On today's episode of the Freshman Podcast, we have special guest, Stephen Cook! We talk about how to save money through the Family Court system, how to protect your kids in court, and much more. Thanks to everyone for all the support, stay tuned for more episodes and stay tuned to the future of the show! Stay tuned for the next episode where we talk about the NHL Playoffs and the NHL Stanley Cup Finals! Also, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite streaming platform so you don't miss out on any new episodes! Have a question, suggestion or topic request? Hit us up on Anchor.fm/TheFreshmanPodcast and we'll get right to it! Peace, Blessings, Cheers, EJ & Rory - The Freshmen Podcast Hosted By: Jacob & Duck & Co-Hosted by: Owen Cook and Co-hosted by D'Andra Welcome back to another episode of The Freshman PODCAST! This episode is brought to you by Fresh FM Podcast, hosted by Jacob and Duck! We are back with a new sponsor, Castle Club! and we are so excited to have them on the show, we can't wait to bring you more content from them! (and they are coming soon, so stay tuned! , stay tuned, stay tune in for more! . Jacob, Duck, Jacob, Jacob & Co! - EJoby, Eoby, and Eoby Eoby and Cooby, . . . Eoby , Eoby & Cooby. , Eeyore , Cooby & Eoby_ . . - Cooby - Ooby, Ooby , Ooby! Eday, Eday Cooby! , Eday & Cooy, Ebooby, Cooby ( ) . , and Eday! & Eday and Cooy! ... ( ) , Eby, Eayore, Eyo, Eeeee, Ebyeee, Eoeyeeeeee , etc.. ...and Eday , Eeee!! And Eee , Ceeee ! , & Eayee, & Eee, , Geeeeeee... Thank you, EYEE :)
00:06:11.000For all you guys crying about a paywall, don't worry.
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00:09:38.000We first saw you on Owen Cook's channel talking about this stuff, and he told me he had to delete the video because it was so intense, what you were telling him, the stories you were telling him about child care, custody, and the battle in court.
00:09:50.000So tell us who you are, brother, because we know who you are, but they may not know who you are.
00:10:03.000We met about 20 years ago, and the dude blew me away because back then we were both coaches, as he calls OG social coaches, but makeup artists and that sort of thing.
00:10:14.000And this dude, everybody was crazy in that industry way back when.
00:10:19.000And, like, just sociopathically crazy, like, bad people.
00:10:22.000And I'm like, what's going on, you know?
00:10:24.000And here was this dude who had, like, traits of those guys, like, fought really, like, rapidly and super ADHD. And he helped myself and, like, a competitor basically work a workshop in Hawaii.
00:12:51.000But he's so intelligent on camera, because I've done a lot of camera stuff, and I've never been with somebody who could flow that good, and I'm like tired as fucking shit on the thing, and man, it was brilliant.
00:13:05.000And so it's very rare that you're with somebody that's that, like, man, impromptu and got it, you know?
00:14:05.000Like, it goes from being a good dad and your friends and family going like, man, you know, just tell them the truth and all this sort of stuff, and you basically get your ass handed to you.
00:14:15.000And the tragedy is so bad because, you know, what you guys are talking about, like, man, up your game, like, be powerful, all this sort of stuff.
00:14:34.000You sacrifice your work, your life, your health, all this stuff for your kids, for your family, and your soon-to-be ex or your baby mama, your wife.
00:14:44.000It depends if you're divorced or in custody or whatever, different things.
00:14:50.000The best man, the best man with the best heart who cares for everything that we're supposed to care about in our culture, like good families, is going to fight for that.
00:15:13.000And once they realize they have some sort of advantage, and again, you're walking into a court system which is not going to favor men immediately, but it doesn't have to go that way, you get hit hard.
00:15:33.000But when you are devastated because you can't see your kids and you're used to, maybe you work the whole time, and the mother tucked them in at night and made food for them, but you were still around.
00:15:43.000And all of a sudden you have no rights.
00:15:47.000Man, you start contemplating in some normal ways things like suicide, things like vengeance, harming yourself, harming others, disappearing.
00:15:55.000And you take the high road as a man and you try and be strong.
00:16:15.000So when guys come to me, so basically what I do is I work with guys through their whole legal case and we help with the mental side, the legal side.
00:17:08.000I mean, on Owen's level, what he's talking about...
00:17:11.000He goes, man, get people to wear condoms.
00:17:14.000And one thing I will say, if you're a man and you're with women, okay, I have four kids.
00:17:19.000One was through a relationship that was committed and all that sort of stuff.
00:17:23.000And the other kids were, or two kids from a committed relationship.
00:17:27.000The other two kids were from kind of like riffraffing around and all that sort of stuff.
00:17:31.000If you're a man and you're sexually active, And you have the ability to do that.
00:17:36.000I think you're better off in our world.
00:17:39.000There's a whole bunch of people that talk about the different moral values and whatnot, but people have different roads and all this sort of stuff.
00:17:45.000But if you're a man and you're good with women, this is going to happen.
00:18:40.000So, if this happens in a casual setting, and you...
00:18:44.000Man, I'll share actually like a pretty brutal story, but...
00:18:48.000My buddy, this is way back when, and he actually passed away, but he was a pimp.
00:18:53.000And he said, look, man, if you knock a chick up...
00:18:57.000Now, I'm not suggesting to do this, but this will portray the mentality.
00:19:01.000And he says, if you knock a chick up, You got three months.
00:19:05.000And at the time, termination and these types of things, which is a touchy subject, were more available in the U.S. He goes, you got three months to make your move and to make your play.
00:19:16.000And you have a choice in this because you're the one going to be paying child support.
00:19:20.000You're going to be the one going through the pain.
00:19:21.000You're going to be the one responsible for that child.
00:20:34.000Like, man, reputations, like, everything you read about.
00:20:38.000Like, when people are talking about, like, borderline women or narcissistic personality disorder, like, whether they had it or not, that shit becomes much more probable.
00:20:47.000And they'll go after your reputation, and it's like...
00:21:04.000But how that gets manipulated in our culture and how it gets exploited in what women become and even men become when they don't know what to do or they take advantage or manipulate is one of the most fucked up things and it causes generational pain and trauma.
00:21:27.000There's something called parental alienation which is one of the most devastating things like the results of alienating one parent from the other like you're a bad dad or you're a bad mom and you shouldn't like your dad because they abandoned you or your mom or whatever you talk that kind of shit.
00:21:40.000And your kid is alienated from you and starts showing symptoms of that, the results of that are similar to consistent physical abuse or sexual abuse done to a kid.
00:22:52.000But you have to understand that most people who represent themselves screw up in the beginning, and the beginning is the most important thing to not screw up.
00:23:00.000Because once a judge makes a ruling, anything gets signed, Then to reverse that, you're not then fighting for custody.
00:23:07.000You're fighting to reverse what got ruled, to get custody back.
00:23:10.000So you're not on an even playing field.
00:23:12.000And the real question here, or the real thing to understand is, how do you find a good lawyer?
00:24:08.000You're now speaking out of turn in a courtroom, and a judge is going to see 20 of these cases all day of people who disrespected their court by not being prepared.
00:24:17.000And they're just going to say, well, look, I'm going to err on the side of caution.
00:25:07.000And if the child is a newborn, It's going to be with the mother in most states just because of, you know, whatever different theories around it.
00:25:16.000It's seen as important, but after 18 months, two years, it can be split up.
00:25:21.000But then the next thing is, is you should interview attorneys.
00:26:41.000And then you start to look at strategy.
00:26:43.000And so this is kind of a tricky thing because us as men, the things that naturally make us strong are to confront, fight, tell the truth, fight for our kids, show up, clear up whatever.
00:27:08.000And then you get the information and then you go, man, I'm nervous and da-da-da-da.
00:27:12.000How long do you typically have between the time you're served to your first court appearance where you can actually take that time period to go watch that judge typically?
00:28:00.000But then, once it gets accepted, it might be three months.
00:28:03.000So if you screw up, you have three months of a status quo happening, meaning...
00:28:09.000If she gets more custody, and she's taking the kids to school, and the dad is cut out for some sort of safety reason, and it has to go to supervised visitation, which generally men have to pay for.
00:28:20.000You have to pay for your own supervision for watching your own kids.
00:28:25.000Child support gets set at something which is unrealistic.
00:28:29.000Then you have three months of her getting to do whatever she wants.
00:28:33.000The next time you go back to the court, she's gonna say, if she's smart, if she wants to win this game, which a lot of times that doesn't happen, she's gonna say, well, look, the kids are used to it.
00:28:43.000It would traumatize them to reintegrate the father to be a 50-50 situation.
00:28:48.000So you want to get it right from the beginning.
00:28:51.000The other thing that happens is all sorts of false claims, false allegations.
00:30:09.000If you're a kid in the car and you're recording a video or something and that goes online, that is not good parenting because you're operating a camera while operating in a vehicle while a child is in it.
00:30:19.000These types of things come up all the time.
00:30:26.000Man, I hear this story over and over again.
00:30:28.000I can't talk specifically about what my clients have gone through, but they'll have stuff thrown at them.
00:31:45.000In the actual story of it, there were multiple claims made against me that had to do with violence or sexuality and all this sort of stuff.
00:31:52.000Here I am as a dating coach, of course.
00:32:48.000In the grand jury, as I'm being interviewed, they're like, oh, so you're a practitioner of jiu-jitsu and you teach jiu-jitsu classes, and so when you used a ligature against your son, Does that come from your weapons training?
00:33:06.000And I was like, there's no weapons in jiu-jitsu.
00:33:33.000Like, knives and swords and all the sort of stuff she was talking about were not used.
00:33:39.000And we got in this big argument about it.
00:33:41.000That argument, I don't know what screwed me over in it, but the grand jury, as soon as I left, immediately ruled that they were going to step forward with the trial, which is horrible, man.
00:34:00.000And in the plea, we could go over this with many cases that I've had.
00:34:06.000A plea is basically like, you have no money, and are you going to go to a sex offender prison as a child abuser and get raped for six months, two years, or whatever it is.
00:34:22.000So if you go to, it depends again on the state, but if you go to a state jail or a federal prison or whatever, it wouldn't be a federal prison, but if you go to some state jail,
00:35:45.000To tell my story in this, and this is what Owen actually wanted to cut out at least a little bit of, and the guys in my group stories are far worse, but so then I get married, have an amazing relationship, amazing relationship, awesome, obviously different woman,
00:36:01.000model, like beautiful, like everything you could imagine, right?
00:36:18.000If multiple times on recording, if you challenge me on anything, if I don't call the shots, then I'm going to say that you abuse the kids and use your old case against you.
00:36:32.000At this point, after the first case happened, I started talking to lawyers and educating myself on stuff and whatnot, and then working with guys who came to my group on this sort of thing.
00:36:42.000At the time, I wasn't really targeting coaching on custody stuff, but I was like, man, I just got totally fucked.
00:38:04.000And let's just think about this, right?
00:38:06.000If you don't stop somebody who's acting crazy, this was one of my, in my 2019 case, the one where I did the depositions and came out on top.
00:40:24.000And then you ended up taking a plea deal because you couldn't fight it, maybe not the money for the lawyers and everything else like that.
00:40:30.000Like, was this a situation where she was angry at you and made up, like, kind of, how do I say it, sensationalized events to just get you in jail, and then she couldn't reverse anything and then ended up, like, where you got fucked at then?
00:41:13.000But if there's a charge, and there were multiple allegations of abuse that had happened before.
00:41:18.000So I had talked to CPS. I had talked to attorneys, or I'm sorry, the cops or whatever, in previous cases, but they got thrown out.
00:41:24.000So I went in there thinking I knew what was up.
00:41:26.000Well, if you fuck up once and you think you know what's up, you fuck up.
00:41:30.000And the fact of the matter is, and I'll say this just in her defense, because we both raise awesome kids together, is that, man, we were both nuts.
00:41:42.000In that whole situation, it's so horrible.
00:41:46.000But even if you talk to the guys in my group who get accused of the same thing and get run through the ringer in it, it forces you to be a better parent.
00:41:52.000You go to parenting classes, you look at the law, you look at how the law determines this, you look at the psychological damage it causes kids.
00:41:58.000Like I said, I thought I was the big victim in it, and I was, but when I got to reintegrate with my kids, who are awesome, they're amazing, amazing.
00:46:55.000So it seems to me like one of the biggest takeaways is you can't mess up in the beginning.
00:46:59.000It's like, for example, when you mentioned on Jubilee, get the information about how to lose weight, you can't just walk into this blindly.
00:47:05.000You gotta know what you're doing when you walk into it.
00:47:43.000I'm not going to say that doesn't exist.
00:47:45.000But if you're in this stage, you have to be able to act properly.
00:47:50.000And if you don't, like what, so you're just going to go in alone and be pissed off?
00:47:54.000That will guarantee that That a judge cannot hear your case.
00:47:59.000So you need to study the judge and learn how that judge rules, watch them, and figure out a game plan, whether you're going pro se, which is representing yourself, or you hire an attorney and you need to learn how to hire an attorney that's not lazy.
00:48:16.000And I'll ask you about how to interview attorneys here in a second.
00:48:20.000The problem with family courts is the woman you marry becomes a demon with and her mind gets poisoned by all her friends, family, lawyers, and greed.
00:48:27.000Also, you run out of money because of legal fees.
00:48:31.000That's a good question, and the answer's in that question.
00:48:35.000Okay, so she's getting advice from her family and friends.
00:48:38.000If you get advice in custody from your family and friends, you're going to get bad advice, even if you have a lawyer, you know, like relatives, or if your brother's a lawyer.
00:48:48.000If they're not your lawyer, you need to work with somebody who's obsessed with your case.
00:48:55.000That is not going to be lazy about your case.
00:48:58.000And if she is going to listen to her friends, she's going to fuck up.
00:49:30.000She's going to be playing the social media game with her friends and winning opinions and trying to turn your family against you and all this sort of stuff.
00:49:35.000And in that, that doesn't matter to the courts.
00:49:38.000The courts don't care about that, at least at first.
00:49:40.000That's like one of those secondary things.
00:49:42.000That's like a character assessment and that sort of thing.
00:49:44.000But she's going to make a mistake that matters with custody or lying.
00:50:11.000Women are favored, they are, but if you're smart and you play steady, they generally don't have, they could have the backing and control and all that sort of stuff, but they generally will not, and they'll screw up, and they dig their own grave.
00:50:28.000It happens over and over again in our groups.
00:50:45.000So, I mean, marriage in our country, with the general thing, like when I was talking about the best man, the best man comes in, he doesn't really go to school on this, he just has good morals.
00:50:55.000And then something turns, either he turns or she turns, but then it just goes all fucked up.
00:51:03.000If we're gonna work our culture better, like we need to start, I mean, in the greater meta thing, we need to start looking at male wisdom, I think, which is really important.
00:51:13.000We have to start looking what it means to be a man with women, a man with money, a man with responsibility.
00:51:17.000And those things need to be so important that when it goes into us like having fun and going out and getting laid or having women around or whatever your situation is, that needs to be taken into it.
00:51:27.000But in having kids, If you walk into having kids without any thoughts or wisdom of your own, our system is so fucked.
00:51:37.000Our culture, meaning it's going to screw with you, it's going to screw with her, is so fucked up, it's guaranteed to fuck up.
00:51:43.000And our court system is guaranteed to just make it devastating, at least to one person, and heavily the man.
00:51:54.000I mean, man, there's guys leaving the country, there's guys finding women in other countries, which is an answer for now.
00:52:00.000But if we don't fix the problem of wisdom and integrity and being a good man and finding good women and these types of things and inventorying yourself, because a bad woman exploits a man or takes advantage of an already broken man.
00:52:16.000So, men that get screwed over by women play a part in it, even though they're the total victims.
00:52:21.000But oftentimes, they're not just the total victims.
00:52:24.000Everybody's got some screwed up stuff.
00:52:25.000We have to take responsibility for that.
00:52:27.000And if we go to other countries and meet wives and stuff, that's cool.
00:52:40.000And with the passport bro thing, that's a little bit different because I live in another country, and I generally don't like it when people exploit that country.
00:52:48.000Like, I have good relationships with people.
00:53:45.000You're only using their story of being knocked up by a drug dealer and raped and beaten up to promote why you should have fake boobs or whatever, like your choice in something.
00:53:56.000And if you really care about helping people, go and help people.
00:54:00.000But if you were to go to another country, I would say take some time to learn it and respect it and all that sort of stuff.
00:54:06.000Yeah, versus these guys that just go in there to get laid and shit.
00:54:12.000I'm a good friend of a family attorney, and he always tells me to wrap it up because he's seen some crazy shit in courts while most fast females switch it up when it comes to legal situations.
00:55:39.000And it's good because it's a good standard to go off of.
00:55:41.000But if there's property that's bought in that time, if there's any question, if you're not familiar with the law, if the law changes when that attorney writes it up, you know, like maybe it happens 10 years later when you guys split up or three years, but...
00:55:53.000Different laws or different rulings can get changed.
00:55:56.000So laws get changed by courts and by legislature.
00:56:01.000They don't get changed by yelling about it on social media.
00:56:04.000So if different rulings have been done by a judge with some of the property or custody in a prenup, It could get argued.
00:58:00.000That a lot of the men's movement has hurt men more, giving false hope, bullshit coaches, advice that doesn't work, gives guys a false sense of confidence.
00:58:38.000How should we go about this step-by-step?
00:58:40.000I know you had mentioned go watch the judge, et cetera, et cetera.
00:58:43.000But let's say someone gets served today.
00:58:47.000What would you tell them step-by-step they need to do to ensure that they at least get some type of custody of their kids, right?
00:58:52.000Like now that we have 20-20 hindsight from your mistakes, from clients that you work with, from your knowledge and everything else like that, generally speaking, what would they need to do step-by-step?
00:59:00.000They get served that paperwork today, what do they do?
00:59:03.000Step-by-step what they would do, ideally, but they're probably not gonna do it, is they should hire me, they should get my groups, they should talk with other men who are going through this.
00:59:11.000Not men who've been past it, because here's one of the other things.
00:59:14.000If a guy's been past this and it's been two years, his interpretation of it was it was hard, I had to step forward, I had to get a hobby, I had to get over it, I just had to move past it.
00:59:23.000But in that moment, Your mind is so fucked.
00:59:26.000You need to get around men going through it who have their finger on the pulse of it.
00:59:30.000You also need to start looking at what is going to determine whatever it is, custody or visitation.
00:59:36.000You have to understand how that is determined.
00:59:38.000And it's not that she's a bitch and you're cool or you're an asshole sometimes.
00:59:43.000One of the things my attorney told me is he said, Steve, I got a guy who was convicted of murder, custody of his kids.
01:00:32.000How should they go about interviewing lawyers?
01:00:34.000When you interview a lawyer, the best way to get a good lawyer is reference from other attorneys who are active.
01:00:40.000The other thing that you should look for, so it could be a tax attorney, business attorney, all that sort of stuff, but if they reference a family law attorney and they're active in it, it's good.
01:00:49.000So just to add to your point as well, I reached out to James Sexton, a very good lawyer in New York, and he has a network of guys that are very successful in their different endeavors, because obviously law is very diverse, and he knew people from a certain network, so I was like, you know what, who could I go to for these things, and he had a network there.
01:01:03.000No man, like a network of attorneys, that's what I had in 2019, like I knew attorneys.
01:01:09.000And I knew a bunch at a certain point.
01:02:23.000I think anybody, if you have the best lawyer in the world, you have to educate yourself on the system and you're going to have to work your ass off.
01:02:29.000So lawyer or no lawyer, you have to know everything.
01:02:32.000A good lawyer is going to have more clients and they're all fucked up, man.
01:05:33.000But that's a day-by-day conversation you've got to have with guys.
01:05:36.000I'd say three times a week you're going to have that conversation with a guy that's in his first two months, maybe six months, of where it's like, hey, look, no, man, you can't do it.
01:05:46.000But it's his nature to confront, to bring rationale to it, to protect his family, all those different things, in a way that he feels, but we're not living in our nature.
01:06:27.000Here's actually a pro tip that comes from our groups.
01:06:30.000If you're a father and you don't have a protective order or restraining order or anything like that, man, you can go eat lunch at school with your kids.
01:06:36.000Call your school, find out when parents are allowed to come and buy back some parenting time.
01:06:40.000Like, it's a huge thing that guys do in our groups and...
01:07:54.000He said if they don't have a protective order, if there's nothing against you, you can go.
01:07:58.000There could be a temporary parenting plan where they're like, we don't know, so we're going to play on the safe side, and she's going to watch the kids, and you can see them.
01:08:30.000It might even be weird for them, but it's always better.
01:08:33.000If your kids can't see you, and you're allowed to legally see them, see them as much as possible when it doesn't cause conflict with the mother.
01:08:53.000They don't hire a lawyer or whatever it may be.
01:08:55.000What else can guys do to avoid messing up so they're not starting this case off on the back foot?
01:08:59.000Yeah, I think guys should seek out some sort of therapy or something like this.
01:09:04.000Now, a support group is different than a lawyer and it's different than a therapist or some sort of, you know, psychological help or there's guys in our groups that go to, there's Muslim guys in our groups who go to Imams or Catholic guys that will go, like, seek out some guidance.
01:09:20.000And it's very important because it's that weekly check-in that gets you straight.
01:09:24.000And if you have faith, you don't have to have faith.
01:09:27.000You can be atheist, agnostic, whatever, and find some sanity.
01:09:31.000But if you can find something that has some guidance, it's very important.
01:09:35.000Because the biggest changes are going to be made in points of desperation.
01:09:39.000But points of desperation are dangerous and they suck.
01:09:43.000But if you can get somebody who has some wisdom to move towards that, it's going to make you a better father.
01:09:50.000Okay, so just a recap for the audience, so you get served that paperwork, first thing you're doing is you're joining a support group, you're getting a lawyer, you're interviewing that lawyer, making sure that they are familiar with the judge that you've been assigned, then you start watching that judge in court, watch at least 15 cases.
01:10:04.000Once you have those 15 cases down, obviously consult with people, get closer with maybe a religious leader of some kind, avoid contacting the girl.
01:10:14.000Now we're at the point where we're going to get into that first hearing.
01:10:22.000So you need to take all the notes that you got from that judge and how they rule and how they ruled on cases similar to yours, as well as similar personality types of the mother.
01:10:31.000So you don't know what she's going to do, but you can almost bank on that she's going to go for the hysterical thing.
01:10:37.000So she's going to be too dramatic and try and be like Atticus Finch and To Kill a Mockingbird, like went over the court in all these charismatic ways.
01:10:59.000Man, I really dislike this a lot about men's media.
01:11:04.000Men need to learn how to stop with legal force in the courtroom, not by force force, on what was going to stop your baby mama, ex, whatever it is.
01:12:20.000I need to say, look, in these situations, I took the kids to school more, whatever the thing is, and you did this and that, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you went out and partied, you tested positive for these drugs, whatever it is.
01:12:30.000You need to use that to your advantage to say, man, here's the fucking reality.
01:13:05.000He was saying it's kind of like a term used to kind of like go into court with, but he was saying that if you know what you're doing, you can get out of it pretty easily or get it lowered to a very low amount.
01:14:24.000So if you hit hard, let's say in something like depositions or you do something outside of court and she knows she has nothing to stand on, you go, hey, let's settle.
01:14:35.000Like if she has an attorney, your attorney or you or whatever makes the point to her attorney.
01:14:41.000If you step forward, here's what happens.
01:14:43.000If you step forward, we're subpoenaing all your coworkers.
01:15:08.000When you're interviewing attorneys and you're working with me, We're going to tell you.
01:15:12.000We're going to tell you, like, look, if this is your angle, this is what you need to go for.
01:15:16.000You need to find an attorney that's willing to do it.
01:15:18.000And if your attorney's saying, I don't want to do that, or it's impossible, and we think it is, you know, like, we don't live in your state, and we're not attorneys ourselves, or some are, but we're not acting as your attorney.
01:15:28.000You need to start asking your attorney.
01:15:32.000It's not like you're there just going, oh man, please help me.
01:15:36.000You're going, I want this to happen, can you do it?
01:15:39.000And if it's unrealistic, it's unrealistic.
01:15:41.000But that's also I think something to bounce off the people in my group and so on.
01:15:45.000So they mentioned, uh, well, shelter coach Greg Adams for giving a good, uh, video about this, but, uh, I think they've mentioned as well, if you give a woman money without it being through the court system, you just give her like, it's a gift.
01:16:09.000If you're gonna have the attorney general involved, which is kind of good, because if five years down the road she all of a sudden says, I need child support, she could screw you with arrears and all this sort of stuff on it.
01:16:19.000But if you get it put on paper, it can be a good thing.
01:16:24.000Think about this, child support could be the cheapest daycare you're gonna pay for.
01:16:32.000Now, oftentimes, you might have to pay for daycare as well and these types of things.
01:16:36.000But if you're not going to be a custodial dad, if that's already decided, right?
01:16:41.000If you're fighting to be a custodial dad and you're fighting for time and you got 50-50 and you're getting screwed on child support, that is bad.
01:16:47.000But you need to understand that the child support that you're paying should be going to something good.
01:16:53.000Now, if you're in a state like California, man, like in Texas, it's capped.
01:16:58.000In Florida, you actually start out with 50-50.
01:17:01.000The judges are now moving more towards that, and Colorado as well.
01:18:16.000Yeah, and this is like a fair argument, and I think this discussion should be had with people, but at the same time, you can't just stop there.
01:18:25.000So just to make this really clear, if you go, don't get married, don't have kids, you're going to fall in love with somebody, you're going to have unprotected sex, you could get somebody pregnant, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, shit.
01:18:37.000So let's start educating yourself on it.
01:19:30.000Like I said, episodes like this, guys, are going to stay free, man, for sure, because I think we gave you a lot of sauce on here and how to deal with a lot of situations.
01:19:38.000Step by step, man, once you get served, what to do and how to deal with things.
01:20:22.000So these are the general guidelines that you're going to need.
01:20:25.000However, your actual real application and strategy is going to be contingent upon The factors I just mentioned, which can vary greatly, right?
01:22:22.000There's probably someone right now in the chat that might have got served or, you know, is going through this right now and needs some help with navigating.
01:22:27.000Where can they find you and how they go about it?
01:22:33.000S-T-E-V-E-M-A-Y-E-D-A. You can find me on TikTok, on YouTube.
01:22:37.000It's at Steve Maeda TV. There's tons of videos on this.
01:22:41.000It's like over a thousand videos that I have navigating through this.
01:22:44.000More importantly, if you're going through this, just understand you're not weak if you're a good dad and you want to be around your kids and you hurt like hell.
01:22:53.000You have strength that's making that pain.
01:22:56.000And that pain is devastating and crushing and you need to get around other dads.
01:23:00.000If that's my group, if that's talking to me, great.
01:23:22.000Guys, hell, I think this is one of the more important episodes that we've done, man.
01:23:26.000If you're going through it, if you think you're...
01:23:28.000Hell, even if you think that it's coming down the pipeline, it might be worth it to get a consultation because, again, your situation is going to be completely different based on where you live and all the other factors we mentioned.
01:23:37.000So you're going to want to go ahead and be able to talk to someone like Steve or get in a group and be able to get...
01:23:42.000Tailored advice for your situation, okay, guys?
01:23:44.000Because everyone's situation is completely different.