Elliott Connie Reaching Your Full Potential With A Solution-Focused Mindset Podcast Episode 34
“What Solution Focused Brief Therapy does is it causes people to have a heightened awareness of their awesomeness. So they don’t have to be held back by their flaws.”
— Elliott Connie on Parenting With The Focused Mindset Podcast
Episode 34 Transcript
Solution-focused conversation with Elliott Connie and Cher Kretz
Cher Kretz 0:00
This is Episode 34 of the focused mindset. Today, you get to listen in on a conversation that I had with the host of the details podcast with Elliot and Adam, and a solution focused expert,
Elliott Connie 0:15
(Preview) The biggest practical step is do not tell someone you love what they can't be. If you love them, don't tell them what they can't be.
Cher Kretz 3:08
Without any further delay, let's get into this episode. I'm welcoming Elliott Connie to the show. He's a psychotherapist, author, lecture founder and president of The Solution Focused Universe. I am glad that you're here with us. How are you today, Elliott?
Elliott Connie 3:26
I'm doing great, how are you?
Cher Kretz 3:28
I'm doing great as well. It's a busy time of the year heading on to next year coming up soon. And I just wanted to take a minute to slow it down and have a talk with you about how we can move forward with hope and I think you're the perfect person to share that message. Before we do that. Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself?
Elliott Connie 3:56
Yeah, so my name is Elliott Connie. And I'm pretty awesome. There you go.
Cher Kretz 4:01
He's pretty awesome and humble.
Elliott Connie 4:05
You know if you cannot own your strengths! I so like you said, I'm a psychotherapist. I practice here in Texas. I've been doing practicing, writing, and teaching solution focus brief therapy for about 15 years now. And I started doing it because when I was in graduate school, all of the other psychotherapy approaches I would hear about I couldn't imagine myself doing that. So I eventually heard about solution focus. I was like, Oh, I can imagine myself doing that. And the more I learned about it, the more studied it, the more I fell in love with the approach and the more I fell in love with with the way this approach worked. And I remember I just thought man I want to I want to share what I'm experiencing and what I'm noticing as I practice solution focus therapy. I never in my entire life ever anticipated. I would write books, or give lectures and all that stuff. It just came from my desire to share with people and share what I was experiencing what was standing out to me and all that kind of stuff. And, and it led to my first book I've now written four. And it's super exciting. You know, before the pandemic, I spent most of my time going to different countries. And probably the most dominant part of my personality is when I get passionate about something, I just, I get on fire about wanting to share. I'm the person that like, if I find a good recipe, I want to cook it for everybody that I know and love. I just like to share these things, and I think solution focus brief therapy is the greatest thing to share. Because it gives so many people hope, it helps so many people change, and so many people become their best selves. And that excites me, that drives me.
Cher Kretz 5:48
I find that many people I talked to at the very beginning when I say let's talk about your best hope they want to focus for a long time on the problem that's happening. And it takes them a little while to understand the joy and the opportunity of speaking about a preferred future. What would you say to people that maybe are getting stuck talking about the problems and want to move towards a solution-focused approach in their life?
Elliott Connie 6:23
I just think that that's what human beings do. And I think we all do it. So here, this is gonna be really surprising. I don't, I don't think it helps people to try to move towards a solution-focused approach to living life. Because I actually think being negative and being and being aware of the problem, all of that kind of stuff is actually important, right? So think about it like this. If I were alive in like caveman times, and a big saber-toothed Tiger is coming up to me, I should probably not go, Oh, look at that cute cat. You know, I need to be aware of the things around me. What I do think is important as it relates to a solution focus perspective, is understanding my strengths, as it relates to the attainment of an outcome. Right, so human beings are negative, that's what we do all of us do it, you do it, I do it, we do it. That's that's what human beings do. But what I think, really is damaging. And what I hope solution focused brief therapy can eradicate is we are when we're negative about our own skill sets, as it relates to an ability to accomplish a task. So someone like you, at some point had the idea, like I'm going to create a podcast. And I think that it's great that you followed through on that idea, because here we are right now sitting talking on your podcast. What I'm so sad about is all of the ideas that are in the cemetery of ideas, because someone had an idea about themselves like I want to create a podcast, but no one will listen to me, I don't have anything to share. And they don't pursue the outcome that they actually want. So I hope more than anything else, like people can be negative, and they can focus on problems. That's what problems do. And that's kind of the human experience. But when you start thinking to yourself, like I want to become a lawyer, then go become a lawyer. And recognize that I should be aware of my own skills and my own traits and the abilities that make me who I am. And that potentially could make me a lawyer. And I know a lot of people that tell me when I was a child, I wanted to be x and I'm like didn't Why didn't you become it? You should become the thing that you're wanting to become. And I think very often, we are so much more aware of our problems and our flaws and our faults and our negativities that it gets in the way of our potential. And what I think solution focus brief therapy does is it causes people to have a heightened awareness of their awesomeness. So they don't have to be held back by their flaws.
Cher Kretz 9:12
That does make a lot of sense, because we are going to notice the things around us. And sometimes noticing the very negative things around us are the things that drive us towards a brighter future in general as it is. And I find that you hit on a very important subject where it's our limiting beliefs many times that might stop us from moving forward. I've recently done a podcast that some of you may have listened to on confirmation bias. And the thing that people struggle with is sometimes staying in a place of listening to, I guess you could say, voices that are around them that are not speaking the truth instead of listening to that intuitive self that you just talked about saying hey, maybe I want to be a lawyer. How would you suggest that people in their life, walk forward from that and look for other people that are going to give them a different type of confirmation bias?
Elliott Connie 10:14
You have to find excuses to succeed. We find excuses to fail all the time, you have to actively find excuses to succeed. So if I have a goal, and let's say my goal is to write a book, right, which I'm currently doing, then there are tons of reasons that I can give myself permission to fail. It's a big project, I'm really tired, I'm not traveling as much. So I don't have as much energy, I'm not seeing as many clients face to face. There's all kinds of like you have, the reasons to not succeed are in front of you constantly, what you have to do is find excuses to succeed. And that sounds like once you have a project, and once you have a goal, once you have something you're trying to accomplish, then the next thing you do is you sit down and you literally have a conversation with yourself about like, what are all of the reasons that this could actually occur. And really, honestly spend time thinking about the other side of the accomplishment. Because when you think about the outcome that you would gain from accomplishing a goal, then it makes it increases motivation exponentially.
Cher Kretz 11:30
When someone sits down, and they have that talk with themselves. Part of that ability to step away from maybe negativity that's around them, is to look at the reason at the very end, what is possible at the end of this? What are the reasons I would do this? And what does this make possible? I know that for me with a lot of my clients and a lot of the families I work with, after we explore, I'll just say, Well, what would that make possible for you? And many people stop short of that. And that might be the reason we find so many people that say, well, one time I thought I was going to be fill in the blank, and then I ended up in my life doing something else. They don't let their thoughts move to that completion of the reason why it's in the inside of them to do. Do you have a story or anything you could share with our listeners about how you personally got over some of those challenges in your life?
Elliott Connie 12:39
Yeah, I just I just realized it's funny. You mentioned confirmation bias, I realized that everybody who's ever said something negative about me was lying. That's what I realized. Because what we do, if you said to me, like Elliott, I want to become an astronaut. And I said to you, oh, you can't do that. What I realized was, I'm actually not talking about your abilities. I'm talking about my perception of my abilities, which makes it an untruth. So literally, I learned along my life and along the journey, I've been on every single person who ever said negative things about my capacity to accomplish a goal was wrong. Because they were not talking about my skill set, they were talking about their perception of theirs. So in essence, if I didn't have time to become an astronaut as a single mom, then you can't do it. But that's that's entirely not true! You have no idea what I'm capable of, no clue. So unless you spend time around me, and accurately and appropriately assess my heart and my drive and my capabilities and my strengths, then you are not in a position to tell me what I can't do.The only way I can figure out what I can and can't do is to go out and try to find the limit. So like, I'm going to go and try to become an astronaut. And I will discover whether or not I can do it or not. And I and that's literally the only way you can figure it out. We spend our time listening to people because that's how confirmation bias works. We talk from the perspective with which we believe so if people tell me I can't become something, thank you for showing me your bias. But you have to sit and watch and figure out what my biases are. Because I'm going to go out into the world I'm going to do the thing I just told you I'm going to do and I'm going to figure out if it was doable or not. And I have done things that go way beyond my expectation for myself. I I have gotten myself in a position, I run the largest solution-focused training organization on the planet. I have written four books. I have lectured about solution focus brief therapy on every single continent on the planet that has people. Not Antarctica, they don't have people. But every continent that has people, I have lectured on that continent. The way that that happened, it wasn't even a plan. I didn't I did when I was in graduate school, I didn't say like, Oh, I want to write this many books. And I want to give this many lectures, I want to run the largest training organization in the field. I said to myself, I just want to go figure out who I am. I want to go figure out what I'm capable of. And the only way to do that is just going do stuff. And while you're doing stuff, I just started accomplishing things. So now, I just turned 44 years old, and I look back, and I'm like, this is way beyond my expectations, like people ask me, Elliott, is your life everything you dreamed it would be? And I always tell people, no, it is not. Because I didn't dream this far. I can't even tell you that my life is what I dreamed it would be. Because I left that behind years ago, I am now in territory that I didn't allow myself to dream about when I was a 20 year old kid. And the only way that I did that is just by like going out and doing and doing leads to discovery. Never let anybody else's words stand in the place of your discovery.
Cher Kretz 16:21
When I'm working with families on a coaching aspect, to be honest, a lot of people, they find that they have ways of parenting, ways of approaching the things that go on in their family, that don't produce the results that they want in their kids. For instance, if you take traditional punishment and traditional, even positive punishment, a lot of times it spends a lot of time dissecting and unpacking what the child is doing wrong. You know, here's what you're doing wrong, what you tell me what you're doing wrong, write a sentence about what you're doing wrong. And they do that because they honestly feel that that's the correct approach. And it's very eye opening to parents to begin to open their mind to a different type of approach to helping their families grow into the people that they're meant to be whatever that is, because we don't know what our kids are going to accomplish in their life.
Elliott Connie 17:21
Yeah, but that's scary. People have a hard time doing it. Let me tell you why. Let me tell you why people have a hard time doing it. Do you have children? Can I ask you that?
Cher Kretz 17:30
I do. I have three children. So I speak from experience on both sides? Yes.
Elliott Connie 17:36
What can I ask you how old your oldest is?
Cher Kretz 17:40
My oldest has moved on. My oldest are not kids anymore. 23 and 21. And then I have a younger one that's 12.
Elliott Connie 17:51
You know what, I'm gonna pick on the 12 year old.
Cher Kretz 17:53
All right, let's do it.
Elliott Connie 17:55
This is this is what we do. And and I just want to say I completely agree with everything you just said, right? But there's, here's the fly in the ointment that makes it difficult for people to do this. If your 12 year old came home and said, Mom, I want to go to Harvard. Well, you're in California so I want to go to Stanford we'll say. Most people will be like Stanford is really hard to get into.
Cher Kretz 18:29
Let's be a realist here. Yeah,
Elliott Connie 18:30
Right. So I need to protect you from disappointment. So I say things like, you know what, that's a great goal, my young 12-year-old daughter. But let's also pick some other schools that are kind of like fallback schools. And what I think in order to truly buy into a solution focus parenting mindset you have to believe two things in order to be able to do this. The first one is I have to believe my young 12 year old daughter can become a student at Stanford, that's number one. They have the capacity, and they have the skill set to accomplish that very difficult task. The second thing I have to believe if should they fail, they have the strength to deal with failure. And then we are no longer feeling like we have to protect my child from failure. We now just become the advocate of my child's goals. And if they fail, we'll just fix that along the way. But we oftentimes think we're doing our children a disservice by protecting them from the pain and hurt of disappointment. When once you do that, you are now moving away from a solution focused operation system. The moment you start trying to protect people from failure you're expressing to them, you're making the secondary expression that I don't believe you can handle failure. And you can.
Cher Kretz 20:01
And that is so powerful what you just said there because parents have so many fears. I mean, just even about themselves, like, I'm gonna do something that's gonna screw my child up, you know, they sit and go through that type of mind-boggling thing anyway, when they're, you know, I don't know, thier sitting at home, and what pops in their mind? "Oh my gosh, did I forget to..... Oh, is that going to screw them up?" We're living with our own set of fears of parenting in general. And then on top of that, exactly what you hit on. When our child comes to us, then all of these things are swirling through our mind that then we're only got to protect our little one, we got to protect our little one. You're right, that is a barrier to parents being able to sit down and have a conversation with their child that will help them release those limits from their life and be the person they were meant to be. Yeah, what are some practical tips that you would think of that can help a parent if they're struggling with those very fears?
Elliott Connie 21:06
I don't know how practical it is. But I will say well, first of all, there's a, there's a really popular, or at least that was a really popular movie where you can see this happening in real-time. And the movie was called The Pursuit of Happiness starring Will Smith. There's a scene in that movie where he's playing basketball with his son. And his son said, I want to go in the NBA. And Will Smith said, most of the people in our family are not athletic. So you probably need to pick a different goal. And then he caught himself and he said, "Don't ever let anybody tell you what you can't be". So when you say like, what're the practical habits, develop the habit of not telling your children what they cannot be. As your child wants to be the President? How do you know you're not talking to the future President? You have no way of knowing. That goes back to what I said earlier, the only way to confirm what your skills are, is to go try to accomplish the task and then see whether or not you did or not. So some 12 year old kid could walk up to me right now and say, I want to be the President of the United States. How could I possibly know whether or not I'm talking to the future President? The only thing that will tell me that is the process of time unfolding. Right. The biggest practical step is do not tell someone you love what they can't be. That's the practical tip, I would say if you love them, don't tell them what they can't be.
Cher Kretz 22:33
If you love a family member, don't tell them what they can't be. I really believe that people can choose to tell themselves something different than what they've been telling themselves before, by replacing that. So what you what a parent might do in this scenario, identify that statement, like you mentioned in that movie with Will Smith. Identify that statement that wants to roll through your mind and choose to replace it with I do not limit my child, or I do not limit my family members that I love from being whatever they might be, or whatever sentence would help them. Because I feel like you really hit on something powerful. It's really great to have the motivation inside of your heart and see the benefits in a whole new world, if you will, for someone who doesn't know very much about solution-focused, and they see a little bit of success in it. And they see their child actually make their bed in the morning and come downstairs excited for breakfast just because of a few things that they tweaked. And then the fear sets in, and then all of the human nature sets in. And it threatens our ability to continue with that practice, doesn't it?
Elliott Connie 23:45
Yes. And fear is useless. Fear is present, but it's useless. So don't use it. It's not an appropriate way to make decisions. It's not an appropriate way to live your life. It's not an appropriate way to pursue your goal. Fear is just completely and totally useless.
Cher Kretz 24:03
The sooner we realize that the better.
Elliott Connie 24:08
Fear is like pouring orange juice in the gas tank of your car. It's just useless. It doesn't it doesn't do anything. So why would you use it to fuel yourself? It's silly.
Cher Kretz 24:21
It's backwards. But it feels right. It shouldn't feel right. But parents are I think programmed to kind of say, Oh, oh oh! Don't fall over, you're tripping! And it's like, no, let's turn that around.
Elliott Connie 24:35
I don't think it feels right. I think it feels comfortable.
Cher Kretz 24:37
Comfortable, thank you. Yes!
Elliott Connie 24:39
We need to separate the two. Sometimes doing what's right is incredibly uncomfortable. And anybody listening to this who's ever played golf, knows what I'm saying. Have you ever played golf, Cher?
Cher Kretz 24:55
It's extremely uncomfortable. The few times I have, it’s like, no, straighten your arm...no tweak your body.
Elliott Connie 25:02
The way you stand over a golf ball with the proper golf stance is incredibly uncomfortable. But it is the right way to do it. So sometimes we have to do uncomfortable things because it is the right thing to do. And oftentimes, spear leads us to what's comfortable, but never to what's right.
Cher Kretz 25:23
Yeah, fear is useless. And I'm glad that we're taking a minute to focus on the reality that as humans, we're going to need to realize that on purpose and do something about it. Or we might waste a month of our life or longer thinking about fears that are useless. I'm counseling a lot of kids that have a large amount of anxiety, about just going outside, let alone going back to school. And that's because a lot of times the adults have been going out, they've been going out and doing what they need to do, they come home to their child that stays home. And there's a gap right now, with the child's fear. They are very fearful about the things they've seen on television, or they hear about the parents. So they hear about another friend has COVID and this person in that person. And that's been a big challenge for me that I'd love to discuss with you about how to help them move past those fears.
Elliott Connie 26:24
So I'm going to so I'll say a couple of things about that. So this pandemic has been an interesting thing. And I'll be very honest with you. So I've had a really difficult start to my life. So I tend to think differently about hardships than other people. In a weird way, the pandemic, and this might sound crazy, but 2020, in a lot of ways has been the best year of my adult life. When I say that to people, they're like, how can you say that? And I'll say two things, number one, hard times, reorient your focus onto things that actually matter. So like, we are not entitled to trips to our to Disney World, we are not entitled. So like, these are times where we have to enjoy the experience of the things that actually matter. And the lockdown, which I don't enjoy, I would much rather get on a plane and fly somewhere and go visit people. But I have to be honest and say, but the reprioritization of my focus, I think has served me well in 2020, because now I'm reaching out to friends that I haven't reached out to before, because I wasn't going slow enough to even like attend to them. So So now like the things that I do in my life are much more about like what actually really in my core matters. Yes. So and I think we have to talk to kids about like, here's what actually matters. And here's what life is really about. His life is not about how many restaurants you can go to. Because to be honest with you, this pandemic has been rough, and it's taken a lot away from us. But it hasn't taken away the things that actually matter in our core. In fact, it's given us the opportunity to show each other how much we care, because I'm going to go visit family, but I'm going to be wearing a mask, and I'm not going to go in home. And I'm going to be standing like 12 feet away from them. And that's my way of showing how much I care and love you because I'm not willing to put you at risk. I think we have to shift our focus on what hardships mean. Instead of just focusing on everything that we lost, we should focus on the opportunities that are now available to us. And I now have an opportunity to show people in my life, how much they actually matter to me, because I'm doing demonstratively demonstrative things that show them that I care and to talk to kids about core values and to talk to kids about what actually matters and to spend time with kids. Like I have a friend who would also tell you that this has been a very, positive year for him. And people will ask him like, What are you talking about? And he had a really busy job before the pandemic, when the pandemic hit, he decided to change his job. So he now works from home in his new job. And he's like, I have lunch and dinner with my children every day. His oldest child is 15, he's like, I missed so much. Just by the act of going to work every day. I'm not even talking about like one of those jobs where you work 19 hours a day but he lives in a city where there's a lot of traffic, as you probably know about in Anaheim. So he would drive to work he leave for work at like 6:30 in the morning. It was a 17-mile commute that took him an hour and a half every morning. So he gets to work at like 8:00, and then he gets home at like 6:30. And he gets home. And he has dinner with his children sometimes because sometimes they've already eaten.
Cher Kretz 30:16
Sometimes they are tired at that point, and they're not, that's not their best of time.
Elliott Connie 30:24
That was his life. And now in the pandemic, he's working from home. And he jokes that his commute is now 12 feet because he just walks downstairs in the basement, where his offices, and he's gotten much closer to to his family. So what should we be talking about not just the kids, but what are we talking to each other about is the opportunities that are still present, that no pandemic could ever take away, right, but no, nothing could ever take away, because we still have each other. And we still have opportunity to express that love. And maybe now it's through a mask, and maybe now it's over zoom, or maybe now we have to show that love across six feet. But we still have those opportunities. And we should cherish that.
Cher Kretz 31:07
I think the focus moving away from all the things that were lost to all the things that were gained is so important for us to do on purpose with our kids. Because I have talked a lot to adults like you that have been able to begin to process the gifts that were hidden that we didn't realize would happen by the exactly like you said, maybe being at home more often, or dinners need to be at home and a lot more things like that. But I don't know if you've noticed this, but sometimes we forget that we need to talk to our kids about that, that might not automatically be happening within them. This isn't something that they're innately going to come to. When I sat down with my 12 year old recently, and had a similar discussion. I had to ask her like, well, what are some of the things that you're thankful for, that you've been able to have in the last few months or whatever the question was, and she's all "Well, I have a real hard time seeing anything but bad about not being able to start seventh grade." And then we kind of started talking about seventh grade and just some of the things that she's been able to do here instead of what would have happened there. By the end of that conversation, she was able to expand her mind to understand that there was more. But isn't that something that families need to kind of be cognitive and do on purpose for their children?
Elliott Connie 32:39
Yes we have to do it intentionally. Like we have to have a level of intentionality and say to people, I'm going to talk to them again, not just kids, but we're going to talk to each other,
Cher Kretz 32:52
The whole family as a unit.
Elliott Connie 32:55
Right. And friends, peers, I mean, everybody, we, we need to talk as if we can get through this. And we know that we can. So since we're gonna get through this, we might as well focus on the lessons that we're learning. We might focus on the opportunities that are present, we might as well focus on all kinds of things like this podcast would not be happening, or at least I wouldn't be on this podcast.
Cher Kretz 33:18
Oh, I bet it totally does. happen. Yeah. Even if the podcast, we wouldn't have the opportunity that we have to sit right here, right.
Elliott Connie 33:28
If you had emailed me a year ago, it would have taken me a month to get back to you because I was on a plane and I was still we need to just sit down and always realize that life is cherishable because it's life, even in a pandemic, it's still life.
Cher Kretz 33:45
Well, let's go back to what you had said when you've just started this, this part of our conversation? How is it that you're making a correlation in your mind about your childhood and this pandemic? Why is it that you're making that correlation you feel like it's looked at differently for you because of that.
Elliott Connie 34:04
Because I've proven to myself, I can handle hard things. There's a there's a guy who created one of the guys who created Narrative Therapy is the guy named Michael White. And I got to spend some time around Michael White, two days before he passed away. One of the things he said was if you want to know how to get over hard things, just look in the rearview mirror to see all of the hard things you've gotten over before. And I am someone like when I got on this call, he said introduces as I made a comment, I'm pretty awesome. That's actually not a joke. Like if I don't believe in my own ability to be awesome, then what's the point of like, doing anything else? And people say that sounds arrogant. I don't care. If me being aware of my strength makes you uncomfortable, than be uncomfortable. The reason why I believe that so strongly, is because I almost committed suicide as a young person because I was so aware of my flaws. That's what happens when you get like beaten and yelled at and criticized and screamed at and all those things as child, I started feeling worthless. So I will never allow myself to feel that way again, ever. So when this pandemic happens, I just, I now am aware that I have proven to myself that I can do hard things. I can make it through very difficult things. And I genuinely believe, if I can make it through roughly 15 years of abuse of parenting, I can handle however long I need to sit in my home office. And if I think about it, being locked in this home is actually not, there are a whole lot worse circumstances I could find myself in. And I'm 100% confident I can do this as long as I need to do it.
Cher Kretz 35:44
So it sounds to me like you quickly made that correlation to say, you know what, I've been through hard things before, this is just one more hard thing, and let's just move forward and find the joy in that.
Elliott Connie 35:56
That's exactly right. I, I'm aware that I am tested. And if you think about it, I don't think any generation, like if you're gonna live the average life expectancy, somewhere around 70 or 80 years. Every generation has something. Maybe it was World War Two, maybe it was a great depression, maybe you know what I mean? Every day, you just have hurdles that you have to deal with. And this is our hurdle. Yeah, we got to deal with it. And there's no point in pretending that we can't deal with it. Because of course we can.
Cher Kretz 36:28
We can of course we can. And of course, we will get to the other side. The question is, what kind of memories and what kind of person are we as we walk through that other side? I know for me, as I move into the holiday season and beyond, I challenge people to ask themselves, what kind of person at the end of the day of this particular day. What do you want to have said that you carried with you throughout the day? Is it a hopeful attitude? Is it a kind attitude? Is it helpful? Is it polite? Is it more talkative, if you're a quiet person, or more of a listener, if you're not, these are the things that we can control the things that we walk around with every single day. And it helps us grow as individuals. And that's been kind of my challenge to so many people that gives us so much more confidence when we're able to realize, look, I can't control everything around me, guess what I never could anyway. We never work patrolling everything anyway, if we thought we were. And now is the time when we can really decide how we're going to be.
Elliott Connie 37:34
The great illusion. Control is the great illusion,
Cher Kretz 37:36
isn't it, though? And I noticed, okay, I didn't realize this until when we first met I kind of thought all right, he's out there doing this solution-focused approach in a big way. But you've done a lot of work with couples as well, haven't you?
Elliott Connie 37:51
Yes,
Cher Kretz 37:53
Tell me a little bit about that. Because that's another thing that's been a brand new challenge for many parents of saying we need to cooperate in a brand new way moving forward.
Elliott Connie 38:01
So I've written two books about it, about using the solution-focused approach with couples. And I think, solution-focused brief therapy with couples is just the same as with anything else, it's a shift to a focus on capacities and outcomes. And I often think, in relationships, and we all do it. We all kind of try to make our partner be who we want them to be. Instead of trying to make the relationship get us where we're hoping to go. And you know, what's funny, is we date like this, right? Like, when we go out on dates we talked about like, "So where do you want to live? And what's your dream job?" You know what I mean? Like, we do this, like future pacing.
Cher Kretz 38:53
Yes.
Elliott Connie 38:54
But after we've been married for 10 years, we stopped doing it. Hmm. And I think part of what we need to do. I Are you in a relationship, can I ask you?
Cher Kretz 39:03
Yes absolutely. I've been married many years.
Elliott Connie 39:06
Okay. If you if you talk to your partner, like, here's, here's my challenge to you. Here's my challenge. everybody listening, really...
Cher Kretz 39:15
Do it. Yeah.
Elliott Connie 39:18
For 24 hours, I want you to commit to talking to them about the future. Because it's easy to do when we're in our twenties because we like so what job do you want to have? And what career Do you want to have? And what dream What would you like to have in your dream house? Like that's what we say, right? But then when we've been married, and you know, I'm 44 years old, we've been married forever. But go talk to him about like, Hey, you know, what do you want to what's like your ideal way to spend retirement or, you know, if we could go take a trip when this pandemic is over? What would be the one place on earth you'd want to spend a week with me? You don't I mean, like, have conversations deliberately about the future. For 24 hours, and I'll bet your dollar it'll it'll impact the way that you see your partner, it'll have an impact on your relationship. The problem is we don't tend to do that in our 40s. But we do it very naturally, as, as young people,
Cher Kretz 40:16
Even in our 30s, I mean, it's common that the 30s get really, families move are moving fast through their 30s. If they started their family, I mean, everyone, it let's say, they started their family sometime in the beginning of their 30s, we'll just say, things start to move really fast. And once that moves fast, and kids enter the equation, and another day rolls by, I think that's exactly what ends up losing is that even when they go on a date, they're like, Huh, what do we talk about? Now we're not with the kids. Where do we go from here?
Elliott Connie 40:52
That's right. Like you we often go on a date. And we're like, Hey, did you pay the bill last week? You know, and we don't say "Look at how beautiful Your eyes are."
Cher Kretz 41:02
Yeah,
Elliott Connie 41:07
The husband's job... This is gonna sound like a weird way to say it but like, the husband's job is to make the spouse, not even husband, but one partner versus one partner. Right? My job as a partner, is to make the other partner feel like a human again, Like, not just mom, not just dad, not just employee, make me feel alive to make me feel young, energetic, sensual even. But what happens is we have we have three kids, and I'm just dad, and you're just mom, or you know what I mean? One partner's job is to remind the other partner that yeah, your dad and your or your mom, or your employee, or employer or whatever. But you're also a living breathing, energetic human being.
You're also amazing because of who you are.
Right. You enjoy laughter and you enjoy things that have nothing to do with the context of those other roles in which you play. And I think I think we need to remind each other on those dinners, we go in on those walks, I'm not going for a walk with mom slash Dad, I'm going for a walk with like, my partner's heart. And we, we You are the carer of your partner's heart, we spend our 30s just being mom or dad, or you know, those roles become all-encompassing. Yeah, and we have to have a way of pulling that apart of it.
Cher Kretz 42:45
Right. And I'm reminded of a couple that I was working with recently, they have a couple of kids, and the mother has been at home as she was before, but because of the pandemic, the role that she's playing at home is so intense. And they never leave the home, that she just cried out to her husband at one point and was like, I have to get out of here. I have to just get out, I have to do something different. If I help another kid with their online homework, I feel like my head's gonna explode. And guess what? The husband took that hard. Because he was like, man, I'm out there every day working my butt off for you, basically and then you just want to get out? Why would you say that? And see how the disconnect of communication can happen that quick, When very well. it just dawned on me as we were talking in that memory popped up because it was very well that she was speaking to that person saying I just want to feel human, I don't want to feel like this person that's trapped at home doing schoolwork right now. Right? And then the communication just adjusted so slightly, can move that couple towards closeness rather than polarizing them at that moment. It's so important. And that's kind of why I was interested in talking to you about it, because I think that families can go one of those two ways they can choose to have their defenses up because this has been tough on all of us. Or they can choose to take that approach you say and you know what, let's up the ante of the love let's up the amount that we're giving rather than let the woes of the world weigh us down. Because our kids are driving us crazy or whatever it
Elliott Connie 44:31
Right, right.
Cher Kretz 44:32
Specifically though, being a school counselor. Sometimes parents have a hard time being on the same page about their children. And I was wondering if in any of your couples work or anything that you do, do you have any advice or thoughts that might pop into your mind about helping parents be able to be on the same page towards helping their kid be their best self.
Elliott Connie 44:34
So I actually don't think that people have a hard time being on the same page about their kids. I think people have a hard time being on the same page about how to get their kids where they want to get them. So I would say, always talk about what you're trying to achieve, not how you're trying to achieve it. The arguments we typically have are not about what we want our children to become, the arguments are about how to best have that happen. So we need to spend more time talking about the overall big picture outcome, and less time talking about the pathway.
Cher Kretz 45:40
Okay. And that right away will release all of those tit for tat little things, because we both in almost every case, even parents that are divorced, want the same outcome for their child? When if absolutely,
Elliott Connie 45:53
absolutely, I have almost I mean, that's the power of outcomes. I can't think of a single time where I talked to parents who disagreed about the outcomes they wanted. They just disagree about how to get the kiddos there. Yes. And we have to spend more time talking about the outcomes of what we're hoping to achieve and less time talking about the ways in which to achieve it.
Cher Kretz 46:16
Yeah. Well, I always leave my listeners with a solution-focused exercise. A solution-focused inspired exercise. And I think that you hit on a great one. For 24 hours, I'm going to challenge myself and the listeners to talk to their family members, their spouse specifically and then to their other family members, about what they hope for the future. And what they see as their future self and what they dream about. And well, as you said, what would they what would be a wonderful trip. And I want to challenge each and every person that listens to this, for their solution-focused exercise this week, is just to take one 24 hour period to choose to talk to their loved ones in that manner. And just let me know what happens. Just let me know the results. It's going to be powerful. (www.thefocusedmindset.com) And I thank you for that. Because I was going to ask you, hey, let's brainstorm about it. But then, you know, you brought it up right then and there. So let's just put it out. Right?
Elliott Connie 47:22
I love it. I love it.
Cher Kretz 47:24
And even that I think it will be infectious. Because for us when I found and probably you have to when we start a practice, and it produces positive results, it makes us want to keep that up and keep moving in that direction. And I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with me and talk about these important subjects. Because Yeah, there's just nothing more important than strengthening the family.
Elliott Connie 47:54
Agreed,
Cher Kretz 47:55
You know, our families can be attacked from so many different levels. And, our kids can be pulled in so many different directions when they're looking on the internet. And they're seeing a version of success or failure. And then coupled with so many practice things that parents might be doing they just are stuck and they need to come out of it. And it's conversations that we're having here that people can listen to, or Pico people can begin to say you know what? It's not scary that there's something different. It might seem counterintuitive to what I normally do. But let's give it a shot. Let's give looking at things through a different lens a shot. Would what would be something that you would leave our parents with as they move into the new year? What would you tell a group of parents if they were sitting in front of you right now what would you tell them as they move into 2021 that would help them to be able to try out these approaches with an open heart.
Elliott Connie 48:57
I would say so 2020 hit us all kind of hard and rocked us a little bit because it had so many unexpected events occur. But I would say still allow yourself to dream about 2021 because the tendency as you talk to your kids, the kids are gonna be like I want 2021 to be amazing. And the tendency will be like well let's just be prepared in cases not allow them to dream about a brilliant and bright 2021
Cher Kretz 49:26
That's beautiful. All right, I'm going to do that as well. And you too We're all going to be in this together dreaming big and dreaming about the solid bright future that we know is there Absolutely. Well, let's Why don't you remind our listeners where they can find you because I know they're gonna want to find you.
Elliott Connie 49:46
Yep, the easiest place and mostly for professionals. But if you find me on my website, which is ElliottConnie.com. And you can also find my podcast which is called The Details with Elliott and Adam. And you can find that on all places where podcasts are available, like Apple podcasts and Spotify and all of them. You can find my podcast as well.
Cher Kretz 50:14
Okay, let's pause. What's the name of the podcast again? Because we're podcasters here.
Elliott Connie 50:22
The Details with Elliott Connie, and Adam Frour
Cher Kretz 50:26
Oh my gosh, I'm gonna write that in the show notes, guys. So if you scroll down, I don't want you to forget, because what a wonderful thing for us to do is jump on over, take a listen. I can tell you guys that. Elliott and Adam, they have a great, you guys have been friends for so long. That right away, you can tell that the conversation flows so nicely, you guys are great to listen to. And you hit on the subjects that are happening in the world today and then bring a solution-focused approach to it. Much like some of the things that we do here with our families. So yeah, absolutely. Head over there, guys. I think you're gonna love it. The Details with Elliott and Adam. Right?
Elliott Connie 51:06
Brilliant. Yep.
Cher Kretz 51:08
All right. And let's keep in touch. I just I mean, you know, you've crossed over there on the Atlantic. I'm on the Pacific. Let's, let's, you know, just keep working on both sides and help everyone.
Elliott Connie 51:23
Stay in touch for sure.
Cher Kretz 51:24
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Elliot.
Elliott Connie 51:26
Okay. All right, thank you.
Cher Kretz 51:29
And if you want to hear more about Elliott, Connie, look him up. He's on almost all the social media platforms. And on LinkedIn, he even puts out little vignettes. Now, as he talked about, his specialty is working with clinicians. And he also works with couples. But as you can see, it's great to glean from all of his wisdom, and his website will be in the show notes. And don't forget your solution-focused exercise, you are going to take a period of time and talk to your loved ones, especially in particular with your significant other about positive future thinking. You're going to leave all of the icky stuff out of your conversation if it comes to problems and bills and all of that and you're going to start talking about what are dreaming about? What do you want for the future? What's something you really love to accomplish? Think of all kinds of really great questions and just start throwing it out there. I can't wait to see what a difference is gonna make and then let me know, email me at share the focused mindset.com and let's talk about this. And it's time for us to get out there and do just that. So until next time, keep in touch and take care.
