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Stop Reacting to Your Co-Parent: Do This Instead · The Conscious Divorce

• Justin Milrad: It's 10 o'clock at night. The dishes are done. The kids are finally asleep. For the first time all day, your mind goes quiet. And then your phone dings. One message from your co-parent. You've not even read it yet. And already your chest tightens. Your jaw sets, and every ounce of calm you've built today drains right out of you. That single notification just walked into your home, pulled up a chair at your kitchen table, and took the rest of your night hostage. If you know that feeling, this episode is for you. And here's the truth about high conflict divorce. You don't win it by crafting the perfect comeback. You don't win it by proving you're right. You win it by becoming impossible to bait. Emotional regulation is not a soft skill here. It's your single greatest competitive advantage. My guest today took that exact feeling and That 10 o'clock at night moment and turned it into a mission. His name is Saul Kennedy, and this conversation is going to change the way you think about co-parenting, about being a single parent, and about every message you send and receive. So let's get into it. Welcome back to the Conscious Divorce Podcast. I'm Justin Mulrad. This is a show for high achievers who refuse to let divorce be the thing that breaks them and who choose instead to make it the thing that rebuilds them. If you've been here before, You know the frame. Divorce is not a crisis to survive, it's a transformation to lead. And nowhere does that get tested harder than in co-parenting, because co-parenting is the one-parted divorce that never actually ends. The marriage closes, the parenting does not. You can hire a lawyer to end the marriage. Nobody hands you a manual for the next 20 years that come after that. So today we go deep and we go in two different directions at once. Outward eco-parenting, the real version. The one that happens over text messages at ten at night and inward at what it actually does to a person, to a parent's home, half the time in a house that goes silent when the kids leave. I brought in someone who's lived both and then did something about it. But before we begin, the quick and necessary disclaimer. Everything we talk about on the show is for education and support purposes. I'm a certified divorce coach, financial planner, and MBA. I'm not an attorney and I'm not a therapist. My guest Saul is the founder and a father. So please don't take anything in this conversation as legal, financial advice, or a substitute for mental health care. Your situation is yours alone. If anything today hits close to home, treat that as a signal to bring in the right expert for your specific circumstances. With that said, let's meet Saul. Saul Kennedy is a founder of best interest. The first co-parenting app to use artificial intelligence to actually reduce conflict rather than just record it. Before this, Saul spent his career in technology. He was a product manager at Google, led product at DropCam, built and sold multiple companies, and invested early in names like Coinbase and Instacart. Saul is also the founder and host of the podcast, Co-Parenting Beyond Conflict: High Conflict Divorce and Custody Strategies. Saul went through his own divorce, stepped away from the tech world to be a full time dad when his kids were young, and came face to face with the same thing millions of parents face and almost no one builds for. His work has since earned the backing of one of the most respected voices in the space, the psychologist Doctor Romani Durvasula, and his platform now supports more than thirteen thousand co parents. But before he was any of that, he was just a dad trying to get through a tough night. Saul, welcome to the show. Sol: Thanks for having me here. Justin Milrad: So great to to connect. So I wanna start before the app, before any of it, I wanna start with you. Take us back. Who were you before the divorce and what did you think co-parenting was gonna look like versus what it actually became? Sol: Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me on. And yes, before the divorce, I thought I was going to be the guy that wasn't going to get the divorce, right? And I was facing a collapsing marriage. And I was terrified of the possibility of losing this connection that also didn't feel good for me. And so facing that, I wasn't even thinking about. Co-parenting. I was thinking about survival. And so once we got divorced, co-parenting for us actually started off okay. it was challenging, but we didn't have a really contentious divorce process. We actually settled and negotiated and got it done without using attorneys for the most part. But over time, the the challenges started coming up in our communication. And it was very challenging to to sort of have boundaries. I couldn't really set boundaries that felt good to me. and boundaries were stepped over. And it just became a a really all-encompassing type of situation to be in a co-parenting relationship that felt really Like it was taking over my whole world and making it really difficult for me to stay present with the kids and and move on from that relationship and and step into the next chapter. Justin Milrad: You had a career that most people in the tech world would envy. Google, Dropcam, companies you built and sold. What was your relationship to work and identity back then before fatherhood really reordered? Sol: Well, I'll be honest, before I became a dad, I was a workaholic. I really focused on building the products. I've always been an entrepr entrepreneur. So I've always felt passionate about what I've building because I got to choose to build it. And so I would dedicate hours and hours every day, every week, on these products that I was building. And through that progression of being an entrepreneur. I went through acquisition. I went through joining a larger company and then getting acquired by Google. and in Google, I found myself like a fish out of water. It was a big company for a guy that really liked being in small teams. And so it just didn't feel like it was a good fit. And at the time, I was also we were getting ready to be parents. I was getting ready to be a dad. And I made the decision to leave Google. sort of put a pause on my career and become a full time dad. partly because I've always wanted when even when I was a kid, I knew I wanted to be a dad. just knew it somehow. And so I wanted to be fully present with that. So that was the decision I made was to step away from that life and be very present as a father. Justin Milrad: I think that's amazing. kind of looking back, so many people say that, one of the reasons why their marriage may have failed is because they were so focused on their careers and they were spending so many hours. And before you know it, your kids are eighteen and out of the house. And, I really applaud you for recognizing when you were at a point where you wanted to invest more. In your relationship with your with your kids, because you can always go back to a career, you can always do things, part-time. but your kids are only with you for so many years. And there's an interesting statistic that I like to share that, when I heard it really put things into perspective for me, which is your kids will spend 90 to 95% of their time with you by the time they're 18 and out of the house. So if you really think about it. Time is ticking away. So when you're going through a divorce, you really want to go through it efficiently and as quick as possible so that you can get to the new normal. So you can really, spend quality time with your kids as you rebuild your life. So one of the questions I have for you when you're when your marriage finally ended, and you had the opportunity to be the full version of yourself and show up in the first few months. What kind of changed, in who you were, your perspective of the world and the way you wanted to parent? Sol: so I I would say the thing that surprised me most was how much the feeling of being divorced was very similar to it was being married at first. I felt very captured by this relationship. A lot of our same dynamics were coming up. now over text instead of in person. And so that really surprised me about myself, knowing that I I would catch myself sometimes in, 30 message threads with my ex. And and it was almost like I felt compelled to respond. I would send these really long messages, getting defensive, trying to call out the lies, trying to be right. and that's I think the thing that surprised me most was that being divorced in those early days didn't really feel like true separation. Justin Milrad: Do you feel that could have maybe had something to do with a parenting plan, maybe one that wasn't complete, that built in boundaries, or do you feel it was just the personalities that, you two were Sol: I'll be honest, I had my eyes closed pretty much during the whole divorce process. I was so ready to get this done. I signed on the dotted line. We downloaded a parenting plan from a random place on the internet. I just wanted to get it done and and move on with my life. And gosh, that was a that was a mistake. I definitely believe and advocate for parents to be very careful with their parenting plan and the provisions. I was very fortunate. I ended up, sort of by accident, having a parenting plan that is mostly parallel parenting. And it's worked for us in that way. It's creating the right separation. So I don't blame the parenting plan for our dynamic. I just blame our dynamic for the dynamic. There was nothing getting in the middle of that constant back and forth that we were finding ourselves in. Justin Milrad: Right. I do want to just caution anyone who's listening, when it comes to parenting plans, often mediation, we spend ninety percent of our time on asset division and ten percent of our time on parenting plans. So, while you can't always manage everything in a parenting plan, it's really critical to think about the different ages and stages because anything that you can do to help manage an outcome. and create systems could potentially help in the longer term. Now it doesn't help in all terms, in all cases, and sometimes some personalities just do what they do, but it can definitely help improve the probability of success. Now Sol: just to underline that briefly, in our own parenting plan, Justin Milrad: Please. Sol: our kids were preschool. So they hadn't even gone to daycare at that point. They're very young. And we didn't even think about school because that seemed so far off. So our parenting plan didn't cover anything about school. It was very basic around education because gosh, college would have been so far away at that point. So definitely, like Justin, you said. It's important to think about all the stages and even though it seems abstract to talk about it right now, talk about it now. Justin Milrad: Yeah. No, I absolutely. And and time is ticking away and it goes quickly. And I'll be honest, I'd say fifty percent of my clients who are post divorce, they come to me because of parent, co-parenting issues that could have been resolved, in the legal process. So moving on, let's talk about, the time where you started having some peace, where you started building systems and you were communicating, more effectively using apps and such. How did that kind of change you as a person? Sol: Well, I think that the systems were the thing that allowed me to get to the healing and space I needed heal. And so in the in the beginning stages when I was so wrapped up in this dynamic, I wasn't even super aware of it, to be honest. it was the the woman that I was dating at the time who said, yo, seems like a lot, you know? And and so that perspective. Had me realize, gosh, yeah, it does seem like I'm kind of trapped by this and I need a way out. And and this the first solution wasn't an app. The first solution I had, given that I was an entrepreneur and I had started companies before, I thought, well, this is sort of like a customer service problem. Maybe I just hire someone to sit in between my co-parent and I and help me kind of moderate. the communication that's going on. And so I did that. and the guy I hired, I had worked with in the past, and and he kind of laughed at me when I told him what the job was. and it worked. It it worked. It wasn't super efficient. It wasn't the best solution. but it gave me some additional peace in my day, feeling like if there was truly something urgent, he would let me know immediately. and that was really the beginning of the piece that I knew that I needed to step into the next next chapter. Justin Milrad: Right. So having having the buffer there kind of helped you along the journey. So you've been inside this situation, you understand the problem as a parent, you've been there for a while. You're a parent, you're a builder, and you're someone who talks to co-parents, quite often. Can you share some of the hard won lessons, that one earns by going through this to help people avoid future issues? Sol: So for those co-parents that I work with and in my own personal experience, it really boils down to communication. That's where conflict starts in parenting. And so one of the the tips that I think is the easiest to implement. and simplest to remember is to create space for yourself by setting an internal rule or a boundary for yourself on how you respond. and so if you get a message from your co-parent, if you just set a blanket rule saying, I'm never gonna respond to anything immediately, I'm gonna always maybe wait 10 minutes or do something physical. Like when I get a message from my co-parent, I go To my office and I come back, right? Or something, something physical that shifts your perspective before you answer. It's such a helpful thing to build in a buffer to your communication so that you're not constantly in trigger. Because what happens when we're interacting with our co parent, we're sometimes behaving in in unconscious ways or responding instead of. really being able to think it through, we're responding from our our fear based part of our brain, our amygdala, when we really need to be using our our frontal lobe to navigate these types of relationships. Justin Milrad: That's really good insight. And, one of the other filters, I talk about in the book on co-parenting that I wrote with Joel Kaufman is, child first filter. And you ask yourself the question, how will this benefit or impact my child? and then you can start filling, in the blanks immediately, in one hour, in one day, in one week, in one year, etc. And if it doesn't benefit your child, then you have to really think about. Whether or not it's something that that you want to send. Now, I know I've I've read a little bit about you on the internet, so keep me honest on this, but you've described the family court system as adversarial by design. it's a system that can make good parents feel like they're being treated like criminals. What did that experience teach you about where to actually spend your time and energy? And please keep me honest on this topic. Sol: Like I said before, we were fortunate in that we avoided that initial prejudgment divorce battle. Right. I'll admit, I hired a bulldog attorney in the very beginning because I thought I needed protection. And I had three meetings with him and I realized he is someone I need protection from. he's just gonna make matters worse. So I fired him. And we decided to both go and dial things down and go with a mediator. I'm so glad that we did that because it avoided going to court. Unfortunately, since that point, because primarily we have a pretty loose parenting plan that doesn't decide a lot of things, we've run into some problems with decision making. And so we have ended up in court. And I realized from the very first day that I set my foot in court. Realize this place is not for me. This place is not really for families. It's called family court, but yet it's designed on a system of criminality, of good versus bad. And the kids aren't even usually, hopefully, there. It's really the parents that are then trying to advocate for themselves and the kids, and everyone's saying child focused and what's in the best interest of the child. But it really isn't about that. Oftentimes it it comes down to power and control and trying to prove who's right and wrong. And there's an incredible amount of dishonesty that happens in these courtrooms. and so when I approach this problem as a founder, as a builder, I want to design a system that helps parents avoid that outcome. Helps them avoid going to court. A lot of times, co-parenting apps will prepare you for court. and that is their focus. And my focus is how can I help parents talk to one another in a way that feels safe and has good outcomes so that they don't end up going into court to need to make those decisions. Justin Milrad: I love how you think about that because you know the system is adversarial. It's not set up really for post divorce issues, in a easier meaningful way. So with that being said, what I tell a lot of people is, you have one chance and try your best to do it right because if you end up in court, there's just so much variability there. As well, there are other things that you can do before you end up in court. And sometimes you don't have a choice, but you can always, go to a guardian ad lightum and talk to them. You can go to a co-parenting counselor, you can go to a coach, you can go to a mediator. And in many cases, you go to court as your last ditch effort. And sometimes you have no choice. You have to do that. but once you have your decree, it becomes a lot more difficult and The case has to be very serious to be heard right away, otherwise, it could be months, sometimes even years until you have the opportunity to present your case. Sol: Yeah, and to add on to that, I think most of us, if we have been in family court before, we go into it with this kind of a fantasy of what court might look like and what they might be trying to get. Really, at the end of the day, the court system isn't very efficient. Like you said, it's very slow. And you're not really gonna get that feeling of your day in court. The judge doesn't really care about your story. They don't really care about anything that happened in the past. They're really just looking to get to the quickest decision that they can. And so it's not gonna have that gratification that you might think about having justice served. It just that day won't ever come. You're both gonna feel drained and defeated after going to court. Justin Milrad: Yep. if you're looking for justice, you're probably not going to get it in court. Their job is really to activate and implement the law as it's stated. And there's so much nuance here that it can really complicate issues. let's do a quick pause because this genuinely matters. If this conversation is helping you, please take five seconds right now and follow the show wherever you're listening. And if you have a moment, leave a quick review. I read them and more importantly, a review is how the parent who's lying awake at ten o'clock tonight actually finds this episode. Your following and reviewing is what puts us in front of the next person who actually needs it. Thank you. Let's make this ruthlessly practical because someone's listening right now with a nod in their stomach about a message that they have to send in the morning. Can you give them the playbook? let's talk about gray rock. For anyone who's not heard the term, what is it? How does someone use it without becoming cold or losing themselves in the process? Sol: When you're dealing with a challenging co-parent, there's this idea of going gray rock. I think it's a really good concept, but I think it's a bit like telling someone the fastest way to get from point A to B is to fly there. But then you have to learn how to get your pilot's license and fly so you can get there. Grey rock is a good idea in that what you're doing is you're just Simplifying all of your communication. Sometimes in co-parenting dynamics, this is called yellow rock because you still need to communicate with your co-parent to navigate that relationship, but you don't want to give them anything that they can go on. You want to become so boring that you look like a rock. But the problem with that is that we need to know how to be boring in order to get to that place where we can be boring. And for me, that was always the most challenging thing. I would find myself just needing to correct the the blame or the lies. And and that wasn't helpful. my response back was a dynamic that I was co-creating. And it wasn't boring. And so I did the healing necessary to realize I didn't need to prove anything to to her or to anyone. And that allowed me to get to a place where I could become very boring in my responses. Justin Milrad: One of the things everyone talks about, needing, enforcing, sticking to are boundaries. And boundaries is a word everyone uses and no one really defines it well. what does a real enforceable co parenting boundary look like in practice when it comes to communication? Sol: Well, I wasn't raised with boundaries. I really didn't even know what the term boundary meant until I went to therapy at 38 for the very first time. And she said, you can set a boundary about that. What do you mean? And it was it Justin Milrad: Mm-hmm. Sol: was a if you don't know what it is, then it's really challenging to incorporate it into your life. And I was finding that I was making demands saying, You can't talk to me like that, thinking that that's a boundary. That's not a boundary. So the first thing to do when you're wanting to explore boundaries is to start creating boundaries for yourself. Note how you operate in your dynamic with your co-parent. Are responding immediately? Well, look at that. See, is there a boundary you can set for yourself that you can try on? I'm not going to respond to anything the same day. Gosh. That boundary is probably going to be really hard for you to respect, but be mindful of that. See how you respond to your own boundaries. Once you start getting good at setting boundaries for your own behavior, then you can start exploring them with others. And sometimes that's even helpful to explore boundaries with a friend. Start saying no when maybe you're not a full yes. See what that's like. See how their response affects you. And I'll tell you that a lot of this has to go hand in hand with your own inner growth, maybe working with a therapist. I've been working with a therapist ever since the beginning of the end of my marriage. And it's been so helpful to growing and learning how to be stronger. With boundaries for me, I was often bypassing my own needs so that I wouldn't feel like. I wouldn't sacrifice the relationship I was in. So I wouldn't say no when I wasn't really feeling a full yes because I was afraid that maybe that person would respond poorly or would reject me. And it was that unconscious fear that was driving a lot of the ways that I was showing up. I wasn't setting boundaries because of that unconscious fear. So I had to get to that before I could get to the boundaries. So the answer or the question about, What does a a co parenting boundary look like? It really looks like a statement you can make about what you will accept, but made in a way that you alone can enforce. So you might say, You can't talk to me like that. Well, that's not very effective because that's relying on them to treat you how you want to be treated. That's never really gonna work, especially with a high contact individual. Instead, what you should be saying is, if you talk to me like that, I'll be leaving the conversation. So you're giving them the opportunity to join you in respecting how you want to be spoken to, but you're the one that's going to leave the conversation or hang up the phone. Hard to do, but when you can do it like that, where you're enforcing it yourself. That's where the real magic happens, and that's when progress can be made. Justin Milrad: It's also incredibly empowering when you set and hold up a boundary, you feel really proud of yourself. And then, you see after a while, if you're co-parenting, your co-parent is trying to continually address the same issue in the same way when you're pushing back or you're not responding, then they change their approach, and sometimes it's a better approach. one of the Things that we have in the co-parenting playbook is a quiz, and I'll add it to the show notes evaluating whether or not we are toxic parents ourselves. So we all know we're not perfect. We all know that sometimes we we add to the pot or we stir the pot. And until you have that actual self-actualization, sometimes you don't even realize that you're doing it. So Something that's really, really important. we don't always have to expect or think that the problem is our, former spouse. Sometimes the problem is us as well. Sol: Definitely. And it's so important to recognize that gray area instead of being in the black and white of he's good, she's bad, vice versa. It's that, we each have our strengths and our weaknesses and our blind spots. And where can I find those weaknesses in me so that I can improve and grow as a father, as a co-parent? Justin Milrad: Yep, I love that. so you've you've been doing this for a little bit, you you obviously have data analytics in your world. I'm kind of curious, is there a time of day that you're learning that communication may work better, and or a time of day where communication shouldn't happen? Sol: Well, definitely we see the most challenges happening before bed and and around nighttime. That definitely seems to be the highest amount of what we define in best interest as a concerning message. And that's an all-encompassing term that can include bad language or sort of coercive control tactics. Oftentimes that's when those concerning messages bubble up. is nighttime before bed. and also that kind of makes sense because bedtime with the kids sometimes is the most challenging, stressful time of the night. but it also is the most vulnerable time of the night. So in these power and control dynamics, it makes sense that nighttime is a challenging time for all of us. Justin Milrad: Yep. and an another best practice, unless there's something urgent, when you have your kid or kids with you, focus on them. Don't focus so much on communication and addressing issues that you could address at another time. It's something that I hear Sol: sus. Justin Milrad: over again and again. Sol: It's so hard too, right? Because when we get a message that scares us, it's really hard to stay present with our kids. We might be there physically, but we're not there emotionally or in our heads, right? And it's so important to be aware of that. And again, it goes back to what kind of boundaries are you setting with yourself? are you checking your phone all the time? Do you have your phone on you while you're playing with the kids? Maybe try something different, leave it in the kitchen. See what that's like. So you can really stay present regardless of what's going on. Justin Milrad: So let's talk about the origin of the app. And this is the part of your story I've been waiting to get to because everything we just talked about led you here. Every real company has a moment. Yours is very specific. The story I've heard is almost cinematic. You were using Chat GPT to make up bedtime stories with your kids, and co a co parenting notification interrupted that moment. What happened next and when did it stop being a bad night and start being an idea? Sol: Yeah. So I knew that I needed some space between my co parent and myself. I was getting really reactive. And like we were just talking about, I was finding my mind going off into Fearland instead of being present with my kids. And I knew that that was impacting them. It was definitely impacting me. And so I wanted to create that space, but I really didn't know how. And the first iteration of this idea, like I'd said before, is actually hiring a real person to sit in between. And that worked, but it wasn't really a long-term solution. It definitely wasn't a business that I could create. And in that time, I was starting to join co-parenting support groups. I was starting to get more involved in this world and learned, gosh, I'm not alone in this. Lots of other people are finding this exact problem in their relationship. when you start Getting more involved in in these groups and and talking with other co-parents, you realize, gosh, they all seem to kind of follow the same playbook in these high conflict dynamics. And and it makes it a little bit less scary. So when I was playing around with Chat GPT for the first time, I've always been a tech guy. I always want to adopt new technology. And we were using it to create bedtime stories together. And that was a fun moment. And that night I went to bed and I thought, It seems to really understand language. maybe it would understand what I'm going through with my co-parent. And so I fed in some messages, some conversations, and I instantly felt seen and I felt understood, felt validated, and I felt like, gosh, this is something that I think will help create more space in my life, and maybe something that I can create for other people. And that was the spark that ignited best interest. Justin Milrad: And how long from the time you had that moment to actually having, a prototype of the product did it take? Sol: Well, this was the good old days when you had to actually code by hand. we weren't really Justin Milrad: Yeah. Sol: quite to the stage we are now where you can just tell an app to make it for you and and it makes it. so I would say it was about a year and a half of development. And, I'll preface say that that early on when I was thinking about this business, I thought, who would I like to have involved? Because I'm not a therapist. I don't really know the how to create an app that's trauma-informed myself. So, who would I like on board? And early on in my journey of going through divorce, I found a woman named Dr. Romani. And I was so enamored by her supportive messages in these videos that I thought, gosh, she would be really wonderful. And I thought, no way she's ever going to respond to me. But I wrote to her. Just gave her a little glimpse of the idea and she said she'd love to meet. We had a great conversation. We hit it off. She instantly understood the concept. And that was that. So she joined very early on. And and she was basically our first beta tester. So I while I was developing, she was working on developing kind of the concept around how the AI would respond and and what we needed to be mindful of based on her experiences working with co-parents and high conflict individuals. And so in that process, we we created an app and launched it about a year after that first initial spark. Justin Milrad: Kudos to you. And now you have over 10,000 people using it, which is pretty incredible. And, it it it seems like there's a handful of other apps out there that are built to document conflict for court. it's really more about, capturing information so that it could be used, at a later date. Can you talk a little bit about what makes, your app different from, for example, My Family Wizard? Sol: Well, My Family Wizard has been around for a very long time. they were, I believe, the first co-parenting app in existence and started with a very noble goal of if we capture all the information in a way that can then be presented in court, then maybe it'll be easier for co-parents to present their case with their attorneys. and I think that that's a really wonderful concept. And for a lot of Co-parents, that does actually help them kind of rethink the their their messages and behave a bit more. Just that threat of going to court. As a parent who's gone to court and seen how off the rails it can get, even when when using a co-parenting app, I realize that kind of stick mentality doesn't always work for everyone. And so with best interest from the beginning, I knew that my goal was to help prevent people from having to go to court. And so the way we do that is we have a few different features that step in and create that space between you and your co-parent. The first one is called message shield. And what message shield does is it protects you from the messages that your co-parent sends. So, Justin, let's say you and I are co-parenting maybe I'm feeling a little spicy today. And I shoot off a message saying, Justin, because you're always late, just reminding you to pick up the kids at camp at 3 p.m. otherwise, I'm gonna take you to court. Well, gosh, there is a threat of court in there. You're gonna be firing all cylinders, getting defensive, saying why I'm never late. And then 30 messages later, we're both super upset with one another, and maybe even filing that court order. So instead of that. What best interest is gonna do is it's gonna shield you. It's gonna say, All right, we just received this awful message from Soul. we're gonna hone it down to just the parts that Justin needs to know to be a good dad today. So we're gonna say, Soul would like you to pick up the kids from camp at 3 p.m. That's it. Very simple. We basically gray rock your co-parents' message into something that's very simple and keeps the facts kid first. And so then you get to respond back to that message with a simple okay. Now remember, I sent the spicy message. I was maybe looking for a little interaction with you. You're sending back that gray rock okay. There's nothing for me to hook on to. And so it resolves the conflict. The other thing that we're providing in all of this is we're the first and only co parenting app that actually allows you to communicate with your co-parent without them using the app. So Your co-parent doesn't need to download the app. They text you, it goes through the app, and then you get shielded without them even needing to join. Certainly, if you have the kind of co-parent that would be interested in joining, or you're both navigating and wishing to reduce conflict, we work with those co-parents as well, and you can both use the app. And then lastly, because co-parenting can get really intense sometimes. We have a feature called Tone Guardian, which will review the messages before you send them and give you advice based on what we know about co-parenting and family court dynamics. We'll give you some ideas of how you might be able to tone down that message so that it lands better. And if it ends up going to court, it looks better in front of the judge. Justin Milrad: I love that. especially because when you send a message through a text already, the tone can be misread. So, this instantly disarms the conversation. I'm kind of curious, does it keep a history so it could go back and know facts of certain things? Sol: Of course. Yeah. And so what we're doing over time is we're learning about your co-parenting dynamic. And we are learning how to help reduce that conflict over time. So as you're using it, we're able to inform how the coach is talking to you, how it's filtering the messages. we're refining it to your particular situation. Justin Milrad: That's incredible. And it's only going to get better and it's only going to get smarter. And it's it's really co-parenting that causes, or lack of strong and effective co-parenting that causes conflict. And we know through the research that it's not divorce that damages kids, it's conflict that damages kids. So what you're doing is not just a a brilliant idea, you're also helping protect. families that have been reshaped through divorce and relationships that could easily be damaged, that are being protected now. kudos to you for that. Sol: Thank you, Justin. if you'd told me six years ago that I would be running a app that was helping co parents in this way and literally receiving messages from them saying it's changed their lives, I wouldn't have believed you. But it's really an honor to serve in this way, to help others from a place where I had experienced so much strife and pain. it's just it's such an honor. Justin Milrad: I love that and and I can relate, Number one, like you, I never thought I'd be divorced. number two, I never expected if we were gonna get divorced, it'd be as ugly as it was, and it was god-awful, although we're co-parenting really well now. and lastly, I never thought I didn't even know what a divorce coach was. but having gone through a divorce and hiring a divorce coach near the end. and helping me move from victim mentality into thriving mentality and building a much stronger life after the fact. I never thought I'd be doing this work, but it's so gratifying and it's an honor. with every interaction and every every new client, you just feel good that you've kind of helped improve what is a very difficult and broken process. Sol: Well said. Justin Milrad: All right, let's move to the lightning round. This is my favorite part. you ready? Okay. Sol: Yes. Justin Milrad: One book, person, or idea that changed how you parent? Sol: Gosh. I love, love Bill Eddy and his book, Biff. I think it's just such a helpful quick read to better understand how your words can affect your relationships. Justin Milrad: Love it. the best co parenting advice you've ever received. Sol: A woman during my divorce in the very early stages, a friend of mine, told me to Take the high road and to not not even consider the money, to just let it go and trust that it will come back. And that allowed me to really embrace a desire to move forward and to move on. And it was really helpful. I think it helped save us a lot of strife in the beginning. Justin Milrad: That's great advice. One small daily habit that keeps you grounded. Sol: I really find meditation to be one of my biggest tools when I take the time to do it. It always is very helpful to me. and yeah, taking the space to sit down and close my eyes and not think and not work, very helpful. Justin Milrad: Super important. The hardest and best part of being a single dad. Sol: Well, it really depends on the the age that your kids are. I think that it's so special to take the opportunity to be an involved father to set an example, not just for your kids, but to the larger culture that it's really wonderful when fathers show up in a big way for their kids. and it's really it can be very impactful to them. Justin Milrad: Finish the sentence a great co parent is someone who Sol: Is present with their kids. And the reason Justin Milrad: Love it. Sol: why I say it that way is that I think the best thing we can do as co-parents is to focus on providing a safe and peaceful place for our kids to grow up and play. And if we're doing that, if we're protecting them from the chaos that can sometimes happen in these co-parenting relationships, then we've done a great job as co-parents. Justin Milrad: Amen. The kids are always watching. Soul, thank you. This was exactly the conversation I hope it would be. For everyone listening, here's what I want you to take with you. You don't need your co-parent to change for you, for your life to change. The pause that Sol built into the app, you can start building into yourself tonight. Two degrees, that's the shift. If today's episode resonated, I wrote a book for exactly this moment in your life. It's called the Co-Parenting Playbook. Which I wrote with Jill Kaufman, LCSW, and along with my flagship book, U2.0, Divorce a Better Way Forward. It's built to help you stop reacting to your divorce and start leading through it. You can find both of them on Amazon.com. And if you're ready to do this work with real support, I offer a free 30-minute consultation. No pressure, no pitch, just a conversation about where you are and where you want to go. You can book it at www.reclaimandreboot.me. Sometimes a two-degree shift starts with a single conversation. To learn more about Sol and everything he's building, go to www.bestinterest.ap. The app is on the Apple Store, on Google Play, and available at the website which we just mentioned. And there's a free plan you can start with today. You can also find Soul's own show, the Co-Parenting Beyond Conflict Podcast, wherever you listen. And here's one last ask, because it matters. Please follow this show and leave a review if you haven't yet. It costs a few seconds and it helps another parent find their way to a calmer chapter. Until next time, this is Justin Milrad. Keep reclaiming, keep rebooting, and keep becoming. Take care of yourself and take care of those kids.