How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:00)

Living with alcoholism can make you question everything, your judgment, your boundaries, even your reality. If you're thinking about divorce, this episode is for

How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:12)

If you're going through a divorce or you're thinking about going through a divorce, then this is the podcast that you've been waiting for. Hosted by Morgan Stogsdill, the head of family law at the largest family law firm in the country, and comedian Andrea Rappaport, we are gonna help you avoid the biggest divorce mistakes with our expert guidance, So let's go.

This is How Not to Suck at Divorce.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (00:40)

You know, Andrea, the biggest takeaway I hope that people get from listening to this podcast is that they make better decisions, being proactive and not reactive.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (00:48)

but being proactive about your divorce can come with a lot of really big, uncomfortable feelings, especially when it pertains to your kids.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (00:57)

that's why I want you to look at the most court-respected app, Our Family Wizard.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (01:01)

visit the landing page that we created together. There is a ton of useful information and when you're ready to make the next step, our family wizard is ready to support you.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (01:12)

visit ourfamilywizard.com backslash not suck 20 to save 20 % off your first year of the essentials package.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (01:20)

All right, so you guys got rid of me for one week. Congratulations. But this week, baby, I'm back. I'm still sick, but I am functioning.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (01:30)

we're just happy you're back. And I'm happy that I'm not just solo recording because I got to tell you, when you are used to recording as a duo, and then you have to go alone, it's very weird. It almost felt like I've never recorded a podcast before.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (01:44)

It must have been what Beyonce felt like when she left Destiny's Child.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (01:48)

That's exactly what I was thinking. Thank you for bringing that up.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (01:51)

I just want to make it relatable to everybody else. Remember Destiny's Child though? What an era that was. I mean, what a time. Ladies, leave your man at home. God. Yes, say my name. ⁓ Well, guys, today we're bringing you a heavier

Morgan L. Stogsdill (02:02)

Say my name, my name.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (02:11)

this episode is really geared for people who haven't left yet and they haven't left because

They're married to somebody who's struggling with an alcohol addiction, which comes with a myriad of issues and feelings. So we're going to get right into it. Eyes and ears open, friends.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (02:32)

So Morgan actually found today's guest on social media, sent him over to me, and after I chatted with him one-on-one, you guys, there was absolutely no question in my mind that we needed to bring this guy onto our show. So friends, I would like for you to meet Jeff Wright. He's actually an incredibly accomplished individual.

And this is a passion project that he has for helping support people who are leaving a relationship with an alcoholic. Jeff Wright, welcome to How Not to Suck at Divorce.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (03:07)

Well, thank you for having me on. It's a real honor to get to talk to both of you.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (03:11)

So Jeff, it's a funny story because Andrea's right. I did find you online. And that's exactly for our listeners that are maybe new, haven't followed along with our podcast since the beginning. That's also where I found Andrea. I didn't know we actually lived in the same state. So I think I'm a pretty good judge of people online. Who's selling the BS, who's got it going on, and who is totally, you know, probably not able to talk about some of the things they're talking about credential-wise. But when I saw you, I'm like, all right, this is the guy.

I like what he's saying. I think you've got a lot going on for you. before we get into things, tell our listeners what you do professionally.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (03:47)

I own an insurance brokerage company. We operate globally. I've got around 31, 32,000 agents. stopped counting and I've been running it since 1999, just like Prince going to dance toward 1999. And with having so many people in the sales culture, ⁓ and I deal with a lot of these people one-on-one or in group settings, then, ⁓

Morgan L. Stogsdill (04:03)

We like it.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (04:14)

You kind of become everything at that point. you don't become their boss and their trainer. You you become their dad. You become judge Joe Brown or judge Judy. become Dr. Phil. one thing that I have found that in any kind of business, 99 % of all business problems emanate from a problem at home in one way or another.

So not that I like to really dig into people's personal lives, but when their personal lives was affecting our business, then that's when I decided to start mentoring people.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (04:47)

Can I ask you about your personal life? Because I know that this passion project stems from something that you experienced as a child.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (04:56)

My father was ⁓ an alcoholic in the worst sort of way. He was not a happy drunk. He drank a bottle of Crown Royal every single day. He drank so many, in fact, if you can remember the little blue velvet bags that the Crown Royal came in, he actually saved enough for a lady to make a California King quilt out of those damn bags. Bags must have... ⁓

How Not To Suck At Divorce (05:15)

Hmm.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (05:24)

The quilt must have cost a fortune to get all that. yeah. Yeah. yeah. He was very creative, but, he wasn't a boy scout. owned pawn shops, pool halls. He was a bail bondsman, bail people out of jail. didn't get to play football in high school because I had to leave every day from school and go to.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (05:27)

I mean, it's creative, I'll give him that.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (05:46)

the jail to sign bonds and give drunks rides home. So it w it was a very interesting, ⁓ education served me well because the one thing that it taught me, taught me how to read people and how to sniff out bullshit. And that has served me well in my life,

Morgan L. Stogsdill (05:50)

Ow.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (06:03)

what did dad's behavior do to you and mom?

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (06:07)

Well, he would get drunk and he would come home and we never knew which one of him was coming home. Was it going to be the nice one? Was it going to be the one that was sad or was it going to be the version that was 95 % of the time who came in there mad screaming, literally tearing the house up, throwing stuff, ⁓ would

beat the shit out of me. can't tell you how many times that I literally saw him grab my mother by the hair of her head and drag her through the house because, ⁓ some soup wasn't hot enough.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (06:39)

Mm.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (06:44)

and then the other thing was all the labels that he would throw on you. You're no good. You're not worth a shit. Nobody, you know, no one's going to love you. You'll never amount to anything and all that. You hear that enough. That gets baked in your brain and that becomes your identity. and it took me a long time to push through that. my mother is soon be 86 years old. He's been dead for 12 years.

She still believes all this stuff. There's nothing I can do to convince her Otherwise she still believes it. And how all this even came about was about a year ago, a young lady lives in Southern California, has worked for me for many years, calls me crying and screaming. I had no idea what was wrong. I thought maybe she'd stolen money or something. And she was living with a guy.

for three years who drinks a bottle of booze every day, had put her in the hospital numerous times. She had two dogs, he killed them both, ⁓ put holes in the wall, did all this stuff. And she was trying to

Morgan L. Stogsdill (07:41)

Ugh. ⁓

How Not To Suck At Divorce (07:41)

⁓

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (07:46)

out, get this,

How Not To Suck At Divorce (07:47)

Thank

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (07:48)

she should still marry him or not.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (07:50)

Mm-hmm.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (07:51)

And the reason why she was confused was she was so concerned about what other people were going to think.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (07:59)

Okay, I have to stop you because what I just found fascinating is when you just said that she still was debating on whether or not she should marry him, my eyes bugged out. Morgan's didn't. Morgan just nodded and said, mm-hmm. So Morgan, How is this so normal? What the fuck?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (08:17)

Yeah, it's not normal, but when you're living in this hell, when you're trying to figure out the next steps of what to do, it's like looking into a glass house, right? anyone on the outside is like, this is bananas. Like this makes no sense. But when you're living that hell, you can't see what you're doing. You're just trying to survive another day. And sometimes you don't even know the hell you're living in.

because it's so normalized. And I think that that's what we're talking about here is when I see people in my office that are dealing with substance abuse in their marriage, or specifically alcoholism, it can look so different. It's not always what you were just talking about, your dad drinking a bottle of Crown Royal and coming home, and we don't know what you're gonna get. I mean, it could be the parent that puts the kids to bed and then starts drinking and is passed out in the basement and...

unable to be woken up by the children. It can be the functioning alcoholic that drinks all night and is nasty or nice, but then can go to work and highly function at their job looking like they're a doctor or a lawyer, whatever it is. It can be the person who gets blacked out every night, but never will get into a car and drunk drive. Or you can have the person that could care less and gets into the car and puts the kids in the car.

There's this continuum of alcoholism and every story looks a little bit different. And that's how it's a little bit tricky. But the one thing that I see always with people is that whatever they're dealing with, number one, they have been holding on for so long that it's almost become normalized. And the other thing I see with people who are dealing with it is something we were just talking about. They have severe and substantial resilience because of what they've been dealing with.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (10:02)

Yeah, it's almost like in their brains, it's easier to stay and it's harder to make a change. I want to give all of the listeners who are already starting to nod their heads more validation here so that they have that moment where they're like, yes, this is me. Yes, this is me. both Morgan, Jeff, why aren't we leaving? What are these things that are keeping us in?

this really unhealthy relationship.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (10:29)

So legally, why people are not leaving is maybe they're concerned, can they protect the kids? If you're going to leave this person, are my kids going to be protected when they're with that person? And we can talk about that later in the episode of ways to protect people and protect the children. Sometimes they think about like, if I leave, this person's in such a deep dark hole, it's only going to get worse. And what if something happens to this person and I'm just like leaving them behind?

⁓ Other things are, what if they lose their job? I'm kind of holding it all together and we need the income. There's so many different considerations for what they're going through. And sometimes it takes talking to a lawyer to say, the lawyer says like, listen, you are dealing with a lot of issues here. And here's one other consideration and we'll talk about this in the future too, is at times I've said to people, listen, you can keep living like this, this is fine.

But in cases where there's children and the children are continually involved or seeing kind of what Jeff was just talking about, this behavior, this dragging your mother across the room, completely belligerent, at times I have to tell clients, look, at some point the court may turn on you and say, why are you not protecting your children from this? And sometimes that's what they need to be shaken up enough to be like, I got to step back and think about this in next steps and leaving.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (11:45)

one thing that you said, and I know this from personal experience because I've been divorced fairness, soon as the divorce is filed, fairness, that kind of goes out the window for a lot of people. like, well, they did this, they did that.

courts don't really care. You know, especially here in Florida, it's here. all about dividing money. That's it. nothing else. But one of the things that I have found in this, when I first started talking to people about this, I would have thought that a lot of people stay in these relationships because of the money, because they can't afford to leave. And I have,

How Not To Suck At Divorce (12:02)

you

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (12:25)

found that not to be nearly as true as I would have thought by talking to people. The reason why so many of them stay is the limiting beliefs that have been baked into their heads by these people. You'll never make it. You'll never find anyone else. You're not good enough. You're too fat. You're too ugly. Whatever. Or what it is that other people are going

How Not To Suck At Divorce (12:44)

you

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (12:52)

to say or think what people in their church are going to say, what people in their community are going to say. And I tell people, you know, I have clients in Miami who are these Instagram models who look like runway models, you know, they're bikinis, yachts, you know, the drill of what they look like. Their lives are absolute wrecks. I have another client in California,

She and her husband own a bunch of vineyards out there and everything looks beautiful. And this woman is in a pure living hell with this guy.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (13:31)

Talk to me, Jeff, about trauma bonds.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (13:33)

Trauma bonds, the easiest way I can explain trauma bonds is they hit you and then they hug you. They hit you and then they hug you again. And you start thinking that that's normal. You the hitting, you the fear, you get the trauma, and then you get the relief like...

Everything's okay. It's just like washing your hair, rinse, wash, and repeat, And you start thinking it's the same thing as if somebody sticks your head into a swimming pool and then pulls it out. You're not grateful because you love them. You're grateful because you can breathe. They pulled your head out of the water and a lot of people normalize that as love and that's not love at all. And the

The cycle is just hard to break because lots of times I will see people that will leave their spouse and who was violent or who was a gaslighter or a narcissist, whatever you want to call it. And then all of a sudden things are peaceful, things are calm and things are really weird to them because they just don't know how to react to that.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (14:16)

game.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (14:41)

the other thing that I think everyone needs to remember is that if we're dealing with an alcoholic, it is affecting their brain. It is affecting the person's brain who's drinking and substantially. And you can't discount that because you're trying to figure out why is this person doing this? Why am I living like this? And they're not thinking clearly. And you would be shocked at how many times in divorce cases that I've had.

where the alcoholic comes in and they say, I don't have a problem. She's the problem. He's the problem. I don't know what we're even talking about. mean, have drink casually, no big deal. And that's just how delusional that they are about what's been going on. Because we could have, I had a case once, had photos, videos of this person passed out, completely belligerent, and like recent.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (15:10)

Mm-hmm.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (15:33)

And the person came into mediation and said, nope, nope, that's not me. I don't know who we're talking about here. The thing is, is that we legally have enough services and ⁓ testing now that we can catch these people and we can say, no, no, no, no, we're not nuts. You're the one that's lying to yourself and to us and go get tested. And we're going to figure this out.

And so there's a way now to actually prove it and try to make sure that everybody's safe legally.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (16:02)

And what you're describing, Morgan, is I think exactly one of the reasons why somebody listening to this episode is saying, yeah, I don't want to go through all that fuckery. My life is already hell. Am I about to open Pandora's box of more hell, you know, just to get out? Is it that bad? This reminds me so much of the conversation we had years ago with Dr. Nadine Macaluso, who was

famously married to Jordan Belford, who was the guy that the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, based on. She lived through an absolute nightmare until it got to the point where she could not do this anymore. And we all have our breaking points. For those of you who know my personal story, I was not married to an alcoholic, but I certainly was in a very

unhealthy marriage and I had to hit a breaking point where I knew this cannot continue to go on. I don't know what those breaking points look like and I wish that we could help people understand it doesn't have to get to a breaking point. I know for me, this is sort of a gift and a curse that I have. I'm really good at emotional detachment to a fault.

I am really good at saying this no longer logically makes sense. I'm done. And I've had to do it with, I've had to do it with family members. I've had to do it with a lot of people. And like I said, to the point where I'm a little too good at it, and we'll talk about that never, but that's the thing with me. From what I understand, Jeff, there's probably a lot of people who aren't

able to emotionally detach or I guess my question to you is, do you see people who almost have to emotionally detach before they physically detach or do they physically detach out of necessity and then later comes the emotional detachment?

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (18:04)

I think they have to emotionally detach before they physically go.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (18:08)

Mm.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (18:08)

I think they do. leaving is easy. The physical act of leaving is actually quite easy. It's making up your mind to do it. And what keeps people from making up their mind to do it is the anxiety. And where's that anxiety come from? It's from the fear of the unknown.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (18:29)

Mm.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (18:29)

They don't

know what the next steps are going to be. But one thing that I have learned in life, I've had, you girls are going to laugh, but I've had the blessing of almost being either killed or nearly dying four times in my life. yeah. Yeah. Because I travel a lot. go to third world countries. I've, I've been put in some pretty bad spots in my life and

How Not To Suck At Divorce (18:45)

What?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (18:45)

Wow.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (18:54)

Every time I'm not recommending anybody go out and risk their life to do anything, it gives you, but what it does is it really gives you the eye opening experience of not much in this world really matters. Not much does. And you, and the less things that matter to you.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (18:59)

Yeah, I'm not at all tempted. Don't worry.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (19:01)

No thanks.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (19:19)

Uh, or the less things that you think that are really important because most of the stuff that we're obsessed about is not important. It really isn't. and so what, what I have learned is that I have never, even through that, have never experienced anything in my life.

ever been worse.

than what my mind told me it was going to be.

if you're leaving the drunk or, know, or if you're getting divorced,

The hard part is that you're leaving the story that your mind has set forth in your head about them. That's why you hear people shit talk their ex all the time, which I think is a horrible thing to do because the more you shit talk the ex, the more you're letting them take control of your life.

But the biggest hardest thing is detaching from the story that you have about them. Because if you don't let go of that story, you'll never be free of them. If that makes sense.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (20:15)

I like where,

yeah, it does make sense. And I like where you're going here. And I want to talk about, people who are in a bad spot and self-preservation next. But before we do, I want to give a little bit of insight legally, kind of what I see, because I have so many people who come into the office, they tell me their story. There's an alcoholic involved and they ask me, you know, what's my thought? What is my recommendation?

I'm very careful to give my recommendations because I don't want to put somebody deeper into a hole But a lot of time it's very black and white I can see I can see if there's a way to fix it I can see if there's no way to fix it But for somebody who's out there and they're sitting there thinking How do I know if it's better to leave or go? How do I know? One of the things that I would challenge you to ask yourself is going back to Jeff's story to some extent when your

Other side, the person who's the drinking, the drinker I should say, is not at home. Are you more calm? Are the tensions lower? Is your cortisol, your stress level lower? How are your children behaving? Let's just say we always talk about Chad and Brenda on this podcast. These are a fake couple. Let's say Brenda's the drinker. Chad's at home with the kids. Is it much more calm before Brenda gets home? When Brenda, when everyone knows Brenda's on her way home, like Jeff's story,

the tension starting to rise? If you're saying yes to all of those questions, then I think you have to look at the situation. There's something else going on there because nobody should be living through that. That is stress all day long in the most sacred place that you have, which is your home. So that said, since we're gearing this

towards people who are struggling, divorcing an alcoholic, maybe at times they haven't left yet,

Self-preservation in my mind is key to making smart decisions. So I want to ask you this question, Jeff. What are three things that you absolutely want someone to know about self-preservation when they're dealing with an alcoholic?

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (22:07)

Well, if they're dealing with an alcoholic and I get this question all the time from people, if they're dealing with an alcoholic and, they, want to leave.

and they'll say, well, I, talked to this person. I talked to that person. I said that that's your first mistake. You don't need to talk to anybody, especially talking to someone that they know. Because once the guys, everybody loves to spread bad dues.

My mother, some reason gets excited to call me up to tell me that someone died. And if I really want to burst her bubble, actually did this the other day. She says, Hey, this, this guy died last night. said, yeah, I heard that. And she goes, ⁓ well, who told you? I said, no, I'm just kidding. Really? I didn't know he died. Then she got excited again. ⁓ yeah. Yeah.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (22:54)

Jeff with my people, the Jewish people, we live for this stuff. mean, someone's got cancer, you know, or someone has passed. It's like the phone lines are lit up, operators are standing by, give me all the tea. I mean, my bubby, which is Yiddish for grandmother, she just died ⁓ in June, and we were laughing.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (22:59)

What?

How Not To Suck At Divorce (23:21)

This sounds cruel. Here I am again with emotional detachment. No, we were laughing after she died because her phone kept ringing with all of her friends checking to see if she had really died. And it was like fielding all the calls on her cell phone saying, no, no, no, yes, passed. Yes, no, she died. And you can just tell that they're like, it's so horrible. But now I can't wait to call four of my closest friends. So I totally get where your mother and you are coming from.

And we digress, but I just had to offer everybody a little moment of a chuckle.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (23:51)

Well, but the problem with that is because of the way the rumor mill works. It's a snowball and the story just gets thicker and juicier. And especially if you're telling someone who knows them, it will eventually get back to them. And the story that gets back to them will be 10 times worse than the story that you originally told.

talk to someone that is bound by confidentiality, talk to an attorney, talk to a doctor. And whatever plans that they make, they need to keep those plans quiet. They don't need to go on social media. They don't need to tell anyone. They just need to do it. And it's not something that you do overnight. It's something that you have to do brick by brick, especially

for people that don't have the resources to do it right away.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (24:42)

So what I want to point out is that often when people think about self-preservation, they think about bottling everything up. They think about self-preservation means zipping up that hoodie, putting the hood on of the hoodie, and I'm just going to be that horse in Central Park with the blinders on. I'd look straight ahead. I'm not going to crack. And what you said that I think is so interesting is you're not going to tell the world, but part of self-preservation is talking to somebody.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (25:11)

Yes.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (25:12)

If you keep this all in, you are going to pop. You gotta let a little air out of the tire. You have to have a place, a safe place, not social media, but you need to have a safe place where you are airing some of this out and getting some sound feedback. And I love that you said that.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (25:33)

Yeah, you got it. You have to talk to someone. You just have to be very careful who it is that you talk to. You have to be very judicious about that. attorneys are some of the best ones to tell because legally they're bound not to say anything. But the other thing too, is that the attorney is going to give them advice and give them guidance on, okay, you can do this and this, and this is what you can't do.

And this is what the law says you're entitled to

Morgan L. Stogsdill (26:03)

I agree with you, because remember lawyers, divorce lawyers, we have seen it all. Don't be embarrassed or feel bad about your situation. Go get the necessary information. At minimum, know what's out there for you. Sometimes just knowing what ideas are out there to curb this kind of behavior to what it might look like with your children going forward is really what you need to make that next step. And while we're on it, I want to talk about a few things that you can think about.

if you haven't heard of SoberLink, it's a device. We've partnered with SoberLink. They're a fabulous company. It's a device that a court can either make the person get on that blows into it before parenting time, during parenting time, just to make sure that they're sober, that everybody is safe. So you have peace of mind. That's one idea. There are lots of tests that we can monitor alcohol consumption levels or whether alcohol was consumed.

There's a lot of new tests on the market. And I'm sure that if you are unfamiliar, one of your concerns is, you know, the urine test, the alcohol goes right through your body. It is gone within 24 hours. That's one of the misconceptions. But there are other tests out there that can catch. There's a test out there right now. And I'm going back to the story about the guy who kept saying that we were crazy. He's not a drinker. And we had all this evidence against him. The way we settled the case and got him on SoberLink was to say,

If you're right, go right now, leave right now and go get this special testing that will show us whether you're a moderate drinker, you're not a drinker or you're a binge drinker. And it's a blood test. And that was enough for him to say, ⁓ I'm caught, I'm caught. We're going to work this out. There are so many other ways with parenting. There's supervised parenting time. Those are different things that we can talk about, but you need to know what your options are sometimes to make that next step.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (27:49)

the worst thing that anyone can do when they go and talk to their attorney is to let their ego get in the way and hide anything. Because if someone hides anything from you and then something comes out down the road, well, why didn't you tell me this? You, you can't do your job defending them and representing them until you know everything.

Cause you're not there to judge them. You're there to protect them.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (28:12)

One, I love

that you brought that up because one thing that a good lawyer should ask, but you should always be aware of too. If you're coming in and you're saying, let's just say Brenda is a drunk. Brenda's a drunk, she's drinking all the time, every night, et cetera. And the lawyer you're talking to doesn't ask, well, how much are you drinking? What does it look like if I went and got you tested? You want to front that and say, okay, just so you know,

this is how much I drink. And sometimes I've had situations where I'm like, okay, I agree. I think Brenda's probably a bad drunk and drinks way too much, but I'm a little concerned that your alcohol use might come into play here. So before we do anything, I at times might send my client to go get tested so that we know we're in a good position to make these allegations against Brenda. Because like you said, Jeff, the worst thing that can happen

is that it's turned around on you and you're unprepared.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (29:08)

Yeah.

And I will tell you, I have, and I'm sure you've run into this with clients that you have, but I have had people call me up and after talking to them five for five minutes, I hate to say this. They were so bad. like, God, if I were married to you, I'd be drinking too.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (29:27)

Okay, Jeff, here is an unpopular opinion. Divorce lawyers say it all the time. I'm like, I would drink so much if I were married to you.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (29:35)

Yeah. It always takes two, doesn't it?

Morgan L. Stogsdill (29:37)

100%.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (29:38)

So on that note, I want to remind everybody that your divorce attorney is your divorce attorney. They are not your therapist. So if you are looking for somebody to breastfeed you, burp you, and change your diaper, emotionally, that ain't going to be the person whose job is to strategically get you out of your marriage in the safest way possible. You need both. Here comes another unpopular opinion.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (29:39)

It always takes two.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (30:05)

I don't fucking care how much money you have or how much money you don't have. If you're going through a divorce, you need a therapist. There I said it. You do. Because you're going through shit. You're wrong if you think that you don't. You need someone to help you navigate the mental shit.

Yes, you need to tell your attorney everything, but you can't expect in return, ⁓ my God, this must be so hard for you. Let's hug. Let's talk. Let's do breathing exercises. A really good high-end attorney like the Morgans of the world, they do that stuff. But you guys, the majority of you, you don't have the Morgans of the world. I'm just going to be real.

You're paying someone whom you can afford to pay who might be a very good attorney, but that's not part of their wheelhouse. They don't charge over $1,000 an hour, and they're not there to hold your hand and to help you through this thing emotionally. So you need to get the right team together. And you need to know, I use my attorney for strategy, and I use my therapist for this. And I'm going to have one friend.

Uno, one person who I am going to as a friend. I'm not going to go tell loudmouth Sally at the bar. Be smart about who you're sharing your shit with because as you go through this, it is going to get a little bit harder before it gets easier.

That's a realistic expectation that's really important for you to have. And you know in your gut that you need to do this. If you didn't think that you need to get out of this marriage, you wouldn't be listening to this episode. So don't kid yourself. Even though this is gonna be hard, the healthier answer for you and your kids is always going to be to mitigate the chaos from your life. You cannot live like this. And right now,

You're not living, you're just surviving. So this episode is not meant to scare you, it's meant to be real.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (32:10)

I believe that this is going to sound weird, but I think anyone can educate themselves into stupidity. And what do I, what do I mean by that? If you want to learn about anything and you start reading this book, that book, you start reading

How Not To Suck At Divorce (32:18)

Thank you.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (32:26)

or watching podcasts and you learn so much. Well, at some point you learn so much that you don't know what move to make because things are going to contradict each other. Someone asked me not long ago, does your book work? I said, absolutely not. I said, my book does not work. ⁓ You reading the book will not work, but

you actually taking the steps and doing the things that I suggest in the book, that works. So it's all in the doing. Not much of this is in the studying. The studying is important, but you have to get out and actually do something.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (33:08)

we are an action step kind of a podcast. We absolutely love it. I think that's what discerns our podcast from so many others is we're going to give clear action steps so that when you're done listening to this, whether you're like, God, I just feel like I'm in a hole, you're going to have action steps of what you can do. So that leads me into my next question, Jeff. What are three action steps that somebody can take right now?

so that they feel that they are moving forward.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (33:34)

The first thing is to make a plan. Regardless if they're going to leave, if they're going to stay, they need to make a plan quietly. And it doesn't have to be executed in all one day. It can be steps that can take days, weeks, even months, whether that be saving money, whether it be having a go-bag ready.

something where you can grab important documents like your birth certificate, your credit cards, open credit card accounts or open bank accounts that, that they don't know about in different banks, something that's going to be yours. Even have a burner phone. If you have to have that, you literally have something that if you just have to grab it and go, and by the time you do all that, a lot of people will ask me, well,

Where do I need to go? If you set up a plan and you set it up right, and you start putting the things together, I don't have to tell you where to go. You'll already know. You'll already figure that out. ⁓ So first of all is to have a plan. And secondly is to start doing things, more things for you.

start taking time for yourself. One of the biggest problems that, that people have in general, it's like somebody has a job and they hate their job, but, they say, I want out of this job, I'm going to start a business or they're overweight and, I'm going to start going to the gym, anything like that. Well, the boss tells them who is paying them as little as they have to and doesn't give a shit about them.

tells them be here at eight o'clock. Well, they're there at eight o'clock. ⁓ Have this done by Friday at two. Friday at two, they're going to have it done. So they're keeping promises to other people that don't care about them at all, but they keep no promises to themselves.

And being a promise keeper to yourself, that is the next action that you should do. Start being a promise keeper to yourself. Because I have people in the sales culture that, you know, everybody says you got to have confidence, you know, even as an attorney, you have to, you have to have confidence. Well, confidence is something you can just order up on Amazon.

The only way that you can build confidence is in the abilities of things that you actually do. Confidence doesn't come from what you know or what you think is what you believe in your own abilities. So if someone wants to be build their confidence, I'll tell a guy, well, why don't you start doing 20 pushups every morning?

Well, why would I do that? How many people do you know that do 20 pushups every morning consistently? You make a promise to yourself that I'm going to do this no matter what they do that. Well, those are little tiny wins that they keep racking up, racking up. then they do enough of that for long enough. You could start seeing physical changes and they feel better. They feel better about themselves.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (36:17)

Thank you.

And I think that that was very wise and a very interesting action step because I love that it started with pushups. So it's simple. It's simple. You have a floor, you've got arms, do something, move your body. And it's also about doing something for you because you cannot control what the other person is doing. But you can control if you get on the floor.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (36:45)

Yeah.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (37:01)

and you strengthen your body right now. And what signal does that send to your brain that you are making yourself a priority and you are doing something to be better and stronger? Okay. I want to add a third action step here and it's going to lead right into your offering.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (37:17)

I wrote an ebook. It's not in print. You can only get it online. We haven't done a printed version yet. ⁓ It's really expensive. It's $17.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (37:27)

Whoa.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (37:27)

Wow.

Yikes.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (37:30)

I don't sell anything else. have, I have people that, that want to do coaching or want to talk. do offer that, but I don't actively push that at all. I don't advertise that in any way. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a therapist. This is just.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (37:39)

Thank

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (37:47)

Everything that I have put in there has come from my life experiences, either from growing up and the things that I had to do to push through all this stuff and all the personal experiences that I have had in helping people over the last 30 years of, of, pushing through this so that they could become successful.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (38:09)

And I think that utilizing the ebook, utilizing all these different tools that we've offered people on this episode, it's not gonna solve the problem. Like you said before, my book cannot solve the problem for you. But these are tools in your toolbox to help you get from where you are right now to a place where you are stronger and more mentally clear so you can make the best decision for you and your family. Whether it's,

doing pushups, speaking to your attorney, going to an action-based therapist, or talking to that one person. That's what we want you to do. We're not suggesting that this is easy. It's not. But again, I will tell you that if there's part of your brain that is screaming at you, this is not healthy. Don't ignore that. That's only going to grow. At first,

These little red flags, whisper at you. After they whisper, they're gonna start to shout. If you ignore the shouting, they're gonna grab you by the shoulders and shake you. So what's the lesson here? Pay attention to the whisper, okay? One step at a time. And one last thing that we'll leave you with before we let Jeff go about his very busy day, just because you meet with an attorney, it does not mean that you're filing for a divorce.

you can meet with an attorney and just have a simple meeting with an attorney and get some action steps. So with that, Jeff, thank you so much for spending time with us this morning and offering people all of these words of wisdom that you have. I think it is so admirable that on top of everything that you do professionally, that you dedicate so much time and energy towards this passion project.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (39:55)

remember, it's all about, at the end of the day, changing your identity. no one can do exactly what the things that they want to do. It's only limited by what their identity tells them that they're capable of. And you change your identity, you can change your life. And your body knows, your head may know that you're in a bad situation.

but the chemical things in your body, it knows, listen to it. Your mind will lie to you a thousand times a day. Your gut has never lied to you once in your life.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (40:29)

I love that. Thank you, Jeff.

Jeff@agentsalesgroup.com (40:31)

Thank you.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (40:32)

You know, it's funny, Andrea, because I really didn't know what he was going to be talking about on the episode before we started it. And it is kind of shocking that the action steps that he had, that he wrote in his books, are really a lot of our action steps that we really believe in.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (40:47)

I mean, we don't talk about pushups, but yes. Well, no, we are anti-pushup and we're anti-running. I'll still, I never forget that woman who really came at us for saying that we're not runners. But ⁓ remember that? We hate running. We hate running. Yeah. Okay. And it's really important that you do something.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (40:49)

That is not my action step. I gotta be clear on that.

We hate running. Yeah, we hate running. We'll say it again. Unpopular opinion.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (41:10)

It's really important that you are changing the role that you play in this story. Are you part of the problem or do you want to be part of the solution? And again, I know you know this, you're beating yourself up over this, but please don't forget...

that what your kids are seeing every day is teaching them what life is supposed to be like. talk to your attorney or talk to an attorney. Go and get some help because you deserve this. And yes, like I said before, it's not going to get easier. It is going to get harder, but you can do this. And now that you have this podcast, lean on us. This is what we're here for. We have

episodes that we bring you every week where you can get some little piece of advice that makes you feel better and that can help propel you forward.

Morgan L. Stogsdill (42:05)

That's right. Remember, divorce is a marathon. It is not a sprint. Every day is not a good day. So even if you're not in the divorce process, every day in your life is not a good day. Some days it's day by day, other days it's hour by hour, but that is okay. You're going to get through this. If you need more community, go to our private community. You can be private. You can join confidentially and you are going to be lifted up with our community. There's a lot of discussions in there and there's a lot of resources for you. If you need more information or more help,

Go to our online guides. have guides that you can look into on our site that help people every day. Remember, you have got this.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (42:41)

And we, my friends, have got you.

How Not To Suck At Divorce (42:46)

The How Not to Suck a Divorce podcast shall not be copied or rebroadcast without consent. This podcast does not contain legal advice. The information heard on this show shall not and should not be used as legal advice.