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Ep. 103 – Success is Sweet Revenge

Success is sweet Revenge, especially after divorce. In this episode Doreen and Jeff discuss how everyone must fail to succeed. It’s these failures that make success the best revenge on your own doubts and barriers that you put on yourself.

Transcript

Jeff: Hello, all my friends out there. Today we’re gonna be talking about success and how success is the sweetest revenge, and when we fail, we actually are getting closer to success. So if you’re ready, let’s get started.

Doreen: Are you ready to create a life that’s better than ever before? We are Doreen Yaffa and Jeff Wilson, and we are here to give you the strategies you need to create the life after divorce that you deserve and desire. As partners both in marriage and coaching, we use our expertise as well as our own personal experiences to help you make the next chapter of your life the best chapter.

Jeff: Hello, Doreen. How are you today?

Doreen: Oh my goodness. I am doing great. I’m sitting here in Marathon. The keys down in sunny south Florida. It’s hot as all get out.

Jeff: It is. It’s they say that it feels like 110 degrees out today.

Doreen: Really?

Jeff: And it’s very hot. Yes.

Doreen: Yeah, it’s hot. But you know what, we’re sitting here looking at the ocean from our VRBO and we love to travel and still do work, but get to enjoy various locations and it’s been really fun. It’s one of the things I love about what we do with our coaching is we get to coach our beautiful, amazing clients from anywhere.

Jeff: Anywhere we are.

Doreen: Yep.

Jeff: Well, today we’re gonna be talking about success being the sweetest revenge.

Doreen: I love that.

Jeff: You know who said the best revenge is massive success.

Doreen: Well, you and I discussed this beforehand, so I know the answer.

Jeff: Who? Who said that?

Doreen: One of my faves Frank Sinatra.

Jeff: Frank Sinatra said that, yes.

Doreen: Yeah. I grew up on Frank Sinatra. Wait, we gotta talk about that. I grew up on Frank Sinatra.

Jeff: Okay. What do you mean you grew up on Frank Sinatra?

Doreen: My mom loves Frank Sinatra like love, love, love, love, love Frank Sinatra. And you know, I remember growing up and my mom on Saturdays would clean the entire house top to bottom. So it would start around eight o’clock in the morning and she would have Frank Sinatra on the turntable. Cuz back then it was the turntable.

Jeff: I remember those.

Doreen: Yeah. And so I would wake up as a young person child through I left whenever I, you know, left the house with Frank Sinatra every Saturday. That’s kinda so I love, love, love Frank. Frank Sinatra.

Jeff: Nice. Nice memories.

Doreen: Yeah. All right, so let’s talk about sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet revenge.

Jeff: Yes,

Doreen: But using it not for the purposes of truly being revengeful, but using it for the purposes of moving closer to what you want in your life after divorce.

Jeff: Yeah. It’s definitely not seeking revenge in the traditional sense of the word

Doreen: No, because that’s wasted energy, right?

Jeff: Yeah. As difficult as divorce may be. I just don’t believe the negative energy that results from a fallout of a revenge based thought.

Doreen: No. You know, because let’s go into our coaching for a moment. If you have action that’s taken as a result of a thought that’s based on revenge, it doesn’t get you anywhere. You know what I’m saying? It’s like where does that get you?

So the sweetest revenge is the success that you as a person after divorce can have in your life by just showing up and showing the world who you truly are. And that you are this amazing, successful person. You don’t have to say two words because everyone’s gonna know it.

Jeff: It’s basically showing yourself and having revenge for kind of your negative thoughts is what we’re talking about today.

Cuz we’ve talked before about. How you have to fail to succeed. We call that failing forward. Yes. And we all can probably agree that those that are most successful in this world probably have failed the most.

Doreen: No. They haven’t probably failed the most. They have failed the most.

Jeff: Okay.

Doreen: No, come on. I mean, in order to be successful at anything that you want in your life, you have to first try it, and then you have to try it again, and then you have to fail.

And then, oh, well listen, that way didn’t work, so let me try a new way, and then you’re gonna fail. And that’s like, I always tell my team, like, we’re gonna celebrate the fails in the sense of like, oh, well that didn’t work, so we’re gonna try another way. Right. You’re that much closer to your success.

Especially after divorce, right? Like, yeah.

Jeff: Well, you know, typically after divorce, you know, it’s very common that there’s anger. We fight, we hold grudges, and we even become competitive with others.

Doreen: Wait, why?

Jeff: Well, because that’s just the mindset that people seem to have some when going through divorce.

Hopefully there are those out there that are looking for a coach to help them get through that.

Doreen: Yeah, because if you’re there, not a good place to be.

Jeff: No. No. So whatever you’re going through, no matter what happens, the setbacks you experienced people know that success can be the revenge to your own negative thinking.

Doreen: Okay. You gotta explain that one a little bit more.

Jeff: Well, here’s an example. Victory tastes very sweet after failure when you fail.

Doreen: Right.

Jeff: Okay. So it may be your stinking thinking or negative thoughts.

Doreen: Stinking thinking.

Jeff: Stinking thinking, negative thoughts that may have, you know, stop you from succeeding when you wanted to succeed in some things.

So your success has actually got revenge over that stinking thinking. Does that make sense?

Doreen: What I think you’re trying to say is that your actual success is the revenge over your negative thoughts?

Jeff: Exactly.

Doreen: Okay, I got it.

Jeff: Yeah, there you go.

Doreen: Yay. Do I get an A?

Jeff: You got an A plus.

Doreen: A plus.

Jeff: A plus. And you know you wanna rejoice on that victory.

Doreen: Okay. We’ve got our little

Jeff: We’ve got the little ones here.

Doreen: We’ve got Zen and Coda here. And of course, Zen is being teased by Coda with one of her bones. Because that’s the Zen on being teased by Coda

Jeff: Okay.

Doreen: Bark.

Jeff: Well, so excuse us for the kids in the background.  You know, but you know that, you know, breaking through fears also transforms you into a new person. Cuz when you’re going through obstacles, you’re going through failures there is a sense of fear in that.

Doreen: Absolutely.

Jeff: So when you overcome fear, there is a certain transformation. And there’s that revenge on fear to overcome the obstacles.

Doreen: Do you wanna give us an example? How about we use an athlete?

Jeff: An athlete? Let’s see. How about there’s an incredible athlete in our family. Her name is Megan.

Doreen: Megan Yaffa, the incredible volleyball player.

Jeff: Yes. And I do believe that there was a little bit of fear in her mind after surgery that she went through of getting back on the court.

Doreen: Well, let’s just tell the listener. She blew out her knee in one of her games going in for a spike on the right hand side and came down the wrong way and blew out her, what was it?

Jeff: meniscus in her, ACL?

Doreen: Everything. Like really blew it out. And then she had major surgery.

Jeff: Yeah. Almost a six hour surgery.

Doreen: Yeah. And she doesn’t feel that her success was good enough after her healing and her recovery and her rehabilitation, but just being on the court. Okay, so go into the example.

Jeff: Well, the example is, you know, when they started rehabilitation, they were having her jump. They were having her do squats with weights. She was getting on the court.

Doreen: Eventually. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. Eventually. And I know cuz she told me that she was very fearful of the pain of jumping or not having the capability that she had at one time.

Doreen: True.

Jeff: When she got out there, she definitely had pain. She definitely had to overcome a lot mental stuff. Yeah, definitely. But going through that and coming up with success, I believe, has made Megan who she is and she’ll be successful in anything she does.

Doreen: Well, I think what you’re saying is even though she didn’t get to the level she was prior to the accident, to the injury, she got out there, she did what she had to do, she conquered her fear and made her stronger as an overall person.

Jeff: Exactly.

Doreen: And I don’t know, we’ve noticed a difference and I think our listeners can notice a difference of overcoming the obstacle, the fear, the anger, the disappointment of divorce, and getting to that best place after with success on whatever that looks like, whatever that may be for you. Is going to bring, is going to make you that much stronger and appreciate the success so much more.

Jeff: Yeah. You know, success can definitely be like the best revenge that you can overcome those fears that held you back at one time, and those breakthroughs can transform you into a different person than you were before you even started the goal of what you were trying to get anyway. Does that make sense?

Doreen: Yeah

Jeff: Yeah. You know, and also I think it also is a sweet revenge over maybe some of your negative attitudes, cuz when you go through these type of successes and you overcome the obstacles to achieve your success after divorce especially.

Doreen: Yeah. When you’re rebuilding your life

Jeff: Yeah. Rebuilding your life if it teaches you or gives you the I’m gonna use the word twice attitude that a positive attitude wins over negative attitudes.

Doreen: Right? I almost see ’em like two different, you know, I’d like to say like the angel and the devil on the right and the left hand side of your shoulder.

Jeff: Yeah, that’s a great analogy. I love that.

Doreen: No, but it’s true. It’s like this one over here is saying, come on, let’s go be successful and let’s do amazing things and be happy and like move forward in this phone over years saying, no, we’re stuck in this place after divorce. And we’re just like, so, like unhappy and we just want to be mean, angry and upset.

So I like to take that little guy and the negative guy and like basically smoosh him, squash him.

Jeff: Yeah. Get rid of your shoulder.

Doreen: Yeah. Get him off like, you know, like I’m doing like this.

Jeff: Flick him away.

Doreen: Flick him away. Flick him away. And then put all your energy on that good, you know, little guy on your other shoulder who’s saying like, no, we’re gonna move forward and like, make our life amazing after divorce.

Jeff: And you know, success also kind of tells you who your true friends are.

Doreen: Wait, what do you mean?

Jeff: Well, I’m not saying you’re gonna get revenge on your friends.

Doreen: I hope not.

Jeff: However, when we’re successful, there’s a lot of people around you that enjoy that success with you.

Doreen: Oh, right.

Jeff: You know, however you take away that success, you quickly realize who your true friends are.

Doreen: You know, and also playing into that, and we’ve talked about this on other episodes, is in divorce. One of the things you do is you clean up your friend bucket, right? You find out who your real friends are, and you find out who the people are in your life before the divorce who were there, probably not as a true friend. Right. So you clean that all up.

Jeff: Right. Right. Well, you know, nobody likes a loser and everyone likes to bet on the winning team, etc. but there’s a greater risk of reward when oftentimes the biggest failures can be the most important blessings in disguise. So when you start seeing who sticks by your side, I think that’s an important thing to know who your true friends are and you’re maybe some people you need to eliminate outta your life.

Doreen: Yeah. I think it’s a good time after divorce to kind of go through that inventory of where you wanna spend your energy on every level, including your friend base.

Jeff: Yeah. And it may be a family member that you can eliminate from your life that’s, but at least maybe spending a little bit less time with them

Doreen: Or setting some boundaries.

Jeff: Yeah.

Doreen: Right. Yeah, cuz I think a lot of people during divorce have an opinion for the person going through the divorce. You know about the divorce itself. It’s right, it’s wrong. The kids, what they should be doing, what they shouldn’t be doing and should not be doing. And yeah, it’s, you know, this is your time, this is your journey through this process, and it’s hard.

And so sometimes we, you know, talk about maybe taking that information in, cycling in what is useful for you, which you agree with, really maybe considering the source. Like if it’s somebody that’s saying something to you that is on your level of 10 as far as, Hey, this person really like is smart, and they get it and they’re somebody who’s always been there for me and they say something, maybe taking it at a different level versus somebody who’s just like, you know, What do you call it? Like an acquaintance, right?

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah. A friend. No, not really a friend, but an acquaintance.

Doreen: Yeah. More an acquaintance. Right. And has an opinion. You’re like, why do you have an opinion?

Jeff: Yeah, right. Well, everybody has an opinion. You know what they say about those?

Doreen: What?

Jeff: Rather not say,

Doreen: Oh really?

Jeff: You want me to say?

Doreen: Well, you can just like beep it out or you can just say it cuz lots of these podcasts, I use bad words.

Jeff: Everyone has an opinion that, and they all. Well, how does it go?

Doreen: I don’t know.

Jeff: Oh, okay. Well, I’m glad I forgot.

Doreen:  Well, now you know, you’re gonna have to tell us.

Jeff: Opinions are like blank holes. Everyone’s got one and they all stink. That make sense?

Doreen: Yeah.

Jeff: Okay.

Doreen: All right, we’ll move on.

Jeff: Let’s keep going now. I mean, time to move on. And you know what’s really cool is you, the human imagination, you think about over the past a hundred years what the mind has created. And it all comes from our thoughts and our confidence and overcoming those failures that we talked about to achieve success.

Doreen: Yeah. And we’ve done an episode on failures before failing forward.

Jeff: Yeah. But my point is, when you succeed like that and overcome major obstacles and major failures like divorce or whatever it is in life that you want, you start to realize, wow, what I or what you are capable of. You know, you start to see yourself in a whole new light. I’m really capable of a lot more than I think I am.

Doreen: Yeah. I mean, you start to push yourself through those challenging times, and I think you need to give yourself a high five, a pat in the back and a gold star just getting through the divorce. Right? But now when you start to achieve your goals and you fail and you get past it, and then you start to have some little successes, you should celebrate the successes.

Jeff: Yeah, I agree with that tremendously.

Doreen: I would  like to give everybody out there who’s gotten through divorce a gold star right now.

Jeff: A gold star. Yeah. 24 carat or 14 carat?

Doreen: Absolutely. 24.

Jeff: Oh, you got it.

Doreen: We should go platinum on that one.

Jeff: Oh, I  like that. You know, success is also deemed the best revenge because you not only have not to get even with anybody, but when you succeed, they kind of start backing down, this says, well, not the backing down, but the success speaks for you.

Doreen: That’s what I said. Yeah. It’s like I originally said when we started the episode is that the success itself will be known, like you don’t need to put it out there in somebody’s face.

Jeff: Yeah, it’s an incredible feeling when other people become your personal cheerleader.

Doreen: Well, that, but also I think just see other people, let’s say our exes as an example, or the people that may have not treated us well during the divorce. Right, right. And they see, or maybe it was a family member for example, that said, you know, no, stay together. You’re not gonna go anywhere without him or her, blah, blah, blah.

And now they start to see you. It’s like, you know, achieving these amazing things in your life. To me it’s like that is the best revenge.

Jeff: It is.

Doreen: You don’t have to say two words because they just see it. They see it in the way you look. They see it in the way you talk. They see it in what you’re posting.

Not on purpose. Just because you really are posting, because you are generally like, you know, excited to share something. Right. And yeah, it’s, that’s the best.

Jeff: Well, and I think that’s how we came up with this episode of success is the sweet revenge because the success itself shouts from the rooftops.

You don’t have to do it yourself. Right. And another thing that’s really, really cool about success is it tells other people that they’re also capable of success. It gives hopes, it brings hope to other people.

Doreen: Look I wanna talk with our divorce listeners about how you’re an example of what’s possible for your children, for your coworkers, for your friends.

You know, children really learn from what they see and not what you tell them. Right? So when they see that mom or dad is doing really well after the divorce and being successful, that’s all they need to do. They just need to see it. Rather than hear it.

Jeff:  And they’ll know the barriers that you have because they’ve heard those too and as well, or they’ve seen them. If mom and dad can do it or if you know my sister can do it or my aunt and uncle can do it, and they had just as many obstacles, if not more than I do, then I know I can do it as well.

Doreen: Right. Whatever it is that you wanna do.

Jeff:  Yeah. That reminds me of the LB Triple E, remember LB Triple E?

Doreen: Go ahead.

Jeff: It’s leadership by example. With the energy for excellence. So we truly are role models and may even if you don’t have kids, you’re a role model to somebody. Right. And having that overcoming the failures, overcoming the obstacles is gonna influence somebody in your life.

Doreen: Right? For example, when I get up in the morning and I decide to go work out I don’t have to say two words to you.

Jeff: Okay? What does that mean?

Doreen: That means that you just see me putting on my workout clothes. You know, getting my water bottle, you know, probably making a little snack and you know, I’m off to the gym.

Jeff: Off to the gym.

Doreen: What do you do?

Jeff: Tell you to have a nice workout.

Doreen: No, no walk.

Jeff: No, no. I have to be there to work out and, you know.

Doreen: You’re moving forward on,

Jeff: I’m moving. I am. I am definitely like,

Doreen: I don’t even have to say two words. I don’t have to say like, Hey, let’s go to the gym this morning. All I have to do is just start in that direction. Right. And you automatically, I don’t even know if you know, you know, you get this, like you automatically will get up and start doing it too, like getting ready for the gym.

Jeff: Yes, I do know it. So, you know that that’s what I wanted to talk about today is that, you know, it’s not revenge and traditional definition of getting even or hurting somebody back. It’s definitely taking that stinking thinking. Get rid of it outta your life.

Doreen: Using that energy

Jeff: Using that energy.

Doreen: Make yourself successful, whatever that looks like for you.

Jeff: Take revenge on your stinking thinking. Yeah, that’s our episode for this week. Hope you loved it and I’d love to get some feedback from you. If you could. You could write to us at [email protected] or you can write to Doreen at the same address but [email protected], and we’d love to hear from you and we will talk to you next week.

Doreen: Yay. All right, everybody, have an most amazing week. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others, and remember, yes, you can have an amazing life after divorce. Bye

Jeff: Bye-bye.

Jeff: You have the vision of what you want your life to look like after divorce, but maybe you just don’t know how to get there. So if you’re ready to take control of your life and want to find out more about our coaching, visit us at lad-coaching.com. That’s L A D as in life after divorce dash coaching.com.

Doreen: Until next time, have an amazing rest of your day. And remember, yes, you can have an amazing life after divorce.

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