EmOntheBrain: How to Rewire Your Reality

Trevor Noah 0:00 [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 0:04 My idea is we create old age homes-

Eugene 0:09 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 0:09 ... that are kindergartens.

Eugene 0:11 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 0:11 'Cause old people-

Eugene 0:13 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 0:13 They've done that.

Trevor Noah 0:14 Wait, they have?

Emily McDonald 0:14 So they've done a research study.

Trevor Noah 0:15 They stole my idea?

Eugene 0:16 Nah.

Emily McDonald 0:17 If-

Eugene 0:17 Come on

Emily McDonald 0:17 ... so if... No, no. So they haven't done this for, like, as a business, so go, go and do it.

Eugene 0:21 Oh, okay. My idea is still safe. [laughs]

Emily McDonald 0:22 It... No, but there is actually research to show your idea would work.

Trevor Noah 0:25 Good.

Emily McDonald 0:25 If I'm clear on your idea.

Eugene 0:26 This is why I need you in my life, Em.

Emily McDonald 0:28 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 0:28 For my hype.

Eugene 0:28 You know how many... Well, let me tell you something.

Trevor Noah 0:30 So his idea is great. My... But you know my correct.

Eugene 0:31 You know how m- you know how many times I say things to people, and then they'll be like, "I don't know if that"... And if I had you around, you could be like, "There's research to show" bam. [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 0:42 This is What Now? with Trevor Noah. [upbeat music] Well, I'm gonna call you Em On The Brain, but what, what do, what do your friends call you?

Emily McDonald 1:01 [laughs]

Eugene 1:01 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:01 They call me Em.

Trevor Noah 1:02 They call you Em as well?

Emily McDonald 1:03 Em, yeah.

Eugene 1:04 [laughs] Em On The Brain.

Emily McDonald 1:05 No.

Trevor Noah 1:06 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:06 You know, at least you got it right because a lot of people think it's, like, Iman The Brain. They think my name's Iman.

Trevor Noah 1:12 Iman?

Emily McDonald 1:12 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:13 Why?

Emily McDonald 1:13 It, it's a common misconception.

Trevor Noah 1:15 Why?

Emily McDonald 1:15 So [laughs] ... 'Cause it's spelled E-M-O-N-T-H-E Brain.

Trevor Noah 1:20 I mean, it just seems-

Emily McDonald 1:22 Logical that it would be Em On The Brain, right?

Trevor Noah 1:23 Although I can't judge them. If you don't read the person's name-

Eugene 1:27 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:28 ... under their, their, like, w- you know, their tag, what, what... I guess it's Emont.

Emily McDonald 1:34 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:35 Emonthebrain.

Emily McDonald 1:37 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:37 That's a [laughs] ...

Emily McDonald 1:38 I prefer Em. [laughs]

Eugene 1:41 Okay. [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:41 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:41 [laughs]

Eugene 1:41 Okay, Em.

Trevor Noah 1:42 Oh.

Emily McDonald 1:43 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:43 But, um, this, this is, this is what I like to call a selfish episode because I feel like Eugene and I are really just going to ask you to fix our brains for us.

Emily McDonald 1:52 Perfect.

Trevor Noah 1:53 You know what I mean? Because you, you, you're, you're known as... And I've, and I've watched your evolution online, which has been really great, um, to see from afar, is like, you, you shared your journey, um, studying, working in and around. You... What were you studying at the time?

Emily McDonald 2:07 Um, I was studying drug addiction. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:09 Drug addiction?

Emily McDonald 2:10 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 2:10 Oh, wow.

Emily McDonald 2:10 Investigating new ways to treat relapse to prevent drug addiction, or relapse to drug addiction, yeah.

Trevor Noah 2:15 That's wild.

Emily McDonald 2:16 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 2:17 And so when you were in university, what were, what were you, like, going in to study? It... 'Cause how did you get into... Was it neuroscience? Was it... What, what was your, like, your, your focus and your passion at the time?

Emily McDonald 2:27 Well, initially, I was pre-med-

Trevor Noah 2:31 Yeah

Emily McDonald 2:31 ... studying biology. Absolutely hated it. And so I went up to one of my friends that was in my pre-med org I was in in college, and I told him I hated it. I was like, "What should I do?" And he goes, "Well, why don't you try neuroscience?" And I had never even heard of neuroscience at the time. It just sounded cool. So I switched my major to it, immediately fell in love, like, aced my first exam. My professor reached out to me. He was like, "Congrats, you couldn't have done better." And I was like, "Get me in the research lab. This is so cool." So I started studying learning, memory, the perception of time, all throughout brain development in undergrad. So that's what I was doing. Fell in love with research, but I knew, I always kind of knew that I wanted to be more kind of preclinical, helping people more directly. Like, studying learning and memory is cool-

Trevor Noah 3:14 Okay

Emily McDonald 3:14 ... but I wanted to be able to, like, help people and solve problems that doctors couldn't solve at the time.

Trevor Noah 3:21 Wait, wait. Sorry, what does preclinical mean?

Emily McDonald 3:23 Like, for example, so preclinical research is sort of research that happens before, you know, we take a med- a medication, for example, to clinicians to use.

Trevor Noah 3:33 Okay. Okay.

Emily McDonald 3:33 Right? So you're doing sort of research to investigate new ways to treat, for example, relapse or treat depression or anxiety-

Trevor Noah 3:40 Okay. All right

Emily McDonald 3:40 ... or Parkinson's disease, and you, uh... So that's kind of like preclinical work, before it goes to clinicians, basically.

Trevor Noah 3:48 Right. Right.

Emily McDonald 3:48 Um, yeah. And so actually, it's funny that you were kinda talking about nicotine before this because I used to be addicted to nicotine, and that was sort of why I initially became passionate about studying drug addiction. And I took a class in undergrad about why the current treatments for relapse don't work, and they're really just putting... They don't really work because they're just putting Band-Aids on the symptoms of the problem-

Trevor Noah 4:11 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 4:11 ... rather than actually solving the problem. And that's why research is so important because you can go and investigate what the problem really is. And so immediately, I was like, "This is it. This is what I'm meant to do. I'm meant to go and cure relapse to drug addiction." [laughs]

Trevor Noah 4:23 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 4:23 "I'm gonna go get my PhD, and I'm gonna win a Nobel Prize for this." And so, yeah. And so from then, I was like, "Okay, let me go get my PhD in neuroscience." So that is sort of how I became really passionate about drug addiction research and how I... The, the path that led me to the PhD. So yeah, moved to Arizona, started my PhD in neuroscience with a minor in medical pharmacology so that I could study drug addiction.

Trevor Noah 4:48 Mm.

Emily McDonald 4:48 And that's what I was doing for a few years.

Trevor Noah 4:50 That's really crazy. Um, did it work for you? Did, did, did the research help you?

Eugene 4:54 Yes. She did stop smoking.

Trevor Noah 4:56 How do you know?

Emily McDonald 4:57 So-

Eugene 4:57 Because she had to go to university to do it.

Emily McDonald 4:59 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 5:00 Oh, you don't, you don't know. Are you making these assumptions?

Eugene 5:02 Em?

Emily McDonald 5:02 He is making assumptions. And I would say, I would say the research in itself, no, but my knowledge of the brain, absolutely, yes.

Trevor Noah 5:11 Mm.

Emily McDonald 5:11 I taught myself to associate, um, and it was vaping for me, but I taught my brain to associate it with just the feeling of disgust.

Emily McDonald 5:19 Yeah.

Eugene 5:19 You rewired your brain.

Emily McDonald 5:20 Yes.

Eugene 5:21 So you took a feeling that you didn't have before for something that you liked-

Emily McDonald 5:24 Mm-hmm

Eugene 5:24 ... and then recoded it-

Emily McDonald 5:25 Yep

Eugene 5:26 ... and said, "This, this is disgusting."

Emily McDonald 5:28 Yep.

Eugene 5:28 The action of it.

Emily McDonald 5:29 It's exactly what I did.

Eugene 5:29 Buying it, putting it into my pocket, putting it into my mouth-

Emily McDonald 5:33 So I would let my-

Eugene 5:33 ... blowing out the smoke

Emily McDonald 5:34 ... I would let myself carry it around still, and I would let myself have the craving, and I would, I would put it in a place where it took me a second so that there was kind of a gap between The initial craving and the action of actually doing it-

Trevor Noah 5:47 Yeah

Emily McDonald 5:47 ... because that's what addiction is, right? It becomes like this mind- mindless stimulus response behavior where the stimulus is, like, seeing the vape or seeing the cigarette or whatever it is, and then immediate response. Or for example, social media, you see the notification. All of a sudden, you're picking up your phone and you're scrolling-

Trevor Noah 6:00 Yeah, you're back at it again

Emily McDonald 6:01 ... and you don't even know how you got there, right? So it's ... I kind of added a little bit of space where I still would carry it around. I'd put it, like, I would drive and I'd put it underneath the passenger seat-

Trevor Noah 6:10 Yeah

Emily McDonald 6:10 ... of my car. And I would get that craving, and I would, like, at a red light, you know, it gave me some time to kind of rewire that association. And the brain's an association machine. You're in a relationship with everything in your life.

Trevor Noah 6:20 Yes.

Emily McDonald 6:20 So yeah, I would pick it up and I'd be like, "Oh no, this is disgusting." And even if I wanted to still hit it, I would, but then I would make sure to, like, pay attention to the feeling of feeling gross that I just did it. And I would sit in that feeling and, and really feel the feeling and make sure my brain was paying attention to it.

Trevor Noah 6:37 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 6:37 And over time, yeah, and so even after I quit, I would get that craving still, of course, and then immediately my brain would remember, "Oh yeah, no, that's gross. We don't really want that."

Trevor Noah 6:45 Okay, wait, so help, help us understand-

Emily McDonald 6:47 Mm

Trevor Noah 6:47 ... or help me understand really the, the w- the process of what's actually happening. Because y- you're saying this about vaping. You're saying, you know, disgusting. I'm, in my head I'm like, oh, but there's strawberry flavors. I don't even vape, by the way. Never smoked.

Emily McDonald 7:00 But you love strawberries.

Trevor Noah 7:01 But in my, in... I love strawberries.

Emily McDonald 7:02 Yes.

Trevor Noah 7:02 I'm like, that's how they'd get me. But I, I, I can, I feel like I can have the same, I have the same story with, like, ice cream late at night-

Emily McDonald 7:10 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 7:10 ... or, you know, chocolate. And then somebody else might have it with social media where they go, "Oh, that's exactly me. Every time I pull it out, I've lost, I've lost two, three hours, four hours, but I didn't actually want to be here."

Emily McDonald 7:22 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 7:22 So h- how, how does that work?

Trevor Noah 7:25 First of all, what is happening to the brain when it's, when you're doing that? When you're doing something you don't necessarily want to do, but you keep finding yourself doing, what is happening to the brain? And then I wanna get to how the rewiring actually works.

Emily McDonald 7:39 Yeah. So what's happening is really just maladaptive habit formation, and that just means the formation of bad habits.

Trevor Noah 7:46 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 7:46 That's all it is. It's just learning.

Trevor Noah 7:47 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 7:48 And I think, you know, in undergrad I was definitely divinely led on the path toward studying learning and memory first, because then I really understand the process of learning, and that's really all it is, is you've just learned a behavior. Your brain has learned a behavior, and it's learned to automate that behavior so that it's no longer a conscious act. For example, getting up in the morning and hopefully brushing your teeth is an automated behavior-

Trevor Noah 8:10 How did you know?

Emily McDonald 8:12 ... that you [laughs] that you-

Trevor Noah 8:12 How will they know?

Emily McDonald 8:13 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 8:14 They'll never know.

Emily McDonald 8:15 Well, I'm hoping. I'm hoping that that's an automatic behavior for you.

Trevor Noah 8:19 Wait, but okay, okay, but yeah, before, b- but before you move on from that, then why, why is it that good habits are harder to keep? Like, I know that working out is good for me. I know that going for a walk is good for me. I know that stretching is good for me. I know, I, I know all these things.

Emily McDonald 8:34 Okay.

Trevor Noah 8:34 And then I'll do them, and I'll feel good after doing them.

Emily McDonald 8:37 Mm, yes.

Trevor Noah 8:37 But then I don't f- I don't find myself craving, like, a gym session. I don't find myself being like, "Mm, you know what'd be nice right now? A little bench press. Mm, mm, mm. I know it's midnight, but I can sneak in a little 250. Mm, mm, mm."

Emily McDonald 8:50 You see, I like to do that sometimes.

Trevor Noah 8:52 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 8:52 But I'll tell you, there's a couple things there. All right, so if you wanna talk about the neuroscience of habit formation, the way that every single habit is formed is it first begins as a dopamine-driven-

Trevor Noah 9:02 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 9:02 ... activity, right? So-

Trevor Noah 9:04 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 9:04 ... when social media first came out, you weren't going on social media out of habit. You went on there because you could connect with your friends.

Trevor Noah 9:10 Okay.

Emily McDonald 9:10 Or you could, you know, see, you could post something or whatever it is, right? You're, you went on there for a, a goal, for a reason. Um, same thing with ice cream or, you know, vaping, whatever it is. You n- you started it because it felt good.

Trevor Noah 9:25 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 9:25 That's why you started.

Trevor Noah 9:26 Okay, so feel good is the first thing.

Emily McDonald 9:28 Right. And then that dopamine, so dopamine actually drives learning. It drives neuroplasticity, which is the ability for your brain to rewire. So dopamine drives learning. So, and dopamine does- isn't just released when something great happens. It's also released when something not so great happens. It's more of a, a salience molecule, which means like, "Look at me." So anything that really, like, grabbed your attention.

Trevor Noah 9:48 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 9:49 That's why you have really strong memories of bad events as well.

Trevor Noah 9:51 Oh.

Emily McDonald 9:51 Because they're emotional-

Trevor Noah 9:52 Okay

Emily McDonald 9:53 ... and they raise dopamine as well, just in a different way. So yeah, anything that really boosts dopamine, it will drive that learning, right? And so what actually happens is that over time, the dopamine moves from being released when you get the good thing to being released whenever you see sort of a cue or something that represents that good thing, right? So for example, it's super, super easy to just talk about it with, you know, drugs of abuse, but we can talk about ice cream. It initially, you got dopamine from eating ice cream, but o- over time you get the dopamine from seeing the ice cream-

Trevor Noah 10:31 Yeah

Emily McDonald 10:31 ... because your brain's anticipating a reward.

Trevor Noah 10:34 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 10:34 So your dopamine moves from actually getting the reward to the anticipation of the re- reward, and that's craving. So that's sort of how habit formation works. And then once that happens, then you kind of begin this, this, it goes from this goal-directed behavior, right? And it moves to, um, a stimulus response behavior or a cue response, where, like before it was like, "Oh, I wanna eat this i- ice cream because I know, like, I wanna eat this ice cream. It's gonna taste good." And now it's like, "Oh no, I see the ice cream." Dopamine is released when I see the carton, and that's gonna drive me, 'cause dopamine is also a molecule of action, to go and eat it. And you're not even... You don't want to. It's just that your dopamine has learned to associate the picture of the ice cream that you're seeing with a reward, and now you're not even deciding it. It's just your brain is driving you to do it.

Trevor Noah 11:27 This is why ads work.

Emily McDonald 11:28 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 11:29 But, but I guess it also explains to me why ads are more effective when you've actually had the thing.

Emily McDonald 11:34 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 11:35 So sometimes I'll watch an ad for, like Taco Bell, for instance. Taco Bell ads come on all the time. It's never, never ever once made me go, "I want Taco Bell," because I haven't had Taco Bell in my life. I don't-

Emily McDonald 11:46 Ever

Trevor Noah 11:47 Maybe I had it once

Eugene 11:48 Oh, yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 11:48 ... I think I, I had it once on the road when I was with Gabriel Iglesias, and then we bought... One of my favorite memories, we were on the road somewhere, um, where were we? Maybe we were in, we were in El Paso, Texas, or maybe somewhere in that region. And after all the, after a comedy show, we'd go and we'd just buy, you know, food, whatever, takeout. And then one day, Gabriel and the gang, we're in the, we're in the tour bus, and then he's like, uh, he says to me, he's like, "Yo, yo, um," he's like, "Do you wanna get some Taco Bell?" I was like, "I've never had Taco Bell." Everyone in the bus is like, "You've never had Taco Bell?" It was literally like an ad. Everyone, "You've never had... We gotta get him Taco Bell."

Eugene 12:24 The bus driver, bo-bom.

Trevor Noah 12:25 Yo, bo-bom.

Eugene 12:26 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 12:26 We're on the way to Taco Bell.

Eugene 12:27 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 12:28 So now we're driving this giant tour bus, like bo-bom, Taco Bell, here we come. We get there. Now, we g- wanna go through the drive-through. We can't 'cause the bus-

Eugene 12:36 The bus

Trevor Noah 12:36 ... is too big. So we have to walk through the drive-through 'cause the, the Taco Bell itself was closed. So we walk through the drive-through, and then they just b- like, we ordered for everyone on the bus plus more-

Eugene 12:49 Mm

Trevor Noah 12:49 ... 'cause they wanted me to taste everything. And I'll never forget, there's a moment where I'm walking back to the bus and I'm carrying two bags, but I mean, like, huge, huge, huge, huge bags. I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. You know, when, like, you-

Emily McDonald 13:04 With Taco Bell

Trevor Noah 13:04 ... I'd come back from shop, but with Taco Bell.

Emily McDonald 13:06 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 13:06 Guys, I've never felt sexier in my life, 'cause I love food. I was like... And I'm walking to the bus, and Gabriel Iglesias, he's looking at me, like, from the bus, and he looked, and it was almost like we had the same thought, 'cause as I got to the bus, he looked at me and he's like, "You've never looked hotter." [laughs]

Eugene 13:20 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 13:20 And I walked on. But that was the only time I ate it, right?

Eugene 13:22 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 13:22 So, and it was like, eh, okay, whatever.

Emily McDonald 13:24 I was gonna say, what did you think?

Trevor Noah 13:25 Yeah, it was meh. It was w- okay. It was whatever.

Eugene 13:28 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 13:29 But it, it didn't, it wasn't something that, like, it didn't stay with me.

Eugene 13:33 Mm.

Trevor Noah 13:33 So genuinely, whenever I watch a Taco Bell ad, I don't have a, "Ooh, I should get that now." But Pizza Hut or, like, a McDonald's or whatever-

Eugene 13:42 Mm.

Trevor Noah 13:42 Let them flash a McFlurry on the screen-

Eugene 13:45 It's over

Trevor Noah 13:46 ... for half a second-

Eugene 13:48 Yeah

Trevor Noah 13:49 ... I will find that machine wherever it is.

Eugene 13:52 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 13:52 I will turn it on myself.

Eugene 13:53 You do love ice cream.

Trevor Noah 13:54 Hey, my friend.

Eugene 13:55 He's the only guy I know who chews ice cream.

Trevor Noah 13:57 Yo, bro, you know me and you love me. You see, you, you see me.

Eugene 13:59 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 14:00 You, you see me, Eugene.

Emily McDonald 14:02 Chews ice cream.

Eugene 14:03 He chews it.

Emily McDonald 14:03 Even without the toppings.

Eugene 14:05 It's so creepy.

Trevor Noah 14:05 I chew it.

Eugene 14:05 You just chew.

Trevor Noah 14:06 I, I savor it.

Eugene 14:08 Nom, nom, nom.

Trevor Noah 14:08 I...

Eugene 14:08 Nom, nom, nom, nom.

Trevor Noah 14:09 Guys.

Eugene 14:09 He's like a ice cream sommelier.

Trevor Noah 14:11 This guy loves me. This guy knows me. No, but that's what I mean. It's like, so, like, the ads have more power over you-

Eugene 14:17 Yeah

Trevor Noah 14:17 ... when you've actually experienced the thing. Do, do you get what I'm saying?

Eugene 14:20 Yeah, absolutely.

Emily McDonald 14:21 Right. Right. Right.

Trevor Noah 14:22 You know-

Emily McDonald 14:22 Because your brain has learned that it's rewarding.

Trevor Noah 14:24 Wow. So then it becomes, now it becomes a trigger. That's how it can work on you.

Emily McDonald 14:27 It's a trigger.

Trevor Noah 14:27 Is like, because now you've had it-

Emily McDonald 14:29 Yeah

Trevor Noah 14:29 ... when you watch the ad or when you see, like, the social media thing scroll. This-

Eugene 14:33 I think also-

Trevor Noah 14:33 This explains so much

Eugene 14:35 ... what you're saying also explains why going cold turkey on anything never works. Because anything that you love, there's a process to it.

Emily McDonald 14:42 Right.

Eugene 14:42 Like how we explained you going into the shop, choosing a flavor, paying for that, getting the reward of paying for it 'cause you now have it now, you put it in your pocket. But all of a sudden, if the whole process is cut short, then the reward is not there anymore, then you start missing the thing more.

Emily McDonald 14:56 Yeah.

Eugene 14:56 But I find that when you have the vape inside your car, but you choose not to do it, then you're slowly taking away the-

Emily McDonald 15:02 Yeah

Eugene 15:03 ... the want for it, right?

Emily McDonald 15:03 And that was, I love that you made that point of, like-

Eugene 15:05 Mm

Emily McDonald 15:05 ... feeling stressed, too, because that was another thing, and that's why I decided to do it the way that I did.

Eugene 15:10 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 15:10 Because when you go cold turkey, it almost, especially when you're addicted to something, you feel this sense of, like, stress without it-

Eugene 15:16 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 15:17 ... and not having it. And stress reduces activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is the area of your brain that allows you to control your impulses.

Eugene 15:25 Yes.

Emily McDonald 15:25 So it actually makes you... And that's why, you know, when people quit an addiction or something, and all of a sudden they feel stressed, they are more likely to relapse because it, your ability to control your impulses is reduced.

Eugene 15:36 But here's my thing. Do we quit things that we're addicted to because they're hurting other people? Or do we quit because they're hurting us? 'Cause initially, everything, there was a dopamine spike, I liked what I was doing, I was having too much of a good time at a strip club. Now I have kids.

Trevor Noah 15:50 [laughs]

Eugene 15:50 Now I have to think, do I tip strippers or do I pay for school fees? Is it the strippers or is it the kids? The... Am I stopping this because I want to stop or because they are crying because they are hungry now?

Trevor Noah 16:01 Oh, man.

Eugene 16:01 Not the strippers, the kids.

Emily McDonald 16:02 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 16:02 These analogies are so crazy. [laughs]

Emily McDonald 16:05 So Trevor thinks-

Eugene 16:06 I'm so sorry

Emily McDonald 16:06 ... this is really funny.

Trevor Noah 16:07 Oh.

Eugene 16:08 'Cause you choose ice cream.

Trevor Noah 16:09 I mean... [laughs]

Emily McDonald 16:10 No. No, but I'm sitting here, like, thinking about this very much from my own perspective and experience.

Eugene 16:15 Mm.

Emily McDonald 16:15 And the way that I decided was it's always about who I'm wanting to become.

Trevor Noah 16:20 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 16:21 And it's always-

Trevor Noah 16:22 Oh

Emily McDonald 16:22 ... about that. And you know, you can never force somebody to quit something they don't want to. Like, you have to want to do it. And I think for me, I didn't care to quit vaping. I didn't care how many ads showed me what happens to your lungs. Like, I didn't care about any of that. I was young. I don't care about that. I don't care about my health. Like, whatever. The, the thing that actually made me care about stopping was understanding that there is a gap currently between the, who you are now and the version of you who's achieved everything you've ever wanted in life.

Trevor Noah 16:49 Damn. It's-

Emily McDonald 16:50 And when you visualize that version of you-

Trevor Noah 16:52 You can't come jump, hey

Emily McDonald 16:52 ... when you have, hold that version of you in your mind-

Trevor Noah 16:55 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 16:55 ... like, that version of you has different habits than you do right now. And the version of me who's boss woman, like, achieving everything, she doesn't vape. And so I was like, damn, like, if I wanna become that version of me and achieve everything I want to achieve, then I need to stop doing this because it's creating a gap between where I am now and

Emily McDonald 17:15 where I wanna go.

Trevor Noah 17:15 So this is, this is, I think, something that attracted a lot of people to your account and to what, to your work online, is like, there were a lot of people who would give you information about the brain in a very technical way that help you understand how your brain works-

Eugene 17:33 Mm

Trevor Noah 17:33 ... what your brain does, you know, dopamine, and there's all these phrases, you know, like, uh, uh, stimulus and neoprenine-prene, and like all these-

Eugene 17:42 Mm, neuroplasticity

Trevor Noah 17:42 ... plasticity and-

Emily McDonald 17:43 I, maybe you were trying to say norepinephrine.

Trevor Noah 17:45 I, that's exactly what I was trying to say.

Emily McDonald 17:47 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 17:47 That's exact- but you knew what I was trying to say. You see? You see? That's, that's exactly what... 'Cause every time I see that word, I'm just like, "Amen. Neoprenepreneprene."

Emily McDonald 17:55 I, I knew what you meant.

Trevor Noah 17:56 Thank you very much.

Eugene 17:57 Neoperipher-

Emily McDonald 17:58 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 17:58 Have you ever seen how it's written?

Eugene 17:59 No.

Trevor Noah 17:59 Neoper-

Emily McDonald 18:00 Exactly like that. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 18:01 It is written like that, neoprenepreneprene.

Eugene 18:03 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 18:03 All right. And then People sort of just y- y- you think you know.

Emily McDonald 18:08 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 18:08 And you're like, "Oh, the norepinephrine and the dopamine and then the serotonin and the oxytocin and..." Okay. And then on the other side of, like, let's say the internet/the world, you have people who are like, "Visualize and think about what you want in life," and what I, and I think a lot of people, would call, like, woo-woo, you know?

Emily McDonald 18:26 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 18:26 You'd be like, "Visualize," dude, and you're like, "All right." And a lot of people love that and swear by it.

Emily McDonald 18:30 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 18:30 And then I, I find these two worlds have often been at odds.

Emily McDonald 18:35 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 18:35 So someone who's, like, deep in the science goes like, "Don't listen to that," and someone who's deep in the woo-woo goes like, "Don't listen to the other thing."

Emily McDonald 18:41 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 18:42 And then you started showing the connection between the two.

Emily McDonald 18:45 Mm.

Trevor Noah 18:45 You went like, "No, no, no. No, let me explain how a meditation does something to your brain, and let me show you how your brain responds to what you want or what you think, and let me show you how a visualization shifts you and shapes you." How did, how did you start thinking that? Because I'm, I'm assuming you didn't learn that in school.

Emily McDonald 19:04 No.

Emily McDonald 19:05 And I actually get asked all the time, "Any books you recommend?" [laughs] I'm like, it's very much a connection between two disciplines that I love and that fulfill me. But yeah, I would say in school when I was getting my first neuroscience degree-

Trevor Noah 19:19 First?

Emily McDonald 19:20 Yeah, I have two degrees in neuroscience. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:21 Hey, yay, yay, yay, yay. One for you and me each, Eugene.

Emily McDonald 19:24 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:25 To make up for the degrees we never got. [laughs]

Emily McDonald 19:29 He said, "First?" [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:31 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 19:31 Thank you. I appreciate that. Um-

Trevor Noah 19:33 [laughs] I do, too.

Emily McDonald 19:35 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 19:37 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 19:38 Um, so yeah, when I was getting my first degree in neuroscience and studying, um, especially just the different sensory systems, so for example, your visual system-

Trevor Noah 19:47 Yeah

Emily McDonald 19:47 ... and how your brain constructs everything that you see. Like, you're not seeing the world with your eyes. Your eyes are just taking in, taking in light signals.

Trevor Noah 19:53 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 19:53 And then those light signals travel through the brain where your thoughts, emotions, memories, your beliefs, who y- who you believe you are, all that's incorporated before you, the image is even put together-

Trevor Noah 20:03 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 20:03 ... that you see by your brain.

Trevor Noah 20:04 Wait. Let, let's, let's slow that down. Uh, uh, just, just go back on that because you're gonna say it and then we're gonna act like we completely got it-

Emily McDonald 20:11 Yeah [laughs]

Trevor Noah 20:12 ... which maybe you did. But wait, wait, wait. Your eyes are not seeing, they're only taking in light.

Emily McDonald 20:18 Right.

Trevor Noah 20:19 Okay? And that light is then going into-

Emily McDonald 20:22 The brain. Traveling through the brain, all these different areas.

Trevor Noah 20:25 But it's basically being bent by your memories-

Emily McDonald 20:28 Exactly

Trevor Noah 20:29 ... the way you think about the world-

Emily McDonald 20:31 Your current emotions

Trevor Noah 20:32 ... because that's your current emotions.

Emily McDonald 20:33 Mm-hmm. You ever heard the saying, "Seeing the world through rose-colored lenses"?

Trevor Noah 20:36 Mm. Ah.

Emily McDonald 20:37 When you are feel- when you are in a positive emotional state, your brain actually constructs color as more vivid, so you actually see the world more vividly and more saturated. So literally the world is more colorful, and you actually are seeing the world through rose-colored lenses.

Trevor Noah 20:51 That-

Emily McDonald 20:51 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 20:51 ... that means there's almost a scientific backing behind the phrase, "Woke up on the wrong side of bed."

Emily McDonald 20:56 Yeah. Yeah. Your energy state i-n, is so important, and then that goes back to ex- exactly what you were asking me about-

Trevor Noah 21:03 Yeah

Emily McDonald 21:04 ... is, is, you know, how did I start to connect spirituality and these woo-woo things with neuroscience? And I think, you know, exactly, when I was learning about these different systems, and vision is just one of them. They all work this way. Like, for example, sound and the way that you hear. Like, the membrane in your ear is organized by frequency.

Trevor Noah 21:21 Mm.

Emily McDonald 21:21 And if you're on the woo-woo side of the world, you m- you may have heard before that different frequencies of sound can have different effects

Emily McDonald 21:27 on you.

Trevor Noah 21:27 Yes. Yeah.

Emily McDonald 21:27 And-

Trevor Noah 21:27 You have, like, sound bowls-

Emily McDonald 21:29 Right

Trevor Noah 21:30 ... and all of those things.

Emily McDonald 21:30 Solfeggio frequencies.

Trevor Noah 21:31 Yes, yes, yes.

Emily McDonald 21:32 528, 432, and both of those have studies showing that they do actually impact the brain in different ways, um, and binaural beats and things like that. So literally, actually, it all clicked one moment when I was laying in bed one night in my apartment, um, whenever I was in undergrad, and I just r- was listening to... And I sort of went on this spiritual journey toward the end of my first degree in neuroscience, and I, I read the book The Untethered Soul.

Trevor Noah 21:57 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 21:57 If you guys have ever heard of that, it's really good. Um, but, and so I, I started meditating, and I started, you know, doing, like... And I, I was laying in bed listening to 432 Hz as I was falling asleep, and I was like, "Whoa, wait a minute." The membrane in the ear is organized by frequency. What if this certain frequency of sound is activating s- my brain in a specific way and actually changing the way that my state of mind is, and that's why these frequencies of sound work? And I turn over, pick up my phone, Google it, and there are papers showing exactly what just popped into my head. Like, yeah, 432 Hz has been shown to boost alpha wave activity in the brain. Alpha waves are associated with a sense of calm.

Trevor Noah 22:41 Mm.

Emily McDonald 22:41 And so, you know, people on the woo-woo side of the world say, "Oh, it's really good for meditation-

Trevor Noah 22:47 Yeah, yeah

Emily McDonald 22:47 ... or sleep." And then in the science world, it has been shown to help people fall asleep, stay asleep, boost alpha waves in the brain. And so that was kind of my first moment of, "Oh, maybe there is some overlap, and there are some kind of-

Trevor Noah 23:02 Right, right

Emily McDonald 23:02 ... there's some"

Trevor Noah 23:02 ... between the different worlds.

Emily McDonald 23:03 Right. And so that kind of just started me on this spiral, [laughs] this upward spiral of just connecting dots everywhere, and, and yeah, and I think I've just go- And then, you know, moving to Arizona, I was just talking to your team about Arizona, and it's, the desert is a very spiritual place. And moving there while doing my PhD and just really growing in my spirituality while also, of course, doing a PhD in neuroscience, so really studying neuroscience to, like, the depths-

Trevor Noah 23:29 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 23:29 ... that you could possibly study it. And yeah, I just started connecting all these dots and then also connecting what I was learning with my own experiences as well.

Trevor Noah 23:38 Right.

Emily McDonald 23:38 And I think a lot of people ask me, you know, "Where does this information come from?" And most of it, the information I share, is from my own lived experience, and then I'm like, "Huh, I wonder what's happening in my brain right now." And then I think about it, look into it, read some papers, and I'm like, "That makes sense," and then I talk about it. [upbeat music]

Trevor Noah 23:54 We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. All right, Eugene.

Emily McDonald 24:02 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 24:02 Let's play a little game, you know, make something fun. Two truths and a lie.

Emily McDonald 24:06 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 24:07 Here we go. One, I've had to tell a world leader that their fly was undone. Two, when getting dressed, I don't do sock, sock, shoe, shoe. I do sock, shoe, sock, shoe. Three, I've been a Verizon customer for 11 years. What do you think?

Eugene 24:24 Hmm. Very confused. First of all, why would a world leader own a fly? 'Cause those things just come uninvited. Secondly, lying to a friend is not cool. It's never been a game.

Trevor Noah 24:34 No, Eugene, f- a fly is for, like the zip is what... And then it's, it's g- it's not a lie, it's a game where I'm try- it's like I give you inform- okay, I lied. All three are true, Eugene. And in case you were thinking, you know, Verizon isn't as expensive as you think. In fact, if you bring in your AT&T or T-Mobile bill, they'll give you a better deal. And the reason I've been with them for this long is just because I travel so much. I need a network that's reliable. That's right, a better deal on the best network, with the most ways to save on plans, streaming, and phone deals. Take your AT&T or T-Mobile bill to your local Verizon store today, get your better deal, and start saving for real. Based on RootMetrics' best overall mobile network performance, US second half 2025. All rights reserved. You must provide recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions, and restrictions apply. So do you understand how two truths and a... Do, do you understand it now?

Eugene 25:36 I understand that you didn't have to lie first before telling me that Verizon is the best.

Trevor Noah 25:40 No, I wasn't lying f- Eugene, it's not a lie. I wouldn't lie to you. It, it's a game. Okay, I'm sorry.

Eugene 25:46 I lied.

Trevor Noah 25:47 Ah.

Eugene 25:49 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 26:00 I, I, I wonder

Trevor Noah 26:03 why/how we got to a place where we, we got so comfortable dismissing spirituality or the ideas that come with, like, w- you know, connecting to something beyond ourselves.

Eugene 26:19 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 26:20 And having that clash with what we think of as, like, intelligence and knowledge and-

Eugene 26:25 Yeah

Trevor Noah 26:25 ... and do, do, do you get what I'm saying?

Eugene 26:26 I think religion had a big part in that.

Trevor Noah 26:27 What do you mean?

Eugene 26:28 Because remember that, um, once religion became a thing, people had to attribute their knowledge to something.

Trevor Noah 26:35 Yeah.

Eugene 26:35 It could never be I just know it. You know, we always have, there's always this debate-

Emily McDonald 26:39 Yeah

Eugene 26:39 ... in the spiritual realm of are you a human having a spiritual experience or are you a spirit having a human experience? And most people feel like when they discover themselves in the middle of their life, whenever it is, they were a human and now they're having a spiritual experience. But I think it's the other way around. And obviously literature has proved that, and also when they speak to people who know that. So religion always-

Trevor Noah 26:59 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Eugene 27:00 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 27:00 Wait. So you're saying ... 'Cause I mean, we c- we can never prove it.

Emily McDonald 27:03 I'm with you 100%, by the way.

Trevor Noah 27:04 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 27:04 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 27:04 No, but we can never prove it. But I, I'm, I'm in- I'm intrigued by what you're saying. You're saying the argument or the discussion is are we spirits that are experiencing being human?

Eugene 27:14 Yes.

Emily McDonald 27:14 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 27:14 Or are we humans experiencing being spirits?

Eugene 27:16 Yes.

Emily McDonald 27:17 Yes.

Trevor Noah 27:18 But you can't prove it.

Eugene 27:18 Are we a human having a spiritual experience?

Trevor Noah 27:20 Yes.

Eugene 27:20 Or are we a spirit having a human experience?

Trevor Noah 27:22 Yeah.

Eugene 27:22 So the thing is, if you want to prove, well, that's a small part of it, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Em, that you're a spirit having a human experience-

Trevor Noah 27:29 EmOn.

Emily McDonald 27:31 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 27:31 Please, get our guest name right. EmOn.

Eugene 27:33 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 27:34 Now you're gonna confuse the listeners.

Eugene 27:35 No, no, no, it's Em. It's Em. Yeah, it's Em. It's Em.

Trevor Noah 27:37 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 27:38 [laughs]

Eugene 27:38 It's Em. Is before you have language, before you have experience-

Trevor Noah 27:41 Yeah

Eugene 27:42 ... you always had intuition.

Emily McDonald 27:43 Mm-hmm.

Eugene 27:43 So how do you account for that? So before you-

Trevor Noah 27:47 Yeah, no, I'm, I'm confused.

Eugene 27:48 You see what I mean?

Trevor Noah 27:48 No, I'm, and-

Eugene 27:49 So, so there's something, there's a remembering that's coded in you already.

Emily McDonald 27:53 Mm-hmm.

Eugene 27:53 And as you grow older and you get interference of signals, of society, the time that you were born in, um, how hard or how easy your life was, all of that gets numbed down, and then you start living according to your experiences.

Trevor Noah 28:06 Yes, but this is what I'm trying to, this is the question-

Eugene 28:08 Instead of on your intuition, yeah

Trevor Noah 28:08 ... this is the question that I have for you, though.

Eugene 28:10 Go.

Trevor Noah 28:11 Uh, like, well, I guess for both of you, I guess in a way is like-

Eugene 28:13 We are ready for ... There's two degrees between us.

Emily McDonald 28:16 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 28:16 [laughs]

Eugene 28:16 Of separation, not, not academic. [laughs]

Emily McDonald 28:21 That was a good one. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 28:23 Um, the, the, the, the, the, the, the thing I find interesting is, is, is this. So I grew up in a very religious household.

Eugene 28:32 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 28:33 Right? And the thing that I always struggled with and grappled with was how churches and leaders in churches, and even members of churches, would treat people using their religion as an excuse.

Eugene 28:48 Right.

Trevor Noah 28:48 And we see this all over the world.

Emily McDonald 28:49 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 28:49 But my personal experience, I oftentimes found myself going, "Wait, is this, so this is what, this is what a Christian does?"

Eugene 28:58 Mm.

Trevor Noah 28:58 I was like, "Ah, I, I don't know, man. I don't know." It just, it didn't, it didn't gel for me. And so I think that created a, a, an, an allergy to all religion in many ways.

Emily McDonald 29:07 Mm.

Trevor Noah 29:07 As I've gotten older, I've, I've found in, like, a humbling way, I've gone, like, oh, there are

Trevor Noah 29:13 so many things that religion teaches people, apart from, like, you know, dogma-

Eugene 29:19 Yes

Trevor Noah 29:21 ... that now science has sort of come around to. So whether it's, like, prayer itself, when you think about journaling and the effects of journaling and the processing, um, and I would love for you to speak a little bit about this, closing your eyes and thinking about your day before you go to sleep, I, I, I see all these things coming out now where scientists are like, "Oh, that really helps you go to sleep," and it also helps your brain sort of, like, just switch everything off.

Eugene 29:46 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 29:46 You know what I mean? But, like, so, so something, something like that or, or something like fasting, which most religions have, or-

Emily McDonald 29:53 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 29:53 ... all these ... You're starting to see more of the tie-ins where science is sort of catching up to old ideas, and then old ideas are showing themselves in science. Uh, like, where do you think the breakdown came between people saying, "Oh, th- we shouldn't listen to that," and now we're going, "Maybe we should listen to some of that"?

Emily McDonald 30:13 Yeah, I think honestly, there used to be a lot more overlap.

Trevor Noah 30:18 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 30:18 There used to be a lot more in science and in research.

Trevor Noah 30:21 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 30:21 In, especially, like, in the 1900s, there was a lot of research, especially, I mean, even with psychedelics and things like that.

Trevor Noah 30:28 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 30:28 And what happened was there were a few scientists that just took it a bit too far, and it got to the point where s- in the science world it became ... Yeah, it, kind of started to have this dogma around it and this sort of, like, association around it, and it, it became almost disrespected in a way.

Trevor Noah 30:45 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 30:45 And it, it be-

Trevor Noah 30:46 Bastardized.

Emily McDonald 30:47 Right. And exactly.

Trevor Noah 30:48 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 30:48 Especially with something as simple as hypnosis, for example, like, there's so much, um, like, judgment and woo-woo around it, but it, there's so much neuroscience around it as well. But because it has this sort of, um, like, I don't know-

Trevor Noah 31:02 Well, the gimmick as well, let's be honest.

Emily McDonald 31:03 Right. Right. And that's-

Trevor Noah 31:04 Once you're making somebody jump on stage and they say they're a dog, I think it undermines what hypnosis may or may not be.

Emily McDonald 31:10 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 31:10 And I'm not saying that thing's not real, by the way.

Emily McDonald 31:12 So, yeah, I think that that's exactly the analogy that I'm trying to make here, is that it kind of ... That happened with a lot of the different, you know, research studies that were going on.

Trevor Noah 31:20 Okay. Okay. Okay.

Emily McDonald 31:21 And it happened in not just hypnosis, but in other areas as well. For example, like psychedelics.

Trevor Noah 31:25 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 31:26 There used to be a lot more research on it, and then scientists took, took it too far, and then it became, "Oh, no, that's wrong. We shouldn't be doing that."

Trevor Noah 31:32 Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 31:32 And then we went from 100 to zero, and then now we're starting to warm back up to it again, and we're slowly introducing it more and more into research and in studies. But also, I think it's still, I think it's still not really, you know, supported. I mean, whenever I was in the PhD, there was this one research lab that they studied mindfulness and meditation. That lab was not well-funded. That lab did not get-

Trevor Noah 31:57 Hmm

Emily McDonald 31:57 ... a lot of money for research, and I think that still is the case today. So now while we're seeing more, you know, research on spiritual concepts and spirituality, I think it's still not happening to the extent that it should be. Um, and, and yeah, I think that that's been my experience. And then even now, when I'm talking about things that I'm talking about online, I'm doing research into really more hardcore scientific concepts like neuroplasticity, the default mode network, the reward system, all of that, and just knowing because I have such a solid foundation of that information.

Trevor Noah 32:32 Right. Okay. Got it.

Emily McDonald 32:32 And then I'm a- and then I'm learning about, you know, the law of detachment and all these things, and then I'm connecting it to what I already know is true about the brain.

Trevor Noah 32:42 I see.

Emily McDonald 32:42 So it's not necessarily that-

Trevor Noah 32:44 I see

Emily McDonald 32:44 ... there's a specific study that shows, you know-

Trevor Noah 32:46 Mm-hmm. Okay

Emily McDonald 32:47 ... detachment makes your goals come faster.

Trevor Noah 32:49 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Emily McDonald 32:49 It's more m- about me knowing that, yeah, when you are in desperation and in this neediness, then that's gonna boost cortisol. And when you are in a state of fight or flight, you get that deer in headlights tunnel vision-

Trevor Noah 33:00 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 33:01 ... where you're actually less open to opportunities-

Trevor Noah 33:03 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 33:03 ... and other things coming your way.

Trevor Noah 33:04 That's it. Yeah.

Emily McDonald 33:04 And your brain is filtering for more of that lack and stress because that's the way the brain works. It filters your reality for whatever it is that you're focused on. So I just know how the brain works, and then I connect it to spiritual kind of concepts and things-

Trevor Noah 33:18 Yeah, yeah

Emily McDonald 33:18 ... that I'm learning.

Trevor Noah 33:19 Which are, which are oftentimes easier to understand, I find. That- that's where I find science is often lacking, science and academia. My criticism of it is-

Emily McDonald 33:27 Hmm

Trevor Noah 33:27 ... often the fact that, and maybe not of it, it does its job, and then I feel like there's, there's not enough, like, sort of middlemen who are getting the message out.

Emily McDonald 33:39 Connecting the dot.

Trevor Noah 33:39 Yeah, yeah.

Emily McDonald 33:39 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 33:39 So then it's just like a study and, and it's abstract.

Emily McDonald 33:42 100%.

Trevor Noah 33:42 And then it's just left to the, the devices of the world to be like, "This is what it actually means."

Eugene 33:46 Pe-

Trevor Noah 33:47 But then, but then from the other side, there's very good salesmen.

Eugene 33:49 Yeah, yeah. People did try. I think, um, I read a lot of books that were written by people who grew up in the '60s and were raised by hippies, uh, the Gary Zukavs, um, Dr. Wayne Dyer, all of those people who kind of understood that to sell spiritualism-

Trevor Noah 34:06 Yeah

Eugene 34:06 ... or spirituality, you're gonna have to be a bit commercial and go around and bring your life experiences. "I'm a doctor," or, "I was in the army."

Emily McDonald 34:12 Yeah.

Eugene 34:12 "My experiences brought me this."

Trevor Noah 34:14 Yeah, yeah.

Eugene 34:14 But they knew that they were setting a time bomb that was gonna explode in the future, 30, 40 years down the line, because people were not ready. And obviously, if you think of ... If, if hypnosis was taken for what it is, hypnosis is one stage of past life regression.

Trevor Noah 34:27 Is what?

Eugene 34:28 Is, is one stage of actually doing past life regression.

Trevor Noah 34:32 I don't even know what that means. You gotta-

Eugene 34:32 But when, when, when it goes to a show in Las Vegas and it becomes-

Trevor Noah 34:35 What? Wait, wait, wait, wait

Eugene 34:35 ... people barking like dogs.

Trevor Noah 34:37 Wait, but you can't just skip past what you just said.

Emily McDonald 34:39 [laughs] I, I-

Trevor Noah 34:39 Eugene does this to me all the time, and then he just says a thing.

Emily McDonald 34:42 I'm, I'm understanding what she's saying.

Trevor Noah 34:43 Yeah, I'm not.

Emily McDonald 34:44 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 34:45 I'm not, and I'm sure there's a lot of people who are not, but that, I, I don't even care about them right now, just me.

Eugene 34:49 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 34:49 What did you just say?

Eugene 34:51 I think-

Trevor Noah 34:51 Yes

Eugene 34:52 ... hypnosis-

Trevor Noah 34:53 Yes

Eugene 34:53 ... is just one part-

Trevor Noah 34:55 Of?

Eugene 34:55 ... of doing a past life regression.

Trevor Noah 34:57 What does that ... Yes, what does that mean?

Eugene 34:58 So a lot of people ... There's a, there's a doctor, I think you know about Brian Weiss.

Emily McDonald 35:02 I don't know if I do know about him.

Eugene 35:03 He did a lot of work studying, uh, people. He was a professor, a doctor in university.

Trevor Noah 35:08 Yeah. Okay.

Eugene 35:08 He started having this patient who was struggling with certain issues, and then she, he did hypnosis-

Trevor Noah 35:14 Okay

Eugene 35:14 ... and then they regressed further and further back, and then he realized many ... One, One Body, Many Lives is, was one of his books, if I'm not-

Trevor Noah 35:21 Okay

Eugene 35:21 ... mistaken. So he found out that a lot of things that people deal with is the body remem- or your mind remembers what y- happened to you in other lives. So when you go back in other lives, so people who have a fear of, of drowning, an unreasonable fear of drowning-

Trevor Noah 35:36 So-

Eugene 35:36 ... they've drowned in another life before, and somehow there's something that happens that triggers that memory, the smell of water or sea water or salt, that triggers that memory. So to cure that fear, you have to past life regress them. They have to go back into a life where something tragic happened.

Trevor Noah 35:54 Yes.

Eugene 35:54 And that thing was associated with it.

Trevor Noah 35:56 So it's funny. Uh, half of my brain completely rejects this idea.

Eugene 36:01 Yes.

Trevor Noah 36:01 Uh, but I mean, you know me, I always tell you these things.

Eugene 36:03 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 36:03 Half of my brain goes like, "No." The other half of my brain goes, we've had a trauma specialist on the show, studied trauma her whole life- And she has showed us that there's definitive research that has shown that trauma can be passed down through generations of people-

Eugene 36:24 Yeah

Trevor Noah 36:24 ... who haven't experienced the initial trauma.

Eugene 36:25 Yes.

Emily McDonald 36:26 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 36:26 So there's half of my brain that goes like, "Oh, I, I can understand this being possible, but not in the..." And that's what I mean by-

Eugene 36:34 Oh, okay. Yeah

Trevor Noah 36:34 ... this is what I mean by the-

Emily McDonald 36:35 Yeah. I, I-

Trevor Noah 36:35 ... woo-woo versus-

Eugene 36:36 Okay

Trevor Noah 36:36 ... not woo. Does that make sense?

Eugene 36:37 Okay. In, in the world of woo-woo, what you've just explained-

Trevor Noah 36:39 Yes

Eugene 36:40 ... is the fact that there's soul families.

Trevor Noah 36:41 No, no, no. I-

Eugene 36:42 You know? [laughs]

Trevor Noah 36:42 This is what... No. But look, look, look. No, I-

Eugene 36:44 We remember the pain together.

Emily McDonald 36:45 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 36:45 Yes. But, but I get what you're saying.

Eugene 36:46 Yes.

Trevor Noah 36:46 But I, but I... But do you understand what I'm saying?

Eugene 36:48 Yes.

Trevor Noah 36:48 I- I'm saying, like, so sometimes this is, this is what I think happens. And, and this is why, I mean, I enjoy your journey so much, is we... I think we all live in a world where we are most comfortable with the reality that we've been brought up in.

Eugene 37:06 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 37:06 And with the evidence that we've been taught to accept as being correct.

Eugene 37:10 Yes.

Trevor Noah 37:10 Right? It is very difficult to shake that, and it's very difficult to accept a possibility that something else could be different. But when you move through different worlds, you, you realize that it's necessary. So an example for me was-

Eugene 37:23 Mm

Trevor Noah 37:23 ... um, there were a lot of criticisms levied at af- African mothers for how they would raise their children-

Eugene 37:31 Yeah

Trevor Noah 37:31 ... by, like, Westerners would come in, whether it was colonizers, whether it was, you know, gov- whatever it was bef- like they'd go, "Oh, this is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. The way African mo- this is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong." Things they would complain about, them wrapping the baby a- onto their bodies and, like, tying them up, and they'd be like, "No, you should put your baby in a cot, and you should leave them this, and you should..." And then over the years when they started doing studies, there were scientists and there were groups that did studies where they found that having the baby up against the mom was really good for regulating their heartbeats.

Emily McDonald 38:03 Mm.

Eugene 38:03 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 38:04 Changing their respiratory patterns, calming them down.

Eugene 38:07 Fostering trust.

Trevor Noah 38:09 All of these things.

Eugene 38:09 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 38:10 And then do you... I remember this moment distinct. Do you remember when they started launching the things that African moms had had their whole lives-

Eugene 38:16 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 38:16 ... and they started selling them in the Western world, and they're like, "The new trend."

Eugene 38:20 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 38:20 "You wrap your baby to your body." And now it was, like, $200 to buy a thing-

Eugene 38:25 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 38:25 ... that an African mom did with a towel. I remember this, for me, being a moment where I went, "Oh, wow. Yes." Even I was taught that that thing is, like, primitive.

Eugene 38:37 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 38:39 Your mom did it, but it was primitive, and there's a better way to do it. And then s- at some point, science or, you know, researchers went, "Oh, actually, this is a great thing to do," and sort of d- didn't, didn't levy the credit that way. So I, I'm, I'm open to some of these ideas. I think some of the language throws me, I'm not gonna lie. W- 'cause some people are more comfortable... Yeah, when you just like past lives, then I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa."

Eugene 39:00 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 39:01 In my head I'm hearing a record go, "Wuh." But when you explain the concepts behind it, I find that maybe I'm not the only person who's a little more open to the possibility-

Eugene 39:11 Mm

Trevor Noah 39:11 ... of understanding it. It's just when you throw past lives flippantly-

Emily McDonald 39:14 Right. The terminology is, it, it-

Trevor Noah 39:16 It, it really th- I'm not gonna lie, it throws me.

Emily McDonald 39:18 Yeah. I think... I know, and I think that's... I l- I like what you just described also, because that's something that I really hold true for my own life, is always following your own sense of intuition. And I think that if you're waiting around for a study to show you that something is right or wrong, then you're, you're gonna be waiting forever, because science is really slow. But also just because a study shows something, too, doesn't mean that it is right or wrong.

Trevor Noah 39:42 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 39:42 There are outliers in every single study. And so just because something might work for one person, you could be that one dot on the graph-

Trevor Noah 39:49 Yeah

Emily McDonald 39:49 ... that it doesn't work

Emily McDonald 39:50 for, you know?

Trevor Noah 39:50 It could be a flawed study as well.

Emily McDonald 39:51 And, and yeah, exac- and a lot of studies are very biased, too.

Trevor Noah 39:54 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 39:54 I mean, I used to do them. So I would like [laughs] ... I, I've seen the types of people, you know? And I'm not saying that, you know, they're pe- pe- people not trying their best.

Trevor Noah 40:00 Yes. Yeah.

Emily McDonald 40:01 But, you know, it's like humans are human, and they are gonna make human mistakes. But I think-

Trevor Noah 40:06 What, what, what don't we understand-

Eugene 40:07 Mm

Trevor Noah 40:07 ... about studies? What, like... B- because, y- you know, as the internet has, has exploded-

Emily McDonald 40:13 Yeah

Trevor Noah 40:14 ... as TikTok has become popular, everyone I see on TikTok references a study.

Eugene 40:21 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 40:21 And I mean everyone. And I've seen everyone reference any study to say the thing that they're saying-

Eugene 40:27 To justify their-

Trevor Noah 40:28 ... is correct.

Emily McDonald 40:28 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 40:28 But I've seen every... And then I've seen people pull up the same study and go, "No, no, no. This is not the study." And then, then someone else says, "A meta-analysis is more correct." So help us understand a study. So for everyone out there, for us as well, when you're conducting a study, help me understand the very basic mechanics of what is actually happening and how that leads to a conclusion that then, like, CBS This Morning will report and be like, "Coffee makes you live 20 years longer."

Emily McDonald 40:53 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 40:53 How do they get there?

Emily McDonald 40:54 I think those, a lot of the s- like, claims that are made end up being in the discussion, which aren't even necessarily the point of the study.

Trevor Noah 41:02 Mm.

Emily McDonald 41:02 It's more just speculation of how these results can be applied to, and extrapolated to other situations in life. But the way that a study begins is by asking a question, right?

Trevor Noah 41:11 Okay.

Emily McDonald 41:11 So we have, we have this background inf- of information. And I studied, you know, in my PhD, a very specific receptor that we thought got leaky when we were re- relapsing the drugs.

Trevor Noah 41:21 Leaky brain.

Emily McDonald 41:21 And yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:22 Ay.

Emily McDonald 41:22 Just a leaky calcium channel.

Trevor Noah 41:24 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 41:24 And so-

Trevor Noah 41:25 We know one

Emily McDonald 41:26 ... uh, and then-

Eugene 41:26 [laughs] We're friends with one.

Emily McDonald 41:29 [laughs] And yeah.

Trevor Noah 41:30 Shout out, Bra Leaky. [laughs]

Eugene 41:34 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 41:34 And yeah. And so you, you have this background of information, right? And you know some things about it from other areas of research.

Trevor Noah 41:39 Okay.

Emily McDonald 41:40 And you're like, "Okay, it seems well-informed," and you don't just make a random, ask a random question, but it seems well-informed. And so it's like, okay, now I think based on what I know about this calcium channel, I think it could have something to do with relapse. And then-

Trevor Noah 41:55 Mm

Emily McDonald 41:55 ... you, you, you have to basically say a hypothesis, right? Like, I think that if I, for example, block this channel, then p- these, you know, then relapse behavior-

Eugene 42:05 Relapse is gone. Mm

Emily McDonald 42:05 ... relapse is either gone or it will happen more, right?

Trevor Noah 42:07 Okay. Okay.

Emily McDonald 42:07 So you have to decide one way or the other.

Trevor Noah 42:09 Okay.

Emily McDonald 42:10 And then you desi- you design a study that you think will help to answer that question. And now the way that that study works, and the results of it, is you, no matter what results you get, right, you either say that You either s- you, you don't ever say, like, "Oh, I was right," or, "I was wrong." You're basically just testing to see if those, if the results are more ... If one thing is more likely to happen than the other.

Trevor Noah 42:33 Yeah. Okay.

Emily McDonald 42:33 It's all likelihood.

Trevor Noah 42:35 Okay. Yeah.

Emily McDonald 42:35 It's nev- it's never a definitive yes or no. It's this is definitely, you know, this is more likely to not be the case-

Trevor Noah 42:42 Yes

Emily McDonald 42:42 ... or it more likely is the case that, you know, if I block this channel, then this, these people are no longer gonna relapse.

Trevor Noah 42:50 Okay. Okay.

Emily McDonald 42:50 And if-

Trevor Noah 42:51 But what else is it affecting in their lives, guess, right?

Emily McDonald 42:53 Well, that's a whole other topic-

Trevor Noah 42:55 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 42:55 ... when we talk about pharmacology, which was a whole other kind of path that I went down whenever I wa-

Trevor Noah 43:00 Which is nutty.

Emily McDonald 43:00 Right. So whenever I w- also, like, I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was in high school, and I was on ADHD medication for a few years, and then I learned about exactly what you're talking about. Like, what else happens, and how do these drugs actually work? And then I made my own personal decision to transition off of them and go a different journey and then rewire my brain to be able to focus as well.

Trevor Noah 43:19 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 43:20 Um, but yeah. And so I think that a lot of times we tend to put these studies or research papers up on pedestals and say, "Oh, this study shows this, therefore, this is the way things are." And I don't think that that's the way that it should be done at all.

Trevor Noah 43:34 Mm.

Emily McDonald 43:34 It can be used for information to inform, you know, yourself, but also, like you were saying, meta-analysis, where that you take tons of different studies-

Trevor Noah 43:41 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 43:42 ... and kind of look at the results from many different ones. 'Cause another thing that you'll realize is that if you look up something, you could probably find a study proving that you're right.

Trevor Noah 43:49 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 43:49 And it could be ... I, I could look up, "Oh, you know, this is bad for your heart," and-

Trevor Noah 43:53 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 43:53 ... and I'll find a study proving that. And I could say, "Oh, actually, I think it's good for your heart," and I could find a study proving that too.

Trevor Noah 43:59 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 43:59 And so that's the thing, is you can find a study to prove whatever it is that you want. [laughs] And so I think it, it is important to, you know, read a lot and read a lot of different research papers, but also have more of a foundational understanding is ... At least in my field of neuroscience, like, having that foundational understanding of the way that the brain works is really important. And so yeah, I think that the whole ... It is becoming really popular that people are wanting to use a study to prove a point, and I don't think that there's anything wrong with that, but I do think it's important to recognize that, you know, there are ... You could find a study to prove whatever that

Emily McDonald 44:35 you want these days.

Trevor Noah 44:36 H- how did you, how did you apply this in your life? Because I, I find the internet/the world is full of people who are more than willing to dish out advice and then oftentimes don't seem to apply that advice to themselves.

Emily McDonald 44:55 Mm.

Trevor Noah 44:55 Do y- you know what I mean?

Emily McDonald 44:56 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 44:57 And so you get these motivational speakers who when you meet them in real life aren't really motivated. Uh, you, you, you have, like, relationships experts who have terrible relationships themselves.

Emily McDonald 45:06 Mm.

Trevor Noah 45:07 You, do, do you get what I'm saying? And I, and I'm, I'm generalizing.

Emily McDonald 45:09 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 45:09 But, but, but you'll often ... You'll find these. What I found interesting with you is, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, it, it feels like you were also running these sort of experiments on yourself-

Emily McDonald 45:20 100%

Trevor Noah 45:20 ... and I, I watched your life change in real time, and over a very long period, I must say.

Emily McDonald 45:25 I noticed that because I went to DM you, and I was like, "Whoa, you DM'd me, like, almost two years ago-

Trevor Noah 45:31 Yeah, you, you were like-

Emily McDonald 45:31 ... about a podcast

Trevor Noah 45:32 ... you were doing ... Yeah, two years ago I asked you to come on the podcast-

Emily McDonald 45:35 Yeah

Trevor Noah 45:35 ... and there's ... But I've watched you go from- Boy, aren't we glad that was all you did. [laughs] Because-

Emily McDonald 45:41 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 45:41 No, those, those, those DMs I sent for you, Eugene.

Emily McDonald 45:44 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 45:45 Yo, Eugene. [laughs] You, you up, you up. [laughs] I represented you well, hey. [laughs] And you were like- You represented- "Tell me more about this dude- You're representing your fiance ... who comes to the show." [laughs]

Emily McDonald 45:57 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 45:57 So, um, when, when, when, when I looked at your life, I went ... It, it, it felt like-

Emily McDonald 46:03 Mm

Trevor Noah 46:03 ... just by watching you, I saw somebody who was sharing information whilst also applying that information- Mm ... to themselves. Conducting a real time ex- experiment. Yeah. And, and I-

Emily McDonald 46:16 That is exactly correct

Trevor Noah 46:16 ... I'd love to know, like- Yeah ... I'd love to know what your journey was like because everything, everything about you changed over time, and over time's the key thing for me, the key phrase here. I didn't witness, like, a, a magical transformation. You know, like those, those YouTube, um, uh, um- Videos ... weightlifting. They, they trick you all the time. Yeah. Have you seen those ones? Yeah, yeah. They're like, "How I lost 40 pounds in six weeks," and then they show you a before and after picture, and really all they do in the before picture is they just push their tummy out- Mm-hmm ... but they still have a six-pack. Yeah. And they just maybe drink a lot of water, I don't know, and then they get shredded. Yeah. Yeah. But they were shredded. Yeah. With you, with all due respect, it didn't seem like you were shredded in your life.

Emily McDonald 46:55 No. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 46:56 And then I watched you slowly work towards the thing that you were telling people about. Mm. Like, what wa- what was the, what were the beginnings of those? What did you start to learn? Like, can you give me examples? What were, what, what were the moments where you went, "Oh, wow, this is, this is working on me"?

Emily McDonald 47:11 Yeah. And I think if you do go back to the beginning, and I leave all my posts up for that exact reason, because I have students now, like clients and, that I coach, and, like, go back to the beginning and watch my own journey through content because you'll see, like, it, it's a very accurate representation of my journey and my personal life. But I mean, I started out with ADHD that was so bad I would be depressed on days I wouldn't take the stimulants, and I was super dependent on them. Obviously, we already talked about being addicted to nicotine. Um, couldn't focus, easily distracted, super impulsive, very emotional as well. Um, just fight or flight all the time, always stressed, and also health issues, like physical health issues-

Trevor Noah 47:48 Mm. Yeah

Emily McDonald 47:48 ... as well. I was in and out of doctor's offices when I was younger a lot. And doctors told me I had all these different problems like depression, anxiety, all these different things.

Trevor Noah 47:57 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 47:57 And not just mental health problems, but physical, like hormonal imbalances and things like that. So I think, you know, that is what I ... I always just kinda thought that's the way that I was because that's something that, you know, doctor put, gives you a diagnosis, like, "This is y- you. This is your brain. This is who you are."

Trevor Noah 48:12 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Emily McDonald 48:12 Uh, g- good luck. Like, that's gonna be-

Trevor Noah 48:15 Huh

Emily McDonald 48:15 ... navigate that now for the rest of your life. And I thought that's just the way that it was. Like, oh, I was diagnosed with ADHD. I'm gonna struggle focusing for the rest of my life. And, you know, I'm gonna need these stimulants. And then I think learning about the brain as I was studying neuroscience, I started ... You know, neuroplasticity, the ability for your brain to rewire-

Trevor Noah 48:31 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 48:31 ... and change and adapt. I started to realize that, oh, wait, maybe the brain can change. And I learned about epigenetics as well. I actually TA'd a class in the PhD on neurogenetics, um, which is ... Epigenetics is the ability to change the way your DNA is expressed, the genes that are expressed.

Trevor Noah 48:47 The way your DNA is expressed.

Emily McDonald 48:50 Right.

Trevor Noah 48:50 C- c- can you elaborate?

Emily McDonald 48:51 Yeah, yeah. So I have this visual in my mind. I'm like, if I had a little model, I could really show it. [laughs] But-

Trevor Noah 48:55 Did you bring your DNA model, Eugene?

Emily McDonald 48:57 [laughs]

Eugene 48:57 Left it in the car.

Trevor Noah 48:58 Ah, always.

Eugene 48:59 Always.

Trevor Noah 48:59 This guy.

Eugene 49:00 Just when we need it.

Emily McDonald 49:01 I know. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 49:02 This guy.

Eugene 49:03 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 49:04 Next time.

Trevor Noah 49:05 Ah.

Emily McDonald 49:05 Oh, man.

Trevor Noah 49:06 You know. [laughs]

Emily McDonald 49:06 But basically, the way that you could think about it, right-

Trevor Noah 49:08 Mm

Emily McDonald 49:08 ... is, like, basically you have this ball, and then you have y- like, yarn, like, around the ball-

Trevor Noah 49:13 Okay. Yeah

Emily McDonald 49:13 ... right?

Trevor Noah 49:13 Yeah, yeah.

Emily McDonald 49:14 And so y- it can either be the yarn can be tightly wound around the ball or loose. And basically, like, how tightly ... If it's super tight, and the, the, the yarn is your DNA.

Trevor Noah 49:24 Okay. Go ahead.

Emily McDonald 49:24 And so, you know, there are little proteins that come in, and they read your DNA.

Trevor Noah 49:29 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 49:29 And then when they read your DNA, they build proteins-

Eugene 49:31 Protein

Emily McDonald 49:31 ... based off of what it reads, right?

Trevor Noah 49:33 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 49:33 If it's super tightly wound, it can't come in and read.

Trevor Noah 49:36 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 49:36 And so no proteins are gonna be expressed or built off that DNA that's tightly wound because it can't be read.

Eugene 49:41 You're not open minded.

Emily McDonald 49:43 Right. So, and or you can be-

Eugene 49:44 Literally. Yeah

Emily McDonald 49:44 ... you can be openly wound, right?

Trevor Noah 49:46 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 49:46 And then the, the proteins can come in and read your DNA and build proteins, right?

Trevor Noah 49:50 Mm-hmm. Mm.

Emily McDonald 49:50 And so, um, that's just one example. You know, it can be tightl- more tightly wound. We call it, like, methylated, phosphorylated.

Trevor Noah 49:57 Okay.

Emily McDonald 49:57 You know? There's all the different-

Trevor Noah 49:57 I like tightly wound.

Emily McDonald 49:58 The, the [laughs] yeah, there's all these different-

Trevor Noah 50:00 If they said tightly wound, I would have had, I would have a degree.

Emily McDonald 50:02 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 50:03 Methylated? Ah, no, guys. You'll find me in the streets. [laughs]

Emily McDonald 50:06 Methylated, phosphorylated.

Trevor Noah 50:08 Doing meth. [laughs]

Eugene 50:09 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 50:10 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:10 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 50:12 [laughs]

Eugene 50:12 You don't have to agree.

Trevor Noah 50:13 [laughs]

Eugene 50:13 I just don't have to go home with this guy. [laughs]

Emily McDonald 50:16 I, yeah, probably.

Trevor Noah 50:17 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 50:17 But, um, but that's ... You know. So yeah. And so that's kind of what I mean. So basically, your environment, it basically, it can, it can alter the, the, how tightly or loosely wound-

Trevor Noah 50:28 Okay

Emily McDonald 50:28 ... your DNA is.

Trevor Noah 50:29 Okay.

Eugene 50:29 Yes.

Emily McDonald 50:30 And your environment, and this is, like, the way your environment can actually impact which genes are expressed. So you're not changing your DNA. You have the same DNA.

Trevor Noah 50:38 Okay. Got it.

Emily McDonald 50:38 But it's like, which proteins can be made based off of that.

Trevor Noah 50:41 Based off of your DNA.

Emily McDonald 50:42 And-

Eugene 50:42 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 50:42 Okay. All right

Emily McDonald 50:43 ... right. And that is going to depend on a number of factors. Your environment is one of them.

Trevor Noah 50:46 Okay. Got it.

Emily McDonald 50:46 Your mindset.

Trevor Noah 50:47 So, you know, if I was to use like a ... This is a crazy-

Eugene 50:49 Man, I like you, Mona

Trevor Noah 50:50 ... crazy analogy.

Eugene 50:51 You're making it make sense.

Emily McDonald 50:52 R- I, I like that you-

Trevor Noah 50:52 That's what she does.

Emily McDonald 50:53 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 50:53 Now you get it.

Eugene 50:54 Whoa. Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 50:54 Crazy analogy that I would use.

Emily McDonald 50:55 You should check out my content. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 50:56 I've never seen your content.

Eugene 50:58 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 50:59 I've, I've literally never seen your content, but now I understand you-

Emily McDonald 51:01 I feel like you would like it.

Trevor Noah 51:02 Yeah, you-

Emily McDonald 51:02 Based on what you're talking about-

Trevor Noah 51:04 Yes, you're making it-

Emily McDonald 51:05 ... I feel like you would like it.

Eugene 51:05 The ... Sorry to cut you off there. There was this, um, experiment. But not really an experiment, but people were comparing a generation of people in South Africa that were raised by grandmothers versus those that were raised by-

Trevor Noah 51:16 By their parents

Eugene 51:17 ... no, no, no. Parents.

Trevor Noah 51:18 Yeah.

Eugene 51:19 And going to a crèche or-

Trevor Noah 51:21 Kindergarten

Eugene 51:21 ... or kindergarten.

Trevor Noah 51:22 Yeah.

Eugene 51:22 And they found that the ones that were raised by grandmothers had more independence, more empathy, and they were ... They, they knew how to clean, to cook, to take care of everyone, and they were more patient. And the ones that went to kindergarten were more structured and institutionalized.

Emily McDonald 51:38 Damn.

Eugene 51:39 And they believe that other things can be done by someone else. But those that were raised by grandmothers found that they also settle very early. They are very big on bonds and having ... So it was a generational thing for people that grew up in the '80s and the '90s because kindergarten was not a thing. So usually we would get shipped off to go live with our parents before we started school.

Emily McDonald 51:57 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 51:57 This is why I wanna ... You, you, you have once again inspired me to talk about my business-

Eugene 52:02 Okay

Trevor Noah 52:02 ... that I wanna launch. Yes.

Eugene 52:03 Yes.

Trevor Noah 52:04 My idea is-

Eugene 52:05 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 52:06 ... we create old age homes-

Eugene 52:08 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 52:09 ... that are kindergartens.

Eugene 52:11 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 52:11 'Cause old people-

Eugene 52:12 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 52:13 They've done that.

Trevor Noah 52:14 Wait, they have?

Emily McDonald 52:14 So they've done a research study.

Trevor Noah 52:15 They stole my idea?

Eugene 52:16 Ah, come on.

Emily McDonald 52:17 So if ... No, no. So they haven't done this for, like, as a business. So go-

Trevor Noah 52:20 Oh, it's okay. My idea is safe.

Emily McDonald 52:21 It's ... No, but there is actually research to show your idea would work-

Trevor Noah 52:25 You-

Emily McDonald 52:25 ... if I'm clear on your idea.

Trevor Noah 52:26 This is why I need you in my life, Emily.

Emily McDonald 52:28 So [laughs]

Eugene 52:28 For my hype woman.

Trevor Noah 52:28 You know how many ... Well, let me tell you something.

Eugene 52:30 So his idea is great. My hypothesis was correct.

Trevor Noah 52:30 You know how, you know how many times I say things to people, and then they'll be like, "I don't know if that..." And if I had you around, you could be like, "There's research to show." Bam. Not you bam. Bam in general.

Emily McDonald 52:39 But yeah.

Trevor Noah 52:39 To you with, you with the-

Emily McDonald 52:40 So they took a bunch of old people, and they put them in this house that was decorated like it was the '80s.

Trevor Noah 52:44 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 52:44 And, like, say music, like, decorations, all of it.

Trevor Noah 52:48 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 52:48 And they actually came out with biomarkers that showed that they had sort of reversed age.

Trevor Noah 52:52 Yes. You, you get younger. Yeah.

Emily McDonald 52:53 Yeah. They got younger.

Trevor Noah 52:53 I always say, like, I always say, like, old pe- young people-

Eugene 52:56 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 52:57 ... make old people younger.

Emily McDonald 52:58 Mm-hmm.

Eugene 52:58 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 52:58 Just like their vibe.

Eugene 52:59 Yes, yes, yes.

Emily McDonald 52:59 They do.

Trevor Noah 52:59 Whenever I see, like, grandparents and grandchildren together-

Eugene 53:02 Yeah

Trevor Noah 53:02 ... and then the, the inverse as well, I find, like, grandparents help young kids grow up with that, like ... So I've always thought, "Why do we put old people-

Eugene 53:10 Away

Trevor Noah 53:10 ... in an old age? Why do we, like-

Eugene 53:11 Yeah

Trevor Noah 53:11 ... send them off to die?"

Emily McDonald 53:12 I completely agree.

Trevor Noah 53:13 Why don't we send them somewhere to live?

Eugene 53:14 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 53:14 And then why are we struggling with the kids? We should have told Zoran this. He wants childcare in New York. We could-

Eugene 53:19 Grannies. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 53:20 Grannies. Yeah.

Eugene 53:21 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 53:21 We could start, like, a whole thing, grannies.com, and then it's, like, a whole vibe.

Eugene 53:25 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 53:25 And then you don't feel like your grandparents are just stranded, and they get to see new life growing around them.

Eugene 53:30 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 53:30 And then the kids get to [clicks tongue] business.

Eugene 53:31 But that's why rich people have so many divorces.

Trevor Noah 53:32 I'm gonna give you a percentage. You are here for this.

Eugene 53:34 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 53:34 And you're gonna be handling our scientific division. And then you-

Emily McDonald 53:37 Perfect

Trevor Noah 53:37 ... Eugene, you'll be my spokesperson.

Eugene 53:39 Spokesperson?

Trevor Noah 53:40 Yeah.

Eugene 53:41 How about R&D?

Trevor Noah 53:42 No, no, no, no, no. I don't-

Emily McDonald 53:43 R&D.

Trevor Noah 53:43 What are you, what are you researching?

Emily McDonald 53:44 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 53:44 What are you researching?

Eugene 53:45 I wouldn't know that.

Emily McDonald 53:46 I thought I was R&D.

Eugene 53:49 We'll find out. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 53:49 [laughs] [upbeat music] Don't go anywhere 'cause we got more What Now after this. [upbeat music] So with your life, so you were, you were talking about-

Emily McDonald 54:04 Oh, right

Trevor Noah 54:04 ... all these things.

Emily McDonald 54:04 Mm-hmm.

Eugene 54:05 Mm.

Trevor Noah 54:05 And, and, and you were telling us how-

Emily McDonald 54:07 Right

Trevor Noah 54:07 ... you started finally-

Emily McDonald 54:09 Yes

Trevor Noah 54:09 ... to change your life and how you applied it.

Emily McDonald 54:10 Yeah. Way to bring that back. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 54:12 Oh, I'm always, I'm always in. I'm locked in.

Emily McDonald 54:14 Um, yeah. And so I think it kinda began for me with ... And my journey of really initially the first step was Understanding the brain-

Trevor Noah 54:23 Okay

Emily McDonald 54:23 ... that was the first step. Understanding the neuroscience of reality. We talked a little bit about the visual system, how you hear, um, and understanding. And honestly, like the study that kinda changed the game for me whenever I was an undergrad was learning about this Kitten Experiment. It's a super classic experiment, like 1970. And they took these newborn kittens and they raised them in complete darkness.

Trevor Noah 54:43 Hm.

Emily McDonald 54:44 Except for a few hours a day where they put one group, and they were alone, each of them individually alone, in, in a cylinder with only vertical black and white stripe lines. And they took different kittens, a different group, and they put them in a cylinder with only horizontal black and white stripe lines. They let their visual cortex develop, and then o- once they were fully developed or close to that, they put them in a normal everyday environment with everyday objects. And what they found was that the kittens that were only raised to s- ever see horizontal lines-

Trevor Noah 55:12 Hm

Emily McDonald 55:12 ... they didn't respond normally to vertically shaped objects.

Trevor Noah 55:16 No ways.

Emily McDonald 55:16 Vertical, like vertically-

Trevor Noah 55:17 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 55:17 ... oriented objects. Like they would bump into table legs-

Trevor Noah 55:20 No ways

Emily McDonald 55:21 ... because they couldn't see them.

Trevor Noah 55:22 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 55:22 And so their brain actually, you know, f- didn't put together that image because it d- wasn't raised to see that. And so I... And, you know, s- and vice versa with the kittens that were raised to only see vertical lines, they wouldn't jump up on tabletops and perch because they couldn't, they didn't really... Like, their brains didn't, you know, respond normally to horizontal objects. So I kinda just was sitting there like, "Damn, like, if these kittens are only really able to respond in a way that, in an accurate or appropriate way to things that they grew up seeing, what am I not seeing because of the way I was raised?"

Trevor Noah 55:57 I, yep.

Emily McDonald 55:57 Right?

Trevor Noah 55:57 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 55:57 Like what,

Emily McDonald 55:58 like the, the jobs, like money, you know, opportunities, a relationship, or relationships especially. Like we grew up seeing certain types of relationships-

Trevor Noah 56:05 Education

Emily McDonald 56:05 ... between our parents. Education.

Trevor Noah 56:07 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 56:07 Like what am I missing now that is probably right in front of me, but my brain's not constructing that experience because it isn't programmed for it?

Trevor Noah 56:15 Yeah. It's not so obvious to you.

Emily McDonald 56:16 Right. And so that I think was like the, one of the first realizations I had where I was like, "Okay, like, you know, what I'm wanting my future to look like, if it's different than what my past has looked like, then I'm gonna have to change my brain so that it can construct that experience."

Trevor Noah 56:31 But then-

Eugene 56:31 And it, it, it shows, sorry, it shows this little gap that has become a huge crevice in society where science has replaced art. Because academia replaced art. Because kids used to u- it, art used to be a way to measure who likes what. So now it became a thing of who can count, who can remember the best, and then you get channeled that way. But if you learn how to draw and then building blocks, how do you see the world according to your eyes-

Emily McDonald 57:00 Mm

Eugene 57:00 ... versus we're gonna sit you guys in one room-

Emily McDonald 57:01 Yeah

Trevor Noah 57:01 And show you the world

Eugene 57:02 ... and we're gonna show you to calculate.

Trevor Noah 57:04 Damn.

Eugene 57:04 And whoever remembers to calculate the best-

Emily McDonald 57:06 Show you how to think, right

Eugene 57:06 ... the quickest, yes, is the one that progresses in life.

Trevor Noah 57:08 I, I never thought of art like-

Eugene 57:09 Yeah

Trevor Noah 57:09 ... that's beautiful actually.

Emily McDonald 57:10 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 57:10 I genuinely never thought of art like that.

Eugene 57:12 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 57:12 It is the perfect Petri dish to see how everyone else-

Eugene 57:16 Yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 57:16 ... sees the world.

Emily McDonald 57:17 Yeah.

Eugene 57:17 The coloring book and the building blocks.

Trevor Noah 57:18 'Cause remember how every kid-

Eugene 57:20 Yeah

Trevor Noah 57:20 ... used to-

Eugene 57:20 But the image is the same

Trevor Noah 57:20 ... you, you remember this, like we'd go, you'd go, I don't know if you did this, I used to see other kids' coloring books and-

Eugene 57:25 Yeah

Trevor Noah 57:25 ... I'd be like, "Why, why did you..."

Eugene 57:26 Yeah. Why do you use brown?

Trevor Noah 57:27 I'd be like, "Why, why would you use that color?"

Eugene 57:29 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 57:30 I was just shocked at how we all had the same picture.

Eugene 57:32 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 57:33 And everyone chose completely... And they're like, "This is how I see the world."

Eugene 57:36 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 57:36 I was like, "Man."

Emily McDonald 57:36 None of us even see color the same way.

Trevor Noah 57:38 Yeah, that one still-

Eugene 57:39 Or remember the building blocks?

Emily McDonald 57:40 [laughs]

Eugene 57:40 You'd be like, "What is that?" They'll be like, "It's a house." You'd be like, "That doesn't look like a house."

Emily McDonald 57:43 Right. Well, that's why I always say like-

Trevor Noah 57:45 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 57:45 ... we also didn't even come to this planet to live in the same reality or experience the life the same. Like we didn't come here-

Eugene 57:50 It's getting hot now.

Emily McDonald 57:51 We didn't... [laughs]

Trevor Noah 57:53 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 57:53 We didn't come here for that. Like I actually had a dream about that recently because I was sitting here thinking, you know, I literally a few weeks ago I had a dream about this, or maybe a couple months ago, where I was kind of like, "How do I not care what other people think?"

Trevor Noah 58:05 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 58:05 Like how, like how do you not care what other people say you should or shouldn't do? And then I literally had this dream about the neuroscience of reality and how no two people's brains are constructing the same experience, right? Because your brain is what, uh, cr- what's constructing your experience, not your eyes. We al- we've already discussed that.

Trevor Noah 58:21 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Emily McDonald 58:21 So it's like, okay, no two people are experiencing the same reality, therefore how can you take anybody else's input and apply it to your own life verbatim, word for word? It doesn't make sense bec- it's like trying to play Mario Kart with the rules of Call of Duty. You shouldn't do that. Like so you're playing Call of Duty-

Trevor Noah 58:38 Although that would be a dope game, I'm just gonna throw that out there.

Emily McDonald 58:40 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 58:40 I, I'll also take shares in this one and-

Emily McDonald 58:42 But it would also make you worse

Trevor Noah 58:42 ... I'll do R&D on this one. I'm just gonna throw in before Eugene jumps in. Eugene, you're the spokesperson for this game as well.

Eugene 58:47 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 58:48 [laughs] But right? Like you'd be really bad at that game.

Trevor Noah 58:50 Yeah, yeah.

Emily McDonald 58:50 So why are you trying to play your game of life while taking somebody else's rules when they're playing an entirely different game? They don't live in the same video game or experience the same game that you do.

Trevor Noah 59:00 This is... [sighs] Wow. There's two thoughts that I, I have when you're saying this. The first one is, and I'm sorry to do this to you, Eugene, but I think of-

Eugene 59:12 You've done worse

Trevor Noah 59:13 ... I think of why VAR is so interesting in, in s- in football and soccer. So VAR, video assistant referee, is a... They had it in American sports for a long time. I don't know why it took so long to get to soccer, but they'll, they'll pause the game at a crucial moment when there's like a big foul or, um, a goal that was scored or not scored. Point is, people don't agree on what happened.

Eugene 59:33 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 59:34 And then they'll start replaying what happened from multiple different angles.

Eugene 59:39 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 59:39 And it's sort of what you're saying. I've watched myself, my friends, the commentators, and everyone who's observing this start to realize that their reality's changing depending on the perspective that they... So they'll go, "That's definitely a foul."

Eugene 59:54 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 59:54 And they'll show you another angle, and you'll be like, "Uh, still looks like a foul." And they'll show you another angle, then you're like, "Did he touch him?"

Eugene 1:00:00 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:00:00 And then the final angle, you're like, "No, he didn't, he didn't touch him." And what you're just saying is, is sort of that, is like we, we're living in this world where we're all watching from our own camera angle, and then we're going, "Why don't you think it's a foul?"

Eugene 1:00:14 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:00:14 "Why don't you think it's a foul? Uh, w- how can you say it's a foul and it's, it's, this w-" And then the second thought I was having, just based around this, is I go You know, you, you're talking about a world where we're all not designed to have the same experience.

Eugene 1:00:27 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:00:28 But doesn't,

Trevor Noah 1:00:29 doesn't that mean there's a huge swath of society that is always pushed to the fringes unless they are part of the monolithic experience? Does, does ... As somebody who was diagnosed with ADHD, I've been diagnosed with ADHD, right? I, I've often felt like having ADHD, there's nothing wrong with it, but you are in the wrong society and world right now.

Eugene 1:00:51 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:00:51 Because a lot of what the world is, is designed not for people with ADHD.

Eugene 1:00:54 You're in the wrong timeline.

Trevor Noah 1:00:55 You really are.

Eugene 1:00:56 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:00:56 You're playing the wrong video game.

Trevor Noah 1:00:57 No, you really are. Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:00:58 Yeah.

Eugene 1:00:58 Different rules. Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:00:58 Because I, I, I spoke to, um, I spoke to one, um, one therapist who was talking about how ... And these are, like, hypotheses, but they said people with ADHD were probably really beneficial to a tribe and a society when you would go out, like hunting together.

Eugene 1:01:14 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:01:15 Because some people really just need to focus on picking the berries, and some people need to be like, "What's that? What's that? Do you guys hear that?"

Eugene 1:01:21 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:01:21 "What's that?"

Emily McDonald 1:01:22 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:01:22 "Okay, you guys hear that?" But you can't all be going, "What's that, what's that?" Because then no one's gonna focus on the berries.

Eugene 1:01:27 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:01:27 And you can't all be focused on the berries, because then no one's going like, "Yo guys, did you hear that? What was that? What was that?" Pattern recognition.

Emily McDonald 1:01:32 So willing to go explore and be curious, and-

Trevor Noah 1:01:34 Exactly

Emily McDonald 1:01:35 ... yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:01:35 And so you need all of these different minds-

Emily McDonald 1:01:37 Right

Trevor Noah 1:01:38 ... doing and thinking different things so that we can all function together. But to sort of what you're saying with arts equity, like the, and what you're saying now, aren't we creating a world where we're compressing everyone into one? We're going like, "You all have to do this, all have to go to school at this time."

Eugene 1:01:53 Mm-hmm. We are.

Trevor Noah 1:01:53 "All have to learn these subjects. All have to sit in an office. All ha- all, all, all, all-"

Emily McDonald 1:01:57 We're trying to.

Trevor Noah 1:01:58 Yeah, no, we are.

Emily McDonald 1:01:58 And that creates a lot of resistance.

Eugene 1:01:59 Yes. Yes. I've, I've had this conversation with teachers at my daughter's school since she started high school. And all of it was, "If, if she really applied herself to the math and the science." And I used to say to them, "Just relax. School fees will be paid. She will pass."

Emily McDonald 1:02:14 [laughs]

Eugene 1:02:14 "You won't have to deal with her for long."

Emily McDonald 1:02:15 Just relax. [laughs]

Eugene 1:02:17 And then the conversa- and then the conversation I'd have with her every time was, "I don't want great grades. I want you to have the best time possible during this five years of high school, but just pass so I don't have to pay for it again." So that was the conversation for the longest time. And funny enough, I saw a TikTok of someone just the other day who posted all of their high school achievements.

Trevor Noah 1:02:37 Yeah, yeah.

Eugene 1:02:37 Their badges, their certificates, and they go, "In the real world, these count for nothing." It's like you have Monopoly money in the real world. So you've missed out on an entire five years of experiencing-

Trevor Noah 1:02:48 Yes

Eugene 1:02:49 ... your growth and your fundamentals, or how you would've been forming as a, as a young adult, trying to achieve and impress people you'll never see again.

Trevor Noah 1:02:56 Well, it's funny you say that.

Eugene 1:02:58 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:02:58 I think people would, are, and would be shocked at how many of the biggest, most successful icons that they look up to-

Eugene 1:03:06 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:03:07 ... never finished school.

Eugene 1:03:09 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:03:09 Do you know what I mean?

Eugene 1:03:10 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:03:10 So they'll be like, "Oh, yeah, Mark Zuckerberg. You know how big he is, every..." And you're like, "He didn't finish." They're like, "What do you mean? He went to..." Yeah, he went to the university, and then he didn't finish.

Eugene 1:03:17 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:03:17 He left to do this thing that we call Facebook.

Eugene 1:03:20 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:03:21 What, what do you mean? Countless names where they go, they, they went to the university, and then-

Eugene 1:03:25 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:03:25 ... they dropped out and they started a business, and they, and they left. No, but to your point-

Eugene 1:03:28 Yeah, yeah. Absolutely

Trevor Noah 1:03:29 ... but, but we think that the one thing leads to the other. So y-

Eugene 1:03:33 Absolutely

Trevor Noah 1:03:33 ... we're living in this world where one thing leads to another. You're living in this world where one thing leads to another. What was the first breakthrough? I'd love to know even, like, on the ADHD side, 'cause what you're saying to me sounds like a magic trick. Your brain can't focus. You, you, you, you know, you're, you're stuck in loops. You-

Emily McDonald 1:03:51 And now I'm in this place where I literally am writing a book right now, and I can go and sit for seven hours and focus-

Trevor Noah 1:03:56 Ah

Emily McDonald 1:03:56 ... without anything at all.

Trevor Noah 1:03:57 Okay, so now let's walk-

Emily McDonald 1:03:57 It's like wild

Trevor Noah 1:03:57 ... let's walk through that. How do you get there?

Emily McDonald 1:03:59 Um. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:04:00 How, how on earth did you sta-

Emily McDonald 1:04:01 Right

Trevor Noah 1:04:01 ... what was, what was the first step?

Emily McDonald 1:04:02 So, like you said, it's been a journey over time.

Trevor Noah 1:04:05 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:04:05 Like, that's the way that neuroplasticity works. It's repetition over time.

Trevor Noah 1:04:09 Okay.

Emily McDonald 1:04:09 And so the beautiful thing about the brain is that it, it can change and it does change. And so, you know, I think a lot of people now, it's not that they can't focus, it's that they have super well-practiced distraction.

Trevor Noah 1:04:22 Oof. Damn.

Emily McDonald 1:04:22 And you get, you get really good-

Trevor Noah 1:04:24 Oh, you can't just move on from that

Emily McDonald 1:04:25 ... at ignoring. [laughs]

Eugene 1:04:26 High definition LED televisions.

Trevor Noah 1:04:28 You can't just move on from that.

Eugene 1:04:29 Yeah. We ... Yoh, that was a-

Trevor Noah 1:04:30 Say, say that again, please.

Emily McDonald 1:04:31 [laughs]

Eugene 1:04:32 Mic drop moment.

Emily McDonald 1:04:32 So a lot of people think that they can't focus or they're bad at focus, but really what it is is that they have super well-practiced distraction.

Trevor Noah 1:04:41 Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm.

Eugene 1:04:42 Remember I told you yesterday.

Trevor Noah 1:04:43 Mm. Mm. Mm.

Eugene 1:04:44 I said if I didn't go fetch those sneakers at that time-

Trevor Noah 1:04:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Eugene 1:04:46 ... it would've ruined my day. I would've-

Trevor Noah 1:04:47 Yes, but now, okay, now, now-

Eugene 1:04:49 ... I would be thinking-

Trevor Noah 1:04:49 I know we're gonna go on a tangent here, but I want you to help Eugene on this. Actually-

Eugene 1:04:52 Oh, so now we're going on a tangent.

Trevor Noah 1:04:53 Yeah, but I'm, I'm saying I'm acknowledging the tangent-

Eugene 1:04:55 Oh, okay. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:04:56 ... for this specific mo- because this is about you now. Only as Eugene.

Eugene 1:04:59 Okay, okay, okay. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:05:00 How, how would you have helped Eugene with this? So Eugene, help, tell the story.

Emily McDonald 1:05:04 How I've helped Eugene. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:05:05 And then, Em, no, no, no. I want you ... Let's, let's, here's an actual brain.

Eugene 1:05:08 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:05:09 Walk us through the story. What happened?

Eugene 1:05:10 So I ordered these sneakers online.

Trevor Noah 1:05:12 Okay.

Eugene 1:05:12 And then they arrived, but I didn't fig- I didn't, I, I didn't count for how far they were. In my head, I was like, "It's six and a half kilometers. I can probably make it." But we had this as well to do.

Emily McDonald 1:05:21 Mm.

Eugene 1:05:21 So I spent an hour thinking, "If I go there, then I'll save myself all the grief of thinking about going there while I'm doing this."

Trevor Noah 1:05:28 But so basically ... But also you're leaving out the, the most important thing you told me, which was-

Emily McDonald 1:05:32 Yeah, we're leaving out a lot of details here.

Trevor Noah 1:05:33 Yeah, yeah. Details, Eugene.

Emily McDonald 1:05:34 Yeah. [laughs]

Eugene 1:05:34 Details.

Trevor Noah 1:05:34 Okay. I'll, I'll tell you-

Emily McDonald 1:05:35 'Cause how much time did we have?

Trevor Noah 1:05:36 I'm gonna tell you now.

Eugene 1:05:37 This, uh, it, it...

Trevor Noah 1:05:37 I'm gonna tell you the story.

Emily McDonald 1:05:38 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:05:38 I'm gonna tell you the story. This is what happened to Eugene.

Emily McDonald 1:05:40 Like-

Eugene 1:05:40 Are you here to convict me-

Trevor Noah 1:05:41 No. No

Eugene 1:05:42 ... or to save me?

Emily McDonald 1:05:43 I'm like, for all I know, it's 10 minutes before you gotta be here, and you're talking about-

Trevor Noah 1:05:46 No

Emily McDonald 1:05:46 ... traveling all the way to Brooklyn.

Trevor Noah 1:05:46 So let me explain. So let me explain.

Emily McDonald 1:05:48 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:05:48 Let me explain what happened here.

Eugene 1:05:49 It was Brooklyn.

Trevor Noah 1:05:50 It was Brooklyn. So let me explain.

Emily McDonald 1:05:50 Yeah, you were talking about it before we started.

Trevor Noah 1:05:52 Yeah. [laughs] So let me explain.

Emily McDonald 1:05:52 That's how much on his mind this event is. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:05:55 So I'll explain what happened, 'cause my friend told it to me.

Eugene 1:05:57 Em.

Trevor Noah 1:05:58 So what happened was Eugene ordered sneakers. The only location that would have the sneakers was in Brooklyn.

Emily McDonald 1:06:05 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:06:05 Eugene was in Manhattan. Eugene looked up where the store is. He was like, "Oh, I gotta get this. It's near the Barclays Center." Google Maps told him how long it could take to get there. Eugene was like, "I think I can do this." Now, the time was gonna be, like, super tight, but he's like, "I can do it. I get there, and then I spend, like- 26 minutes getting there, and then I'll spend two minutes buying the shoes, 'cause how long does it take to buy shoes?

Eugene 1:06:27 You just have to pick them up.

Emily McDonald 1:06:28 You already, already bought them.

Trevor Noah 1:06:29 He says, he just-

Emily McDonald 1:06:29 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:06:29 ... yeah, you just gotta pick them up. And then I got, gotta get back in the car, and then I come back to Manhattan, and then I've, I've got the thing. Now, I was like, "But Eugene, wouldn't, i- isn't that gonna be stressful?" Then you just said, "No. If I didn't go pick up the shoes, I would've been more stressed about the shoes the whole day." So when we were recording an episode of the podcast, I'd be like, "I can't, I can't even think about anything, Trevor, 'cause all I'm thinking about is those shoes." And while I'm talking to the guest, I'd be like, "Shoes, shoes, shoes, shoes, shoes."

Emily McDonald 1:06:56 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:06:56 "What time does the shoe place close?"

Emily McDonald 1:06:57 Did you end up getting them?

Trevor Noah 1:06:58 "Shoes, shoes, shoes." No, then he, so he went and he got the shoes first.

Emily McDonald 1:07:01 Okay.

Trevor Noah 1:07:01 Right? No, and he, he made it.

Emily McDonald 1:07:02 Okay.

Trevor Noah 1:07:03 But it was a stress, so now I would like-

Eugene 1:07:05 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:07:05 ... you to explain from a-

Eugene 1:07:06 I swapped one stress for another

Trevor Noah 1:07:07 ... from a, from a brain perspective.

Eugene 1:07:09 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:07:12 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:07:13 [laughs]

Eugene 1:07:13 No relief whatsoever.

Trevor Noah 1:07:15 [laughs]

Eugene 1:07:15 I swapped one for [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:07:17 I'm like ... [laughs]

Eugene 1:07:18 I was like, "Go to war or stay married?"

Trevor Noah 1:07:21 [laughs]

Eugene 1:07:21 War.

Trevor Noah 1:07:23 So, so l- help-

Emily McDonald 1:07:25 So-

Trevor Noah 1:07:25 Help us understand-

Emily McDonald 1:07:25 So it was one stress for another because-

Trevor Noah 1:07:27 It-

Emily McDonald 1:07:27 ... you sat there overthinking for a period of time, and then you w- you had less time to go and actually do it, and were you, were you stressed on your journey back or was that gone?

Trevor Noah 1:07:34 And he was stressed about getting to the podcast now.

Eugene 1:07:35 I was stressed on my journey going there, I was stressed coming back, but in my head I was like, that stress compared to the stress of the whole entire day-

Trevor Noah 1:07:44 Of not having the shoes

Eugene 1:07:44 ... I'll take that any day.

Emily McDonald 1:07:44 Because when would you have n- been able to get them if you didn't go right before?

Eugene 1:07:47 Yeah, there. You see?

Trevor Noah 1:07:48 No, any, any other day.

Emily McDonald 1:07:49 Well, no, I'm asking you. When-

Trevor Noah 1:07:49 No, any other day

Emily McDonald 1:07:50 ... any other day. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:07:52 Any other day is the answer. And by the way, I'm not judging you, because I too-

Eugene 1:07:55 No, 100%

Trevor Noah 1:07:55 ... I too have s- you know I didn't even once f-

Eugene 1:07:57 Yes

Trevor Noah 1:07:57 ... even j-

Eugene 1:07:58 Never

Trevor Noah 1:07:58 ... not, not, not-

Eugene 1:07:58 You never did

Trevor Noah 1:07:59 ... no, I didn't

Emily McDonald 1:07:59 ... well, what were you guys doing before this? Because you were late today.

Trevor Noah 1:08:02 Y- so this-

Eugene 1:08:03 Hey

Trevor Noah 1:08:03 ... this was-

Emily McDonald 1:08:03 Shoes again?

Trevor Noah 1:08:04 ... this was all on me.

Eugene 1:08:04 Me choosing, choosing ice cream.

Trevor Noah 1:08:06 Th- this is not him.

Eugene 1:08:06 Tell the story.

Trevor Noah 1:08:07 This is not him at all.

Eugene 1:08:08 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:08:09 This is not him at all.

Eugene 1:08:10 You are therapist now.

Trevor Noah 1:08:10 This is not him at all.

Eugene 1:08:11 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:08:13 Well, my point is though, like-

Trevor Noah 1:08:15 I'm, I'm just gonna tell you

Emily McDonald 1:08:16 ... personally, I have-

Eugene 1:08:19 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:08:19 I'm just gonna tell you.

Emily McDonald 1:08:20 Okay.

Trevor Noah 1:08:20 I'm just gonna tell you.

Emily McDonald 1:08:21 I said it was technical difficulties.

Trevor Noah 1:08:23 Let me, let me s-

Eugene 1:08:24 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:08:24 So let me tell you. No, but I wouldn't throw you under the bus. I would never do that to you. [laughs]

Eugene 1:08:32 Why are you this person? Go ahead.

Trevor Noah 1:08:34 So-

Eugene 1:08:34 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:08:36 ... th- there's a, there's a, a technical, there's a part of the podcast that I specifically like to be a part of, like, it comes to, like, you know, uh, when we're working with the transcriptions of the podcast, what's happening with, like, the, the titles on YouTube. Like, I, I like to be-

Eugene 1:08:48 The geeky parts

Trevor Noah 1:08:48 ... involved. Yeah, many of the geeky parts, right?

Eugene 1:08:51 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:08:51 So what I'll often do is I sit there with my laptop or my iPad and I go through the thing, and I do it, then I do it, the, the, the. Long story short, the program that I use didn't want to work for the episode that we were doing because we had multiple Africans on the same episode. Now, I'm not blaming the racism of technology-

Eugene 1:09:10 No

Trevor Noah 1:09:10 ... in this. I'm just explaining to you what happened. But it could not, for the life of it, discern between the Africans. Sometimes it couldn't even say what language they were speaking. They were speaking English, by the way. Now, in-

Eugene 1:09:21 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:09:21 ... in the program's defense, in the program's defense, one of our friends says, like, "wak" instead of work, and he says, like, "swat fish."

Eugene 1:09:29 Instead of swordfish.

Trevor Noah 1:09:29 But that's Joe. But that's Joe. In his head, he sounds like Hugh Grant.

Eugene 1:09:34 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:09:34 You'll understand this when you listen to the episode. All of this will make sense. All of this will ... I'm also not blaming Joe for, for how Joe is. But because we needed that, and the whole process relies on me doing that part-

Eugene 1:09:45 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:09:45 ... then I was like, like, "We need it, we need it, we need it." Then I'm like, "Ah," like I'm like a hacker, like, "Ah, give me 10, I gotta get in. 10 minutes, gotta, gotta do..."

Eugene 1:09:52 A second swordfish.

Trevor Noah 1:09:52 "I gotta get, give me five more minutes, I got..." And, and so, and so that's the thing. But I want you to first fix the shoes thing.

Eugene 1:09:58 Yes.

Emily McDonald 1:09:58 Well, it's the same thing though, right? So you, I, I have a thing-

Trevor Noah 1:10:04 How did you fix it?

Emily McDonald 1:10:05 ... where I, I don't really like-

Eugene 1:10:06 Well, let's hear what it is first. Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:10:07 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:10:08 So my thing is I don't like to rush. I don't like to rush because when you're, when you put, when you rush, you're in fight or flight, and then that boosts cortisol, and that actually makes you dumber. So if you're sitting there right before this episode-

Trevor Noah 1:10:19 Yeah

Emily McDonald 1:10:19 ... and you're trying to figure it all out, and all of a sudden you're stressed about figuring it out, that actually makes you less able to figure it out because you're turning down activity in your prefrontal cortex and raising activity in your amygdala. Now you're in fight or flight, scanning for threats, and you're not really in a position mentally to figure it out. That's why when you're in a rush you spill your drink or you forget your keys. You drop things, right? You're not working at optimal performance when you're in a rush.

Trevor Noah 1:10:41 Can I throw some-

Eugene 1:10:42 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Trevor Noah 1:10:42 ... can I throw something at you-

Eugene 1:10:42 That's so good

Trevor Noah 1:10:43 ... that might, is based on what you told me about the kittens though. Only because you told me the kitten story. What if I grew up in a life that was so stressed and so high paced that that's actually when I'm the most relaxed because I'm, I've lived in horizontal lines for so long.

Emily McDonald 1:10:57 It's sort of like matching-

Trevor Noah 1:10:58 So I'm like the op- what if I'm the opposite? Like, I can-

Eugene 1:11:01 You grew up in a war zone

Trevor Noah 1:11:01 ... I become smarter.

Eugene 1:11:02 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:11:03 I, I can move better. I c- like, I don't spill my drink. I don't bump into anything.

Emily McDonald 1:11:06 You perform well under pressure.

Trevor Noah 1:11:06 I don't miss, I don't miss a plane. I don't ... Like, you've seen me in an airport.

Eugene 1:11:10 Yeah, yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:11:10 You thrive in that.

Trevor Noah 1:11:11 Let me tell you something.

Eugene 1:11:12 You've made us drive like crazy people to the airport.

Trevor Noah 1:11:13 If shit is going down-

Eugene 1:11:15 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:11:15 ... and you need to rush-

Emily McDonald 1:11:16 It's you. You're the guy. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:11:18 ... you call this guy here.

Eugene 1:11:19 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:11:19 Nothing will get f- forgotten. Nothing will-

Eugene 1:11:21 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:11:21 Do you know when I've forgotten things? Is when I had copious amounts of time, and I mean copious-

Emily McDonald 1:11:30 Hm

Trevor Noah 1:11:30 ... amounts of time. I was going to a friend's wedding recently.

Eugene 1:11:33 Hm.

Trevor Noah 1:11:35 Em, when I tell you I had time, packed the suitcase two days before. I was like, "You know what?"

Eugene 1:11:41 You-

Trevor Noah 1:11:42 "Let's not rush"

Eugene 1:11:42 ... two days before?

Trevor Noah 1:11:43 Imagine. You know me, my friend.

Emily McDonald 1:11:44 That's crazy.

Eugene 1:11:45 That sound like suicide.

Trevor Noah 1:11:45 Exactly.

Eugene 1:11:46 "Mate, you're gonna not come back ever."

Trevor Noah 1:11:47 I was like, I was like, "You know what? I'm gonna pack this..."

Eugene 1:11:49 What?

Trevor Noah 1:11:49 "I wanna be so..." 'Cause I didn't wanna rush. "I'm gonna pack the suitcase. I'm gonna prepare everything. Put the shoes in, put the, the tuxedo, the th-" You name it, I was like, "The, I've-"

Eugene 1:11:59 Two days

Trevor Noah 1:11:59 ... "I've got this. I'm gonna be so..." Because I don't want anything to go wrong.

Eugene 1:12:04 Okay.

Trevor Noah 1:12:04 I was like, "You know what? Let-"

Eugene 1:12:05 Okay.

Trevor Noah 1:12:06 N- not that things go wrong, I was like, "I don't want anything to go wrong."

Eugene 1:12:08 Yeah. Let me try this thing.

Trevor Noah 1:12:09 So let me do this thing-

Emily McDonald 1:12:10 But you're focused on things going wrong-

Trevor Noah 1:12:11 ... doing it ahead, ahead of time

Emily McDonald 1:12:11 ... when you're thinking about how you don't want things to go wrong.

Eugene 1:12:14 Yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:12:14 This is why you're around.

Emily McDonald 1:12:15 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:12:15 This is great, by the way. So I was like, "You know what? You know what?"

Eugene 1:12:17 He manif- he manifested calamity.

Emily McDonald 1:12:19 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:12:20 So I was like, "Let me, let me just do this." Packed everything, got there, wedding, you know, on t- you name it. The night before I'm hanging up all my clothes, putting everything up. I had jackets, I had shirts, I had no bottoms

Emily McDonald 1:12:39 You didn't pack any bottoms?

Trevor Noah 1:12:42 So you, you know what I-

Emily McDonald 1:12:43 You got all the way there and you didn't pack any bottoms?

Trevor Noah 1:12:44 So let me tell... So because the pants went off for tailoring separately-

Eugene 1:12:47 A lot of things are making sense now

Trevor Noah 1:12:48 ... the pants went off for tailoring. They came in a different bag, and I put the bags, and I was so comfortable and calm when I was doing the thing. But when I normally pack, I fly in and I sing a song, and I'm, like, flying through it. I'm like, "Shoes, got your socks, and then your socks, got your pants-

Emily McDonald 1:13:07 Well, you're like an athlete

Trevor Noah 1:13:08 ... and then your pants, got your underwear, your underwear, your shirt, and then your shirt, got your jacket-

Emily McDonald 1:13:11 That's actually the song you sing?

Trevor Noah 1:13:12 ... and your jacket." Yeah, every time.

Emily McDonald 1:13:13 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:13:14 I've never left anything behind. I've never been a person who's like, "Oh, I didn't bring my toothbrush." No, I'll nail it. So I, I, and I mean this honestly.

Emily McDonald 1:13:21 Okay, well I, that's a completely different-

Trevor Noah 1:13:22 So could I have-

Emily McDonald 1:13:23 ... situation though

Trevor Noah 1:13:23 ... so could I have, like, the opposite brain of-

Emily McDonald 1:13:24 Yes, you could, but also what you're describing is completely different. What you're describing is why athletes are way better at shooting fr- free throws when they're not thinking about it versus whenever they're thinking about it-

Trevor Noah 1:13:35 Oh

Emily McDonald 1:13:35 ... and they have time, then they miss, right? Because you have it saved in muscle memory, and you're trying to introduce conscious thought into something that you shouldn't.

Trevor Noah 1:13:41 I'm a packing athlete.

Emily McDonald 1:13:43 Yeah. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:13:43 You heard it here first.

Eugene 1:13:44 There's this, there's this famous-

Trevor Noah 1:13:45 Don't come here with no casual packing.

Emily McDonald 1:13:48 Exactly.

Trevor Noah 1:13:49 I'm a packing athlete.

Emily McDonald 1:13:49 But you did that. You did that. You came through-

Trevor Noah 1:13:51 Em

Emily McDonald 1:13:51 ... with some casual packing. [laughs] That's what you did.

Trevor Noah 1:13:53 All-

Emily McDonald 1:13:54 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:13:54 ... you know, I'm so grateful for your presence here-

Eugene 1:13:56 Wait, wait

Trevor Noah 1:13:56 ... for so many reasons

Eugene 1:13:56 ... before you, before you go on this, I want you to now go with Eugene's one.

Emily McDonald 1:14:00 Oh, right.

Trevor Noah 1:14:00 'Cause I've experienced-

Emily McDonald 1:14:01 Eugene and your story

Trevor Noah 1:14:01 ... by the way, no, I've-

Emily McDonald 1:14:01 We diagnosed Trevor [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:14:02 ... I've ex-

Emily McDonald 1:14:03 Now we need to talk

Trevor Noah 1:14:03 ... I've experienced Eugene's one, so I, I want you to talk us through, 'cause I, I think a lot of people will relate to this. Help us understand Eugene's thing. And-

Eugene 1:14:09 Do you want, do you want this to happen now?

Trevor Noah 1:14:10 How would you have coped-

Emily McDonald 1:14:10 Did we finish Eugene's situation?

Trevor Noah 1:14:13 How... No, because yes, because he had the shoes, he was fine. But then as he said, he introduced, he swapped one stress for another.

Eugene 1:14:18 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:14:18 What was the other stress? So the one stress was-

Eugene 1:14:19 The other stress would be I would be sitting here, and then when the guest is talking, I'd be thinking, you know-

Emily McDonald 1:14:23 Right, so what, what was-

Eugene 1:14:25 ... there's 30 minutes. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:14:25 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:14:26 But what was-

Eugene 1:14:26 That's exactly how long it takes to get to Brooklyn

Emily McDonald 1:14:28 ... but what was the stress that you swapped it for? What ended up being the stress?

Eugene 1:14:32 Oh, the stress was are we gonna make it on time? The driver is driving too slow. Why is the school bus in front of us? Why is there traffic? Why is there-

Trevor Noah 1:14:40 The school, the school bus when you late.

Emily McDonald 1:14:41 It-

Trevor Noah 1:14:41 The school bus

Emily McDonald 1:14:41 ... how long did you wait to make that decision to send it?

Eugene 1:14:44 Almost an hour.

Emily McDonald 1:14:45 Oh. So I mean-

Trevor Noah 1:14:48 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:14:48 ... [laughs] I think, you know, I, I was saying this before we started recording, that I don't negotiate with myself. And so if-

Trevor Noah 1:14:56 You don't?

Emily McDonald 1:14:56 No, no.

Trevor Noah 1:14:57 What does that mean?

Emily McDonald 1:14:58 I don't, like, for example, you're sitting there going back and forth, like-

Trevor Noah 1:15:00 Yes

Emily McDonald 1:15:00 ... do I wanna go get it done?

Trevor Noah 1:15:01 I do that.

Emily McDonald 1:15:02 I, I just make a decision. I don't like to waste time.

Trevor Noah 1:15:04 And, and w- but why? What is the-

Emily McDonald 1:15:06 Oof

Trevor Noah 1:15:06 ... what is the thinking behind this?

Emily McDonald 1:15:08 I think it, it's exactly what happened to Eugene, right?

Trevor Noah 1:15:11 Mm.

Emily McDonald 1:15:12 So he wasted an hour just going back and forth.

Trevor Noah 1:15:14 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:15:14 And then that he had double the amount of stress.

Trevor Noah 1:15:16 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:15:16 Because not only was he overthinking a situation, then he was also stressed about having less time to do it.

Trevor Noah 1:15:20 Right.

Emily McDonald 1:15:21 So again, it kind of similar to where I was thinking where I have this thought process of what, who do, like, when I visualize my best favorite self, who, what, who are they? What are their habits like?

Trevor Noah 1:15:33 Mm.

Emily McDonald 1:15:33 What is their mindset like? What are their beliefs like? In this situation, it's like, okay, when I visualize myself tomorrow or myself later today, like, or my best favorite self, w- what, what do, what does she do? Like, how does she act? She doesn't sit here going back and forth, should I go get it? Should I not? It's my podcast. If I wanna go get the shoes, I'm gonna go get the shoes. And if I'm gonna be 10, 15 minutes late,

Emily McDonald 1:15:55 I'm gonna be 10, 15 minutes late. And I'm not really gonna, I'm not really gonna stress about it. And that's why I said, like, I don't like to rush. Like, if I'm gonna be... That doesn't mean that I give myself ample time all the time.

Trevor Noah 1:16:05 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:16:05 I don't always have ample time, and sometimes I am five minutes late.

Trevor Noah 1:16:08 Right.

Emily McDonald 1:16:08 I'm kinda chronically five minutes late to everything. I wasn't today, but I am. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:16:13 [laughs]

Eugene 1:16:14 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:16:14 But that's 'cause I wasn't alone, right?

Trevor Noah 1:16:16 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:16:16 So, um, [laughs] he's on time.

Trevor Noah 1:16:20 He's on time.

Emily McDonald 1:16:20 And so, and so yeah, I think when I think about that ver- if I were in your shoes-

Trevor Noah 1:16:24 Ah

Emily McDonald 1:16:24 ... and I'm like, "This is something that I want-

Trevor Noah 1:16:25 These were nice shoes, by the way

Emily McDonald 1:16:26 ... from the beginning, you had ample time. If you didn't waste-

Trevor Noah 1:16:28 I did

Emily McDonald 1:16:28 ... an hour thinking, you could have gone there and back and not been stressed at all. If it's something that you wanna do that's gonna make you happier, and that joy, joy is a, the best performance-enhancing drug ever. So if I'm gonna go get these shoes and make myself... I'm wearing my boots. You guys both said you like my boots.

Trevor Noah 1:16:42 I do.

Eugene 1:16:42 We both said we like the boots.

Emily McDonald 1:16:43 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:16:43 They are dope boots.

Emily McDonald 1:16:44 And, and when you are feeling like your best self, then you actually perform better, right? Joy perf- enhances your performance.

Eugene 1:16:50 And I knew, Em, that those shoes would do that for me.

Emily McDonald 1:16:52 Exactly.

Eugene 1:16:52 We are two back to backs.

Trevor Noah 1:16:54 You came, you came in with swagger, I won't lie.

Eugene 1:16:55 I knew.

Trevor Noah 1:16:56 You, you just had, like, a vibe about you. What you just said, you, you see now coming back to-

Emily McDonald 1:17:01 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:17:02 So if you just hear it on the woo-woo side of things-

Emily McDonald 1:17:05 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:17:05 ... people go, like, visualize-

Eugene 1:17:07 Be your best

Trevor Noah 1:17:07 ... visualize your best self.

Emily McDonald 1:17:08 Right.

Eugene 1:17:08 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:17:08 Think about who you wanna be.

Eugene 1:17:09 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:17:09 And then I've seen a lot of people, and I've probably been one of them at some point, who goes, "Ah, come on, you just visualize your best self, and if you could, then you..." And then-

Emily McDonald 1:17:17 You're teaching your brain how to act in situations-

Trevor Noah 1:17:20 Yes

Emily McDonald 1:17:20 ... in life. That's why identity shifting is so powerful.

Trevor Noah 1:17:23 So I read-

Eugene 1:17:24 Yes

Trevor Noah 1:17:24 ... I read a paper that was written-

Eugene 1:17:26 In my lap

Trevor Noah 1:17:26 ... about athletes the other day.

Eugene 1:17:28 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:17:28 And this was an interesting... I'm not even sure that it was a study per se, but it was a really interesting, um, article that I read, and it talked about the difference between, like, elite athletes-

Eugene 1:17:39 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:17:40 ... and just athletes who are good by the fact that they are athletes, right?

Eugene 1:17:44 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:17:44 And it said the difference between the athletes wasn't necessarily the fact that one group was nervous and the other group wasn't nervous in a high-stress situation.

Eugene 1:17:54 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:17:55 The difference was the one group who were the elite athletes were able to visualize themselves overcoming the obstacle that they knew was incoming.

Emily McDonald 1:18:06 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:18:07 And the other group could only focus on the obstacle itself.

Eugene 1:18:10 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:18:11 And so you watch, you know, LeBron James, you watch a, you know, an Erling Haaland, you watch a, you know, whoever it is-

Eugene 1:18:20 Eugene Kozak

Trevor Noah 1:18:20 ... you know, Saquon Barkley, uh-

Eugene 1:18:22 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:18:22 ... Eu- Eugene, fine. But, like, you watch any of these, these people, you know, who- whoever it is-

Eugene 1:18:28 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:18:28 ... and you go, "Wait, how, how are they doing that in those moments?"

Eugene 1:18:33 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:18:33 And it seems like what you're just saying.

Emily McDonald 1:18:35 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:18:35 They are able to visualize themselves Doing the thing that they haven't done yet, and then that, what we'd say magically or scientifically, means that they're more able to realize it? Help me understand that part.

Emily McDonald 1:18:48 It trains the premotor area of the brain.

Trevor Noah 1:18:50 Okay.

Emily McDonald 1:18:50 So your problem yesterday was that you were focused on the problem and not how the best version of you moves through situations. And-

Trevor Noah 1:18:58 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:18:58 ... so there's ... I actually just filmed my own podcast episode on this, and it's, like, the three of my favorite different types of visualizations in-

Trevor Noah 1:19:04 What, but what's the podcast called, by the way? People should check-

Emily McDonald 1:19:06 Planet M

Trevor Noah 1:19:07 ... Planet M.

Emily McDonald 1:19:07 Planet M.

Trevor Noah 1:19:07 I love it.

Emily McDonald 1:19:08 My-

Trevor Noah 1:19:08 I love it

Emily McDonald 1:19:08 ... welcome to my world. And so, [laughs] um, and so the, the one type of visualization I talked about, though, was sort of like a resilience training-

Trevor Noah 1:19:18 Okay

Emily McDonald 1:19:18 ... visualization, and this is exactly what we're talking about. So, and it's what athletes use, n- sci- NASA, like astronauts at NASA use this, and it's basically the process of visualizing yourself on the path toward achieving or doing whatever it is, but mo- kind of facing challenges as the best version of you. And so you start out in this visualization sort of just identifying who that is, and then you can bring up a cha- like for example, you could do this. Bring up the challenge from yesterday. Start your visualization with your favorite version of you, the best version of you, and then bring up the situation that happened yesterday, and then you watch as that version of you moves through that situation. And you can do this for so many different things. You can use this as confidence training.

Trevor Noah 1:20:01 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:20:01 If there are things that, if, if, like, as a creator, for a while, like certain comments would get to me. Visualizing my best self reading those comments and how she would react to them trained my brain-

Trevor Noah 1:20:11 Hmm

Emily McDonald 1:20:12 ... to react in a way that is aligned-

Trevor Noah 1:20:14 You're so good

Emily McDonald 1:20:14 ... with who I'm wanting to become.

Trevor Noah 1:20:15 You're becoming your own role model, essentially.

Eugene 1:20:17 Yes. It's because I, I have this theory that in a meditative state, when you are doing a mantra, you're basically doing a simulation of something that will happen in the future. So when you face that situation, like the athletes in high stressful sit-

Emily McDonald 1:20:29 Right

Eugene 1:20:29 ... they've already done this before.

Emily McDonald 1:20:30 They've already faced it. You know, like a challenge is only difficult when it, like, not only difficult, but it's a lot harder the first time you do it.

Eugene 1:20:36 Yep.

Trevor Noah 1:20:36 Right.

Emily McDonald 1:20:37 And then the second time, third time, fourth time you face it, it's not even a challenge anymore.

Eugene 1:20:40 Yep.

Emily McDonald 1:20:40 It's just like, "Oh, yeah, this is just one of those obstacles that you just gotta go through." And if, that's what happens when you visualize your best self going through it. And also, you're sort of preparing yourself for it and how you wanna act. If you don't do that, then you are just g- putting yourself in a position to allow your default mode or your subconscious to react to a situation. But when you take the time to visualize and kinda practice the way that you would, would want to react-

Trevor Noah 1:21:05 Yeah

Emily McDonald 1:21:05 ... then you're gonna react in that in real life in a way that you actually feel proud of rather than-

Eugene 1:21:11 It's like pilots-

Emily McDonald 1:21:11 From-

Eugene 1:21:11 ... and simulator jets, right?

Emily McDonald 1:21:12 Right.

Eugene 1:21:12 You don't have to crash the real plane. In a relaxed state, you're flying using all the gizmos, all the buttons, all the-

Trevor Noah 1:21:19 You've simulated a crash

Eugene 1:21:20 ... you've simulated the crash.

Emily McDonald 1:21:21 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:21:21 Yeah, you've simulated a nose dive.

Eugene 1:21:22 So your best version of yourself has-

Trevor Noah 1:21:23 You've simulated a stall. You've simulated-

Emily McDonald 1:21:24 Right. So do it practicing.

Trevor Noah 1:21:25 So what, so what is that?

Emily McDonald 1:21:26 Mm.

Trevor Noah 1:21:26 What, help me understand what, what that's actually doing in your brain now. Like, is it, is it re- 'cause you spoke earlier about, like, tunnel vision, for instance. Help, so help me understand what some of these things are causing in us as people that we don't realize our brains are doing to us.

Eugene 1:21:40 Please splice that with the concept of time as well.

Emily McDonald 1:21:44 Well, concept-

Eugene 1:21:44 Ed- edit in there.

Emily McDonald 1:21:45 [laughs] All right.

Eugene 1:21:46 I won't interrupt you for a long time now.

Emily McDonald 1:21:47 All right. Um-

Eugene 1:21:48 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:21:48 So I mean, there, th- there are many different points here.

Trevor Noah 1:21:51 Mm.

Emily McDonald 1:21:51 So when we are kind of practicing, we're, what we're doing really is just practicing, right? We're practicing facing challenges. We're just like an athlete. We're practicing, you know, what happens if somebody r- runs up on us and we have the ball. What are we gonna do? We're just practicing that. And so the same way that you wanna practice free throws, you wanna practice facing challenges. And so you're just, you're just activating those pathways in your brain. Like, if I'm visualizing my best self reading those comments, I'm just practicing and training my brain to react in a way that I would want to react. So you're just activating those pathways. Like the way that visualization works is a lotta the time, especially when it's highly vivid and you're using imagery and context, your environment, the emotional state, your brain doesn't necessarily differentiate between what you're seeing, like what-

Trevor Noah 1:22:39 Hmm

Emily McDonald 1:22:39 ... through our eyes and what we're imagining in our head. Um, and if you think about, like what I talked about, how your brain constructs everything you see, it's no different because your eyes don't see it anyway. Your brain's constructing everything you see.

Trevor Noah 1:22:50 Hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:22:51 So what's the difference between your eyes being closed or open? It's the same. You're seeing it in your head, and it's hap- being constructed in, by your brain either way.

Trevor Noah 1:22:59 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:22:59 And so what's happening, for example, especially with kind of motor activities like in athletes, they're really training the premotor area of the brain, and the motor area is what sends the signals, right?

Trevor Noah 1:23:11 Okay.

Eugene 1:23:11 Mm.

Emily McDonald 1:23:11 So the motor area is what tells my hand to pick up this cup and take a drink.

Trevor Noah 1:23:15 Okay.

Emily McDonald 1:23:15 The premotor area is what plans the movement.

Trevor Noah 1:23:19 Hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:23:19 And so what you're doing when you visualize this is you are training your brain to plan the reaction, plan the movement better so that way when you actually are facing the situation in real life, your brain already knows the plan. But what happens when you are in it in real life and you haven't done this, and you haven't ever thought about it, then you're, there's no plan, and your brain is gonna go based off of an old version of you, a past version of you. Especially if it's a stressful situation and you're in fight or flight, then you're kind of-

Eugene 1:23:48 Your body freezes

Emily McDonald 1:23:49 ... right. And y- what's gonna happen is it's really just your subconscious sort of programming from the past-

Eugene 1:23:54 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:23:54 ... that's doing the reacting, that's doing the responding.

Eugene 1:23:57 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:23:57 It's not, it's not a conscious response or a plan. It is just sort of you reacting in real time based on old-

Eugene 1:24:05 Hmm

Emily McDonald 1:24:05 ... programming that you may or may not want to be, you know, directing your behaviors.

Eugene 1:24:10 Right.

Emily McDonald 1:24:10 And so I mean, I, the, the, the perception of time thing here, I don't know [laughs] necessarily how that's gonna fit into this story. Um-

Eugene 1:24:18 You'll make it work

Emily McDonald 1:24:18 ... but I mean, actually, I could.

Eugene 1:24:20 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:24:20 I could. So I mean, it, that conscious awareness and having this plan does dilate time. And so when you are present, you have more time to respond versus ... And also, right, if you've practiced the res- if you've practiced the situation, if you've been here before, whether it's in real life or in your imagination, then you're not gonna have the same stress response that you would if you've practiced it, and you've been here before, right? Then you're, you're gonna feel more present, more calm.

Trevor Noah 1:24:46 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:24:46 When you're feeling present and c- or c- and/or calm, then time dilates.

Trevor Noah 1:24:50 Mm.

Emily McDonald 1:24:50 You have more time to respond rather than being like, "Oh my God, I have," you know, just- ... reacting, then you're, you're gonna be able to sit back and respond in a way-

Trevor Noah 1:24:59 And observe yourself

Emily McDonald 1:24:59 ... that feels, right, that feels more conscious. And so, and then to bring in sort of the tunnel vision piece that you asked about, if you are in your situation where, the shoe situation-

Trevor Noah 1:25:11 Mm

Emily McDonald 1:25:11 ... and you are stressed, and you're limited on time, and you're like, "I don't know what to do," and you're in this fight, fri- flight, freeze, my brain's not really thinking super straight, clearly-

Trevor Noah 1:25:22 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:25:22 ... what you get is tunnel vision, um, because stress... If you think about the saying deer in headlights-

Trevor Noah 1:25:27 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:25:27 ... they're in fight or flight. Deer in headlights-

Trevor Noah 1:25:28 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:25:28 ... they're frozen.

Trevor Noah 1:25:29 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:25:29 They're, they have extreme tunnel vision. Uh, they can't, they're, they're, they're not looking around at the possibilities of what's going on.

Trevor Noah 1:25:36 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:25:36 They are-

Trevor Noah 1:25:36 They're not looking at the other deer going [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:25:38 They're, they're, they can only see the problem that's right in front of them, right?

Trevor Noah 1:25:41 Yeah. Wow.

Emily McDonald 1:25:41 That's what happens when you're stressed, when your nervous system goes into-

Trevor Noah 1:25:45 Mm

Emily McDonald 1:25:45 ... fight or flight. You are that deer in headlights. You can only see the problem. You're not putting your brain in a position-

Trevor Noah 1:25:51 Mm

Emily McDonald 1:25:51 ... to scan for all the differ- You're not thinking logically and solution based and open to different possibilities or other ways of thinking. That's not, that's not the state that your nervous system is in. Your nervous system is in a state of this is this, this situation at hand, this is the problem, we need to think about this problem and this problem alone.

Trevor Noah 1:26:07 And I don't know what to do.

Emily McDonald 1:26:08 And we don't know what to do, but your brain's not-

Trevor Noah 1:26:09 We're not as a program

Emily McDonald 1:26:10 ... your brain's not in the position to even think about other, other avenues or what to do, other paths. It's, it's not even in the position. And so that's when you're in the situation you're in where you sit there for an hour d- debating and negotiating with yourself and you're not-

Trevor Noah 1:26:23 Of course

Emily McDonald 1:26:23 ... ever coming to a real solution. It's 'cause, and w- but, and maybe the way that you wanna go about this next time is to stop for five minutes and take some deep breaths, calm your nervous system, and then you would've been able to make a really educated decision based on your position.

Trevor Noah 1:26:37 You know, when you think of the deer-

Emily McDonald 1:26:38 Wow

Trevor Noah 1:26:38 ... in the headlights thing, just when, yeah, the way you break it down, I go, the deer's never in that position when it's being chased by a predator.

Emily McDonald 1:26:48 Never.

Trevor Noah 1:26:49 Do you know what I'm saying?

Emily McDonald 1:26:49 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:26:50 There's no deer that's like, "Oh, a wolf." No, it runs. It immediately, to your point-

Emily McDonald 1:26:55 Gets out of there. Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:26:55 ... because it has so much time to learn from the time it was-

Emily McDonald 1:26:58 Right

Trevor Noah 1:26:58 ... like a calf, and then all the way through, it's li- it's sort of simulated and it's learned and it's practiced and it's learned and it's practiced and it's learned-

Emily McDonald 1:27:03 It's programmed

Trevor Noah 1:27:03 ... and it's practiced. But the car is a new thing in its world for the most part, so it's just like wait, what, what is, it's a new idea that it has never simulated. That's, when you put it that way-

Emily McDonald 1:27:15 It's amazing

Trevor Noah 1:27:15 ... I, I-

Emily McDonald 1:27:15 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:27:16 I would love for you... No-

Emily McDonald 1:27:17 It's amazing

Trevor Noah 1:27:17 ... you know, I, I remember one of your-

Emily McDonald 1:27:18 100%

Trevor Noah 1:27:18 ... I remember one of your, one of your videos that, that, that really, really touched me was when you were talking about how the brain, the mind, and these learnings apply to love and how we process relationships. And I remember this, you know, at the time I w- I was, I was reading a lot about attachment theory. Um, I was listening to people's stories. Even in therapy I was talking about like how do I process what a relationship could or could not be based on-

Emily McDonald 1:27:47 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:27:47 ... the relationships I've seen or have not seen.

Emily McDonald 1:27:50 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:27:50 What are the triggers that I think of that another person wouldn't, and what are the things I'm missing that another person wouldn't?

Emily McDonald 1:27:57 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:27:57 And then you, you shared like a beautiful story of your journey with love talking about this, seeing what we sh- couldn't see before or learning to not see what we didn't need to see before. W- w- walk me through this and, and, and help me understand how you got to the beautiful place that you're in now.

Emily McDonald 1:28:16 Yeah. If I'm understanding your, I'm not, I don't, if I'm understanding your question-

Trevor Noah 1:28:20 Well, I remember, 'cause you had this video, uh, and I mean, this was like years ago I think, but you, you were talking about the brain and people saying, for instance, "Oh, I'm lonely. There's no one out there. You never meet anyone. You don't see anyone and no one sees me," and blah, blah. And, and then you shared your own personal story. I remember at the time talking about how you changed something and-

Emily McDonald 1:28:45 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:28:45 ... I'm, I'm forgetting the exact details, but you, you worked on changing something about how you were perceiving your world, and it-

Emily McDonald 1:28:52 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:28:53 ... opened up-

Emily McDonald 1:28:54 Right

Trevor Noah 1:28:54 ... opportunities for love-

Emily McDonald 1:28:55 Okay

Trevor Noah 1:28:55 ... to come into your life. But you were like, "The world didn't change." It's just how you were-

Emily McDonald 1:29:00 Right

Trevor Noah 1:29:00 ... perceiving and presenting in the world.

Emily McDonald 1:29:02 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:29:02 It, can you explain that to me?

Emily McDonald 1:29:03 Yes. I am-

Trevor Noah 1:29:03 Mm

Emily McDonald 1:29:03 ... I understand now. So it's not necessarily about relationships alone. This is just about life in general, and it all goes back to the kittens, right?

Trevor Noah 1:29:11 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:29:11 The kitten couldn't see the table leg or respond to a table leg normally 'cause it had only ever seen horizontal lines. Now, I grew up not necessarily seeing a relationship, like, uh, what a healthy, you know, romantic relationship looked like, and I, um, I, I didn't, like, uh, my, so my brain didn't know how to filter for that, right?

Trevor Noah 1:29:33 Mm.

Emily McDonald 1:29:33 My brain didn't know, and still is learning, how to, you know, filter for that and feel safe in that as well, right? Because you just got done saying-

Trevor Noah 1:29:42 It's not familiar

Emily McDonald 1:29:42 ... that you feel safe. What you described really is like you s- does my brain have this opposite? What you're describing is your brain feels safe in those chaotic environments.

Trevor Noah 1:29:49 'Cause it's familiar.

Emily McDonald 1:29:50 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:29:51 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:29:51 And so your brain, like, and so I, you, I had to teach my brain, right, like what to even look for. Like, what does that look like? Like, what does a healthy, loving relationship look like?

Trevor Noah 1:30:02 Mm.

Emily McDonald 1:30:03 And, and can, and also feel safe in that, and that started with myself. Like, having that relationship with myself.

Trevor Noah 1:30:08 Oh, in what way?

Emily McDonald 1:30:09 Uh, um, sort of treating myself like I was my dream-

Trevor Noah 1:30:15 Partner

Emily McDonald 1:30:16 ... partner.

Trevor Noah 1:30:16 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:30:16 Like, I would walk around calling myself babe and like, [laughs] "Oh," like, "Oh, I'm, no pro..." Like, literally, I remember sitting down-

Trevor Noah 1:30:23 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:30:23 ... and maybe the video you're talking about is I remember sitting down to record a video and I was like, "Oh," like, "you need some better lighting, honey." And like-

Trevor Noah 1:30:30 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:30:30 ... and I, and I remember think- getting up and then I'm like, "Wow," like I really talk to myself like how I would want my dream partner to talk to myself.

Trevor Noah 1:30:37 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:30:37 And it really just boils down to treating myself how I would want to be treated, right?

Trevor Noah 1:30:43 Damn.

Emily McDonald 1:30:43 And so, and, and having that, like, dream relationship, like do I wanna be taken out on dates? Am I taking myself out on dates? Do I feel safe in that?

Trevor Noah 1:30:51 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:30:51 Or am I gonna reject that because my nervous system doesn't feel safe in that because it doesn't ever experience that?

Trevor Noah 1:30:56 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:30:56 Your nervous system feels safest with whatever it's experiencing, whether it's what you want or not.

Trevor Noah 1:31:02 Stimulation

Emily McDonald 1:31:03 Whether it's what you want or not, right?

Eugene 1:31:05 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:31:05 So you're, you can sit around all day asking for certain things, but if you've never experienced them, then your brain is not going to experience those things as feeling safe. It's gonna feel unpredictable, and unpredictability feels unsafe to the brain. So you gotta make what you want predictable.

Eugene 1:31:21 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:31:21 Right? By showing it more of that or normalizing what you want, and there's so many different ways to do that. Like-

Eugene 1:31:27 Mm

Emily McDonald 1:31:27 ... visualization, but also for example, when I was wanting to buy a house, like, let me go drive through this one neighborhood in the mountains in Arizona with all these beautiful homes to show my brain this, to normalize it, right? So, so many different ways. And then the other piece that you were kind of getting at as well was, yeah, the, the, I used to say this all the time. "Oh, dating sucks in my city."

Eugene 1:31:47 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:31:47 It-

Eugene 1:31:48 Yeah

Emily McDonald 1:31:48 ... everybody says that. And I've lived in many different cities. Uh, we went, we were, I was talking for probably 30 minutes before you guys got here about all the different places I've lived, and I would say it everywhere I lived. Oh, whether it was in the small town where I did the PhD or whether it was the big city when I lived in Miami. You know, no matter where it was, "Oh, dating sucks in my city," or whatever, and I hear people say that all the time. And your, that's sort of a belief, right? It is an instruction to your brain. Your brain filters your reality, or remember, it constructs everything that you see based on your beliefs.

Eugene 1:32:21 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:32:22 Based on what you know or think to be true. And so if you, the person, your dream person could be right in front of you, but you won't see them because you don't believe that dating i- is good in your city. You think it sucks in your city. And so this guy could-

Eugene 1:32:37 And you made up your mind

Emily McDonald 1:32:38 ... this, right. And so this guy could come right up to you and-

Eugene 1:32:40 Well, hey

Emily McDonald 1:32:40 ... offer to buy you a coffee-

Eugene 1:32:42 He doesn't date guys

Emily McDonald 1:32:42 ... at the coffee shop.

Eugene 1:32:43 Says who?

Emily McDonald 1:32:44 [laughs]

Eugene 1:32:44 Oh, you've always got a chance with me, you cutie.

Trevor Noah 1:32:46 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:32:47 And, and, but it, but it also, like, taking the stress thing into account as well, right? Like, especially add stress on top of that. If you're, if you're in fight or flight or stressed and you walk around throughout your day stressed out, then again, your brain's not gonna be filtering for the dream partner or the job. And I've had people, someone came to one of my master classes once, and he said he had been looking for a job for two years, and within two weeks after the class, he got his dream job. And nothing changed in his world. Like, nothing changed in the physical world. What changed was in him, his beliefs.

Trevor Noah 1:33:17 It's not magic.

Emily McDonald 1:33:18 No.

Eugene 1:33:18 It is.

Emily McDonald 1:33:19 It is magic.

Trevor Noah 1:33:20 Yeah, but I mean, it's not-

Emily McDonald 1:33:21 I do believe in magic

Trevor Noah 1:33:21 ... what I mean. No, but, no, no, no, no, no.

Emily McDonald 1:33:22 I do believe in magic.

Trevor Noah 1:33:23 But this, this is, this is what I mean by it's, it's not magic.

Eugene 1:33:26 We get you.

Trevor Noah 1:33:27 Is-

Eugene 1:33:28 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:33:28 ... it's not, it's not something that's inexplainable is what I mean.

Eugene 1:33:31 Yes. Yes. It is 100%

Emily McDonald 1:33:32 I do, I do wanna pause, though, and say that there are things that are unexplainable.

Trevor Noah 1:33:36 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:33:36 And I believe in that as well. So I mean, that's a whole other conversation, and I do b- believe in things that are unexplainable. Like, science is a lens through which you can look at life.

Trevor Noah 1:33:44 Right.

Emily McDonald 1:33:44 It's not the only lens-

Trevor Noah 1:33:45 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:33:46 ... through which you should look at life, and if you're only looking at life through one or two lenses, then you're missing out on a, a ton.

Trevor Noah 1:33:51 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:33:51 So I, but I do appreciate when you can explain these sorts of things with neuroscience because yeah, it makes it feel, like, real and super understandable and also actionable, right? Because it, it goes from life feeling random to all of a sudden, oh, wait, now I can have control over this situation. I'm not seeing the relationship that I want. I'm not getting the job that I want. Oh, maybe my, maybe... It's there. It is there. Like, it's there. The money, the job opportunities. It, it-

Eugene 1:34:17 It's all there

Emily McDonald 1:34:18 ... the, the world is so abundant with so many different things.

Eugene 1:34:21 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:34:22 But you have to believe that, and you have to move through life with that belief and knowing, otherwise you're gonna turn down opportunities or you might just not even see them. You won't even apply for the job because you won't think that you'll get it, right? It, it's just there's so many different ways that your-

Eugene 1:34:35 You know what-

Emily McDonald 1:34:35 ... brain will hold you back.

Eugene 1:34:37 What you're saying is so key because I was actually telling him and said I wanna show him my diary from about six years ago. This was the hardest time of my life, and I started reading these books, and I got into it. I started listening to these podcasts. And what I started making a choice of was simulation or assimilating. So if I had assimilated, I would just carried on with people around me and what they do. In that case, it would've been comedy. But in my simulation, in my mind, in my meditation, I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew where I wanted to do it. So I started to write it down.

Emily McDonald 1:35:08 Mm.

Eugene 1:35:08 But the next step from writing it down was to visualize, have visual references of it. So I started having screensavers of the city that I wanted to do this thing at on my phone. Then the next step was I would say, "I want to be paid in this currency." Then I would start saying that over and over again. And remember, I could assimilate, or I could be in the simulation. And slowly, the simulation started feeling normal and normal and normal. Then I realized if I want to hear this being said, I must say it to myself. Then I would take everything that I wrote down, and I would say it in the mirror. Then I was like, "Yeah, I can hear it." The vibration thing that you said makes sense. I could hear it, I could hear it, I could hear it. The more I said it, when I sleep, I would dream about it, and it was that it took five years. The five years, the opportunity happened in exact the same place, in exactly the same way, in exact the same currency that I'd written down. And I'd written down dates on the, on the diary. And I think I've told you about this before.

Emily McDonald 1:36:00 Yeah. You did.

Eugene 1:36:00 And I even, so a, in the same year, I'd done a, a reading with a medium who said exactly the same things that I'd written down as my thoughts and as my visualization. And when I asked her, she said, "Remember that as a medium, I'm not saying anything that's not in your reality. I'm just basically reminding you and giving you cues and clues of what to follow and what paths." But it seems like if you've written it down already, you remember it quite well.

Emily McDonald 1:36:25 Mm-hmm.

Eugene 1:36:25 And what you're saying makes sense because when you try to explain to someone, and that's where I find with people who are gifted, who are talented, naturally talented at something, trying to explain their success, I often think You're cheating someone who's facing the same conundrum of the real experience. Work hard, do this, do that. No. It's sometimes just thinking about the thing that you wanna do, and actually thinking and thinking and think and visualizing it. And those small neurological pathways start becoming little foot paths, and then they become little two lanes, and then all of a sudden they become freeways, and you become a master at weaving-

Emily McDonald 1:36:58 Mm-hmm

Eugene 1:36:59 ... your wand and creating your reality.

Emily McDonald 1:37:01 Yeah.

Eugene 1:37:01 And that's what I think is missing.

Emily McDonald 1:37:02 Yeah. And I think, and don't get me wrong, I'm all for working hard. I wouldn't be where I am-

Eugene 1:37:06 100%, yeah

Emily McDonald 1:37:06 ... if I didn't work hard.

Eugene 1:37:07 Absolutely.

Emily McDonald 1:37:08 But I think you, when you have the mindset piece and the, the, and you wire your brain to align with what you're working hard for, that's when you become unstoppable, and that's when it's inevitable and it's gonna happen no matter what, right? But if you're working so hard and your brain isn't wired in alignment with what you're working hard for, then you're just, you're, you're gonna just, you're beating a brick wall. You- it's when, when you, that's when you start to face all this resistance. And I mean, there's so much research that shows, you know, like mindset and belief in yourself-

Eugene 1:37:37 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:37:37 ... is a bigger predictor of success than talent or intelligence.

Trevor Noah 1:37:40 Oh, wow.

Eugene 1:37:40 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:37:40 Like, but yeah, and it's, it's, it's so important.

Eugene 1:37:42 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:37:43 Like, I, and I've been asked many times, like, when, what was the thing that you think really shifted your life, and when did you start to really, like, feel different and do different and be different? And it was when I had this cra- I mean, I had a crazy DMT experience, but I-

Trevor Noah 1:37:58 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:37:58 ... it really opened me up to-

Trevor Noah 1:38:00 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:38:00 ... the spiritual world, but also, like, f- to start believing in myself. And when I started believing in myself, everything changed. Like, I start, I became unstoppable. And it didn't matter what happened, right? Because the tests are gonna h- come, the trials, the tribulations, the challenges, the things are gonna happen. But when you have that belief in yourself, it's like you keep going and you keep... And belief in yourself improves your performance.

Eugene 1:38:22 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:38:22 It, it, it's a biological ad- ad- advantage to believe in yourself.

Eugene 1:38:26 So y- I, I, my DMT experience was ayahuasca. What was yours?

Emily McDonald 1:38:29 DMT.

Eugene 1:38:30 Yeah? So you took it orally? How did you do it?

Emily McDonald 1:38:33 Uh, out of a crack pipe. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:38:35 Wow.

Eugene 1:38:37 Well.

Emily McDonald 1:38:37 It, it found me.

Trevor Noah 1:38:37 I can tell you something.

Eugene 1:38:38 I didn't think we'd have crack-

Trevor Noah 1:38:39 I didn't expect that [laughs]

Eugene 1:38:40 ... twice, twice in the history of this podcast. Way more crack than I thought would be in, on this podcast, I'm not gonna lie.

Trevor Noah 1:38:45 [laughs]

Eugene 1:38:46 If you asked me about my journal from years ago-

Trevor Noah 1:38:48 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:38:48 I mean-

Eugene 1:38:48 ... I can safely say I did not write that-

Trevor Noah 1:38:50 You know, judging off our races-

Eugene 1:38:51 ... people would just like throw-

Trevor Noah 1:38:52 ... someone would've expected ayahuasca from you [laughs]

Eugene 1:38:54 [laughs] And crack from me.

Trevor Noah 1:38:56 Crack pipe from Trevor.

Eugene 1:38:57 And crack from you. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:38:58 You cheat. Why would you do the crack pipe?

Eugene 1:38:59 But I said it was first.

Emily McDonald 1:39:00 It found me.

Trevor Noah 1:39:00 No, you got me, you got me.

Emily McDonald 1:39:01 It found me.

Trevor Noah 1:39:02 You already threw meth my way.

Emily McDonald 1:39:03 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:39:03 I've got, I only ha- I can only have one.

Eugene 1:39:05 Okay, okay, I'll take crack.

Trevor Noah 1:39:05 I can only have one. You take the crack pipe, I'll take the ayahuasca.

Emily McDonald 1:39:08 So, okay, perfect. [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:39:10 [laughs]

Eugene 1:39:10 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:39:10 I don't mind. Yeah, I mean, and no, it definitely found me. I didn't go seeking it.

Eugene 1:39:14 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:39:14 But it changed my life, and it really taught me... It changed my meditate- my meditation practice forever.

Eugene 1:39:19 100%.

Emily McDonald 1:39:19 Like, I, to this day-

Eugene 1:39:21 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:39:21 ... I have this lightning bolt that strikes through me and my whole body's vibrating, and I'm divinely guided and protected and charged up and electrocuted by the divine. So I mean [laughs] it changed my life, but also going into the PhD, this happened right before I, like, went into the PhD, and I just went and h- with this like such a, such a deep trust-

Eugene 1:39:41 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:39:41 ... and surrender to the flow of life. And I had trust and surrender written on sticky notes, like all over my, um, apartment when I first got there. And-

Trevor Noah 1:39:50 What does that do for you, by the way?

Emily McDonald 1:39:51 To surrender?

Trevor Noah 1:39:52 No, no, when you, when you write-

Eugene 1:39:54 Trust

Trevor Noah 1:39:54 ... uh, because I've seen you talk about that. What, what is that doing to, to the brain or to our minds when we, like, write something and put it everywhere and just constantly-

Emily McDonald 1:40:03 Right

Trevor Noah 1:40:04 ... see it?

Emily McDonald 1:40:04 Um, well, so writing it down activates the pa- those pa- It's similar to affirmations.

Trevor Noah 1:40:09 Okay.

Emily McDonald 1:40:09 So just the act of writing down an affirmation actually has been shown to activate reward pathways in the brain-

Trevor Noah 1:40:15 Okay

Emily McDonald 1:40:15 ... which boosts dopamine. So it makes you feel good in the moment. But also it just ser- I mean, it serves as a visual cue and reminder every time you look at it, which activates that pathway in your brain every time-

Trevor Noah 1:40:27 Oh

Emily McDonald 1:40:27 ... you look at it.

Trevor Noah 1:40:27 Oh, okay.

Emily McDonald 1:40:27 And then it, that pathway becomes, through Hebb's law, neurons that fire together, wire together. The more often that you activate the pathway, the stronger it becomes, and then it can become your dominant way of thinking, feeling-

Trevor Noah 1:40:39 It becomes the default

Emily McDonald 1:40:40 ... and acting.

Trevor Noah 1:40:40 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:40:40 Right. It becomes your default mode.

Eugene 1:40:42 Which explains calligraphy and rock art throughout the ancient times, right? If it's written down and it's there and it's beautiful, you're meditating while writing.

Emily McDonald 1:40:50 Yeah.

Eugene 1:40:50 So it means you believe in it.

Trevor Noah 1:40:51 It, it goes into the, it go... Mm.

Emily McDonald 1:40:53 I'm a big fan of handwriting, especially affirmations. Of, like, for, for example, I do this identity shifting visualization. I like to write down who I saw by hand. It actually, it, it-

Trevor Noah 1:41:03 Wow

Emily McDonald 1:41:03 ... it improves your ability to remember whatever it is, versus typing. Our brain didn't evolve to type.

Eugene 1:41:09 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:41:09 Yeah. That's, that has nothing to do with-

Emily McDonald 1:41:10 Yeah, writing and ty-

Eugene 1:41:11 This motion versus...

Emily McDonald 1:41:12 Yeah. I also just see, like-

Eugene 1:41:14 Yes

Emily McDonald 1:41:14 ... especially journaling-

Eugene 1:41:15 Yes

Emily McDonald 1:41:15 ... by hand, I, I notice patterns in my thinking, and I get ideas for content and stuff like that-

Trevor Noah 1:41:19 Right

Emily McDonald 1:41:20 ... way more than if I'm typing.

Trevor Noah 1:41:22 Let's talk a little bit about, um, psychedelics in general. Over the past, let's say five years and maybe a decade, I've, I've noticed science slowly opening up and being allowed to open up to, like, in its defense. You know, 'cause the US government changes-

Emily McDonald 1:41:38 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:41:38 ... and you see these things changing around the world. But we've seen a s- a shift now in how people treat even the conversation around psychedelics.

Eugene 1:41:47 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:41:47 Where once it was considered, you know, like, this hippie d- d- thing that'll just destroy your life, et cetera, et cetera. Now we've seen, you know, the government doing tests around, like, MDMA therapy and what it could do for veterans-

Emily McDonald 1:41:59 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:42:00 ... and looking at psychedelics and how terminal cancer patients completely subverts how they feel about the possibility of dying-

Emily McDonald 1:42:08 Mm-hmm.

Eugene 1:42:09 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:42:09 ... when they've now consumed psilocybin, or-

Emily McDonald 1:42:12 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:42:12 ... people on DMT, ayahuasca, et cetera. What do you think, or what have you seen that has sort of, like, opened up a different area of how we see the brain and the mind because of psychedelics? Like, e- e- 'cause I'm, the research now is still, like, young in a weird way, even though we've had it for long, and then we-

Emily McDonald 1:42:29 Yeah

Trevor Noah 1:42:29 ... have some old stuff that's-

Emily McDonald 1:42:31 Right

Trevor Noah 1:42:31 ... that's applying to now. But-

Emily McDonald 1:42:32 'Cause in the very beginning it was cocaine that was the cure-all for everything.

Trevor Noah 1:42:35 Wait, really?

Emily McDonald 1:42:35 Yes.

Trevor Noah 1:42:36 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:42:36 That's why I was trying to say earlier, you know, we think, we view this as a new w- mode of, you know, investigation, but it's not at all. Like, psychedelics were popular way back in the day. Drugs were popular-

Trevor Noah 1:42:47 Opium in China

Emily McDonald 1:42:47 ... way back in the day.

Trevor Noah 1:42:48 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:42:48 Yeah, yeah. Whenever I, I, we h- Whenever I was in the PhD and studying drug addiction, like, I learned about how all these, you know, came to be. And there was this book-

Trevor Noah 1:42:55 Well, sorry, before I forget, there's something I want to ask you about that, though. How do, how do we define an addiction? I think a lot of people struggle with this. I, I might be one of them, but I, I know a lot of people will go, "I'm not addicted." You know? Like, sometimes people go, "I'm not addicted to my phone. I just, I just, I, I just use it, and I, I, I like keeping up to date with stuff and... But I'm not addicted."

Emily McDonald 1:43:16 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:43:16 And someone else will be like, "Oh, no, I'm not addicted to that. I'm not addicted to this."

Emily McDonald 1:43:19 Hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:43:19 "I'm not..." How do, how do we actually define addiction?

Emily McDonald 1:43:22 Yeah. Well, I mean, there is a whole DSM-5 criteria [laughs] and, you know... But I think when you think about just behaviorally, it's tolerance and dependence-

Trevor Noah 1:43:31 Tolerance and dependence-

Emily McDonald 1:43:33 ... and withdrawal

Trevor Noah 1:43:33 ... and withdrawal.

Emily McDonald 1:43:33 So, right. I mean, and withdrawal kind of-

Trevor Noah 1:43:35 Hmm

Emily McDonald 1:43:35 ... can go in with tolerance and dependence, but-

Trevor Noah 1:43:37 Okay

Emily McDonald 1:43:37 ... when, I mean, really, like, in, in the science world, we don't even really use addiction. We use, like, you know, dependence, um-

Trevor Noah 1:43:44 Okay

Emily McDonald 1:43:44 ... um, and/or substance abuse. And really, what you, what I look at, and when people ask me that I, what, that I work with, right, 'cause there are people that, you know, smoke weed or different things and-

Trevor Noah 1:43:54 Yeah

Emily McDonald 1:43:55 ... "Should I stop? How do I know?" And really, it's, it's tolerance and dependence. Do you, do you have the ability to stop? Like, do y- is that a conscious choice? If you were to, would you feel bad? That's dependence and tolerance, right? Tolerance-

Trevor Noah 1:44:08 What, what happens when people say, "I can stop anytime I want to, I just don't want to"?

Emily McDonald 1:44:12 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:44:13 'Cause you hear people say that.

Eugene 1:44:13 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:44:13 No, and I'm, I know you're just genuinely-

Eugene 1:44:15 No, absolutely right. Yeah, yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:44:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:44:15 I've heard people say this.

Emily McDonald 1:44:16 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:44:16 And then I don't know-

Eugene 1:44:17 It's denial.

Trevor Noah 1:44:18 Yeah, but I, I don't-

Emily McDonald 1:44:18 It's denial.

Trevor Noah 1:44:19 Okay.

Emily McDonald 1:44:19 It's denial.

Trevor Noah 1:44:20 Hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:44:20 And I think, again-

Trevor Noah 1:44:21 How do you test if you-

Emily McDonald 1:44:22 You can't. You can't-

Trevor Noah 1:44:22 You can't. Yeah

Emily McDonald 1:44:22 ... stop unless you want to.

Trevor Noah 1:44:24 Okay.

Emily McDonald 1:44:24 And that's kind of what I was saying earlier.

Trevor Noah 1:44:25 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:44:26 That you cannot convince somebody to stop a behavior if they don't want to stop the behavior.

Trevor Noah 1:44:31 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:44:31 And so that's, I mean, obviously we know from objectively outside looking in, okay, you're probably dependent on the, this thing. If you don't want to stop-

Trevor Noah 1:44:38 Yeah. Right

Emily McDonald 1:44:38 ... then you're dependent on it. Um, and if it's going to make you feel emotionally, you know, worse, and you feel worse if you don't use it or do the thing, like for example, the phone. If you want a day without it, would you feel a rise in anxiety levels? And they, there's been studies on that-

Trevor Noah 1:44:54 Oh, okay

Emily McDonald 1:44:54 ... and that's shown that the-

Trevor Noah 1:44:55 Okay

Emily McDonald 1:44:55 ... people do feel an increase in anxiety without the phone. I personally feel a decrease. I don't like [laughs] ... I love not being around my phone. Um, but yeah, if, if you are gonna, like we were saying earlier with the nicotine, if you're gonna l- qu- quit cold turkey, does that increase your anxiety levels?

Trevor Noah 1:45:10 Okay.

Emily McDonald 1:45:10 Well, that's dependence. And also tolerance is do you need it more, and more, and more over time?

Trevor Noah 1:45:15 Yeah.

Eugene 1:45:15 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:45:16 Um, and so that's another way of knowing, you know, am I becoming dependent on this drug?

Trevor Noah 1:45:20 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:45:20 Um, am I becoming addicted to it?

Trevor Noah 1:45:21 Are there good addictions then? Can you be addicted to good things? Like-

Emily McDonald 1:45:24 Absolutely

Trevor Noah 1:45:24 ... like working out and-

Emily McDonald 1:45:25 I... You can be addicted to anything that... All drugs of abuse boost dopamine in the reward centers of the brain.

Trevor Noah 1:45:30 Okay.

Emily McDonald 1:45:30 Every single one.

Trevor Noah 1:45:32 Hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:45:32 And so if you, anything that is, anything that boosts dopamine in the reward centers can technically be addictive, right?

Trevor Noah 1:45:38 Okay. Got it.

Emily McDonald 1:45:38 Especially if you have an addictive personality.

Trevor Noah 1:45:41 Right.

Emily McDonald 1:45:41 Um, and I think-

Trevor Noah 1:45:41 Hmm

Emily McDonald 1:45:41 ... yeah, there are things that, you know, you can become addicted to that I, like personally for me, I love the grind. Like, I love the feeling of sitting down and being at, like, working for, like, seven hours straight. Like-

Trevor Noah 1:45:53 Hmm. Oh, wow, okay

Emily McDonald 1:45:54 ... I, I f- it feels so good to me.

Trevor Noah 1:45:56 Hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:45:56 I love it. And, you know, being in college, I, and, and recently was writing my book, I kinda forgot, like, damn, this makes me feel really good. It's sort of addicting. Um, and it, you know, I have this mindset of, like, I, I really am my own biggest cheerleader 'cause every time I get up to go to the bathroom or get some water, I'm like, "You're doing such a great job, Em."

Eugene 1:46:12 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:46:12 Like, "You got this."

Trevor Noah 1:46:13 I love this.

Emily McDonald 1:46:13 And I get so much dopamine from that. And then also that pride in yourself whenever you, after you've done it, it's like that feeling is addicting. So absolutely, like, you can be addicted to good things-

Trevor Noah 1:46:23 Right. Right

Emily McDonald 1:46:23 ... for sure.

Trevor Noah 1:46:24 So now, so sorry, going back, 'cause you were going down the path. You were talking about, um, uh, the work that we've done in and around understanding the brain and how psychedelics and all of these things affect. Then you were talking about in addiction, et cetera, et cetera. So going back down that pathway, what are, what are we, what are we starting to understand that we've maybe forgotten? Or, or what are we picking up on in the fields of neuroscience and psychedelics, and how they can help people, and how they can maybe not help people? Or what does it even, like, help us understand about the brain itself?

Emily McDonald 1:46:53 Yeah. I think one of the coolest things that it's taught us about the brain is about quieting the default mode network of the brain.

Trevor Noah 1:47:00 Hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:47:00 Um, you know about that? Okay. Um-

Trevor Noah 1:47:04 [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:47:04 Yeah. I think that what we've found through psychedelic research, um, especially psilocybin, LSD, um, and also meditation quiets the default mode network-

Trevor Noah 1:47:13 Yeah

Emily McDonald 1:47:13 ... as well, so does hypnosis. Um, but what we've found is that when you can quiet the default mode network, you actually can, y- you can alter your sense, your self-concept, your sense of self-

Trevor Noah 1:47:24 Hmm

Emily McDonald 1:47:24 ... habits.

Trevor Noah 1:47:25 Hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:47:25 You can alter, you know, past memories and/or trauma. You can re- you can really alter things in a way that we haven't really had the ability to before.

Trevor Noah 1:47:35 Hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:47:35 And that ch- and that, and you, you come out of that experience a different person is the point. And when you-

Trevor Noah 1:47:41 Literally

Emily McDonald 1:47:41 ... when you alter your-

Trevor Noah 1:47:42 Yeah

Emily McDonald 1:47:42 ... self-concept, like, if you go on YouTube and you look up, oh, quantum leaping-

Trevor Noah 1:47:46 Yeah

Emily McDonald 1:47:46 ... every single hypnosis for quantum leaping is all about just altering your self-concept. Like, that's really what it's about. When you alter your self-concept, you alter the story that your default mode ha- network has saved as who you are.

Trevor Noah 1:47:57 Like, I'm a shy person.

Emily McDonald 1:47:58 Right. You a-

Trevor Noah 1:47:59 I'm a messy person.

Emily McDonald 1:48:00 And when you alter your self-concept and who you are, that story of who you are-

Trevor Noah 1:48:04 Yeah

Emily McDonald 1:48:04 ... then your, well, your default mode network is not only responsible for who you are, but also your default mode of-

Trevor Noah 1:48:11 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:48:11 ... thinking, feeling, behaving, your decision-making, all of it. So when you alter your self-concept, now your default mode of thinking, feeling, and behaving is different. And so it changes you forever, rather than just over time working on reducing your stress or... No, when you change who you think you are and who you know you are, the person that you are, then it changes, it changes everything.

Trevor Noah 1:48:34 So essentially it's almost like-

Eugene 1:48:35 Yeah. Oof, that's so good

Trevor Noah 1:48:36 ... these are just external tools and-

Emily McDonald 1:48:38 Hmm

Trevor Noah 1:48:38 ... as you said, meditation, a lot of internal tools, but fundamentally what it's able to do is change which lines you're perceptive to as your kitten.

Emily McDonald 1:48:48 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:48:48 You, you're, like, shifting.

Emily McDonald 1:48:49 Right.

Trevor Noah 1:48:49 You're like, "I'm a horizontal kitten-

Emily McDonald 1:48:50 Mm-hmm

Trevor Noah 1:48:51 ... or I was a vertical kitten my whole life." And it's like, oh, no, no, no. Now you can, you can work on changing that, and you're like, "No, no, I'm, I'm not a horizontal kitten anymore."

Eugene 1:48:59 Yeah. But I think Wayne Dyer said it nicely when he says, "Change the way you see things, and the things you see will change."

Emily McDonald 1:49:04 The things you see change. I love Wayne Dyer.

Trevor Noah 1:49:06 He's, he wa- he w- he was incredible. And, and it- it's, it's how Oprah changed her life, right? And changed the course of her show. When she started giving things away and making people feel good and recognizing people who were working hard was because she was affected by the book. That's beautiful. Wow. She read- she had read the book and she thought, "It's not about salaciousness and gossip and about conflict." And it's not about tabloid. Yeah, yeah. "The show could be, the show could be about giving and sharing." Mm. And she started reading these books and the book club, introducing people to these concepts, and then they started seeping into the Gary Zoukovs and them, into the zeitgeist of what America started being about when they thought of a talk show, right?

Emily McDonald 1:49:38 Right. And these drugs, of course, they also boost a lot of neuroplasticity as well.

Trevor Noah 1:49:42 100%.

Emily McDonald 1:49:42 And they, and, and, and that helps to change the brain long-term, too.

Trevor Noah 1:49:46 Okay. Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:49:46 So it's kind of a combination of a lot of things happening all at once, which is why these drugs can make such huge differences in people's lives-

Trevor Noah 1:49:54 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:49:54 ... very quickly.

Trevor Noah 1:49:54 Right.

Emily McDonald 1:49:55 Um, and we do, we can do those things, you know, over time, but also, you know, these drugs, they alter people's state of consciousness. They a- they, they allow you to look at the world in a way that you've never seen the world before, and when you do that, you c- there's no going back from that experience.

Trevor Noah 1:50:11 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:50:11 Right? Like-

Trevor Noah 1:50:12 You can't unsee it

Emily McDonald 1:50:12 ... you, you can't unsee it.

Trevor Noah 1:50:13 Mm.

Emily McDonald 1:50:13 I remember the first time I ever looked at the moon and saw, like, h- you know, we ... When you look at the moon and it's, like, a, a waxing crescent or something, you see a crescent moon.

Trevor Noah 1:50:22 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:50:22 And I remember the first time I looked at the moon on psilocybin and saw the entire moon, but just that the sun was coming from over here, only lighting up that little bit, and I was like, "Oh, wow." And I saw it in a way that I can never unsee ever again.

Trevor Noah 1:50:34 Yeah. Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:50:35 And it's, it's the way that it actually is. And I think, you know, and this is my personal kind of a, a opinion or a theory on this, but it, w- like we've talked about, the brain constructs everything that we see. It constructs our entire experience.

Trevor Noah 1:50:48 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:50:48 And so these mind-altering drugs, they const- they, they kind of g- g- allow you to see those different, like what you were saying, in the video, in, in the-

Trevor Noah 1:50:57 Yeah. Different-

Emily McDonald 1:50:57 ... the replay

Trevor Noah 1:50:57 ... d- different replays.

Emily McDonald 1:50:58 They allow you to see the different replays-

Trevor Noah 1:51:00 Angles

Emily McDonald 1:51:00 ... from all these different angles, right? And have this all of a sudden brand-new perception on life, and you don't come out of that, like, you don't come out of that the same. You come out of that viewing the world completely different.

Trevor Noah 1:51:11 You know what, though? Yeah. I've always ... You know what's funny? I've always thought ... Yeah ... Sorry. I was, I was gonna- No, no. Go ahead. I've always thought that's why alcohol is legal and, like, a- all these psychedelics have always been pushed to the fringes of illegality. Of course. Mm-hmm. Because alcohol, from what I've experienced and what I've seen, is something that sort of, like, dulls your senses in that way. Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:51:32 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:51:32 And it-

Emily McDonald 1:51:32 It's a depressant

Trevor Noah 1:51:33 ... Yeah. And it's, it's a perfect tool to keep people living in a system that has you suppressed and oppressed in a certain way.

Emily McDonald 1:51:40 Mm-hmm.

Trevor Noah 1:51:40 And then psychedelics, I don't know if you ever read ... This thing really blew my mind, was, um, in and around, like, the whole free love movement and, you know, Vietnam and that whole time. One of the biggest things that scared the US government at that t- I think it was Nixon. I stand to be corrected. I'm always bad with the presidents, but I think it was his administration. One of the things they, they talked about internally was they said these drugs are undermining the very f- the very principle that America's built on, and that is people aiming upwards to be like manager, manager's manager-

Emily McDonald 1:52:13 Mm

Trevor Noah 1:52:13 ... district manager m- Because people were just like, "No. Do you need a ride? Jump in." Let's go there. "Do you need some food? Come on. Let's go." Mm. "Hey, come hang out with us." People just walking around, like free love movement. Hippies. Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:52:23 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:52:23 But, but it now became, they're like, "We need to shut this down- Yeah ... because it goes against the structure that we're building, which is get as much as you can from as many people as you can, and just fight to stay there in your own little world. We, we can't allow that." But alcohol- Mm ... ironically does the opposite. If you go to a job that you hate and you hate your world and you hate your thing, you have alcohol.

Emily McDonald 1:52:43 Makes you feel better about it.

Trevor Noah 1:52:44 It makes you forget about it even more than that.

Emily McDonald 1:52:46 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:52:47 Yeah. It numbs you. And it just, it just numbs you.

Emily McDonald 1:52:48 Makes you feel less about it.

Trevor Noah 1:52:49 Yeah. Yeah. It makes you feel less about it, and then you go do it again, and then you go do it again, and then you go do it again. But if you took psilocybin or if your manager took psilocybin or what, there's a good chance they might just be like, "Hey, man, I don't know. Take Friday off."

Emily McDonald 1:53:01 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:53:01 "Who, who cares about Fri- did you do the work? Did you-" But I'm a trial lawyer. [laughs]

Emily McDonald 1:53:06 [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:53:06 But that's what the judge. Imagine the judge.

Emily McDonald 1:53:07 Or he might just be like, "Hey, you know, who even needs this defense? Like, I'm, like..." [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:53:12 The judge.

Emily McDonald 1:53:13 Yeah.

Trevor Noah 1:53:13 Yeah. A person might be like, "Actually, aren't we already in prison? I'll go in. It's fine." You know- Like, but, and I, I say this- ... this is so accurate. Yes, you're right ... partially joking. No, no, no. You're absolutely right.

Emily McDonald 1:53:20 No, but it, but it's not-

Trevor Noah 1:53:21 It makes sense

Emily McDonald 1:53:21 ... i- it's joking-

Trevor Noah 1:53:22 This is exactly what it is

Emily McDonald 1:53:22 ... but at the same time.

Trevor Noah 1:53:23 Yes.

Emily McDonald 1:53:23 Yeah. I mean, I've had experiences where I'm like, "You know, maybe I should just live in this, you know, national forest that I'm in right now."

Trevor Noah 1:53:30 Yeah, exactly.

Emily McDonald 1:53:30 "This would be awesome."

Trevor Noah 1:53:30 Exactly.

Emily McDonald 1:53:30 "And never talk to anybody and not have a phone. Like, that would be great."

Trevor Noah 1:53:34 Yeah.

Emily McDonald 1:53:34 And it really has you wanting that.

Trevor Noah 1:53:36 That's what, that's what I mean about, like- That ideal life, like, yeah ... the, the further, the further we get- Oh, yeah ... and disconnect. Em, we could talk to you forever, and I mean, that's why you wrote a book. That's why you have your podcast. That's why you have all these things. If, if you were to leave us with o- I mean, you've left us with so much there, but if you were to leave us with, like, one, just, like, one idea or one concept in terms of starting. You know, people talk about journaling. People talk about meditation. People talk about cha- people ... But what would you say was just, like, just the, the first catalyst that you would say to somebody, "Hey, just, just do this and do it repeatedly, and it might not change everything, but I think that this is, like, the, the first step that you might want to take to just start changing how you see the world and yourself in

Trevor Noah 1:54:18 it"?

Emily McDonald 1:54:18 Yeah. I would say the first step, and we touched on this a little, is starting with your internal sort of conversation, and, like, how you think about yourself and about the world, and just kind of rewiring that. That's where I started. Um, w- I would get up every single morning and I would go on a walk, and I would listen to affirmations on YouTube. I actually still have that playlist of affirmations on YouTube completely available to everybody, so if you wanna go and listen to it, uh, go for it. But I ... Start rewiring the way that you think And that will change everything. Like, when you change the way you think, we talked about you change the way you look at things, the, the wa- the things that you look at change.

Trevor Noah 1:54:59 Mm.

Emily McDonald 1:54:59 And the first step in changing the way that you see the world is changing the way that you see yourself.

Trevor Noah 1:55:05 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:55:05 And changing the way that, and we talked about this with relationships too, like e- everything changes when you change how you treat yourself, and you will no longer settle for anything less than you deserve, and you'll believe in yourself, which is extremely powerful. So I would say that really is the first step, is working on your own self-concept and how you talk to yourself, and that's the best place to start. Because even the, e- even if your external reality doesn't change, which I think it will, your internal reality-

Trevor Noah 1:55:30 Mm

Emily McDonald 1:55:30 ... definitely will.

Trevor Noah 1:55:31 Mm-hmm.

Emily McDonald 1:55:32 And you'll start to feel better. And at the end of the day, what's the point of doing any of this work, of rewiring your brain, if you don't feel better? Like, that's-

Trevor Noah 1:55:39 Mm-hmm

Emily McDonald 1:55:39 ... that's the point-

Trevor Noah 1:55:40 That's the whole point

Emily McDonald 1:55:40 ... of all, that's the whole point, is to feel better. Like, we get so caught up in manifesting this or manifesting that or this achievement, but life, the majority of our life is the time between the achievements. It's the emo- the, the, the journey. It's the m- if it was about the destination, it'd be called death. It's about the moments between the achievements.

Trevor Noah 1:55:58 Mm.

Emily McDonald 1:55:58 And so how can we make those moments more enjoyable? And it really just comes down to how you treat yourself, how you talk to yourself. That'll change every- it does change everything when you change the way that you talk to yourself and treat yourself. So I would start there.

Trevor Noah 1:56:12 [instrumental music] You've changed everything. Thank you for joining us.

Emily McDonald 1:56:15 Thank you guys for having me.

Trevor Noah 1:56:16 Genuinely amazing.

Emily McDonald 1:56:17 This has been great.

Trevor Noah 1:56:17 Did I not tell you this would be one of your favorites? Did I... I wrote that down in your journal, buddy.

Emily McDonald 1:56:22 Are we gonna be friends now, Eugene? [laughs]

Trevor Noah 1:56:26 [laughs]

Eugene 1:56:27 Yes, we are. Yes, we are.

Trevor Noah 1:56:27 No, Em, for real, thank you so much. You're amazing.

Eugene 1:56:29 Em, you're amazing. Thank you for your generosity.

Emily McDonald 1:56:30 Yeah, thank you guys for having me. This has been awesome.

Trevor Noah 1:56:32 This has been great. Thanks, y'all.

Eugene 1:56:34 You never lie, do you?

Trevor Noah 1:56:36 [upbeat music] Thank you so much for watching the episode. If you enjoyed it, pass it on to a friend. If you didn't enjoy it, pass it on to your friend still. Let them suffer for a change. And don't forget to engage with us in the comments. Uh, if you wanna, uh, suggest a guest, maybe there's questions you want, maybe there's ideas that you have, you can chat to us. We will read through the comments, and we'll get into it. Either way, I appreciate you taking the time. Thank you for hanging out with us on What Now? And remember, we do this for you, so we would like to hear from you. Till next time, thank you.