Meet Joey Szolowicz

 

We recently connected with Joey Szolowicz and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Joey, thank you so much for joining us and opening up about the very personal topic of divorce. So many in the community are going through or have gone through divorce and we think hearing about how others dealt with the aftermath and managed to build a vibrant, successful life and career despite the trauma of divorce can be helpful to many who might be feeling a degree of hopelessness. So, maybe you can talk to us about how you overcame divorce?

I am always reluctant to answer a question like this in a public forum. This is largely because I hold my ex-wife in the highest regard, divorce is always a 2 sided story, and in an interview like this… I am only one side of that story. But nearly 3 years since we agreed to split-up it has become apparent to me that there are a number of people out there struggling in their relationships and also going through the pain of divorce. And if there is one thing that I have observed in my journey, it is that the stories of others who had been through it helped me to gain perspective and move forward in a meaningful and purposeful way through mine. I’d like to pay that forward to people who are hurting today. So in answering this question, I won’t speak about my ex-wife, rather, I am going to simply share what my personal approach was over the past 3 years to navigate the end of a marriage and find peace in being single again.

Divorce sucks. Nobody gets married in the hopes that it will end at some point in the future. Simultaneously, I think that many people do not realize how much we are capable of changing over the course of a lifetime. Sometimes the changes that bring 2 people together at one season of their lives are the very things that diverge their paths in another season. This realization was one of the first steps to coming to terms with ‘why’ my marriage was coming to an end. I’m a control freak at heart… so understanding ‘why’ mattered to me. But once you understand ‘why’ something needs to happen, it still leaves the very important question of ‘how to approach it’.

The how… that’s the strange part. When I started letting people close to me know that my marriage was ending there were a lot of obvious questions… “How will you split things up?”, “Who gets the house?”, “How will custody with the kids work?”, “Dude, when you going to start dating?”… to name a few.

And frankly, the questions many were asking me were the very same questions I was asking myself. I didn’t have the answers yet, because honestly, at that moment they were the wrong questions.

I am a big proponent for making sure we’re asking the right questions at the right time. Sequence matters. And at the beginning of the process, the real question that I needed to answer was, “How much time and space do I need right now to be able to think clearly about how to proceed?”. Once that question was answered, the next logical question was “What type of ex-husband and co-parent do I want to be?”. By gaining clarity on the answers to these questions, when time came to talk we both seemed to be on a very similar page about how to proceed.

But that time to talk didn’t come until about 2 months after we agreed to separate. We agreed to take some time to think things over and talk when we were both emotionally ready.

This time was a magical thing. It gave us each something that I think so many people fail to give themselves… space. If you were to sit on any of my coaching calls that I host with my clients you’d hear me talk about habit loops, which can be characterized by a trigger, a reaction, and an outcome. And all too often, we are far too quick to ‘react’ to a given ‘trigger’. It is only when we can give ourselves that ‘space’ between a trigger and a reaction that we can take control and react in such a way that may result in a more favorable outcome than hair-trigger reactions tend to offer us.

During this time, I made a personal decision about the type of ex-husband and co-parent that I wanted to be. I did not want to be someone who was contentious. I did not want to be someone who fought over tiny details. And I certainly did not want to be someone who made this any harder on my kids that it was already going to be. In other words, I aligned my future decision making behind some very concrete values. Values like ‘the well-being of the kids comes first’ and ‘2 whole and healthy parents are better than 2 broken parents.’

Having these values clearly defined, was paramount because it made all future decision making almost seem easy.

Listen, when you go through divorce, you’re going to lose half your stuff, you’re going to lose your spouse (at least as you know them at that moment), and you’re going to lose some of your time with your kids. It’s going to happen. But in totality these do not all have to sum up to a net negative.

We chose to divide stuff as evenly down the middle as was reasonable given what we knew our individual unique circumstances would be as single adults. We agreed on a simple 50/50 parenting arrangement with our kids. And we agreed that maybe, without the pressures of trying to married, we could build a new friendship that would be healthier than anything the last few years of our marriage were for either of us.

Then we executed.

That’s the amazing thing about that space I was talking about earlier. Sure, it delayed action initially, but with the clarity of well-defined values at our backs… execution of the process became almost simple.

Now the bounce back. This is the interesting part. I see a lot of people out there go through divorce and immediately dive into the dating pool and social scene… almost like this sense of having an anchor removed and way too much freedom given all at the same time. It never ends well.

My opinion is that unless you are ok with yourself, then you’re never going to be ok with anybody else. Again, values… I knew I needed to prioritize me first for a while. I focused on what I knew worked… staying active, going to the gym, lots of walks, eating right, surrounding myself with good people and loved ones, avoiding alcohol at all costs, gearing my media-diet toward personal and emotional growth content, and so forth.

I also knew I needed to understand what it would be like to run my new household on my own, particularly when my kids would be with me.

Interestingly, one of my biggest fears was how only having my kids half of the time would impact my relationship with them. I was terrified that I would lose precious moments of their lives and that my relationship with them would weaken due to having less time together. What happened ended up being the exact opposite!

The first few months were hard, I won’t lie. Sitting alone at home on the days they weren’t with me was depressing and silent. But slowly something amazing started to happen. I started to live my own life on those days. No permission, no babysitters, no questions… I ran my errands and got the household chores done, did my hobbies, spent time with friends and learned to enjoy those moments without my kids home. And this opened the door for me to be fully present and grateful on the days they were with me. When your kids are home 7 days per week, it is easy to take them for granted. It’s easy to check your email during dinner, not be fully present, and get irritated with the small things. When you only have your kids 3-4 days a week things change. I found myself not wanting to waste hours of that time mad at stupid stuff. I realized I didn’t want my phone on me when we were spending time together, because I wanted to be fully present and undistracted. I realized that those 3-4 days needed to count. And that has been a gift. I feel like my relationship with my kids has become as strong as ever and I am grateful for it.

Financially, after 3 years… I’m still making my way back. Honestly, losing half your stuff in your late 30’s is a blow to anyone’s retirement plan. But that’s ok. There is always a way to re-build what you’ve lost financially. That essentially comes down to understanding a long term vision for your future, what you’re willing to do today to work toward it, and then putting your head down and doing the work. It’s a road, but I am seeing the light at the end of the proverbial financial tunnel 3 years into this journey.

I’ve dipped my toe in the dating waters in the past year or so… but frankly, am still very reluctant to disturb the peace I’ve built in my current lifestyle. The only thing I’ll say more about that is that it is ok to wait. It is ok to be single. There is no rule that you need to be with someone to be happy. I am certain of one thing. Having taken the road that I’ve chosen toward being absolutely happy and confident in who I am, it makes it easy to know that should I ever choose to be in another relationship, it can only be with someone who demonstrably makes my life better. Again, this is a pitfall I have seen too many times in people who have recently divorced… an immediate nose dive into the dating pool, only to find themselves in a replicated version of what they just got out of, because they weren’t good with themselves before they decided to find somebody else.

The long and short of it is that it comes down to values. What type of person do you want to be? Do you want to be the petty person fighting over a record collection? Or do you want to be the person who your kids can look up to? Honestly, I still look up to my ex-wife largely because she was on this same page through this and we’re both coming out stronger on the other side. Divorce does not need to be a contentious and ugly thing. It is going to hurt no matter what, but your hurt does not need to translate into intentionally inflicting pain on someone else. I view divorce as an opportunity to move forward from a relationship that was no longer serving two partners and allow that relationship to evolve into something better for each individual. I’m not saying this is easy… but it is achievable. And I can say without doubt, that I would much rather have the co-parenting friendship I have with my ex-wife now than the contentious relationships I see between so many exes I’ve crossed paths with.

You get to decide what you want things to look like. Don’t forget that. But in that realization is also the understanding that it is on you to make it happen. I didn’t fully understand this at the time, but now I do.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am a nutrition, strength, and lifestyle coach. Like many in the fitness industry, I got started by virtue of experiencing my own journey to a healthier lifestyle. As a corporate director in a high stress industry I spent years making work my priority while everything else (especially my health) came second. I looked in the mirror one day and realized that I didn’t recognize who I saw staring back at me. The person in the mirror looked unwell, overweight, unhappy, and as though he needed a change.

In that moment, I decided to prioritize my health. I started small, by picking up a hobby that I had once had a passion for, boxing. While attending classes, I had a chance to see that some of the most competitive athletes in the gym were far more than just fitness nuts. They were living this stuff inside and outside of the gym. How they slept, who they spent time with, what they ate… it all mattered.

And this is where my journey to become a premier health coach to entrepreneurs, executives, and high level professionals began.

What sets my coaching apart is that I have been where my clients have been. I understand what it feels like to have a busy and stressful job, kids, a household to run, and every other obligation that spills over on your plate. I also understand that by virtue of this, the change process will take time.

In many cases people have a general idea of the ‘what’ they need to do. My coaching focuses largely on the ‘how’ and ‘why’. As a coach, I help my clients focus not on everything they ‘should do’ but on the smallest possible thing ‘they can do’ in order to start moving their health in the right direction.

And once my clients start to feel the energy that arises from the smallest possible wins, I am able to leverage that toward further actions… each one building upon the last, until one day the client looks in the mirror and they are exactly the person they deserve to be inside and out.

One more thing that I am excited about is that in the next year I will begin offering health and wellness retreats in Azores, Portugal (a small European island chain where I reside part of the year). These retreats will be hosted on a small property I own and will bring together wellness activities in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

A Willingness to Fail – We are too afraid to look stupid. We concern ourselves too much with this question: “what if it doesn’t work?” instead of reframing that question to “what is this does work?” So much of feeling stuck comes down to being too comfortable in our current routines and a fear of what it would feel like to not be the best. If you are happy with the way things are, then amazing! Keep doing things the way you’ve been doing them. But if there is an area of your life in which you feel like something isn’t quite right but comfort keeps you there anyways… then release your fear of failing and being the new guy and go start something new… understanding that in being new, you’ll have some failures, which are no more than lessons along the way to your new path.

Breaking Things Down Into Smaller Pieces – It’s a classic adage, but relevant: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Understanding how to break something down into smaller bite sized pieces is a skill that a surprisingly large number of people lack. In an effort to do too much all at once, we end up getting in our own way and getting little to nothing done. I work in nutrition and fitness so I break this down in today’s diet culture. I see so many people ‘start a diet’ on Monday… like keto, paleo, whole 30, etc. But they fail to realize the basic bite-sized skills that will go into making them successful at that diet… like making shopping lists, time-management, prioritizing themselves instead of everyone else, how to work the oven, etc. If you can look at something that you’re not doing well or consistently and ask yourself “how can I make this a little bit smaller so it will be more achievable?” then you have a skill that will serve you for a lifetime.

Delayed Gratification Combined With The Power of Compound Interest – I believe that most success in life comes down to our willingness to delay gratification. And on the flip side of that coin, I think that many of our struggles come down to a need for instant gratification. If you find yourself consistently succumbing to ‘what you want right now’ then you probably are on track to a lot of compounded struggles later in life. If you are able to say ‘What am I willing to sacrifice today, so that I can have what I want later?’ then you are likely on the road to prosperity.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals – Oliver Burkeman

This book came to me one day while I was perusing my local Barnes and Noble bookstore. As someone who is obsessed with maximizing my time and calendar, the title of this book screamed at me from the shelf. So I picked it up and flipped through the first few pages.

What I love about this book is that Burkeman’s ideas fly in the face of pretty much all time management gurus you might find now-a-days. He doesn’t take the approach of ‘time hacking to fit it all in’. On the contrary, his book reframes time management into the context of the roughly 4000 weeks each of us gets on this planet. He breaks it down simply into a function of recognizing that you will NEVER be able to get it all done in the finite time we have. So how can you create a meaningful life by embracing this finitude as you choose what you will prioritize?

If you are someone who feels like the never ending to-do list is driving you to the brink (which is pretty much everyone I speak to nowadays), then this book is a great read!

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Image Credits

filipe paiva
sara neves pereira

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