Navigating Life After Divorce: Expert Tips from Laurie Gerber

We are so pleased to welcome back life coach Laurie Gerber, who shares invaluable insights about dating after divorce and finding love later in life. With over 20 years of experience in life coaching, Laurie discusses the importance of understanding one’s history and making intentional dating choices. We delve into identifying personal patterns, addressing past mistakes, and re-evaluating what one truly wants in a partner. Laurie also emphasizes the significance of not rushing into new relationships and provides practical tips to date effectively. The conversation highlights the broader applicability of these principles to various aspects of life, aiming to help listeners build healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome

01:09 Lauriei's Background and Experience

02:21 Finding Love After Divorce

04:01 Steps to Successful Dating

04:49 Understanding Personal History

07:17 The Three H's Method

09:39 Knowing What You Want

13:59 Assets and Liabilities in Dating

18:57 Conclusion and Upcoming Webinar

Laurie Gerber

Founder, Laurie Gerber Coaching, Inc.

Laurie Gerber is one of the most engaging and effective life coaches and presenters in the country. 

After holding several positions at Handel Group® over the last 20 years, including President of HG Life, Laurie is currently licensing The Handel Method® and running Laurie Gerber Coaching, Inc. focusing on LOVE coaching. 

Laurie has appeared on the Today Show, Dr, Phil, MTV and A & E and been the resident love expert at Match, Zoosk, Jdate, and many more. 

She has been presenting to and coaching individuals, couples, and groups, with a wide range of partners including: the dating sites above, General Assembly, She Tribe, BeSocialChange, IvyConnect, Ellevate, and many more. She has appeared on television shows, podcasts, radio shows, and all over the internet. Check out “The Secret-Free Diet”, her TedX talk on the power of truth telling.

When not working from her NYC townhouse, she’s meditating, jogging, or attempting to get cuddles from her 10, 20 and 22-year old kids and husband of 26 years.

GIVE AWAY:

For more of Laurie's dating resources check out her FREE webinar:

 "3 Secrets to Finding and Maintaining Healthy Love without Repeated Disappointments"

Learn:

✅The biggest mistake women make that prevents them from finding their happily ever after 

✅The 3 Essential Ingredients to finding a suitable companion for long-term commitment 

✅Why you need to implement the 3-date strategy to find your soulmate in WAY less dates.

REGISTER HERE: www.lauriegerber.com/webinar

Or

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https://linktr.ee/LesaKoski

Welcome listeners.

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I'm so thrilled to have you here.

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I've got my friend, Lori Gerber, and

I'm telling you, she's a big deal.

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And she's been on before on saddle

up live, doing divorce different.

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And I'm so grateful to have her

back because I just love getting

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all that learning from you, Lori.

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we decided to have Lori come

back and she's going to help us.

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Talk through divorce or dating after

divorce, and Laurie, I also think of

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some of my friends who may be over 50

and have never been married and they

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still are having issues and they're

really wanting to find someone.

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So I think we could kind of group

that together and chat about that.

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Please just share with my listeners

what brought you to do this work.

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And I say, you're a big deal

because you are, you've been on Dr.

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Phil, you do TEDx and it truly was one

of the most fun conversations I've had.

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So I'm just so thankful that you're back.

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So thank you for being here and welcome.

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Awesome.

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Great to be here.

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I have been in the life coaching

business for over 20 years, which

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is kind of before it existed.

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So I'm a founding mother of that world.

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And honestly, I came

for business coaching.

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I came for career coaching to my coach

originally, but I got so much help in

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the area of relationship and love that

I Decided to become a coach myself.

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So that is my very short history.

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And I will say what I learned in that very

beginning of my experience with a coach

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regarding how to sustain healthy love

has served me up until literally today.

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And all of the tools and principles that I

use, I'm with my husband now 30 years that

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we did have a near divorce experience.

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I use it all.

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I still use it all and I like

teaching it because it also

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helps me remember to use it.

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So that's the selfish piece of it

and i'm excited to talk to folks who

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are listening who have either never

found their person or who have let

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go of a relationship probably for the

best and now are Looking out into the

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future and wondering what's possible.

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That's my favorite.

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That's my favorite moment Yeah,

i'm so excited to talk about that.

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And you know, we all know that divorce

The second time around the second

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marriage, the rate is actually higher.

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So what can people do to find

that perfect match that really

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that, so they're not falling prey

to getting back in the perfect.

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Well, I just want to offer hope for

one moment first, because I have the

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advantage, and you who are listening

may not have the advantage, but I

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have the advantage of having worked

with women daters for 20 years.

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So I've worked with thousands and

thousands of people, both one on

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one, I've worked with couples,

but I've also worked for Match.

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com and Zoosk and JDate, you know,

I've worked for dating companies.

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expose myself to incredible

population of humans.

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And what I want to report back

is that people do find love after

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divorce, after heartbreak, after two

divorces, after really bad situations

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and people do change their type.

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And this is something that's so

important because if you have never

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found love or you keep picking

badly, Either partners or marriages.

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There still is hope.

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There still is hope.

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And I have story after story after

story about somebody doing their work,

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honestly doing their work, coming

out a different person with different

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perspectives, different beliefs,

different thinking patterns, different

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goals for a relationship, and truly

finding a different kind of love.

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Am I saying it's a shoe in?

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Is it, am I saying it's easy?

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No, but there is.

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Hope.

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But yes, you do have to do it differently.

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Okay.

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I love that.

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And I love just putting the

work in can get you there.

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So if people are looking to do

this, what's the first step?

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how do they get there?

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Okay.

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So first step don't rush, right?

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One thing I have learned from

working with women at all stages

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is that they're especially over

50, Especially after divorces, we

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understand there is no need to rush.

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You do not need to find a mate.

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You do not need to produce a child.

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You do not need to

anything, hopefully, right?

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So hopefully you are now for, for

maybe the first time pursuing love

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because you want to, because you

desire a certain kind of partnership,

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not because you feel you need to, to

look good to the outside world or to

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produce a family or to share a family.

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You know, household or financial

responsibilities and all of that,

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hopefully, is now out of the way.

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So, Don't Rush is my first,

uh, my first bit of coaching.

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When I say do the work, the first

part of the work I mean is going

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into your history to understand it.

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Nobody wants to do this.

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Nobody wants to do this.

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Okay, but what this means is studying your

past choices, and I have a very specific

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specific rubric I take my clients through

to study their past choices in a way that

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makes it crystal clear what the pattern

is, what the sellout has been, where

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they sell out, how they sell out, the

flavor, the smells, the type, all of that.

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And I know people kind of think they know.

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But I have found it's quite remarkable

how much people have not analyzed the

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data in a systematic approach so that they

walk out like, I'm not doing that again.

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Now, unfortunately, you gotta

do even one step further is you

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have to go back to your parents

mistakes and their parents mistakes.

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You have to go back in the lineage

and your aunts and your uncles and

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understand what is it that your beautiful,

specific, I think, spiritually intended

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lineage has offered you as your,

you know, Opportunity for evolution.

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Let's put it that way.

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What has your lineage offered you

as your opportunity for evolution?

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So between what your lineage has

offered you, your, your, your family,

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your genetics, and your epigenetics,

and what you have to this point today

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experienced in your actual personal

life, those two things combined to give

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you some really important learnings.

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Some really important learning, some

really important lessons, some really

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important guideposts that then we

turn into the new law in the town.

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Okay.

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that is like the very first bit

of the preparation to date, I

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call it date like you mean it.

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I saw that on your

website and I love that.

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And I just want to mention You

do have a webinar coming up

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for people who are interested.

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And I think is it three secrets to

finding and maintaining healthy love

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without repeated disappointments?

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You got it.

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Beautiful.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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So, I mean, if people want to dig

in, that's a great place to start.

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It's free.

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Chock full of information about

how to, you know, just what I

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just talked about, how to not

sell, how to not sell out, right?

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How to pick differently, how to change

your type, how, what are sort of the

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basic ways to think about dating?

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Cause then the next step is now you

have to figure out what you want, which

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I'm sorry, but if you haven't been

happy in your relationships, what you

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thought you wanted, isn't what you want.

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So you're going to have to be

willing to change your mind.

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I used to think I wanted to eat bagels

and cookies at every meal because there

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was a part of me that wanted that.

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Right.

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But it was not the whole of me, what this

methodology, and we call it the three

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H's method, head, heart, and hoo ha.

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What this methodology is teaching you

to do is to listen to the whole of you.

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Not just one aspect, two aspects of you.

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It turns out the whole of me likes fresh

food from nature that is beautifully

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prepared and excellently prepared.

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That's what the whole of me wants.

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Right.

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And the analogy from food to.

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Picking a lover is very good.

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It's a very strong correlation between no,

I want my Snickers bar or I want my donut

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and no, I want my beautiful, gorgeous

multicolored salad with protein, right?

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They're really, it's a good analogy.

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So, that's the next step of preparation

is to really articulate what you want

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from the heart and the head and the

hoo ha not just whichever age has

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been leading the day up until now.

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Right.

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Okay.

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So we're getting the steps here.

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Don't rush, which I can totally jump into.

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And I'm hearing so much, and I'm

thinking of core wounds when you

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talk about going to your history.

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This is something new to me, Lori.

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I mean, I just, Ooh, I'm

trying to do it a little bit.

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Little work on that just in life.

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And so what you're telling me, and this

is what I thought of when you talked

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about food and the relation to how you

pick what kind of food you want to eat.

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This, this, what you're doing

can apply to a lot of different

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things, not just dating.

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And so I love that.

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The three H's I have asked my clients

to use it in regards to hiring,

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Picking friendships.

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Shopping for clothing,

shopping for a new home.

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Love is incredible.

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Even looking for a job, right?

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It's incredibly or career.

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It's an incredibly applicable concept

because again, most of us are not raised

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to believe you can have all three, right?

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Isn't part of the culture.

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It's, it's actually more

part of the culture is you

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sacrifice one for the other.

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If you want it to be really hot,

it's not going to be practical.

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If you want it to be practical,

it's not going to be practical.

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It's not going to be hot.

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If you want to trust the person,

it's definitely not going to be hot.

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So we're not even looking.

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And it's, unfortunately, if

we don't believe in something,

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we're not going to find it.

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Right.

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Well, and Laurie, I can't help but think

too, that I have been a woman who is now

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just learning to discover what I like.

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And so I imagine some of the listeners

could be thinking, well, I don't

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even, how do I even really know?

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Right.

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I mean, like what am I attracted to?

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I don't know.

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Right.

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And I actually think that's healthier

than thinking, you know, for sure.

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Because a lot of people who

think they know for sure

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they do come and report back.

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Oh no, I ended up with someone I really

liked that wasn't quote unquote my type.

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So I actually think not knowing

is an elegant place to be.

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And then there's a couple of

things you can do about that.

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One is experiment.

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Okay.

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What I mean by experiment is I don't

recommend if you've just gotten out

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of a long term relationship or you've

just been celibate for a really long

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time, I don't recommend you go for long

term monogamy right out of the gate.

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Most, a lot of women can't actually

do a bunch of people at the same time,

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but I really would recommend trying.

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Right.

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Trying to date, trying to see a lot of

different people, even if you have to do

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them in succession, not at once, because

you really do learn a lot by doing that.

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You can't learn by thinking about

it or looking at pictures or asking

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your friends there, it is, there's

an experiential quality to it.

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That's very personal.

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The other thing is when you do

the inventory of your past loves,

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what you're going to find is

that there were things you liked.

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And that you always liked.

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You always liked a sense of adventure.

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You always liked being listened to.

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You always liked this thing in bed.

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You always liked, you know, a certain kind

of sense of humor or something like that.

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Right.

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So there are some clues from your history.

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It's not all bad news in your history

of what you like in your history.

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There's some things you're

going to learn by experience.

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And I'll give you one more tip, which is

brainstorm all the things you think you

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want, and then really ask yourself, where

did I get the idea that I wanted that?

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Like, where did I get the idea?

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Because I long, long had the idea.

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I wanted blonde hair and blue eyed.

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And then I was like, where

did you get that Laurie?

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And it wasn't a good answer, right?

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Like, it was not a answer.

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It was like, do I want to keep having the

same influence as I had when I was 12?

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No, in this case, no.

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So where did that come from that

I want this and why do I want it?

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Because a lot of the times when

I ask a woman why they say they

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want the thing they want, I get

a much better answer than that.

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First, you know, they say tall or

they say wealthy, or they say college

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graduate, or they say whatever.

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And it's not true that

that's what they want.

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What's true is that they want.

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something more essential than that.

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They want to feel safe, they want to feel

seen, they want to feel attracted, they

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want to feel equally met intellectually.

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Those are much better things to

essentialize to in what you're

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looking for than what your brain

will come up with right off the bat.

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So I don't know what's a great start.

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And those are my three tips for

coming to know yourself better.

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Right.

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Okay.

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And so just like digging into

a little deeper into where

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did that thought come from?

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What's the belief behind that?

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Is that even just, where did it come from?

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Like, where did it come from?

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People think they have to date

in their religion, for example.

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And if that's really true for you, Great.

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But if it's not really true for

you, just saying what your parents

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said, or even that you have to

date a certain gender, right?

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Like who said, are you sure?

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Because a large percentage of people

should not be sure, but because

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we're programmed and we think we

know and, or our parents told us, or

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we're scared of the repercussions.

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We go along with something that we

didn't actually choose for ourselves.

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So we just asking people to re

question, where did that come from?

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And do I still believe in that thing?

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Yeah, I still do.

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I still believe in that.

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Do we still want that?

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Yep.

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And what I love about what you're

saying, because this is another new

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thing I'm learning is to not rush.

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You said don't rush first.

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I mean, that is allowing yourself to

experiment, allowing yourself to take the

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time to really look at, finding someone

that's really going to be a match so

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that this is all making good sense to me.

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I love it.

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Okay.

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So after they're kind of brainstorming

what they want, how do they start?

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Dating like they mean it.

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So then the next step is to talk

about, to think about and talk

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about what you have to offer.

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And I really, cause we talk and

think a lot about what we want.

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Now we have to go, okay, what are

we offering in return for that?

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So I have a whole conversation

about assets and liabilities.

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What's great about me in head,

heart and who I want to be.

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I want my clients to be very

clear on what they have to offer.

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And if they're not excited about what

they have to offer, then we need to take

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a little side road and get you to where

you're proud of what you have to offer.

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If you don't think you're a good

communicator, if you don't think you

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can do fun things in bed, if you don't

think that you can care about another

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person's experience, if you don't

like you're too depleted, for example,

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then you need to take the time to get

yourself resourced before you want to

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go out and attract who you're going

to attract at that vibrational level.

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So that's number one.

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the other thing that people avoid

doing, but it's so important is

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really understanding and owning

your personal liabilities.

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And I want you to hear

that in a particular way.

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Liabilities are not

necessarily liabilities.

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I'm putting liabilities in quotes, okay?

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So a liability could be a health issue.

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I mean, people with herpes

are forever ashamed, right?

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like, they can barely even date, right?

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Like it's tragic, how much a certain

kind of health issue can take someone

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out of the game entirely because

it feels like such a liability.

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For the right partner, it could be the

opposite of a liability, just so you know.

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Other liabilities are things I

have to care for a dependent.

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I don't have a lot of money.

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I don't have a lot of

geographical flexibility.

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I have seven cats.

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I have a dog.

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And then there are personality traits.

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I tend towards being selfish.

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I'm sloppy.

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I'm messy.

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I'm argumentative.

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I'm judgmental.

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People want to just pretend they have none

and avoid that conversation in dating.

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I recommend you go into dating being

very clear about your liabilities

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and already having your, the ways

in which you talk about it, right?

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My clients need to figure out how they're

going to talk about their health issues,

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figure out how they're going to talk

about their kids, figure out how they're

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going to talk about the fact maybe they're

still married, figured out how they're

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going to talk about their ex and how the

ex shows up in their life, figure out

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how they're going to talk about their

personality traits that are tricky.

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I mean, and Anand, I can give you a list

of like the top 20 most common topics,

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but I can assure you if you're listening

right now, you have seven ish, and you

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need to learn how to talk about them, and

then you need to learn how to elicit the

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other person talking about theirs, too,

to see do we have liability compatibility?

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And then we work on a profile and pictures

and then I teach you canned responses

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for how you can move things along online

if you're dating online And then we talk

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about how to have difficult conversations

so that you can keep bringing up things as

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you go and establish a baseline of honesty

in the relationship that's the summary.

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All right.

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I love that.

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Okay That's so good and so helpful.

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And I feel like this information could

be so helpful to young people as well.

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Because when you're talking about, talk

about your liabilities, when I think back

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to, you know, 35 years ago, when I started

dating my husband, well, I just was

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like, Trying to make myself look perfect.

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Yeah.

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Oh a lot of good that does me right that

doesn't mean no good because How long do

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you think you can hold in your stomach?

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Like how long do you think?

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Good for you.

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Exactly.

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Exactly So I I feel like Laurie this could

be something that if people date, right?

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I think the divorce rate

would go down for sure.

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I mean, we get married

for so many bad reasons.

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And you know, what's so interesting

is that I talked to a lot of people

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who are divorcing and divorced and

most of them say they knew they

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actually knew when they got married.

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They knew before they

walked down the aisle.

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They knew when they were

walking down the aisle.

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They knew shortly after they walked down

the aisle, the thing that eventually

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broke them up was not a surprise, which

tells you that we make a choice, right?

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We make a choice to let something

slide and step over something in

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honor of something else we're chasing.

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And I'm not saying you don't have to

negotiate or compromise in relationships,

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but unfortunately, you know, a majority of

people compromise too much and ultimately

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they cannot sustain that sacrifice.

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Right.

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Well, I love that you're

changing the world and let's

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get that divorce rate down.

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I feel like I don't want to say I got

lucky or I was blessed or whatever

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it is to still be in the marriage

that I'm in because I didn't do this.

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You know, all this and, and it would

have been so much better if I did.

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And as you're talking, I can see friends

who did end up divorced and had they gone

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through this list of, well, knowing for

one, knowing what you want, knowing your

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liabilities, It can help you in dating.

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It can help you in business.

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It can help you in everything.

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So I appreciate you being here, Laurie.

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And I'm looking at the time and it's

ticking away, but what I want my listeners

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to know is that if you love listening

to Laurie jump on saddle up live because

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Laurie and I are going to be talking

about dating your spouse, which I really

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need help on because I've let that slide.

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Sign up for that web, that webinar.

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It's going to be in the show notes.

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Lori, do you want to let people

know where they can find you?

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Sure.

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Yeah.

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The best place to find me is Lori Gerber.

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com, which is L A U R I E G E R B E R.

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com.

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And if you add the slash webinar, you will

see the free webinar available to you.

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If that's the direction you want to

go, or you can just look around on

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the website and see what you like.

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Wonderful.

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Thanks so much for being here.