Change Your Questions, Change Your Future | RR278

Janice Porter: 00:00:00

So let's see. Yeah, it's still saying it's

Janice Porter: 00:00:02

full, but it hasn't deleted what I told it to delete, but I think

Janice Porter: 00:00:06

it's okay. Alright. Hello and welcome to the show. I am very

Janice Porter: 00:00:12

excited about my guest this week, Elliot Connie, who's

Janice Porter: 00:00:16

coming to us from his new digs in LA but actually lives in

Janice Porter: 00:00:21

Texas, so we'll have to hear more about that as we get into

Janice Porter: 00:00:25

the show. So welcome. First of all, Elliot, welcome to the

Janice Porter: 00:00:28

show.

Elliot Connie: 00:00:29

Thank you for having me

Janice Porter: 00:00:30

My pleasure. I don't really want to just read

Janice Porter: 00:00:33

this whole thing about you, but I want to just because that's

Janice Porter: 00:00:36

boring for you and but I know there's so much about you.

Janice Porter: 00:00:40

You're a complicated guy. You have a lot going on. And so I

Janice Porter: 00:00:44

will just briefly say that when I first met you through a

Janice Porter: 00:00:48

friend, a new friend, he spoke very highly of you, and you

Janice Porter: 00:00:54

range from being a clinically trained psychotherapist to an

Janice Porter: 00:01:00

author, to a podcaster, to a founder of I think your your

Janice Porter: 00:01:05

heart work, which is your sfbt solution focused brief therapy,

Janice Porter: 00:01:10

which I'll get you to explain in a minute. And then I find out

Janice Porter: 00:01:14

that you're also a stand up comic So, and soon to be a TV

Janice Porter: 00:01:19

show host, so I'm very excited to hear more about it, and I

Janice Porter: 00:01:23

want to dig in. So let's start at the at the heart of of what

Janice Porter: 00:01:28

you do, because I know you have a new book that's coming out or

Janice Porter: 00:01:32

is about out as we as this show airs, it's probably going to be

Janice Porter: 00:01:36

out at the end of August. Is that correct?

Elliot Connie: 00:01:39

No, we're going to, we're probably going to

Elliot Connie: 00:01:41

start filming in early 2025 and it will be out, Oh,

Janice Porter: 00:01:45

next. Okay, fantastic. And the book is

Janice Porter: 00:01:48

called,

Elliot Connie: 00:01:49

oh, the book, yes. Oh, the

Janice Porter: 00:01:51

TV show's going to start in 2025 Yeah. The book,

Janice Porter: 00:01:55

yes, August 26 so it will be out when, when this show airs, and

Janice Porter: 00:02:01

it's called, change your questions, change your future,

Elliot Connie: 00:02:05

exactly yes. So

Janice Porter: 00:02:06

before we get into that, let's talk about the

Janice Porter: 00:02:10

sfbt, because I know that's at the heart of everything that you

Janice Porter: 00:02:14

do, correct

Elliot Connie: 00:02:15

Absolutely yes.

Janice Porter: 00:02:16

So tell us a little bit about that.

Elliot Connie: 00:02:18

So sfbt stands for solution, focused brief

Elliot Connie: 00:02:21

therapy. And like many people, I had a very difficult childhood,

Elliot Connie: 00:02:27

and my transition into adulthood was just not easy, and was just

Elliot Connie: 00:02:34

loaded with very difficult times. And at some point so and

Elliot Connie: 00:02:39

I went to college, I wanted to play baseball. Actually, I had

Elliot Connie: 00:02:42

no aspirations professionally or career wise. It was just I was

Elliot Connie: 00:02:46

good at baseball, and once I was done with high school, the next

Elliot Connie: 00:02:49

place I could continue to play baseball was college.

Janice Porter: 00:02:52

Sound like my daughter with basketball? It was

Janice Porter: 00:02:54

the same thing, yeah,

Elliot Connie: 00:02:55

and baseball was like the one through line of

Elliot Connie: 00:02:59

like joy and happiness in an otherwise pretty tumultuous

Elliot Connie: 00:03:04

childhood. And while I was in college, I majored in marine

Elliot Connie: 00:03:09

biology because I liked the ocean. But through a few twists

Elliot Connie: 00:03:14

and turns, I realized like I wanted my struggle and my pain

Elliot Connie: 00:03:19

to have a purpose, and I wanted to make a difference, and I

Elliot Connie: 00:03:23

wanted to help people if I could, that were dealing with

Elliot Connie: 00:03:27

hard times as well. So I changed my major from marine biology to

Elliot Connie: 00:03:32

psychology, wow, just because I figured, like that's where I

Elliot Connie: 00:03:36

would find journey. Didn't know I would ultimately become a

Elliot Connie: 00:03:41

psychotherapist and all the other things you listed, I just,

Elliot Connie: 00:03:44

I just thought, if I want to help people, I should probably

Elliot Connie: 00:03:46

study psychology. And I did, and it was one of those things that

Elliot Connie: 00:03:52

completely like redirected my life. And I remember getting to

Elliot Connie: 00:04:02

the point of graduation and realizing that a psychology

Elliot Connie: 00:04:05

degree and undergraduate psychology degree is almost

Elliot Connie: 00:04:07

worthless, like it's nothing really you can do with it. And

Elliot Connie: 00:04:10

towards the end of my studies, one of my professors said this

Elliot Connie: 00:04:14

thing that I almost couldn't believe. They said that the

Elliot Connie: 00:04:17

school I was attending, Texas, Wesleyan University, is creating

Elliot Connie: 00:04:23

a graduate school in counseling, and we would like you to attend.

Elliot Connie: 00:04:28

Oh, wow. And I was like, wow. Like, that is crazy. So yeah,

Elliot Connie: 00:04:32

sign me up so I go to graduate school and learn something

Elliot Connie: 00:04:37

unbelievably disheartening, and that is, and I don't mean to say

Elliot Connie: 00:04:42

this to freak anybody out, but when you're in graduate school

Elliot Connie: 00:04:46

studying to become a psychotherapist, you're actually

Elliot Connie: 00:04:49

not learning how to help people. You're learning how to diagnose

Elliot Connie: 00:04:53

them, and you're you're learning how to assess them. You. And

Elliot Connie: 00:05:00

that was really difficult for me, because I really wanted to

Elliot Connie: 00:05:04

help people, and you don't help people just by telling them

Elliot Connie: 00:05:08

what's wrong with them, right? Like that may be a part of it,

Elliot Connie: 00:05:12

depending on the way you do this job, but that's not inherently

Elliot Connie: 00:05:15

how you do it. So I was really struggling, like, really, really

Elliot Connie: 00:05:19

struggling with that. And then, I don't know, I was at a point

Elliot Connie: 00:05:25

where I was going to quit school. I was at a point where

Elliot Connie: 00:05:28

it's like, I'm done because I don't want to do this. And in

Elliot Connie: 00:05:32

one class, there was a book we were reading that had a whole

Elliot Connie: 00:05:36

bunch of psychotherapy theories. You know, there's some stuff in

Elliot Connie: 00:05:40

this book about Sigmund, Freud, Alfred Adler, Carl young, so on

Elliot Connie: 00:05:43

and so on. And two and a half pages of this book was about

Elliot Connie: 00:05:48

solution focused brief therapy. And it was the first time I'd

Elliot Connie: 00:05:51

ever read anything that sounded to me like, Oh, you're like,

Elliot Connie: 00:05:56

actually helping people. And I was mesmerized by it. I later

Elliot Connie: 00:06:03

learned that it's kind of like the the like off in the corner,

Elliot Connie: 00:06:09

fringe, kind of way of doing therapy at the time, like most

Elliot Connie: 00:06:12

people weren't practicing this way, or most people didn't know

Elliot Connie: 00:06:15

what this was, but I was just enamored. Like the most

Elliot Connie: 00:06:19

important ingredient to change is hope, and solution focused

Elliot Connie: 00:06:23

brief therapy is an approach based on hope, and now I'm

Elliot Connie: 00:06:25

finally reading about that, and it made me decide not to quit

Elliot Connie: 00:06:30

graduate school, to stay the course. I'm so glad I did,

Elliot Connie: 00:06:35

because it completely changed my life. And a little bit about

Elliot Connie: 00:06:38

what solution focused brief therapy is, if you've ever been

Elliot Connie: 00:06:41

to therapy, the first question your therapist likely asked you

Elliot Connie: 00:06:45

is, what brings you in. And the difficulty with that is, if I

Elliot Connie: 00:06:49

start a question off with what brings you in, then I'm

Elliot Connie: 00:06:53

naturally orienting your brain to the problem. So let's say

Elliot Connie: 00:06:58

like what brings you in is you discovered your partner having

Elliot Connie: 00:07:02

an affair, and you walked in my office, I don't know you at all,

Elliot Connie: 00:07:05

and I say, So what brings you in? You have to talk about the

Elliot Connie: 00:07:09

most traumatic, difficult, hardest thing, like,

Elliot Connie: 00:07:14

immediately. So what if we started therapy with, what are

Elliot Connie: 00:07:18

your best hopes from being here? Like, what if we started therapy

Elliot Connie: 00:07:21

with hoping to achieve now that you're here, we're still aware

Elliot Connie: 00:07:27

that the problem is there, but we're actually going to start

Elliot Connie: 00:07:31

the work from a place of optimism, hope, and those are

Elliot Connie: 00:07:36

the ways that you create change. And I've spent my career

Elliot Connie: 00:07:40

traveling around the world, writing books, doing all kinds

Elliot Connie: 00:07:43

of things to make clinicians and people more aware that this is

Elliot Connie: 00:07:49

actually how you create change in your life.

Janice Porter: 00:07:51

So have you had pushback from the

Janice Porter: 00:07:56

traditionalists, or have you, have you opened people's eyes to

Janice Porter: 00:08:00

a new way of of be doing therapy.

Elliot Connie: 00:08:05

I think, I think the answer to that is yes, both

Elliot Connie: 00:08:07

have happened. I've had pushback from the traditionalists. I

Elliot Connie: 00:08:12

remember I was one of my first jobs in this field when I

Elliot Connie: 00:08:15

graduated and I got my license. And, you know, I was working as

Elliot Connie: 00:08:18

a psychotherapist at an agency. I eventually opened my own

Elliot Connie: 00:08:21

practice, but my first place of work was at this agency, and I

Elliot Connie: 00:08:25

remember, and I was so excited about the work I was doing. And,

Elliot Connie: 00:08:28

you know, sometimes you're so excited, you're like,

Elliot Connie: 00:08:30

delusionally excited, yeah, assume everybody else will be

Elliot Connie: 00:08:34

just as excited as you right? And I was so excited. And I was

Elliot Connie: 00:08:38

in this staff meeting, and I was talking about the work that I do

Elliot Connie: 00:08:41

with this, you know, sfbt. And there was this woman in the in

Elliot Connie: 00:08:44

the room who was a very seasoned psychotherapist, and she got

Elliot Connie: 00:08:49

really annoyed with me, and she said, everybody knows that you

Elliot Connie: 00:08:52

can't do therapy that way, and everybody knows that you you

Elliot Connie: 00:08:56

have to spend three sessions assessing the client problem.

Elliot Connie: 00:09:00

And I was and she was like, really, like, yelling at me in

Elliot Connie: 00:09:03

front of everybody about about this. And that's been, you know,

Elliot Connie: 00:09:07

that has happened. But you know, when you believe in what you do

Elliot Connie: 00:09:11

and you believe in people, you just carry on. And I think I've

Elliot Connie: 00:09:14

also opened a lot of eyes. And now solution focused, brief

Elliot Connie: 00:09:17

therapy isn't just off in the corner of the psychotherapy

Elliot Connie: 00:09:20

field. It's very much mainstream, and part of that is

Elliot Connie: 00:09:22

because of the massive following that I've been able to build in

Elliot Connie: 00:09:25

my in my work. So yeah, there were definitely people that

Elliot Connie: 00:09:28

struggle to understand but once you experience it, you can't,

Elliot Connie: 00:09:33

you can't unexperience it. So,

Janice Porter: 00:09:38

so the other thing, the other question that

Janice Porter: 00:09:40

comes to my mind when you just said that it was hope based.

Janice Porter: 00:09:45

It's funny, because I have this, this thing about the word hope,

Janice Porter: 00:09:49

and sometimes it and obviously not in your in your realm, but

Janice Porter: 00:09:59

you. Maybe I don't know. Like, for me, hope can sometimes be a

Janice Porter: 00:10:03

negative term. Like, you know you can hope for the best. You

Janice Porter: 00:10:08

can hope that things will change. But is that, is hope

Janice Porter: 00:10:17

enough? Like, do you know what I'm getting at? Because

Janice Porter: 00:10:20

sometimes I'll change people's wording on things and say No,

Janice Porter: 00:10:24

don't say hope, say we will, or I want, like, speak in the in

Janice Porter: 00:10:29

the positive. So can you talk to me about that?

Elliot Connie: 00:10:32

Yeah, no, I don't think hope can ever be a

Elliot Connie: 00:10:34

negative, to be very honest. Yeah, well, that's

Janice Porter: 00:10:36

why I'm asking you, okay, yeah, but, but I,

Elliot Connie: 00:10:38

I think your point is well made. I think

Elliot Connie: 00:10:40

sometimes I think wishing and hope. Sometimes get confused,

Elliot Connie: 00:10:48

but I can't create change without some level of hope. So I

Elliot Connie: 00:10:52

might be like, you know, I'm hoping for a million dollars,

Elliot Connie: 00:10:55

yeah. Well, now we have to turn that into action like so what

Elliot Connie: 00:10:59

are you doing to help that hope become true. And how would you

Elliot Connie: 00:11:02

notice that that hope was becoming true? I think what

Elliot Connie: 00:11:04

you're saying is like, the word wish is like, I just wish $4

Elliot Connie: 00:11:08

million which makes it kind of sound like I'm just going to sit

Elliot Connie: 00:11:11

here and wait for it. Yeah, yes, yes, this guy and land on my

Elliot Connie: 00:11:14

lap. But I don't think hope is, is ever a negative, because we

Elliot Connie: 00:11:18

need it like it if, if I I wouldn't have gotten out of bed

Elliot Connie: 00:11:24

today if I didn't have some hope that something good could

Elliot Connie: 00:11:27

possibly happen today. So that level of hope, which is that's

Elliot Connie: 00:11:33

what got me out of bed. If I knew if you get out of bed

Elliot Connie: 00:11:37

today, there's a 100% certainty that's going to be the worst day

Elliot Connie: 00:11:40

of your life. I never would have gotten out of bed, right, right?

Elliot Connie: 00:11:43

So, like, hope is just a key ingredient that always needs to

Elliot Connie: 00:11:46

be there. Yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:11:47

okay, fair enough. Fair enough. And you

Janice Porter: 00:11:50

talk about, in your work, you talk about everybody having a

Janice Porter: 00:11:56

superpower, yeah? And I love that, and I saw a little

Janice Porter: 00:12:00

interview you did on Monday morning, morning, Monday

Janice Porter: 00:12:05

motivational Mondays or something on a television

Janice Porter: 00:12:07

station, and she was pretty hyped up and motivating herself,

Janice Porter: 00:12:11

but she was asking you about that. And I liked it because do

Janice Porter: 00:12:17

you find that the work that you do you're that you are trying to

Janice Porter: 00:12:21

help the person find their superpower inside, that you

Janice Porter: 00:12:27

know, that struggle that they're going through, yeah,

Elliot Connie: 00:12:30

like we live in such a weird world where most

Elliot Connie: 00:12:34

people are unaware of their superpower. You're so busy

Elliot Connie: 00:12:38

comparing yourself to other people. True like that might not

Elliot Connie: 00:12:42

be your thing. Like I was watching the Olympics over the

Elliot Connie: 00:12:44

past couple weeks too, and I saw an Olympic gymnast named Simone

Elliot Connie: 00:12:50

Biles, and what she can do with her body, I know, is

Elliot Connie: 00:12:56

unbelievable to me. She she can just do things that are just

Elliot Connie: 00:13:03

now, if I compare myself to to that, and I'm like, I can't even

Elliot Connie: 00:13:06

do flight of stairs. Yeah, and she's but that might, might not

Elliot Connie: 00:13:13

be my gift. That just happens to be her gift. But, like, I've

Elliot Connie: 00:13:18

written six books, maybe she's not a very good writer, and

Elliot Connie: 00:13:21

that's like. So what we end up doing is we spend so much of our

Elliot Connie: 00:13:24

time comparing ourselves to other people and their gifts,

Elliot Connie: 00:13:28

and we end up feeling bad about us and our own gifts. And then

Elliot Connie: 00:13:32

the other thing that happens that I think is really dangerous

Elliot Connie: 00:13:38

is, if I were to say to you, like, let's say, you know, you

Elliot Connie: 00:13:42

and I are hanging out, Janice. And I said, Man, I just, I just

Elliot Connie: 00:13:46

realized I'm the greatest writer in the world. You're likely to

Elliot Connie: 00:13:53

say to me, all right, calm down, Mr. Arrogance. Like, like, tone

Elliot Connie: 00:13:58

it down a little and and I think, why not let people bask

Elliot Connie: 00:14:03

in their own confidence and in their own joy, and who cares if

Elliot Connie: 00:14:06

I'm wrong? But what's wrong with me thinking I'm the greatest

Elliot Connie: 00:14:10

writer in the world that might create the motivation and the

Elliot Connie: 00:14:13

momentum I need to write the book or to write that blog, and

Janice Porter: 00:14:17

we talk about people, at least in the world

Janice Porter: 00:14:21

that I'm in one of my businesses, that there's a lot

Janice Porter: 00:14:25

of personal development stuff that goes on and, and they talk

Janice Porter: 00:14:29

a lot about I am statements and and affirmations and things like

Janice Porter: 00:14:34

that, and, and so to say it is to believe it and to say it,

Janice Porter: 00:14:38

right? And so of course, yes, yeah. And

Elliot Connie: 00:14:41

why not say I'm the best mom in the world? Or

Elliot Connie: 00:14:44

why not say I'm the best drawer in the world? Yeah, I mean, but

Elliot Connie: 00:14:50

we have a tendency. There was actually some research done

Elliot Connie: 00:14:53

several years ago that when people make a statement about

Elliot Connie: 00:14:56

their biggest goals and dreams, the people around. Around them

Elliot Connie: 00:15:00

say something discouraging about it, thinking that it's care. So

Elliot Connie: 00:15:05

it's hard for us to find where our areas of brilliance are,

Elliot Connie: 00:15:08

because people are so busy trying to have you not feel good

Elliot Connie: 00:15:12

about yourself. You

Janice Porter: 00:15:13

know, you just reminded me of something too

Janice Porter: 00:15:15

that like my I have a little granddaughter who's five, and

Janice Porter: 00:15:18

she is a bit of a daredevil, and believe she can do anything,

Janice Porter: 00:15:23

yes, and to see that and to see how long that will last, right?

Janice Porter: 00:15:28

Because we, we do. We tend to squeeze that out of them as they

Janice Porter: 00:15:34

grow up. And I hope that doesn't happen. But yeah, she's I can do

Janice Porter: 00:15:38

that, I can do that. I can do that right? And, like, just

Janice Porter: 00:15:41

because she's five, you know?

Elliot Connie: 00:15:44

And the world, like, if I if a five year old

Elliot Connie: 00:15:48

said, I want to grow up and become an astronaut, and I said,

Elliot Connie: 00:15:52

You can't do that. That's too hard. Yeah, I look like a jerk

Elliot Connie: 00:15:56

saying that to a five year old, yeah, but for some reason, if a

Elliot Connie: 00:16:00

17 year old said it, and I said, You can't do that. You're that's

Elliot Connie: 00:16:03

too hard. I don't look like a jerk. And I think the goal

Elliot Connie: 00:16:07

should be whatever your five year old granddaughter is doing.

Elliot Connie: 00:16:11

The goal should be to have her hold on to that feeling of not

Elliot Connie: 00:16:16

invincibility necessarily, but that feeling of like I can do

Elliot Connie: 00:16:19

anything to hold on to that right, as long as humanly

Elliot Connie: 00:16:21

possible, absolutely,

Janice Porter: 00:16:23

and it's just, and that's belief in yourself,

Janice Porter: 00:16:25

right? And that's learning that that's what that is, is part of

Janice Porter: 00:16:28

it too, right? So tell me a little bit about your new book.

Janice Porter: 00:16:33

Change your questions, change your future. Because I think I

Janice Porter: 00:16:36

love the title, and I think, yeah, I want to hear more. Well,

Elliot Connie: 00:16:40

the work that I do solution focused brief

Elliot Connie: 00:16:42

therapy is based on questions. It's a psychotherapy that is

Elliot Connie: 00:16:46

based on the therapist asking the client questions that help

Elliot Connie: 00:16:50

them transform their life and how they live it. And for the

Elliot Connie: 00:16:53

last 20 years, I've been working with one of my colleagues, guy

Elliot Connie: 00:16:56

named Dr Adam froh, and so much amazing transformation has been

Elliot Connie: 00:17:03

happening in our work with our clients. We've been we've been

Elliot Connie: 00:17:06

talking for all these years about, like, how could we

Elliot Connie: 00:17:09

somehow, like, bottle that and expose the world to it? Like,

Elliot Connie: 00:17:15

how could we some like, how could we do this? Because the

Elliot Connie: 00:17:18

truth is, the questions you ask yourself. Like, we all know that

Elliot Connie: 00:17:23

self talk is a really important aspect of someone's mental

Elliot Connie: 00:17:26

health, but within self talk, specifically, the kind of

Elliot Connie: 00:17:29

questions you ask yourself are highly determinate in what kind

Elliot Connie: 00:17:33

of life you lead. So Adam and I have been talking for years

Elliot Connie: 00:17:36

about, like, how do we like do this in a way, so that people

Elliot Connie: 00:17:41

could enjoy it in their own time, like they don't

Elliot Connie: 00:17:44

necessarily have to go to therapy to experience that

Elliot Connie: 00:17:47

transformation. And that was really the idea for the book.

Elliot Connie: 00:17:51

And then eventually we got into a position where someone was

Elliot Connie: 00:17:53

willing to publish it and and that's what this book does. Like

Elliot Connie: 00:17:56

it teaches you how to ask the kind of questions that lead

Elliot Connie: 00:17:59

towards a massive transformation in your life.

Janice Porter: 00:18:05

So when you said, if you don't necessarily have to

Janice Porter: 00:18:09

go to therapy to you know, make this transformation happen, you

Janice Porter: 00:18:13

would have to, I think, if you're troubled by something and

Janice Porter: 00:18:16

you don't believe you can do something, and then you change

Janice Porter: 00:18:19

the questions for yourself, you still would have a lot to

Janice Porter: 00:18:23

overcome to to change the actual what's going on in there. Would

Janice Porter: 00:18:28

you not?

Elliot Connie: 00:18:29

Well, you, you would. And I'm not trying to

Elliot Connie: 00:18:31

discourage people out of there. No,

Janice Porter: 00:18:33

of course not. Because you're a therapist, I

Elliot Connie: 00:18:35

get it, yeah, like, of course you have things

Elliot Connie: 00:18:38

to overcome, but you can read a book, watch a movie, yes, and it

Elliot Connie: 00:18:44

can or anything else, and be inspired to overcome whatever

Elliot Connie: 00:18:47

those obstacles are. Like therapy doesn't have to be the

Elliot Connie: 00:18:50

only way that you create change. This

Janice Porter: 00:18:52

is true. This is true. So with what's going on in

Janice Porter: 00:18:55

your world right now, because I know that you have a TV show

Janice Porter: 00:18:58

that's about to happen, that you're going to start filming

Janice Porter: 00:19:01

and will be airing next year, early next year, how much time

Janice Porter: 00:19:07

are you spending helping people through your mental through the

Janice Porter: 00:19:11

therapist position?

Elliot Connie: 00:19:13

People ask me that often, and they're always

Elliot Connie: 00:19:17

surprised by my answer, and that is, I still see clients every

Elliot Connie: 00:19:19

week. Wow, okay, because I love it, like, that's still, I mean,

Elliot Connie: 00:19:23

I've, I've

Janice Porter: 00:19:23

got the heart and soul of what you do. Yeah,

Elliot Connie: 00:19:25

I travel and lecture, I write books and TV

Elliot Connie: 00:19:28

projects and all of these things, but that's still the

Elliot Connie: 00:19:31

heart and soul of not just what I do, but like, who I am as a

Elliot Connie: 00:19:33

person. So I still see clients one on one. I i sit down on zoom

Elliot Connie: 00:19:38

from whatever hotel I'm staying at or wherever I'm at, and it's

Elliot Connie: 00:19:42

still the foundation of my life.

Janice Porter: 00:19:44

Well, that's good to hear, because then you're

Janice Porter: 00:19:46

still spreading the work and getting the helping as many

Janice Porter: 00:19:50

people as you can. Yeah. So I find it also interesting when

Janice Porter: 00:19:55

somebody who's come from a difficult upbringing, you. And

Janice Porter: 00:20:01

had to be. You had to overcome to get to a to get to college,

Janice Porter: 00:20:08

to have a degree, to become these things. Did you as a

Janice Porter: 00:20:11

child, think, did you have aspirations like that? No, you

Janice Porter: 00:20:14

said, no. You wanted to be a baseball player. So, but even

Janice Porter: 00:20:20

that, you know, you have to have the willpower and so on to

Janice Porter: 00:20:25

overcome what you're going through at home. Yes, so how,

Janice Porter: 00:20:29

how does that? You know, how do you do that?

Elliot Connie: 00:20:33

Oh, boy, that's a really good question, and I'm

Elliot Connie: 00:20:36

not sure anybody's ever asked me it quite that way. I didn't

Elliot Connie: 00:20:42

realize I was doing it until after I did it. Okay, like,

Elliot Connie: 00:20:46

while it was happening, if I'm being very honest with you, I

Elliot Connie: 00:20:49

was just trying to get through each day, sure, like, I

Elliot Connie: 00:20:54

certainly was not aware of my strength or resilience or, you

Elliot Connie: 00:20:58

know, while it was happening. Was just, I was just like trying

Elliot Connie: 00:21:01

to get through each day. I really wasn't great at thinking

Elliot Connie: 00:21:03

about what I'm going to do when I'm an adult, because I was so

Elliot Connie: 00:21:06

busy focusing on,

Janice Porter: 00:21:07

Were you busy trying to survive? Because I

Janice Porter: 00:21:10

think I understand you don't have to get into it, but that

Janice Porter: 00:21:12

your dad was the difficult one. But yeah, and so your mom kind

Janice Porter: 00:21:18

of straddled, I'm guessing, between keeping the peace and

Janice Porter: 00:21:22

looking after you. And you have siblings, I'm not sure, two

Janice Porter: 00:21:26

siblings, yeah, and and then so, and it would have affected all

Janice Porter: 00:21:31

of you differently, but, yeah, I don't know. I'm just curious,

Janice Porter: 00:21:36

because it takes, yeah, I,

Elliot Connie: 00:21:40

I was trying to survive, and emotionally more so

Elliot Connie: 00:21:44

than physical. I mean, there was some there were lots of physical

Elliot Connie: 00:21:47

things that were happening, but it was just an emotional

Elliot Connie: 00:21:51

challenge. But I can tell you, the moment I realized, like, oh

Elliot Connie: 00:21:54

my gosh, I think I might be stronger than the average

Elliot Connie: 00:21:58

person. And I don't mean that to put down anybody else, but there

Elliot Connie: 00:22:02

was a was a moment when I realized, in order for me to be

Elliot Connie: 00:22:05

where I am, I have to have some level of strength. I had never

Elliot Connie: 00:22:08

really thought about that before, and it happened in my

Elliot Connie: 00:22:13

second year of college. I was really depressed, like really

Elliot Connie: 00:22:19

struggling, and I was comparing myself to all these other people

Elliot Connie: 00:22:22

and everybody else, their their parents would like, send them

Elliot Connie: 00:22:26

money. You know, back then there was no PayPal or cash app. You

Elliot Connie: 00:22:31

had to, like, you know, you had to, like, write your college

Elliot Connie: 00:22:34

child a check and mail it. And my buddies would all go to the

Elliot Connie: 00:22:37

mailbox and open a letter, and they'd be like, Wow, my mom sent

Elliot Connie: 00:22:40

me 20 bucks. And yeah, and I just didn't have things like

Elliot Connie: 00:22:45

that in my life. And one day, it hit me that a lot of the people

Elliot Connie: 00:22:51

around me had significantly more advantages than I had, like,

Elliot Connie: 00:22:57

infinitely more advantages than I had, and I had, like every

Elliot Connie: 00:23:01

disadvantage you could possibly have, and somehow I ended up at

Elliot Connie: 00:23:05

the same university, right that they did. I ended up taking the

Elliot Connie: 00:23:09

same classes that they were taking, living in the same dorm

Elliot Connie: 00:23:13

room that, or dorm building they were living in. And I just

Elliot Connie: 00:23:16

thought that must say something about me that's positive. Maybe

Elliot Connie: 00:23:21

my ability to endure, overcome, handle difficult things, maybe

Elliot Connie: 00:23:28

my ability to do these things has been honed through fire, and

Elliot Connie: 00:23:35

for the first time in my life, I was proud to come from the

Elliot Connie: 00:23:40

struggle that I came from, where I used to hide it. I used to I

Elliot Connie: 00:23:44

didn't want anybody to know because I was ashamed. But that

Elliot Connie: 00:23:47

one thought in one instant, in one moment, like a light bulb,

Elliot Connie: 00:23:52

yeah, and it was like, I think, I think I can pat myself on the

Elliot Connie: 00:23:55

back for being strong, because if I wasn't strong, I wouldn't

Elliot Connie: 00:23:58

be, I wouldn't be where I am.

Janice Porter: 00:24:01

Well, that was, do you see that as a turning

Janice Porter: 00:24:03

point? Yeah, for sure, absolutely, yeah. So I wrote

Janice Porter: 00:24:07

something down that that I heard you say in something I listened

Janice Porter: 00:24:10

to and you said to you, I am an overcomer, yes, right? And you

Janice Porter: 00:24:15

and then I wrote this quote down because I love this. Your rear

Janice Porter: 00:24:18

view mirror is littered with examples of your epicness. We

Janice Porter: 00:24:25

just have to remember to look, or you just have to remember to

Janice Porter: 00:24:28

look. I love that. That was so cool, because that was your

Janice Porter: 00:24:32

place where you learned that you you've overcome all, all of this

Janice Porter: 00:24:39

in your rear view mirror, everything that was there, but

Janice Porter: 00:24:41

now you know you're strong enough to and resilient enough

Janice Porter: 00:24:44

to to carry on and do what you want to do.

Elliot Connie: 00:24:47

That's right. Like, once I believe that about

Elliot Connie: 00:24:49

myself, yes, then I, like, I can now take on the next challenge.

Elliot Connie: 00:24:54

Like, because I when you look in your past and everyone, everyone

Elliot Connie: 00:24:59

look, I. Sure that everyone who's listening. You all have

Elliot Connie: 00:25:02

mistakes in your past. There are things you're ashamed of, there

Elliot Connie: 00:25:05

are things you're embarrassed by. I'm sure all that's true,

Elliot Connie: 00:25:08

but there's also evidence of your greatness. There's also

Elliot Connie: 00:25:11

evidence of your brilliance. There's also a challenge you

Elliot Connie: 00:25:14

overcome, a difficult thing you succeeded through. There's this

Elliot Connie: 00:25:18

a wonderful accomplishment that you have. And we have a tendency

Elliot Connie: 00:25:21

to take accomplishment for granted and take accountability

Elliot Connie: 00:25:25

for mistakes. In fact, adults even encourage this, but like,

Elliot Connie: 00:25:30

if you make a mistake, how many times have people said you need

Elliot Connie: 00:25:32

to own your mistakes? Well, yeah, that's true, but how many

Elliot Connie: 00:25:36

times do people say you need to own your greatness? Because

Elliot Connie: 00:25:39

that's equally true. So when you accomplish something like you

Elliot Connie: 00:25:42

get an A in school, or you, you know, have a successful

Elliot Connie: 00:25:46

business, or lose 10 pounds, or whatever it is, remember to take

Elliot Connie: 00:25:51

credit for the thing you accomplished, right, and you

Elliot Connie: 00:25:55

will be much more able to handle whatever obstacles are thrown

Elliot Connie: 00:25:59

your way. I'm now convinced I can overcome anything thrown at

Elliot Connie: 00:26:03

me simply because I have a history of overcoming everything

Elliot Connie: 00:26:06

thrown at me.

Janice Porter: 00:26:08

I love that. That's so cool. Okay, Let's

Janice Porter: 00:26:11

lighten things up. A little bit. I watched you do some stand up

Janice Porter: 00:26:14

comedy. Yes, at the improv. Yeah, right. Tell me about that.

Janice Porter: 00:26:19

So are you? Are you a closet comedian, or what,

Elliot Connie: 00:26:22

a little bit, little bit more out than

Elliot Connie: 00:26:25

closeted. But what happened, my TV show was being executive

Elliot Connie: 00:26:29

produced by a woman named Tiffany Haddish. Oh, really.

Elliot Connie: 00:26:32

Okay, and we, we were working on on the show, and the development

Elliot Connie: 00:26:37

for, like, talk about

Janice Porter: 00:26:38

overcoming. Yeah, that woman is,

Elliot Connie: 00:26:43

she is the poster child for overcoming totally.

Elliot Connie: 00:26:46

And we were, we were talking one day, and she said, you should

Elliot Connie: 00:26:53

try stand up. And I was like, Absolutely not. Like, No way.

Elliot Connie: 00:26:58

I'm not doing stand up. It's not something I ever desired to do

Elliot Connie: 00:27:02

whatever like me not writing the book, right? She said, but

Elliot Connie: 00:27:05

you're really funny. You should try. Stan said, no way. So a

Elliot Connie: 00:27:09

little time goes by and I was actually with her. She was doing

Elliot Connie: 00:27:15

stand up someplace, and she said, Will you introduce me? And

Elliot Connie: 00:27:18

I said, Sure. And she said, you know, in order to introduce me,

Elliot Connie: 00:27:22

you have to do five minutes of comedy. And I said, well, then

Elliot Connie: 00:27:24

never mind. I'm not going to do it. Thank you, smart, yeah. And

Elliot Connie: 00:27:28

she was so disappointed in me that I wouldn't do it. I said to

Elliot Connie: 00:27:32

her, alright, Tiffany, I promise you the next time you ask me,

Elliot Connie: 00:27:35

I'll do it. And a few months later, she's like, Alright, I'm

Elliot Connie: 00:27:38

asking you now. I'm going on the road. I'm going to San Jose,

Elliot Connie: 00:27:41

California. I want you to come with me and perform. I had never

Elliot Connie: 00:27:46

performed before, but I'm not foreign to taking stages and

Elliot Connie: 00:27:51

Exactly.

Janice Porter: 00:27:52

And I got that from the little bit that I saw

Janice Porter: 00:27:54

too. You were very comfortable on stage. Yeah, yeah.

Elliot Connie: 00:27:57

So I went, and it was so much fun, and I've now

Elliot Connie: 00:28:01

done it, you know, 50 times, maybe, like, I've done it lots.

Elliot Connie: 00:28:04

Oh, that's outrageous, um, but it was all because Tiffany,

Elliot Connie: 00:28:08

Tiffany has this amazing gift, like, I hope everyone and I hope

Elliot Connie: 00:28:12

people are experiencing the gift Tiffany has through this

Elliot Connie: 00:28:16

podcast. Tiffany has this amazing gift that she can see a

Elliot Connie: 00:28:20

skill or talent that someone else has, and she becomes an

Elliot Connie: 00:28:24

advocate to that skill or talent, whether, if, like, if

Elliot Connie: 00:28:28

you are singing around Tiffany and she can hear you sing,

Elliot Connie: 00:28:32

she'll be like, You should do that. I want you to go write a

Elliot Connie: 00:28:34

song and sing it for me, see if I can play it for, like, some

Elliot Connie: 00:28:39

music producers that I know, like she's, she's

Janice Porter: 00:28:41

just that way. He wants to help people too,

Janice Porter: 00:28:43

obviously,

Elliot Connie: 00:28:44

yeah, and I, and I think, I think having friends

Elliot Connie: 00:28:48

like that, having people in your life like that, that's why I

Elliot Connie: 00:28:51

said a whole people experiences. I hope, through this podcast,

Elliot Connie: 00:28:53

someone becomes more aware of what their own talent and

Elliot Connie: 00:28:57

brilliance is, and they do something to pursue it, because

Elliot Connie: 00:29:01

I think that's what makes life so amazing. How did you meet

Elliot Connie: 00:29:04

her? We so it's funny. The woman who discovered me, some woman

Elliot Connie: 00:29:11

and someone in LA saw my YouTube work that's literally just about

Elliot Connie: 00:29:15

psychotherapy, and they thought, Man, this guy would be really

Elliot Connie: 00:29:17

good on a TV show about psychotherapy. And that woman

Elliot Connie: 00:29:23

who is now my my manager, knows Tiffany Haddish from years ago,

Elliot Connie: 00:29:28

and they bumped into each other about, you know, six months into

Elliot Connie: 00:29:33

me having like, all of this happening, and heard about the

Elliot Connie: 00:29:38

work I was doing, and said, I want to be a part of his TV

Elliot Connie: 00:29:40

show. So, and then when I met Tiffany, we just, we just

Elliot Connie: 00:29:43

clicked. We just instantly clicked,

Janice Porter: 00:29:45

well, and there are no accidents. No, I don't

Janice Porter: 00:29:48

know. So no, I don't either. So that's, that's very special.

Janice Porter: 00:29:51

Thank you for sharing that and and the joke that I heard you

Janice Porter: 00:29:56

tell was funny, too. Thank you. Do you remember? You know what

Janice Porter: 00:30:00

I'm thinking of.

Elliot Connie: 00:30:01

No, okay, so

Janice Porter: 00:30:02

you were 11 years old, and you'd moved to a new

Janice Porter: 00:30:07

school, and it was the first white family you'd ever met, and

Janice Porter: 00:30:12

Eric, your friend, your new friend, took you home, right?

Janice Porter: 00:30:15

Yeah. It was a funny story that people have to go find it. I'll

Janice Porter: 00:30:18

have to put it on, yeah. But it was, it was funny, and it was,

Janice Porter: 00:30:23

it was, um, well told as well. So well that that poses another

Janice Porter: 00:30:28

question for me, because now that you've done this several

Janice Porter: 00:30:31

times, where do you get your material? Do you actually write

Janice Porter: 00:30:34

your material? Do

Elliot Connie: 00:30:35

you, yeah, actually do that? And I tell

Elliot Connie: 00:30:39

stuff, like real stuff for my for my life, like that situation

Elliot Connie: 00:30:42

with my friend was real. That's real stuff for my life. That's

Janice Porter: 00:30:44

the best stuff. When it's real, it's the best.

Janice Porter: 00:30:46

Well, okay, this has been so much fun. So we were serious. We

Janice Porter: 00:30:52

had a little fun. I'm just going to wrap it up with a couple of

Janice Porter: 00:30:55

quick questions that I just like to find out, because I am

Janice Porter: 00:30:58

curious. And my my most Well, my favorite question to ask is, and

Janice Porter: 00:31:04

it'd be interesting asking you actually, because my favorite

Janice Porter: 00:31:06

word is curiosity, and I want to know if you think curiosity is

Janice Porter: 00:31:11

innate or learned. And second part of the question is, what

Janice Porter: 00:31:15

are you most curious about these days?

Elliot Connie: 00:31:18

I do think curiosity is innate. One of the

Elliot Connie: 00:31:22

first things we have as newborn children is curiosity, and

Elliot Connie: 00:31:25

that's how we discover the world around us. I think as adults, we

Elliot Connie: 00:31:29

have to develop what I call empathic curiosity, and because

Elliot Connie: 00:31:34

curiosity is if I said to you, Janice, where'd you get that

Elliot Connie: 00:31:41

shirt? I'm asking selfishly because I want to know where you

Elliot Connie: 00:31:46

got that shirt, because I might want to go get that shirt too,

Elliot Connie: 00:31:50

right? Empathic curiosity is like, it's not so much. I'm

Elliot Connie: 00:31:56

asking because I want the information for my own needs.

Elliot Connie: 00:32:00

I'm asking because I want you to hear the answer to the that

Elliot Connie: 00:32:04

you're going to give to the question, because I think the

Elliot Connie: 00:32:06

answer will make you feel better.

Unknown: 00:32:07

I do that. I

Elliot Connie: 00:32:08

love that. Yes. So a question that might do that

Elliot Connie: 00:32:12

might be Janice. How did you know you would look so nice in

Elliot Connie: 00:32:15

that shirt? Because the as you answer that question, you're

Elliot Connie: 00:32:20

kind of giving yourself a compliment, and being able to

Elliot Connie: 00:32:24

ask people questions, not just because you want to know the

Elliot Connie: 00:32:27

answer, but you want them to hear themselves give the answer.

Elliot Connie: 00:32:31

That's another level of curiosity that I think the

Janice Porter: 00:32:33

best answer I've ever gotten that's so good,

Janice Porter: 00:32:36

yeah, I

Elliot Connie: 00:32:37

so I call it empathic curiosity. Empathic

Elliot Connie: 00:32:39

curiosity.

Janice Porter: 00:32:40

I love it. Okay? And what are you most curious

Janice Porter: 00:32:43

about today?

Elliot Connie: 00:32:45

Um, wow, that's a good question. I'm most curious

Elliot Connie: 00:32:49

about blessings. I'm I'm so interested to see what the next

Elliot Connie: 00:32:55

blessing will be, where it will come from, what shape it will

Elliot Connie: 00:32:59

take. And just, I'm really excited, also curious about

Elliot Connie: 00:33:06

whatever it is around the corner. I

Janice Porter: 00:33:08

love it. That's amazing. And you know what?

Janice Porter: 00:33:10

There are great things coming for you. Still around the

Janice Porter: 00:33:13

corner, I can tell I just yeah, there's lots going on for you.

Janice Porter: 00:33:17

So where can people find you?

Elliot Connie: 00:33:20

You can find me on my website, at Elliot

Elliot Connie: 00:33:23

connie.com make sure you spell my name with 2l and two T's,

Elliot Connie: 00:33:26

Elliot connie.com or you can find me on all of the social

Elliot Connie: 00:33:30

media platforms at Elliot speaks, Instagram, Facebook, X

Elliot Connie: 00:33:36

threads.

Janice Porter: 00:33:37

I'll put all that in the show notes. So that's

Janice Porter: 00:33:39

Yeah, okay. Well, I this has been amazing, and I appreciate

Janice Porter: 00:33:43

your time, and I appreciate you and your wisdom for everything

Janice Porter: 00:33:50

that you've shared with us. And I wish you well with your new

Janice Porter: 00:33:52

book. I wish you well with your new TV show, and I'll be a fan

Janice Porter: 00:33:55

and checking it out if I'm able to see it, because I'm in

Janice Porter: 00:33:59

Canada, so who knows, right? But we'll, we'll stay in touch and

Janice Porter: 00:34:03

make sure that that happens. So thank you again, and thank you

Janice Porter: 00:34:06

to my audience, and all that information will be in the show

Janice Porter: 00:34:10

notes, so you can follow Elliot and watch him his next blessing.

Elliot Connie: 00:34:17

Thank you so much for having me. You.