Do This First To Guarantee Positive Results in Your Divorce
By Cynthia Lowe
In a world where even choosing ranch dressing requires careful consideration, why approach one of life's most impactful decisions, divorce, with a one-size-fits-all mentality? Join Cynthia Lowe, your guide on the journey to divorce empowerment, in the latest episode of "Divorce Designed for the Destination."
Titled "Do this First To Guarantee Positive Results in Your Divorce," this episode delves deep into the necessity of a custom-tailored approach to divorce. Cynthia Lowe, a seasoned CPA, divorce financial expert, and mediator, draws upon her wealth of experience to illuminate the path toward a brighter future post-divorce.
As the host of "Divorce Designed for the Destination," Cynthia Lowe aims to empower women who have decided to divorce but feel overwhelmed and fearful about the road ahead. Through her unique FOCUS Framework and Sights on Success strategy, she equips listeners with the tools needed to navigate divorce with confidence, clarity, and control.
In this episode, Cynthia breaks down the importance of crafting a personalized framework for divorce, emphasizing that one-size-fits-all methods simply won't suffice. She guides listeners through her FOCUS Framework, offering insights into how to design a roadmap tailored to their unique circumstances and goals.
Drawing parallels between divorce and a domino effect, Cynthia highlights the significance of strategy in navigating the process. By choosing the right playing field and approaching divorce sequentially, individuals can regain a sense of control and empowerment amidst the chaos.
Listeners are invited to reimagine the divorce process through a sequential lens, allowing for greater flexibility and informed decision-making. Cynthia's approach emphasizes proactive planning and strategic thinking, ultimately leading to more positive outcomes and reduced financial strain.
Through engaging storytelling and expert insights, Cynthia Lowe's podcast offers a beacon of hope for those embarking on the journey of divorce. By embracing a personalized framework and reframing the narrative, individuals can pave the way toward a future filled with promise and possibility.
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Transcript
So the other day, I go to the grocery store to get some ranch dressing. OMG, , who knew there were so many different types of ranch dressing. I'm not kidding. We had Buffalo Flavored Ranch, Chipotle Ranch, Habanero Ranch, the Original Ranch, Buttermilk Ranch, Light Ranch, Organic Ranch, Fat-free Ranch,. Um, Bacon Ranch, Creamy, Classic Serratia Ranch, Honey Barbecued, Cheddar and Bacon Ranch. I can keep going, really check it out next time you're at the store. It's obvious in the ranch dressing world, one size does not fit all. So I got to thinking; if one size fits all, doesn't work for a choice as small and inconsequential as how you want to dress your salad.,why do so many approach, one of the biggest, most impactful decisions of your life; believing that there's essentially a one-size fits all. On today's podcast, we're going to discuss why this type of thinking can have devastating consequences.
Welcome to Divorce Designed for the Destination. I'm your host, Cynthia Lowe. This podcast is for women who have decided to divorce. But feel stuck, overwhelmed, and fearful about what lies ahead. As a CPA, divorce financial expert, and a mediator with over a decade of experience in the divorce industry, I now teach how to do divorce smart from the start.
My goal is to empower women to create a life they love, doing it with unwavering confidence, laser focus, and without breaking the bank. Each week I'll share advice from my FOCUS Framework. And my sights on Success strategy and some insider tips along the way. I'm so glad you're here.
This episode is about why you're divorce needs a custom tailored approach. A one-size fits all method will not work. Today, we'll be discussing the F of my focus framework. Your framework itself. Your personal roadmap, one, that's going to give you the confidence to make choices and decisions that are perfectly aligned with what you want for your future. As a CPA. Mediator and divorce financial expert; I've seen firsthand how a personalized framework can lead to better, more empowered decisions in divorce. It's not just about getting divorced, it's about how you do the transition to create that future that you love. So, how do you design this framework? Okay. Let's talk about it.
In Episode One, How to Design Your Divorce with Clarity and Intention, we discuss the importance of envisioning what you want your life to look like after divorce. This is your specific objective., your framework are those things that support a particular approach to this objective, a life you love after your divorce.
The divorce process has a lot of moving parts that all involve high impact decisions. On top of that, there's a tremendous amount of information to be gathered and analyzed in order to make smart decisions. It's easy to become overwhelmed by the process.
One way to reduce that overwhelm and still make intentional informed decisions is to use my Focus Framework. Why? Because the framework breaks down the different parts of the process into various lenses. It's more than just a plan. It's a detailed, doable strategy that's tailored to your unique situation. It supports every decision you make, ensuring each step you take is perfectly aligned with what you want for your future. For example. The "O" of the focus is about viewing the process through the lens of organization. We'll be discussing this lens in Episode Four, How to have Incredible Confidence in Your Divorce. The "C" of the focus; is viewing the divorce process through the lens of communication. One failure in communicating during the divorce can be devastating. I'll teach you all the things you need to avoid this in Episode Five: How to Overcome and Win in Your Divorce Negotiation.
Another critical lens you'll learn in Episode Six, A Little Known Secret to Reduce Divorce Conflict. This is the, "U" of focus. Here you'll understand all the things you need to make smart decisions. Lastly, the final lens you'll use to view your divorce process is S solution oriented mindset. This one will pay dividends. It'll be the gift that keeps on giving and you'll learn about this in Episode Seven, How To Have An Awesome Impact On Your Divorce. So all of these interlinked items, your lenses for viewing your divorce process, make up your framework. This framework supports your particular approach to reaching your objective.; a life you love one once divorce ends.
So these lenses will give you a clear picture of each particular area and it allows you to organize and analyze information more effectively. Imagine each lens of the focus framework as a tool that sharpens your view. It gives you a clear picture of each aspect of the divorce process.
Think of it this way. The focus framework gives structure to the process. It reduces the overwhelm and it empowers you to confidently make intentional informed decisions.
So we're talking about a personalized strategy. This is a critical component of any essential plan, especially in divorce. Using a strategic approach is the essence of my Sights on Success Strategy. I teach this strategy inside my course Do Divorce Smart From the Start
I feel like strategy kind of gets a bad rap. When I talk about strategy, I'm not talking about strategy in the sense, "hey, let's come up with a plan and take him for all he's got".. Why I'm saying you need a strategy is because of my experience and what I've seen happen to divorcing couples over the years. You can use the focus framework and still have a horror story to tell at the end of your divorce.
That is without my sights on Success strategy.
here's why. Have you ever seen one of those demonstrations using dominoes?
You know, the kind where a very patient person lined up God only knows how many dominoes into a pattern.
Okay, I'm going to go off on a little bit of a side note here. I was curious if there was a name for the push of the first domino. And discover these random facts. Domino toppling is the activity of standing up the dominoes in a sequence. And the sequence, well, that's called a domino run. Funny, but no special word for the pushing of the first one, except. Triggering. I guess that works. And you know what it triggers, right?
The domino effect.
Okay. I'm moving out of my ADHD rabbit hole and back to the discussion about divorce. That was a really long way to say the divorce process on average feels like a domino effect that starts. With the triggering. Of engaging an attorney or filing a complaint for divorce with the court.
It may not be exactly like this, but some event triggers the beginning of the process. And at times, and depending upon other circumstances in your life, It can feel like being on a rollercoaster, hoping the wheels don't come off the track.
Overall, my sights on Success strategy. This changes how you approach the process. Interestingly economist and author. Roger Martin. He gave me the name for what I'm asking you to do. He defined strategy like this. Strategy is about what you want and how to get there. Making choices on a playing field of your choice. Picking your playing field where you can win. I absolutely love this statement.
Here's why. A successful strategy is all about the choices you get to make. That simple statement should immediately give you a sense of control. You're making choices about your life. You get to choose. Including, what I think is one of the most important decisions you'll make in your divorce. Choosing your playing field. I know, you're probably saying to yourself, what the heck is she talking about choosing a playing field? I want a divorce, not baseball.
Stay with me. Part of the Sights and success strategy is your choice of playing field. Uh, playing field where you can win.
The reason the divorce process feels like a rollercoaster ride is because once that trigger event happens, That begins the process. The events that follow are in a very specific chronological order.
And many times these events happen. In a world of ready or not.
If you look closely at what happens to you, you'll see that this is the beginning of a process. Will you no longer get to choose? Including the potential for losing the choices on how your money is spent throughout the process.
I don't have enough time here on this podcast to get into the nitty gritty detail. On each aspect of how you lose the ability to have complete control over the process. But you never experienced the control and the resulting feeling of confidence. You'll experience he using my sights on Success strategy.
Let me explain. My sights on Success. Strategy includes your choice. Of selecting the playing field where you can win.
I've been talking a lot about lenses today. So what if we looked at the divorce process through a different lens as well? So, what do you think it is about the process that leaves people describing it as traumatic? I definitely understand. And winding and marriage and moving forward is one of the most difficult things you may experience in your life. But I believe the divorce process itself. Makes it so much worse in so many ways.
Because almost every detail about divorce impacts so many parts of your current daily living, your child's daily, living your finances and your future. On top of this, add to the huge, highly impactful decisions that need to be made. All the way while you're experiencing loss and other intense emotions. You cannot underestimate the impact of the emotional stages during divorce. . So let's look at this through how the divorce process typically happens. That is through a chronological lens. One started the process is filled with requirements. Due dates, court appearance. And all that with an undercurrent of change, fear and an unknown future. In fact. A lot of people go through the process with an extremely high level of anxiety, simply because they don't understand the process. Divorce is not a passive process. The best outcomes are the result of diving deep into what's happening and making informed intentional decisions. I mean, think about it. The courts and environment that's typically adversarial by design. Is where you do the process. There has to be a better way.
So, how could you approach the process? Where you don't feel completely overwhelmed. And you feel like you have a sense of control over it. The answer, believe it or not. It goes back to a concept we learned in elementary school. Remember transition words. They connect ideas through bringing clarity on where and how something happened. Today.
I want to focus on the concept of sequence.
As I mentioned, the divorce process is viewed through the lens. Have a chronological sequence. Do this thing by this day, then do the next thing by this day, et cetera.
What if we looked at the process of divorce through the lens of sequential order. Chronological order and sequence are similar concepts, but distinctly different.
Sequential is defined as a specific order of events or steps of a process and chronological order is the order of things in terms of time. Using the lens of sequential order, we take the time element out of the equation. It's funny, as soon as I'm saying that. In my, in my mind, I'm hearing Cher singing, if I could turn back time... I won't sing it for you. Sorry. I digress. If we could control time and, or the deadlines in the process, what would that accomplish? First and foremost. It would immediately note that's a transition word, LOL. That would give some margins so each person with their specific circumstances, could move through the process in a way that works for their life. So since we can't stop time, or turn it back, thank you, Cher. or add more hours to the day. Is there a hack or a workaround that might give some of the same benefits? Of a strictly sequential lens.
Yes, there is. Kind of. What if we delayed the start of the process? The trigger event. And we quote front-loaded so to speak all the things we could do ahead of time. So then when you did go into the chronological deadline intensive process, Think about how much better equipped you'd be than trying to do all that In your current life circumstances. while you're running errands, have you work? Load. You know, you work things. Um, Kids soccer games. Whatever that might be in your day. And let's not forget. You'd go into the process. Knowing exactly what's going to happen. And the choices and decisions you plan to make.
You would go into the process. with your Sights on Success. Choosing the playing field, a s we've been talking about to approach the process sequentially. That gives you the opportunity to control the process. It gives you space to move ahead in the process as you're able. It gives you the time to process the emotional changes. And gather all the information that you need for your decisions. You can adjust your schedule for the things you need to take care of for all this information you need to get. You can adjust your schedule. Give yourself some margin to process the emotions too. You get all that information you need to analyze it to digest it, to. Understand what's going on and to continue to, um, You know, form that vision of what you want your life to look like. You might even find that there's gaps where you need to do some work. That's going to take some time. Let's say. For example, you're a stay-at-home mom. And you were a teacher before you got married and. You want to, um, You know, take some time to investigate. What would that look like? Going back into the marketplace? Or maybe you, um, Don't really understand finances and you need to have some time to. You know, understand the more. Or maybe something more personal, like a family member and perhaps, maybe a parent is. L right now. And you need to take some time to process some of that. And. More immediately, you need to be a caregiver.
It's just so unique to each individual what's going on in their life. And doing this gives you the ability to live. While you're getting ready.
And here's the best part.
Doing this, using this focus framework and changing the approach; looking at it with a sequential lens. ; it will save you lots of money. And that's one of the hardest things; when you see people going through divorce and. There's. two people in it two divorce attorneys. Um, maybe experts, professionals; but there's only one pot that the money comes out of. And every dollar that comes out there is a dollar that you and your spouse can not use in your future.
So really, if you think about it using the focus framework and the Sights on Success strategy allows you to live in a future focus way. It enables you to become the person you'll become in order to create the life you love. In the context of divorce. This means to finding your future destination and mapping out a path to reach it. The playing field here is not a chronological process, but a sequential one. Sequences where you can truly thrive and make empowered choices. Essentially this involves understanding the overall process, identifying your priorities and goals and developing a strategic plan to reach them.
This framework is a roadmap. It's where you lay out your detailed, doable plan. A plan that has every step aligned with your vision. For a life you love. As you design your personal roadmap; you're going to have the confidence to take the steps that are perfectly aligned with what you want for your future. Divorces complicated. There's a lot of moving parts and a lot of big decisions to make. And then on top of that, there's a mountain of information you need to sift through. It's easy to feel like you're drowning in the details.
But here's the good news. You can cut through the overwhelm by breaking the process down to these lenses. Each lens will give you a crystal clear view of a specific area. That makes it easier to organize and analyze the information. So thank you. Each of the lens as a building block. Together, those blocks create a sturdy framework that supports each and every decision you make. This framework will serve as your guiding tool throughout the divorce process. It provides a structured approach to decision making and problem solving. By leveraging each lens of the focus framework, you'll have clarity. You'll improve your communication. You'll navigate the legal landscape. And you'll cultivate a positive mindset towards finding solutions. And in each part of that, you're going to have tremendous confidence. A framework that uses different lenses to approach the divorce process will be effective. The use of these multiple lenses will provide a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the divorce process and the needs of each of the individuals involved. By using the different lenses to approach the process, you can have a complete understanding of the challenges and opportunities involved. This will help you again, make more informed decisions, develop more effective strategies and ultimately achieve a more positive and satisfactory outcome.
So the F of our focus framework, is your framework. So your goal is to establish a solid framework. To have a clear roadmap for your divorce. This involves understanding the overall process. Identifying the priorities and goals. And developing a strategic plan to achieve them.
So, what I'd like to leave you with is to remember your F is your framework. The key takeaway is this. How you view the process, one that will serve you. Is to look at it sequentially. Next you're going to choose the best fit for your unique situation. And lastly, you're going to reframe your story through the right lens. You're going to see your future clearly.
Remember. Your divorce is as unique as you are. Just like choosing that ranch dressing, selecting the right approach for your divorce can make all the difference. So let's move forward together and craft your divorce framework; one that ensures the best possible outcomes for you.
Okay, there you have it for this week. One thing I do want to tell you though before I go is Take your time. There's so much that you don't know that you don't know I'll do my best to get you the information and to help you and support you. So, check back, subscribe to the podcast, feel free to go to my website DivorceHelpConnection.com
it's gonna be okay We'll see you next week. Thanks
