#174: A Relationship Pivot: Happy Uncoupling With Jennifer Hurvitz

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I'm really excited. I'm just sitting here sort of in mid-afternoon on the West Coast, gorgeous day, very breezy today. A lot of things kind of blowing around, but the water is this steel blue. The sky's just got these high-level white clouds. You can hear in the background probably there's a big beach chime, like a harbor chime that I've got hanging below decks. And yet, it's so windy you can hear it in the background just a little bit. I'm thrilled. I have a great guest today. I'm so excited actually to get into the juicy bits of the conversation we're going to have that I don't even have any sort of pre-frame. I just want to just get started actually, which is a good sign. Her name is Jennifer Herwitz and I'm going to read a little bit of her bio as I ordinarily do and then we'll dig into some of the stuff that's not there as well, which is the juicy bits of course. Jennifer is known for her no-nonsense approach to all things love, sex, and relationships and is proud to say she's made quite a career out of a pretty disastrous set of circumstances, which include her own divorce. She's a certified divorce specialist, CDS. I actually never heard of that. Probably should have, but haven't. She's a public speaker, a bestselling author, and the host of Doing Divorce Right, the Doing Divorce Right podcast. Divorced since 2014, Jennifer lives in Charlotte, which I love that city. It's beautiful there, Charlotte, with her 2 kick-ass teenage boys. Through her popular blog, The Truth Hurvitz— get that? Just let that land for a second. The Truth Hurvitz. In her weekly podcast, Jennifer helps people understand what a happy divorce can look like and how to dip their toes back into the dating world. She loves sharing her insight on how to stay in a successful marriage as well. That's really good to know. Jennifer has also been featured on Oprah Magazine, Bustle, Scary Mommy, Blunt Mom, Suburban Misfit Mom, and many others. I literally was reading that and cracking up. Those titles. Wow. Jennifer, welcome to the show.

Hi, Adam. How are you? I'm sitting here going, I want to talk. How are you? How are you?

Yeah, way cool. All right. So there's a lot in there. There's definitely a theme. I want to ask you what's not written in that bio that you would love for people to know

about? Oh my gosh. I don't know. I'm just so happy to be here. What's not there? Where do I even start? What's not there? I don't know. There's a lot there, right? I don't even know where to start. I think that people need to know that I don't know, like I'm kind of happy. I'm just, I'm happy. My life is doing really well. It started out really crappy in the last 5 years and I kind of took my divorce and made it into a career, which I think a lot of us do after a divorce. We don't know what to do. I was in a 13-year marriage and I was a stay-at-home mom and I gave up my career as a DJ to stay home with my kids and I wouldn't have changed it for the world. And then one day I was like, oh my God, what now? Right? I'm divorced. What am I going to do? And I had no clue and I'm here. That's it.

So here's the question. Here's the question. Yes,

I got lots of them. Let's go.

Right. I got lots of them. But no, this idea of being okay being happy, I mean, that's its own little thing, right? Because I'm not saying that you're uncomfortable in saying that, but it is one of those things where I think Brené Brown talks a lot about that, that sometimes vulnerability is as much about admitting that things are going well, that I'm in a good place, that my life is working. My TED Talk was all about loving your life and I can't tell you how many people, which wasn't really as shocking as it might seem, but a lot of people push back on that. They're not ready to say, to sort of own the joy in their life as easily as they will own the pain.

I'm with you and you know what? I loved your TED Talk. I loved it. I loved how you sat down. I loved everything about it. It was fabulous, first of all. Second of all, I think that you have to— it's funny, as I'm working on my TED Talk, I have one in April. It's funny, one of my coaches said to me, I think that saying to people— it's called Choose Happy, like choose happy is part of it. And my coach was like, you can't really tell people to choose happy because if people are really depressed, they're going to be upset by that. And I was like, you know what? I don't agree. I think that depression, anxiety, all of that stuff, I have that going on too, to put it out there. And I choose happy every day. I wake up and I'm like, look, I'm going to choose happy like I choose my underwear. I'm going to wake up. I'm going to own it. I'm going to step in that space. And I just think it's a choice to be happy, right? Either you are or you aren't. So

let's talk about underwear for a second. No, no, no. Resilience. It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience, but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Before we really go down that rabbit hole, I'll just say this. Underwear. You choose underwear for its comfort, right?

Sure.

I mean, I should say, hold on.

Okay. Sometimes English is my mother tongue.

Sometimes you do not choose underwear for its comfort. You choose it for other purposes.

Purposes, right.

But let's just say the daily undergarments are chosen. I mean, for me anyway, because they're comfortable. I'm not going to put on something that makes me have to, like, you know, pick it out of my crack or whatever. And because that's no fun, I don't think so. Being that we choose, as you said, we can choose to be happy, let's say, or choose to look at things through a lens which provides us opportunities versus, you know, the places where we've been aggrieved.

Right.

You know, maybe just people are more comfortable. Maybe the underwear that they put on is the underwear of of pain, a story of suffering. I mean, we all have it. I mean, seriously.

Yeah. I mean, when I first got divorced, of course, like everyone says to me, you know, One Happy Divorce is one of my books, and then Doing Divorce Right. Everyone's like, how are you so happy? Look, I was not happy to be divorced. Let me just say that really quickly. I'm not saying like One Happy Divorce or Doing Divorce Right, like I'm not happy to be divorced. I'm in a happy divorce. 2 different things. So I don't wake up one day and say, oh, I'm so happy I'm going to get divorced. No, no, no. Look, there's no way divorce is happy. There's nothing happy about divorce. But I chose to do divorce right. I looked at my ex-husband, I call him my wasband. I looked at him and I said, look, you're either stuck with me forever or we're going to do this the right way. We're going to be amicable. We're going to be kind. We're going to be nice to each other and our kids are going to be— we're going to make it as easy on them as we possibly can because this sucks. There's nothing good about divorce. I hated it. I still hate it.

How could it not suck? It sucks. Especially when there are kids involved. Like if there's no kids involved, it still sucks. But it's a very different thing. I'm a child of divorce.

My brother, right?

Yeah, my parents were married almost 25 years before. In fact, before I got on, you know, with you, I was like, Mom, I gotta go. I got a podcast to do.

I gotta go.

She's still the same. She's the same as ever. And you know what? She's come a long way. But, but I'll tell you what, until even 2, 3 years ago, she was talking about her divorce.

Yes, it's awful.

Still talking about it. And I don't mean talking about it in a nice way or in a way.

And I'm not saying that there aren't divorces that have to happen. Look, I mean, that's not what I'm saying. If you have to get divorced, if it's your— I'm not saying stay in an emotionally or physically abusive relationship, get out. That's not what I'm saying. But like, here's the thing. I feel like I jumped too soon. I thought the grass was going to be greener. I didn't have— I was looking at a lens through— my therapist was married, my parents were married for 50 years, my sister was married, my friends were married. I was like, you know what? This isn't working. I'm just going to leave. I was like, what? You know, like, do the work because it sucks. The grass is not greener. So I know I'm going all over the place, but my point is you have to choose to be happy. You really do. You have to. And so my friends are like, well, how are you so, you know, how do you look at— I was miserable. I was sad. But then I woke up one day and I said, you know what? I have to flip a switch. I cannot be angry and upset and sad for the rest of my life. I have to turn these lemons into lemonade somehow. So I started to write.

Why can't you? I was going to ask the question. Why can't you? I mean, really, don't people do that?

Yeah, they do. And some of my clients do. And

I was gonna say it, I could— I was from New York. And yeah,

a lot

of them live on the island of Manhattan.

And they're miserable. You know, not all of them.

But you can tell from people. I mean, you just look in somebody's eyes and you know where anger is. So that's a choice, obviously.

It is a choice. I really feel like it is. People get mad at me and they push back just like they push back with your TED Talk. Right? Like they get mad, they get angry. Like they say to me, well, I'm sorry, I just can't. Now I get up every day and I'm— they're still angry at their exes for whatever they've done. They take no accountability. They don't own it. I mean, my first book, like people say to me, I can't believe you said the stuff you said. Look it, I was a bitch. There's a reason why I'm divorced. I mean, if I was nice every day and had sex all the time, I wouldn't be here, right? So you have to, I mean, come on, let's be honest. It takes two, for God's sakes.

It does.

So I mean, you have to own your crap. You have to own it. And so I look at my husband now and we're best friends and people say to me, why don't you get back together? Well, we don't want that. It's not that I'm I'm not regretting my divorce. I'm regretting the way I treated him. I'm regretting the way that we ended, you know, we ended before we did the work because we didn't know better. But now looking back 5 years out of it, I'm like, oh my God, if I just woulda, coulda, shoulda, I can now, I can help other people. So that makes sense.

Because you speak to a lot of other people, they're involved in your work, as you said, have you learned that? I mean, what are some of the things that you've learned about the process that you wish you would have known sort of 5 years before the end of your marriage?

Not

that

Yeah, I know.

Not right as you're going to the courthouse steps.

Where do I start? I mean, there's so many things. Yeah, my second book is—

I know, pick a couple.

Oh gosh. Okay. Well, I mean, I wish I would have known that it's not only— not only my life was going to change so drastically with my friendships, but my kids' friendships. Oh my God, Adam, I had no idea my kids were going to lose— this makes me like, I cry every time I talk about every podcast. I had no idea, like, the friendships my kids— the pain they were going to endure friendship-wise. I knew my friendships were going to change. Everyone said, oh, your friends will stick by you. No, they don't. Look, I have the best divorce. I have the best of the worst. We're amicable. We thought we'd make it easy for everyone. We're a team. We're going to stick together. We nested. We still sit together at baseball games. But people, we figured they'd choose one or the other.

Right.

They just let us both go. And then my kids, all their friends went too, because nobody knew. Then instead of inviting Jonah and Zach to to the birthday parties, they just said, forget them also. So then my kids had no friends at school and no one wanted to talk to them and they didn't get invited on the ski trips anymore. I'm like, well, you could take them still. I'll send money. But no one wanted them. It's just devastating. You can't even believe, right? I had no idea the impact that that was going to have on my kids.

Yes.

I thought they'll be resilient. They'll be fine. They're not. It's just, it's really, really horrifying what they go through. Yeah, it's really a big deal.

What's another thing, let's say, that you wish you had known 5 years beforehand?

Oh my gosh. I mean—

Look, relationships, here's the deal, right? Relationships are tough. And there are people that are watching, listening now that say, well, okay, it's easy for you to say that. You know, what's your—

I wish I had some.

What right do you have to say? I'll just say this. I'm married to the same person.

Yeah.

Person I met in college.

She's awesome.

The best. And that's true. And yet she's just a human being. So I speak very well of my wife because it's easy to, because she truly is this lovely human being. I mean, I only wish— I'm not even kidding because she'll look at me, she says, you're, you're the more evolved one. You're like the Buddha. And I'm like, are you kidding me? I'm still— I'm a recurring angeraholic. I am nasty on the inside.

We all have those days, right?

You know, no, for sure. But she's just a human being and she has her stuff.

Yeah.

And being married 30— this summer will be 31 years. And just getting up to that milestone of 25, where I knew my parents had, had kind of petered out right around that time. That was a weird time for us.

I can't believe they made it that long. Most people, it's like 7 years, 10 years, and they're like, oh, Jen, I'm out.

For the kids. And that was it. My dad— I'm going to tell— I'll share a story that I've never shared publicly really quick, which is that when I was maybe 12 years old, something like that, I might have, I might have been I don't know, could have been 14. I don't remember, but I was young and my dad took me someplace. It was afternoon. We went to see an apartment, an apartment in an apartment building. I was living, we were living in an apartment building. I'm like, where are we? What are we doing? And we go into this apartment, it's vacant. And we start walking around. It's like a 2-bedroom or something like that. And at some point, he looks at me and he says, I'm thinking about Leaving and go splitting with your mom, and I want us to be together. This would be where you would live with me. I, you know, yeah, it's hard not to get choked up.

Yeah, I like really—

So Jennifer, I looked— he says some— but he said, I'm not going to do anything, you know, like without you saying yes, without your approval. That's what my dad said. And so I looked at him, and I'll never— this is something I'll never forget. The other details falling away, they don't matter. I looked at him and I said, I I want our family to stay together.

Of course you did.

I said that to my dad when he was in pain, when their marriage was, from his perspective, certainly sucked. And he looked at me and said, just tell me whether I can do this. Do I have permission to do this? And I told him no.

Of course you did.

Yeah, exactly.

Every kid asked— any kid, the statistics will tell you, kids would 100%— I mean, I'm telling you, would rather be in a house where their parents are— everyone will tell me you're wrong. Where your parents are actually yelling and screaming, as long as they are not right, then have their parents apart.

In part because that is also where we learn what love means.

Of course.

And now having all this time from then and the wonderful work and the reading and the people, etc., I find that it is sort of universally accepted that those first 7 or 8 years are the time when we determine for ourselves. This is a large part of what you do in the world, and your work is about love.

Yeah.

People come into relationships with their own personal identity and their own definition of what love looks like, what it means. That's why you can't imagine somebody would stay with an abusive spouse. And yet for them, if that's what love means, if that's what attention means, because it's what they grew up seeing or experiencing, as odd as that sounds, as distorted as it even sounds, that you would equate love with physical abuse or mental or emotional abuse. It is what it is. The fact that we gravitate toward that, toward what we find familiar and what we know to be true.

Right. It's really hard for me too, because I have like clients or I have friends that come to me and they're like, I'm really thinking, you know, my heart isn't fluttering anymore. The garage door goes up at the end of the day and I don't know, I just don't feel like I'm in love anymore. And I want to choke them. I want to look at them, my girlfriends or my clients, and say, that's why you really Like, you're not in love, quote unquote, anymore? Like, you're going to throw away your family because your heart doesn't flutter at the end of the day? I'm like, wait a minute. Here's a book that I wrote. Here's my life. Look at it. Check it out because you are out of your mind. Go home. And that's what I say. I'm like, it is so beyond shocking to me how people are so quick. It's the quickness, the immediate gratification they need. They don't want to put the work in. Look, I'm not saying, again, caveat here, get out if you're in an abusive relationship. I'm not saying that. But my God, if you think that the grass is greener where I'm sitting, right? You've got it. Look, all relationships are hard. They're all work. Life is tough. But if you think that the work that you're doing in your marriage is any more difficult than to be happily divorced, because it's work to be happily divorced. You know how hard it is to co-parent with someone that you're angry with or you're at or mad or resentful? Oh my God. This is like a whole different ballgame, right?

Yes.

I tell my clients, I'm like, y'all go home and just dig deep and figure out, is this really what you want? Right? And 9 out of 10 times they come back like, Jen, thank God you gave me that book. I scare the crap out of people.

Tell me if you agree with this, Jennifer. It's our responsibility, anybody that's in relationship, to do work, to do the work on yourself first and foremost. Because again, when we understand, if we think about the fact that the way that we define love has everything to do with who we attract as a mate and what that, what that relationship looks like once we do connect with somebody, then if it's not working, if there's something that's showing up that you don't appreciate, you have to ask yourself, well, again, what's my responsibility in this? What's my work to do? And equally, what's not my responsibility? What's not my work to do?

100%.

But it has to start with us. So even early in the relationship with Randi, meaning early into our marital relationship, I was modeling a number of the same traits, a number of the same things I saw in the house growing up, the kind of histrionics, these outbursts at times and just a lot of drama. I don't know how to put it.

But you caught it early and you changed.

I caught it because I didn't want the same outcome. What was good for me at that time as I look back on it now was that I knew that the outcome that was promised by modeling or repeating that same behavior was one I didn't want.

I hope that's for my kids too. I hope my kids see that. That's the wish that I have for them is that they say, I don't want what we have. I hope that that happens with them.

And the conversation around that's important as well because I would think people don't really want to sit down necessarily with their kids and talk about their divorce or talk about how badly they've behaved or how— and if there is bad behavior that's going to come up in that discussion, you know what kind of bad behavior.

Of course. Oh, yes.

It's your father or it's your mother. And it's always going to be directed at them like they're the bad actors.

Well, you can't do that, right? You can't do that. I tell my clients there's no badmouthing each other. I mean, I've set up rules, right? But like, no one's— it's very hard to stick to them when you're so angry, right?

Yes.

It's so difficult. It is. Divorce is just— but it's happening. The numbers are getting larger every day.

Is that right? Well, I haven't followed any of those statistics.

Oh, it's awful.

Is it more than 50%?

Yeah, it's more than 50% now. And it's happening. Actually, it's really crazy. This is so nuts. But millennials, This is so incredible, are actually— the divorce rate's lower. Millennials are actually doing things right. They're waiting longer to get married.

They're postponing.

Oh, I love it. It's not because they care about marriage less. It's because they care about marriage more, which is fabulous. Helen Fisher, she's a biological anthropologist and she talks about slow love, which I love her. That's interesting. Yeah.

What is slow love?

Slow love. That's what it is.

It's like a position in the bed or something.

Yeah. I wish it was. No, that's one of my favorites. But she talks about waiting longer. And that they're waiting longer and they're not feeling the pressures from their parents like we did. I felt pressure. I was 27. I was the last of all my friends to get married and have kids. My parents sent me to Israel on a singles mission.

On a singles mission.

And they said, go get married.

You will come back married.

You will. You've married— you've dated everyone in the whole city. Now find yourself a man. And I did. I came back. I came back, like, literally got engaged 6 months— no, 6 months later, got pregnant, got engaged, married, pregnant, and within a year.

Oh, man. You are a good listener.

I was. My parents were like, you do this. That is it. I did not even know the guy. I love him. He is the best. I mean, my ex-husband is the best. I cannot even tell you. But I had to get divorced for us to become friends, which is so sad. But my kids are like, Mom, you talk all the time. What is wrong with you? You are supposed to be divorced. That is okay. But that does not happen. It is so rare to have a relationship like us.

For people that are listening right now who are— I am sure there are folks that are in solid relationships. There are people that are questioning the relationships they are in. Some are on their way out. Or those that have left already. For the folks, let's say, that are already out, is there a— I don't want to call it a secret or some cheesy term like that, but what's one thing that has helped you to be able to talk about your husband the way you do, your ex, your husband, and also that you can be in the same room with each other? I've spent time with people who cannot spend time in the same room, let alone the same state even. I'll tell you what it is. It's

all about your ego. All about your ego. You have to put your ego aside and your kids first. If you think about it, it's all about your kids. This is the craziest thing. During a divorce, you have to put your kids first. During a marriage, they have to come second. Your relationship has to come first during a marriage.

I wanted you to repeat that, but you're doing it anyway.

Okay, so this is my TED Talk. This is my TED Talk. I'm giving you a little bit.

I love it. This is the TED Talk right here.

You have to put your kids First during a divorce, right? But during a marriage, you must put your kids second. And every time I talk about it, people go, I can't believe she said that. Put your kids second? What do you mean? And they're like screaming at me. By the end of the talk that I give, they're like, oh my God, she's right. Your relationship has to come first.

I get it, but I really want other folks to hear it from your mouth.

Yes. Okay. So if you don't put your spouse first, my whole life I was taught, right? My generation, I watched my mom put us first. We were always first. Kids first, kids first, kids first. That's what I did. I got married, my kids came out of my vagina, and I said, Mark, you're second now. Jonah's first.

I love it. You just said vagina.

I said vagina.

Haven't had that word come up on one of my shows recently. Maybe in 150-some episodes. I don't know that it's ever come up.

I'm doing the clinical work.

And I've even gotten to say it now too, just because I was just paraphrasing, edifying. And I just thought, well, we dropped the V word. Why not?

I was thinking, you're lucky I said the vagina. I was gonna say something else.

I could say it again, you know, but I won't. See, he thought I was going to do it.

The minute they did, the minute Jonah came out, I said, Mark, you're now number 2. And he looked at me, he thought I was kidding. But from that day forward, my kids came first because that's how—

Did you literally say that? I'm just— I know you're a funny person.

No, I did. I looked at him, I said, you're number 2. The nurses were all like, oh, I think she's kidding. Everyone thought I was kidding. But I'm serious to this day. He looks at me and says, you told me, you warned me. And here's the thing, honestly thought that's how it was supposed to be. Like, I just thought they came first.

You're just following the rules.

I was following the rules.

Again, you're a good girl, right?

I'm a good girl. I'm a good wife. That's what I'm supposed to do. They told you to do this? But when I ask my— when I'm public speaking and I ask everybody, I say, who puts their kids first? Everyone raises their hand because they think that's the right answer.

Well, it's the badge of honor, right?

Right. You're the best mom.

I think more for women than for men.

Absolutely. But guess what men put first? Guess what? When I ask men what they prefer, I say, hey guys, who puts their jobs before their kids? They all go—

There you go. Because they're supposed to protect money. That's in the DNA. Yeah, absolutely.

But guess what we're supposed to do? Supposed to put—

Aren't women and mothers supposed to nurture their kids? Isn't that their first responsibility?

But guess what happens when you put each other first? The minute you put your relationship first, automatically by default, your kids come first.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about, and it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being The leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So, go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are.

Because they see the most amazing thing, right?

Am I right? Don't they? What if you were going to give your kids, like with a magic wand, one wonderful gift? in life, it would be the ability to have great relationships throughout their lives, right? What else would you give them? Yeah, you want to give them health. I know that's going to be like high on the list for sure. But the truth of the matter is even health comes second in some respects to the quality of your relationships.

Well, what happens, right? What happens when they see a mom and dad that are happy and they're in love and they're kissing each other and you go, oh, girls, stop kissing, and you're holding hands like, I can't believe mom and dad are so in love. And then what happens? You have sex and then the oxytocin and the dopamine and your hormones and Guess what? Everybody is happy because when mom and dad are happy, who else is happy? Everybody. The dog, the mailman, everybody is happy. That is what happens. So automatically, by putting each other first and nurturing your relationship and your bond that you have together, boom, bingo.

Your marriage works. It is this very interesting paradox. I was going to say dichotomy, but it is really a paradox that

it

is selfish to be selfish. To be selfless.

Right.

That's what's selfish. I told my— I used to have that conversation with my father-in-law when he was alive, and I miss him every day. I think about him. And this was an area of dispute for us because he's not around today. He's not around because, in my view anyway, he didn't take great care of himself. He wasn't putting himself first.

Well, didn't you say that during your TED Talk? You said that you weren't taking care of you.

I wasn't. That was the irony, is that I was the one going down in my own water. I was drowning. Right. It took my daughter, fortunately, one of our kids, to point it out to me, to just hold the mirror up, which is great because at some point that road doesn't lead to good places when we put ourselves second. When we put our relationship with ourselves second to our kids, that's even, I think, worse than putting our relationship with our spouse second.

Absolutely. You have to take— and the thing is, it all just— it's funny because I didn't get all this until I got divorced because I was sitting on— I was sitting in Malibu overlooking the ocean and I was listening to a speaker. Her name is Andrea Quinn and she was talking about her relationship. She's divorced 3 times and she finally got it right. And she was listening— I was listening to her speak and she was telling a story about her ex-husband and how she used to yell at him every time he put a glass on the top rack in her dishwasher, it would break. And she would go nuts on him and why couldn't he figure it out and da-da-da-da-da. And I'm sitting there going, Oh my God, that was me. I was emasculating. I always thought, Mark, I could do it better. I could do it faster. I could do it quicker. I was awful. I was awful to him. And I started crying. I got up from this, from the beach overlooking the mountain. And I called him. I found a cell spot. And I said, Mark, I was separated already. I said, Mark, I'm so sorry. I was crying when I tell this part. I'm like, I'm so sorry. I was awful to you for 10 years. I was awful. He said, Jennifer, stop beating yourself up. He said, you weren't awful. I was awful. We were both awful. And I said, no, stop. Let me apologize. I am sorry. I was emasculating and I am sorry. And he said, it's okay. But you have to take accountability for what you've done in your relationship so you can move forward. And that's what I needed. But I didn't see that until it was too late.

It's fair for you to ask me the same question. I'm going to ask you something that I didn't plan on asking, And I think this is an out-there kind of a question. I'm not even sure that you can answer it, but I love your opinion anyway. Are women confused?

So I always get in trouble when I answer this because I'm—

Oh, you get asked this?

I get asked a little bit differently. I know what you're saying. So I get asked, I always, people always say to me that I'm so pro, that I women bash, that I'm so pro-male because I always say this too, that I think women are not confused. I think they need to be— this is— I mean, how to say this— they need to be sat down and told— am I saying this good? Am I saying it right? And maybe I should talk to them all. Does that make sense?

Well, we're gonna see. What would you tell women if you could sit them down all at once and have some words with them? I want you to be totally honest.

Okay, so usually when I give— when I talk, and this is why maybe people like to have me around, I put the men on one side and the women on the other. And, I always look at the women and I say, I really do, I just say to them, if you don't treat your husbands kinder and stop nagging them and you don't start having sex with them, you're going to end up divorced. Okay. And then, I look at the men and I say to them, if you don't start listening when your wives speak to you, okay, you're going to be in a very bad, you know, like the whole big tit, whatever. It takes both sides, right? But every time I say to the women or say to the men, who nags? Whose wife nags? All the hands go up. And every time I say to the women, whose men don't listen? All the hands go up. So it's typically those are the big things that happen, right? I mean, like, those are the— right? Everyone's house is the same. But I always say it flat out. If you don't have sex with your husband, he will find somebody who will. And the whole audience goes, And all the husbands go, mm-hmm.

This is great. So a friend of ours who we see a few times a year wrote a very famous book on this topic, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.

Of course, I love it.

Yeah. Yeah. So I got to get John on the show and have the same— I'm going to have the same conversation. No, no, no, I don't know. Well, I have a feeling, but because he's pretty out there and very, very honest, just like you. And I love that. That's so wonderful. Yeah. It's definitely a two-way street. And by the way, I asked that question because I feel like the roles, the traditional roles have definitely changed. And I'm not one to say that that's a good thing or not a good thing. They've just changed.

They have changed.

There's adjustment periods and maybe we're just in the grand scheme of history, of history of humanity. This is just one of those little times where sociologists 100 years from now will With the benefit of study, research, what happened, you know, they'll look at us and go, well, this is what happened to the institute of marriage, to the institution of marriage. And this is what happened in relationships when there was this blurring of some distinct lines that people were following. And again, I don't know that we can say it's a good or a bad thing. It's just a thing, right?

How do you feel about technology though? Because then you throw technology into the mix and Facebook and You should see the stats on that. You know, like that. I mean, Facebook is like, you know,

I'll tell

you what I think about that.

So this is— this will be a separate podcast, but you can see— I'll show you my phone, for example, and people that are watching this on YouTube will see it too.

So

what do you notice about this? You have no evil picture. That's, by the way, that's—

Wait, do you have no apps?

Hold on a second. No, no, I have apps. I'll show you.

What is that though?

Hold on. So, this is Lake Tahoe and it's gorgeous.

Hey, we're talking about the weather. I'm getting all jealous as it's tornadoing here.

But can you see Lake Tahoe? I mean, can you see the details?

Yeah?

Yeah. What are you noticing about the screen you're looking at?

I'm jealous. I don't know.

What am I doing? Why are you jealous?

I mean, it's so calming and serene.

All right. So, let's get rid of that so you can see. So, there's apps, right? Nothing calming or serene at all about that. What are you noticing? I don't

know. Tell me.

All right. So how about colors? Let's just go to the obvious thing.

Well, it's hard to see with the—

Oh, it's tough to see. It's all black and white? Yeah. Oh, it's all black and white. It's grayscale.

Oh yeah. Why?

It's grayscale because I watched a documentary about exactly what's happening, or at least from the perspective of the people they interviewed, what's happening with our mobile phones, mobile devices, and what's in it for the likes of pick Any company that does their business primarily through a mobile app, other than sort of ridesharing companies or things like that, these companies are looking for eyeballs. It's all about us spending time. I won't use words that are kind of judgmental about the whole business model, but let's just say, the more time we spend, the more time we're looking, the more time we're consuming and we're interacting and engaging, the more money— The eyeballs.

Right.

For everything, for their advertising, for you know what, for the information that they share with or without our consent. This interviewer in this documentary said to this person who was one of the early, early tech people, programmers at a very large platform, which again, I'm not going to say what that was, and she says to him, well, look, I'm looking at your phone. You have a smartphone? He goes, yeah, I do. She says, so you're saying that we shouldn't be on the devices or on the apps because the apps are actually sucking, stealing our time, and ultimately manipulating us to do what they're looking for? She said, but you have one. He goes, yeah, except because I need it for this, for that. I've got to check my email. I get texts. I'm no different than anybody else, but I don't engage in the app. I'm not spending time on those apps and part of the reason why I'm not Is that I broke the hold. It's like I broke the spell. She goes, well, what was the spell? She said, well, they're designed using colors and sound, among other things, but we take in more information and more of our brain is, you know, the bandwidth for us is primarily coming from what we visually see.

Right, right.

And so those, the colors and everything that's on that screen, it's designed to keep us coming back. I

think you're absolutely right.

So like the little red number at the top that shows you how many messages or how many Oh, it drives

me crazy. Yeah.

Or comments or whatever it is. These are the things that have you continue to go back and look and open them. And it's addicting. That's what it's intended to be.

It's

addicting and it's purposeful. And the sounds, same thing. Every time you hear that little ding that says you got a new message or whatever it is, right?

I shut mine off.

There's studies that say that when you hear that or when you see that red signal, etc., it triggers inside of us the fight or flight response. Constantly producing on it during the day, low levels of cortisol. So we're in sort of a low-level state of anxiety a lot of the day. I saw that, I heard it. I didn't even mean— I didn't need to have the research and go further. I just said to myself, do I really want to spend more time looking at my phone than looking at other people?

Right.

I'm going to repeat that. Do I want to spend more time on my device than I want to spend being present with other people. And we all know what it's like to walk out in the street and see people that used to be— no one would make eye contact in Manhattan. Like, I was walking through the street, people wouldn't make eye contact because that would mean you could get in a fight or something. Now you don't have to worry about making eye contact because people are all staring at their screens. And you go to dinner and there's families and people on dates that are staring at their screens. Try

dating.

So we've all seen it. We all get it. And the question is, Are you going to be part, or am I going to be part, of someone else's manipulative business model, or am I going to decide for myself whether I want to spend more time on my device or staring at it than staring into the eyes of somebody that I want to know, I want to care about, I want to listen to?

That's a great idea.

It's just interesting. It took me about 10 minutes because I'm not the quickest on technology, but after about 10 minutes, I figured out how to get my phone to grayscale. Now I have the best of what I think are both worlds. I've got everything I need or want or whatever it is for business, et cetera, but I'm not playing that game the same way. I've got to tell you, my time with this thing is down by probably 2/3 because it's boring. Look at it!

Right! It's boring! There's nothing interesting! It does look a little boring.

Right. It does look a little boring. I'll be real honest. The only thing that I miss at all, and I'm not even missing it so much anymore because I love black and white pictures. Black and white pictures are awesome. You didn't even like— you weren't even thinking, oh my God, that's Lake Tahoe. And why is it, you know, why does it look the way it looks? Yeah. So it's— that's the only thing. And when I want to see a picture of the kids or some other thing in color, I'll either go on my laptop to see it or I'll go on my wife's.

Of course.

So there it is.

That's what I tell people about.

Want to spend more time having, you know, like more sex? Get off your device.

Get off your phone.

Get off your phone.

Get your head out of your apps.

Get

your head out of your apps.

Get your head out of your apps. That's right. That's hysterical. All right. So, I want to ask you a question that I pretty much ask every guest because we're studying and researching the topic of resilience. We talk a lot about how important resilience is. And when we talk about whether you're in a relationship that needs work or you're out of a relationship that was intolerable, whatever that looks like, resilience is a big component of it. And I'd love to get your Your take on that, your definition or your take on what resilience looks like and means to you.

Well, this is something that I was thinking about it when you asked me. And I never thought of myself when I was younger growing up, I never thought I was very resilient. I quit everything. And when it got hard, when it got too tough, I quit. I was a great cheerleader, but when it was really too tough, I quit. I was in theater. When I got the lead, it was fine. But if I didn't get the lead, I quit. You know what I mean? I was always like, if it got to math, eh, it was fine. I was good at a lot of things, but I wasn't great at one thing.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com. And not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience. Does that make

sense?

It does.

I don't know if I was scared of success or I was scared of not being good enough. I think that's what it was. You know, I wasn't very resilient at all. And I think my divorce taught me and my kids taught me, I didn't want them to see me fail again. But I failed at my marriage, I feel like, and I wasn't going to let it happen again. So I just became resilient automatically, I think, I feel like. And then I just won't stop now. I just won't stop. And it's hard every day. I get up every day and I'm like, I'm tired sometimes, but I won't quit. I think for my children, they made me more resilient. I just get up and I'm like, You just got to do it, Jen. You just got to do it. Dig deep and just find it. So, I don't know if that answered your question, but—

It did. It does. Thank you. The rituals that we have to do certain things, the way I look at rituals is that they're a conscious attempt to change something, right? There's something we want to change and we say, I'm going to do this in order to get that change to happen. Habits are different. You know, we think about habits. I look at them as the things we don't think about that we just have mastered, I suppose, to a certain level. And when we've brushed our teeth for the 18,000th time, we've mastered that skill. And by mastered, I don't mean we even do a great job because we know every time we go to the dentist, they tell us what a shitty job we do brushing our teeth.

We didn't floss enough.

Clearly, doing it 18,000 times doesn't mean you become a master at anything really, right? So, that's a whole other conversation for another day. But this idea of consciously choosing to do something to create something like resilience, is there something that you can look at in your daily things you do with consciousness that produces greater resilience? And if not, for some reason, maybe this is that moment where you decide.

Yeah, I'm kind of thinking, I think I need to do something. I do. You know what I've always wanted? I really want to meditate. Everyone I know that meditates— do you meditate?

I do now.

You do?

I do. You know, it's a funny part of my TED where I said I'm a really crappy meditator. Something about saying that out loud in front of so many people and all this and that and laughing about it that went to me, you know what, do I have to continue to be a crappy meditator just because I declared that out loud?

Right.

And I don't. And I know you don't. I'm not a crappy meditator.

Okay, see, I can meditate. I can. I can. I used to think I couldn't. I would tell I would tell everybody, all my guru people, I would say, no, you can. I'd be like, no, I can't. I'm too hyper. I can't do it. But you can, right? Yes. Well, I don't—

Even lunatics like us can meditate, right?

Even like crazy, right? Exactly. So I feel like that's my goal is to be— I'm going to be more— what's the word? I'm going to try to just meditate, like really do it, I think, and be more intentional about actually

Why?

What

do you think you'll get out of doing that?

Well, you know what? I was just diagnosed with a crazy autoimmune disease, and I have to have infusions and all this stuff and blah, blah, blah. And I think that I will find a little bit more inner peace maybe, and a little more— I think I'll be more grounded. Sometimes I feel like my shoulders are always up. Do you ever feel like that? Where you just can't—

Tense.

Yeah, tense. Maybe that would help. And I think

And it's clear. I mean, everybody can, I think, figure out how being more calm and peaceful and grounded would actually help with resilience, would contribute to your ability to keep going.

Yeah, just keep going. Just got to keep going. And I think you find people for a reason. And I think that we find people like you and this connection and you find people that keep you going. Right. So it's cool. I'm glad I met you. This is a great talk.

Jennifer, I'm thrilled that we met, that you came on the show. And by the way, I just am in love with that, the Truth Hurvitz, right?

That was the first thing I ever did. I didn't even know how to write.

It's clever. I appreciate and I respect clever.

Thank you.

And not just clever, but, but, you know, like my grandmother, my grandmother's form of cleverness where it's— there's an intelligence.

Thank you.

And it's not just the silly, silly things. So thanks for being on the show. Thanks for sharing so, so vulnerably, transparently what's going on and what's There's a lot of people that, you know, where it's not necessarily over. Just because a relationship isn't going well or the trajectory is sort of, you know, like a death spiral, it doesn't mean you can't pull up. I believe in miracles. I wake up every day and pretty much every day, in addition to saying those words, I love my I say these words. I say, I wonder what miracles are coming today. I said that out loud this morning and Randy and I were lying in bed and we had a little giggle about it and there are just miracles all the time. So, why, you know, I mean, if you believe that, if you buy that, and I can't imagine, I can't imagine any adult person does not have a lot of their own living proof of what a miracle can be. Yeah. I mean, just the fact that you are breathing in this moment, just the fact that you could be listening To a podcast of 2 people you may have never heard of, you never know, you've never met, but you're on your Peloton, you're on the treadmill, you're walking in the desert, you're in a car or at work when you should be working and you're listening to this podcast. Whatever it is that you're doing, this is a freaking bona fide miracle. And that you're breathing and alive, you're sitting, standing, or whatever, lying down on a big Great big ball of dirt that is the size of a grain of sand spinning in infinite space. I mean, for real? You can't put any faith in miracles? I mean, it's like somehow that's happening. That's all going on. The tides are coming in and going out, and there's animals that are doing things that are remarkable. And all that's happening and somehow or another, you can't turn around a shitty relationship? You can't figure out a way to be kinder or to be more compassionate or to be more present with someone or to just express love, even if it doesn't mean you're going to live together forever or even if it doesn't mean whatever it doesn't mean? Can you just extend love to someone that is— someone in your life today that you don't feel like extending love to? Or forgiveness or something. I mean, it's just all possible and I'm really happy that we got to have this conversation. And for folks out there, we'd love to get your feedback. I know Jennifer is doing amazing things in the world. She's got a great website. You can find out more about her, the work she's doing, her blog, her podcast. All of that will be in the show notes. Click those links. Go to her website. Check her out. I mean, there's so many places to learn and she's a font. Of just great everything. Thanks, Jennifer. Really, thank you. And of course, leave your comments at adamarkel.com/podcast. And if you haven't subscribed, subscribe to the show. We'd love to get your feedback. So quick reminder for the ritual when we wake up tomorrow. Put your feet on the floor if you can do that. That's a miracle all by itself. Not everybody gets to do that. Take a deep breath. Pause for just 10 seconds, just 10 seconds before you get on to the ordinary things of the day, the important things of the day as well, like getting that coffee made, getting the shower in, and the shave, and the kids dressed, and lunch is made, and all the stuff we've got going on. Take 10 seconds for yourself. Put yourself first when you wake up tomorrow. And if you want to say something like, I love my life, then go for it. If you want to say something like, I wonder what miracles are coming today, Go for it. Jennifer, what's one thing that you would recommend that people say first thing out of the gate when they wake

up? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I don't know. I don't know. Just choose happy. Just choose happy. Wake up and choose happy.

Just be happy. I choose happy.

Show up and choose happy.

Love it. So killer. All right, everybody. Ciao for now.

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