Okay. I'm just waiting for the time to start again. I don't want to fiddle with my chair again, because this is about as good as I can get it, which is a pain in the ass, but I will keep trying to, otherwise I'm going to have to, I don't know, work something else out. I think the chair wants as big as it comes and I don't really have room for like a screen. So Oh, well, yeah, you know, we'll see how this one goes. Might just be a bit cropped or we're going to have to do something at the top here. I'm not sure. Okay. Hi there, welcome to the Stacey M Show. Today we are going through the last secret, which is secret number five, and that is all about preparation in your family law matter. And it is basically the secret sauce. So the more prepared you are, hopefully the smoother your matter will go and it's preparation for a number of things, not just on the legal side. So what I'm going to go through is why preparation is your power. So it helps you get ready. So by being prepared and knowing what is expected of you, knowing what people have asked you to do when you've done that, so whether you've had to get some documents and you've gone ahead and done that, as opposed to being asked for documents and then you not doing that, that's going to save, sorry, that's going to cost you further in legal fees because someone's asked you to do something, you haven't done it, they've just probably charged you however many dollars to chase up from you. And, you know, if you don't get that and you keep getting chased, then you're going to be spending more money on legal fees because you're just not prepared. If you are prepared, if you've got that, then you've got that. You're not being chased and being charged additional legal fees that you don't need to be charged for because you haven't got the document. So you might not have got the document because... maybe it's not ready yet. Maybe you've had to make an appointment. Maybe you haven't had a chance to do it yet. Maybe it's too overwhelming for you, whatever it is. But if you are prepared, you will save money in legal fees because you're ready to go. You know what is expected of you. You know what's going to happen. And you're going to go into your matter, whether it makes it to court or not, with an idea of what's going to happen because you're prepared to do that. It is going to bring you less stress and anxiety, and that's because you're prepared. You've got to think about, you know, do like an everyday scenario of perhaps waking up in the morning. I know I'm not perfect, but I try and do my absolute best so I will make sure that uniforms are ironed the night before, lunches are packed. I picked up what I'm going to wear the next day, whether it's, you know, I'm going to the office or whatever it might be. Their school bags are sitting there, whatever it is. I try to be prepared as much as I can that night because I know in the morning I can just grab things. I'm not stressed. We have our routine as to, you know, getting ready in the morning and getting ready to go in the car to go to school. And, you know, I'm not saying it's not stressful. You might not get anxiety over it, but being organised and being prepared is makes it just such a smoother process where you may still experience stress and anxiety, but it's going to be a lot less than if you weren't prepared or organized. It also puts you in control of your journey. So, um, Preparation is probably something that seems so simple, but I think it's a little bit underrated. So being prepared, whether you wanna call it being organized, whatever it is, I promise you that it will just make things so much more smooth. And it's not necessarily just for the family law aspect. The more organized you are for anything, whether it's just your everyday routine, it's obviously going to be a lot better for you than if you weren't. So you wake up in the morning and realize that a school uniform hasn't been washed and there is no school uniform to wear. Definitely been there and done that. You're not losing your shit, yourself or your kids because you don't have that uniform ready. So just for an example. It gets you emotionally ready as well. So it's not just the physical paperwork that you might have to do. There's an emotional side to it as ready as well. And that gets you ready for whatever that process is. So it will help you build confidence because you're not going into a blind. You're like, right, okay, so whether it's a mediation perhaps and then you're going into that mediation, right, to know what's going to happen. This is kind of the process of it. I have my documents. You know, I'm good to go. um it reduces your reactive decisions so depending on how you are being coached if you say I go into a mediation practice that a mediation session it may be that look uh depending on what the relationship is with your ex you know things may come up or even in a matter that you know not even at mediation I know there'll be a lot of nitpicking things because people have to have the last say and what they're they're saying isn't going to move the needle it's just them complaining and you know being charged extra and legal fees because they're making the lawyer put that in there anything like that that comes through that's not relevant I ignore sometimes I just won't acknowledge it at all or sometimes I'll go look paragraphs two to five I'm not responding to because I don't see the point I were that a little bit better than what I just said that but throwing things in there and kind of being having that toxic behavior or that last day behavior or whatever it is that could come up and if you know that then you're going to be prepared for that I know there's something in a letter and I'm about to send it to like my client and go hey just letting you know you're probably not going to like this letter don't stress about it it's all okay If I hadn't done that, if I sent the letter through, they're going to be a lot more stressed and anxious and probably angry than had I just given them a call to say, hey, letting you know, you're not going to like the letter. It's all good. Don't sweat. Here's my plan. Have a read, think and come back to me. And it has that mental clarity as well because you have that time to process what is happening. So in a family law matter, in your divorce, in your separation, whatever you want to call it, there are obviously a lot of documents that need to be collated. One of them is financial disclosure. So that is a legal requirement. So that can be overwhelming because there could be many, many documents that that need to be provided. If you have businesses and trusts, you're going to have additional documents for that. It would be advised that your accountant and financial advisor are spoken for a part of that process. So there's capital gains tax or whatever it might be. So we can make that as minimal as possible or allow for it as a payment depending on what happens. But that part can get really, really overwhelming. Sometimes you will be asked to get updated documents as well. And that could be frustrating. But if your matter has gone on for quite some time and the circumstances may have changed or, you know, you had this lot of money and now you don't have the money, we need to still know where you are at. with your disclosure. And it goes into financial documents. If it is found that you have been lying about something, you've been hiding something, then that agreement can be set aside and you can be like in really big, big trouble. It's just part of the process and it has to happen. Yes, it might be frustrating. It's what the legal process is. And it's to your benefit because you want to lay on the table what the assets are, what the liabilities are, what there is to play with. There's no point asking for a million dollars in a property settlement. if there is no money if there is no assets or you know if the assets are a million dollars and the debt's a million dollars you know there might not be anything left at the end of the day so it also helps just to come into a practical sense of like right is this reasonable what do we have um so yeah frustrating but it's part of the process There's a lot of legal documentation as well. So you may be going to court, maybe settled out of court. You may be having to sign a binding financial agreement, a VFA. There might be consent orders. There might be orders in relation to kids, parenting plan, whatever. It could be a whole pile of things. It could be a divorce application there as well. For the next month or so, you're going to have to still get a counselling certificate. If you've been married for under two years and you've separated, that's about to change. But there could be just a pile of other things and there's fees on top of that, filing fees and the like as well. So knowing what that is, knowing what it's for, indicative costs, that helps reduce stress because you know what to expect, like something is not sprung upon you. And, you know, personal documentation. So we may have to put a timeline together. So, you know, if there is DV involved, you know, we might need a bit of a timeline as to, you know, when it started, what it is, if there's abusive phone calls or anything like that. We suggest you document that because you don't know if that's going to come into play in your matter. Our memory is great, but if your memory is also like mine and you go into the shopping center wanting one or two things and you're like, I don't need a list, I don't need a list, I don't need a list, I literally step foot into Woolworths and then I stand there going, I don't know what it was that I wanted. So, but your time, your memory can fail as well. You might think something happened on a Monday in twenty twenty, but it might have been a Tuesday in, you know, twenty twenty five, for example. So if you had to document the events that happen, we can rely on that if we need to. And it saves you having to try and store everything in our brain because we have enough things in our brain. We don't need to put extra stuff in there that we don't need. We can document that somewhere else. Dates and deadlines as well. If you have to do something by a certain date, if there is a, you know, like a mediation or a court date or something like that, you want to make sure that you have that locked out in your calendar and you are prepared and you have done anything that you need to do before that date. So you don't want to, you know, be in a holiday somewhere then all of a sudden get a call saying, hey, you're meant to be at court. Where are you? Oh, you know, I'm on a holiday. I'm nowhere near. That's not going to look very good. There is a physical preparation side of it as well. So it's not just the legal side, there's a physical side as well. So there could be a preparation in relation to mediation or for court. So there are certain ways that you need to present yourself, body shots, and a singlet is probably not going to cut it. There is a bit of an etiquette so knowing what that is I'm not saying you have to get dressed up uh in a ball gown I know I was speaking to somebody recently might have been at the conference I was at last week and they use the word make sure you come in your your formal clothes like your formal attire and that person rocked up in like a ball gown because That's what they thought they meant by formal. So knowing what to wear, you know, jeans and a nice shirt might be appropriate, like pants and a shirt, if you have a suit, whatever it might be, but knowing what the court expects of you um from a preparation and a dress appearance uh will help you a lot um self-care protocols so lives are stressful as they are and you throw in a divorce or whatever it might be you know that can just get a whole lot more stressful so please make sure that you do take that self-care for yourself it might only be a couple of minutes per day it Whatever it is, you need to do that. You're not being selfish to do that because you need to put yourself first to be able to care for other people, which is something that I am learning slowly. But I am getting there as a high-scented hand cream on my desk that I use that I'll rub in and, like, it's a very nice scent. And, you know, that can be... my bit of you know quick self-care at the office or I might go make myself a cup of tea and stare out the window or or something like that make sure that you have that self-care thrown in there otherwise um it's just going to keep piling on top of you and you will probably fall into a heap and you're going to be good to anybody So there are some cost-saving preparation strategies as well. So I go into this in Great Debt in my Empowered Separation program. I basically tell you everything that I possibly can so you are well-informed. You will save so much money on legal fees because I'm educating you instead of a lawyer charging, you know, five hundred, five fifty, six hundred dollars per hour to tell you something that you can learn from a program for much cheaper than that. But there's going to be a pile of legal documents. It is pretty standard across the board. As I said, if you have a business or something that might be additional, there probably will be additional documents. required of you and that is all covered in the program as well but um if you go to your lawyer prepared your lawyer will probably love you to go oh my god amazing you have just rocked up with all this information you have a bit of a rough idea of what's going to happen that might have allowed you to have a bit of a think about okay well if I want a million dollars and we have nine hundred thousand dollars in debt but only leaves a hundred thousand dollars there is no million you know I'm making those numbers like obviously very very simple but it puts um your If you have a really high expectation, it might bring you back down a little bit to go, okay, well, that money isn't there. So that probably isn't going to work out, for example. So you might have a pile of questions. So you'll have a pile of questions that you can go in. It's like, right, so I have all this information. These are some questions that I have. Again, you're saving money because there's already a pile of things that you already know. and you were going in prepared like instead of sitting there going oh I have a question I can't remember what it was um and then you know asking five questions over the course of a week you keep thinking of them if you go into that meeting and you have that list of questions like right I have some questions yep yep yep yep done again done so much more easier and so much less stressful Organizing the documents is also handy. So from a legal perspective, we obviously do that. But from your perspective, where you're collating the documents, that can make it really easy. If you have to have a certain amount of payslips, having your payslips together instead of a payslip here, a bank statement here, a super statement here, and then another payslip here. If it's all in order, it's going to be so much more easy to follow. um and yeah just understanding timeline so there are some time frames with a divorce making sure that you are across um what your time limits are um is also really really important so what are some things that you can do probably pretty quickly? So you could probably do some document organization. You can have like a little credenza file. You might have a labor arch file. You might have a filing cabinet, whatever suits you. It might be all electronic as well. Have a filing system that works for you. I said, having everything, all your pay slips together, all your bank statements together, but that account, and then your bank statements for the next account, having them in date order whether it's the the latest one on top and the oldest one on the bottom or whether it's the other way around as long as they're in some particular order that will also save you lots in lego phase because you don't have lawyers trying to sort through things trying to put them in order work out what you've got if there's missing documents and all that stuff um Again, just mapping out those important dates. So there are some timelines that you need to be aware of when you are going through a divorce and knowing what they are and knowing that you need to do certain things by certain dates will be really, really helpful. Note any deadlines. So again, that's pretty well up there with important dates, just making sure that you're not missing anything. Make sure mediation's there or if you have medical reports, whatever it is, making sure that all of those dates are in your calendar so you don't miss them and then you don't waste money because you'll probably still be charged for that and then you have to make an additional appointment and all the rest of it as well. A support system. So I speak about this a lot as well. A support system is really beneficial. So that could be, you might have a psych or a counsellor and maybe they're your people. You might have work colleagues, you might have family members, friends, somebody that you trust somebody that's not going to go back to your ex and say hey I just spoke to such and such oh they just said this this this and this about you so you want to make sure that you have that um that support system who you know is going to be there to help you through things so it may just be event it may be hey can you come to me with my um to my first appointment because I'm a little bit scared whatever that is having that support system is really really vital Have some emergency procedures as well. So if there is mental health involved and, you know, you do feel suicidal or you had been suicidal before and you're concerned it's going to happen again, go back to the people if you had people before. So if you had that psych or that counsellor, if you've used online services, so you might have like Beyond Blue or lifeline whatever it might be know that there is no shame in contacting both places okay they're trained chances are they're going to be able to try to hopefully um kind of get you back down to a level where you feel safe and then you might need to then go make an appointment with your counselor your psych or whatever that might is so make sure you have those emergency support systems in place as well you might have a friend as well that could you know quickly come around to you know make sure that you are all okay but that is really important as well there are communication side of things as well so most things are done by phone if not email if you don't like phone ask to be contacted by email if you don't like email ask to be contacted by the telephone. If you are doing logistics with kids, set out communication timelines with that. Hey, call me, text me, email me, whatever it might be. If you need to swap dates, just try to make it as approachable as you can and set your uh boundaries to go right so you can email me and text me whatever it is it might be the kids hey I don't really do the telephone I'm really hard to catch can you send me through an email because I don't want to be charged every time you leave me a voicemail because I haven't you know answered the phone so um consider that as well but that pretty well wraps up our five lots of uh secrets for your family law matter I am very happy that I broke that up because I think collectively it's definitely been a couple of hours worth and I wanted to break that up. So hopefully there are bits and pieces that you can take from it to incorporate into your own matter. Some of it you might already be doing. Some of it you might not have thought of. Some of it might not be you. That's completely fine. All I'm doing is providing some suggestions for you to see whether it could help you in your matter or not at all. So I don't think there's too much else to note. I don't think I've forgotten anything. I'm just quickly looking at my checklist, but hopefully you have found that helpful. As I did mention, I do have that program. which can save you a bucket load of time and a bucket load of money. So you can click the link below and learn more about my program. It's going to be a lot cheaper than a couple of meetings with your lawyer. I can guarantee that. We have monthly support calls as well. The portal is constantly being updated. So many things. So if you have any questions about that, please reach out. Otherwise, I hope you have found this information useful. Please share it with people who you may think will benefit from that. And as always, I also appreciate feedback. So please let me know if you have any feedback, whether that's good or bad. This podcast is for you guys, not for my benefit. But I hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Please stay safe and I will catch you next episode. See ya.
