I recently had the opportunity to speak to the Sports Financial Advisors Association Conference in Dallas about "Clients in Crisis: Protecting them Legally, Emotionally, and Financially" on a panel with Rick Robertson from Koons, Fuller, Vanden Eykel, and Roberton in Dallas, and Anthony Flax from ITC Recovery in NYC. Both Anthony and Rick provided invaluable insights to the challenges of dealing with crises with professional athletes.
Russell Maryland, former DE from the Dallas Cowboys, and Shauna Collum, former wife of an NFL football player, were panel members on a panel just prior to ours, and gave an illuminating presentation about the financial and resulting relationship challenges that arise BEFORE draft day. Many potential professional sports draft picks are approached by potential "agents" and "advisors" with opportunities to borrow significant sums of money (to buy cars and bling, usually) BEFORE they have been drafted or signed contracts.
This practice is so common that many of these young men already have major financial problems brewing during the very first year of their professional careers. The numbers bear this out, as 80% of all NFL players and 60% NBA players are getting divorce AND in serious financial difficulty or bankruptcy within 3 years of the end of their playing careers. The toll on these players, the spouses, and their children is a disaster repeated year after year.
This extremely high rate of divorce, along with the accompanying financial challenges, is a black mark on both the NFL and the NFLPA. It is apparent to any reasonable professional that these young men are a high risk group that needs early intervention to prevent this predictable family carnage. Both groups need to collaborate on solutions like this:
1. Values education and clarification for players and spouses before the draft occurs or before first camp begins and legal advice about how to protect their newfound affluence and assets.
2. Mentors who are NOT family members or friends to advise on financial and relationship issues, including community service and personal branding as a part of long term career planning after retirement.
3. Life coaching for skills building in personal finance, emotional intelligence, relationship and personal management, and parenting.
4. Outplacement services to facilitate the transition to life after professional sports.
A comprehensive program could reduce the rate of divorce and financial disaster for these families substantially and save lots of children the anguish of divorce and financial stress. These families deserve a better life.
The PowerPoint presentation from our panel on dealing with crises is available online at my Linked-In page. http://www.linkedin.com/home
Showing posts with label values. Show all posts
Showing posts with label values. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
What Next?
Ok, so now, after months and months of legal wrangling--you're divorced. Congratulations! What next?
This question is one I have seen many newly divorced people, both men and women, struggling to answer. Whether the end of the divorce comes in mediation, collaborative divorce, or litigation, it seems to arrive with unexpected suddenness, leaving the newly single people relieved, weary, and bewildered. Having spent so much time, energy, and money focused on getting divorced, few are prepared for "what next?".
Research which has followed divorced people for 10 years after their divorce found that 90% of the men and 60% of the women were emotionally "unchanged" at the 10 year mark. For some, the emotional scars of a "failed" marriage or contentious divorce means that counseling or therapy is the first step toward a new life and a new approach to relationships. For a few others, because of counseling or some other helping relationship during their marriage and divorce, the end of the divorce signals the opportunity to renew and change the dirction their lives with a freedom previously unknown. That dissolution of life structures creates the promise for "positive divorce". Unfortunately, few have a "positive divorce" experience.
As a director of a divorce recovery program, I saw many people begin to heal as they shared their divorce experience with others who were "in the same boat". Most left the six week program with a good start down the road to recovery, but as the research cited above has confirmed, that process does NOT continue for most post-divorce people. For most women, and nearly all men, divorce doesn't lead to a new life, but a return to the "old life"--same values, same habits, same choices in work and relationships. For men in particular, most remarry too quickly (within a year) and then divorce again just as quickly, creating a sense of increasingly cynical disillusionment. For these men, life balance is usually the first casualty, leading to a retreat into too much work, too much drinking, or too much casual sex.
It has been my observation that those divorced people with a clear life purpose, a solid value system, and a supportive network of friends bounce back from the trauma of divorce better than those without those fundamental and foundational elements. It is in these areas where coaching can be invaluable in transforming life after divorce into a "positive divorce" experience and the beginning of a new and different life.
Coaching, not therapy, is intended to:
*improve life planning and performance
*clarify personal values
*re-discover life purpose
*re-define life balance
*return to or begin a habit of service to others,
with a focus on action learning as vehicle toward a more purposeful and meaningful life.
This question is one I have seen many newly divorced people, both men and women, struggling to answer. Whether the end of the divorce comes in mediation, collaborative divorce, or litigation, it seems to arrive with unexpected suddenness, leaving the newly single people relieved, weary, and bewildered. Having spent so much time, energy, and money focused on getting divorced, few are prepared for "what next?".
Research which has followed divorced people for 10 years after their divorce found that 90% of the men and 60% of the women were emotionally "unchanged" at the 10 year mark. For some, the emotional scars of a "failed" marriage or contentious divorce means that counseling or therapy is the first step toward a new life and a new approach to relationships. For a few others, because of counseling or some other helping relationship during their marriage and divorce, the end of the divorce signals the opportunity to renew and change the dirction their lives with a freedom previously unknown. That dissolution of life structures creates the promise for "positive divorce". Unfortunately, few have a "positive divorce" experience.
As a director of a divorce recovery program, I saw many people begin to heal as they shared their divorce experience with others who were "in the same boat". Most left the six week program with a good start down the road to recovery, but as the research cited above has confirmed, that process does NOT continue for most post-divorce people. For most women, and nearly all men, divorce doesn't lead to a new life, but a return to the "old life"--same values, same habits, same choices in work and relationships. For men in particular, most remarry too quickly (within a year) and then divorce again just as quickly, creating a sense of increasingly cynical disillusionment. For these men, life balance is usually the first casualty, leading to a retreat into too much work, too much drinking, or too much casual sex.
It has been my observation that those divorced people with a clear life purpose, a solid value system, and a supportive network of friends bounce back from the trauma of divorce better than those without those fundamental and foundational elements. It is in these areas where coaching can be invaluable in transforming life after divorce into a "positive divorce" experience and the beginning of a new and different life.
Coaching, not therapy, is intended to:
*improve life planning and performance
*clarify personal values
*re-discover life purpose
*re-define life balance
*return to or begin a habit of service to others,
with a focus on action learning as vehicle toward a more purposeful and meaningful life.
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