The Divorced Dadvocate: Divorce Support For Dads
The Divorced Dadvocate: Divorce Support For Dads is a weekly podcast designed specifically for fathers navigating divorce. It addresses the unique challenges men face and offers practical guidance, emotional support, and real-life insights to help dads survive — and ultimately thrive — during and after divorce.
Each episode combines honest conversation, personal stories, and action-oriented advice to help listeners rebuild confidence, create healthy co-parenting strategies, manage finances, navigate court complexities, and heal emotionally. Since launching in 2020, the show has become a trusted resource and supportive community for divorced and divorcing dads.
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DISCLAIMER: The purpose of this podcast is to inform, not influence. It is not a substitute for professional care or advice by a qualified professional. The host, as well as guests who speak on this podcast, express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions, and The Divorced Dadvocate podcast & website neither endorses nor opposes any particular views discussed here.
The Divorced Dadvocate: Divorce Support For Dads
286 - Life 2.0 After Divorce
The script you were handed—study hard, get the job, marry, raise kids—doesn’t teach you what to do when everything shatters. Today, we talk with Steven Jaye, a meteorologist-turned-creator and coach, about how to transform divorce from a dead end into a launchpad. We dig into the mindset that stops the endless postmortem and starts Life 2.0, the role of community in healing, and why the smallest honest action beats another night of numbing out.
Stephen's website: ReclaimYourTime.co
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Hello and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. I sincerely appreciate you. Gentlemen, if you're like me, a lot of us were told to follow the rules. And if we do, we'll get the prize. But what happens when the rules change? My guest today believes that when the script breaks, you don't just tape it back together, you write a new one. We're talking about how to use the pain of divorce as fuel to action and build a life better than the one you left behind. But before I jump in and introduce my guest who's going to share with us about that today, let me just welcome some of our new members to the Divorced Dadvocate community. Those are David, Lucas, and Charlie. Welcome to them. If you're not part of the community yet, check it out at thedivorcedadvocate.com. Go to the membership site. I also want to remind you that we still have our Black Friday, all our Black Friday coaching discount for 25% off of one-on-one coaching going on. We're going to keep this going throughout the rest of this year so that you can so that you can take advantage of that and get the help that you need and deserve. Okay, my guest today is Stephen J. He is a man on a mission, and that mission is to cure the mindset of settling for less. He's the host of the of the Actions Anecdotes podcast, where he explores what it takes to break free from the standard script and pursue a life of passion and purpose. With a diverse background that spans meteorology, data science, and product management, Steven brings a unique analytical lens to the human experience. He's not just talking about change. He's building systems to help people reclaim their time from addictive technology and build genuine community. Please welcome Stephen Janey. How are you doing, Steven?
SPEAKER_00:I'm doing pretty well today.
SPEAKER_01:I just got back from some holiday travels. How are you? I'm doing well. Yes, we both we are both from the Chicagoland area where we both grew up, or at least grew up part of the time. So I know that you were back there. You're a fellow paisano, so we both share that that Italian background, right? As well. So yeah, Steven, we we we met a little while back, and and the work that you're doing is truly spectacular. So you know, we've been over the past about month, month and a half, really talking with individuals that can help the Daz in transforming their lives. We've had a couple guys talking about emotions and how to handle emotions through it. And today we're going to be talking with you about your mindset and your work that you do about limiting some of those addictive technologies, creating a better life for yourself, not going by the standard script. And that's a big one when dads are going through or are going through divorce, right? Like that whole script, that whole the all those rules that I mentioned in the in the beginning get kind of thrown out the door because we've followed that our whole lives. For myself, I had created exactly what I had been told, what I had envisioned, et cetera. And it all went to heck. So I'm excited to chat with you about that and share some pearls of wisdom with the with the dads on how they can overcome that. Before we jump in, just share a little bit with your background and how you kind of got into this from meteorology to neuroscience.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's uh it's really interesting. And one of the things I can say is that, you know, I love the weather from a little kid growing up. I grew up partially on New York. And then when I was 11, my family moved to Chicago. So I experienced nor'easters, even a couple of hurricanes. Um, Hurricane Bob, you know, made landfall on Rhode Island. And but the whole time, as I kind of came of age when, you know, became a teenager, I became somewhat fascinated with how people behave, why people do what they do, and even societal trends. And it was then that at a very young age, I read the then new book Bowling Alone by Dr. Robert Putnam, which talked about kind of how much lonelier, how much less community we had in 2000. This is only kind of covering 1950 to 2000, and that was obviously before all the smartphones and everything came about. And then I observed kind of what I started seeing when people started adapting these smartphones into their lives. I would say the story with that starts in 2010 when I was, you know, a young adult going out to the bars all the time. I was living in Chicago, and I first started noticing people pull out their phone, you know, in the middle of conversation. Or first noticing when people were waiting, they would pull out their phone. And I remember looking at this and saying, this is not going to be good for humanity. And what I say is, I wish I was wrong. But I then observed over time, I've observed conversational capabilities getting worse, attention spans getting worse, and mental health getting worse. And I started seeing the numbers around anxiety and unfortunately depression and suicide ideation getting worse. And then the pandemic put that into a whole nother category, and I decided that something needed to be done about that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. That's uh and and all I wish you were wrong, right? All the all the studies now are starting to start supporting all that. And it's it's a it's a battle that I've I have battled, we all battle with ourselves, right? Because the from the time that we wake up in the morning, literally to the time we go to bed at night, we can be distracted from from something. And these little things in our hands are probably the the the biggest ones. But then I also have teenagers, right, that have now grown up with this, and that has been a primary battle for for them. And and maybe we'll get into that a little bit too. First, I wanted to start out chatting about kind of the shattered scripts that that we mentioned and identity. So you talk about the standard scripts society hands us. You know, go to school, get the job, get married, have kids, right? That was the same thing I did. I knew I always wanted to be a dad from the time I was uh young. But every man that's listening to this uh to this episode and this and that listens to this podcast, their script is just completely blown up, right? And that's how I felt. Like everything that I had really worked towards, had really created, had I really done is just completely, completely blowing up. So my question is when the life plan fails, how do you stop looking at the wreckage? Is because I get a lot of guys, and this was me too, looking at the wreckage and start and thinking and sorting through that and maybe focusing on that, and and instead start looking at the blank slate ahead. We call it life 2.0. A lot of the guys in the community do. How do you how do you start with how do you start doing that when you're in the midst of it?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the first thing I want to say is it's hard. And it's hard to not look back, and it's hard to not say what if. And I want people who do find themselves looking at the wreckage, wanting to go back, wanting to go back to an earlier phase of life or stuff to have a little bit of grace. I want people to have a little bit of grace because that's kind of a natural part of that whole process. No matter what form it takes, when your life plan blows up and you know, for any reason, you know, it's it's it's hard because it's a it's a major shock, especially when you grew up kind of feeling like your life was going to follow a certain path and just really doing everything to prepare for it. And like you said, that script is go to school, be hyper-fixated on getting good grades, and then pick the right major in the right college, have that career, have that everything mapped out, even to the point where I know some people even map out like what specific suburb they're going to live in and what specific school district. I mean, suburban Chicago is a great example of a place where selecting your school district, I come from a place where people move to that neighborhood, that town, just to go to Stevenson High School, which is one of the top high schools in the state. So I know that you've put a lot of energy into that script. So first I want to say have a little bit of grace. And then after that, I would say just you need to really cultivate your curiosity and openness. So, you know, almost everything you observe, there's a way to approach it with judgment and a way to approach it with curiosity. And the curiosity allows you to be open to even the idea that, okay, this script didn't work out for me, but maybe there's another script. If you believe in God, you can say, maybe God has a different plan. If you believe in other spiritual forces, you can tap into that as well. But even just the idea that, like, we have, at least in this current era, way more possibilities out there than ever before because of you know, technology movement, people recognizing that people don't necessarily follow one career or one job for their whole lives like they did 50, 60 years ago. So being open and embracing that openness can really feel that silver lining.
SPEAKER_01:That's really interesting. I like what you said. And I guess I've never thought about this is once upon a time, and and maybe this is where a lot of the stigma comes around divorce, but once upon a time, that was gonna be a really tough road. And it's not to not to say it's not a tough road, but you're kind of pigeonholed into one specific lifestyle, if you were, or what that was gonna be like if you were divorced. And your point around, well, it's it's it's gonna be different, but there's so many possibilities now that if you are open to a life that you didn't expect or anticipate, that that could possibly that could that could actually be amazing, right? So that's that's that's interesting, but you've got to have the the curiosity, if if you will, uh, like you said, around that in order to be able to open, be open to that. Like what I'm doing right now, if I was in the middle of my during the middle of my divorce, I would have never, ever fathomed the amazing opportunity that I had to do this, to talk to you, to talk to to dads and help them through what they're going through during this challenging time. Like I would have never been open to that. Like I knew what I was doing, I had the business, like I had all of it planned. So I like that fact. And it's been absolutely remarkable and and and beautiful. So that's I I really, really like that advice. So, so how do we reframe this transition? I I I like what you said about a higher power. And I talk a lot about the the four things that we need to to make sure that we're cultivating in our life mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual, which is the fourth kind of stool in the leg that that doesn't get talked about a lot. But when we're going through this chaos and difficulty, having anchoring to something that's greater than ourself is huge. But but my question is, how do we reframe this transition, this transition not as a failure, right? Because my biggest thing was, oh, like I failed, my marriage. You hear people say my marriage has failed, like my marriage has failed, I'm screwing up my kids' life, et cetera. But and but how do you reframe that as an opportunity to maybe finally build a life that you wanted, right? Away from that script. How do you make that transition?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And one thing that really helped for me was the amount of time I spend in the startup type of community because people who start businesses, they they see failure as a badge of honor because at least they were trying something. So that's a completely different frame of mind. And so part of it is the environments that you surround yourself with. And the second part of it is like really kind of believing in yourself. And this is a self-confidence slash self-judgment type of issue, right? Because I think there's still a large component of our society that views it as a failure, right? You had a you had a marriage, and marriage is supposed to be for the rest of your life till death do us part, and because you didn't handle that, that's a failure on your part. Whereas there are many circumstances, and I'm not going to speak to every single person's circumstance, right? Because there are probably people who know deep inside they really messed something up, and probably people who realize that's not their fault, it's probably other circumstances. One of the components of a long-term relationship of any kind, especially in marriage, I often talk about, is that you know, eventually after a couple of years, a lot of it just becomes change management. How you change as a person, how your partner changes as a person, and whether or not that change can be melded together, or whether that change kind of continues with a path where your lives are still, you know, take place together. So there's tons of factors. But one of the things is recognizing, okay, maybe, maybe I didn't screw up. But also if you do think that you did screw up, recognizing that everybody makes mistakes, everybody screws things up, and you know, finding another thing inside to like realize like this is why I'm a competent person, this is why I'm a person that's well received. And so, you know, a great example, I think, is is sports, because sports is an example where everyone has a moment where they screw it up. Even like Tiger Woods, to date myself a little bit, would have a bad shot. But that doesn't mean overall he wasn't a really good golfer. And so, you know, when you see that and you see people make mistakes and still be top of their game, you kind of understand that that mistake does not define you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So so what I'm hearing you say is that transition has to happen in your mind before any anything happens. There's so being in the business world, there's a there's a saying that there's no failure, there's just feedback, right? And in which that's really easy to grasp, right? You're a businessman, I'm a businessman. That's really easy to grasp in the context of of business. For whatever reason, that's hard to translate over to personal relationships. You know, because it it feels so much, I don't know what I would describe it as finite. Like this is the like this is the end, and it's never and you and you're never gonna find something, you're never gonna create this again. Maybe going back to that whole, you've you've you've you've created what you wanted, you've followed the script, all that stuff. But but that's absolutely not the case. And I want to I want to emphasize that to the dads listening, because if you've ever had a business and it's failed miserably, and then you've started again, and then you've talked to people about it, usually this the stuff you talked about is the stuff that you did wrong, right? Because you want to share that wisdom. And like you said, it becomes a kind of a badge of of honor of man, I failed miserably, but these were the reasons that I failed. And now I know that. And then this business, I'm going to be, I'm, I'm gonna do this better. I'm gonna I have this information. I know now what the red flags are, what to look for. And we don't really kind of think about think about that. And I think what you what you suggested, which is changing your environment or making sure or cultivating your environment so that you're in and around, and I would say particularly other people, right? Other other divorced dads or divorcing dads or men in general that understand that that mindset is going to be a huge thing for you. That's why we talk about, that's why in the intro, it's like, hey, welcome to the community, guys. Get the get the support that you deserve. That's hard. We don't, you know, guys don't do that. And maybe we we can we can talk in in a little bit about then now about the the technology and and loneliness uh uh around that. But I mean just comment on there. I really liked what you said about all that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because really, and technology is one aspect of kind of like the environment, what you surround yourself with, which is who or you know what you're listening to, what you're reading. So when it comes to, you know, for the extroverted side of the spectrum, which very, very extroverted person, it's like, okay, well, maybe these people, you look at these people in life, you know, I'm feeling a really good connection. Maybe I should take action to try to foster this connection a little bit more, or maybe this community. You know, in the entrepreneurial community, I go to a weekly event. I haven't been for a few weeks because I've been traveling and getting some surgeries, weirdly, but but for a while, I was going to One Million Cups every single Wednesday morning. And when you're at that same event every day, you know, every week, you start to genuinely build a community because you see the same people who say, Oh, I saw this person, I saw this person again, I talked to this person a bunch of times. It forms an organic connection with people, but you know, it's being intentional about which one of these communities is right and which ones aren't. And a big part of that is paying close attention to yourself. Be curious about yourself and think about how does this group of people make me feel? And if I always feel better or feel like I'm improving myself when I'm around this community, then that's a great community for you. And unfortunately, there are going to be those circumstances where you have a community of people and maybe there's some really judgy people in there, people with, you know, unhealed wounds or whatever, where you say, okay, well, you know, I this just isn't right for me. I need to kind of step away a little bit because, you know, I feel like I'm being taken advantage of, judged, or, you know, whichever.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So that is so I agree with 100%. Sometimes though, and particularly going through this challenge, there's there's a a paralysis that happens in in trying to do this. I know that it was me. Sometimes I just like I wouldn't leave the house. Sometimes it was hard to get out of bed. And I know that guys listening to this. So your podcast is calling uh is called Actions Antidotes, right? And and and this this paralysis can can be based on fear, financial stress, it can be grief, like whatever it is that the guys are experiencing. What what is or can you share a maybe a specific antidote? You talked about mindset, but like a specific antidote to this kind of paralysis and and maybe one small action a dad can can take to regain some sort of uh sense of control?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I like that you started off with a small thing because I think when it comes to especially overcoming fear, and fear is a big part of a lot of it, you know, it's it's something like really, really small. Like, and and it's like it's like even, I don't know, text someone and ask them if they want to go get a cup of coffee, right? That's just a really, really small thing. The person might say no, the person might have their own stuff going on. So recognizing that their response is not really probably about you, it's probably about whatever they have going on in their lives, especially parents that have, you know, a job and also child responsibility. Sometimes that group of people can be really hard to get any of their time. But starting off with that small, like little bit of initiative, it eventually will work if you, I mean, you know, I'd say 80% of the time that I text someone and be like, hey, you know, we should go with coffee, go for a walk, go for a, you know, lunch meetup or something like that, 80% of the time I get a response that ends up with like that plan being set and that plan being made. And those going for a walk with someone, going with coffee with someone, that's not going to change the world in it by itself, but it does kind of create a little bit over time a rewiring of your brain because you've given yourself agency, you've given yourself an example of something small you did that worked, and then you can start moving on to some of the bigger things and some of the bigger behavior changes.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So if I could sum all that up in one word, would it be engage? Like engage in in doing something, whatever, whatever it might be, like you described, texting somebody and and and guys listening. Look, your your friend, your friend dynamic, your your family dynamic, that's all in flux, and it's all going to change. So to Steven's point, which is hey, some people are going to be available, some people aren't. None of this is personal, right? Like all of this is their ability to be able to handle the situation or not be able to handle the situation. There's no real formal way that we've ever figured out how to go through divorce, how you go through friendships, how friendships can last through divorce or not, or how do you like people end up choosing sides? Like, there's no formalized way to do this in any of it, right? So it is very, very chaotic, which is the the the crazy thing. But but I like what you said about just to engage in something quick and small and and take action to to to do it. But you know, there's a lot of waiting that that goes through divorce. And so this becomes kind of like um like a passive mindset. How do we so so just doing so talk about the talk about the the the science behind how we rewire our brains by being active and doing something, right? So so we talked a little bit about changing that mindset, right? Like you got to change that mindset, but often people think that you change your mindset by thinking your way through stuff. And that's just not the case, which is the the the right way is you have to take action and do something. And that by doing that, that rewires your neuropathways, and then that helps you to change that makes the change in your mindset. Talk us through that a little bit and why it's important to take action.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And simply because, like, you know, you can dream something and it doesn't make it reality, it's just like in your head. And one of the things is that your brain responds to kind of reward systems. This is actually how the social media companies got everyone so hooked and so addicted because they they tapped into the the slot machine. They it's called a slot machine in your in your pocket idea of a variable reward system, which really kind of you know tips in. But it also tips into the idea that your your brain is given chemicals. The most common chemical discussed is dopamine, but you know, there's also like cases of like serotonin and stuff like that that really kind of gets people going and it gives you a mental reward. But one of the things that people need to realize is that some of the patterns that we have developed behavior-wise are based on years and sometimes decades of conditioning. You know, you talk about the wait and see of divorce. I would say a lot of corporate jobs have a similar type of conditioning where they condition you to the same way your schooling system conditioned you to like wait for someone to tell you what to do. And then you do it, wait for that same person to tell you, did you do it well or not, to evaluate it and to adjust. And so it's the understanding that it's going to take a while. And so that's why I really like starting off small and especially starting off small with things that you can like really win and get a reward for. So, for example, if you can just take one night out of the week where you typically, you know, take a drink or even do edible marijuana, which is legal in my state and a lot of others now, and just kind of sit around watching movies and say, okay, this one night, I'm gonna make a simple switch to reading a book. And, you know, and just even takes it out of the variable of like, okay, this other person may not respond. But just that little switch and being able to see through a little switch like that over time, then rewires your brain into thinking, first of all, rewires your brain over 21 to 66 days to now permanent, you know, make that new behavior the default. But it also rewires your brain into seeking these reward systems from actually, you know, doing different behaviors rather than just doing something passive like wait and see for your divorce hearing, wait and see for your boss to get back to you, wait and see for what the algorithm tells you to watch next.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So when when when I'm talking to guys, I describe to them the idea of being able to take control of what you can take control of. Yeah. And so one the the number one thing that you can take control of through this process is your mind and your emotions, and then the behaviors that stem from those, which is exactly what you're describing. And once upon a time when we didn't have these little devices, we didn't have all this stuff, that that that dopamine hit we got was delayed until we actually went to the gym, right? Or we actually read that entire book and got to the to the last chapter, or or we worked on the the car and and replaced the brakes and then took it for a ride, right? Like that was all hours or days or weeks of doing something, being being engaged, being active in something before then we were we were rewarded. And so uh this technology now and and all of the the numbing out agents you you mentioned, alcohol, drugs, it could be the phone, it could be the T, like any of these. That's the instant, it's an instant gratification, which gives you that instant dopamine hit. And like you said, we we've been now for it's been probably a decade, decade and a half now. We've been, well, even if you want to talk about other technology and TV and stuff like that, and alcohol, I mean, alcohol has been around forever, but we have been we've been conditioned to look to those things. And and so I want to I want to chat a little bit you and and get a little bit more into kind of this this loneliness, the empty house and and technology versus solitude idea, because a lot of the guys, and I think we gotta go back to what you said in the beginning, which is give yourself a little grace. A lot of this stuff has been now wired into your brain because it's just been the the way that life has, but you now have control. So it's easy to look to this technology, but like Stephen said, you can you can take one small action, and and maybe that is one day, or maybe that's one day you go to the gym and and and work out, or maybe it's not even to the gym, maybe it's just going for a walk, right? And then you start going for a walk a second day, and and then you go for a walk a third day, and then you work that up into going to the gym and then learning how to lift weights, and then you start to see that you feel better not only physically but mentally and emotionally. Your muscles start getting bigger. You get some female attention because you look healthier and your muscles are bigger and you have a better outlook and an attitude, right? Like this small stuff that builds to a better life is found more through these small actionable items that Steven's talking about, rather than this numbing out stuff and this dopamine hit of, hey, like I got a hit on the dating app or I got a hit on, you know, whatever, whatever else. So talk a little bit. I mean, we talked about a little bit, but talk a little bit more about that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So one of the interesting, well, sorry, one of the interesting things that have happened is that we've created these like short-term dopamine hits, but they're also far less rewarding. And so I tend to look at whenever you have like a fork in the road, there's often two paths. There's often the easier path and then the more rewarding path. And even if we go all the way back to when I was a kid, before we had, you know, like smartphones and everything, we had the television. And the first thing I would think about is that the easiest thing you can do to get something on your mind is to press that on button on the remote. But it's also the less rewarding. And I would compare that with like, okay, if I were to call up some friends or text some friends, then that would create a better reward because then I would be, say, out bowling. I'm just saying like a normal teenage guy activity, right? So me and my friends are going bowling, and that's way more rewarding to me than watching TV. Now it's not going to be the same for everyone, but it's the same dichotomy between low effort, low reward versus high effort and high reward. So that's the framework I kind of come into with a lot of these cheap, you know, dopamine hits, but I also try to recognize that there are going to be times where you don't have the energy for a higher reward, higher effort activity. And so there are times when the easiest thing to do is, you know, watch South Park or something like that, right? But to understand and be intentional about it and to and to be intentional about how long you're engaged for and what content you're consuming. Because that's like, I think the biggest problem is when the algorithm starts to basically decide what you're doing for you. So think of Netflix, you know, it plays and then plays the next and plays the next again, or think of swipe up, swipe up, swipe up, and stuff like that. You know, now all of a sudden someone else is in control. And that's where you can really kind of get into a place where those activities are not actually relaxing. If you think about the incentive of most of these platforms, they want to keep you on the platform as long as possible. That's their only incentive. And I think we've seen plenty of examples of behavior of particularly Mark Zuckerberg, but a lot of other executives that have really demonstrated the point all they care about is keeping you on for as long as possible. And they don't care if that content is, you know, making you a healthier person or not. But once you recognize that, once you recognize the fact that that is not actually relaxing, and you think about your other behaviors, you know, say going to the gym. And I love how you phrased it because you phrase it in a way that's mapping it to a life outcome that's going to keep that motivation. Because any behavior change is going to take a little bit of fighting yourself, fighting your subconscious brain trying to bring you back to the old safe pattern, right? So, in order to fight yourself, in order to fight that resistance, that morning you're like, oh, I might as well just hit the snooze instead of getting up and going to the gym. You need to map it, in my view, to a life outcome you care about. Whether it be, okay, I want to, like my son just turned 13 and I want another couple years of being able to play football with him or something, or I want to, you know, be received a certain way in the dating field, you know, that that mapping to that outcome is what's going to keep that motivation going for the time when your mind starts to try to resist yourself.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And and you and you mentioned, yeah, so the the fight is internal. Well, I mean, I think we can just describe that as all of life for those of us who are at, you know, our are advanced age, if if you will, and have been fighting this battle for uh a long time. But you and and you mentioned about the 2160-day thing, right? It takes 21 days to to make it you know kind of stick, takes 60 days for it to become a lifestyle change. And then that's something that's just then implemented into your life. That's typically what it is. So, so and and and I say this to say it's it's don't number one, don't be hard on yourself if you fall off the wagon, get back on, fall off, get back on, just keep doing it, find variations of how you want to do it, but it's also a lot easier than you think. As easy as that that smartphone has rewired and re and trained your mind. And and The Social Dilemma is a great movie to watch. You and I have talked about this. Uh, and and if you haven't seen it, guys, watch it. It will describe to you in significant detail from the founders of Facebook and and people at early Silicon Valley who created some of these systems, why and what it does and what their what their end goal is. And and it might scare the shit out of you like it did me too. So, and and and that would that would be good. But I I want to say that the 2160 days, if you can put that on your calendar, you can rewire as quickly as you got wired the first time. So it's not as hard of a battle if you can, if you can, well, number one, if work with a coach, work with somebody like Steven that that can help you to rewire, create a plan, set up the environment. It's a lot, a lot of what all of us coaches, whether it's Steven, it's myself, it's Anthony, Joey, any of the people that we've talked to over the last month, month and a half, there is a basic formula that that we all kind of all kind of use in doing the work that that we're doing. And and it's tried and it's true. And if you want results, get with a coach like Stephen that can help you to do this. So if you find that you have this, that you're that you are numbing out, if you find that you that you're not able to build community, and I want to go to that next and talk about that. Get a coach, talk to somebody, and let them help you through this process. You don't have to do it alone. You don't have to figure this all out. Like that's the reason we go to school to learn stuff is somebody else helps guide us through whatever it is that we're that we're needing to learn, whether it's uh in our adolescence, in our adult life, training, like whatever we're doing. We find somebody that knows, that understands, and helps us through that. So let's talk about the the tribe because you were you were alluding to that before and building community. You talked about your your networking and and and doing that. I was just with a couple of guys from from from the the community this weekend. We had dinner. One of the guys reached out, and it was great. He's he's been working on being more intentional around that, taking action. Uh, and we're sitting and talking. One of the other guys was like, you know, I just really don't care anymore. Like, I want I'm fine being alone. And I'm like, man, no, that's not healthy. Like, you need to be engaged, and you can't be just engaged online, you can't just be engaged in the technology or watching TV or whatever. You need to be doing and to his credit, he did come, he did show up, but but we were talking about this this struggle as guys in their 30s, 40s, or 50s kind of redesigning this in environment. So, how do we get out, make new friends, cultivate this without it feeling awkward or or desperate or just weird?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So a few things is that you need to be yourself because one of the surefire ways to fail at making friends is trying to be someone that you're not, because eventually you're gonna get found out, right? And that's something that hopefully a lot of us learned like in teenage years when all of us engage in that to one extent or another to try to fit in to be yourself. But it also helps to be a little bit more positive. And then this is the unfortunate harsh truth is that someone exuding a lot of like negativity is gonna kind of like turn people off, you know, no one wants to be the person that hears someone complain about things all the time. And, you know, the final thing is that like, you know, a lot of us have this periods of time, you're going through something, going through divorce, or any other type of life upheaval. You still need to show a little bit of curiosity about the other person that you're talking to. So you meet someone and you want someone to listen to you, and that makes perfect sense. I want people to listen to me as well. But like, you know, when someone's like someone's talking to me and I'm willing to listen to them, I also want that person to care about what's going on in my life and to care about what, you know, I want it to be a reciprocal thing, which takes a little while. The main thing I will allude to is first of all, there have been studies that shown that loneliness could could have the same health impact, a similar health impact to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. And so that, you know, kind of is chronically lonely. And then one of the things that happens in our, you know, in our kind of online lives is we develop kind of we trick our brain into thinking we're connecting with someone. Are you familiar with the term parasocial relationship? I'm sure, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But but yeah. Define that for the for the listeners who aren't.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, yeah. So so yeah, so a parasocial relationship is when you somehow tricked yourself into thinking that you've developed a connection with someone that's not really in your life, say a TV show character, a prominent YouTuber who posts a video every week, um, or even like a even a podcaster could be, you know, where you haven't actually made a connection, but you believe you've made that connection. And what happens is that sometimes it triggers some of the same neurological pathways as you know, actually meeting someone in person, but of course, it doesn't give nearly the level of life satisfaction because that's not a person that's actually in your life. And so when you come in to community, first of all, I'd say you just you need to you need to get out there, especially anytime you find yourself in a better than usual mood. You know what I mean? I know if you're in a really, really terrible mood, if you're gonna just be grumpy, maybe it's best that you know stay home and watch the vids for a little while. But whenever you're in a good mood, you need to kind of get out there. And the main thing is also understand that developing community is gonna follow a similar pattern as any of these behavior changes. And what I mean by that is that the first thing you do is probably not gonna work. You're gonna need to look, observe, and adjust. So, you know, when I talk about helping people get off the phone, you know, I might say, okay, one person might try something silly like, okay, I'm going to put my phone on my desk and then I'm gonna put a book on top of it so that I can see the book before I see the phone. And that might work for you, that might not, right? And so you might need To try something else. And the same principle is going to apply to like trying to develop a community. It's like you're going to try something, and maybe, maybe a community you go to, you think, oh, I really wanted to be part of this, but but it just somehow wasn't the right fit for you. You go in and you learn something about the group that you didn't know from their website or from the first person that told you about it. And you're like, okay, this is not what I need. And that you're going to have to try again. And once again, that goes back to the same idea about failure, right? Yeah. It's it's feedback, it's learning, as, as rapper Pitbull put put it. You know, there's no failure, there's just learning. And so when you're able to accept that, and you know, it'll just it'll be a growing period over time. And eventually you'll find that formula that brings you the community, you know, that you want and you need.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And which is one of the reasons why I enjoy having other people like you that have communities that work on specific things. And while we have our community here at the Divorced Advocate, it's focused on divorce and divorce support. I I still like to have other guys, like we had a guy that does a divorce work with with guys as as well, and and and somebody that has a community that that works on uh on their on your emotions and dealing with your emotions, and you work on the techno. Like find your com like find your community. And there's a difference. I want to also make a distinction between networking and community, right? Finding community is is going to speak to what you mentioned earlier, which is something, is it does it light you up? Does it does it make you think, oh man, like I want to talk to those guys, or I want to engage in this, or I want to do this? And and we all have so many, we're all so different, and we have so many uh different interests and personalities. So find like it doesn't have to be one. I talked about the gym a lot because like I am physical, like I physically fit. I like being healthy and I like how it feels like, but that might not be your things. Your your your thing might be music, right? Like you might be musically inclined. And I get guys in the community. I'm like, well, what are you into? And what did you do before? Well, I played music. Well, why don't you play music again? Why don't you get back in a band? Why don't you do uh why don't you engage in that community if that's your personality and that's something that you're interested in, right? Like get away from this script. Like you were, you are still a dad, you're still going to be a dad, you're still gonna be a family man, but you can get back to some of that, some of that stuff that kind of made you the cool guy that made you interest, that made your your ex-wife interested in you. And so then you're gonna then you're gonna have the the community kind of come around you, and then that's when you're gonna start building on it. So yeah, so I I like that. So I I want to finish with kind of a fun question. And this actually is a scripted question, and it touches on your background as a storm chaser. Okay, so I'm gonna tie this into storm chasing and the the storm of divorce. So a high conflict divorce, which a lot of the guys are listening to now are going through, feels a lot like a category five hurricane. And you mentioned in the beginning that you've been through a hurricane, which I can't even fathom. My friends that I talk to that that live in hurricane places, like, I don't know why you want to do that. Anyway, so when you're chasing a storm, panic can get you killed, right? So you cannot panic. What lessons from that high pressure environment that you've been in, storm chasing, can dads apply when they're heading into a storm like mediation or court, uh court hearing or a trial?
SPEAKER_00:This this is a little bit of curveball, but luckily we're testing you here at the end here. Yeah, for sure. But I mean, so you know, it's December, it's the year's end, and in year end, you know, you oftentimes get in this mode of like wrapping things up and and consolidating things. And I've actually been thinking a little bit about how all of my pursuits, you know, relate to each other, you know, because you think like meteorology, some statistical work, and you know, business and and screen time, like what's it all, you know, how's it all connected? Because sometimes it's a lot more connected than you think if you think about things at a surface level. But when I think about storm chasing, one of the things that really empowers a lot of the people I know who've also done some storm chasing is knowledge. So, for example, when you're storm chasing, the thing you want to know is you want to have access to the radar that's showing where the storm is moving. You want to actually, most storm chasers have access to a lot more weather data than that, weather variables such as moisture convergence, which is I can explain, but I think it's pretty self-explanatory why moisture convergence would lead to storm development. And then also knowledge of the road network. Storm chasers have been known to carry lorm atlases that have all the roads so that you know if I need to get out, then you know, I could always so those storm. A typical storm track is say southwest to northeast when when there's severe weather. And so, you know, usually you're you're following it alongside it. And if you're to the east of the storm, you know, it's moving northeast and you need to get away because it's suddenly blown up big and you're worried, you can always take a road going straight east, you know, a straight east road that'll get you away from the storm, and then maybe even a south straight south road after that to really try to get out of it. So it's that knowledge and having that plan. And so uh when it comes to going through a high conflict situation, you know, it's understanding a little bit about the situation, like what led to it, you know, not being so aloof and then having that plan. And anyone that's gone through therapy has known that a lot of therapy programs involve also having a plan, you know, when your trigger points arrive. So, say you're going to a family dinner at a holiday, right? And you know this family member triggers you when they talk about this topic, right? Then you can say, okay, what is my plan? What do I do? So the same thing as like I'm gonna drive east on that road in the storm chase, in the case of a tornado, you know, a severe convective storm. The same thing is okay, when this person brings up this topic, I'm going to, even if it's just something as silly as say, sorry, I need to go into another room or I need to go pumpkin pie.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly. Right. I love that. I love that, man. That's that's that's fantastic. We we talk a lot in the community here about gaining the knowledge you need to get through this process. And so to liken it to what you just read, you just said like five things about storm chasing. I don't know nothing anything about, right? Because I've never storm chased. So, like if I were to go and say, hey, I want to go storm chase today, like I and it's just start driving into a storm or just go find a storm and start doing that. That's the dumbest thing I could possibly do. The best thing I could do is start at the very least, start learning about it, studying about it, uh, maybe YouTube like everybody does these days. But the even better thing I can do is call Steven, who's done this before, and say, hey, can can you help me through this? Can you mentor me? Can you coach me on how to learn to do this? I'd like to do this with my with my daughters. And there's a safe way to do this. Same thing in divorce that that guys are going through. You've never done this. You've never hopefully you've never done this. And and even if you've done it once, you're not going to be good at it the first time you storm chased. You're not going to do it, you're not going to do it great the first time you went through a divorce. So, so get that knowledge, like, like Steven said, learn that knowledge. And if you don't have it, there are resources. That's why we've created the community. That's why Steven has created his community to help you optimize your environment, which is one of the parts that we do going through this, this, this coaching process that that we both will initiate and help guys through. And then you're going to learn, and then you're going to be able to create your action plan, like Steven said. But you're in charge of that. Again, if you want something to control, you control your mindset, your behaviors, and how you take action and how you do something, like, like Steven said. So I love, I love that. You that that that was a great way. The storm chasing stuff is really, really fascinating to me. You have such an amazing uh background, Steven. It's so so cool. I really appreciate you coming on today, sharing all of your your wisdom with with the dads. How can dads listening get in touch with you? How can they become involved in your community?
SPEAKER_00:Uh, yeah. So for my screen time initiative, Reclaim Your Time is a name of the company. And you can go to reclaimyourtime.co and everything's on there to subscribe to my newsletter. I'm in the process of uh building an app that is going to help people honor their screen time limits. And you'll also see some information about group coaching and some other workshops. Uh there's a cohort that I'm putting together with another screen time related business owner for earlier in 2026. It's kind of like one of those things after Quitters Day. Have you have you heard about what Quitter's Day is?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, what is it, the first Monday after January 1st or something like that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the second Friday. And the second Friday, okay. Yeah, the second Friday. So this year's January 9th. So after Quitter's Day is like, okay, you know, rather than your surface level news resolution, come work with us to develop better habits with technology. So everything's at reclaimyourtime.co. And then if you want to hear more about my podcast, it's Actions A-C-T-I-O-N S-antidotes and t-i-d-o-t-s.com. And that's another example of learning from feedback in that I uh made that a hard name to type into a website and reclaim your time is a lot easier to remember and type in. And um, there's my contact information there. You can get a hold of me through that website.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And the the podcast is on every major podcast platform. Just they can probably search actions-anidotes and then modifying wherever you get your podcasts, as as you always hear. Perfect. And on that note, gentlemen, if you found some value in what we shared with you today, please share it far and wide on whatever social media you may be spending a limited amount of time on. And uh give us give us a star rating, or even better, give us a comment. It helps other dads to tune in and get the help that they need and deserve. Stephen Jay, thanks so much uh for being here today. I sincerely appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, thank you very much, and thank you for having me.
