Overcoming Divorce and Job Loss: A Man's Guide to Rebuilding Life After 40 || DPTSP #084 || David and Jon Emery

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Don't Pick the Scab Podcast, the podcast that dives into and presents special guests with special powers. Today we have Jon Emery, divorced two kids, lost his job, so he has navigated some tough times just like the rest of us. Interesting enough, podcasting opened up his life and he was able to find himself sharing his journey on his show, eventually creating a community and a course on podcasting, which podcasting does let you heal a little bit, I have to agree.

[00:00:28] His views on personal development and the pursuit of success can definitely help my men over 40 recovering from divorce. Welcome, Jon, to the show and tell us a little about you, Jon. I got a couple questions for you.

[00:00:53] Welcome to the Don't Pick the Scab Podcast with the premise of connecting men over 40 with the tools and community to thrive in their divorce recovery either before, during or after a divorce.

[00:01:07] Jon Emery, MD Sure. Great. David, first, I got to say thank you for having me with you. I'm excited to share whatever value I can bring to you and your audience. And as you said a little bit about myself, I am a single father. I have two children that are currently 15 and 12. And I navigated through the whole divorce thing. And we can dive into wherever you want to take this. So I'll let you take the lead.

[00:01:29] Jon Emery There's so many entry points to this highway. What was a turning point for you when you realized you needed to make a change in your life after losing your job and facing divorce? Jon Emery Turning point. Jon Emery Yeah. When did you say, hey, I got to pick myself up. Let's get after it. Jon Emery Yeah. So that's a great question. And I'll just probably be a little lengthy of an answer for you. Jon Emery Yeah. So I lost my job after 20 years. And I was like, okay, I don't know where I'm going to go. I don't know what I'm doing.

[00:01:58] Jon Emery So first it was like a loss, right? And then I opened up my eyes and looked at it as an opportunity. Jon Emery I can explore, do something I'd never done before. And the podcast, it wasn't it yet, but it allowed me to go ahead and try something different. Jon Emery So I jumped into life insurance commission-based, never had that. It's totally different. Jon Emery And it got me to, it was May I lost my job. And then January in that same year, I closed on my first client, which was great.

[00:02:27] Jon Emery I dove into YouTube a little bit, made some videos and stuff about it. And that's what led me to get me to where I am a little bit today. Jon Emery But January, things were a little rough at home or so. Jon Emery I thought is when it was just starting, but maybe it just took time for me to catch up with what was happening in the background. Jon Emery And so funny enough, I was listening to a podcast and I don't know if you know this one or not. It's called Dad's Edge.

[00:02:56] It's pretty popular, I think, on the men's side. I listened to it years ago about I wanted to improve as a father, right? And show up differently for my kids. For whatever reason, I listened to it in January of that year. Jon Emery It was about men, marriage, whatever. I forget the episode. So I joined their program that they had. So they had all these different Zooms, all these men could jump on.

[00:03:22] I did not jump on any of them because I didn't know what was going on at the house at the time. But what I did do was I connected with four of the five men that I can remember. And it was like a lifeline, right? Every little thing that happens through divorce is going to pick at you and you're going to wonder, what is this? What behavior is this? What's going on? And it's going to drive you nuts. And that's what it did for me. So when I hit those points where I didn't know what was going on, I text them.

[00:03:52] I would call somebody and it might not be the same person every time, but it was enough to allow me to breathe and keep going forward. No matter what the situation was. That led me, one of them I would consider like a coach. And so he had a masculinity course that he started in May. So full year. And so I'm like, all right, I don't know what this is. And masculinity, feminine, I never dove into any of that. This is all new language for me.

[00:04:22] And so I took it. It was four weeks. It was me and another guy and him. And I'll be honest with you, the first two weeks I was like bawling like crazy just because I was a mess at home. And men, listen to this. You need to hear this. This is the truth. This is what happens, right? You have to let it out. If you hold this stuff inside of you, you're going to eat yourself up.

[00:04:44] And not only reaching out to these men to take on and listen to you and give you advice and stuff, but you need to let your emotions out. Not in the anger way, but if you're upset, so just cry, let it go. So the first two weeks I was a mess. He told me that as far as emotional, right? And we're talking about communication and all that stuff. And then the next two weeks I was calm, settled down.

[00:05:09] And I don't know what the shift really was, but it was May of, it was a full circle of May. She mentioned divorce at the table. And at the time I was just like, okay, I was done. It was nothing I ever wanted in my whole life. My whole dad's side was divorced and I always told myself it was never going to happen to me. So I held on to it as long as I could. Unfortunately, she left me emotionally already somewhere along the way and who knows anything else.

[00:05:39] But I just had to let it go. And I don't know if I would have been able to do that if it wasn't for connecting with these men and maybe taking a course and getting to know these guys a little deeper. Because I was never at that point. I lost 20 pounds. I couldn't sleep through January and May. I was a nervous wreck. Like I said, behavior change. There was times when somebody came home 2.30 in the morning that never was like that before and other things.

[00:06:09] That was like my turning point. And then so when I said, okay, or those words, I was agreeing with it. I had to look at myself and be prepared that I could take this on. Like life by myself and two kids. Because I was with their mother for about 15 years of marriage. And basically from 19 to what I am until about 40s when the word divorce came up to me. So it's been a long time.

[00:06:39] But I had to prepare myself and be ready that I could take on this life by myself with these two kids when I have them. And so I had to work on myself emotionally and mentally is what I focused on first. That's a... I know that was pretty long there, but... No, that's cool. So the two things I heard was community and self-care. And that's the two things that men suck at it. I mean, we suck at it big time.

[00:07:06] How did you incorporate your co-parenting with that? Because that's a tough one because you have to focus. You've got to be focused. They didn't ask for this. They are collateral damage. How did you pick yourself up by your bootstraps and focus to raise those two kids? Great question. So I'm going to say I suck at co-parenting. Yeah. I'll be honest with you because there was... I was all about being loyal and something else shifted somewhere else. And that was a no for me.

[00:07:35] And so that's enough for me to be like, I'm disconnected. Now, when it comes to the kids, there's an emergency. There's something like that. I'm all over it. But if it's like the little stuff with school, it's through text. I don't call. There's no interactions whatsoever, voice or anything, unless we have to make a point across. You're not hearing me through text because the text doesn't do much of anything but scheduling pretty much. That's basically where I left it.

[00:08:03] And there's times when somebody wants to take control and you have to just like, hey, it's on the back burner. You're not my life anymore. There is no control. Yes, we have these kids to focus on. And that's all I'm focusing on. You're not controlling me in any way. Or I felt it was somebody trying to control me in certain areas. But yeah, I know there's people that can work it out. They can be friends. That just blows my mind. Seriously. Those people, kudos to you guys.

[00:08:33] Kudos. But in my case, in your case, it wasn't available. So you have to do the best you can. Yeah. I can't. It's just not. It's not in me. Yeah. Yeah. And that's okay. Co-parenting. Being a single co-parent is not bad. And I tell people that, so we did the 50-50 chains on Sunday, week on, week off. And I fought for that. And that's what's going on in a lot of places now.

[00:09:01] And when they left, I didn't want to turn into the jack-in-the-box dad, where you shut down, but you still have to live your life too. And a lot of guys don't realize that. But then on the flip side, I felt really bad because after about six months, nine months in, I couldn't wait for those guys to leave. Because you're on, on. And so some of the other co-parent dads would tell me, don't feel bad because you're being 100% on for a week. And then you shut down for a week. That's what happens.

[00:09:31] So yeah, it's, it was very interesting being a co-parent and it was a learning process. And I want to tell the guys out there, there's no manual. It's like raising kids, raised with two people. You still suck at it. So you're going to suck a little bit raising one, one, one parent rather. How did podcast become such a transformative tool in your life? And what surprised you the most about sharing your story and listening to other stories through podcasting? Yeah.

[00:10:01] So it's opened up my life so much. I've been doing it for about two years and five months right now. So it wasn't like immediately right after everything. Got to the, so for me to get started, I went to an event by myself. It was like all new. Now I'm not married or whatever. So I'm doing different things and set a breakfast table with a guy, maybe seven men. One guy was left. He said, what do you want to do on it? And I said, just start a podcast. And at the time, I remember I was doing Facebook lives like a year or two ago with the whole insurance kind of deal.

[00:10:30] So he said, I just stripped the audio from that, start that. I said, but that's not my podcast that I want to create. And it wasn't. Six months later, I stripped the audio. I put those 10 up there and I told everybody in episode zero, hey, after these 10, this is what the podcast is about. If I didn't do that, I don't know if I would have started. It got me to the point where I was able to create a backlog of getting guests and stuff and it got the ball rolling. I didn't do it to create an audience. I didn't do it to monetize.

[00:11:00] I just created it to learn how other people experience things in their life, no matter what it is. And I had so many different walks of life. So for them to come on and share with me whatever conversation we can have within 30 to 45 minutes, it's amazing, right? To connect with these people all around the world. The one furthest away from me is from Tasmania. Like it's literally around the world.

[00:11:27] And so to hear what they do and how they experience life, it allows me to not only share with the other people that are listening, but I get to absorb that. And you get to absorb this conversation right here. You can take whatever you want from this conversation, apply it to your life now or later on. And so these people have been giving me all this positive, all the positive.

[00:11:54] I don't want to say negative because they went through all that transformation and now they're sharing all this positive information to me and I can allow that to come into my life. And I could share that with my kids, my friends, family, whatever I want to do. It has impacted me a lot that I'm still going. I would have never even thought of being where I am today, podcasting. I just did one before you and I jumped on here and he was on my show.

[00:12:21] Now I'm sorry, I was on his show and now he was on mine tonight. And so we were able to exchange the conversation again and we dug up networking and now he's, hey, if you need guests or whatever. Right. So that's what it's all about is just communicating with people. And just David, I found you through a site, right? I'm like, you're doing a divorce like 40 and up. I'm like, perfect. Let's go. This is one of the areas I could share my life in.

[00:12:51] And so I'm glad to be here to do that. Oh, yeah. The one thing I like about podcasting is, and you can't explain to people until you podcast, there's a certain high you get after a show. Know what I mean? There is. Yeah. And I can't even explain it, but there was a high that kind of starts because you don't know each other. Right. And then you become one. And at the end, you're like bros, man. It's yes, dude, that was awesome.

[00:13:15] But I was going to say that this out of my 280 podcast, I'm an old guy now. There was that one though. And I had one where I had to pull the stuff out of this guy. And it was a horrible interview. And I put it on because I said, I am not letting this guy not let me put this episode on here. I put it on there and I put a disclaimer on it. I said, hey, this show sucks, but I'm putting it on. But only one out of 280. So that's not bad. Yeah.

[00:13:45] What steps did you take to rediscover your identity after the divorce and job loss? I had a hard time with identity. Yeah, that's a great question. And so I had to become more authentic and be myself. Like I mentioned, I started with myself mentally and emotionally. I put emotionally in there because you have to work on that. So I didn't want to get angry at the kids because it was not their problem. I was angry at anybody. I just had to accept everything for what it was.

[00:14:12] I started a morning routine, which I still carry on today. I added a few things along the way where I'm listening to something motivational on YouTube or a podcast in the morning. Now I'm praying. I wound up going to church about two years ago, which was new for me. That was nothing I ever really did in the past. The other stuff I would do is write what I'm grateful for. I write three things every morning that I'm grateful for. Mindfulness. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was a slow process.

[00:14:40] So I added a few things here as I go. And like I said with the podcast and reading books and stuff, you learn things. And you go like, all right, let me try that. That might work for me. So I did that. And then the next area of my life, I wanted to work on myself physically. I had all this time. The kids aren't with me. I don't want to just sit around the house and do nothing. I got all this gym equipment given to me like years ago. And I just never spent the time to do it.

[00:15:09] I had the family, the kids, the work. I'm like, okay, let me hit the gym in the basement. So I do. I was doing it like five days a week, nonstop. And I read a book. I think I know what I'm doing. I got results, but I didn't get the ones I want. So I hired a fitness trainer eventually. And it's been about two years now since I signed him up. Now we're friends and everything and podcasting and all that stuff. But it got me to where I am today. So he shredded me from 160 to 140.

[00:15:37] I'm like, dude, this is not where I want to be. He's like, we'll get you here. And then we'll get you back. We'll get you to where you would like to be. And so now I'm a comfortable 160. I have muscle and stuff. And so I feel pretty good. But yeah, to lose all that in three months, I think it was crazy. But it built a routine. It built me exercise routine. And also with eating and stuff, watching what I eat and tracking things. And it's not just there, but you carry that over in all the other areas of your life.

[00:16:06] So after that, I started to go into church, the spirituality for whatever reason. I was waking up and saying thank you in the morning every day for a while. That took a long time to do too. That was from another podcast. Somebody said it. I'm like, let me try this out. Because you got to be grateful and be thankful that you're alive. You get to wake up. I get to talk to you, David, to share my information with you and others that are listening. You're watching this. And so I'm thankful.

[00:16:34] And then for whatever reason, the word God came out of my mouth a couple times after that. Thank you, God. Right. And so that led me into what is this all about? So I reached out to a friend. He goes to church. He said, maybe just curious. He didn't pressure anything whatsoever. I'll have to share the Bible with you when I find it. But he's by this Bible. It's about a father sharing the information with their children. And so I bought it. It's not in print anymore.

[00:17:04] It was on eBay. I had to buy it. But it's a great Bible. And it's all in English. And so I can understand it. That led me there. That was my area. And then the relationships is another area. I would consider that with the podcasting, friends stuff. I'm growing. You're networking. Going to events. And the last one I'm working on now is my business and finances. This is the areas I focused on. And the lane. Yeah, I say lane. But it's just how I set them up. That was my structure.

[00:17:34] The one, one, one, one. And I don't want to say I'm perfect in every area. So I can go back and fix things. But I got to a point where I felt pretty good. And I still feel pretty good in this area. And now I know I can focus on this one area. So again, you focus on yourself emotionally and mentally. And you can carry that. And if you're going to lose in some other area, if you have that, then you can take on the brunt of the force that's coming at you. And that allowed me to go ahead and work on myself physically.

[00:18:02] That allowed me to keep pushing myself and say, I got this. Same with podcasting. Same with everything else that I'm talking about. You just keep pushing forward. There's going to be times that you're going to feel like you're not enough. And I'm saying this as a father that's divorced. You're going to feel like you're not enough. But you are. And you have to keep telling yourself that. Even when the whole world might look at you and say, why are you where you are?

[00:18:32] You should be struggling. You should be better. You should become better. Yeah. You should work on yourself. Become better. Because you deserve to be better. So I want you to understand whoever is watching and listening to this. Give it your all. Don't just sit at the house. I believe that you are meant to be better than where you are today. And now you have the space, this opportunity to take that. Don't let it be taken for granted.

[00:19:00] If you have time right now because you don't have the kids for whatever reason, do it. Find that side hustle. Find those people to go hang out with. There's a reason why you are where you are today, even though it's hard to look at it as an opportunity in a way. Especially if you just start now. Divorce process and everything. Something that was told to me is, and I'm sure maybe you've heard this too, was it happens for you, not to you.

[00:19:30] And it took a while for me to lean on that one as well. So all this happened for me to become who I am today. David, I would not be sitting with you four years ago on a podcast. I'd probably be still working at where I was if they didn't shut down or getting another full-time job to make ends meet or whatever and be stuck in the rat race forever.

[00:19:53] So if you can open up your eyes with whatever challenges you have and look at things as an opportunity, then take it. What about the F word? What about the F word? Forgiveness. Forgiveness. Woo-hoo! There we go, baby! There we go! Let me tell you my forgiveness story. Sure. I was on the border with my divorce recovery peeps just hanging out one day. I think I've been divorced maybe two years. And it just hit me.

[00:20:21] I was sitting there having a margarita, and it hit me. So I text. I said, I forgive you. Wait. Wait. I forgive you. No reason for a text back. Man, she blew up my phone for a month. What do you mean? What do you mean? I finally let it go. But it just came over me. And yeah, so that's my forgiveness story, man. Just all of a sudden, I was on the border hanging out having margaritas. Pow. Yeah.

[00:20:51] What do you got for me? I have nothing for you. I did not text. I did not say. It is. I just allow things to be for what they are. Yeah. And that's okay, too. They say forgiveness is for you, not for the other person. And you don't want them to take up parking spaces in your brain. That's the way I see it. But yeah, a lot of people can't get past that. Even when they say it is what it is, they can't let it go.

[00:21:19] For example, a lot of my men have a hard time with letting go of not being able to control what happens at the ex's house. That's huge for men. And that's some things that they have a hard time working through. But once you let that go, there's a certain piece that doesn't occupy your brain. Yeah. To touch on that one a little bit, when there's another man around the kids, that's hard. As a father?

[00:21:47] I've never experienced that, but I hear it's very hard. Yeah. All right. So there's that thing inside of me like, you better watch it because if something happens, something's happening. Right? I say that, whatever. But that's tough, right? And for me, it wasn't immediately, but it wasn't too far thereafter the divorce part happened.

[00:22:14] And so that was a challenge in my head. I had to work on that myself. Yes, I have that father instinct inside of me, but I have to let it cool down. And if something really does happen, then yeah, then there's problems. But still, I have to trust and understand it and communicate with the kids. Look, you can come to me with anything. I don't care what it is.

[00:22:42] And we can figure whatever it is out. Whether it's there or school or whatever. It's life. Let's talk about life. Let's communicate more. Talk. And we can work on deeper conversations. And that's another great thing to talk about is communicating and connecting with other people. Not just the kids, but everything. We talk about relationships. That's where I'm at. The next person is, hey, let's go on a deeper level. I want to be in there, in the zone.

[00:23:09] Not how was your day every day, but how can I serve and be better for you? Stuff like that. So many deep questions to come up with things. And those are the ones you can touch base with your kids sometimes. Now, they are young and they're probably not going to dive into everything right away, but give it a shot. Plus, you're almost at that point where they don't like you. So you're almost there. Exactly. Yeah. You're almost there, man. I'm a busy dad. I've got friends, dad. No. Yeah, exactly. Leave me alone.

[00:23:39] Yeah. Oh, yeah. So it's almost like a bell curve. So let's comment. What steps? Oh, I did that one. How can you define success now? And how has that definition changed since your challenges you faced over the past couple of years? My success now is just becoming the best version I can be for myself in all areas. Just like the areas I just mentioned to you. I just want to keep on growing, serving others, and just give it my all. Podcasting has opened up my world for me.

[00:24:07] I was able to speak on a stage last month for the first time. I was able to host my own event the weekend thereafter with five other podcasters. And I drug my kids with me. It wasn't a big event, but it was fun and successful. And they were able to hear what these other people have to say about podcasting. That's my dad. That's my dad. Right. And that's cool.

[00:24:32] And so if I can create this and experience it, I want them to be with me as well, wherever I can take them. So that's the success I feel I'm having today. And if I create this podcast, I put it on YouTube, I create clips and stuff, whether they watch it now or 15 years later in the future, they can still look back and go, okay, this is what he did. This is who he spoke with. These are the notes that was taken, whatever. And so if you want to look at it as like a legacy or whatever, in that sense, that's great.

[00:25:01] But for me, I don't want to quit on anything that I'm doing in life. And that would show up for them to not quit. You can pivot. You can change things, but don't quit. My definition of success is when I'm on this podcast now, I put it on YouTube, I put it on audio, and one person gets something out of it, then I've done my job. That's right. That's my success. Yeah. That's great. I reach one person that I'm elated.

[00:25:31] Yeah. Someone reaches back and say, hey, man, that was a great podcast. What? Yeah. Can you tell us about a particular memorable guest or story that deeply resonated with you and your journey in any of your podcasts? Yeah. I'm going to share with Anna Schmidt. She's the one from Tasmania. Okay. So a little bit about her. She's in my community too. And she does paranormal activity.

[00:25:56] Now, it's not like what you think, go chasing ghosts and stuff, but she's all about getting rid of bad energy in the houses. Okay. And so why am I bringing up this? Like it's completely off the wall. Well, I'm sharing this because she came on my podcast and she was talking about how she helps others in other countries. So she might help somebody in the U.S. through Zoom to get rid of energy in their house. And I'm like, what? Like that doesn't make sense to me, right?

[00:26:25] So she dissects the house, gets the, I don't know, the land surveys or whatever she does online, right? Tries to figure out everything and the past of the house and whatever could be lurking. And so she was able to express to me how she can do this through Zoom because energy carries through here.

[00:26:47] Now, if it wasn't for her, I probably would never even have thought of this, but we are having energy exchanging through us having this podcast right now. And there's a lot of going back and forth. And this is how you and I are getting along and having a good time right now sharing all this valuable information. And that was like a turning point for me when she came on and shared that because then it allowed me to not, I could look forward and I could look backwards and be, and I agree with her. And that opened up my eyes a lot.

[00:27:17] So now I don't know about you, but I would, I jump on 20 minute calls before I even schedule a podcast episode with people. So I get to build a relationship with them, whether it's a good fit or not. Yeah. So that's what I do. Yeah. And that was, that's one of them I could think off the top of my head of what changed how I look at things. Every podcast, I learned something except for the one, of course, every single podcast, I learned something.

[00:27:46] And it's almost to the point where I go through the show notes and I'll hit the important points. That's when it's, man, that sounds great. One of the podcasts I did was with a lawyer out of Florida. I can't think of his name, but he was talking about co-parenting and BIF and the communication is brief, informative, friendly, and firm. I was like, where the hell were you years ago when I needed you? Oh my God. Oh my God.

[00:28:15] It makes so, it's so simplistic, so simplistically simple. And so 99.9% of podcasts, I learned something and it's a great time. It's so much fun. I pivoted. You were talking about pivoting. I pivoted this season with live people. Like, I got my mailman coming Thursday. We're going to talk about his divorce. And so I'm talking to real people about real divorce.

[00:28:42] And it's interesting is because my friends and your friends, they always say, I don't have much to say, but you cannot get them to shut up. That's right. Oh my gosh. You've seen it. They start talking and next thing you know, it's 40 minutes. It's just, dude, we got to stop. No. Yeah. Friends and family on is very interesting. What's some of the problems that you found with podcasting?

[00:29:11] What are some of the speed bumps, as I would say? Yeah. So for me in the beginning, it was getting guests. So you're hitting that wall. Who's going to jump on? And so I had to figure out, first of all, I had to figure out a whole calendar. I never used Google calendar. Now it's, I live off of it. And so that helped me. Since then, a lot's changed where now I use a CRM. So I'm able to connect with everybody in there. I create a newsletter now. So I email everybody that. And then it's getting the word out.

[00:29:39] Like you said, my mission is also to reach that one person that needs to hear about it. And that's all I was focusing on. And that's still what I'm focusing on with my podcast today. Because we want to change the world with one person at a time, at least. And so the other speed bumps, I guess, would be is, for example, I had two calls tonight that were interested in just talking about being on the podcast. And neither one showed up. So not that I need them, but they didn't reach out. It's rubbed you the wrong way kind of deal.

[00:30:09] Okay. Maybe it's not worth it. There's a reason some things happen. And so not only didn't they show up, but it also allowed me to get other things done. So that's how I look at it. And I don't know about you, but I give everybody five minutes. If they're not on, I'm out. And if they come on later, then I'm like, I waited five minutes. We can reschedule if you want to. It's your podcast. If you want to treat it like a business, go ahead and run it the way you want to run it.

[00:30:37] If you had that bad person on that was a guest, you don't have to air it. It's your choice. I'm glad you did. I had to earn it. Yeah, and if I had a bad one, I would say the same thing too. Because I never, I don't know. There might be somebody on the other side that needs to hear whatever that person had to say. No, it was. Yeah. Go on. Talk to me, please. That is so tough. I get a lot like what you were sharing and how people just don't stop talking.

[00:31:07] They let everything out. And I don't have a problem with that. Some people say, oh, I'm sorry. I talk too much. I'm like, look, I bring this as a platform for you to share your journey. And I feel like the people on the other side need to hear what you have to say, not what I have to keep asking and say back to you. I'll write down questions if I have to along the way, and we'll get to them if we have time to get to them. That's how I look at it. So I leave it open on that. I had 20 questions for you. We got the five. Oops.

[00:31:37] Fine. That's a former podcast. So we're okay. Hey, we're about 30-something minutes in, and I appreciate your time, John. I know you're a busy guy. We'll have to do this again. I think we should just scratch the surface. Like most of my podcasts, they turn out fun, and they don't go off the rails, but it goes sideways, which is totally okay by me. I don't mind at all. But we'll definitely have to revisit this and go from there. But I appreciate you taking the time and hanging out with us. Yeah, you're welcome.

[00:32:07] Thank you for having me. So hold on the line. You're welcome.