November 18, 2024 • 22 mins
The Breakfast Club Sits Down With Elliott Connie And He Reveals The Right Questions To Ask Yourself To Achieve Your Best Personal Success. Listen For More!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that answer up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The Breakfast Club Morning, Everybody's DJ Envy Jess, hilarious, charlamage
the guy.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
We are to Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
You got a special guest in the building. We have
Elliott Connie.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome back brother. How are you, sir. I'm doing great.
I'm doing very well. Thank you man. It's good to
see you.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
You got a new book out now, a change your questions,
change the future of overcoming challenges and creating a new
vision for your life using the principles of solution focused
brief therapy facts.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
What a title? Yes, Jess, what a title? So what
does all that mean? You know it means. I've been
a practicing psychotherapist for I don't know, nearly twenty years
and it's been an amazing ride to like watch people
heal and overcome, like some things that you wouldn't imagine
(00:48):
people get heal and overcoming. As I sat there on
that twenty year journey, sitting there front row and watching
people grow, how you started thinking, like what's the commonality?
Like how do people do this? How do people change?
And how do people overcome challenges? And people who are
successful and people who are able to achieve things in
(01:09):
spite of obstacles, have a tendency to ask themselves different
kinds of questions. So I decided to write a book
about it. Like I've written several books, but most of
them are for professionals. But I decided I wanted to
write a book about change and about how people talk
to themselves, and about how successful people have a tendency
to ask themselves different kinds of questions that lead to
(01:29):
their success. And when I say success, I don't mean
like millionaires, but I just mean people that achieve whatever
their aim is, if it's overcoming addiction or becoming successful
business person, whatever it is. Success is defined by people
who set a goal and achieve it. So what is
it that makes some people succeed and other people not?
And after all these years of practice, it's they talk
to themselves differently, and they ask themselves different kind of questions.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
What's the most common question that successful people ask themselves?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Oh boy, that's a good one. The most common question
that successful people ask themselves is what do I want?
Most people do not ask themselves what do I want?
Most people spend a lot of time thinking about what
they don't want and try to avoid it. People who
achieve aims and goals are the ones who are able
to set a goal and ask themselves like, what is
it that I want about this goal? And once you
(02:16):
do that, you become capable of achieving it.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I tell all the younger that you got to find
that one thing that you want to do, and we
find that one thing that you want to do.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
When you focus on that, everything else follow them, understand.
I mean I tell people all the time, like, you
don't get into a taxi cab and the cab driver
doesn't ask you where do you not want to be?
Like if the cab driver to ask you where you're
not want to be? That doesn't give that cab driver
any information. The cab driver asks you the single most
important question ever, where are you going? And then you
answer that question. You would never say I just want
(02:46):
to be not here, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Like, you.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Don't never say that cab driver says where you headed?
You don't say like not here? Like that's just not
what That doesn't help. But think about that, Like most
people say, like I just don't want to feel like
this or I don't like this job. But what job
do you want? I don't know, just not this one.
But that's not good enough. You have to, like you
have to really identify what's that thing I want to
achieve and what's that place I want to be in?
(03:12):
Who do I want to be in order to become
the man?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
That's so real, and that's why we have these conversations
about manifestation. You can't just say I want to be successful. No,
what's the goal, what's the destination, what you're trying to do?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
That's right, that's absolute right. You got to think of
the world is like a like an algorithm that wants
to give you what you want, but it will only
reward the people bold enough to ask for it and
ask for it in great detail. And when you have
like really granular, detailed goals, you're just significantly more likely
(03:46):
to achieve it. And here's an example. When I was
in high school, my obsession was to go to college
and play baseball. Like that was my obsession. I knew
that college was my ticket out of the situation I
was in, and I wanted to do a college and
play base well. So I remember one day I was
a freshman and I'm walking to school and a couple
of my boys came running up to me and they
(04:06):
were like, yoh, yeah, yo, we we just found so
and So's dad's alcohol. We're gonna skip school. I was
like no, because future baseball players in college don't skip
school and drink. So I did not do it. And
it's like that, like when you have this thing in
your in your head, there's like a like a guard
rail that keeps you on the way to getting those things.
And just most people don't they don't ask themselves. They say,
(04:29):
I want to be successful, I want to be famous,
I want to be a YouTube star, whatever they say.
But like talking about what or doing what or impacting who, like,
you have to be specifically.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So I was going to ask when you do have
to be that specific?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Right?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
That means you have to do a lot of work
on yourself because, like Charlamage said, most people don't think
realize what they want. They want to be rich, or
they want to be have a lot of money, they
want a big home, they want a nice car. So
that requires the work and I think a lot of
people don't necessarily know what they want to do. It
Like if you ever ask a high school student or
a college student or somebody who graduated college, what do
you want to do, and usually it's I want to
(05:06):
make money.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It's literally my job. Yeah, you're right. I ask these
people all the time. They all say, I want to
make money. I want to be famous, so I want
to be an influencer. I want a podcast. I want
a podcast, but be a rapper. I'm just kid. I
don't hear that one as much, but you.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Know, I always I wanted to ask you as well.
You know, we had doctor Cheyenne Bryant here the other day.
I saw that and she was talking about change behavior
opposed to UH. We were talking about UH men doing
things in relationship as it came from men, so if
a man is a womanizer or a man is an abuser.
She was saying that she feels like men don't change,
(05:45):
they just shift and pivot. What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
You saw a clipper? I saw the clip. I very
much disagree with her when she says like people she said,
people don't change it and respectfully like, I don't. I
don't want to talk down about anybody, but man, I
got enough of that. I feel I certainly don't want
that with the good sister doctor Bryant. I heard her
say that like people don't change. She was like, I
(06:09):
don't change it. But that is actually not true. So
we have to go back to what's the definition of change? So, like,
here's an example. Recently, I've been taking my health more
seriously and I gave up soda, fried food, candy, working out.
When you do that, my body chemistry is different. If
you did a cat skin on my brain now versus
(06:31):
six months ago, it looks different, Like wouldn't that be definable, noticeable,
observable change. And we often use phrases like you are
what you consistently do. So if I change what I
consistently do, don't I change who I am and how
I show up in this world? I think it's a
very disheartening thing to say people don't change, they shift. Like,
what if I've had a really hard life trauma, abuse, tragedy,
(06:55):
and I cope with that comma trauma, abuse, and tragedy
with drugs and alcohol. Are you saying I can just shift?
I can't actually transform and become a healed human and
outgrow the problems that that plagued my life and led
to these addictive behaviors Like that, that's wildly inaccurate, And
and you recently becoming a new mother, and again, you're
(07:17):
not the same person as you were before. This person, Like,
wouldn't we observe that? Is absolutely Like, that's that's just
a different thing I did.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
She was saying that you have to make these shifts
in your life before it lead to actual change, but
I don't.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I don't actually, I don't know that that's true. I
think I think the first step in change is it
goes back to what we're saying before. It's identifying who
you want to be. And once you identify who you
want you want to be, then the next steps become
very obvious. Like you now identify as a mom of
two instead of what you were before was mom of one,
and at some point in your life you were mom
(07:50):
of zero, and that's going to impact your choices. So
it really starts with how you how you identify, and
and what and what you do. So when she said that,
I was like, oh, man, you know me, sometimes I'm
screaming at the computer. But I just I really disagree
with her. I think the greatest capacity that human beings
have is the ability to transform their circumstances. And we
(08:10):
do that by the way we identify.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
What about if you going back to what we were
talking about before, doctor Bryant, what about if you don't
know what you want to do? Or what about or
what if that changes? What if you get into something
and then you're like is this what I really want
to do? Or like how do you get out of that?
Because then you can land yourself in a funk, you
can be depressed or you know something like that.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Right, Well, so I think there's two questions there, like
what if you don't know what you want to be?
I know a really good book that people should read
that will help the my tentergy, change your questions, change
your future. No, no, but but I mean if you
don't know what you want to be, you should explore
and you should try things, and you should ask yourself
the kind of questions like like what difference do I
(08:56):
want to make in this world? What impact do I
want to have in this world? World? Who do I
want to have an impact upon? How do I want
to wake up and spend my days? And when you
ask yourself those types of questions, it informs what you
want to do. I don't want to wake up and
like I like to cook, right, I'm pretty good at cooking.
I don't want to wake up and serve in a restaurant,
but I know people who do. I want to wake
(09:17):
up and help people overcome life's circumstances. So I became
a psychotherapist. And the second thing is, I don't know
that if you end up in the wrong situation, you
end up in a funk or depressed. I think you
have to have a realization that I can't discover who
I am without trying all kinds of things, and then
having the boldness to say this doesn't fit, and then
having the boldness to fight for the things that do. Like,
(09:40):
once I decided I wanted to become a psychotherapist, it
wasn't like the path was easy. In fact, it's been very,
very challenging.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
It.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
First of all, I had to get a master's degree,
and that required two degrees, and I don't know a
lot of people in my family or environment where people
were getting master's degrees. I had to get a license,
I had to study and work. And then you know,
when I showed up in the psychotherapy field. And I
say this all the time and people don't really believe me,
But when you're in graduate school studying psychotherapy in two
thousand and five. There are zero, literally zero African American
(10:10):
faces that you study in those books. So do you
think the white status quo in the field was very
excited for this black dude to show up and start
writing books and start showing up on stages, Like it's
been a really hard but I know this is my place,
so you have to have the boldness like this is
where I am and I'm going to fight for it.
And all three of you in many different environments comedy, business, music, radio,
(10:34):
and television, like you've all been wildly successful, and I
would venture to bet it hasn't always been easy. And
I think that goes back to also the question that
we ask, like people look at your life or your
life or your life and they're like, I want to
be I want to be just hilarious. I want to
be a really famous, really great comic beautiful because that's
(11:00):
not easy, child, but they do. They look at her
life and like who I want to be like that?
And then they start trying to replicate who just hilarious is.
But like, how many comedy clubs did you work at
when there was ten people in the club or you
had to drive there? And they didn't even pay you
gas money to cover it. Like, people don't want to
replicate the journey. I want to replicate the outcome. But
(11:23):
if I want to be just hilarious, I have to
change my question and ask, like, what what street did
she go down to get to the ultimate destination where
she got? And I've got to be willing to go
down that same street. And that's not that's not an
easy thing to do. I mean, that's a that's a hard,
hard world to do.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
In chapter five, you talk about being difference land.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
What does that mean? Yeah, like a really really powerful
question to ask yourself for in my case when I
ask my clients, is what difference would that make? So
if if I identify that I want to be a
I want to have a successful podcast, you should ask
yourself like, what difference will it make in my life
to have a successful podcast? Because difference leads to motivation.
(12:04):
Now you have ten jobs, right, but let's imagine the
only job you have is comic and you're tired, and
you're like, I don't want to get on another plane,
I don't want to get another bus, I don't want
to take another stage. But if I were to ask
her like what difference would it make if you continue
to do that. She's inherently going to think about these
two babies, and she's going to think about my ability
to pay for their future, the college, whatever, and that's
going to increase her motivation to do really hard things
(12:26):
for the betterment of her life, the betterment of her
children row And most people don't think about difference. They
just think about, like on a very surface level, the
things that they want. And I think we just spend
more time thinking about difference.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
What would you say to people who are experiencing grief
due to Vice President of Kamala Harris losing the election.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Oh, that's a good question. I would say, like, honor
your feelings. I would say, you know, this is a
hard time depending on what you thought about the election
and who you were passionate about or whatever, I say,
honor those feelings. But then I would also say, turn
that grief into action, turn that grief into into something
(13:06):
you can do. I think the most powerful, the most
powerful way to deal with grief is with hope, and
a powerful way to deal with grief is with honor.
So one really good example is a grief that I've
had in my life is my uncle Jeffrey passed away
and he was my all. To make a super long
(13:27):
story really short, I grew up really depressed and anxious
from a difficult childhood. And my grandmother and her ultimate wisdom,
knew that one of the things that would help Elliott
feel better is if he knew how much like his
uncle Jeffrey he was. You know, when you grow up
and you're super isolated, you just don't feel like you belong.
And my grandmother sent this dude to come hang out
with me, and I felt like I had a place
(13:49):
in this world. And I was in Denmark teaching in
twenty seventeen and I got this horrible message on Facebook.
I learned that my uncle passed away on Facebook. And
you know my uncle, he was a big kid man,
and he would have loved all this stuff that's happened,
Like I've signed TV deals and got shows and development
and books and hanging out with you and doing all
(14:11):
kinds of stuff. He would find that stuff so fun.
So the way I do with the grief is like
he's mentally coming along with me for the journey. That's
how I honor him. So we also, if you're grieving
in host election, Like, how do you honor whatever motivated you? Like,
For me, as an African American, I thought it was
amazing to watch a black woman do some of the
(14:35):
things that Kamala was doing, Like it was an amazing thing.
I thought about my grandmother who never thought this would
happen ever in the United States, and to watch Kamala
do what she was doing, so I thought it was amazing.
And the way that I plan to honor that is
by continuing to fight for a world where a woman
is not voted for for things that are A not
(14:56):
true and B she can't control. I had many many
people in black community tell me I just don't think
a woman should be the leader of America, And I'd
be like why, Like, to me, it's wildly hypocritical for
someone to say my woman should be at home, like
(15:16):
as a leader of the house. But then you say
women can't lead and you don't want a woman to
be in power. It's like those things don't they're not
congruent thoughts. So I think we have to honor the process.
And one of the ways I plan to do that
is can you continue to advocate for black culture and
black women in particularly because I think black women are
they need to be advocated for. And I think hope
(15:38):
matters because hope allows us to think that there's opportunity
for things to be different in the future. And we
need to think about what kind of world we want
to live in and do whatever we can in our
small micro world and in our big macro world to
advocate for the kind of world we want to live in.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Also, so you say that one of the biggest mistakes
people are making is making emotional decisions when you should
be making it based on discipline.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yes, you should be making it based on discipline, for sure. Yeah, discipline.
You know, I've heard somebody say, and I agree, discipline
is the highest level of self love. And you just
can't achieve anything based upon emotion or instantaneous desire. You
have to have your the outcome you want in your
(16:25):
mind all of the time. Like we landed late last night,
and me and my camera guys over there. We went
for a walk in Times Square and I had a
really long day and I was super hungry. And you
walking around Times Square at midnight, you see a bunch
of Nathan's hot dog stands and all kinds of crazy
food you can get anything at any hour in New
York City, and I like my instantaneous emotional desire was
(16:47):
to fulfill that need, like those French fribes would taste
good and that hot dog would taste good. But my
long term outcome is about my health and who I
want to be going forward. So I have to make
a discipline decision, and a discipline decision, that decision that's
in line with you stated your stated goal, like the
person you're trying to become, and an emotional decision is
something that would just meet that need right now, Like
(17:09):
it would have felt good to eat that hot time,
but I would have woke up with regret. I wouldn't
have felt right the momentum I've gathered over the past
few months, I would have lost that It's just not
worth it. So people need to make discipline decisions all
throughout their life, and health is just one example. But
like you guys all had to make discipline decisions on
your pathway to where you ultimately got professionally, and opportunities
(17:30):
came your way that sounded good, But I can't do
that because it's not moving me in this right place.
And that's discipline, And neither of you would be in
the position you're in without a high, high, high level
of discipline. We just don't talk about it. Like if
someone were to ask Jes like, how do you become
a successful comedian? They're just thinking about how funny you
have to be? But I know a lot of comedians
(17:52):
and being funny it's just part of it. That's a
part of the whole. A meeba of what skills you
have to have to be a successful a comic, and
one of them its disciplined.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I wonder when it comes to changing your questions, do
people have the emotional intelligence to ask the right questions?
And what I mean by that is, you know, you
might automatically think somebody always trying to play you when
things don't go your way, right, so you're like, yo,
this person trying to play me, you know what I mean,
Like this person has something gives me like to me,
that's so the low level of emotional intelligence, Like you
(18:23):
have to have a high level of emotional intelligence to
ask yourself the right question.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I think that's true. But I think you can grow
your emotional intelligence. I think, I mean, I think you're
one hundred percent right. People something doesn't go their way
like so and so trying to get me. But and
I think you have to you have to shift that.
And one of the ways to help shift that is
to read books like this, go to psychotherapy, and realize
that even if the world seems to be against you,
(18:48):
you still have a way to impact that, you still
have a way to make a difference in that you
still have a way to overcome that. I mean, I'm
someone that over the course of my life, I have
fallen in love with things feeling like they're against me.
I actually love the challenge of that now, And I
couldn't have said that before, but I do. I love
it when it's like the odds are against you and
(19:10):
you don't really feel like you can can see you
can succeed. And the reason I feel that way now
and I haven't felt that way before is number one,
because that's when I can prove my strength, Like if
everything was easy, I don't get to prove that I
have any level of strength, Like I want some pushback.
And number two, I want to make there are some
people that invested a lot in me, my grandmother, my mother.
(19:32):
Shout out to my mother, Janette Connie, who would probably
be entertained that I would say her name here, my
aunt Lenny. Like, these people have invested a lot in me,
So I actually like when there's a little bit of
pushback because I get to show them what they taught
me was magical and powerful. So you have to shift
from like the whole universes against me to like, this
is just an opportunity for me to show people how
(19:53):
strong I am. This is an opportunity for me to
show people that have poured into me that the stuff
they poured into me was valuable and I use it.
So you have to really change everything about your perspective.
And I've said this a lot before too, but you
have to be super grateful, Like I'm now at a
point in my life where I'm grateful for challenges because
that's when I can see has all of this been
worth it? And now I realize it has, Like it
(20:15):
has been worth it to be able to push back
when obstacles show up. And most people spend so much
of their time entitled that they spend so less of
their time grateful, And I realize I'm not entitled to anything,
and I'm so grateful for every opportunity, every chance people
were in my life. Friend I will randomly text them
thank you for things because I just want to be
(20:36):
so appreciative of every moment that I've had, because I
think it's all a gift, even though even the challenges
and the problems are all gifts. And how many of
y'all have gotten fired from a job or booed off
a stage or whatever. And at the time it happened,
it hurt and it was difficult, it was challenging, but
you look back and realize I needed that, like that process.
(20:57):
That was a good thing that it happened to me.
It wasn't fun, wasn't exciting, and I don't want to
go through it again, but I needed that in order
to get to get here. So I think we have
to just shift, and I think people can. I do
think we kind of operate on a low level of
emotional intelligence, or at least a lot of people do.
But I think that can be impacted by doing things
(21:18):
like educating yourself, feeding your brain quality things instead of
playing around on social media, like read a book. Like
you know, most successful people have libraries and unsuccessful people
have television. It's like that's a measurable piece of data
that rich wildly successful goal attaining people have more books,
and people who are not as successful watch television many
(21:41):
more hours. So in that comfort, they're just feeding their
brain better stuff. And what does that do that increases
your level of emotional intelligence? How do you follow you?
Elliott Connie? I don't know. Why do you want to
call you doctor? That everybody do? Everybody does? How do
they follow me? Go to Instagram at Elie it speaks
it spell my name of two l's and two t's.
(22:03):
You can follow me on Facebook. Just look at my name.
Elliot Connie is not too many people named Elliott Connie.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
His new book is out now change your questions, change
your future, overcoming challenges, and create a new vision for
your life using the principles of solution focused brief therapy.
Make sure you go get that and check out Elliott's podcast,
Family Therapy on the blackfed iHeartRadio podcast network.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
That's always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
My brother's Elliott Connie.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Pick up the book. It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning,
Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club
Wake that answer up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The Breakfast Club Morning, Everybody's DJ Envy Jess, hilarious, charlamage
the guy.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
We are to Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
You got a special guest in the building. We have
Elliott Connie.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome back brother. How are you, sir. I'm doing great.
I'm doing very well. Thank you man. It's good to
see you.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
You got a new book out now, a change your questions,
change the future of overcoming challenges and creating a new
vision for your life using the principles of solution focused
brief therapy facts.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
What a title? Yes, Jess, what a title? So what
does all that mean? You know it means. I've been
a practicing psychotherapist for I don't know, nearly twenty years
and it's been an amazing ride to like watch people
heal and overcome, like some things that you wouldn't imagine
(00:48):
people get heal and overcoming. As I sat there on
that twenty year journey, sitting there front row and watching
people grow, how you started thinking, like what's the commonality?
Like how do people do this? How do people change?
And how do people overcome challenges? And people who are
successful and people who are able to achieve things in
(01:09):
spite of obstacles, have a tendency to ask themselves different
kinds of questions. So I decided to write a book
about it. Like I've written several books, but most of
them are for professionals. But I decided I wanted to
write a book about change and about how people talk
to themselves, and about how successful people have a tendency
to ask themselves different kinds of questions that lead to
(01:29):
their success. And when I say success, I don't mean
like millionaires, but I just mean people that achieve whatever
their aim is, if it's overcoming addiction or becoming successful
business person, whatever it is. Success is defined by people
who set a goal and achieve it. So what is
it that makes some people succeed and other people not?
And after all these years of practice, it's they talk
to themselves differently, and they ask themselves different kind of questions.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
What's the most common question that successful people ask themselves?
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Oh boy, that's a good one. The most common question
that successful people ask themselves is what do I want?
Most people do not ask themselves what do I want?
Most people spend a lot of time thinking about what
they don't want and try to avoid it. People who
achieve aims and goals are the ones who are able
to set a goal and ask themselves like, what is
it that I want about this goal? And once you
(02:16):
do that, you become capable of achieving it.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I tell all the younger that you got to find
that one thing that you want to do, and we
find that one thing that you want to do.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
When you focus on that, everything else follow them, understand.
I mean I tell people all the time, like, you
don't get into a taxi cab and the cab driver
doesn't ask you where do you not want to be?
Like if the cab driver to ask you where you're
not want to be? That doesn't give that cab driver
any information. The cab driver asks you the single most
important question ever, where are you going? And then you
answer that question. You would never say I just want
(02:46):
to be not here, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Like, you.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Don't never say that cab driver says where you headed?
You don't say like not here? Like that's just not
what That doesn't help. But think about that, Like most
people say, like I just don't want to feel like
this or I don't like this job. But what job
do you want? I don't know, just not this one.
But that's not good enough. You have to, like you
have to really identify what's that thing I want to
achieve and what's that place I want to be in?
(03:12):
Who do I want to be in order to become
the man?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
That's so real, and that's why we have these conversations
about manifestation. You can't just say I want to be successful. No,
what's the goal, what's the destination, what you're trying to do?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
That's right, that's absolute right. You got to think of
the world is like a like an algorithm that wants
to give you what you want, but it will only
reward the people bold enough to ask for it and
ask for it in great detail. And when you have
like really granular, detailed goals, you're just significantly more likely
(03:46):
to achieve it. And here's an example. When I was
in high school, my obsession was to go to college
and play baseball. Like that was my obsession. I knew
that college was my ticket out of the situation I
was in, and I wanted to do a college and
play base well. So I remember one day I was
a freshman and I'm walking to school and a couple
of my boys came running up to me and they
(04:06):
were like, yoh, yeah, yo, we we just found so
and So's dad's alcohol. We're gonna skip school. I was
like no, because future baseball players in college don't skip
school and drink. So I did not do it. And
it's like that, like when you have this thing in
your in your head, there's like a like a guard
rail that keeps you on the way to getting those things.
And just most people don't they don't ask themselves. They say,
(04:29):
I want to be successful, I want to be famous,
I want to be a YouTube star, whatever they say.
But like talking about what or doing what or impacting who, like,
you have to be specifically.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
So I was going to ask when you do have
to be that specific?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Right?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
That means you have to do a lot of work
on yourself because, like Charlamage said, most people don't think
realize what they want. They want to be rich, or
they want to be have a lot of money, they
want a big home, they want a nice car. So
that requires the work and I think a lot of
people don't necessarily know what they want to do. It
Like if you ever ask a high school student or
a college student or somebody who graduated college, what do
you want to do, and usually it's I want to
(05:06):
make money.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
It's literally my job. Yeah, you're right. I ask these
people all the time. They all say, I want to
make money. I want to be famous, so I want
to be an influencer. I want a podcast. I want
a podcast, but be a rapper. I'm just kid. I
don't hear that one as much, but you.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Know, I always I wanted to ask you as well.
You know, we had doctor Cheyenne Bryant here the other day.
I saw that and she was talking about change behavior
opposed to UH. We were talking about UH men doing
things in relationship as it came from men, so if
a man is a womanizer or a man is an abuser.
She was saying that she feels like men don't change,
(05:45):
they just shift and pivot. What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
You saw a clipper? I saw the clip. I very
much disagree with her when she says like people she said,
people don't change it and respectfully like, I don't. I
don't want to talk down about anybody, but man, I
got enough of that. I feel I certainly don't want
that with the good sister doctor Bryant. I heard her
say that like people don't change. She was like, I
(06:09):
don't change it. But that is actually not true. So
we have to go back to what's the definition of change? So, like,
here's an example. Recently, I've been taking my health more
seriously and I gave up soda, fried food, candy, working out.
When you do that, my body chemistry is different. If
you did a cat skin on my brain now versus
(06:31):
six months ago, it looks different, Like wouldn't that be definable, noticeable,
observable change. And we often use phrases like you are
what you consistently do. So if I change what I
consistently do, don't I change who I am and how
I show up in this world? I think it's a
very disheartening thing to say people don't change, they shift. Like,
what if I've had a really hard life trauma, abuse, tragedy,
(06:55):
and I cope with that comma trauma, abuse, and tragedy
with drugs and alcohol. Are you saying I can just shift?
I can't actually transform and become a healed human and
outgrow the problems that that plagued my life and led
to these addictive behaviors Like that, that's wildly inaccurate, And
and you recently becoming a new mother, and again, you're
(07:17):
not the same person as you were before. This person, Like,
wouldn't we observe that? Is absolutely Like, that's that's just
a different thing I did.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
She was saying that you have to make these shifts
in your life before it lead to actual change, but
I don't.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I don't actually, I don't know that that's true. I
think I think the first step in change is it
goes back to what we're saying before. It's identifying who
you want to be. And once you identify who you
want you want to be, then the next steps become
very obvious. Like you now identify as a mom of
two instead of what you were before was mom of one,
and at some point in your life you were mom
(07:50):
of zero, and that's going to impact your choices. So
it really starts with how you how you identify, and
and what and what you do. So when she said that,
I was like, oh, man, you know me, sometimes I'm
screaming at the computer. But I just I really disagree
with her. I think the greatest capacity that human beings
have is the ability to transform their circumstances. And we
(08:10):
do that by the way we identify.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
What about if you going back to what we were
talking about before, doctor Bryant, what about if you don't
know what you want to do? Or what about or
what if that changes? What if you get into something
and then you're like is this what I really want
to do? Or like how do you get out of that?
Because then you can land yourself in a funk, you
can be depressed or you know something like that.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Right, Well, so I think there's two questions there, like
what if you don't know what you want to be?
I know a really good book that people should read
that will help the my tentergy, change your questions, change
your future. No, no, but but I mean if you
don't know what you want to be, you should explore
and you should try things, and you should ask yourself
the kind of questions like like what difference do I
(08:56):
want to make in this world? What impact do I
want to have in this world? World? Who do I
want to have an impact upon? How do I want
to wake up and spend my days? And when you
ask yourself those types of questions, it informs what you
want to do. I don't want to wake up and
like I like to cook, right, I'm pretty good at cooking.
I don't want to wake up and serve in a restaurant,
but I know people who do. I want to wake
(09:17):
up and help people overcome life's circumstances. So I became
a psychotherapist. And the second thing is, I don't know
that if you end up in the wrong situation, you
end up in a funk or depressed. I think you
have to have a realization that I can't discover who
I am without trying all kinds of things, and then
having the boldness to say this doesn't fit, and then
having the boldness to fight for the things that do. Like,
(09:40):
once I decided I wanted to become a psychotherapist, it
wasn't like the path was easy. In fact, it's been very,
very challenging.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
It.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
First of all, I had to get a master's degree,
and that required two degrees, and I don't know a
lot of people in my family or environment where people
were getting master's degrees. I had to get a license,
I had to study and work. And then you know,
when I showed up in the psychotherapy field. And I
say this all the time and people don't really believe me,
But when you're in graduate school studying psychotherapy in two
thousand and five. There are zero, literally zero African American
(10:10):
faces that you study in those books. So do you
think the white status quo in the field was very
excited for this black dude to show up and start
writing books and start showing up on stages, Like it's
been a really hard but I know this is my place,
so you have to have the boldness like this is
where I am and I'm going to fight for it.
And all three of you in many different environments comedy, business, music, radio,
(10:34):
and television, like you've all been wildly successful, and I
would venture to bet it hasn't always been easy. And
I think that goes back to also the question that
we ask, like people look at your life or your
life or your life and they're like, I want to
be I want to be just hilarious. I want to
be a really famous, really great comic beautiful because that's
(11:00):
not easy, child, but they do. They look at her
life and like who I want to be like that?
And then they start trying to replicate who just hilarious is.
But like, how many comedy clubs did you work at
when there was ten people in the club or you
had to drive there? And they didn't even pay you
gas money to cover it. Like, people don't want to
replicate the journey. I want to replicate the outcome. But
(11:23):
if I want to be just hilarious, I have to
change my question and ask, like, what what street did
she go down to get to the ultimate destination where
she got? And I've got to be willing to go
down that same street. And that's not that's not an
easy thing to do. I mean, that's a that's a hard,
hard world to do.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
In chapter five, you talk about being difference land.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
What does that mean? Yeah, like a really really powerful
question to ask yourself for in my case when I
ask my clients, is what difference would that make? So
if if I identify that I want to be a
I want to have a successful podcast, you should ask
yourself like, what difference will it make in my life
to have a successful podcast? Because difference leads to motivation.
(12:04):
Now you have ten jobs, right, but let's imagine the
only job you have is comic and you're tired, and
you're like, I don't want to get on another plane,
I don't want to get another bus, I don't want
to take another stage. But if I were to ask
her like what difference would it make if you continue
to do that. She's inherently going to think about these
two babies, and she's going to think about my ability
to pay for their future, the college, whatever, and that's
going to increase her motivation to do really hard things
(12:26):
for the betterment of her life, the betterment of her
children row And most people don't think about difference. They
just think about, like on a very surface level, the
things that they want. And I think we just spend
more time thinking about difference.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
What would you say to people who are experiencing grief
due to Vice President of Kamala Harris losing the election.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Oh, that's a good question. I would say, like, honor
your feelings. I would say, you know, this is a
hard time depending on what you thought about the election
and who you were passionate about or whatever, I say,
honor those feelings. But then I would also say, turn
that grief into action, turn that grief into into something
(13:06):
you can do. I think the most powerful, the most
powerful way to deal with grief is with hope, and
a powerful way to deal with grief is with honor.
So one really good example is a grief that I've
had in my life is my uncle Jeffrey passed away
and he was my all. To make a super long
(13:27):
story really short, I grew up really depressed and anxious
from a difficult childhood. And my grandmother and her ultimate wisdom,
knew that one of the things that would help Elliott
feel better is if he knew how much like his
uncle Jeffrey he was. You know, when you grow up
and you're super isolated, you just don't feel like you belong.
And my grandmother sent this dude to come hang out
with me, and I felt like I had a place
(13:49):
in this world. And I was in Denmark teaching in
twenty seventeen and I got this horrible message on Facebook.
I learned that my uncle passed away on Facebook. And
you know my uncle, he was a big kid man,
and he would have loved all this stuff that's happened,
Like I've signed TV deals and got shows and development
and books and hanging out with you and doing all
(14:11):
kinds of stuff. He would find that stuff so fun.
So the way I do with the grief is like
he's mentally coming along with me for the journey. That's
how I honor him. So we also, if you're grieving
in host election, Like, how do you honor whatever motivated you? Like,
For me, as an African American, I thought it was
amazing to watch a black woman do some of the
(14:35):
things that Kamala was doing, Like it was an amazing thing.
I thought about my grandmother who never thought this would
happen ever in the United States, and to watch Kamala
do what she was doing, so I thought it was amazing.
And the way that I plan to honor that is
by continuing to fight for a world where a woman
is not voted for for things that are A not
(14:56):
true and B she can't control. I had many many
people in black community tell me I just don't think
a woman should be the leader of America, And I'd
be like why, Like, to me, it's wildly hypocritical for
someone to say my woman should be at home, like
(15:16):
as a leader of the house. But then you say
women can't lead and you don't want a woman to
be in power. It's like those things don't they're not
congruent thoughts. So I think we have to honor the process.
And one of the ways I plan to do that
is can you continue to advocate for black culture and
black women in particularly because I think black women are
they need to be advocated for. And I think hope
(15:38):
matters because hope allows us to think that there's opportunity
for things to be different in the future. And we
need to think about what kind of world we want
to live in and do whatever we can in our
small micro world and in our big macro world to
advocate for the kind of world we want to live in.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Also, so you say that one of the biggest mistakes
people are making is making emotional decisions when you should
be making it based on discipline.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yes, you should be making it based on discipline, for sure. Yeah, discipline.
You know, I've heard somebody say, and I agree, discipline
is the highest level of self love. And you just
can't achieve anything based upon emotion or instantaneous desire. You
have to have your the outcome you want in your
(16:25):
mind all of the time. Like we landed late last night,
and me and my camera guys over there. We went
for a walk in Times Square and I had a
really long day and I was super hungry. And you
walking around Times Square at midnight, you see a bunch
of Nathan's hot dog stands and all kinds of crazy
food you can get anything at any hour in New
York City, and I like my instantaneous emotional desire was
(16:47):
to fulfill that need, like those French fribes would taste
good and that hot dog would taste good. But my
long term outcome is about my health and who I
want to be going forward. So I have to make
a discipline decision, and a discipline decision, that decision that's
in line with you stated your stated goal, like the
person you're trying to become, and an emotional decision is
something that would just meet that need right now, Like
(17:09):
it would have felt good to eat that hot time,
but I would have woke up with regret. I wouldn't
have felt right the momentum I've gathered over the past
few months, I would have lost that It's just not
worth it. So people need to make discipline decisions all
throughout their life, and health is just one example. But
like you guys all had to make discipline decisions on
your pathway to where you ultimately got professionally, and opportunities
(17:30):
came your way that sounded good, But I can't do
that because it's not moving me in this right place.
And that's discipline, And neither of you would be in
the position you're in without a high, high, high level
of discipline. We just don't talk about it. Like if
someone were to ask Jes like, how do you become
a successful comedian? They're just thinking about how funny you
have to be? But I know a lot of comedians
(17:52):
and being funny it's just part of it. That's a
part of the whole. A meeba of what skills you
have to have to be a successful a comic, and
one of them its disciplined.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I wonder when it comes to changing your questions, do
people have the emotional intelligence to ask the right questions?
And what I mean by that is, you know, you
might automatically think somebody always trying to play you when
things don't go your way, right, so you're like, yo,
this person trying to play me, you know what I mean,
Like this person has something gives me like to me,
that's so the low level of emotional intelligence, Like you
(18:23):
have to have a high level of emotional intelligence to
ask yourself the right question.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
I think that's true. But I think you can grow
your emotional intelligence. I think, I mean, I think you're
one hundred percent right. People something doesn't go their way
like so and so trying to get me. But and
I think you have to you have to shift that.
And one of the ways to help shift that is
to read books like this, go to psychotherapy, and realize
that even if the world seems to be against you,
(18:48):
you still have a way to impact that, you still
have a way to make a difference in that you
still have a way to overcome that. I mean, I'm
someone that over the course of my life, I have
fallen in love with things feeling like they're against me.
I actually love the challenge of that now, And I
couldn't have said that before, but I do. I love
it when it's like the odds are against you and
(19:10):
you don't really feel like you can can see you
can succeed. And the reason I feel that way now
and I haven't felt that way before is number one,
because that's when I can prove my strength, Like if
everything was easy, I don't get to prove that I
have any level of strength, Like I want some pushback.
And number two, I want to make there are some
people that invested a lot in me, my grandmother, my mother.
(19:32):
Shout out to my mother, Janette Connie, who would probably
be entertained that I would say her name here, my
aunt Lenny. Like, these people have invested a lot in me,
So I actually like when there's a little bit of
pushback because I get to show them what they taught
me was magical and powerful. So you have to shift
from like the whole universes against me to like, this
is just an opportunity for me to show people how
(19:53):
strong I am. This is an opportunity for me to
show people that have poured into me that the stuff
they poured into me was valuable and I use it.
So you have to really change everything about your perspective.
And I've said this a lot before too, but you
have to be super grateful, Like I'm now at a
point in my life where I'm grateful for challenges because
that's when I can see has all of this been
worth it? And now I realize it has, Like it
(20:15):
has been worth it to be able to push back
when obstacles show up. And most people spend so much
of their time entitled that they spend so less of
their time grateful, And I realize I'm not entitled to anything,
and I'm so grateful for every opportunity, every chance people
were in my life. Friend I will randomly text them
thank you for things because I just want to be
(20:36):
so appreciative of every moment that I've had, because I
think it's all a gift, even though even the challenges
and the problems are all gifts. And how many of
y'all have gotten fired from a job or booed off
a stage or whatever. And at the time it happened,
it hurt and it was difficult, it was challenging, but
you look back and realize I needed that, like that process.
(20:57):
That was a good thing that it happened to me.
It wasn't fun, wasn't exciting, and I don't want to
go through it again, but I needed that in order
to get to get here. So I think we have
to just shift, and I think people can. I do
think we kind of operate on a low level of
emotional intelligence, or at least a lot of people do.
But I think that can be impacted by doing things
(21:18):
like educating yourself, feeding your brain quality things instead of
playing around on social media, like read a book. Like
you know, most successful people have libraries and unsuccessful people
have television. It's like that's a measurable piece of data
that rich wildly successful goal attaining people have more books,
and people who are not as successful watch television many
(21:41):
more hours. So in that comfort, they're just feeding their
brain better stuff. And what does that do that increases
your level of emotional intelligence? How do you follow you?
Elliott Connie? I don't know. Why do you want to
call you doctor? That everybody do? Everybody does? How do
they follow me? Go to Instagram at Elie it speaks
it spell my name of two l's and two t's.
(22:03):
You can follow me on Facebook. Just look at my name.
Elliot Connie is not too many people named Elliott Connie.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
His new book is out now change your questions, change
your future, overcoming challenges, and create a new vision for
your life using the principles of solution focused brief therapy.
Make sure you go get that and check out Elliott's podcast,
Family Therapy on the blackfed iHeartRadio podcast network.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
That's always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
My brother's Elliott Connie.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Pick up the book. It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning,
Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club
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