So let's see. Yeah, it's still saying it's full, but it hasn't deleted what I told it to delete, but I think it's okay. Alright. Hello and welcome to the show. I am very excited about my guest this week, Elliot Connie, who's coming to us from his new digs in LA but actually lives in Texas, so we'll have to hear more about that as we get into the show. So welcome. First of all, Elliot, welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me
My pleasure. I don't really want to just read this whole thing about you, but I want to just because that's boring for you and but I know there's so much about you.
You're a complicated guy. You have a lot going on. And so I will just briefly say that when I first met you through a friend, a new friend, he spoke very highly of you, and you range from being a clinically trained psychotherapist to an author, to a podcaster, to a founder of I think your your heart work, which is your sfbt solution focused brief therapy,
which I'll get you to explain in a minute. And then I find out that you're also a stand up comic So, and soon to be a TV show host, so I'm very excited to hear more about it, and I want to dig in. So let's start at the at the heart of of what you do, because I know you have a new book that's coming out or is about out as we as this show airs, it's probably going to be out at the end of August. Is that correct?
No, we're going to, we're probably going to start filming in early 2025 and it will be out, Oh,
next. Okay, fantastic. And the book is called,
oh, the book, yes. Oh, the
TV show's going to start in 2025 Yeah. The book, yes, August 26 so it will be out when, when this show airs, and it's called, change your questions, change your future,
exactly yes. So
before we get into that, let's talk about the sfbt, because I know that's at the heart of everything that you do, correct
Absolutely yes.
So tell us a little bit about that.
So sfbt stands for solution, focused brief therapy. And like many people, I had a very difficult childhood, and my transition into adulthood was just not easy, and was just loaded with very difficult times. And at some point so and I went to college, I wanted to play baseball. Actually, I had no aspirations professionally or career wise. It was just I was good at baseball, and once I was done with high school, the next place I could continue to play baseball was college.
Sound like my daughter with basketball? It was the same thing, yeah,
and baseball was like the one through line of like joy and happiness in an otherwise pretty tumultuous childhood. And while I was in college, I majored in marine biology because I liked the ocean. But through a few twists and turns, I realized like I wanted my struggle and my pain to have a purpose, and I wanted to make a difference, and I wanted to help people if I could, that were dealing with
hard times as well. So I changed my major from marine biology to psychology, wow, just because I figured, like that's where I would find journey. Didn't know I would ultimately become a psychotherapist and all the other things you listed, I just, I just thought, if I want to help people, I should probably study psychology. And I did, and it was one of those things that
completely like redirected my life. And I remember getting to the point of graduation and realizing that a psychology degree and undergraduate psychology degree is almost worthless, like it's nothing really you can do with it. And towards the end of my studies, one of my professors said this thing that I almost couldn't believe. They said that the school I was attending, Texas, Wesleyan University, is creating a graduate school in counseling, and we would like you to attend.
Oh, wow. And I was like, wow. Like, that is crazy. So yeah, sign me up so I go to graduate school and learn something unbelievably disheartening, and that is, and I don't mean to say this to freak anybody out, but when you're in graduate school studying to become a psychotherapist, you're actually not learning how to help people. You're learning how to diagnose
them, and you're you're learning how to assess them. You. And that was really difficult for me, because I really wanted to help people, and you don't help people just by telling them what's wrong with them, right? Like that may be a part of it, depending on the way you do this job, but that's not inherently how you do it. So I was really struggling, like, really, really struggling with that. And then, I don't know, I was at a point where I was going to quit school. I was at a point where
it's like, I'm done because I don't want to do this. And in one class, there was a book we were reading that had a whole bunch of psychotherapy theories. You know, there's some stuff in this book about Sigmund, Freud, Alfred Adler, Carl young, so on and so on. And two and a half pages of this book was about solution focused brief therapy. And it was the first time I'd ever read anything that sounded to me like, Oh, you're like,
actually helping people. And I was mesmerized by it. I later learned that it's kind of like the the like off in the corner, fringe, kind of way of doing therapy at the time, like most people weren't practicing this way, or most people didn't know what this was, but I was just enamored. Like the most important ingredient to change is hope, and solution focused brief therapy is an approach based on hope, and now I'm finally reading about that, and it made me decide not to quit
graduate school, to stay the course. I'm so glad I did, because it completely changed my life. And a little bit about what solution focused brief therapy is, if you've ever been to therapy, the first question your therapist likely asked you is, what brings you in. And the difficulty with that is, if I start a question off with what brings you in, then I'm
naturally orienting your brain to the problem. So let's say like what brings you in is you discovered your partner having an affair, and you walked in my office, I don't know you at all, and I say, So what brings you in? You have to talk about the most traumatic, difficult, hardest thing, like, immediately. So what if we started therapy with, what are
your best hopes from being here? Like, what if we started therapy with hoping to achieve now that you're here, we're still aware that the problem is there, but we're actually going to start the work from a place of optimism, hope, and those are the ways that you create change. And I've spent my career traveling around the world, writing books, doing all kinds of things to make clinicians and people more aware that this is actually how you create change in your life.
So have you had pushback from the traditionalists, or have you, have you opened people's eyes to a new way of of be doing therapy.
I think, I think the answer to that is yes, both have happened. I've had pushback from the traditionalists. I remember I was one of my first jobs in this field when I graduated and I got my license. And, you know, I was working as a psychotherapist at an agency. I eventually opened my own practice, but my first place of work was at this agency, and I
remember, and I was so excited about the work I was doing. And, you know, sometimes you're so excited, you're like, delusionally excited, yeah, assume everybody else will be just as excited as you right? And I was so excited. And I was in this staff meeting, and I was talking about the work that I do
with this, you know, sfbt. And there was this woman in the in the room who was a very seasoned psychotherapist, and she got really annoyed with me, and she said, everybody knows that you can't do therapy that way, and everybody knows that you you have to spend three sessions assessing the client problem. And I was and she was like, really, like, yelling at me in front of everybody about about this. And that's been, you know, that has happened. But you know, when you believe in what you do
and you believe in people, you just carry on. And I think I've also opened a lot of eyes. And now solution focused, brief therapy isn't just off in the corner of the psychotherapy field. It's very much mainstream, and part of that is because of the massive following that I've been able to build in my in my work. So yeah, there were definitely people that struggle to understand but once you experience it, you can't, you can't unexperience it. So,
so the other thing, the other question that comes to my mind when you just said that it was hope based. It's funny, because I have this, this thing about the word hope, and sometimes it and obviously not in your in your realm, but you. Maybe I don't know. Like, for me, hope can sometimes be a negative term. Like, you know you can hope for the best. You can hope that things will change. But is that, is hope
enough? Like, do you know what I'm getting at? Because sometimes I'll change people's wording on things and say No, don't say hope, say we will, or I want, like, speak in the in the positive. So can you talk to me about that?
Yeah, no, I don't think hope can ever be a negative, to be very honest. Yeah, well, that's
why I'm asking you, okay, yeah, but, but I,
I think your point is well made. I think sometimes I think wishing and hope. Sometimes get confused, but I can't create change without some level of hope. So I might be like, you know, I'm hoping for a million dollars, yeah. Well, now we have to turn that into action like so what are you doing to help that hope become true. And how would you
notice that that hope was becoming true? I think what you're saying is like, the word wish is like, I just wish $4 million which makes it kind of sound like I'm just going to sit here and wait for it. Yeah, yes, yes, this guy and land on my lap. But I don't think hope is, is ever a negative, because we need it like it if, if I I wouldn't have gotten out of bed today if I didn't have some hope that something good could possibly happen today. So that level of hope, which is that's
what got me out of bed. If I knew if you get out of bed today, there's a 100% certainty that's going to be the worst day of your life. I never would have gotten out of bed, right, right? So, like, hope is just a key ingredient that always needs to be there. Yeah,
okay, fair enough. Fair enough. And you talk about, in your work, you talk about everybody having a superpower, yeah? And I love that, and I saw a little interview you did on Monday morning, morning, Monday motivational Mondays or something on a television station, and she was pretty hyped up and motivating herself,
but she was asking you about that. And I liked it because do you find that the work that you do you're that you are trying to help the person find their superpower inside, that you know, that struggle that they're going through, yeah,
like we live in such a weird world where most people are unaware of their superpower. You're so busy comparing yourself to other people. True like that might not be your thing. Like I was watching the Olympics over the past couple weeks too, and I saw an Olympic gymnast named Simone Biles, and what she can do with her body, I know, is unbelievable to me. She she can just do things that are just now, if I compare myself to to that, and I'm like, I can't even
do flight of stairs. Yeah, and she's but that might, might not be my gift. That just happens to be her gift. But, like, I've written six books, maybe she's not a very good writer, and that's like. So what we end up doing is we spend so much of our time comparing ourselves to other people and their gifts,
and we end up feeling bad about us and our own gifts. And then the other thing that happens that I think is really dangerous is, if I were to say to you, like, let's say, you know, you and I are hanging out, Janice. And I said, Man, I just, I just realized I'm the greatest writer in the world. You're likely to say to me, all right, calm down, Mr. Arrogance. Like, like, tone it down a little and and I think, why not let people bask in their own confidence and in their own joy, and who cares if
I'm wrong? But what's wrong with me thinking I'm the greatest writer in the world that might create the motivation and the momentum I need to write the book or to write that blog, and
we talk about people, at least in the world that I'm in one of my businesses, that there's a lot of personal development stuff that goes on and, and they talk a lot about I am statements and and affirmations and things like that, and, and so to say it is to believe it and to say it, right? And so of course, yes, yeah. And
why not say I'm the best mom in the world? Or why not say I'm the best drawer in the world? Yeah, I mean, but we have a tendency. There was actually some research done several years ago that when people make a statement about their biggest goals and dreams, the people around. Around them say something discouraging about it, thinking that it's care. So it's hard for us to find where our areas of brilliance are, because people are so busy trying to have you not feel good about yourself. You
know, you just reminded me of something too that like my I have a little granddaughter who's five, and she is a bit of a daredevil, and believe she can do anything, yes, and to see that and to see how long that will last, right? Because we, we do. We tend to squeeze that out of them as they grow up. And I hope that doesn't happen. But yeah, she's I can do that, I can do that. I can do that right? And, like, just because she's five, you know?
And the world, like, if I if a five year old said, I want to grow up and become an astronaut, and I said, You can't do that. That's too hard. Yeah, I look like a jerk saying that to a five year old, yeah, but for some reason, if a 17 year old said it, and I said, You can't do that. You're that's too hard. I don't look like a jerk. And I think the goal should be whatever your five year old granddaughter is doing.
The goal should be to have her hold on to that feeling of not invincibility necessarily, but that feeling of like I can do anything to hold on to that right, as long as humanly possible, absolutely,
and it's just, and that's belief in yourself, right? And that's learning that that's what that is, is part of it too, right? So tell me a little bit about your new book. Change your questions, change your future. Because I think I love the title, and I think, yeah, I want to hear more. Well,
the work that I do solution focused brief therapy is based on questions. It's a psychotherapy that is based on the therapist asking the client questions that help them transform their life and how they live it. And for the last 20 years, I've been working with one of my colleagues, guy named Dr Adam froh, and so much amazing transformation has been happening in our work with our clients. We've been we've been talking for all these years about, like, how could we
somehow, like, bottle that and expose the world to it? Like, how could we some like, how could we do this? Because the truth is, the questions you ask yourself. Like, we all know that self talk is a really important aspect of someone's mental health, but within self talk, specifically, the kind of questions you ask yourself are highly determinate in what kind
of life you lead. So Adam and I have been talking for years about, like, how do we like do this in a way, so that people could enjoy it in their own time, like they don't necessarily have to go to therapy to experience that transformation. And that was really the idea for the book. And then eventually we got into a position where someone was
willing to publish it and and that's what this book does. Like it teaches you how to ask the kind of questions that lead towards a massive transformation in your life.
So when you said, if you don't necessarily have to go to therapy to you know, make this transformation happen, you would have to, I think, if you're troubled by something and you don't believe you can do something, and then you change the questions for yourself, you still would have a lot to overcome to to change the actual what's going on in there. Would you not?
Well, you, you would. And I'm not trying to discourage people out of there. No,
of course not. Because you're a therapist, I
get it, yeah, like, of course you have things to overcome, but you can read a book, watch a movie, yes, and it can or anything else, and be inspired to overcome whatever those obstacles are. Like therapy doesn't have to be the only way that you create change. This
is true. This is true. So with what's going on in your world right now, because I know that you have a TV show that's about to happen, that you're going to start filming and will be airing next year, early next year, how much time are you spending helping people through your mental through the therapist position?
People ask me that often, and they're always surprised by my answer, and that is, I still see clients every week. Wow, okay, because I love it, like, that's still, I mean, I've, I've
got the heart and soul of what you do. Yeah,
I travel and lecture, I write books and TV projects and all of these things, but that's still the heart and soul of not just what I do, but like, who I am as a person. So I still see clients one on one. I i sit down on zoom from whatever hotel I'm staying at or wherever I'm at, and it's still the foundation of my life.
Well, that's good to hear, because then you're still spreading the work and getting the helping as many people as you can. Yeah. So I find it also interesting when somebody who's come from a difficult upbringing, you. And had to be. You had to overcome to get to a to get to college, to have a degree, to become these things. Did you as a child, think, did you have aspirations like that? No, you
said, no. You wanted to be a baseball player. So, but even that, you know, you have to have the willpower and so on to overcome what you're going through at home. Yes, so how, how does that? You know, how do you do that?
Oh, boy, that's a really good question, and I'm not sure anybody's ever asked me it quite that way. I didn't realize I was doing it until after I did it. Okay, like, while it was happening, if I'm being very honest with you, I was just trying to get through each day, sure, like, I certainly was not aware of my strength or resilience or, you know, while it was happening. Was just, I was just like trying
to get through each day. I really wasn't great at thinking about what I'm going to do when I'm an adult, because I was so busy focusing on,
Were you busy trying to survive? Because I think I understand you don't have to get into it, but that your dad was the difficult one. But yeah, and so your mom kind of straddled, I'm guessing, between keeping the peace and looking after you. And you have siblings, I'm not sure, two siblings, yeah, and and then so, and it would have affected all of you differently, but, yeah, I don't know. I'm just curious, because it takes, yeah, I,
I was trying to survive, and emotionally more so than physical. I mean, there was some there were lots of physical things that were happening, but it was just an emotional challenge. But I can tell you, the moment I realized, like, oh my gosh, I think I might be stronger than the average person. And I don't mean that to put down anybody else, but there was a was a moment when I realized, in order for me to be
where I am, I have to have some level of strength. I had never really thought about that before, and it happened in my second year of college. I was really depressed, like really struggling, and I was comparing myself to all these other people and everybody else, their their parents would like, send them money. You know, back then there was no PayPal or cash app. You had to, like, you know, you had to, like, write your college
child a check and mail it. And my buddies would all go to the mailbox and open a letter, and they'd be like, Wow, my mom sent me 20 bucks. And yeah, and I just didn't have things like that in my life. And one day, it hit me that a lot of the people around me had significantly more advantages than I had, like, infinitely more advantages than I had, and I had, like every disadvantage you could possibly have, and somehow I ended up at
the same university, right that they did. I ended up taking the same classes that they were taking, living in the same dorm room that, or dorm building they were living in. And I just thought that must say something about me that's positive. Maybe my ability to endure, overcome, handle difficult things, maybe my ability to do these things has been honed through fire, and for the first time in my life, I was proud to come from the struggle that I came from, where I used to hide it. I used to I
didn't want anybody to know because I was ashamed. But that one thought in one instant, in one moment, like a light bulb, yeah, and it was like, I think, I think I can pat myself on the back for being strong, because if I wasn't strong, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be where I am.
Well, that was, do you see that as a turning point? Yeah, for sure, absolutely, yeah. So I wrote something down that that I heard you say in something I listened to and you said to you, I am an overcomer, yes, right? And you and then I wrote this quote down because I love this. Your rear view mirror is littered with examples of your epicness. We just have to remember to look, or you just have to remember to
look. I love that. That was so cool, because that was your place where you learned that you you've overcome all, all of this in your rear view mirror, everything that was there, but now you know you're strong enough to and resilient enough to to carry on and do what you want to do.
That's right. Like, once I believe that about myself, yes, then I, like, I can now take on the next challenge. Like, because I when you look in your past and everyone, everyone look, I. Sure that everyone who's listening. You all have mistakes in your past. There are things you're ashamed of, there are things you're embarrassed by. I'm sure all that's true, but there's also evidence of your greatness. There's also evidence of your brilliance. There's also a challenge you
overcome, a difficult thing you succeeded through. There's this a wonderful accomplishment that you have. And we have a tendency to take accomplishment for granted and take accountability for mistakes. In fact, adults even encourage this, but like, if you make a mistake, how many times have people said you need to own your mistakes? Well, yeah, that's true, but how many times do people say you need to own your greatness? Because
that's equally true. So when you accomplish something like you get an A in school, or you, you know, have a successful business, or lose 10 pounds, or whatever it is, remember to take credit for the thing you accomplished, right, and you will be much more able to handle whatever obstacles are thrown your way. I'm now convinced I can overcome anything thrown at me simply because I have a history of overcoming everything thrown at me.
I love that. That's so cool. Okay, Let's lighten things up. A little bit. I watched you do some stand up comedy. Yes, at the improv. Yeah, right. Tell me about that. So are you? Are you a closet comedian, or what,
a little bit, little bit more out than closeted. But what happened, my TV show was being executive produced by a woman named Tiffany Haddish. Oh, really. Okay, and we, we were working on on the show, and the development for, like, talk about
overcoming. Yeah, that woman is,
she is the poster child for overcoming totally. And we were, we were talking one day, and she said, you should try stand up. And I was like, Absolutely not. Like, No way. I'm not doing stand up. It's not something I ever desired to do whatever like me not writing the book, right? She said, but you're really funny. You should try. Stan said, no way. So a little time goes by and I was actually with her. She was doing stand up someplace, and she said, Will you introduce me? And
I said, Sure. And she said, you know, in order to introduce me, you have to do five minutes of comedy. And I said, well, then never mind. I'm not going to do it. Thank you, smart, yeah. And she was so disappointed in me that I wouldn't do it. I said to her, alright, Tiffany, I promise you the next time you ask me, I'll do it. And a few months later, she's like, Alright, I'm asking you now. I'm going on the road. I'm going to San Jose,
California. I want you to come with me and perform. I had never performed before, but I'm not foreign to taking stages and Exactly.
And I got that from the little bit that I saw too. You were very comfortable on stage. Yeah, yeah.
So I went, and it was so much fun, and I've now done it, you know, 50 times, maybe, like, I've done it lots. Oh, that's outrageous, um, but it was all because Tiffany, Tiffany has this amazing gift, like, I hope everyone and I hope people are experiencing the gift Tiffany has through this
podcast. Tiffany has this amazing gift that she can see a skill or talent that someone else has, and she becomes an advocate to that skill or talent, whether, if, like, if you are singing around Tiffany and she can hear you sing, she'll be like, You should do that. I want you to go write a song and sing it for me, see if I can play it for, like, some music producers that I know, like she's, she's
just that way. He wants to help people too, obviously,
yeah, and I, and I think, I think having friends like that, having people in your life like that, that's why I said a whole people experiences. I hope, through this podcast, someone becomes more aware of what their own talent and brilliance is, and they do something to pursue it, because I think that's what makes life so amazing. How did you meet
her? We so it's funny. The woman who discovered me, some woman and someone in LA saw my YouTube work that's literally just about psychotherapy, and they thought, Man, this guy would be really good on a TV show about psychotherapy. And that woman who is now my my manager, knows Tiffany Haddish from years ago, and they bumped into each other about, you know, six months into me having like, all of this happening, and heard about the work I was doing, and said, I want to be a part of his TV
show. So, and then when I met Tiffany, we just, we just clicked. We just instantly clicked,
well, and there are no accidents. No, I don't know. So no, I don't either. So that's, that's very special. Thank you for sharing that and and the joke that I heard you tell was funny, too. Thank you. Do you remember? You know what I'm thinking of.
No, okay, so
you were 11 years old, and you'd moved to a new school, and it was the first white family you'd ever met, and Eric, your friend, your new friend, took you home, right? Yeah. It was a funny story that people have to go find it. I'll have to put it on, yeah. But it was, it was funny, and it was, it was, um, well told as well. So well that that poses another question for me, because now that you've done this several times, where do you get your material? Do you actually write your material? Do
you, yeah, actually do that? And I tell stuff, like real stuff for my for my life, like that situation with my friend was real. That's real stuff for my life. That's
the best stuff. When it's real, it's the best. Well, okay, this has been so much fun. So we were serious. We had a little fun. I'm just going to wrap it up with a couple of quick questions that I just like to find out, because I am curious. And my my most Well, my favorite question to ask is, and it'd be interesting asking you actually, because my favorite word is curiosity, and I want to know if you think curiosity is
innate or learned. And second part of the question is, what are you most curious about these days?
I do think curiosity is innate. One of the first things we have as newborn children is curiosity, and that's how we discover the world around us. I think as adults, we have to develop what I call empathic curiosity, and because curiosity is if I said to you, Janice, where'd you get that shirt? I'm asking selfishly because I want to know where you got that shirt, because I might want to go get that shirt too,
right? Empathic curiosity is like, it's not so much. I'm asking because I want the information for my own needs. I'm asking because I want you to hear the answer to the that you're going to give to the question, because I think the answer will make you feel better.
I do that. I
love that. Yes. So a question that might do that might be Janice. How did you know you would look so nice in that shirt? Because the as you answer that question, you're kind of giving yourself a compliment, and being able to ask people questions, not just because you want to know the answer, but you want them to hear themselves give the answer. That's another level of curiosity that I think the
best answer I've ever gotten that's so good, yeah, I
so I call it empathic curiosity. Empathic curiosity.
I love it. Okay? And what are you most curious about today?
Um, wow, that's a good question. I'm most curious about blessings. I'm I'm so interested to see what the next blessing will be, where it will come from, what shape it will take. And just, I'm really excited, also curious about whatever it is around the corner. I
love it. That's amazing. And you know what? There are great things coming for you. Still around the corner, I can tell I just yeah, there's lots going on for you. So where can people find you?
You can find me on my website, at Elliot connie.com make sure you spell my name with 2l and two T's, Elliot connie.com or you can find me on all of the social media platforms at Elliot speaks, Instagram, Facebook, X threads.
I'll put all that in the show notes. So that's Yeah, okay. Well, I this has been amazing, and I appreciate your time, and I appreciate you and your wisdom for everything that you've shared with us. And I wish you well with your new book. I wish you well with your new TV show, and I'll be a fan and checking it out if I'm able to see it, because I'm in Canada, so who knows, right? But we'll, we'll stay in touch and
make sure that that happens. So thank you again, and thank you to my audience, and all that information will be in the show notes, so you can follow Elliot and watch him his next blessing.
Thank you so much for having me. You.