Maggie
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The Marriage Life Coach Podcast. I am so excited today to have Lisa Hoffman joining us. She is a mechanical engineer and program manager who has a background in industrial manufacturing engineering and a passion for building teams who work well together and using emotional intelligence both at work and at home to create better results. And Lisa and I just wrapped up six months working together to make her already strong and loving marriage even stronger and more loving. And she’s gonna share some of her favorite ahas with us today and I am so excited. I have no idea what she’s gonna say. I have no idea how it’s gonna go. So I’m so excited to have her here. Welcome, Lisa.
Lisa
Thank you, Maggie. I’m excited to be here and to share.
Maggie
Awesome. So why did you decide to hire a marriage coach, like tell me a little bit about your thought process around that.
Lisa
Sure, I’ve been in your Facebook group for probably close to five years before I decided to actually work with you one on one. And what I really liked about the Facebook group and what gave me confidence in your ability to help me is that you handle the group really well. I love how you will go in and offer snippets of coaching or point somebody to a resource. And you actually did that for me a couple times early on in the Facebook group. I had been married for almost 20 years when I joined the group and I ended up leaving my first husband during that time, and I was, you know, making that decision during the whole process. So you offered some insights to me on things I had posted, went through that divorce with my husband, and started dating, and eventually married my current husband about five months after our divorce was final. So my first marriage was really death by 1000 paper cuts, we both made mistakes, and eventually, we just got to a point where we didn’t like each other. And I laughed because I wanted more from life than just dreading going home.
Lisa
After work to a husband that I didn’t think wanted me to be there. So, then fast forward to about a year into my second marriage, it felt like we were really struggling and we knew we loved each other. And we’d both been married before. So we’re both trying not to make the same mistakes that we had in previous relationships because we both really love each other. But we just couldn’t seem to get along. My husband’s a disabled veteran and he does have some PTSD issues. I’m a conflict avoider so one of the first things we had to do is figure out how to fight fair but in trying to keep the peace and be the conflict avoider person that I was I felt like I was starting to lose my personal identity. And I knew that something had to change. So when I received a bonus at work and had some extra funding, I was like, I really need to like invest in coaching with Maggie because I felt like after five years in your group, you could really help me and it has turned out to be worth every single penny, and then some.
Maggie
Well, obviously, I’m so happy to hear that and I’m so happy that you shared that. This is your second marriage and that you wanted to make it work. And there was a foundation of love there. Like, I think it’s so important for us like I’m a marriage advocate. And I think it’s important for someone, I talk about marriage every day to say, we want to save all the marriages that are saveable 100%. And the highest and best outcome of some relationships really is for them to end. And that’s also okay, and welcome. And part of the process and all of that.
Lisa
Yeah, and I think one of the other side benefits of working with you out of that is I was able to say goodbye to my first marriage and kind of process through that and understand that, you know, yes, things were done wrong on both sides, but it’s okay. And it’s okay to let that go and move on. Yeah, no, that was like a side benefit that I didn’t expect. There were many of those and I’m sure we’ll talk about him as we go through.
Maggie
Yeah. But having that closure around, this ended and it’s okay that it ended and it created space for both of us to be happier and have partners that we can thrive with and all of that. I think that’s so, so, so powerful. So what kind of results did you see after the six months of working together? I know you might have a bullet point or two.
Lisa
I’m definitely more confident in myself like, in the first few months of my second marriage, I really lost confidence because he was so different than my first husband and I didn’t have a good set of rules for dealing with them and everything I knew had worked before it wasn’t working. So I had lost confidence in myself and in my instincts, and now I’ve got that back. And I think I said to you at our last session, I know that I know what I know. Yeah, that’s really it. I just, you know, we still have conflict, nothing really has changed there.
Lisa
But the way that I handle it is different. And so I don’t get as upset, which sometimes makes my husband a little bonkers. But, you know, I do I need to try and make sure that he understands that I’m still engaged, I still want to fix this, I’m still trying to resolve it, but I’m not gonna, you know, go hide in the bedroom while you yell or basically back away from it and just let it be like we’re better at getting to the root of it and resolving it now.
Maggie
I love that. so so much like one of the things that is so important and I talk about a lot on the podcast and with my clients when I’m one is self-trust, and turning to your own discernment and even you know, I have a podcast I share a lot of guidance, I share a lot of you know, you can do this, you could try this or that. But I don’t have the answer like the answer always lives inside of you. And I just give you opportunities to find what that answer is. And sometimes I’ll give you a piece of guidance and it’ll just inspire what you end up doing and has nothing to do with the original thing we talked about. And that’s beautiful too because it’s like my goal is for my clients to learn to self-coach to learn, like you said, to self soothe to be at center. When I’m not in the room, we only talk once a week. Right?
Lisa
Right. Yeah, one of the big things that happened for me and conflict now that didn’t happen before is I understand that for my husband, the root of it is he just wants to know that he’s respected and that I’m never going to leave him. He’s had a lot of people in his life leave him and I’m not going to be one of them. And that’s a commitment we made before we were married. For me, it’s, I want to make sure that I’m loved and that, you know, I’m the love of his life because that was really what attracted me to him. And so I need to remind myself that, you know, he wouldn’t be upset if I wasn’t the love of his life if it wasn’t important to him. So, those two things, knowing those and remembering those in the midst of that conflict really has helped and that’s, you know, we talked to that because one of the things you pointed out is that every time I turn towards him, he turns towards me. It really reinforced Yes, he does love me, you know.
Maggie
Yes it’s so important even when we’re in the midst of struggles or challenges to notice what’s already working or to notice, like, is there truly a foundation of love here? Right? When I’m showing up differently, how is he responding? Is he also showing up differently? That’s so important. And sometimes we have to slow down enough in our own responses to sort of letting that breathe and let it happen.
Lisa
Yeah, yes. I definitely was in that basket for sure. Yeah, let’s see. Yeah, at the other pieces, you know, it’s not always him that sparks that conflict. He has triggers and I will trigger him regularly. Actually, you know, whether it’s a PTSD trigger or just a disrespectful trigger for him. I do that but I am more aware when I’m doing it. Not so good at not doing it yet, but I’m still I’m more aware faster. And that helps me back up as you taught me to do over. And I do use that. On occasion sometimes I forget. But when I use it, it always works. And at one point, I had said something that really annoyed my husband. And I said to him, can we have a do-over and he’s like, it’s a do-over every morning.
Maggie
Every morning, we start fresh, it’s a clean slate over every morning, I love that so so so much. So just it sounds simple, but I want to make sure I explain it because it’s the first time you ever listen to the podcast. So a do-over is simply an opportunity to say, hey, that’s not how I wanted this to go. That’s not who I want to be in this moment. Can we just start fresh? So it could be as simple as you’re coming home and you’re in a rush and you’re worried about whatever’s going on the outside world, it’s quite easy to worry about. And then your spouse you know, wants to connect with you and wants to hug and say hello and you don’t and you walk on by right, we’ve all had one of those moments. And then as you pause and you’re like, hey, actually, that’s not how I want our welcomes to be. Can we do that again? And then we just do it. And I have done them. I have asked for them, I have received them. Like, this is one of those things that is just a great thing to have in your marriage culture. As a culture, if you think about like a company culture, in our marriage culture, it’s like, oh, we do, do-overs here. It’s a great thing. I’m glad you mentioned that.
Lisa
Yes. And then probably one of the other bigger things. There are so many things, but one of the other really big things that we’re both working on now is fun. I didn’t realize how business-y I am and I really, really am business-y and when we were dating, we had lots and lots of fun. And then we got married and life happened and we have six kids between us and you know, there’s a lot of stuff. And so it’s sometimes hard for us to just relax and have fun and a lot of times one of us will make a joke and the other one’s not ready for it and we totally like, let it slide by. So like we each individually try to inject fun, but it’s trying to be more aware and reacting to it. Like Jeff will say, my husband, it’s a joke! And I’ll say, Oh, I’m sorry, I totally missed it, you know, so trying to make more fun in our life. And Maggie has some great examples of fun from her own life. So that gave us some ideas, your superheroes in the Home Depot I think was one.
Maggie
Yeah, so, my husband and I are fun and wacky and we don’t like run errands. We have adventures. So we’ll just be like cool what adventure we’re gonna have. We’re gonna go to Home Depot, okay, or Lowe’s. But it’s like adding that fun to the things you’re already doing is like so important. So one time, we were literally at the grocery store and they were playing Michael Buble. And I like love Michael Buble. And I like, extended my arm and I’m like, Let’s dance. And my husband is like the sweetest ever is like, Okay, and then we were just like in the spaghetti aisle. The aisle was empty, nobody cared and I think one person walked by and was like, I want what they’re having!
Lisa
Exactly, that’s exactly it. I mean, just you describing it, you light up and I’m like, Oh my gosh, I want to be those people that are crazy and having fun. And everybody’s looking at them going, Oh, I want to be fun like them. And truly, we want to be fun like you and your husband and we’re working on it.
Maggie
I love that so much. And I will link in the show notes to episode one where I talk about The Relationship Table where I talk about prospective partnership and pleasure like the prism of pleasure. It’s like this light-hearted fun. It’s all the little things that you do. It’s physical pleasure, emotional pleasure, mental pleasure. When you want to thrive, right one of the things I want to stand for in this podcast is thriving like a five-star life like an amazing marriage. When you want to thrive, the body was built to experience pleasure or we wouldn’t have pleasure centers like we were built to experience laughter or laughter would not exist for us, right? So it’s so so important to remember that we bring the fun like fun isn’t something that happens outside of us. We bring it to the situation and I love that you’ve sort of taken that mantle and are bringing it to your day to day life. That’s beautiful. Okay, tell me more. What’s next?
Lisa
Oh, well, we talked about the first marriage that was huge. There was an issue with my son, my youngest child, and now I was able to disconnect that from the divorce and we are improving. Every day like he’s talking to me more, and we moved across the country away from our kids about a year ago, and I had a trip back, I was able to go back for his graduation and made it amazing for him even in the midst of the COVID pandemic. And I was able to do that without having the issues with my ex-husband that I had been having before. So just being you know, not just the big picture, marriage stuff, but Maggie helped me handle day to day things.
Lisa
And it gave me tools that I can now use, like for the rest of my life to handle those day to day things. And I think that’s the best thing is there’s never, yeah, we had things we wanted to talk about in coaching. But if I had something coming up that I just wanted to work through, she was always willing to change the agenda and do that. And yeah, that to me was huge. Like there’s no prescription or script or we have to do this in week one and this in week six and this in week 12. It’s just you know what gonna work for us today, and it was great.
Maggie
I love that you mentioned that because my philosophy is whatever is happening in your life when you can handle that you’re also learning the meta-skill that you can take back into your marriage. And when that similar theme comes up in your marriage, now you will know how to handle that. So to me, it’s like it’s all like the tapestry that we can build from, no matter sometimes it’s a coworker, sometimes it’s a family member, it doesn’t matter. And I love that you said, there’s no prescription, it’s like, when is this is that because I am in the process of developing a group program, which will be the total opposite thing that we will be this and you know, whatever will be, you know, boundaries or whatever. But I think there’s a good time and place for when it’s really whatever is alive for you is what matters the most. And there’s a time and place to have like a structured sort of guidance like these are things that are really useful for you to know no matter what in your marriage, and I want you to know all that.
Maggie
So good. Okay, I’m gonna ask a very self-serving question right now, which is what did you like about working with me? But I also want to ask what was challenging or what did you not like or found? Because like, a lot of people who listen to this podcast, this may be the first life coach experience they’ve ever had. Or they don’t even know what a life coach relationship is like. So I told Lisa when we were planning the interview, but I want to tell her on the interview, it’s like, you can’t offend me. I won’t be upset. You can say anything. It’s all beautiful. What did you like and what was challenging?
Lisa
Sure. Well, I did have the opportunity to work with counselors before I went to a counselor when Jeff and I were first dating about conflict management and he really helped me a lot, but he was a counselor and Maggie is a lot more like talking to a girlfriend. I think she’s she’s very warm and personal and she’s very personalized like counselors. Still have prescriptions and tools and it’s very clinical, I think at least the one I worked with was. With you, Maggie, you were just there for me. And I never felt like it wasn’t about me. I never felt like it was about you. I never felt like you had an agenda to get your tool in front of me or some of your latest book or any of those things. Although her book is amazing. I will say, guys, you should get it. We use it regularly. And I’ll tell you how later in the podcast because I’ve got a different spot for that.
Maggie
So Lisa is an engineer. You guys, I told her we can talk about anything you want. And then she made her list. So we’re following a process. As you know, my husband’s an engineer as well. So I totally love that.
Lisa
Unlike, unlike Maggie, I like structure. So I have bullet points and outlines and things like that in front of me. So yeah, sessions were definitely about me, Maggie was all about what goals are you trying to achieve? We talked about it at the beginning. I think we talked about it in the middle and we certainly talked about it at the end. And I was so amazed at the end because I went back and looked at what my original goals were. And we had done so much more, so much more than I expected in the six months. And it’s amazing.
Maggie
I just have to pause to say that just makes my heart happy, right? Like, that’s the ultimate goal is get what you came for, and get more than what you came for is like, that’s like, my highest intention for all of my clients is for the two for sure to get what they came for, and to, you know if they can blow their own minds. It’s amazing. Here’s what I want to clarify. And Lisa can speak to this, I ask questions, and I give you ideas. And you know, we can brainstorm together and we look at like, how we’re thinking about things and what perspective we want to have about something and how we feel about something and if we continue to feel that way or not, right? But the work is done in your day to day life like you are the one who created all of these amazing results. And it’s such an honor to just be a part of that and to just witness that.
Lisa
But she’s been a little bit humble with that because she gives you the tools to do it. Yes, you have to go do it. And certainly, there was a lot of experimenting going on, especially in the early weeks of our sessions together, where we would talk through something and then I would go and try it out on my husband and see what happened. And some things I tried out on my son and some things I tried out on my ex-husband and some things I tried out on coworkers and they don’t even know it. But yeah, you definitely, I mean, it’s up to you what you’re going to get out of working with Maggie and you need to be open and you need to be willing to try new things and not be close-minded. And I’ll say here, we work with a marriage group. We have a Bible study through our church that we run and it’s marriage focused.
Lisa
And we specifically have been working with one couple who were struggling a little bit and it’s kind of funny because he’s like me, and she’s like, Jeff, oh, and we’ve couple counseled them couple to couple. And we are not therapists. And we don’t know what we’re doing. But so many of the things Maggie has taught me, I’ve been able to apply to them. And there was one day when she was just like, shut down. She wouldn’t talk. She couldn’t see a way through. And, and we had to say to her, you know, I can’t help you. I can’t help you when you’re like this, you need to decide do you want to be married? Or do you want to be right? Because that’s really where they were at. And we literally walked out of the room and gave them like 20 minutes to settle down and talk to each other and decide if they wanted to continue to talk with us or go home. And, and, you know, certainly she wasn’t open at that point. And I guess my point of this is, you gotta be open. Maggie can’t help you if you’re not willing to be helped.
Maggie
I love that point. It’s so important, I try to speak to that. It’s like I call it being coachable. And it’s like, are you coachable? Are you willing to consider a new perspective, a new idea, a new approach? Are you willing to explore it and sometimes I’ll just say just as a thought exercise, we don’t have to, you know, do anything with it, we just want to see it, see what we see. See what’s there. Right. So I love that. Yeah. Awesome.
Lisa
Maggie makes it really easy to have an out if you need to have an out. Like if something makes you really uncomfortable or you just can’t get your mind around it. You know, she doesn’t make you do anything. It’s all up to you. So and that was great. Yes, I’m looking at my bullets. Again here. Oh, power questions, though. The Five Why’s, The Self-Coaching Model, The Self-Coaching Model has really become second nature to me. And that’s where you figure out what you want and then change your thoughts so that you can get there basically and take action based on changing your thoughts. I’ve shared that in some form or another with different couples. Oh, and I will say to go back to the one couple chanted events, you know, at the end of the 20 minutes when we walked away, they did say okay, yes, you’re right. We need to work on our marriage and we carried on so they’re doing much better now.
Maggie
That’s awesome. Yeah, totally. So let’s pause for a moment on the self-coaching model, I talked about it in an episode called relationship mastery. So we’ll link to that. And then I’ll do upcoming episodes where I talk about it more in-depth. But I like to describe it as a tool for awareness and a tool for creation. And you kind of can use it in two different ways. So with the self-coaching model, we look at our life we look at the facts of our life, the circumstances we’re experiencing, we look at our thoughts we have about those circumstances. And then we see how do we feel? What are the actions that we take based on those thoughts and feelings? And then what are the results we create?
Maggie
And then we’re looking at our current results. So let’s say the marriage you have today, we use this tool for awareness, just see what we created. And that’s a beautiful, powerful, amazing way to use the tool. And then we can use it as a tool for creation so we can say, what results do I want to create? What kinds of thoughts and feelings would help me create that result and what kind of actions would I take if I wanted to get that result? So, what I love about the simplicity of the tool and one of the reasons I use it so much, and I love that my client says it becomes second nature to me because it’s such a very simple, yet really profound way to look at creating awareness around what we’ve created in our lives, and then creating awareness around what we want to create in our lives. I love that you mentioned that.
Lisa
Exactly. Yep. And really, you know, for what I loved and what I liked about working with Maggie, it’s the results. I mean, but as I was getting to the end of our six months together, it was really just a check-in Yeah, I did this and it worked. And Maggie’s like, yeah, it worked. We got to a point where it wasn’t that we didn’t have anything to talk about, but they were little things they weren’t big anymore. The big things were the results. And it’s undeniable I have to say people that know me and have either known me for years or just known me through this process because we’re making new friends in a new location now. They’re like, you’re a totally different person. You’re so confident You’re so happy, you’re so much more. And what I say is I’m me again. But the people that didn’t know me before, didn’t know that I was me again. But really, that’s how I feel. And you know, I’ve always been a very confident person. I’ve been very successful in my career, and I want to be successful in my marriage. And now I feel like I can be. So yeah, I’m me again. So that was the very best thing.
Maggie
That is so huge. I mean, I can’t even begin to tell you I have to take a deep breath. That is like the deepest thing that you could possibly take. I mean, again, that’s the goal. Like I don’t want to create mini Maggie’s, that is not the point, right? The point is for you to be you again, for your marriage to be that place that you just love being in and that you enjoy, right.
Lisa
Oh, one other piece of advice for everybody because I found this very enlightening. Like when we started coaching, I thought I had a marriage that was really in trouble and really not great. But at one point, I sat down and I think I used your podcast about five-star marriages. I sat down and I wrote all the different categories down and I rated our marriage. And like, fun was my lowest rating, surprise, surprise. Like, really, we were really high in a lot of categories. Like in a five-star marriage, we’re probably like, a three and a half to four-star almost every day. Like, I don’t think we’re at like, if you’d asked me at the start of coaching, I would have said, oh, we’re like, one or two-star marriage, we’ve got so much work to do. And you know, now I look at it. I’m like, if we just tweak these two little things and work on these areas, we can be five-star marriage material, and sometimes we really are. And other days, you know, we’re more like a three but that’s just the way it is.
Maggie
I love it so much about this. So I’m going to break this down a little bit. Sometimes we need to focus on what’s working. And sometimes when clients like beautiful Lisa, who now you guys know, she’ll come to me and she’ll say, oh, everything is awful, not because everything is really awful, but because she’s just having a bad day. And then I will say, hey, so what’s working? Right? And that whole exercise of oh marriage isn’t as challenged as I thought it was. It’s actually so much better. Now that I actually look at all the ways My husband is showing me that he loves me. I wasn’t seeing it. Right. But it was there the whole time. He was being loving the whole time. Right?
Lisa
I think that’s maybe not loving the way I thought he should be loving so I missed it. And yeah, now now, it’s easier to see because I know what to look for.
Maggie
Yeah. So what was challenging? Tell me what was like hard.
Lisa
Some of the work is hard, like examining yourself and changing what you do. It’s not easy to change lifelong habits, you know, and I’m still working on some of that like like my husband hates when I interrupt him. And I’m a very efficient oriented person. So I interrupt a lot, and I don’t just do it to him, I do it to everybody. But it’s something that I have to work on constantly and be aware of constantly. So that’s hard. And there were other things too. Some emotions needed to be processed. Like I’d really like to bury my feelings and just not deal with them. And you can’t do that if you want to fix it. But it was worth it. You know, going through it. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Maggie makes it very as comfortable as it can be for you. She’s really good at that.
Lisa
And it’s worth doing because part of that getting back to me again was recognizing and processing some old emotions that I didn’t even realize were there. And that’s the other thing that was kind of challenging for me is Maggie does four, 90-minute in-depth sessions as part of the coaching. And when she described them, I was like, Okay, yeah, I said I’d be open. So I’m open. And when we got into them, some of them were, at least for my engineer brain, were kind of out there, we called it woo woo, I think that was it. But again, they work. And I was really surprised at how well they worked and what they thought and what I learned about myself. There’s a good example. I had no idea and I’m talking about my ex more than I’d like to. But I had no idea that I was thinking that I had to have a relationship with my ex-husband, to have a relationship with my kids who by the way, are fully grown.
Lisa
They’re 18 and 21. And Maggie, through one of those sessions helped me disconnect that thought and now I have no emotion towards my ex. Like I can talk about him and I don’t feel mad at him. I don’t feel good about him. I don’t feel anything and that was really what I want it that was like the best possible place that I could be with him, and my relationships with my kids have improved because some of that emotion that I felt around him, I’m sure was coming through in my conversations with them. And now it doesn’t. And it’s interesting because I never told them that anything changed, right. But how I react to them and how they react to me did change, and it’s better. So that’s a really good example of one of those in-depth sessions and something I didn’t know I needed to do that I needed to do.
Maggie
Yeah, we just don’t know when it comes up. So just to clarify, so I am on the woo woo side of woo. However, I also love science. So those sessions are actually based on somatic psychology just listening to the wisdom of your body. There is science mixed in with the woo. And I’ve been doing this continuing education with the Tantric Institute for Integrated Sexuality, which is where those particular sessions, like the format that I follow, are from them. I’ll link to that in the show notes. There’s a brilliant woman named Layla Martin, who has a very robust YouTube channel I will link to her that she’s the one who trained me.
Lisa
And you know, my engineer brain. And the whole time I’m going through it was sitting there going. Isn’t this interesting? It really works. And yeah, it looks like Mind Body stuff and you’re doing things that for an engineer is like, Okay, this is way out of my comfort zone. You want me to do what? Tell my child What? But yeah, it works. It works really, really well. So it doesn’t matter how technical you are or not. It still works if you let it work.
Maggie
I love that so much. You know, it’s so interesting. I had another client recently told me I wasn’t even sure if any of this is gonna have any effect whatsoever, but I was like, why not? And then it’s similar to where you’re just like, well, let’s see cuz it could work. And then it’s like you blow your own mind and you’re like, oh, it does. Yeah, yes. So what else is on your bullet point list?
Lisa
Just that, you know, I really like Maggie’s coaching style. And as you can probably tell by now in the podcast, we’re completely different people. But it works. And I think it works for everybody again, as long as you’re open to it, and I was certainly open to it because I knew I needed to do something. And when you’re making an investment into yourself to pay for a life coach, obviously, it’s in your best interest to try to get your money’s worth out of it. And so that helped keep me open when I started to get a little concerned. And there were times when I was nervous early on, I was nervous talking to Maggie but then as we work together, the nerves started going away and it’s really as soon as we get into the session I wasn’t nervous anymore because it was always all about me which was your favorite topic me.
Lisa
Everybody’s favorite topic is themselves usually and also I was nervous before those four special sessions because I just didn’t know what to expect. But once I get into again, I was less nervous and by the last one, I was like, Oh, you know, this is going to be interesting. And I was more interested to see what would happen than I was nervous. So yeah, but there’s nothing I don’t like about Maggie’s coaching style. She’s so focused on you and your results and doing the best things for you. That, you know, there’s really nothing to be nervous about.
Maggie
So that’s also like, normalize the fact that when you’re making big changes in your life, like fear is normal and natural, and we just welcome it in. We don’t try to shun it or pretend it’s not there or shove it down. And it’s like if we’re nervous about something, and I get nervous, I was processing fear yesterday, and I was like, oh, what am I afraid of? Let me listen to it. Let me see what’s happening. And one of the things I like to tell my clients is like, I don’t live on a mountain, right? Like, I’m not like Mrs. Zen. I have, you know, family members and challenges. And you know, I live in Miami, so we have hurricanes, all the things right, but we just use the tools to help us work through things that are really the goal. So what did your hubby say? I know that you asked your hubby. So this isn’t a surprise question for everyone listening. What did your hubby say about the effect of working with a life coach for you?
Lisa
I was pretty open with them about most things. I didn’t tell them everything we talked about, but obviously, he knew I was working with Maggie. We talked about it before I decided to do it. He was very supportive of the idea. I think his comment was, anything can help at this point, because, I wasn’t the only one frustrated. As I said, we knew we loved each other. But we were fighting all the time. We couldn’t figure it out on our own. And yeah, so he was very supportive and me doing it. He was interested in what I was doing, but he didn’t push on me right to share every single thing which I thought was great. I think the biggest thing is the more I worked on myself and tried different things and changed, the more he tried to keep up with me by changing himself. There was more one point where he said, you know, Lisa is really working hard. And he said this to our marriage group, Bible study group, he said, Lisa really working hard, and I need to keep up. And so I’m going to make changes to and he said he did.
Maggie
That is so beautiful. And it’s so interesting because I have some of my clients for the husbands are like, super supportive and like, you know, all into it. Some of them want to hear what happened. Some of my clients, like you think, oh, you share some things. And then he just sees how you’re showing up. And it doesn’t really matter what we talked about that day. What matters is like, what’s happening, you know, the day today, and then I have some claims for their husbands don’t even know that they have a life coach. Like, it’s like, it’s not relevant to them to share that part. It’s like something that’s just for the kind of thing. And then what I’m fascinated is like, it doesn’t matter. It’s like for each person, like you said, for each person, they’re gonna have different positions and different approaches, and it’s gonna be perfect for that person. I love that. So before we wrap up today I have to ask you shameless shamelessly, there’s no shame here. About the book because you said you love the book. And it’s called The Questions For Couples Journal, and I’m always excited to share that tool. And I really want the whole world to know why it’s amazing. But I know why I think it’s amazing. But why do you think it’s amazing?
Lisa
Well, like I said, we’re working on fun. And some of those questions are really fun to think about. So I’ll pull out the book just randomly. It sits in our living room, and I’ll grab it. And sometimes we have a text group for our Bible study group. And I’ll send a question out to the group and I’m like, discuss amongst yourselves, you know, meaning couple to couple. Yeah. And sometimes when we have no topic for the Bible study group, we’ll get the book out and answer three or four questions as a group. So that’s good, but one of the big things that we’ll do is to try to inject more fun just between my husband and I is, one of us will pick up the book and grab a question and just talk about it and a lot of times, we’re in our pool. We live in Tucson we were in the pool discussing one of Maggie’s questions. And you know, they’re things that maybe you wouldn’t think to ask on your own. So they’re really good thought starters. And it’s been great. Matter of fact, I hope my marriage group isn’t listening, but it’s probably their Christmas present to get them. Anticipation is better than surprised anyway.
Maggie
Oh, yeah, that’s right. So for some people, they really do like to be surprised, but it’s important for people to know and I love that you mentioned that sort of as we wrap up and say, for some people surprises something they value and they hold in high regard, and they really want more surprises in their life and how to incorporate that. But for a lot of people, anticipation can be more valuable and richer and a better experience than surprise. And so it’s like finding which one you prefer. And when you realize like, I realized that I actually enjoy anticipation quite a lot and there’s research around when you plan a vacation, the time you spend planning it and looking forward to it, you actually experience sort of more joy and delight sometimes on the actual vacations as the experience of anticipation is a real like psychological thing that is, has high value. So it’s like, once you know if you like anticipation, it’s so powerful to lean into that and be like, what are we planning for December? These are the Christmas gifts. Let’s enjoy it. Let’s look forward to it. Let’s be excited about it. So I love that you mentioned that and love that. You can use the book in so many different ways. I love that you’re using it by you know, by the pool, just hanging out one question at a time where you grab it. I love that so much.
Maggie
And one thing you mentioned that I think is so important is something that comes up very often with the women I speak to all the time is I don’t even know what to talk about anymore and especially on the long term relationship where you kind of feel like you know everything about them because you were there for most of it right? Even though we all grow and change and evolve, and it’s so fun to sort of discovering where our honeys are in different parts of the journey. But one of the things I love about the book and then I’m so proud of the book does is it gives you all these different, like your relationship, your goals, your dreams, your memories, as a kid, like, we would never just wake up in the morning and tell you like, tell me about when you were eight like we would never just naturally do that. But you can really get so much closer to your partner and understand even more about them in the present when you talk about some of the really important memories of different chapters in their lives. So I love that you mentioned that and I love that the book has been so useful to you. Yes. Beautiful. Okay, any final thoughts before we wrap up today?
Lisa
Just, you know if you’re on the fence, have that initial call with Maggie because she doesn’t hold back. She will give you, you’ll see what she’s going to be like this when the initial, the free, you know, do you want to work with me call, don’t be nervous, she’s fun. She’s a happy person, she’s not going to be mean to you. So all the things that people get nervous about won’t happen. Maggie’s has your best interest in heart. And that’s the biggest thing to remember. And to me, I had the opportunity to talk to another life coach career-wise recently. And it was nothing like working with Maggie and I decided not to work with the other person just because I’m so spoiled now with Maggie. I’m sure there are other people like her out there, but this person was not.
Maggie
I was about to say, yeah, there are some amazing, amazing, amazing coaches, but I also love it that you’re spoiled like I think I think we should have a high standard for anyone who’s helping us and the most important relationships or things in our lives in our career or a marriage. Like, I think we should have a high standard and we should think about that by applying critical thinking like I know some people listen to the podcast.
Maggie
They just had fun listening to me with my adventures and things. But I think within that fun, there’s also like, critical thinking with the analytic. Is this the right fit? Is this the right time? Is this you know, am I willing to put in all the work? So I love that you mentioned that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for saying yes. And for being so transparent and so open about your whole experience. I am so grateful because I think the more we talk about these things, the more we normalize, like, you know, it’s not a rom-com, it’s real life. And you can really deeply love someone and not know how to love them best. Right? And it’s okay, we can learn that’s a teachable skill. And then you can go and like love them for 3040 years for the rest of your life. So amazing. So thank you for saying yes.
Lisa
Thank you, I enjoyed it
Maggie
Bye, everyone.