Leah Hadley [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Intentional Divorce Insights. I'm Leah Hadley, certified divorce financial analyst, accredited financial counselor and the founder of Intentional Divorce Solutions. I'll be your guide through the complexities of divorce finance and emotional wellness. Join me as we uncover practical tips and empowering insights to help you navigate your divorce with clarity and intention. Hi there and welcome back to Intentional Divorce Insights. I'm. I am so happy that you are here with me today. I have a really special guest.
Leah Hadley [00:00:32]:
This is Mia Poppe. And I am so curious to learn more about her story. So you're going to be right here with me as we kind of explore how she got to where she is today and the amazing impact that she's really having on women and on the divorce process. And I'm just so excited to talk to her. Let me give you a little introduction before we get into it. Mia is a highly sought after matrimonial attorney, particularly in complex custody cases. She is a South Carolina native and granddaughter of a sharecropper. Mia operates with pragmatism, honesty and authenticity.
Leah Hadley [00:01:05]:
And I know for a lot of you who have had some struggles with your attorney, that's going to feel really refreshing for you. She really has those qualities that allow her to be an incredible business leader and to really practice law with integrity. And she's published two books that I'm excited to hear her talk about. One is the Empowered Woman's Guide and the other is Unbreaking Wonder Woman. With over a decade of leadership experience at companies like Citicor, GE Capital and Bank of America. That's right. She started her career in banking. Mia seamlessly blends legal expertise with sharp financial acumen to provide clients with strategic, results driven counseling.
Leah Hadley [00:01:47]:
Welcome, Mia. Thank you so much for being here with us today.
Mia Poppe [00:01:51]:
Leah, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to share.
Leah Hadley [00:01:56]:
Absolutely. It's my pleasure. And Mia and I are talking today about something that you all know is near and dear to my heart and that is really having agency through the divorce process. Right. We call this Intentional Divorce Insights. You know, I've done whole episodes about what we mean when talk about intentionality, but Mia's really going to walk us through some of the very concrete tools that you can use to feel like you have more control over the process. That just for so many of us feels like we are floundering, that we don't have control. And that can just make the process feel that much more frustrating.
Leah Hadley [00:02:33]:
So I'm really excited to dive into this conversation, but I was so curious when I was preparing this interview and learning more about Mia and her background. Mia, tell me about kind of where you were in banking, what you were doing, and how you got into the legal work.
Mia Poppe [00:02:50]:
Yes, I'd love to share that story. So I began my career in banking with Citicorp. Freshly out of college, I graduated from college in South Carolina, relocated to the San Francisco Bay area with my then first husband, and began working for Citi, which was incredible because I participated in their Management Associates program. And I really cut my teeth learning some really sharp business and leadership insights, which of course helped me today in my practice. From Citi, I was then recruited by GE Capital, also in the finance realm. And GE Capital was a great place to be, really honed in on leadership skills, process development, and kaizen. Something I'll talk about briefly if I have an opportunity today.
Mia Poppe [00:03:54]:
And then from there, I went to Bank of America, where I found myself single mom of three boys, newly divorced, making really, really good money. And I asked myself the question, is this all I do with my life? I get a really great bonus every year. You know, do I? What else can I buy? How many handbags, how many pairs of shoes? And what I decided with my three sons is that I would buy back my time. I left the workplace. I went to law school full time as a mature student. And, and, you know, I like to tell people that matrimonial law failed me because before I got. Before even going to law school, Leah, when people were going through divorce, I would always get the, well, what do you think, Mia? Question, no legal acumen, no reason for people to ask me that. But it was a question that followed my life.
Mia Poppe [00:04:51]:
And when I started law school, those questions that people had when they were divorcing even more so intensified. So matrimonial law, way before I went to law school, that skill set, that stomach, that pragmatism for navigating divorces really found me. And, you know, your gift will make room for you. And the gift that put into me to be a matrimonial practitioner certainly made room for me.
Leah Hadley [00:05:24]:
I just have to acknowledge the framing of that for a minute there, right? The gift of becoming a matrimonial attorney. Because, I mean, we work with, obviously lots of attorneys all over the country and hear it all, you know, and one of the things that I hear over and over and over again is how hard it is to continue in this area of practice, Right? Because for a lot of people who get really attached and connected and they care about their clients and it's an emotional process, right? And so I love, Mia, that you are really recognizing and acknowledging what a blessing and a beautiful thing it is that this area of law called you so you can really make a difference for families.
Mia Poppe [00:06:08]:
That's right. That's exactly right.
Leah Hadley [00:06:10]:
Oh, that's awesome. So tell me a little bit. You know, we see it all the time, all kinds of abuse that people experience during the divorce process, whether it's financial. It may be something that you might even not even be able to kind of put your finger on or put language around. But how can people protect themselves, Mia?
Mia Poppe [00:06:32]:
Well, as simple as it may sound, and most of the most complex things in the world are simple. You know, really navigating divorce is all about mindset. It starts and ends with mindset. And what tangles us up in the divorce process is that divorce hits two of the things that are closest and nearest to our hearts, our children, frequently, right? And so we're afraid. And so that emotion is. Is. Is. Is churning.
Mia Poppe [00:07:10]:
And the second thing is money, right? Money means a lot to us because we exchange money for necessary goods and services, right? And so divorce triggers those two things. And the. The magic elixir, Leah, is if you can accept someone like me or someone like Leah, see, saying, listen, this journey will begin with mindset, and it will end with mindset. Because all of life, Leah, you and I both know, is a matter of perspective. And so if you can transition yourself, and this is work, because I've done the work. I've been divorced twice, and one of those divorces landed me into custody litigation, right? And so but if you can get a handle on mindset, and there are tools to do that. So I'm not speaking about something nebulous. You know, in my case, when I was served with papers regarding custody of my twin daughters, you know, it brought me to my knees.
Mia Poppe [00:08:23]:
But because I was a business owner, because I was a matrimonial lawyer and others were depending on me, I knew I couldn't afford the time to slowly go through the process. So what did I do? I hired a grief and transition coach, and I hired a meditation coach. I didn't leave myself to my own devices, like, oh, I got to get control of my emotions. I'm going to sit, and I'm going to do TM Trans Transcendental Meditation. 20 minutes of. No, I hired a meditation coach because time was of the essence. And so I frequently tell people, especially women, listen, if you're at a low place, team up. You know, get your.
Mia Poppe [00:09:08]:
Your. Your best girlfriends in your ear, your nagging mother who you didn't like to listen to, get her in your ear. If you don't have that kind of support system, then do what I did and hire a team. But, you know, mindset, when you're afraid to death of losing your children or your children being emotionally scarred or being, you know, turned outside of your home and not having money, those are emotional landmines that you just gotta get in front of. Leah. You just gotta.
Leah Hadley [00:09:43]:
Absolutely Right. And honestly, Mia, you are the very first attorney who I've spoken to who talked about it. Very first, starting with mindset.
Leah Hadley [00:09:51]:
And you're right. You know, I heard somebody recently on a podcast or something talking about their experience growing their business and how essentially their experience growing their business had been a personal development journey. Because everything comes up, right when you're faced with challenge after challenge, you have to explore where you are limiting yourself. Well, you know, if we're going to take that business journey and call that a personal development journey, your divorce journey, boy, oh boy, will that bring up everything that has come up. It's going to trigger something from when you are three years old that you haven't thought about ever in your life. Right. And so taking the time and space to acknowledge that we are bringing all of this stuff into this very emotional, trying transition that's so powerful to just be proactive in that space and saying, like, hey, guess what? There are tools out there. So you mentioned a couple of tools that you use.
Leah Hadley [00:10:47]:
Mia, is there anything else that you would point people to as far as strategies go to really help them set themselves up for success?
Mia Poppe [00:10:56]:
Right. So, you know, one of the things, Leah, that you just said, you said, oh, your divorce, it'll bring up things from when you were three years old. Well, I'll frame it a little differently. And how I'll frame it is that your divorce process will find everything that you're afraid of, and it will also find every one of your triggers, regardless of what those triggers are, regardless of when they arose, but the divorce process will find them. And so, you know, in a way, and I say this as someone who's been through a divorce, right. You know, in a way, a divorce can be a purification process. Right. And so, you know, what are some of the tools I mentioned two of the tools that, that I, that I use in my.
Mia Poppe [00:11:49]:
My book, I wrote a book, the Empowered Woman's Guide to Navigating Divorce. And I give 10 guidelines and principles for navigating divorce in an empowered way.
Leah Hadley [00:12:02]:
Let me just stop you really quick, Mia. Cause I just want to let people know that Mia has very, very generously offered the first 20 people who reach out to her for a copy of that book will get it completely free. We will include the email that you should reach out to in the show notes. But I just want to make all know that that's available. Go ahead Mia.
Mia Poppe [00:12:21]:
Yes, it's available and I'm, I'm happy to, you know, to give this book. And so you know, I talk about 10 guidelines and, and you know, one of the guidelines is team up, don't go it alone, right. And then each day like do some level of acceptance, self acceptance, right? Okay, you got it wrong. Okay, I did too, twice. And, and it was a part of my journey and you know, so accept that. Don't listen. It's not going to help you to do a post mortem on everything you did wrong. Right.
Mia Poppe [00:13:11]:
Accept that you messed up. Right. But also accept the great truth that you're not the person today that you were before. Like when you initially said I do and granted your partner. They're not the same person either. But I don't want to address your partners. The other tools that I tell people that they should work on practice is, is practice developing an internal locus of control. An internal locus of control versus an external locus of control.
Mia Poppe [00:13:50]:
An internal locus of control focuses on what did I do, what can I do, what should I do? And it's very proactive, right? As long as I'm in the what can I do mode, Leah, I can move forward on the course that I chart. But if my locus of control is on my ex husband or soon to be ex husband, that's an external locus of control. And I'm now in the position of being acted upon, somebody's acting upon me, right? So that's something that people can start to do. So start to develop an internal locus of control. Now someone might say, Mia, how do I do that? You know, I grew up in a household where somebody else was always at fault, you know, always. That's all I ever heard from my mom. That's all I ever heard from my dad. So I mentioned Leah earlier that I was going to talk a little bit about a principle, a Japanese principle.
Mia Poppe [00:14:55]:
It's called kaizen. And basically what kaizen teaches us is don't boil the ocean, do one little change at a time. So one little self correction like starts a whole ripple. One little rejection of one little mindset that you have. So how do you do it? You do it one little thing at a time. How do you change yourself from having an external locus of control, somebody is always acting on you, to an internal locus of control. You do it one small thing at a time. So Kaizen, the principal, Kaizen K A I Z E N talks about little incremental steps that culminate into a big change.
Mia Poppe [00:15:50]:
Also, one of my favorite sayings is a Ben Franklin saying. And it goes, little strokes fell great oaks. So you don't cut down a huge oak tree in one swing of the axe. You don't even cut it down in 10 swings of an axe. You cut it down exerting patience and perseverance and one little knock at a time. And then finally, my third thing that I'll impart regarding taking little steps is most of us have probably heard the saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. So I don't want people minimizing their little changes. Don't use the word my little baby steps.
Mia Poppe [00:16:44]:
I want you to use the vernacular. My changes that I'm making, my small changes. Because the oak tree will fall.
Leah Hadley [00:16:54]:
Absolutely.
Mia Poppe [00:16:55]:
You will arrive at the thousand mile journey.
Leah Hadley [00:16:58]:
Absolutely. The step. I love, I love that we're talking about this, Mia. We have a membership program called the Empowered Sisterhood. And one of the big things that I try to impart upon our sisters is that let's celebrate, let's acknowledge every little tiny step. Because it's. It's a long journey, right? And it's so easy to get off course. But when we celebrate, when we acknowledge, we build that momentum, right? And so suddenly now all of a sudden I have members who are like hearing some of the other sisters talk and they're like, well, wait, let's acknowledge that step.
Leah Hadley [00:17:31]:
And it just makes my heart sing that they are recognizing in each other to really celebrate and acknowledge these steps. Steps. Because for so many of us, it feels like we're looking at a mountain and it's hard to take that first step, right? Or that there's like this huge hurdle in our way. So I just, I love that you're. You're focused and sharing specifically around some of these steps. Now for some people, and you, Mia, have the experience dealing with these high conflict situations. It can really feel like, how am I ever going to figure out what is the next right step? Step? How do you help people with that, Mia?
Mia Poppe [00:18:11]:
Oh, God. So listen, the right step is dependent. It's. It's multifaceted, right? So number one, the right step is dependent on you and what you have an appetite for. Because there is no one, one size Fits all but what I say to my clients. And. And I work very collaboratively with my clients. Like I say, you got to get in this game.
Mia Poppe [00:18:42]:
This is your life. This is not my life. This is your life. And so I work collaboratively with them. But there are many times it frequently comes up when I say to my clients, we can do a. But let me tell you what a looks like. And you have to evaluate whether you have the stomach for a or not. Because, listen, in.
Mia Poppe [00:19:10]:
In divorce, there's lots of strategies. There's, you know, the saying, there are, you know, many rivers that lead to the ocean, right? Gonna still get there. But you have to be honest about what you have the stomach for. And listen, you don't have to understand everything about the divorce process. You need to hire and retain a lawyer that you trust, but you need to have a level of understanding about at a high level. You can't be in the dark, right? You got to have a lawyer that you trust, but you also have to be in the game. You cannot be in the dark. And one of the strategies that I love to use, I love to use this, this strategy is I love to invite my clients to invite a trusted person in on our meetings.
Mia Poppe [00:20:08]:
Because the reality of it is out. You know, Leah, when you're going through a divorce, the emotions are running so high that it's very easy for you to hear everything I say. Kind of like the Charlie Brown teacher, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because you're in an emotional state. So I want you to honor that. So I frequently encourage my clients, you know, bring somebody in to these meetings. And we have a whole form, a third party authorization, and we, like, sign that we can discuss everything freely with them. Because the reality of it is, is your best friend or your sister, they're hearing me say something that you're not hearing, right? It is.
Mia Poppe [00:20:59]:
They're hearing something that you're not hearing. And so, again, divorce is a. Is a team sport. Strategy is important, and you need to understand the strategy that your lawyer is pursuing, but you also need to have the stomach. You cannot come to your lawyer's office and say, my girlfriend Brenda, she did this, she did this. Her lawyer did this or that. Well, that's Brenda. And maybe that worked for Brenda.
Mia Poppe [00:21:30]:
But you know that saying, to thine own self be true, we have to walk a path. That's a path that you can walk, right? Because divorce hits some people really, really hard. There are some clients that start with me, and I go, listen, I have this expression that I love, and you probably saw it on some of my media. Let me be your brave. Where, you know, some people come and they're so blindsided, I go, listen, I am your proxy, right? And I'm gonna carry you for a while, but I'm not going to carry you through this whole divorce because you'll miss too much. Just integral for your post divorce success. But I'm going to carry you right now, right? And that's, you know, that happens. That is a reality of divorce.
Mia Poppe [00:22:22]:
But you must keep making those small steps. And Leah, I do want to quickly parallel off to something you mentioned when you talked about one of your subscription groups with, about empowering women going through a divorce. So I'm in the process of writing a third book. I won't say the title because, you know, I don't, I don't want the title being used by somebody else. But I give strategic advice in this book. And one of the chapters is titled get yourself some hype queens. Hype. Spelled hype, right? When you're going through a divorce or any traumatic time, listen, you know, frequently in life, the voice, the inner voice is the, is the harshest voice and it's the most condemning voice.
Mia Poppe [00:23:17]:
And until you can rewire your selft talk, you need to surround yourself with hype queens. Girlfriends who just hype you up. Girlfriends that just tell you you're, you know, all of that in a bag of chips. And, and the reason why you need those is because you're trying to reset your mind to. That's reminding you constantly of all the bad things you did, of all the missteps, how you put yourself in this situation, right? You. And you need, if you're getting that inner noise, you need outer, you know, hype queens. I cannot say enough about hype queens except get yourself some hype.
Leah Hadley [00:24:03]:
And I have to say what I love about the hype queen concept, right? It's about building you up. So often our friends and family and people who love you want to tear the other person down. And there may be a time and space for that. Don't get me wrong, I need to vent sometimes. I get angry. I get it. But what Mia is talking about is empowering yourself, right? To surround yourself with people who show you what's possible on the other side, right? Like Mia shared her story of leaving a profession that wasn't fulfilling to her to find a career that was really something that was meaningful to her. For me, in my first marriage, I would not have been able to start my business and have the impact that I'm Able to have.
Leah Hadley [00:24:43]:
Because that wouldn't have been supported in that relationship. Right. I was able to do that once I came out on my own and I had my hype girls. Right. To help me remember what I'm capable of. I think that's so powerful, and I so appreciate you sharing that with us. I'm excited to check out this new book.
Mia Poppe [00:25:02]:
Yeah, it's. It's. Yeah. So those. Those. Those hype queens are really. Those. Those are really important.
Mia Poppe [00:25:09]:
You know, the divorce process is a process that forces you to look internally. And so hype queens are a must. But I recently encountered this expression that I love, and I'm going to be using it, and it's called, you know, taking your coffee black. Start taking your coffee black. And what that means is develop the ability to take in drink what's bitter. Do not add sugar to something that is actually bitter. Right. And so, you know, the mind is a powerful thing, and sometimes when bitter, negative things are happening to us.
Mia Poppe [00:25:54]:
We have the propensity sometimes to reframe them as something sweet. No, take the bitter, assess the bitter, and move forward with it. Don't be so in the mindset of making everything taste good. Listen, divorce doesn't taste good, and I've been divorced twice, but I can tell you the woman that I am so amazingly proud of and that my children are so amazingly proud of, she was curated through those two divorces. Right. So there is another side, and nothing is happening to any of us that is not working toward our next level of good.
Leah Hadley [00:26:45]:
Oh, that's beautiful. Absolutely. Absolutely. Mia, I so appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today to share your wisdom. There are so many good nuggets here. I hope you guys will actually listen to this a couple of times, especially some of the mindset stuff that we talked about. I know when working on people that mindset is a big struggle in life in general. Forget about it.
Leah Hadley [00:27:09]:
When you're going through a divorce, it takes it to a whole nother level. And so I'm so sorry. So glad that you brought that topic to the light today. I just think it's so critical. Any final words you have for our audience, Mia.
Mia Poppe [00:27:22]:
Oh, my gosh. So listen, number one, and my final word is be well. Be holistically well. Be well with yourself. Be well with the life that you're living right now, today, and mostly be well with the future that you're moving towards.
Leah Hadley [00:27:44]:
So beautiful. Mia, where can people find out more about you and connect with you online?
Mia Poppe [00:27:50]:
Oh, yes, I listen, I would love it if your listeners would go to my Instagram account, which is miapoppe esq. I have resources there. I have videos there where I share some nuggets. Also, if somebody wants to reach me directly, they can email me at my law firm, the law firm of Poppe and Associates. And let me and let Leah know if you'd love to get this book. I really want to get this book into your listener page.
Leah Hadley [00:28:20]:
Absolutely. We believe. Make sure to share that and encourage people to reach out to you directly to get access to that. Mia, again, thank you so much for your time today and your wisdom for our listeners. Thank you so much for being here with us and we will see you next week.
Mia Poppe [00:28:34]:
Thank you.
Leah Hadley [00:28:35]:
Leah, thank you for joining me on Intentional Divorce Insights. It's a privilege to share this time with you. I hope each episode offers valuable guidance to navigate your journey. If you find our content helpful, please leave a review to help others discover the benefits of intentional decision making in divorce. Until next time, take care and continue to embrace your path with intention.
