimes they didn't and I think that's tough for some people to acknowledge but if they loved you they were doing their best and they tried their best and they failed at other things and that's fine but you know my goal and my dream is to as my mom always said to me and my brothers like be better than the L how are you thinking about fatherhood well I

I go back and forth on it because on on the one hand sometimes I think you see it's like the zooming the lens sometimes I think about like the planet and the world I'm like oh you bringing kids you going to bring kids and then I'm like yeah but the world's probably been terrible for everyone who's been in it at every single given time so is that a reason to not have a child and then I asked myself the other question I'm like okay but what do I think I'm bringing to this child and then

I thought to myself oh do I want to have a kid with ADHD how hard was that for them and what is it going to be like and and then I'm like ah but maybe it'll be great because you know ADH and maybe they'll have it and maybe they won't and maybe like so I I go back and forth on all of these things the you know the one thing I I would hope is that I will give my child two things that are important and that is number one being chosen number two being considered

you know I think a lot of people have children but they may not choose them and they don't consider them you know and that's where you'll hear parents and saying things like you know I brought you into this world it's like yeah exactly so you should consider me a little bit more you know many parents treat children as if the children owe them for introducing them into existence when I think it's the other way around so yeah I I I think to myself I I like the idea of it and I do like the puzzle

of it um but just like I learned from The Daily Show and every other major undertaking uh if I know that that it's going to be terrible then I'll probably have a great time but if I think that it's going to be rewarding and wonderful I'm going to hate a lot of the moments in it how does Romantica fit into all of this for you because you're well you were you know during those Daily Show days working every hour of the day yeah you were fighting in every sense of the word to make this show

a success you're living in an apartment with a guy who who's also doing the same I don't know where it fits I can't see it it didn't in many you know and that that was the price I paid you know that does it fit now yeah I think it definitely does I think it definitely does like it's it's a weird thing to say but as I've have become more comfortable with the notion that I could be not in a relationship forever like you know as people say by yourself but I don't think of that because

of friends and Community but as I've gotten more comfortable with that I think I've become more able to be in a relationship because I I think more and more I've thought of a relationship is something I can bring value to as opposed to the thing that's supposed to just do everything for me mhm you know and I think before I was only looking at it that way without realizing it's Trevor um these books are beautiful for so many different reasons borner crime is one of the most um it's so funny because it's not my story

but it's everyone's story in so many ways and I think that's why it's such a beautiful book it's it's the story of a guy who didn't feel like he F fit in his relationship ship with his mother his his love for his mother his journey to the very very top of a mountain um and all of the important wisdom that he's learned along the way um that that I think is so relatable even though it's not not my story and some books don't achieve that but your books achieve that so well and this book is

the first time I've ever described a book as being truly truly beautiful it comes out on the 8th of October it's called into the uncut grass and it's so wise powerful but beautiful a book that and silly I hope people remember that it's silly I would love to read this to my kids but I it's funny because I thought when I first opened it and I thought okay you know it's um there's illustrations throughout the book and then I started reading the words and you realize that it's both both applicable and Powerful to a young

person but also something you could have read alone at my age of 32 it's such a beautiful book and it follows in the tradition of the the boy the fox in the mall it's it's books that I loved you know the boy the F The Little Prince you know there's so many books like that that I think ins spired me to think about rediscovering our childlike um curiosity uh ability to to to think Beyond ourselves our imagination like almost like re-remembering yourself before many of the hurts you know and then and then going from there

and so and connection is such a prevalent theme throughout this the Journey of connection of love and all of those things and I'm going to link that below so everyone needs to to read that book it's so beautiful read it for yourself read it for your kids um read it with your partner we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they're going to be leaving the question for wow okay tell us about the lowest point of your life how did you overcome

it what lessons did you learn from the experience h i funny enough I think we talked about it I I I would safely say the lowest point of my life was my mother being shot so it's crazy that we did speak about it um how did I overcome it I don't think I would be so um arrogant as to say that I have overcome it I think I'm constantly working to overcome it you do you ever overcome these things I don't know to be honest with you I really don't know because I you know it's

it's it's strange because I don't know what that means or doesn't mean does it mean You' you don't think of it anymore does it mean it doesn't affect you anymore I don't know what the answer to that question is you know maybe overcoming something means that it no now no longer negatively influences you or I I don't know I don't think that we have like one fixed idea of overcoming something that isn't tangible you know it's not like scaling a mountain so um the the honest answer I would give is yeah I just I just

give myself Grace and I and I try and work at it I I try and understand that it's all a work in progress you know one of my one of my favorite things I I learn learned recently and I guess it speaks to this is um I should remember the name I'm so I'm ter I always remember stories and not like the names of things or the dates but there's a a beautiful art form um that I I learned about when I was in Japan recently and basically it's it's a practice of repairing pottery and

ceramics that have broken right and what happens is you know you break a plate or you break a like a vase or something and what they do is they they put it back together these Artisans who do it but they don't just glue it back together they glue it back together and they and they they sort of Adorn it with like a golden bondage and what what you get is an object that is somehow more beautiful than before it was broken and it's this beautiful Japanese tradition I'm sure you could find the name and you

know put it out there but it's um if you could help me with it but it's it's it's so to me it was it was one of the the most beautiful Concepts and a different way to think about being quote unquote fixed or overcoming or you know it is the uh art of kin sui in Japan and learning about this blew my mind because it was such a it was a it was a paradox shifting way for me to think about overcoming or being better and it it wasn't the idea that we are perfect the

way we were before something happened to us but rather it is that we get to wear our cracks with a new type of Pride and a new type of beauty you know and and that's maybe how I think of overcoming now is I think of myself like a ceramic that has been cracked many times and because of the love in my life and because of you know great therapists and because of good people and because I've worked and I've managed to find ways to put gold bondage in those cracks to somehow find a little more

Beauty in myself than I had before the thing that happened to me um and so yeah that's that that like that Absol every time I see those like it actually makes me emotional when I look at each one and I think about the story sort of of the person that each vessel contains my last question is a a very complex question but it it was inspired by what you just said about kugi the Japanese tradition which is I spoke to a guy called Mo G out my podcast who had lost his son oh yeah I

love Mo yeah I love your conversation with him that great it's one of my favorite of all time because for many reasons but many of them you you've touched on today and he in that conversation he said something to me about the loss of his son he said there's this thing called the Eraser test I don't know if you've ever heard about it but they ask a group of people who have been through a lot of difficult experiences that if there was a button yes um in front of them that could would erase all of

those experiences really difficult experiences at times would they press it now if I put a button in front of you and it would erase what had happened to your mother being shot at that age um would you press it yes I would you would yeah I would and this is this is a fundamental philosophical argument that I have with people this is purely like philosophy and it's the way I see the world and I think the way some people see the world I understand that many of the times or I understand that like often times

people come out of a bad experience with a new learning or something that has improved them in many ways but I think we should never take for granted how many times that doesn't happen you know I think we should never take for granted how many people are broken by a bad thing and I think we've done something in society and maybe it's because we want to valorize it or maybe it's because we want to make people feel like they're not victims or we want to make it seem like there was some purpose or meaning maybe

it's tied to religion I think think we at times have sort of valorized this idea it happened to you for a reason you know and so now you you get this kid who was abused by their parents or someone in their family and you're like it happened to you for a reason it made you the person you are today you know or somebody who suffered a horrible trauma or like a car accident a terrorist attack a whatever it is hey it happened to you for a reason you're going to you know look at you you

will be stronger or look at you today wouldn't be this person you know what people forget to talk about is the fact that yeah you could have been a different version of you you could have been happier you could have been less wounded you could have carried less burden you could have been less hurtful because of that and I think we should never take that for granted I think we should encourage people to find the best and we should we should always say to ourselves hey what can I get from this situation what can I

learn from it how can I grow from it but I am not a fan of anybody saying that they will keep it because it's made them who they are just because you've survived a storm doesn't mean that you should want to keep that storm you know and and so and that's why I say it's a philosophical argument it really is but I I don't like how we've done that to people because in some way I feel like it makes people think that they now have to be grateful for a terrible thing that has happened to

them or a terrible thing that they've experienced or people around them have experienced because because they've come out more resilient on the other side of it everything happens to you for a reason yeah and so if I could replace it I go no I forget that I don't go like everything happens to you or doesn't I go back to what I said my friend Phrase My friend taught me who are who do you choose to be I would say forget the Eraser test I would say to you there can never be an eraser test why

don't we replace it with a pencil test a pen test a mark test whatever you know device you want to use and you go if you could press this button and decide what story you write on the other side of the thing that happened to you would you now write that story and what story would you write I think that's more important because the Eraser thing makes people now feel like they have to dis owner part of themselves which most people will not want to do but then it makes you feel like you have to

like claim this thing as being part of yourself no I would press that button I would erase my mother being shot I would erase me uh having ADHD I would erase uh the tough times that my country went I erased a partite I would I wouldn't be like I'll would keep a partite Stephen because if it wasn't for a partite I wouldn't be here with you today no no no no no no I would erase it and maybe we'd be dealing with something else but if I could I I I would press that button because

I yeah I I don't think we need to celebrate it I think we need to work on it and you know we need to strive to heal ourselves but I don't think your tribulations are what make you you survived and I'm proud of you for surviving but that doesn't mean that you needed to go through what you had to go through so beautifully said you have a wonderful podcast I could talk to you all day but if people want to hear more from you they have to go and listen to your podcast um it's called

what now on Spotify um you speak to a whole range of people like me but you you do it in a very different way but in the in the way and with the the same set of components as to what's made you such a hit with so many people I can't tell you how much you know my team than very you're very my my family my sister my brothers they're such tremendous fans of you because you have this wonderful blend of WI I now know where it all comes from humility vulnerability and you are authentic

and authentic is a complicated word but you are authentic as anyone could hope to be um that's why everyone has to go listen to your podcast it's the third link that I'm going to put down below it's called what now um and it's one of my favorites Trevor thank you so much from the guy who made easily one of the best ever thank you very much no no I mean this I mean this for real you know I always say like I go if you want to see a professional podcast go go to Diary of

a CEO if want to come explore my mind come listen to what now oh people want to explore your mind fever and it's no but for real I'm like congratulations I appreciate you so much and I can't tell you how much of an honor this was sometimes I get quite nervous to interview people and you're one that I got nervous to because I respect you so much so thank you so much Trevor for the time I appreciate you yeah man and don't don't spend as much time alone you're not like you know I know you've

always been there and I know it can feel in a weird way it can feel like the comfortable place but like it doesn't need to be you'll be shocked at like how much lies on the other side of it you know in a weird way you you'll you'll be shocked at what finding that belonging can do for you you know it it comes with risk the same way it does in a romantic relationship but man it's it's it's easily the most rewarding I if if there's like a if I could evangelize one thing to people

out there it would be find your people find your place and unfortunately I think that's what's happening these days people are finding that place in negativity you know people are finding community in negativity now we all hate together we all we all you know hate tweet together and we we're all like angry at women together and we all hate that music artist together and we all yeah let's hate together but that that's it's not sustainable because it gobbles us up like it just like chews us up and splits us out but if you can find

the things that you love doing for you and then you find the people who love doing it as well and it makes you feel good the thing on the other side is It's Magic in fact they shown studies I know you love studies studies multiple Studies have shown and I think a meta analysis as well has shown that people who have a strong group of friends actually have better romantic relationships because the burden of your relationship is now lessened by having this community as opposed to people who merge with one person and then all their

hopes aspirations dreams fears frustrations are just poured on them you reach a breaking point but you can actually have it's not replacing it by the way you have a better romantic relationship when you maintain and you have a strong friendship so I I encourage it do it I promise you I will do it let you it's going to be great thank you CH thank you man thank you so much so much I really appreciate it thank you [Music] a [Music]