August 15, 2025 • 42 mins
Woman - Divorce & Money – Join us on The Awakening as Host Tina Huggins, Divorce & "Narcissist Conflict" Specialist, welcomes Guest Rhonda Noordyk, Financial Divorce Advocate and founder of The Women's Financial Wellness Center. In this empowering episode, Rhonda shares expert insights to help women navigate the complex financial aspects of divorce with clarity and confidence. Discover how to secure your financial future and make empowered money decisions during one of life’s most challenging transitions — only on NEWStreamingNetwork.com.
More About Tina: Tina Huggins, CTA Life Coach certified, CDC Divorce Coach, CDC Transitions Coach, CDC Recovery Coach, TKG Restorative Family Mediator Certified, TKG Family Circle Certified. I have coached for over 30 years coming from the background of law enforcement and self-defense instructor.
Connect with Tina:
Email: coachtinalynn@gmail.com
Website: https://divorcecoachspecialist
More about Rhonda Noordyk: Rhonda Noordyk is the founder and CEO of Financial Divorce Advocate, Host of Disrupting Divorce: Conversations for Women podcast and Best-Selling Author. Rhonda founded her company in 2014. Prior to that, she spent over a decade working with a boutique Registered Investment Advisory firm during the day and teaching college courses in the evenings. Her background afforded her the opportunity to develop curriculum, deliver training programs and communicate in an encouraging and empowering way. She has worked with over 900 clients. She wants women to know they don't have to walk this journey alone—and they certainly don’t have to settle for anything less than a joy-filled, vibrant life!
Connect with Rhonda Noordyk:
rhonda@wfwcllc.com
https://womensfinancialwellnesscenter.com/
More About Tina: Tina Huggins, CTA Life Coach certified, CDC Divorce Coach, CDC Transitions Coach, CDC Recovery Coach, TKG Restorative Family Mediator Certified, TKG Family Circle Certified. I have coached for over 30 years coming from the background of law enforcement and self-defense instructor.
Connect with Tina:
Email: coachtinalynn@gmail.com
Website: https://divorcecoachspecialist
More about Rhonda Noordyk: Rhonda Noordyk is the founder and CEO of Financial Divorce Advocate, Host of Disrupting Divorce: Conversations for Women podcast and Best-Selling Author. Rhonda founded her company in 2014. Prior to that, she spent over a decade working with a boutique Registered Investment Advisory firm during the day and teaching college courses in the evenings. Her background afforded her the opportunity to develop curriculum, deliver training programs and communicate in an encouraging and empowering way. She has worked with over 900 clients. She wants women to know they don't have to walk this journey alone—and they certainly don’t have to settle for anything less than a joy-filled, vibrant life!
Connect with Rhonda Noordyk:
rhonda@wfwcllc.com
https://womensfinancialwellnesscenter.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to WGSNDB Go and Solo Network Singles talk
radio channel, where we take a lighthearted and candidate approach
to discussions on the journey of relationship, laws, divorce, parenting,
being single, relationships, building, dating, and yes sex. Join our
listeners and begin living your best life.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello and welcome to our show, The Awakening here on WDSNDB,
the Going Bold and Going Solo Network. So the information
and opinions expressed on the show are just that, the
opinions of the individual speaking based on their individual personal experiences.
They are not intended to diagnose and do not constitute
(00:48):
professional advice or recommendations. So you know the pain, the stress,
and the struggle that divorcing men and women go through.
While there is a way to find peace and sanity
all why assisting your lawyer in the legal process which
saves you thousands of dollars. My name's Tina Huggins. I'm
(01:08):
your divorce coach, specialist, divorce planning specialist, restorative family mediator
and confliction co parenting coach.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
And joining me here.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Today is Ronda and Ronda is the founder and CEO
of Financial Divorce Advocate.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
She is the host of.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Disrupting divorce Conversations for Women podcast and a best selling author.
Ronda founded her company in twenty fourteen. Prior to that,
she spent over a decade working with a boutique registered
investment advisory firm during the day and teaching college courses
(01:50):
in the evening. Her background afforded her the opportunity to
develop a curriculum, deliver training programs, and communicate in an
encouraging and empowering way. She has worked with over nine
hundred clients. She wants women to know they don't have
to walk this journey alone, and they certainly don't have
(02:14):
to settle for anything less than a joy filled, vibrant life.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
So welcome, Ronda, Hey, welcome.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It's great.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I mean, it's been so long since we talked the
first time, and prepping to come into the show today,
I had to read up and kind of go over
all of my notes and then of course your bio
as you came in. So can you tell us all
how you got started into the divorce arena in this
direction anyway?
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Yeah? Absolutely So. One of the words that you mentioned
in your introduction is bold, and I feel like even
as a young kid, I was the one who really
wanted to fight for the underdog and do what was right,
and so there was always this aspect of wanting to advocate.
And so like many people that are in this space,
(03:08):
they may have started because they've gone through divorce, and
that is not my story. My story is I actually
started in the space because I saw women that were
coming through my doors when I was in the financial
industry that were feeling lost and overwhelmed and didn't feel
like their voice mattered. And I thought, gosh, there's so
much to this, and so long story short, I had
(03:29):
a friend who ended up losing her husband. She was
widowed in her late forties, had two young kids, and
we also had a series of friends that were going
through divorce, and I noticed that there was a lot
of overlap. So we did a focus group and I
said to these guls, what's working, what isn't? What do
you need? What do you want? And I left there
(03:49):
and you know, who knows how many boxes of Kleenex
later and I'm driving home and I'm like, we're going
to figure this out. I don't know the answer, I
don't know how I'm going to do it, but we're
going to find a way to bring funny literacy, financial education,
financial empowerment to women that are in these major life transitions.
And some of you might be thinking, well, yeah, Ronda,
that's what people are doing. Eleven years ago, nobody was
(04:09):
really doing that. Everybody was like, hey, I'm going to
the attorney. There wasn't an area of financial experts. There
weren't really coaches. I know they were around, but it
was not a thing. And so for me, it really
has been about not wanting to see women be silenced
and hating abuse, and those two things, with my personality
(04:32):
and my background and area of expertise, really put me
in a good place to advocate for women.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And I think that, you know, that's an important aspect.
I hear a lot of cdfas and financial advisors in
general just saying that women come into the space without
as much knowledge as the men do, and so I
understand helping them through. And it's interesting because as as
(05:00):
we've talked, I focused a lot of my work towards men,
and it's interesting in my world that a lot of
the men that I deal with come in with less
financial literacy then they should, and then the woman in
their life and we find that they're getting as you
probably see this often with the women because I see
(05:21):
it too, is that there's financial abuse because of that.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, at the end of the day,
right when I first started my business, one of the
questions that I would often get one of the two Branda,
have you been through divorce? No, Brana, do you work
with men? I have worked with a very small handful
of men over the years. But my answer to that is, listen,
I'm not saying that the men aren't worthy of help.
I think that they deserve help. I think they deserve
(05:44):
great resources. I think they deserve great care and advocacy.
But I just found my passion with the women, and
I was like, hey, I'm one person and I do
have to sleep occasionally, and so I'm just going to
plant my flag here and fully today in you being
one of them, Tina, there are people to help the guys.
(06:04):
When I started, there wasn't really anybody to help. There
weren't male coaches, there weren't women who were specializing in
helping them met and so I love to see where
the industry has gone because I think it's important.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And you know, you pointed out that ten years ago,
there wasn't the training and the help, and there wasn't
there were divorce coaches, because that's about when the school
that I went to started putting people out. And I
can tell you that that especially where you know you
talked about you had a friend that had lost her husband.
(06:39):
I lost my husband a year ago, and so going
through all of that and and finding myself in a
place that I needed help, I had to reach out
and get help. And I can tell you when I
got divorced twenty two years ago, I didn't reach out
and get help until after everything was all said and done,
and I needed a hole lot more help than than
(07:01):
I would have had I asked for help prior so
reaching out and for me, some of the people that
I think are the most important for the high conflict
cases that I work are cdfas and of course the
right attorney for the situation, and if they already have
a therapist, then then of course we're going to work
together with the therapy that we work on with the client.
(07:25):
But I find, especially in the high conflict where we
see any abuse, financial abuse is always there, and having
a CDFA that can come in and put the numbers
down and explain the numbers to the client because so
many people, like an attorney can talk just legalise and
then my client's blazed out and that's where I try
(07:48):
to explain that to them so they understand. So when
you start explaining this to these women, where do you
find that you have to start? What are they missing
the most of.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
You know, that's an interesting question. I it's not probably
what people are thinking my answer is going to be.
But at the end of the day, I believe that
their gap is in the confidence. It's not that the
women aren't smart enough to do it. But then the
question is, Okay, what's the formula for confidence? Randa like,
how do we get confident? Well, it's the knowledge of
(08:22):
some of the basic things, and it's the experience.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
There.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
If we have the knowledge without the experience, it's theory.
If we have the experience without the knowledge is trial
and error. But when we get those two things working together,
we cannot only help move in the direction of the confidence,
but we can expedite that process. So what are some
of those things when we talk about the knowledge piece, Well,
many of the women that I'm working with haven't handled
(08:47):
the finances they might be paying the bills or doing
some of the day to day things, but when it
comes outside of that kind of day to day stuff,
they're like, gosh, Ronda, I don't know where our stuff is.
I'm not sure what we have. I didn't really handle it.
I'm feeling shame about that. I feel guilty that I
didn't know what was going up, and to which I say, Okay, well,
we're going to take it step by step and you
(09:08):
don't have to drink out of a fire hose, and
in fact, you don't even have to know everything. We
just have to be able to ask really good questions.
And so as women get that knowledge of their finances
and their budget and their expenses and trying to figure
out answering some of those questions that they have that
keep them up at night, we can start to dial
(09:28):
that in and then it's okay, now we got to
roll our sleeves and do something. So I'm not a
CDFA who says, hey, give me all the info, I'm
gonna cruntle the numbers and I'm just gonna spit out report.
I'm engaging the women to say, listen, here's what I
want you to be thinking. About or here's what I'd
like you to be doing. Well. I'm working on this
because my goal is not just to hey, listen, I
want to be the smartest person in the room. I
(09:50):
want them to come out of this process saying, you
know what, I know how to think, I know how
to ask questions. I know that if I don't know
the answer, it's okay to ask, and it puts them
in a really good place and sets them up for
success in that next chapter. So that's how I work
(10:11):
with my clients and how I approach them as they're
really feeling like there was a lack of confidence.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And as you were telling that story, I just finished
a divorce with It was a high conflict divorce and
a lot of money was involved with this, and a
CDFA had asked for me to come in to help
with it, and the CDFA decided that they were going
(10:39):
to work with both parties, and that ended up to
be disastrous. I mean, both parties ended up hating that
CDFA and blaming them for a bunch of stuff. And
my client when she came to me, because it was
a female in this case, when she came to me,
she didn't have confidence. She told me he always handled
(11:00):
all the money, and then after the CDFA finished the
work that they did do and handed it off to them,
there were numbers that didn't jive with the CPA that
was doing all the books for her company. And so
long story short, through the course of everything, my working
(11:21):
with her and then working I mean, we would have
phone calls where her CPA was on the line, and
so he was telling me what he was seeing. She
put together the most amazing work.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I have ever seen.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
In fact, so good that her attorney asked if she
could teach that program to her people because she just
took over. And after we talked through all of this,
she goes, you know, he didn't really do all the
money work. She says, I didn't realize how much of
it I actually did.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
And she said, I work with my company.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It was a million dollar company where we're trying to
organize all of the finances. So I work alongside my
CPA all the time, my financial guy, and so we
were able to get her to where she could see again.
She was able to pull off her own blinders and go,
oh my god, I did all this all this time,
and that strength that she had after that was just amazing.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Yeah, you know, we got to look at previous successes,
right and celebrate things that we've been able to handle
well in the past that will help us move forward.
I was working with a client one time and she
very similarly super like super smart, but she man she
was tim and when it came to the finances. So
I was taking her through an exercise and one of
the things that we identified as part of that was
(12:44):
what have you done in the past that you've done
a little bit of but you want.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
To do more of, and what are some of the successes.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
And what came out of those questions was Randa, you
know what, I handled all of the estate stuff for
my parents passing away, and I was the power of attorney,
which I always say is like the gift that doesn't
quit giving, you know, because you don't realize all the
things that you have to do on the back end,
as I'm sure probably you've had to deal with, Like
Holy Kyle, this is like a full time job. And
(13:12):
so she ended up successfully managing that. I'm like, look
at you, look at how organized you were, look at
what questions you answered, look at the professionals that you
surrounded yourself with Listen, you've essentially done a lot of
these things that you're going to be asked to do
as part of the divorce process. Let's lean into that,
and I need you to remember when you did that successfully.
(13:33):
So I think those are really powerful. One of the
other things that you mentioned, and I think i'd like
to just touch on this for a minute, because there
are different roles that cdfas can play. And one of
the questions that I always encourage people to ask is
you can ask the CDFA if you're considering hiring somebody,
how many cases have you done. I've been hundreds and
(13:56):
hundreds and hundreds of cases, and so there's all you know,
there's always going to be things. I'm like, wow, that's it.
I have a case right now in Alaska. I was like, huh,
I don't know if I've ever seen that before, because
Alaska does some very specific things that are unique to Alaska.
And I've talked to four other professional like hey, have
you ever do They're like no, I'm like, okay, well
I win, you know, like I win the prize. I'm
(14:17):
like identifying, you know, some some interesting things. But I'm
an advocate. I'm always going to be looking at from
that perspective, and sometimes when people want a neutral, they
feel like, well, I just want a neutral person. I
just want somebody who's going to you know, be neutral,
be Switzerland, whatever. And sometimes that can be really challenging
(14:37):
because the person who is feeling this imbalance of power
doesn't feel like they're getting their questions answered or you know,
doesn't really feel like they have somebody in their corner.
They leave the meeting. It made sense in the meeting.
Now they're like, Okay, who do I ask, you know,
because I have some questions And so I think at
the end of the day, those are some questions that
I would encourage people to ask. You know, how many
(14:58):
cases have they done? Do they work only in one state?
Do they work nationally? Are they a neutral? Are they
an advocate? I think those are all really important questions.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
And I can tell you from all the cases that
I've worked being chi conflict is that one being a
neutral with the conflict it's never ever going to work.
And so when I came in, that had already been
set up in place, and so I did my best
(15:30):
to be the advocate to help with that. And when
questions weren't getting answered and more money was being asked for.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
It's like then both parties shut down.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
They both threw that I don't know, six thousand dollars
report away because it was to them useless. Now what
happened later is I was able to pull in that
those numbers that were inside there and have them use
the foundation numbers to help build what my client did.
But yeah, I have learned that it's just better, and
(16:05):
I could guess every time with the women like that,
it's just best to have an advocate because when you
come in without the knowledge, you have to have somebody
that can answer those questions for you.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Yeah, I think that's a function of being a neutral
because a lot of times people are like, oh, I
don't want to seem like I'm taking a side, so
I'm not going to answer a question, or I'm going
to be super vague, or it's very strange. And I
think that, you know, again, having done this for eleven years,
you see how the pendulum has swung. When I first started,
it was pretty much litigation, and you know, really the
(16:39):
people that very few people were doing mediation or as
many as now it's being pushed to do, like hey,
everybody's saying mediation is the best thing. Everybody should be
doing mediation. Everybody should be hang our neutral. But to
your pointing, like in these high conflict situations, it is
I have not seen that work well in the eleven
years that I've been doing this. This is that's you
(16:59):
need a strategy, you need to make sure that you've
got the right people. And it's not fitting you know,
the square peg in their own whole kind of thing,
like everybody should be doing it, And okay, well show
me the results. Show men, how many how many high
conflict neutrals were able to get it over the finish line?
How many you know what I mean, like people that
were in those high conflict situations. How many mediators were
(17:21):
able to get There's one mediator that I work with
that's in New Jersey, she works nationally. She is the
only one of all the mediators that I personally have
worked with that can get it over the finish line
in high conflict. And that's a skill, right, It's incredible.
It's I am in awe of how she can look
(17:44):
at both of the sides, look at it from different angles,
not just pair it back and forth and use the
fear of Hey, if you go to court, this is
what's going to happen. It's actually coming up with creative
solutions to get a resolution. And very few people in
my opinion, do that.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Well, yes, and it is very difficult to do.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I as a mediator will even find some of the
communication from the other side where we have a hard
time one person trusting the other person. And so when
you separate, because in my case we're looking at abuse,
so we have two separate zoom rooms that we work with,
(18:26):
and then I do shuttle mediation, and that shuttle mediation, well,
when you're over there, what are you telling that person?
And I have been in a mediation with a client
where I saw that mediator kiss butt in that room
and come over and kiss but in this room I
saw it happen.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
I'm like, how in the hell is this working. It's
it didn't.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Eight hours later, there was not one thing, not one
thing they came to know or agree on. It was
just the most horrible time frame. And then that mediator
decided that they were going to arbitrate that and spent
the next nine months arbitrating that, taking the woman out
(19:12):
to dinner and lunch a few times trying to get
her to cooperate.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Yeah, that's crazy. I didn't realize that mean that arbitration
could go that long. I don't see the arbitration that much.
I thought it was a shorter period in which that arbitration.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, yeah, it should have been.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
It should have been much shorter and not once did
the arbiter do what an arbiter supposed to do.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
But there was money involved.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So when you see a dollar sign, and I see
it with I don't so much see it with the
lawyers I'm working with, but I can see the other
sides lawyer by what comes back to my client, I'm like,
oh my god, they see a dollar sign, they're going
to run this as long as they can keep that
football run in because there's a dollar sign by the
(20:05):
time it hits that goal.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
Yeah, that's gross. It is just gross. Like it's just gross,
you know.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
And that's you know, I've seen that. I've seen it
in all kinds of fields, even in CDFA fields. When
they see that dollar sign, there's more work that needs
to be done, there's more information that needs to be gathered.
When both sides are going, we've given you everything that
we have, so it's just it is gross.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
That's a great word for that.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because one of the ways that
I teach my client my clients. But then also like
I use this too is what I call my CIA
method for vetting professionals. And with that, it is, you know,
the communication. Are they timely? Are they respectful? Are they
kind but at firm right? I mean are they going
(20:56):
to be honest and stuff like that that's important? Do
they have integrity, which again the story that you just shared,
I mean that's questionable. And then are they going to advocate? Right?
And so it's those are the three things CIA CIA
method of just any time I'm meeting with somebody, like
I'm ultimately saying are they communicative? Do they have integrity?
(21:17):
Are they doing the right thing when nobody's looking? Is
there an ethical obligation or are they going to screwed
around it because it benefits them? And then you know,
is there an adversary advisarial or advocacy component? You know,
And that has served me well and served my clients
well because I think it just gives them the framework,
(21:39):
you know, And how do you measure integrity? I mean
sometimes you don't know until you get into it and
then you're but you have to be willing to make
those tough decisions when you start to notice that things
are not going.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Right right right.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And you know, the word integrity I come in from
the martial arts, and that's a word that's actually in
the oath that that our students to take. And and
I bring all of that down into one word.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Respect.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
You can respect yourself and respect all of the other
people involved. That's where the integrity I see come in
at And obviously working with you, there's a lot of
integrity from you, and of course the advocacy you are
there for your client. You you don't just give the information,
like you said, you help them understand that. You teach
(22:29):
them about that, and coming out of work with you,
then they have knowledge, they know where they're headed.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Yeah, it's so important. And again, like you know, we
get we have a window in which we get to
you know, speak into people's lives right at least at
that level when they're going through the divorce and when
it's over, you know, when I get them pointed in
the right direction, I'm starting that over with somebody else.
(22:57):
And so I just really take like whether it's six
months your a team, however long Like I just take
that so seriously because I know that I have the impact,
the opportunity to impact them and not just their short
term but legacy, I mean generations. If we can get
this set up and get the confidence and have them
(23:17):
have a good outcome, is it possible that they get
a good outcome. Absolutely? And I always tell people like,
if we weren't getting good outcomes for our clients, I
would not be doing this, Like this is not the
easiest thing that I could be doing. It's constantly, you know,
fighting against paradigms and you know, like challenging status quo
(23:38):
and you know, having people not like you because you're
an advocate and all of these kinds of things that
we that are in the ring with our clients have
to deal with. We're I'm not immune to that, you
know what I mean, Like I get abuse a lot
of times as a result of just proximity.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
When you're on one side you're an advocate for one side,
of course the other side throws you under the bus,
you know, Like I just said the case with the
CDFA that tried to be a neutral, and I am
most certain that that CDFA did a great job at
what they were doing. But because one person came back
with this information and the other person came back with
(24:20):
this information truth or not, they shared that information with
each other, making it sound like the CDFA was stabbing
the other person in the back, whether they meant to
do that on purpose or whether they did do that
on purpose, and it just you know, again, like I said,
six thousand dollars just went down the drain with the
(24:43):
paperwork because neither one of them trusted it after that.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, not like like anything, right, not
every professional is pretty equal as far as you know,
how they approached things, their person effective, their experience. I mean,
you just you got to find the person that's the
right fit and the person that has I don't know
(25:11):
the longevity and they I mean, at the end of
the day, right, you just have to lean into who's
going to be a good fit for you.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
And and that brings me to a point. You know,
I just recently put together a post for this where
I'm talking about mediators in this case, but it falls
in the same with cdfas, is that you want to
to get these names and numbers of these cdfas, and
then you want your series of questions that you're going
to ask these cdfas, and then you want to ask
(25:41):
all three, five, whatever of those cdfas those same questions.
By the time you've spent enough time asking those five
to ten questions, you've gotten to know the personality of
the CDFA. You've gotten to hear their answers, Like, who's
going to want a CDFA that's never worked on a
high conflict case? In mind, in my situation, we want
somebody who's been seasoned to that. You know, we come
(26:04):
back to my mediation with high conflict aspects and what
I like to do is completely different, but it would
possibly even involve two cdfas, one on each side. But
we come into to the mediation as a group of
people because I'm trained different and then we have two
(26:26):
cdfas that we go through. So how do you think
we can overcome this obstacle? And then you guys get
to put your two cents in?
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Wow, it's you know, I'm on the IDFA board, so
I'm a board member for the Sortified Divorce Financial Analysts Organization,
and I think there's a lot of opportunity to do
things differently and having a CDFA on each side, I
(26:55):
think brings a lot of value. I've done those cases before.
It's been productive, it's been helpful, and we've come to
resolutions on every single one. And some of them I
did in person and the CFA was in the other room,
but I knew them. I'm like, listen, they know me.
I know them. I know that they're they're a person
(27:17):
of integrity. While we might not agree on everything, right,
I know that we can figure out a way to
make this work. And so yeah, I think they're you know,
I think as we continue to move forward in the
divorce space, I'm hopeful that we will be able to
do things differently. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to
(27:37):
disrupt how things have been done in the past, just
because this is just how we do it. And I
think having you know, some creative solutions and not just
because that's what we're seeing, but because it's working. I
if I'm doing things that aren't working, I'm not going
to continue to do it, you know what I mean.
Like anything that I'm doing with my business, I'm doing.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Because it works, period, right, And you know, in all
the cases that I've worked where I had two cdfas
they were so much better than going with a neutral
in high conflict cases.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I just don't think that there is even possible to
have a neutral because the high conflict person is usually
going to throw that person under the bus or is
going to use that person. That's what happened with the
arbiter is the other person was in control of the arbiter,
and I'm sorry she pulled the poor me little girl thing.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
I just don't know how to find those papers. I
don't know where they're at. I hunted so hard for
you today, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
And he even kind of said that on the stand
when he was testifying, and yet he.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Threw the husband under the bus. He well, he didn't
do it either. And it's like.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You spent how many hours with her so you could
see the whole difference on the neutral. How that specific
case stood out so loud to me?
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Yeah, absolutely, I think there's you know, again, I I
can't control what everybody else does. All I know is
that I am committed to just helping people and not
even you know, just stay in your lane, but like
providing a ton of value one person at a time,
and making sure that we give them the best possible
(29:27):
care that we can. And you know, I think at
the end of the day, that's that's what I have
to focus on, you know what I mean, because otherwise
it's so overwhelming, right on all the stuff that you
know is happening.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
So so, so very true.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
So, as you were saying that last little bit, so
so many people, and in this case with the women,
the finances are very difficult for them. So can you
kind of give us a mental picture of what your
job in a divorce worse really is?
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely. So I developed what I call my
Bridge method. Why because I love acronyms. It's the teap
you know, the instructor in me for fifteen plus years,
I'm like, let's make it simple, right, So I take
everybody through my Bridge Method. What is that? So? Bridge
method is breathe and build your team. Each of the
letter stands for something. Breathe and build your team. Who's
your team? Legal? Financial, emotional? Of course we know that
(30:23):
I've been saying that for eleven years before that was
even the thing. But that's important, right, getting that core
group of people if it is high conflict, what's the
best path? Right? I think in those types of situations.
It isn't a one size fits all and so giving
people the opportunity to wrestle with which path do you
want to do? Are you really a good fit for mediation?
(30:44):
This is a litigation case. It's a collaborative right are
you really going to do pro se? And is that
the best option? DIY? Right? So we work with that.
In addition to that, we then help them review the financials,
so it's gathering organizing the documents. We give them a
way to do that. But then I'm also helping them
dial in the expenses, current and projected, so we can
(31:06):
help planning and helping women get their arms around some
of the options. Then identifying the gaps. It's gaps and
information gaps and transparency, gaps in income, and then typically
gaps in power. Those are the kinds of things that
we're trying to solve for and we've got a lot
of different ways that we can do that. So sometimes it's, hey,
(31:28):
we feel like we need to bring in another person.
Maybe it's hey, we need a real estate agent to
do a fair market value, or hey we need a
business valuation expert, and we have people that we have
already vetted that meet my CIA method that we can
pull in, they do their job, and then it helps
us continue to move forward with our job right dialing
the data. So this is where we'll take a look
(31:50):
at property division, what are the different options around dividing
assets and liabilities? And then ultimately the other piece of
that is support. I have said and will say until
something changes my mind, that the output in those calculators
is only as good as the income that we're putting
into them. So what are we using for the income?
(32:13):
And that's a whole separate thing. And then I want
women to be able to understand what does that mean
for them and knowing that it's not always black and white,
and we can move the needle. What's our goal? What
do you need to have coming in for income? And
ultimately where's that coming from? It's usually not all coming
from one place. It might be some of it might
be coming from support, some of them might be coming
from a job W two or ten ninety nine or
(32:35):
a business, and some might be coming from investment income.
So we need to take a look at how are
we going to help you move forward and take ownership
for that. I mean, I think that's really great and
then we can do the G which is guide to
finished strong. So as a CDFA, I'm reviewing some of
the financial aspects of the marital sentiment agreement on the
financial side, providing feedback and some suggestions to the attorney
(33:01):
so that we have a few issues on the back end,
and then we get to the E of bridge, which
is exhale like Okay, we're done, or at the end
of the process, what things need to be wrapped up.
So I'm helping make sure that the quadros are done,
that they have a good understanding of how they need
to be able to move forward with their next what
I call post divorce team, state planning, financial, all of
(33:23):
those kinds of things, but how can they get those
loose ends wrapped up? So all my clients get a
pretty extensive post aborce checklist that I help them kind
of navigate through all the things that need to get
done so they can clearly close that chapter and then
be able to move forward.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
And it's just for our viewers to understand having somebody
run your numbers, having them set them out, and showing
what the division looks like, the worth of houses and
property and everything, and how it can be set write
it out. Like, for instance, the situation I talked about earlier,
(34:05):
the word alimony was used a lot and really messed
up things early on in the communication for mediation. So
I went in and asked the attorney to look at
these numbers with the client and to come up with
the way to pull that money and put it into
a different box, different label, so it wasn't alimony, but
(34:28):
the money was still coming to the clant and those
types of things. When you have a CDFA like yourself
putting things together, you are able to show how they
can do just that on paper, so they see it.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Yeah, and there's a lot of options. I think at
the end of the day, I always look at it
from how can we manage risk right? How can we
make sure we got to identify what the risk factors are.
We need to identify what levers we can pull and
that helps us. It's just as much of an art
it as a science. It's not black and white, and
so each situation is going to be different. Even if
(35:04):
all the facts were the same, the result of having
the conversation and mediating or litigating, you could have two
different outcomes with exactly the same facts because there's a
human element to it, right, and and their needs, desires,
wants might be different than the other people. So I
think that's just really important for people. I think they
(35:26):
want to oversimplify sometimes, like well it's just black and white. No,
it really isn't, and let's have a conversation and dial
it in and what does that look like? What do
you want? You know? So it's it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
I have set in on classes with that are run
by cdfas and financial people, and I have learned so
much so that I'm able to at least guide my
clients into the right direction with the CDFA. But when
you know they talk about, oh, there's this retirement fund
it's got ten thousand, and this retirement fund that's got
(36:02):
ten thousand. We'll just divide those you take this one night.
That doesn't work because you know, like I have learned,
and you obviously know that one can be pre text
and one is post text. And the best way to
separate those out is to separate them out. And then
I've learned, you know about the quadros, and I am
(36:24):
not a money's person at all.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Numbers are just not my thing.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So I make sure that I have a CDFA working
with my client, and it's just super important, you know,
our viewers need to understand just how important, especially when
you've got the money sitting there in the form of
retirement and properties and in the bank, that you understand
(36:48):
the separation of those.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Yeah, it's important, it's really important. And I think again,
understanding you know, all those pieces is critical. You get
one chance to get it right on property division, and
I don't know, I just go back to my grandpa.
My grandpa always used to say, if you can't do
something right, don't do it at all. And little you know,
(37:13):
little do you know, that's always right, Like, listen, just
do it right, and then we don't have to go
back and make changes or advocate or feel like we've
got buyers remorse or anything, because we can show up
and make good, educated and powered decisions and wrap this
up in the best way possible and then move on,
you know. So that's that's my.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Take, yes, and a good take.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
So as we're starting to wind things down, so I
know that all your contact information will be below in
the show notes, but can you tell our viewers how
to find you?
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Randa?
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Yeah, absolutely, So there's two ways WFWC divorce dot com.
That's my website. We've got a free course on their
free resources all kinds of things you can check out
that the mini course that's free that you can check
out is called how to get a for fair Divorce
Settlement without taking him to the cleaners, So we love that.
(38:11):
And then the other option is my Instagram and it's
at Ronda Nordake is my handle.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Okay, well that's pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And so for our viewers who don't know me, I'm
a certified divorce coach, meaning that I've been trained in
the complexities divorce. I've also lived in a high conflict marriage.
My father was in a situation that almost got him
murdered and my late husband was tortured through his specifically
financial So I got to see live and learn about
(38:45):
divorce and I can tell you there is a better
way to go through it. You can reach me buy
my email at Coach Tina Lynn at gmail dot com.
That's co A c h t I n A l
y n N at Gmail and my website is Divorce
Coach Specialist. You can find me on social media on
Facebook under Tina Lynn Huggins huggi NS LinkedIn Tina Huggins Instagram,
(39:10):
Divorce Coach Tina in and on TikTok under Divorce Tina.
And so one of the things that I like to
do here Rhonde is that I like for you to
give our viewers a last bit of advice.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Oh yes, So I would say, lean into the conversation,
don't be afraid to have difficult conversations about money, and
remember you're smart, you can do it. And our goal
is financial confidence, knowledge plus experience.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
So good.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
And so my advice is this is going to come
in from a different story. But in one of the
divorces that I got to take part in, they decided
instead of going with the CDFA, that they would go
with the CPA, a very very expensive CP that ended
up testifying and going through I set through some of
(40:03):
the meetings with the CPA, and again, there is a
better way to do this, And so I would advise
you not to go with just a general money person,
but to go with somebody who's certified in divorce because
they understand the complexities. That's a word I used a
little bit ago, the complexities of divorce and separating out
(40:26):
and putting the money where it needs to go. So
that it can be separated out evenly. So I can
tell you that Ronda is excellent at her work. I've
spent enough time with her now that I could tell
you that she's one.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Of the top cbas.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
There we go with that word cdfas that I can recommend.
I have just literally a handful, and she's right in
there now. It's very important that you get somebody that
you can work with. So many people, including myself, went
through a divorce where suicidal ideation was in play. So
(41:04):
if you are in a place that you are having
suicidal thoughts, please reach out for help and you can
call the Suicide Prevention Hotline at nine to eighty eight.
That number is the same in the US and in Canada.
In the Netherlands that number is one one three. Please
call so that you're not alone as you walk through
(41:26):
this little tiny part in your life. Okay, and it
is a little tiny part.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
I know I was there.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Then, if you are in a situation where you need
the police, call nine to one one here in the
US and in the in the UK it's nine nine nine.
In the Netherlands it's one one two. Make sure that
you get the police there, that you press charges. Once
you press charges that your key out, do not drop
those charges. Oftentimes, once you drop those charges, of the
(41:56):
abuse that happened before the charges is much worse on
the other side once you drop the charges. So, if
you are dealing or know somebody dealing with domestic violence,
the Domestic Violence hotline here in the US is eight
hundred seven nine nine seven two three three. That number
again is eight hundred seven ninety nine seventy two thirty three.
And I ask that you please like, comment, and share
(42:18):
this so that it can help other people. Thank you
so much, Rhonda for joining me today.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
Thank you for having me great.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
You're listening to WGSNDB going Solo Network Singles Talk Radio Channel,
where we take a lighthearted and candidate approach to discussions
on the journey of relationship, laws, divorce, parenting, being single, relationships, building, dating,
and yes sex. Join our listeners and begin living your
best life.
You're listening to WGSNDB Go and Solo Network Singles talk
radio channel, where we take a lighthearted and candidate approach
to discussions on the journey of relationship, laws, divorce, parenting,
being single, relationships, building, dating, and yes sex. Join our
listeners and begin living your best life.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello and welcome to our show, The Awakening here on WDSNDB,
the Going Bold and Going Solo Network. So the information
and opinions expressed on the show are just that, the
opinions of the individual speaking based on their individual personal experiences.
They are not intended to diagnose and do not constitute
(00:48):
professional advice or recommendations. So you know the pain, the stress,
and the struggle that divorcing men and women go through.
While there is a way to find peace and sanity
all why assisting your lawyer in the legal process which
saves you thousands of dollars. My name's Tina Huggins. I'm
(01:08):
your divorce coach, specialist, divorce planning specialist, restorative family mediator
and confliction co parenting coach.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
And joining me here.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Today is Ronda and Ronda is the founder and CEO
of Financial Divorce Advocate.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
She is the host of.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Disrupting divorce Conversations for Women podcast and a best selling author.
Ronda founded her company in twenty fourteen. Prior to that,
she spent over a decade working with a boutique registered
investment advisory firm during the day and teaching college courses
(01:50):
in the evening. Her background afforded her the opportunity to
develop a curriculum, deliver training programs, and communicate in an
encouraging and empowering way. She has worked with over nine
hundred clients. She wants women to know they don't have
to walk this journey alone, and they certainly don't have
(02:14):
to settle for anything less than a joy filled, vibrant life.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
So welcome, Ronda, Hey, welcome.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
It's great.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I mean, it's been so long since we talked the
first time, and prepping to come into the show today,
I had to read up and kind of go over
all of my notes and then of course your bio
as you came in. So can you tell us all
how you got started into the divorce arena in this
direction anyway?
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Yeah? Absolutely So. One of the words that you mentioned
in your introduction is bold, and I feel like even
as a young kid, I was the one who really
wanted to fight for the underdog and do what was right,
and so there was always this aspect of wanting to advocate.
And so like many people that are in this space,
(03:08):
they may have started because they've gone through divorce, and
that is not my story. My story is I actually
started in the space because I saw women that were
coming through my doors when I was in the financial
industry that were feeling lost and overwhelmed and didn't feel
like their voice mattered. And I thought, gosh, there's so
much to this, and so long story short, I had
(03:29):
a friend who ended up losing her husband. She was
widowed in her late forties, had two young kids, and
we also had a series of friends that were going
through divorce, and I noticed that there was a lot
of overlap. So we did a focus group and I
said to these guls, what's working, what isn't? What do
you need? What do you want? And I left there
(03:49):
and you know, who knows how many boxes of Kleenex
later and I'm driving home and I'm like, we're going
to figure this out. I don't know the answer, I
don't know how I'm going to do it, but we're
going to find a way to bring funny literacy, financial education,
financial empowerment to women that are in these major life transitions.
And some of you might be thinking, well, yeah, Ronda,
that's what people are doing. Eleven years ago, nobody was
(04:09):
really doing that. Everybody was like, hey, I'm going to
the attorney. There wasn't an area of financial experts. There
weren't really coaches. I know they were around, but it
was not a thing. And so for me, it really
has been about not wanting to see women be silenced
and hating abuse, and those two things, with my personality
(04:32):
and my background and area of expertise, really put me
in a good place to advocate for women.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
And I think that, you know, that's an important aspect.
I hear a lot of cdfas and financial advisors in
general just saying that women come into the space without
as much knowledge as the men do, and so I
understand helping them through. And it's interesting because as as
(05:00):
we've talked, I focused a lot of my work towards men,
and it's interesting in my world that a lot of
the men that I deal with come in with less
financial literacy then they should, and then the woman in
their life and we find that they're getting as you
probably see this often with the women because I see
(05:21):
it too, is that there's financial abuse because of that.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, at the end of the day,
right when I first started my business, one of the
questions that I would often get one of the two Branda,
have you been through divorce? No, Brana, do you work
with men? I have worked with a very small handful
of men over the years. But my answer to that is, listen,
I'm not saying that the men aren't worthy of help.
I think that they deserve help. I think they deserve
(05:44):
great resources. I think they deserve great care and advocacy.
But I just found my passion with the women, and
I was like, hey, I'm one person and I do
have to sleep occasionally, and so I'm just going to
plant my flag here and fully today in you being
one of them, Tina, there are people to help the guys.
(06:04):
When I started, there wasn't really anybody to help. There
weren't male coaches, there weren't women who were specializing in
helping them met and so I love to see where
the industry has gone because I think it's important.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
And you know, you pointed out that ten years ago,
there wasn't the training and the help, and there wasn't
there were divorce coaches, because that's about when the school
that I went to started putting people out. And I
can tell you that that especially where you know you
talked about you had a friend that had lost her husband.
(06:39):
I lost my husband a year ago, and so going
through all of that and and finding myself in a
place that I needed help, I had to reach out
and get help. And I can tell you when I
got divorced twenty two years ago, I didn't reach out
and get help until after everything was all said and done,
and I needed a hole lot more help than than
(07:01):
I would have had I asked for help prior so
reaching out and for me, some of the people that
I think are the most important for the high conflict
cases that I work are cdfas and of course the
right attorney for the situation, and if they already have
a therapist, then then of course we're going to work
together with the therapy that we work on with the client.
(07:25):
But I find, especially in the high conflict where we
see any abuse, financial abuse is always there, and having
a CDFA that can come in and put the numbers
down and explain the numbers to the client because so
many people, like an attorney can talk just legalise and
then my client's blazed out and that's where I try
(07:48):
to explain that to them so they understand. So when
you start explaining this to these women, where do you
find that you have to start? What are they missing
the most of.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
You know, that's an interesting question. I it's not probably
what people are thinking my answer is going to be.
But at the end of the day, I believe that
their gap is in the confidence. It's not that the
women aren't smart enough to do it. But then the
question is, Okay, what's the formula for confidence? Randa like,
how do we get confident? Well, it's the knowledge of
(08:22):
some of the basic things, and it's the experience.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
There.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
If we have the knowledge without the experience, it's theory.
If we have the experience without the knowledge is trial
and error. But when we get those two things working together,
we cannot only help move in the direction of the confidence,
but we can expedite that process. So what are some
of those things when we talk about the knowledge piece, Well,
many of the women that I'm working with haven't handled
(08:47):
the finances they might be paying the bills or doing
some of the day to day things, but when it
comes outside of that kind of day to day stuff,
they're like, gosh, Ronda, I don't know where our stuff is.
I'm not sure what we have. I didn't really handle it.
I'm feeling shame about that. I feel guilty that I
didn't know what was going up, and to which I say, Okay, well,
we're going to take it step by step and you
(09:08):
don't have to drink out of a fire hose, and
in fact, you don't even have to know everything. We
just have to be able to ask really good questions.
And so as women get that knowledge of their finances
and their budget and their expenses and trying to figure
out answering some of those questions that they have that
keep them up at night, we can start to dial
(09:28):
that in and then it's okay, now we got to
roll our sleeves and do something. So I'm not a
CDFA who says, hey, give me all the info, I'm
gonna cruntle the numbers and I'm just gonna spit out report.
I'm engaging the women to say, listen, here's what I
want you to be thinking. About or here's what I'd
like you to be doing. Well. I'm working on this
because my goal is not just to hey, listen, I
want to be the smartest person in the room. I
(09:50):
want them to come out of this process saying, you
know what, I know how to think, I know how
to ask questions. I know that if I don't know
the answer, it's okay to ask, and it puts them
in a really good place and sets them up for
success in that next chapter. So that's how I work
(10:11):
with my clients and how I approach them as they're
really feeling like there was a lack of confidence.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And as you were telling that story, I just finished
a divorce with It was a high conflict divorce and
a lot of money was involved with this, and a
CDFA had asked for me to come in to help
with it, and the CDFA decided that they were going
(10:39):
to work with both parties, and that ended up to
be disastrous. I mean, both parties ended up hating that
CDFA and blaming them for a bunch of stuff. And
my client when she came to me, because it was
a female in this case, when she came to me,
she didn't have confidence. She told me he always handled
(11:00):
all the money, and then after the CDFA finished the
work that they did do and handed it off to them,
there were numbers that didn't jive with the CPA that
was doing all the books for her company. And so
long story short, through the course of everything, my working
(11:21):
with her and then working I mean, we would have
phone calls where her CPA was on the line, and
so he was telling me what he was seeing. She
put together the most amazing work.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I have ever seen.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
In fact, so good that her attorney asked if she
could teach that program to her people because she just
took over. And after we talked through all of this,
she goes, you know, he didn't really do all the
money work. She says, I didn't realize how much of
it I actually did.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
And she said, I work with my company.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It was a million dollar company where we're trying to
organize all of the finances. So I work alongside my
CPA all the time, my financial guy, and so we
were able to get her to where she could see again.
She was able to pull off her own blinders and go,
oh my god, I did all this all this time,
and that strength that she had after that was just amazing.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Yeah, you know, we got to look at previous successes,
right and celebrate things that we've been able to handle
well in the past that will help us move forward.
I was working with a client one time and she
very similarly super like super smart, but she man she
was tim and when it came to the finances. So
I was taking her through an exercise and one of
the things that we identified as part of that was
(12:44):
what have you done in the past that you've done
a little bit of but you want.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
To do more of, and what are some of the successes.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
And what came out of those questions was Randa, you
know what, I handled all of the estate stuff for
my parents passing away, and I was the power of attorney,
which I always say is like the gift that doesn't
quit giving, you know, because you don't realize all the
things that you have to do on the back end,
as I'm sure probably you've had to deal with, Like
Holy Kyle, this is like a full time job. And
(13:12):
so she ended up successfully managing that. I'm like, look
at you, look at how organized you were, look at
what questions you answered, look at the professionals that you
surrounded yourself with Listen, you've essentially done a lot of
these things that you're going to be asked to do
as part of the divorce process. Let's lean into that,
and I need you to remember when you did that successfully.
(13:33):
So I think those are really powerful. One of the
other things that you mentioned, and I think i'd like
to just touch on this for a minute, because there
are different roles that cdfas can play. And one of
the questions that I always encourage people to ask is
you can ask the CDFA if you're considering hiring somebody,
how many cases have you done. I've been hundreds and
(13:56):
hundreds and hundreds of cases, and so there's all you know,
there's always going to be things. I'm like, wow, that's it.
I have a case right now in Alaska. I was like, huh,
I don't know if I've ever seen that before, because
Alaska does some very specific things that are unique to Alaska.
And I've talked to four other professional like hey, have
you ever do They're like no, I'm like, okay, well
I win, you know, like I win the prize. I'm
(14:17):
like identifying, you know, some some interesting things. But I'm
an advocate. I'm always going to be looking at from
that perspective, and sometimes when people want a neutral, they
feel like, well, I just want a neutral person. I
just want somebody who's going to you know, be neutral,
be Switzerland, whatever. And sometimes that can be really challenging
(14:37):
because the person who is feeling this imbalance of power
doesn't feel like they're getting their questions answered or you know,
doesn't really feel like they have somebody in their corner.
They leave the meeting. It made sense in the meeting.
Now they're like, Okay, who do I ask, you know,
because I have some questions And so I think at
the end of the day, those are some questions that
I would encourage people to ask. You know, how many
(14:58):
cases have they done? Do they work only in one state?
Do they work nationally? Are they a neutral? Are they
an advocate? I think those are all really important questions.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
And I can tell you from all the cases that
I've worked being chi conflict is that one being a
neutral with the conflict it's never ever going to work.
And so when I came in, that had already been
set up in place, and so I did my best
(15:30):
to be the advocate to help with that. And when
questions weren't getting answered and more money was being asked for.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
It's like then both parties shut down.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
They both threw that I don't know, six thousand dollars
report away because it was to them useless. Now what
happened later is I was able to pull in that
those numbers that were inside there and have them use
the foundation numbers to help build what my client did.
But yeah, I have learned that it's just better, and
(16:05):
I could guess every time with the women like that,
it's just best to have an advocate because when you
come in without the knowledge, you have to have somebody
that can answer those questions for you.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Yeah, I think that's a function of being a neutral
because a lot of times people are like, oh, I
don't want to seem like I'm taking a side, so
I'm not going to answer a question, or I'm going
to be super vague, or it's very strange. And I
think that, you know, again, having done this for eleven years,
you see how the pendulum has swung. When I first started,
it was pretty much litigation, and you know, really the
(16:39):
people that very few people were doing mediation or as
many as now it's being pushed to do, like hey,
everybody's saying mediation is the best thing. Everybody should be
doing mediation. Everybody should be hang our neutral. But to
your pointing, like in these high conflict situations, it is
I have not seen that work well in the eleven
years that I've been doing this. This is that's you
(16:59):
need a strategy, you need to make sure that you've
got the right people. And it's not fitting you know,
the square peg in their own whole kind of thing,
like everybody should be doing it, And okay, well show
me the results. Show men, how many how many high
conflict neutrals were able to get it over the finish line?
How many you know what I mean, like people that
were in those high conflict situations. How many mediators were
(17:21):
able to get There's one mediator that I work with
that's in New Jersey, she works nationally. She is the
only one of all the mediators that I personally have
worked with that can get it over the finish line
in high conflict. And that's a skill, right, It's incredible.
It's I am in awe of how she can look
(17:44):
at both of the sides, look at it from different angles,
not just pair it back and forth and use the
fear of Hey, if you go to court, this is
what's going to happen. It's actually coming up with creative
solutions to get a resolution. And very few people in
my opinion, do that.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Well, yes, and it is very difficult to do.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I as a mediator will even find some of the
communication from the other side where we have a hard
time one person trusting the other person. And so when
you separate, because in my case we're looking at abuse,
so we have two separate zoom rooms that we work with,
(18:26):
and then I do shuttle mediation, and that shuttle mediation, well,
when you're over there, what are you telling that person?
And I have been in a mediation with a client
where I saw that mediator kiss butt in that room
and come over and kiss but in this room I
saw it happen.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
I'm like, how in the hell is this working. It's
it didn't.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Eight hours later, there was not one thing, not one
thing they came to know or agree on. It was
just the most horrible time frame. And then that mediator
decided that they were going to arbitrate that and spent
the next nine months arbitrating that, taking the woman out
(19:12):
to dinner and lunch a few times trying to get
her to cooperate.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Yeah, that's crazy. I didn't realize that mean that arbitration
could go that long. I don't see the arbitration that much.
I thought it was a shorter period in which that arbitration.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, yeah, it should have been.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
It should have been much shorter and not once did
the arbiter do what an arbiter supposed to do.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
But there was money involved.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
So when you see a dollar sign, and I see
it with I don't so much see it with the
lawyers I'm working with, but I can see the other
sides lawyer by what comes back to my client, I'm like,
oh my god, they see a dollar sign, they're going
to run this as long as they can keep that
football run in because there's a dollar sign by the
(20:05):
time it hits that goal.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
Yeah, that's gross. It is just gross. Like it's just gross,
you know.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
And that's you know, I've seen that. I've seen it
in all kinds of fields, even in CDFA fields. When
they see that dollar sign, there's more work that needs
to be done, there's more information that needs to be gathered.
When both sides are going, we've given you everything that
we have, so it's just it is gross.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
That's a great word for that.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because one of the ways that
I teach my client my clients. But then also like
I use this too is what I call my CIA
method for vetting professionals. And with that, it is, you know,
the communication. Are they timely? Are they respectful? Are they
kind but at firm right? I mean are they going
(20:56):
to be honest and stuff like that that's important? Do
they have integrity, which again the story that you just shared,
I mean that's questionable. And then are they going to advocate? Right?
And so it's those are the three things CIA CIA
method of just any time I'm meeting with somebody, like
I'm ultimately saying are they communicative? Do they have integrity?
(21:17):
Are they doing the right thing when nobody's looking? Is
there an ethical obligation or are they going to screwed
around it because it benefits them? And then you know,
is there an adversary advisarial or advocacy component? You know,
And that has served me well and served my clients
well because I think it just gives them the framework,
(21:39):
you know, And how do you measure integrity? I mean
sometimes you don't know until you get into it and
then you're but you have to be willing to make
those tough decisions when you start to notice that things
are not going.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Right right right.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And you know, the word integrity I come in from
the martial arts, and that's a word that's actually in
the oath that that our students to take. And and
I bring all of that down into one word.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Respect.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
You can respect yourself and respect all of the other
people involved. That's where the integrity I see come in
at And obviously working with you, there's a lot of
integrity from you, and of course the advocacy you are
there for your client. You you don't just give the information,
like you said, you help them understand that. You teach
(22:29):
them about that, and coming out of work with you,
then they have knowledge, they know where they're headed.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Yeah, it's so important. And again, like you know, we
get we have a window in which we get to
you know, speak into people's lives right at least at
that level when they're going through the divorce and when
it's over, you know, when I get them pointed in
the right direction, I'm starting that over with somebody else.
(22:57):
And so I just really take like whether it's six
months your a team, however long Like I just take
that so seriously because I know that I have the impact,
the opportunity to impact them and not just their short
term but legacy, I mean generations. If we can get
this set up and get the confidence and have them
(23:17):
have a good outcome, is it possible that they get
a good outcome. Absolutely? And I always tell people like,
if we weren't getting good outcomes for our clients, I
would not be doing this, Like this is not the
easiest thing that I could be doing. It's constantly, you know,
fighting against paradigms and you know, like challenging status quo
(23:38):
and you know, having people not like you because you're
an advocate and all of these kinds of things that
we that are in the ring with our clients have
to deal with. We're I'm not immune to that, you
know what I mean, Like I get abuse a lot
of times as a result of just proximity.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
When you're on one side you're an advocate for one side,
of course the other side throws you under the bus,
you know, Like I just said the case with the
CDFA that tried to be a neutral, and I am
most certain that that CDFA did a great job at
what they were doing. But because one person came back
with this information and the other person came back with
(24:20):
this information truth or not, they shared that information with
each other, making it sound like the CDFA was stabbing
the other person in the back, whether they meant to
do that on purpose or whether they did do that
on purpose, and it just you know, again, like I said,
six thousand dollars just went down the drain with the
(24:43):
paperwork because neither one of them trusted it after that.
Speaker 4 (24:47):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, not like like anything, right, not
every professional is pretty equal as far as you know,
how they approached things, their person effective, their experience. I mean,
you just you got to find the person that's the
right fit and the person that has I don't know
(25:11):
the longevity and they I mean, at the end of
the day, right, you just have to lean into who's
going to be a good fit for you.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
And and that brings me to a point. You know,
I just recently put together a post for this where
I'm talking about mediators in this case, but it falls
in the same with cdfas, is that you want to
to get these names and numbers of these cdfas, and
then you want your series of questions that you're going
to ask these cdfas, and then you want to ask
(25:41):
all three, five, whatever of those cdfas those same questions.
By the time you've spent enough time asking those five
to ten questions, you've gotten to know the personality of
the CDFA. You've gotten to hear their answers, Like, who's
going to want a CDFA that's never worked on a
high conflict case? In mind, in my situation, we want
somebody who's been seasoned to that. You know, we come
(26:04):
back to my mediation with high conflict aspects and what
I like to do is completely different, but it would
possibly even involve two cdfas, one on each side. But
we come into to the mediation as a group of
people because I'm trained different and then we have two
(26:26):
cdfas that we go through. So how do you think
we can overcome this obstacle? And then you guys get
to put your two cents in?
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Wow, it's you know, I'm on the IDFA board, so
I'm a board member for the Sortified Divorce Financial Analysts Organization,
and I think there's a lot of opportunity to do
things differently and having a CDFA on each side, I
(26:55):
think brings a lot of value. I've done those cases before.
It's been productive, it's been helpful, and we've come to
resolutions on every single one. And some of them I
did in person and the CFA was in the other room,
but I knew them. I'm like, listen, they know me.
I know them. I know that they're they're a person
(27:17):
of integrity. While we might not agree on everything, right,
I know that we can figure out a way to
make this work. And so yeah, I think they're you know,
I think as we continue to move forward in the
divorce space, I'm hopeful that we will be able to
do things differently. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to
(27:37):
disrupt how things have been done in the past, just
because this is just how we do it. And I
think having you know, some creative solutions and not just
because that's what we're seeing, but because it's working. I
if I'm doing things that aren't working, I'm not going
to continue to do it, you know what I mean.
Like anything that I'm doing with my business, I'm doing.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
Because it works, period, right, And you know, in all
the cases that I've worked where I had two cdfas
they were so much better than going with a neutral
in high conflict cases.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
I just don't think that there is even possible to
have a neutral because the high conflict person is usually
going to throw that person under the bus or is
going to use that person. That's what happened with the
arbiter is the other person was in control of the arbiter,
and I'm sorry she pulled the poor me little girl thing.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
I just don't know how to find those papers. I
don't know where they're at. I hunted so hard for
you today, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
And he even kind of said that on the stand
when he was testifying, and yet he.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Threw the husband under the bus. He well, he didn't
do it either. And it's like.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You spent how many hours with her so you could
see the whole difference on the neutral. How that specific
case stood out so loud to me?
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Yeah, absolutely, I think there's you know, again, I I
can't control what everybody else does. All I know is
that I am committed to just helping people and not
even you know, just stay in your lane, but like
providing a ton of value one person at a time,
and making sure that we give them the best possible
(29:27):
care that we can. And you know, I think at
the end of the day, that's that's what I have
to focus on, you know what I mean, because otherwise
it's so overwhelming, right on all the stuff that you
know is happening.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
So so, so very true.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
So, as you were saying that last little bit, so
so many people, and in this case with the women,
the finances are very difficult for them. So can you
kind of give us a mental picture of what your
job in a divorce worse really is?
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Yeah? Yeah, absolutely. So I developed what I call my
Bridge method. Why because I love acronyms. It's the teap
you know, the instructor in me for fifteen plus years,
I'm like, let's make it simple, right, So I take
everybody through my Bridge Method. What is that? So? Bridge
method is breathe and build your team. Each of the
letter stands for something. Breathe and build your team. Who's
your team? Legal? Financial, emotional? Of course we know that
(30:23):
I've been saying that for eleven years before that was
even the thing. But that's important, right, getting that core
group of people if it is high conflict, what's the
best path? Right? I think in those types of situations.
It isn't a one size fits all and so giving
people the opportunity to wrestle with which path do you
want to do? Are you really a good fit for mediation?
(30:44):
This is a litigation case. It's a collaborative right are
you really going to do pro se? And is that
the best option? DIY? Right? So we work with that.
In addition to that, we then help them review the financials,
so it's gathering organizing the documents. We give them a
way to do that. But then I'm also helping them
dial in the expenses, current and projected, so we can
(31:06):
help planning and helping women get their arms around some
of the options. Then identifying the gaps. It's gaps and
information gaps and transparency, gaps in income, and then typically
gaps in power. Those are the kinds of things that
we're trying to solve for and we've got a lot
of different ways that we can do that. So sometimes it's, hey,
(31:28):
we feel like we need to bring in another person.
Maybe it's hey, we need a real estate agent to
do a fair market value, or hey we need a
business valuation expert, and we have people that we have
already vetted that meet my CIA method that we can
pull in, they do their job, and then it helps
us continue to move forward with our job right dialing
the data. So this is where we'll take a look
(31:50):
at property division, what are the different options around dividing
assets and liabilities? And then ultimately the other piece of
that is support. I have said and will say until
something changes my mind, that the output in those calculators
is only as good as the income that we're putting
into them. So what are we using for the income?
(32:13):
And that's a whole separate thing. And then I want
women to be able to understand what does that mean
for them and knowing that it's not always black and white,
and we can move the needle. What's our goal? What
do you need to have coming in for income? And
ultimately where's that coming from? It's usually not all coming
from one place. It might be some of it might
be coming from support, some of them might be coming
from a job W two or ten ninety nine or
(32:35):
a business, and some might be coming from investment income.
So we need to take a look at how are
we going to help you move forward and take ownership
for that. I mean, I think that's really great and
then we can do the G which is guide to
finished strong. So as a CDFA, I'm reviewing some of
the financial aspects of the marital sentiment agreement on the
financial side, providing feedback and some suggestions to the attorney
(33:01):
so that we have a few issues on the back end,
and then we get to the E of bridge, which
is exhale like Okay, we're done, or at the end
of the process, what things need to be wrapped up.
So I'm helping make sure that the quadros are done,
that they have a good understanding of how they need
to be able to move forward with their next what
I call post divorce team, state planning, financial, all of
(33:23):
those kinds of things, but how can they get those
loose ends wrapped up? So all my clients get a
pretty extensive post aborce checklist that I help them kind
of navigate through all the things that need to get
done so they can clearly close that chapter and then
be able to move forward.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
And it's just for our viewers to understand having somebody
run your numbers, having them set them out, and showing
what the division looks like, the worth of houses and
property and everything, and how it can be set write
it out. Like, for instance, the situation I talked about earlier,
(34:05):
the word alimony was used a lot and really messed
up things early on in the communication for mediation. So
I went in and asked the attorney to look at
these numbers with the client and to come up with
the way to pull that money and put it into
a different box, different label, so it wasn't alimony, but
(34:28):
the money was still coming to the clant and those
types of things. When you have a CDFA like yourself
putting things together, you are able to show how they
can do just that on paper, so they see it.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Yeah, and there's a lot of options. I think at
the end of the day, I always look at it
from how can we manage risk right? How can we
make sure we got to identify what the risk factors are.
We need to identify what levers we can pull and
that helps us. It's just as much of an art
it as a science. It's not black and white, and
so each situation is going to be different. Even if
(35:04):
all the facts were the same, the result of having
the conversation and mediating or litigating, you could have two
different outcomes with exactly the same facts because there's a
human element to it, right, and and their needs, desires,
wants might be different than the other people. So I
think that's just really important for people. I think they
(35:26):
want to oversimplify sometimes, like well it's just black and white. No,
it really isn't, and let's have a conversation and dial
it in and what does that look like? What do
you want? You know? So it's it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
I have set in on classes with that are run
by cdfas and financial people, and I have learned so
much so that I'm able to at least guide my
clients into the right direction with the CDFA. But when
you know they talk about, oh, there's this retirement fund
it's got ten thousand, and this retirement fund that's got
(36:02):
ten thousand. We'll just divide those you take this one night.
That doesn't work because you know, like I have learned,
and you obviously know that one can be pre text
and one is post text. And the best way to
separate those out is to separate them out. And then
I've learned, you know about the quadros, and I am
(36:24):
not a money's person at all.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
Numbers are just not my thing.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So I make sure that I have a CDFA working
with my client, and it's just super important, you know,
our viewers need to understand just how important, especially when
you've got the money sitting there in the form of
retirement and properties and in the bank, that you understand
(36:48):
the separation of those.
Speaker 4 (36:51):
Yeah, it's important, it's really important. And I think again,
understanding you know, all those pieces is critical. You get
one chance to get it right on property division, and
I don't know, I just go back to my grandpa.
My grandpa always used to say, if you can't do
something right, don't do it at all. And little you know,
(37:13):
little do you know, that's always right, Like, listen, just
do it right, and then we don't have to go
back and make changes or advocate or feel like we've
got buyers remorse or anything, because we can show up
and make good, educated and powered decisions and wrap this
up in the best way possible and then move on,
you know. So that's that's my.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Take, yes, and a good take.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
So as we're starting to wind things down, so I
know that all your contact information will be below in
the show notes, but can you tell our viewers how
to find you?
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Randa?
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Yeah, absolutely, So there's two ways WFWC divorce dot com.
That's my website. We've got a free course on their
free resources all kinds of things you can check out
that the mini course that's free that you can check
out is called how to get a for fair Divorce
Settlement without taking him to the cleaners, So we love that.
(38:11):
And then the other option is my Instagram and it's
at Ronda Nordake is my handle.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
Okay, well that's pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And so for our viewers who don't know me, I'm
a certified divorce coach, meaning that I've been trained in
the complexities divorce. I've also lived in a high conflict marriage.
My father was in a situation that almost got him
murdered and my late husband was tortured through his specifically
financial So I got to see live and learn about
(38:45):
divorce and I can tell you there is a better
way to go through it. You can reach me buy
my email at Coach Tina Lynn at gmail dot com.
That's co A c h t I n A l
y n N at Gmail and my website is Divorce
Coach Specialist. You can find me on social media on
Facebook under Tina Lynn Huggins huggi NS LinkedIn Tina Huggins Instagram,
(39:10):
Divorce Coach Tina in and on TikTok under Divorce Tina.
And so one of the things that I like to
do here Rhonde is that I like for you to
give our viewers a last bit of advice.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Oh yes, So I would say, lean into the conversation,
don't be afraid to have difficult conversations about money, and
remember you're smart, you can do it. And our goal
is financial confidence, knowledge plus experience.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
So good.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
And so my advice is this is going to come
in from a different story. But in one of the
divorces that I got to take part in, they decided
instead of going with the CDFA, that they would go
with the CPA, a very very expensive CP that ended
up testifying and going through I set through some of
(40:03):
the meetings with the CPA, and again, there is a
better way to do this, And so I would advise
you not to go with just a general money person,
but to go with somebody who's certified in divorce because
they understand the complexities. That's a word I used a
little bit ago, the complexities of divorce and separating out
(40:26):
and putting the money where it needs to go. So
that it can be separated out evenly. So I can
tell you that Ronda is excellent at her work. I've
spent enough time with her now that I could tell
you that she's one.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Of the top cbas.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
There we go with that word cdfas that I can recommend.
I have just literally a handful, and she's right in
there now. It's very important that you get somebody that
you can work with. So many people, including myself, went
through a divorce where suicidal ideation was in play. So
(41:04):
if you are in a place that you are having
suicidal thoughts, please reach out for help and you can
call the Suicide Prevention Hotline at nine to eighty eight.
That number is the same in the US and in Canada.
In the Netherlands that number is one one three. Please
call so that you're not alone as you walk through
(41:26):
this little tiny part in your life. Okay, and it
is a little tiny part.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
I know I was there.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Then, if you are in a situation where you need
the police, call nine to one one here in the
US and in the in the UK it's nine nine nine.
In the Netherlands it's one one two. Make sure that
you get the police there, that you press charges. Once
you press charges that your key out, do not drop
those charges. Oftentimes, once you drop those charges, of the
(41:56):
abuse that happened before the charges is much worse on
the other side once you drop the charges. So, if
you are dealing or know somebody dealing with domestic violence,
the Domestic Violence hotline here in the US is eight
hundred seven nine nine seven two three three. That number
again is eight hundred seven ninety nine seventy two thirty three.
And I ask that you please like, comment, and share
(42:18):
this so that it can help other people. Thank you
so much, Rhonda for joining me today.
Speaker 4 (42:25):
Thank you for having me great.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
You're listening to WGSNDB going Solo Network Singles Talk Radio Channel,
where we take a lighthearted and candidate approach to discussions
on the journey of relationship, laws, divorce, parenting, being single, relationships, building, dating,
and yes sex. Join our listeners and begin living your
best life.
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