Being Happily Divorced | Leading With Kindness

0:01 Hello and welcome to real men. Feel this is your host author coaching speaker, Andy, Grant, please, visit v&e Grant.com to learn more about me room and feel reminds men that they are human beings and have the right to experience and express all of their emotions. It's not that there are some emotions from man, in some for women you as a human being have the right to experience the full range, we have conversations that most men aren't having, but that all men can benefit from, you know, according to the American Psychological Association approximately 40 to 50 percent of first. Marriages end in divorce the divorce rate. For second marriages is even higher with approximately 60 60 to 67 percent of second. Marriages ending in divorce as well. And according to a recent survey of financial professionals, the three leading causes of divorce are basic incompatibility infidelity, and then money issues. My guest today is going to fix all that. My guest is Sky, Michaels sky is a dad award-winning. Real estate leader, motivational speaker and host of the 6A a podcast.

1:00 Which provides inspiration and motivation, for developing a healthy mindset setting goals and achieving happiness. As a divorced, dad of two sky is passionate about promoting positive co-parenting and determined to show divorced couples that have better. Healthier and happier experience is possible. When a positive co-parenting relationship is established. Welcome to real man feels guy. Thank you so much for having me out. I feel flattered to be here when we first spoke you see you introduced in a way that I'd never heard before. You said that you are very Happily Divorced. Forced. I it is it's a term that I think it shocks people when I use it because those two words typically are not used together. And I think it's a way to take counteract, a lot of the shame, and the guilt and the, you know, the her depends on on, what what your role was and the worst for you go through different things. But the word divorce carries so much baggage, so much negativity and so much pain, frankly for all parties. And when you put the word happily in front of it, it reframes that into divorces being a noun, right? A divorce is just a thin thing, a noun, right? And the the putting, the word happily describes what that noun is.

2:16 And we get to reframe that word in a way where we into their, I instantly try to convey. Hey, I am in a happy situation right now, right? And by happy I'm I have a healthy children. I have a healthy exercise A wife who I am friends with. I have a schedule that works for both of us, I have open lines of communication where there's a change, we can communicate about it and all those great things that frankly make up a good marriage. Awesome makeup. A good divorce and that's the irony of the whole situation. Yeah. So is it possible to have a bad marriage but a good divorce? It's very possible. I think I think you know and once again I'm sure my ex-wife is going to listen to this.

2:58 So yeah we I wouldn't qualify want By our marriages as bad per se in the sense of like, you know, we had challenges and lots of challenges like most married couples, but it is very possible. Have a bad marriage and a good divorce because sometimes the things that are wrong in a marriage can be solved in the divorce and that and what you do is you come back in order to be a happily divorced person. The first thing you have to do is you have to agree on your commonality. And for me and my ex-wife are commonality, were the things that were non-negotiables for both of us. It was our children, Mackenzie and Hudson. So when you start from a position of your, your non-negotiables, right, your commonality. All right, instead of us focusing on our differences, the things we don't agree on, right?

3:45 I wake up early, she wakes up late. I like this kind of food. She likes that kind of food. I say it's sunny out. She says, it's cloudy out. Yeah, we could go on and on. And Jeff was focusing on all those instead. Let's start from our common standpoint and then from there we can work on the more challenging things that we need to figure out as we move forward in this new life and and it's funny Andy because I think you think of like someone getting engaged and then working towards a marriage. A divorce is almost the exact same process. In Reverse you agree. You get to a point where maybe don't agree but you you announce we are Getting divorced. And then you work backwards on doing a lot of the things opposed to you get engaged and you work forward, you know, creating the household, creating the common areas, and then you get married.

4:39 The divorce is almost the polar opposite where you announce it, it's almost like you're unprepared easel, so to speak. And you slowly work your way towards that, perhaps pathway where you no longer are married couple. But when you have children, especially, you still share a common love. Love and a common goal. So to speak of what you're striving for. It does being happily divorced. Now mean that the entire divorce process was smooth and joyous or not, know now is probably let's again, similar to like being engaged. Like you know most people that get in case, there's a lot of stress involved in getting married. There's a lot of stress involved in getting divorced as well, you know, and and our process was not roses and you know, you know, Happy in the the where we are today is not where we were when it first began, you know? And when it first begins.

5:33 Yeah and every situation is different. I called divorce of fingerprint, right? Everyone situations listening to this, it's going to be a different situation for each person and my hope is what you can do. Is you can pull almost picture an apple tree. And you can pull one little apple off, that's going to help you a little bit and that's really the goal. But our process was definitely rocking the beginning. In this sense, Out of, there's a lot of I was the person that made the ultimate decision to leave. So I call me, I'm called the lever and she was the one being left, right? And so each of us play different roles in that for me. I experienced a lot of Shame and a lot of guilt and like, you know, you go through this process where you're struggling because of the fact you're the one that's making that decision that you fear a lot of fear, right?

6:22 That. Oh my God, I'm going to be the cause of demise of my family. My children going to hate me or you your mind runs from my ex-wife. It's a lot of anger, right? A lot of feeling of not good and was I not good enough for, you know, this is I don't want to speak for her but at the end of the day she had her own set of feelings that she experienced. So you're navigating these individual feelings that you're going through that rock you, right? And you're still trying to figure out, all right, how do we parent now? How do we divided households? How do we create two new households? It's money, you know, Furniture cars, you name it. Everything needs to be decided what happens. But through it, all, what we did is, we always kept the two kids as our commonality in our common point and we always wanted to keep them Above The Fray of what was happening. So and I'll tell you, if it's okay, I'll tell you a quick story about the day.

7:18 We told them that we were getting divorced. Now, we didn't use the word divorce, by the way, they were six and four and Yeah, we had been through a very long process of therapy and trying and, you know, and we were finding the point where it was happening. It was moving forward and I remember, we were in a car and August her driving get school supplies and we're like, all right, we're going to tell them in the car. Now, we have been sleeping in separate bedrooms at this point. So we had a mom's room and a dad's room. And we're both in the front seat like sort of crying quietly. You know they can tell we were crying at sunglasses on and we were so so guys you know, we have something to tell you You, you know, next month, you know, we have a mom's room in a dad's room where we're going to have a mom's house, so the dad's house and they're like, cool.

8:04 That's awesome. Hey, we're in the front seat. Like, look at each other. Like it. Wait, it should they be like really upset? And and for some reason like that, there was this moment of humor didn't really absolve all the sadness and that, you know, the feelings were going through. But there's a really funny moment to recall because of the fact that we actually We had created a world where they did. They were comfortable. They were happy and for them it was if we were fine with it, they were fun. You know what I mean? So, we needed to like lead the way and it was, it was a, it was a funny moment to say the least. Now, one of the common refrains I've always heard around. Divorce is, well, let's stay together for the kids and you're saying really, well, let's make a good divorce for the kids. So can is it is stand together for the kids? Is that a realistic?

8:53 Is that actually? Is that a reality for? One, um, well it's a reality than sense of people do it. But when you say you're staying together for the kids, you really have to question what we're always teaching children lessons. And whether we're speaking it or acting it, we're teaching. They were watching everything. We do everything we do and I another story to give you, and it was one of the formative moments of Y or a pushed me because I was saying the same thing. I was like, you know what, we'll stay together for the kids like, you, when they go to college, we'll figure it out, you know? Yeah, they added. So not that long, a time.

9:34 And I remember one morning, you know, we're eating breakfast and kids are in the kitchen bar. You know? And we hugged each other and they're like, yeah, what are you guys doing? And in my head, I was like, oh my God, I'm teaching my children. That intimacy is actually not really, you know, doesn't exist. They didn't even know what it was like to see us like hug in that moment. Do you know what I mean? And I remember that moment probably the rest of my life because there's one of those really formative moments. I was like, wow, I'm actually, I'm actually messing them up. More by, by staying in this because they see me disappear. Didn't they see her distant? They see us arguing fighting like the. Oh, so that's what a relationship is. A relationship is where you yell at each other. You know, that's not a relationship, that's not healthy.

10:22 That's not the way you deal with problems and you get, so wrapped up in your, in your mind, and everything along those lines. And you tell yourself you're staying together for the kids but the reality is children know. And the other reality is the older they get the clue. More baggage. They're dealing with that then they could latch on that they were the reason they were. You know, when they're younger when you're at the point where you know this is the direction you're going to take and then you say well 10 more years from now it'll be fine. You are creating really really - Pathways of learning for your children in those 10 years where you could have an optional, there's another option out there to create a happy divorce with Pathways that allow kids to thrive.

11:09 You know, we do all our holidays together, we do all our birthdays together, we do graduations together. And, you know, I wanted my children to grow up in a world where they didn't need to fear their mom and dad being in the same room together or the same event together or, you know, whatever it might be. So and if I use my experience it was what I could say to traditional divorce of bitterness and hatred. And my parents did not get together. And that any sort of school assembly Dad's on one side moms on the other side or my from the front. Dad's in the back of the room and yeah. And and even talking about intimacy, so my parents divorced, when I'm about five years old. So I really have no memories of them being together, but I do remember being a kid and seeing my grandparents hug and kiss and, you know, fooling around with each other, in the kitchen, I was like a gas.

11:55 Like, what are these old people doing like, when when does this start in life? And most this is crazy. Yeah, exactly it's so funny. You mentioned as the lever as the initiator divorce you felt Shame and fear and concern about being hated by your kids. Yeah. How did you get through that? Like what helped relieve the shame? Yeah, the well I therapy is the one. I mean if you are going through divorce and you don't have a therapist, you are probably you're not doing the right thing for yourself. You know, if you have the means to her therapist or even the whatever, there's a lot of insurance that covers therapy now and if you are going to divorce on either, Side and you don't have someone helping you manage some of your thoughts and feeling. So, so therapy was the first thing. We also hired a co-parenting therapist as well, which was extremely helpful because of the fact once again we didn't know how do we do this?

12:55 What are the boundaries we create? How do we communicate? What's what's good? What's bad? So having a third party there to really help us work through some of these challenges especially in the beginning days when it was very raw and very tenuous and very No, there's still a lot of emotion. The other thing that got me through, it was really becoming an another, another communist smashing it to words together, Sunday, I call Healthy selfish, where I got really, really selfish around my personal health meaning, you know, I was definitely going in when I was going through the initial process, I was in a bad place. And, you know, one of my dear friends, Jake Dreyfus, would he started calling me and texting me? Five in the morning and I started getting up at 5:00 in the morning, going to the gym, working out eating right like doing all these healthy things and we ultimately formed a group called The Five a and bunch of us would get up early in the morning and get on a zoom call sometimes. Anyways, it was a really, really beautiful group and that's really what helped me is by realizing that happiness isn't. I can't get happiness from my ex-wife or my wife at the time. I can't get happiness for my Children. I can't get happiness for my parents or coworkers. Happiness.

14:13 Only comes from one place and that's me. And and it was a really I was I grew up you know I people pleaser as long as everyone else was happy I was happy and it took a very long time to resolve that that mentality that at the end of the day, my job is actually to make myself happy in a healthy way, right? That's why I say healthy selfish. Not we're not talking about doing bad things to people. B2B to be selfish. We're talking about doing the things I hey, and if I'm up at 5 a.m. and my kids are still sleeping and I work out that's healthy. Yes, it's selfish as well. So it's one of those things that you I developed a routine and a structure where my health became one of my number one priorities because everything began a for me with my physical health and then be with my mental health or vice versa, you could probably flip those back and forth or whichever might be.

15:05 And, and then now that I've developed this concept, I call being I'm the light instead of giving life. So my job is to be the light to myself and that light will shine really bright and people will be, you know, lit up from that versus me, trying to give the light and then depleting myself so much that all I'm doing is giving giving giving. And then also in turn around and I'm spent and there's going to be a point where I can't give anymore, right? So it was a long long process but therapy being healthy, selfish around your health and around the thing. That are going to make you healthy, both mentally and physically. And then really just making sure I was working on myself to be a better man, better person.

15:48 Yeah, I often say that. Selfishness gets a really bad rap. It does selfishness in the sense of competitive, set, and taking things so that no, that's not good. But when you put yourself first for, I think that's what you teach your children. That each of us matters not that everybody else matters more than us and yeah and again when you're a healthy well-rounded man and you put yourself first, you're naturally Joy. Joyous life, you're naturally more full of light, you're of more service and all of that positive energy spreads. So you know I love the journey and when your health at least selfish, you're positively impacting everybody around you. Exactly. Exactly. And here's the other thing, as well, is that I also didn't focus on trying to get better in Leaps and Bounds.

16:33 I tried to get better and it's a very common term of like 1%, right? So I wouldn't measure like, oh my Like we don't have this beautiful co-parenting situation, two months after getting divorced. What I would measure is like, you know, we passed off the kids in a without an argument. We got a little bit better today you know we had a challenging discussion without yelling we got a little bit better today. We you know, we successfully negotiated like a little bit of a change in the schedule without it being a big deal, we got a little bit better and I think that's other thing is like we, especially in today's society, Society were being bombarded with social media, and images of perfection, and all this stuff that we create this, like, big gap. And where we should, we think we should be versus taking a look behind as being like.

17:21 Wow, we've come a long way. Do you know what I mean? And that, that was the other thing only comparing ourselves to our past selves is the one of the best comparison you can make exactly. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So. So with things like positive co-parenting, and conscious uncoupling. Does that mean the bitter divorces are just a thing of the past or do you still see them happen? You know unfortunately well unfortunately they're going to be with us forever in many ways. You know. I wish I could say we could wave a magic wand and any person that decided to get divorced would have the same positive messaging that we give marriage. We give a similar positive messaging to divorce in the sense of not to say we're advocating for it. But to say that sense it, when you make That decision. We're going to approach it in this healthy way, right? Instead you know unfortunately we have divorce lawyers that I'm not there.

18:17 Some great lawyers out there. This is not a criticism of the profession of the trade but unfortunately a lawyer's job is usually to win for their client. And if you're working with a divorce lawyer who doesn't put your children first, I would recommend not working with that person. And then number two what we tried to create or, you know, was the When meaning okay, like I'm going to give up maybe some Financial here but you're going to I'm going to also gain here or whatever it might be. And I think that's the other key thing is recognizing that there are no winners or losers in divorce. There's only human beings and divorce. And and I think we got to reframe the mindset of like oh I'm going to make that person pay, right? If you're the one that was hurt, I'm going to make him pay or her pay.

19:07 If you were the one that was leaving, like oh, I'm going to try to To protect and hide and you do as much as I can to know you. Hey, you guys both both people created where you were today and what are you going to do to move forward and in a healthy way? The other thing as well is might get, like I said in the beginning, my kids were my number one priority a healthy ex-wife. You know, if she was healthy and happy, that's the best thing for my children. So if I'm, you know, screwed her over from with money, or you do, Anything like that. What does that say about me as a father and a man, right? So my goal was to say, if, if you are good, there's nothing better for my children than have their mother in a beautiful space, you know. And that was the other decision.

19:55 I think you need to make. If you keep your, if your children are number one priority, your partner needs to be taken care of in some way right? You know, and it might not be, you know, Monday, maybe it's not financially, maybe it's emotionally. Maybe it's with a schedule change, maybe whatever it might be, but the if both people adopt the mindset that, hey, healthy father, or a healthy mother is the best thing for my kids from, from the moment. You said, I'm leaving to the time that you could say, wow, we are happily divorced. But like, how long does that process? How about, how long was that? It was a long time today. We as November of 2016, it was the first time we were in a massive argument week before Thanksgiving And it was the first I'd been in therapy up until that point.

20:42 And is the first time that I was finally have the courage to say, listen, I'm done at that point, we gave it one more shot with another, you know, we got after long discussion were like, alright, let's give it one more shot, we did hire another therapist, you know, and we gave it a little more time and it just it was I was done at that point, you know what I mean? I couldn't like deny it anymore, fake it or you know, hope to be Hope to change. It just wasn't going to change and Probably I would say is, you know, we always even at when we separated we did the holidays together and they in the beginning it was a little tenuous, you know, going to her family's place or my, you know, everyone was walking on eggshells a little bit and here was the Turning Point.

21:30 The turning point was when I started to own the divorce versus blame for the divorce you know and in many ways like and you know, I could sit here on this call and say oh well she did and this is what I would do, we got divorce but this is you know this is what happened and this is what happened and I was pushing the blame on her you know. And I it's a concept. I read in a book, I camera which book but it's 100 to 0. It was the concept. I wish I could remember the book to give whoever wrote it the credit, but when I took a hundred percent responsibility for my actions and there's zero responsibility for on her side, right? Was the moment that I started to be able to like overcome it and actually, I own my role and say, you know what, like, yeah, there are things that happen.

22:17 But you know what, I was the one that did, you know, sort of withdrew into work. I was one that didn't want to come home. I was one that, you know, slept in, separate bedrooms out. Yeah. And I own my role. And then that was the moment. I think that we started to like start to Ed forward, into that zone of Happiness outside, you know, in the beginning, it's not happiness, you feel, it's relief a little bit right? That there's progress. And slowly, that relief will turn into happiness or hopefully will turn into happiness. That's the goal. So it sounds like, you know, they're there were problems. You both worked on trying to save the marriage. Keep it going. Yeah. What made you know this is the end, you know, it's great question.

23:06 There there is no one definitive moment because of the fact there were definitely certain challenges and issues you know out of privacy for my ex-wife like what I don't want to go into it. Do you know what I mean? I'll just say they were. There are challenges that we both experienced will say that, right? And at the end of the day we work through a lot of those challenges, you know. And so there wasn't like this one definitive moment for me where I was like oh Oh like I'm done because you'd have a challenge you worked through it. You're like okay maybe and then you have a challenge and you're like I'm out and they're like okay we'll work through it. Maybe you know so it was probably it was the death of a thousand moons more. So right where it was just like cut he had just enough Cuts where you finally were like.

23:54 Okay, it's over and they're a little moments, of course like like my kids, you know, seeing us be intimate and other things. But it was really just the the slow build-up of Little things over time to where I finally got to the point. And the biggest thing was having a therapist as well, help me with my feelings of working through that, you know, of guilt and like, how do I want? I don't want to be in this situation anymore but I don't know how to do it. And, finally, getting to the point where I was built up enough to have the courage to leave, you know what I mean? So may seem obvious, but I want to, I want to ask this for the, for the benefit of someone that's divorced is in a situation. In just thinks this is how it always is. So what are some signs that you're not? And a great co-parenting divorce? Hmm sighs you're on a good co-parenting is when you're a your children are comfortable with you being in the same space, right?

24:53 That's if you know, your kids get nervous or anxious or when you two are in the same space. That's a number one sign. The second sign is when you're not flexible, now you There's a difference between having clear boundaries and then being flexible, right? So, for example, I travel for work, I train around the country. So there are times where I'll call my ex-wife and be like, hey, can you, you know, how to schedule to watch them On A Tuesday? Can you switch it Tuesday for a Thursday? Now, her boundary is to say no, I can't do that. And I'm okay with that. If she says, I can't do that, you know? Because we've already have an agreement laid out.

25:34 But if she's just sitting home, Home doing nothing and she has the ability to make the switch, and it doesn't impact her in any way. That's a sign that when you are doing things, just out of spite. That's not a healthy co-parenting situation. Now, you can vary. You can maintain your boundaries with zero, guilt or zero. It's my responsibility to get coverage on my nights. Do you know what I mean? But, I always want to use her as my first resource because I'd rather my kids are with her then a babysitter. Know what I mean, but she has the absolute right to say, no, but she's only saying no out of anger or spite. That's a sign that your. So, if you're doing things out of anger and spite, you're probably not in a healthy co-parenting situation.

26:19 And, you know, the, the probably, the third thing I would say is when you argue over inconsequential or meaningless things, You left you you didn't drop the kids soccer gear off your horrible. There you're there right now is the people forget. Yeah, I didn't drop the kids soccer think. Yeah, it's frustrating. I'm frustrated. All right. Go you know, here are the keys to the house car I'm gonna run home from work or whatever, right. But when Little Things become, you know, big things are in a really inconsequential that's why your third sign that you need to do some work within your co-parenting because your children, see all this, right? Right?

27:00 They see it all. You know? So it's a situation where there's so many resource. Not so many, there are resources out there and I would highly recommend it. That if you've never seen a co-parenting therapist, find a co-parenting therapist. Have a third party. The reality is, we're still dealing with our scars from the marriage, right? We're still bringing those forward. So it really is helpful with a third party. Can say listen, here's what I'd advise you do. Here's your schedule. So you create boundaries, right? On whatever the advice is you get doesn't mean you need to listen to it. Exactly. Right. But it just means there's someone not that isn't carrying the scars that you guys, both carry forward that can give you that advice.

27:47 And that's so it's a great question of the signs of when you're not in a healthy co-parenting situation, what are those sons? And once again just, you know, me and my ex, we still have little things that come up, she'll get frustrated, if I did change the night, you know? We're still human beings and we still have a motion, right? And but we can recover from that very quickly, or recognize, when we're doing it and be like, okay, my bad like that, that's really not a big deal. Let me, let me just drop the soccer stuff off, you know. So, so, what I've heard so far for, for some tips to create this positive co-parenting relationship, start off by getting the commonalities agreement on that, and you different recommend therapy and ideally, it's It's a co parenting expert.

28:32 Correct. Yeah. And any other any other tips to make that process as smooth as it can be? Yeah, I read the book conscious uncoupling and now for me was very impactful. I would highly recommend people read that book if it's something that, that would, you know, resonate with you. And I think the other thing is, like, figure out what makes you happy, and make sure you're doing things that make you happy, within the context of not harming, anyone, you know, I mean, so that's going to, you know, on a vacation to Florida makes you happy and you're there for a month, that's not what I'm talking about. Not escapism, but exactly perfect terminology, but doing the things like making sure, you know, our bodies healthy. I'm you know, hanging out my friends, I have relationships with my family, you know, the things have really fuel your, your, your life and your happiness, definitely, it's really critical when you go through this process. Not too high.

29:30 They're not to not to withdraw, but to really Embrace those things that do create the happiness. And when you're in there, never try your hardest to not talk ill will of your partner. Do you know? And and reframe, you know, it's one of those funny things that language is so powerful. Like, I even try not to even use the word ex-wife. Do you know what I mean? Because it won't that X, right? There's almost like a negativity to that. So in often like I'll call her my partner, you know, And that's really the more appropriate terminology. She's my partner in my kids, you know? And that's it. All right, so if I asked your partner, if you were a great ex-husband, what would she say 95% of time, I think she would say oh he's the best. I think the five percent and you know my schedule is a little hectic, you know I can definitely I'm a person that can do a lot.

30:27 Like I'm also not a planner I can like be like oh yeah well I'm going to the beach with the kids this weekend she's like oh what weight you know not that in fact of it, she's once again these are our differences so those are the little things that you would probably say I could get better on is a little more organization, a little more planning and a little more structure. But 95 I would my argument would be that she would call me a great ex-husband in the sense of you know 95% of what she would want me to be, I am. Yeah. It's at five. That's that's that's that's a strong. Hey, yeah. I think of us as an ex-husband. Let's not call her on the phone. Now, kidding.

31:10 And what was, what was wondering time? I got to talk to someone that's that's been divorced. You, especially recently divorced, does this turn you off against ever being married again? Um it's a good question on a personal level and this is just for me personally like I don't have any desire to get married again in the sense of you know IV of being in a relationship does not mean marriage and I think there are certain e.m. This there certain societal things that feel heavy with marriage to me and probably this is my scars bringing forward. So I think there's a difference between being in a relationship and being married. So for me, personally, at this stage My life, I have no desire to be married again.

31:54 You know, yes, desire to be in a relationship again for sure, but not to be married again. You know, in my mind, you know, I don't need a ring or a piece of paper to determine what my feelings or actions are going to be. That's makes sense. So and we've touched on sheer sheer, making up words, shame and fear. I've combined them into sugar, huh? I'm still here. This means that. What do you see and based on your experience and what you see in others? What are the biggest challenges? What are some of the biggest challenges for divorced men? Biggest challenge for divorce. Men is the typically there's a world where there's not a lot of support for.

32:44 There's all that support period, but for men especially there's usually very little support. He's usually very, you know, few groups, It depends on your your, you know, social group. Sometimes there might not be other men that are divorced, that, you know, or if you do, they might not be the best person to talk to, right about it. Maybe they're not healthily divorced or happily divorced. So I think the challenge for most men is that you you sort of suffer in silence. I was very lucky in the sense. I had some really, really dear friends that were. We're also divorced in the healthy, you know, healthy way. But also gave me really good advice. Along the Way and were there when I needed them to, hey, I just need to grab a beer with you and talk about what I'm feeling, right? So being able to find the couple people that are very healthy for you, and then your Outlets is key and it allows you to form that healthy thing.

33:36 But the chat biggest challenges are most men, suffer in silence in your teaching and your coaching world, you talked a lot about leading with kindness. Yeah, I'm gonna chain. Can you explain that a bit? Yeah, yeah. So one of my mottos I have Is that, you know, my mission in life is to show that love and kindness is a source of power and strength, meaning and are in our world traditionally. Like we see if you use the word power and strength, you typically would have you big muscular male, you know, maybe seal wrestler, you know, something really big and dominant but the reality is who who's actually moved the world. It's a people that have used love and kindness to create massive levels of power and strength.

34:21 Gandhi the, you know, Mohandas Gandhi, he defeated the British Empire, right? A mini, think about it. And how did he do it? He did it through love and kindness, you know, and Martin Luther King changed, you know, civil rights in this country you. So you look back in history and and the people that use power and strength in The Brute sense will always always have fallen out of power. Have always Have been defeated, have always been sort of put down or put out, and it's a people that have used loving-kindness have created lasting change. And that's, I think one of the things that I come back to that in all of our settings, marriage career business, you know, the world politics.

35:11 If we can get to this point where we recognize that loving kindness like when I'm loving and kind and towards other people that actually is a source of strength and creates power versus when I'm trying to Bulldog someone or you know push them under or defeat them or whatever might be using brute power and strength that might work short-term but eventually it's going to either come back on me or it's going to just consume me one of the two. So when you use love and kindness you can run for infinite you know, for Infinity into the change that you can create and the power and strength you can generate because of the fact that love and This if it goes back into that, be the light concept loving-kindness is when you can be the light, right?

35:57 And emanate that and that light instead of just shining in One Direction goes everywhere. So it's sort of a philosophy. I like to live by and as for a philosophy that like to sort of push out there for Business Leaders and politicians or anyone that listens to me, it's something that I sort of preached. So and again, that that healthy selfishness helps you tap into that Limitless. Light that we do have the ability to tap into. So right go ahead and I'm going to give you a tell me about your podcast met with the 6 a.m. Yeah so so I work I'm my my role my career right now. I'm the head of agent development for a real estate company called Compass which is the number one National brokerage.

36:39 We have about 30,000, people all across the country. My job is basically my day job will call it is to design training curriculum and deliver that to real estate agents across the Virtually and in person in the pandemic, when the pandemic it in April, or May I'm sorry, March of 2020. You know, we're all knocked down at home and I was just like, frustrated by it and eating unhealthy, drinking binge watching TV etcetera. So I got a little frustrating. I basically just resurrected, you know, some of the practices we use in the five a and I launched the six, a just in my local office, you know it about 50 agents, sign up.

37:20 We're all home. We had And no reason to wake up at 6 a.m. but we are all started just waking up early and then getting on the zoom call and chatting and talking right and creating a community and then every month since then the organization just there the community, I should say just started to spread all across the country. So we would be doing these Zoom calls and it's one of those funny things I look back and I'm like, wait a minute after a couple years. I'm like I have hours and hours of beautiful interviews with some powerful people. I To make sure that this gets out there into the world. So we basically went my co-host, Emily basara and I we went and we recorded the intros and exits, 4424 of the episodes.

38:03 We're going to be going out in about a month or so to California record season 2 and what we do is pay. So just take our morning interviews, not all of them. We curate, the, the ones that we feel are the most powerful and then we record the eggs, intros, and exits. And then we're releasing those in the podcast and it's been an awesome. Situation to be able to bring authors and business people. And you know, leaders and all kinds of areas to, you know, we the group obviously meets at 6 a.m. and not everyone is a six a person so it's nice to be able to bring it to people outside of the group as well. So it's called the six, the number six a m--. Ers. It's on my shirt. Excellent. Excellent.

38:44 So Sky, What's the best way for people to learn more or connect with you? Yes. Okay. Instagram is right now my platform Of choice. So to follow me on Instagram, it would be that symbol. My first name, s Kye. My last name Mich, I Els just at Sky Michaels the six a year. I would love you to also follow that and that is at TH e the number six, a m--. Ers on Instagram. And those are the two best channels that I communicate with. And You know, sort of operate on cool awesome. As really enjoyed talking with you and sharing your experience. The this kind of my favorite show was when you know, a man shares, his experience, and how he's shiny light and serve in the world now, so great man.

39:35 Yeah, I appreciate what you're doing as well. It's great to bring, you know, the ability to talk about this stuff and you do not suffer in silence. Anyone that's listening to this. It's huge. Don't be silent, you know. Thanks everyone listening. Thanks for joining us in wherever you're listening to women. Feel please give a like, a share or comment. Whatever you can do wherever you're finding us and did you know that? There is a private real men? Feel Facebook group. Well, it's true, and you can join by visiting real men, feel dot org, slash group. You can also reach out and connect with me via email, any time you choose real men, feel at gmail.com and until next time, be good to yourself.