EP:175 Breaking the Cycle: How Mediation Keeps Fathers in Their Children's Lives

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You are listening to the Double A Club and this is
your host, ny Boom, and myco-host, big Daz.
We'll be talking about trendingtopics and healthcare and
basically, just as a disclaimerjust to let the listeners know
that this is just basically onour opinions and speculations

(00:24):
and I hope you guys enjoy theshow.
Let's start off and kick offwith our first topic.
Hello everyone, this is NYCBoom and this is the Double A
Club podcast.
You can listen to us oniHeartRadio, spotify, apple

(00:46):
Podcasts any application thatyou listen to your podcast.
I have a special guest with me.
Introduce yourself, please.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Hey, this is Joe Dillon from Equitable Mediation
Services.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
And tell us a little bit about what you actually do.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
All right.
Well, thanks for having me,alberto, appreciate it.
I am a divorce mediator, so Ihelp people negotiate and
resolve all the issuessurrounding their divorce
without lawyers, if they sochoose.
We engage in direct negotiation, financial discovery, and we
take them through a process toresolve all the issues they need
to get a divorce.

(01:24):
So we try to keep them out ofthe court system, keep them
talking face to face as eithersoon to be ex spouses or as soon
to be co-parents which I thinkwe're going to spend some time
talking about today and, youknow, really to kind of keep the
proceedings amicable, asfriendly as we can.
You know, save them time, savethem money, keep them out of the
court system and really getthem a result that's going to

(01:47):
benefit both of them and theirfamily right, rather than a
judge imposing something on them.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
And how many years?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
of experience you have doing this.
Oh my gosh, you know it gets tothat point in your career,
right where you like.
You hate to answer thatquestion because you're like 28
years, you years, you know.
So been mediating 28 years inprivate practice doing divorce
for 17 now so how far does yourexpertise go?

(02:15):
well, um, you know, as myfriends would always tease me,
you should write a book.
Uh, because I don't know ifI've literally seen it all, but
I'm pretty sure I have.
So, you know, in terms of thecases that we get, we've gotten
you name it.
We've helped people.
We practice in six states herein the US, right?
So in California, washington,illinois, new York, new Jersey

(02:37):
and PA.
And we've also helped folks inCanada, in France, in Japan,
hong Kong, thailand.
People have found us somehow, Idon't know how, probably our
website, but we're always up fora challenge.
So we've not only helped peopledomestically but
internationally.
We've worked with everyone,from small business owners to

(03:00):
celebrities, who, of course, Ican't disclose just to regular
folks like you and me, right,just moms and dads just trying
to get through the process.
And you know, for the most partwe've been fortunate in that
our clients are engaged in theprocess.
They're willing to be engagedin the process and work with us.
But we've really also had to dosome very creative things to

(03:21):
get people to the negotiationtable and get them to resolve
their issues right, because noteverybody wants to settle right.
Some people just like the fightand my job is to help them come
to an agreement.
So yeah, so we've really runthe gamut of clients, locations,
people you know, you name it,we've probably seen it.

(03:43):
So one day I'll write a bookwhen I retire and anonymize
everybody, you know.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
And, on top of all that that you've touched and
reached, you also help educateother mediators to do their job
better.
Right Correct yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yep, so I've been a coach for various mediation
organizations.
Yep, so I've been a coach forvarious mediation organizations.
I was kind of an assistant atNorthwestern University in
Chicago helping the primaryteachers coach the other
mediators, teaching them how tomediate, how to engage with
clients, how to negotiate, howto get them to talk.
I also do a series of courses.

(04:20):
So I truly believe, even in ourown lives.
Right, forget divorce for amoment.
Let's talk about buying a caror renting an apartment or
getting a mortgage.
Right, we all negotiate.
Right, we all negotiate all thetime.
We negotiate with our spouses.
Right, where do you want to goto dinner?
What movie do you want to seewith your friends?
Right, what time do you want togo out?
All of those things are littlemicro negotiations, and so we've

(04:43):
also developed a course onnegotiation.
We've developed some courses onplanning financially for
divorce.
Those are on our website Also,just on the basics of divorce.
Right, just, sometimes, one ofthe things that we see a lot of
people do and it's common right,we say in our office it's
usually your first timer.
Right, most people, for the mostpart, you know people will come

(05:06):
to us for the first timethey've been married.
We don't have a lot of seconddivorces in our practice, and so
we view it as our job toeducate people, and that's one
big mistake I see a lot ofpeople make is that they go into
this giant decision rightDivorce, right To end your
marriage to go into this reallyimportant, really, like you know
, life-changing process andthey're just winging it right.

(05:29):
They're not getting educated,they're not reading, they're not
learning about their options,they're not getting up to speed
on these topics, and so we wantthem to come into our offices
educated and we give them a tonof resources to do that, so that
not only I'm teaching mediatorshow to mediate better, but I'm
also teaching clients how to bebetter mediation clients.

(05:49):
I hope that makes sense, right?
Kind of that win-win as amediator, right?
So I try to come at it fromboth sides.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
And I believe that's a good thing, because a lot of
well I know from my experience.
When I first entered mediation,I had to go through mediation
three times.
Okay, yep.
And the first time I wasuneducated.
The first two times I wasuneducated and I didn't
understand the process and whatwas going on and everything.

(06:18):
It just seemed like.
It just seemed like I was therefor the fight and I had to
fight for my rights andeverything.
And it was and it wascounterintuitive, it didn't help
, it didn't benefit me at alland oftentimes my lawyer had to
tell me you're chill, like relax, let me handle this, and I'm
like fuck that I'm all fired up,right, I think, I think it's

(06:39):
very good to educate the clientthemselves on how this is and
what would benefit you to getwhat you're looking for, because
I know like one of the thingsthat my lawyer used to tell me
is, like, don't get upset If youshow anger it looks bad on you.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, absolutely, and in fact, no-transcript, a

(07:29):
courtroom, right.
But that's what was happening,right, the worst.
I had to put on a suit and tie.
You know, like 15 year old kid,you're like, oh my god, this is
terrible, right, and so I'msitting back there, right, and I
was like I had to get a haircutand you, oh man.
And so my parents are up there,right, I'm in the back and I'm
watching.
You know dad's at one side, Iremember dad's on the left,

(07:49):
mom's on the right and the judgeis talking about who's going to
pay for college.
And my dad wanted it to be 50-50.
And at the time my dad wasprobably making about 10 times
more than my mom.
She just had just gone back towork part-time.
She had been raising me thewhole time, you know.
So she was making a couplethousand bucks a year and that
was a little odd, right.
And so when the judge was like,well, you know, to my father, mr

(08:11):
Dillon, you know it doesn'tseem fair, you know you make a
lot more.
And then he started getting mad, you know.
And so he starts yelling at thejudge and the judge is like,
well, let's make it 60-40.
And so now my father is reallymad, right, because I'm half
Irish, half Italian, so you knowwe're calm people.
And so, you know, my dad 100%Irish, you know.

(08:33):
Now he stands up and the judgeis like now it's 70-30.
And he starts to approach thebench and his lawyer like, grabs
him by the arm, the bailiff iscoming over, and the judge is
like, would you like to make it80-20?
And finally, like the lawyerhas to push him down in his
chair, and I'm watching thisunfold, right, and I mean that

(08:56):
was like 40 years ago, so it'sstill burned into my mind, right
?
So message number one toparents is don't do that to your
kids, right, because you don'twant to have them have that
traumatic experience as a kid.
But message two is judges arepeople.
They are going to judge,adjudicate, whatever the fancy

(09:16):
word is right, based on if theylike you or not.
Right, people get one thing Ithink that's really important to
recognize, right.
So I don't know about you, butone of my favorite kind of shows
is like law and order and csi.
You know those crime shows,right, and you watch these
things, right, and everythinggets snapped up in an hour.
You know they find the guy whodid the international monday
laundering, right, he killed thedude, yeah, and you're like

(09:38):
okay, but in in the court systemthere's two types of courts.
There's a criminal, and that'swhat we think about when we
watch these shows.
Right, you're guilty, like youand I could have a conversation
and go hey, alberto, is it okayto kill somebody?
You'd be like Joe, hell, no, ofcourse not.
But when you get into a divorcesituation, it's what we call a
court of equity, right, and it'swhatever the judge or the

(10:01):
parties think is fair andequitable.
That's where our company namecame from and it's like that's
not as clear cut right, becausethere's no magic rule book that
you point to page 812 and saysyou get this and I get that
right.
It's really up to the partiesthat's what I try to help them
understand the parties to decide, and if they can't, the judge
is going to decide.
And that's when people getangry And's when they they lose

(10:24):
their cool because it's like,well, you're a stranger, you
don't know me, you don't know mykids, you don't know my
situation.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
But if you can't work it out on your own, that's
exactly what's going to happenyeah, and and, like I said, I
had to do mediation three times,so my third time, uh, I didn't
understand that.
They gave us the option not tobe in the same room, right, so I
chose separate rooms and Inegotiated with just my lawyer

(10:49):
and a mediator yep, not her side, and we had the mediator go
back and forth room to room yep,and that was like the best
thing for me to do.
Yeah, absolutely it's called.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
It's got a name.
It's called shuttle shuttlemediation.
It's a technique, right.
When you have a conflict, lookby all means right.
Think about your friends youhave fights with right your
spouses, even people you like.
You have fights with right.
It's just a natural part ofbeing people getting a divorce.

(11:25):
They're at odds with each other, right?
Because always, invariably, Isee it one way, you see it
another.
And now you put them in thesame room and it's like, hey,
you guys figure it out.
You know, it's like, why don'tyou just throw a stake into a
ring full of pitbulls?
You know like, and just youknow like, let them figure it
out on their own.
And having a mediator go backand forth is really helpful.
And another thing that we do wedo virtual mediation, right.

(11:45):
So we do like Zoom, like youand I are doing now, and some
people will sit next to eachother because they get along,
and if they can do that, that'sgreat.
But by doing it this way, ifone spouse is in one room or
their office or the library orwhatever, and the other one's in
a separate space, they don'thave that energy coming off the
other person.
You know that's getting themfired up and they can speak more

(12:08):
freely.
Even though we're doing it inreal time right, They've got me
here they can still feel like,hey, I can speak my piece.
I don't have the other personlooking at me, giving me dirty
looks, cutting me off.
You know, because, as a mediatorwho does mediation online, like
I've been doing for a long time, you got to get good at
listening to one person,listening to the other, making
sure everybody gets heard,Because isn't that really all we

(12:31):
want At the end of the day?
It's like you might not agreewith me.
I just want to know that youheard me, I just want you to
know, you understand.
And if you understood and youdisagree, that's okay.
I can at least live with thator we can work something out,
right.
But if I'm just talking andyou're cutting me off, and
you're getting cut off and andyou're just screaming, yelling
at each other, you're notgetting anywhere, and then

(12:51):
you're winding up in court withthe lawyers and the judge
decides and that's the worstoutcome for everybody.
Right?
That's the worst outcome foreverybody?
Yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
So now I see I see that there that there's been
many transitions in family courtwith these battles.
And I know early, early, earlyon, it was more family and it
was two parent households andthen eventually it transitioned
to a one parent household, aone-parent household, and then

(13:24):
now I see the transition in thistrying to convert into more of
co-parenting, right, exactly,it's popularizing a little bit
more now but it's still verychallenging because a lot of men
are very scared to go throughthe process to get this

(13:45):
co-parenting and they don'tunderstand.
They don't understand how itworks like you know, like when,
when a man Obviously he justthinks about what used to happen
, and that's when you know thecourt would decide they take 80%
of the man's income.
When you know the court woulddecide they take 80 of the man's

(14:09):
income, uh, afforded, and it'sjust.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
And then the guy is trying to figure out what to do,
like they.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
Where do I go from here, right yeah they hear so
many war stories from friendsand stuff like I remember I I
had a friend who was who, whowent through um a custodial
battle in Jersey and lives herein Florida and he had to pay,
like literally I think.
It was like I think it wasbetween seven to $900 a month

(14:34):
and he just made 1600 by everypaper.
So it was like they never tookinto account Florida pay pay
structure.
They only took account to his,to the Jersey um um bracket.
So and it was horrible.
I'm like how do you live?
How do you live?

Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah, and that's a great point, right, because one
of the things, one of the thingsI try to do with parents, right
, is I explain.
Look, let let's, I'll give youthe true story from my own
family, right, so I'll anonymizesome names, so my uh family
doesn't yeah, they're watchingthis to be like, hey, why'd you
talk about me?
Um, so, uh, family member, youknow, uh, basically what

(15:16):
happened was got a divorce andone party was a stay-at-home
parent and one party was the cFOof a bank, right, so you can
figure out the math on that,right, you know there's huge
income disparity, and so the CFOperson has the money to go hire
all the best lawyers and, youknow, bang this thing over the

(15:37):
goal line.
And so, you know, you look at asituation like that and as a
mediator and you say, well, youhave this one child who's going
to go back and forth betweenhouses, right Now, this kid,
who's a teenager, are theyreally going to want to go?
Stay with the parent who and Ikid you not, this sounds like
something out of a book or a badcountry music song like in an

(16:01):
apartment literally next to therailroad track, right, so you
know you want to stay there, orthe other parent has a house on
the beach in the jersey shore.
So now you're a teenage kid,right, and you, you love both
parents, right, you want tospend time with them.
But in your little adolescentbrain, what are you thinking?

(16:23):
You're thinking, well, hell, Iwant to stay at the beach, I
don't want to stay by therailroad track, right.
But when you have those lopsidedsupport agreements where one
parent is fine and one parent isnot, that's exactly what
happens.
It drives this wedge and kidsthat you know you're not
thinking that, you're a teenager, you're just trying to get up
and get through your day, right,and you and you know you and I

(16:43):
are probably have the same.
You know brackets where wedidn't have social media and we
didn't have phones in school and, like you know, we just you
know there was none of that.
We didn't have to worry aboutthat.
And so now you've got so manymore pressures as a kid and if
you've got this disparity inincomes between households, it
doesn't do anybody any good,right?
Because now that lower parent,the parent with that less money,

(17:07):
can't buy gifts, can't have anice place for the kid to come,
can't have an extra bedroom forthem to stay right and you want
to create that seamlessexperience for kids and that's
why I always believe innegotiating things like child
support, because you can say,look, this is what it takes for
both of us to have an apartmentor a condo or a house or
whatever.
If we can do it right.
This is what it takes both ofus to put food on the table,

(17:28):
have gas in our car, buy someclothes, get some haircuts so
that it makes that transitionbetween houses more seamless.
The kids want to go and you canhave those 50 50 parenting
plans so that the children arespending time with both mom and
dad, because it is importantthat they spend time with both
parents.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
You know what I mean so here's the question, because
you brought that up right, yeah,now now it on in the same
scenario track is it fair forthe guy, say, for example, the
guy, the cfo right to pay andsupport the mother, um, the

(18:07):
mother's uh lifestyle because ofbecause of his lifestyle?
Like because the reason why Ibring that up is because
sometimes the figures aren'tright like it's just too much
money, that's way more moneythan it is to really support the
kid?
It just seems like it'sone-sided and not like, for

(18:32):
example, in that scenario, thewoman, especially if it's a
50-50 situation.
If it's 100 or 90 or whateverthat's different than that guy.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, of course Time sharing matters.
Time sharing does, yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
But time sharing does matter.
And so how would you guys comeup with those numbers?
Because I mean, like, I think,I believe that, like, some of
those numbers is just a littlebit way too higher than it
should be.
You know what I'm saying.
Like, I'd say, like, in thatsituation, let's just say let's
throw out a number and say thefather pays $300 a month.
Okay, Okay, but $300 a monthmight be a little bit too much

(19:09):
to support the kids.
It might be enough to supportthe household and take care and
pay the rent and everything, orhelp assist to pay the rent, but
it might be too much.
What is she going to do?

Speaker 2 (19:21):
Yeah, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
So how do you guys determine that?

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Yeah, it's a great question.
So one of the things about methat's pretty unique is that
most divorce mediators areeither lawyers or mental health
professionals.
About 90% of people who mediatedivorces are one of those two
things.
So, like marriage counselors,therapists, stuff like that the
other 10% you know the classicother, right, we all fall in

(19:47):
that bucket.
Then you've got a mix of people.
Now I have an MBA in finance,right?
So my background is finance andnegotiation and, exactly to
your point is that when you gointo this process, there's so
much information online, right,people get online and they talk
to their friends and you know,you hear all these stories,
right, and I trust me, I getthem too.

(20:08):
When I go out to, you know,barbecues, and people are asking
me questions and like, oh,you're most curious some stories
.
It's like I do, but I, I kindof like talk people off the
ledge and say you know thesenumbers that you might hear
about with the celebrities who,like this guy's making 14
billion a year and 20 000 amonth in child support is just a
drop in the bucket to thatperson, right?

(20:29):
So you're like, yeah, okay,whatever, um, but for the rest
of us, you've got to base thisthing in reality, and so what we
do here's, here's the secret,all right.
So here's the secret sauce foryour, for your listeners is that
we have this financialdiscovery process we go through,
and one of the mistakeseverybody makes and you touched
on this a little bit with yourmediation as well is people

(20:52):
start deciding things beforethey even know what they're
talking about, right, beforethey even get educated, before
they even have information.
So say, I walked up to you,right, you and I are going to
hang out tonight.
And I said, hey, where do youwant to go to dinner?
And you'd be like, well't knowwhere are we going.
And I'm like I don't know where.
You know, where do you want togo?
Just tell me, tell me where youwant to go.
And you'd be like, well, whatare my choices?

(21:14):
Like, what town are we going to?
Are you driving?
Am I driving?
Can I drink?
You know, are we going to amovie?
After that, like, what are wedoing?
Right, and until I gave youenough information to make an
educated decision, you probablywould be like, dude, I don't
know.
Like, what do you?
What do you want me to say?
Right, like you just keepcoming at me.
The same goes with these kindsof conversations around support.

(21:35):
So what we do is the first thingis we do this financial
discovery process where we getall this income information
right tax returns, pay stubs, w-, w-2s Because one of the
mistakes, the first mistake Ihear a lot of people say is that
you make so much more than I do.
Right, and that can very wellbe a true statement.
But we all know, unless you'resome wealthy billionaire type

(21:58):
person, you're paying a lot ofmoney in taxes.
You're paying health insurancepremiums.
You're paying state in taxes.
You're paying health insurancepremiums.
You're paying, you know, state,federal, local taxes, right,
you know whatever it is.
So, even though your top linenumber looks impressive, what
you actually take home is a lotdifferent story, right?
So number one is we get peoplethinking, hey, it's not about

(22:18):
that gross income, it's aboutthat net income, right?
So that's the first thing wetry to get people focused on is
not how much you make, but howmuch you take right.
The next thing we have them doand this really freaks people
out are budgets.
Not too many people I know dobudgets.
Now, I happen to do thembecause I'm a geek like that.
I'm a numbers guy, I make mywife crazy with this stuff.

(22:39):
But listen, if you're not goingto plan, how do you know what
you need?
Right?
And so we have this budgetworkbook.
It's about 100 differentcategories and when you think
about your life right, you'relike I couldn't come up with 100
different things I spend moneyon.
Well, we did right.
We sat down and we said whatare all the things people spend

(22:59):
money on?
And you forget a lot of thatstuff.
Right?
Because if you're like us, youput the credit card and your
Netflix hits it, your cell phonehits it, your Sirius XM hits it
, your Spotify all that justclick, click, click, right?
And you're like I don't knowhow much I spend.
So we get them to go throughtheir statements, get them to
dig into all that stuff, gimme amonth by month, blow by blow.

(23:21):
And then, when you look at thatnow you come to the table and
it's like well, here's what wereally take home each of us.
Here's what we really spend.
And this is how we in ourbrains.
Now, yeah, of course, everystate has a guideline and we're
going to run those guidelines,but this is how we really have
to start thinking about what itcosts to raise kids, right,
because I'll give you a greatexample.

(23:42):
So people, when they thinkabout kids, like you've got
teenage kids.
So my friend, he's got highschool, senior, high school,
sophomore right, and they'reboth in cheerleading, gymnastics
, softball, like they got a joband this and that, right, and he
drives them all over the placeand with the cost of gas these
days, like he's probablyspending a couple hundred

(24:04):
dollars on gas just driving themfrom place to place, right?
So that's, that's the kind ofstuff that we get people to
start thinking about.
So to your original questionthat's how we really start
dialing it in what does it costto raise a kid?
Because there's a lot of thatancillary stuff people don't
think about, right?
And then when you start seeingit realistically, whether you're

(24:25):
the person paying or the personreceiving, you can hopefully
both, as parents, look at it andgo man, you know these kids,
they got the, the subscriptionfor the ipad internet, they got.
You know how many freakingstreaming services do you have,
right?
I have like five and I'm like,just like, I watch barely one of
them.
I'm a baseball fan.
Mlb Network is about the onlything I really watch.

(24:48):
So everything else I say to mywife.
I'm like, why do we have HBOand Hulu and Apple?
And like, give me a break, it's50 bucks a month, right, I
don't need it.
So by doing that right, doingthe financial discovery,
figuring out what the realincome is, so we can have
realistic conversations aboutwhat's available to pay, and
then looking at those budgetsand saying what's actually

(25:08):
needed, people can have a lotmore of an educated conversation
.
And then, even if the numbercomes up big or high or low or
whatever it is, you can look atboth of them and say makes sense
, any questions?
And then they look at it and go, yeah, I think this will work.
Sense Any questions, right.
And then they look at it and go, yeah, I think I think this
will work Right.
So, so that's how we do it,like a long answer to a short
question.
But I really want to emphasizeto people not to make those

(25:32):
decisions snap.
Do the research, do thehomework, gather the information
.
We say do the discovery beforethe deciding, right, cause then
this way you come in and you'relike damn expensive, you know,
or you know, and they don'treally need as much as we think
they need, um, and and so wenegotiate a different number,
right, so I hope that makessense yeah, yeah, okay, that's

(25:55):
good because, like that was,that was one.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
That was something that was pretty challenging for
my case and I mean we decidednot to have any child support
but just to be able to help eachother out when the kids needed
stuff, like if they had doctor'sappointments, if they needed
sneakers, clothes, whatever.

(26:19):
Yeah, so we came to anagreement on that.
You know, um, it was more of achess match, to be honest with
you, because she really did wantabout to, or they're thinking
about it, and I have to tellthem my experience on on what I
did, and I tried to.

(26:49):
I try to push them to go for itbecause, I mean, we, if you
want to be a father, you need togo for it and you're not going
to be with the lady?
I mean, you're still a father,right?

Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yeah, you're not a husband and wife, but you're
still mom and dad.
Right and that doesn't changewhen you get divorced right.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
You're right.
A lot of people forget that, bythe way.
Yeah, and to be honest with you, it might be better to raise
the kids separately than it istogether.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah, yep, in fact, we have a term for that.
It's called parallel parentingand it's becoming pretty popular
these days and and again.
Right, we're talking because,like a lot of this stuff, like
there's so many experts outthere, right, there's so many
people write books and theythink they know it all.
Right, but only you know yourkids, right, only you and mom
know your kids and know what'sgoing to be best for them.

(27:35):
You get somebody like me who'sseen all this stuff, right, and
I still don't know what's bestfor your kids, right, but I can
bring up options, and one that Ilike to bring up is exactly
that.
Let's talk a little bit abouthow that works.
Parallel parenting is when wehave again, these are just words
that I use.
You're not going to find thesein any law, books or anything.
This is just stuff that I makeup to try to explain it.

(27:56):
You know, as I say, you are theparent on duty, right?
Like you're the duty officer.
So the homework, the teethbrushing to get to soccer
practice, the feedings, you know, stop hitting your sister,
whatever.
That is right, you know that'syour job on whatever day of the
week Monday and then Tuesday isthe other parent, right, and
some people look at that as likewhat's terrible?

(28:17):
You know, you, you can't coparent and the kids need both
parents.
I'm like, yeah, but this isbetter than you all fighting in
front of each other and in frontof your kids, them seeing you
every time.
They're now afraid to getdropped off at mom's or picked
up by dad, or they're freakingout because they're not sure
what's going to happen, thatthere's going to be fireworks.
This way, you have your days, Ihave my days when it's my job

(28:41):
to take care of them.
I got to deal with it.
Your job, you got to deal withit.
They get the benefit of bothparents.
The parents are not interacting, right, because sometimes let's
just face it, as much as allluck.
I'm a mediator, right, I wanteverybody to get along and hold
hands and sing songs, right.
But at the end of the day,sometimes things happen, and we
see it in our practice too.

(29:02):
You know infidelity, financialinfidelity, addiction, you know
these are things that reallyharm people's opinions of each
other.
And look, I'm not going tojudge anybody, right, because
you know, whatever you did, youdid.
That's not my role to say, butat the end of the day, you got
to put your kid first, and ifthat means parenting separately,
at least they got both parentsright.

(29:24):
It's not a bad thing.
You got both parents in theirlives.
It just doesn't look like whatmost people think, where mom and
dad are both on the sideline atthe soccer game, even though
they're divorced, or cheering iton.
Mom and dad, maybe you're onopposite sidelines this time,
but they're both still there,you know.
So I hope that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, and, and.
In that parallel parenting youget the best parents Right.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah, right, you know what I'm saying.
You get the best self, rightyeah?

Speaker 1 (29:50):
because when I was together with the mother of my
children, we were together foralmost like 19 years, right, a
long time and I was miserableafter year 12.
Yeah, yeah, and I was miserableafter year 12.
Yeah, it was a nightmare, and Istood there in the relationship
because of my kids Right, thatwas the only thing.

(30:12):
I didn't want my kids to beraised the way I grew up,
because I grew up in a singleparent household with one mother
, yeah, me too.
So I just didn't want that.
I didn't have a father.
And then when I did meet me, myfather was a horrible
experience, yeah, yeah, I, and Ijust didn't want that.
So, right, I fought really hardfor years to try to stay in

(30:36):
that situation and, to be honestwith you, it made me more
miserable, it made me a worsefather because I was.
I was angry, I was snappy, Iwas just.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
I had a shorter temper yeah.
You're not your best self.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yeah Well, I was not my best self.
Yeah, I mean you don't need todirect it that way, but it
happens, right yeah, and thenwhen we we did the separation
and we did the custodial uminter uh rights and I I mean, it

(31:13):
was difficult the first year,but it is always is.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
I even know my clients that I'm like the next
12 months are going to suck andthey're like well, thanks for
the encouragement.
I'm like, listen, you know, I'mthe honest guy from the new
york area.
I'm a straight shooter.
I'm like the next 12 months aregonna suck and they're like
well, thanks for theencouragement.
I'm like, listen, you know I'mthe honest guy from the new york
area.
I'm a straight shooter.
I'm like, listen, this is howit's gonna be.
I'm not gonna lie to you.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
After that it'll suck less than it'll get a little
better it was so bad that my soncould not stay at my house for
the whole entire year.
So if I, if I grabbed them, uh,my daughter would stay and I
would have to take my son backto, to, to um, to the house,

(31:45):
because he was used to beingwith his, his mother and his
grandmother so and I had to, andthen eventually I had to stop
doing that and get him used tobeing lived um, stay with me,
and it would be nights of himnon-stop crying, right, and he's
like three, four years old, soit's not, he's past the phase of
crying right, right, but that'swhere you need, that's where

(32:07):
you need the other parent to besupportive, right?

Speaker 2 (32:09):
yeah, it's, this is.
You know we're talking you andme, and and you know we're
talking about the dads.
But you know this message alsogoes out to the moms, right?
Is that, no matter what youthink of your ex or you know the
father of your children, yougot it in your brain unless
there's, you know, somethingabusive or something horrible
going on, right?
We're not saying you know someguy who's a criminal or woman

(32:31):
who's a criminal, but we'resaying that, look, I know it's
going to be tough and I know youwant to protect your kids,
because we all do but in thelong run, it's going to be
better, like you said, sometimesfor the parent the other parent
in this case, like in yourexample for mom to say listen,
I'm sorry, but it's importantthat you spend time with dad.
I know it's going to be hard,it's going to be scary, but

(32:53):
you'll be back here tomorrow ornext week or whatever it is.
And that's how parents have tounify, right?
Because we all know, as parents, right, kids are amazing at
finding the split between folks,right, like they'll figure out
where the rift is where theproblem is and they'll just
exploit it right, they'll justgo right in there.

(33:13):
They'll drive that wedge rightin right.
And if you got to show thatunified front to say, hey,
there's no wedge here, we areone solid parenting block, right
, and we are both on the samepage and we're both saying it
from the same songbook.
And I think also, you know, oneof the things I think is
important to mention this goesto negotiation, right, because
my background also negotiationis that a lot of us, when we get

(33:37):
into these kinds of situations,what we're trying to do is
we're trying to plead our case.
We're so used to trying toconvince somebody and get them
to understand us and what reallyworks best.
And if I came up to you and Isaid, hey, man, give me 10 bucks
, you'd be like why, why shouldI give you $10?
Hey, man, give me 10 bucks,you'd be like why, like, why

(33:59):
should I give you $10?
But if I came up to you andsaid, listen, alberto man, you
know I ran out of gas, I lost mywallet, I just got to get home,
can you give me 10 bucks to putgas in my car, you'd probably
be like, yeah, okay, joe, yeah,I can do that for you, right,
cause I explained to you what Ineeded.
I explained and I'll pay youback, right, okay, good, so I
explained to you why I needed it.
I explained what I'm going todo for you if you do this for me

(34:21):
, right, and that's what I wantpeople to start thinking about
as well when they go into asituation like this.
Not like I want my kids.
It's like listen, I think it'sin our best, our kids' best
interest, that they see bothparents Do.
Agree, right, you got to getthat buy-in.
So you ask the other person doyou, do you think it's a good
idea that they spend time withboth mom and dad?
Great, so let's, let's worktogether to make that happen.

(34:45):
Now, these are my favorite words, right?
So I always tell people myfavorite words are how, okay and
what.
Those two words will never getyou in trouble, because whenever
you use those words and you'retalking to somebody, you're
turning it around on them.
So how can we make this happen?
Right, you're not saying what Iwant.
Okay, we've established thatit's good that the kids spend

(35:06):
time with both mom and dad.
How can we make that happen?
What would that look like Right.
And now you know, you and I,it's like I can tell you know
Irish, italian, cuban, that's myfamily, and so we're all
talkers, right, and guys ingeneral are talkers especially,
you know.

(35:26):
So that's where you got to stayquiet, you got to shut it down
and you got to let the otherperson answer, because then what
happens is they make asuggestion.
What you're listening for issomething that you like right,
because they'll get thereeventually.
Right, you just stay quiet.
They'll kind of walk around andwalk around.
They might say this, they mightsay something to piss you off.
Whatever They'll get to you andyou go okay, all, right, yeah,

(35:47):
I could get on board with that.
So now it feels like it wastheir idea.
You got what you wanted right,wanted right, which is, and they
also got what they wanted rightBecause it was their idea.
So apparently I don't think Iwas going to ever offer anything
that I wouldn't agree to do.
Right, I wouldn't say, sure,you keep the kids a hundred
percent of the time, okay.
But I think that's the keyright For guys too, is that

(36:07):
don't go in guns.
A blazing right.
Understand that men and womencommunicate differently.
Ask the other person right.
Instead of telling, ask how canwe make this work?
What do you think is the bestway to do this?
How do you see this playing out?
What do you think is best forour kids?
Right, you hear, I keep turningit around, right?
I keep pushing it back on theother person.
As much as I want to just saythis is what I want and this is

(36:29):
how it's going to be right, butby doing that, you're getting
the other person to talk andyou're learning about what it is
they're afraid of.
You know, what are you soafraid of?
What is the problem with themspending time with me?
How do you think that's good?
How are you going to explain itto them that their dad's not
around?
Worry if their mom's not around.
Right, those are the thingsthat.
Those are those questions.
Using those two words.

(36:57):
Right, just think about allthose questions you could ask.
And then now you're in aconversation rather than a
shouting match, and that I cantell you from experience as a
mediator is how you getsomewhere right.
So go practice in front of amirror.
Now you're gonna go upstairsthat's interesting.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, I mean I guess.
Yeah, I mean that that is youhave to learn how to play chess
yeah, yeah, we call it verbaljiu-jitsu.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
It's got a name, right.
It's like martial arts, right?
I'm coming at you right now.
You know, like I'm 5'10", 170pounds, so I'm not a big guy,
right, you know?
And so I'm going to duck thepunch because I'm probably not
going to win in a bar fight,right?
So what do I got to do?
I got to sidestep, run fast.
And you know, theseconversations are the same thing
.
You don't want to get hit withthat right cross.

(37:38):
You want to dodge that blow.
You want to take that person'senergy down, you know,
de-escalate the situation andget into a conversation, you
know.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Okay.
So in your experience righthave you experienced where a man
has taken 100%?

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Of custody?
Yeah, yeah, I have right.
Have you experienced where aman has taken 100 percent, uh,
custody?
Yeah, yeah, I have absolutely.
You know, and that's you knowwe always go for.
What we say is uh.
And again, going back to we weretalking about equity versus,
you know, court of laws versuscourt of equity.
You know we're looking for astandard which is very vague
what is in the best interests ofthe children?
Right, and so we all havedifferent opinions on what that

(38:21):
is right, and so when we talkthrough in mediation, we want to
make sure that we set people upfor success.
And some people are just, youknow, for whatever hand they've
been dealt with and, believe me,I probably take my job far too
personally, because it kind ofwrecks me sometimes where you
finish up with a case and you'relike man, I hope those kids are

(38:44):
going to be okay.
I hope that person's going tobe okay, right, because they
just have some circumstance intheir life that doesn't allow
them to be actively engaged in alife, right, whether it's a
mental disability or anaddiction or a physical
disability or a history of abusein their family when they were
a child, right, like there'sjust all these things that we as

(39:06):
humans go through andrecognizing that humanity, right
.
So when you get to a placewhere you can say to a couple
look, are you capable of doingthis?
It's not a reflection on aparent doing this.
It's not a reflection on aparent, right, it's not you're
bad.
It's like.
This is good for your kids, isfor you to just you know you can

(39:27):
call them whenever you want,you can FaceTime whenever you
want, you can stop by for dinner, right, as long as it's kind of
a little bit of an open doorpolicy, I'll have a shared
Google calendar so we can all beat the soccer games and the
dance recitals.
You want to let that personknow that they didn't do
anything bad or wrong.
You're just trying tounderstand what's in the best

(39:48):
interests of the kids.
And that's when I've seen itwhere there's been a situation
where somebody's just physicallyor mentally not capable of
doing that.
And we never want to shut thedoor right, Just like we were
talking about with our folks,with our fathers.
We don't want to shut the dooron parenting.
We want to give that person apath to success.
So we want them to know thatthis isn't permanent, right?

(40:09):
And just like you talked aboutwith your situation.
With mine it's like, maybe rightnow, for example, like when
you're talking about you knowyour son being young, maybe
until this child is blank, youknow certain age, whatever I
have them full time.
Then when they turn I don'twant to just make something up
they turn five we're going tomeet again with a mediator and
the three of us are going totalk about revisiting the parent

(40:31):
plan and then, based on whereyou're at at that time, we'll
either keep it the same or we'llcome up with a new plan and
we'll agree to do this annuallyor quarterly or every five years
, or whatever.
It is Giving that person somehope and letting them know that
they're not a bad person and I'mnot trying to take the kids
from you that this is truly intheir best interest.
That's how we see situationswhere there's full custody from

(40:56):
one parent, and it happens forboth men and for women.
So, yes, I have seen that inboth, both situations.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
That's interesting because that was you just kind
of someone led into my nextquestion.
If you're able to discuss it,can you tell us about one that
was super personal, that kind oflike beat you up?

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, so yeah.
So I'll kind of anonymize this,right?
Is that a lot of stuff?
Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
Share information of the case, of why, maybe why
really, it was super personalfor you.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah, certainly.
So a lot of times what happensin these situations?
People don't really fullydisclose what's going on, right?
You're always trying to figureit out, right?
And you're sitting there andyou're like, okay, you know, I'm
a smart guy.
You're like all right, let'ssee what's.
What's the problem here?
Like what's really like underthe hood, right?

Speaker 1 (41:57):
I can't imagine that a lot of times and you're in
those cases both sides arehiding stuff from you.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Yeah, and it's, and it's not even they're not doing
it on purpose, they're just kindof, I mean, the fence that's.
Yeah, you know, and so you know.
So you're sitting there andyou're like, okay, well, what's
going on here?
And so one that is ofparticular note is that so I had

(42:23):
a case, and this is a wealthyindividual, so the gentleman was
wealthy and the wife had stayed, you know, raising the kids,
you know, as we say, workedinside the home, and she really
didn't want him seeing the kids,right, and she was really just

(42:44):
sketchy about it, right, she'sjust like, and as a guy who was
raised without a father, and youcan appreciate this, I'm like,
well, this dude seems like okay,dude, and he's a professional,
he's a doctor, doctor, so hemakes good money and he's got a
house.
And you know, like, as I, I'msitting across from him, so, as
far as I can tell you know, it'sgot his head screwed on right

(43:04):
and it's not like a raginglunatic or something, not that
I'm the judge of that, right,and so I'm sitting there and so
this, the other spouse, isn't.
You know, we're disclosingwhat's going on.
So I'm going through thisfinancial discovery process and
I'm looking at all the creditcard statements and I'm looking
at the budgets and I'm lookingat the money that the guy spends

(43:28):
.
This is in New York City, okay,so the money that the guy is
spending to put gas in his carand the math isn't mathing, you
know, because the guy works inNewark or something, something,
he lives in lower manhattan andyou're like you should be taking
the train, like there's not,there shouldn't be a lot of gas
money here.
Right, there's a lot of gasgetting put in this car.
And I'm like, okay.

(43:49):
So then I start looking atthrough some of the, the bills
and the entertainment and thecredit card bills, and I see
these uh charges for, like um,currency conversion from
canadian dollars to americandollars, right, so, and I so I'm
like this is weird, you know,like what's going on.
And so the guy he's like, ohyeah, well, I'm a big fan of

(44:13):
jazz music and I like to driveup to Toronto to go see jazz.
And now I was born and raisedin the New York city area and
there's a ton of jazz clubs.
And I'm thinking, well, youknow, dude, like you got, you're
in lower Manhattan, right.
Like there's some of the bestjazz clubs are in the world,
right, blues clubs are in NewYork city, and so I'm like, okay
, so I'm digging through more ofthe credit card statements and

(44:34):
I start running across.
You know, this is a couple witholder kids, like teenage kids,
and then I see a charge forsomething for, like babies r us,
like a, you know, baby store,you know, when you buy like
cribs and diapers and whateverright.
And you know, and I'm like,well, this is peculiar, you know
, up in, up in canada, like acanadian version of the store.
So what he didn't know is thatthe wife knew that he had

(44:58):
another child up in toronto andso he had a secret family that
he was driving up to see.
And I'm sitting there and I'mthinking like, oh my god, right,
like, and as a neutral right,you gotta maintain your
neutrality and you can't judgethis person.
You're like I don't know whathappened in their situation,

(45:19):
right, but man, that was justlike totally out of nowhere,
where you were like oh my god, Idid not see that coming at all.
Right, and like, to this day,like you're just like how, how,
a how could you like have thisother family?
Right, Like it's one thing ifyou got divorced and you don't
see your dad and they'redivorced already and he gets

(45:41):
remarried and has a kid andthat's, yeah, that happens,
right, people get remarried andtheir lives go on.
But this has been going on for awhile and and you know, and
then of course, you know he'sthinking he's so clever and
whatever, and the wife is kindof a ready nose what's going on.
You know, that's one of thoseaha moments where you know you
sit there as a third party andyou think, man, people think

(46:03):
they're so clever, they justthink that they're just, you
know, going to pull one over.
And I think in a bit, sometimespeople get a bit arrogant.
That way it just goes to showyou that where there's a will,
there's a way.
And if somebody wants to figureit out, they're going to figure
it out.
And that is just one of thoseexamples of why I always tell
people disclose everything,please just disclose everything,
because it is going to come outright and it's going to really

(46:25):
screw you.
And now, now, if you go tocourt and a judge is going to
look at that, like I said, Idon't know what a judge is going
to do, right, but if a judge isgoing to look at you as a human
being and go what are you doing, right, like you probably can
guess which way that case isgoing to go and it's not going
to go into, you know, secondfamily guy over there, you know,
right.
So, yeah, so that that'sdefinitely one one for the books

(46:48):
, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
So in that situation, that scenario, right um, that
the um, the custodial rightswould not favor him, how would
that like the reason, likeshouldn't he still get a fair
shot at his kids, even if he hasa separate family?

Speaker 2 (47:08):
because I mean, yeah, right, and I mean it's tough to
say right, right Cause.
I'm not a judge, but yeah, andthis really kind of also wrapped
into finances, right, becausewhen you think about it right,
like if you drive or you go towork or if you say you're a
traveling salesperson, right,you put a lot of gas in your car
, that's fine, um, but if you'reusing money you know marital

(47:32):
funds right To to put gas in acar and maintain a car and buy a
new car and go buy gifts andrent another townhouse or condo
up in Toronto.
You know that's where you getinto trouble, right, you know
you get into situations whereit's like that's money that
could have gone to your currentfamily, right, and that, to me,

(47:53):
is really kind of the biggerissue, right, in terms of
parenting.
Right, and that, to me, isreally kind of the bigger issue,
right in terms of there's alevel of anger there.
Right, that's that I don't knowand and unfortunately you know,
as you probably saw, you knowwe have a very high case
resolution rate.
That was one we were unable toresolve.
That one wound up going tocourt because it was just one of

(48:14):
those.
Oh boy, this is, yeah, this is,this is not gonna can't be this
one, yeah so how high?

Speaker 1 (48:24):
what is the percentage of your resolution
rate?

Speaker 2 (48:27):
we're at 98.
So 98, 98, usually.
Average is about 70, right, andyeah, and and this is like one
of a handful, like literally youcount on the hands right, and I
can point to them and I canpoint to why they failed, right,
because they're alwayssomething that somebody didn't

(48:48):
disclose or didn't listen andand you, just you can, you know,
yeah, it's sort of like, youknow, with having kids, you can
only tell them so much don't dothat, don't do that, don't do
that and then't do that, don'tdo that.
And then they're going to crashtheir bike or touch the stove
or whatever it is, and thenthey're going to learn don't do
that.
Right, people are sometimeslike that as well, and I think
what helps with our caseresolution rate is that.

(49:09):
A couple of things.
One is this process I wastalking about right, when we
have information and we makedecisions based on information,
we can understand why thosedecisions were made and what the
resolution was.
Right.
It's like, oh yeah, that makessense.
I really believe.
You know, we're all prettyrational actors, we're rational
people unless we're backed intoa corner or we've got some

(49:30):
pressure put on us, right, butif, given the time and given
information, given the abilityto step back and think.
I really do feel like we can berational thinkers.
So by doing that process, itgives people information to make
rational decisions.
That's number one.
Number two and this goestotally goes to parenting, right
, when you're a parent andyou're telling your kids don't

(49:51):
do that, don't do that, don't dothat, they're ignoring you
because they're like you, don'tknow what you're talking about,
but meanwhile they know thatthey should know that you're
telling them this, not becauseyou're just trying to tell them
what to do, but you've made thesame mistake and you're trying
to tell them so that they don'tmake it.
We're all trying to protect ourkids right, and you can't do it

(50:13):
right.
They're going to just have tolearn on their own.
When I come into mediation, I'ma walking billboard, right.
I'm like listen, I am child ofa litigated divorce.
I am a single parent.
You know, raised mom did agreat job, raised by a single
parent, but still missed out onhaving a dad right, grew up in

(50:35):
scary financial times because wenever knew if the checks were
going to come or the bill.
You know we're going to getpaid.
My mom worked multiple jobs.
She worked late, you know.
You leave a teenage boy alonein a house until 9 30 at night,
there's going to be trouble.
You know, um, even though I'm agood kid, you're still going to
have your girlfriends over andyou know, rifle through the

(50:56):
liquor cabinet and you know allthat stuff right.
And so I think when people sitacross from me, it's not just
empty platitudes, it's not justme telling them you should do
this or don't do this or don'tdo that.
It's like, yeah, this happenedto me.
And guess what, if you don'tresolve it here, this is going
to happen to you and your kidsas well.
And you don't resolve it here,this is going to happen to you

(51:19):
and your kids as well.
And I can tell you fromexperience this is not what you
want for them, right?
So if you can get parents tokind of refocus that stuff on
the kids, right, and say youreally want to sit in a
courtroom with your kids in theback and the bench by themselves
and watch one of you screamingat the judge and then watch the
other one screaming at the judge, what's that going to do to
them, right?
What's that going to?
What message is that going toput in their brains?
That like, by the way, what Ican tell you, what it's going to

(51:42):
put in their brains is thatthis is my fault.
That's what it's going to say,right, as a kid, you're going to
say well, they're here becauseof me, they're angry because of
me, they don't like each otherbecause of me, so I must be bad.
Right, that's exactly what'sgonna happen, and we got enough
problems in this world, right?
We don't need people walkingaround already with another

(52:03):
burden on top of them.
We need people at a place whereit's like they can see that
people can get along and theycan see that people could have
rational conversations, and andthey can do it face to face or
with the help of a neutral thirdparty, right, rather than just
screaming at each other andyelling at each other, right,
and I try to bring that messageto them, and I really think it
hits home, because they look atit and they say, well, yeah, the

(52:24):
numbers make sense.
I see how we got here.
We explored a lot of differentoptions.
These things work for us.
We don't want to be like you.
That like you, that's fine.
I'm totally cool with that, andthat's how we get them there,
right?
It's not a trick.
It's not meant to pressure theminto it.
They have to still want it, butI really do feel that that
helps them understand that thisdidn't just come from down on

(52:47):
high right, where a judge saysyou're going to pay this, you're
going to pay that, this is howit's going to work, because this
person doesn't know you right.
But if you, as the partiesinvolved in the dispute, you
have a say in it, you're muchmore likely to adhere to it.
And time and time again, it'sgreat for me to be able to go
back and say well, what's theproblem here?
You both agree to this.

(53:07):
Why is this a problem?
This is both what you wanted,right?
It's hard to say no, it isn't.
It's like, yeah, it is.
Here's my notes from sessionthree, right, like here's where
we talked about this and here'swhere you said this is what you
wanted, right?
So did I miss something?
Right?
You know.
So you get to be a little notfunny, but you get to be a
little kind of direct and and beable to explain to people.

(53:29):
But this, you did this, youmade this, you agreed to this.
Let's stick to it.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Right, because you know what the alternative is so
I in uh, do we, do you still seethat we still need more men to
step forward and go through theprocess, or do you think that we
are having a a good amount ofmen making their own choices to
go through this process?

(53:54):
Because I know the other sideof it is that the, the, the
woman probably brought thisprocess and now he's just got to
go through the process.
I'm talking about guys actuallymaking the initial yeah step to
get to start this process, toget the rights for the kit for
the children to see theirchildren.

(54:14):
Do you see that enough men aredoing it or do you believe that
we still need more men to do it?

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah, I have some good news right and so I do see
it, which is great.
Give you a little bit ofbackground.
If you believe the statisticsand I do I do understand this,
especially from our many yearsin practice about 70% of women
file for divorce right.
So in a divorce situation it'susually 70% of the time it's the

(54:43):
women filing and 30% it's themen, but in our practice it's
50-50 in terms of who initiatesmediation.
So that tells me that's right.
Yeah, if you do that math rightand you say well, there's a
bunch of guys who said I don'twant to blow this thing up, I
want to get into a space where Ican have rational conversations

(55:06):
, I can be a I like to call themall in dads, right.
I want to be a hands-on dad, Iwant to be all in and whatever
that means.
By the way, right it's,sometimes you get dads right for
no fault of their own.
Perfect example I had a guy youcould totally tell loved his
kids, loved his kids right, andthe parents you know.

(55:27):
And he wanted 50-50 custody,right.
He wanted 50-50 timeshare, andI could see it in his heart Like
he.
Just he was trying to make itwork and I was like listen man,
you travel three weeks out ofthe month.
Do the math that's 21 days,right?
If you take 30 and you cut itin half, right, that's not seven

(55:51):
or eight.
You're already gone.
And he's like I know, I know,maybe I could come home earlier,
I could catch an earlier flightlike he was trying to do
everything he could.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
I thought it was so cool.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Yeah, that's not gonna work.
That's the right one.
Yeah, but what happened was themom saw him doing this, like
you're willing to fly a red eyeto get home, like.
First of all, she was like, whydidn't you do this while we
were married?
Right, so I was busting hischops a little bit about that.
But he's like I just want tomake sure, and so that softened
her stance, right, and she'slike, wow, well.
So then we started talkingabout when does he travel?

(56:25):
And he's like well, in thesummer I don't travel a lot
because, that's like, thebusiness I'm in is really slow
in the summer.
So we came up with a plan thatthe kids were with him like
three of the four weeks duringthe summer, like June, july and
August, right, so that he couldbe around more and get more time
sharing over the summer.
Right, it's because he came tomediation, he was able to

(56:48):
explain what he was doing.
He was trying to show that hereally cared and showed that he
wanted to be involved in takingactive steps.
It softened the conversation,it allowed those two parents to
have that conversation andthat's what I really like seeing
.
Right, like I said, about halfthe men start the mediation
process.
So that definitely tells meguys are starting to realize,
like you know what the courtsystem isn't the right place to

(57:11):
preach this case right.
The mediation space is theplace where, instead of being
litigants, we can talk likeparents, and I think that's just
really the message Guys get inthe mediation go involuntarily
right, because, guess what?
Here's something else, alberto.
I don't know if you know, but alot of states now have

(57:32):
mandatory mediation.
So what's starting to happen ispeople will try to go to court
right away.
Like, let's take New Jersey youwere talking about.
You know your buddy in NewJersey, right?
If you try to go to court andlitigate in New Jersey, you get
kicked out to court orderedmediation.
So I tell people like you'regoing to see me now or you're
going to see me later, so see mebefore.
You both get pissed off.

(57:52):
You both hire lawyers, you bothgo, spend $25,000 or $50,000
screaming at each other, andthen the courts go listen, you
got to mediate anyway, come tome first and then, if worse
comes to worse, right.
And this is another thing Ithink it's important to take
away here is that when you gointo mediation, even if you
don't think you're going to getall the way through, that's fine

(58:13):
, because guess what, say youget three quarters of the way
through, that's 75% of theissues are resolved.
You don't have to get yourlawyer to spend money and time
on that.
You can say listen, we agreedto this stuff.
Here's the one or two thingsthat we really just can't figure
out.
That's when you get an attorneyinvolved, or maybe get the
court order mediation, becauseall the other stuff you'd be

(58:35):
surprised after a while you can.
Either it'll either fall awayor you'll be able to agree on it
and at the end of the day, as amediator again, this is just,
you know, for the audience.
To kind of kind of use thisstuff when you're talking to
somebody who you're kind of atodds with is find something you
know that you're going to agreeon and talk about that first.
Find something you know thatyou're going to agree on and
talk about that first.

(58:56):
Right, because then you can sayto them with a straight face
well, look, we can get along.
See, we just decided somethingand we didn't have a big fight,
we didn't have a big argument.
We both agree that this is theright thing to do.
Let's do that again.
Let's do that again, right,let's keep doing that right,
because we all get thesepatterns right.
We get in these relationships,we get in this dysfunctional

(59:18):
spiral where all we're doing isso used to arguing, that's all
we're doing all the time,arguing, so for us that becomes
the new normal.
So of course, everyconversation I have with this
person, whether it's a friend, aspouse, a colleague, it's going
to be an argument, right.
But by having a simpleconversation about, like hey, do
you like ice cream?
I don't know too many peoplewho don't like ice cream.

(59:40):
Yeah, what's your favoriteflavor?
Chocolate.
Oh, yeah, me too.
Hey, look, we agreed onsomething right.
Start small and then build fromthere.
You don't have to go right intothe million dollar question,
right?
So that's kind of how I try toshare with your listeners to say
start small, build up and thengo for the big.
Ask, right, you're not going toask for the final thing right

(01:00:02):
away.
You want to start with thesmall stuff and build some
momentum.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Based on your professional opinion, here in
Florida we have to go tomediation before we go to court.
It's the same thing.
A lot of states, yeah, beforewe go to court.
It's the same thing.
And based on your professionalopinion, do you think it's a
good idea that the father well,either parents come into
mediation with lawyers or Ithink you mentioned it was a

(01:00:29):
mental health specialist intothe mediation, or do you think
it would probably be better ifthey come alone or maybe with a
mediator?
I mean, can, can they hire amediator for a mediation?

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, so what?
What I say is this?
Right, there's a couple ofcouple of important points you
just made.
I want to kind of unpack.
So the first thing is, as yousaid, Florida, new Jersey, lots
of places, um, you havecourt-ordered mediation, and so
here's this is just totallyopinion, right, and I always I

(01:01:08):
want to be supportive of mycolleagues and the men and women
who are in the trenches everyday trying to help people in
conflict.
Right, because, dude, it's, Idon't know what I'm thinking
right, it's tough.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
It is tough.
That's why the court doesn'twant to deal with it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
The court wants mediators to deal with it first.
Right.
They're like Joe, what are youdoing?
Like I was, like I don't know.
You know I care, I care far toomuch apparently.
But that being aside, there's alot of nice people out there in
that space really trying to dogreat work and I applaud every
last one of them judges, lawyers, mediators, mental health folks

(01:01:49):
, parent and coordinators.
You know, bravo, right.
But in the court system there'sa couple of things that happen.
Number one is that courtappointed mediators may or may
not be the most experienced.
True story when I first startedtaking mediation courses you
know this is going back to 1996or 97 or whatever it was but
when I first started gettinginto divorce, the first thing I

(01:02:11):
was told is go volunteer at thecourts.
You can get experience right,because these people have to go
to mediation.
I didn't have to go out andgenerate business or prove that
I was qualified.
I just had to sign up for aroster, right?
I had to give them my name andphone number and I had to show

(01:02:32):
them that I took a 40-hourmediation class.
That's all I had to do is I hadto go to the Holiday Inn five
weekends for eight hours a day,and there I was.
I'm in the court system nowhelping people, right, and I
could be a lunatic, right.
You just don't know anythingabout my experience.
So number one is sometimesyou're going to run into a very
inexperienced mediator in thecourt system.
So if you go to court mediationfirst, they may or may not have

(01:02:54):
the skills.
Number two I learned, and onething that I wasn't a fan of, is
that it was a buddy-buddynetwork.
It was who you know it was.
The lawyers chose the mediatorsthat they liked because they
knew they could talk to them,they could kind of influence the
outcome, that they could makeit happen.
They could get them, make thisthing happen, make these people

(01:03:15):
get to agreement.
Right, you want a neutral thirdparty who's totally removed
from that, who says listen, Ionly have you, the two of you
and your kids, best interest inmind.
I'm not beholden to a lawyer,to a judge, to some powerful
interest.
I'm just trying to get you guysto operate like a family and
co-operate, right, and so that Idon't do court order mediation.

(01:03:37):
For those two reasons, right, Ikind of felt like it was a
little like oh, I don't want tobe a part of this.
It's biased, yeah, and as partof it too, right Now, I'm sure
there's some great people inthere.
I don't want to paint the bigbroad brush, right?
But also, as a private mediator, you have to prove your worth
day in and day out, because Ihave to generate my own business
, right?
I have to generate my ownliving and my proof is in my

(01:04:01):
process, in my you know, in myservice offerings, in my case
resolution rate, and so I'malways working hard to make sure
that I want to keep thatresolution rate right.
It's become a little badge ofcourage for me, right, because I
don't want you to not finish inhere.
Damn it.
You know we're going to, we'regoing to stay here and put on
the coffee and we're going to dothis.
But at the end of the day, youknow, I think it's important.

(01:04:26):
People always feel comfortablethat they can always speak to a
lawyer, right?
I'm not an attorney by trade,I'm a mediator and a financial
negotiation professional.
But I always am very supportiveif they want to speak to a
lawyer.
But in my space I do not allowlawyers in mediation.
I want it to be me and the twoparties.

(01:04:48):
I don't need another mouthpiece.
I don't need five people in theroom now.
I don't need somebody talkingon behalf of the other person.
After we're done, 100%, gospeak to an attorney, ask them
what they think of thisagreement or the settlement of
these ideas, come back intomediation again, feedback in,
and let's the three of us have areal heart to heart in the
conversation.
Right Again, nothing againstlawyers, supportive of lawyers

(01:05:11):
in the process.
Lawyers are often in highconflict cases.
They're often needed right.
But in my world in mediation,my first preference is to sit
with one mediator and two peopleright the spouses, the parents,
whatever it is and let's seewhat we can get done.
Because you'd be surprised whenyou turn off the noise and you
turn off the grandstanding andyou don't have an audience right

(01:05:34):
when your lawyers are yellingand they're putting on a show,
and you know, because what'stheir job?
Their job is to stick up fortheir one client.
So, by definition, you're atodds.
How are you going to come to anagreement If I'm picking this
side?
You're picking this side?
By definition, we're at odds,right, but you got me, I got no
side, right.
I'm like I want you to come toan agreement.

(01:05:55):
What's that look like?
Let's do that, right.
And so that's how I approach ittwo clients, three of us in a
room, in a zoom room, whateverit is.
And then, in the rare case thatyou can't come to an agreement,
you go see a lawyer.
And even if you do come to anagreement and you want to go
speak to an attorney, awesome,totally support that.

(01:06:16):
I want you to do that.
I want you to feel comfortableto do that, because in this way,
the lawyers and you know it'smy professional reputation,
right I'm not going to just goin there and let some settlement
happen where it's like oh yeah,you get everything and you get
nothing, because what's going tohappen?
A couple of weeks are going togo by, the person who got the
short end of that deal, they'regoing to go screw this, I'm

(01:06:38):
getting a lawyer, I'm going toblow this whole thing up.
They wasted time and money withme.
They're going to have to spendtime and money in the legal
system.
And, by the way, if thatmediated agreement gets to a
lawyer like this person hires alawyer, they're going to look at
this thing and be like JoeDillon, how did this guy let
this happen?
What did he do here?

(01:06:59):
And that's my reputation on theline, right, because, like I
said, we practice in multiplestates.
I'm not unfortunate in that Idon't get involved with the
court and the filing and stufflike because I don't do that
piece, I just do the negotiation.
But I want to have a reputationin the system where if somebody
sees a mediated agreement comefrom equitable mediation,
they're like oh yeah, I've seenthese guys before, I've seen the

(01:07:22):
work this guy does and you knowI will expect it to be balanced
and fair and thorough and allthat stuff, right.
So so that's kind of how I lookat it.
And again, works different foreverybody, especially like if
there's domestic violence, ifthere's those kinds of things,
right, then maybe mediation isnot the best thing for you,
maybe you do need lawyers.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
But in my world I always like to just start with
me and the two clients.
So when someone does hire youor a mediator, you are hired for
both, not for one side, theperson who hires you, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
Yeah, I work for both of you, right, and that's the
beauty of it.
So if I hire you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
You're working for my , for my, for my nemesis, not
for and I'm the one who's hiredyou.

Speaker 2 (01:08:04):
I'm I'm working.
I'm not working for either ofyou.
I'm advocating for the kids.
Exactly, and it's funny, albert, it's so great you said that,
because a lot of times whenpeople be in a in a conflict,
right, and they're in mediationand and you know, I'm sitting
there and I'm watching thisthing happen, I'm trying to
redirect people and I'm likewhat do you think your kids

(01:08:25):
would say if they were sittinghere, right, watching, like
right?
and it's like I said well let'spretend I'm your kids, because,
guess what, I am in thissituation, right, and I'm going
gee, mom and dad, you know, whydo you call each other those
names, or why won't you pay formy dance lessons, or why why
can't I go to college, you know,and you're like it sounds a
little silly, right, but if youcan reframe people away from

(01:08:47):
each other, right, and and andreframe them on, you know, on
the conflict and what's best fortheir kids, that's that's
really what we're trying to gofor.
And by having me in the room,that's why I say I'm like,
playing the role of yourchildren is me, right, I'm
playing that part to say this ishey, mom and dad, this is what

(01:09:08):
I need from you in order to behappy and healthy and well
adjusted.
Because, make no mistake, right, we?
Um.
So my wife is my partner.
So my wife, cheryl, is adivorce coach and she works with
us and she works with clientson the emotional aspects of the
divorce, right, I'm the tactical, financial, the decision making
, right, all that stuff.
And she talks about, you know,how emotions drive divorce and

(01:09:31):
how things are intergenerational, right?
So if your parents had a baddivorce, that's what you saw
modeled.
That was the role model you had.
You're going to do the samething, right, and so what we're
trying to do is we're trying tobreak that cycle so that, if,
god forbid, their kids somedayfind themselves in a divorce
situation, they can look back attheir parents and they can say,
yeah, you know what?

(01:09:52):
My mom and dad, even thoughtheir marriage ended, they still
loved me, they still got alongwell, they still co-parented me,
they were still at mygraduation, at my wedding, at
the baby showers, you know allthat stuff, and it meant a lot
to me that they were both there,right, and they, they put their

(01:10:12):
differences aside for me andand I remember that as a kid and
that means a lot, and that'sreally, I think, the takeaway,
right, as we no matter how madyou are at that other person,
man, those, those lessons, youand I are walking examples of
that, right, they're lessonsthat last, you, you know, I'm 56
.
It's like, you know, it'slasted me what's that?
41 years and I'm still talkingabout it.
Right, that does not go away,right?

(01:10:33):
No, it doesn't?

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
You're right.
So if you could give three tipsto men to try to encourage them
to volunteer for this process,to start it, to not wait for the
other party to do it, Just goand be a father.

(01:10:57):
Be a father right away.
What are the three things youcan tell them to encourage them?

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
So, number one, I would say explain how this is in
the best interests of your kids.
Right, explain to that ex soonto be ex-partner this is not
about you and me anymore.
This is about our kids, andthis forum, mediation, is going
to put them first.
It's going to let us talk likeparents, you know, work together
, not against each other aslitigants, plaintiff and
defendant.
I mean even those two words,right, inflammatory, right.

(01:11:32):
So, number one, I'm doing thisbecause I want to put the kids
first.
Number two, I'm doing thisbecause it's financially
advantageous, right, people wholitigate, they spend.
Wall Street Journal did a studyon this and this is going back a
while.
They said that a person this islike 10 years ago they said

(01:11:53):
they spent $78,000 on alitigated divorce 78.
I don't know about you, man,but I don't have $78,000 laying
around to just go throw at alawyer, right, those numbers get
up to around $100,000 or$200,000 in today's dollars
right now.
$200,000, good God, right, youcould put your kids through
college with that right.

(01:12:13):
So the second thing for men tosay is look, look, the less we
spend on this process, the moremoney we have for both our kids,
for those dance lessons andthose sports camps and college
savings and groceries and allthat stuff and the more money we
have for each other to rebuildour lives, right?
So you know we want to get in aforum, we want to do it
financially.

(01:12:34):
And then the third thing is isit's to acknowledge?
Right?
Is to say, look, I know that wedon't get along and I know that
we speak different languages.
Right, because guys are alwaysproblem solvers.
Right, we want to fix things,we want to tell, we want to
direct, we speak from the brain,women speak from the heart and

(01:12:54):
sometimes you need aninterpreter, and that's what a
mediator is.
I always say to people I speakmultiple languages.
Like somebody say they spokeItalian, german, spanish and
French.
I speak emotional, I speakanalytical, I speak angry, I
speak passive, I speak quiet, Ispeak extroverted.
Right, because that forum forthe guys is going to help them

(01:13:15):
be able to speak their way.
The wife is going to be able tospeak her way and a qualified
and a talented mediator is goingto be able to take that in and
then talk to the other party inthat person's language.
Right, and help them kind ofspeak that unified language.
Right.
So you've got better for thekids.
You got better for the financesand better for communication.

(01:13:36):
Because, guess what, whenyou're done with divorce and I
have clients where I look atthem right I had a client, they
were married three years andthey had a one-year-old I'm like
I've got some news for you.
By the time this kid graduatescollege that's 20 years from now
.
21 years from now, you've beenmarried three years.

(01:13:56):
You're going to be co-parentingfor seven times as long as you
were married, right, marriedthree years.
It's 21.
Let's do the math right, make iteasy.
That means you guys have to getalong for, at a minimum, the
next 21 years.
Do you want to screw that up byscreaming and yelling at each
other now?
Or do you want to do?

(01:14:17):
You want to have a place whereyou can learn to talk to each
other?
Right, you got to learn how tospeak to the other person.
Learn, learn French or Spanishor German or Italian or whatever
it is right, and so themediator will help you do that.
So that's what I'd say to guysListen, put the pride away, put
the fight away, don't you know?
Hire the lawyer later if themediation doesn't work, no
problem, but definitely take itdown right, take it down right,

(01:14:43):
take it down, put the kids first, and you'd be surprised that
when you take the temperaturedown and and how, how good the
conversation can go.
So that's what I would say okay, great.

Speaker 1 (01:14:54):
so my last question, right, yeah, do you have in your
experience a very outrageousstory and I'm talking about
something that's off the wall inyour practice that you can tell
us?

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
Yeah, there's some interesting ones, Just one, just
one.
How much time you got.

Speaker 1 (01:15:22):
I don't know how much time you got.
I don't know how much time yougot.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
I'm off the game, yeah, yeah.
So I'll leave you with this.
I'll leave you with one, and Ithink this is an important
message as well.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
Yes, and please share the message after the story.
Tell us the breakdown of that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
Yeah, so the story goes like this, right, is that
you know my background.
Like you know, I have an MBA infinance, and so a lot of the
clients we get are high networth individuals or business
owners.
Right, you know people who havesome kind of financial means
and you know this goes to a casewith a business owner.
And so this business owner, youknow this gentleman, he had a

(01:16:05):
business and he, you know, whenI talk about our discovery
process, right, I always talkabout financial disclosure and
full disclosure, and so I'malways saying to myself like,
look, you know, you got to putit all out on the table, right,
warts and all, because it'sgoing to come out eventually.
And so this gentleman, he wasagain a doctor, right, he was in

(01:16:29):
the medical field and so anintelligent guy, right, you know
he comes along and you knowyou're thinking to yourself,
right, well, I'm going tostereotype for a minute, but I'm
thinking doctors make goodmoney and they should have
plenty of money and this andthat, right.
And so this guy in thediscovery process, we have
people run a credit report,right, not the score that you

(01:16:54):
get when you go for a mortgage,but a credit report, and I think
everybody should do this once ayear.
It's calledannualcreditreportcom.
It's from the it's.
You can get your credit reportand you can see what lines of
credit are over what creditcards, what loans and this oh
okay, I know what you're talkingabout.
Yeah, and it's a great idea,because you never know.
If somebody opened up a card inyour name or there's some jobs

(01:17:16):
you can get you, some weird craphappens, yeah, yeah, and it's
free and it so it's sponsored.
You know, you do it and you getit from all three of the
agencies.
So this guy, this is the kissof death when somebody asks the
following question oh, why doyou need that?
What, why do you need that?

(01:17:37):
So now, right there, there I am, there goes the alarm bells,
right.
You're like oh, this is, thisis going to be good, right, why
do you need that?
Well, you know, part ofmediation is what we call a good
faith negotiation and itrequires full disclosure.
And we have you sign anagreement that says, if there is
a conflict over whether or notsomething is relevant, I get the

(01:18:01):
final say as the mediator and Idecide what's in and what's out
.
And I decided in my processthat it's important for me to
know what you got open, whatlines of credit, what credit
cards, right, because peopledon't know, they don't want to,
they're embarrassed about what.
They spend it on this, that theother thing.
So we get the credit card, weget the report right, we get the

(01:18:24):
the thing and he, he uploads it.
We have a file sharing system,right, and he uploads it to the
system.
Now, remember, the wife is isoblivious to this, right, she's,
he, he runs the finances.
He's, he's paying the bills andall this good stuff, right.
So we start seeing all theselines of credit, credit cards,
loans, personal loans, geFinancial, all this stuff.

(01:18:46):
And now I'm starting to ask andI'm like what are you doing
here, what's happening andwhere's this money going?
So we had a couple of thingsthat were just really like
totally out of left field.
The first is this guy had beeninvesting in these other

(01:19:09):
businesses and they were likegoing belly up, like he was
throwing money at all thesestartups, right, because he
thought, you know, I'm going toget out of being a doctor, I'm
going to strike it big, like wesee all the guys on TV.
You know, these 28 year old kidssold their company for $1.4
billion, so he's borrowing,making all these personal loans,
right, all these personal loans.
So now these things aren'tpaying off.

(01:19:31):
So what does he do?
Well, I'll get it back bygambling.
Right, now I can make it back,right, I can do online gambling
or I can go to the casinos right.
I can borrow lines of creditRight, because I owe the money
to these banks and these homeplaces right.
But I can get it right back ifI just hit the jackpot or I play

(01:19:52):
cards or, and I'm not a gamblerat all.
So, like I don't know how anyof this works, me either.

Speaker 1 (01:19:57):
That's why I don't gamble, because it's a very good
decision.

Speaker 2 (01:20:04):
Things happen, why I don't?
gamble, because it's not a verygood decision it's, yeah, the
odds, yeah, bad things happenyou know I say it by lightning
or something right.
Also, you watch the spiral.
And this, this is an oldercouple now, this is a couple and
I think, like they're late 50s,like they should be winding it
down, land in the plane, youknow, living off the 401ks or
whatever, and through thisprocess this poor wife in this

(01:20:24):
example, she learns that theyare not only flat broke but
they're up to their eyeballs indebt, because this guy is, you
know, signing off loans on boththeir names.
He leveraged his medicalpractice, so the thing that he
thought he was going to sell isgone now because it's owed to
the creditors.
And she's on the hook for someof this debt which spiraled into

(01:20:47):
these investments that didn'tpan out.
And then, you know, on top ofthis, the worst part is is that
now he hasn't been paying thetaxes like he owes the irs and
the state, like years, two orthree years of back taxes,
because you know, once you getin it, right, you're in it, and
now it's spirals and you justkeep.
You know it's like, yeah, adrowning person is going to

(01:21:09):
drown the person trying torescue them, right, and so it
just got so bad where I was like, oh my gosh.
And this was the one time in myprofessional career where I said
, listen, you guys, I'm normallylike I want to, and this is
another one, believe it or not,we got this one to settle, we
got agreement, and what it wasis that there is a, there's a

(01:21:33):
provision it's called innocentspouse.
You can file this form orsomething, like a tax attorney
would do this right With the IRS, and if you can prove you had
no idea what was going on andyou can like disavow of yourself
that you know, you didn't knowX, y and Z, you can be
relinquished from a lot of this,either to back taxes owed or

(01:21:54):
debts or things like that.
And so, yes, that happened inparallel, right, she got the
lawyer, they worked that out andwe got to an agreement where he
said I'm going to beresponsible for all of this,
I'll file bankruptcy, whateverI'll have to do to structure
this.
But boy, oh boy, because youknow you, you think this, this
is the lesson where you thinkyou uncover one thing right that

(01:22:14):
this guy was taking out loansto like try to invest in these
companies, which is like, okay,I could see he's trying to get
rich quick or whatever, but thento throw in the gambling debt
and the back taxes as it justall starts to unfold, where
you're like, man, any one ofthese things would have been
hard enough, but to have allthree of these, this is like the
trifecta right.

(01:22:34):
And then to have the otherspouse just in, absolutely
devastated, because this is aperson who has worked inside the
home, raised the kids for theirwhole lives.
Now they got no future, they'vegot no retirement, that house
is gone, the business is gone,the money's gone.
Like, what do you say to thisperson?
Right, you just heartbroken forthis person that right, you

(01:22:56):
know, starting 60 years old andyou got to start over.
Like, oh my gosh, right, sothat's, that's's the thing, man.
No, if you get in deep, man, itonly gets deeper.
So get out while it get out,while it's bad, not while it's
unfixable.
That's really kind of theadvice.

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
You know that is horrible some people.
Some people are just badinvestors and they make bad,
poor decisions.
Trying to, trying to do right,yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
Yeah, exactly, Never fall their way.
Yeah, exactly right.
So get out while you still can.
That'd be the lesson there,right?
No?

Speaker 1 (01:23:30):
Joe, tell the audience how people can reach
you online and stuff yourwebsite and information about
you and if you know I mean theymay not be local, but maybe they
can email you and ask forinformation Maybe you can feed
that information for somethinglocal to them.
Yeah, I might help them fortheir mediation.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):
Yeah, certainly.
So the best way to get in touchwith us is our website.
It's our company name EquitableMediation.
So you got to be careful whenyou spell it, because a lot of
people spell it like meditation,right?
So it's equitable, like fairand equitable mediationcom, and
you'll see where we practice.
Right, we practice in these sixstates, and of those six states,

(01:24:13):
if you live in one of thosestates, there's a button right
there on the homepage.
It says talk to us, right?
So you click that button, youcan schedule a free call.
You'd be, you know, talk to mypartner, cheryl.
She'll answer any questions youmight have about the mediation
process, see if mediation isgood for you and then, if it
makes sense, you can schedule ameeting for you and your spouse
with me and then we can talkthrough how it would work, if I

(01:24:35):
think mediation could work foryou, because that's really, I
think, the key, right?
I want to make sure that we canhelp you and I don't want you
to spend your time or money orwaste time in the process with
me if I don't think right, bothof you have to be willing and
engaged, but if you come to thewebsite and you don't live where
we live.
We have a resource center.
We have tons of articles, freearticles, guides on child

(01:24:56):
support, how it works, alimonyhow it works, how property
division works, how to develop agood parenting plan, how to
negotiate.
We have a free video series onwhat is divorce mediation, right
.
So there's a ton of freeresources you can find there,
all free for you to read,download whatever you need,
because we really do believe ineducating people, right.
We really do believe that.
I started with it and I'll endwith it, right, an educated

(01:25:19):
client is a good client, right?
When you get into that process,if they've got a little
knowledge, they got a littleeducation.
They can make better decisionsand they can make a better
future for them and their kids.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
All right, well, that's great, I'll put, I'll put
the, I'll put the the websiteon the description so people can
Great, yeah, spelled rightCorrectly.
On the description so peoplecan have it spelled right
correctly, because mediation andmeditation is kind of tough, it
is.
We get a lot of weird emails.

(01:25:52):
I want to thank you so much, joeDillon, for joining me in the
podcast and sharing thisincredible information.
I hope that this is veryhelpful for a lot of men.
I mean, I bump into a lot oftimes I bump into men who are
going through this struggle andStruggling not just this, the
struggle of custody, but just astruggle of should I do it?

(01:26:13):
How is it gonna affect me?
I'm scared of it.
You know, say they go throughall this stuff and you know, I
tell them my story, I tell themwhat I did, I tell them how it
benefited me.
I tell them my kids.
My daughter is 22 years old, myson is 15.
I've been in their life, theirwhole life.

(01:26:37):
Right, exactly.
I'm still there so, and we'vebeen co-parenting since they
were young.
So I share my story witheveryone and I'm glad that you,
as a you know because this isfrom professional opinion you
know a person who's actually themediator of these cases that

(01:26:58):
hopefully that will help themmake this decision better,
because I mean, like we, we needto help our kids grow up right.
I mean they need it they needus.
They need parents not to takeaway from the mothers.
The mothers have done greatjobs, but everybody's important
right takes a village right.
Yeah, yes, it does and it's abetter job with the father.

Speaker 2 (01:27:20):
I mean, I'm sorry to say that I'm not saying it's
best, I'm just saying it'sbetter right, yep, you gotta
have everybody, because it'shard enough raising kids, it's
hard enough to survive in thisworld.
Um, you need, you need as manyhands on deck as you can get
right yeah so.

Speaker 1 (01:27:35):
So again, I'm glad that you shared your information
.
People, if you, if you havesomeone who's going through this
, share the video, subscribe,like, do whatever, make a
comment, email joe dylan's umcompany, ask for information,
whatever it is, but pass this onand don't be scared.
Be brave, come forward, just doit all right, I appreciate it,

(01:28:02):
alberto.

Speaker 2 (01:28:03):
Thanks for having me, it's been a great conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
Thank you so much.
Thank you for coming.
See you soon.
All right, thanks for listeningto our show.
This concludes our episode.
And listen up to the nextepisode to follow up on what
continuing topics and trends wehave going on, and just to

(01:28:25):
continue to listen to your boy,ny boom and co-host big doz, and
listen to our points of viewsand and maybe you can add on to
it if you want.
But we'll catch you on the nextone.
All right, have a good one.
Peace out, fellas.

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