Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Elliott Connie Reveals The Right Questions To Ask Yourself To Achieve Your Best Personal Success

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INTERVIEW: Elliott Connie Reveals The Right Questions To Ask Yourself To Achieve Your Best Personal Success · The Breakfast Club

0:00
Speaker 1: Wake that answer up in the morning.
0:02
Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club Morning, Everybody's DJ Envy Jess, hilarious, charlamage
0:08
Speaker 2: the guy.
0:09
Speaker 1: We are to Breakfast Club.
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Speaker 2: You got a special guest in the building. We have
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Speaker 2: Elliott Connie.
0:13
Speaker 1: Welcome back brother. How are you, sir. I'm doing great.
0:15
Speaker 1: I'm doing very well. Thank you man. It's good to
0:17
Speaker 1: see you.
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Speaker 3: You got a new book out now, a change your questions,
0:20
Speaker 3: change the future of overcoming challenges and creating a new
0:22
Speaker 3: vision for your life using the principles of solution focused
0:25
Speaker 3: brief therapy facts.
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Speaker 1: What a title? Yes, Jess, what a title? So what
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Speaker 1: does all that mean? You know it means. I've been
0:35
Speaker 1: a practicing psychotherapist for I don't know, nearly twenty years
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Speaker 1: and it's been an amazing ride to like watch people
0:44
Speaker 1: heal and overcome, like some things that you wouldn't imagine
0:48
Speaker 1: people get heal and overcoming. As I sat there on
0:50
Speaker 1: that twenty year journey, sitting there front row and watching
0:53
Speaker 1: people grow, how you started thinking, like what's the commonality?
0:57
Speaker 1: Like how do people do this? How do people change?
1:00
Speaker 1: And how do people overcome challenges? And people who are
1:06
Speaker 1: successful and people who are able to achieve things in
1:09
Speaker 1: spite of obstacles, have a tendency to ask themselves different
1:12
Speaker 1: kinds of questions. So I decided to write a book
1:15
Speaker 1: about it. Like I've written several books, but most of
1:17
Speaker 1: them are for professionals. But I decided I wanted to
1:19
Speaker 1: write a book about change and about how people talk
1:23
Speaker 1: to themselves, and about how successful people have a tendency
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Speaker 1: to ask themselves different kinds of questions that lead to
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Speaker 1: their success. And when I say success, I don't mean
1:31
Speaker 1: like millionaires, but I just mean people that achieve whatever
1:34
Speaker 1: their aim is, if it's overcoming addiction or becoming successful
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Speaker 1: business person, whatever it is. Success is defined by people
1:40
Speaker 1: who set a goal and achieve it. So what is
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Speaker 1: it that makes some people succeed and other people not?
1:46
Speaker 1: And after all these years of practice, it's they talk
1:48
Speaker 1: to themselves differently, and they ask themselves different kind of questions.
1:51
Speaker 3: What's the most common question that successful people ask themselves?
1:54
Speaker 1: Oh boy, that's a good one. The most common question
1:56
Speaker 1: that successful people ask themselves is what do I want?
2:00
Speaker 1: Most people do not ask themselves what do I want?
2:03
Speaker 1: Most people spend a lot of time thinking about what
2:05
Speaker 1: they don't want and try to avoid it. People who
2:08
Speaker 1: achieve aims and goals are the ones who are able
2:10
Speaker 1: to set a goal and ask themselves like, what is
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Speaker 1: it that I want about this goal? And once you
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Speaker 1: do that, you become capable of achieving it.
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Speaker 3: I tell all the younger that you got to find
2:20
Speaker 3: that one thing that you want to do, and we
2:22
Speaker 3: find that one thing that you want to do.
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Speaker 1: When you focus on that, everything else follow them, understand.
2:26
Speaker 1: I mean I tell people all the time, like, you
2:28
Speaker 1: don't get into a taxi cab and the cab driver
2:31
Speaker 1: doesn't ask you where do you not want to be?
2:33
Speaker 1: Like if the cab driver to ask you where you're
2:35
Speaker 1: not want to be? That doesn't give that cab driver
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Speaker 1: any information. The cab driver asks you the single most
2:40
Speaker 1: important question ever, where are you going? And then you
2:43
Speaker 1: answer that question. You would never say I just want
2:46
Speaker 1: to be not here, you know what I mean?
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Speaker 3: Like, you.
2:52
Speaker 1: Don't never say that cab driver says where you headed?
2:54
Speaker 1: You don't say like not here? Like that's just not
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Speaker 1: what That doesn't help. But think about that, Like most
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Speaker 1: people say, like I just don't want to feel like
3:01
Speaker 1: this or I don't like this job. But what job
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Speaker 1: do you want? I don't know, just not this one.
3:06
Speaker 1: But that's not good enough. You have to, like you
3:08
Speaker 1: have to really identify what's that thing I want to
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Speaker 1: achieve and what's that place I want to be in?
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Speaker 1: Who do I want to be in order to become
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Speaker 1: the man?
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Speaker 3: That's so real, and that's why we have these conversations
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Speaker 3: about manifestation. You can't just say I want to be successful. No,
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Speaker 3: what's the goal, what's the destination, what you're trying to do?
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Speaker 1: That's right, that's absolute right. You got to think of
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Speaker 1: the world is like a like an algorithm that wants
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Speaker 1: to give you what you want, but it will only
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Speaker 1: reward the people bold enough to ask for it and
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Speaker 1: ask for it in great detail. And when you have
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Speaker 1: like really granular, detailed goals, you're just significantly more likely
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Speaker 1: to achieve it. And here's an example. When I was
3:49
Speaker 1: in high school, my obsession was to go to college
3:52
Speaker 1: and play baseball. Like that was my obsession. I knew
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Speaker 1: that college was my ticket out of the situation I
3:58
Speaker 1: was in, and I wanted to do a college and
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Speaker 1: play base well. So I remember one day I was
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Speaker 1: a freshman and I'm walking to school and a couple
4:05
Speaker 1: of my boys came running up to me and they
4:06
Speaker 1: were like, yoh, yeah, yo, we we just found so
4:08
Speaker 1: and So's dad's alcohol. We're gonna skip school. I was
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Speaker 1: like no, because future baseball players in college don't skip
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Speaker 1: school and drink. So I did not do it. And
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Speaker 1: it's like that, like when you have this thing in
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Speaker 1: your in your head, there's like a like a guard
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Speaker 1: rail that keeps you on the way to getting those things.
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Speaker 1: And just most people don't they don't ask themselves. They say,
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Speaker 1: I want to be successful, I want to be famous,
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Speaker 1: I want to be a YouTube star, whatever they say.
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Speaker 1: But like talking about what or doing what or impacting who, like,
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Speaker 1: you have to be specifically.
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Speaker 2: So I was going to ask when you do have
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Speaker 2: to be that specific?
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Speaker 1: Right?
4:46
Speaker 2: That means you have to do a lot of work
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Speaker 2: on yourself because, like Charlamage said, most people don't think
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Speaker 2: realize what they want. They want to be rich, or
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Speaker 2: they want to be have a lot of money, they
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Speaker 2: want a big home, they want a nice car. So
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Speaker 2: that requires the work and I think a lot of
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Speaker 2: people don't necessarily know what they want to do. It
5:00
Speaker 2: Like if you ever ask a high school student or
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Speaker 2: a college student or somebody who graduated college, what do
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Speaker 2: you want to do, and usually it's I want to
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Speaker 2: make money.
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Speaker 1: It's literally my job. Yeah, you're right. I ask these
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Speaker 1: people all the time. They all say, I want to
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Speaker 1: make money. I want to be famous, so I want
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Speaker 1: to be an influencer. I want a podcast. I want
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Speaker 1: a podcast, but be a rapper. I'm just kid. I
5:20
Speaker 1: don't hear that one as much, but you.
5:22
Speaker 2: Know, I always I wanted to ask you as well.
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Speaker 2: You know, we had doctor Cheyenne Bryant here the other day.
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Speaker 2: I saw that and she was talking about change behavior
5:31
Speaker 2: opposed to UH. We were talking about UH men doing
5:35
Speaker 2: things in relationship as it came from men, so if
5:37
Speaker 2: a man is a womanizer or a man is an abuser.
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Speaker 2: She was saying that she feels like men don't change,
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Speaker 2: they just shift and pivot. What's your thoughts on that?
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Speaker 1: You saw a clipper? I saw the clip. I very
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Speaker 1: much disagree with her when she says like people she said,
5:52
Speaker 1: people don't change it and respectfully like, I don't. I
5:54
Speaker 1: don't want to talk down about anybody, but man, I
5:59
Speaker 1: got enough of that. I feel I certainly don't want
6:02
Speaker 1: that with the good sister doctor Bryant. I heard her
6:06
Speaker 1: say that like people don't change. She was like, I
6:09
Speaker 1: don't change it. But that is actually not true. So
6:11
Speaker 1: we have to go back to what's the definition of change? So, like,
6:15
Speaker 1: here's an example. Recently, I've been taking my health more
6:20
Speaker 1: seriously and I gave up soda, fried food, candy, working out.
6:24
Speaker 1: When you do that, my body chemistry is different. If
6:28
Speaker 1: you did a cat skin on my brain now versus
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Speaker 1: six months ago, it looks different, Like wouldn't that be definable, noticeable,
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Speaker 1: observable change. And we often use phrases like you are
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Speaker 1: what you consistently do. So if I change what I
6:43
Speaker 1: consistently do, don't I change who I am and how
6:45
Speaker 1: I show up in this world? I think it's a
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Speaker 1: very disheartening thing to say people don't change, they shift. Like,
6:51
Speaker 1: what if I've had a really hard life trauma, abuse, tragedy,
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Speaker 1: and I cope with that comma trauma, abuse, and tragedy
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Speaker 1: with drugs and alcohol. Are you saying I can just shift?
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Speaker 1: I can't actually transform and become a healed human and
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Speaker 1: outgrow the problems that that plagued my life and led
7:08
Speaker 1: to these addictive behaviors Like that, that's wildly inaccurate, And
7:13
Speaker 1: and you recently becoming a new mother, and again, you're
7:17
Speaker 1: not the same person as you were before. This person, Like,
7:19
Speaker 1: wouldn't we observe that? Is absolutely Like, that's that's just
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Speaker 1: a different thing I did.
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Speaker 3: She was saying that you have to make these shifts
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Speaker 3: in your life before it lead to actual change, but
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Speaker 3: I don't.
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Speaker 1: I don't actually, I don't know that that's true. I
7:31
Speaker 1: think I think the first step in change is it
7:35
Speaker 1: goes back to what we're saying before. It's identifying who
7:37
Speaker 1: you want to be. And once you identify who you
7:40
Speaker 1: want you want to be, then the next steps become
7:42
Speaker 1: very obvious. Like you now identify as a mom of
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Speaker 1: two instead of what you were before was mom of one,
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Speaker 1: and at some point in your life you were mom
7:50
Speaker 1: of zero, and that's going to impact your choices. So
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Speaker 1: it really starts with how you how you identify, and
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Speaker 1: and what and what you do. So when she said that,
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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, man, you know me, sometimes I'm
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Speaker 1: screaming at the computer. But I just I really disagree
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Speaker 1: with her. I think the greatest capacity that human beings
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Speaker 1: have is the ability to transform their circumstances. And we
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Speaker 1: do that by the way we identify.
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Speaker 4: What about if you going back to what we were
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Speaker 4: talking about before, doctor Bryant, what about if you don't
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Speaker 4: know what you want to do? Or what about or
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Speaker 4: what if that changes? What if you get into something
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Speaker 4: and then you're like is this what I really want
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Speaker 4: to do? Or like how do you get out of that?
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Speaker 4: Because then you can land yourself in a funk, you
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Speaker 4: can be depressed or you know something like that.
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Speaker 1: Right, Well, so I think there's two questions there, like
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Speaker 1: what if you don't know what you want to be?
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Speaker 1: I know a really good book that people should read
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Speaker 1: that will help the my tentergy, change your questions, change
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Speaker 1: your future. No, no, but but I mean if you
8:48
Speaker 1: don't know what you want to be, you should explore
8:49
Speaker 1: and you should try things, and you should ask yourself
8:52
Speaker 1: the kind of questions like like what difference do I
8:56
Speaker 1: want to make in this world? What impact do I
8:59
Speaker 1: want to have in this world? World? Who do I
9:00
Speaker 1: want to have an impact upon? How do I want
9:03
Speaker 1: to wake up and spend my days? And when you
9:05
Speaker 1: ask yourself those types of questions, it informs what you
9:08
Speaker 1: want to do. I don't want to wake up and
9:11
Speaker 1: like I like to cook, right, I'm pretty good at cooking.
9:13
Speaker 1: I don't want to wake up and serve in a restaurant,
9:15
Speaker 1: but I know people who do. I want to wake
9:17
Speaker 1: up and help people overcome life's circumstances. So I became
9:21
Speaker 1: a psychotherapist. And the second thing is, I don't know
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Speaker 1: that if you end up in the wrong situation, you
9:26
Speaker 1: end up in a funk or depressed. I think you
9:29
Speaker 1: have to have a realization that I can't discover who
9:31
Speaker 1: I am without trying all kinds of things, and then
9:34
Speaker 1: having the boldness to say this doesn't fit, and then
9:37
Speaker 1: having the boldness to fight for the things that do. Like,
9:40
Speaker 1: once I decided I wanted to become a psychotherapist, it
9:42
Speaker 1: wasn't like the path was easy. In fact, it's been very,
9:45
Speaker 1: very challenging.
9:45
Speaker 4: It.
9:46
Speaker 1: First of all, I had to get a master's degree,
9:47
Speaker 1: and that required two degrees, and I don't know a
9:50
Speaker 1: lot of people in my family or environment where people
9:52
Speaker 1: were getting master's degrees. I had to get a license,
9:54
Speaker 1: I had to study and work. And then you know,
9:57
Speaker 1: when I showed up in the psychotherapy field. And I
10:00
Speaker 1: say this all the time and people don't really believe me,
10:01
Speaker 1: But when you're in graduate school studying psychotherapy in two
10:05
Speaker 1: thousand and five. There are zero, literally zero African American
10:10
Speaker 1: faces that you study in those books. So do you
10:13
Speaker 1: think the white status quo in the field was very
10:16
Speaker 1: excited for this black dude to show up and start
10:19
Speaker 1: writing books and start showing up on stages, Like it's
10:21
Speaker 1: been a really hard but I know this is my place,
10:24
Speaker 1: so you have to have the boldness like this is
10:26
Speaker 1: where I am and I'm going to fight for it.
10:28
Speaker 1: And all three of you in many different environments comedy, business, music, radio,
10:34
Speaker 1: and television, like you've all been wildly successful, and I
10:38
Speaker 1: would venture to bet it hasn't always been easy. And
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Speaker 1: I think that goes back to also the question that
10:45
Speaker 1: we ask, like people look at your life or your
10:47
Speaker 1: life or your life and they're like, I want to
10:49
Speaker 1: be I want to be just hilarious. I want to
10:51
Speaker 1: be a really famous, really great comic beautiful because that's
11:00
Speaker 1: not easy, child, but they do. They look at her
11:03
Speaker 1: life and like who I want to be like that?
11:06
Speaker 1: And then they start trying to replicate who just hilarious is.
11:10
Speaker 1: But like, how many comedy clubs did you work at
11:12
Speaker 1: when there was ten people in the club or you
11:14
Speaker 1: had to drive there? And they didn't even pay you
11:16
Speaker 1: gas money to cover it. Like, people don't want to
11:19
Speaker 1: replicate the journey. I want to replicate the outcome. But
11:23
Speaker 1: if I want to be just hilarious, I have to
11:25
Speaker 1: change my question and ask, like, what what street did
11:28
Speaker 1: she go down to get to the ultimate destination where
11:31
Speaker 1: she got? And I've got to be willing to go
11:33
Speaker 1: down that same street. And that's not that's not an
11:36
Speaker 1: easy thing to do. I mean, that's a that's a hard,
11:38
Speaker 1: hard world to do.
11:39
Speaker 3: In chapter five, you talk about being difference land.
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Speaker 1: What does that mean? Yeah, like a really really powerful
11:46
Speaker 1: question to ask yourself for in my case when I
11:48
Speaker 1: ask my clients, is what difference would that make? So
11:51
Speaker 1: if if I identify that I want to be a
11:54
Speaker 1: I want to have a successful podcast, you should ask
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Speaker 1: yourself like, what difference will it make in my life
12:00
Speaker 1: to have a successful podcast? Because difference leads to motivation.
12:04
Speaker 1: Now you have ten jobs, right, but let's imagine the
12:07
Speaker 1: only job you have is comic and you're tired, and
12:10
Speaker 1: you're like, I don't want to get on another plane,
12:12
Speaker 1: I don't want to get another bus, I don't want
12:13
Speaker 1: to take another stage. But if I were to ask
12:15
Speaker 1: her like what difference would it make if you continue
12:17
Speaker 1: to do that. She's inherently going to think about these
12:19
Speaker 1: two babies, and she's going to think about my ability
12:21
Speaker 1: to pay for their future, the college, whatever, and that's
12:23
Speaker 1: going to increase her motivation to do really hard things
12:26
Speaker 1: for the betterment of her life, the betterment of her
12:28
Speaker 1: children row And most people don't think about difference. They
12:31
Speaker 1: just think about, like on a very surface level, the
12:34
Speaker 1: things that they want. And I think we just spend
12:36
Speaker 1: more time thinking about difference.
12:37
Speaker 3: What would you say to people who are experiencing grief
12:40
Speaker 3: due to Vice President of Kamala Harris losing the election.
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Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good question. I would say, like, honor
12:50
Speaker 1: your feelings. I would say, you know, this is a
12:53
Speaker 1: hard time depending on what you thought about the election
12:57
Speaker 1: and who you were passionate about or whatever, I say,
13:00
Speaker 1: honor those feelings. But then I would also say, turn
13:02
Speaker 1: that grief into action, turn that grief into into something
13:06
Speaker 1: you can do. I think the most powerful, the most
13:10
Speaker 1: powerful way to deal with grief is with hope, and
13:15
Speaker 1: a powerful way to deal with grief is with honor.
13:18
Speaker 1: So one really good example is a grief that I've
13:23
Speaker 1: had in my life is my uncle Jeffrey passed away
13:25
Speaker 1: and he was my all. To make a super long
13:27
Speaker 1: story really short, I grew up really depressed and anxious
13:31
Speaker 1: from a difficult childhood. And my grandmother and her ultimate wisdom,
13:35
Speaker 1: knew that one of the things that would help Elliott
13:38
Speaker 1: feel better is if he knew how much like his
13:40
Speaker 1: uncle Jeffrey he was. You know, when you grow up
13:42
Speaker 1: and you're super isolated, you just don't feel like you belong.
13:45
Speaker 1: And my grandmother sent this dude to come hang out
13:47
Speaker 1: with me, and I felt like I had a place
13:49
Speaker 1: in this world. And I was in Denmark teaching in
13:52
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen and I got this horrible message on Facebook.
13:57
Speaker 1: I learned that my uncle passed away on Facebook. And
14:01
Speaker 1: you know my uncle, he was a big kid man,
14:03
Speaker 1: and he would have loved all this stuff that's happened,
14:05
Speaker 1: Like I've signed TV deals and got shows and development
14:09
Speaker 1: and books and hanging out with you and doing all
14:11
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. He would find that stuff so fun.
14:14
Speaker 1: So the way I do with the grief is like
14:15
Speaker 1: he's mentally coming along with me for the journey. That's
14:19
Speaker 1: how I honor him. So we also, if you're grieving
14:22
Speaker 1: in host election, Like, how do you honor whatever motivated you? Like,
14:28
Speaker 1: For me, as an African American, I thought it was
14:31
Speaker 1: amazing to watch a black woman do some of the
14:35
Speaker 1: things that Kamala was doing, Like it was an amazing thing.
14:37
Speaker 1: I thought about my grandmother who never thought this would
14:41
Speaker 1: happen ever in the United States, and to watch Kamala
14:44
Speaker 1: do what she was doing, so I thought it was amazing.
14:47
Speaker 1: And the way that I plan to honor that is
14:49
Speaker 1: by continuing to fight for a world where a woman
14:52
Speaker 1: is not voted for for things that are A not
14:56
Speaker 1: true and B she can't control. I had many many
14:59
Speaker 1: people in black community tell me I just don't think
15:02
Speaker 1: a woman should be the leader of America, And I'd
15:06
Speaker 1: be like why, Like, to me, it's wildly hypocritical for
15:11
Speaker 1: someone to say my woman should be at home, like
15:16
Speaker 1: as a leader of the house. But then you say
15:18
Speaker 1: women can't lead and you don't want a woman to
15:21
Speaker 1: be in power. It's like those things don't they're not
15:23
Speaker 1: congruent thoughts. So I think we have to honor the process.
15:28
Speaker 1: And one of the ways I plan to do that
15:29
Speaker 1: is can you continue to advocate for black culture and
15:32
Speaker 1: black women in particularly because I think black women are
15:35
Speaker 1: they need to be advocated for. And I think hope
15:38
Speaker 1: matters because hope allows us to think that there's opportunity
15:43
Speaker 1: for things to be different in the future. And we
15:46
Speaker 1: need to think about what kind of world we want
15:48
Speaker 1: to live in and do whatever we can in our
15:52
Speaker 1: small micro world and in our big macro world to
15:55
Speaker 1: advocate for the kind of world we want to live in.
15:57
Speaker 3: Also, so you say that one of the biggest mistakes
15:59
Speaker 3: people are making is making emotional decisions when you should
16:02
Speaker 3: be making it based on discipline.
16:04
Speaker 1: Yes, you should be making it based on discipline, for sure. Yeah, discipline.
16:10
Speaker 1: You know, I've heard somebody say, and I agree, discipline
16:12
Speaker 1: is the highest level of self love. And you just
16:15
Speaker 1: can't achieve anything based upon emotion or instantaneous desire. You
16:22
Speaker 1: have to have your the outcome you want in your
16:25
Speaker 1: mind all of the time. Like we landed late last night,
16:29
Speaker 1: and me and my camera guys over there. We went
16:31
Speaker 1: for a walk in Times Square and I had a
16:33
Speaker 1: really long day and I was super hungry. And you
16:36
Speaker 1: walking around Times Square at midnight, you see a bunch
16:38
Speaker 1: of Nathan's hot dog stands and all kinds of crazy
16:40
Speaker 1: food you can get anything at any hour in New
16:42
Speaker 1: York City, and I like my instantaneous emotional desire was
16:47
Speaker 1: to fulfill that need, like those French fribes would taste
16:49
Speaker 1: good and that hot dog would taste good. But my
16:52
Speaker 1: long term outcome is about my health and who I
16:54
Speaker 1: want to be going forward. So I have to make
16:57
Speaker 1: a discipline decision, and a discipline decision, that decision that's
17:00
Speaker 1: in line with you stated your stated goal, like the
17:04
Speaker 1: person you're trying to become, and an emotional decision is
17:07
Speaker 1: something that would just meet that need right now, Like
17:09
Speaker 1: it would have felt good to eat that hot time,
17:10
Speaker 1: but I would have woke up with regret. I wouldn't
17:13
Speaker 1: have felt right the momentum I've gathered over the past
17:15
Speaker 1: few months, I would have lost that It's just not
17:18
Speaker 1: worth it. So people need to make discipline decisions all
17:20
Speaker 1: throughout their life, and health is just one example. But
17:23
Speaker 1: like you guys all had to make discipline decisions on
17:26
Speaker 1: your pathway to where you ultimately got professionally, and opportunities
17:30
Speaker 1: came your way that sounded good, But I can't do
17:32
Speaker 1: that because it's not moving me in this right place.
17:35
Speaker 1: And that's discipline, And neither of you would be in
17:38
Speaker 1: the position you're in without a high, high, high level
17:40
Speaker 1: of discipline. We just don't talk about it. Like if
17:43
Speaker 1: someone were to ask Jes like, how do you become
17:45
Speaker 1: a successful comedian? They're just thinking about how funny you
17:48
Speaker 1: have to be? But I know a lot of comedians
17:52
Speaker 1: and being funny it's just part of it. That's a
17:54
Speaker 1: part of the whole. A meeba of what skills you
17:58
Speaker 1: have to have to be a successful a comic, and
18:00
Speaker 1: one of them its disciplined.
18:03
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
18:03
Speaker 3: I wonder when it comes to changing your questions, do
18:06
Speaker 3: people have the emotional intelligence to ask the right questions?
18:10
Speaker 3: And what I mean by that is, you know, you
18:12
Speaker 3: might automatically think somebody always trying to play you when
18:16
Speaker 3: things don't go your way, right, so you're like, yo,
18:17
Speaker 3: this person trying to play me, you know what I mean,
18:19
Speaker 3: Like this person has something gives me like to me,
18:21
Speaker 3: that's so the low level of emotional intelligence, Like you
18:23
Speaker 3: have to have a high level of emotional intelligence to
18:25
Speaker 3: ask yourself the right question.
18:26
Speaker 1: I think that's true. But I think you can grow
18:29
Speaker 1: your emotional intelligence. I think, I mean, I think you're
18:32
Speaker 1: one hundred percent right. People something doesn't go their way
18:35
Speaker 1: like so and so trying to get me. But and
18:37
Speaker 1: I think you have to you have to shift that.
18:40
Speaker 1: And one of the ways to help shift that is
18:43
Speaker 1: to read books like this, go to psychotherapy, and realize
18:46
Speaker 1: that even if the world seems to be against you,
18:48
Speaker 1: you still have a way to impact that, you still
18:50
Speaker 1: have a way to make a difference in that you
18:53
Speaker 1: still have a way to overcome that. I mean, I'm
18:56
Speaker 1: someone that over the course of my life, I have
18:58
Speaker 1: fallen in love with things feeling like they're against me.
19:02
Speaker 1: I actually love the challenge of that now, And I
19:05
Speaker 1: couldn't have said that before, but I do. I love
19:07
Speaker 1: it when it's like the odds are against you and
19:10
Speaker 1: you don't really feel like you can can see you
19:11
Speaker 1: can succeed. And the reason I feel that way now
19:14
Speaker 1: and I haven't felt that way before is number one,
19:17
Speaker 1: because that's when I can prove my strength, Like if
19:20
Speaker 1: everything was easy, I don't get to prove that I
19:23
Speaker 1: have any level of strength, Like I want some pushback.
19:25
Speaker 1: And number two, I want to make there are some
19:28
Speaker 1: people that invested a lot in me, my grandmother, my mother.
19:32
Speaker 1: Shout out to my mother, Janette Connie, who would probably
19:34
Speaker 1: be entertained that I would say her name here, my
19:37
Speaker 1: aunt Lenny. Like, these people have invested a lot in me,
19:40
Speaker 1: So I actually like when there's a little bit of
19:42
Speaker 1: pushback because I get to show them what they taught
19:44
Speaker 1: me was magical and powerful. So you have to shift
19:48
Speaker 1: from like the whole universes against me to like, this
19:50
Speaker 1: is just an opportunity for me to show people how
19:53
Speaker 1: strong I am. This is an opportunity for me to
19:55
Speaker 1: show people that have poured into me that the stuff
19:57
Speaker 1: they poured into me was valuable and I use it.
20:00
Speaker 1: So you have to really change everything about your perspective.
20:04
Speaker 1: And I've said this a lot before too, but you
20:05
Speaker 1: have to be super grateful, Like I'm now at a
20:07
Speaker 1: point in my life where I'm grateful for challenges because
20:10
Speaker 1: that's when I can see has all of this been
20:13
Speaker 1: worth it? And now I realize it has, Like it
20:15
Speaker 1: has been worth it to be able to push back
20:17
Speaker 1: when obstacles show up. And most people spend so much
20:20
Speaker 1: of their time entitled that they spend so less of
20:24
Speaker 1: their time grateful, And I realize I'm not entitled to anything,
20:27
Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful for every opportunity, every chance people
20:31
Speaker 1: were in my life. Friend I will randomly text them
20:34
Speaker 1: thank you for things because I just want to be
20:36
Speaker 1: so appreciative of every moment that I've had, because I
20:39
Speaker 1: think it's all a gift, even though even the challenges
20:41
Speaker 1: and the problems are all gifts. And how many of
20:44
Speaker 1: y'all have gotten fired from a job or booed off
20:49
Speaker 1: a stage or whatever. And at the time it happened,
20:51
Speaker 1: it hurt and it was difficult, it was challenging, but
20:54
Speaker 1: you look back and realize I needed that, like that process.
20:57
Speaker 1: That was a good thing that it happened to me.
20:59
Speaker 1: It wasn't fun, wasn't exciting, and I don't want to
21:02
Speaker 1: go through it again, but I needed that in order
21:05
Speaker 1: to get to get here. So I think we have
21:08
Speaker 1: to just shift, and I think people can. I do
21:10
Speaker 1: think we kind of operate on a low level of
21:13
Speaker 1: emotional intelligence, or at least a lot of people do.
21:15
Speaker 1: But I think that can be impacted by doing things
21:18
Speaker 1: like educating yourself, feeding your brain quality things instead of
21:22
Speaker 1: playing around on social media, like read a book. Like
21:24
Speaker 1: you know, most successful people have libraries and unsuccessful people
21:28
Speaker 1: have television. It's like that's a measurable piece of data
21:31
Speaker 1: that rich wildly successful goal attaining people have more books,
21:37
Speaker 1: and people who are not as successful watch television many
21:41
Speaker 1: more hours. So in that comfort, they're just feeding their
21:43
Speaker 1: brain better stuff. And what does that do that increases
21:46
Speaker 1: your level of emotional intelligence? How do you follow you?
21:50
Speaker 1: Elliott Connie? I don't know. Why do you want to
21:52
Speaker 1: call you doctor? That everybody do? Everybody does? How do
21:57
Speaker 1: they follow me? Go to Instagram at Elie it speaks
22:00
Speaker 1: it spell my name of two l's and two t's.
22:03
Speaker 1: You can follow me on Facebook. Just look at my name.
22:05
Speaker 1: Elliot Connie is not too many people named Elliott Connie.
22:09
Speaker 3: His new book is out now change your questions, change
22:11
Speaker 3: your future, overcoming challenges, and create a new vision for
22:13
Speaker 3: your life using the principles of solution focused brief therapy.
22:16
Speaker 3: Make sure you go get that and check out Elliott's podcast,
22:19
Speaker 3: Family Therapy on the blackfed iHeartRadio podcast network.
22:22
Speaker 1: That's always a pleasure.
22:23
Speaker 2: My brother's Elliott Connie.
22:25
Speaker 1: Pick up the book. It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning,
22:27
Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club