From Heartbreak to Empowerment with Kate Anthony

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
Hello all, my entrepreneurs and business leaders, and welcome to
the Michael Esposito Show, where I interview titans of industry
in order to inform, educate, and inspire you to be great.
My guest today is the host of the New York
Times recommended podcast, the Divorce Survival Guide podcast, and a

(00:42):
divorce coach who helps women, especially with children, decide if
they should stay in or leave their marriages and then
either helps them heal their relationships or exit with grace.
For the last decade, she's worked with hundreds of women
all over the world, helping them make the most difficult

(01:05):
decision of their lives and transition out of toxic marriages.
But most importantly, she's been exactly where you are now.
Please welcome actress, author, coach, speaker, consultant, amazing person Kate Anthony.

(01:27):
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Kate, Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me, Michael,
I'm thrilled to be talking to you again.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
Me too.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yes. So for everybody listening right now, you can always
go back to our LinkedIn profiles and check out her
little snippet about the book the D Word, which is
so cool, the D Word. But the one thing I'm
going to put out there because we're not going to
talk much about this, because it's kind of like a
little passe thing, but also really cool about you, which is,
you know, we're on Gray's Anatomy for five years. So

(01:59):
I'm gonna put that out And here's what I want
to say to you. I just texted my sister, because
my sister was a big Grays Anatomy fan. I said,
I AMD, I pulled up your IMDb page. I took
a picture of it. I sent it to her.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
You know that is I said, she's gonna be on
my show.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
So I was pumped in that sense, pumped in that
sense just because it's cool.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
That's so fun, I think also because good.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
No, I was going to say, and you know, so
my acting career really began with five years on Sesame
Street and then it ended. I sort of bowed out
after five years on Gray's anatomy. So for people who
are watched Sesame Street in the seventies, because I'm older
than you are, my friend, but people who watched seven

(02:40):
Sesame Street in the seventies, you know, you grew.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
Up with me too.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
That's awesome because also fun.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, and also people like me then because I grew
up in the eighties watching Sesame Street and the reruns
were going on then.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Too, so that's true. I definitely saw you then.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
That's so awesome.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
I think also probably did.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Why it's like something special for me is because of
my theater and acting background and my aspirations to be
an actor. So it's always cool to meet somebody, yeah,
or that's in that space. It's kind of like my
little touch to that to that.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
But but more for people.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Who are watching, like actually, like this.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Is my that that was me wow. So for our
audio listeners, she's showing a picture of her and what's
his name's Grover? Grover?

Speaker 2 (03:28):
What's his name? That's me and Grover when I was
like three, And there's great. Actually, there's there are some
YouTube clips on out there in the world too.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Well.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
You aged beautifully well.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
Speaking speaking of aging with beauty, let's let's take a
step back into time of when some people might have
thought differently. So I say that because in your blurb
about toxic marriages, and this is really what you talk
about in the D word is you know your experience,
and this is how you help other women through their experience.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
So we're going to be speaking about that, your book,
your courses, your all.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
The different support networks that you offer all of these
wonderful women. But let's go let's go further back into
what's your story? How'd you get started? Where did you
Where'd you come from?

Speaker 4 (04:20):
Where did I come? I was born a long time ago,
I was.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
I was actually I was born in London, but both
of my parents were actors, and so I grew up
in New York City in the theater. They were both
Broadway actors, soap op actors, all of that. I mean,
it was you know, it was New York in the seventies,
what can I tell you? And because of that, because
of being raised in it, I was sort of my

(04:49):
parents did not want me to be an actor. By
the way, my parents got divorced when I was They
were separated when I was eleven months old, so I
actually came home from nursery school, and I asked my
I said, mommy, mommy, Damon's parents lived together. Why would
they do that?

Speaker 4 (05:04):
She was like, oh shit.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
So I became sort of the world's youngest divorce coach
because as my friends, it tends to happen when kids
are like.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
Second third grade, first second third.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Grade, sort of like the time when it starts to
happen more and more in.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
You know, in kids' lives.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
And so as my friend's parents were getting divorced, they
were all coming to me saying.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
Like, what's it like and how do you you know?
And so I've been doing this a really long time.
It's my point.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
And I've been doing it so long that actually a
friend of mine wrote a book recently. She's a wonderful author,
and her very critically acclaimed memoir about her father, she
talks about how I support her and her sister through
her parents' divorce, so like it's real.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
And so, you know, I grew up, I got.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Married, and I was an actor. Things were great, everything
looked amazing on the outside.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
I was on a hit TV show.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
You know, my husband and I looked like the perfect
family are with this little, you know, two year old
adorable child, and you know, nice house, nice cars, all
of the.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
Thing, and uh, but I was dying. I was dying inside.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
I was so miserable. My marriage was catastrophic.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
You know.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
I now know that it was emotionally abusive. I now
know that he was cheating on me the whole time.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
I didn't.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
I just this was you know, fifteen years sixteen, seventeen
years ago, when I didn't have language for it. I
didn't understand. We didn't have fake we didn't have Instagram,
we didn't have podcasts, we didn't have the level of
information that we have now. And so I really had

(07:13):
no idea what was happening. And so the gaslighting, the like, well,
you know, if you were just and if you just
and if you you know, lost weight, or if you
got a boob job, or if you didn't you know,
if you changed the sound of your voice, I mean,

(07:33):
whatever it was where I was bending myself into pretzels,
thinking that that would be the thing that would make
everything okay.

Speaker 4 (07:41):
And I learned much.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Later, you know, And then I would say, I'll come
back to what I learned later. I would I would
ask my friends who had been divorced, right, and I
didn't know a lot of them, but I would say,
how do you know, Like, how do you know when
you've actually tried everything there is? Because I was convinced

(08:07):
that there was one more thing just around the corner,
that like, there was one more personal development program, there
was one more you know, therapy session, there was one more.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
Thing I could say.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
I just hadn't said the right thing to get him
to understand how much was hurting me, right, And.

Speaker 4 (08:27):
This went on and on and on. There's always you
always think.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
That there's just like one more thing around the corner,
and if I call it now, I'll have missed the
one thing, right, So you keep waiting. And I was
asking people like, how do I know when it's time
to call it? When there's nothing else around the corner?
And the best information.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
I got was when you know, you'll know.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
And the point was that I didn't know, you know,
very well meaning loving friends, oh you know when you
and and by the way, it was true when I knew,
I knew. And I eventually, as I got further out
of the marriage, and I got more and more clarity

(09:13):
about what had actually been happening.

Speaker 4 (09:16):
To me in the marriage.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
And you know that that couples therapists were not picking
up on that. Individual therapists were not picking up but
like nobody was like actually hitting what was the truth
of what was happening? And I thought, eventually, I thought,
there's got to be a better way. There's got to
be a process that women or people should can go

(09:39):
through so that they know before they just have to
get like struck with a bolt of lightning, that we
can like, actually I can guide them there. I can
guide them to the knowing with information and process.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
You mentioned that, So that's you mentioned that you who
you had learned something? Is Is this what you learned?
Was that you you know you know?

Speaker 2 (10:05):
I yeah, I later learned that, you know, there was
nothing else around the corner. There was nothing more I
could have done. That It wasn't about me that I mean, yes,
we all have our part, we all have, you know,
stuff that we've got to work on all of that, right, yes,
And with emotional abuse, it's not your fault.

Speaker 4 (10:27):
There's nothing more you could do.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
The fact that that the thing that you're supposed to
do to make everything better is so elusive and always
is like seems like there's a moving target is part
of the design and so you know, I later learned
that I what you know, I learned. For first of all,

(10:51):
I found out about all the infidelity much later, and
I was like, oh, well, no, wonder we like we're
in couples therapy.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
I think we're working on our marriage. Like none of
that was real.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
And you know, and I under and I learned more
and more about what was happening, what had been happening
to me, and it just, you know, it's awful. I
was about to say, it's sort of a bomb for
the soul, but it's not. It's terrible.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
It's awful.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
It's like, there's nothing worse than realizing that ten years
of your life was essentially a sham, you know. And
you know, I will say my ex husband and I
are are very close now because I don't have.

Speaker 4 (11:35):
To be married to him anymore.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
And when you have a child with someone, you know
you've got a co parent with them for the rest
of your life, and so it kind of forces you
to move through stuff that. Look, if we didn't have
a kid, I would have divorced him and moved on
and like probably never spoken to him again. But it
has forced us to work through and overcome a bunch

(11:59):
of stuff. And also the only reason we've been able
to do that is that he has been willing to
grow and change and heal and address his issues as well.
So so you know, we are we and we talk
about these things, and he will sometimes you know, he
has a different experience of our relationship obviously, but you

(12:22):
know when Puss comes to shove and I'll say, yeah,
but you were cheating on me, like none of it
was real because like to him, it was to him,
it was real, But you know, to me, that doesn't
really fly. And we get to have you know, one
of the things that I that I talk about a
lot with with the women that I work with, is

(12:43):
that like we get to have our own narratives, we
get to own our story. We get to we are
never going.

Speaker 4 (12:48):
To agree on the narrative.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
We agree on my ex and I agree on certain things,
but only because he's been able to willing to take
responsibility for those things. But also there's a bunch of
stuff that we just have a different narrative on and
we don't have to agree, and that's okay. Like if
we had the same narrative, we would probably would have
gotten divorced, right.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
That's a good point. I'm curious in terms of that
of the narrative. I have a couple questions in terms
of the co parenting. I think that that's going to
be really helpful to everybody listening in terms of anybody
dealing with a divorce or considering it and having children
involved and how to be able to co parent, especially
when you have different narratives. So I kind of want
to stay to different narratives for just a moment here.

(13:35):
I'm very fortunate in the sense that my parents have
had a long lasting, loving marriage. They just celebrated fifty
years last year, and so it's still going strong and
it's wonderful and very fortunate in that sense. And other
family members, aunt's uncles, same thing in my family. I
don't know where their love lies, although I know that
they're all very happy because I see them my siblings

(13:57):
myself also in how be loving relationships, I'm very very
fortunate in that, and and I say that intentionally because
I've been blessed with being able to witness that part
and take part in that. And then I see the
other side of like my wife's family, it's it's kind
of I'm curious on this and like my my wife's family,

(14:20):
my sister's husband's family, my brother's fiance's family, all come
from divorced backgrounds. I'm very I'm almost curious on like
how we attract them and how they attract us, which
is which is some curiosity in that. But I'm going
to leave all of that aside because I don't want
to speak to that because I don't have much there.
But I want to just preface what I'm going to
ask next with that being said, So, my relationship with

(14:43):
narratives and what you're speaking to is my relationship with
my father, and that being of one where my narrative
of my childhood is he was very aggressive with me.
I would never say abusive, but I would certainly say aggressive,
like the way he spoke to me, the way he
was physical with me, and really just not ever acknowledging

(15:05):
a lot of it. Right, We've we're amazing, we have
an amazing relationship today, but that's because of what you
just said that I've done in that where I go, Okay,
you know you have your version like when I bring
when I used to bring it up to him and
we would get into our big arguments about it I'd say, well,
you did this, this and that, and you never and
he's like, no, I didn't, That's not what I did.
And his story is completely different of like, I would

(15:27):
never say that to you. I would never put my
hands on you. I would, you know. And I'm like okay,
and kind of like let that go in order to
have a loving father son relationship later on in life.
And so my question for you in terms of these
dual narratives is one that I had to go through
my own therapy before.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
But what when you when you see this, when you.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Hear stories like this, how how do you help the
person Now we're speaking about this woman who might have
children involved because they have the co parent, because that
is the reason and why they're staying together, are talking
to each other. How do you help them through that?
Because that's taken me a lot of time and energy
of self development work in order to move past it,

(16:10):
and to a point where sometimes my wife doesn't even
understand and she holds resentments for me, and I'm like,
you don't need to. I'm good.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah, I mean it's really interesting.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
So I think that, you know, I think there's a
couple of things.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
What you're describing with your dad is not necessarily different narratives, right,
because it's like there is a there is a there
is an objective truth like that if he put his
hands on you, then that is like that happened. Just
because he doesn't remember it or whatever doesn't mean like
the invalidation of the experience for you, and you've been

(16:46):
able to come to come you know, find peace with that,
which is you know, that's that's.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
Your process, right.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
But I think there's a difference between different narratives and
then like denying someone's reality. And so you know, like
I said, my ex husband and I are able to
you know, he look, look what I do, Like, you know,
I talk about this stuff for a living. I you know,
I work with women on this stuff for a living.

Speaker 4 (17:15):
Like it's kind of a big part of my life.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
And he kind of has to live with that, you know,
and like kind of big ups to him for not
being absolutely horrible about that. Like he's supportive, you know,
he's he's and you know, every once in a while
he'll be like I saw in your story that you
said something about blah blah blah. I don't think that's fair,

(17:37):
and like, you know, I just I just hope that
you say positive things about me sometimes too, And I'm like,
first of all, that wasn't about you, And secondly, like,
what are you doing in my stories? And third yeah,
these are the positive things I say about you. You know,
if you read the acknowledgments in my book, I have
a huge paragraph.

Speaker 4 (17:55):
Dedicated to him.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
And he he's like, you know, like, I am not
going to I'm not gonna be able to have a
relationship with someone who says I never cheated on you
when it was like objectively clear that he did.

Speaker 4 (18:14):
Right, I'm not gonna.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
I can't do that my truth. It's not denying, right,
I don't. It's not about denying the truth. But you know,
for oops, here goes my aarpod. For him, the reality
is that you know, he was going through stuff or

(18:36):
maybe he felt like I wasn't you know, loving enough
to him, or it was And again, look, that's his truth,
that's what he that's what he believes, that's what he feels. Okay,
my truth, my reality is he's a bottomless pit of
need and I could never fulfill it. You know, Like

(18:56):
but like, okay, okay, we're gonna just agree on that,
you know, and that's just the way it's gonna be.
I'm gonna pick up yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Get go, get your ear pod.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
I mean, while people are on conversations like this, we've
got to be able to hear each other.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
I know, I know they're new, and they don't quite
I don't know, they're weird.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
We'll have the whole ear pod conversation because sometimes those
things are really annoying on how they pop out, like
on a bike ride and they just go flying out
of my ear and I'm like.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
Okay, well there goes eighty bucks, like right.

Speaker 4 (19:25):
Right, Oh my god, Okay.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
Anyway, so there's a difference between I think, you know,
just being able to say and look, this is where
co parenting. I believe when you get divorced, it should
start with parallel parenting. We don't like a lot of
people dive in. They hear my story in particular, and
they're like, oh my god, they're such good friends and
they you know, do holidays together and blah blah blah.

(19:47):
That's what I want and like, yeah, but it took
fifteen years for us to get here, and by the way,
we still have flare ups and craziness every once in
a while, but we work through it. But the point
is that I wouldn't start there, and I did. I
started there, and it was a big mistake because it

(20:09):
didn't allow me to individuate. It didn't allow me to
sort of come to terms with my narrative and and
what my sort of what is my narrative of my
journey and how I got here and what happened in
my marriage?

Speaker 4 (20:25):
What is it that I want to own for.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Myself, not because you tell me that was my problem
or my you know whatever, my shit, because I'm objectively
looking at it and going, yeah, you know what, this
is the ship that I brought.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
Okay, I can own that.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Right. I need to come to terms with all of
that without being told what it should be in the
context of divorce and separation and forging, you know, continuing
to forge this real relationship that's complicated, right, we're divorced,
but we're family.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
It's weird. It's weird, But.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
I think everybody should do that separately first. And then
once you've healed and you've kind of come to terms
with your narrative and you know, maybe you've got some
resentments that you want to discuss, maybe you don't, maybe
you just kind of deal with it yourself, and like,
all right, you know, if from that place you choose
more collaboration and more friendship and more co parenting, great,

(21:34):
then you've got too kind of healed, processed individuals that
are kind of coming together in this complex web of connectivity.
And you know which is better than continuing the cycles
of lack of communication, fighting, arguing, blah blah blahlah blah

(21:55):
that like you got divorced.

Speaker 1 (21:56):
Over and crazy friction, and it's interesting you up the
you know, this whole thing. And you gave me a
flashback of when my wife and I first got married,
and so we we I think it was I'm trying
to think of I'm trying to remember exactly which one
it was. I think it was my daughter's baptism. And

(22:17):
you know, for me coming from like I said, the
relationship family side of like everybody's married happily and all
this other stuff. I remember saying to my wife, I
literally made this statement. I said, we're not going to
have two birthday parties and two christenings and two of everything, right,
And my wife was like, okay, She's like my parents
haven't gone into a room, and like you said fifteen

(22:38):
years or something like that, right, it was like since
I was and I think her parents got divorced. I
think she was in third grade or so, or maybe
sixth grade, I forget, but anyway, and so anyway, so
we're we're having this party, this christening, and they were
invited because we decided that fine, We're going to go
through with it as one big party. And I remember

(23:00):
finding my wife in the pantry, like at like midway
through the party, I was like, where is Devin, Where
is she? Where is she? I couldn't find her, and
she really she was freaking out. She was just in
the pantry freaking out. She's just like she couldn't deal
with the stress of them in the room together, of
the way the interactions were happening and playing out.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
Were they were they terrible?

Speaker 1 (23:24):
No? No, no, they were.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
It was just weird.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
She just never seen it. She just never actually experienced, right, yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
Yeah, And that's the kind of thing. I feel like,
we don't want to do that to her kids, right.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
So the more like I listen, by the way, my
parents had not been in a room together without like
arguing and fighting and all sorts of horrendous whatever, including
my wedding, which was really awkward and weird until my
son was born, and then like they both came at

(23:58):
the same time and like stay and uh, you know,
we're there for like two weeks when my son was born,
and all of a sudden, they're like best friends. And
when my mom has computer problems, she calls my dad
and it's like and like, my dad comes to visit.
My dad lives in New York, my mom's out here

(24:18):
in LA and my dad comes to visit and he's like, Oh,
I'm having dinner with your mom tomorrow night.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
And I'm like, the fuck, what do you mean?

Speaker 2 (24:31):
My whole life you could not be in a room together,
and now it's on like ooh, by ah, fuck you.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
Right, it's weird. It's weird. So I'm with Devin.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
It's like, but if there's also trauma for her, right
when you've got parents who have had so much friction
and so much toxicity and then they're in the same
room together at your child's christening, Like she's terrified it's
gonna they're gonna freak out, and they're not freaking out,
but her, her like central nervous system doesn't.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Know that MM hmmm hmm, yeah, it was. It's interesting.
So I bring that scenario up too, because you know,
this is this is what you work on with with
with people, and so I'm curious on your thoughts on
you know, working with and you specifically work with women,
and that's why I'm going to keep asking from the
women's perspective here, because you specifically work with women and
women with children, and so how how do you work

(25:24):
with with let's say, maybe you know, let's say this
is let's say that we had you in our you know,
part of our conversation and consulting while we were putting
this christening, how would you approach the you know, Devin
and her mother about Hey, look, you know, you guys
haven't been in a room for fifteen years. How would
you what kind of processes would you start putting in
place in order to help them be able to come together?

(25:47):
Or maybe not or maybe like part of my reasoning
to bring this up was how you had said, hey,
you don't have to just jump into the fire. It
might be the parallel parenting first. So I'm curious in
terms of your process and then that well, I mean
I think.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
That in your in the scenario that you're that you're
talking about.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
I mean, I think I.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Rather, I think that you know, Devin, maybe she didn't
know how strongly she was going to react, right, and
she had this visceral reaction, and so she probably didn't
know and that's a trauma response that she was having,
you know.

Speaker 4 (26:17):
And so then it's like.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Oh, maybe there's like there's a there's something I need
to go to therapy to deal with. You know, very
often our responses to things are the you know, catalysts
to oh shit, there's another layer of the onion I
got to go deal with now.

Speaker 4 (26:34):
But I would say that.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
You know, if your if your parents, I'm going to
back it up actually because I think that this is
why you know, people talk about how like divorce screws
up kids, right, and it doesn't toxicity screws up kids.
When when you've got and whether that's in marriage or
in divorce, right, So either it doesn't matter whether you're

(27:02):
together or not, if it's toxic, if there's fighting all
the time, if kids feel kids naturally feel there in
the middle.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
Right, you made them.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
You've got two people and they made this person, and
now you're this person, and like you love you You're
supposed to love both of them equally. You're supposed to feel,
you know, comfortable and safe with these your parents. But
they're constantly screaming at each other and they hate each.

Speaker 4 (27:29):
Other, and they let you know that.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Then you as a being that considers themselves half of
each of them, right, then mom hates dad, so mom
might hate half of you. Dad hates mom. Dad might
actually hate half of you. It is a It puts
children in a very tenuous as their brains are developing,

(27:55):
as there's you know, psychology is developing.

Speaker 4 (27:57):
It puts them in a very very tenuous place.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
And so the most important thing we can do is
to not put them in that position, right, I mean,
I see it all the time with people who are divorcing.
I'm you know, we do the financial separation, we do
the you know, the legal separation, we do the physical separation.
We forget to do the emotional separation.

Speaker 4 (28:22):
Why are you still fighting?

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Why are you continuing to like get your hooks into
each other all the time you got divorced, Like time
to get the hooks out. And it's hard, right, it's hard.
But if you can divorce in a way that actually
creates some separation. Then you're not putting your kids in
the middle. You're not asking your kids to choose between

(28:50):
one of you, between the two of you you know
and I, you know. Hazard to guess that's probably part
of what your you know, wife was feeling. It's like
you're in when you've got your parents in the same
room for the first time and they've been nothing but
you know, acrimonious.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
You're kind of like, who do I choose? Who do
I talk to?

Speaker 2 (29:10):
If I go talk to him first? Am I going
to get in trouble with her if I go to talk.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
To her first?

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Right? Which is why, by the way, you know, when
you go to your kids' soccer games as divorced parents,
if you can't safely sit together right and just be
there for your kid, then you should probably alternate who
goes to the games, because the last thing you want
for your child is to like get to the end

(29:35):
of their baseball game and.

Speaker 4 (29:37):
Then have them look out to the stand and wonder,
oh God.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Which one do I run to first?

Speaker 4 (29:43):
Like what a horrible position to put children in.

Speaker 5 (29:46):
Right, So, I don't know if I answered your question,
I think, yeah, it really was a tee up to
getting you to talk about that, which I think is
really really important to hear in terms of all of this.

Speaker 1 (30:00):
So I don't want everybody to dig it into my
family stories here, especially since she's here. Callot wait a second,
I did not okay that conversation, Michael.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
It was all made up, people, It was all made up.
Something else that.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
You mentioned that I think is also really important is
and I'm sure you go through this and your book
and again, like your support groups that you have, is
having a process set up. And I really love that
that you talk about this where you're saying there's got
to be a better way, There's got to be a process.
So I kind of want to talk a little bit
like just kind of like pre the process into why

(30:40):
did you have this overwhelming need to not of course
only help yourself, but now to also help so many
other women going through this To create this process?

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Well, I just you know, look, it was a process.
You know, as you know as an entrepreneur building a business,
you know, as you go through the entire process of
building a business, you go through different stages and different processes,
and you're trying this, and you're trying that, and you're right,
having different various conversations, and you know, I started out

(31:15):
focusing mostly on divorce and helping people have like harmonious
divorces and you know whatever. And then I started realizing
that like, really only one person wanted that usually, that
there were different needs in the space, and that people
kept coming to me going, but how do you know

(31:37):
whether to stay or go? How do you know when
it's time to leave? I'd be like, when you know,
you know, no, that's not that's not fair. Wait, hold
on a minute, tell me about your relationship. And I
would start to hear all these patterns, you know, and
it's really easy from the outside, right, you can't read
the label from inside the jar, so it's really easy

(31:58):
for me on the inside, on the outside.

Speaker 4 (32:00):
Of the jar to be like, what the fuck would
you want to be in that?

Speaker 2 (32:04):
What? Like people tell your stories and you're like, wait
a minute, are you kidding?

Speaker 3 (32:09):
Right?

Speaker 2 (32:10):
But then I start to see like, okay, what is
the psychology that has somebody not be able to read
that label and not be able to see their relationship objectively?

Speaker 4 (32:23):
And then also looking.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Back on my experience, because my experience was I mean, look.

Speaker 4 (32:27):
My marriage was so.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Bad that I literally like my best friend who ended
up being my maid of honor, sat me down before
my wedding begging me not to get married. There were
like everybody knew that this was We were not subtle.
This was an overtly toxic, awful marriage. We were not
the people that like.

Speaker 4 (32:47):
We did not hide it like at all.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
So so I was that person who was inside the
jar and couldn't make.

Speaker 4 (32:56):
Any sense of what was happening.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
And so I became educated, first of all in what
was actually happening from either from both sides. Right, I
ended up having to become a domestic violence victim's advocate.
I got certified in in domestic violence advocacy because I
was I was seeing it so often and was and

(33:21):
I was tired of telling women, Hey, you need to
call your local shelter, and the local shelters are overrun
and can't talk to them. So I was like, all right,
I guess I gotta do it myself. And so I
was seeing all these patterns, and as you as you
work with people and you see the same patterns emerging,
you know, all over and over and over again.

Speaker 4 (33:42):
It it kind of you know, in the Queen's Gambit.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
How like the chess pieces, right, would like on the
on the ceiling, right, that was sort of you know,
it's like you see all the patterns happening, and they
kind of form a process ultimately, I think.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
Or you take a bunch of sticky notes all over.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Your wall and you move them around, then you go like,
these are the problems that we need to solve, right,
we need to solve.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
Why are women.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Feeling that they don't have any power in their relationships?
Why are women feeling so disempowered?

Speaker 4 (34:25):
How are they?

Speaker 2 (34:27):
You know, how did we get here?

Speaker 4 (34:29):
How did women get here? How did we get to.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
A place where so many women feel disempowered in their
relationships are being emotionally abused?

Speaker 4 (34:40):
And it really is a.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
It's an epidemic that not a lot of people talk about,
but you know, and yes, in my line of work,
I see it all the time, right, And you know,
this is a this is a global crisis, to the
degree that Australia just yesterday came forth with one billion

(35:05):
dollars dedicated to helping victims of domestic violence leave their relationships.
Because the one thing that stops victims from being able
to leave is our finances.

Speaker 4 (35:20):
It's the top thing.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
And most people need like two thousand dollars just to
get out. But ninety nine percent of victims of domestic violence,
and that includes emotional abuse and coercive control, it's not
just physical abuse. Ninety nine percent of them are also
being financially abused, so they have limited resources because it's
the ultimate power and control. And so Australia just dedicated

(35:46):
a billion dollars to give victims, a majority of whom
are women, not all, but a majority.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
Five thousand dollars each to get out.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
That's how much this is a This is how much
of a global crisis this is. You know that a
government has just earmarked a billion dollars for it.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yeah, And we talked about this a little bit pre
show of a lot of the political I guess stances
that you have in terms of this, and we talked
about a systemic structure and all of it. And I
think this might be a good time for you to
share a little bit bit more about that. There's a
lot of information that you have and that you're aware

(36:29):
of because of the people that you help, and so
you stand for certain populations of women that I think
it's important for you to share right now with us
as to who they are and what you're seeing out there,
and what changes are necessary in order to help them
going forward.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yeah, it's so much. I mean, look, at the end
of the day, I work in women's empowerment.

Speaker 4 (36:55):
My job is to empower women and that you know.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
Look, those are fluffy words, right, What I do on
a very serious level is help women regain their sense
of self, like capital s self? Who are they actually?
Because when you've been in a relationship, whether it's abusive

(37:19):
or not, but even if it's just unhappy you.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Oops, you're good. I can hear you.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Nope, you have done.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Something you may may may not be able to hear.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
There we go. I did it. No, I can hear you. Now,
there we go. Sorry, it's these AirPods. I swear to god,
they're brand new.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
I don't even know how to use them anyway. So,
when you are in any sense unhappy in your relationship, right,
you're constantly sort of chipping away parts.

Speaker 4 (37:53):
Of yourself right in order to just be there.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
Right, You're denying the voice in your head, You're denying
your sense of self. You're you're minimizing yourself, you're minimizing
your needs.

Speaker 4 (38:06):
Whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Right again, even if it's not abuse, if it's just unhappy,
it's just not the right fit, you're still denying something
in order to stay there.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
And so the first.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
Thing that I want to do is to help women
regain their sense of self and figure out who they are.

Speaker 4 (38:26):
And for many I know for me, when I got
out of my marriage, and.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
This is the work that I had to do to
heal it was the first time, right, I had no
sense of self going into the relationship, which is why
I was so easily sort of manipulated, right, you know,
And that's my and that's my stuff, Like, that's the
stuff I had to go to therapy to work on
for myself and to figure out for myself.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
And how did that happen?

Speaker 2 (38:49):
And that's my childhood and all of the stuff. Right,
So when I talk about empowering women, what I really
mean is getting them in touch with who they are
and their own voices and their own sense of what
they want and need in life, in a relationship, in themselves.
All of that, all of that, though, is working against

(39:15):
the entire patriarchal structure, the whole system that is set
up to have women deny what they need, what they
want what they write. We've got a sixty billion dollar
diet industrial complex which is dedicated to teaching women to

(39:35):
deny and men right to deny their hunger cues.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
Right, you're not hungry, you just.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Need water, right, like you know, you don't need to
you know, eat whatever it is, right, don'tat those things.
They're terrible for you or they're gonna you know, you know,
or like, the worst thing a woman can be is fat.

Speaker 4 (39:58):
The worst thing woman.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
Can be is that, right, and the you know, and
the worst thing a man can be.

Speaker 4 (40:06):
And this is part of that.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
This is why like when I when I talk about patriarchy,
by the way, it sucks for everybody, right except for
like maybe the few white dudes in power, you know,
the billionaires.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
But even then, like I don't know, are they happy?

Speaker 2 (40:22):
I don't know. I feel like, you know, the patriarchy
sucks for men. To the worst thing a man can
be is well, you know, you you express your emotions
and you're you know what, you're a pussy, you're a girl,
you're gay. Right, The worst thing a man could be
is like a woman or gay according to this structure, right,

(40:46):
so we're all suffocating in it. We're all drowning in it.
So for women, I can't address these things. I can't
address what it is. Look, we have our internal stuff
that screws us over with our sense of self, but
there's a lot of external stuff too, and I can't
ignore it. We can't ignore that the patriarchy, which is

(41:08):
rooted in white supremacy. So every one of these things
is far worse for you know, for women of color,
far worse from you know, the gender pay gap, which
is you know, white women to white men is one differential,
but then you know, black women and then Latina women

(41:33):
earn far less to the dollar. So anyway, I could
go on and on and on about these things, but.

Speaker 4 (41:41):
I think in order to.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Really get to the heart of some of these issues,
we have to address the systems that they're rooted in.
Otherwise we're just putting band aids on.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
How do you address the systems that they're rooted in.

Speaker 4 (41:57):
Well, I mean I name them first of all.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Right, It's like, you know, look, if I could just
wave a magic wand and change them, that would be amazing.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
But I name them.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
It's we are you know, women in particular, like we're
exhausted in our marriages.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
You know, marriage does not.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
So they did a study they I don't know who
they are, but they did a study and they discovered
that of heterosexual people in heterosexual relationships, right, and they
determined that the happiest population group were married men, then
single women, then single men, and the least happy population

(42:38):
group of married women. But these married women are married
to the happiest population group, which is the married men.
They're happy, they're the happiest. We're the least happy. There's
a problem, there's a like, there's a problem with the structure.
And a lot of that is the amount of you know,

(42:59):
emotional labor we do in relationships because we're living a
system in a society that tells us that, you know,
men men shouldn't men do.

Speaker 4 (43:08):
Go to therapy, You go to therapy. You have to
talk about your feelings. If you talk about your feelings,
you know you're gay.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
Or weak or a woman whatever it is. Right, this
is and I'm being hyperbolic about it, and that's the message.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
Right.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
You know, when you cried when you were little, you
were told to man up, right because men don't cry,
boys don't cry, and so you're not allowed to have
those feelings and then you squash them down and then
you're like full of all of this anxiety and then
you're you know, dying at younger ages because of stress
related diseases and higher rates of suicide because we're not

(43:50):
taking care of you. Right, This is so it's so
bad for men, right, But the emotional labor that we
do in the in our marriages is as your therapist. Right,
We're the only ones that you talk to about your
issues and stuff and then taking we're emotionally caretaking you,
and we're not taking care of ourselves and words and

(44:10):
our kids, and now we're exhausted, right, and we've got
nothing left for ourselves. But again, if we don't address
the fact that that's because like.

Speaker 4 (44:18):
Why is it that men are not seeking therapy?

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Why is it that seventy five percent of therapy and
personal development is consumed by women. It's not because it's
not for men, it's because we don't we're not inviting
them culturally as a society.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Do you think that by I guess, repairing or working
on this system in the ways that you can and
being able to work together. Which is interesting that we
think that we jumped from co parenting to this, but
co parent the system together. Do you think that by
working through that that you would a change in these

(45:01):
marriages that are unhappy?

Speaker 2 (45:07):
I mean yes, And I also think it's generational. Like look,
I think that for the men who are the happiest population,
you know, these married men who are like the happiest
population group, these are mostly I think at this point
like gen X, like my generation. Right, Well, these marriages
work for them.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
I'm curious on whether they're we're truly happy in the
marriage or not. It's interesting. I'm reading a book right now,
Carol Dwack. It's an older book. Her book is called Mindset,
Great Book, and in it it speaks about mindset of
leaders and all the rest. But she also gets into
relationships because of the mindset of a relationship and very

(45:44):
very similar to some of the things that you just
brought up here in terms of the way that the
man's mind work and the way the women's mind work.
In the context of this conversation, that is, and speaking
to these air quote happy men. And I'm making an
assumption here, so you just correct me if I'm wrong
in terms of this assumption. Is it the the old

(46:06):
school nineteen fifties traditional happy man of the wife, you know,
cook's cleans, puts food on the table and all the rest.
Right Is that fair? And then and they get to
go to the bar and have their beers, the men
and watch their stories and all that, right, Yeah, And
what she what she found in their in their studies,
which which they brought up in the book. And I

(46:27):
was like, I was like, I had a feeling it
was going to go there because I'm familiar with this
kind of relationship. Is these men have far less sex, yes,
and they don't know why, and they it is science, right, right,
and so that's why not just tired, but there's resentment
from the woman's side, right of like doing all this
work and so I so I the reason why I

(46:49):
kind of want to challenge the the happy happy men
is are they really happy?

Speaker 2 (46:55):
Right?

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Because you're possibly I mean, at the end of the day,
we talk about natural instincts to eat, but it's also
to reproduce and even if we're not, even if we're
not truly trying to reproduce in that moment. But but
you know, are they truly happy? And I mean, I'll
speak to my own personal experience here in that I
remember being in a relationship at a very young age.

(47:16):
I wasn't married, but I was in a very long term,
seven year relationship with someone. And you know, we were
in no way we were we were young, we were teenagers,
we started at sixteen. We were in no way in
that nineteen fifties traditional relationship. But it was in a
relationship that I know her needs weren't being met. I
know that I wasn't the best boyfriend in the world.

(47:37):
And I remember, you know, by year we were together
for seven years, and I remember by year two or three,
it was hard for me, and we're talking teenagers.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
It was hard for me to be able.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
To find a way to get her to want to
have sex with me. And this is like, you know,
I'm really putting it out there for right, right, exactly
like romantic dinner, you know, put do all these different things.
But for some reason, she was not into me in
that way any longer. I mean, we find out many
years later she's she's got a different direction in genders,

(48:08):
but for who she likes.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
But I don't know if that was the case.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
But I also just feel like part of it was
me in that well, outside of my gender.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
But I also, yeah, okay, so your questioning that.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
I mean, I'm gonna say that if she was, if
she turns out that she was gay, that like that
was maybe not on you, maybe.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
That was it's not confirmed, so I don't want to
say that. Oh okay, okay, let's say she's she's let's
say she's on both teams from what I understand. But
but what I'm saying is that because I wasn't the
best boyfriend, right, So I might have been really happy
in the relationship, but because I wasn't the best boyfriend,
we weren't. That wasn't happening. Whereas now in my relationship

(48:50):
where I mean, I'll never say it's fifty to fifty
because we have two kids, and I thought it was
fifty to fifty, but after the second one, I was like, no,
Devin takes on way more response stability than I do.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
But because of that, thank you for seeing that.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
Thank you for seeing that.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Right, that's that's kind of what we want.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
And I think to that, and I think to that point,
because of that, and because there is no that's Devin's
job and that's Michael's job. In our house, there's just
this needs to get done, and we both try to
find a way to do it. And you know, if
the dishwashers needs to be empty, I mean more times
than not, she's emptying it before me. But I don't
look at it being ready to be emptied and say,
oh no, that's Devon's job, you know. And I think

(49:30):
that because of that, we do have a better sexual relationship.
We'll call it because of that, because we don't have
to find time, we don't have to make it a thing.
She's into me and I'm into her, and I think
it's because we have this mutual respect. So all this
to say, to go back to the happily married men
that you're speaking to, I would question if they truly

(49:51):
are happy, because yeah, some of their quote unquote needs
are being met in terms of like food on the table,
But are they well?

Speaker 2 (50:00):
I mean, I think if they're not.

Speaker 4 (50:02):
Getting late, how could they?

Speaker 3 (50:04):
I mean, why isn't that why we do anything? As men?
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (50:08):
See now you're just letting the cat out of the bag.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
But I mean, look, they're not.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
I mean, here's that they're not right because, as we know,
men have higher rates of suicide. They have they're dying,
they die of like stress related diseases at younger ages,
all of the things that I said, right, So like, no,
they're not actually not happy, right they report Yeah, I
think that right, But I mean I think they report
to be because.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
I don't know that they know what what is happiness?

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Right?

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Then there's then there's that question which I have a
chapter in my book, and like what is happiness?

Speaker 4 (50:43):
Like what does that even mean?

Speaker 1 (50:45):
And I think another note to make in terms of
this conversation is that you're also speaking we're also on
the topic of talking about toxic relationships, and we're also
on the topic of a toxic relationship more than a
happy a happy relationship, Like, I think it's important that
we that we differentiate the fact of you know, again
using myself as an example, which I've been using in

(51:06):
this in this because I don't feel it's fair to
use anybody else. Is I am in truly a happy WithU?
I know that if you were to poll Devin, she
would say the same. Because we have that open communication.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
We talk exactly.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
We talk about our we talk about what we love
about each other, and we talk about what we don't
like and how to improve on it or what we
can do to fix it. We we we have these
conversations and we bring our daughters into the conversation. I mean,
they're young, but they experience us arguing and we'll tell them, hey,
you know, right now we're not agreeing on something. But

(51:40):
what we've learned is what you said earlier about tox
toxicity from the parents, is that we're not putting each
other down. We're not yelling, we're not cursing, we're not
throwing things. We are speaking to each other different tonalities
for sure, but we're speaking to each other in as
respect full manner as we can. While our feelings are

(52:02):
kind of hurt for that moment because we realize the
impact on them. But my point that I'm getting at
in terms of that relationship is that it's not a
toxic one right, and this isn't one sided, Like I know,
you can call her up and she'll say the same thing.
What we're speaking to is where this is toxic where
and again you're you're on the women's side, and so
we're going to stick with this where the man is

(52:24):
gaslighting the woman and saying and I'd love for you
to identify that in this podcast here and is saying Hey, look,
everything is peachy keen, and I don't know why you
can't find happiness in it all. So we're speaking to
that relationship, and I want to make sure that we
identify that properly.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
Yeah, and that is such an important thing. I hear
it all the time.

Speaker 4 (52:42):
So here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
That you're pointing to, what you're saying about your marriage,
and that I think is something that makes a healthy
relationship is intentionality. Right, For a lot of us, it's like, well,
you know, we got the brass ring right, look and
we cut again. Systemic, we come to this completely naturally.
We read fairy tales where you know, the guy gets

(53:06):
the girl, the prince gets the princess, or we watch
rom coms where you know, they get each other and
then it ends. And we don't know how to do relationships.
So we think that just like getting each other, well,
whoo done, awesome, No, that's the beginning, And so how
do we be in relationship intentionally in a way that

(53:34):
is respectful and loving and kind. We're not character assassinating, right.
I was having dinner with some people recently and they've
been married for like thirty five years, and they told
me that they ask each other every month or so, hey,
how do you feel like we're doing just that small

(53:54):
active intentionality and one of them will be like, I
think we're great, and the end it we'll be like, really,
I'm kind of feeling like we're a little disconnected. And
the and the person like the way that you respond
to that is really key because in a healthy and
intentional relationship, you go, oh, no, tell me more, Yeah,

(54:15):
tell me more.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
How can we fix that?

Speaker 2 (54:18):
I always say like, if one person, if a relationship
isn't working for one person, it's not working. And so
if your partner comes to you and says I feel
like we kind of have an issue or like something's
not working for me, yeah, your response.

Speaker 4 (54:32):
Is, oh, no, what do we need to do?

Speaker 1 (54:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Right, I want to jump.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Sounds like, well, so let me just finish this one
thought which is such a huge thing that I hear
all the time, which is I don't know it works
for me. Sounds like a you problem.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
Yeah, And I want to say this too to what
you just said, because I want to make sure that
I'm not painting the perfect image here, and I don't
think I am, but I just want to make sure.
Is that just recently, Devin said to me, I'm feeling disconnected.
I'm not feeling loved. And we have these conversations every
couple of weeks, like in terms of one of us
not feeling and I'll say the same thing, like she'll say,

(55:10):
what's up with you? And I'm like, I just feel
like you don't love me. I just feel disconnected. I
feel like we don't love each.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
Other, and we like.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
So my point that I'm making here is that as
much communication as we have, sometimes we do feel that
way and we talk through it and we're like what
and we ask And that's why why I kind of
jumped in is we'll ask each other what can I do?
And sometimes Devin will say I just need a hug
or same with me, or I'm just like I don't know.
And then when we what happens too in terms of
that communication on the good end, is that what we

(55:39):
end up identifying is that we actually hadn't spent any
time with each other during the week. Was we didn't
have dinner together two nights out of the week, or
I was at some networking events and I didn't get
to see her, or you know, these these things where
we just didn't communicate and we were disconnected. So I
want to intentionally say that because you know, I'm talking
about how great my marriage is, but I also want
people to know that there's so much hard work that

(56:02):
goes into it that you that's why it's great.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
That's what makes it great.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Right, It's not that it's kumbaya and like perfect and
we're connected all the time. It's that when we're not connected,
we're intentional about figuring out what's going on and and
solving the problem and hearing each other.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
Like that's what makes a great marriage.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
It's not the like, you know, perfect, we're fucking like
rabbits and like you know, we're in a you know,
Disneyland twenty four to seven, Like that doesn't.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Exist, right, it doesn't exist.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
But we have been sold a bill of goods that
it does, and that that's what we.

Speaker 4 (56:39):
Should be looking for.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
And I want to go back there for you because
I think, you know, part of this part of this
show today is going to be edited. No, it's no,
this is this is definitely going to have the explicit
content tab on the right corner. I think I think
it's so it's it's an this is an interesting one
for me, because I mean, we talk so much about

(57:02):
business on my show. We talk so much about entrepreneurship
and building a business, and you know, I think, I
think it's really important to speak about that with what
you've done in building your business. But I think at
the same time, in building a business and entrepreneurship and
all this other stuff, we're real people and what happens
behind the scenes and in our relationships at home effect

(57:25):
what happens to us in front of the public in
terms of our entrepreneurship and our businesses, and so what
you're doing, the work that you're doing to help these
women heal. And I believe the conversation that we're having
right now as as maybe overly transparent as I am
being and maybe for yourself, but you've been down this
road one hundred times already, is that I think it's

(57:46):
really important that we kind of like remove the curtain
on this one and kind of talk about some of
these things. So I want to bring it back to
these to kind of get back a little bit on
track in terms of what you do and the work
that you do and your and your business and a
lot of kind of bring it back to it's going
to be weird. But I want to bring it back
to the toxic relationships. And one of the things that
I think is so important because it's a common word.

(58:09):
It's a word that's used commonly in our society today.
You identified it in our LinkedIn live and I'd love
for you to just kind of identify it. Here is
the whole idea of the notion of gaslighting, what that is,
How to identify it, and then how to move through
your process into perhaps maybe get into your book or
getting into the hotlines or getting into your groups in
order to help these women.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
Yeah, so it's a great question. So gaslighting is not lying.
Gaslighting is lying with the intention of having someone doubt
their reality. So this was so gaslighting was it was.

(58:51):
It was coined by the play and then the subsequent
film called Gaslight, in which a man is married to
a woman who has a lot of money and he
wants her money. He's basically married her for the money,
and the only way that he can get it is
for her to I don't know, go crazy or or

(59:13):
like kill herself.

Speaker 4 (59:14):
I can't, I can't, I don't know the I can't.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
Remember the right.

Speaker 1 (59:19):
And get her money.

Speaker 4 (59:20):
So a sense.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
So what he does is he starts flicking the gas lamps,
and she says, because this was in the nineteen thirties,
by the way, and she's and so she says, like,
whoa did you see that?

Speaker 4 (59:33):
That's so weird? What's happening with the lights? And he
looks at her and he's like, I don't know what
you're talking about. They didn't flicker.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
There's something wrong with you, right, And in the beginning,
it's like, okay, right, But over time, the more things
he does, the knocking on the walls, the the you know,
what are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (59:53):
There's no sound?

Speaker 2 (59:55):
She Over time, when someone is denying your reality that
much and to that degree, you really then start to
doubt it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
You start to doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Your experience of the world. Over time, when someone tells
you long enough that the gaslights aren't flickering, when they
are flickering every time you see them flickering, you think
I'm crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:00:16):
I'm crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
I must be crazy until and this is the key part,
until you do go crazy. And I've seen this happen
a few times in my work, where a client is
actually losing their grip on reality, and it's terrifying. It's terrifying,

(01:00:43):
you know, and I've been able there's one who's still
in it and it's really scary. And there's another one
that I was able to pull out of it. And
the only way she was able to pull out of
it was to actually get out of the house, right,
because when you're in it all the time, there's no.

Speaker 4 (01:01:01):
Perspective, You have no perspective.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
And she was able to, you know, her family got
intervened and was like, you know, got her out of
the house, and within like a.

Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
Week she was like, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (01:01:14):
You know, it's like the clouds part and you can
see clearly for the first time and you're like, holy shit,
this is what they've been doing to me this whole time, right,
and it's real.

Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
It's terrifying.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
So not everybody has that level of it. But the
important thing is that it's intentional and it's designed to
it's it's not just like I said, it's not just lying.
It's lying with the design of having you begin to
doubt your reality so that you don't trust yourself anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
And it also, by the way, happens in the workspace,
which you know, you have people that work separate environments
and they work in a toxic corporate environment.

Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
And absolutely, and.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
There their thought what you made, what you what? What
you said that made me think of it is when
you said when they leave and they notice in the
in the clouds part, because when you're in it, you're.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
Just like, well, this is just the way it is.
This is you know, this is.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
Called uh, you know micromanagement. This is what micromanagement is,
or this is what you know, this is what my
manager expects of me. And when you leave, you go.
That wasn't micromanagement.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
That was abusive.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
That was that was Yes, absolutely, I've had those I've
had those jobs too.

Speaker 4 (01:02:25):
Yeah, it happened.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Listen, it happens in the workplace. It happens in medicine, right,
I mean, this is and this is where these systemic
structures why I believe we have to address the systemic
nature of these things, right, because you've got in medicine,
black women's pain levels are believed less than pretty much

(01:02:49):
anyone else, and so they're actually have more medical trauma
because they're not medicated properly.

Speaker 4 (01:02:57):
You know. You there's black.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Women and labor and delivery and the there is a
much higher rate of infant mortality with black women and
maternal mortality in birth with black women because they're they're
not believed right, So again, this is a systemic issue.

Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
That we have to address.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
It happens again, medicine, corporate, it happens everywhere.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
It's everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
And you know in your book, do you go through
some of that as well to where you highlight that
this is happening everywhere so that these these women kind
of like feel included or is this something that is
part of your support networks?

Speaker 4 (01:03:45):
Yeah, so I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
You know, Look, I'm a I am a white woman.

Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
So what I like to do.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
Is I can't speak to these experiences from a personal right,
but I but I always I I try, and I
could probably do a hell of a lot better, but
I do try to at least point them out that like,
whatever you're going through from a systemic like I'm not
going to say to people like, well, there are people
who have it worse than you, because that's not helpful.

(01:04:15):
But I try to be inclusive in when I'm talking
about these things, to say things like and black women
have this far worse than white women do, because it
is important.

Speaker 4 (01:04:29):
I want to be inclusive.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
Enough so that when if like, if a black woman
is listening to my content, they feel seen and heard.
Right again, I can't speak to it from an experience,
from an experiential perspective, but I can name it, and
I think we.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
Have to name it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
And you've had clients and you've had people in your
support group.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
That are absolutely, oh yeah I work.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
I Yes, absolutely, I've had.

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
One on one clients who are our black women lesbians.

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
At first I was like, I don't know, I'm a lesbian,
but you know what.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
All this this stuff is actually pretty universal and so yes,
absolutely there's and you know, yeah, in my in my so,
I have a Facebook group. It's got over eighteen thousand
women at this point, I don't know, nineteen thousand and a.

Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
Lot of women of color, and they are.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Often sort of you know, we'll say that they you
know that they're grateful for how I have crafted this
space to be inclusive. I mean it's in the it's in.

Speaker 4 (01:05:32):
The group description.

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
Like you can, like if you're not inclusive, like if
you don't believe black lives matter and the science is
real and all of the things, then like this is
not the group for you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Like I like your clear distinctions between things, and I
love your take it or leave it almost take on things,
and I think it's very important. You know, you and
I talked about prior to to a hitting record in
terms of, you know, what's what's my role as a
podcast host, what's my role for this show? Of what
I try to carry out? And I try to carry

(01:06:02):
out an objective mission. I try to be very objective
and allow people to bring their points of views without
any judgment from my end. It's really for me. The
whole purpose of my show is for the listener. It's
for whoever's listening, whoever's you know, still listening with us,
to us right now after an hour in. It's because
what you're saying speaks to them, and so for me,

(01:06:22):
it's important to have that message come out there. So
I love that you're so clear as to who those
people are, because I'm going to relate it to business
here for a second, and that we have to be
very clear as entrepreneurs and as business leaders as to
what our missions are. And we can't because we can't
please everyone. We can't placate to everyone. We can't We

(01:06:46):
just we just can't. And you know, as a as
a as a speaker, myself as a as a professional speaker.
It's like, you know, if you're trying to speak to everyone,
you're speaking to no one, and if you're you know,
that's it. So I really appreciate that that you are
very clear on that messaging. I also think that what
it does and why I kind of asked the previous
question was what it does is it creates a comfort,

(01:07:09):
comfortable space, a save space for the people who are
aligned with your mission to where you know, goes back
to your whole parenting thing of like there is no
how will she accept this person in the group, or
will she accept that person? It's like, no, that person
is clear as day the type of person she's going
to accept. That person's clear as day the type of

(01:07:29):
person she's not going to And therefore I'm comfortable being here.
I don't have to worry about which parent to go
to after I hit the home run kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
So yeah, right, So I really really appreciate.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
That about the work that you're doing and how you
go about it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Listen, I think it's really important. Thank you for saying that,
because I do think it is really important. Look, there
are plenty of divorce coaches out there who may not
address the systemic issues, who may not talk about politics,
who may not you know, and that's that's like fine,
Like absolutely, go find your people. But this is what

(01:08:07):
I'm passionate about, and I'm going to talk about it,
and I'm gonna, you know, I will talk about the
fact that you know, I can't again, I can't talk
about women's empowerment without addressing the fact that women's rights
are being stripped politically across the country. Like it doesn't

(01:08:27):
for me, that doesn't make sense. I just like it
doesn't make sense, and that's fine. I'm not for everyone,
and that's fine.

Speaker 4 (01:08:37):
I don't want to be for everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
I don't want to be vanilla. I don't want to
like bleed outside all of the lines so that I
write I'm I'm I'm not. If I'm not speaking my truth,
then like what am.

Speaker 4 (01:08:52):
I doing here?

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
I want to go to the political thing with you,
and I mean it more in a sense of what
you're seeing happening, and then what can be done to
change it?

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Oh boy, okay, Oh is that the question?

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
So I don't have any specifics in it because I
don't know what's happening in terms of when you say, so,
here's here's what I want to say. I don't want
to say I don't know, because that's not entirely true.
I guess my optics of it are from what I am,
what I am receiving in terms of information. Right, that's
the best way I can maybe portray this is yeh

(01:09:31):
is that you know, I see Hillary Clinton, as you know,
running for president of the US. So I'm like, okay, great,
that's happening. I see a woman as a vice Oh no,
it was was she ran for it? I meant to say.
And I see, I see a vice president as a woman.
I see we have a couple other women in Senate.

(01:09:53):
I have local senators who are women who I know,
and I see women in the political space. I think
more now than I did growing up as a child
of the eighties nineties. Right, So I guess based off
of my lens, I'm going when you say something like that,
I'm going, oh what, my I'm more curious than I
am anything. So I'm like, so, what do you mean

(01:10:14):
by that? What's happening that I'm not seeing or that's
not being spoken about? And that's where my question lies
for you is what are you seeing? What are you
hearing that maybe isn't being spoken about that we're missing
out on.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
Well, I mean I think it's being spoken about a lot.
Is I mean, I'm talking about women's bodily autonomy, I'm
talking about abortion rights. I'm talking about the fact that
you know, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
What, I went to the political I went to the
political space you're talking about, like, gotcha.

Speaker 4 (01:10:42):
Sorry, Well that is political.

Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
That is political because this is these are the you know,
the laws, these are laws that are being made, and
so yeah, it is political. And sure Hillary Goodland ran
for president. She didn't get in because people didn't like her,
I mean, you know, and so you know, she was shrill,

(01:11:05):
I don't know, you know, she just wasn't likable, and
that there's a different bar for women in politics than
there is for men. And so like she wasn't likable,
but they so they voted for Trump. Like I don't
know what to say about that, Like I got I
got nothing.

Speaker 6 (01:11:24):
But but and so like there is a different bar,
there's a there's a you know, it's like, I'm sorry,
the country is how old and we have had zero
female presidents.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
We have had one black president, and the backlash against
him was so enormous that like we're still dealing with that.
But at the end of the day, women's rights, you know,
my my thing is like our rights are being stripped.
Our rights are being stripped. We're being you know, forced

(01:11:59):
to first of all, you know, being being you know,
being forced to carry babies that we may not want,
that often were put into us by by rapists, by
family members, you know, and even if they weren't, by

(01:12:21):
the way, we still get that we still get to choose,
you know, we should still get to choose.

Speaker 4 (01:12:26):
It's our body.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
And so if we can't choose what happens with our body,
like you know, this is this does bleed into what
I do and what my work because we you know,
there's this entitlement of men that says like you can't
leave me.

Speaker 4 (01:12:41):
You're not allowed to You're not allowed to make that choice.
And we're not allowed to choose. We're not allowed to
choose what we do with our bodies. We're not allowed
to choose what we do with our relationships.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
We're you know, and I'm not saying all the time,
but it is getting worse right now for us. Women's
rights are be we just over they overturned, Brophy Wade,
We don't.

Speaker 4 (01:13:06):
Literally we do not. By the way, the Equal Rights.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Amendment was brought up in nineteen twenty three, it has
not been ratified. Women actually do not have a constitutional
right to equality. We do not have a constitutional right
to equality, which means that when something happens to us,

(01:13:30):
we can't sue whoever it is for violating our constitutional
rights to equality because we don't have it, Like the
era has yet to be passed. This is a this
is a like systemically holy craft. This is what you're like,
I don't know, I don't know how much like I

(01:13:52):
don't know what else to say.

Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
Right, this is when you're a constitutional right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:55):
Yet when you're talking, this is what you're talking about.
And and so my follow up question two, that is,
and what is being done to change it? And it
doesn't have to be you personally doing it outside of course,
the work that you're doing already is part of the change.
I'm curious as to is there are there things, movements,
things happening to work on changing this.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
Absolutely, you know, there's the EER Coalition, there's a coalition
dedicated to like helping this.

Speaker 4 (01:14:22):
You know, get the era ratif.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
It's still not happening because they're grassroots, How is that
a grassroots movement?

Speaker 4 (01:14:31):
It's half the population. How is this grassroots? I don't know.
I'll never understand it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
I think, yes, we've got politically, we've got tons of
stuff happening. We've got people running for office that are
trying to make massive changes.

Speaker 4 (01:14:44):
We've got.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
I mean, this upcoming election is going to be a
really really, really really big deal for women and people
of color. We've got someone running for president who is
saying that they're actually going to literally has said it
in a Time magazine cover story this week that he
intends to round up immigrants, put them in camps and

(01:15:07):
deport them. We're talking millions of people. So there are
there things being done. Absolutely, and and you know this
is why when people are like, I don't like you
being political in your work, I say like, okay, then
go find somebody else like I'm sorry, I can't not be.

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
I'll tell you why they say that.

Speaker 4 (01:15:31):
I don't like what I have to say.

Speaker 3 (01:15:34):
No, I yeah, it could be.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
While it could be that, I think it also is
is I think it could be uncomfortable too, because it's
uncomfortable to hear, you know. And I and the reason
why I jumped right in to say that is because
I don't really I don't ever speak politics. I mean,
I guess, I don't know. I just don't write. So
I really don't ever speak politics. I don't think anybody
knows which side I land on. And maybe they make

(01:15:59):
their assumptions because because I don't speak it, and maybe
my silence says, oh, then he's on the other side,
which probably isn't true. But I think it's because it
makes me very uncomfortable. And I think the argument, yeah,
the the arguments that the debates that happen, and and
and and I'll say this, I'll throw it back to
parenting for a second here.

Speaker 3 (01:16:18):
I think it's because I saw.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
How my father gets so enraged when he speaks about
politics with someone about his views and somebody who excuse me,
and and and that and that, yeah, yeah, and when
they're opposed and raigs in the sense of like argumentative, right, Like,
I mean, he's not I want to preface all, you know,
he's he's not in any way dangerous, right, so so

(01:16:43):
so more more of just like he gets so heated, right,
And because we see this so often of like whenever
somebody and it's not just my father's, other other people
that I know in my life that whenever you bring
up political and you could be on whichever side you
want to choose, if they're against it, they get so upset. Right,
and we between Fox News and CNN, Right, we could
just use those as the example instead of our parents.

(01:17:05):
My point is is that I'm uncomfortable with that. Like
as a so, I was on a speech and debate team.
You know, I have a podcast where I try to
be as objective as possible and I bring up speech
and debate because as a debater, for me, my whole
thing of winning and how I won in state championships
is to be so objective that you could argue both

(01:17:26):
sides and to be able to see both sides, to
always whether you.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
Agree or disagree doesn't matter. You always are able to see.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
And here's the thing I think that is even so
important to be able to win a debate is not
just see it, but empathize with it. You can feel it,
Like I can argue two sides of an argument and
you would you would never know because I'm so passionate
about both sides because I really feel both sides. I
say all of this because I think that when we

(01:17:55):
bring up politics, that's for me at least where I
get uncomfortable because I can feel both sides. I can
feel both sides of it, and so I get uncomfortable.
So when you talk about saying, oh, they don't want
to talk about it because they get it, because you
know they don't want to talk about I think part
of it is because they disagree, and I think there's
the other side that is it's just uncomfortable sometimes. But

(01:18:16):
I think it's important, and that's why I wanted to
stay here with you because I think everything you have
to say, whether anybody agrees or disagrees, like like I said,
I don't think anybody's on here with us right now
if they disagree with you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
But I.

Speaker 3 (01:18:31):
Don't find that, lady, unless they're like me.

Speaker 1 (01:18:34):
But I think it's so important for everybody to hear
about the things that you're talking about because it all
goes back to the work that you do. And we've
talked about this right from the beginning, you and I
before we hit record, is that the systemic structure which
we know is in place. I've spoken about it with
the female founders of really big organizations and being the

(01:18:55):
only woman in the boardroom, especially in the tech industry.
I've had a woman on from the tech industry and
she's just like, I'm the only woman there, and so
we talk about how do we make change? And that's
why I keep asking that how do we change it?
And you're right, it's it's so from the top down
that it's so challenging, but it's so important to bring
awareness to all of this. And I think, I know

(01:19:16):
you had mentioned it before about like women's power, and
it's like, you know, and it's beyond that, but I
think just from that small level of empowering women, you know,
I speak to my daughters all the time about standing
up for what they believe in, and we have these
conversations at home of standing in your power of what
is it that you want? And even as a nine
year old, when my daughter wants something that I don't want,

(01:19:39):
like and I'm not talking about being spoiled. I'm talking
about like a decision of whether she's eating this or not.
And I'm not talking about like yeah, candy over over vegetables.
I'm speaking about really things that it was But my
point is like things that she truly has an opinion on,
and it's fair for her to have her opinion. I
tell her, even if you think you're gonna upset me

(01:20:00):
or make me feel bad, you have to stand by
that decision. It's important. So I think it's these little
things that can start sparking these changes later on in life.

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
My listen, fully, I fully agree with that. As a parent,
my favorite, one of my favorite parenting moments was when
my son really wanted a new Xbox, like really wanted,
you know, he was he was much younger, and I
think it was a I think it was an upgrade situation, right,
or just to get an Xbox, Like you just want
an Xbox. And I was like, you know, sorry, dude,

(01:20:36):
I'm sorry that, like all your friends have them, like whatever.
That child, and he was probably around eight or nine,
wrote me a two page letter laying out his arguments,
laying out like why it was important to him, what mattered,
you know what, you know, what the compromises would be like,

(01:20:57):
all of this to the point where I got this
letter and I was like, all right, congratulations, you're getting an.

Speaker 3 (01:21:02):
Xbox kid, Because he did.

Speaker 4 (01:21:07):
He did a great job. He did a great job,
and I didn't tell him to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
By the way, he was like my son when he
wants something, when he's when when he's he has severe ADHD,
he has no focus. But when he except, when he
has hyper focus, and when he wants something, he gets
hyper focused and fixated on it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
And and speaking of writing and needing to be hyper focused,
let's talk about your book.

Speaker 3 (01:21:29):
The dal right, Yeah, the D word.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
The D word. I want I want us to to
speak about that, and yeah, there it is, and I
want us to speak about that and how you were
able to get you know, the manuscript out, get it
published and where people can find it and purchase it.
And I know you have a special way of doing this.

Speaker 2 (01:21:52):
So yeah, well, so yes, the D word. Making the
ultimate decision about your marriage, That's exactly what it is.
It's my process for women, helping women decide whether to
stay or go. And then a whole bunch of other
information that is necessary about the process of divorce and
like what it even looks like, because you know, you
can't make these decisions without actually knowing like.

Speaker 4 (01:22:14):
What's on the other side.

Speaker 2 (01:22:17):
And in terms of the process, I mean it was
one of those things where I was like, am I
going to self publish? Am I going to traditionally publish?
And I was going back and forth, and I was like, finally,
I was like, you know, it's great, I'm just going
to self publish.

Speaker 4 (01:22:27):
And I hired a book coach and we started.

Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
Working on it, and she was like, yeah, you're gonna
need to stop writing this and write your proposal because
we need to this needs to be traditionally published. And
I was like, oh, come on, But she was great
and she was right, and I, you know, wrote the proposal,
sent it out to a bunch of agents, got an

(01:22:50):
amazing agent, very lucky, and then they sent it out
to a bunch of editors, got an amazing editor and
a publisher. And so that's sort of the process, right.
Like the weird thing about writing a book is that
if you're going to have it traditionally published, they don't
for for nonfiction, they don't buy a manuscript, they buy

(01:23:11):
a proposal.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
They want to know.

Speaker 2 (01:23:13):
Unfortunately, in traditional publishing, they want to know how many
followers you have, and they want to know, like what
you're going to do to sell your book because ps
they're not going to do shit, unfortunately, and so you know,
and then once that was you know, bought, then it
was you know, writing. I had to I did have

(01:23:34):
to take some time off because the work that I
do with women is so exhausting, emotionally exhausting that I
did not see how I was going to be working
with women and then like writing writing about it all night,
like it was just there was no break. So I
took a couple months off of client work and I
focused entirely on I did. I did my podcast throughout it,

(01:23:59):
but then I focus entirely on the writing. And the
process was fairly you know simple. I would submit chapters
to my editor, she would send them back with notes
and we would just go back and forth and it
was a great process. And then she really got it.
I mean, I will say that my editor really got
the book, and she got my.

Speaker 4 (01:24:23):
My values.

Speaker 2 (01:24:24):
We shared the values and so like her notes were
really smart about how to make it better. And then
it is out. It came out in December, and the
audiobook just came out. And that's probably one of the
more important aspects because this is not a book that
a lot of people can like safely have sitting around

(01:24:46):
like on their nightstand. You know, it says what it
is right on the front, making the ultimate decision about
your marriage. So like, you know, even my friends have
bought it and had to like put a sticky note
on it, being like, I know the author, I'm not
buying this because I'm questioning it. So the audiobook is

(01:25:08):
available now, and that's a really important just opportunity for
women to be able to hew you know, have sort
of safe and secure access to the content. And I
also sorry, I also have a page on my website
with if you did want to buy the book, like
how to do so in a way that might be
safe as well.

Speaker 1 (01:25:29):
Yeah, and then where where can people download? It?

Speaker 3 (01:25:32):
Is on all all downloadable all yes.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):
All audiobook platforms, and I don't actually know what a
lot that.

Speaker 4 (01:25:40):
There's Google Play and Audible.

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
But here's the thing, right again for Audible, if it's
if you have a shared Amazon account, it's going to
show up in your account. So either start your own
Amazon account, separate if you're gonna if you're thinking about
the worse than like, maybe it's time to start separating

(01:26:03):
these things out time. There's it, Well, right, exactly, people
are like what percentage of your clients actually go if
they're considering staying or going. And I'm like, well, if
there are people who are in healthy, happy relationships, do
not wake up at six three o'clock in the morning
going I wonder if I should stay and or leave
my marriage? Right, Like, you don't ask yourself that question, right, Michael.

(01:26:24):
You're you're in a happy marriage, right, So that is
the kind of their first clue.

Speaker 4 (01:26:30):
So yeah, so there's so wherever wherever audiobooks are. I
do a lot of libraries.

Speaker 2 (01:26:35):
You're carrying it now, so that's you know, an option
as well. They do the audio books, you know, you
can get them on at your library. But again, be
careful if you're sharing a library account, don't put it
on your shared account if you.

Speaker 3 (01:26:51):
Don't want them knowing.

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
The other question I have in terms of the writing piece,
and this is this is more of my this is
me wanting some coaching here. By the way, okay, with
the proposal that you sent, So what is what is
this proposal? So you said it's it's is it about
the it's about the book, or it's about you?

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
Yeah, so it's both. The proposal has a bunch of
different sections to it. There's like you know your bio,
how you're going to promote it, Like, what's your.

Speaker 4 (01:27:23):
Marketing plan for this book? They want to know what.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
So you also have to have an outline chapter summaries,
and then a couple of sample chapters because they want
to see how you write, and then all sorts of
other ship about yourself you have.

Speaker 1 (01:27:42):
It's kind of like already a thought out plan before
even going to them. And then in terms of selling
the books, is this something where so when you're when
you're publishing through a publishing house, are you kind of
on the hook for let's say, a monetary hook of
their they're holding X amount.

Speaker 2 (01:27:58):
No, I mean they gave me an advance, but the
advance isn't like you know a lot of some of
them don't give advances, some give higher, lower, whatever the
advance is, you don't have to give it back if
you don't recoup it.

Speaker 4 (01:28:14):
I think if that's the question, you don't have to
give it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):
That's their sort of that it's like their deposit, but
they're not asking for it back.

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
Is there a way of you being able to make
time now to write the book?

Speaker 2 (01:28:28):
It kind of right, exactly, it's yeah, exactly, it's an opportunity.
It's like the opportunity to say, Okay, I'm going to
put my client work on pause so that I can
actually write this book exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:28:36):
Yeah, it's interesting. There's there's like a lot of different
schools of thought. That's why I kind of bring this up.
You know, I'm self publishing right now. I just had
somebody on recently who has a published book, and so
we you know, kind of had a conversation. So it's
just I'm just I'm interested in all sides of it,
all of like, what's you know, the way to go
about it. I also want to give kudos to your

(01:28:58):
writing coach or your coach for recognizing that, you know,
they this was beyond you know what their scope of work,
let's say, and not just you know, keep breaking in
the checks.

Speaker 3 (01:29:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:29:11):
She was very clear.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
She was like I think I feel very strongly that
this needs to be traditionally published.

Speaker 1 (01:29:17):
And I was like, good for her.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
I was like, okay, but and actually she recommend she
referred me to her agent, and she's a romance writer
by the way, like we're totally different. Shoenre She referred
me to her agents and they were like, yeah, well,
let's do this.

Speaker 3 (01:29:33):
So they were able to see the other side of
the argument.

Speaker 2 (01:29:37):
They were that's right, and how nice.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
I'm wearing a shirt today, says love. This is This
has been a very enlightening conversation that we've had. I
don't think I've ever had one as I don't know.
I think like about three times throughout our conversation, I
was just like, I don't know if I could air
this one.

Speaker 3 (01:30:00):
Oh God, I'm worried about all the people.

Speaker 1 (01:30:03):
I'm gonna have to write some letters after this, I
have to sign some waivers.

Speaker 2 (01:30:08):
Oh no, well you can just like, look, you can
just put it in the intro that like, you know, look,
this is not for everybody listen. But that's it, right,
like as as business owners, as entrepreneurs, like, we're not
for everyone, and that's fine. Don't come for me, don't
come for Michael, just like.

Speaker 1 (01:30:27):
You know I as I think that that's what's so important,
and that's why I want to bring that up during
our conversation, and that we have to be able to
be who we are at all times and acknowledge our
past or acknowledge our histories, acknowledge the people around us,
and and solve all of our like maybe solves not

(01:30:51):
maybe the right writer, but at least work on all
of the things that are in our lives. And I
think that that's why the conversation with you is so important,
is while we didn't necessly speak about entrepreneurship or writing
a book, we really did speak about something that's really
really important, which is our relationships. And I think your message,
while it's it's to work with and empower women, especially

(01:31:14):
those with children, I think the overarching message to it
all is to work with people and to really support
people in a way where we know that we're in loving,
caring relationships. And that's the utmost importance because, as you
had said it before, in order to change the system,
in order to change anything that's happening. You know, we
talked about the men in the whole thing too, and

(01:31:36):
there's all the other genders as well, which you know
I want to pay respect to as well, in the
LGBTQ community and all that in that whoever you are,
wherever you are, I think you know, being respected, being loved,
and being in a relationship where you're respected in love
is of the utmost importance. And I think the message
in this whole conversation that we had is to just

(01:31:56):
make sure that you are in that right relationship and
if you're not, to find people that can help you.
I think that regardless of what gender you are, I
think that Kate, you're a great starting point for most
people because you might have the resources to send them to.

Speaker 2 (01:32:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:32:13):
Yeah, well, thank you for saying that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
And you know, I do to believe that we all
we should all be happy in our relationships. I mean,
it's the most intimate relationship we have in our in
our lives, like we should we deserve to have them
be happy and fulfilling, you know. And I also want
to say for those who are that I'm not for right.
If anyone's listening, who is like this, lady, Look, I

(01:32:40):
my job is to empower women. I'm my job is
to help them and find their voices. My job is
to help them stand truly in their self, help them
find themselves, capital s self and stand in that. And
if I'm not doing that myself, I'm not I can't

(01:33:00):
do my job. So I which is why I'm sort
of like unabashed and unashamed about talking about the things
that actually matter to me. I I stand very strong
in my values. They may not be your they may
not be your values.

Speaker 4 (01:33:15):
That's okay.

Speaker 2 (01:33:16):
My job is not to prescribe values. My job is
to help you find yours and stand strongly in them.
And so that's what I'm modeling. And I do it
organically because that's who I am, because that's what this is, right,
This is about the organic experience of being who you are.

Speaker 1 (01:33:33):
Yeah, yeah, and that you're right. And that's exactly the
wonderful part about podcasting today is that it's not a polished,
soap box type of conversation of all right, tell me
exactly what you're here for, and let's keep it clean
and let's keep it between the lines. It really is.
So I want to make sure, speaking of podcasts, that

(01:33:55):
everybody knows how to find you. And you have. You
have a one wonderfully curated podcasts. I went to your side,
I checked it out. You have a wonderfully curated podcast
where you even get down to the nitty gritty of
tell me about you, and I'll make sure that you
get the right podcast episode sent to you. So I
love that. Yes, you have your book that's out, you

(01:34:16):
have your Facebook group, you have so many different ways
to support your community, and so I'd love if you
can just share. Of course this will be in the
show notes, but if you could share for our audio
listeners how they might be able to get in touch
with you.

Speaker 4 (01:34:31):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:34:32):
Well, everything is on my website Kadanthony dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
Love it.

Speaker 2 (01:34:36):
And yeah, my podcast is the Divorced Survival Guide podcast
and that's everywhere wherever you listen, and I do have
the curated podcast playlists. Thank you for saying that, and
just like answer a couple questions and I'll send you
what's right for you. And just from like a business,
you know, perspective, it's really interesting because I really do

(01:34:56):
have two specific client groups.

Speaker 4 (01:34:59):
Those are trying to decide whether to stay or go.

Speaker 2 (01:35:02):
And then those who are have already made the decision,
but then of like, oh god, what now right, And
they don't necessarily translate one to the other, because the
decision making process can be years long. Right, So we've
done a lot of work and research and metrics to
figure out to track these things, and they're really not
They're people coming to me at two very distinct spots.

(01:35:24):
And so for those who are coming to me at
the I know I need to go, Now what or
I'm in the process of going and oh my god,
I need support. I have an amazing group program called
Phoenix Rising, and that just really you know, it's divorce
can be such an isolating, lonely experience, and when women

(01:35:48):
come together and as a collective to go through this
process together, they just kind of come out so much
bigger and stronger.

Speaker 4 (01:35:57):
So that's an amazing And it's very low.

Speaker 2 (01:36:00):
Priced as well, so it's very reasonable and accessible.

Speaker 4 (01:36:04):
So I have that, and then I have my should
I Stare Should I Go?

Speaker 2 (01:36:07):
Online program my Facebook group.

Speaker 4 (01:36:10):
If you just search should I Stare? Should I Go?

Speaker 2 (01:36:11):
With Kate Anthony in Facebook, you'll find it. It's a
very special place. Follow the rules and you'll have no problems.
We're very We're very specific about the rules because we
don't allow venting or bashing or nasty comments.

Speaker 4 (01:36:28):
Like we keep it real clean and real.

Speaker 2 (01:36:30):
Sweet in there, because there's enough nastiness on the internet.
I don't want anything to do with it. Yeah, So yeah,
I've got I've got stuff for everybody at all price
points and at all stages.

Speaker 1 (01:36:44):
Awesome, Awesome, this has been, like I said, just a
great conversation with you. And you know, It's really great
because you made me have to go inside and internally
and really think about my relationships and really do my
own little personal assessments as you were speaking, and just
you know, checking in. And I know that after this
conversation I'll be calling up Devin and being like.

Speaker 3 (01:37:04):
Hey, how do you feel about me?

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
I'm just kidding.

Speaker 3 (01:37:06):
I'm just kidding, but I.

Speaker 1 (01:37:08):
Probably will because I usually do call her right after
my shows because that's my way home, is given her call.
But anyway, I do want to say I really did
have a great time speaking with you and really learning
about the work that you do. And I really do
mean that in the internal dialogue that I had to have,
because it's not always. You know, I'm not always emotionally
challenged during my interviews or during my conversations with a guest.

(01:37:32):
You know, there's different challenges that come up, but this
one was like an emotional challenge, and so I want
to just thank you for.

Speaker 3 (01:37:38):
That, because no, in a good way.

Speaker 1 (01:37:39):
I an emotional challenge. In a good way.

Speaker 3 (01:37:42):
I want to thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:37:43):
For that because it really speaks to your authentic self
of how ingrained you are in your values and what
you stand for and what you believe in and I
am so happy that you shared that today.

Speaker 2 (01:37:55):
Thank you so much, Michael, You're awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:37:57):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (01:37:58):
I really appreciate it's been a great come conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:38:00):
Cool, It's been a great one. Thank you for listening
to The Michael Esposito Show. For show notes, video clips,
and more episodes, go to Michael Espositoinc. Dot com backslash podcast.
Thank you again to our sponsor dn ten Insurance Services
helping businesses get the right insurance for all their insurance needs.
Visit Denten dot io to get a quote that's d

(01:38:23):
E n ten dot io and remember, when you buy
an insurance policy from Denten, you're giving back on a
global scale. This episode was produced by Uncle Mike at
the iHeart Studios in Poughkeepsie. Special thanks to Lara Rodrian
for the opportunity and my team at Michaelsposito, Inc.

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