Episode 48: Tania Leichliter's Untold Story Behind Better Than Bitter: Helping Individuals Towards More Amicable Divorce Resolutions

Summary

In this conversation, Tania Leichliter shares her journey from being a business owner to becoming a life coach, specifically focusing on divorce coaching. She discusses the importance of changing the narrative around divorce, emphasizing the potential for amicable resolutions and the emotional well-being of those involved. Tania introduces her initiative, Better Than Bitter, aimed at empowering individuals going through divorce and reducing the stigma associated with it. She highlights the skills and techniques that can help individuals navigate the challenges of divorce while maintaining a positive outlook and fostering healthy relationships, especially for the sake of children.

Takeaways

• I was a business owner for many years.
• I decided to start life coaching classes.
• I wanted to help people at the very beginning stages.
• Divorce empowerment coaching is a growing field.
• It's important to change the divorce dialogue.
• Children of divorce should not feel shame.
• An amicable resolution is possible even in conflict.
• You can control your reaction during divorce.
• We teach a method called BIF for communication.
• Believing in a positive outcome is crucial.

Titles

Transforming Divorce: From Bitter to Better

Empowering Through Divorce Coaching

Sound Bites

"I see it as a movement."

"You can control your reaction."

"We teach a method called BIF."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Better Than Bitter

02:45 The Journey to Divorce Coaching

06:06 Mindset Mastery and Self-Love

09:54 The Importance of Education in Divorce

11:35 Techniques for Amicable Resolutions

14:20 NEWCHAPTER

15:18 Introduction to Amicable Divorce

16:47 Resources for Support and Growth

On our website you'll find details and additional information on our 5-Step Gameplan multimedia course, our different types of coaching methods, monthly memberships, events and retreats, and a whole lot more. Plus, we've got a ton of free resources, like our monthly newsletter, our private Facebook group, our Instagram channel, and a library of articles and free webinars to help you along the way. When you go to our website, you'll be able to schedule a free 45-minute breakthrough call. Remember, we're here to help you reach an amicable resolution. Find your courage and believe in your brighter future because you know what? It is possible.

At Better Than Bitter™, we measure success by what we give and not by what we get. So, let's change the divorce dialogue together. It's time to be better than bitter.

Do you want to know if We Can Help You? Book A Free 1:1 Breakthrough Call Now! Click Here

If you want to connect with a Divorce Concierge, contact Vesta Divorce Concierge here!

Welcome to the Better Than Bitter Divorce Podcast, where we flip the script on divorce and show you how to have a more amicable divorce resolution. I'm your host, Tania Leichliter a divorce coach, a certified life coach, and the mastermind behind the Better Than Bitter five-step game plan course, where I help individuals build a pathway towards a more amicable divorce resolution.

Each week, I'll bring you uplifting stories from people who've successfully experienced amicable separations, proving that divorce doesn't have to be a battleground. Whether you're overwhelmed with grief, struggling with custody and co-parenting, or just dealing with a high-conflict individual, this podcast is here to guide you towards reclaiming your life and being what I know is possible, better than bitter.

Here is my untold story. Tania, CEO and founder of Better Than Bitter. If you are curious about my journey and how I can help you build a pathway towards a more amicable divorce resolution, keep listening.

I was a business owner for many years. ran an ad agency for about 14 years, and my company got acquired, and I went and worked for this larger company. And when I was there, I just was like, this is not what I want to be doing. And so in this soul-searching time in my life, I decided to start taking some life coaching classes, not to be a life coach, but just to be coached by a life coach. ⁓

thought

around that was just about, well, how can I know what's possible in my next phase of my life? Maybe a little bit of midlife crisis. And so as I was taking these courses, it was like a voracious hunger for this amazing information that was coming to me. All different types of perspectives and how to look at things, and how to feel things, and how to set goals, and what's possible. And I was so inspired. And so I decided I wanted to become a life coach.

I was like, THIS is my next thing. This is what I want to do. And in that process of me deciding I was going to get certified to be a life coach, I was faced with divorce. And I was able to take what I had learned in not just...

In my certification, I'm moving forward to become a life coach, but I'm just being coached. And I was able to apply all these incredible tools in my toolbox in terms of being able to apply that to my process. And although I kind of did it in a backward way, because we had already stepped into mediation before I really started applying all these techniques. So I was working on myself while I was in mediation.

But even though that process was a little bit more painful to do it that way, because I really should have done the work before, I decided that, in the end, the outcome was so amicable and everyone was like, I've never seen such an amicable divorce.

I'm like, well, why don't I just become a life coach for people getting divorced? Hence, there is a name for that. It's called a divorce coach. And there's a whole industry built in divorce coaching, but it's really more like divorce empowerment coaching. And I came up with this idea of BETTER THAN BITTER because what I really wanted to do

was I wanted to help people at the very beginning stages when they're faced with divorce to know that they can have an amicable resolution, even if their soon to be ex is not on the same page, or even if they maybe never worked and that they were stay at home moms, or even if they felt like they were working with a very high conflict individual. So I had a mission and a vision to really change the divorce dialogue.

making it so it doesn't have such a stigma. Not just a stigma on the individuals getting a divorce, but I wanted the children of divorce not to feel that stigma. I didn't want children who found out their parents are getting divorced to feel shame when they walk through the hallways of their schools.

I wanted to help not just one-to-one individuals through coaching, but I wanted to create a way to have a scalable business to touch thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, to make sure that they know that an amicable resolution is possible.

That is what Better Than Bitter does. And that is why I've started it, is because I want to let people know that the divorce dialogue today starts with go get yourself a lawyer, get to a place where someone's gonna fight for you, and get what you deserve out of your divorce, and that's just not what it should be about. It should be about...

It's okay, and accept the fact that like, yeah, you know what? So your marriage didn't work. But it doesn't mean that you can't show up with love every day in a way that maybe you're not in love with your soon-to-be ex-partner, but.

You can show up with love, consideration, and kindness if you have children that you're going to need to continue to co-parent. And I really am passionate about that because if you don't move through your emotional divorce before you actually have your legal divorce, you're going to have the same emotional feelings of angst and resentment and anger when you finish the paperwork. Clear that up. Create a brighter future.

just for yourself, but for your kids.

I got into divorce coaching in kind of a roundabout way. I've always been an entrepreneur, so I've always started small businesses. I started off my career actually as a health and wellness professional. I have my master's degree in exercise physiology, health education, and sports business, and I ran a health and wellness business in Manhattan for about six years. So, I'm always working with clients. Obviously, coaching unofficially. I always said I was my client's therapist.

And so I ended up moving from there, wanting to jump onto the internet train back in the late 90s. And I ended up finding myself at an internet startup.

and worked in travel and tourism, and we are at the forefront of digital marketing. So I ended up finding myself selling advertising, and I found out that in selling digital advertising, nobody knew what digital advertising actually was. I was working for Travelocity at the time, and I left Travelocity to consult with tourism organizations on how to use digital marketing in their advertising strategy. And when I consulted with them,

said, Well, why can't you just do this? So next thing you know, I'm running a very successful digital media agency, which I ran for 14 years. Still working with clients, so I was always solutions-oriented, meaning always trying to create solutions for clients, and I ended up selling my company about five years ago, and I ended up working for the larger company that bought me. And I think in that process, I just wanted something new.

My graduate degree is actually in human development, and human development is the study of understanding, managing, motivating, and helping people. So I always felt like everything that I was doing was kind of aligned with that original degree that I got. And as I was doing some soul searching, and I just felt unsatisfied with what I was doing in my career, I decided to go and engage in a life coaching program to coach myself, not to coach others.

And it was this incredible experience where I just voraciously was consuming, consuming, consuming content, and I just couldn't even get enough. I went from one lesson to the next, and every single day I just felt better, felt stronger, more courageous, empowered. I knew that maybe this was something I wanted to do. So I decided to sign up for a certification class in life coaching, and it was literally during that big decision-making

process that I found myself faced with divorce.

Instead of turning around and saying, Whoa, is it me or my God, my life is shattered, and I can't see till tomorrow. I just started to really apply what I had been learning over the last year of really engaging and learning how to coach myself. And it was through those tools and techniques, and like newfound, like I said, courage, empowerment, the life of possibilities. I was like, I've got this.

And

I decided that, yeah, now I'm certified as a life coach, and I'm going through this divorce. I'm applying all these tools and techniques to my own divorce. And people started saying, My gosh, this is the most amicable divorce we've ever seen. Like, you guys are friends. And I just decided that why can't that be an outcome for more people? Why can't I help more people have an amicable resolution like...

like my own. So I transitioned my life coaching business to really focusing on helping people who are getting divorced. And it wasn't just helping people who are in the divorce process, but I wanted to start them off with a level of education and knowledge that sets them on the right path. Because it's a lot harder when you're down that path and you're already having legal issues and you've already given your lawyer $60,000.

It's harder to start there. It's much easier to get people started at the beginning. So that's how I got into coaching, and I am so excited about where we're heading with Better Than Bitter, and I really see it as a movement. I see it as more than just affecting the one-to-one relationships that I have with clients, but it's allowing more people to get really excited about changing the divorce dialogue and destigmatizing divorce for more people, and allowing for our children not feel shame around their parents getting divorced and reducing the long lasting emotional trauma that's so often experienced by so many people and finding ways to mitigate costs.

And I really think it starts with you at the beginning, and getting prepared for an alternative dispute resolution method like a mediation, and not deciding that the first step is to go hire a lawyer. So I am super excited about how I've gotten here.

I love the fact that I've been able to pull all of my experience into this one place and apply it to this new career path, and I'm so excited to be able to help more people in the process.

Divorce is just the transition that you're going through right now, but if you can really master the skills that we teach you through this process, it's going to help you in every single area of your life, your caree,r your relationships your future love romantic relationships and just overall general well-being I think that they are general methods to be able to apply no matter what stage of life you're in.

So every single time I hear people say, I could never have an amicable divorce. My husband's a narcissist. There's no way we're going to be able to get to an amicable resolution. There's just too much conflict. Guess what? Those are your thoughts, and you can decide to think that, and the results that you're going to get because of your thinking are those results that are not going to be possible. You're right. You cannot control somebody else, but you can control your reaction.

And I talk in my lessons about this idea of attack and threat and attack and threat. If you get attacked and you threaten, you're going to be responded to with attack and threat, attack and threat. But if you respond to somebody in an informational way, in a way that is friendly,

But firm, you're gonna get a different response. You can still be very informational, very brief about what you're trying to accomplish, friendly about the way that you're delivering your message, and firm in terms of the boundary that you're setting, and it won't sound like a threat. And we teach a method called BIF. It's brief, informative, friendly, and firm. If you learn that technique, you will be able to work through any high-conflict situation.

in a way that people don't feel attacked or threatened. If you start attacking and threatening people, guess what they're going to respond with? Attack and threat, attack and threat. So we teach methods by which we can get you through very challenging situations, and you have to believe that an amicable resolution is possible. And I'm not telling you that during the divorce process it's going to be easy, and it's all going to be like, I love you so much. Like that's not what's going to happen. It is going to be challenging, but it is a bit

business negotiation. Leave your emotions at the door. Arrive as if this is a business negotiation. There will be discomfort, but you need to work through ways to manage your own discomfort. And you don't need to do it through attack and a threat or revenge or the common ways by which people specifically react to other people's ways of treating them. You can't control your soon-to-be X. They are probably not going to change. The only thing you have control over is your own

reactions. So we instill that in you, and then we give you tools in your toolbox to work through any of those high-conflict situations. We teach how to regulate. We teach you how to understand that you can rethink and that you can react and respond after you've taken a big pause.

So there are so many amazing ways that you can get through this. I'm going to challenge everybody out there to say to themselves, I can have an amicable resolution, and you can have the results you're looking for if you believe it.

Thanks for listening to the untold story behind Better Than Bitter. We hope that you will continue to listen to more episodes. Follow us on social media and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Just look for the Better Than Bitter brand. Just for tuning in, head to our website to claim your free support group trial or a free consult.

Thanks for tuning in to Better Than Bitter, navigating an amicable divorce. Whether you are at the beginning of your divorce journey, midway through, or even done, we want the stories from our guests to give you hope that an amicable resolution is possible. If you'd like to dive deeper into today's episode, check out our show notes for a full transcript, reflections, and links to learn more about Better Than Bitter's coaching courses,

and how to connect with our fabulous guests. If you're ready for more support, you can head over to betterthanbitter.coach. Daily, you'll find details and additional information on our five-step game plan multimedia course, our one-to-one Zoom coaching, group coaching, monthly memberships, events and retreats, and a whole lot more. Plus, we've got a ton of free resources, like our monthly newsletter,

our private Facebook group, Instagram channel, and a library of articles and free webinars to help you along the way. When you go to our website, you'll be able to schedule a free 45-minute breakthrough call. Remember, we're here to help you reach an amicable resolution. Find your courage and believe in your brighter future because you know what? It is possible.

At Better Than Bitter, we measure success by what we give and not by what we get. So let's change the divorce dialogue together. It's time to be better than bitter.