Leah Hadley | The Power of an Intentional Divorce

In a world where life's transitions often have heavy financial implications, Leah Hadley is a beacon of guidance and support. On this episode of Grieving Voices, Leah—founder of Intentional Wealth Partners and Intentional Divorce Solutions—shared her journey from investment analyst to empowering individuals through some of their most challenging moments, including divorce, of which she brings her personal experiences into her work with others.

Leah navigated personal upheavals such as adoption and divorce while building her career in finance for over fifteen years. Her transition to entrepreneurship was not just about professional growth but also about creating flexibility to address the nuanced needs of her own family and those facing significant life changes like divorce.

Key Points Discussed:

• Leah's transition from an investment analyst to starting her own business to accommodate her role as an adoptive mother and her experience through divorce.
• The challenges faced during divorce include co-parenting dynamics, emotional turmoil, and financial restructuring.
• The importance of understanding one’s finances when heading into a divorce.
• The importance of support systems.
• Working as both an advocate for one spouse or neutrally for couples to optimize marital estate division fairly.

One core message from our conversation was the critical need for financial clarity amidst the emotional storm of separation. Leah underscored how even experts can feel overwhelmed when emotions cloud judgment—a powerful reminder that during times of distress, having expert advice isn't just helpful; it's essential.

For anyone facing the daunting path of divorce, Leah advises taking measured steps toward thoroughly understanding their finances before making any decisions. This approach minimizes costly mistakes and ensures today's choices positively shape the future.

RESOURCES:

• Divorce Resources
• Podcast | Intentional Divorce Insights
• Watch Her Thrive FB Group

CONNECT:

• Website
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

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Transcript

Victoria Volk: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of grieving voices. Today, I am happy to welcome Leah Hadley, She is a nationally recognized financial empowerment expert is committed to providing personalized compassionate financial guidance through life transitions. She will tell you she's had many challenging financial times in her adult life, becoming a parent of three overnight, getting divorced, and building a business from the ground up to name a few. These have been times when her ability to hunt down appropriate resources and careful financial planning was critical to her peace of mind. A former investment analyst sought after speaker an award winning financial planner Lea is the founder of intentional wealth partners and intentional divorce solutions. Leah uses her knowledge of more than fifteen years of experience to help our clients make intentional, financial decisions. Thank you so much for being here, my being my guest, and for sharing a topic, I think, specifically for divorce, but because of your background experience of and your personal experience of divorce and just briefly before we started to record of adoption, I think that we can go into two of these big life transitions pretty deeply on this podcast.

Leah Hadley: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.

Victoria Volk: So let's start with how you got from investment analyst to building your own business.

Leah Hadley: Yeah. It was not planned, Avianis. It was an equity research analyst. And so for equity research, you travel quite a bit to the companies that you cover and to the portfolio managers that are your clients and that kind of a thing. And my ex husband and I had decided that we were going to adopt and we were adapting through the foster care system. And at that time, it was very difficult to get through all of the requirements with the travel that I had for my job. And so I decided that, you know what, just to be the mom that I wanted to be, that job was not gonna be very conducive to what I wanted for my life. And so I decided that I would take my skills and start helping individuals and families, and I became a financial advisor with a large broker dealer at the time. And we were blessed with three amazing children while I was there. And then I found that there was only one way to do business there. They had kind of a structure in place that didn't allow a lot of flexibility. And honestly, people have different needs especially people who are going through life transitions. So I decided to leave there and go to another firm that I thought was gonna allow me to do more work helping people through these transitions and also found a lot of red tape at that particular firm. Ultimately, I found that if I really wanted deserve people in a way that I felt like people needed support. And I wanted the lifestyle that I wanted for my kids, so I wanted a lot of flexibility to be able to be there to take them to their therapy user to, you know, participate in the PTA and all of these things that I needed to do it on my own. I needed to create the, you know, way of serving people, create the hours, create the time, that's gonna work for me and my life. And so, ultimately, that's how I ended up struggling my own business.

Victoria Volk: I have two questions, and I'm gonna ask them so I don't forget.

Leah Hadley: Okay.

Victoria Volk: Had you had you always wanted to be an adopted mom, first of all? And then the second question is, can you make a distinction between and maybe that if things are different today, I imagine, in firms and that process. But can you make a distinction for people for, like, the financial planners and the firms, Edward Jones, or whoever they may go to, versus these transitions that require maybe a little bit a different approach. Can you make that distinction for people? So two questions for you.

Leah Hadley: Absolutely. So I had not thought that I would become an adaptive mom. That wasn't something that I had, you know, grown up thinking about or anything like that. And my ex husband and I came to that decision after a lot of conversation and We had a wonderful couple who introduced us to many adoption resources. We went to some different workshops and things to learn more about what the options were.
So it was a long road to deciding that that was gonna be the right option for us. And as far as the different kinds of firms in the way that they serve people. They each have like, especially a larger firm, has a certain way of doing things because there are so many rules in the industry. There just are. There are today, there were then, there are a lot of rules in the industry. And so they create ways of doing business to make sure that everybody is in compliance with all of those rules. But what happens is then you have somebody that doesn't quite fitthe mold, what they need, doesn't necessarily fit the way that they do business, And suddenly, that firm is not gonna be the best one to serve that person. Okay? And so for example, if you think about a divorce, every divorce is different. There are no two divorces that are the same. Financial planning for divorce is like financial planning on steroids. You know, you're looking at every single thing and you're knowing that everything's gonna change. Right? And so there are so many different scenarios that it can be really hard for a very large firm to make sure that if they have a lot of advisors working in the space, that they are always in compliance. If they're not going through that advisers, you know, all their communications and all their reports and things like that. And so I think that's where it's really tricky. I don't think, you know, they're set out to not help people. But I think there are are very real reasons why it can be difficult for them to have the flexibility to support people in different transitions in their lives. Does that make sense?

Victoria Volk: Yes. And so when you found yourself, going through your divorce, where were you at in your career at that point? And with the kids,

Leah Hadley: Yeah. I was working as a financial adviser, and I was on my husband's health insurance at the time. And so I was not going to have health insurance through my employer when we divorced, which was a big issue. And I really wasn't making enough to work myself and the kids as a single mom either. And so that was a big issue for me as well. So there was a lot going on there as far as, you know, when I was going through this transition and figuring out how can I continue, what does my job need to look like how can I be available for these kids in a way that I need to be available for them? So that's kind of where I was and what was going on.

Victoria Volk: What were some of the things that you did then to navigate that divorce in what worked for you, what didn't work for you? If you could go back in time, what you can't, what would you have what would you have done differently, things like that?

Leah Hadley: Yeah. You know, one of the things that we did really, really well Victoria, we spent a lot of time talking about the conversation we were gonna have with our children and letting them know that this is what we had decided to do. And we had really prepared well for that conversation. We sat down together and had that conversation with all three children. My youngest was still a toddler, so I think it was very difficult for him to really understand what was going on. But the other two were old enough to understand at the time. And we had a great conversation with them and answered questions and it went really well. What we didn't plan for is everything that comes after that. And so one, my ex husband moved out and the kids would go between our homes, especially my youngest. He was still a toddler. He would scream and, you know, fuss because he had to go between our homes. And, you know, toddlers don't like change. And, you know, it didn't matter which way the kids were going. It was always very volatile, stressful situations when we were going through these transitions. And he lived close to me. So it's not like we live as far apart. We really tried to make this as easy on the kids as we could, but those transistors were really, really difficult. And, you know, you still have the hurt and the anger and all of that that goes along with the divorce itself. And so we're struggling as adults with our own feelings but then also didn't necessarily have the communication in place to deal with what does co parenting look like going beyond this initial conversation. So that first year, that first year was very, very hard. I was, you know, changing jobs, starting my own business, we're dealing with, kind of with a schedule that was working for our family. There were just so many changes that we were experiencing at that time. And I think it was just really hard on everybody. What could I have done differently? Absolutely sat down and had a conversation with my ex husband very early on about how we wanted to handle communication, how we wanted to handle transitions. Now we actually have dinner as a family about one a month. I talked to him every single week, you know, we really prioritize making sure that we're staying on the same page when it comes to raising our children So that way, you know, we're both there. We're we're still a united front even though we're both remarried to other people, you know. And just really prioritizing what co parenting looks like for us. But it took us a while to get there.
We had to get past some of that, our own hurt and our own anger, to really be able to get to a place of being able to have these comfortable communications and prioritizing the children's needs.

Victoria Volk: What resources and or people you bring in to your divorce experience that helped you at that time?

Leah Hadley: I have to tell you, I am so fortunate because so many people's families really struggle when people get divorced and have a hard time kind of finding their space within this new family structure. But my mom has always been my rock. She had gone through two divorces of her own many years ago. And so I think she really understood. I mean, she raised my brother and I as a single parent. I think she really understood what I was going through. And, you know, she was there for both me and my ex husband. It's not like she was just there for me. So when we needed childcare, we needed you know, one of the kids to get a ride somewhere or something, she was always willing to step in as much as she could. And that was so beneficial. She never said anything negative. About my ex husband, especially nothing in front of her children. And she was really a huge, huge, huge support. Another big support was my church community, and I also know that everybody's not that fortunate in that respect either. But I wasn't a church community that was very supportive in helping me figure out you know, what is this role for me? How do I balance these things? How do I take the kids to certain activities and whatnot? And still be able to participate as an adult. So I was very lucky in a lot of ways. I didn't feel a tremendous amount of judgment, which I know so many people do. And I think my heart just breaks for them when I hear some of their stories. But I I was very fortunate in that I had a community that really surrounded me and lifted me up and helped me figure out what I needed. And even when I didn't know what I needed, Victoria, somebody would say, hey, let me take your kids for for an afternoon and and give you a break or, you know, something like that. And it was just so valuable

Victoria Volk: in terms of what you do today, intentional divorce solutions. And I imagine that much of your experience or much of the work that you do is based on your personal experience, and you bring that to the work with that you do with clients. So aside from family support, community support, how about in terms of maybe you see a lot of people making different mistakes, you know, as they go through that divorce process. Not I'm talking the financial stuff now. Like, the financial advice, the what do you do next?
Like, how do you create the separation of assets and all of that? What did you bring into your divorce that helped you at that time? And is that what's really, I guess, informed the work that you do today.

Leah Hadley: It is a big part of why I do what I do because one of the things I saw, you know, I had been a financial professional for years before I went through my own divorce. And it was still, financially, these changes were incredibly overwhelming today. And I a a a budgeter. I go through and create an annual budget every year and then update it throughout the year. And that skill of being able to do that and knowing how to adjust that budget in order to deal with these huge changes I was experiencing. Was so, so important to my peace of mind. Like, I just don't know how I could have gotten through it without being able to do that. But there were times when I was just so emotionally overwhelmed, I couldn't I couldn't sit there and look at the budget and figure it out because I couldn't get myself to be clear headed enough to really take those skills and use them. Right? And so for somebody who had that much experience and was still struggling, And I'll tell you, even today, I work with a lot of accounts who are going through a divorce. I work with other financial planners who are going through a divorce. It doesn't matter what your background is, when you're going through this huge change impacting every area of your life, can just cloud your, you know, anything that you're trying to think about objectively. So I did not use a CDFA when I wasgoing through my divorce. Quite frankly, we didn't have that much of a complex financial situation. But I did definitely lean on the tools that I had already created in my life in terms of budgeting and looking at our assets and looking at our debts and figure out how's all of this going to work out. But again, my mom was incredibly supportive. My mom does have a financial background. And so when I couldn't see through the trees, you know. She could really help me kinda clear my way and and say you're out, okay, this is what we need to prioritize right now. You know. So for example, when we first got divorced, I needed to make sure I got health insurance right away. I was responsible for the mortgage on the home because I stayed in the marital home. So there were all of a sudden big expenses that really increased on me very quickly, and I knew that my income at that time was not going to support that. And so I had to make a change.

Victoria Volk: And what did that look like?

Leah Hadley: So that's how I ultimately ended up starting my business. First, I went back to equity research because I thought, okay, if I just need to make more money, this is a place where I could make more money. Right? And I could get good benefits. But it came back to right where I was before we ever had the children in that that is just not a career that's very conducive to prioritize in motherhood. And so I started my own business, and I was really serious about looking at how am I going to support us, and it took some time but I was able to build, you know, two thriving businesses at this point. And and it it ended up working out, but I'll tell you what. It was not an easy road those first couple of years.

Victoria Volk: I've built two businesses too over the over the years and it's a grind. It's definitely a grind at first, you know, up all day with the kids and then up all night because they're sleeping and then you can actually sit and focus and do what you need to do. And so, you know, I love entrepreneurs in that way just because I understand that, you know, sometimes you live your life a certain way that most people wouldn't so that you can live the rest of your life how you want. Right? Right. What are the baby steps people can take as they're listening to you and find themselves. Maybe maybe they got served papers or they're thinking about serving papers to their spouse and, you know, just embarking on this. Journey. What are some baby steps people can take?

Leah Hadley: Yeah. It's really important that people get very clear on their financial situation. How are you gonna make any decisions if you're not clear on your current financial situation? And I recognize that this can be very, very difficult for a spouse that may not be involved in the family finances. I work with lots of people who weren't involved in the family finances during the marriage. Suddenly you're going through this huge life change and you're just learning about your own financial situation. So if that is you, you're absolutely not alone. But that makes it even more important to really prioritize figuring out what is income, where is it coming from, when am I receiving it, What are expenses? What are my fixed expenses that are the same every single month? What are my variable expenses that change from month to month? And if you find that your income is barely covering your six expenses, money is going to feel tight. It's going to. Especially if you have attorney fees on top of that or other professional services that you may be utilizing through the divorce process. So starting with a very clear sense of cash flow, income, fixed expenses, variable expenses is really important. Under standing what your assets are, what you own, and your liabilities are, what you owe. And so getting clear on what is the value of my home you may need to get an appraisal in order to get a good number on that. Right? Where are the retirement accounts? You know, whose retirement account is in, whose name. If you're not quite sure you are not alone, so many times people will say, well, we have a joint retirement account. Well, there are no joint retirement accounts. So retirement account is an individual account. And so that's, to me, a red flag that, like, okay. We're not clear on the financial situation here. And so really knowing if you are a joint user on a credit card, if you're an authorized user on a credit card, if it's your own credit card, that can be very confusing for people. So really getting very clear on your financial situation, is a very important start because until you know what your whole picture looks like, how can you even start to think about dividing things? How can you even start to think about can I afford to stay in the house or what can I afford in terms of whether it's a rental or another home if you don't know what your financial situation looks like? So that may not feel like baby steps for a lot of people. I know that that can feel like a very, very big task start with one thing. Getting clear on where income is coming from, when income is coming in, how much.
Right? And then move on to the next thing. Look at, okay, what are my expenses that come every single month? And if you're not sure, think about how they get paid. Can you go through a bank statement? Can you go through a credit card statement? Review, you know, the last several months and just make a list? It doesn't have to be overly complicated. But the idea is just to give you some clarity around those numbers. Okay?
But just take it one step at a time. Now a lot of people will tell me, well, I don't know what our assets are. I don't know where the retirement accounts are. I don't know where the investment accounts are. Okay. But if you know they exist, write them down. Just write down that you know there is an investment account. Maybe you know it's held at Fidelity or something like that. So that way, Ultimately, you can gather that information. You may not have all the information at your fingertips. That is normal, unfortunately. But through the divorce process, you'll be able to gather the additional information needed to really clarify that financial picture.

Victoria Volk: Do you generally work with one spouse? Or are you finding that you're working with the couple? And then you're an advocate for the couple? Going through that transition.

Leah Hadley: I do both. So sometimes I work as an advocate for one spouse and sometimes I work as a neutral for the couple. I think we do our most productive work when we can work as a neutral because then we're looking at everybody's financial situation. Trying to optimize the marital state for everybody involved. Everybody's getting the same financial information at the same time. And that really helps people to stay on the same page. Everybody is looking at the same projections. So if if you're looking at like a spousal support scenario and finding, okay, you know, I'm I'm thinking I need this much spouse to support, but my my spouse can really only afford that much spouse to support. How do we get to the numbers that are gonna work for everybody? So I really think it's important to work as a financial neutral as much as possible. I realize that sometimes it's just not possible. And we do actually more financial advocacy work for one spouse than we do neutral work, but that neutral work is so valuable.

Victoria Volk: I could see where that would be the best case scenario for, I think, both people going through that process just because for like you said, everyone's on the same page, there isn't this my divorce lawyer versus your divorce lawyer? And do people still have a lawyer on either side as they work with you generally?

Leah Hadley: So that varies. Sometimes we're hired by the client directly. Sometimes we're actually hired by the attorney. One people work in the financial neutral scenario. I like for them each to have a lawyer that they at least consult with. I think it's important that you feel like you have the knowledge to make decisions for yourself through the process. There are options. It's good to have the legal background. And I'm not an attorney. I don't provide legal advice at all. I look at everything through that financial lens. And so for people to really consult and understand what the legal context is in your local area is really important.

Victoria Volk: Who do you think needs to seek support or counsel from someone with your expertise? Like, what are the most pressing scenarios? Or what do you say that.

Leah Hadley: So I find it fascinating who seeks out our services. It tends to be either the spouse who has limited financial knowledge and absolutely knows that they have no idea how they're gonna work through this financial piece, and they know they need the support. But I've mentioned earlier that we work with fair amount of accountants, financial planners, attorneys. And so those folks know what they don't know. And for whatever reason, we don't get a lot in between. So we tend to get those who have limited financial knowledge and absolutely need that support. And those who know exactly what they don't know, and that's why they want to fill in that gap and they know they need to fill in that gap. But I think, you know, it's really important that you do understand the financial decisions that you're making through the divorce process because these decisions don't just impact you in that moment in time. These are financial decisions that are going to impact your lifetime. They it's a weird way to think about it, but for most people, the work is the largest financial transaction they will ever experience. And so not having good financial guidance to make sure you fully understand what are the tax implications of that decision. How are you going to support your cash flow, whatever the, you know, issues may be. You know, you're really selling yourself short. If you're not allowing yourself to have that person who can really help you to navigate these things. There are some very costly mistakes that people make. Because they just don't know any better. And so having that applicant on your side can be really, really powerful. But I would say the people who really have limited financial knowledge it's critical that they have somebody on their team who's helping them understand and helping them to prepare for their next chapter.

Victoria Volk: Excellent advice. It's like we, you know, we have a realtor when we buy a home and we go through all this paperwork and all this processes to do so, and that's a huge financial investment and commitment as well. But like you said, this a divorce can that's a lifetime impact. You know, I know some people that they end up filing for bankruptcy, did they even need to file bankruptcy?

Leah Hadley: Right.

Victoria Volk: You know, but you feel like you're so overwhelmed with the pro I'm just gonna do this and be done with it and move on. And I think that's a lot of what how people maybe approach it and probably one of the approaches that isn't maybe in their best interest for the long term.

Leah Hadley: Yeah. And that is very true. A lot of people just wanna get it done. They just don't wanna take the time to think it through. They just wanna be done with it. It feels difficult, that messy middle where you, you know, know you're getting divorced, but you're not divorced yet. And there's a lot of ambiguity around finances during that period of time. We just wanna get past it. But, yeah, some of those mistakes can be so costly that you're right. They can absolutely lead to bankruptcy or other issues.

Victoria Volk: You talked a lot about communication with your ex husband in that process. And I found on your website that you have a blog post about communication with an ex spouse and navigating all of those conversations that you especially if you have children. Right? You're going to have this ongoing relationship with this person. And it sounds like you and your ex have done a beautiful job of making it not this, you know, pitting one against the other experience for the kids and just making it a family experience that can be as positive as it can be. So what are some recommendations that you have for the communication piece?

Leah Hadley: Well, I think one of the biggest recommendations I have is to be very real with yourself about where you are at personally at this moment in time. Because wherever you are, if you're hurting, if you're angry, and you're not really paying attention to it, it's going to come out in your communication. And so really acknowledging that, like, this is a difficult thing. This is really challenging. And it's okay to have the feelings that you're having. And then we can we can look at this communication as something that is important, something that I need to prioritize. And that I need to set these feelings aside for the moment in order to be able to have clear concise communication. And that is focused on, you know, whatever the outcome needs to be. Right? So if it's related to the children and something going along going on at school, we're not bringing all this baggage that has everything, you know, all these years of arguments and whatever led to the divorce ultimately. Into this conversation about what's going on at school that we're really focused on. Okay. This is what we're communicating about in this moment. And I'm gonna acknowledge that, yes, I have all these other feelings, but I'm gonna set them aside for right now and really focus on what needs to be dealt with. But if you don't acknowledge that, that's where a lot of times we get those, you know, quick responses, especially angry responses, that have nothing to do with what you're actually communicating about in that particular moment. And that's where we were that first year, you know, that first year where we had not kind of cracked this communication code yet. You know, we were very irritable with one another. We were always assuming the worst in one another. Whereas now, we treat each other with a tremendous amount of respect, which, you know, that's the kind of relationship I want my kids to see. Between their parents. I think that's really critical. And we support one another, especially with the kids and making sure that they know that, hey, at the top of the dad's house, you know, I'm gonna there's still gonna be consequences in mom's house because it's not okay. Right? So really truly staying on the same page and and backing each other up in that life.

Victoria Volk: I think that's huge even just when you're married. Hate. I mean, I saw him for it when you're married to pack each other up and be on the same page and know that, you know, the kids can't pick one parent against the other. And well, mom said yes. And, you know, and then especially, it's especially more important when they're in separate. You know, homes of, you know, when the parents are separated or divorced. How much of it do you when you were talking about the anger and stuff. I one thing that came up for me or what I think I especially people that don't have that background knowledge, I imagine that it would be a lot of fear that people are coming into your office with or just fear in general as you go through a divorce, like, how are you gonna support yourself? Like, everything that you've said, I've heard fear in everything that you've said. And so I think just bringing someone in like you who has that background expertise can help to diffuse that fear. Like, okay, I don't know this, but she does. She's the expert. And, you know, feel empowered by that. Having you as that you know, supports you are a support system for somebody going through this. And so I think it's important that people recognize that it's fear really that is probably driving the anger and the emotion and, you know, now you have this huge life transition and what do you do about it? And so let's talk about some other life transitions that you assist people through that may be filled with fear.

Leah Hadley: You know, I assist people with really exciting things, like buying their first house or retiring or having a baby. They all do. These changes. Changes in our life, you are absolutely right. Do bring bring about fear. And so regardless of whether it's something that you really look at as like a positive, I'm excited. This is what I've been working toward. You know, there are a lot of people who go through a very difficult transition when they retire. It can be really hard on somebody, especially if they had much of their identity tied into their work. And now it's like, well, who who am I now that I don't have this this part of me. Right? So certainly, loss of a loved one. You know, that is a huge area where people are so much like, what does life look like? And it's in an instant in some cases. Right? In some cases, there can be more planning, but not in all cases. And so you know, what does this change mean for me? I had a woman one time come into my office and she had lost her husband. He had actually been sick for a while, so I wish he had come in sooner because we could have done some planning, but she hadn't have her name on anything. She didn't have her name on the credit card. She was just an authorized user. She didn't have her name on bank accounts. And, you know, everything wasn't set up to easily transfer over to her. So she goes, Leah, I feel like a two million dollars bag lady. Like, I don't know what to do, and it was just unfortunate because there's so much could have been done that could have made that transition easier. And then when you do have that that kind of a transition, there's so much paperwork involved. And for some people, on a good day paperwork, it's overwhelming. Right? So when you're really going through all these these emotions, paperwork can absolutely just feel like the thing that's gonna take you over. And so walking people through what are the steps that need to happen now? That's a big part of what we do in any transition. Getting really clear on a, b, c, d, e, and knowing that these are the things that need to happen, and this needs to happen before that happens, and that sort of thing. But when people have that concrete guide, that can just be so beneficial because it takes some of this year away. And it's like, alright. Let me just follow follow with the directions here and kinda work through it. But the other big thing when it comes to fear and finances is a lot of people just don't necessarily understand the power of financial planning. You know, when you have a financial plan, it really truly is like your financial guide book. And it makes it very clear, will I have enough money to retire or a wall tie? And if I won't, what changes do I need to make in order to make sure that I do. Right? When people have the financial plan and then they're going through our divorce, you have that plan as that basis. So now you know, this is where we're at. We need to make some adjustments here because obviously there's some big changes but it's so much easier for them to see what those changes mean for them when they had the plan to begin with. Right? They didn't have the plan to begin with. Having that plan especially post a worse to know, hey, what can I really afford to spend? What can I really afford to invest for my future? And those kinds of questions, to make sure that I have that strong financial foundation that I'm building wealth and I'm working toward goals is really so critical for so many people's peace of mind.

Victoria Volk: And what I heard you saying, there's two things. It's not enough to just have a retirement account and just letting it build and letting it do its thing.

Leah Hadley: Right? Right.

Victoria Volk: K. That's that's me. I'll be I'll be the first to admit. I got retirement accounts and they're just doing their thing. So that's mistake number one.
Right? And mistake number two that I heard that I figured out for myself as I heard you was that it's not enough to have just an authorized user on a credit card. Yeah. I did not know that.

Leah Hadley: Mhmm. Yeah. So if you are an authorized user on somebody's credit card and that card is closed. First of all, they can remove you as an authorized user at any time. They have complete and full control over doing that. But let's say that person passes away or something and the account gets closed, you don't have that credit history on your credit report because that wasn't your your account. To begin with. And so you really need to have a credit card in your own name to be building your credit history.

Victoria Volk: Okay. So I'm so in the event of okay. Well, then it to it's my it's to my benefit. Right? Like, if I so for my credit card business credit cards and things like that, husband is an authorized user, but he's not on the accounts.
So in the event of my passing, he's not responsible for the debt that's on those cards. Correct?

Leah Hadley: Not necessarily. Yeah. That's that's not necessarily the case. You know, it it can reconsider the marital debt. Oh. And, yeah, the the state can have to pay off those cards. So that's kind of a gray area.

Victoria Volk: So even if there's cash back, my husband wouldn't be able to get that cash back.

Leah Hadley: That's true.

Victoria Volk: See, it's like, we can still stick them with the debt, but we weren't gonna give them a give them a cash back. Okay. Well, good to know. What are some of the consequences you've seen in working with those who've tried other means or to DIY their way through divorce or other transitions. You know, they come to you maybe desperate. Right? Like, I've tried this and this and this and that didn't work? Like, what are some scenarios that you've seen walk through your door?

Leah Hadley: You know, the biggest thing I see people is not wanting to deal with it. They literally just want to put their head in the sand and not have to deal with any of it. As far as the DIY stuff goes, I see some very big mistakes. Sometimes people kind of DIY through the divorce, and then they may come to me afterwards for support for financial planning or portfolio management, and I look at the agreement that they made and there may be tremendous amount of financial risk in that agreement that they hadn't even thought about. So, for example, you know, spousal support is a big one where if it's not protecting in some way and the payer of spouse's support passes away, all of a sudden there goes your income. Right? So we look at how do you protect these things, whether it's for life insurance policy or or something else. Sometimes people will withdraw funds from retirement accounts, not recognizing that there are other ways to deal with those transfers without having a huge tax burden or penalty associated with it. So I see all kinds of things that people are doing. When they're when they're not necessarily informed in doing things on their own, things that they just don't know any better. Right? But the sooner that you can consult with somebody, the better, and the sooner you can pay attention to this stuff, the better. Like, just don't keep your head in sand because a lot of times when that happens, people are just accruing debt as it relates to paying their lawyers and that kind of a thing. And it's like, well, I'm just gonna kick that can down the road and deal with it later, but you can create a real financial burden for yourself if you're not paid attention.

Victoria Volk: What I see what the dots I'm connecting here is that what you do in one area of life is how you do everything. And so if you are a person who wants to avoid conflict at all cost and confront confronting the things that you don't want to deal with in life and throughout, like, So for example, if there's trouble in your marriage and you just wanna put your head in the sand, you don't wanna talk about it. Right? There's in marriages, there's many things you don't wanna talk about money being one of the big ones. Right? So if you find yourself in your marriage, not talking about money. And I I have people in my life or they don't have those conversations. There's one person like you said in charge of everything and they don't sit down and talk about you know, purchases even. Like, you know, you're gonna see that reflected in a divorce if that's where that relationship goes down the road. Like, So if you're putting your head in the sand now and you're married and you think everything's hunky dory but you're putting your head in the sand eventually that you know, that's how you'll respond when you get faced with challenges too, I think.

Leah Hadley: Well, that's one of the reasons why I see a lot of divorces becoming real contentious is because the one person didn't know necessarily about the financial situation. Now they're learning about it through the divorce process, and they don't trust anything. Because they're just to that point where trust has been completely broken down. And that other spouse may very well be forthcoming with that information and maybe sharing exactly what's going on, they may not be. But how do you know? Right? I mean, we certainly can do analysis to figure out what might be missing, what's not being disclosed, things like that. But just kind of between the two, you know, it can be really difficult to know whether or not that person that can be trusted. So if you come into the divorce process, both being very clear on the current financial situation, you can avoid that whole issue.

Victoria Volk: That is the big takeaway, I think, in this episode today is communication. It comes down to communication. Being open and honest and communicating makes your life a whole lot easier. Alright? Yeah. We're kinda nearing the end of our time together. And I just wanna touch back, though, on what you experienced in your divorce and personally. And what were some of the helpful and unhelpful things that you experience throughout that time. And maybe things that people said to you.

Leah Hadley: You know, one of the things that I think about when I think about divorce it's one of these, it's a huge life change. Right? But through all of the other life changes, there are some kinds of ritual celebration, something that happens. Right? Like, you know, you're having a baby, you have a baby chatter, you're getting married, there's, you know, the whole ceremony reception, what have you. You're going through a divorce, a lot of times it feels like you have to, like, close the curtains and hide and not necessarily say anything about what's going on. And for some people had a divorce goes on for years. I was fortunate that, you know, ours was probably six months or something in that range, so it wasn't, you know, real long. But It's a period of time where it's hard to talk about what's going on. You know, I think a lot of people struggle with feelings of failure you're grieving all of the loss of all of what you've dreamed about together. Right? You know, you have this image of what you thought your life was going to be. Not to mention this person who, you know, thought was going to be your life partner. So there's a lot going on during that period of time For me, the most important thing was somebody just being there, just listening. I didn't want anybody saying anything bad about my ex husband. That's not I wasn't in that space of wanting to hear that. I just wanted to know that I wasn't alone that even though I felt like I had to shut the the curtains and kinda hide out, that that there was somebody else in there with me, so to speak. Right? That was really, really important to me. There are things that were awkward, like when I first got divorced, I had kept my ex husband's name. When I remarried, I changed my name. But his his last name is one that people asked about a lot. And so every time I had this conversation with somebody, I had to beep, like, awkward and, oh, that's my ex husband's last name. And I didn't necessarily want somebody I had just met and I didn't wanna be talking about my ex husband. Right? And so divorce was really very normal. It is very it happens a lot. And so I think normalizing it is really, really important. I've said before, I was so fortunate in that I was supported by my community. I didn't feel a lot of rejection around the divorce itself. I was just struggling with the changes in my life, but I know for a lot of people there is this whole other element that makes it even more complicated and more difficult. Right? And so just you know, having people who are there can take some of the pressure off you even, you know, for me, my kids were young, taking them for a little bit of time. So I would have a break, you know, my mom taking them overnight sometimes. So I would have space, you know, just being able to have time to spend with friends and not have to worry about what's going on with the kids. I could not afford babysitters when I was first going through my divorce and, you know, had all those expenses right away, but people were also so generous in, like, giving me clothes that their kids set out brown or you know, giving us toys or, you know, things like that that are just let me just make your life a little bit easier. I know you're going through a difficult time Let me just do something. Right? All of that stuff was so so meaningful to me and just helped that transition so much.

Victoria Volk: Do you see more women coming to you or particularly maybe men that I think there's this I think there's this idea that men should know what to do financially and things like that, but that's always that's not always the case where they're the ones that who were in charge of the finances or were involved with the finances. So is it kind of a mixed bag, or do you see one more versus the other?

Leah Hadley: I definitely see more women. But I also have men who reach out as well. You know, a lot of times in relationships nowadays, one of the spouse's teachers responsibility for the finances, but it's not always the man. Sometimes it is the woman who takes responsibility for the finances. But it's also not always the person who wasn't involved in the finances that reaches out. You know, I mentioned before a lot of times it really is that person who knows that their knowledge is limited. So they have enough knowledge to know that they need support. But it's it's both genders. I see more men reaching out for financial neutral service than I do, women, but that's just kind of how our practice is. I don't know if that's overall.

Victoria Volk: I was looking at your website and I saw that you have some resource is on there, and you have a resource resource toolkit. Can you speak a little bit about what that includes and what someone can find coming to your website and maybe that's their baby step.

Leah Hadley: Yeah. There's a lot in the toolkit. It's a really valuable bundle of resources There's everything from ebooks around parenting and negotiation skills to a financial clarity kit, which is a series of videos that walks you through the steps that I was talking about before where you really get clear on your income, get clear on your expenses, your assets, and your liability. It's So there are a variety of resources that are really all about helping you to get super organized and prepared for the divorce process. The more organized you are, the more you will save on legal expenses. One of the reasons that legal bills go up is just because of that lack of organization and people don't even think about it. But going back and forth with attorneys about documents and things like that, it's just unnecessary in a lot of cases. You get everything organized, provide it to them all at once, make sure they have everything they need. That can actually save you quite a bit

Victoria Volk: of money. Wow. I actually know of some people I'm going to share that resource with that are going through a divorce and You also have the podcast intentional divorce insights as well, and that's weekly. Correct.

Leah Hadley: Yeah. Yeah. We just launched that this year. We've had some wonderful wonderful guests on the podcast, and I definitely encourage anybody who really wants to be empowered through the divorce process, not to feel like I'm just a victim of the process or I'm giving my power away to my attorney. But people who really want to be educated and empowered through the process to check out that podcast and great resources on there.

Victoria Volk: Howard Bauchner: And you say the word empowered, and I mentioned that earlier, that I think just having you in in someone's corner is empowering. Right? Yeah. Because you don't know what you don't know. Right.
So even if you don't know, you have someone that does.

Leah Hadley: That's right. That's right.

Victoria Volk: That's empowering. Is there anything else that you would like to share that you didn't feel you got to mention,

Leah Hadley: just that you get through it. You know, it's a difficult time. There's a lot of emotion. There's a lot of financial change. But the beauty of the work that I do is I often am working with people on ongoing financial planning and investment management post divorce. And I get to see you know, how their life changes. In a lot of cases, you know, they're meeting their next person or, you know, starting a job or a business that they love or whatever that next chapter looks like for them, I just get to see so many wonderful things taking place. And if you allow yourself to really look at it, as like being your time to really take ownership over your life and, you know, really be in alignment with what's important to you and your values. It can really be a beautiful next chapter. It's just getting through that messy middle.

Victoria Volk: About how long do you generally work with a person, an individual, or a couple through the process?

Leah Hadley: So through the divorce, it just depends on the divorce itself. You know, it could be anywhere from three months to three years, really. But ongoing, you know, we work with people through their lifetime. So

Victoria Volk: And do you is it chart, like, a charge, like, per session? Or do you have packages? Like, how do you set up that that work environment for people.

Leah Hadley: Yeah. So on the divorce side of the business, we try to do as much as we can on a flat fee basis. Based on financial complexity. That's because, you know, we want people to ask us questions. A lot of times, people won't faster or surety questions because they're worried about the bill. And so we really try to structure it that way. In terms of the investment management financial planning that we do ongoing basis. That is also on a flat fee for financial planning or a percentage of the assets that we manage, for portfolio manage.

Victoria Volk: Awesome. Well, I have learned a lot today, and I thank you for your time and your personal story and experience of what brought you to the work you're doing today. And I I I always say this, but I think ninety nine point nine percent of the guests I have in my podcast, they're doing what they do today because of their past experience. It's, you know, we find our purpose through our pain often. And so I'm glad that you have phoned yourself in this situation to be of service to others in this way. I'm, you know, unfortunately, you had to go through some difficult times to get there, but I think I think anybody who's been through a challenging time or a really hard transition eventually. We look back and like, oh, man, that sucked, but it sure really helped build my resilience and empower me to be who I am today. And I think that's the message I want people to take away from today's podcast is, one, plan ahead. Two, you're not a failure. It's it's learning. Right? You're always learning. And three, it's this is temporary. Right? There's hope. Absolutely. And your corner.

Leah Hadley: Well, thank you so much for the opportunity to be here with you. It was really my pleasure.

Victoria Volk: Thank you. And I will put links to your resources in the show notes. Again, divorce resource toolkit. Get your hands on it. Share it with someone you love who's going through this that really could use some empowering information, you know, some baby steps. Information at least. So thank you again. And when remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.