#49: James J. Sexton: Tackling Relationship Issues In The Covid-19 Window

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I'm ready for my close up.

Hi and welcome back. I'm so glad you're here with me. Hoping you are home safe and feeling good. Praying that you're feeling good. I've had a number of friends who have been sick the past week, as I'm sure you have too. My son's teacher, I, you know, there's friends of mine in New York, friend of mine in Atlanta, I mean, all over the place. So this thing is real and we have got to do all that we can to stay home and wash our hands and do whatever it takes to limit ourselves from any exposure. As I'm sure you've seen the news and seen just how devastating things are right now. However, there are some bright spots. I've been so consumed on social media was sharing the really amazing things that are happening. There are so many beautiful things like craft, sending the Patriots plane to China to get a million masks, which was really amazing. You know, people are doing so many different things to step up and help right now that you normally would not see, which is just so inspiring. Fills my heart with so much joy and I'm so excited to continue seeing all of this goodness in the world. And it doesn't have to be sending a plane somewhere either, I'll tell you that. Just this morning, two people reached out to me on text that I hadn't heard from in so long and both were just checking in to see how me and my son were doing and it completely made my day. You know, you never, I guess we all underestimate the impact that we could have on somebody in a positive way. But just dropping a nice note to say, how are you doing? I hope you're safe. How are you feeling? Do you want to talk? You know, those small things are huge right now. I spoke to a really good friend of mine who I hadn't spoken to in probably a month last night, and she was just so encouraging and it was so exciting to connect with her and talk and just hear how she's doing and how she's getting through things and hear how different it is in different parts of the country and in people's different situations. Right. Because sometimes some people are newly married with a job they've had for a long time and other people just started a new job and are moving into a new home and maybe they're alone and everyone has their own different challenge. There is no one going through this without challenge right now. And I think it's really important for all of us to see that. I'm really trying to make sure I do not judge anyone right now because everyone's coming from some place of fear. Whether it's projected fear in the future of what after this situation's gonna look like, or it's fear that they just lost a job. And I have so much empathy for anyone in that as I have been there. And it is polarizing and it's so scary. And then, you know, fear of what can happen to us. I've heard, you know, people doing some really crazy things. So I really just implore everyone if we can try to be as patient, understanding and non judgmental right now as possible. I am steering clear of all arguments and fights. Not interested. This is not the time to put negativity out into the world. It's a time to support one another and just send love to everybody. And it's also interesting because I'm seeing on social media, you know, people losing their jobs or their mother sick or they're sick, you know, really massive, scary, awful things happening. And then there's people that are complaining that they can't, you know, work out at the gym and they can't stand being stuck in their house. And it's such a broad spectrum, spectrum of different pain points, different struggles. And I know all of this will evolve and change over time too, because some of the people that, you know, myself included, that makes jokes about having to homeschool my son and not be able to leave the house and going stir crazy and feeling emotional, Gez, that will change immensely if I end up getting the coronavirus right, because that will be nothing compared to being, being sick or having to go to the hospital. And just to see all of the work that the amazing health care workers are putting in, the overtime and the sacrifice they're making is just mind blowing to me.

I'm.

I'm so grateful, as I know you all are. So anything that we can do to share that gratitude, to put that out there, to share it with people we haven't spoken to, to check in. Please just check in on one person. When you disconnect from this podcast today, it would mean the world to me because I know today it turned my day around and every day different. And I've been saying to myself each morning when I wake up, what is my intention for today? And get really clear on it. I want to be hopeful. I don't want to judge I want to be supportive and I want to bring good to the world. And some days that's easier than others, right? Because some days I don't feel so great and you start wondering, is this allergies and do I have the coronavirus? You know, it's not very difficult for anyone to go to a dark spot quickly if we allow ourselves to. Right. So I know that, you know, giving my son a hug and asking how he's feeling will make me feel feel better. And then engaging with his work and getting his day planned. That's our new routine is first thing in the morning, I make him breakfast, and we sit down and go over his routine and schedule. And then I plot in my schedule around his. I actually. This is so funny. My son actually has a band class he's doing remotely. He has to play a French horn live once a day. So I'm having to change my zoom meetings, my podcast recordings, and just my regular scheduled meetings around when he's playing the French horn. Because as you can imagine, it wouldn't really pan out so well if that was playing in the background. And we're in my very small condo, two bedroom condo in Miami. And it's just. Who could have ever foreseen this? It just. It's wild to think about the problems we thought about even a month ago, right before this had really become a pandemic, the way that it is now, how things that we worried about just were nothing. Today I'm worried because I have to go to the grocery store, and I just am feeling a little nervous about going because that's really the only interaction that I have with anyone outside of my son. And so having to leave him at home alone so that I'm the only one going, you know, just in and of itself, I hate that. But then to. To know that you're walking into a situation where you don't want to expose yourself to. To somebody, that's sick. This is just wild beyond words. But I am praying that you are feeling good, praying that you're staying as positive as possible. And please reach out to someone that you want to encourage today, because like I said, it really meant so much to me. Such a small act put such a big smile on my face. And when we're not really interacting with anyone other than the people we're quarantined with, that can be really, really exciting and meaningful. Okay, so now we are going to get to my excellent guest tackling relationship issues in the COVID 19 window, which is crazy. And I've been So curious about. So hang tight because we will be right back. Meet a different guest each week. Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet our guest today, James Sexton. He's a trial lawyer in NYC with two decades of experience negotiating and litigating high conflict divorces. He's also the author of how to Stay in Love, A Practical Wisdom from an Unexpected Source. Jim, that is a very unexpected source.

Yeah, I definitely run the risk of putting myself out of business.

Well, something tells me that's not going to happen after I've seen the recent divorce stats.

Yeah, I don't think it will. You know, doctors have been writing books about how to stay healthy for many, many years and people continue to ignore advice. So I think I'll unfortunately continue to have job security. None more so now than during the pandemic when everyone is locked in with their, with their spouse and their children.

Okay, so now that you brought that up, I would love to dive into this because personally I'm divorced and I live with my son, so I'm quarantined with a 12 year old. Which you know, of course has its own challenges, homeschooling and whatnot.

Sure.

However, in the big picture of things, you know, I have friends, as I'm sure we all do, that some of them are in really difficult marriages right now where they had been avoiding each other a lot. Some of them are not married yet but living together and have never gone through a tough time yet. So, you know, there's so many. And then there's people who are in good relationships but miserable right now because they're stuck together and you know, stuck in their homes. So what is it that you foresee happening with the situation as we're just within the first month?

Yeah, I mean, I think you hit on the major categories there, Heather. I think that it's a lot, you know, I think that it's. And each of those is a little bit different and presents its own challenges. So I think on one level, the easiest one to look at and the one that I think a lot of people are in is where you're in an otherwise functional relationship. And now you're thrown in very abruptly and unexpectedly into these conditions where you're A, forced to spend a tremendous amount of time together if you're sheltering in place and B, you're both under the stress of seeing your day to day routine change, you know, your exercise routine, you know, going to the gym or your day to day routine and going to the office or having the Kid or kids out of the house, you know, for periods of time. That's challenging. I mean, I represent a lot of people who, after one of the parties retires, start having real dysfunction in their marriages because, you know, they said for better or for worse, they didn't say for lunch. And all of a sudden they're together all the time and they say, wow, I didn't realize how much that little bit of distance from each other during the day kept us from looking at some of the problems we had in our relationship or some of the ways that we might have irritated each other. But I think a lot of the wisdom that I tried to share in the book, although it was written before the pandemic and before even the prospect of the pandemic existed, I think a lot of it's actually really useful for the situation, for that situation, because a lot of that is about, you know, maintaining your individuality in a relationship and being really open in your communication with your partner, even about little things. Because one of the fundamental premises I say in the book and that I really believe very deeply after watching so many relationships dissolve in my professional life, is that the small things really erode, you know, the connection we have to our partner and that, you know, no single raindrops responsible for the flood, but the flood comes. And really the key is to stop the little disconnections before the big marriage or relationship killing things come, like adultery, financial impropriety, major breaches of trust. So keeping those little connections, communicating with your partner about, look, why don't we make a point every day of just checking in with each other because we're both under stress right now and. And we're both adjusting to new routines, and let's just make sure that we keep this thing healthy and, you know, minding your relationship and doing preventative maintenance, I think that's huge. The second area, you know, that you talked about is, I think, a real problem, and that is that there are people who have real problems in their relationship, maybe problems they were considering divorcing over, or maybe just dysfunction that's existed. A spouse or partner who drinks, or a spouse or partner who is verbally abusive to them or not supportive emotionally, and being locked in with that person is a really, really difficult situation. So from a personal, professional standpoint, I think when this is over, you're going to see in the United States the same thing that they saw in China, which is after the quarantine was lifted in China, there's been a massive spike in the divorce rate. Bloomberg News just put out an article a couple days ago that a dozen or so people emailed to me wondering if I'd seen it. Basically talking about the fact that the spike in the divorce rate, you know, went right up after China, you know, lifted the quarantine. Because there is a huge amount of pressure put on people who are in close quarters together and forced to spend hours and hours together. I mean, listen, I survived, you know, I heard you say about your 12 year old son, I've survived two 12 year olds. My sons are 22 and 20 respectively now. But I remember those were challenging years from time to time. And there was a. You know, I love my sons then and I love them now, but there was a pleasure in having them kind of go off to school and, you know, having them in the evenings, you know, doing homework and tired from having been at school all day. And as much as you love someone, you know, and I think we love our children more than we even love romantic partners much of the time. But it's hard, it's hard to not lose your patience and it's hard to feel anything other than a little bit trapped. So I think acknowledging that, always a really, really healthy, good thing for people.

So why is it that there? Because I was so interested to hear what you first saw for our country after this ends. And would it, would it mean, and I had no idea. I didn't read the Bloomberg article, nor had I seen it yet. I was curious, would it mean more people getting married because they were. Maybe they were quarantined alone and they missed that person they had been dating and they wished, you know, so. Or was it going to be that more people would get divorced? And I wonder why that is. Is that because they probably never should have been married in the first place? The marriage was broken and now they were forced to be together, which was the final straw? Or was it that they finally spent enough time together to see that maybe they had changed or evolved, you know.

And I don't know the answer to that. What I would say is that I think, I think relationships end the same way that people go bankrupt, which is very slowly and then all at once, you know, there's all these slow disconnections and slow problems and then they just ultimately snowball into some real, you know, final moment or final denouement, you know, And I think that this may be, for some people the thing, it may be the straw that breaks the camel's back where they're really forced to spend a tremendous amount of time together and they can't look away or avoid the dysfunction of the relationship. I think a lot of people, work is their favorite narcotic. You know, it's the thing they can go and focus on rather than look at the problems in their life that they may want to, you know, may need to look at to have a healthier, happier, more effective life. So I think that's a piece of it. In terms of the marriage, the impact that will have on the marriage rate. I think you got a great point there. I haven't actually heard anybody point that out until now, but as you say it, it makes a lot of sense to me. I think you'll need time for that to bear out. Because I think unlike divorce, which is you're in a situation and anytime you want to, you can pull the trigger on ending it, depending on what level of callousness or what level of tenacity you have. But marriage, like being alone. I do have some single friends who, you know, one of whom I was actually just texting with a little while ago today who said to me, yeah, it's really, you know, being alone in this is hard. You know, that it makes you feel really isolated. And, you know, thankfully, we live in a world where we don't, under normal circumstances, have to be so isolated. We can go places and be with people. But one of the things I would say having, you know, living in Manhattan for many years is anyone who lives in Manhattan or any other metropolis will tell you that it's hard to be alone and to feel lonely. But there's something uniquely awful about feeling alone when you're surrounded with people. You know, there's an isolation that people who live in cities can sometimes describe where you're just. You're walking through very crowded places, but no one's interacting with each other in any way. And you can feel really terribly alone. And I think that that's the phenomenon that we're going to see in people right now, which is if you're married to someone or in a relationship with someone and you're cohabitating and you're with them 247 now, but you still feel so alone, that's a far more painful place to be, I think, than being someone who's alone because you're just not in a relationship. Because once, you know, we lift this sort of quarantine life that we're all living, which I hope will happen sometime in the reasonably near future, you can solve the problem of physically feeling alone or even feeling unconnected. You go to. You go to church, you could go to A gym. You could go to any of the other places where people are all together, but they're not in a coupling situation. But I think when you're in a relationship and you are forced to be with someone for an extended period of time and still feel terribly alone, that's a much harder cross to bear, I think.

Oh, my gosh, I couldn't agree more. And hearing you describe that, that just sounds torturous. And I think most of us know somebody in a situation like that or have been in that situation, and that's a really empty, painful feeling. My heart goes out to anyone that's dealing with that now. One of the things that you brought up was the issue with finances, economy. And looking at what's happening in our world right now, it's very clear there is a lot of fear and pressure for 99.9% of people around income and economics. So how does that impact just normal, good marriages?

Well, this is what I mean when I say that I think it's gonna be a boom for divorce lawyers when this is over. I keep saying to my colleagues that we all just have to weather the storm, because after there's gonna be the div. Lawyer Relief act, known as Covid, because I think it's a perfect storm. I mean, I. People are going to be under tremendous financial pressure. I mean, I can tell you as a divorce lawyer for two decades that, you know, a very, very common precipitating event for people ending up in my office is someone losing a job. Because when you lose a job, you know, when a man loses a job, you know, it's very emasculating. You know, the feeling of being a provider or co provider, if they're both working is very hard to adapt to. The change in your routine is hard to adapt to financial str. You know, we saw a tremendous spike in the divorce rate after the real estate market dropped out after the bubble and the lending crisis in the early 2000s, because people who were on paper millionaires because of their equity in their home and investments that they had when the market crashed and the real estate market crashed, and suddenly they had massive financial stress that put terrible strain on marriages. So I think we're going to see, unfortunately, after this, not only the stress and pressure of people who've been forced to quarantine together for a period of time and started to see the. In their relationships, but we're also going to see the same people under tremendous financial stress, many of them unemployed unexpectedly. So, yeah, it's big. I mean, it's Going to. It's going to be a lot of stuff I'm already seeing in my practice. I mean, I'm still, you know, my main day job, my primary job, but writing is really more of a hobby. My primary job is still I'm a divorce trial lawyer. And we're already seeing people weaponize Covid in a sense. I mean, they're, they're playing games with parenting time schedules. They're not paying their child support because they know the courts are on a skeleton crew right now because, you know, courts have to be closed the same way that other businesses have to be closed. They're subject to the same conditions. You know, criminal cases still move forward, and emergency cases, real emergency cases where there's a serious risk of physical harm or death to someone are still being processed by the courts virtually online. But, you know, day to day divorce things, child support things, visitation issues, they're not getting addressed in the way they used to. And, you know, it's already something people are doing. People going through a divorce, you know, an ugly divorce especially, they'll hit each other over the head with whatever's handy. And if it's a pandemic, they'll hit each other over the head with a pandemic. You know, we're already starting to see it in the cases that were already there.

This is so opposite to what we're seeing in regards to the good in some people that you're. You know, I'm reading a lot about that Kraft just sent the Patriots plane to go pick up masks in China. And, you know, there's all these wonderful stories of people just putting their own interests aside to help right now. So it's heart wrenching to hear that that flip side, that ugly side is emerging.

Crisis is like that. I think, you know, that, you know, you see good people at their best and you see bad people at their worst. And you also sometimes see bad people at their best and good people at. I mean, I don't believe my clients, many of whom have engaged in terrible behavior during the stress of a divorce, that's who they are. I don't think it defines them as people. I think all of us have moments where we're heroic and all of us have moments where we're less than heroic and perhaps we're our worst selves. And I do think that stress and pressure brings out both in people. It brings out their greatest, most human, kindest, empathetic traits. And I'm like you. I'm so inspired by seeing some of the ways that people are Coming together. I even just see it in the day to day gestures of people even, you know, I was in the elevator in my building the other day in Manhattan, and you know, normally New Yorkers do that New Yorker thing where we don't even acknowledge each other's existence. And this gentleman was standing on the opposite side of the elevator of me because we're, you know, trying to maintain a certain distance. And, you know, we looked at each other for a second, which is already weird in Manhattan. You don't really look at each other. You just sort of stare down or stare at the wall. And I looked at him and I said, how you holding up? And he said, yeah, you know, it's hard. It's so weird. And I said, yeah, it's weird. It's scary. And he said, yeah, it's scary and it's just strange. And I said, yeah, you know, I think we're all feeling some of the same things. And he said, yeah, yeah. And then he got off on his floor and he said, hey, take it easy, man. And I said, yeah, you too, you know, like, stay well. And I thought to myself as the elevator door closed that I would never have had that interaction with another human being two months ago. You know, and we all had stresses and we all had things that weigh on us every day. And, you know, the world would probably be a little bit nicer of a place if anytime you were with another person, you might say, hey, you know, how you doing? You okay? You good? You know, and like, you know, you can kind of check in with each other. But we did see that after 9, 11 for a little while. And I think we're seeing it again now that people, people do want to connect. And I say that in my book that, you know, to me, people always talk about the statistic that 53% of marriages end in divorce. And I think that's a really terrifying and important statistic. It tells you how important it is to think carefully about who you're marrying and also to consider very realistically the possibility that it is more likely than not that your marriage will end in divorce. But the other statistic that fascinates me is that 87% of people who get divorced are remarried within five years. And that statistic tells me that there's something about pair bonding and about the specific technology of marriage that draws us and that we believe in and that even after we've been through a divorce that we still want to connect with each other. And I think that's an incredible and.

A beautiful thing but isn't. And I don't know the answer, but I believe I do. Isn't the rate of second marriages ending in divorce even higher than the first?

Yeah, yeah. The rate goes up with every subsequent marriage. So the failure rate of second marriage, third marriage, fourth marriage, each one goes way up.

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But I also heard you tell a really beautiful story of a gentleman that I believe was married four or five times and explained to you why he thought it was a good idea.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, he had been married four times unsuccessfully and was marrying for the fifth time and I was doing a prenup for him for the fifth one. I have a standing joke, but not really a joke with my clients, that if I've done a contested divorce for you, that if you get remarried I'll do your prenup for free. And only in a 20 year career. I've only had maybe two or three clients take me up on it and I don't know why they really all should, but I said to him, why are you getting married again? He was an older fellow, so I sort of thought, well, maybe he's of the generation that you have to get married if you want to sleep with someone without being discourteous. I was kind of saying to him like, hey, you know, you can kind of just like date now if you want to. You can kind of sleep. You don't have to marry someone to sleep with Them anymore. You can kind of. We live in a world where you can do that now, you know. I said, you know, what. What is it you're trying to do by getting married? Like, what do you think is the value add for you in getting married? You know, Because I don't think a lot of people ask themselves that question. I mean, what is the problem to which marriage is a solution for you? And then what is it for your partner? Because some of the people reasons, people say they get married. Why? I don't want to be alone. Well, you have to get married to not be alone. You know, you can be not alone in lots of ways, you know, Or I want to be married because I want to have a regular sex life. It's like, well, being married, no guarantee of a regular sex life any more than living near a restaurant is a guarantee that you're going to get fed every day. You know, it means it's possible, but it doesn't mean it's likely. You know, he said to me, well, he said, you know, I think about it like this. He said, imagine you had a car and it was a reliable car, and you drove it for 15, 20 years, and then it broke down. So you rush out, you go buy a sports car right away. You don't really look around. You just buy a flashy sports car that looks really cool. But after a couple of months, you realize, you know, what this car is like. Not for me. It's not practical. It doesn't work. So you buy another car and that car is good, you know, but you have it for a few years and you realize that, you know, it's just not practical or it's not working the way that you thought it would. He's like, what are you gonna do? You gonna walk everywhere for the rest of your life? And I thought that it was a. It was a cute metaphor for what he was trying to explain about his approach to marriage, which is, you know, he felt like it's just worth trying again and seeing every relationship, you know, like a different car, seeing it uniquely, you know, and saying that, well, it might be different with this one, but also realizing that, you know, we're all guilty of rebound relationships. We're all guilty of holding on to something sometimes longer than we should have, and just out of habit, not wanting to let go of it. And, you know, one of the things I think that makes your work very interesting and useful for people is this idea of sort of, you know, being fearless in your recreation of yourself and in your self reflection and Being courageous in the sense that you, you know, you overcome that tendency. We all have to just do what we always did and kind of always get what we always got as a result. And I think that there's something to be learned from that work and from that perspective. In terms of how you look at marriages and relationships, is that something that.

You see consistently with the people you're dealing with when they come to you about their divorce? That they're wishing that. That that's their top wish, that they wish they had gotten out earlier or they wish they had, you know, stood up in the face of fear and left?

Yeah.

I mean, I think the most common thing I see is a wishful thinking of if only this person was this way more, or if only this person was that way more. So, you know, if only my husband, who's an alcoholic, didn't drink, or if only my husband was, you know, communicated with me and was responsive to my needs. And the sad part of hearing that is, well, okay, so you're just wishing he was another person than the person that he is. I mean, you divorce the person you're married to, you know, and when you say, like, well, I wish my husband was who he is, except not an alcoholic, it's like, well, okay, but he's an alcoholic, so that's not who he is. And, you know, very often people don't want to look honestly at the reality of their situation. We're all guilty of that in some aspect of our lives where we're not being honest with ourselves. And I say in the book that I think the biggest problem we have is twofold. One is that we don't know what we want, and two, that we don't know how to ask for it once we know what it is, we don't know how to try to approach this other person about getting it. We're afraid. And so I think that's a big, big problem for people. And I think there are a lot of people who probably reverse engineer at the end of a relationship all the things along the way they could have done differently to have the relationship come out differently. But that's a little bit like, you know, I like to cook. And so I think about things in cooking metaphors sometimes. But, you know, when you're cooking, after you taste the meal, you can say, oh, okay, I added too much salt, or, oh, all right. I didn't. You know, I over. I didn't brown the chicken enough, or whatever it might be. But while you're doing it is when you have to make those realizations. And because it's too late, you can't take the salt out, you know, you can't, you know, take everything off of the chicken and re brown it. You've passed that point. So to me, I think that's one of the sadder things to see is that, and that was the reason I wrote the book, was to say to people, look, if there's a way to course correct before you end up in my office, that's the time to do it. If you're in my office, it's already too late in many ways. If you can course correct along the path and do that fearlessly. And the first step of that is really looking honestly at your heart and at your feelings and what it is that you're getting and not getting in a relationship. And I think that that's the hardest work to do.

So it's really about them becoming honest with themselves first and then getting honest with their spouse.

I think so. I mean, look, I think that the most dangerous lies are the lies we tell ourselves. I think that a lot of times when we lie to our partners, we don't realize we're even lying. I think we tell them what they want to hear and what we wish were true. You know, we tell them what we aspire to feeling, not what we're actually feeling. And I think that's a hard thing. It's hard to tell someone something they don't want to hear. I have to do it for a living. Every day I come into my office and I have 20 calls to return. And I've made it a policy and practice for myself, a mindfulness practice, that If I have 20 calls to return and two of them I'm dreading returning, I do those two first because I know myself, I know my brain. I know that I will put off those unpleasant calls where I have to give bad news to someone. I'll put those off and then they'll loom over me like a specter and they'll. They'll hang and they'll. They'll. They'll weigh down on me and they'll impact my mood and my approach to everything I'm doing. So if I can just get those painful things out of the way. I know it's hard, you know, I know it's hard when you're in a relationship to say to your partner something they might not want to hear in that moment. Something like, you know, I just feel like I just kind of want to be alone today, or, oh, you know, I know you really wanted me to come do this thing with you, but I really just don't feel like it. And I just don't. I'm going to resent you for it, you know? Or, hey, that thing you said the other night when our friends were over and you made that little joke about my sister, like, it kind of rubbed me the wrong way for a second. I know you like my sister, but, man, like, it just felt weird. I felt like kind of like you were, you know, kind of like stabbing me in the back a little with that comment. And it's hard to say it. It's frightening to say it, but it's so much better than the cumulative effect of not sharing those things. I mean, anyone in a relationship has had the experience of, you know, you're with your spouse or partner and you're having, you know, a conversation about, you know, which restaurant in your neighborhood has the best Chinese food, and, you know, you're disagreeing about that, and you jump to five minutes later, and you're like, I never liked your mother. You know, and all of a sudden you're like, whoa, what just happened? Like, how did we get there?

You know?

And how long have you been carrying that around for? And that's what I'm trying to help people get away from, is that ammunition reserve that they save up of all of these little hurts and disconnections that they feel along the way, and instead just inviting them to a dialogue in real time when things happen. Hey, I just want to put this on your radar because I care enough about you that I want to protect this thing, and I think that that's a better way to do it.

Well, I have to support you on the idea that a divorce attorney is best suited to give this advice, because I remember when I was getting divorced, unbeknownst to me, I was asking my divorce attorney, what do you think about this? And can you believe he just did this? And suddenly I'd get the bill back, and I'd say, see? I'm being charged hourly. And finally I said, oh, my, I need to get a therapist, not my divorce attorney, for this. Because you just. You develop a rapport where you're telling them so much personal information anyway that you just start unloading everything on them.

Yeah, and it's very funny because for us, as divorce lawyers, too, you know, look, we're human, and so we do care about our clients. I know I certainly do. And there's a part of us that wants to be there for them when it comes to some emotional things. And And I'll try very often with clients, you know, when we've been a lot of miles together and I have an affection for them, I'll say to them like, all right, you know, this is off the clock now and we'll chat off the clock a little bit about, you know, the personal stuff that they're feeling. But yeah, I mean, it's really. I'm not a mental health professional, you know, and I think that anybody going through a divorce or even a breakup, you know, any kinds of transitions like that are very much the reason I went into divorce law. I was a psychology major as an undergraduate and then I did my graduate work in communication and persuasion. And I really loved the idea of being a divorce lawyer because it was an opportunity to be part of the architecture of someone's post divorce life. You know, they're forced to confront this major life change. Even a friendly divorce is just a huge, huge life change. And you know, when things like that happen, just like this Covid thing, you know, when this is over, we will have an opportunity as people, individually and collectively, to do it differently, to just rebuild our day to day life and what it looks like. And I think that divorce presents that to people and it's certainly hard and tragic. There's difficult things to adjust to in terms of maybe not seeing your child with the same frequency or maybe having less money than you had before. But it's also an incredible opportunity to just, you know, let's start over. I've got a blank page here and let me just do my best to draw something authentic on it, you know, and I think that's a great, great opportunity for people.

I found Any type of change or when you really get knocked down in some way is an opportunity to really re evaluate yourself and your choices and how you ended up there.

Absolutely. And that's a perspective I've heard you say before. And I think it's solid wisdom, you know, and it's exactly the kind of thing that people need to hear because we're living in an increasingly curated society, you know, where everyone is on social media basically showing you their greatest hits, you know, the best pictures of them looking their best, you know, and the happiest moments with their family and their, you know, professional accomplishments or the material things that they purchased. And, you know, when are we looking at social media, you know, when we're having a wonderful time with our friends or family, or, you know, we're not pulling out our phone and looking at it, you know, and seeing what other people are up to we're enjoying what we're doing. So. So look at that combination. When I'm bored or lonely or just looking to be distracted, that's when I'm going to look at social media. So that's me at a low point. And what am I looking at? I'm looking at everyone's greatest hits. I'm looking at everyone's greatest moments. So of course I'm going to think my life is less than I'm going to think, wow, look at how happy they are. Look at how handsome or pretty they are. Look at how their body looks. You know, I'm looking at my body in the mirror, you know, all day long when I walk past any reflective surface. Whereas you look at a picture that someone posted on social media, that's the best picture they had. Maybe they photoshopped it a little bit. You have to realize that there's a cumulative effect to looking at everyone else and then comparing yourself to it. And I think that's really dangerous. And one of the things we don't do enough on social media, I think is shared the challenges is share that we're having a bad day, we're having a tough time, that we're having stress in our relationship. And I'm not advocating for people over sharing about their problems, but I think we really do need to have outlets for that. I think we all need to connect in that way. And I think it's very courageous to do that.

It is. Definitely. It's courageous. And there are some interesting feedback when you do it, because I know I've done it a few times and it's very, it's, it's sort of, it's interesting because it upsets some people. I mean, as you know, because you can touch something in somebody else, their own fears or something that doesn't make them feel comfortable. And. Yeah, but this whole, this time in this situation we're living in, it is interesting because I have seen more people, you know, commenting about that they're really struggling and how prevalent that is right now.

But I see that as progress. I really do. I'm actually emboldened by that because I do think the more we feel free to do that, the better we're going to end up as individuals and as a society. Because I think, you know, I understand what you're saying and I think, you know, I've seen the same phenomenon when somebody shares on social media something they're struggling with. There's like these, you know, like myriad of reactions that you see. Like some people are like, oh, my God, are you okay?

Right?

I think some of that is a contrast because everyone is always sharing such positive things that when you share something negative, you know, it's like, the contrast is so shocking. It's like going from a. From a hot sauna into an ice plunge. You know, it's like a giant jump. So I think that people are shocked by that, and I do think you see some people who just get annoyed by it, you know, oh, you're just looking for attention, or, oh, why are you over sharing? Or, you know, and some of that, I think, may also be that they're probably having those same feelings and they don't want to look at it, and you mentioning it makes them have to look at it. So I think some of that comes from their insecurity. But, you know, the other reality is, is that you do get those messages where people go, oh, my God, thank you for saying this. You know, like, I feel the same way. And, you know, I really believe that the world is a better place when we're a little more naked with each other. You know, I know for many years, you know, something women struggled with, I think, in American culture was what was often called the mask of motherhood, which is really before social media. You know, women just, you know, you went out in public with your kid and people, oh, you have a baby. I must be, oh, yeah, it's great. Everything's great. You know, and then you put on a big smile, and, you know, meanwhile, you're sleep deprived and you feel like you're doing a terrible job, and you feel exhausted and frustrated, and you love your child, but you hate your child because your child's like such an interruption of your life and your routine and can be so exhausting. And, you know, you feel resentful that they've had an impact on your body and on your marriage and on your. In your life. There was a feeling, because no one could say it out loud, that if you had that thought there was something wrong with you, that you were a bad mother or a bad person. And one of the things I thought was really lovely that started to happen in the era of social media is mothers sharing with each other this sense of, I love my children. That goes without saying, but, man, this is a tough gig. You know, this is a tough job, and I'm really tired, and, man, my kids drive me nuts sometimes. And that shows. We could do that same thing when it comes to these Covid stresses. We could even do it with relationship stresses. What makes it hard with relationship Stresses is you're bringing another person's private business into that dialogue. So if you share it on social media, you're kind of blowing up your partner's privacy in a way that I think some people would find distasteful. But I think at the root of that, there is a sense that you should be. We should all be sharing with each other, whether it's in the context of conversations like this one or, you know, just having conversations with friends where we say to each other, like, honestly, hey, I'm, you know, man, I'm having a hard time at home, or, yeah, I don't know, this quarantine thing, like, we're ready to kill each other, you know, and it's really hard. I think the more we share that and we normalize it and we hear someone else go, yeah, I feel the same way. You know, like, I had that same struggle. Or the more we just feel so comfortable knowing that, okay, we're not disordered. We're not, you know, we're not screwing it up. We're just human.

That's such a good point. Last night on my Insta story, I did a poll, and I said, I'm interviewing a relationship expert tomorrow. What do you want me to ask him? And when I do that, no one knows who said what. It just comes out from me. And so I shared. Some people were saying, how do I survive in my home for weeks on end with my husband? I love. It's not going well. And the next one is, how do I date? I'm all alone. So it was like these very interesting, broad questions that people. I wasn't necessarily thinking of because I'm not in this situation, but I'm sure there, you know, that a lot of people feel that way.

Those are great questions, too. I mean, I think, you know, we touched on the idea of how do you survive, you know, with a spouse? And I think the best way to do it is empathy, is realizing that, you know, they're experiencing the same stress and the same abrupt change to their life and their routine that you are trying to find ways for both of you, for you individually, each of you, and for you as a couple, to normalize the relationship as much as you can is good. You know, if there were rituals that you used to do, like after work, we would sit and watch 90 Day Fiance, or we would, you know, have dinner together. Well, keep doing that. You know, this doesn't have to take that away from you. And the more you can keep those routines, that's going to be good. For you, if you were the kind of couple that, you know, one or both of you is away at work all day. Okay, well, maybe make some time within the house where we go. Okay, we're gonna have that time still. I'm gonna go to my room, or I'm gonna go to the kids room, or I'm gonna go to the basement, and I'm gonna. You know, maybe I don't have work to do remotely anymore if I've lost my job. But, you know, I'm gonna read or I'm gonna write, or I'm going to catch up on correspondence, or I'm gonna, you know, listen to something on my audible or whatever it might be and just to sort of approximate the pattern that was working before, you know, because those little elements, it's okay, you know, to love someone but not want to be with them 24 hours a day. You know, I love my job. And every once in a while, I'll be complaining to someone. I'll say, oh, man, I'm so tired and stressed from work. And they'll say, what are you talking about? You love your job? And I always say to them, well, I love sex, too, but if I did it for 16 hours a day, I would get tired and I would get. You know, I would be frustrated. I would not enjoy it. You know, it would really wear on me. So I think it's the same thing. You can love your children, but if you were forced to be with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you would find them frustrating eventually. So you got to find ways to control for that. In terms of dating, I think that this is actually an amazing opportunity for dating. I mean, look, I understand it creates frustrations and not being able to be out, you know, meeting people in a traditional way, like a. A bar or something like that. But it's also going to force. You know, everybody's been watching that Love is Blind show on Netflix. And, you know, one of the things that's really interesting about that experiment that is that show is it forced people to get to know each other mentally before they interacted too much physically. And I think we're being presented right now by the universe with an opportunity to do that. You know, I have a lot of single friends who are telling me that, you know, they're on their dating apps, you know, and they're messaging with people, and normally message for, you know, a little while, and then you go, well, let's meet up. Let's meet at a bar. Let's meet at a restaurant or let's go on a date. And they said what they're really being forced to do right now is have like an extended courtship, an extended discussion that would have been punctuated then by meeting the person and, you know, having physical chemistry, maybe end up sleeping with the person or having some real physical attraction that blurs your ability to see them clearly. I think we've all been in relationships where someone's physical beauty or sex appeal, you know, impacted our ability to see them clearly and honestly. So I think this is for people who are out there dating. Yeah, it presents certain problems, but it presents certain opportunities too. Opportunities to get to know someone's mind, get to know them on the phone, get to know them on, you know, in the context of, you know, writing each other on the messaging of a dating app. I mean, even writing is such a romantic lost art. You know, people used to write these. I'm always fascinated to read the correspondence of our, you know, of our, of our ancestors, you know, when they would write these long love letters home from war, when they had big geographic distances between them and, you know, the sentiment that they would write, you know, when you're away from someone and you're writing to them, there's a formality to writing. You know, that's been replaced by emojis now. And I think there's something to it to having people on a dating app having to write back and forth to each other for a month or two months or however long this quarantine lasts. And maybe we'll see some lasting bonds made between people that might not have given each other a real chance if they immediately had met and slept together or immediately gone out on dates.

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That's an interesting point. Immediately after this we're going to see an increase in divorce rate and then years later we see a decrease in it possible.

Listen, I have to tell you, I've been doing this long enough that I can tell you I never see the patterns I thought I would and I sometimes see patterns I never expected. You know, I remember thinking, well I'm going to see a lot of people that were of different religions when they got married and that why it didn't work. Or I'm going to see a lot of people that lived together before they got married and that's why it didn't work, or that didn't live together before they got married, and that's why it didn't work. Or that they were different ages, they had big age differences between them, and that's why it didn't work. And I have to tell you, after doing this 20 years, there is no rhyme or reason to it. There is no pattern. I have seen people that got married after an unplanned pregnancy on a first date who are happily married for 30 years. And I've seen people that on paper had a perfect courtship and love story, you know, like something out of a Hallmark movie that ended up in my office because one of them was cheating and they were having, you know, they were having terrible dysfunction behind closed doors in the relationship. So who knows what's going to come of any of this? I do not claim to know or have a crystal ball as to the nature of romance moving forward past 2020. But I have to say, if this is what 2020 is, serving the last couple of months and expect the unexpected.

I think that's an excellent point. First of all. And then there is a quote that I heard you said, and I might be botching it, but I love the concept and would love for you just dive into it a little bit, given this time you were talking about we are most alive in the presence of death.

Yeah. So I'll give that a little context. I was a hospice volunteer for many years. For anybody who doesn't know, hospice is end of life medical care. And it's when a person has essentially decided they're not going to take any more steps to try to prolong their life. They have a terminal illness and they realize that their death is coming, whether it's in a few months or a few weeks or a few days, and they decide they just want to be as comfortable as possible. It's palliative care, basically. It's care to make them comfortable at the end of their life. And I did it as a volunteer for quite a long time. And I used to say that when I walk out of a hospice home where I've been with someone who's going to be dying in a day or a week or a month, that I never felt more alive. I never felt more grateful for the little wonderful things that I got to enjoy as a human being. You know, just getting in my car and driving away and not thinking about the fact that, you know, I was gonna die. I mean, this is something we can all relate to on a less, you know, somber level. I mean, if you've Ever had a toothache or a backache? You know, all you can think about is, oh, my God, I wish this had go away. I wish this would go away. And then it goes away. And for a day or two, you have this feeling of, oh, at least I don't have a toothache anymore. Oh, well, at least my back doesn't hurt anymore. And you're just happy. You're just grateful. Like, you woke up and went, my back doesn't hurt today. Or my tooth doesn't hurt today. But then a couple of weeks pass or a couple of months pass. Usually it's a couple of days, and you don't wake up in the morning. Like, you didn't wake up today and go, oh, I don't have a toothache. I don't have a backache. Isn't that great? I'm not terminally ill. Isn't that amazing? And so I think that this Covid thing presents that for all of us, this sense of, you know, how many people a month ago would have said, oh, I get to go to a grocery store today and just walk around without a mask on? Or, oh, man, I get to go to the gym today. Like, I'm an exercise person. I love going to the gym. And I remember, you know, a month ago, I would get so annoyed if someone's using the squat rack, and I want to use the squat rack, and I'd be like, oh, I gotta use the. Can't use the squat rack, and I want to use the squat rack. And. And now just the thought of being able to be in a gym and have all that equipment there just feels like. Like pornographic to me. Like, oh, my God, like, remember when I could go to that place? Man, all those different machines. Machines. And I wasn't doing what I'm doing now, which is like using two dumbbells and a yoga mat to try to do whatever workout I can, you know, like, remember when they had all those machines where I could. I could do anything? I do a treadmill, elliptical, anything else. And I didn't just have one thing I could do, you know, So I think it's the same thing. I think that we're are most alive when we're in the presence of death, when we're mindful of loss. I think we're the most appreciative of the things that we have, and I think that that's an incredibly beautiful thing. It's a hard, hard thing emotionally to do, but it's a beautiful thing. I have a very dear friend who recently I Had this conversation with. Because she just got a new couch and she had bought this lovely, beautiful couch that was very. It was like a splurge purchase. Like she bought herself this really expensive, high end, beautiful couch because she got a new apartment. She was excited about it. And she has a lovely dog, a really sweet dog. And the dog, you know, while she was out, had jumped up and scratched this couch. And it was this terrible scratch. And it really, you know, it was unsightly and it was, you know, you'd see it right away. And she was really heartbroken because she said, oh, you know, I bought this couch and I spent so much money on it. And you know, I really. It was so perfect. I just got it. And, you know, I was trying to sort of, you know, assuage her and say, hey, you know, look, it's okay, you know, it's like, it looks cool. It looks a little weathered. It's leather. Leather looks cooler when it's little. I was just trying to make like lemons out of lemonade, you know, and she said, you know, yeah, but you know, like, it's scratched. And I, you know, had dogs in my life, and I've lost dogs in my life. And I wasn't meaning to be harsh or overly emotional, but maybe Covid's got me thinking that way. And I said to her, you know, there's going to come a day where that dog's going to be gone, where that dog's going to pass away, and you're going to still have this couch and you're going to look at those scratches and they're going to absolutely break your heart. They're going to make you smile and they're going to make you think, oh, that stupid dog that I missed so much made those stupid scratches on that couch. And you're going to love those scratches because those scratches will be reminders to you of this wonderful presence you had in your life that you don't have anymore. And I said, so just try to look at those scratches now with those eyes. Because if you look at those scratches with those eyes, it will not be a source of irritation for you. It will be something that you go, you know, this is something. It's a gift in its own way. And I really think that this is an opportunity for us as a culture to do a lot of that.

That is such great practical advice. Thank you for sharing that. I really love that sentiment so much. I think it's fantastic. So, Jim, obviously people need to get your book, how to Stay in Practical Wisdom from An Unexpected Source. Where can they find it?

You can get it on Amazon or any local bookstore. It's out in paperback now. And my prior book, if you're in my office, it's already too late. A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together is also out there in bookstores and on Amazon. And if you don't mind listening to me talk for eight and a half hours, you can get it on audible as well. And it's read by me, so you have to listen to me for eight and a half hours, which is quite a long time. But, yeah, it's out there and I hope people enjoy it. And I really love having had the chance to chat with you. I love the work that you do and I think you've got a great, you know, great point of view and perspective to share with people. And I'm really thrilled we had a chance to do it.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Stay safe in New York, please.

Thank you. You too.

All right, and we'll be right back. I asked you to try to find your passion. I hope you loved meeting Jim as much as I did. I really found his advice so practical and his expertise around finding. I like how he used the example of raindrops. It's not a hurricane. It's small raindrops over time that lead to a complete fault and break and downturn. So. So it's about stopping those raindrops when they start addressing them, having those conversations. And he even gets into the importance of prenups. I mean, his book is really powerful. If you are in a relationship in quarantine, you need to read this book. I really think it will help you out. He's got great practical advice which is not always found these days. Okay, so I got a bunch of questions this week. Want to answer a few of them? And actually two of them are around my brand. How did I get it to grow into what it is today? Was it media based? Was it tailored to one subject? Etc. Also, someone on LinkedIn had asked, how did you become an influencer? How did you build a professional brand? So it's funny to even hear that. Four years ago I was still in corporate America. I was a chief revenue officer at a media company. And after probably I had been doing charity work at the that point for probably seven years. And it had really opened my eyes to this concept. There's more to life than this, this, you know, there's more to what I'm doing than just working for the man driving revenue for shareholders. And I was spending this Time on the board of City Air Miami Charity. I began speaking for them and really spending quite a bit of time outside of work helping children, underprivileged children in Miami. And I loved it. And it really hit this passion and purpose in me that I had never felt through corporate America. Well, I liked my job. It just didn't bring me that, I don't know, that magic meaning of beyond what, you know, the paycheck. So I really started to start thinking about, wait a minute, I love what I'm doing when I'm doing the charity work. Is there a way I could ever bring these things together? And that brought me to thinking about, wait a minute, I should share my story of. Of overcoming so much adversity, having such a tough childhood, and getting to the C suite so other people know. I was worried that maybe some people would see me because I'd heard this from people who knew me at my old job. They'd see me and think that I just had it all together, which I so don't, Which I never did. You know, I figured things out by falling and failing all along the way. But I found a way to get there, and I wanted other people to have that advantage, not just people who had wealthy parents that could set them up for success. So I decided to launch my personal brand. It's a little over four years ago now, and I built a website, heathermonahan.com I did a big photo shoot, invested a ton of money in it because I really wanted the site to look good. I hired someone to help me set up the WordPress aspect. I wrote a ton of different blogs. The website's heathermonahan.com if you haven't gone on check it out. Love to. To hear what you think of it. It's been through three different iterations from four years ago. So it's an evolution in progress. And that's where a lot of people get hung up. They said, did you have one idea? No, I didn't have one idea. You know, when I first launched it, it was all around the hashtag boss in heels, because I was a boss that would wear heels at work. And then it slowly started to evolve into I had been fired at the top of my game and from the C suite by another woman. Then it started to evolve into my book Confidence creator. And a lot was around confidence. And then it evolved into my speaking business. Right. It's a constant evolution. So don't get hung up in this idea that you have to have one concept. People used to say that to me. I remember they would say, you should hire me to tell you exactly how to market yourself. I'm so glad I didn't waste that money because first of all, it's not like a flip a switch. And I don't know if people have flipped a switch and found, you know, major success overnight, good for them if they have. I have not. And that's the same way in my business career or when I launched a personal brand. It's been an evolution in process and progress, and there's so many different iterations and so many different changes, and so much of me understanding what connects and what doesn't, it was not flipping a switch. And so that happened. I launched the site the same, same time I launched all of my profiles on social media to make them public. You know, I put a consistent picture across all them. I tried to be consistent with my messaging. However, I will say I've learned in time, I post different things, usually on Instagram, than I would post on LinkedIn. LinkedIn's all about business, right? I'm not going to post a picture of my son's basketball game on LinkedIn. It's really not ideal. But I would share and an article, you know, showing some stats in the economy right now on LinkedIn, and I wouldn't put that on Instagram. So, you know, I try to be relevant to the platform that I'm on, yet be consistent with who I am as a person and what I think works or fits. So I put the website, I put the social media handles, and I got back to work. And then I was completely bullied and harassed by the general counsel and CFO I worked with at the time. That went on for a year. But I wouldn't back off because I knew what I was doing was not wrong. It was not bad. I ultimately paid other people to post for me so that they couldn't say I was spending time on tasks outside of work, taking me away from my job. Because they tried that for a while and eventually I end up getting fired. And really, in theory, I was told I was fired because the new CEO didn't need a chief revenue officer. Well, P.S. the company was trading at over 10, $10 back then four years ago, and now it's at a dollar. So apparently they did need a cheap revenue officer. But I knew that wasn't the case back then. I knew she was firing me because she hated my personal brand. She didn't like me shining my light. She didn't like that I defied her, that she told me to do something And I said, no, this is not wrong. This is not a bad idea. I stood up for myself and I stepped into who I am. Was it scary? ABSA freaking luly. And for anyone that knew me during that time, they will attest to that. Last year of me working there, I was petrified of losing my job, losing my paycheck, losing what I had worked so hard for 20 years to get to that C suite and get that title and what I thought was security. However, what I found was standing up for yourself and standing in your own power is always the right answer, no matter how scary it is. I'm so grateful I did that. It would have never led me to write a book, much less launch a speaking career, much less sign on with a publishing house to do my second book right. None of these things would have happened if I didn't take that first step. So whatever your first step is for branding you, you know, be consistent across your social media, have a strategy and plan, brainstorm. What are those benchmarks that you want to hit? Set goals for yourself, you know, what is it that you stand for? What are your brand, brand pillars? What is the look and feel that you're trying to create? And know that something is better than nothing. Because mine has transformed and changed and continues to evolve so much since just four years ago. But I'm proud of that. Don't let that idea that you don't have the full answer today stop you and don't do it, especially while we're sitting in this pandemic. You know, a year ago, I started working on my book proposal. It's just been approved now, one year later. So if you were thinking of doing something a year ago, didn't pull the trigger, now is the time to start that way. A year from now, you're going to have this new pipeline of business, this new opportunity. But starting today is the answer. Don't wait, don't delay it. The world will continue to move on with or without you. Take the action, put yourself first and jump in. And some people say this to me. Yeah, but I don't. I don't know what to post about. I don't know what to say. Here's the thing. Yes, you do. You have your perspective and your take. Some days I just share positive stuff in the news because that's what makes me feel happy when I'm having a sad day. And so I want to share that with people that might be checking out my feed. So just do that. If you like stuff I post, repost it with your Take on it. If you like stuff other people post, repost that. That's a way to get you started as you begin to, I guess, see what's unique and special about you. Own your uvp, your unique value proposition. And it can evolve over time. It doesn't have to be static, because you, my friend, are not static. So just get going. Okay? That's my idea on personal branding. Okay, then. I got this note. Hey, Heather, my daughter is graduating and wants to work in PR in Boston. Is it inappropriate for her to reach out to people during this time? And I think this is a great question. First of all, most people are stuck at home and have extra time on their hand. I'm getting responses pretty quickly from people that usually would, you know, have me wait months to interview them. They're like, hey, yeah, I can do it tomorrow. Or, you know, just Dave Hollis responding immediately when I DM'd him. That normally wouldn't happen. His book is number three on the new York Times bestseller list. He would have been in New York doing PR and press all week, but instead he was doing it from home. He had time. So right now is an interesting time. Yes, I think it's a fine time to reach out to people. However, I think it looks really crappy on social media where you see people pushing and trying to sell something crappy. I don't know. I'm actually. I don't want to say I don't know. I'm sure you've seen some of this. Right now you need my 999 program to get you through the pandemic. I mean, hey, maybe somebody does need that. I certainly don't. So what would say is this? It's all about being thoughtful in our approach. If you are reaching out to people and you've researched them ahead of time, do your homework first. Right? Don't go in blind to anything because you want to know, does someone have kids? Where do they live? Are they laid off? What is their situation? So do your research first. Then I would send either a DM on social media or find their email address through LinkedIn. And I would send a personal note and just said, hey, how are you? Are you. Are you okay? Are you safe? How is your family doing and your loved ones? I'm hoping you're okay. I know this email is coming somewhat blind to you, but I want to introduce myself. If things are okay and you can talk, it would mean the world to me. Here's how I could add some value to you. Like, how can you benefit them? You want to first check in on them, make sure they're okay, ask how they are, how their community is, and then ask, is there any way that I can share with you, you some of my value propositions, how I can add value to you, your job, your future, whatever, or if you have any downtime that I could potentially ask you a couple questions. I'd really appreciate your help. Can I lay those out for you here? I get a lot of notes asking for me to do calls with people and I just, I don't have the time to do it. However, when people send me emails asking me very specific questions and telling me how they can help me or how they want to help me, I always respond, why wouldn't I? Right? Just make it easy on the other person. Start to begin to build a rapport. Don't ask for too much and be specific in what you're asking for. If you're asking for a job in PR at their firm, you probably want to ask first, what is the status of the firm? How are things going? How is the transition with the pandemic going? You know, because you might hear back, everyone just lost their job. Well, now we don't want to pursue trying to gain employment there. Right? But you'll be able to gain an understanding if you approach it through a very thoughtful, well researched way rather than a hit someone over the head with, hey, this is who I am, this is why you should hire me. Only to find out they just let you know, half their workforce go. So be thoughtful. Also, I received an email from someone from Ireland actually, to my website and my website, heathermonahan.com I've got this drift bot which is like a little ahead of me and you can ask a question and it gets sent back in and funneled back to me. And I read this note from this person and basically said, I've always wanted to move to the US Even though with everything going on right now, I still want to. I'm in school, but graduating. What do you think? How do I know if it's the right idea? And I just want to respond back to this, that if you've always thought this and continue to feel this way, that is your intuition, that is your inner voice, you know what the answer is, go for it. And if you don't have the answer or how you're going to do it yet, start putting it out to the universe. Let people know this is what's going to happen. Don't ask if you're going to do it. Start making it happen. And the more you own it and start letting people know and start putting it out there on social media and taking steps and reaching out to connect to people. The more you're going to start putting this ball in motion, the more you're going to create opportunity. It's no different than for me pivoting my business right now and putting out there that I need to transition. My speaking engagements are gone for right now. I know that's not forever, but for right now I've got to pivot that into a new and different business model. Yes, I have my new publishing deal, I have my other book, I have my podcast, I have some other things that are going on. I have my online course. So it's good to have multiple revenue streams. If you don't have those right now, begin with working on them today. But for me, the speaking engagement piece is big. So I started putting out there that I'm going to evolve that model. And I've been really pleasantly surprised in a bunch of conversations that I've had with different people and vendors and partners over the last week that some opportunities are materializing, but they're not happening by chance. It's because I'm getting on the phone with people, I'm checking in with people, I'm asking how their business business is going, I'm setting up calls to hear how someone else is handling it. I'm going on a live zoom with my friend David Meltzer and then hearing from people who are responding to me on it. Put yourself out there, take action and make things happen and you will begin to get that ball rolling so that things can come together for you. As always, if you leave a review of this show on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you listen to your podcast, take it screenshot, send it to me via DM on any social media or at my website and I will happily buy you my $299 Confidence Creator video course as a big thank you because it helps so so much. I've got to get this podcast to grow so if you could please like share, subscribe, share it with your friends and tag me when you do. I will always repost you. Sending you so much love. Hang in there. This too shallow Pass and I'll be here with you next week. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

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