Divorced Dads of America: The Rebuild

Divorce doesn't just break trust in your ex — it breaks trust in yourself. This episode: the 3 a.m. panic loop that reading the Bible alone couldn't fix; the chair at my parents' house where I finally asked God what He wanted from me; the childhood memory of waiting on a dad who was always late but always got you there; and why rebuilding trust after divorce means trusting the process instead of forcing the outcome.

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Instagram: @divorceddadsofamerica

Divorce ends a marriage, but it quietly ends a lot of friendships too — and almost nobody warns you about it. In this episode: the chair where everything got real after a cross-state move and a business too small to count; a call from a wealthy man walking alone in another country with no one he could trust; why "ambiguous loss" means divorce grief gets no ritual and no casserole; David alone in a cave in Psalm 142; and what it actually costs your kids if you become the friend who goes quiet too.

Coaching: https://bit.ly/3PfPU0f
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Instagram: @divorceddadsofamerica

A dad in the community has it together on kid-days but drifts hard on kid-free ones — losing time, skipping workouts, running reactive instead of intentional. This episode is about why an "unstructured" day isn't actually unstructured — it's just running whatever system shows up by accident. In this episode: the grocery cart that used to cost an hour of drifting, and the one change that fixed it; the workout system that always worked, and why; James Clear's real line on goals versus systems; the guardrail your kids already are on some days, and how to build your own on the days they're not there.

Coaching: https://bit.ly/3PfPU0f
Skool community: https://bit.ly/3Z83e97
Instagram: @divorceddadsofamerica

A guy in the community asked how to stop replaying what he lost. This episode is about why that replay isn't harmless — it's a loop that gets deeper every time you run it — and what actually breaks it: not forgetting, but refusing to let the old story be the destination.

In this episode:

• Why ruminating isn't remembering — it's a psychological loop that reinforces itself
• The research on why dwelling on pain without action prolongs it, not heals it
• A real story from a casino parking lot exchange point and a 40-minute drive home
• The practice that broke the loop — worship music, a self-built "I am" list, and a choice repeated every time the old record started playing
• What your kids see when your attention is stuck in the past instead of with them right now

Coaching: https://bit.ly/3PfPU0f
Skool community: https://bit.ly/3Z83e97
Instagram: @divorceddadsofamerica

Why Divorced Dads Panic the Moment Their Kids Stop Wanting Them Around
One dad hasn't seen his kids in over a year — a DVPO, five minutes away, total silence. Then Anthony's own teenagers started pulling away, with nobody keeping them out but time. This episode is about what happens to your identity when the kids you can't live without start learning to live without you — and why that was always supposed to happen. In this episode: sitting with a client's impossible year of silence; the moment his own kids' quiet withdrawal shook something deeper than sadness; the lie that their distance means he's not enough; the Statue of Liberty from three different heights and what it taught him about identity that doesn't move; what a secure, consistent dad actually looks like from a kid's side of the room.

Coaching: https://bit.ly/3PfPU0f
Skool community: https://bit.ly/3Z83e97
Instagram: @divorceddadsofamerica

Why Divorced Dads Think a Victoria's Secret Model Is Coming to Save Them
He downloaded the dating apps a few months after his divorce and lasted a week. This episode isn't about dating rules — it's about the eight months between a cracked tooth and a phone call, and why the wait wasn't wasted time, it was the actual work. In this episode: the dating-app unicorn fantasy and why it collapses fast; the decision to leave dating in God's timing during the broke, praying season; the dentist story, told in full, three separate times he didn't make a move; what "getting your own recipe right" actually looks like day to day; what your kids see when you choose focus over chaos; the race-car rebuild metaphor for why timing this wrong doesn't just cost you.

Coaching: https://bit.ly/3PfPU0f
Skool community: https://bit.ly/3Z83e97
Instagram: @divorceddadsofamerica

Anthony gets brutally honest about the voice that used to run his head every time he looked at his bank account — the one that told him he'd never recover. He breaks down the loop that voice runs on, and walks through The Peace Engine, the four-move practice that finally shut it down: catching the loop, getting accountable to it, giving it an end time, and installing a daily gratitude walk he learned from mentor Jon Gordon. If you've ever believed the voice that says you're done, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

• The voice that told Anthony he'd never recover — and the loop that fed it
• Why running the spiral alone in your own head is what lets it win
• The Peace Engine: the 4-move practice for catching and shutting down the loop
• The daily gratitude-walk practice learned from mentor Jon Gordon
• What his kids feel when he's stuck in the loop vs. when he catches it

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• Instagram: @divorceddadsofamerica

Anthony gets honest about the years he spent waiting for his life to change on its own — hoping, not building. He breaks down why "just be more disciplined" was never the real problem, and walks through The Vision Stack, the four-move framework that took him from vague hope to an actual written vision for his business, his time with his kids, and his exchange days. If you've ever fallen off a habit and called yourself undisciplined, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

• Why waiting for things to just change on their own kept Anthony stuck
• The real difference between being interested in change and being obsessed with it
• The Vision Stack: the 4-move framework for building a specific, written vision before you touch a single habit
• Why "10 habits" is the wrong goal — and what to build instead
• What his kids are actually watching him model

Standard CTA links:

• 1-on-1 coaching: https://bit.ly/3PfPU0f
• Skool community: https://bit.ly/3Z83e97
• Instagram: @divorceddadsofamerica

A former family court judge who ruled on over 5,000 custody cases sits down to talk about the side of divorce nobody prepares you for — because she lived it first, as the kid in the middle of her own parents' split. Michele Locke spent decades on the bench before returning to private practice to fight the hardest custody and alienation cases in Texas. In this episode: what parents get wrong after divorce, the real mistakes dads make in and out of the courtroom, the new danger AI poses to your case, and what she tells good dads who are scared they've already lost their kids for good.

In this episode:

• Michele's own story as a child of divorce and what it taught her about what not to do
• The most common mistakes dads make in custody cases, with a lawyer and without one
• Her BIFF communication framework, in plain language with real examples
• How AI can be used against you in a divorce case — and how it can be used to fake evidence against you
• What she tells good dads who are afraid they've already lost their kids

Find Michele Locke:

• Website: https://www.michelelocke.com/
• Podcast: lovelustlaw — https://www.michelelocke.com/podcast
• Blog: "The Lockedown" — via michelelocke.com
• Instagram / LinkedIn: @attorneymichelelocke

Standard CTA links:

• 1-on-1 coaching: https://bit.ly/3PfPU0f
• Skool community: https://bit.ly/3Z83e97
• Instagram: @divorceddadsofamerica

My sixteen-year-old dropped a car off at a shop by himself last week, and something about watching him handle it broke something open in me. Patrick Bet-David said the line that's been going around — this episode is what it actually means to train a kid on purpose, knowing the whole point is that he leaves.
In this episode:

• Why watching your kid succeed without you is supposed to sting — Peter Blos's research on adolescent "individuation"
• What the still-maturing teenage prefrontal cortex means for how long your job as a dad actually lasts
• Diana Baumrind's parenting-styles research and the difference between training and control
• The Stoic "dichotomy of control" and what it means for fatherhood specifically
• The Loose Grip framework — four moves for training hard without gripping outcomes you never owned
• Bowlby and Ainsworth's "secure base" research — why your calm makes his independence possible
• Proverbs 22:6 and Hebrews 12:11 on what training is actually supposed to feel like

Apply for 1-on-1 coaching: https://bit.ly/3PfPU0f
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Instagram: @divorceddadsofamerica