Building A Divorce Team

Divorce is an exhausting experience and you don’t want to go through it alone. A divorce support team helps you navigate the important aspects.

Chief PeaceKeeper™ Scott Levin 0:01
Hey everyone, this is Scott Levin. I’m a family law attorney, also known as a chief peacekeeper™, because I only practice mediation exclusively for Family Law matters, including divorce, and I’m joined today by a very good friend of mine, Glen Crawford. Are you, Glen? Oh,

Glen Crawford 0:19
I’m fantastic. How are you doing? Scott? Thanks for having me.

Chief PeaceKeeper™ Scott Levin 0:23
Of course, of course, I love seeing you. Glenn is a wealth management advisor. And really, the way that he approaches everything is as a coach. Glenn, do you mind introducing yourself for a moment?

Glen Crawford 0:37
Now, thank you very much. So as you said, I’m Glen Crawford. I’m a wealth management advisor here in Southern California. I’m also a CFA, which is a certified divorce financial analyst. But at my core, what I see myself as Scott is, I’m a coach for your overall financial well being the bottom line, I played division one college football at a high level, an undefeated team, as a matter of fact, back in the 70s, at Arizona State University, I have many years of coaching work with the youth sports all year round for like, you know, 10 years, and I’ve come to realize that, you know, my best self is my true self when I’m working with people when it comes to the financial aspects of their life, or if they’re going through a life-changing event, like divorce, helping them understand the unique financial aspects of divorce, but I’m able to talk to people in a way that they understand the impact of those decisions without using a bunch of financial jargon. And moreover, this coaching approach that I’ve taken, allows me to really have a, you know, a true sense of integrity. And in the work that I do, because I won’t take on a client unless I know I can make a difference in their lives, I can help them overcome an obstacle or get over a roadblock. But in essence, I would say number one, and as it relates to our subject today, divorce, you know, I’ve played the game, I understand the whole world of financial estimates, I’ve been through a divorce. So you know, I played the game. I’m highly skilled, and here for the right reasons as to give people a better financial outcome, you know, bottom line. And, you know, that’s the, you know, that’s the core of the high approach to business. And that is, I’m here because I have experienced, I’m skilled, and if people put their faith in me, I can promise that they’ll go have a winning situation.

Chief PeaceKeeper™ Scott Levin 2:33
And that’s, and I and I’ve definitely found that in our, in our time working together over the years. So, you know, one of the things I thought that would be cool to have Glenn and I talk about is really, you know, divorce for most people is almost like the anti team sport. And the reason is that the majority of people hire an attorney, and depend on that attorney for their entire outcome. So you know, no matter how good your attorney is, I think having been a family law attorney, myself, and now a mediator that people are much your outcome is improved. And I’m gonna say this with 1,000% certainty. Your outcome is improved when you build a team, and a huge part of that team, at least, at least add this part to your team, if you’re gonna hire an attorney, you need a certified divorce financial analyst, like Glenn, to help give you an understanding of the fight and your attorney and understanding of the financial aspects of your divorce, the ramifications, all that what are your thoughts?

Glen Crawford 3:45
I couldn’t I couldn’t concur. You know, more emphatically, I, as I said, I went to the experience, myself and all the professionals that I had, they were all disjointed. They’re all in a silo, they didn’t work together. And I’ll give you a sports analogy. A sports analogy that would relate to this might be that, you know, when I was a kid, they didn’t have all these skills coaches that they do for kids now. So everyone sends their kid to the special skills, coaches, let’s take basketball, for instance, you can send them to a shooting coach, you can send them to a dribbling coach, you can send him to a coach to teach him that that is for conditioning. But it’s not the same that’s preparing for the game. So if you only have to say, for instance, your lawyer and I’m not disparaging lawyers in any way, they do great work, they know the law. And I really appreciate the work that you do, but they’re not financial advisors, and they don’t understand unique financial aspects or impact. They don’t understand the value of the impact or the taxes and, you know, the ramifications of those financial decisions. That’s not where they’re, they’re schooled. And so in working with someone like a cdfa, that, that brings clarity to that both for their clients and for themselves. puts them in the position that they’re way out in front when it comes to representing their interests. As you mentioned, the divorce process can be an anti-team game, or it can be somewhat combative. The more prepared you are, whether you’re able to be collaborative with your ex, or soon to be ex, or if not, when you have a team around you, I would liken it to this. So for instance, the work you do as a mediator and a lawyer, Scott, I would, I would call you the head coach, where you might be a head coach that that, you know, came up playing defense and those defending him and you know, you may not know I was a wide receiver, you may not know the nuances of being a wide receiver, how you get off the line, how you score up on that dB, the nuances of getting out of your break and finding the ball and, and the particular techniques and learning how to catch a ball. You know, when do you put your hands one way, as opposed to another way. So if you’re working with a skills coach, you’re preparing for the game preparing for the team, you’re not actually, you know, in the game, when you’re working in a collaborative environment as we do, where the lawyers working with the investment advisor or financial advisor, with the realtor, with the mortgage lender, with a life coach and the work that we do in the collaborative group that we work with, we’re looking to help people find a better financial, legal and emotional outcome on all fronts. And so I would liken it to that it’s working with solian lawyer would be like working with a skills coach and working in an environment like the one that we’ve created is actually working with the team and being in the game and ready for the game.

Chief PeaceKeeper™ Scott Levin 6:40
Yeah, it’s really interesting. So in mediation, I mean, the team with that team analogy, you know, I oftentimes work with both parties during a divorce and we kind of form a team. But no matter whether that’s the case, or they’re going through litigation, the point that I think Glen and I are trying to really make is that educating yourself through engaging this whole team environment only makes you more knowledgeable, makes you more informed, makes you better able to control your own outcomes. You know, when I went to law school, I was 24. I think I actually was like one or two, I think, you know, most of the people were like 2223. So I took a couple of years off in between my undergraduate and in law school, I think the vast majority of people go straight through. So what does a 24-year-old, you know, law student know about finances, I assure you, probably not very much. And so when they get that law degree, that doesn’t mean that we necessarily as attorneys really can comprehend, you know, all the financial strategies that you can employ during your divorce and post-divorce. Let someone like Glenn can facilitate so again, and like Glenn said, life coach, therapy, mortgage, a mortgage specialist, and a real estate specialists that know divorce. These are all elements of your team, that I suggest you engage during the process to get your outcome into a better position post-divorce because you need to look at not like Glenn says it’s often not day one of not day one right now. You’re not day one from when your divorce is over. But what is it going to look like three, four or five years later? Absolutely. So Glen, I mean, can you How do people get in touch with you? I mean, what are the ways that they can reach out?

Glen Crawford 8:43
I’m easy to get ahold of. I’m Glen Crawford. My phone number is 818-486-5053. You can also reach out to me at G Crawford CRA wF rd at SRCM advisors.com.

Chief PeaceKeeper™ Scott Levin 9:03
And that undefeated team that’s pretty special, huh? What year was that for Arizona State?

Glen Crawford 9:09
Okay, I date myself. Well, today is Afro day Scott. And I used to have a big Afro Dan, that was 1975. I was a member of the 12 and oh, undefeated code national champion, Arizona State Sun Devil football team coached by the legendary and Hall of Fame coach, Frank Cush.

Chief PeaceKeeper™ Scott Levin 9:28
Wow, that’s awesome. What an accomplishment. Yeah, take me. Well, listen, we want to wrap up for now, but Glen and I are going to be back with other videos in the future. He’s an exceptional talent at what he does. I really cannot recommend him more. emphatically So Scott Levin chief peacekeeper™, and we’ll be back soon. Thanks a lot, everyone. Thank you, Scott. Have a great day. You too.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai