Hope Starts With Us: Mental Health is Health

In this episode, NAMI CEO Daniel H. Gillison, Jr. is joined by Elliott Connie, a psychotherapist and advocate for mental health. This discussion focuses on Elliott Connie’s solution focused therapy practice, men’s mental health, and opening up conversations about mental health within Black communities.

You can find additional episodes of this NAMI podcast and others at nami.org/podcast.

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:25:20
Elliott
In mental health, we have an overall tendency to describe health as the absence of unhealth. And that to me, is a flawed way of thinking. It’s the presence of health– joy, happiness, congruence, alignment. We have to have a conversation about, like, what exactly do I identify with as greatness? And only then can we talk about mental health because that’s actually mental health.

00:00:25:22 – 00:00:53:02
Dan
Welcome to Hope Starts With Us, a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. My name is Dan Gillison, the CEO of NAMI, and I’m your host. NAMI started this podcast because we believe that hope starts with us. Hope starts with us talking about mental health. Hope starts with us making information accessible. Hope starts with us providing resources and practical advice.

00:00:53:04 – 00:01:16:11
Dan
Hope starts with us sharing our stories, and last, hope starts with us breaking the stigma. If you or a loved one is struggling with a mental health condition and have been looking for hope, we made this podcast for you. Hope starts with all of us. Hope is a collective. We hope that each episode, with each conversation brings you into that collective.

00:01:16:14 – 00:01:47:16
Dan
So you know you are not alone. Now, National Public Health Week, this year is the 30th anniversary of National Public Health Week. It is an annual week that highlights the ways public health makes our communities stronger. During this week, we aim to do three things. Celebrate successes, look ahead to upcoming challenges, and create a vision for the future.

00:01:47:18 – 00:02:20:10
Dan
So in doing that, we have an incredible guest with us today, Elliot Connie, a psychotherapist for 20 years. Elliot, Mr. Connie runs a large therapy practice and has written bestselling books, including The Solution, Focused Brief Therapy Diamond and the Art of Solution Focused Therapy. Elliot lectures on the importance of solution focused positive mental health in psychotherapy. So as we begin this conversation, just want to say welcome.

00:02:20:15 – 00:02:30:14
Dan
Looking forward to our audience hearing from you. And you speak all over the world, in every part of the world to tens of thousands of people. So we’re so honored to have you with us today, Elliot.

00:02:30:16 – 00:02:34:06
Elliott
Thank you for having me. Thanks for having me. This is amazing. This is really cool.

00:02:34:08 – 00:02:51:02
Dan
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Your focus as a psychotherapist is within solution focused positive mental health. Can you share with our audience what that means and what that looks like for those who engage with you in your therapy practice?

00:02:51:04 – 00:03:19:05
Elliott
Yeah, I can, I can try. So solution focused brief therapy, it’s an approach that helps clients to identify what they want to achieve, as opposed to identify what they don’t want to have to experience in their life. And to give a pragmatic example so people can really grasp this, when you go to a restaurant and the server comes up to you and says, what would you like to eat?

00:03:19:07 – 00:03:39:23
Elliott
You don’t tell the server, “I want to be not hungry.” But in mental health, we have a tendency to say, I want to have “not depression” or “not anxiety” or “not addiction,” but what solution focused brief therapy does is say, so what do you want in its place? And when we go to a restaurant, we say like, “I want a burger,” “I want pizza,” “I want spaghetti,” I want whatever.

00:03:40:01 – 00:03:57:12
Elliott
Well, when you have a present focused idea of the thing that you want, then you can achieve it. So this is an approach designed to help people to identify what they want to experience, so that then they can go off and create a life where they’re experiencing that thing that they desire.

00:03:57:14 – 00:04:03:10
Dan
So as we do this, and I didn’t do this at the top. Is it okay to call you Elliot? So, Elliot, as we do this, I will go off script and build off of a couple of things here as well as answer the questions here. So when you said that, one of the things that I think about is how often we do focus on what we don’t want, and that becomes our lead.

00:04:03:12 – 00:04:04:08
Elliott
Yeah.

00:04:04:10 – 00:04:18:08
Dan
So, Elliot, as we do this, I will go off script and build off of a couple of things here as well as answer the questions here. So when you said that, one of the things that I think about is how often we do focus on what we don’t want, and that becomes our lead.

00:04:18:10 – 00:04:40:17
Dan
And I remember reading something or listening to something years ago, where it was a World Series and the coach went out to the mound and he told the pitcher, whatever you do, don’t throw a low inside pitch. So he told him what not to do versus telling him, throw the ball on the this side, you know, in other words, telling him what to do versus what not to do.

00:04:40:19 – 00:04:56:04
Dan
And guess what he did? He threw a low inside pitch and the guy hit a grand slam. Well, how do we cognitively, create in our minds the thinking that we need that is that therapy, in terms of the positive, what we want.

00:04:56:09 – 00:05:35:02
Elliott
Well, first, to be honest with you, I think we just have to be aware of it. And it’s something that exists all over in every field. Right? Like you mentioned baseball. I grew up playing baseball. And there was a shift in my in my mind, like when I was a kid and I mean young, like when I first started playing, about ten years old, I was so afraid of embarrassment when I was standing in the batter’s box about to go hit, I would always say a prayer, and my prayer was, “Please don’t let me strike out.” Because in my head like that was the worst thing I could do, I feared it.

00:05:35:02 – 00:06:00:07
Elliott
I didn’t want my dad to be disappointed. I didn’t want my peers to make fun of me when I went to school the next day. So my prayer was, please don’t strike out. Well, guess what happened? Because that was on my mind. And that’s what would happen more often than not. At some point, I didn’t do this on purpose, but at some point my prayer became “Please let me get a hit,” and my performance went up.

00:06:00:09 – 00:06:35:03
Elliott
And this is not that different from every other walk of life. Like I don’t hire a financial advisor and say, “make me not broke.” I hire a financial advisor and I say, “make me wealthy.” And the first question financial advisor asks you is like, “what would you like to do?” and you talk about the, like real specific, you talk about the date in which you would like to retire, how much money you need in that retirement, and you talk about very specific things you want to be experiencing in your future. In mental health, we have a like an overall tendency to describe health as the absence of unhealth.

00:06:35:05 – 00:07:02:17
Elliott
And that to me is a flawed way of thinking. So the first step in shifting that is to like first be aware, like, wait a minute, mental health is far more than the absence of unhealth. It’s the presence of health–joy, happiness, congruence, alignment, positive relationships. Like I’m not in a great relationship simply because my spouse and I don’t hit each other. Like that doesn’t define greatness.

00:07:02:19 – 00:07:13:08
Elliott
We have to have a conversation about like, what exactly do I identify with as greatness? And only then can we talk about mental health, because that’s actually mental health.

00:07:13:10 – 00:07:32:05
Dan
This is a fantastic conversation. I did know a little bit about your baseball background, and that’s why I wanted to pick up on that right there. And I did a little bit of that myself growing up. And I do remember almost like a stigma, if you will, that even on my little league teams, it was like Danny’s going up to bat and it was like, oh, that’s, that’s a strikeout.

00:07:32:05 – 00:07:49:07
Dan
As soon as I got out of that environment and in a different community, meaning my high school community, as soon as I went up to the plate that energy was different. They didn’t know anything about the– and all of a sudden it changed in terms of the performance. And I could always hit the ball. Never believed I could hit it before.

00:07:49:12 – 00:08:04:02
Dan
It does change. So as we talk about this from the standpoint of psychotherapy, could you share a little bit about, what it looks like, from the standpoint of your journey, what brought you to this, this body of work?

00:08:04:04 – 00:08:28:00
Elliott
Oh, man. Trauma. Trauma is the answer to that. My father was a very angry and aggressive parent. I’ll say it, I’ll say it. That’s me putting it kindly. And I grew up depressed, anxious, frequently thought of suicide. And I get kind of annoyed sometimes the way our field talks about suicide. But, like, I mean, I was– I was on the edge.

00:08:28:00 – 00:08:50:01
Elliott
I spent a lot of my youth really thinking about death. And I love the name of this podcast because it centers hope. And I think when you grow up like that, you don’t have a ton of hope for a different kind of future. It doesn’t really exist. So one day I was in college, I was an undergrad, and I had this professor.

00:08:50:01 – 00:09:09:16
Elliott
I’ll never forget. This moment probably saved my life. I was 19 years old, and up until that point I had survived because of baseball. I just wanted to keep playing baseball. The only reason I went to college was because the next level of baseball was college. I didn’t have any aspirations about, like, what I wanted to do or getting a degree.

00:09:09:16 – 00:09:29:01
Elliott
I just went to college because that’s where the next baseball team to play for was. I was no longer eligible to play in high school per graduation. So college was it. And I will never forget this moment. I was sitting in class. I was taking a psychology class because that’s one of the requisites we all had to take as a freshman.

00:09:29:03 – 00:09:46:20
Elliott
And this professor named Dr. Marilyn Pugh, I always want to say her name specifically because she deserves so much credit for the role she played in my life. She asked me to stay after class and I thought I was in trouble. It was the only reason a teacher would ever ask you to stay after class at that point was cause trouble.

00:09:46:22 – 00:10:08:12
Elliott
And I waited after class as all the other students filed out and she said, walk with me to my office. And it was such an anxious walk because I had no idea what she was going to say to me, and I really thought I was in trouble. And when we got to our office, she closed the door and she said, what do you want to do with yourself in your future?

00:10:08:14 – 00:10:32:13
Elliott
And I said, I don’t know. I was too embarrassed to tell her I hadn’t really thought about a future. I’m trying to get through each day. And I said, why? And she said, because you’re a very talented writer. She said, every time I grade papers, as a professor, it’s kind of boring because I have to grade 30 of the same exact paper.

00:10:32:15 – 00:10:52:22
Elliott
But every time I get to the end of your paper, I wish it was longer. Like, I enjoy your writing. And she said, you’re also very good with people. And I said, how do you know that? And she said, I’ve been a professor here for 20 years. I’ve seen students come and go, but students respond to you differently than they respond to other kids.

00:10:52:22 – 00:11:19:06
Elliott
Like when you walk into the room, the room changes. And for whatever reason, she said, have you ever thought about being a psychotherapist? And I had no idea what a psychotherapist was. And I said, no, I don’t know what that is. And she said, it’s a counselor, like someone who helps people with their mental health challenges. And in an instant, it was the first time, I was 19 years old when we had this conversation.

00:11:19:06 – 00:11:58:07
Elliott
And for the first time in my like, awareness, I wasn’t hurting. And I had to go back to my dorm room and figure out like, why when she said that, that I stopped hurting. And I realized because even the thought of giving my youth pain a purpose took the sting of that pain away. And I started thinking like, if I could spend my work life, if I could spend my career in service of other people, then that gave the stuff I went through as a child a purpose.

00:11:58:08 – 00:12:17:09
Elliott
And I immediately, the very next day, I went back to that professor and I said, I need to change my major to psychology because I want to be a psychotherapist. And that was a life changing moment for me. Like, I can honestly tell you, not– not every day since that has been perfect. I’ll be honest with you like I have–

00:12:17:11 – 00:12:41:00
Elliott
I have bumps and bruises like everybody else, but I’ve not thought about ending my life since that day. Like it was the first moment, I was like, oh, my heart isn’t hurting right now. Like my shoulders aren’t heavy. And that that pit in your stomach you get when you’re super anxious. There’s no fear in me at the moment and I, I really couldn’t– I had to go back to my dorm room and dissect that.

00:12:41:00 – 00:12:57:21
Elliott
Like, why do I feel, just the thought of being a psychotherapist had a curative effect on me. And it was wildly profound. I cannot describe how profound that moment was.

00:12:57:23 – 00:13:20:01
Dan
Thank you very much. And to Dr. Marilyn Pugh, thank you. She saw you. She saw you for your potential and she invested in you. And at 19, that’s so important to have someone that, you know, we say– I always say this. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. And she showed she cared.

00:13:20:01 – 00:13:31:04
Dan
And when you were, like, taking that long, walked her to her office, you didn’t know what to expect. But it was about her observations and absolutely developing community with you right then and there.

00:13:31:04 – 00:13:33:19
Elliott
100%. 100%.

00:13:33:21 – 00:13:54:08
Dan
Yeah, thank you for sharing this. And took the strength of the pain away and turned into, almost inverted it. And we know that we have a lot of folks that deal with, and children who deal with adverse childhood experiences. And as they navigate that, and in your body of work, you know, it’s so important to have community.

00:13:54:11 – 00:14:05:14
Dan
What does health look like, Elliott, to you? I’ve heard you speak about it in terms of having us as a community kind of understand it. What does health and mental health look like to you?

00:14:05:16 – 00:14:30:06
Elliott
I could literally spend 100 hours talking about that, but I think health is in the doing. It’s like, what are you doing to provide health? And I think that’s true for your physical body. And I also think is true for your mental body. Like alcohol, for example, is liquid depression. Then how many people have a habit of alcohol?

00:14:30:06 – 00:14:56:09
Elliott
And I’m not even talking about like crazy addiction or anything like that, but like, you have a habit of consuming alcohol and then you’re like gosh, why don’t I feel at my best and like, well you’re, in your doing is a toxin that is making your mental abilities impacted. Or how many people engage in behaviors that you know are not good for you, like, you know, I don’t feel good when I do that.

00:14:56:09 – 00:15:18:12
Elliott
I don’t feel good when I talk to that person. I don’t feel good when I engage with that activity. But yet, we do it. And I think health is in the doing. And to go back to what I said before, the key to mental health is purpose. The human being is designed to endure pain when it understands the purpose.

00:15:18:14 – 00:15:45:04
Elliott
Like a good example is I was in the gym last night. These days I try to work out, daily, if I can. And I was in the gym last night. And if you think about what the gym does, it is the intentional– I intentionally put my body in pain. I intentionally expose my body to uncomfort. So as I’m lifting weights, it physically hurts.

00:15:45:06 – 00:16:17:18
Elliott
But because I understand the purpose of that hurt, I can endure it. But if you simply gave me pain, it is very hard to endure. In fact, one of the defining characteristics of torture, literal torture, is the infliction of pain without disclosing the purpose. So if I tell you I need you to run a thousand miles, they literally would torture people with exhaustion by doing that.

00:16:17:20 – 00:16:48:10
Elliott
But if I said, Elliott, your mother, her life is in peril. If you run a thousand miles, it’ll save her. Now, I understand the purpose and thus am more able to endure it. So I genuinely believe, like the key to real mental strength and mental health is being in touch with your purpose and understanding why you’re doing the hard things that you are doing.

00:16:48:12 – 00:17:17:15
Elliott
And most people, we don’t think about it enough, like we don’t think about, why am I waking up this early to do these tasks? Or why do I go to this job that I might not love? Because when you remember, because my children are worth this discomfort. Like I sit here as the beneficiary of generations before me doing things so that I could benefit from the rights that I now have exposure to.

00:17:17:17 – 00:17:38:00
Elliott
And that is never really lost on me. And I think really, really strong mental health and people who have healthy mental health habits frequently think about their purpose and what drives them. They have a lot of gratitude. That stuff is always, always, always on the forefront of those kinds of people’s minds.

00:17:38:02 – 00:18:01:23
Dan
As you speak to that and you use the word purpose, I wanted to share with you that, you know, NAMI is a community we’re 46 years young, we have over, what, 650 areas in the country that we are in. So we’re in the footprint and communities across the country. And one of the things that we know, that a lot of our folks have taken their pain and they’ve turned it into purpose, and purpose becomes their passion.

00:18:02:01 – 00:18:25:13
Dan
And then what NAMI does is try to harness that passion. Over 60% of the people that work with us, Elliot, are volunteers, and they get up every day with that intentionality, understanding their purpose. So this is just incredible what you’re sharing. And I know you could spend so many hours helping us with this. You use joy, happiness, positive relationships. As you talk about positive relationships,

00:18:25:13 – 00:18:39:19
Dan
I want to go back to when we met, almost a year ago now. With all of these people that were around you, you met me with grace and joy. And it just was such an appreciative moment. I will always remember it. And I want to say thank you.

00:18:39:23 – 00:18:41:01
Elliott
Me, too. Thank you.

00:18:41:03 – 00:19:06:20
Dan
And as I say, that your work can be exhausting because everyone wants to talk to Elliot about how do I look at my future? How do I design my future? How do I do better with my mental health? How do you, first of all, help others get there? I’m not trying to be in one of your sessions by asking that, million dollar question.

00:19:06:20 – 00:19:11:20
Dan
But then how do you manage keeping yourself from that exhaustion?

00:19:11:22 – 00:19:36:10
Elliott
And so my answer to that is going to be somewhat controversial. People often talk to me about, like, how do you like self-care or what do you do for self-care kind of stuff? And I tell people that’s to me is a very simple answer. I do what God called me to do. Needing self-care implies the thing you’re doing is draining, and it is not draining because this is what I’ve been called to do.

00:19:36:12 – 00:19:56:21
Elliott
That does not mean every day is easy. I’ve had to endure hardships. You can probably tell I’m African American, and not everybody in my field has always loved the African Americans in the position that I’m in. And those things are hard, but they are not exhausting at all, because that actually gives me energy to do what God has called you to do.

00:19:56:21 – 00:20:21:07
Elliott
So I’ve never really understood self-care because that implies the job itself is exhausting. And I only– I really believe the only way the job can be exhausting is if you weren’t called to do it, or you’re doing it in a way that you weren’t called to be doing it. And what I mean by that, as an example, the first way, and nobody– don’t leave me any negative comments about what I’m about to say.

00:20:21:07 – 00:20:49:20
Elliott
I don’t want to hear no negative comments on the internet, about what I’m about to say. But the first way I was trained to do this job was cognitive behavioral therapy, was CBT. Now, I’m not saying anything negative about CBT other than it wasn’t a fit for me. I had spent my entire childhood looking in the mirror and seeing flaws, and I got really good at it, and that habit nearly killed me.

00:20:49:22 – 00:21:18:10
Elliott
So then when I decided to go to become a psychotherapist for the reasons I said earlier, I didn’t know that there are all these theories that drove how you do the job of psychotherapy. So the first thing I was taught was CBT, and I was being told to go into my office, my future office, I was a student then, and see clients and find their cognitive distortions and their faulty thinking and find their problems.

00:21:18:10 – 00:21:53:01
Elliott
And I had a visceral negative response to that. Like, I can’t go back into the mentality of looking at other people for their flaws, because my fear was if I did that, then I would relearn how to look in the mirror and see my flaws, and then it might kill me again. So the whole reason I started doing solution focused brief therapy was it was the only approach that I came across when I was in school that did not ask me to look at people’s flaws, and my fear was it was going to reflect back onto me.

00:21:53:03 – 00:22:13:06
Elliott
And I’m convinced if I had done CBT, as I was being peer pressured to do, a lot of my peers were like, you can’t do solution focus with blah blah blah. But if I had fallen for the peer pressure, I believe I would need self-care because even though I was doing the job I was called to do, psychotherapy, I would be doing in a way that is incongruent to my heart and to my spirit.

00:22:13:08 – 00:22:28:09
Elliott
So when people ask me what I do to take care of myself, I do exactly what I feel called to do. And I do it exactly in a way that’s congruent to me. And if other people have an issue with it, they’re just going to have to live with having an issue with the way that I do what I do.

00:22:28:11 – 00:22:36:05
Dan
We always say meet people where they are, not where we want them to be. So speak about solution focus based therapy for a couple of minutes, if you will.

00:22:36:10 – 00:23:00:04
Elliott
Yeah. So it’s nothing more than asking a client. And I again, sometimes I get emotional about these things right. Because like growing up I used to think– and I obsessed about it as a kid. Like I’m so depressed. I’m so anxious, everybody else seems so joyous and happy. And I would think, like, what do I need to have that?

00:23:00:06 – 00:23:24:10
Elliott
And in my brain, this is how like real darkness happened in my life. In my brain, I thought, I just need to be out of my home. If I can be out of my home, then I’m no longer living with my tormentor. And then life will inherently improve. And that’s why I obsessed about baseball. Because baseball was my ticket to getting out of my home.

00:23:24:12 – 00:23:50:08
Elliott
I knew that if I can go to college, I can live in a dorm room and parents don’t live in dorm rooms. That was my plan. The real darkest moment when I got into my university and I moved onto the campus, the very last thing my father did was hand me a beeper. Now, I was born in the 1900s of some of y’all listening might not know what a beeper is, but a beeper used to exist.

00:23:50:10 – 00:24:11:01
Elliott
And my father handed me a beeper, and, he would page me. And if you guys don’t know how that happened, Google it. He would page me daily, and I would have to go find a phone and call him back just to be yelled at and insulted. And I thought, this man has figured out a way to carry this abuse,

00:24:11:01 – 00:24:33:08
Elliott
even though I was outside of the home. So I no longer saw an escape. And that’s when things got really, really hard. So what is solution focused brief therapy? Which is why I love the name of this podcast. It is the articulation of pragmatic hope. Because what that kid actually needed was hope. I needed hope for a different future.

00:24:33:10 – 00:25:00:19
Elliott
I didn’t need any crazy solution. I didn’t need some wizard. I just needed someone to tell me your future can be different. And that is what solution focused therapy is. So the very first question I ask when people come to therapy is what are your best hopes from our talking? We literally start with hope from the beginning of our interaction with the client, which is a complete divergence from traditional psychotherapy, which starts with what brings you in today?

00:25:00:21 – 00:25:26:18
Elliott
I couldn’t care less what brought them in today. That is an irrelevant piece of information. It does not matter. What matters a great deal to me is what do you hope to achieve from being here? That is like the entire focus of my mind. So when someone comes in, it doesn’t matter whether they have an addiction or they have relationship problems, anxiety, depression, none of that stuff matters to me.

00:25:26:20 – 00:25:44:07
Elliott
The only thing that matters is how do you hope your life will be different as a result of being here? And I care about that in a present, focused way. Most of the time people articulate that in the negative. They say stuff like, I don’t want to be depressed anymore. And I’m so obsessed about it, I will say things like, well, what would you like to be instead.

00:25:44:09 – 00:26:07:17
Elliott
And then you see people thinking like, wow, I guess I’d like to be happy. And now we’re having a conversation about happiness as opposed to “not depression.” And in a nutshell, that’s what solution focused brief therapy is. It’s a series of questions. It’s a way to guide a conversation that’s about the presence of what the client is desirous of, as opposed to the opposite.

00:26:07:19 – 00:26:29:07
Dan
Wow, I love it. The series of questions and a bit of guidance and that discovery. It sounds incredible. So, thank you for sharing that. You know, as men, we navigate things. There’s expectations on us as men. And then there’s that other optic of us being Black men. Share your thoughts on how you help men navigate their mental health.

00:26:29:09 – 00:26:32:05
Dan
And then the other group of men, if you would.

00:26:32:11 – 00:26:50:23
Elliott
I think the greatest thing we could do as Black men, because I can’t ever shake that label, nor do I want to, is to be authentic. And in fact, I think that’s the key to everything. But the more you are in a observable minority, the harder authenticity is. And I’ll tell you a story, what I mean by that.

00:26:50:23 – 00:27:12:12
Elliott
And maybe the most embarrassing thing about my journey is I can remember getting my degree all the way back in 2006, and I went to my first conference in 2008, and I had never been to a conference before. I’d never really been in a professional environment before, and I called a buddy of mine who was also going to the conference, and I said, hey, man, what are you going to wear?

00:27:12:14 – 00:27:40:23
Elliott
And he’s like, I’m going to wear slacks and, you know, loafer kind of shoes and button down shirt. So I was like, cool, I’m going to dress like you and looking back, I realized I was trying to assimilate. I was trying to put on the uniform that I thought would have me fit in, and I thought, like, if I dress professionally, then they will treat me like a peer colleague, like a another professional.

00:27:41:01 – 00:28:14:05
Elliott
And I realized that wasn’t working. Over the next few years, I realized I’m being treated differently. Even still. Even though I’m wearing the uniform and I’m working as hard as I can to assimilate, and it took me a few years. But I then realized it’s causing me harm to not be myself. And I think the most beautiful thing about culture is it’s how we all identify and how we show up in our authentic way.

00:28:14:07 – 00:28:36:10
Elliott
I happen to come from like an African-American culture. I really identify with things like hip hop music and kind of urban clothing, as they call it. That’s where I’m from. And it became really important to me at some point, I couldn’t put on the uniform anymore. A.) It wasn’t working me. It wasn’t shielding me from racism and bigotry in my field.

00:28:36:12 – 00:29:01:03
Elliott
And B.), I was no longer recognizing the person I saw in the mirror. And I made the active decision like, I’m going to be my authentic self. I knew that that was going to cause ripples in the field. I knew that they had never seen anybody take a stage at a conference wearing Air Force One and a Nike hoodie, but I knew they were going to get a– they were going to be okay as long as I was being my authentic self.

00:29:01:05 – 00:29:31:04
Elliott
Now, why I think that’s so important is, I would say on two levels. Number one, I think it’s very important for young African-Americans, children, students, etc. to see I can be myself and be academic. Like I don’t have to change in pursuit of academia. Academics is not just for one race or another. I can bring my culture into an academic field and be my authentic self.

00:29:31:05 – 00:29:55:15
Elliott
It became very important to me that younger people see that. And the other thing that happened, and this was complete by accident, but it became very important for other people in the world to see themselves in a clinician. And I started getting emails from prominent Black people, people in the hip hop community, people in radio and music and television, people in film.

00:29:55:17 – 00:30:18:00
Elliott
And they would reach out to me saying, I need to talk to you. I’ve been looking for a psychotherapist for however long, and I haven’t seen a psychotherapist that looks like me. And in that moment I realized it was more than just color. It was culture that they were looking for. It wasn’t just, I’m trying to find a Black psychotherapist.

00:30:18:00 – 00:30:42:16
Elliott
They were trying to find a Black psychotherapist that represented what they represent and culture matters. I heard an interview one time that Denzel Washington did, where he said somebody was asking him about why it was important for a Black man to direct a certain movie, and he said, I’m very convinced that, like Francis Ford Coppola could have directed this movie.

00:30:42:18 – 00:31:06:10
Elliott
I’m very convinced Steven Spielberg could have directed this movie. But the reason it’s important that a Black person direct this movie is because I know what it feels like on a Saturday morning, as a 6 or 7 year old kid, to have your mother put a hot comb on your head. I know what that smells like. That is a very particular feeling and a very particular smell.

00:31:06:16 – 00:31:46:07
Elliott
As your mother is putting a hot comb through your hair, trying to braid your hair so she doesn’t have to worry about your hair for the next two weeks. That’s culture. That’s not color, that’s culture. And I realized I accidentally became like a beacon of this culture and people, to this day, people reach out to me. I’d say about a dozen a week, maybe more, of people saying, like, either, I needed to see us look like us on the platforms in which you now have access to or some prominent African-American in the world of business, film, television, radio, whatever, reaching out to me, saying I didn’t know I needed me in the therapy room

00:31:46:11 – 00:32:05:16
Elliott
until I saw you representing where we come from. And to me, that now matters. So the key for me is authenticity. Be yourself and be fearless like you can represent in your hairstyle, in your dress. You can represent where you come from. That’s in fact the most powerful thing you can ever do.

00:32:05:18 – 00:32:32:04
Dan
Thank you very much. And your authenticity is incredible. Our authenticity is incredible in terms of who we are, what we do, how we do it And what was so powerful, it’s more than color, it’s culture. It’s such a powerful statement. And then the thing about, as you started the practice in 2000 and going to a conference and where it began in 2008, your degree in 2006, by the way, my degree was in 1978.

00:32:32:06 – 00:32:58:04
Dan
So as we’re just having a conversation here. But where I want to go with this is it’s so important to understand the misnomer of when you assimilate, you’re trying to be something that sometimes you aren’t. And authenticity allows you to really be all you can be and offer so much to others. So it is about authenticity. And thank you for sharing that.

00:32:58:06 – 00:33:12:11
Dan
What haven’t we asked you as we talk about National Public Health Week? Because it’s less about my prescribed questions. It’s more about what you can tell us. This is National Public Health Week. What would you like the audience to know during this week?

00:33:12:13 – 00:33:44:20
Elliott
So look, okay, we live in unbelievably crazy times, which I think psychotherapists need to sit on the forefront of that fight because these crazy times are impacting societal mental health. And this is happening on a micro level. We all have an increase of clients coming in for things like anxiety, worry about their job safety. I happen to live in an area where there’s a lot of people who work for the federal government, and those people are freaking out right now, because of some of the changes happening in that level in that world.

00:33:44:22 – 00:34:24:02
Elliott
And we live in such crazy times where we have access to information 24/7, and it’s usually negative information. The thing that I think is under deployed is the very simple concept of love. I’ve been a practicing psychotherapist since 2006. I have never seen a problem that more love couldn’t impact. And I’m disappointed in our field that I don’t remember studying the word love even once when I was in graduate school. Not even once.

00:34:24:02 – 00:34:51:04
Elliott
And I think love right now is the most important thing. So increase the amount of hugs you give out. Increase the self-love you give to yourself. Increase the amount of times you look in the mirror and say, I know you weren’t perfect today, but I love you for trying. Make sure you tell the people in your life how much gratitude you have for them.

00:34:51:06 – 00:35:10:21
Elliott
I think love is the single most under deployed tool in the world of mental health, and I think our field needs to talk more about it. When I go back and think about how much my life was changed by Dr. Marilyn Pugh, I genuinely don’t believe I’d be alive today if not for her. And that is not a grandiose thing, that is honest to God truth.

00:35:10:23 – 00:35:33:07
Elliott
She didn’t talk to me the way she talked to me, because she learned how to do that in some school of professorship. She didn’t talk to me the way she talked to me, because she happened to get her PhD from a school that taught her to do that. She talked to me the way she did, because in that moment, loving me was more important than teaching me.

00:35:33:09 – 00:35:56:19
Elliott
And I’m so grateful that she loved me. I can honestly tell you, I don’t remember a thing that woman taught me. I probably took five classes from her throughout the remainder of my educational experience. I took Abnormal Psychology with her. I don’t remember a single lesson. I couldn’t tell you what her PowerPoints looked like. I don’t know what her handwriting on the blackboard looked like.

00:35:56:19 – 00:36:18:12
Elliott
I couldn’t tell you any of that stuff, but I remember her leaving me 25 years later. It is very prevalent and clear to me. So I think the one thing I would love people to, to take away from this is, this is a journey of love, even though we pretend it isn’t and we need to deploy more love and love is observable.

00:36:18:14 – 00:36:37:08
Elliott
It’s the way you look at people. It’s the gratitude you express to people. It’s the amount of hugs you give. It’s the kindness that you share to complete and total strangers. I think the best way to increase your mental health and to deal with the crazy world that we’re living in right now, is to deploy more love.

00:36:37:10 – 00:36:55:05
Dan
Wow. That is absolutely incredible. And as you again talk about Dr. Marilyn Pugh, it’s so interesting how you give us that visual of the 4 to 5 classes you took from her, but what you remembered and how she connected you. And you’re right. That’s what we need more of. What’s love got to do with it? It’s got everything to do with it.

00:36:55:05 – 00:36:56:23
Elliott
Everything.

00:36:57:01 – 00:37:19:07
Dan
It’s got everything to do with it. As we’re talking about this and you’ve talked about a lot of different things right now, and you talk about trauma, you talked about culture. You talked about, navigating our health, whole health, if you will. What would you tell yourself if you were just starting the profession now, with what you know now and what you’ve done?

00:37:19:09 – 00:37:45:03
Elliott
I would tell myself to dream bigger. When I got started, the biggest dream I could possibly see was having a therapy–but actually, that’s not true. The biggest dream I could possibly see was having a full time job. I was like, wow, if I could work as a full time employed psychotherapist, like that would be amazing. And then I found myself feeling restricted in the agency jobs I was having at the time.

00:37:45:03 – 00:38:08:12
Elliott
And then I started dreaming about a therapy practice, and I found that satisfying but incomplete. So then I wrote my first book, and that felt wonderful, because then I get all these ideas that were in my head. I could get them out into the world. And as a result of that, somebody asked me to go speak at a conference in Bath, England.

00:38:08:14 – 00:38:32:05
Elliott
And then I did that. And then, I started putting content online. Somebody challenged me and they said, you should create a YouTube channel. This is back in like 2015, a guy named Bill O’Hanlon, he said, you should create a YouTube channel. And I accepted his challenge. I created a YouTube channel. And then in, 2020, my training organization exploded because I was making so much digital content.

00:38:32:05 – 00:38:53:18
Elliott
People started following me and I couldn’t believe hundreds of thousands of people follow me. And then in 2021, somebody offered me a TV deal. And I’m now working on two TV projects. And if I could go back and tell the old Elliott or the younger Elliott if I were just getting started, I would tell that person that anything is possible.

00:38:53:18 – 00:39:11:16
Elliott
So dream as big as you could possibly dream. We talk to each other in our field in quite restrictive ways. Like, I can’t tell you how many times people told me, oh, you can’t make any money in this field or you can’t do this, or you can’t do that. And turns out I did it all. It turns out I could do all those things.

00:39:11:16 – 00:39:33:06
Elliott
And so, too, can everybody else, I’m not some sort of unicorn or anything, like, we all can dream as big as we possibly can and do really remarkable things. So if I can have a conversation with Elliott just starting out, I would sit that young man down and be like, dream as big as you possibly can, and then pursue those dreams with the confidence of a six-year-old boy wearing a Superman outfit.

00:39:33:08 – 00:39:34:04
Elliott
That’s what I would say.

00:39:34:04 – 00:40:08:19
Dan
Wow, that is powerful. I have another question for you, and I want to come back to some of the incredible conferences where you’ve spoken, and I just want to talk about where. From the US, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, South Africa, Russia, Switzerland, England, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Scotland, Holland, Canada, and Asia. As you’ve gone all over the world speaking, where we are today, what we need to do today just in terms of our health, our mental health, and being solution focused.

00:40:08:21 – 00:40:15:07
Dan
What observations might you have internationally that would transfer to us domestically?

00:40:15:09 – 00:40:38:09
Elliott
You know, what’s funny. So whenever I think about travel and I have literally, like, if you pay attention to the list he just rattled off, and there’s been more added. I don’t think–Like I’ve been to France. I’ve been to Slovenia like that list, I don’t really update. It was probably updated ten years ago, but I have taught solution focused brief therapy on every single continent on the planet except Antarctica, which is technically a continent.

00:40:38:11 – 00:41:13:13
Elliott
And I always think of a Mark Twain quote that says the only cure for racism and bigotry is travel. And the root of that quote is when you travel, you see that we are so much more alike than we are different. And all of the people who are trying to make us pay attention to our differences as opposed to our similarities, it’s almost like they’re profiteering on our hate, but we are so much more similar

00:41:13:15 – 00:41:39:05
Elliott
than we are different. I have been in South Africa and literally had this thought like, oh my gosh, you guys do this too. Like we are interconnected and what links us is so much more important and quite frankly, so much more valuable than what’s different about us. And when you get curious about other cultures rather than judgmental, then we have a healed world.

00:41:39:07 – 00:41:57:03
Elliott
And I recognize, like, not everybody else is in a privileged position where they can go to all the countries I go to and see and meet all the people, but I so wish they were. I wish people would go and move around the earth and realize like, oh, we’re all just here trying to be a little bit better than we were yesterday.

00:41:57:06 – 00:42:19:15
Elliott
And we all come from a culture that is meaningful to us, and we all have someone in our lives that we love and care about, and we all– like we’re so similar. The only thing that’s different–there are only two differences. Number one is the accent with which we speak. That’s it. Because language is nothing more than an accent.

00:42:19:15 – 00:42:42:04
Elliott
So it’s the only difference is the accent with which we speak. The other difference, and I’m serious, there are only two differences at all, the other difference is what we label the higher power that we pray to. If you come from a certain area of the world, you might call that person Allah. If you come from another area of the world, you might call that person God.

00:42:42:06 – 00:43:01:03
Elliott
Another area of the world, you might call that person Jesus. Another area of the world, you might call it the Sun God or whatever. But we all, I mean, there are obviously exceptions to this, but all cultures follow a higher power, and it’s been that way for human history. Those are the only two differences. Everything else is similar.

00:43:01:05 – 00:43:25:01
Elliott
We all need love. We all need warmth. We all need affection. We all love someone. We’re all more generous than we are selfish. All cultures have their own food. All cultures have their own dances and music. We are all the exact same, and I have no idea why. We are allowing ourselves to be tricked into thinking that differences matter because they don’t.

00:43:25:03 – 00:43:46:16
Dan
Wow, this has been incredible. As we get ready to wrap up, is there anything from the standpoint of your most recent book that you would like to share? We always like to make sure that as we have authors, and creators, if you will, to give them the opportunity. If there’s any nugget that you’d like to share, we’d like to give you that opportunity.

00:43:46:16 – 00:43:49:01
Dan
And then I have a closing question after that.

00:43:49:03 – 00:43:53:11
Elliott
No, I just, you know, I just want people to go get it here. It is.

00:43:53:12 – 00:44:00:06
Dan
Change your questions, change your future. And we always like to say the power is in the question.

00:44:00:08 – 00:44:33:05
Elliott
This book was a labor of love. It was my sixth book and it was written by my colleague and I, Dr. Adam Froerer, and we literally couldn’t be more different. Adam comes from an affluent white background in suburban Utah, and I come from an African-American background, hovering around the poverty line and just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, I was born in Chicago. And I hope that our relationship and every single syllable in that book represents what happens when you focus on what links you, as opposed to what makes you different.

00:44:33:06 – 00:44:53:18
Elliott
And I also want people to know the key to changing your life actually lies in the questions you ask yourself and the questions you ask others. And most people, they tend to not ask useful questions. This is a book that will teach you how to ask questions that will transform your life, rather than keep you stuck.

00:44:53:20 – 00:45:20:02
Dan
Thank you. Well thank you to you and Adam for doing the book. And looking forward to, to reading it. So as we conclude, we always ask our guest this last question: The world can be a difficult place and sometimes it can be hard to hold on to hope. That’s why with each episode, we dedicate the last couple of minutes of our podcast to a special segment called Hold On to Hope.

00:45:20:04 – 00:45:25:11
Dan
Elliott, can you tell us what helps you hold on to hope?

00:45:25:13 – 00:45:47:18
Elliott
Well, I actually don’t think hope is hard to hold on to. So I would start there. I would say hope for me is just in every breath I take. And it’s in every action I do. And I lived a hopeless life long enough that hope to me is like a drug. It’s like I often tell my team, my employees, like I’m a machine that runs on hope.

00:45:47:18 – 00:46:07:06
Elliott
Like the gasoline that keeps me going is hope. I’m literally allergic to doubt. And doubt is the, you know, Kryptonite of hope. And I would say if you want to hold on to hope, keep doubt away. I have a tattoo on my arm that was inspired by my uncle who passed away and is very close to me that says, “Why not?”

00:46:07:08 – 00:46:24:22
Elliott
And the reason I have that is no matter what goal I’m pursuing, when I experience doubt, like if I want to become the, you know, president of the universe, whatever, whatever, the huge goal I’m pursuing is and doubt creeps in, like, are you smart enough or you’re good enough? Are you strong enough? Maybe you’re too young for that.

00:46:24:22 – 00:46:41:08
Elliott
Maybe you’re too old for that. Whatever it is, I always ask myself, but why not me? Why can’t I do it? And that just keeps me going one little bit further and then ultimately, I accomplish way more in than I thought. If I can go back and talk to that young Elliott, I can’t believe the things that I’ve done.

00:46:41:08 – 00:46:49:13
Elliott
It’s crazy. I wouldn’t be able to convince that young person that this current life I’m living is reality. So I would say, why not?

00:46:49:15 – 00:47:03:16
Dan
Why not? And you said I lived a hopeless life for so long. So we know is that if you’re not hopeful, you’re hopeless. And it can be contagious. It’s on the frontal lobe of your brain in terms of what that can look like.

00:47:03:16 – 00:47:04:18
Elliott
Absolutely.

00:47:04:20 – 00:47:45:17
Dan
So thank you for sharing this. So thank you. Thank you very much. This has been Hope Starts With Us, a podcast by NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. If you are looking for mental health resources, you are not alone. To connect with the NAMI helpline and find local resources, visit NAMI.org/help. Text “helpline” to 62640 or dial 800-950-6264 (NAMI). Or if you are experiencing an immediate suicide, substance use, or mental health crisis, please call or text 988 to speak with a trained support specialist or visit 988lifeline.org I’m Dan Gillison your host.

00:47:45:19 – 00:47:47:19
Dan
Thank you for joining us and be well.