BROOKE SUMMERHILL has written a new book to address "Divorce and the Wealthy Woman."
https://youtu.be/FFSeBg3XT8M
In this conversation, Brooke discusses the complexities of divorce, particularly focusing on the financial aspects that wealthy women face. She emphasizes the importance of understanding one's balance sheet, hiring the right professionals, and navigating complex assets during divorce. The discussion also covers the emotional components of divorce, the significance of having a supportive team, and the benefits of open conversations about finances, including the role of prenups.
Takeaways from "DIVORCE FOR THE WEALTHY WOMAN"
Divorce can be a daunting process, especially regarding finances.
Understanding your balance sheet is crucial during divorce.
Breathing and staying calm can help alleviate anxiety.
Hiring the right professionals is essential for navigating divorce.
Complex assets require specialized knowledge and support.
Cash flow planning is vital for post-divorce stability.
Parenting during divorce needs careful planning and support.
Open conversations about finances can strengthen relationships.
Prenups can facilitate healthy discussions about money.
Divorce is a journey that can become easier with the right support.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Divorce and Finances
02:58 Understanding the Balance Sheet
05:45 Navigating Complex Assets in Divorce
09:05 Building Your Professional Team
12:04 The Emotional Component of Divorce
15:09 Modeling Settlements and Cash Flow Planning
17:56 Parenting and Financial Responsibilities
20:41 Preventative Measures and Financial Awareness
23:53 The Role of Prenups in Marriage and Divorce
Transcript of "DIVORCE FOR THE WEALTHY WOMAN"
Frazer Rice (00:01.186)
Welcome back, Brooke.Brooke Summerhill (00:03.378)
Hi, thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Let's chat about the most fun topics in the world. Divorce and finances, right?Frazer Rice (00:09.952)Well, and codified in your new book, Divorce for the Wealthy Woman. I have already started, and I think it's a winner for a bunch of reasons. The big one really is addressing a viewpoint that I think has been missed by the financial books generally speaking,Brooke Summerhill (00:15.794)Mm-hmm.
Frazer Rice (00:31.086)It really corrects a problem, I think, around information asymmetry in finances generally. And unfortunately, we've both been around it from a divorce perspective. Tell me what, first of all, let's let our listeners remind themselves of your practice. And what do you do there? And then what was the book trying to accomplish?
https://www.amazon.com/Divorce-Wealthy-Women-costs-that-ebook/dp/B0G1ZMFVCN/
Brooke Summerhill (00:53.554)Okay, so hi, I'm Brooke Summerhill. I do specifically for the last like 15 years in finance. Specifcially in the last five specifically in divorce and finance for wealthy women. So I'm not very creative my book specifically and my podcast is literally called divorce for the wealthy woman. I love being able to understand the perspective of someone going through divorce,not feeling the fire, and creating a years long fight.
I help alleviate the stress of divorce and go through the finances, the emotional aspect, I'm in financial psychology. I've been doing that and I plan on continuing doing that. It's a fun, fun, fun career path for me.Frazer Rice (01:40.526)One of the great things I think about your book is it starts where I start. You really have to be comfortable with what your balance sheet looks like.
Take us through a little bit about your experience in helping wealthy women get acquainted with something they weren't familiar with initially. However, they have to get familiar with it real fast.Brooke Summerhill (02:03.014)So typically, you go to a lawyer . You're about to get divorced and it was blindsided in your face. my god, what is going on? He wants to get divorced or she wants to get divorced. Doesn't matter who you are, heterosexual couple or not. It does not matter.
You might not know where the finances are, right? And you're going to a lawyer. You expect them to help you out, but you don't even know where the assets are. You don't know it's on the balance sheet. So the first step is breathing.Let's not get into this sympathetic nervous system. No fight or flight, freeze, thaw, and let's not go there if we can't avoid it. And really just breathe and understand it's going to be OK.
That's the first thing I want to just point out is you can do the work on yourself without having to do hard interval training. You can just breathe. So you're going to breathe and understand, OK, the balance sheet. I can figure this out. You got it.
And you might need to hire someone like myself who's a certified divorce financial analyst, you might have your lawyer help you. You might ask your soon to be ex if they're willing and amicable to understand the balance sheet. You might go to a financial advisor, wealth manager, your family office and ask some questions.
So this is a time of learning and it's okay that you don't know where everything is. And the balance sheet is terrifying for most people. 98 % of us have money anxiety. It's okay. Breathe.Get help and support where you can. The foundation is the balance sheet. If this is the only thing you take from today, is just breathe and know that the foundation is your budget, your expenses, what's coming in, what's going out.
Can you figure that out? Even though you might not know where your assets are. Do you have Bitcoin? Or have different properties? Do you even know if there's liens, mortgages, loans on them? That all will get figured out. But you've got to know what you're spending.I would say, you tell me if you have a different experience. But most clients do not know their budget. And that's OK. Doesn't matter your wealth, income, anything. Most people, at least in America, do not know what they spend every month.
So that's the foundation is to start theirs. Understand, what are you spending? Just keep a little log. It can be old fashioned. And I have plenty of technological apps that can help with this. But keep it old fashioned. Just write down, what are you spending? And keep that for a week.Brooke Summerhill (04:28.752)That can help you in your divorce process and remember to breathe. There you go.Frazer Rice (04:32.91)And it's part of my process, I think, is to just understand what you're spending. And then the next step is really understand where it comes from to help support that spending. It's like analyzing someone who earned 100 million dollars from this movie. It's like, OK, that's the headline. Now it's a lot different in reality. Certainly taxes, how it's paid to you.We'll get into this in a second, and sometimes it's not in cash.
Sometimes it's in different types of assets. Whether it's stock or maybe you own homes, and it may not be necessarily liquid right up front. It sounds like we're parking our cars in the same garage on that front.Brooke Summerhill (05:19.154)Absolutely, absolutely agree with you.Frazer Rice (05:22.114)So maybe let's go through some of the complex assets that you think about that come up in any, not all divorce situations, but definitely in many of them. Many times people have grown their wealth through a private business. so even, you know, the number that is settled upon in the divorce settlement may not be readily available from a cash payout perspective. How do you take people through that?Brooke Summerhill (05:47.473)Oof. So I have an entire chapter on businesses because majority of my clients, I'm going to be very sexist here and say majority of my clients, husbands in a heterosexual relationship do own a business or have just been bought out of a business or are starting a startup or have something behind the scenes that they're aware of or maybe not even aware of. So businesses are huge thing. That's why I put a chunk of it in my book becauseThe biggest advice I can give is hire, I'm going to be a repetitive throughout this whole podcast today is hire the right professionals if you can, because you don't know what you don't know and that's okay. You're going to breathe through that and acknowledge you don't have to be an expert in divorce. But when you have a business reading, listening to podcasts, doing all of those exercises are wonderful and hiring an expert.
So getting someone who's understanding the finances in a divorce specifically, so business valuator, or just having a consultation. That's enough to understand, this, I need a forensic accountant, because I don't know anything that's going on within this part of the businesses that I'm a part of, but I'm not really a part of, or I need a business valuator. Let's just have a consultation. It could be really a non serious, non threatening, non emotional way to start it.I'm just going to have a consultation to understand, do I need this business valuator? I would just at least have those conversations to understand more about your husband's business or your business in general on what are the numbers behind it? Because it is very complex, just as you're saying. Businesses, absolutely, you want the right experts involved.Frazer Rice (07:30.506)And sort of as a broader business, or not really business, but sort of as a broader sort of contextual situation here, the type of wealth, whether it's private funds, people who are invested in private equity or hedge funds or stock options or RSUs for people who are in the tech world, things that are held in trust, there's the concept of carried interest and real estate and concentrated stock.This is to go back to your comment that there are people out there that can help you. Understand those assets, I guess for lack of better word, can and can't do. As far as either provide cash flow or are easily divisible in a divorce settlement.