Mistakes & Lessons in Empowering Women Financially Through Divorce

In this empowering episode of the Dear Divorce Diary podcast, Dawn Wiggins interviews Rhonda Noordyk, a certified financial analyst who specializes in helping women navigate the financial complexities of divorce. Rhonda is the author of “Bold Beginnings,” a financial planning journal that helps women unpack their money stories and build confidence. Through her work, she has discovered that financial empowerment isn’t about the number of zeros in your bank account—it’s about understanding what those numbers mean for your life and future. This conversation reveals the challenges women can face during divorce proceedings and provides practical insights for building financial confidence when moving on from a marriage.

5 Takeaways of the Podcast:

1. More Money Doesn’t Equal More Peace. Women with more money do not necessarily have more peace during a divorce. Regardless of what your income level is, women who haven’t been actively involved in their finances experience the same fear and uncertainty during divorce. Understanding your financial situation is more important than the actual dollar amounts involved. Educate and empower yourself—no matter what your bank balance says.
2. Financial Calculations Are Not Black and White. Despite what attorneys might suggest, support calculations and property divisions are not set in stone. Everything is negotiable because different judges would have different opinions on the same case. Women should ask detailed questions about the numbers being used in calculations and request ranges based on different scenarios, rather than accepting the first number presented. Don’t always agree to the first offer.
3. The System Isn’t Fair. The divorce process often looks backward at men’s historical income while projecting forward for women’s earning potential, which is an unfair comparison. Additionally, financial abuse can continue during divorce proceedings, with women often remaining on “allowances” and lacking access to cash or credit needed to secure independent housing and live their lives.
4. Confidence = Knowledge + Experience. Rhonda’s formula for financial empowerment emphasizes that knowledge without experience is just theory, while experience without knowledge leads to trial and error, which can be expensive. Women need both knowledge and experience working together simultaneously to build genuine confidence in their financial decision-making abilities.
5. Trust Your Intelligence and Female Intuition. Women are smart and capable of making sound financial decisions, but they have often been conditioned to defer to others’ expertise, from their parents to their ex-husbands. The key is surrounding yourself with the right team of professionals while maintaining your own decision-making authority. You don’t need to know everything—you just need to ask good questions and be willing to have tough conversations.

Highlights

• 00:00 Learning and applying Rule of 72 empowers women.
• 04:48 Empowering women through assertive financial conversations.
• 09:22 Calculations depend on input accuracy and context.
• 12:23 Ensure equal resources for both spouses in divorce.
• 14:47 He controls spending; she lacks money access.
• 18:35 Ensure financial confidence; consider prenup. Avoid regressions.
• 21:12 Right timing shifted things, successful closing deal.
• 25:55 Negotiated property division successfully; flexibility maintained.
• 29:18 Sharing personal money experiences; relatable vulnerability.
• 30:30 Vulnerability prevents unhealthy comparisons among women.

Full Podcast Transcript:

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:00]: Hi, loves. Today we have Rhonda Noordyk. And I am very excited to have Rhonda because, first of all, you know, I’m a law of attraction nerd. And I really believe that there is just something unique about Rhonda that caught my attention, and here we are. But she’s a certified financial analyst for women who are going through divorce, and she is your biggest advocate, she says. She’s also the author of Bold Beginnings, which is this beautiful journal for women where she unpacks her story and helps you unpack your money story. Really, really remarkable. She lives in Wisconsin, which is where I was born, so I just felt kismet with her.

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:38]: And we’ve never really tackled, you know, the CDFA piece here on the Dear Divorce Diary podcast. And I know that Rhonda is gonna do such a beautiful job today. Rhonda, welcome.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:00:47]: Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

Dawn Wiggins [00:00:50]: Yay. So I know, Rhonda, that you have this sort of beautiful story of shifting from feeling financially disempowered into empowerment.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:01:02]: Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:01:02]: And I know that you feel so passionately about women and finances in general, but I’m wondering if you could share with us the single most pivotal moment that you realized that this particular work was your calling.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:01:17]: Goodness. The single most. It was. It was a. Definitely a process. Right. But I started in the financial industry in my early 20s, and I suppose it was then when I basically was like, listen, I know that I want to be able to help people. I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but started in the financial industry and really had the opportunity to be able to learn.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:01:45]: The one thing that I think really stood out to me was when I learned the rule of 72. And I talk about this in my book. It’s a simple concept that basically, as you have the opportunity to apply that to your situation, you realize, okay, if I can have one thing right that I can learn that I can apply that can make a difference in my situation, that would be great. And we were doing these women’s events, and this was, you know, we were doing a lot more in person, and we would have standing room only, and the women would come and we would teach these concepts. But then what I found that happened in the midst of those situations was women would say, well, you know, I love this. I think this is totally practical and applicable, and I’m going to go home and, you know, tell my husband about it. And then he basically would say, hey, don’t worry about it. We’ve got a guy.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:02:32]: And, you know, all of that. And I’m like, oh, my gosh. Like, there’s so much work to be done here. Like, no, right. Like, so. So that was interesting. And so I really leaned into, you know, continuing down that path of hosting women’s events and educating and empowering them. And then in 2014, I decided to leave the financial industry because I.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:02:55]: I wanted to be able to go all in at even a deeper level in doing consulting and coaching for women that were going through divorce from a financial perspective. And I remember sitting at a conference where I had gone through some additional training to do financial coaching. So very specific around the attitudes and beliefs around money. And one of the women at my table, I was the only kind of quote, unquote, for profit business that was part of it. So I was there with another lot of nonprofit leaders. And one of the women said, rhonda, you know, the women that you’re working with don’t really need this information. And I was like, oh, we. I know.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:03:35]: I’m like, oh, we’re gonna have this conversation over lunch. Like, I. It was like one of those. Like, I’m putting. I’m like, no, we’re gonna have this conversation.

Dawn Wiggins [00:03:42]: Yeah, yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:03:43]: And I said, that’s not true. I said, I sit across the table from women who come from very well off situations. But what happens in those situations is the women are dismissed, like, oh, listen, honey, you’re going to be just fine. Oh, don’t worry about it. You’re going to make more than you know, or you can get remarried, or like, this whole barrage of ridiculousness. And I have said from that moment, dawn, like, listen, it does not matter. And this is what I told this gal. I said, it doesn’t matter how many zeros are in the bank account if we don’t know what it means for us.

Dawn Wiggins [00:04:20]: Wow.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:04:21]: The women with more money did not have more peace. It is not synonymous, Rhonda.

Dawn Wiggins [00:04:27]: Like that. The women who have more money did not have more peace. I have worked with some of the wealthiest, most powerful people, you know, in my. In my therapy practice over the years.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:04:38]: Yes.

Dawn Wiggins [00:04:38]: And they do not have more peace. They don’t have more peace.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:04:42]: No, no. I have goosebumps with that because it’s so. It is so pivotal.

Dawn Wiggins [00:04:47]: Yes.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:04:48]: To the work that we’re doing. And now, you know, I got frustrated because I’m like, what do you mean? Like, oh, don’t worry about it. We’ve got a guy. I don’t want to rock the boat, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, no, let’s lean into these conversations. So then as a kind of next step with that, we started to say, okay, how do we have the conversation? So rather than, you know, then. Then it evolved from, we’re going to teach educational concepts around money, things practical that you could go back and use to, okay, now we got to teach them how to have these assertive conversations, because clearly now that’s where. So then I went back and through some additional training on, you know, the educational component and the assertive conversation piece, like, how do we help women have those conversations? That started to help, but then really, at the end of the day, right, it was like, okay, how do I help women that are in a spot that no longer then need to get their husband’s permission to move forward with something? Because this is.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:05:41]: Because really. Right? And I know you see this. We’re either going to move toward the things that bring us pleasure or the way from things that bring us pain. But when we’re in that middle kind of area where we’re like, well, it’s not overly painful, or I’ve dealt with it and I don’t realize how bad it is. Or I haven’t dealt with it, and I don’t realize how bad it is, which is where you come in. Or, hey, we’re still going on trips and my bills are being paid and I live in a great house in a great neighborhood and blah, blah, blah, right? Like, they’re. They’re like, you know what? I’m not going to rock the boat. And so I was like, well, if I can help the women that have already decided that they’re going down this path, gosh, maybe then I could really have the opportunity to help them with some transformation around their money story.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:06:27]: And that. That has been totally true. Like, you know, I think women, again, then, are moving in this direction of, like, now I really got to figure this out.

Dawn Wiggins [00:06:37]: There’s a hunger, right? There’s a hunger to really revamp the way we have been living.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:06:42]: Yes, yes, yes. And along with that comes the, well, Rhonda, now I feel bad, and I have shame and guilt around not, you know, knowing more. I’m like, listen, we can’t do anything about that right now. That’s, you know, that is the past. But guess what.

Dawn Wiggins [00:06:58]: Yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:06:58]: You know, we have this opportunity right now.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:01]: Yes.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:07:01]: To be able to help you lean in. And so in a short period of time, right, we’ve seen that they go from feeling very chaotic, very unsettled, very overwhelmed, to really having confidence to be able to say, listen, I might not know every single definition. I might not know every single concept, but I know enough to be able to ask really good questions, to get really good answers, you know, as they’re going through this.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:27]: Yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:07:27]: And we.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:28]: We tend to falsely correlate security with money. Right. But. But I think that when you do this work with women and you help them feel more secure around their money, it creates this sense of security in life.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:07:43]: Agreed.

Dawn Wiggins [00:07:43]: Yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:07:44]: Yeah, I agree. And, you know, unfortunately, right as they’re going through this process, the process, in and of itself for divorce is not very kind to women. Right. I mean, it’s like, oh, listen, you’ll be able to figure it out. It’ll be fine. But women don’t know what that means. And I’m like, first I’m like, we have to define what fine is.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:04]: Yes.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:08:05]: And then when we do that based on what their goals are and what is important to them, once we define what fine is, then and only then are we really able to engage in good negotiations. Because otherwise women are like, okay, yeah, well, I mean, this could be over. And, you know, but what typically that means is, yes, it can. If you concede, and then you concede again, and then you concede again, and you concede again.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:32]: Mm.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:08:33]: And women find themselves backed into a corner because they’ve made all these concessions. But when we understand how negotiations really need to be happening, we realize that it’s a quid pro quo. It’s, I’m giving you something in exchange. Not the I’m giving, I’m giving, I’m giving, I’m giving with nothing in exchange.

Dawn Wiggins [00:08:55]: Well, I think that’s just a mirror of probably how the marriage went. Right. Concession after concession after concession. You. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I. So you have such a wealth of experience, and you have seen so many things.

Dawn Wiggins [00:09:09]: What’s one financial myth about divorce? And you’ve already started to unpack it.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:09:16]: Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:09:16]: But a financial myth about divorce that keeps you up at night, and how do you wish we as women would challenge it?

Rhonda Noordyk [00:09:22]: Like, yeah, I love that question. So much. So I think the biggest thing for me is that it’s not black and white. The numbers in the calculators are only as good as the numbers we’re putting into them. So a lot of times people are like, yeah, well, we’ve got the support calculation, or we got this maintenance calculation, or we got this property division, you know, and it is what it is. It’s, you know, it’s split, blah, blah, blah. And the problem with that, though, is that it really does depend on what numbers we’re using, what are we using for income? What are we using for his income? You know, the higher income earners sometimes get bonuses or, you know, incentives to stay with the company. How are we, how are we counting for that? Right.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:10:11]: Same thing on property division. It’s not always apples to apples. And so are we taking into consideration the taxes or, you know, there’s a variety of different things. So I think a lot of times women in particular, especially around support, the attorneys will come back and say, here’s the support calculation. And the women accept it because it’s.

Dawn Wiggins [00:10:32]: It’S alleged black and white. Yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:10:36]: So what then? What I do with my clients is, I’m like, okay, this is a good baseline, but here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go back and we’re going to ask this question and, and this question, this question. And I want them to rerun the calculations and give us a range based on my input.

Dawn Wiggins [00:10:51]: Uh huh. I love that.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:10:53]: And then they do it. And then the clients are like, oh my gosh, you’re kidding. Like there’s a, we can negotiate this. Everything is negotiable. I don’t care what somebody says, because here’s the, here’s my, my logical brain with us, right? If it wasn’t, if it wasn’t negotiable, then why do we really care who our judges, if our case went to court? Because if you could have five different judges and they’re going to give you five different outcomes, that now means that it is not objective.

Dawn Wiggins [00:11:26]: Well. Right. Is that the truth? Okay, so financial advocacy in divorce is a niche, Right. If you could redesign the system, what methods or policies would you want to change or implement to make it more equitable for women?

Rhonda Noordyk [00:11:41]: Oh, I love this. I love this. So there’s a couple things. One is, I would say one of my frustrations is the way that they look at support. So for example, for those, for the moneyed spouse, which let’s in this case say it’s the guy. Right. Where they will say, hey, listen, we’re gonna look back at his income. We’re not gonna look forward.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:12:05]: Okay. So they’re taking in, they’re looking at historical data. For the women, particularly women that have been stay at home parents or work part time or whatever, they’re like, no, we’re not going to look back at what you’ve done over the last 50.

Dawn Wiggins [00:12:19]: We’re going to look forward.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:12:20]: I’m like, how is this even inequitable?

Dawn Wiggins [00:12:22]: Yes. Wow.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:12:23]: Right? So that’s One area where I’m like, listen, apples to apples, okay? If you’re going to look back for both. Look back for both. If you’re going to look forward for one, then we need to be looking forward for both. So that would be. That would be one thing. The other thing is probably related to just the opportunity for women to be able to have access to the same resources that their spouse does during the divorce process. And there are some things in place that could make that happen. But even so, what a lot of times happens is they’re like, hey, listen, we’re going to, you know, we’re going to give you access to a little bit.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:13:04]: They’re still almost like on an allowance a lot of times, which is pretty frustrating. And so there’s a lot of financial abuse.

Dawn Wiggins [00:13:13]: Yes.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:13:14]: That is still happening.

Dawn Wiggins [00:13:16]: Yes.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:13:16]: In the midst of the process. And if I could change. Yeah, it’s awful. So if I could change that along with the first thing that I mentioned, I would feel like if I can see that happen in my lifetime, I would be really grateful because it’s really a problem. Yeah. There was a client I was working with, and. And she and I are actually. Now that she’s on the other side of her divorce process, she and I are actually friends because, you know, sometimes you meet with those clients, like if we’re.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:13:46]: If we’re not clients. Like I. So anyways, she lived in this house, right? 13,000 square foot house. I called it the Castle. I’m like, listen, you’re so right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:13:55]: This is results. Not typical results.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:13:56]: That’s right. That’s right. But it was amazing because it really helps illustrate the point. Right. Husband had left, you know, they had their daughter kind of alternating whatever they did find, schedule, you know, whatever. But at the end of the day, she’s in this house all by herself without any access to cash.

Dawn Wiggins [00:14:17]: Wow.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:14:20]: And the attorney said, hey, listen, well, she’s got access to the credit card. She can just put X amount of dollars a month on that. Problem with that was we. She never saw the statements because she wasn’t. The credit card wasn’t in her name. So she can spend five. We don’t know what he’s spending on that credit card. He can see all of her purchases.

Dawn Wiggins [00:14:39]: He can see all of her purchases. Right. It’s like, yeah, she lived in the castle, but like Belle in the tower. And that’s.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:14:44]: Right, right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:14:45]: It’s terrible.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:14:47]: And so he’s spending whatever he wants. She doesn’t know what he’s spending. He’s, you know, putting These caps on what she can spend. But here was the thing. So a, if her daughter was going on some kind of a field trip or whatever and needed cash, she didn’t have. She could not have cash unless she made a purchase and did a cash back on the right, like at the teller. But then also she couldn’t rent an apartment. And they kept saying, well, can you just, you know, just go somewhere and rent? What are they not understanding? Like she did not have access to money.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:20]: Yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:15:21]: To be able to put down on a house.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:23]: Yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:15:24]: She didn’t have access to credit. She, as far as like being able to write rent and nobody was going to rent to her.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:31]: And it just, you know, it just illustrates how deep women’s disempowerment goes. Right. Because in these instances, whether you live in a 13,000 square foot house or you live in a 700 square foot apartment and don’t have the cash, like as women we have gotten so desensitized to feeling like we don’t have a choice.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:15:55]: That’s right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:15:56]: And back to your comment about it’s not black and white. Right. We feel as women it is black and white. We get stuck in that thinking that this limited set of circumstances is my reality and I must function within the confines of this reality. And it’s not true. But because it’s been like this for generations, we just sort of go along with it and rage internally or get depressed. But like, wow. Yeah, yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:16:28]: And, and the attorneys are not helping, you know, because they’re like, oh, well, the bills are getting paid. She’s got access to some money. But what they weren’t seeing was if there were things that we were advocating, like if they would have listened to some of the things we were advocating for early on. Now we got it figured out later. But early on, right. She would have had some consistent income coming in that then would have helped her qualify to have rent, you know, a rental income, you know, have rent. But it was so incredibly frustrating. Yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:17:02]: I mean, and again, it’s, it’s happening, it’s happening at all income levels.

Dawn Wiggins [00:17:07]: Absolutely. Right. Every tax bracket. Now I’ve a long time had this theory that. And, and, and I may have this theory theory because I did it on some level. Right. You know, that thing that if you spot it, you got it. But I’ve had this theory that a lot of times women will make decisions in terms of marital partners because they subconsciously doubt their own capacity to earn.

Dawn Wiggins [00:17:31]: And so they get married at partially as, I mean, it’s so much Attachment style stuff.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:17:36]: Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:17:37]: But also because they want this sense of security financially, and so they’ll marry a particular type of partner. But then it doesn’t. That disempowerment, it plays out in a way that it doesn’t matter how much money there was in the marriage, that disempowerment breeds. Disempowerment breeds disempowerment. Right. And then they end up sticking, still feeling disempowered down the road. Do you see that? Women making marital choices based on financial inequality and then it biting them in the ass down the road, so.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:18:02]: Good question. I don’t know that I’ve ever thought of that before. I mean, I think that. I think I see that happening when women are through the process and looking at getting into another relationship.

Dawn Wiggins [00:18:17]: Yes.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:18:18]: That’s where I see it.

Dawn Wiggins [00:18:20]: Yes. Because now they’re so depleted emotionally, financially, mentally, and they just don’t see a great way out. But they’ve got this. I know, what? Work. Yeah. A second marriage, right?

Rhonda Noordyk [00:18:35]: Yeah. And I’m like, okay, yes, we did all this work now on getting you financially confident. Do not go back into those old. Yeah, like, yes, that’s what. That’s when I am, you know, in support of exploring a prenup or, you know, something like that. Like, I had a client, we’d done all this work, and she gets toward the end of the process, and she’s looking to purchase a home, and she ends up taking her new quote, unquote friend with her. And I’m like, why? Why are you go by yourself? Yes, by yourself. And I’ve done a lot of that in my own life where I’ll just go in and, like, in my mind, think, okay, I’m going through a divorce.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:19:17]: I’m a single person. Right. And so that I can get into that mindset. But we too often think we have to bring. No, we’ve done all this work. You go. You do that, you have the conversations, you negotiate. You can have a sounding board.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:19:34]: I’m not saying that you have to. You know, this is all. You have to be the lone wolf on everything. But go by yourself.

Dawn Wiggins [00:19:41]: Yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:19:41]: And allow yourself that opportunity to be.

Dawn Wiggins [00:19:43]: In touch with your own body response, your own intuition, your own somatic experience of, yeah, yeah, is this. Is this for me or. Yeah. We’re so used to deferring our wisdom so well.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:19:57]: And, you know, I would say, I mean, I did this probably seven years ago where I was looking at buying an office space, and I had never done anything like that before, knew nothing. Right. But I just remember, I was like, listen, I’m gonna put on some more deodorant. I’m showing up to this meeting. Nobody literally knew I was going. Not one person. Because I’m like, I can’t have the noise. I need to show up and say, listen.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:20:20]: Huh, that’s interesting. Tell me more. Huh, that’s interesting. I’m happy to make a swift decision when I have all of the information. And the guy who was selling it was a 30 year veteran in the real estate market because his contract with the broker had just expired. So I was basically serving as the real estate agent. I didn’t think of it in that terms at the time.

Dawn Wiggins [00:20:41]: Sure.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:20:41]: But we got done with the deal. I negotiated in that moment. I said, you know, I’m going to give you an offer. And he basically said, well, I’m offended by your offer. And I said, well, I understand, but you know what? You’ve been doing this for 30 years. You know how this works. If you don’t like my offer, then Kohner in writing. And that was a defining moment.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:00]: Wow.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:21:01]: Defining moment from his relationship with me and how he kept trying to bully me into just agreeing.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:07]: Because as women, how afraid are we of offending people?

Rhonda Noordyk [00:21:10]: That’s right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:11]: So afraid of.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:21:12]: Right. And I was like, no, this is not happening. And even to this day, I can remember where I was sitting and I don’t know exactly where that came from. Like, you can’t overthink that stuff. But it was like the right time, the right verbiage, and it shifted things. And we got to the end. I had, you know, my broker, I had the cpa, I had the, you know, real estate, everything that I needed. And when we got done at the closing table, my mail team was like, hey, Rhonda, good deal.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:21:40]: And it was like fist bump after. Because, yeah. They realized that I stood up.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:45]: Yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:21:45]: >And, you know, was able to do this. And to this day, I would do it again. 1,000% over.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:51]: Yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:21:52]: And so I always share that because, listen, you don’t have to know everything.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:55]: No.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:21:56]: You just have to surround yourself with the right team of people.

Dawn Wiggins [00:21:58]: That’s right. That’s right.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:21:59]: And you have to be willing to have the tough conversation.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:01]: That’s right. I always say that. Divorce, grief, it’s a team sport. Right?

Rhonda Noordyk [00:22:06]: Totally.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:07]: Not to defend, defer your. Not to defer. Right. You want your team of divorce professionals to be pushing you in the direction of empowerment. Not. Not deferring your wisdom for our wisdom. But yeah, yeah. Tapping into that wisdom.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:25]: Okay, so this is a. This next question, sort of like, is a hybrid between my work and your work. Right.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:22:30]: But.

Dawn Wiggins [00:22:30]: But you see the way we shoot ourselves in the foot right in the process. So what role would you say emotional intelligence plays in financial planning for women going through divorce? How do you help your clients balance? Right. The way that they’re moving through the financial piece, but with so much emotion. Right. Like, how do you help them understand their emotional intelligence in making financial decisions?

Rhonda Noordyk [00:22:57]: You know, it’s interesting because I think I’ve done this so long that I think I just do it automatically.

Dawn Wiggins [00:23:03]: I bet.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:23:04]: Right. Which is.

Dawn Wiggins [00:23:04]: Yes, right.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:23:05]: That’s true. But I just had a conversation this morning with someone who had recognized exactly what you’re talking about. And I think I have a process that I take my clients through. It’s called my signature bridge method. And so that’s our framework for helping them navigate through that. However, the example that I was sharing this morning, which kind of highlights this, is I was talking with a client. They’re prepping for mediation coming up within the next week or so. I’ve been brought on to be able to help her navigate through the financial stuff, be a sounding board for her and help her think through the options.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:23:44]: So I’m kind of like, in a little bit late in the party, but not too late. Right. So as long as paperwork hasn’t been signed, I can still kind of come in, intervene. So. Yep. So the attorney was open to meeting, so we had a conversation on Friday, and the attorney said, okay, here’s my. Tell me a little bit about what you do and what your role is and how you might be able to help. And so I was sharing with her some of those things, and she said, okay, well, from my perspective, the biggest issue that this client is having is, do they keep.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:24:11]: Which house? Do they keep? Do they keep the house? Do they keep the condo? Do they. You know, like, there’s all these moving parts. Right? And I said, okay, well, I’m meeting with her this afternoon. Let me see what I can do. So the condo that they own was impacted by the hurricane, so that’s. It’s not, like, livable at this point, but she’s not living anywhere near there anyways. She’s in another state. So what I said to her was, hey, where do you think that you would want to live? And she’s like, I don’t know.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:24:41]: And I said, okay, yeah, that’s a.

Dawn Wiggins [00:24:43]: Huge part of the problem in this process. Right. Is so overwhelmed. We’re so out of touch with what we want first.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:24:48]: That’s right. That’s right. And so I said, okay, well, let’s paint the picture here a little bit. I said, let’s just say that you had a team of people that could help with the contract, the construction and managing that piece on the condo in Florida. And let’s just say fast forward, it’s done. It’s been updated. The insurance proceeds have been applied to that space. Do you want to move back? And she said, yes.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:25:20]: And that was huge because the attorney’s been asking that same question. Where do you want to live? Where do you want to live? Where do you want to live? And she keeps saying, I don’t know.

Dawn Wiggins [00:25:28]: Because there’s such overwhelm.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:25:29]: Right?

Dawn Wiggins [00:25:30]: There’s such overwhelm. Do you remember when I guess it on your podcast and I said there was a homeopathic remedy for that brain fog, sepia. Right. Where I can’t. I don’t know. I just don’t know the answer. I feel so much brain fog. I love how you helped her feel into that decision.

Dawn Wiggins [00:25:44]: Right. Because you helped with this thought experiment. Remove thought experiment, remove some of the overwhelm from the decision, and then she could sort of see a clear path. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:25:55]: So then I was thankfully able to go back to the attorney and say, hey, listen, we’ve made some headway, and it looks like she wants to keep the condo, so let’s move that into her column. And then, you know, the other home that they own can he can keep. And I told her, I said, listen, at the end of the day, you make the decision to keep it, and you also have the flexibility. Then down the road, if you change your mind, you can sell it. It doesn’t mean that you’re committing to having to move there. It’s just you’re giving yourself the opportunity to make that choice at a later time. And, yeah, it was awesome. So that was just kind of like a real recent example of, I think, how I do that as part of how I’m framing things that I just do automatically because I’ve got the experience to do it, but it’s working, so that’s good.

Dawn Wiggins [00:26:46]: Yeah. If you could have our listeners carry one money mindset with them.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:26:52]: Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:26:53]: A money mindset that they need to, you see, over and over again. They need to shift. Right. They were going to write it on their mirror. I have, in my coaching program, I have women write a different mirror message every week. Right. What money mindset, mirror message would you want them to take with them?

Rhonda Noordyk [00:27:06]: So it’s a formula. It’s knowledge plus experience equals confidence. Because if we have the knowledge without the experience, it’s theory.

Dawn Wiggins [00:27:18]: That’s right.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:27:19]: If we have the experience without the knowledge, it’s trial and error. And then we wonder why things aren’t working. But when we get those things working together, something simultaneously, we then improve our confidence. And it’s a really beautiful thing. And so that would be my. That would be my takeaway.

Dawn Wiggins [00:27:39]: I love that.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:27:39]: Right.

Dawn Wiggins [00:27:40]: Because I think as women with money purchases, we shy away from the experience piece. Right. We, we want, again, want to defer our wisdom. And we’re so afraid if I make this decision, what if it’s the wrong decision and I can never come back from it? And that’s not a thing. We can come back a million and one times in life. Right. There’s a constant potential for reboot. Yeah.

Dawn Wiggins [00:28:00]: So we have to be able to learn from experience to have that confidence and wisdom. That’s beautiful. Anything else you want our listeners to hear today?

Rhonda Noordyk [00:28:08]: I would say I just want to encourage them. You’re smart.

Dawn Wiggins [00:28:14]: That’s right.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:28:15]: You’re smart. And while it might seem.

Dawn Wiggins [00:28:17]: Yeah, like, no women need to hear that. You know, how many women tell me I’m not, You know? Yes, women need to hear that. Thank you for saying it.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:28:25]: Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of times they, you know, and it’s part of a respect thing, but it’s also part of how their, you know, spouse has positioned themselves that, like, they’re the expert and they’re super smart and, like, you know, they’re on this pedestal and I’m like, yeah, they’re smart, but so are you. Right. And it, it’s not to the detriment of you. Like, I think there’s just a lot of programming there that goes into, you know, that they’re not smart enough, but they are. They are.

Dawn Wiggins [00:28:52]: Rhonda, we didn’t talk about this yet. I can’t believe I forgot. Tell our listeners a little bit about Bold Beginnings, your beautiful financial planning journal that you’ve created. Tell them a little bit. Just about, you know, what was that like to create it? And gosh, it’s such a beautiful gift. I have a copy here. We’re gonna definitely put a link to it in the show notes.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:29:10]: Yeah. So Bold Beginnings, this actually started as a 10 chapter giant.

Dawn Wiggins [00:29:16]:Oh, my word. Yeah.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:29:18]: And I felt like that’s too heavy, so we are going to pare it down. So we pared it down and I wanted to be able to share a little bit about my Story, my history as it relates to money. And so probably the most vulnerable I’ve been. And again, you know, it just felt very vulnerable because I haven’t shared a lot of those things that had happened. But it helped me to show, like, listen, I can relate to a lot of the things that women are going through as it relates to their relationship and their history with money.

Dawn Wiggins [00:29:48]: Yes.

<>Rhonda Noordyk [00:29:48]: And then diving into. What is it I want them to walk away with. I want them to walk away with the confidence. So we took the word confidence, we broke it up into each of the letters stands for something because I love acronyms. There’s. It’s really practical. It’s intended to be one of those things that, like, throw in your purse, you know, it is. Because it’s.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:06]: It’s not long, right?

Rhonda Noordyk [00:30:08]: Yeah, it’s. It’s not overwhelming.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:10]: No, it’s not at all. It’s got pictures in it like, like mandala style pictures that you can color, which I think is such an important grounding skill when you’re going through something like divorce. Like, I can’t tell you how many Mandalas I colored.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:30:22]: Exactly, exactly.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:30]: So, yeah, Vulnerable story is. Is beautiful in there. And I think it matters so much because I think as women, we have this affliction where we compare ourselves to other women and we judge ourselves as less than. And so, for instance, right. It’s very easy for me to say, oh, look at Rhonda. She’s so successful. I bet she’s so successful because something in her life was easier. And that’s, in fact, not true.

Dawn Wiggins [00:30:52]: Something in your life was harder, and it was the thing you had to overcome in order to have the success and the confidence you have today. And so I think it’s so beautiful that you shared your story so that when we compare, we can say, oh, if Rhonda could overcome this vulnerable, hard story, then maybe I can too.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:31:11]: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And that’s really, at the end of the day, right. I. I end the book by saying, you know, when I started my business, basically, I said, if I can impact, you know, the lives of women and their relationship with money, if I can improve one woman’s relationship with money, I’ve now empowered her for a lifetime legacy.

Dawn Wiggins [00:31:30]: That’s like.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:31:30]: It is. Yep. And I very much believe that.

Dawn Wiggins [00:31:33]: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here today, for sharing your passion and your wisdom with us. And I will definitely put all of your contact information in the show notes so that they can all find your beautiful book and your work should they need it.

Rhonda Noordyk [00:31:48]: Awesome. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share.