Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 111

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

Rapid Fire Q and A to finish off the week: 1. All I wanted to do was some "harmless window shopping," and now my girlfriend is pissed 2. How do I get my friend back on the "path" 3. I am struggling with motivation, should I stay at my current job or move on 4. Money, divorce, kids, and happiness Enjoy

What's up, everybody? It's Friday. Which means it's fall out of Friday time. Number 111 coming at you. Here we go. All righty. All righty. Four questions for today. Some of them are the ones that I am least qualified to answer. That's right.

Relationship questions. Why people fucking ask me about relationships? I don't know. So I will do my best. And let's start with one that's not relationship-based. This one's a little bit more occupational, workspace-based. Hello, Andy. I'm having a lot of trouble with motivation recently.

I apologize in advance for my poor writing skills, as I'm very dyslexic. I've watched all of your content and podcasts. You are a great influence for me most Fridays. Well, what the fuck, man? What about the other Fridays? I'm aiming to be a good influence every Friday. I'm actually just kidding. I'm aiming to tell the truth on Fridays.

And again, why people reach out to me for my opinion is a little bit beyond me, but let's continue. I work as a fabricator with the same company for over eight years now. When the company was founded, several people and I currently work with, or several people I currently work with started with the owner. The attitude of the company is slow, and the work output is slow as well. I am putting out a tremendous amount of the highest level work, but the money isn't the there. My boss doesn't want to pay me more as he has several employees who have more experience, even though they are producing far less quality and quantity than myself. This is causing me to want to work as hard as I can, but with less ability to grow. Shops around me pay more,

but want me to do more than my physical abilities will allow as a result of illnesses that cause me to have severe muscle weakness. I know this isn't the deciding factor on pay where I currently work, but I would like some insight on how to go about finding a new job, explaining my situation and providing or approving myself as a viable asset on a new crew of guys. Well, my advice would be, is before looking for a job elsewhere, make sure you exhaust all the options where you currently are. So you are rating yourself as putting out the highest level of work, higher quality and higher quantity than others around you. I would probably start with having a hard conversation with your boss and ask for feedback. That's probably how I would

start this conversation. I would ask for feedback about your quality and quantity because what it may appear to you may not be the same as the person that actually would be in charge of paying you more money. And maybe they'll give you exactly what you laid out. They're just like, hey, fuck it. There's people here with more experience and yeah, they do less and we don't want to, we don't want to pay anymore, but at least then you'll have a concrete answer. And I think it would be easier from that point to move forward and look for something else. Because if you don't have that conversation and you don't get those answers, you're making assumptions, which can be very dangerous, especially if you are basing future decisions off of that assumption. So talk with your boss. Ask them if there is

something that you are not doing that would allow you to be paid more. Ask them if there is something in addition that you could do that would allow you to be paid. paid more. Just have an open and honest conversation. If it doesn't go the way that you want it to go, what I would say is start looking for a job elsewhere, which you've kind of identified. There is at least the opportunity for you to have another job. And as far as explaining your situation and proving yourself as a viable asset on a new crew of guys, what I have always appreciated most when people have come to me and they are ready to integrate into a team is when they're really honest about their strengths and weaknesses. For example,

myself, one of the things that I just have always struggled with is design. So we're talking about the podcast now, things that I can do and things that I can't do. I feel comfortable sitting down having conversations. I don't mind the topic. I don't care if I agree with somebody or not. It's very easy for me to continue that conversation. And I never had any desire to actually do merchandise around this podcast. But people kept hitting me up about it. And I hit a wall immediately when it came to designing something. The first designs all came from Dudley, and since then I've been very lucky to work with a designer named Seth that I was introduced through Black Rifle Coffee. And if I were to send you the text threads between he and I, you would agree with me. Design isn't my strength,

but it's his strength. So when I was introduced and we started going back and forth, I was really appreciative of the fact that that was his strength because I could be honest with him about my weakness and we have a very good dialogue. The worst thing that you can do is come into a situation and play up the things that not only you are good at, but really either walk around or skirt the issue or even worse, make it seem as if you are good at things you are not. So, sure, you have some physical abilities that may be limiting you. I have no idea what the illnesses are. I'm sorry that you had to experience that. But they don't have to be an obstacle that can stand in your way. you never know in going and talking to these other organizations, they might actually have the

perfect role for you. Maybe something that suits your strengths and wouldn't require you to work around your weaknesses. But you'll never know unless you have those conversations. But I guarantee you the person that you would be talking to on the other side of the table will be appreciative of your honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses. Take an example of your work. And I don't fabricate it. I don't necessarily what you fabricate, but I mean, I'm assuming you have a smartphone with you, start making a portfolio of the work that you do. So you can show people, hey, this is what I'm able to do. This is the level and quality of work that I'm capable of accomplishing. Then you can talk about, you know, the potential limiting factors that you may have,

and then they can make an educated decision. And the best way to prove yourself is a viable asset at a new crew of people, regardless of what your job is, is to shut your mouth and perform. I mean, that's just broad baseline advice for anybody, getting ready to switch careers. or that wants to stand out amongst their peers. It's not what you say. It's what you do. So if you do switch to a new job, put your metaphorical nose to the grindstone,

zip the mouth and show people that you are a viable asset. You don't need to explain it or prove it to them. Your actions will speak louder than any words that you have. That would be the advice that I have. Hopefully it goes your way. It sounds like you have options, which is a great thing. Maybe it'll work out at your current company, or maybe you can move on to something even better.

Question two. Hello, Andy. I'm a dedicated listener and I truly enjoy your podcast. But today I had one of my buddies who I was supposed to work out with Skip for the fourth day in a row. Son of a bitch. He said he doesn't have an injury and I was wondering if I should let him keep his decision or try to see if there's something mental. I'm not sure. I just want him back on the path. So this doesn't become a habit. Maybe I'm overreacting, but what's a way I can talk? my friends to get back on the path. Thank you, Eddie. Please keep up the podcasts. And I plan to. So let's talk about the path here. I am going to compare myself for a second to somebody I consider to be a good friend, Jock O'Willink. Jock Willink gets up at what I'm going to describe as an unreasonable hour of the day. He takes pictures of of himself, well, not of himself of the sweat beads that are on the ground every single day that he works out, which is 700 days a year. And he is, I'm not going to say he is defined by his discipline, but his discipline and the path that he is on is impressive and inspirational.

I believe in being on a path. But I also believe that sometimes the best way to find your way back to a path or to develop a deep appreciation for the path you know that you want to be on is to let the wheels wobble a little bit. And I'm not saying that for a month you sit on the couch and eat Cheetos and binge yourself through a multiple Netflix series. But your buddy taking four days off in a row, in my opinion, can actually be extremely healthy. And for longevity, it could actually be essential. So when I was working for CrossFit, it was very zone diet, paleo diet intensive.

And sometimes I would give the nutritional lecture, which is ridiculous because I have no background in nutrition whatsoever. But in my experience, anecdotally and myself personally, long-term adherence to any program, especially for me, comes when I give myself a little, little bit of a buffer to relax and take a few wraps off, to be able to sleep in, to take a day off, to listen to my body. If you give yourself zero cheap meals and it's your goal to stay on an eating strategy for 10 years and it's just rigid and every single time you give yourself no

deviation versus the person that 90% of the time is just as strict as that other individual, but 10% of the time rewards themselves for that behavior up to that point. In my personal opinion, what I have seen is more success from the cohort that allows themselves to have that buffer in 10% to just relax a little bit. For people like Jocko, he doesn't need that. But not everybody can match Jocko's level of discipline, his sleep schedule, his workout routine. I think it is inspirational and everybody should try to. but at the end of the day, don't try to be somebody else.

You need to be the best version of yourself. And depending on what position, maybe you're starting this path on down discipline. Maybe you haven't worked out in decades. Maybe you've eaten like a fucking garbage disposal for 30 years. That initial onboarding is going to be super rough. And you could actually auger yourself in by being so incredibly strict or not listening to your body. If you haven't worked out for decades and now you're trying to get back into. it. The point is be inspired by that path, but don't be so hard on yourself and don't be so hard

on others if, you know, along that path, they want to sit down on a bench for a minute and just take it easy, right? Just take a break. Have a bag of popcorn. Smell the roses. It's a weird combination. I know. I don't know why I came up with that example, but I did. If this goes to like the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, the ninth, the tenth, the tenth, the seventh, day for sure. I mean, I would sit down with somebody and try to figure out what's going on, especially if they say they don't have an injury. But sometimes people just need a little bit of a break so they can recharge their batteries. They can find that motivation again. And that is okay. So keep an eye on your friend, but I don't think four days in a row is necessarily going to be

critical. What I will say, and I've talked about this a lot, is about momentum, good habits and bad habits. And this actually ties right into the eating strategies. It's the little micro steps that you need to stack in order to really build that momentum. You know, changing your eating strategy the first day, the second day, the third day. It's kind of new. It's not that hard, but like day seven, eight, nine, and ten, it can be a grind. But if you can get to two weeks, if you can get to three weeks, if you can get to a month of a change in your behavior, and actually becomes a little bit like second nature because you have that momentum going in the other direction.

That's great. Guard against it going the other way. You take four days off in a row, like, you know what, I'm going to pair with my lack of activity today, a tub of ice cream, which, let me be very clear. I've done that many times. But I didn't do it two days in a row, certainly not three or four or five or six or seven or eight or nine or ten. I guard against the momentum in a negative direction because oftentimes, especially for me, it feels like when it comes to training and working out, it's one step forward, two steps back. one step forward, two steps back. It seems like gains are so incredibly hard to achieve, but ridiculously easy to lose. I feel like if I take about two days off, I've lost every

game that I've ever had working out in my entire life, which I know is a mental thing, but God damn, if it doesn't feel real. So guard against that, and don't let that momentum bury you into a hole where you can't see your way out of it, and then it becomes really difficult, and you have to start over. So I think it's awesome that you're checking in on your friend. I would maybe just stay in communication and contact, and if this continues, news, maybe escalate the level of intervention that you would use. And if it gets to, you know, a week, drag them to the gym whether they want you to or not. And maybe you could just focus on having the person break a sweat. They don't need to have any PRs. Just get back

into the range of motion, greasing up the joints a little bit. And you'd be surprised when you, when your goal is, you know, let's just get there and not necessarily worry about having the best day of my life. Those are the days that are the most important struggles to me. The days that I feel like working out, that shit's easy. The days that I don't want to work out, it's like, okay, I am just going to get myself to the gym. Those are the days that actually matter. So try to help your friends with that if you can, but don't sweat four days off, man. I sweat 40, but four, you're going to be okay. But you're being a good friend, and I appreciate that. Question three. Now we get into the relationship advice. And spoiler alert slash disclaimer, I don't know shit about relationships. So take all of this

with a grain of salt. My girlfriend of the year and I are going through quite the debacle. She recently looked through my phone and saw I had added a random girl on social media. This was a mistake on my part because, to be fair, I only added her because she was attractive and I wanted to do some harmless, harmless window shopping. She confronted me about it in a pretty hostile manner and knowing I was in the wrong, I immediately lied and said, I don't know how I came to be following this one. woman. Eventually, I grew a pair of balls and owned up to my mistake a few hours later, but the damage had been done. She called me a liar and told me to leave her alone. Around 10 o'clock at night, I went to our room and asked if I could sleep in the bed with her because sleeping on our couch

leaves me feeling like I got in about six of those mountain bike crashes when I wake up in the morning. She said no when I asked why she lost it and began screaming at me. The screaming and demeaning me eventually turned into her physically hitting me, even pushing me up against the wall by my throat. She's about 5-2 and 115 pounds, so it's not exactly like I was fearing for my life or physically hurt by her, so I feel weird calling abuse, but it bothers me that she would do that to me. Since that night, it's gotten no better. She continues to demean me over text and in-person and did not apologize for her actions and even claim she was acting in self-defense because I was harassing her while she tried to sleep, and I just feel stuck. Any advice on this

situation would be much appreciated. So, damn, I believe the title to this email, because I screen grabbed it, so I wouldn't accidentally use your name, was shit show of epic proportions. And I'm going to agree with you on that. So this is a little bit layered. First few thoughts. Your girlfriend looking through your phone. I know a lot of people out there are very worried about other people looking through their

phone. They see it as a violation of privacy. And I guess I can see both sides of that particular argument. But where I land on this myself, like my kids all know the password to my phone, my fiance knows the password to my phone. And I think it means something about how you are acting and how you are behaving as a person. If somebody were to take your phone and you have no concern over what they may find, you have nothing to hide the way that you are communicating with people is above

board and you're not doing anything that would be considered under the board. And that's how I try to live my life in a digital fashion as well as in a face-to-face manner. If Leah wanted to grab my phone and go through it on any social media platform, I have no issue with that whatsoever. I try to be as upfront and honest about those things as possible, as humanly possible. And when you find yourself in a situation like you did. So, you know, you followed somebody on social media because you were, let's see, what would be the best, most accurate way to describe this. You were window shopping for some tits and ass.

I get it, but let me just tell you this. You need to invest your time, energy, and effort where you want to see a return. We'll be another way to put that. You need to water the grass or the garden where you want to see it grow. So I'm not so sure that window shopping is actually that harmless. And that leads me to the reaction from your girlfriend. You may want to ask her if she has had a previous experience with a significant other, a partner, where maybe they describe something like this as harmless window shopping and it escalated to something else.

So what might seem harmless to you may be anything but harmless to her. and I would get to the root cause of that issue. And I also think that communication is incredibly important. Do I think that looking at somebody's social media pictures is cheating? I don't personally think that that is. I guess it could be emotionally. But my point in communication is that you should be clear with your partner where they stand on these things. I mean, tits and ass, looking at tits and ass is great.

But if you throw enough time at that tits and ass, guess what? It's not going to look the same. And you need to have more in your life than just that, right? Those things are great. Having a partner is actually substantially better than that. So if you want to have a partner, you need to communicate and understand where boundaries are. What does that person consider cheating? What do you consider to be cheating?

Don't let something like this happen where you find the boundaries or blast through them by accident. All right? Now, to her reaction and you lying about it, okay, don't be a dipshit, right? I have this conversation with my kids every time that I catch them lying, which doesn't happen that often, but they're not nearly as good of liars as they actually think that they are. And I say the same thing to them every time. I am going to be more upset that you lied to me than if you were just to tell me the truth about what happened. Now, I can't assume how your girlfriend would have reacted, and maybe it would have been exactly the same reaction, but I think you would have been in less of a whole if you had just been honest up front,

as opposed to digging in your heels, lying about it, and then having to change your story later on, right? If you want a partner, if you truly have a partner, there's no reason to lie to them. Okay. Communicate and be up front. It's the same thing as going through the phone. You shouldn't have an issue with somebody picking up your phone, a significant other picking up your phone and going through it. If you can communicate and they truly understand who you are, how you act, how you talk, how you interact, they're not going to be surprised by anything that they see unless you're not being honest with them and you're doing some shit you shouldn't be doing. Okay.

Don't lie to people. telling the truth can be really, really hard, especially when you fucked up. And that's exactly why you should do it. You need to make the hard choice. Now, I'm going to shift gears here for a second, and I want to talk to you about her reaction to you going upstairs, her hitting you, pushing you up against the wall by your throat. Okay, I don't care what if you're a man or woman. I don't care if you're tall or short, if you're 115 pounds or 215 pounds, whether or not

you were feeling for your life or you were physically hurt. by those actions, it doesn't make it right. I don't know the technical definition of abuse, but I'm pretty sure what you described meets the technical definition of assault. And my point in saying that is, we're even talking about this portion of your email, is that once things escalate to a physical nature, that's your new baseline. You'll be lucky. You'll be lucky. if the next time that things escalate, that they stay at that baseline. More often than not, what happens is that baseline continues to get higher and higher and higher. And what appears in this situation to have not been physically damaging or life-threatening to you could eventually build

to that if the behavior continues. Now, if we were to reverse this sentence and it was you describing what you did to her, people would be calling you a piece of shit. Like, oh my God, how could you do that? You can never hit a woman. You couldn't act like that. But for some reason, when the table is flipped, people don't have an issue with women treating men like that. And for those people and to those people, I say, fuck off, all right? Assault is assault and abuse is 100% abuse. I don't care about your physical stature or what's in between your legs. The behavior that you are talking about is completely unacceptable. If she continues to demean you and text you over text or in person, you know, like I can understand somebody holding a grudge and having an axe to grind,

but it is super concerning to me that it escalated to a physical level. Because like I said, once that's your baseline, it's not generally, if ever going to retreat below that. that. It is going to continue to escalate and you're going to go one rung up the ladder and one run, one rung up the ladder until shit gets wildly out of control. Also, I can't imagine wanting to stay with somebody who feels comfortable doing that to you from a physical or mental perspective. I think the punishment should fit the crime, right? And again, I'm not going to put a, I'm not going to put a judgment on the level of crime that this is, the window shopping that you wanted to do, because I'm not the person that you're in the relationship with.

This would, again, go back to the communication, understanding the boundaries. Following somebody on social media, does that crime fit the punishment of being pushed up against the wall, hit, and grab by your throat? Fuck, no, it doesn't, right? I would recommend that your girlfriend actually go Google the term self-defense. harassing somebody by trying to talk to them, responding to that with physical violence, yeah, you're out of your fucking mind, okay? That one plus one does not equal two in that situation.

If you were up in her face, if you were, you know, anything, I mean, like self-defense is that you are actually defending yourself against something. And I know that people think that words and violence are the same thing sometimes. They're absolutely fucking not. The people that think that in my experience have never actually encountered violence or been pushed up against a wall or been hit or grabbed by their throat because you'd realize really fucking fast that the things that come out of your mouth, although they have an impact, it is way different than being involved in a physically violent environment. So she's not acting in self-defense. That's an excuse that's not going to hold up in court by any stretch of the imagination. but it leads me to where I would end this with.

Any advice on the situation? My advice would be that you guys either need to get into some very serious counseling and immediately address these issues or you need to go your own direction. My advice to you would be go your own direction. If I had to pick between those two, I would say go your own direction. Because of the fact you've been together for a year, it's already escalated to this point. I'm not saying it's not salvageable, but I am saying, 50% of the people on planet Earth are women.

Find a woman that's not going to physically come after you when she gets upset and then describe it as self-defense. Life is too short. On the other side of that coin, stop being a dipshit and looking for women on the internet. I don't care how good their ass looks in their yoga pants or how much you like the halfway turned around like topless selfie where they're covering themselves up. water the garden where you want it to grow. Invest your time, energy, and effort in your fucking partner, not on idiots on social media. And not that people who post pictures like that are idiots. I don't know why I just said that.

But sometimes they are. Last question. I'm 27. My wife and I have been married for six years and have one, two and a half year old son. Over the year and a half, our marriage over the year and a half, our marriage has become cohabitation. We're constantly fighting. and any time that's spent together usually results in an argument. It's become extremely toxic, and it's hit the point that my wife will start going off

at me while our son is in the room. Sometimes it's full on yelling over extremely trivial things. Typically, I try to de-escalate to no avail. Sometimes she'll threaten to leave me. Growing up, I never once saw my parents argue like this. With her parents, we see it practically every time we're over there. Between her, her mom, and her sister, their dad literally gets bitched at nonstop and has been mentally castrated by the girls in his house.

So I'm going to take this one, a paragraph at a time. Okay. You are modeling behavior that you grew up around. She is likely modeling behavior that she grew up around. And neither of those is actually an excuse. I would say your behavior, not escalating to those levels, I would consider it to be better, but to not put a judgment on that, regardless of the situation that you grow up in, you are responsible for how you act and the things that you say.

So you might have grown up in this environment that doesn't give you a free pass. That's like saying, well, my dad was an alcoholic. So fuck it. I guess I'm just going to drink myself to death as well. No, you have a choice. Break the chain. And that's easier said than done. The de-escalation, when these things happen, that to me would be the number one thing that you could do.

What you may need to do is de-escalate by departing the location. Sitting there and choosing not to engage with somebody, but staying in that same environment, it can actually get them to escalate. So my recommendation would be is if you choose not to verbally engage and she continues to come at you, what I would do is perhaps go on a walk with your son. Go do something with your son that changes the dynamic for you and for him. Remove yourself from that situation because I couldn't agree with you more. Two and a half years old is old enough. They may not understand what is necessarily going on, but to think that they don't have an impact on them because of that tension and anger

and angst going on between their parents, that just means you've never been around kids. They're sponges even at that age and avoid having them in that situation as much as humanly possible. I've hit my breaking point. I don't want my son seeing our arguments and yelling matches. I also don't want my son seeing his dad being put down

on the daily by his mom. I don't think the environment is the right one to raise him in, but at the same time, I worry about him being raised in a broken household. The first part of that, I kind of addressed, the broken household. you know, this was one of my biggest thoughts that I kept being on the merry-go-round route about with my own divorce. I was worried about the impact that it would have on my kids.

And what I landed on was that the best impact that I could have on my kids would be if their mom and their dad were both as healthy and happy as they could possibly be. If that was going to be in the same household, which in my situation it was not, then the best thing that I could do would be to raise them in a broken household. Because hopefully what it would do is lay the foundation for two amazing households. Hopefully we could co-parent together and raise our kids in the healthiest environment possible. So it's not the broken home, I think, that necessarily has a huge impact on the kids. It is the layout of those broken homes. and the environment with which the kids are being raised in. That is what matters the most.

I feel like some of the relationship struggles are very much my fault. As our relationship has gotten worse, I've started spending more time at work. I'm a small business owner that typically works 60 to 80 hours a week. In the last year and a half, I've gone from working hourly to being a millionaire on paper. I feel like I've provided my wife with everything she could ask for, especially where her family still lives below the poverty line. So I'm going to hard stop you right there. physical things providing somebody with all the physical things

that she could ask for doesn't mean that you are actually being a good partner one of the things that I have come to understand about money and possessions later in my life is that people say my money can't buy happiness well you know you can't right you can't go to a vending machine and get happiness out of it but you can buy some really cool shit and you can have a lot of fun with it and you can buy a lot of experiences

but if you're unhappy as a person at the end of the day, you're always going to come back to that. So maybe financially you are providing for your wife everything she could physically want, but maybe that's not what she needs. So although it's great that you have the economic ability to do that, don't fool yourself into thinking that you're a great husband because she can buy whatever she wants. There's a whole other aspect of that, and that is you being the best husband that you can be, being present, being able to provide her what she needs from my relationship standpoint. On Wednesday of last week, I went to my parents' house to tell them I was going to get a divorce.

They've been happily married for 30 years. When I first started talking with them, it became immediately clear that they just wanted to offer me solutions that I've already been trying for months. I walked away wanting to try harder to save my marriage, but at the same time, extremely depressed because if I do get a divorce, I worry that the support won't be there. When it comes to your parents, trust me, your parents are going to support. you with whatever decision that you make. They are talking to you about marriage through the lens that they have had of 30 years. They are not seeing what's happening on the daily. They are not living in the house that you are living in. They are not experiencing the things that you are experiencing. So you can take their advice with a grain of salt. But at the end of the day, you are the one who understands

best the decision that needs to be made. You should try as hard as possible to save your marriage. I think divorce should be a measure of last resort for everybody. But if it gets to that point, point, you have to live with your choices and your decisions. And trust me, your parents will be there to support you. My wife has repeatedly refused to start therapy over the last year and says that she's perfectly happy. It doesn't fucking sound like it. And somebody who's perfectly happy doesn't have the behavior that you have described. Regardless, you can't force somebody to start therapy if they don't want to. And if they don't want to and you think that they should, well, that's a difficult conversation to have. You can have that conversation if you're

want to, you could probably expect that person to be very defensive. And if you needed to, you could lay down a very hard boundary and say, hey, we either go to therapy together and we go individually or this is over right here and now. And then that puts it a little bit back into her circle and she can make that choice. But in my experience, making somebody go to therapy when they don't want to, good luck with that. Here's where the money part comes in. My business partner, who's also my closest friend and like an older brother and I are about 12 weeks out from publicly launching a business that's already been valued at around 15 million by a few industry experts. No valuations are on paper or official. Part of me wants to hold out hope that we can work things out, but as launch gets closer,

I'm getting more anxious. Once we're a few months in, there will be official valuations on the business that will cause my net worth to skyrocket. I'm worried that all this work I put in will get washed down the drain in a divorce if I wait until after we launch to start the divorce proceedings. but there's still a part of me saying I just need to put in more work and hold out for my son. My best friend, business partner, who also went through a messy divorce 10 years ago, says that if I go through with getting a divorce, I wouldn't be in the wrong and that it will most likely be beneficial for myself and my son. He says that it's been difficult for him to see me struggling with all of this. The mental anguish over the last month has been intolerable and I could really use an outside opinion. an outside opinion. So I can only talk about my own experience here when it comes to divorce.

It's not going to matter whether or not you start your divorce before or after your company goes public or your net worth skyrockets. If you are still in the divorce proceeding and that net worth skyrocketing was based off of things that you were doing while you were married, you can expect that your wife is going to have some type of claim to that increase in net worth. I don't think there's any way that you are going to be able to get around this. If you're, ex-wife, I'm sorry, not your ex-wife. If somebody who, if she, I guess, could be your ex-wife, if she initiates the process and she has a lawyer that is worth anything worth their salt at all, they are going to do a full financial investigation into you and you will do one into her as well.

That's obviously easier to do a deep dive on somebody's finances if they haven't been working, if they're a stay-at-home mom, which is likely the most undervalued position on the face of planet. but expect in the divorce process, in the discovery process, you're going to have to disclose all of this. So if you had been able to get a divorce and have it finalized before any of this happened, you may have in that divorce proceeding been able to limit future claims against an increase in your net worth. But given that you are moving forward with this, I hate to tell you, I don't think that it's going to matter. Now, obviously take what I say with the grain of soul, because I'm not a fucking lawyer. I watch Law & Order sometimes, and I'm just waiting for times to say I strenuously object in a courtroom, even though I don't necessarily know what it means.

In my experience, though, the financial aspect can be the most draining, and it can make you feel, what would be the best way to describe this. Regardless of the size of the numbers, it can make you feel worthless because your entire life is going to be reduced into ones and zeros, and you're going to be valued by what's seen on an Excel spreadsheet, not for as you are as a person. And that was really tough for me. I'd like to say that you'd get 50-50. I'd hate to tell you that's not the case. That wasn't the case for my divorce. It hasn't been the case for a lot of people that I know that got divorced. But what I will say is this.

No amount of money in your net worth is going to make living in a situation that you have described. Worth it. You can have a fat bank account. You'd be fucking miserable drinking yourself to sleep at night, wondering whether or not brushing your teeth with a 9mm would be a good idea. it doesn't really matter what's in your bank account. I don't want to see anybody go down that path. The biggest piece of advice that I can give you is this.

Exhaust all options. And if the only thing, the only thing that is having you stays because you're worried about losing money, fucking get over that and make a decision for the rest of your life that will make you a better person and a better environment for your family because you'll have the rest of your life to make not only that money back, but God knows how much. The opportunities that will present themselves very likely

if you were able to exit this situation and remove that emotional baggage, you will be shocked by. So don't make your decision solely on the monetary aspect. It's my opinion. Take it for what's worth. I'll see you all on Monday. Marketing is hard.

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