All right.

My attorney said if I come to my mediation session with my parenting

plan, I will be labeled as controlling.

Here's another one.

My, ex said I am being controlling because I wrote everything down.

Let's talk about this because in my opinion, coming in prepared is the

most important thing you can do.

About the decisions you are getting ready to go through about your own future.

This is not a future with you and your ex. This is about your future that you

want as a single parent, navigating your children and your, relationship.

So you coming in with your thoughts wrote down, in my opinion.

Is you being a baller and being absolutely on top of your game

and knowing what you want, but let's talk about this controlling

label and the antics around it.

People throw it around all the time in divorce, and I think it's

absolutely ridiculous, especially when someone is showing up prepared.

So we're labeling being prepared as controlling.

But think about this.

You are the only one that knows your kids really well.

You know your schedule, you know your work, you know your ex, and you know

what's probably going to be a conflict

In the future.

Your mediator doesn't know shit about you or your ex, or your kids,

or your job, or your schedule, or the things that are needed or the

things that you want in your future.

Guess who else doesn't your attorney, but you do.

So why walking in with all of your thoughts wrote down

is considered controlling.

It's not, but they make you feel that way.

So why is preparation actually making sense for you?

Because you wanna walk in as somebody that already has been, the organizer,

already has been the planner.

Already has been the detail person has already been the person that thinks ahead.

If you are the person that on vacation, planned the vacation, but also laid

out all the clothes and all the outfits and all the toiletries, and packed

everything individually, and then when you get to the hotel, you're the one that

pack, unpacks and organizes everything.

You are the person.

This is in your DNA, this is who you are.

Why all of a sudden would you suddenly stop being the person that leads,

the person that thinks of everything?

This is the most important negotiation of your whole entire life, is

what you go into this mediation or talks with your attorney, or talks

with your ex about your future.

Again, I can't say this enough.

This is a conversation about how you want your future to look, and everybody says,

no, it's the future of the children.

Okay, well, I'm getting divorced from this person.

I'm going to spend a life not having my kids a hundred percent of the time, I'm

gonna be sharing them at some percentage.

Why shouldn't I have a say As much as I possibly can about what that looks like.

It's my future.

It's the time I have with my kids.

Why is walking in empty handed the better thing to do?

Why would my attorney that I'm paying thousands of dollars to.

Want me to walk in unprepared to mediation.

It begs the question of do they want me to have to depend on my attorney?

Do they want me to have to come back to them?

Do they want me to have to ask questions?

I mean, it almost seems like you guys, and this is sarcasm, it almost

seems like they want me to fail.

I think a lot of 'em do.

They want us to go into mediation, check the box that we went

fail just so we have to what?

Use them now to send over proposals and talk to the other

side, which costs us what?

More fricking money or if you have a mediation where your

attorney is present with you.

So let's, break this down real quick.

Let's talk slow to the audience so you guys understand, because this

is the thing I hate about divorce.

Everybody talks over your head and it makes you feel stupid.

Is when you go to mediation, you're paying a third party mediator who's

supposed to be a neutral party, unless you're in specific states

who actually the mediator does pick.

So make sure you know what state you're in.

And what the rules are around mediation.

But let's say you're paying this third party mediator

who is not cheap, by the way.

They don't work for $25 an hour.

Okay?

They work for probably 250, if not 450, if not $750 an hour.

And then your attorney is also present, which by the way, you

guys, I'm a former mediator.

I did it for years.

I have never once ran a mediation session between two couples

with an attorney present.

I don't feel it's necessary because, well, I just don't.

I can handle 'em, both parents, by myself.

Now you're paying the mediator and your attorney to sit there and your

attorney's the same person that says, Hey, pay two professionals to sit in the

room and also come into it completely blind and don't bring anything with you.

If that doesn't sound like a fucking scam to you, we are not the same.

You mean you want me to come to the meeting and negotiation of my

life and have nothing prepared?

You want me to come in blind, uneducated, unknowledgeable about all the subjects

that are gonna be talked about.

I don't even have a list of things that'll, I'm coming into it completely

blind and you want me to pay mediator and you to sit there and hold my fucking

hand and walk me through this and talking it all out by dollars by the minute,

where I would rather you come in with your whole parenting plan written already

to save not only money, also sanity.

Also the feeling of knowing that you know what the hell you're talking

about and that neither of one of those professionals can tell you what to do

with your future, with your children.

When those kids are done, when we're done with the story, those kids and you

are living off of that parenting plan.

Your holidays are determined by that parenting plan, your vacation, your

decision making, your money is all determined by that, and they want you

to walk in empty handed because it'd be controlling if you walk in with that.

No, no.

It's not controlling.

Don't let them spin that on you and make you feel bad that you wanna be educated

and have your thoughts down on paper.

Now, I don't know about you all, but I get nervous.

My anxiety kind of runs the show sometimes when I'm nervous.

So if I'm gonna go into a mediation session, guess what?

I'm probably gonna be fucking nervous and I'm probably

gonna be shaking a little bit.

My stomach's gonna be upset.

I've probably had diarrhea for three or four days.

I haven't ate much, so my blood pressure and my heart rate are all fucked up.

I got the shakes, I got the sweats.

My mouth is dry.

My armpits won't stop sweating, and even my ass is sweating and I'm

sitting there on the verge of vomit.

They want me to just think off the cuff of my decisions.

They want me to just think out of nowhere of what's best for my future.

I'm not doing that and I don't advise you to do that.

When someone comes in prepared, and this is as a former mediator,

when someone walks in prepared, here's what I think about them.

Number one, they know this is important.

They have educated themselves.

They have thought about what this will look like as a future single parent.

I also truly believe when they walk in with their parenting plan

that they actually have thought about their children's needs.

I don't think they're trying to be controlling.

I don't want them to forget anything, and they obviously know

that they need stuff wrote down.

This is the way they learn, or this is the way they communicate.

I also truly believe when parents walk in with their parenting plan done, that

it shows that they wanna stay focused during the meeting and not get into this

tit for tat bullshit about the past, which I'm going to tell you mediators

and lawyers love for you to get into a spat during the middle of mediation.

Why?

This causes this.

It's just a turn of a hand when you start doing this and bitching about the past.

And you should have done this.

And I can't believe you did that.

And attorneys sit back there with their pens.

Oh, they look frustrated.

They look frustrated.

But the back of their mind, they're going, billable Hour,

billable hour, billable hour.

Money, money, money, money.

Let 'em talk.

Let 'em talk.

Let 'em bitch.

Let 'em fight.

We're getting paid either way, 'cause we get paid by the hour.

So when a parent comes into my mediation session prepared with their parenting

plan, I think all those things, being prepared under pressure is smart.

That's smart thinking.

That's the client I want.

If I was an attorney, I'd want the smart one.

I'd want the educated one.

I'd want the prepared one.

I would want the one that knows what the hell they're doing.

Sometimes attorneys though don't love it when their clients bring

their link because they think, oh, it looks controlling, or, you

know, just let me handle that.

I've heard attorneys say that to my clients, well, why don't

you just let me handle that?

and we have templates that we use, but the reality of that is, actually

their ego is pissed off that you actually did part of their job for

them, and it changes their perspective of you that you actually have a clue.

Things, and now maybe they can't keep you in the dark and keep billing

you, and that frustrates them.

And it forces them to actually have to look at the details

that you did bring because this parenting plan affects your future.

You have to cut the ties with this attorney at some point.

But when these parenting plans are written so poorly.

You have no choice but to either argue with your ex forever

or use your attorney forever.

And if you know, you know, I didn't go have 300 court entries because we

got along because our parenting plan was written so well is because we

didn't get along and our parenting plan was only four fucking pages

long, and it didn't grow with our children and it didn't have detail.

I've lived this life of having a poorly written parenting plan.

So you coming into a mediation session or even to interview an attorney,

there's a little bit of tea for you.

There's a good idea.

Have your parenting plan written before you even interview attorneys.

That way you know which ones love it and which ones hate it.

'cause I don't wanna hire somebody that's gonna hate that.

I have my own thoughts about my own future and my own children, and I'm sorry.

Your lives in this world we're living in doesn't fit into a fucking template.

Nobody should be raising their children off of a Mad Libs template.

That's bullshit.

But these attorneys make you feel like you have no choice.

No.

Judge will sign that.

Really?

Yeah, they have number one.

I've been around for a long time.

Hi, my name's Samantha.

I've been doing this for a decade and my parenting plan's been

signed for over a decade, and now I'm actually teaching lawyers how

to write better parenting plans.

Thank you.

But that comes from an attorney that's intimidated.

Their ego is bent because you actually are a smart client and not the dumb

one that they can keep billing and it's not controlling that you actually

are worried and concerned, but also prepared and determined to have

details put into your future with your children as a single parent.

Now, here's where people go wrong, though.

I'm not gonna lie.

When they get my parenting plan, they get.

You know, they get balls of steel and they're like, let's go.

I got this.

You know, I have my parenting plan.

I'm headed into mediation Now.

We can't go into mediation.

Just slap that shit on the table and be like, here it is.

This is what we're doing.

I have to know how to deliver this.

Okay?

This is where a little bit of acting, little bit of role play

needs to come into play here.

Now you don't just walk in and just slam it down.

Like I said, you walk in and you say, Hey, the way I learn and

retain things is paper to pen.

I have to have things in front of me visually.

I'm a visual learner.

I can't auditorily talk about things, and there's some things that

I know that I didn't wanna forget.

So I wrote my thoughts and concerns down about my future with the children.

These are just my thoughts.

It's a starting point.

It's a rough draft.

I'm here to edit it.

I'm here to make it better.

I'm here to use your expertise mediator and make this thing so good that you

won't have to see us again to make this so good that we won't have to keep

spending money on lawyers to make this so good that I can relax and he can

relax and we can enjoy our future with our children when we have our children.

That's how you sit down at the table with that thing.

You don't walk in and say, I know more than you mediator.

I know more than my attorney.

No, that's not what we're doing here.

They know the laws and they know the procedures, but they don't know you.

They don't know your ex, they don't know your children or

your circumstance only you do.

So why wouldn't you be the one writing that down?

It blows my mind that all these templates are floating around

that have been used since the late nineties, and they're god awful.

They are awful.

They do not keep people outta court.

They do not keep people from fighting and they do not keep from harming

children because if I'm fighting with my ex, I can't help but be in a mood

that affects my children when I'm being financially abused, having to go

back to court, back to court, I can't help but have that affect my children.

This is a child crisis of all these people saying that you shouldn't be

educated and you shouldn't be prepared.

Well, when I'm not educated and I'm not prepared, I am anxious.

I feel behind and I feel lost, and I feel without.

And then who does that have an effect on?

My fucking kids?

And I get really upset about this because education.

Why would you not wanna be educated about your future and what it looks like?

Nobody goes into a marriage thinking divorce is on the fucking table, but when

it is, it's something I wanna know about.

When our child gets diagnosed with an illness, I don't go, oh,

well, yeah, I prepared myself for three years about that.

No, I didn't.

But when my child does get diagnosed with something, you better bet

I am fucking the Wikipedia of knowledge in a matter of seconds.

I am the encyclopedia about that diagnosis.

I'm gonna know fucking everything there is to know about it

because it's my fucking child.

So why in the hell would I not do the same goddamn thing for my parenting plan?

This is about my kids.

Why would I not be the most educated about it?

I need to be the best educated person in the room about it.

These are my kids and my future.

And guess what?

For all of you saying, you keep saying, my kids, my kids.

This is my kids with my future and my ex better be doing the same damn thing if my

kids are that fucking important to them.

I shouldn't be heavy lifting all this shit.

They should have walked in with a fucking parenting plan too.

If their kids are important to them.

It's my kids when they're with me and they're his kids when they're with him.

That's the way it is.

I'm sorry if you don't like it, stay fucking married

and they're your guys' kids.

But when they're with me, they're mine.

And when they're with him, they're his.

That's the way it is.

And you best bet your ass better have a parenting plan that's written well, that

when this is your time, it is protected.

If you walk into these appointments with your attorney, with your mediator,

with your GAL, with your evaluators, with your psychologist, whoever it is,

and you don't know what the hell you're talking about, that will come across

crystal clear and everybody is going to keep billing you and taking you down

this long fucking ridiculous rabbit hole in family court that takes the

loving soul away from you because you didn't stop and just educate yourself.

This is the whole purpose of why I exist.

When I went through my divorce, I was puking and shitting in

a bathroom the fucking first day and one of the last days.

And every day in between that, I went to court with my ex-husband and I

kept begging and crying to my mother, why do I have to go through this?

Why is my divorce so hard?

Why is it taking years?

Why is it taking hundreds of thousands of dollars?

And she kept telling me, Sam, because God puts you through this for a reason.

Oh, that's great, mom.

I love that for him.

But why am I, why did he pick me?

This is why.

So I'm here.

I'm on your screen.

I'm in your ear.

I am here to educate you and rattle you and get you to

understand this is your job.

Your kids just got diagnosed of having divorced parents.

You better get the most education out of this as you possibly fucking can and

get it all wrote down on paper and make their future as best possible as you can.

Educate yourself.

Do not hire an attorney and think that that attorney is

there for you a hundred percent.

They are there to make a earning, to make a living.

That's their job.

It's not their life.

This has become, this was my fucking life.

I was you.

I was sitting there not having a clue what the word parenting plan even was.

Not to mention, when I looked at it, I was like, oh, that looks great.

It was four pages.

I was happy, uh, till I started using it, and it didn't, it was unusable.

It wasn't practical, and I'm getting heated about this because I hate the

idea that you go get educated, you put your words to paper, and then

someone that you're paying thousands of dollars to, like your attorney has

the balls to tell you dead in the eye.

Don't take that.

You'll be labeled as controlling.

Well, guess what, sir? I like fucking labels.

So what if they think I'm controlling?

But they haven't said that yet.

You did.

Maybe your ego's in the fucking way.

Maybe you can't see that you actually are, have a smart client because

they're educated and they're so smart.

They hired your ass.

Look at it that way, Larry Quit telling people they're controlling because

they want to plan their own future.

My god, it, it surprises me how many people have an attorney tell them that

and they fold like a deck of cards and they leave the fucker at home.

They leave the whole parenting, they spent thousands of dollars

on it with me, and then they just leave it at home because their

attorney said they'll be controlling.

No, take that.

Deliver it the proper way.

There's a whole video on how to deliver it to your mediator or to your attorney

inside of my work or inside of my course.

Take that, educate yourself.

Deliver it the best way possible.

But I'm telling you right now, I would not.

Let some overpriced Larry, the lawyer, tell me what to do about my future.

I'm taking that parenting plan with me.

I'm gonna be prepared.

I'm going to set it down and use it.

Do you know how many times parents go to mediation?

Let the mediator run through the whole damn thing at the end, go, oh shit.

Uh, we didn't talk about that.

We didn't talk about that.

We didn't talk about that.

I saw a video.

Sam did.

We didn't talk about that.

We didn't include that.

We didn't.

Not every mediator's good guys.

Not every mediator's lived this life.

Not every mediator understands high conflict.

Not every mediator understands that you should grow your

parenting plan with your children.

And why don't they?

Oh, I don't know.

Because you have to come back to the mediator to go to the next

stage of life with your children.

That's bullshit.

Be one and done, be one and done.

So writing out this plan keeps you on task.

It avoids you forgetting important details that you know you want.

It's going to save you money and time with your attorney and or mediator, and

it's going to avoid you getting stuck with these shitty templates that are out there.

You've heard tons of episodes with me already, where I've talked

about all the lame, horrible things inside of template parenting plans.

You wanna be thinking about what do your years of parenting

look like in the future?

What do you want them to look like?

You need an education about that.

So reframe the word controlling, translate it to, Nope, I'm prepared, I'm thoughtful,

I'm organized, and I'm fucking proactive.

That's what I am.

I'm not controlling.

And no longer will you be using that word for me.

You know your kids.

You know what kind of life you want.

You know the dynamics that you and your ex have a template and a stranger.

In a conference room, don't know that you do and you know better.

So writing all of your thoughts down and bringing them in

a room is not controlling.

It's being prepared for your future that you're about to negotiate.

You're about to negotiate most important negotiation of your life.

Now, again, I will end with this.

I was put through all of that, all of what I went through for

eight years in and outta court, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Horrible high conflict situation so that I can rattle you into understanding.

Don't be me.

Don't settle.

Don't let a overpriced attorney with a bunch of plaques on the fucking

wall lead you through your future.

You lead yourself through the future.

These are your kids and your future.

You plan for it.

You go get an education.

Know all the terms that are gonna be used, and understand what they mean

and how they will impact you later.

Understand all of that.

It's your job as their parent to protect their future as best as possible.

So go get an education, learn what you need to learn.

Take your parenting plan with you.

Don't let anybody talk you out of that.

Not a single person until someone says, what is that?

Remove it from the table.

Which by the way, I'd be like, uh, was there rules that I couldn't bring some?

I would talk you through that one in a heartbeat as well.

It's all on how you present it and your best bet that you're gonna wanna use

it because you are gonna be the most nervous you've ever been in your life.

You wanna go into it not forgetting anything and have clear thoughts on paper.

That's what you're gonna want.

Don't let somebody talk you out of what you need and what

you want for that negotiation.