Divorce Diaries: Lessons From the Trenches
Welcome to Divorce Diaries, where host Cary Jacobson, attorney and mediator brings you real stories, hard truths, and practical advice on navigating divorce and family law. Whether you're going through it, considering it, or just curious, this is your place for clarity, confidence, and resilience.
Divorce Diaries: Lessons From the Trenches
EP #29: Life After Divorce: Building Your Fresh Start with Life Coach Olivia Howell
In this powerful conversation, host Cary Jacobson, attorney and mediator, is joined by Olivia Howell, founder of Fresh Starts Registry. Olivia shares how personal experience led her to create the world's first divorce registry – a platform where friends and family can tangibly support loved ones rebuilding their lives.
Whether you're experiencing divorce yourself or supporting someone who is, Fresh Starts Registry offers a powerful reminder that healing is possible when we approach major life transitions with compassion, community, and creativity. Visit freshstartsregistry.com to learn more about building a registry or accessing their network of divorce professionals.
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And one of the big shifts we're trying to change in this narrative is there's nothing wrong with supporting people after divorce, right? A lot of women especially have to move or downsize or go somewhere else, and for them they need new things. A lot of people literally have half of their things when they get divorced and their community wants to support them, but they don't know how their community wants to support them, but they don't know how.
Intro/Close:Welcome to Divorce Diaries, where attorney Cary Jacobson brings you real stories, hard truths and practical advice on navigating divorce and family law. Whether you're going through it, considering it or just curious, this is your place for clarity, confidence and resilience.
Cary Jacobson:Welcome back to Divorce Diaries Lessons from the Trenches, the podcast, where we shine a light on the emotional journeys, practical tools and the resilient people transforming life after divorce. I'm your host, Cary Jacobson, divorce attorney, mediator and the host of this space where we talk about everything from legal logistics to the emotional survival. Today's episode is all about reinventing the way that we support those people who are starting over, and this is one you're not going to want to miss. I'm very interested in learning more about this topic. I'm thrilled to welcome Olivia Howell, co-founder and CEO of Fresh Starts Registry, the world's first divorce registry and groundbreaking divorce support network that's changing the way that we think about life's transition. Olivia is a certified life coach, a hypnotherapist, a single mom and communications expert who's led campaigns for major brands and now leads a movement rooted in compassion, community and fresh starts. Olivia, thank you so very much for being here today.
Olivia Howell:Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Cary Jacobson:Well, I am excited to learn more about this registry. I'm not that familiar with it, so I'd love for you to share what inspired you to launch Fresh Starts Registry.
Olivia Howell:I love this question, so I love when I meet people who don't know what we do and who we are, because it's always exciting. So, as many people may guess, I'm divorced myself. I'm a single mom. It's actually six years ago today. My ex-husband moved out August 4th and so we got separated in April of 2019.
Olivia Howell:I was a work-at-home mom. I have a marketing agency, I had two little boys, we owned a house, we had, on paper, what seemed like a really normal suburban life, and then the marriage fell apart, as they do, and I come from a really long line of divorce. My parents are divorced, all of my grandparents are divorced. So I grew up, really it was very normal for us. You know, it was just, is what it is. And when he, when we separated and he moved out, my sister, who is two years younger than me, came over and she and her then fiance helped me clean the house out and really, like we donated so many items that were emotionally charged and you know, then rooms were empty and it was like living in a ghost town and I thought, well, this is when I need the support, right, this is when I need the new stuff. I don't want to use the same toothbrush holder or the same shower curtain or towels or sheets. And so I Googled it, right? I thought, well, there's got to be a divorce registry, right? This is when you have to rebuild. And the only things that came up were articles that said why is there not a divorce registry from Vogue and Elle and all of these places? So I called my sister and at the time she had just gotten engaged. So we have, we're living kind of different lives. And I said I think, I think I have an idea. I want to start this, this Fresh Starts registry where it's this one-stop shop, to begin again. And she was like I love this, but we've never built a startup.
Olivia Howell:At the time, you know, we were not even working together. She was on the road doing big events for tech companies and I had the six figure marketing agency and I was doing social media across the world and raising two kids. And she was like I love this, but we don't know how to do this. So like, let's table this Right. And I said, okay, but you know, when you have that idea and like you just don't, you can't give it up, right? So flash forward to uh, they were.
Olivia Howell:My sister was supposed to get married May of 2020. And, as anybody can remember, there was not a lot of weddings going on then, so they pushed the wedding and pushed the wedding and then, by the time they pushed it the third time, he decided he wasn't in love with her anymore. So she had the opposite experience that I had. Um, I stayed in the marital residence and had to rebuild. She literally left her apartment with nothing and and she moved back to Long Island, which is where we're from. She got a very cute little Gilmore girls type apartment here in Huntington village and she called me and she said remember that idea you had for the divorce registry? I, I need new things. She said let's do it, let's build it, and so she literally bought I get chills every time I tell this story she, she bought a new kitchen table for herself, a new dining room table.
Olivia Howell:We sat at the table in August, almost almost four years ago now and we built it from scratch. And then we were. We are the world's first divorce registry platform and the premier divorce support network which I'll get into. And so we we are just committed to shifting the narrative around divorce and normalizing it and everything that you've seen. We've built ourselves and we are so proud of what we do we, because we are the first divorce registry people have had a lot of things to say about us, so we were on NBC by that February and we've just kind of taken off since then, yeah, so that's. That's essentially where we started. But you know, as you know, with building a business there's lots of iterations. So we have changed a lot since then, which I'm happy to talk about too.
Cary Jacobson:Absolutely Well. I love this story. I again hate that you both had to go through that, but that something so wonderful came of that and which is so, so needed because, like you said, people are in different situations, but those are. Why is it always the happy times where people are receiving gifts? You know when these are the times that it's really necessary.
Olivia Howell:Absolutely, absolutely, and so we actually call it support, right? This is a physical manifestation of the support you can give to somebody, and one of the big shifts we're trying to change in this narrative is there's nothing wrong with supporting people after divorce, right? A lot of women, especially, have to move or downsize or go somewhere else, and for them they need new things. A lot of women, especially, have to move or downsize or go somewhere else, and for them they need new things. A lot of people literally have half of their things when they get divorced and their community wants to support them, but they don't know how, and so we're coming out and saying build the registry. It's always free to make a registry.
Olivia Howell:We're powered by Amazon for a multitude of reasons. Number one is safety. We put safety of our users first and foremost, so you can come to make a registry. We don't collect your user data ever. We don't ask for a credit card, we don't ask for an email address. We just help you build a registry with all of our products that we recommend, and we recommend them based on rooms of the house, based on budgets, based on all sorts of design and aesthetic styles, and we also provide scripts for you. So when you send your registry to people, you can know exactly what to say, because this is a very new idea. And then we do a lot of the support on the other side, right? So how can people support those people going through a divorce as well? People support those people going through a divorce as well. And then we also have a whole other side of the company, which is actually how we make our money, which is supporting experts who are in the divorce industry.
Cary Jacobson:Well, I'd love to learn, you know, share with our listeners a little bit more about that side as well. Obviously, the registry is a wonderful piece of it, but all of the other professionals that are part of that support team?
Olivia Howell:Absolutely so. When we built the registry, we were like, so passionate, we built the blueprint for the business and then we were like, oh no, this isn't making any money. How are we going to make money from this? Right, we're. We are incredibly passionate about providing accessible and free resources for anybody going through a divorce. So we have free eBooks, free dictionaries, all sorts of free resources. Uh, however, that's not gonna pay the bills.
Olivia Howell:So my background is in marketing and public relations. I've been doing that for 20 years, my sister's backgrounds in tech and, uh, you know communications. So when we were trying to build this, we had a friend to say to us why don't you do what you've always done and support experts in their marketing and public relations? It was like a light bulb went off in our head. So we have a beautiful membership, that is, there's two levels for $25 for any divorce professional per month. Right, so it's $25 a month. You have your own profile that's SEO optimized and very high comes up in Google because of the divorce registry. You have our networking events. You can share your events and your courses and everything that you're doing with our community, and you get discounts on all of our cohorts and things like that, and you get referrals, which is something I'm going to talk about, which is unique, that we do. And then this is where the really cool part is For just $55 a month you get all of that, but you also get support in your business. So we have co-working twice a month. You get all of that, but you also get support in your business. So we have co-working twice a week. We have hot seat business coaching twice a week. We have workshops. We have a huge resource gallery and guide and content library and you have access to any of our top podcasts. To come be a guest and here's the clinter, we actually do public relations at that level too. To come be a guest and here's the clinter, we actually do public relations at that level too.
Olivia Howell:So we have put our experts, placed our experts into New York Times, time Magazine, you know all sorts of places, and it's a fantastic way, if you're a divorce lawyer or coach or therapist or co-parenting specialist, to start to get your name out there. So we adore our experts and we absolutely stand by them. They are vetted. When you sign up to be an expert, you do have to sign a waiver that says you are nonjudgmental, shame free and inclusive Cause. That's really important to us and the really cool thing that we offer we started this year I kind of started it on a whim to see what would happen is free consults with me for 15 minutes with anybody going through or considering divorce.
Olivia Howell:And I started this kind of just at the holiday season to say like let me get back a little bit and see what happens. I call them divorce resource consults. So you meet with me for 15 minutes. I listened to what's going on. I am a certified divorce coach. I don't do divorce coaching, but I wanted to make sure I was certified in that and I'm a certified life coach, as you said, and so it's confidential. You meet with me on zoom and then I put together a customized email for you with the experts that you should talk to. I introduced you to the experts and then all the resources, and I started this in December and I booked up for January in about two days and and then I said I'm just going to keep this rolling and now we're booked out months in advance, and so I absolutely adore this part of the business.
Olivia Howell:To me it's just my passion. I love connecting our experts with the people, and I have to say, like shout out to our amazing experts. I myself know how hard it is to get in touch with lawyers and everybody Right, and when I connect them to one of the people that I work with, they're getting back to them within hours and supporting people. And so it's really beautiful and so we have created this entire ecosystem to support people through divorce and we're just, we're really proud of what we do and to really help shift that narrative about like this is a time of support right, and like let's come together to support people, let's support divorce professionals to get their name into the world and get the people that they need, and it's just this beautiful journey that we've been on.
Cary Jacobson:Well, that sounds like a great win-win, both for the professionals but also those people who are going through the process. It helps them have the resources for their team that they're going to need to move forward.
Olivia Howell:Exactly exactly. And the amount of I talk to men too, but mostly women who come through and just look at me and say I didn't even know this was possible, right, a lot of stay-at-home moms, a lot of women who feel very trapped, and for us to say, you know, it's not only possible, but we're going to provide you with the support that you need, is really, truly, it's wonderful, it's magical. So I'm very proud of that.
Cary Jacobson:That's awesome.
Olivia Howell:Thank you.
Cary Jacobson:So back to the registry slightly. What types of things are that people able to, you know, register for? Is it household items? Is it kind of give me an idea?
Olivia Howell:Yeah, absolutely Okay. So let's talk about that. I love that question. So we have two ways to build a registry. We are mostly powered by Amazon, but I know that some people don't like Amazon, so we also have myregistrycom, in case you want to do that as well. However, we love to encourage people to register for the things that I like to say your ex may have touched most in the house, right, so we don't. While we don't track users, we do have affiliate links which we make pennies on. That's not why we do it. We really like to see what's being bought and purchased, and so you know we we runs the gamut of things that are super practical, right, so the top items are towels, sheaves, utensils, plates, cups, those things, and then also some people add really cool things like disco balls and pirate flags and a lot of you know, new underwear and bathrobes and slippers. Something that was really important to me is, if you go to the registry site, we have bundles of products that on Amazon that you can just go. Add all the products. We've done the research, we have looked at the stars and the ratings and you can cause it.
Olivia Howell:As we know, divorce is so overwhelming, yeah, and I wanted to make sure it's so much to choose from oh my gosh, it's so many things to choose from and we didn't want you sitting there late at night going which you know toothbrush holder does my family need. But we, we built out a bundle for children's rooms, right, because a lot of women especially need to move out to a smaller space, and I can tell you that that first thing they're thinking about is how to make the children's room, you know, as special as possible. But, as a single mom myself, I wanted to make sure these were items that a single mom could build on her own in the room late at night, right, you don't have another set of hands. And so we really thought about the user's perspective and journey the entire time that we were building this, and I think that that's what makes us a little bit different, too, is we think about the safety of every single user. I was on a divorce consult the other day with somebody and she had been messaging me on Instagram to set this up, and then she was like I don't want my messages in my Instagram, and so I sat with her until we deleted all her messages, right, like we are, we are, you know, led by heart. We want people to feel safe with us. My sister and I had each other through this and we want other people to feel like we're your big sisters, right, we're going to see you through this also, and so the registry side is also.
Olivia Howell:It's been really cool because we also get a lot of women who come to us who are in their 50s and 60s and 70s and, as you know, gray divorce is on the rise and so many of these women have literally never picked out a set of towels on their own or, you know, sheets, and they go for the floral, the pink, the colorful, and it's so beautiful to sit. You know, talk to these women and they're like I picked out artwork for the first time in my life, you know, and it's. It really is.
Olivia Howell:It's not about the items, right, it's about choosing joy. It's about deciding what's good for you and it's about surrounding yourself with the things that the people in your life got for you, right. So, like, when you look at the new sheets that your cousin in California sent to you, you can feel loved, right, because you know that somebody that loved you bought those sheets. And I believe I've done I've done a lot of work in the subconscious as a hypnotherapist. When you can start to rewire your brain and see that you're loved and surrounded with love, it's going to help your confidence. It's going to help you make those decisions. So you know, a lot of people are like ah, divorce registry.
Cary Jacobson:I don't want to get you a present for your divorce. It's not about the gifts or the support. It's about the idea behind it. I love that. I I understand that you know now that people are going into this new chapter and now they're able to pick the things that they want to have, not necessarily have to feel like they're picking things for someone else, and they can choose whatever that makes them excited.
Olivia Howell:Absolutely. In fact, I had a whole thread that went viral on threads about choosing pink items after your divorce, and then Forbes did a whole piece on it because it turns out a lot of women really want to decorate their house with pink and they haven't been allowed for many years, and so it's those little little pieces of divorce that you don't think about, that where we get really sociologically nerdy about and we like to talk about.
Cary Jacobson:Well, can you share a success story from someone who used the registry and found healing through it, whether it was just the registry or or any of the professionals in the process?
Olivia Howell:Yeah, I'll share a little of both. So we actually, you know, I said we have this bundle for children's rooms. We had a friend of ours who was going through a divorce and she had to move out from her five bedroom house to a two bedroom apartment and had two little boys. And she actually went and registered for all the kids items right, little boys, stuff, all those things and she put it on social media and people on her social media bought her everything she needed and she sent us videos of her children's rooms and I get again get chills every time I think about it. So beautiful and then I'll share.
Olivia Howell:Just even last week I talked to a woman who came to me A lot of people find me on social media and she said I, you know I'm an abusive marriage. It's very emotionally abusive. I have little kids, I don't have my own income. And I said, ok, well, actually one of our experts, who's an amazing financial planner, he's offering free support right now to anybody I recommend. Would that be something you'd be interested in? And she started to cry and she said I didn't even think this was real and it was so heartbreaking and beautiful and, you know, for a lot of women.
Olivia Howell:I'm the first person that they tell that they're considering divorce. I've had instances talking to women on zoom where they're hiding from their husbands and you know, and so I don't think people realize that while we talk a lot about divorce in our society, we're not talking a lot about divorce in our society and there's a lot of women especially, who are really trapped. And you know, between people like you, carrie right, and talking about it all the time, and you know the work that we do, we can really start to open this conversation up, which might save some people's lives.
Cary Jacobson:A hundred percent. Yeah, I agree, we it. It's talked about on a service level, but not like the underlying issues that people face.
Olivia Howell:Yeah, a hundred percent yeah.
Cary Jacobson:So you mentioned that you are a hypnotherapist and that you are a divorce and life coach. What are some of those emotional patterns that you see people rebuilding after divorce?
Olivia Howell:I love this question so much so when people come to me, I do some life coaching and business coaching, but when I do my consults too, and even for my friends, they'll come and say what do I do? I feel so lost, right? The first thing I always recommend is go listen to the music you listened to when you were 14. That music when you were 14 is who you were. Go back to that and everybody does it and they're like that was life changing, right. And I, of course, will say go see a therapist. Therapy is amazing.
Olivia Howell:Divorce coaches are amazing. Right To get through this time. But so much of the patterns I see is not about going back to who you were, but it's about stepping into who you were always supposed to be. And I always like to say divorce is not about winning or losing, it's about finding, finding who you are Right. And, as hard as it is, you will step out of that like a phoenix, as somebody new and the you know so much of that. That pattern is it has to be rewired Right. You deserve, you are worthy All of that and that can totally be done. It feels like it can't, but I promise it can.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, absolutely. Well, you mentioned earlier, you're a single mom, you're an entrepreneur. You, I believe, also have your own podcast.
Olivia Howell:We have a lot of podcasts.
Cary Jacobson:How do you stay so grounded during all of this?
Olivia Howell:It's a great question. I am lucky enough, so I moved. I actually sold my house about three years ago and moved back into my mom and stepdad and so I invested that money into the company, because that's how passionate I was, and living back with my parents has been really great, I have to say. They are an incredible support and help with the kids, so I have some support there. It is so cool. I always say, if you can, if you're a single mom and you can move back home, move back home because it's great for the kids, it's great for my parents, it's great for me, and I definitely make sure to take time at night to just unwind right.
Olivia Howell:I watch a lot of old Nick at night and I also. I use our experts. I go to our own experts. We have an energy clearer that I go to once a month. Right now I'm doing a course with one of our experts. She's doing a meditation course.
Olivia Howell:I literally use the people that I recommend and I, you know, will do anything that they offer.
Olivia Howell:Many of our experts offer free things too, and I will go to as much as much as I can, and the beautiful part about building a company with your sister is that we have. We've built so many things together that we're so aligned and just like, as an example, this summer we swapped time off and you know. So I'm a writer too. I'm working on a lot of stuff. We have a book proposal we're working on and I took the week off just to work on my own writing. And like you can't do that when you're an entrepreneur most of the time, but knowing that my sister, she runs the company better than I do most of the time, then you know it's like and then she's taking off and so it's just having those, that foundation in place, that if you have like like we've had off days and we're like I just can't do it today, it's like the other sister's like good, go take a nap. You know it's fine. That's very unusual, but we're very grateful for it.
Cary Jacobson:Well, having that family support is huge, Huge yes, and so for any of our listeners out there that are going through divorce or have been redivorced, you know, making sure that you have that support team whether it's family, friends, whatever it might be is critical.
Olivia Howell:Yeah, absolutely.
Cary Jacobson:Yeah, well, what's one thing that you wish everyone knew about kind of divorce and healing, something that you would really like to share with our listeners?
Olivia Howell:You're not alone. You're just. You're not alone. It feels so isolating and I've been through. My marriage was emotionally abusive, psychologically abusive. I had a lot of healing after that and that's why I share so much, because the amount of women that come to me and say I didn't even know what I was going through until you talked about this on Instagram or whatever. But you're not alone and if you are scared to get started, book a call with me. It's totally free. There's no upsell. I just am here to support you and I promise you if you're going through something, somebody else is definitely going through the same thing.
Cary Jacobson:Absolutely Well. Olivia, thank you so much for being here and I really loved this conversation. You've taken something that is so often shrouded in shame you know divorce and separation and really turned it into a moment of strength, community and celebration. Thank you For everyone who's listening, or whether you're going through a divorce or a breakup, know that you are allowed to begin again and have that fresh start. Olivia, how can our listeners know more about the registry and the services that you provide?
Olivia Howell:Absolutely so. You can go to freshstartsregistry. com and you can build a registry. You can access our expert guide for free. We have three free eBooks right now on the website, tons and tons of blog posts, and you can reach out to us online or on Instagram at Fresh Starts Registry or I'm simply Olivia Howell. My sister is Genevieve Dreisen. We're here anytime, day or night, for anybody.
Cary Jacobson:Awesome. Thank you so much, and for those joining Divorce Diaries, be sure to follow the podcast, share it with someone that may be going through this or may you know, find helpful information. And until next time, I'm your host, Cary Jacobson. Take care.
Intro/Close:Thanks for joining us today on this episode of Divorce Diaries. Remember every journey is unique. Remember every journey is unique, but you don't have to navigate it alone. Visit JacobsonFamilyLaw. com or call 443-726-4912 for support and guidance.