Adam Grant: Fix Your Vibe

Are you expecting too much from the wrong people? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant joins Trevor and Eugene to explore why making real friends can be so difficult, how power dynamics shape our relationships at work, and why even our closest connections can leave us disappointed. Adam breaks down the three kinds of relationships we all need and explains why confusing them can create unnecessary tension in our lives. It's a funny, thought-provoking conversation about friendship, expectations, and why building stronger relationships might start with understanding what we actually need from one another.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Listen, a student came up to you and said, "Hey, Professor Grunt, I need your help. I just, I feel lonely, man. Even when I'm with people, I feel lonely. They'll invite me to a party and I still feel lonely. I'll go out with them, I'll feel lonely. I just don't feel like I have people in my life. What would your advice be?"

• 0:20Speaker 01

  I think my advice would be to change your rituals for how you interact. This is why so many super teams fail to win in their first year, is they haven't figured out how to vibe yet. You've got a bunch of individual stars, but I will bet on the team with more shared experience over the more talented team that's never figured out how to collaborate. And so, a group of researchers get together and say, "What if, what if we could look at people's rate of professional misconduct by whether they're Ashley Madison users or not?" And what the data showed was, you can look at CEOs, you can look at police officers, you can look at investment analysts. Their rates of misconduct are two to three times higher if they cheat on their spouses.

• 1:06Speaker 00

  So if you invited me to a game night, I would come?

• 1:07Speaker 01

  If I invite, you would come to a game night?

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Thousand percent, yes.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Really? I've never asked you because I assumed we weren't pals.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  Nope, thousand percent. Game night, I'm there like a bear in my

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Will you travel for this?

• 1:20Speaker 01

  How far are we gonna say?

• 1:21Speaker 00

  Nothing.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Oh, I was like, I don't know where this goes now.

• 1:26Trevor Noah?

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• 1:32Trevor Noah?

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• 2:36Trevor Noah?

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• 3:52Speaker 00

  You know, have you seen those people that were, because I watched like some gangster movies and then one thing that they always talk about is a chinchilla coat.

• 3:59Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, when they go

• 4:02Trevor Noah?

  That used to be the thing.

• 4:03Speaker 00

  The women wear chinchilla coats. And then, you know, that's a gangster's, no one has ever worn a gorilla fur coat.

• 4:12Trevor Noah?

  Is it still called fur when it's on a gorilla?

• 4:16Trevor Noah?

  Is it though? No, I'm genuine, I don't know.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  What else would you call it?

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:20Trevor Noah?

  I thought, I think it would be hair, no? Is it fur?

• 4:23Speaker 00

  No.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  It's a coat.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  It's a coat, my man.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  You don't have hair coats, you have fur coats.

• 4:27Trevor Noah?

  But that's just because you don't make them.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  Gen a la, ad no.

• 4:30Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, guys.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  No, no, but it's a good one. You don't have hair coats.

• 4:33Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but that's because we don't make coats out of hair.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  No, there's no bare naked lady song about wanting to buy a real hair coat.

• 4:41Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but that's just because they were not made. I'm, I'm asking an honest question.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  No, we're answering honestly as well. We're not, not at all.

• 4:49Trevor Noah?

  No, but I'm being serious, though. Fur coats are called that because they're coats made out of fur, are they not?

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, but also leather qualifies to be leather when the hair is stripped out.

• 4:57Trevor Noah?

  Leather qualifies to be leather when the hair is stripped out?

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:00Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  So if the, if the hair is still on or the fur is still, it's a coat.

• 5:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, okay.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  But once you take out

• 5:05Trevor Noah?

  Now it's a leather coat.

• 5:06Speaker 00

  It's a leather coat.

• 5:07Trevor Noah?

  That's my point. So if you made a coat out of hair, what would you call it?

• 5:11Speaker 00

  A coat out of hair?

• 5:12Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  A fur coat.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  No, it would be a garment. Because obviously, remember that when, how you make wool is with yarn that you've gotten from a sheep's hair. So once that is woven and made into something, it's a woven garment.

• 5:27Trevor Noah?

  But it's also called sheep's wool.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  Yes, but it has to be woven.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  You don't hear of gorilla's wool, do you?

• 5:31Trevor Noah?

  No, but that's my point. I'm saying, what is it called?

• 5:34Speaker 00

  The wool.

• 5:35Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 5:35Speaker 00

  It is wool.

• 5:36Trevor Noah?

  Exactly, and I'm saying, what do gorillas have? I don't know this. You guys have just made me realize that I don't know what gorri, what, I think it's hair. I've always thought it was hair.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it is.

• 5:45Trevor Noah?

  I've always thought it was hair. Rick, what is it?

• 5:48Speaker 00

  It is hair.

• 5:48Trevor Noah?

  You should look it up and tell us what it is. What is it?

• 5:50Speaker 00

  It is hair, but if you skin the gorilla.

• 5:53Trevor Noah?

  Jeez.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  Oh, that got dark fast.

• 5:55Trevor Noah?

  Then you've created enemies.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  Yes, because think about it, think about it this way. A gorilla's size, right?

• 6:00Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  If skinned well.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Now, wait, now we're rating skinning?

• 6:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  On a performance scale?

• 6:08Speaker 00

  Because a, a small thumb-sized blade

• 6:11Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  would take a long time to skin something, but the precision that you'll be able to separate the leather from that thin layer of fat.

• 6:21Trevor Noah?

  Eugene's been watching a lot of serial killer documentaries recently.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Trevor, I respect, I respect you, yes, ending that. I can't, I can't go there.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  If, if, if you, if you skin it, depending on the size, if you skin it way up to the, down just below the belly button.

• 6:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 6:35Speaker 00

  You've got an incredible coat that has a hoodie and gloves attached to it with a reinforced chest plate.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  If, if you find yourself one of those great mountaineers who

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 6:54Speaker 00

  who live in the Yosemite's and they've been skinning their whole lives, then they manage to

• 7:01Speaker 00

  skin the whole entire

• 7:02Speaker 01

  This is how you're gonna gain status?

• 7:04Speaker 00

  Yes, then you can create a gorilla onesie.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 7:06Speaker 00

  Because you can keep the, the onesie would have padded feet.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 7:11Speaker 00

  You would have the reinforced, and then you can zip up and then close up to the chin, cover your face, full garment.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  If you want the pants, you can create a detachable pants version.

• 7:26Trevor Noah?

  This, this, can I just say? This is my favorite episode of Shark Tank ever.

• 7:34Trevor Noah?

  I'm picturing, I'm picturing all of them, they're watching this. You and Shark Tank explaining, hi, guys. So, you've always wanted gorilla's skin, but you wish it was one piece. Well, I skinned a gorilla.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  I, I think, I think this should be pitched. Did you, Kimmel went on and did a fake pitch.

• 7:56Trevor Noah?

  He did?

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Did you ever see this?

• 7:57Trevor Noah?

  We should get you on.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  It was hysterical. He pitched horse pants. Because

• 8:03Trevor Noah?

  Wait, pants for horses, right?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, because he said the, the horse is naked. Like, it's covered in the front, but it doesn't have pants. He says, "I was uncomfortable, the horse was uncomfortable. Pants for your horse." I, I think this could be the next iteration.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Yes, because dogs wear those little coats. Have you seen when people put on a bomber jacket on a, on a, on a dog?

• 8:22Trevor Noah?

  That's, it looks adorable.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  Where did the doctor, "I need reinforcement around my chest"?

• 8:27Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but it looks adorable. I, I, I totally agree with you.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  Or dog shoes, I hate those things.

• 8:31Trevor Noah?

  So do the dogs. Have you seen when the dogs do that thing? They're like, "She put the shoes on me." That's like the, the worst thing. No, no, I, I, that I agree with. I don't think dog shoe, dog shoes make sense really because of like the pads under their feet.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:43Trevor Noah?

  But I think dog jackets make sense.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Trevor.

• 8:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 8:47Speaker 00

  That dog jacket makes no freaking sense. It looks like a hunting jacket.

• 8:51Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but sometimes the dog wasn't built for the climate that it's now in.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, but why don't you just cover the whole entire thing then?

• 8:56Trevor Noah?

  What do you mean?

• 8:57Speaker 00

  What makes you think the dog is only cold here and at the back?

• 8:59Trevor Noah?

  Cause it's a body warmer. It's the same thing I think of when I look at people.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  What about my arms?

• 9:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but you look at people, sometimes they choose to wear a jacket where they go like, hey, my arms aren't that cold.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, but the person has urgency. They open their wardrobe, they decided, I'm not feeling too hot.

• 9:14Trevor Noah?

  Have you ever put your dog in a jacket?

• 9:16Speaker 01

  We have cats, but no.

• 9:18Trevor Noah?

  Have you ever put your cats?

• 9:19Speaker 00

  Never.

• 9:19Trevor Noah?

  Never do that.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  No, but if I did, I think wardrobe is backward. Cause what gets cold first, the extremities, right? We need little sock hats to put on the end of our feet. Don't have to cover our heels. Hand gloves are more important than sleeves.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  If you guys, I'd never. Adam, you've brought such a joy to my life.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  This is my subway take.

• 9:39Speaker 00

  I feel like you are the other part, you are Claude right now. My brain needed you. Some things I need to explain to other people.

• 9:46Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you something? If you guys are ever in a plane crash that lands in like the mountains somewhere and there's snow everywhere. And you guys choose, you only have like where you can cover and you choose your extremities. You will die.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  I'm not saying don't cover the core.

• 10:02Trevor Noah?

  Keep your core warm.

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Cover the core. I'm just saying, has your, have your arms ever been cold?

• 10:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Versus when are your hands cold?

• 10:08Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Gloves are more important than sleeves.

• 10:10Trevor Noah?

  Okay, that I can take, yes.

• 10:11Speaker 00

  Love.

• 10:12Trevor Noah?

  This crazy guy on the other hand.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  He's gonna be wearing only gloves.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  This guy. What do you mean this guy? He just agreed with me, but he put it, that's why I said Claude.

• 10:22Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay. So he's, he's your human Claude.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Oh, I will never be your sycophant, Eugene, never, never.

• 10:28Trevor Noah?

  Is Claude a sycophant? I don't think it is. I think Claude is more like, just like to the point.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  They're, I think they're all.

• 10:32Trevor Noah?

  I think ChatGPT is more like, that's a great idea, Adam. You know, I wouldn't have thought of it like that. That's a really great idea.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  Claude disagrees with you.

• 10:39Trevor Noah?

  No, Claude will just be like, I think you're simplifying this too much.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Claude may be better. It still leans more toward validation than it should.

• 10:46Trevor Noah?

  Isn't that most people though that you like work with?

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Oh, we need that in life.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Not if you have healthy working relationships.

• 10:54Trevor Noah?

  Wait, wait, wait. So when you go to a company, do you encourage them to like sprinkle in, sprinkle in a little bit of asshole for the thing to work well? How does it work?

• 11:02Speaker 01

  No, I think I prefer a court jester, actually.

• 11:05Trevor Noah?

  Wait, what do you mean?

• 11:05Speaker 01

  I mean, somebody, cause comedians can say things that no one else can.

• 11:08Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  So we need somebody who's funny, who can do the little mocking laugh that you just did.

• 11:13Trevor Noah?

  In the office?

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Ideally.

• 11:14Trevor Noah?

  Would it be somebody who works in the office or someone they bring in specially for this?

• 11:17Speaker 01

  It's tricky, cause if they work in the office, sometimes they don't have enough power to do it and there's too much risk.

• 11:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  But if they're an outsider, they can't always read the dynamics.

• 11:26Trevor Noah?

  And then I also think if they do have too much power now, it's not funny. Funny relies on not having the power.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Happen or not.

• 11:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but also not having the power.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:36Trevor Noah?

  Have you ever done those gigs where the audience is all sitting like, um, like really below you?

• 11:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:41Trevor Noah?

  It's not, it's not as much fun because it feels like you're like telling them stuff.

• 11:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, you are.

• 11:45Trevor Noah?

  But when, like if you look at great amphitheaters, how they built, the audience peers down on you. So they get to enjoy, you know what I mean? Like you could mock, you could mock the king in the king's box because the king is above you. Ha ha, look at this fool. Then everyone's like, of course, he's not a fool. Look where he's sitting. But if you point down and go, look at this fool.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Literally punching up.

• 12:04Trevor Noah?

  There you go.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  That is.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  This is good.

• 12:06Speaker 00

  So interesting.

• 12:07Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. So now I, like, I'll tell you now, I, I don't like bosses who like go around the office like trying to be funny. I think that's terrible. That's like the worst thing ever.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  Wait, so as a boss, you stop being funny? Let's say you were a jolly guy who everyone likes.

• 12:20Trevor Noah?

  There's a difference. Jolly and trying to be funny.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:24Trevor Noah?

  Be yourself. But I'm saying there's bosses who come in and now for instance, imagine it's like your boss now and then comes in and goes like Eugene, oh, oh, oh. Who, huh, huh, what are those? What do you say to your boss now?

• 12:39Trevor Noah?

  And now everyone laughs because they're like, it's the boss. He just mocked your shoes. What do you do?

• 12:43Speaker 00

  And you can't reply because of the power dynamics, you see now?

• 12:46Speaker 01

  No. So this is why my favorite classes to teach are when students don't laugh at my jokes. Cause I, I feel like they're, I'm gonna get honest feedback from them and they're gonna challenge me. This is also why the more powerful you get, the more the cardinal rule of humor is, you make fun of yourself, not others. The boss, boss who self-deprecates, I'm all in for that.

• 13:05Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay. As opposed to the boss, ah, they've also got to know what self-deprecation is. Cause I've seen some people who think it's self-deprecation, but it's not. You know what I mean?

• 13:15Speaker 00

  They'll be like, huh, sorry I was late, everybody. I.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  You know, it's just sometimes you, you don't realize what time it is when you live in a penthouse at the top floor of the best city in the world.

• 13:30Trevor Noah?

  And you're like, that, that wasn't a joke.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  No, that was a humble brag.

• 13:33Trevor Noah?

  And also it's just, yeah, it's just you telling us what you have. So wait, when you, when you're teaching these, when they don't laugh, what do you, what do you do? How do you respond out of a don't laugh? I've always wondered what people do when they're not a comedian.

• 13:45Trevor Noah?

  Do you go like, but it's crazy though.

• 13:46Speaker 00

  That's actually a good one.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, like this is, yeah, here's, here's what every.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  My brain was like, what?

• 13:52Speaker 01

  What every professor wants to do is to say, no, no, no, no, like that was funny. The last, the last audience laughed, what's wrong with you people?

• 13:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  No. Here's what I have found works and tell me if this is good. So I used to perform as a magician, um, which is like the lowest status form of entertainment.

• 14:09Trevor Noah?

  No, no.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Possible.

• 14:12Speaker 00

  You, not always.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  I mean, according to Family Guy, only mimes are lower than magicians.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  And there was a mime school down the road from you.

• 14:21Trevor Noah?

  Mimes is hard to like argue against.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Everyone makes fun of magicians.

• 14:25Speaker 00

  They defend themselves.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  But I, I did, I did perform for a while and the thing that I learned doing magic was you have to just accept the moment and call it out. And so when I get crickets, I'm like, wow. That was, that was really terrible. And I just own it.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Huh.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  And then they usually laugh at that.

• 14:47Trevor Noah?

  Oh, they laugh at the fact that you've acknowledged how terrible the thing was?

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:50Trevor Noah?

  Boy, with magic, what would happen? You'd do a trick.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  You mess up a trick.

• 14:53Trevor Noah?

  Oh, you mess up a trick.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  And they're like, yeah, that sucked. And then they laugh with you as opposed to asking.

• 14:57Trevor Noah?

  And now we're just all staring at a dead dove on the floor. So, um.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Oh, no, don't work with live animals. No.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  Oui.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  No, bad.

• 15:06Trevor Noah?

  So if I make a coat out of this dove. Too soon?

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Definitely too soon. No, no, don't go there. That's, that's very painful. You guys are, you guys are just, like, anyone who likes animals is gonna be suffering right now, but.

• 15:21Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, we love animals. Like, these are, these are, these are hypothetical animals. I'm all for real animals. I think hypothetical animals, you should be able to like do more things to them.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Fair.

• 15:32Trevor Noah?

  Hypothetical, many things.

• 15:33Speaker 00

  Make quilts out of your old pets.

• 15:34Trevor Noah?

  Ah, my man, it's hypothetical. That's the joy in it.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  It will keep you closer to you, I'm the.

• 15:39Trevor Noah?

  It actually does keep you closer.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:40Trevor Noah?

  Now, if you, if we could just pause for a second, Adam, what I've been trying, what I've been trying to do here.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Pause for a second.

• 15:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:47Trevor Noah?

  No, what I've been trying to do here is, um, conduct a mini experiment with you as a test subject.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 15:52Trevor Noah?

  Right. Because I, I was reading your book, Vibe. And I was trying to see how we could create a vibe between us. So now.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  You were definitely not doing that.

• 16:01Trevor Noah?

  What, what would you rate? How would you rate the vibe?

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Well, it depends on what our goals are.

• 16:05Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I'm just saying, how would you rate the vibe? If you now walked out at this moment, what would you say? Did we create a good vibe? Did we, did we get it right?

• 16:11Speaker 01

  I would say we created a great pal vibe. And I'm not sure about our companion or ally vibe yet, but we'll find out.

• 16:19Trevor Noah?

  Oh, damn. So you have to think of all types of vibes. I was, I was telling Eugene about the book and I was going. This, I love nothing more than when smart people apply themselves to issues that I think people are actually struggling with.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, day to day stuff.

• 16:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. And for me, no, and for me vibe is that, like genuinely, genuinely, genuinely. I will say just as a side note, I think it's amazing that you took the opportunity in a book that you're like aiming to have as a bestseller to like take a dig at that kid who stole the basketball from you. That's pretty gangster, like the opening pages of a book. You know, most people would be like, you know, growing up, my family and, and the things I've learned in society. Adam's like, yo, when I was a kid, this kid stole my basketball from me.

• 17:04Trevor Noah?

  The kids I played with were dicks and they laughed at me and I thought they were my friends and they weren't my friends.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  Totally fucked up my vibe.

• 17:10Trevor Noah?

  Totally screwed up everything in my life. And they, they stole, and I thought he was my friend and he stole my basketball. It was a limited edition basketball. And screw you. And you even name him. What's his name again?

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Oh, I changed his name.

• 17:22Trevor Noah?

  Oh, you did change it. Okay. But you wrote in the book and it was like, yo, screw you. So now let's talk about how to create vibe. And as a professor and as an organization, I was like, yo, Adam. Yo, Adam was like, where I find you with my basketball.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  Shots fired.

• 17:38Trevor Noah?

  No, but, but, but, but for real though. It's actually funny. I like that you called it vibe because it's inviting. But I really think, you know, the the non-exciting title of the the book could be How to Cure Loneliness.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Oh, well, uh, my 15 year old will be very happy because she came up with the title and she doesn't like it.

• 17:58Trevor Noah?

  Oh, wait, what do you mean? She came up with the title?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Accidentally. So I was just getting ready to start writing it and uh I was uh I was traveling with her and she saw me talking with somebody that I met once or twice before and and she said, you two were really vibing. I was like, that's the title.

• 18:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, she was like, oh, what have I done?

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like, stop saying, stop saying vibe, Dad. Over and over again. But yes, I want to try to figure out how we can be less lonely. I feel like that's a big problem in the world.

• 18:27Trevor Noah?

  Less lonely, how do we get along more? How do we understand the dynamics behind behind getting along? So remember what I was saying to you earlier, right? And this is literally I'm quoting from the book or paraphrasing rather. You literally lay this out as you get into the book is going like, have you ever had that moment where you meet someone? You you you engage with them, you go like, man, I really love this person. And then you go, but like, why? That's literally what you that's literally what you're working on. That's what you've worked on in this book.

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Eugene, I'm just gonna have you interview Trevor about the book.

• 18:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 18:57Speaker 01

  I'm not needed here.

• 18:58Trevor Noah?

  Ask me about, ask me about my profession as a, my time as a professional diver. So you know that he was, right?

• 19:06Speaker 00

  So tell me about the time where you used to be a professional diver.

• 19:11Trevor Noah?

  Yo, top board. I was up there, six pack and everything, underwear with suit.

• 19:22Trevor Noah?

  You see, that's the sound a professional makes. You wanted to go splash. We don't splash.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  No, no, Trevor.

• 19:28Trevor Noah?

  What's the sound?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  The sound, the rip entry is a.

• 19:31Trevor Noah?

  Is that what it is?

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, it sounds like a tearing.

• 19:34Trevor Noah?

  Oh.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Cause your your flat palm hits the water and makes a sound.

• 19:37Trevor Noah?

  Do you still dive?

• 19:38Speaker 01

  I mean, once or twice a year.

• 19:41Trevor Noah?

  Like, you save it for, how often do you go up to like the top one and then do like the the really super acrobatic?

• 19:46Speaker 01

  10 meter platform, I wouldn't do anything but something really simple, but 1 meter or 3 meter springboard, I'll flip and twist.

• 19:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, he was like a full on, full on.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Tiny little Speedo underwear and sucked in stomach and chest and and all that.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  I don't know why you're trying to create visuals around that.

• 20:01Trevor Noah?

  It's a vibe.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  That is not a vibe. That is a bad vibe. The opposite of the kind of vibe I'm trying to create.

• 20:08Trevor Noah?

  No, but, but, but.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Forgiven.

• 20:10Trevor Noah?

  But I I want to know why. I mean, like, your your your previous books, you know, I mean, CEOs love them. Uh, you know, companies will talk about everyone, but this book feels like it's genuinely for like the people, people, like all the people everywhere. You're not in a company, you're not in anything. Like, what was the inspiration behind this book as and the idea? What are you trying to solve?

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Um, I think it came from two places.

• 20:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  One was just over and over again, having the experience of like having a great interaction with somebody. And then thinking, oh, like, I'm a shy introvert. I've finally figured out how to connect with other people. And then meeting somebody else and feeling like I went right back to the awkward turtle version of me.

• 20:51Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  I'm like, how can I be both people? Like, how can I, how can I in one conversation feel like I have immediate chemistry and closeness with somebody? And then somebody else, I I want to crawl into a hole because it was so uncomfortable. I think that was the first thing. And then the second thing was, I'm just watching tons of people struggle with connection. Um, I'm, I mean, I'm terrified for my students right now. Like, a good, a good number of them have AI companions, which I think is an oxymoron.

• 21:19Trevor Noah?

  Sorry, what does that mean?

• 21:20Speaker 01

  They they claim that they're friends with their their favorite AI chatbot.

• 21:24Trevor Noah?

  Oh, like for real, for real?

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:25Trevor Noah?

  You know, I've seen people write about this. I didn't think it was a real thing. Like, I didn't think it was like a, like, you you know, things are always real, but I'm like, is this a real thing?

• 21:31Speaker 01

  You say it's. It's it's real. In fact, if you look at surveys in the UK and the US, um, and you look at Gen Z, somewhere around a third will say, yes, I have an AI companion. They consider it a real friend. And a significant minority of those would rather interact with their chatbot than with a human. I'm like, that's a problem. We got to fix that.

• 21:52Trevor Noah?

  So is that a problem with, where's the problem, though? Is the, is the problem with the AI? Or is the problem with society?

• 22:00Speaker 01

  I think both.

• 22:01Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  But I think it's, it's easier to teach people new skills for how to vibe. And to explore the psychology of that, that's what I do.

• 22:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Than it is to get all of the AI companies to change their algorithms and rewrite their bots.

• 22:14Trevor Noah?

  What's cool about it is it also felt like you were sharing something that you used in your life. Like.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Constantly.

• 22:20Trevor Noah?

  Like, you, yeah, you you you talked about how, you know, you were awkward, you're trying to get over this awkwardness, you you you'd struggle to like talk to people, you would figure out like, how do I fit in? How do I not fit in? And then you chose magic, which is like a terrible choice, in my opinion.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  Forgetting girls.

• 22:35Trevor Noah?

  Terrible choice as well.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  Forgetting girls.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Bad.

• 22:39Trevor Noah?

  Which girls are you getting?

• 22:41Speaker 00

  Are you telling me that girls would not love a guy who can bend a spoon and pop a card out of their sleeve?

• 22:46Speaker 01

  My own wife told me she hates magic. Everyone loves the wow experience. Nobody wants to hang out with the person.

• 22:59Trevor Noah?

  That's the thing, yes.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Really?

• 23:01Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, the thing is there, it's cool. No one wants to like go home with the magician.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Nope, nope.

• 23:08Speaker 00

  No one want to go home with.

• 23:10Trevor Noah?

  Ah, bruh.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  Siegfried and Roy?

• 23:12Trevor Noah?

  No, bruh.

• 23:13Speaker 00

  That's why they had each other.

• 23:15Trevor Noah?

  Nah, bruh, it's just not.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Penn and Teller? Now I'm starting to realize there's a trend here.

• 23:21Trevor Noah?

  No, but and and like you talk about this and you go, you were just like bouncing from awkward to awkward.

• 23:27Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 23:27Trevor Noah?

  And then you meet this, or rather, you you you're in this class where you start realizing that in that one class, you are sort of like the best version of yourself, or the version you of yourself you want to be the most. You know?

• 23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I I had an incredible professor, excuse me, let me try that again. I had an incredible professor, Brian Little, uh, who became my mentor. And Brian is also a shy introvert. And he was electrifying. And he would just drop these little, these little nuggets. I I remember him coming to class one day and saying, did you know that in the morning, if you sprinkle lemon juice on your tongue, the more you salivate, the more likely it is that you're an extrovert? And I'm like, what? And he's like, no, no, no, no, actually, it's the reverse. The introverts salivate, salivate more.

• 24:12Trevor Noah?

  But you see, like, stuff like that is. No, but but stuff like that is crazy to me. That you can repeat that and prove it.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  I mean, this is what.

• 24:21Trevor Noah?

  Lemon drops on the tongue?

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:22Trevor Noah?

  Introverts will salivate more. Do we know why, by the way?

• 24:25Speaker 01

  We think, so I think we need more research to unpack it, but we think that introverts are more sensitive to stimulation. And so a bright light, a loud sound, uh, you know, something sour.

• 24:37Trevor Noah?

  Okay, and and that's probably why they are introverts, because the world is overstimulating them. Okay, this actually makes a lot of sense.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  The opposite for extroverts.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Uh, extroverts have the opposite, so they're less sensitive, which is why they they love loud music. Uh, they'll seek out bigger groups because that's stimulating. It's also why extroverts are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. Because they are, they need more stimulation to get to the same level of engagement. There's one theory, anyway.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  Huh. This is crazy.

• 25:10Trevor Noah?

  You see, now we're in the class.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 25:11Trevor Noah?

  Do you see what he's just done? We weren't even in the class and Adam took us into the class. That's how good his lecture was. Look at us now. We were in that class being like, what? Tell us more.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  But that, I mean, this is a skill, right?

• 25:24Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it is.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  That was the thing is, I realized this is a skill. That psychologists call that a curiosity gap, where you tell someone something really interesting, but you don't reveal all of it and then they want to know more. And I I watched Brian do that and thought, I can learn to do this. And I started telling people about the cool things I was learning and all of a sudden our vibe changed. And I thought, okay, maybe we can vibe with more of the people, more of the time if we change our routines and rituals.

• 25:49Trevor Noah?

  Right, right, right.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  For how we interact.

• 25:51Trevor Noah?

  Just figure out, that's what, that's what people do to get like a really viral TikTok or YouTube reel or any of those things. If you, if you watch the videos that are really hooking, they always start you off with something that has that curiosity gap and then they leave you hanging on. Do you get what I'm saying? And then you are now like, wait, why, why is that? Have you ever noticed how when you're done eating a meal, you always feel like there's not enough space for food, but you've still got space for sugar? Why is that? And then you're like, why is that? And then you're gonna watch now. And then, and then what they do is they go like, well, before we get there, you need to understand what sugar actually is. So you see the compounds and then you you you're on this journey, you're on this journey, you're on this journey, you're on this journey. And then at the end, they're supposed to.

• 26:36Speaker 00

  Now you're in.

• 26:37Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you're in.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's.

• 26:38Trevor Noah?

  So you do that to people in real life?

• 26:40Speaker 01

  I mean, hopefully for them, not to them.

• 26:42Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  I'm not using this against you.

• 26:44Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, okay.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  I'm trying to, I'm trying to bond here, trying to connect. I'm trying to add some value to your life, share something interesting with you.

• 26:51Trevor Noah?

  When you're trying to create connections with people, how do you avoid reverting to or existing in a place that feels like sort of contrived versus just knowing what these things are? So this is what I mean. I I have like, I have a friend who has read every like book on how to be charismatic.

• 27:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:13Trevor Noah?

  And then I think because of that has stopped being charismatic.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Right, because it's an act and it's forced and fake.

• 27:17Trevor Noah?

  For instance, like, they'll ask me things like, what excites you in the next five years? Then I'm like, ah, bruh, don't do that, bruh. That's not. What do you mean?

• 27:28Speaker 00

  Oh, that's a thoughtful question, my man.

• 27:31Trevor Noah?

  Okay, I like. We're hanging out as friends. You've known me for years.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Is Eugene a friend?

• 27:35Trevor Noah?

  No, he knows he's not.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  I thought you were about to call him out.

• 27:38Trevor Noah?

  No, Eugene would never. You know what I'm talking about. People ask you questions, people like, they just say things to you like.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Eugene was afraid for a second.

• 27:48Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  My AI that didn't pay full subscription for.

• 27:54Trevor Noah?

  No, but you know what I mean.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  I have a friend. He's been reading about how to win friends and influence people. He's lost his mojo.

• 28:03Trevor Noah?

  But, but you get what I'm saying, like, like, because, because there are so many books that'll tell you how to do things, how to be natural, how to be charismatic, how to be this, how to be that, how to be that. And then sometimes what happens is the people go into the real world and then they're thinking of the thing. Remember when that, that dating book was, the pick up artist book was big?

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 28:27Trevor Noah?

  What was it called? The game?

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, Neil Stressed.

• 28:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, and then every guy was now like, first thing I must do is neg. Let me begin my journey with a peacock, peacock into an IOI, indication of interest. And now I will neg, and now I will, she's like, what are you doing, bro? What are you doing? And then it got so, it was such a parody of itself. You, you know what I mean? It was, it was such, it was such a shtick that now people would be doing it when they're out. And then women would just be like, are you negging me right now? Guy would be like.

• 28:59Trevor Noah?

  You glitched, because now the person got you. Same thing with somebody who's read a book on how to have a good conversation with you. Then they'll say, so Adam, tell me, if you look back on the past five years of your life, what would you say has really just made you feel like today is worth you being here? And now Adam's like, oh, that's an interesting question.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  You know what I've realized is, um, what creates a great conversation is vulnerability and curiosity. Cause with vulnerability, you allow yourself to be wrong. Like, we have this rule that we don't, it's not a rule really, but whenever we come up with a thing that we're saying to each other, we don't fact check it on our phones.

• 29:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, we're not allowed to do that.

• 29:41Speaker 00

  Like you and I just did back there. Yeah, we're like, yeah, what if we find out it's not?

• 29:44Speaker 01

  I don't wanna break the vibe. We'll check it, we'll check it after.

• 29:46Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it's boring.

• 29:47Speaker 00

  So that, when you're willing to be wrong about something, the conversation just gets better and better. Cause it allows the other person to correct you or to acknowledge the fact that you know something that they didn't know.

• 29:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 00

  So their curiosity cup gets fuller and in yours, your interest gets peaked as well because now you'd wanna know what they know. So if they, if they start with curiosity low and then you start with, um, interest high, then you can meet each other in the middle.

• 30:11Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but what I'm asking you, Adam, is how do you, how do you not?

• 30:15Speaker 01

  How do you not become a robot?

• 30:16Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, I think Eugene, where were you when I was writing chapter two? Cause you just added a little piece that's missing, uh, which is about the curiosity dance and how both people can bring it. But I.

• 30:27Trevor Noah?

  You must be in the next, what's the?

• 30:29Speaker 01

  In the paperback.

• 30:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, and you know, in the next edition, you're gonna put in the Eugene edition. By the way, Eugene added this.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  There's gonna be a Eugene footnote.

• 30:40Trevor Noah?

  I like that.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  You're gonna own that footnote.

• 30:42Trevor Noah?

  Thank you.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Trevor, I think, I think your question is fascinating and I actually really struggled with it when writing the book because there are all these questions that have been tested as good icebreakers and conversation starters. And the moment it becomes a bit is the moment I wanna stop using it.

• 30:55Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Right? So I remember being at a conference a few years ago and everybody's saying, oh, what do you do? I'm like, what a, what a boring, also overly American question.

• 31:03Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Like, we have to define ourselves by our jobs or our careers. I study jobs. I still don't wanna just stay at the surface of what is your profession. So I said, you know what? Forget, like, forget what do you do? What do you love to do? And we had a great conversation because they immediately started sharing something they were passionate about. The next time I did it, didn't, it didn't do anything for me because I felt like I was just doing like a, a click wur. Sort of, I was an automaton.

• 31:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you, it was a pre-programmed bit in a way.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so I think what's better is, I think we can give, like, if we're talking about conversation starters, what we should do is we should give some examples of different kinds of conversation starters and why they're effective. And now the task is to come up with your own. And I, that, that's where I wanna live, is here's some that have worked for me. What's, like, what, what is it about them that makes them effective and now use your creativity?

• 31:55Trevor Noah?

  So you, you're learning a skill, you're not learning how to parrot something.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 32:01Trevor Noah?

  And, and there's a difference there. Cause that, cause that's, that's honestly the thing that I'm struggling with is I feel like people are taking what they read

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:09Trevor Noah?

  in all of these self-help type books. And all they do is parrot them. And if you go and listen to a real conversation with people, you can, you'll start hearing it if you listen clearly enough. People are like, hmm, that's interesting. I've never thought of it that way.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:24Trevor Noah?

  So if I'm hearing you correctly, what you're saying is, then I'm like, man, you don't have to do that all the time. It is good to repeat what somebody said back to them just to clarify, but if you do it every time.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  Every single sentence they utter, you come up with, hmm. You know what I feel like?

• 32:40Speaker 01

  This happens all the time, all the time. I mean, another one that people hear regularly is, uh, is repeat the other person's name because they find their own name very pleasing. And then all of a sudden it's like, hey Trevor, I wanted to let you know, Trevor, that you should be aware, Trevor.

• 32:53Trevor Noah?

  Oh, boy.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Shut up. No, terrible.

• 32:56Speaker 00

  I feel like, I feel like the best conversation starter with a stranger is if they feel like they can resolve a conflict that you're having either with someone else, if there's two of you.

• 33:07Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 33:08Speaker 00

  And then you're coming to this one person. And, or if you're just alone, you can say something, you can be like, so is this a button up or a button down shit? Cause we're having a difficulty trying to figure this part out. Then the person goes, oh yeah, it is a, then we can say, you see, you are wrong. Or we can say, oh, thanks for that. I'm right.

• 33:27Trevor Noah?

  What's the psychology behind that?

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Okay, so this is a different kind of vibe. So I, I feel like we should talk about the different kinds of vibes.

• 33:32Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, okay, let's go.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  That'll help to organize.

• 33:34Trevor Noah?

  Okay, let's do them. What are, what are they?

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Okay, so I, I think for most of my life, I just kinda put people in categories based on what domain in my life they were a part of.

• 33:43Trevor Noah?

  So like black, Indian?

• 33:44Speaker 01

  No!

• 33:45Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Trevor.

• 33:46Speaker 00

  Sorry.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Friend, family.

• 33:48Speaker 00

  Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry. Amen. Apoptite, man. I'm sorry, man. Sorry, Adam.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  Stereotypes are strong in this one.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  My bad, man. My bad, my bad, Adam. Sorry, sorry. Okay. So you started off with people in categories.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  That's what we all do, right?

• 33:59Speaker 00

  All right, sorry, sorry. Carry on.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  How, it's like, how do you know this person?

• 34:02Trevor Noah?

  Okay, got it.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  I met them at work, they're blood relatives.

• 34:05Trevor Noah?

  Yes, yes, okay.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  We, we hang out, we met in school, whatever, right? We're not, we're not gonna be able to escape, we're not gonna get out of this.

• 34:11Trevor Noah?

  Sorry about this, Adam.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  No, no. I feel like we need a ten, a ten minute pause.

• 34:16Trevor Noah?

  He's usually not like this at all.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  On Trevor projecting racism onto me. Thank you, Trevor, for that.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  Whoa, whoa, it's not racism. I, we all have different ways. You said, I categorize the people. I was like, oh, so the category, and I made a mistake. And for that, Adam, I'm sorry. You know what I like about our friendship is at some point you will dethrone me from my, from my, from.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  Putting a foot in your mouth.

• 34:44Speaker 00

  He will, at some point I know, he will parachute down, take me off the pedestal and then perch himself nicely down top. Then no one remembers the gorilla suit anymore.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  He's gonna one up you and how terrible.

• 34:59Speaker 00

  It started with a gorilla suit, it ended with racism. Click on that thumbnail. Okay, yeah, so sorry, so that's how you started.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  I did, I did start there. And at some point it hit me that those, like, those categories are not very useful. They tell you how you're connected, but not why.

• 35:16Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  They don't reveal the purpose of the relationship. Like, why, why do we matter to each other? And what kind of vibe are we building together?

• 35:23Trevor Noah?

  Oh, damn. Okay, okay.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  And in, in particular, like, those categories fail to explain, like, why do, why do some coworkers become friends? Why does some friends feel like family? Why do we all have at least one uncle who we wish we weren't related to?

• 35:41Trevor Noah?

  Alcohol.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe. But I'm like, I, I'm closer to some coworkers than I am to people I'm related to and vice versa. What is that about? And so I, I started reading a lot of research on this and basically what I discovered is there are three ways to build meaningful vibes in most cultures around the world. And they all have different words for them, but I've come to call them allies, pals and companions.

• 36:05Trevor Noah?

  Allies, pals, companions.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Allies, pals, companions. So basically allies are people who share your goals. Pals are people who share your interests and companions are people who share your values.

• 36:17Speaker 00

  That you can go on a journey with.

• 36:19Trevor Noah?

  Wait, wait, okay, wait, but let's, let's, let's go deeper into these ways. So allies are?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  So allies, you're basically accomplishing something together. They're your best collaborators.

• 36:27Trevor Noah?

  Now, in, in what way are you saying, like, in, in a, in a, is it a work task? Is it a?

• 36:32Speaker 01

  It's open.

• 36:32Trevor Noah?

  Is it a purpose task? Is it, well, yeah, but I'm, I'm trying to understand.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Could be any kind of project you're doing. So they could be the people that you would wanna start a company with.

• 36:39Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  They could be people that you wanna co-host a podcast with. They could be people that you'd love to volunteer together or would love to have you, egging you on when you're doing a race together for charity.

• 36:49Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  They're the people who help, who, who help bring out the best version of you.

• 36:53Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so now let's, let's, let's go into the why on that. Why is it that that happens? Like, why, why, why do they work in that and another person doesn't?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  So I think allies work very well on, on compatibility in terms of being complimentary to you. So they share your goals, but they have different skills and different perspectives.

• 37:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  And so they can, they can bring out aspects of you that don't exist. They can see your blind spots. They can elevate you.

• 37:19Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay. So you.

• 37:23Trevor Noah?

  I mean, now I'll go to like football as the analogy.

• 37:27Speaker 01

  We're talking soccer football, right?

• 37:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, the only.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Not American football.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  I'm glad you're thinking about, because I think about war.

• 37:33Trevor Noah?

  I mean, that's one way to think of it. But I would, I was going like, yeah, left wing, right wing, striker, center back, what? Everyone has a different skill set.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:41Trevor Noah?

  But everyone has the same objective and goal.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 37:43Trevor Noah?

  They're trying to do the same.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, platoons in the war is the same in the army, right?

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Those are all, those are ally relationships.

• 37:48Trevor Noah?

  I see, okay.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Which is one kind of vibe.

• 37:50Trevor Noah?

  Okay, got it.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Right, which is we, we are here for a purpose.

• 37:52Trevor Noah?

  All right.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  And we don't have to sing kumbaya, we don't even have to like each other.

• 37:56Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  What we have to do is figure out how to become better together than we were alone.

• 38:02Trevor Noah?

  Okay. Second one is?

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Pals.

• 38:05Trevor Noah?

  So that's in the friendship realm?

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Often, yeah. But you can be pals with your colleagues too, or with your family members.

• 38:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I'm saying this, this is like, this, I'm trying to like delineate them, so the pal part is like.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Most common.

• 38:14Trevor Noah?

  Okay, got it. And pal?

• 38:16Speaker 01

  They're people you have fun with. Um, you have similar interests, similar hobbies, you like the same movies, you might end up like wanting to go do karaoke together. Uh, you probably have the same taste in humor. They're basically the people who bring out joy in you.

• 38:30Trevor Noah?

  Okay, I like that they bring out joy in you. So I'm, I'm, I'm really trying to get clear on this, because so the first people is like, we're trying to build the same building together.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:38Trevor Noah?

  But they may bring no joy, but because they're trying to help you, or they believe the task that you are engaged in should be completed. You may derive joy from it, but it doesn't necessarily like come with joy. It, it, it, one may be a byproduct, but it isn't. Whereas the second one, it is like one of the defining characteristics.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Joy is the goal.

• 38:54Trevor Noah?

  Only.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  We, we don't, we don't care if anything comes out of our interaction, we like the experience.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  Yes. If, if your pickle boil, ball friend gets an injury, you're not gonna bring him chicken soup.

• 39:04Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  You, you just wish them speedy recovery so they can come back and play pickle with you.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  If they're an ally.

• 39:09Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so that's an ally.

• 39:10Speaker 00

  If an ally is.

• 39:11Trevor Noah?

  Ah, ah, I see.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  And if they're an ally, you want them if you're, if they're at the same skill level as you.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Whereas if they're a pal, you want them to be the funniest player you know.

• 39:21Trevor Noah?

  I see, this makes a lot of sense, okay. Ah, okay, and then the last one is?

• 39:27Speaker 01

  And then the, the last one is companions. And those are the people who give emotional support, typically.

• 39:34Trevor Noah?

  How's that, how's that different to a pal?

• 39:36Speaker 01

  It's, it's more care as opposed to joy. So a pal is the person who's excited to be in your wedding party.

• 39:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Companion is the one who shows up at the funeral.

• 39:46Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. Huh.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:50Trevor Noah?

  Now.

• 39:52Trevor Noah?

  First question I have is, you're not saying that each of these people is, is fixed in one category, right? Can I be an ally, a pal and a companion?

• 40:01Speaker 01

  No, you have to choose, only one.

• 40:03Trevor Noah?

  Really?

• 40:03Speaker 01

  No, of course not.

• 40:04Trevor Noah?

  Oh damn, okay. No, I was like, hey, bro, I was like, okay.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  No, actually.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  I saw his life flashing in front of his eyes.

• 40:09Trevor Noah?

  It, my man, I was just like.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  He felt like he chose.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Choose your lane.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  He felt like he chose, but he didn't know when.

• 40:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I felt like when I'm playing video games and then I'm like, ah, warlock, oh, knight. I want magic, but I also like using a sword. Why do I have to choose? Why is this one path that I can take? I want to wield an axe and a sword at the same time. Why cannot cast a few spells? I also wish to hide in the shadows. Why do I, why cannot be an assassin mage knight? Why do I have to?

• 40:40Speaker 01

  You can in this case.

• 40:41Trevor Noah?

  Okay, so this is good. This is great news for me, actually.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, so look, the, we, we can, we can vibe with people on multiple wavelengths. Usually our closest friends, uh, and the people we are most bonded with, um, cover all three of these bases.

• 40:55Trevor Noah?

  Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So now, let's go to the puzzle that everybody's trying to solve. People are like, all right, Adam, these things all make sense. You've just given them a fancy label. Whoop-de-doo professor, thanks, thanks very much for that. You haven't changed my life. I know I have pals, I know I have allies, I know I have companions in my life. But what I'm saying to you is, I feel like I have fewer pals than ever before. I feel like I don't have allies in my life. And to be honest with you, other than like my parents, maybe, I don't have any companions. Like, like what am I supposed to do with this?

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the, I think the so out of this is, I think we need a new language of connection.

• 41:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  And I think we need a new language because this becomes a.

• 41:33Trevor Noah?

  Dothraki.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Yes, if that helps you. I don't speak Dothraki.

• 41:38Speaker 00

  I was gonna say discernment, but carry on, Dothraki.

• 41:41Trevor Noah?

  You know what?

• 41:42Speaker 00

  I, I, I'd.

• 41:43Trevor Noah?

  We were both using a D, so this is why we are.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  I'm go, I'm going Lannister direction here.

• 41:50Speaker 00

  You know what they say? Lannister always pays us dead, man.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 41:54Trevor Noah?

  Another D.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  That's a reliable ally. You can count on that.

• 41:58Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay, okay, so.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  So here's the thing, I think that, I think we need a new language because it gives us different ways of connecting. It also gives us different ways of avoiding killing a vibe.

• 42:08Trevor Noah?

  Cool.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  So oftentimes, I, I have this experience all the time. I think somebody is gonna be a great ally or companion.

• 42:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  And so I try to start a collaboration with them, or I share something vulnerable with them. And it doesn't happen. And then I realize, oh, that person should be in the pal zone. And often, we don't see eye to eye. Like, I'm, I'm trying to ally you and you're trying to pal me. And that can be a recipe for conflict, for betrayal, even if you don't. Yeah, exactly, because you have a set of expectations about what this interaction is supposed to be like. And if I don't meet those, then that can hurt our relationship or prevent us from forming one, one in the first place.

• 42:49Trevor Noah?

  That's so profound.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Is it?

• 42:51Trevor Noah?

  It truly is profound.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Why?

• 42:55Trevor Noah?

  Because what you've revealed, I think, gives us a beautifully mechanical view of something that we've always assumed is really just like esoteric in a way. You know, why is this person, why that person, why not that person? But, but think about how many people have friendships that completely break down, have business relationships that like end in flames, that have romantic relationships that like blow up. And they are like, I don't know why, I don't know why. But then now what you've just said is like, yeah, maybe you turned a pal, you thought this pal would be a good companion, but they were a good pal. You thought this ally would good, would be a good pal, but no. And you thought this pal would be a good ally, but they're not, they were just a good pal.

• 43:39Trevor Noah?

  And now you, you started a business with your best friend. And now the business has fallen apart, and now you hate each other, and you're like, but why would my friend do this to me? It's like, yeah, your pal didn't do it to you, your ally, they weren't an ally, that's why they did it to you.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  They were a bad choice of an ally.

• 43:52Trevor Noah?

  That's why I'm saying it's like, it's extremely profound, because it also removes malice.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, I mean, that, that was the light bulb I had when I put this framework together, after going through all this evidence was, oh, that's why that relationship fell apart.

• 44:05Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  I, I, I, I was upset that that person didn't call me back. And I had a, I had a strong expectation that an ally is reliable and responsive. And a companion is there for you. And they were just a fun pal. And instead of just kind of letting it fizzle, or having a nasty confrontation with them, I could say, you know what? That person has a place in my life. I love hanging out with them in a group. I'm not gonna expect them to be there for me, and now I've lost one less relationship.

• 44:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, so the way, the way I've always thought of it is I go, my friends all contain a part of me. And more importantly, what they've done is they've, you know, like in the lab where you put a solution or a thing on, what do they call that, when they put something on something else?

• 44:50Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 44:51Trevor Noah?

  No, man, it's called a, what is it? It's not an agitator, it's a.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  A pipette?

• 44:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, but you put something.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Pipette is the instrument, right?

• 44:57Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, the instrument, now I like this game, this is game night, we're good, we're getting there.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  Pipette inside a Petri dish.

• 45:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but you put something on it so that it reveals something.

• 45:05Speaker 00

  Or bacteria.

• 45:06Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, but it's called a.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Is it a solution?

• 45:08Trevor Noah?

  Not a, there's a word for it, there's a word for it, it'll, it'll come to me.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  Sort of an activator of some sort, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Oh, a catalyst.

• 45:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, catalyst, thank you. Ah! Can I, ten, ten points, Adam. Ally.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Catalyst.

• 45:18Trevor Noah?

  I'm in, let's go. So, we'd be great at game night, this is fantastic, thank you, Adam. So, you know, when you think of those catalysts, I think of everyone in your life as a catalyst. And what happens is, the more time you spend with them, the more, you know, the catalyism goes, is catalytic or catalytic, yeah. So the more they catalyze that thing inside of you, and they reveal it, and you feel it, and you feel it, and you feel it. What I, what I think we take for granted is that not all catalysts bring out the best or what we want to feel. So some of your friends make you feel shit. Some of your friends make you feel less than. Some of your friends will always make you remember your mistakes, remember your lowest moments, remember you,

• 46:00Trevor Noah?

  they'll make you angry, they'll make you bitter, they'll, anyone can have that. And they're not doing it in a neck, they're not trying to do this to you, it's just how the two things interact, right? So with the Horcruxes, I go, you've got your friends, you've got your friends, you've got your friends. Each of them contains a part of you. And so the reason I say it's liberating was it's, it's freeing is because when you go to that friend, they are bringing that thing out of you.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:25Trevor Noah?

  And just like anything in life, I think balance is important. If you're only with that friend, then you'll start to only get pulled in one direction. And then the other parts of you don't get pulled anymore, and you'll forget actually how much you want some of those things.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  This is the Trevor headline of chapter three. I, I never thought about this in terms of Horcruxes, but this is, this is the kind of, i- it's been a, an upheaval in our understanding of personality. We used to think about people just having stable traits. Like, I'm an introvert, you might be a little bit more ambiverted or extroverted. We now, that's all true, but we now think much more about our if then signatures. So there are certain situations and certain people that would bring out a more extroversion, extroverted version of me versus a more introverted version of me. And that, that dynamic of, okay, our interaction created that, right? It elicited that in me, but you store it, I need to interact with you to, to be that version of me? That's exactly why we sometimes want different people to be pals, allies or companions.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Because they activate different parts of our if then qualities.

• 47:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, because if you're not careful, you spend all your time with an ally, you, you don't realize that you need rest.

• 47:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:34Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean? Like, an ally is an, an amazing thing, but I, I think of like the stories and the movies and the tales that you would love. You know, like, you love like ship faring, you, you love those types of tales.

• 47:46Trevor Noah?

  In many of them, the sailors would like part ways as soon as the boat hits the shore.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, when it docks. All right, see you at the next voyage. And you're like, but you've spent months at sea. And they're like, yeah, that's exactly why I'll see you at the next voyage.

• 47:58Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 47:59Trevor Noah?

  Because.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  Same with army vets, right? They'll come back from a war.

• 48:03Trevor Noah?

  Interesting.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  Some of them will never see each other again, but some will keep contact, that one person.

• 48:07Trevor Noah?

  You see that, yeah, you see those stories.

• 48:08Speaker 00

  That they've made trench art with, or they've gone through a difficult situation and they've escaped, or they were in a prisoner of war camp together. Then they always remember that one person during that companionship phase, that this person is a, I'm taking this person as my companion.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  There's a paper on that by Elder and Clip, who showed exactly that. Yeah, if, um, if soldiers have experienced loss together, they're more likely to stay friends 40 years later. Because that was a moment that elicited companionship and it gave them a ritual. They remember that person every, every year on their birthday, or on the day that they were lost.

• 48:39Trevor Noah?

  Wow.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  And that becomes a reason to stay connected.

• 48:43Trevor Noah?

  If you didn't, then you were just allies, but it doesn't necessarily bring out the companion in you.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz once, once you're, you're back home, you don't, you don't have a shared mission anymore.

• 48:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  And you're not at war together. And so what, what do we have? Maybe nothing.

• 48:56Trevor Noah?

  We'll be right back after the short break.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Eugene just wants to live on Love is Blind permanently.

• 49:02Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 49:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but now the shadow also gives something away.

• 49:05Speaker 00

  Also, I would love my eyes to be.

• 49:07Trevor Noah?

  I liked how they say love is blind, but then there's a silhouette, bro. The silhouette is saying something. Say what you want. The silhouette is saying something.

• 49:13Speaker 00

  Yes, but also I would.

• 49:14Trevor Noah?

  If it was Love is Blind, you know what? They wouldn't be on the other side.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  Wait.

• 49:17Trevor Noah?

  Anything. Why did they say love is blind? It's not like, they should say love is blurry, because it's not blind. Do you get what I'm saying?

• 49:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:24Trevor Noah?

  Love is backlit. That's a better name for that show.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:28Trevor Noah?

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• 50:13Trevor Noah?

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• 50:57Trevor Noah?

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• 51:41Trevor Noah?

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• 52:26Trevor Noah?

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• 53:11Trevor Noah?

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• 53:36Speaker 01

  Eugene, what do you think Trevor and I are?

• 53:39Speaker 00

  Right now, I would think you're more pals. You're dinking, hitting this thing. The kitchen is open.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  You, you just, you just called the product of the last five years of my life a dink. Thank you for that.

• 53:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I feel like.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Made my day.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  I feel like, yeah, in my observation, you, you're more pals than anything else right now.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  Because of the tone of the conversation?

• 54:02Speaker 00

  The tone of the conversation, the topics that you guys are discussing, it's something that, it could be very light and it could be very serious at the same time, but it has no direct consequence to your lives. You're not writing a book together, so therefore you're not allies.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:16Speaker 00

  You're not going on a long journey together. It's not like you've known each other for 10 years, therefore you're not companions. But right now, there's so much fun. It's, it's like a game, it's happening, and it's interesting. And also has room for other people to jump in and out of it.

• 54:29Speaker 01

  Trevor, what do you think we are?

• 54:32Trevor Noah?

  I would say we are predominantly pal. So if, you know, the thing had like its levers that go up and down, it's zero companion. We are predominantly pal and then tiny bit ally.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  So interesting. I had the opposite on those two.

• 54:48Speaker 00

  What did you have?

• 54:49Speaker 01

  I, I thought of you as an ally with a little bit of pal energy mixed in.

• 54:53Trevor Noah?

  Now tell, now this is fast. You see, you see now, this is why things are gonna crumble between us. Let's, let's go live.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  Okay, this is, this is literally the first conversation I've had about this. So I, one of the, one of the open.

• 55:03Trevor Noah?

  This is, this is, this is breaking ground.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  This is virgin territory.

• 55:08Trevor Noah?

  Let's do it. Okay.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  But one of the things I have been wondering about is, in romantic relationships, we have rituals to define what we are. We do the define the relationship, the GTR, or the woo-woo, what's, what's up with us?

• 55:18Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Nobody does this with other kinds of connections, with platonic connections. And I have been wondering, is this gonna be helpful for people to say, what are we? Like, are we pals, companions, or allies? So this is an experiment. I, I haven't done this yet. So let's talk about why.

• 55:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, so I'm, tell me, tell me from your perspective.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Okay. The reason that I think we're allies is we mostly see each other at events, gatherings, conferences, where there's a goal. We're both there to learn and share. And I think we, we share a desire to educate and entertain. Like, we like to teach and we like to, to make sure people are having fun too, and we're aligned on that. And, uh, our other interactions are mostly around things like doing a podcast, where we have a shared goal of creating content for someone else.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  I didn't think we were pals as much because we don't hang out outside of these professional settings.

• 56:02Speaker 00

  Huh.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Or when there's not a goal. We've, we've talked about video games, we've talked about sports, but we've never actually done them together. And so I'm like, would I, would I invite Trevor, like, to play Mario Kart with me?

• 56:12Trevor Noah?

  You'd say no, but that.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  I wouldn't have thought to do it.

• 56:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you would have been right to not do it.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Why?

• 56:18Speaker 00

  Cuz he doesn't play Mario Kart?

• 56:19Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but also I'm not going to house to play Mario Kart. Like, that's a long journey for a very short journey.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  No, no, to play online or to play at a conference or.

• 56:26Trevor Noah?

  Give me more games. Maybe the games threw me off. Give me another game. Give me another game, another game.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  Super Smash, uh, Mortal Kombat.

• 56:32Trevor Noah?

  You're, you're missing, you're missing. Are these your favorite games?

• 56:35Speaker 01

  I mean, I, it's what I grew up on.

• 56:37Trevor Noah?

  You gotta give me more. Okay, board games I'm in though. Wait, wait, wait. So if you invited me to a game night, I'll come.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  If I invite, you would come to a game night?

• 56:42Trevor Noah?

  Thousand percent, yes.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Really?

• 56:43Trevor Noah?

  Thousand percent.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  I've never asked you cuz I assumed we weren't pals.

• 56:45Trevor Noah?

  Nope, thousand percent. Game night, I'm there like a bear in my.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Will you travel for a game?

• 56:52Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 56:54Speaker 00

  What were you gonna say?

• 56:55Trevor Noah?

  Nothing.

• 56:55Speaker 00

  Oh, I was, I was like, I don't know where this goes now.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  How far will you go for a game night?

• 57:00Trevor Noah?

  As far as I can go.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  I mean, you wouldn't, you wouldn't travel from one city to another, but you'd go to the other end of Manhattan.

• 57:07Trevor Noah?

  I'll go from Johannesburg to Pretoria.

• 57:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, 50 kilometers or so.

• 57:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I mean, it's like, so it's, it's more about like the, it's not about the distance or the, it's just the effort that it involves.

• 57:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, and the convenience of it all.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Does this mean you like, you like pal activities in general?

• 57:22Trevor Noah?

  So, so I'll, so maybe I'll answer your question by saying this. So the reason I would have assumed that we were more pal, tiny bit allies, because I also acknowledge what you're saying. We meet in many settings where we're, settings where we're trying to figure things out.

• 57:34Speaker 00

  Which is a part I didn't know.

• 57:35Trevor Noah?

  Right?

• 57:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, you didn't have any of that context, right?

• 57:37Speaker 00

  So I couldn't add it.

• 57:37Trevor Noah?

  But still, I, I enjoy solving puzzles with you. I like how you like look at data, how you work with it. I love arguing with you about the findings. That's my favorite thing about Adam is I'll go like, I, I read this that you said, I disagree. Oh, that reminds me, there's a new one that I have for you that I saw you say.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  Can't wait to fight about this.

• 57:54Trevor Noah?

  Completely disagree with you. I'll tell it to you now so we don't forget it. You said it was about the, um, the couple that had an affair. Remember the CEO at the Coldplay concert?

• 58:03Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 58:03Trevor Noah?

  And then you said.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  Integrity.

• 58:05Trevor Noah?

  You said integrity. You said you, there, there is merit. I don't wanna butcher what you said, but you basically said something to the effect of there's merit to firing somebody or because they had an affair, because it shows that they can't be trusted in other parts.

• 58:17Speaker 00

  Their moral integrity is compromised.

• 58:17Trevor Noah?

  Their moral integrity. Then I watched it and I went, haha, my friend. The next time I see you, it is on like Donkey Kong.

• 58:24Speaker 01

  I can't wait to fight about this one. And notice that Trevor did not like that post, but he was lurking and hating on it and waiting to argue with me about it.

• 58:31Trevor Noah?

  Because they don't give you, you see, the problem with online is they don't give you nuance. I don't wanna like the thing cuz I don't like what you said, but I like that you said it. So I wish they had a, they should have a.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  Interesting. Let's debate this.

• 58:42Trevor Noah?

  Exists button, and I like what the person said button.

• 58:45Speaker 00

  You know, when you said lurking, I imagined Trevor putting like a cape with a hoodie, walking around damp streets, just skulking around and lurking.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  No, wrong image. He's a troll. He hides under a bridge. He's just lurking waiting and be like, ah, I disagree.

• 59:02Trevor Noah?

  Oh, because you get what I'm saying?

• 59:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:03Trevor Noah?

  Dude, I've seen videos online of like the most devastating thing. There's a flood.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  You don't wanna like that?

• 59:09Trevor Noah?

  And then people like, like, I'm like, no, what are you liking?

• 59:12Speaker 01

  There should be an important conversation.

• 59:14Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 59:14Speaker 00

  Or also like liking.

• 59:17Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 59:17Speaker 00

  Is also making sure that you see some of that in the future.

• 59:20Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 59:21Speaker 00

  For me personally, it's not like I'm approving.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  But then you're sending a mixed message.

• 59:24Trevor Noah?

  But my problem is it shows the world you liked this.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  It looks like.

• 59:27Speaker 00

  But is the world gonna show me more of this? Cause it's all about me here.

• 59:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but my, no, but my problem is it's also informing because they put there Eugene liked this. Now, I don't know what you liked about it. Now I'm like, how? My friend liked this beheading video. I'm like, have you?

• 59:41Speaker 00

  You can't judge me from that profile picture?

• 59:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I'm saying I know you as my friend. Now I'm like, Eugene liked this video?

• 59:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 59:47Trevor Noah?

  Why would, why would you like this? What did you like about this? And then you might go, oh, no, I just wanna see more of this. I'm like, oh, but that's what it didn't say. So for me, that's, I think something that could improve social media.

• 59:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:58Trevor Noah?

  Is if they expanded on the buttons so that I can say, hey, I'm engaged by this.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:03Trevor Noah?

  It made me think.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:05Trevor Noah?

  I don't agree, but I don't hate it. I don't dislike it.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  In this world of doom scrolling, I wanna be having such conversations with myself for every poll.

• 1:00:12Trevor Noah?

  Just like four, you're doing it already.

• 1:00:13Speaker 00

  Eh, eh, eh, that's a poll, my man.

• 1:00:15Trevor Noah?

  You're doing it already.

• 1:00:16Speaker 00

  I'm not interested. The fact that they've even added interested and not interested button is too much work for me because I was like, you know, I showed that I'm not interested.

• 1:00:22Trevor Noah?

  You didn't like it.

• 1:00:23Speaker 00

  When I scrolled it.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  You know what though?

• 1:00:24Trevor Noah?

  Eugene.

• 1:00:25Speaker 00

  Now I don't want to be told.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  This is such an easy solve. Like click with your, with your right finger or your first finger if you're approving and liking.

• 1:00:34Speaker 00

  No, that's a hard solve. Now I'm thinking, now I'm like, wrong finger.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Right or left?

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  I wrong fingered. No, no. Yeah, because sometimes I'm scrolling and I'm on a date.

• 1:00:41Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay, I've got, I've got an easier one for you. I've got an easier one for you.

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:00:45Trevor Noah?

  They should just have advanced mode.

• 1:00:48Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 1:00:48Trevor Noah?

  For people like me.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:50Trevor Noah?

  So you, you want the simple chilled out mode?

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:00:53Trevor Noah?

  You should just have likes, nothing else.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:00:56Trevor Noah?

  My one will have a plethora of options.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  I want this. I'm with you there, Trevor. Because here's, here's the thing. I have the same concern Trevor does. I don't wanna signal approval of something that I think was an important conversation to start, but I disagree with the message.

• 1:01:09Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Cause then a bunch of people are gonna hate on me.

• 1:01:11Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  And say, how could you support that? I'm like, no, no, I don't agree with it, but I, I wanna see more people who challenge my thinking this.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  But Adam, this, this post already has thirty nine thousand likes, forty thousand reposts.

• 1:01:24Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  Who cares what Eugene thinks?

• 1:01:26Speaker 01

  The extremes care.

• 1:01:27Trevor Noah?

  You know why they know, no, you know why they care? They know that people care. That's why they put your name there. They know that if I see that you.

• 1:01:35Speaker 00

  That comes up now.

• 1:01:36Trevor Noah?

  Yes. They know that if I see that Eugene.

• 1:01:38Speaker 00

  And how do I choose the three people that?

• 1:01:40Trevor Noah?

  Because they know.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  Who you pay attention to.

• 1:01:42Trevor Noah?

  Thank you.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Trevor Noah?

  So they go, if Eugene liked this, Trevor's going to be more likely to pay attention to it. Cause I'm like, what did Eugene like about this?

• 1:01:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, but the things that I've liked, Trevor, I've never seen you liking back or telling me about them in our normal conversation. Cause I'm extreme pedicures. That's my jam, you know?

• 1:01:58Trevor Noah?

  Yes, they are your jam.

• 1:01:59Speaker 00

  That's my bedtime.

• 1:02:00Trevor Noah?

  They are your jam.

• 1:02:01Speaker 00

  Bedtime story.

• 1:02:02Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:02:02Speaker 00

  Extreme grotesque.

• 1:02:04Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:02:05Speaker 00

  Elongated.

• 1:02:07Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you love them.

• 1:02:07Speaker 00

  Talent.

• 1:02:08Trevor Noah?

  The transformation, you love, you love them.

• 1:02:10Speaker 00

  When they bring out their power tools.

• 1:02:11Trevor Noah?

  You love it.

• 1:02:13Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm in. When they take out the cuticles and then that ninety year old granny now is like, I feel like a new girl again.

• 1:02:19Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:02:20Speaker 00

  I love those. And I always like to show that, look, Vietnamese pedicurist lady in Saigon, I appreciate your work. I love your job.

• 1:02:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  And then I like because I wanna see more of that.

• 1:02:32Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  Right? And then somehow Trevor will go past and see Eugene liked. And you've never liked back.

• 1:02:38Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I would never do that because now it'll send me more of those videos.

• 1:02:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:02:43Trevor Noah?

  Every, every action you partake, you partake in on social media will have an equal and opposite reaction to it. So if I like it, I will now see all those toes that I, I do not necessarily wish to see. I love that you enjoy them, my friend. You know this. Me, I've never judged you, not even one time.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  You never have.

• 1:03:00Trevor Noah?

  Never even one time.

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  Never, never.

• 1:03:01Trevor Noah?

  So I like that you enjoy them, but I wish I could say, I like that he likes this. I don't wanna like it. I don't like it. You see what I'm saying?

• 1:03:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:03:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:09Trevor Noah?

  And then I also don't wanna send it because if I do interact with it on that level, it now goes, oh, these two connect on this, but we don't connect on it. I just like that you like it.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  This is, okay, so this is why people who meet and clash in one context can click in another.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Because if, if you met Eugene as the toenail obsession guy.

• 1:03:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  Done, right? Whereas you meet in a comedy club and all of a sudden you have something in common.

• 1:03:35Trevor Noah?

  Yes, that, that actually makes a lot of sense. But so to finish off what I was saying with us is, so the reason I think the pal thing, it's actually funny. It's because when you see me anywhere, I'm there only to have a good time.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Is that true?

• 1:03:50Trevor Noah?

  I'm being dead serious.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  So you don't have enough pals in your life? Is that what you're telling me?

• 1:03:55Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  You don't have enough pal experiences in your life?

• 1:03:58Trevor Noah?

  What I love is exploring new places, meeting new people, bumping into new ideas in person.

• 1:04:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:04:07Trevor Noah?

  I, I like putting myself out of my comfort zone. I like remembering that the world is not just what I make of it. You know what I mean? It, it exists all the time. So I like to go to things that I wouldn't otherwise, wouldn't necessarily. Uh, I also miss like elements of school. I like how school made you uncomfortable. I, I didn't like it at the time, but I, I miss that. It's nice to be like in a room where you're like, uh, should I be here? Do I belong here? So those are all the things. So for me, that's like a different type of fun. But when I'm there, I'm genuinely like, ah, I'm just here to have a good time. And then I see Adam, I'm like, hey, hey, Adam's here. Love this guy. This guy my pal.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  I, see, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know this.

• 1:04:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Speaker 01

  Right? And I think, I think that you have, I think people feel pressure to come up to you with something important or worth your time.

• 1:04:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of the time. It's very boring for me.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  You would just prefer to go for round is something I've become clear on, which is why I said, I think we have pal energy.

• 1:04:57Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  But I wonder if you could go further. So this is a huge dilemma that I think people have when it comes to, okay, I wanna, I wanna be clear about what wavelength I wanna interact on. Like I wanna vibe as pals, not allies or companions.

• 1:05:08Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  How do you signal that? Uh, I'll tell you the best one I've seen so far.

• 1:05:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  Is I went to an event, there was somebody who was very shy and difficult to approach.

• 1:05:16Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  And nobody talked to him. And then the next time I saw him at a different event, he was carrying a chessboard. And I was like, oh, that's a pal signal. He is sending a message that he wants to play games.

• 1:05:29Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:05:29Speaker 01

  Without even having to say a word. And I immediately went up and challenged him to a chess match. We sat there laughing for over an hour and had a completely different kind of interaction than this very stilted, uh, I'd like to ask you about your business.

• 1:05:43Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  Conversation that we were having before. And I wonder if there are ways that you already signal what kind of connection you want or that you could adopt.

• 1:05:52Speaker 00

  Basically what you've just explained is why Comic Con works.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  I've never been to Comic Con.

• 1:05:58Speaker 00

  Everyone's dressed like their favorite character.

• 1:06:00Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, everyone shows up.

• 1:06:02Speaker 00

  As, as the character that they represent or they enjoy or they'd like to engage on.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  And you immediately have common ground.

• 1:06:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're like, I wouldn't talk to, you know, the last Airbender, but you.

• 1:06:13Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  Vegeta.

• 1:06:15Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:06:15Speaker 00

  My man.

• 1:06:16Trevor Noah?

  That actually makes a lot of sense. And I've also, yeah, you see, I've never considered, because we, we work with so much, we rely on so much like mind reading in society. And then we wonder why everything sort of doesn't work the way it should. So the, the, the, the world is equally filled with people who are annoyed that people approach them. And people who feel lonely because nobody talks to them.

• 1:06:43Speaker 00

  You know why?

• 1:06:43Trevor Noah?

  Why?

• 1:06:44Speaker 00

  Because we wear clothes.

• 1:06:46Trevor Noah?

  Okay, say more Eugene. Say more. I'm, I'm, you know what? I'm in. Let's go.

• 1:06:51Speaker 00

  Our animalistic instincts are covered by the sense we put on.

• 1:06:57Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:06:58Speaker 00

  The coverings we have.

• 1:06:59Trevor Noah?

  Uh huh.

• 1:07:00Speaker 00

  Because it becomes harder to read us as people because we've got so many layers and disguises. Animals, for example.

• 1:07:06Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:07:06Speaker 00

  Are what they are.

• 1:07:07Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:07:08Speaker 00

  So they can tell, another, and another dog can tell if another dog is, is angry. Have you seen when they, I saw this one, um, video where they're like, grooming your dog actually takes away from the dog's personality and how they're able to express themselves with other dogs. People who've shortened their dog's tails or trimmed their ears too much.

• 1:07:26Trevor Noah?

  That, this all makes sense.

• 1:07:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, the dog now can't, the dog can't signal properly to other dogs.

• 1:07:30Trevor Noah?

  That makes sense.

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  Whatever it would have used is no longer there.

• 1:07:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. It's like someone chopped your arm because it looked cuter.

• 1:07:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, so with us.

• 1:07:37Trevor Noah?

  Now you can't wave.

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:07:38Speaker 00

  As, as humans, if we're interested in someone, we have a pheromones or estrogen or whatever it is that we excrete in the air.

• 1:07:45Trevor Noah?

  Uh huh.

• 1:07:45Speaker 00

  But over our evolvement, we've learned to not focus on that and also disguise that.

• 1:07:51Trevor Noah?

  Huh.

• 1:07:51Speaker 00

  If you were sweaty and I've just met you and you smell like sweat, I would know that you were doing something. But if you sweated, took a shower, put some deodorant, I would have to guess what you did before we met.

• 1:08:02Trevor Noah?

  So you're saying you think it would be better if like we were all like naked on the subway? And then I sweated to show people that I want them to engage with me?

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:14Speaker 00

  Well, I was thinking about something else, but.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  Wait, hold on, you're just.

• 1:08:18Speaker 00

  Universal signal of interest.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  I think we're gonna get a very diverging reaction from two groups of people.

• 1:08:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  So there are integrators and segmenters.

• 1:08:28Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Integrators like to blur different kinds of boundaries.

• 1:08:31Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:31Speaker 01

  And so they're very happy to turn their allies into their pals or vice versa.

• 1:08:35Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Segmenters like to have strict borders between different spheres of life. And my wife is a segmenter. And the worst thing you could do to her is take her to a beach with coworkers. She's like, once I've seen your belly button, I can't respect you anymore. I can't, I can't.

• 1:08:50Speaker 00

  She's not wrong.

• 1:08:51Speaker 01

  Like, no, no, no, no, we do not.

• 1:08:53Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  I, I wanna be in a professional mode. I wanna be task focused and I can't unsee that.

• 1:08:58Speaker 00

  She's not wrong.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  I think integrators are gonna like your experiment and segmenters are gonna hate it. They want to be able to put on different personas in different environments.

• 1:09:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I like to live in a world where our natural instincts are more prioritized than our costumes. Like, the way we think we feel about something, about someone, is higher up on the list than what we perceive of them. Like, if I'm close to someone, I'm like, the fact that I don't like being around them, they haven't said anything, I haven't gotten a description of what they look like. It's almost like I wanna meet, every time I'd meet someone, I wanna meet them turning my back towards them.

• 1:09:33Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:09:35Speaker 00

  Because then I have no visual perception to inform any other decision. If.

• 1:09:41Trevor Noah?

  But energy wise, isn't the visual part of it, though? That's why we have the visual.

• 1:09:46Speaker 00

  Remember.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  Eugene just wants to live on Love is Blind permanently.

• 1:09:49Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 1:09:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but now the shadow also gives something away.

• 1:09:52Speaker 00

  Also, I would love my eyes to be.

• 1:09:53Trevor Noah?

  I like how they say love is blind, but then there's a silhouette, bruh. The silhouette is saying something. Say what you want, the silhouette is saying something.

• 1:10:00Speaker 00

  Yes, but also I would.

• 1:10:01Trevor Noah?

  If it was Love is Blind, you know what? They wouldn't be on the other side.

• 1:10:03Speaker 00

  Wait.

• 1:10:03Trevor Noah?

  Anything. Why'd they say love is blind? It's not like, they should say love is blurry, because it's not blind.

• 1:10:10Trevor Noah?

  Do you get what I'm saying?

• 1:10:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:10Trevor Noah?

  Love is backlit, that's a better name for that show.

• 1:10:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:10:13Trevor Noah?

  It's not blind.

• 1:10:14Speaker 00

  Love is poorly lit.

• 1:10:15Trevor Noah?

  It's not black, it's not backlit at all. You're like, yo, bruh, you, you're making a lot of assumptions. You know how many times I've watched that show?

• 1:10:21Speaker 00

  I've never seen Love is Blind.

• 1:10:21Trevor Noah?

  You've never seen it?

• 1:10:22Speaker 00

  Tell me what happens.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  Love takes place at dusk and dawn only.

• 1:10:25Speaker 00

  That's what, what happens?

• 1:10:26Trevor Noah?

  Hey, my friend, so what happens is they bring people, you know, in, into a room, whatever, they're like, okay, we're gonna put you together, you're gonna meet random people. So, you know Eugene is sitting down, and then a random lady comes and walks up behind like a, a screen, all you see is the silhouette. Yeah. And then you're like.

• 1:10:42Speaker 00

  Red light challenge, but they don't dance.

• 1:10:43Trevor Noah?

  There you go. Then it's like, hello, then it's like, hi, I'm Cynthia. Oh, hi, I'm Eugene.

• 1:10:48Speaker 00

  Oh, Eugene.

• 1:10:49Trevor Noah?

  No, you talk normally. Then the person's, so Eugene, oh, so what do you do? Where are you from? You talk, you talk, you talk. And then afterwards, the person's like, yeah, I, you know, I kinda like Cynthia, she's got a vibe and I think we can get together. Then you know what happens? The person's like, they have to choose who they're now going to like love, love. They're gonna choose the person. And they're like, okay, I picked that person. Then they meet face to face. You see there, love is not blind. Love was just blurred. You literally see people's faces when they walk out. There's a lot of like, oh, oh, wow, oh.

• 1:11:22Speaker 00

  You know, oh. That sounds like a British version of a show that used to exist on a BBC where people are standing behind a screen like that and they start revealing themselves. They'll show up to their knees.

• 1:11:32Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:32Speaker 00

  But they're naked on the other side.

• 1:11:34Trevor Noah?

  I've seen that show.

• 1:11:35Speaker 00

  And then they'll show up to their chest and then they'll say, turn around, but the only thing they won't show is the face until you choose.

• 1:11:39Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, you gotta pick the person.

• 1:11:40Speaker 00

  Reveal the other ones.

• 1:11:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:41Speaker 01

  This is so.

• 1:11:42Speaker 00

  So I would, I would like to live in a world where we don't show up in clothes.

• 1:11:47Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:47Speaker 00

  But we have a skin that also stops us just from being cold, so that we don't need clothes and we don't scratch ourselves with every cactus plant we meet.

• 1:11:54Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:11:55Speaker 00

  But also, to stop us from being the hunter and start being the prey, I would like our eyeballs to be moved from the front to the side. So we can have a better view of whatever's going on, instead of going out like scud missiles, just zooming in and looking for something. I want to be fully aware of whatever's happening around me.

• 1:12:15Speaker 01

  You want better peripheral vision. Interesting.

• 1:12:18Speaker 00

  Cause I, as much as I know this, every.

• 1:12:21Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you, can I tell you what you're gonna have?

• 1:12:23Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:23Trevor Noah?

  Complete awareness of everything happening around you and the worst kisses that have ever existed. I just want you to think of the moment when you're pulling in to kiss that other person.

• 1:12:34Speaker 00

  You are so right.

• 1:12:35Trevor Noah?

  And your eyes are on either side of your head and that other person is pulling in. And then when they pull, your eyes are here on either side. There's no like, think of the romance in your world, cause you have to like dance like this with people to look them in the eye. Look me in, look me in my eye and.

• 1:12:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, you're right.

• 1:12:53Trevor Noah?

  So wait, wait, okay, so now how do we?

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  So I'm gonna bring this back.

• 1:12:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, so now how do, how do we do these things? How do, how do we figure this out? How do we figure out what people want and what's actually gonna work and where people land and where they don't land? Like you and I, I, I thought pal, ally, you thought ally, pal.

• 1:13:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was like, straight on pal.

• 1:13:09Trevor Noah?

  So now which direction? Do we need to adjust our, just the labels? Or do we then realize that we have a different definition of what the other's supposed to be doing?

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  I, I, I didn't have a preference in this case, right? I think you're a great ally and pal. I'd have no idea if you'd be a good companion or not. But, for me, at least.

• 1:13:24Trevor Noah?

  Okay, for you.

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and vice versa.

• 1:13:26Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  But I think that one of the best, one of the best notes I ever got after meeting somebody, uh, happened last year. Um, we met at a conference and then she wrote me an email and said, I hope this is the beginning of a real friendship. And what I loved about it was she wasn't over claiming. She wasn't saying, I'm so glad we became friends. And then I would have to wonder, are we friends?

• 1:13:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  I hope this is the beginning of a real friendship. She's saying, I would like to build this. I read that and thought, I wanna know what kind of friendship. If she had said, I hope this is, you know, the beginning of, of a great pal connection.

• 1:13:57Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  Or I hope this is the beginning of becoming great allies or companions, that would have given me much more clarity. So do you, would you actually do this?

• 1:14:05Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  Would you, would you have this conversation?

• 1:14:08Trevor Noah?

  Well, I'll tell you this, if somebody sent me an email, or I sent someone an email after I met them at an event and I was like, or a text or whatever, eh, great meeting you. I hope we become friends one day. And then they responded, what type of friends? I would promptly block them and.

• 1:14:26Speaker 00

  Carry on living my life. What if they send those three categories and a box next to each of them to take?

• 1:14:30Trevor Noah?

  Well, because the book hasn't come out, I wouldn't know what they're talking about. But now that I've read the book, I would assume pal is the easiest.

• 1:14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:39Trevor Noah?

  Depending on what vibe we had.

• 1:14:40Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:41Trevor Noah?

  If we met in a situation where we're working together, then ally would be self-evident. Companion seems like one of those where, especially when meeting like a stranger, it's weird for a stranger to just say like companion.

• 1:14:52Speaker 00

  We're going all the way.

• 1:14:53Trevor Noah?

  I want to be your companion. That's a, yo, I don't know anyone who could just like.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:15:00Trevor Noah?

  Say that.

• 1:15:00Speaker 01

  No, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that either.

• 1:15:02Trevor Noah?

  Does anyone start as a companion? Or do they all go from the other two to companion?

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  I'll tell, that's such an interesting question, cause yeah, I think normally we would, we would assume the companion is closer.

• 1:15:11Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:15:11Speaker 01

  But it's not always. I have watched people make companions when they're nervous, uh, on a roller coaster.

• 1:15:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  In fact, we were at a theme park together. And I think I might have become someone's companion when they were literally sitting there freaking out, shaking. And I had to reassure them and say, like, your, your stomach is gonna drop, but you're not gonna fall out of the seat, you're buckled in.

• 1:15:31Trevor Noah?

  Do you know people have died at that theme park?

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  Are you serious?

• 1:15:34Trevor Noah?

  Hundred percent.

• 1:15:34Speaker 00

  From what?

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  Now you tell me.

• 1:15:36Trevor Noah?

  The, the, the ride fell and someone died. Yeah, I was telling the people in the rides with me. I was like, you know, people have died at this theme park.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  Really glad I didn't sit next to you.

• 1:15:45Trevor Noah?

  No, I mean, it's just, I like that Adam was confident, huh, you're gonna be okay, nothing ever happened here, you're gonna be all right.

• 1:15:51Speaker 00

  No, no, people have died at the theme park.

• 1:15:54Trevor Noah?

  I love theme parks, so I try and keep up with all the news about where the accidents have happened.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  So the roller coaster veered off and then plunged and?

• 1:16:00Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I think it got stuck upside down. And then what happened was, like, it's, the mechanism started releasing.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 1:16:08Trevor Noah?

  And then like, the person dropped, and then one person like grabbed onto, I think it was his partner, his girlfriend, whatever, grabbed her. And then held on, held on, held on, and then couldn't hold on long enough, and then let her go.

• 1:16:20Speaker 00

  Also, it was just one person?

• 1:16:22Trevor Noah?

  No, I think it was more than one, I'm not sure on this, but there was definitely at least a death.

• 1:16:26Speaker 00

  No, but below, below five.

• 1:16:29Trevor Noah?

  Is what?

• 1:16:30Speaker 00

  Let the games continue, I mean, I mean, we can't cancel the whole ride.

• 1:16:33Trevor Noah?

  They, they canceled it, but it, because it was like, yeah.

• 1:16:37Speaker 00

  No, but I'm saying, cancel it forever.

• 1:16:38Trevor Noah?

  No, they didn't cancel forever.

• 1:16:39Speaker 00

  That's what I'm saying.

• 1:16:40Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, below five.

• 1:16:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, below five, I mean.

• 1:16:42Trevor Noah?

  Collateral damage.

• 1:16:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, let's start this machine again.

• 1:16:44Trevor Noah?

  I also, I do not wish, and I'll be very clear about this, I think it is terrible when anybody loses their life, especially unexpectedly, I think it's terrible.

• 1:16:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:52Trevor Noah?

  However, as an avid roller coaster rider and theme park experiencer.

• 1:16:57Speaker 00

  Connoisseur, you mean?

• 1:16:58Trevor Noah?

  Thank you, Eugene. I will say, knowing there's a possibility that the thing could go wrong.

• 1:17:07Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:17:08Trevor Noah?

  Makes the rides even more enjoyable for me, cause that is why I'm there.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:17:11Trevor Noah?

  I never wanna be the person sitting in a roller coaster like, you know, nothing can happen here. I wanna go like, it is most likely that nothing can happen. Did you see that video from Brazil where the person went bungee jumping?

• 1:17:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:21Trevor Noah?

  And then they jumped off and then the people were like, ah, the rope.

• 1:17:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, they just threw her and left the rope.

• 1:17:25Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, like those kinds of videos, terrible. But now when you're going out seeking thrills, it's like, there's like a little bit of peril attached to the thing.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  Not for me.

• 1:17:35Trevor Noah?

  You want no.

• 1:17:36Speaker 01

  I, I want no risk.

• 1:17:38Speaker 00

  So then why are you on the roller coaster?

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  The sensation.

• 1:17:40Trevor Noah?

  Oh, I see. Okay.

• 1:17:42Speaker 00

  What you've just described is why.

• 1:17:44Trevor Noah?

  So you would want an AI companion then?

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Apparently. Just as once.

• 1:17:49Speaker 00

  Until your phone dies.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  I want a self-driving car.

• 1:17:52Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay, okay, I'm with, I'm with you.

• 1:17:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, what you, what you just explained is what, um, people who do bear hunting.

• 1:17:57Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:58Speaker 00

  With a bow, that's what they're seeking.

• 1:18:01Trevor Noah?

  They are, yes.

• 1:18:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, they go in there and then they're thinking, if this thing can also have me, or if I see it first, I'll have it.

• 1:18:07Trevor Noah?

  And I respect that, because it's like, it's like going toe to toe.

• 1:18:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:18:10Trevor Noah?

  I respect that a lot more than if you go like shoot an animal.

• 1:18:12Speaker 00

  Yes, cause you're also not allowed to hunt on the first day when you land.

• 1:18:16Trevor Noah?

  Why?

• 1:18:16Speaker 00

  So if you flew in, cause you don't give the animal a sporting chance. So if you're landing, let's say in this little island where the animals are.

• 1:18:24Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:24Speaker 00

  Or you were flying into Alaska during bear season. You might have seen where the bear was, so you're not tracking and spurring.

• 1:18:31Trevor Noah?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:18:32Speaker 00

  So you must give it a day.

• 1:18:33Trevor Noah?

  To start from scratch.

• 1:18:34Speaker 00

  Start from zero. Give the animal a chance to smell where you potentially might be, give yourself a chance to see its tracks. And then the hunt begins, because the hunt is both ways with an animal that is, that's a predator.

• 1:18:46Trevor Noah?

  Huh, okay, we learn something new every day.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  I didn't expect that.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  Not that learning.

• 1:18:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, Adam was like, I definitely didn't expect, uh, I've learned, so, you know, when he leaves today, they'll be like, so what did you learn? So, um, uh, gorillas.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  Fur.

• 1:19:03Speaker 00

  Uh, so.

• 1:19:04Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:05Speaker 01

  Well, dude.

• 1:19:05Speaker 00

  No, no, go, go, go.

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  Go.

• 1:19:07Speaker 00

  No, go.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  Uh, okay, well, when I was, I was.

• 1:19:12Speaker 00

  I told you, when I tell you about my friend.

• 1:19:13Trevor Noah?

  This is what I said, we're pals.

• 1:19:14Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:19:14Trevor Noah?

  But also, why did I tell you about this? He will rescue me. I was just there hunting.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  And then he's throwing people off cliffs. Yeah. Okay. So here's the thing. I was thinking, I was actually thinking back to our, okay, how do you have a natural conversation with somebody without it feeling forced or robotic?

• 1:19:31Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  And I think this is where a lens like pal, ally, companion is helpful.

• 1:19:36Trevor Noah?

  Cool.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  Cause if you have an idea about what kind of connection you want to form with someone, or, you know, maybe moving from one to another, uh, I would ask the, what do you love to do of a pal? Because I'm going to find out about their interests and their hobbies and probably something they enjoy.

• 1:19:50Trevor Noah?

  Yep, got it.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  If I wanted to think about collaborating with someone and, and turning them into an ally, I might ask them, what's a problem you're trying to solve right now? Or what's a goal you're trying to achieve this year? Or what's, what's something you're stuck on? Because then I would find a way that I could be helpful in their success. Exactly. If I wanted to be a companion, I might ask them about their biggest regret. Or I might be curious about, um, like, actually, there's some, some great studies showing that people are happy to skip small talk and vibe around like a question like, what's a, what's an embarrassing experience you had? Or have you ever been convicted of a crime? And people end up, to your point about vulnerability, Eugene, they end up opening up a little bit.

• 1:20:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:31Speaker 01

  And then there's that, okay, I just shared something about myself. We feel more companion-like. And so you can interact on any of these channels in a way that then builds a relationship that moves in that direction. And I, I would say, don't script the question, but think about which category of question you want to ask, because it will affect the way that you, you talk.

• 1:20:49Trevor Noah?

  So here's, here's why I think the work that you've done here is particularly important. The reason I think it's so important is because I think most people would still be stuck in the same, you know, dead ends that they were beforehand, even with the labels, to be honest with you. Even if you know what a pal or companion or other, I think you, you could still be stuck, because it's like, how do I start with a new pal? How do I start with a new companion? Because we still end up in the same, um, you know, cul-de-sac there. You come in trying to be companion. I interpret that as pal behavior. What's your biggest regrets? I'm like, huh, what a fun guy. And you're like, no, I was trying to hug you.

• 1:21:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:21:26Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean? Like, you get what I'm saying? So, so those things can still have a mismatch. What I think is powerful in your work is the illumination. Because that clarity for existing relationships, or even understanding why relationships maybe haven't turned into something, can I think free a lot of people from the self-doubt, the loneliness, the, because this has happened to a lot of people. I think a lot of people meet someone, they get along, they do something, they, they're like, wow, I made a new friend. And it's like, no, you made a new ally.

• 1:21:58Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:21:58Trevor Noah?

  And then you're like, this is so weird. We worked together for like three months on this project and I never heard from them again. Yeah, because you were allies. And then now you start questioning yourself. You start questioning them. Did I mean nothing to them? They don't even text me, they don't call me. But on the other side, this person's getting texts from you like, hey buddy, what's up? And you're like, who is this? You know, we just worked for three months together and now they're like, yo buddy, what's up? And so I think that's actually, just from my perspective, I think that's where some of the biggest breakthroughs will come for people, because it allows you to understand what you are experiencing in your life.

• 1:22:34Speaker 00

  Makes sense.

• 1:22:34Trevor Noah?

  And not just be like, sort of a victim to it.

• 1:22:37Speaker 00

  Yes. And also, you're not a bystander to what the catalyst is doing. You're almost becoming a, a catalyst converter.

• 1:22:44Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:22:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:22:45Speaker 00

  So whatever they start, you convert it. And then also, we must never feel shame to extrapolate what we need from that catalyst.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:22:53Trevor Noah?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:22:54Speaker 00

  I have enough pals. I'm fine, thank you.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  That is, that is a much less awkward version of the conversation than like, I don't want to be friends.

• 1:23:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  Right? Or just ghosting the person.

• 1:23:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  My, my pal calendar is full. You know, I, I could have actually used that. I had a, I had an experience years ago with colleague, uh, who was known as extremely bright, but kind of manipulative. And.

• 1:23:18Speaker 00

  My kind of guy.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  No, no, watch out, watch out.

• 1:23:22Speaker 00

  I'm joking, I'm joking. Call me.

• 1:23:27Speaker 00

  Voldemort.

• 1:23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, really tricky, because people would occasionally enlist his expertise, but then they want to, they want to maintain some distance.

• 1:23:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  One day, he invited me and my family over for dinner. And I'm like, oh no, I don't, I don't want to be pals. Definitely not companions with this guy. I, I don't even really want to be allies with him. I want to keep him at arm's length. And so I just told him we were busy. He didn't, he didn't accept that. And then he then issued another invitation and said, bring your kids. And I was like, oh, our kids are young, yours are grown. And I, whatever excuse I gave, he said no. And finally, I said, I'm trying to get better at saying no. Thank you for the practice.

• 1:24:07Trevor Noah?

  Damn.

• 1:24:08Speaker 00

  You said that?

• 1:24:08Speaker 01

  I said that.

• 1:24:09Speaker 00

  Cold-blooded.

• 1:24:10Trevor Noah?

  Damn.

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  He laughed. And we've been sort of.

• 1:24:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  Cordial ever since.

• 1:24:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  Nothing better.

• 1:24:16Trevor Noah?

  Damn.

• 1:24:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  Yours is better. I don't have room for pals in my life right now.

• 1:24:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:21Speaker 01

  It's better.

• 1:24:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. So when you have that inbuilt catalyst converter, you're like, I'm, I'm full, I'm fine. I don't, it's okay. I don't, it's not you. Certainly not me, but the roster's full. Our team is not enlisting new players, we don't sign.

• 1:24:34Trevor Noah?

  But, but is that true though?

• 1:24:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:37Trevor Noah?

  I don't know, I think I'll disagree on that.

• 1:24:41Trevor Noah?

  How many pals is enough pals? How many allies is enough allies? How many companions is enough companions? And I mean this honestly, like,

• 1:24:51Trevor Noah?

  I'm sure at many stages of my life, if you said, do you have space for a new pal? I'd be like, no, I don't. I've already got like, how many friends I've already got? And in a good way, there's too many friends, I've already got so many friends. And then I'll meet a person and go, yo, this person has just become like one of my biggest pals. This person has become one of my biggest allies, but I genuinely would have said to you, I, I am full, there's no more space, there's no more. How, how do, how do we figure? Okay, like, look at us for an example, right? When, when you said earlier, oh, you guys are comedians, whatever. When Eugene and I met, we didn't hit it off. We didn't, we weren't like best friends all of a sudden. We weren't like, yo, this guy I get along with. No. People said, you got to meet each other, you got to meet each, oh, you'd love this guy, you'd love this guy.

• 1:25:35Trevor Noah?

  Oh, you meet him, you'd like each other's comedy really, actually, that's all they were saying. Oh, there's a guy you'd enjoy, there's a guy you enjoy. Okay, fine. We started literally the same week. So that's it. When we met, I was like, damn, I love this guy's comedy. He was like, I'll tolerate this guy's comedy. We, we, we vibe in comedy. No, but we, we vibed, right? We vibed.

• 1:25:56Trevor Noah?

  We did not all of a sudden jump into like a bromance and, we were great colleagues, we were like good allies in that way. We had a good time together. We, we shared experiences, we commiserated, we, and over time, the, the pal side of the thing evolved. And then I would argue, we became more pals than allies. And then now it's like, yeah, we can do ally things together and then pal things together and ally, you get, and even companion things. But, but what I'm saying is like, how, how do we? I, I know what you mean about integrators and, what do you call them?

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  Segmenters.

• 1:26:30Trevor Noah?

  Segmenters, right.

• 1:26:33Trevor Noah?

  But how do we not get stuck thinking that the frameworks are rigid? And how do we signify or indicate what the, the parameters could or could not be, or will or what would not be? And how does the other person even know or not know? How does that not leave us feeling even more ostracized than we were before?

• 1:26:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's a really good question. I don't, I don't know, I just study this. Good luck.

• 1:26:57Speaker 00

  That was such a good one.

• 1:26:58Speaker 01

  No, no, I, I never thought about it.

• 1:27:02Trevor Noah?

  Oh, I love that.

• 1:27:02Speaker 00

  No, no, knowing, for example, if, if you're saying, I've got enough of this, it's the difference between,

• 1:27:11Speaker 00

  I'm a scumbag that's having an affair in my marriage.

• 1:27:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:14Speaker 00

  Versus I'm a serial cheater.

• 1:27:18Speaker 00

  I've just got this one person that's outside of my thing.

• 1:27:20Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:27:21Speaker 00

  But I'm not dating five, five people at the office. Just, just one, guys.

• 1:27:25Speaker 01

  Okay. If that's what you're using.

• 1:27:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're like, I know myself, I can't, I can't have five girlfriends. But one I can manage.

• 1:27:33Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man.

• 1:27:34Speaker 01

  All right, so.

• 1:27:35Trevor Noah?

  What a crazy analogy.

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  I did not expect you to go there.

• 1:27:38Trevor Noah?

  That's such a crazy analogy.

• 1:27:39Speaker 00

  The very thin line between philanderer.

• 1:27:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but, yeah, but, but this is what I'm trying, you've, you've said this to me and I genuinely appreciate it as a, as a line. You always remind me of this. You go, yo, your capacity to love is infinite. You know what I mean? Your capacity, like, you, we, we genuinely think we only have room for this many people. And then if you're lucky, you, you know, you step into a birthday of yours, you, you know, you're at an event, your wedding, whatever it might be. And you're like, damn, I, it's only when you have to make those lists that you're like, I know a lot of people in a beautiful way, and a lot of people are in my life, right? But, but what I'm saying is, how, how does it help people who feel like they don't have that?

• 1:28:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:19Trevor Noah?

  Maybe they have a lot of companions, but they don't have pals and they don't have, maybe they don't have any, maybe they're just like, they're just lonely, like to, to your students. Let's say a student came up to you and said, um, hey, Professor Grant, I need your help. How, I, I just, I feel lonely, man. Even when I'm with people, I feel lonely. I'll, they'll invite me to a party and I still feel lonely. I'll go out with them, I'll feel lonely. I, I just don't feel like I have people in my life. What would your advice be?

• 1:28:45Speaker 01

  I think my advice would be to change your rituals for how you interact. A party is a really hard place to make a real connection.

• 1:28:51Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:28:52Speaker 01

  Because that, that is, that's a light pal vibe in most cases.

• 1:28:54Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  You're going to dance, you might drink, uh, you're probably going to do something fun. You don't get to know anybody at a personal level.

• 1:29:00Speaker 00

  Everyone is hunting the same prey.

• 1:29:01Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:29:02Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 1:29:02Speaker 00

  Is oversaturation of hunters? Not enough play.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  I was thinking more the introverts are paired off in the corner.

• 1:29:09Speaker 00

  That is true.

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  Trying to escape and the extroverts are dancing on the table.

• 1:29:12Speaker 00

  Those are the hunters.

• 1:29:14Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 1:29:15Speaker 00

  So what are you doing here?

• 1:29:18Speaker 00

  I was trying not to be noticed.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:29:21Speaker 00

  I've noticed you in the corner. No, that's what the corner is for. I came here specifically so that you wouldn't speak to me. Oh goodness.

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, so let's, let's change the rituals.

• 1:29:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  Let's say, okay, we're gonna gather a bunch of people to watch the World Cup.

• 1:29:37Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  And inevitably, there's gonna be a stoppage time, or there's gonna be a break in the action, and we're gonna end up having a conversation. Maybe what you do is you actually create an event with different norms. One of, one of my favorites is, have you guys come across Admin Night?

• 1:29:52Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Oh, I think this is so great. You know how everybody has boring tasks that they have to do and don't wanna do, like taxes and retirement planning? There's a group of people who gather and they all bring their boring tasks and they do them together.

• 1:30:06Speaker 00

  No, what are you talking about?

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  They call it Admin Night and the idea is like, let's take, let's take this thing that we don't wanna do and we've now got our friends as allies to help us power through it and as pals to entertain us.

• 1:30:17Speaker 00

  You've helped me do the paperwork for that list that I didn't wanna do. Cause I was like, it's too much paperwork. You're like, bring it over, let's fill it in together. As much as I hate paperwork, you hate paperwork, if none of, if we don't get this thing started, they will never get done. Then I brought it to your place and then we did the paperwork.

• 1:30:33Trevor Noah?

  I mean, it's similar to like homework groups, I guess.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, that's exactly what I tell my students to do. You all have to do homework, sit in the same place.

• 1:30:40Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  Agree on when you're gonna take breaks.

• 1:30:41Speaker 00

  Exactly what happened, Adam.

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  And then come up with some interesting things to talk about.

• 1:30:46Speaker 00

  And the fun that we had after. Cause the thing was out. Cause remember our conversations on the phone about doing the thing?

• 1:30:54Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:30:54Speaker 00

  Were long and painful, but it took us less time to accomplish their task together. Then we had just this free time afterwards. It felt like first day of school holidays. After we're done, and we're done within minutes, but we spoke about doing it for a longer time. Then you said, bring it over, let's do it together.

• 1:31:12Trevor Noah?

  So, okay.

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  So that's an example of changing your routines.

• 1:31:15Speaker 00

  I believe in Admin Night.

• 1:31:17Trevor Noah?

  Let's go to, okay, let's go to strangers then.

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  Strangers? You wanna have better interactions?

• 1:31:20Trevor Noah?

  Person lives in a city. They go, I see people around me all the time. And yet I feel like nobody knows me. I don't know anybody. I don't even know where to begin on this journey. How, how do I start? From the research, what have you seen? That creates more than just a fleeting, hey, hey, hey, how you doing? How you doing? Oh, good, good, good. How do you go beyond that?

• 1:31:42Trevor Noah?

  Into any of the meaningful categories?

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  So I think ideally what you do is you first say, do I wanna start a conversation? Or do I wanna start an activity?

• 1:31:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  Cause those are, those are two different paths, right? We can either be face to face or side to side. Those are the two choices.

• 1:31:54Speaker 00

  Unless you're Eugene, then you're face to face and side to side.

• 1:31:57Speaker 01

  Eugene is cheekbone to cheekbone with your chameleon eyes.

• 1:32:02Speaker 00

  What I, what I like about, I like that one.

• 1:32:04Trevor Noah?

  What's the significance of that?

• 1:32:05Speaker 01

  Well, side by side is, is more conducive to being allies, right? We're gonna, we're gonna be looking at something together and we're gonna do a shared task. Face to face is more companion-y. We're gonna have a real conversation. We might go a little bit deeper.

• 1:32:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and also what I like about that, people who struggle meeting strangers is because they don't realize that they've got a pattern that doesn't allow for interruption. So you have to become an interrupter in your own life to be able to notice something that is an interruption that's good for you. So for example, people who are very ritualistic, struggle to meet people. Struggle to make connection to the stranger. They go in there, they buy a matcha. When someone greets them and it's not a person behind the counter.

• 1:32:41Trevor Noah?

  I understand what you're saying now.

• 1:32:42Speaker 00

  Yes, but if you disrupt your own self, do it at a different time, do it at a different place.

• 1:32:45Trevor Noah?

  Fascinating.

• 1:32:46Speaker 00

  Do it in different ways. Any disruption that comes about will have a meaningful contribution instead of having a destructive one, because you're going, this is not, this is not, this is not, this is not. You go, oh, this is nice. So your awareness gets heightened when you interrupt your own routine.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  Yes. And I think one of the easiest ways to interrupt your routine is to say, okay, what's something I would wanna do anyway? How can I go to a place where other people are doing it? And those are potential allies or pals.

• 1:33:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:33:14Trevor Noah?

  I already want to explore pottery.

• 1:33:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:33:18Trevor Noah?

  Join a pottery class.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, take a class, exactly.

• 1:33:20Trevor Noah?

  Now all of a sudden, you're more likely to meet a person, even though that's sort of a secondary goal. Okay, go line dancing. I just wanna learn how line dance. I wanna learn how to salsa dance. I wanna learn how to cook. I wanna.

• 1:33:30Speaker 01

  Bike, run, go to a gym.

• 1:33:32Trevor Noah?

  So in a weird way, don't focus on, on. It's like if it was like a sports analogy, it would be like, don't focus on the homerun, just focus on hitting the ball.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think people assume there has to be a lot of similarity in order to vibe. And they think, well, I've gotta find someone who, who just has a lot of overlapping interests. And the reality is what drives most vibes is just proximity. Like, think about the kids you became friends with in school. Did you have something special in common? Were you, were you pre-arranged? Did someone do matchmaking? No, you sat near them and through interaction, you built a vibe.

• 1:34:06Speaker 00

  Cellmates.

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, actually, literally, in the case of, if you look at police academies, police cadets are disproportionately likely to make friends coming out of the academy whose last names start with the same letter as theirs.

• 1:34:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:34:19Trevor Noah?

  Huh.

• 1:34:19Speaker 01

  Cause they're seeded alphabetically and you talk more to the person you happen to be next to. And so I think if you could put yourself in an environment, join a group or a club where people are doing the thing that you wanna be doing anyway, if you just have enough common ground that you can start the vibe.

• 1:34:36Speaker 00

  I like you, Adam.

• 1:34:37Speaker 01

  In fact, there's a, there's an experiment. Well, I'll just add a little bit of data to this. There's an experiment in the UK where people are, the sure version is they're asked to identify the existing groups that they're part of, that they'd like to be more involved with.

• 1:34:50Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:34:51Speaker 01

  And then a group or two that they might wanna join. And then if you follow them months and even years later, their happiness goes up, their loneliness goes down. Because they've just put themselves in an environment where they can find people.

• 1:35:02Speaker 00

  So what are those two things? A group that you?

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  An existing group you wanna get more involved in.

• 1:35:06Speaker 00

  Give me an example of that.

• 1:35:07Speaker 01

  Uh, it could be, I go to, I go to pottery class once a week. I'm gonna go twice a week.

• 1:35:12Speaker 00

  Got it, got it.

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

  And then a second is just a, a second group to join. Join a book club. Uh, join a film club and pick, you know, authors or movies that you like. And low and behold, you will find some people that you vibe with and you're doing a task you already wanted to do. So you're not even wasting time. Don't press anything. We've got more. What now? After this? So for years, psychologists said, if we wanna help people get along better in romantic relationships, we need to train them in emotional intelligence, conflict resolution skills, we need to teach them how to fight better. And then a, a group of psychologists, basically, they said, what if, what if we do something different? What if we compare the relationship skills building courses that, you know,

• 1:35:57Speaker 01

  every couple probably should do and no one really wants to do with something different? And they do something different that's way less work and just as effective.

• 1:36:07Trevor Noah?

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• 1:36:53Trevor Noah?

  But Rula is one way to make that first step feel a lot more doable. Offering accessible, affordable therapy that fits your needs. Sign up in just a few minutes and get matched with a therapist who fits what you're looking for. Need to talk to someone quickly? Appointments are often available as soon as the next day. And with insurance, sessions average around a $15 copay. You can also see estimated costs upfront, so there's a lot more clarity going in. And in terms of outcomes, 93% of Rula patients report symptom improvement. If therapy's been sitting in the back of your mind, Rula is a pretty simple way to take that first step. So turn off the talk track that's keeping you from progress and head to rula.com.

• 1:37:37Trevor Noah?

  That's R U L A dot com to find a therapist the easy way.

• 1:37:43Speaker 04

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• 1:38:18Trevor Noah?

  Is there also something in, again, there's probably like a term for this, but is there also something in how,

• 1:38:26Trevor Noah?

  you know, like if you, if you eat something really sweet, it welcomes you immediately and then after a while, you know what I mean?

• 1:38:32Speaker 00

  You've had enough of it.

• 1:38:33Trevor Noah?

  It like, no, but it kicks you is how like, had enough of it is like almost a soft version.

• 1:38:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:38:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:38Trevor Noah?

  Do you know what I mean? Well, clawing at you with some things, you know, they'll be like, it's great. And then it's like, ah, it starts clawing at you, I think they say.

• 1:38:44Speaker 01

  The too much of a good thing effect.

• 1:38:45Trevor Noah?

  Right. And then there's the acquired taste effect where it's like,

• 1:38:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:38:48Trevor Noah?

  You're like, I'm not sure, I'm not sure. And then over time, it actually has a more subtle, sustainable effect than, than, than the former. Is it, is there something in, in that, like?

• 1:38:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:38:58Trevor Noah?

  When something starts off as sweet, we, we're able to like, or we process it differently.

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:04Trevor Noah?

  When it doesn't, everything becomes like, it feels like better in a, in a way.

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, part, part of that is the benefit of low expectations. That,

• 1:39:12Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:39:13Speaker 01

  if, if you didn't hate somebody, but you just kind of were bothered by them, then you're pleasantly surprised.

• 1:39:19Trevor Noah?

  You are.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  When a better version of them shows up.

• 1:39:20Trevor Noah?

  You are.

• 1:39:21Speaker 00

  I didn't know you were this funny.

• 1:39:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:22Speaker 00

  I didn't know you were, I didn't know you were.

• 1:39:24Trevor Noah?

  You're actually right.

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  I thought he was stiff. It turns out he can occasionally laugh at a joke.

• 1:39:28Trevor Noah?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  But I think the other thing that happens is sometimes we could just get a narrow image of them because we only met them in one setting. So I, I, I always think about a couple of examples on this. Uh, I think about the, like the two guys who met on a Stanford tour and both found each other obnoxious. And then we're in a computer science lab together and started Google together. Larry and Sergey did not, excuse me, Larry and Sergey did not get along when they met at all because they were both posturing and jockeying for position and wanted to be the smart person on the tour. You put them in the computer lab side by side, looking at the same problem. And they realized they both think search sucks and they have complementary skills to bring to it. Another example, this is, this is a very salient one. Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams. Icy rivals throughout their tennis careers.

• 1:40:14Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:40:15Speaker 01

  Because they're pitted against each other.

• 1:40:16Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:40:16Speaker 01

  And each one is standing in the way of the other's dream.

• 1:40:18Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  Now they retire and they say they're like sisters. They have all these shared experiences that they've gone through that only the other can understand.

• 1:40:27Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  And you take them out of the setting where they clashed and put them in a different one. They're also both mothers of young kids. They're also both venture capitalists, investors, starting companies. And they had this kind of once in a lifetime tennis ride.

• 1:40:41Trevor Noah?

  Right, right.

• 1:40:41Speaker 01

  How could they not hit it off? And so don't prejudge your competitor when you're on the court going against them. Cause they may actually become a great ally, pal or companion. Once you're on the same side of the court with them.

• 1:40:53Trevor Noah?

  That is wild. That reminds me of those stories that you'll see where World War II veterans would talk about like meeting their counterparts.

• 1:41:04Speaker 00

  After the war.

• 1:41:05Speaker 01

  That they were shooting at.

• 1:41:05Trevor Noah?

  They would meet like the guy who was like in the German army and the guy who was, and it would, and then they say like, we, we were, we became best friends. And you go, you guys were trying to kill each other. And they're like, yeah, but we laugh and we have stories. And then they would even like ask each other, that day that, so where were you stationed? So we were trying to trick you with, and it's like, ah, yeah, we knew you were going to try that and so what? Ah, and, and you're like, how did you become friends? It always makes me wonder if that means there's a path to, I mean, not kumbaya, but is there a path to more camaraderie in society than we think there is?

• 1:41:40Speaker 01

  I think you can have better interactions with almost anyone.

• 1:41:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:43Speaker 01

  If you change the context.

• 1:41:44Trevor Noah?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:41:45Speaker 01

  And actually there's a much simpler version of what you're describing, which is, I love this experiment where people go with friends or with strangers to a haunted house.

• 1:41:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  And afterward they feel closer, but only if they've debriefed and processed together and talked about the fear they felt.

• 1:42:00Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:42:01Speaker 01

  That the intensity of getting their hearts racing was not enough to bond them. They had to talk about how their hearts were racing by the same experience. That they, they were both freaked out at the same jump scare. And all of a sudden, now we have a unique experience in common that no one else can relate to. And those are, those are often hard to facilitate, right? We have to create those moments, but I think a lot of people think that adversity is the key to doing that. Fraternities and sororities, hazing. Ah, we're gonna suffer together.

• 1:42:28Trevor Noah?

  Yes. That's essentially what they're trying to manufacture.

• 1:42:30Speaker 01

  Yes, but I think they're, they're missing the boat. It's actually not shared suffering that causes people to bond more quickly.

• 1:42:35Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:42:36Speaker 01

  It's not adversity, it's intensity. It's the fact that you are feeling something strong. It's deep emotion. It's a transformational experience that brings people closer together. So something bad doesn't have, have to happen. You just need to have strong emotions that then you connect to the other person around.

• 1:42:53Speaker 00

  But also I think there's, um, there's, there's telling signs of how a friendship started, which is the foundation.

• 1:43:00Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:00Speaker 00

  That people ignore once the fund, once the relationship is, gets going. For example, there's people who would say, I, I think everyone leads every relationship that they get into. That's a, that's gonna turn long-term into anything.

• 1:43:11Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:11Speaker 00

  With their own preconceived notion, their own prejudices.

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:43:15Speaker 00

  And their own view of life that was formed way before you. So ultimately, when someone says to me, I didn't like you at first, but over time I like, my foundation is skepticism, pessimism, doubt and preconceived notion. That's what we started with. That's the foundation of our relationship. What it turned out to be is something else. But there's other times where the person says, from the first time I met you, I knew we were gonna hit it off. If me and that person over time don't get along, I know what our foundation is.

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:41Speaker 00

  So none of it is surprise. So what we often do is we choose to adopt the version of this foundation that we like the most. But it's not a foundation. It was just a wall that peeked out of the foundation.

• 1:43:52Speaker 01

  Just happened to be the first.

• 1:43:53Trevor Noah?

  It just happened to be the first piece of the.

• 1:43:55Speaker 00

  The first piece that is visible. And it's also visible to everyone that we can go complain to about the thing not working.

• 1:44:01Trevor Noah?

  All right, all right, all right.

• 1:44:02Speaker 00

  Because it's visible.

• 1:44:02Speaker 01

  It's like if you're trying to do a jigsaw puzzle and you started without the border and you just had a random piece, you might, you might spend your whole day trying to find another piece that connects to it. Whereas if you were lucky to stumble on a border piece, it's much easier than to rule out a bunch and zoom in on the one that matches.

• 1:44:20Speaker 00

  If you're having a disagreement or a fight with your partner, the one thing that you can do to accelerate this fire that is burning is to remind each other of the problem.

• 1:44:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:44:30Speaker 00

  But the one thing that will stop the fight down this track is to remind each other of the first day you met.

• 1:44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:36Speaker 00

  It's hard to stay, remember the first time I saw you? But it's in the middle of a fight. Two outcomes can happen here, depending on what we remind ourselves of in the middle of that.

• 1:44:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:48Speaker 00

  But that is the foundation. There's the boundary wall that's peeking over the foundation. Then there's the layer that lies underneath which the wall was built on. The one on top, everyone can see. Then we can have our friends, family agreeing with what is visible. But the one underneath is the one that both of us, the people, the catalyst of this problem can both know that the other people will never know.

• 1:45:10Speaker 01

  That's so interesting. It, it makes me think of, it actually connects to something that I've been thinking about ever since I finished writing the book.

• 1:45:17Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:45:17Speaker 01

  Which blew my mind. Can I tell, can I tell you a quick story? It's actually gonna be an experiment, but it's a story about an experiment. So for years, psychologists said, if we want to help people get along better in romantic relationships, we need to train them in emotional intelligence, conflict resolution skills, we need to teach them how to fight better. And then a, a group of psychologists led by Riggio, uh, in case you're curious, Trevor.

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  They, uh, I'm not gonna make you suffer through all the details, but basically they said, what if, what if we do something different? What if we compare the relationship skills building courses that every couple probably should do and no one really wants to do with something different? And they do something different that's way less work and just as effective. Even three years later, the couples are less likely to get divorced after going through this different experience. Okay. So here's your curiosity gap. What was the different experience? The different experience is you agree that once a week, you're gonna watch a romantic comedy with your partner and you're gonna spend an hour talking about it afterward. And that, just agreeing to watch a romantic comedy

• 1:46:25Speaker 01

  once a week for a month is as effective in keeping you together three years later as if you actually got trained on how to resolve conflicts. So what's going on there? Here's, here's my, my explanation. I think what's happening there is first of all, you get into pal mode.

• 1:46:40Trevor Noah?

  Yep.

• 1:46:41Speaker 01

  Right? We're, we're laughing, we're watching something fun. Secondly, the discussion is about what the couple on screen is doing wrong. And so you're allies on the same side of the problem. Right? We're, we're analyzing it together. We're trying to figure it out. And then third, because of those two things, we can be easy companions. There's nothing threatening about saying, oh, that ridiculous thing the couple did on screen?

• 1:47:02Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  We're not that bad, but here's something we can take away from that. And I wonder, I wonder if this is something that more people could do. This, this applies to all kinds of relationships.

• 1:47:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:14Speaker 01

  We don't have to start the, the conflict or the fight by saying, All right, we need to talk. Right, what we can do is say, hey, let's, let's, let's do something fun together. And then let's talk about what this means for us.

• 1:47:27Speaker 00

  Yes, absolutely. The best way to learn something quicker and minimize damage or collateral damage is to run a simulation. War games, pilots do this all the time.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:47:40Speaker 00

  Also, when couples, because remember that before there was structured entertainment, couples would be friends with each other just to run a simulation of what the other couple is doing that they shouldn't be doing. Now we have television, now we have social media. We can run the simulation together as many times as we like to avoid the thing that will make us adversaries in the end. But if we don't know why we're doing this thing, then there's a problem because the initial feeling that drew you to one person are the billions of people in the world. If you don't remember that, then there's no point to this whole thing. There's no point. You can run the simulation all you want, but all of the people that you run the simulation with, whenever you want to have a connection with them, you must always ask them, how did you guys meet? They'll disagree on it, they will laugh.

• 1:48:24Speaker 00

  They, if, there was never a wrong answer. Whenever people are asked a couple, because one will get the anniversary date wrong, but the one will not ask for a divorce because they'll actually laugh and go, no, no, no, no, no.

• 1:48:34Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's not the first time we met.

• 1:48:35Speaker 00

  Yes, but now they are talking to each other and you because you found a common thread between the two of them, which was the foundation. But people don't do that with each other. You run the simulation and then you forget to have that anchor point at the beginning of, how did this whole movie just start?

• 1:48:50Speaker 01

  Yes. Oh, I love the origin story as a point for connection. And you don't even have to share it for it to work. Um, I, I studied astronauts for a long time. And one of the ways you get Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts who grew up in their own militaries relative, they were actually, they were ready to shoot each other.

• 1:49:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:49:08Speaker 01

  One of the ways that you get them to bond is you ask them about their origin story. What was the moment that you knew you wanted to be an astronaut? And they all become six or seven years old again. And they describe the experience of watching a moon landing or watching a space shuttle launch. And all of a sudden, they feel like, I, I think that this actually speaks to something that people overlook about, about finding common ground. Is people think we gotta have a commonality? That is not enough to bond us together. Have you ever, like, have you ever met somebody in a foreign country and discovered they're from South Africa? And you're like, bestie, we immediately hit it off?

• 1:49:44Trevor Noah?

  I don't do that, but I know what you mean.

• 1:49:46Speaker 01

  You know, the feeling, right? You're somewhere random and you find somebody from your hometown. If you met that person in your hometown, meaningless.

• 1:49:53Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:49:54Speaker 01

  Like, there are a million people just like you here. It's uncommon commonalities that bring us together.

• 1:49:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:49:58Trevor Noah?

  Uncommon commonalities.

• 1:50:00Speaker 01

  The things we share that are rare. The astronauts are only a few hundred people alive who can relate to that experience.

• 1:50:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:50:06Speaker 01

  Of leaving the planet.

• 1:50:07Trevor Noah?

  And so that now.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  That brings them together.

• 1:50:09Speaker 00

  That chance meeting in the, on the 14th of July, when I was going through all of this and you were going.

• 1:50:12Trevor Noah?

  That's why so many people like at church, for instance, will hate each other. But it's like, but you're at church and then they go, I should be liking everyone here. But it's not an uncommon commonality.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  Everyone there shares it.

• 1:50:23Trevor Noah?

  Ah, okay.

• 1:50:23Speaker 01

  And that's why your, your point of first meeting or what have we seen each other initially matters so much? Because it was only the two of those people.

• 1:50:30Trevor Noah?

  There are only two people who know what that core foundational experience is.

• 1:50:34Speaker 00

  Any couple fight in the middle of it. Remember the first time we met?

• 1:50:38Speaker 01

  That's so great.

• 1:50:39Trevor Noah?

  Damn.

• 1:50:39Speaker 00

  How do you still, I'm still angry. I don't want to remember the first time because it was so nice and I met you and that. Oh, my goodness, you're still here, then it's fun.

• 1:50:46Trevor Noah?

  So then, okay, how do you explain some of the, like, you, you lay out a few parts in the book that I, I found fascinating. Um, one, you said they show golfers who don't share the same political views play worse together. Why?

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  So I don't think we know for sure, but the follow up research that's been done suggests that when you are with somebody who's of the opposite political party, it throws you off your game a little bit.

• 1:51:11Trevor Noah?

  But, but, but, but what is this? Is it because you know? Is it because you say it? Is it because of your vibe? Is it, what is happening?

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  I, I think what happens is you, you're worried about, am I gonna offend this person? Are they gonna say something offensive?

• 1:51:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:51:25Speaker 01

  And you're spending extra energy managing the emotions and trying to figure out how to walk on eggshells in the.

• 1:51:31Trevor Noah?

  But it's subconscious. The person doesn't know that they're even.

• 1:51:33Speaker 01

  I don't know, they may be aware of it. In some cases, they may not, but yeah, the, just the, the feeling that we might not vibe is enough to disrupt my focus and lead me to golf worse.

• 1:51:44Trevor Noah?

  Pilots who are flying together with a crew that they're unfamiliar with, who are all completely qualified are more likely to be in a catastrophic crash. That's also in the book. Why?

• 1:51:54Speaker 01

  So people, so I think actually the best evidence on this is from a NASA simulation, where they get well rested crews who've never flown together. And then they compare them with tired crews, sorry, let me try that again. They compare them with tired crews who have just come on a, off of a three day.

• 1:52:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:11Speaker 01

  Duty together. The tired crews who have flown together make fewer deadly mistakes than the rested crews that have never flown together.

• 1:52:19Speaker 00

  Wow, makes sense.

• 1:52:20Speaker 01

  Just a little bit of shared experience is enough to build a vibe. Right, as, as we fly once or twice together, we learn each other's strengths and weaknesses. We build effective routines. Exactly. And guess what? This is the overlooked dynamic of every great sports team. The New York Knicks just won the NBA championship.

• 1:52:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:52:40Speaker 01

  Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, played together in 2016 and won a national championship together in Villanova. They had a decade of shared experience under their belt. Cape Verde.

• 1:52:57Trevor Noah?

  You, you were literally.

• 1:52:57Speaker 01

  You were just there, right?

• 1:52:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, Eugene was there.

• 1:52:59Speaker 00

  Mm hmm, we're talking about this in the car on the way here.

• 1:53:01Trevor Noah?

  Literally talking about, yeah.

• 1:53:03Speaker 01

  That core team has been together for at least five years. Most of them have played together for a decade.

• 1:53:08Trevor Noah?

  You said this, you said, what did you say when you, you learned when you went to Cape Verde?

• 1:53:11Speaker 00

  They played each other or played with each other?

• 1:53:14Trevor Noah?

  And they like knew each other, like it's like a.

• 1:53:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's like a, seven islands, but it's a community as well.

• 1:53:19Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:19Speaker 00

  So they knew each other and they have a philosophy that, that exists, that transcends. There's no, when I went there, I was telling Trevor that I went there. Everyone I would speak to, I would say, Vazinho is a hero. They'd be like, no, there's other people in the team.

• 1:53:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:53:31Speaker 00

  Then I was like, no, it's Vazinho. They were like, yes, for you guys, because you guys live in a world where individuality is celebrated. Yeah, it's the whole team.

• 1:53:39Speaker 01

  That's, that's exactly right.

• 1:53:41Speaker 00

  They never recognized him as a star. He'll get more appreciation outside, but in Cape Verde, everyone in the team gets appreciation and is a star.

• 1:53:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, and this is why so many super teams fail to win in their first year. Is they haven't figured out how to vibe yet. You got a bunch of individual stars, but I will bet on the team with more shared experience over the more talented team that's never figured out how to collaborate.

• 1:54:05Trevor Noah?

  Okay, this has been, this has been great. This is like.

• 1:54:09Speaker 01

  Has it?

• 1:54:09Trevor Noah?

  It's been amazing, genuinely.

• 1:54:11Speaker 01

  I have, I have two things we left hanging, two tracks.

• 1:54:13Trevor Noah?

  I love, you see this guy?

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, there are many more.

• 1:54:16Trevor Noah?

  There's only, there's only one that I've left hanging, which is the disagreement about the married couple.

• 1:54:21Speaker 01

  The Coldplay fight.

• 1:54:22Trevor Noah?

  That one, I haven't left it hanging, but I just wanted to exclude it from the vibe of the book. This, this has nothing to do with the book, because this is what happened. This is just me watching Adam Grant on the internet going like, what? I beg to differ. This is what, this is what happened.

• 1:54:37Speaker 01

  He's going British again.

• 1:54:38Trevor Noah?

  This is what happened, you guys, you, you got off the dune buggy and then you took off the goggles and then there's only a few pieces of skin. You're like, that was great, isn't it? Adam, Adam had his conductor hat and he was like, no.

• 1:54:56Trevor Noah?

  Okay, what are the two things?

• 1:54:57Speaker 01

  Well, you got one of them.

• 1:54:58Trevor Noah?

  Okay, what's the other one?

• 1:54:58Speaker 01

  One was that, the other, I'll tell you after, let's, let's do this one first.

• 1:55:02Trevor Noah?

  Okay, let's do this one first.

• 1:55:03Speaker 01

  Well, it's alien, okay.

• 1:55:04Trevor Noah?

  I, let's, let's.

• 1:55:05Speaker 01

  Do you want me to start with my case?

• 1:55:06Trevor Noah?

  Let's make it a clean slate.

• 1:55:08Speaker 00

  Coldplay.

• 1:55:09Trevor Noah?

  Yes, so let's make it a clean slate.

• 1:55:10Speaker 00

  Chris Martin camera moment.

• 1:55:12Speaker 01

  Okay, this is not about Coldplay at all.

• 1:55:14Trevor Noah?

  At all, no, no.

• 1:55:15Speaker 01

  I think that that moment raised a question for a lot of people.

• 1:55:17Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:55:18Speaker 01

  Should we care about what a leader does in their personal life?

• 1:55:22Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 1:55:23Speaker 01

  And the evidence I've read convinces me the answer is yes.

• 1:55:26Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:55:26Speaker 01

  So there was an Ashley Madison data leak a few years ago. Where people who are.

• 1:55:31Trevor Noah?

  That was the affair website, right?

• 1:55:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's the adult dating website where people can pay to find other people.

• 1:55:37Trevor Noah?

  But it was specifically affair driven, wasn't it?

• 1:55:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, to cheat on your spouse.

• 1:55:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, okay, cool.

• 1:55:40Speaker 01

  That's the, that's the app you use, right? Those data leaked and guess what? You see where this is going? No, no, so, so what you see in the data is basically there are a lot of professionals who use that app.

• 1:55:56Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:55:56Speaker 01

  And so a group of researchers get together and say, what if, what if we could look at people's rate of professional misconduct by whether they're Ashley Madison users or not? And what the data showed was you can look at CEOs, you can look at police officers, you can look at investment analysts. Their rates of misconduct are two to three times higher if they cheat on their spouses. So let me say that more specifically. They are two to three times more likely to commit professional misconduct if they have engaged in personal misconduct. People who cheat on their spouses are also more likely to cheat on their taxes.

• 1:56:34Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:56:36Speaker 01

  And I think that says something about integrity. I think that sometimes people say, you know, how you do, how you do anything is how you do everything.

• 1:56:44Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:56:45Speaker 01

  And what that says to me is integrity is not a nine to five job. If you are the kind of person who is willing to go on an adult website and have an affair, violating the sanctity of your marriage, that means it's more likely you are also willing to cut corners when it comes to doing your job.

• 1:57:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:57:02Speaker 01

  Responsibly and ethically.

• 1:57:03Speaker 00

  I think greed is a good indicator of a person's propensity to transgress. There are other cultures, apparently, before they do business with you.

• 1:57:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:11Speaker 00

  They'll start with a meal, but they'll put enough for everyone in the room.

• 1:57:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:16Speaker 00

  And then they'll let the person that they're trying to do business with serve themselves first. And if they take more than.

• 1:57:22Speaker 01

  They deem necessary.

• 1:57:24Speaker 00

  And one person is short or two people are short because they took too much.

• 1:57:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:27Speaker 00

  Then they know the propensity for transgression is higher because of the person's greed.

• 1:57:31Speaker 01

  That is such an interesting.

• 1:57:32Speaker 00

  It was a subconscious feeling. I mean, they didn't, they didn't care who gets left out.

• 1:57:36Speaker 01

  Wait.

• 1:57:36Speaker 00

  They took theirs first.

• 1:57:37Speaker 01

  Eugene, they might just be really hungry. Can we control for that at least in the test?

• 1:57:41Speaker 00

  You could also be. Their ability also not to eat also is an indicator of their patience. Their willpower. What can wait? What am I here? You didn't leave your country or your hotel room to come eat. You came to conclude hospitality was extended.

• 1:57:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:57:54Speaker 00

  You had to consider everyone around you and then, but you did not.

• 1:57:59Speaker 01

  And people who are more other focused actually have more self-control in those situations. Cause someone else is counting on them.

• 1:58:05Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:58:05Speaker 01

  You see that in the marshmallow test data. If there's another kid, you know, the marshmallow test, right? If, if you have to wait 15 minutes.

• 1:58:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:58:14Speaker 01

  To not eat one marshmallow in order to get two.

• 1:58:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:58:17Speaker 01

  You are more likely to wait if you're going to share those two with another kid.

• 1:58:21Speaker 00

  In other cultures, they judge you by your, your ability to control your appetite.

• 1:58:24Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but wait, you see, I love that you use that as, as an example. Hasn't that data also been undermined by the fact that the test didn't take into account that many of the kids who failed the test came from backgrounds where they did not know whether or not they would get another marshmallow in life?

• 1:58:39Speaker 01

  No, misinterpretation of the data. So if you look at the original data.

• 1:58:43Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:44Speaker 01

  Socioeconomic status is in there.

• 1:58:46Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:58:46Speaker 01

  You can still often see the effect when it's controlled for, but it gets smaller.

• 1:58:50Trevor Noah?

  Ah, okay.

• 1:58:51Speaker 01

  And the, the point is.

• 1:58:52Trevor Noah?

  So it shrinks, but it's, it's not like the overwhelming effect.

• 1:58:55Speaker 01

  You can still detect it. And so the, I think the conclusion that most of our field is drawn from that is when you grow up in an impoverished environment, that is one of the ways that you don't get the chance to learn, to forego the temptation of one now for two later. Because if, if food is available, you eat it.

• 1:59:12Trevor Noah?

  Yes, right.

• 1:59:13Speaker 01

  And so that's actually a contributing factor to your ability to delay gratification.

• 1:59:16Trevor Noah?

  Yep.

• 1:59:18Speaker 01

  And controlling for that is actually taking part of that experience that led you to build that ability or not out of the data.

• 1:59:24Trevor Noah?

  Out of the data.

• 1:59:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:59:25Trevor Noah?

  So now let's go back to the other one. When, help me understand like how, how you, you like they build that. So they'll go, we've taken the Ashley Madison, we've taken this. Could that not be that they've just found people who have like a cross correlation? Or they, they just happen to be, let's, let's, what, what, what were the words you used?

• 1:59:45Speaker 00

  Your, your greed is a great.

• 1:59:46Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but beyond that was devious, trustworthy. No, no, I'm saying all of these things, right?

• 1:59:51Speaker 00

  Propensity to transgress.

• 1:59:52Trevor Noah?

  That's beautiful. That's what you said.

• 1:59:53Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:59:54Trevor Noah?

  Right. So what I'm saying is.

• 1:59:56Speaker 01

  Mr. Calling is a psychologist.

• 1:59:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:58Speaker 01

  The propensity to transgress, journal article.

• 2:00:01Trevor Noah?

  So, so what I'm saying is the, if we, if we look at it in like different columns, would you not find that some people have certain columns where they go, I will never transgress here? And then they would transgress in others. And then as society, we've just made it like one flat layer. Do you, do you get what I'm saying?

• 2:00:18Speaker 01

  So that kind of compartmentalization.

• 2:00:20Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:20Speaker 01

  Can happen and does happen. And often you see that in research on moral licensing, where somebody who does a bad thing in one domain. Sorry, let me say that again. Somebody does a good thing in one domain.

• 2:00:31Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:00:31Speaker 01

  Will then feel like they can cheat a little bit in another domain.

• 2:00:34Trevor Noah?

  Yep. Okay. No, but I'm, I'm even saying it like, um, okay, let's think of it like piracy is a good example.

• 2:00:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:00:40Trevor Noah?

  Most people.

• 2:00:41Speaker 00

  The old fashioned kind?

• 2:00:42Trevor Noah?

  No, not your favorite one. I'm saying like, most people would, would, if you said like theft or crime, or they'd be like, no, no, no, no, no. And then you're like, yo, let me send you the movie clip or whatever. And they're like, yeah, cool. And you're like, but that's piracy. Then like, well, that's not the same thing. And I don't even like judge them.

• 2:01:02Speaker 01

  They're British again.

• 2:01:03Trevor Noah?

  I don't, I don't even judge them. I don't even judge them.

• 2:01:06Speaker 01

  I thought that might have been Aussie though.

• 2:01:08Trevor Noah?

  You don't, you don't judge them the same. Or I don't at least because I go, yeah, but, but they are right from their point of view.

• 2:01:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:01:15Trevor Noah?

  I even argue that society has done this on a larger level, right? Who, who, when we say it's the law. Yeah, but why has the law decided that drunk driving is worse than a sober accident? I argue it's the other way around. This is just me as Trevor.

• 2:01:30Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:01:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I'll tell you why, because I go like, this is my thing. And this is just like a crazy little rabbit hole that I always go down in my head is I go, if the government makes it legal to consume alcohol and the government knows that alcohol impairs your ability to make decisions correctly. Then the government cannot now say that you should be held more accountable for a mistake that happened. Cause remember you did not intend for the action to occur.

• 2:01:56Speaker 00

  Capable.

• 2:01:56Trevor Noah?

  You, yes, you made a mistake while you were inebriated.

• 2:01:59Speaker 01

  Oh, Trevor.

• 2:02:00Trevor Noah?

  No, no, wait, wait. So listen, listen to what I'm saying. So.

• 2:02:02Speaker 01

  I see where you're going.

• 2:02:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. So, so what I'm saying is, it's the same way. Cause here's what's interesting. If you sign a contract when you are drunk.

• 2:02:11Speaker 00

  It's not valid.

• 2:02:12Trevor Noah?

  It's now not enforceable by that same government. But the government now doesn't hold you accountable for the contract that you signed. But I'm like, this guy, this is a mismatch to me. The government says you chose to drink and then drive. So you should be held accountable. I actually agree with that. But then I go, but then why is it that if somebody chose to drink and then sign a contract, the contract's not enforceable?

• 2:02:33Speaker 01

  Okay. As a social scientist, I have three problems with that argument.

• 2:02:36Trevor Noah?

  I love, this is why I love you.

• 2:02:37Speaker 01

  It's an interesting argument.

• 2:02:38Trevor Noah?

  This is why I love you. Let's go.

• 2:02:39Speaker 01

  Okay. Number one, the easy one. That only holds in a world pre Lyft and Uber. It's so easy for people to get a ride.

• 2:02:45Trevor Noah?

  Not financially. It's a big difference financially for somebody.

• 2:02:48Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 2:02:49Trevor Noah?

  The cost of a ride in an Uber or Lyft is way different, especially now that they've monopolized markets. It's very different.

• 2:02:55Speaker 01

  All right. All right. Good point. All right. I will, I will, I will soften that one. Okay. Second problem is deterrence. If you're not going to punish the person for drinking more, then everybody is going to make sure that they're, they're drunk when they're driving to get off the hook in case something happens, right? If you push that to, it's extreme. You need a more severe punishment to prevent drunk driving.

• 2:03:15Trevor Noah?

  But then why don't we punish the people who sign business contracts when they're drunk?

• 2:03:19Speaker 01

  Is that, is that a societal problem?

• 2:03:21Trevor Noah?

  No, but I'm, I'm asking this. What I'm saying is the fact that we even have it as, as something in society means that at some point it was a problem.

• 2:03:27Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:03:28Trevor Noah?

  So they said that like, I'm of sound mind, I blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm supposed to be, so this is what I'm saying is like, I go like.

• 2:03:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, no, I see. I, I, I agree with, but I think we should then change the contract situation. Right?

• 2:03:40Trevor Noah?

  I'm fine with that.

• 2:03:40Speaker 01

  Let's, let's punish that more, but.

• 2:03:42Speaker 00

  Who made you sign a contract, Trevor?

• 2:03:44Trevor Noah?

  No, so here's my thing. This is what I mean. Going back to the, remember what we were talking about originally? It's like the law of it.

• 2:03:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:51Trevor Noah?

  The invented nature of a thing.

• 2:03:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:53Trevor Noah?

  What gets me is when the A does not equal A.

• 2:03:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:58Trevor Noah?

  B does not equal B. Everything is invented. Everything is an imagined, it's a construct. So I'm not saying that I am for every construct or against every construct, right?

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  You just want parity.

• 2:04:08Trevor Noah?

  A red light is imagined. That's just the color, but I will stop at it because I understand what it does for us in a society.

• 2:04:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:04:15Trevor Noah?

  What I'm saying is it's weird to me when that same society will go, yeah, it's a red light, except for when like this cool guy or this, you, you. Then I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait. So then it's, it's not a red light, you know what I mean? And some make more sense than others. So a fire engine, of course it's not a red light. Then you're going to do the sirens and everything. But there's some things in life where I go, yeah, but aren't we creating that as a.

• 2:04:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:37Trevor Noah?

  As a, so to go back to the CEO thing, so that we stay on the track.

• 2:04:40Speaker 01

  Oh, wait, we're going to get there, but we have to finish this, this argument first.

• 2:04:42Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. Okay. So let's go to this one.

• 2:04:43Speaker 01

  We have a fight within a fight.

• 2:04:45Trevor Noah?

  Oh, I love this.

• 2:04:46Speaker 01

  Okay. So when, when criminologists study deterrence.

• 2:04:49Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:04:50Speaker 01

  One of the things they find is it's not just the consequence that matters. It's the social signal it sends. And so by severely punishing drunk driving, you stigmatize it. And you lead all the conditional offenders who say, well, I'm probably not going to get in an accident and I'm probably not going to get caught. To say, oh, everyone agrees this is wrong because there's a harsh punishment. And then they're less likely to do it.

• 2:05:10Speaker 00

  Yes, but also I find that.

• 2:05:12Trevor Noah?

  But is that always true though?

• 2:05:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. With a lot of Western laws, we also forget that besides the fact that it was punitive, it was also class based. So that's why certain crimes that are alike have different meanings.

• 2:05:22Trevor Noah?

  That's my point.

• 2:05:23Speaker 00

  Murder, culpable homicide.

• 2:05:24Trevor Noah?

  But that's my point.

• 2:05:25Speaker 00

  Theft, fraud.

• 2:05:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:05:27Trevor Noah?

  Thank you, Eugene. You're saying my point. My man, if you run outside in the streets right now and you grab. No, but that is what I'm trying to say.

• 2:05:35Speaker 01

  You said it better.

• 2:05:35Trevor Noah?

  You go and you grab a woman's handbag.

• 2:05:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:05:38Trevor Noah?

  I'm telling you now, the way the law will judge you will be very different to if you worked in a big bank. And you found a way to take one cent off everybody's bank account for some arbitrary charge that didn't actually really exist. You've stolen way more than a handbag.

• 2:05:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:05:54Trevor Noah?

  But because of the way the system is created, they will go, yeah, this, this is fraud.

• 2:06:00Speaker 00

  Yes, it was just, it was created so that the, the.

• 2:06:03Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:04Speaker 00

  The upper class can be able to defend themselves and get out of it.

• 2:06:06Trevor Noah?

  That's exactly, that's exactly my point.

• 2:06:08Speaker 00

  That's about it.

• 2:06:09Speaker 01

  White collar crime is under punished relative to blue collar crime.

• 2:06:11Trevor Noah?

  The fact that it's even called white collar, yes. It's like, why did we call it, why does it get a special name? Criminal? No, but a white, never forget the collar he wears.

• 2:06:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:06:19Trevor Noah?

  He's not just any criminal.

• 2:06:21Speaker 00

  An offender versus a transgressor?

• 2:06:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, like why?

• 2:06:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. An inmate versus a prisoner?

• 2:06:25Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, why? Do you, do you see what I'm saying?

• 2:06:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I think that's valid. I think there's one other issue, though, with this comparison. Which is, I think that the, the drunk driving accident versus the sober accident. Sober accident was an immediate error in judgment.

• 2:06:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:41Speaker 01

  The drunk accident was a premeditated error in judgment.

• 2:06:44Trevor Noah?

  I don't agree.

• 2:06:45Speaker 01

  More preventable.

• 2:06:45Trevor Noah?

  I don't.

• 2:06:46Speaker 01

  You can guarantee it doesn't happen by not drinking or not driving.

• 2:06:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:51Speaker 01

  Whereas you may be in a situation as a sober driver where you just cannot escape it.

• 2:06:55Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, but, but you can't.

• 2:06:57Speaker 01

  There's more intentionality there.

• 2:06:58Trevor Noah?

  This, but this is what I'm saying. Let's say somebody is speeding, they fly through a red light intentionally. And they crash into a car and the other people are hurt. They will not be treated the same as a drunk driver who went through a red light and crashed into their car and then people got hurt. My brain goes, I don't understand why.

• 2:07:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:07:20Trevor Noah?

  Because I'm going, you chose to run a red light.

• 2:07:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:07:23Trevor Noah?

  Cause you were in a hurry or whatever it was. And this person chose to have a drink. Now, I argue, they didn't choose to drive because as we said legally, they were not of sound mind when they made the decision to drive. But this person chose to go through the red light of sound mind knowing what could happen on the other side of a red light.

• 2:07:40Speaker 01

  Ah, no, no, no.

• 2:07:41Trevor Noah?

  This one was such a like butterfly effect of effect of effect of effect. You had a drink that led to, that led to, that led to, that led to. This one was like, here, cause and effect right away. So I'm saying I don't understand how society can then go so comfortably. Cause remember, I'm not saying that drunk driving is right or, I'm not saying, I'm saying it is wrong. I don't know, I don't want people to drunk drive. And I think we should deter people from doing it. However, I don't understand why.

• 2:08:05Speaker 01

  You were so close to making me think again on this.

• 2:08:08Trevor Noah?

  And then what happened?

• 2:08:08Speaker 01

  And here's where you lost me.

• 2:08:09Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:08:09Speaker 01

  The person who speeds through the red light and gets into an accident.

• 2:08:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:13Speaker 01

  Is causing one accident. The drunk driver could cause an infinite number.

• 2:08:16Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no. You can't say could because the other person also could. Don't cheat me, Adam. You've got to use could for both.

• 2:08:21Speaker 01

  No, here's, here's what I'm saying.

• 2:08:22Trevor Noah?

  You've got to use could for both.

• 2:08:23Speaker 01

  Okay, here, here's what I'm saying. The person who speeds.

• 2:08:25Trevor Noah?

  There's two accidents, they've happened. Let's not even use the word could.

• 2:08:27Speaker 01

  No, no, but it actually matters because you have to know what their state of mind was or their intention when they made the problematic choice.

• 2:08:33Trevor Noah?

  Go.

• 2:08:33Speaker 01

  The person who steps on the gas going through a red light.

• 2:08:36Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:08:37Speaker 01

  Has taken one risk. Okay?

• 2:08:39Trevor Noah?

  Cool.

• 2:08:40Speaker 01

  The person who chose to drink and drive has taken an unknown number of risks. They may cause multiple accidents, they may cause multiple deaths.

• 2:08:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:48Speaker 01

  And I think that is a more, the severity of that and the probability of that are both higher. In terms of, I think the way that we judge risk in our society or harm in our society is, is on two dimensions. One is severity. How high are the stakes? The other is probability. How likely is this? The drunk driver is getting into a situation that has higher severity and higher probability.

• 2:09:07Trevor Noah?

  Also, remember that. I'm gonna go with Eugene on this and say, I'm just gonna borrow from you Eugene and say, it's easier to make that a law because people who were being driven around on their horse carriage, like the carriage was taking them somewhere. But if you were riding, because they, they had those laws about that as well. You were the one on the horse drunk, then you were the trouble. But now, if you got drunk and then your carriage would take you home. Then you would be like, we need to punish these drunk drivers. And yes, they have an English accent. We need to punish these drunk drivers because they're a terrible menace. Yes, but it's because you think that because you have the luxury of being drunk and being driven.

• 2:09:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:40Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:09:41Trevor Noah?

  Again, I'm not saying it's bad or bad, but what I'm saying is, I just find that there's a, there's an in, imbalance. And I don't want to hold you for that.

• 2:09:48Speaker 01

  I will concede.

• 2:09:48Trevor Noah?

  So that's why I want to come back to the CEO of it.

• 2:09:50Speaker 01

  I will concede that point and just say, that's why we look at the intentionality, though, of the sober accident as well. And if you, if, if, there's a difference between a no fault accident and you ran a red light. And running the red light is closer to how the drunk driver would be treated.

• 2:10:03Trevor Noah?

  But it to me should be the same.

• 2:10:05Speaker 00

  I, I think that's why also, I think, also we have to agree that these laws were created years ago, centuries ago.

• 2:10:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:10:12Speaker 00

  The, the issue of premeditation, why it's important to be added as a tag is to nail you on something to prevent you from doing something in the future.

• 2:10:21Speaker 01

  That's deterrence. Yeah.

• 2:10:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:23Speaker 00

  The fact that you thought of something.

• 2:10:25Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:25Speaker 00

  That already is a crime. But they can't say that thinking is a crime.

• 2:10:29Trevor Noah?

  Cool.

• 2:10:29Speaker 00

  Premeditating to commit a crime.

• 2:10:31Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:10:32Speaker 00

  That is a crime within a crime.

• 2:10:34Trevor Noah?

  Correct.

• 2:10:34Speaker 00

  But premeditation is not a crime.

• 2:10:36Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 2:10:36Speaker 00

  Cause we premeditate all the time.

• 2:10:37Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:10:38Speaker 00

  So what you can argue if you skip a red robot intentionally or unintentionally, once faced with the consequences. Because the same mind that existed before you skipped the robot versus the one that exists after you got arrested.

• 2:10:49Trevor Noah?

  Yes, I'm loving this.

• 2:10:50Speaker 00

  So your argument in your defense could be, I wasn't thinking straight. But then if you are impaired.

• 2:10:57Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:10:58Speaker 00

  Somehow or the other, deliberately so. You don't have a defense that can stand, but if they let you go on your, on case of your impairment.

• 2:11:07Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:07Speaker 00

  Then they can nail you on your premeditation.

• 2:11:09Trevor Noah?

  So then let me ask you this, why is it that in court, they will give people, they'll get off on temporary insanity?

• 2:11:17Speaker 00

  It just depends on who you are and your medical history.

• 2:11:19Trevor Noah?

  No, but you hear what I'm saying? Just listen to the pause even in your voice.

• 2:11:22Speaker 00

  No, no, but yeah.

• 2:11:22Speaker 01

  No, that's a hard one.

• 2:11:23Trevor Noah?

  Think about it. We will.

• 2:11:25Speaker 01

  It's a controllability, preventability issue.

• 2:11:26Trevor Noah?

  We will in court go like, this person lost their ability. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So wait, wait, wait, wait, listen, just listen to what I'm saying. Just listen to what I'm saying first. We will be in the same society where we say, this person, temporary insanity. Just pause and listen to that phrase for a second. They're not insane. They went insane for a moment. Ergo, we cannot punish them the way we would otherwise.

• 2:11:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but Trevor, that's, that's because we, we have a criminal justice system that is built on deterrence.

• 2:11:58Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:11:58Speaker 01

  And the temporary insanity is not controllable or preventable, whereas inebriation is.

• 2:12:04Trevor Noah?

  No, but guys, it's temporary inebriation.

• 2:12:06Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 2:12:07Speaker 01

  You didn't choose it. You didn't, you didn't, you didn't make a choice that put you in the temporary insanity position.

• 2:12:12Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you see now.

• 2:12:13Speaker 00

  That's an insanity part.

• 2:12:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, so now what I'm saying is.

• 2:12:15Speaker 01

  That's how our legal system works. Welcome to America.

• 2:12:17Trevor Noah?

  But no, but I'm saying for me, those types of things, I can tell you now, they do not line up. I'm not saying I, again, I'm not saying wrong or right. I'm saying that they do not line up.

• 2:12:26Speaker 00

  No, absolutely. They will never line up.

• 2:12:28Speaker 01

  No, they're not gonna be perfect.

• 2:12:28Speaker 00

  Because the fact that there's also someone who's deciding if you're going to live or die.

• 2:12:31Trevor Noah?

  Yes, I mean completely. It's also, all I'm saying is, is it doesn't line up.

• 2:12:34Speaker 01

  But I think your beef is at the level of how much do we take into account intention? It's not the specific case that matters.

• 2:12:41Trevor Noah?

  So what, all I'm saying is, you should, this is like the phrase I always say to my friends is I go, pray to God. You are born in the time that you belong.

• 2:12:51Speaker 00

  But see, as a friend, this is what we have to go through.

• 2:12:54Trevor Noah?

  No, but it's true.

• 2:12:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, Eugene, what's up? Pray to God.

• 2:12:57Trevor Noah?

  But it's true, though. You know I've said this to you.

• 2:12:58Speaker 00

  Not happy birthday.

• 2:12:59Trevor Noah?

  Yo.

• 2:13:00Speaker 00

  No.

• 2:13:00Trevor Noah?

  Pray to God. You are born in the time.

• 2:13:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:13:03Trevor Noah?

  That suits you.

• 2:13:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:13:06Trevor Noah?

  Because if you were born in a time when like fighting and hunting and like, but it was like, like necessary. No one was calling you aggro back then. You get what I'm saying?

• 2:13:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:13:19Trevor Noah?

  If you were born in a time.

• 2:13:20Speaker 01

  There was what's called person environment fit.

• 2:13:22Trevor Noah?

  There you go.

• 2:13:23Speaker 00

  Oh, I like that.

• 2:13:23Trevor Noah?

  Oh, I love that. Person environment fit.

• 2:13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're, you're basically selected, excuse me, you don't have to adapt to the environment because you've been selected for it.

• 2:13:30Speaker 00

  You're built, you're built for purpose.

• 2:13:31Trevor Noah?

  So what I always go is, I have a, I have a high degree of empathy for people where I go, man, it must suck that you are in this environment where this has become the norm.

• 2:13:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:13:40Trevor Noah?

  And now you have become the outsider to it. But in another time, you could have just challenged someone to a duel with your anger and then killed them. And that was the law.

• 2:13:49Speaker 00

  You're a Nikola Tesla at the wrong time.

• 2:13:50Trevor Noah?

  There you go.

• 2:13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:13:51Trevor Noah?

  That's, that's, that's all I'm, that's all I'm saying.

• 2:13:53Speaker 01

  That's valid. CEOs.

• 2:13:54Trevor Noah?

  So let's, so the CEO thing, so, so help, help me understand in that is like, how do, and I'll, I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why I'm always, um, not skeptical, but I, why I always like try and like dig into data. Because I look at how many times data and studies have been used to unfairly and disproportionately affect people. Because they just go like, studies have shown, studies have shown. And then I'm like, yeah, but like, the studies haven't accounted for so many other things, right? So. Multiple times, they would justify giving young black men higher prison sentences because they showed that they had a propensity to go and commit more of those crimes. Because the data had shown that they might be more likely to commit more of those crimes.

• 2:14:38Speaker 00

  Until someone comes with data and refuges that data and then.

• 2:14:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, we've seen cases where like mayors run cities where they go, yo, when you do the smallest thing, we're gonna punish you in the biggest way. Cause that'll stop you. Yeah, that's true.

• 2:14:49Speaker 01

  That's a huge problem.

• 2:14:50Trevor Noah?

  If you arrest a kid for breaking a window, they will never become a murderer because now they're just in jail. I mean, one way to stop people from doing crimes is to stop them from being a human. I agree with that.

• 2:14:58Speaker 00

  You're right.

• 2:14:59Trevor Noah?

  But that's, that's, I think, why, and that's why I love like debating with you on this. Cause you helped me understand like how you think of data. And then, like, I'm always trying to go like, yeah, but did we scratch that enough? Did we probe that enough? Did we? Because when, when someone says, we've seen that um, someone who is likely to be, you know, uh, what was it? Infidelity in one part of your life is in all of it. I go like, I don't think that's true for people. I know many people who can't focus in school.

• 2:15:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:15:26Trevor Noah?

  But man, they can focus on tasks that take them to the furthest places in the world. I know people who can't socialize.

• 2:15:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:35Trevor Noah?

  But you put them in the right environment and all of a sudden they become the personality and you get what I'm saying. I know people and I go like.

• 2:15:43Speaker 01

  Kelsey is charged, your honor.

• 2:15:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but so, so, so I guess that, that was my thing as well. I was going like, whoo.

• 2:15:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:49Trevor Noah?

  When do we use data to assume something going forward?

• 2:15:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:15:54Trevor Noah?

  And when do we just observe data as a huh, that's interesting?

• 2:15:58Speaker 01

  I, I think that's a great question. I think it's nuanced that's often missing, especially when we share this kind of content in short form. So I, people have this knee jerk reaction sometimes when I post a longitudinal study. And they say correlation is not causation. I'm, I'm pretty sure I know that. I do this for a living. Thank you for enlightening me. Uh, and what I always want to say back is there are actually only three consistent ways that two things can be related. Um, other than random chance.

• 2:16:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:23Speaker 01

  Which there's a reason we replicate with lots of different kinds of, of data. Um, and try to rule out the random chance. Okay. So three ways two variables can be related. One is A causes B. The other is B causes A.

• 2:16:35Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 2:16:35Speaker 01

  And the third is C is a common cause of A and B.

• 2:16:38Trevor Noah?

  Hmm. A causes B, B causes A, and C is a common cause of A and B.

• 2:16:41Speaker 01

  That's it, right? There's an infinite number of Cs.

• 2:16:43Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 2:16:44Speaker 01

  Potentially, right?

• 2:16:45Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 2:16:46Speaker 01

  And so what we do when we try to understand is this really a causal effect? When we can't randomly assign people to, you know, be a psychopath, for example.

• 2:16:54Trevor Noah?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:16:55Speaker 01

  Is we say, okay, uh, can we rule out the other two? And I think in this case, it's actually really easy. Because what we can say is, um, we're interested in the relationship between A and B. And we don't care if A causes B or B causes A. We don't care if being a cheater at work caused you to be a cheater at home or vice versa.

• 2:17:14Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  Right? Either of those paths could be true. It could be that you, you go to your job and you get away with stuff and you get rich. And then there, there's some douchey guy who wants to trade up his spouse.

• 2:17:24Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 2:17:25Speaker 01

  Right? Or, you know, or finally has access to, you know, to women that he couldn't get interested in him before. Cause there are mostly men in the data. Um, it could be the reverse. It could be somebody who cheats at home, gets away with it and says, huh, I wonder what I can get away with at work.

• 2:17:39Trevor Noah?

  Right, okay.

• 2:17:40Speaker 01

  Or what's the most likely C that causes both of those As and Bs? The person is a sociopath.

• 2:17:45Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's, okay. So that's what, okay, okay. Now you're getting, then you're getting to what I was saying, actually. All right.

• 2:17:50Speaker 01

  And we could, we could cover a lot of different Cs, right? But I think the most immediate cause, if you see somebody who has both cheated, not, not just cheated, aggressively philandered.

• 2:17:59Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:17:59Speaker 01

  I'm gonna find that adult waiting, dating website so I can cheat on my spouse, spouse with lots of people.

• 2:18:04Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 2:18:05Speaker 01

  And I'm also gonna commit egregious financial misconduct at work. The most likely cause of that is that is a person who does not care about integrity and does not care about other humans. And so.

• 2:18:17Trevor Noah?

  So that is more likely a C that is causing A and B.

• 2:18:19Speaker 01

  Possibly.

• 2:18:19Trevor Noah?

  As opposed to us thinking that A is the causing, A or B is, okay.

• 2:18:23Speaker 01

  But either way, I look at those data and say, I don't know whether it's A to B, B to A, or C to A and B. I might not appoint a CEO who is cheating on their spouse. Because that is a signal to me that they might have an integrity problem.

• 2:18:37Trevor Noah?

  Ah.

• 2:18:38Speaker 01

  It's a clue.

• 2:18:38Trevor Noah?

  Or, or you might appoint a CEO who's cheating on their spouse because you know that they will do everything in their power to extract shareholder value at all costs.

• 2:18:47Speaker 01

  No, I'm not saying, you might.

• 2:18:48Trevor Noah?

  I'm not saying you.

• 2:18:49Speaker 00

  You are right.

• 2:18:50Trevor Noah?

  Guys, guys, guys, are we gonna act like we, we are not living in a world where corporations have done everything in their power to get around every loophole to.

• 2:18:57Speaker 00

  How, how, guys?

• 2:18:58Trevor Noah?

  Spot on.

• 2:18:59Speaker 00

  I'm not, I'm not saying me.

• 2:19:00Trevor Noah?

  I'm saying some people may actually look at that and go, that's what I like about this person.

• 2:19:04Speaker 00

  And we've also heard of some stories where dignitaries in some smaller countries keep each other going because of what they do after the meetings.

• 2:19:11Trevor Noah?

  There you go.

• 2:19:12Speaker 00

  They keep each other in power because they like it when they go to Geneva. They know what they're gonna do there, then they go to another country. Yeah, cause they're doing it together, that.

• 2:19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think.

• 2:19:21Trevor Noah?

  You think you've, you've sold my brain.

• 2:19:23Speaker 01

  Unfortunately, you're both right.

• 2:19:24Trevor Noah?

  And this is what I've realized is studies shouldn't be in short form tweets. Let's fix that, Adam.

• 2:19:29Speaker 01

  No, no, no, we still wanna share it because that's what gets people curious and thinking and learning and talking about it, right? But we don't wanna have knee jerk reactions. We don't wanna immediately judge people based on those data. So here's the caveat.

• 2:19:40Trevor Noah?

  That is why we need the I'm interested button.

• 2:19:43Speaker 01

  Yes, and that's also why we need podcasts, because we have these discussions.

• 2:19:46Speaker 00

  Or admin groups. And remember that group of people that do the?

• 2:19:50Speaker 01

  The admin nights.

• 2:19:51Speaker 00

  Admin nights.

• 2:19:52Speaker 01

  But this is, this is actually a great example. You and I never would have had this conversation. Eugene would have never been in this conversation had you not seen the short form post I did and said, I wanna have a fight about it.

• 2:20:00Speaker 00

  Infinite Cs.

• 2:20:01Speaker 01

  And I love it. But I, I do think a giant caveat is, is in order, which is, you know, nuanced that I think is often missing from this conversation. I think my message is we shouldn't just immediately give people a pass in their personal lives when we judge them in their professional lives. Right? If, if somebody has a history or a reputation of unethical or extremely selfish behavior in, even if it's in their personal life.

• 2:20:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:23Speaker 01

  That is a potential red flag when it comes to engaging with them, right? They've, they've betrayed a companion and I have questions about whether they're a trustworthy ally now.

• 2:20:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:34Speaker 01

  There is a difference between going on Ashley Madison and repeatedly cheating on your spouse with lots of different people and paying money for that service. And having fallen in love with one person in a loveless marriage. Right? I think that latter person is less unethical than the former person.

• 2:20:48Trevor Noah?

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 2:20:49Speaker 01

  So I want the context.

• 2:20:51Trevor Noah?

  I see what you're saying. So culpable homicide versus, okay.

• 2:20:57Speaker 00

  Homicide.

• 2:20:57Trevor Noah?

  You see what I love is, but this is what I love about all of it. And that's why I love about like, that's what I always love about chatting to you. And that's maybe, I think, why the book will be really cool for people and interesting is literally, I don't think we see the, the, the, the object from the same perspective. But hearing how you observe it makes me more interested in your brain. And then going back and forth makes us then laugh and chat and then discover new things and find. But if you said, do you agree? I'd be like, no, we don't agree on these things, but we agree on many other things.

• 2:21:25Speaker 00

  Context, there's no way.

• 2:21:26Trevor Noah?

  Yes. And you know, you know what I mean? So this, this is, thank you, pal.

• 2:21:31Speaker 01

  No, thank you, Alan.

• 2:21:32Trevor Noah?

  This is really fun. Really, really dope. This was great. You see, if A wasn't here, then B was, and B was, but if it wasn't for C. Ah, Eugene, haha, wouldn't have been here without you, my man.

• 2:21:43Speaker 01

  Wait, I have to know.

• 2:21:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:45Speaker 01

  You said you were doing an experiment at the beginning.

• 2:21:47Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 2:21:47Speaker 01

  To help us vibe.

• 2:21:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:49Speaker 01

  What hypothesis were you testing and how did you, how did you plant the seeds for our?

• 2:21:54Speaker 00

  What are the outcomes of the study?

• 2:21:56Speaker 01

  Did you purposely put Eugene and me in the green room together so that we could get to know each other?

• 2:22:00Trevor Noah?

  Yes. So everything, everything. I wanted to see what I could apply from your book to this vibe, to see how it would or wouldn't affect it. So I went, what elements of conflict, what will elements of conflict bring out in us? Saying what we feel or do not feel, how will that move the conversation or not move the conversation? Um, enjoying talking about random things that are just fun and, you know, meaningless and benign? How will that affect the conversation? Uh, sharing intimate details about ourselves as people, how will that affect the interaction? Et cetera, et cetera. So all these things, cause I was like, huh. This is like an interesting experiment to do on the experimenter to see how it actually works.

• 2:22:40Speaker 01

  And what did you learn from the experiment?

• 2:22:42Trevor Noah?

  I mean, I, it was a good time.

• 2:22:45Speaker 00

  I don't know if I should call the Human Rights Commission or PT.

• 2:22:51Speaker 00

  I feel like I was a part of an experiment without my knowledge. But I must say, that idea of us having a gorilla bodyguard.

• 2:22:59Trevor Noah?

  We're doing it.

• 2:22:59Speaker 00

  We're doing it.

• 2:23:00Trevor Noah?

  We're doing it. Adam Grant, this has been amazing.

• 2:23:02Speaker 01

  Thank you for having me. It's been a joy and an honor.

• 2:23:05Trevor Noah?

  This is dope, man. Thank you.

• 2:23:09Trevor Noah?

  This segment is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. You know, Eugene, I've realized the busier my life gets, the more obsessed I've become with tiny systems. But not like big systems, you know what I mean? I'm not one of those people who's like, oh, I'm waking up at four in the morning, meditating for two hours and then plunging myself into an ice bath. No, no, no, no, I don't mean that. I don't have the discipline. I mean little systems that like stop your life from falling apart when everything gets busy. Do you know what I mean? And like, travel is where I've noticed it the most. Okay, like you see like packing, you see like packing. So when I get into a hotel room, I have my packing. Everything has a place, so chargers go into one place. Shoes must go into the same place.

• 2:23:54Trevor Noah?

  Passport, same pocket every single time. Because once you've spent 20 minutes destroying a hotel room looking for one sock, you change as a person, bro. You can't be the same. At first, you're looking normally, oh, where's my sock, where's my sock? Now you're checking under the bed. Then there, five minutes later, you're accusing the housekeeping. Somebody has taken my sock. Somebody has taken... Why would they want one sock? This is not a question I ask myself. Now I'm there, I know it was you. I saw you here the other day. They're there every day, but that's not the point. The point is now I don't have a sock because I didn't have a system. Now what am I supposed to do?

• 2:24:29Speaker 00

  That's why socks come in too.

• 2:24:31Trevor Noah?

  What?

• 2:24:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, in case you lose the other one.

• 2:24:34Trevor Noah?

  No, man, what that doesn't... No, no, no. Hmm? First of all, who's wearing one sock? No, Eugene.

• 2:24:39Speaker 00

  You.

• 2:24:40Trevor Noah?

  Wait. Okay, no, sorry, sorry. Look, all I'm saying is, this is about food. Okay, you see with food, food is probably where all of these systems are needed the most, right? Because when your day gets crazy, when your day gets crazy, what happens? Food is where you start negotiating with yourself, right? Like, you've been working the whole day. You've got 20 minutes before the next thing. You start starving. And then suddenly, your standards start collapsing. Yeah, you go from, you know, I want to eat something good. And then you go to like, I just need something quick. And then all of a sudden, you're standing over the hotel minibar going, yeah, cashews, protein, and this is as good as a chocolate protein cashew bar. Do you get what I'm saying?

• 2:25:22Speaker 00

  Hundred percent.

• 2:25:23Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it's like, it's not good for you, you know, because the hunger, the hunger takes over. It's persuasive, man. Hunger can justify anything. Hungry Trevor. You don't want to know that guy. I've looked at like a can of like fruit flavored something, be like, yeah, this is fruit. Technically, it's fruit, it's fruit flavored, you know?

• 2:25:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:25:39Trevor Noah?

  This has a picture of a mountain on it. People have survived for weeks on less, you know? It is mountain. If it has a picture of a mountain, then it's healthy.

• 2:25:48Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 2:25:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, you know what I mean? You are Hungry Trevor. So what I've learned is you have to make some decisions before the hungry version of you gets involved. And that, my friend, is where for me, Whole Foods Market fits into my life when things get hectic, right? Because I can go in, grab something to eat, and then I keep moving. I just keep moving without turning lunch into another like research project. Because Whole Foods Market already has standards about what they carry. So they take the burden for me. Does this make sense?

• 2:26:16Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 2:26:17Trevor Noah?

  Like all eggs store wide or cage free or better. All the seafood is wild caught or verified responsibly farmed and traceable to the farm or the fishery, even the tinned fish, even the tinned fish. And I like that, you know? Because what I don't like is, you know, people are like, oh, you've got to eat healthy. And now I've got to walk around a supermarket with a clipboard where I'm interrogating my lunch. Where are you from? Who gave birth to you? I don't want to interrogate my lunch. I have enough decisions to make in a day without standing in an aisle, conducting a background check on a tin of fish. Don't laugh at me, bro. You know what I'm saying. Where were you on the night of the 14th? You know what I mean?

• 2:26:50Speaker 00

  Were you born in a tin?

• 2:26:51Trevor Noah?

  You see? This guy knows what I'm talking about. What I learned about keeping standards is that you've got to find systems to make it easy when life gets busy. It's not about suddenly becoming more disciplined. That doesn't work. Yeah, you've got to build little systems that protect you from the version of yourself who's tired, late, and capable of making some deeply questionable decisions. Passport in the same place. Pack the bag the same way.

• 2:27:17Speaker 00

  Socks on your feet.

• 2:27:19Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I mean, that's always... Look, man, what I'm saying is, know where you're eating before you're starving. Because once Hungry Trevor enters the conversation, it is too late. So, as fall kicks into high gear, keep your standards up and visit a Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods Market, shop in store or online. Who has one sock? They're supposed to... It's two.

• 2:27:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, but if they were meant to be worn together permanently, they would have a string.

• 2:27:51Trevor Noah?

  What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Day Zero Productions in partnership with Sirius XM. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jess Hackel. Rebecca Chain is our producer. Our development researcher is Marcia Robiu. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Random other stuff by Ryan Podruth. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next week for another episode of What Now.

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