Behavioral Change Before, During, and After the Divorce Process with Kurt Nelson
It’s hard enough to recognize that you need to change your behaviors and then to do so. How are you supposed to do it when it relates to your divorce? Kurt is a sought-after behavioral scientist and recognized leader in human motivation and behavior change. For over 20 years, Kurt has worked with global companies to apply behavioral science principles to drive change in their organizations. Today, Kurt joins Seth and Pete to talk about the challenges of behavioral change during the divorce process – and why it’s important.
Sometimes, it’s a behavioral change that happened during the marriage that’s actually leading to the divorce. Sometimes, it’s recognizing a change in yourself that you need to make in order to work through issues you have that led to the divorce. And sometimes, it’s changes you need to make during the divorce process that just might make the process easier.
But change is hard. We all know that. So Pete and Seth talk with Kurt about how to recognize changes you might need to make, changes your ex made that you now have to deal with, and more. How do you find your own autonomy so you can make the behavioral changes you need to make? How do you deal with different dynamics? What about when child support or co-parenting is involved in the behavioral changes you need to make? And how do you deal with the challenges of what you plan versus the reality?
It all involves learning to change your behavior during a period of potential great fear, loss, anger, grief, and other intense emotions. We hope in this episode that you’ll find some advice as to how you can start taking those first steps.
About Kurt
Kurt is a sought-after behavioral scientist and recognized leader in human motivation and behavior change. For over 20 years, Kurt has worked with global companies to apply behavioral science principles to drive change in their organizations.
He is founder and president of The Lantern Group, a communication and behavioral design agency which uses behavioral science insights to improve employee engagement and motivation.
He also is the co-founder, with Tim Houlihan, of the Behavioral Grooves podcast, where they interview leading academic and business executives from around the world and explore how they apply behavioral science to their work and lives.
All his work focuses on understanding ways to positively influence how people behave.
Show Links
Kurt’s Podcast Behavioral Grooves
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Pete Wright:
Welcome to How to Split a Toaster: A Divorce Podcast About Saving Your relationships from TruStory FM. Today on the show, how do you change your toaster?
Seth Nelson:
Welcome to the show, everybody. I'm Seth Nelson, and as always, I'm here with my good friend, Pete Wright. Let's say you're in the divorce process. Maybe just getting started, maybe you're on the other side, but wherever you are, part of the process of healing involves looking inward and asking an important question. How do I make the changes I need to make to be the best I can be for myself and for others in the future?
Kurt Nelson is a behavioral scientist and recognized leader in human motivation and behavioral change. He's also co-founder of Behavioral Grooves Podcast, and we are thrilled to have his behavioral groove in on the show this week. Kurt, welcome to the toaster.
Kurt Nelson:
Hey. I am very happy to be here. Glad to talk to you guys.
Seth Nelson:
I'll be straight with you. I'm a little nervous that you're on the show.
Kurt Nelson:
Oh.
Pete Wright:
Because you're not an attorney.
Kurt Nelson:
I'm not. I'm not.
Pete Wright:
Does that make you really nervous? That's how I feel.
Seth Nelson:
That's that's not the problem. Okay.
Kurt Nelson:
Okay.
Seth Nelson:
I mean, it's sort of the problem, but not the problem. The problem. He's a behavioral scientist-
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
... which just makes me... it's almost like abnormal.
Pete Wright:
Exactly. Yeah. So by acting normal will you actually come across as normal and to some signal right there. See.
Seth Nelson:
And now you're doing the reverse psychology on me. I confused myself. It's bad. Okay.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. It's the white elephant test right now. All I can think about is my own behavior. And it's the worst. It's the worst.
Seth Nelson:
Now Kurt, I will share this with you. My father who's 81 years old has his PhD in psychology, clinical psych and had taught at University of South Florida graduate student. He traveled the world, done all this amazing stuff. Okay. My mother who passed away last year was an attorney. So this is what I grew up with. And this is how the dinner conversation went in high school. And I was not a great student in high school.
I flourished late, but I came home with an A in Intro to the Law and AB in Intro to Psych. Okay. And my mom looks across the table at my dad and says, "See, he got an A in Intro to the Law. He's going to be a lawyer." And my dad goes, "Well, of course it's easier." So that's kind of how I grew up. So I'm a little nervous about this conversion today.
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah. So they didn't tell you that this is really all about you and where, yeah, if I set up.
Pete Wright:
That's amazing. I didn't know this was going to be an intervention, but I'm so thrilled to be here and witness it.
Seth Nelson:
That's funny because all throughout my day, when I talked to my fiance and I talked to my 18-year-old kid, I talked to everybody that allegedly works for me because we work together. But I have a lot of bosses. They only tell me it's not about me. So I'm good with this intervention. Bring it on.
Pete Wright:
So to get us off of Seth, I am really interested in this conversation because I think so many of the conversations we have about the divorce process or about the practical places, the places where we need to rebuild ourselves and going through the grief process of divorce. But I'm interested in this angle about what happens at the intersection of our individual behavior, our ability to be fluid in difficult situations and divorce.
I want to think that the divorce process might be an indicator that you might be ready for change. You might be ready to change yourself, but I might be, I don't know. I guess I might be wrong. What does it look like there?
Kurt Nelson:
No, I think Pete, you bring up a really good point here. So one of the things that we always talk about change is change is at the same time, it is both super difficult. We all know that. Have you ever tried to go on a diet? Have you ever tried to do any type of thing where, "Gosh, I got to do this. It's hard. I fail at it over and over and over again." And yet at the same time, we are constantly changing. If you look back at yourself who you were a year ago versus who you are now, even some of the behaviors that you're doing, particularly if you look over five, 10 years, you have changed drastically in that period of time.
We know that we change. We change on a daily basis. We change on a weekly basis. All of those things, the hard part is sometimes is that purposeful change is that we're trying to change things when there are so many factors that go into our behavior, how we're doing that in different pieces and what you bring up though, this idea that, "All right, I am going through a massive term tumultuous component of my life at this point of going through a divorce."
This is a for most people, I would assume again, not being a lawyer and not having to deal with this, but having just my own personal experience with friends and others who have gone through this, this isn't something that people take lightly. And this is often about who they are as an individual, particularly if they've been together for a while, because part of that self identity comes with me being part of a couple, me being part of this group.
And so it is an opportunity to do an inward search and it might be part of the reason for the divorce, it might be because you have changed and you have switched. And maybe the other person that you're in that marriage with has shifted and changed in a different way. And so now you no longer have that connection that you did have before.
Pete Wright:
So much of it though. And Seth, riff on this too, because I feel like from your perspective, when you look at people who are of ready for change, the other side of that is people who are completely recalcitrant in their efforts to change, right? How does vengeance that vengeful spirit of separation impact our own ability to look in the mirror.
Seth Nelson:
Oh, absolutely. And what I always view change as, and going through a divorce as a massive change is I view it like the weather and what I mean by that is you have erosion. It happens over time. It's just the water going over the rocks slowly in the stream, right? And that's we... And then a hurricane comes through and it just changes the whole riverbed and how it moves. And that's how I always view change in our lives because I always view the process of getting to the point where you're going through a divorce as the erosion.
People weren't focused on it throughout their marriage. There's the death of a thousand cuts. And then you call the divorce attorneys or then you file for divorce without attorneys. And now you're in the hurricane, right? And you got to get through that. And to your point, Pete, some people are going to fight that storm and they're going to go out there and yell at the lightning and the thunder and they're not going to change through it.
They're going to fight it, fight it, fight it as opposed to say, "Man, let me get into the eye of this thing where at least it's calm and it's all crazy around me, but what can I do to settle it down?" And so much of that has to do on how you make, and I love this, what you said, Kurt, purposeful change. So this is a time to think about what can I do differently, starting with I'm about to go through a process that I've never been before if I have been through it before is probably awful. So what can I do to change my behaviors to at least get through this divorce process more smoothly and calmly and less of the hurricane.
Kurt Nelson:
I love the analogy of that hurricane coming in and changing that river right away. And the process of getting up there is that slow erosion as you're moving forward. But Pete, you had talked about this idea, this element of vengeance, and that one person may be pushing this and one person not there. You might be at different pages in the book as you're going through this. And there's a lot of this that probably, and again, any individual is going to have their own personal history and the psychology around it.
But some of that is probably around autonomy. Am I the one making this choice to have this happen? And if I'm not, then that is a very different change environment that I'm in versus that person who is driving that change. Or if you're both doing it, then it still could be difficult and tumultuous because all of the other factors that come into it, but that autonomy piece, that piece, that I have agency over the direction that my life is going is a key piece of purposeful change.
So Seth, going back to the idea, if we feel like we're being battered around, if that this isn't my choice, my initial reaction typically, and this is just in human nature is I am going to push away from that, right? I am going to, there are... It's that fight or flight piece. And most people in those situations, if there's not an easy flight, if they can't just get out of this, if there's something invested in it for them, they're going to fight.
And that fighting the thunderstorm is just that it's fighting a thunderstorm. And so how do you overcome? And it's a part of your brain that reacts in these things that we don't have much control over. So that purposeful change is hard because it's the amygdala, which is an ancient part of our brain that releases variety of different hormones and other things that create this anxiousness, this fear, all of these other factors that come into play.
Seth Nelson:
And Kurt, I might be getting ahead of ourselves here, assume that you're the one that doesn't want the divorce. So change is coming at you and you have no agency.
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
At what point, or is there a point to make a purposeful change to say, "I don't want this, but I'm going to take this opportunity to make change in my own life." I had this path, I was going on. I get that. I'm no longer allowed to go down that path. And now I'm just going to refocus.
Because that seems to be when people can get there, the divorce process goes more quickly, more smoothly or post divorce issues become less and less when they get out of their own way of trying to keep going down this path, that's no longer available.
Kurt Nelson:
It comes into a big piece of having to let go and that's difficult for people. And so from a behavior change perspective, if I don't feel like I have agency that this isn't, I don't want this divorce. I don't like how it's going. And it's being thrust upon me. You've gone through whatever the motions are that this is beyond repair, right? This is we're not going to get back together. We know this and now I'm just fighting to fight. And there comes a time from again, a purposeful change that you have to assess is what is the value of me acting in the way that I'm acting? And this is hard. And because we think of ourselves as rational human beings. And so if we were rational human beings, we would lay down. And a lot of the work that I do comes from what's called behavioral economics, which is this kind of push against classical economics and classical economics would say, "Hey, look, we got two people here. We're going to do what they call utility and maximize each of our utilities." So if there's a classic game, that's called, oh, I'm going to get it wrong. Why I just forgot it? It's not the prisoners' dilemma-
Pete Wright:
Is it monopoly? Say it's monopoly,
Kurt Nelson:
... ultimatum game, sorry. It's called the ultimatum game basically where you have two people playing this game. One person is given some money, $10, $20. The only thing that they have to do is they have to give some portion of that money, offer it up to player number two, player number two doesn't get to interact with player number one. They don't get to negotiate or do anything. They get to either just accept that offer or deny that offer. If they accept, they get whatever was. So if it's $10 and I offered you a dollar, I get the dollar. If I accept, if I don't, none of us get either money, right? And again, from a classical economist perspective, regardless of what player, number one offers player, number two should accept it because it's it. I'm better off. I got to-
Seth Nelson:
Something's better than nothing.
Pete Wright:
Because something is better than nothing.
Kurt Nelson:
I got dollar.
Pete Wright:
Right and did you know?
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah, you got nine, but I got a dollar. But what we find is that for most people we will, this is again, this isn't everybody, but on average, it's about $3 to $4 for a $10 bet before they will accept the offer. And for many people it's $5. You got to split it evenly or I'm going to punish you because you are not fair.
Seth Nelson:
See Pete, here's my problem.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
I'm like if you're the guy offering.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
If you're not giving me eight, I screw you dude.
Pete Wright:
But this is the thing about these thought exercises. These games. It's very difficult to put yourself in the position or I'll speak personally for me to put myself in a position of what I would do in that scenario. When I'm not in that scenario as a distant third party, I can think complete, rationally about other people, potentially being crazy in that situation and giving themselves the gun by which they shoot themselves in the foot.
But once you're in it and you see it happen and you realize it's happening, it feels like you're in another world. What possible planet am I on that I would make this decision. And I think that planet is called divorce.
Kurt Nelson:
I think you're right in this idea that we are really poor as human beings in general, at being able to put ourselves into a what's called a hot psychological situation and understand how we will respond in our cold calculating rational world. If we're predicting what we will do in the future, we will oftentimes predict that we will do these rational things. But when we're in there, all of a sudden the adrenaline is pumping, I got whatever it's emotions are going.
Pete Wright:
Sure.
Kurt Nelson:
I feel like I'm being slighted. It that gets thrown out the window. And what ends up happening is you respond, like we said, "I'm going to refuse until you give me $8 out of that 10 because I'm going to be spiteful." And therefore you're going to be screwed over is because I'm not going to take that.
Pete Wright:
Or because I have a mental model that indicates that I would feel bad if I were in your shoes, only giving me a dollar. But what influence does that have over the way you think none.
Kurt Nelson:
And so going back, I think, so you had asked this question of... All right, so I'm not the one that is going for this divorce. And so how do I overcome those feelings? And it A, it's hard, right? B, you're going to be dealing with these things. Even if you were in this ideal state of saying, "Let's be rational about this. There's still an emotional component that comes in. There's that self identity." Pete just said, "This mind, this model that I have of how the world operates is a big piece of this."
And what ends up happening is that at some point there's some element where you can choose, and this is where it gets into that purposeful change. And it doesn't happen easily. But if you choose to just step back and say, "What would that rational person do?" And you have to take yourself out of the situation.
So it's not going to typically happen when you're face-to-face with the person that you're getting a divorce with or you're on that phone and doing different pieces, but step out and say, "What do I want? What is the best outcome that I can have? What do I need to do in order to make that happen?" And then set what we call there, if then statements or intentional statements that people can do.
So if this happens, then I will respond with this way. And you're doing that back to that cold state, right? So I'm in a cold state thinking about what the future is going to bring. It doesn't guarantee that's going to happen.
Pete Wright:
Well, Kurt, you just-
Kurt Nelson:
In that. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
You just described mediation to me.
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
And when we prep for mediation, we always talk about worst case in court, best day, worst day in court, because that's talking about what our best outcomes are and that outcome is defined by. Here's an account it's $100,000 in it. We're making an argument that we should get $50. You should get $50. That's our best day. They're making the argument, no. The entire account is non-marital, "So Seth, your client should get nothing.
So our worst day is zero, right? It's either 50 grand or zero," but then you get into the mediation and the emotion comes out. Well, it's unfair because this is what we use that account for. I put money, there's all this stuff that goes on. And I'm saying, "Yeah," but in the legal world, that doesn't matter.
In the real world. If we're having a beer, I'm agreeing with you 100% of the time and everything you're telling me, I'm not telling you it's wrong or right. I'll agree with you in the real world, but it's really just your perceptions and how you view things. And the perceived world doesn't really matter in court other than what the judge perceives, right?
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
So that's really the legal world again. And so we have these conversations, but we do talk about if, then if we can do this, what about this? What about that? And at the end of the money side, no one agrees on every single item on what it's worth and who's going to get it because you're there for hours and hours already. So ultimately you're just keep this, you keep that what's the bottom number to exchange? But in doing that process, I work hard with my clients to get away from the emotional aspects of it and focus on this is a business deal.
Pete Wright:
Question related specifically to that, you just triggered something from me, Seth. Is there a difference in approach to someone's developing readiness for change when dealing with issues that are broadly emotional, financial, familial. So dealing with the kids, dealing with money, everything else, do you need to approach those relationships differently in terms of behavior?
Kurt Nelson:
Yes. Yes you do. There's really interesting research. So think about this before you're going through this divorce proceeding and different pieces, right? And you go over to your in-laws for a really nice Thanksgiving dinner.
Seth Nelson:
Is there such a thing?
Pete Wright:
What are we doing right now?
Kurt Nelson:
Imagine what a wonderful world.
Pete Wright:
Are there cotton candy clouds?
Kurt Nelson:
You're still in your honeymoon, whatever it would be, right? You're going over for this wonderful thing. It's okay to bring a bottle of wine and being the son-in-law or the daughter-in-law and offering that and thanking them. But if I was to go and say, "Oh, this was a great meal. Here's 50 bucks. Thank you for that." What you've done is you've changed this from what was considered a social interaction into a financial interaction? And that is you get very different dynamics in how that works.
Pete Wright:
I can't believe how weird you just made it. I've never once considered bringing cash to a family dinner.
Kurt Nelson:
No. Nobody does, right? I mean-
Pete Wright:
It's so weird.
Kurt Nelson:
... it doesn't. We wouldn't ever-
Seth Nelson:
You know the next dinner I go to that's what I'm doing.
Pete Wright:
Make it rain, Seth.
Kurt Nelson:
This was when we worth 20. "Oh, this was a good meal. This is a $50 meal."
Seth Nelson:
When my brother shows up with that shit bottle of wine, I'm going to say, "I would've preferred 20 bucks."
Kurt Nelson:
There you go. There you go. But going back to this idea that you talked, that there's the financial part, right? And in those financial pieces, that gets to be more calculative. That gets to be how much did you put in? How much did I put in? And you can argue back and forth and people can be... It gets emotional because we tend to look at finances from what it will do for us.
And it goes back to that ultimatum game. Is it fair or not fair, but ultimately that's much more of a negotiating element that you should be able to from a behavioral perspective, work through. When you get into that, the social piece of this, and this gets as part of the divorce, obviously with kids and other family elements, that's a whole different world and it's not you're going to be saying, "Yeah, I'll take exchange $50 for that day with my kid."
Pete Wright:
Right, right.
Kurt Nelson:
Because that it just doesn't fit with how we respond as a human. So-
Pete Wright:
Because you can't buy time and you shouldn't buy your children. So-
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah. It's like you said, it's that idea of going to your in-laws and paying and cash as opposed to some other way of showing your gratitude for that. It doesn't even allow us to really think about that. We're not built that way. And yet I think sometimes, and you guys have the expertise in this, but if it starts getting down to those types of things, it's just really hard for us to wrap our minds and our hearts and how we feel around it, because it just is not natural for us, so-
Seth Nelson:
Well, that's one of the problems to Florida Family Law is the child support guidelines based upon the number of overnights that you have with your children.
Pete Wright:
So you are buying time?
Seth Nelson:
Yeah. At some levels. So there is a actual change in the formula at 73 overnights, which is 20% of the time. So as it gets higher, the biggest swing in who pays whom how much child support is how many overnights? So you'll hear people come in and they'll say, "I want 50-50." And the other side will say, "Well, they're only doing it because they want to pay less child support."
Pete Wright:
Oh, yeah.
Seth Nelson:
And here's the thing why both those sentences are ludicrous. If you think about the big picture for the most part, not every case, the cheapest thing you could do is never have your child and pay the full freight on child support. If you really think about it because when you're with your kid, I'm the money tree. I'm the ATM.
Pete Wright:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Right? And I'm not talking about spoiling my kid, I'm just talking about the groceries, and shoes, and school clothes and getting them to and from school and the gas and gas prices. And you start adding up what you actually spend. The cheapest thing you could do to raise your child is never see them under Florida Family Law and just pay the child support.
Pete Wright:
Way to go, Florida Family Law.
Seth Nelson:
Okay. [inaudible 00:24:27].
Pete Wright:
No notes. You're doing great.
Seth Nelson:
It ends with duh for a reason.
Kurt Nelson:
The fact of the matter is from a behavior of psychology perspective is that when we're dealing with highly emotional types of situations like these are is that there you're going to be out of those rational modes. And so trying to come in a rational state is going to be very difficult. Now it might be the best thing to do, given all that we've talked about, but to set yourself up, if you, again, going back to that very beginning, if you're in this, it's not your choice.
What do we need to do? What do I need to do in order to make this work best across the board? Not just from the divorce perspective, but all right. How do I deal with friends and family? How do I deal with the kids? How do I deal with even interacting with my former spouse? All of those are an emotional interaction that we have. And part of the way that we respond is how we perceive people are working with us. And so it's comes down to oftentimes how I changing my behavior and that can change how the overall behavior gets taken in, so-
Seth Nelson:
And in the next 20 minutes, you're going to explain it. All my clients are going to do it and my life is going to get a lot easier in my job. Okay. I'm just going to kick back and take notes.
Kurt Nelson:
You if only, right?
Pete Wright:
If only.
Seth Nelson:
Pete, it is September and we're coming to the end of back to school. But some kids are still buying backpacks, going to target in Walmart, getting the pencil sharpeners, they're binders together. And in all those cases, we are always still very concerned about their safety, especially when it comes to alcohol.
Pete Wright:
Absolutely. And here how to split a toaster. We are a Divorce Podcast About Saving Your relationships. No better area to really put your focus than saving your relationship when it comes to substance abuse. That's why we have partnered with Soberlink to help offer resources, to help you navigate the upcoming back to school season. So Seth, what is Soberlink?
Seth Nelson:
It's a remote alcohol monitoring technology it's created to help prove your sobriety in child custody cases. It's a high tech breathalyzer, facial recognition that allows you and the other parent and anyone else that you put on the email list, real time updates. So you blow into it. It's 0.00. Everybody knows that you are your best self. You're not drinking and you're focused on your kids. And therefore they're safe.
Pete Wright:
Soberlink has helped hundreds of thousands of people. Document proof of sobriety in real time for peace of mind in child custody cases, it helps your case. It helps your case as a parent, it helps people like Seth. Help a lot of people by checking out Soberlink, they're currently offering a free back to school and divorce packet. It includes a Q&A with a top divorce attorney, back to school checklist, communication tips and more. And you can get that by requesting your free packet today at soberlink.com/toaster that's soberlink.com/toaster.
I had a conversation with a friend over the weekend who is about to go to trial. He's been waiting for eight months is in, and he's about to go to trial in contentious divorce. And one of the things he said to me is something that Seth, again, you just trigger. This is a double triggering event that you've really triggered me twice today, already, which is talking about percentages. And then switching to number of overnights.
The way our brains are able to rationalize units feels important to me. And I can't explain why, but I can say that one of his great complaints is that she keeps changing for soon to be former spouse keeps changing the units of discussion in a way that is very hard to rationalize, what like equity? How do you figure out? Who's getting the better deal when you're speaking a language that is irrational?
We can't saying 73 overnights is difficult to conceive of in the overall arch of time. 50-50 is pretty easy. So let's try to muck it up by keeping it a number of overnights. Does that ring true? How do our brains rationalize that kind of stuff?
Kurt Nelson:
Oh, is you bring up one of the biggest conundrums that we have as humans is this that we aren't good at math typically. And so particularly large numbers, as you said, "73 is hard for us to conceptualize," what that means because all right, 73 over 353, got to do the math. What does that work? It's hard for us to grab that, right?
Seth Nelson:
Right. And this is what's so warped about being a divorce attorney?
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
There's 52 weeks in a year. Divide that in half there's 26, right? So call it 25 for easy math. If you have Friday night and Saturday night, that's 50, right? So you're at 50 if you only have every other night. So basically if you have every other weekend, you're barely at the 73, you just get over. So it's every other weekend, Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night. That's all it is.
Pete Wright:
Okay. See, this is why I ask the question to you. Kurt, because Seth has clearly adapted to this other alien land of calculating-
Seth Nelson:
I'm divorce land.
Pete Wright:
... calculating weekend nights.
Seth Nelson:
Right.
Kurt Nelson:
Welcome to divorce euphoria. But we don't do that as humans, right? That isn't the typical way that we do it at 20%. It makes... It's much better, 20% all right. That's two days out of the week. Okay. I get that. You can actually, it's not two days out of the week. It's even, it's more than that, but that see, I couldn't even do the math in my it's all about right.
Pete Wright:
You go once it's a percent.
Seth Nelson:
The best part about this show, you just called me a non-human. That's just great. No, but I totally get it. And here's what I tell clients on this exact issue. I said never once. Have you thought about spending time with your kids in a matter of percentages?
Pete Wright:
No.
Seth Nelson:
Never once. Have you thought about dividing up your assets in a matter of percentages, whether you have kids or not, that's not how we think as humans. That's not how you think of when you're married and when you're raising your kids, you've divided up responsibilities. You hand your money differently. You've done this, you've done that. And we use the term such as my kids, not meaning ownership, not like they're not her kids as well, or my account. Well, it's your account, but you've had that account with your spouse for forever, right? And people get all confused on how things are titled, but that's just not how we think.
And then the great state of Florida and a lot of other states say, "Oh, well now we need a parenting plan. And here's a graph and put in boxes on a calendar on who has what, when? And so immediately we put them in an adversarial system, which is a lot of issues I have with divorce law. And then we put them into boxing them in literally into a graph to figure out when they see time with their kids. And it's totally foreign. And there's some basic things, people understand, well, we'll get every other weekend. And then they start arguing over Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, overnights.
Kurt Nelson:
And you get into that we talk. We started this whole thing with behavior change. And the idea of going from what was the way that we parented to a new paradigm around that parenting. And again, we talked about earlier, humans are not good at predicting how we will respond in the future. And so we make up scenarios about what that life will be like if it's every other weekend and Tuesdays and Thursdays on whatever weekends it is in three weeks in the summer, however, that would be every-
Seth Nelson:
Every full.
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah. We envision what that will be like. And for the most part, I would guess that when that reality hits, it is nothing like what we had predicted. And that's not saying, it's going to be worse or better, but it will be different than what we had anticipated. So the planning stage of this is always difficult.
One of the thing, we know this from aging studies and other things like people saying, "How are you going to be in five years, 10 years." And they go, "Oh, this will be this or whatever it will be." And the best predictor of being able to actually predict how I will feel in five years is to go talk to somebody who's at that stage of life and was where I was five years ago and ask them how they feel and what it's like.
So again, from a divorce perspective, if you're working with your clients, one of the things I might suggest is to say, "Go talk to somebody who has gone through this very thing and ask them how this is and what's good and what's bad and where they are." And that might help them in being able to at least ground themselves a little bit in what to expect. And then it may be better than what they had envisioned in the first place, so-
Seth Nelson:
Right. And part of it, when I have a client who is struggling with moving forward in the process, even if they're the process is, do I get divorced or not? Or they're getting divorced, but they just aren't engaged in the process. Have no agency. My question to I'm always is, do you want to feel the way you feel now two years from now? The answer is always no, no, they've never said love it. This is great. I wish we could stay in this state forever. So they say, "No." And I said, "Well, then something's got to change." So when do you want to start making that change? And then we start trying to have purposeful change. Let's just take it one step at a time. I need you to get me your bank statements, right? Let's start moving. Because some of their stuff, they just get frozen and they just don't want to deal with it. And they can't deal with it. It's overwhelming.
Pete Wright:
Which I think gets to it is possibly a leading question, which is like, How do we best prepare ourselves? Somebody's listening to this. And they recognize there's someplace in the divorce process. They recognize they're having challenges with it. They know that what they're yet to confront is going to be hard. How do you best prepare your brain, your behavior for this? What is demanding you to be more elastic over time, more flexible, more fluid over time when you're in a place of chaos.
Kurt Nelson:
The piece that I think, Seth, you brought up that I would 100% yes, this is what to do is Pete hates that?
Seth Nelson:
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But its to start the movement, right? As humans, we operate much better. We feel better about ourselves. We feel more motivated to actually continue to do something. If we feel like we're moving and having progress, right? There's some really great work by Theresa Abel, who is talk about the progress principle, this idea that in work situations, but it also transfers to other parts of your life.
That if I just feel like I'm moving the needle, it doesn't have to be a lot. I don't have to get from point A to point Z. I just need to go. I don't even get to B. I just need to get partway between a and B. And I feel much better than if I'm stuck at A or if I revert back to whatever's before A, I use the bad analogy there, but highly graphics. Yeah.
Kurt Nelson:
Graphics, yeah, this idea, but this idea of getting people to start to move in this. And I think, Pete, what you were talking about is all right. So how do you prepare yourself? It's hard to prepare. I think one of the things is to talk to people who have gone through it. So if you guys are in your part counselor, so Seth, you said your dad was a psychologist and your mom was a lawyer. Well, your kind of both, right? Oh, you got... Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
I'll take with pride that I'm an attorney and counselor at law, which isn't something you really see on signage anymore.
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Right?
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
But that's absolutely what I do. But I think to your point on this, getting the ball rolling, right? Moving forward in having progress where I sometimes see that stop is the fear of the unknown. People are terrified of a trial.
Kurt Nelson:
Mm-hmm.
Seth Nelson:
They're just terrified of it. And then people that have gone through it, they're like, "I'll do that again, right?"
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
It's-
Pete Wright:
The trial was the easy part.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, because of the trial.
Pete Wright:
Anybody ever said that.
Seth Nelson:
Yeah, exactly. Well, actually-
Kurt Nelson:
Trial has set it. It's a process, right?
Seth Nelson:
It's a process. But really at trial, the most frustrating thing for the client is they don't get to say anything. Unless, they're on the stand. And then they're just being asked questions. So it's this whole just fear of the unknown. I don't want to go trial. I don't want to go trial. There's so much conflict in trial. I said any conflict in trial is going to be between me and opposing counsel through the judge who hopefully has controlled the courtroom, some judges don't, but that fear of the unknown. I see it. People just tense up, right?
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah.
Pete Wright:
Well, and I think there's both the fear of the unknown and the grief of loss. We've talked about grief on the show before and that is a grief is a stagnating state. So as you're managing both of those places and yet still figuring out what is the next step after A, just figure out what the step is. It sounds like how you get over. Some of those things can be really hard.
Kurt Nelson:
Grief that unknown part. I'm sorry, let's start with the unknown part. The unknown part is very true. It's this idea because we will stay in a status quo situation that we know is bad for us because I don't know what will happen even if I think that moving forward with something is going to be better. There's a chance that it's not. And that chance that it's not that I don't have full understanding of what that will be, will pull me back into wanting to stay in that status quo situation.
And part of that goes to the grief piece, which is there's a facet of human element that we have. What's called loss aversion, where they've done a lot of work that a loss feels two times as painful as the equivalent happiness or satisfaction we get from an equivalent gain. So put this in a thing. If I found $100 on the ground, right? And I pick it up, I get a certain amount of satisfaction enjoy, "Oh, this is great, $500. I put it in my pocket. I go for day. Wow. That was great." Now-
Pete Wright:
But if you're the guy who dropped a $500?
Kurt Nelson:
Exactly. If I'm the guy who goes into my pocket and I go, I had a $100, where'd they go, oh my God, you search around. You feel that pain twice is about twice as much is what they've shown.
Seth Nelson:
As if you lost 200 bucks.
Kurt Nelson:
Then, yeah. That's what I mean. But yeah. So it's exactly like that. You'd have to find 200 bucks to have the similar happiness that would offset losing that $100, which goes into a whole bunch of gambling and risk taking and other things that are going on.
Seth Nelson:
Oh, I was going straight to my poker days on that conversation.
Pete Wright:
Yeah, right.
Kurt Nelson:
Why we take stupid bets on some things and different pieces?
Pete Wright:
But this is interesting. It's something we were just, we've talked about on the show, just this season, which was the both Seth and I lost a parent over the last year and watching my mom address her life going forward, you can see how the loss of my dad is easily two times greater than even their marriage on its best day. That grief is incredibly deep. I've never seen anything like that. And I mean, what you're describing, just nails it, why it's so hard to find the next step.
Kurt Nelson:
Yeah. And so the idea of losing something that you held dear, and then we get the whole nother aspect, which is the endowment effect, which is, if I asked you, how much would you pay for to buy this coffee mug, right? You go, "Oh, it's $6 coffee mug." But if I own this coffee mug and you ask me how much I will sell it for, it's like by near ownership, all of a sudden it becomes more valuable to me.
And again, you can think about a marriage that way you can think about this idea that if I'm still hanging onto this idea, of us as a couple, of us as a family, and all of these things that endowment effect pick kicks in. So it's A, it's perceived as more valuable than what it might actually be. And then B the fear of loss of it, boom, you double that pain that comes with this and all of a sudden you're going, "Oh, that makes a whole lot of sense of why people." It's difficult. All right. That's easy as I can say, it's difficult, right?
Pete Wright:
So it gets to just in terms of 8:00 AM Monday morning, how do we start moving forward?
Kurt Nelson:
So I think what, Seth, said at the beginning or in the middle here, somewhere where he said, do you want to feel like you're feeling now, right? If you make this idea salient of all right, if you look down a month down the road, two months down the road, a year down the road, do you want to feel like you do now? Or do you want to feel better? And all of a sudden it becomes it. That feeling gets kind of vividly identified within our brain and by so doing, we can start that process of saying, "Yeah, I don't want to do this. And if I don't want to do this, then again, if we're purposeful and we can be tap into some of that rational part of our brain, then we can start moving forward."
And again, what we need to do there is we need to understand that we're going to run into roadblock. We're going to run into some emotional pieces that are going to throw us for a loop. And what is? So build up those if then statements from an emotional perspective, not necessarily just in the trial component that you talked about, but if my spouse says X, I would normally respond with Y, but I need to do Z instead. So work through what some of those are. The other piece is that we often have blind spots into our own understanding of different pieces.
And so is there somebody that can be an advocate for you that's on your side that you trust, but is also not such, isn't just like building you up into that froth of, "Yeah, they're bad," but actually holding a mirror to say, "Hey, maybe you're not seeing this the right way, but you need to be able to trust and to have that person and to ask them for that help."
Seth Nelson:
Well, on that point, Kurt is I advise clients, look, when you go out with your friends, sometimes they're tired of listening to you bitch about this. They would like to help you, but they're tired to listening you bitch about it. So, one thing to do is to ask them specifically for help, because sometimes they just don't know what to do, but they don't want to listen to it anymore. And it might be, "Hey, I'd love to go out. I would like to vent for five minutes at the beginning, and then I'm not going to talk about the divorce, right?" but you can set these own boundaries on yourself.
So you can then stop living your divorce and start living your life. So I will say that to clients all the time, they'll be upset about something and I'll say, okay, here's our plan. Here's what we're going to do. Now, when we hang up the phone, go live your life. There's nothing for you to do here. I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. Or this just happened. I'm having a meeting with you. It's Monday afternoon. Now I'm going to have a meeting with you on Thursday. There's nothing you for you to prepare for the meeting.
I'll talk to you on Thursday, but between now and then do not think about this, right? And that gets you out of this cycle of getting nothing done and feeling like, "Hey, I just can't move forward. It's going on because it takes up so much space." And I think the blind spot that you mentioned is twofold for me. One, it's your own personal blind spot, but it's also things that you just can't see at all. And I don't mean in your own behavior of what the future holds.
I cannot express how good people feel a year out for their divorce. And they just can't see it and they can't feel it. And I assure them, it will feel that way. And some people, even though they want the divorce at the end, they're emotionally just raw and they get the paper and some people are just devastated like, "Oh, it's all this loss all over again." Even though they want it the whole time, other people will jump for joy. Other people will be like, thank God that's over.
But a year out when you're finding your new best self. People feel different, they look different. Their color is back. I can't even tell you how many clients have reached back out to me and be like, "Oh my God, I should have done that earlier. I should have gotten done quicker. I'm sorry." It dragged on so long from what they told me, they were preventing us from moving forward. Because I can only go as fast as the slowest person or entity. And sometimes it's the court. Don't let it be you.
Kurt Nelson:
This idea that new best self, this idea that you had asked like Monday morning, all right, do you want that pain? But also envision what that new best self could be. And in reality, we'll probably never be that vision of what we have, but we will be a new best self that will feel as you said, 100% better than what I felt like going through this process. Because going through the process, it's the unknown, it's the grief of loss. It's all this.
And at a certain point, you talked about your parents and their grieving repeat, right? Your mom will eventually, it will always be bad, but it will get better over time. And that loss will sting, but it won't sting as hard. And at some point there will be other things that go on that will bring joy and bring happiness and fulfillment.
And that's the same thing as a divorce, you're going through a loss. You're going through something that you had invested in and you know what? Okay, now it's time to move on. Now it's there. I will go back that idea of going out with your friends and not having that person who always talks about divorce. I think that is very true, but also be aware if you are the person going through that, that you might have that friend too, that egg some of that on that. They enjoy those conversations. They live it and they will bring that up just because they feel-
Pete Wright:
They know they can get you going.
Kurt Nelson:
Well, they feel value because you're venting to me. And this is a way that I feel valued because you are doing this to me.
Seth Nelson:
That's why, Pete, doesn't return my calls.
Pete Wright:
We have to have gated emotional space.
Kurt Nelson:
Gated emotional space here only over the zoom call. As we're doing this there-
Pete Wright:
The Zoom will end automatically for a reason. Hey, this has been terrific. You got me thinking about a quote that has been spun around and it's usually related to technology. I think Arthur C. Clarke started it and Bill Gates, rift on it, somewhere in the '60s, a guy J.C.R. Licklider, said people often overestimate what can be done in one year and underestimate what can be done in five or 10. And I think that applies equally in technology as it does to emotion and grief.
And I would largely say probably divorce too, and certainly in our efforts to change. So this has been really fantastic. Tell us a little bit about your podcast, what you're doing, where would you like to send people to learn more about your work?
Kurt Nelson:
Oh, good. Yeah. Well, I talk to people who are much smarter than me. So me and my co-host have a podcast called Behavioral Grooves. We interview behavioral scientists or practitioners or applying behavioral science into real world organizations, et cetera, as we work. And we basically are just exploring why do we do what we do? Why do we say we want to exercise? And then we don't go do it. And what are some of the tactics and hints that we can go and do in order to make that happen? Or why does my crazy uncle believe in conspiracy theories and how do I then communicate with them? So I don't strangle them in different pieces. So those are the things that we do.
Pete Wright:
Two Seth recently on the show. Is that what?
Seth Nelson:
First off? Why do I like not exercise? Cause I'm lazy. I answered that question, right?
Pete Wright:
It's not a checklist.
Seth Nelson:
My crazy uncle and I want to strangle him. I would, but he is got a great wine seller. I mean,
Pete Wright:
It's all about incentive balance, right?
Seth Nelson:
There you go.
Kurt Nelson:
Incentives. And so that's it. So that's called behavioral grooves. It's out on pretty much any of the podcast services that you want to hear that-
Pete Wright:
So, well we sure appreciate you. And we appreciate you being here and sharing your wisdom with us. And yeah, we like to interview people who are smarter than us too. So welcome to the show goes around, comes around. Yeah.
Seth Nelson:
Low bar.
Kurt Nelson:
That's what I usually say, man, that's right.
Seth Nelson:
That's right, that's right. Blake look, simple minds. Never differ.
Kurt Nelson:
You go. All right.
Pete Wright:
Thank you everybody for hanging out with us for downloading listening to this show. We sure. Appreciate you too. Don't forget. You can ask us a question head over to howtosplitatoaster.com. You can submit a question right there and we'll talk about it on this very show. On behalf of the good Kurt Nelson, I didn't even make a double Nelson joke. Let alone the fact our producers and Andy Nelson.
Seth Nelson:
I was waiting-
Pete Wright:
Just out of Nelson joke.
Seth Nelson:
The full Nelson.
Pete Wright:
Full Nelson. Exactly.
Seth Nelson:
There was a bunch of-
Pete Wright:
Low hanging fruit.
Seth Nelson:
Kurt Nelson of no relation. You got to say that part.
Pete Wright:
Yeah. All right. You got to say that. Check your local jurisdiction. Anyway, on behalf of Kurt Nelson, no relation and Seth Nelson. America's favorite divorce attorney. I'm Pete Wright, not a Nelson. And we'll catch you next week right here on How To Split a Toaster, a divorce podcast about saving your relationships.
Outro:
Seth Nelson is an attorney with NLG Divorce and Family Law with offices in Tampa, Florida. While we may be discussing family law topics, how to split a toaster is not intended to nor is it providing legal advice. Every situation is different. If you have specific questions regarding your situation, please seek your own legal counsel with an attorney licensed to practice law in your jurisdiction. Pete Wright is not an attorney or employee of NLG Divorce and Family Law. Seth Nelson is licensed to Practice Law in Florida.
