Scott Ð 00:00 Ð 00:33
Welcome to Dream Big with Big Dreamers. Conversations for Career growth, inspiration and insight.
Hosted by Donna Serdula and yours truly, Scott Jones, hear the inspiring stories that shape the
careers of top executives, entrepreneurs and professionals. These empowering discussions offer
guidance and advice as you advance in your career. It's time to Dream Big.
Donna Ð 00:34
Hey there, Scott.
Scott Ð 00:35
Donna, how are you doing today?
Donna Ð 00:38
I'm doing great. I'm doing really, really well. I'm looking forward to our guest today.
Scott Ð 00:44
I am as well. I'll tell you, I'm so in the mood to do this conversation because I have just came out of clubhouse and as you know, I am spending way too much time, an inordinate amount of time.
Donna Ð 00:56
And I know this because you invited me. And now I get notifications at all hours that Scott is in clubhouse. 
Scott Ð 01:02 Ð 02:13
Ah. Oh, gosh. I'm not sleeping some nights because I have a lot of friends that are in different times and it's either a West Coast or in the UK or something. And they're in these late-night rooms. And I was in a room today, which is itÕs 51st days in existence. It's called Dishwasher Diaries. And the guy that runs it, Steve Cron, he's a lawyer and film producer. And it's been a Supreme Court clerk. And every day, if you're new, we talk about all sorts of things. But if you're a new member, you get interviewed about your dishwasher habits and how you learn the dishwasher.
And oftentimes it gets into people's marriages. There was a Rabbi on there and we were actually basically doing marriage counseling because his wife just piles the dishes, piles and piles them in, and then uses the dishwasher as a cupboard. So basically, the dishes never get put in. The Rabbi was like, well, it's okay with the plates. But then when you get to the flatware it's like pick up sticks and itÕs so dishwasher diaries. And then I go into later. After this, I'll go into the afternoon tea room that my friend Roy Field runs.
Donna Ð 02:14
do you need to have a Cup of tea? When you enter the tea room.
Scott Ð 02:18 Ð 2:41
You should. You should. You should. And to get inducted, you have to be asked. You're asked, how do you take your tea? And then there are two rules and somebody has to read the rules. The one rule is you do not say the word coffee. And the second rule is you can't say the team Chelsea, the football club.
Donna Ð 02:42
Which would be easy for most Americans.
Scott Ð 02:43 Ð 03:01
For most Americans, not a problem. But if you do one of these things, you will be removed from the stage. So, this is what my life has become. I'm in the Big Apple right now, and I'm spending my days on club house. So, this is the thing that so interventions are Welcome. If you know a good therapist.
Donna Ð 03:02
We may have to do an extraction. We'll see. We shall see. But you know what if maybe we really need a mediator to come in.
Scott Ð 03:13
Super segue
Donna Ð 03:14 Ð 03:54
I was going to say I'm pretty impressed with that segue. We have a fabulous guest today, a podcaster in her in her own right name is Susan Guthrie. Shall I read her bio?
You know what? Susan is one of the leading family law attorneys and mediators in the country. She's a creator, an award-winning host on divorce and be on podcast and learn to mediate online podcast. Susan, thank you so much for coming.
Susan Ð 03:55
I'm so happy to be here, and I hate hearing my bio. So, thank you for sort of jumping over that.
Donna Ð 04:05
Really quick question, Are you on club house?
Susan Ð 04:06
I am. I hate to say this, Scott, but I hate Club House. I'm sorry.
Scott Ð 04:07-04:32
I was having, like, a long-distance love affair in my head because of your love for microphones and all things podcasting. And so, I had this fantasy image of you built up and you just crushed it by telling me you don't love club house. What don't you like about it?
Susan Ð 04:33 Ð 05:19
You know, I think part of my problem is every time I go on it's because I've been invited to a room to talk about divorce, and I talk about divorce all day, every day, and have done that for 30 plus years. So maybe if I hopped into rooms that we're talking about tea or dishwasher, loading dishwashers. Although as a divorce attorney, I've heard more stories about loading of dishwashers, as you reference, than I care to think about. So that might not be the right room for me.
It'll bring back past traumas of grounds for divorce because she never puts the glasses in properly or something like that.
Donna Ð 05:20
What's the worst thing that you heard that contributed to a divorce?
Scott Ð 05:24
Washer related? Dishwasher related.
Susan Ð 05:27 Ð 05:44
Dishwasher related is usually not putting stuff in the sink rather than putting it in the dishwasher. I've heard that complaint over and over again, but the biggest fight isn't so much about loading the dishwasher. It's what you just said is they never unloading the dishwasher.
Scott Ð 05:45
This is not a cupboard.
Susan Ð 05:47
Yeah, it is not.
Scott Ð 05:49 Ð 06:12
It is not a covered. And these kinds of things are barbaric. I mean, I find this is what separates us from the Barbarian hoards at the gates. I mean, that would be to me. I'm no expert in the field of divorce, but that, to me, sounds like acceptable grounds. If I were a judge and somebody said that my spouse, male or female, it's not sexist. The spouse who is responsible for managing the dishwasher is using it as storage. That would be grounds for divorce.
Donna - 06:13 Ð 06:35
So, there's a functional use for a dishwasher. It's not storage. It performs a very important duty. But I will say this. I had my stepdaughters over the other day and they were helping me load the dishwasher. Amzing! Thank you! They put a wine glass in the bottom next to a sauce pan. And I was like, get out of my kitchen right now.
Scott Ð 06:36 Ð 06:44
The stem that you're asking for the stem to be broken. I mean, you're asking for things to be broken. I mean, this is insane.
Donna Ð 06:45 Ð 06:55
If there are rules about dishwasher etiquette, and if we don't raise our children correctly, they will turn into those Barbarians. Heathens! 
Scott Ð 06:56 Ð 08:20
Usually Donna starts off, and I'm feeling so inspired right now from club house and from you again, the fact that you're a microfile like myself, which I think that's a word which I just invented. Put it down five minutes ago. Miriam Webster, call me. I give you the definitions. You know, my grandfather, my paternal grandfather was a funeral director. And it seems like a kind of dark thing to do your around death all the time year-round. It's quite literally kind of morbid. Is there a similar thing being in divorce law because your life, your living, is off failed love?
And does that make you jaded about love in your own life? Do you feel like the sort of person that people really don't want to see? like, ultimately, you don't want to see the divorce lawyer, just like you don't want to see an oncologist, right? I mean, how does that just like the wayÉ Because you seem like, I don't know very well, but you seem like a very cheery person. And so, I'm wondering, like, how does what you do, like, effect your own personal affect?
Susan Ð 08:21 Ð 8:47
Well, it's funny. I love that you say that I've been at cocktail parties and is part of the chitchat. Someone will say, what do you do for a living? And back when I was actively practicing, I'd be, oh, I'm a divorce attorney and literally, like, sign of the cross and backing away. People would unless, of course. They asked for your card. It was one or the other. Right? You always got one response or the other.
Scott Ð 08:48
And I assume they don't ask for the card in front of their present spouse.
Susan Ð 8:50 Ð 9:48
No. No. Some of them will say. Can I just put your phone number in my phone because I don't want your card? I don't want it laying around the house. But you would get one or the other. You would get the person who's like. OK, well, thanks so much. Don't ever want to speak to you, or the person who's like, I really would like to talk to you when you have a moment. But it is a dark place.
When I was actively litigating divorces for the first 20 years of my career that is a very difficult job to leave in the office. That's dealing with really unhappy people, going through really difficult times, doing really crazy stuff-every day, all day. So very hard to leave that behind. And a lot of your clients won't let you back. When I was not smart enough to have an unlisted telephone number. I would get the 2:00 AM phone calls, or I actually had one client show up at my house during Sunday dinner. Do you know what he just did? I had to tell you. You never know.
Scott Ð 9:53 Ð 10:01
So, you become like the confidante I mean you're quite literally their advocate and so I guess sometimes there are boundary issues. Because you're their person in this dramatic time of their life that they trust.
Susan Ð 10:2 Ð 10:38
They're basically with a litigator. They're basically taking their life and putting it in your hands because divorce law negotiating a settlement, this affects your money. It affects your children. These are some of the major decisions affecting your life going forward. And that litigation system is really built upon the attorney handling all of that for the person, rather than empowering them, for the most part, to handle it for themselves. So, yeah, you really set up a dependency type of relationship.
Donna Ð 10:39 Ð 11:05
But you pivoted it. I mean, you were a family law litigator, and then you pivoted to, I'm assuming, to get away from some of that ugliness and some of that deep, dark aspects. Rather than ask you about the pivot, I do want to know more about the pivot. But what made you get into this? Like, what made you say I want to be like, I want to get into this.
Susan Ð 11:06 Ð 12:17
No, it wasn't ever that. I never said that. It was interesting. I went to law school and came out of law school and worked on Wall Street because I had gone, I was in business school in Undergrad. Then I went to law school. I was going to be working on Wall Street. That was the dream. Moved to Manhattan when I first graduated, and nine months into that realized, I absolutely hate this job. I hate this. All I ever did was sit in a cubicle with contracts that were two feet tall and worked 20 hours out of a 24-hour day. I did not enjoy that at all. 
So, it was truly a case. I did what every adult child does when their job doesn't work out. I moved back in with my parents and they're like, well, you're not just going to sit around here all day, go get a job. So, I just joined a local law firm in Connecticut and stayed there for 20 years. And they, the two senior partners for that firm were like, hey, let the new kid do the divorce work no one wants to do it. And I was good at it. I was really good at it.
Donna Ð 12:18
Why, why were you good at it?
Susan Ð 12:20 Ð 13:45
You know, because I think that to be a good divorce litigator one, you have to be a good litigator. There has to be an element of your personality that is competitive because it is a competitive- this is an adversarial style process, right? You're going in there to win. You're going in there to take the facts and apply the law to your facts, to advocate for what your client wants. And if you get more of that than the other the side does you won! And in the beginning, that will feel like, you know, a positive process.
It's not until you turn around and look at what that adversarial system does for the families when there's a winner and a loser and you're taking all of their you know, the facts about their worst behaviors. And using those as elements of the case that you're trying to prove. And you realize all you've really done is destroy that family even more, drive it further apart. So it quickly dawned on me that wasn't really a great a great path for myself as a human being. But as I said, I was good at it. And so that success train sort of catches you up and you get caught in that loop. And it took me a long time to be able to break out of it.
Donna - 13:46 Ð 14:07
I can imagine. When did you start? Like, when did you start to dream bigger and start to say, okay, I want to move forward? I want to do something different. What was that catalyst that got you, you know, feeling that the courage to move, because especially if you're getting paid a lot of money?
Susan Ð 14:08
Yes, hard to give up the money.
Donna Ð 14:13
People are like, oh, look at her. She's really killing it.
Susan Ð 14:14 Ð 15:17
Yeah. You know, it went on for a while. And I was honestly, by that time, I had been a divorce attorney for 15 or so years and hadn't done anything else, really, except those nine months on Wall Street that I also hated. So, I really didn't know what I was going to be able to do. And I still so distinctly remember the day that the light bulb went on. I was sitting in a courtroom again, like I always did, waiting for my turn to get up there and argue it out.
And there was a particularly nasty case going on. And one of my colleagues leaned over and I must have had that look on my face. And she just said, it doesn't have to be like this. It doesn't have to be this way. Maybe I had said something and she was answering me. But what I remember is her saying that. So, I chased her down out in the hallway afterwards, and she was a mediator. She did divorce mediation, and she told me about it and really started my journey, as I call it, a divorce in a better way.
Scott Ð 15:18 Ð 16:03
There's a counselor by the name of Paul Trip who wrote a book I like a lot. And the line that stands out for me in it was a most people in crisis don't need information. They need imagination. And so, it sounds like just a simple comment that someone gave made you reimagine your world. And that's what I think is the hardest thing. It's not seeing something no one seen, right discovery. It's seeing something that everyone is seeing differently. It sounds like you got a real gift. Are you still in touch with that person?
Susan - 16:04 Ð 17:00
I am. I am. I actually was at an event that she came to as speaking at an event, and she came up and. I'm like, Dab, it's so wonderful to see you. I said, I'm actually talking about that story in this presentation I'm doing. I'm so glad you're here to hear it. She didn't remember it at all. She changed my life, my career and everything. And she was thrilled to hear it. But she didn't remember that happening at all. And I thank her. Thank you Dab!
She really changed things for me. And that was really the beginning of, you know, making that one change then led to all the once you can make that one change, even if it's a small one, that was big for me. But even if it were a small one, I think that's when you start to realize you can dream big, you can open your mind to new possibilities.
Donna Ð 17:01
What was it like? Did you go back to the law firm and you're like, I want to mediate. Really? Like pack your bagsÉ
Susan Ð 17:10 Ð 18:08
What's that? it wasn't pack your bags to those senior partners that I had started with. By now, were hitting their 70Õs, one was approaching 80, and they actually wanted to semi-retire, and they wanted to move our entire firm to another location that was farther away from where I lived and everything. So, I always say, the universe provides. I had this epiphany in practice at a time when there was a natural break for me to leave the firm. So, on very amicable and positive terms, broke up the firm.
By that time, I was a name partner. And I took my little matrimonial division and moved to an office that was literally walking distance from my home. No more commuting, no more traffic. Set up my own little dream practice. And it was all what we call in the industry, non-adversarial based approaches to divorce.
Scott Ð 18:09 Ð 18:15
So, you basically had a mediation with your partners. You didn't even have a divorce. You had a mediation.
Susan Ð 18:16 Ð 18:46
We basically had an amicable breakup. TheyÕre still two of my favorite people in the world. And like two Dads, to me, in many ways, I learned how to be a lawyer from them. But they were much older and very traditional. And so, what I learned from them was that litigation traditional litigation route. What I learned for myself is. And what I think is for families is there are better ways to go through at least the divorce process.
Donna Ð 18:47 Ð 19:04
What point did you say? You know, I have this practice now, this new one, it's non-confrontational. It's friendly. It's kind . At what point did you say? I want to go out there and tell the world and help other people recognize this?
Susan Ð 19:05 Ð 19:30
That really that didn't happen right away. That was more again, the universe provides. I've been a very lucky person in circumstances that have come along in my life and opportunities that have come. And what happened is by that time, I had been in Connecticut for 26 years. And then suddenly we moved clear across the country to California.
Scott Ð 19:31
This is your family?
Susan Ð 19:32 Ð 20:08
My husband at the time, my husband has triplets. They had just graduated from high school, and we had an opportunity to move to a place I had grown up in California. I love California. It's my happy place. And so, we had an opportunity for his job to go there. And I was like, I've already got a practice. I'll just pick it up and move it over to California. And I don't know if anyone out there has ever tried to move a practice across country when you're not even licensed to practice in the new state. California makes every new attorney new attorney in the state take the bar exam.
Scott Ð 20:09
Oh, my gosh. ThatÕs like hell.
Susan Ð 20:10
It was beyond hell. Let me tell you this.
Scott Ð 20:16
The thing that's, like having to take the SATS again or something.
Susan Ð 20:22
It was worse.
Scott Ð 20:23
That is horrendous.
Susan Ð 20:24 Ð 21:28
It was very mean of California. I will tell you, I resented it greatly. Thankfully, I passed only 27% of attorneys who take the bar exam in California pass the first time. And I'll tell you, if I had not, I would not have taken it again. It was a horrific experience. But what I learned there, to what Donna asked, is that I was still working with people in Connecticut because. Well, I was transitioning. I still was licensed there. And I started doing this whole online thing so weird and different 6, 7 years ago.
Right. Nobody understood the like. Oh, that's quirky working through video conferencing. But there were colleagues out there who wanted to learn about it. They're like, that's kind of cool. We live in Florida during half the year or whatever. Can you teach me how to do it? And that's when I started to dream about creating a network of online mediators. And then COVID. Right?
Donna Ð 21:29 Ð 21:37
Have you learned anything through this through COVID? Has there been a disruption that you're like, man, we should have adopted this before a pandemic hit?
Susan Ð 21:38 Ð 22:43
Oh, I mean, absolutely. Covid, honestly, for mediation and mediators has been probably one of the best things that has happened to the profession. It has moved forward. Sort of. The standard comment in the industry is we've moved forward 10 years in one. Because it's expanded the reach. Frankly, people who did not have access to dispute resolution because they live too far away or didn't want to sit in traffic or couldn't find mediator who was skilled in their particular topic now have access to a worldwide network of online mediators.
And court systems have gone fully online because they couldn't have court in person. It's really been one of the more positive changes, I think, more people because the courts were closed during Covid. So if you had a couple who wanted to get divorced, they had no access to moving that forward. So, they turned to mediation. And so, people who would not have tried it have. And it found the benefits of the process.
Scott Ð 22:44
Well, I was just curious. You said my husband, at the time, have you been divorced yourself?
Susan Ð 22:49 Ð 24:05
I was. I was divorced about my first and only divorce was about 20 years ago. So, I got divorced from my first husband, didn't have children. But I will say being a divorce attorney going through a divorce will change your viewpoint a bit. And then I met my current husband, who we've now been together for 20 years. So, my other divorce must have been about 23 years ago because I met him three years after we got divorced. He had just finished a rather high conflict divorce and had young children.
I mentioned he had five-year-old triplets and probably one of the biggest changes in my life. And one of the big catalysts for me making a change to try and find a better way for families to move through this process was seeing their faces in my home when they could hear their parents arguing on the phone or their mom dropped them off. And it wasn't a smooth drop, just these little things, and I'm not throwing I don't want to cast any aspersions any way, it's just things happen when there's not a positive process, and when you see it on those little faces, it will change you.
Scott Ð 24:06 Ð 24:36
It's interesting because this podcast is called Dreaming Big, and I wonder, is your background as a divorce attorney and then a mediator? Do people? Do you have ways to dream big on the front end of a relationship so that people never have to get into mediation? I mean, do you think about, like, hey, I've observed a lot of relationships breakdown. Do you find yourself offering people insights about how not to get into the situation?
Susan Ð 24:37 Ð 25:57
All the time. It's interesting. People are always like, where is the best place to get marriage advice from a divorce attorney? Don't do what my clients did. And so, I do get asked the question quite often. And when I look back on the top reasons why I have seen clients or at least heard them report that they are getting divorced, the most common thing is complete and utter apathy has entered the relationship, and that's not usually just for a matter of months. I hear from couples all the time that they've been living like roommates and that can be in a sexual nature, but also just like two people who share a house and are raising children together and talk about their kids but have no real connection or interest together anymore.
And that has gone on for years. And I hear that I have heard that seven years, 6 years, 10 years. I've heard it over and over again. We haven't really had a conversation. We haven't really done something together, just the two of us. And that apathy eventually, and I hate to say it, but usually leads to somebody straying. And that's the catalyst that will start the divorce worst possible way, by the way, to get your divorce to start to cheat on your spouse.
Donna Ð 25:58
I heard the catalyst is either cheating or just not loading the dishwasher correctly.
Susan Ð 26:05
Yes, this is correct-or not empty it.
Scott Ð 26:07 Ð 26:24
But it because your insights there bring up this age-old adage, the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. Like if you're still fighting, you probably still have some passion, right? It's when you stop fighting those things are probably, I guess, going down the drain.
Susan Ð 26:25 Ð 27:45
Yea, instead of just letting that continue. See it as the warning sign that it is. Either care enough to do something about it, or care enough to end it respectfully before that. 
Human nature, is we want connection, we want to be with someone. IÕm not in any way excusing adultery or straying outside the marriage, IÕm not saying that, But I am saying that thatÕs human nature and thatÕs going to happen sooner or later. Take it from a divorce attorney. It does happen sooner or later. Somebody finds connection outside the relationship, and that's devastating, because then you now have betrayal and you have a destruction and breach of trust. And then you have to sit down and talk about how you're going to co-parent your children and split up your stuff and be respectful to each other. It's almost impossible. You know, that in difference that you say that, Scott, I think is really poignant. If that's how you're feeling indifference, then there's probably some decisions that need to be made or some actions that need to be taken. And I'm not saying what they are. I'm just saying it's maybe a wakeup call.
Donna Ð 27:46 Ð 28:08
You know, you said passion and actions and something you've said a few times. I wonder, do you feel that you've been lucky through your life, or do you feel that you've manifested these changes? Because I just keep hearing this visualization and manifestation. I'm just wondering how you perceive it yourself.
Susan Ð 28:09 Ð 28:52
Yeah. For me, I do believe very much in that phrase the universe provides. And the reason I believe in it so strongly is because manifesting has so often what I think has happened in my life, and I'm not sure which comes first. Sometimes it's the thought or the opportunity, but I do believe in seeing opportunity is also a way of manifesting. But yes, I believe that we have that ability to think it and have it become true if you don't dream it. I love the name of your podcast, because if you don't dream it big, little, small, huge, whatever, then how does it happen? It doesn't happen in a void, right?
Donna Ð 28:09
I mean, how can you get anywhere if you don't know where you're going? You can't see it. You're just basically on a treadmill.
Scott Ð 28:58
What are you dreaming about big these days? Like, what dreams do you have right now? That are on your white border, on the Horizons of your imagination, right. Like, what are you dreaming about Personally?
Susan Ð 29:10 Ð 30:07
Yes, for me right now, it, it has a lot to do with the shift I've also made career wise during COVID too. I'm no longer actively mediating or representing people in divorce. I'm working to train professionals to be mediators, to be collaborative professionals, to be the change that we need in that divorce industry. And, my dreams are really centered around because of the availability of online, turning that into a worldwide resource, to create professionals around the world, to provide training to people around the world so that, you know, it all comes down to changing the divorce process for the families that are going through it. But I feel that I affect more change by changing the professionals than by trying to educate people that there's a different way to do it. We need professionals out there who know how to help people through it in a different way, in a better way.
Donna Ð 30:08
If, a person wanted to work with you, how would they reach out to you? What's your contact information? Where should we send our audience to learn more?
Susan Ð 30:16
Well for training? I do all of my training now through the Mosten Guthrie academy, which is mostenguthrie.com and there most people find me. I do some coaching for people who are going through divorce to help them find the right path. So mostly working with people at the very early stages as they're looking for the right professionals to help them and that's through divorceinabetterway.com.
Donna Ð 30:46
Fabulous. Susan, thank you so much.
Scott Ð 30:47
Susan. This was utterly delightful.
Susan Ð 30:52
Oh, thank you. I really enjoyed it. Thank you both for having me.
Scott Ð 30:55 - 31:21
Thanks for listening to Dream Big with Big Dreamers. If you liked the show, please do us a favor. Go into iTunes and write a review and give us a rating or share it with a friend via social media or email if you think they'd benefit from these conversations. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch you next time until then keep dreaming big.