Trevor Noah Redefines Success
By this point you likely already know that after 7 years, Trevor Noah has decided to leave The Daily Show on Comedy Central.
If I’m being honest, when Trevor first accepted the role in 2015, I thought to myself “this guy is going to fail.” Afterall, he was replacing the one and only Jon Stewart! As host of The Daily Show for 16 years, Jon was incredibly bright, quick-witted, funny, supremely likeable, and a fantastic interviewer. Let’s be honest, Jon was The Daily Show. It really didn’t matter who Comedy Central selected as the next host – the next host was destined for failure. The fact that Trevor Noah was largely an unknown entity, made it that much more difficult to believe in.
And I won’t lie, when Trevor Noah first stepped in to his new role, I didn’t really like his hosting style. But every few weeks, I would tune back in to the show and to see how he was adapting. And I must admit, after a few months, the man had found his groove. He won over his harshest critics and somehow made The Daily Show his own. He’s interviewed some of the biggest names on the planet, covered some of the most difficult historical events in recent history, and did it all with a great sense of humor.
Now, I think it’s safe to say that Trevor has become The Daily Show. His time on The Daily Show made him a bonafide superstar with endless possibilities ahead of him. But why did he decide to leave now?
Is Work Life Balance Wrong?
In his interview on the Today Show, Trevor shared some of the reasoning behind his decision to leave the Daily Show – and his reasoning sounds almost as if he has read Redefining Success!
Trevor shared “Well, it's not that I wanted to leave the show. It's that I needed to find a way to make time for everything else that's happening in life.”
He continued, “I realized during the pandemic, everyone talks about a work life balance. But that almost creates the idea that your work and your life are two separate things. When in fact, I came to realize during the pandemic, it's just ‘life life’. You're living your life right now. I'm living my life right now. Your life doesn't stop because you're working or not working. If you want to make more time for family, if you want to make more time for friends… time is the one thing we cannot increase, so it was like ‘okay make more time. Find a way to create that time.’”
So, what does that mean for Trevor in the future? Well, from his interview it sounds like he wants to make more time for family, friends, his stand-up career, and travel. Crazy to think that stand-up comedy was his side hustle during his stint on The Daily Show.
Just like in the Life Plan framework that is outlined in Chapter 12 of my book, Trevor has realized that his version of success contains a lot of things – not just his career. And so, he needed to find a way to make the time for the more holistic version of success that he sees for himself. But ultimately, he has taken the time to define what he wants his legacy to be. An important first step to start the Life Plan exercise.
He shared “I think that's what I'm trying to do in life, is try and connect with my humanity. I'm a human being, [we’re all] human beings. We're all experiencing something. We're all going through something. We're all trying to figure out who we are and how we relate to the world. And so funny enough, that's what I'm consciously trying to think of when I engage in the news or engage in my comedy when I travel the world. It's always in the top of my mind.”
Reflection Exercise:
What do you want your legacy to be in life?
How does your current lifestyle align with your priorities?
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