205: Delightful "5-Star" Relationships with Marriage Coach Maggie Reyes

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of the Only Move that Matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello, everybody. I am so delighted and overjoyed to have Maggie Reyes here with me today. Maggie is a master certified life coach and marriage mentor who helps smart, soulful, successful women and a few amazing men have healthier, happier, sexier marriages using simple tools that she shares on her blog and in her coaching programs. I met Maggie way back in 2013 at an Alexander Franzen writing workshop. Alex has been on the podcast twice and Maggie is somebody who is so bright and so brilliant, she just lights up the entire room. It's like the sunshine has entered the room when Maggie is around. Maggie, welcome to the podcast.

What an introduction.

I am humbled and grateful for such a beautiful introduction and I love that we have stayed in touch over the years. It's such a blessing that that event gave us each other.

Yes. Maggie and I sat next to each other and then over the following years, we both engaged each other as a coach. In fact, Maggie, you're the only relationship coach I've ever worked with. And I was just wrapping my head around the whole thing.

Oh, that's awesome.

Michael and I are now married. We got married in 2018, but I had never lived with somebody. I certainly didn't think I was going to get married. So it was incredible. I worked with Maggie maybe three sessions. I don't even know if it was more than that. She sent a book to my house. Why Talking Isn't Enough. And I think you even said it. The title's kind of cheesy.

Yeah.

Game changing Revolutionary book.

Yeah. So Susan Page is the author of that book. And Susan Page is this brilliant, brilliant author who I think might be semi retired. And so that book is, I always call it, the best relationship book. You've never Heard of because it's not like she's actively out promoting it. And the only reason I ever found it was I was doing research for a client where her partner didn't talk, like at all ever about anything. And I was like, oh, let me get some books about what to do when that happens. Right. And that book was such a delightful surprise. And I absolutely love that it resonated so deeply for you. And the main, main idea of the book is just love as a spiritual path and so aligned with how I coach and how I teach. And the idea that we love someone because of who we want to be in the world, not because of who they are being in the.

Absolutely. It also reinforces it only takes one person to save a marriage or fix a relationship. And that was. It's just stated so clearly. And then. And I love relationship as spiritual path. The book Spiritual Partnership by Gary Zuckov also is really good at reinforcing that. And it's the kind of. It's on me. I got that from Byron. Katie too, but specifically in why talking isn't Enough. There are these eight loving actions. And by she, she encourages. It's so pivot friendly because she encourages small experiments. She says, don't take my word for it. And you don't have to change this thing about yourself for the rest of time. Try it for 24 hours. So, Maggie, I will tell you, there's one action. Practice restraint. Like for 24 hours, don't tell your partner, oh, the dishes go here or this goes there or whatever, they're not doing correctly. It was so hard. I was flabbergasted that in 24 hours how many times I had the impulse and had to practice restraint. And that alone was game changing.

I love that so much. It's like people think that relationships are so hard. And what I see over and over again in my coaching practice is small tweaks have a huge impact. And I'm sure you see that in pivoting in every aspect of pivoting also.

That's true. Well, we're here talking about your new book, which is so exciting, called Questions for couples journal. 400 questions to enjoy, reflect and connect with your partner. Congratulations on the launch.

I have to tell you, it's my very first ever book. And you have this moment where you've always dreamed of writing a book and you've had the idea that someday there would be a book and now there's an actual book that you can hold in your hand that you can, like, see on Amazon. It's absolutely such a blessing and I'm so excited to share it with the world when you've.

You are so prolific. I mean, I read your newsletter. I'm in your Facebook group, Modern Married. You've had a blog for many, many years. You have a podcast that you just relaunched as the Marriage Life Coach Podcast. So the content is there. I'm so happy that now you have a book to your name because you've been so active and present. And what I love about Modern Married and about you is you just live as love. Like you are loving, you are joyful, you and your husband are adorable. You know, like, that energy is so.

Contagious, I have to say, because I really like keeping it real, that I also have cloudy days, as we all do, and that it's like normal and human to have sunny days and cloudy days and it's all beautiful. I just am always looking for the sun, so to speak, to keep that sort of metaphor going. And my husband has been so gracious and kind as to be my guest on the podcast. And we did, actually did an episode that is a behind the scenes on what was going on in our marriage when the book was being written that I thought would be super fun for people to see, like the trade offs we had to make and some of the decisions that we made because we were like embarking on this project, even though I am like the official writer of it. He was so supportive that I'm so grateful to him for that.

I would love. I'll link to that in the show notes. I'll go find it.

Totally.

Because I do think it's easy when someone, oh man, isn't it hard just anytime? Not that you or I would ever claim to be the expert that knows everything, but it can be intimidating sometimes, maybe for someone to look at your relationship and just think, well, that's just Maggie. Well, that's just how she is. Or that's just your husband.

Yeah, yeah. It's like he's a special snowflake. And of course it's easy not to get mad at him or all those things. Right. That people think. So I did an episode on rethinking the five love languages, and one of the things I mentioned, because I hear this a lot from people, it's like, oh, my husband doesn't speak my love language, so we must be doomed. Right? Things of that nature. And I was like, well, my husband didn't speak mine and I'm one of the happiest married people I know, so where's the problem? Let's move on from that.

How long have you been married or how long have you been together?

This will be our 13th anniversary in May and we dated for a year before we got married.

And what do you think that most people miss? I mean, given that you're a marriage coach and you work with so many people in relationships, what are some of the trends or themes that you see among your clients? Even the ones who are well intentioned and relatively self aware.

So I work with a lot of people probably similar to you that are very go getter type people that want to do amazing things in the world and often do amazing things in the world. And one of the things that I see is we're used to sort of doing and moving and pushing and going forward and forward and forward. And sometimes the same things that make us successful at work or in business aren't necessarily the same things that will make us successful at home. And so at work we sometimes push, but at home we need to soften. And at work we sometimes like keep going no matter what feedback we're getting because we're visionaries and we're like, oh, this is the vision. And at home we need to sometimes dip into collaborating more. That's something I see quite a bit.

And what about when, let's say couples who've been together a long time or the inevitable phases of a marriage? I think it's interesting to hear Michelle Obama talk about marriage and she says, if you're married 30 years and 10 are terrible, and 10 are okay and 10 are great, that's success. You know, I'm paraphrasing.

Yeah.

What's your take on that and how to, when to accept this sort of ebbs and flows? I mean, I think probably always, but of a relationship and when to say, oh, let's fix something here.

Yeah. So I absolutely love Michelle Obama, but I will respectfully disagree. Of course she's brilliant at what she does and she's not a marriage coach. Right. So let's give her the space to be brilliant what she does. I teach the idea of having a five star marriage and of thinking of your marriage, like valuing excellence over perfection in your marriage. Which means there will be messy days, there will be hiccups, there will be disappointments, like that part is normal. But there's also this idea that it can be amazing. And you can imagine if you go to like a Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons or something like that, they make mistakes, Sometimes they get the order wrong, sometimes they run out of towels. Like it doesn't mean things don't go right, but the ultimate experience that you have there is at a very high level. And so I always teach towards thriving, not just towards surviving.

I love that and I love the valuing excellence over perfection.

Yeah.

What do you think for you and your husband? What has allowed you to keep this level of affection and excitement that you so clearly have for and with each other?

I think there's a few things. I think we are sincerely well matched. Like, we got married in our 30s and we sort of knew who we were as people and what our values were. And so our values are very aligned. And there are many things on which we naturally agree. And so therefore, there's a whole bunch of things that we don't have to argue or discuss because we're just like, of course we want to do that, and of course we wanted that. So there is an element of knowing who we were as people when we got together that I think is useful. And then the other part of it, I actually often look at our relationship and say, why does it work? There's some things that we do naturally that other people don't do naturally. And I'm constantly sort of observing myself, like, in a microscope of love or something like that. And there's a couple of things. So when we were dating, we took a bunch of workshops that were either relationship related or just random things about being a better person that we both took together where we basically came to the conclusion that marriage is created every day and we have to remember to create it all the time. It's not just a static thing. It's a thing that we create when we show up every day. So we do things like we greet each other in the morning. Now we're both working from home, but when we weren't both working from home, we would, like, text each other at lunchtime and send each other a nice little note. We would create that connection. And then we've done that over the years, always. And I think that has been really key. And the other thing is we laugh about things that most people argue about.

Let's say more about that. Fascinating.

Yeah. So let's say, for example, he's very neat, and I am messy. I am the messy one in the family. And I will, like, leave a cup on the counter in the kitchen or something like that. And you could have a situation where a couple would absolutely argue about that cup in the kitchen. And he will just be, like, so amused. It's like, there's the cup in the kitchen and we'll Just laugh about it together and not villainize each other. Not make it a thing. We just really laugh about. Like, whenever the temptation could be to argue or to laugh, the temptation to argue for us isn't even there. We just laugh about it.

That's so funny. And now does that get you to sometimes not put the cup, leave the cup out, or does the cup always go in an errant place and he always just laughs it off?

So that's just an example. So let me tell you.

I know, but it's a good one. It's a good one. I joke like that scene from Sex and the City where Harry leaves the wet tea bags all over the apartment.

Okay.

You know, and Charlotte just runs around picking them all up.

Okay. So this is actually very similar. So my husband has two brothers and grew up in a very well regimented home where each brother had one cup. Right. So he grows up in a one cup family. And then I have like a cup for my tea, a cup for my coffee, a cup for my water. Like, so he'll come home and there'll be five cups in the sink. And he's like, how does that even happen? Right.

That is so funny. I'll come home to like a ceramic cup that can't go in the dishwasher used for dog food or something. And I'm like, oh, no. But this was my manifestation mug that says soul sister. That means this and that. It's not for dog food. It's like, who came up with that rule? I did.

Yes. Yes. I love it.

So very interesting. I like that. Now, did that take effort to get to this place where you laugh about things most people fight about or see, here's my question. Is that just his nature? Like, he just finds you so adorable and these things are so funny that he's not particular. Whereas someone else might say, clutter drives me actually insane and I can't live like this. Which I have been known to say from time to time.

Yeah. So I think for both of us, we. I don't know if it was exactly that we met when we were older and sort of knew ourselves more as humans, but both of us sort of really appreciate the other person. Like, we never lose the feeling of that. It's a miracle that we found each other, and it's a miracle we get to be together. And how amazing is, like, this is our life. Like, wow. Right? And because we live in that feeling quite a lot, a lot of things that seem really important to other people just aren't as important to us. I do think that part is natural to both of us. And one of the things I do in my coaching practice a lot is teach people this idea of, like, what really matters. Right. One of my favorite books is Essentialism. So good. And it's like, what is essential. Right. And to really ignore anything that isn't part of that.

I love that book, too, and I never thought to apply it to relationships. That's so brilliant. Yes. I love that.

Yeah.

Tell us about this question for Questions for Couples Journal. How did you decide for your first book, your debut as an author? How did you land on this one? And what. What are some of the guidance that you share at the beginning for couples who are going to use this as a tool to connect?

Sure, Absolutely. So this is a really fun story, actually, and kind of one of those serendipitous stories where you just do the next thing that's in front of you right now and sort of leave the rest to.

The universe, you know, I don't know what to call it, but I'll tell you what happened. As you were mentioning, I've written a blog for many, many, many years, and I probably have over 150 articles on that blog. And one of the things husband and I do is we do questions books. And we live in Florida, which is a very long, large state. So every time we go anywhere, it's a road trip just to go to the next city. It's a road trip is required. So we, throughout dating and throughout our marriage have always done questions books. And I wrote an article maybe, I don't know, three or four years ago with a list of my favorite questions books and a little Download of like 10 questions to ask each other. You can take it on date night kind of thing. And the publisher of this book.

Through the magic of the Internet, still escapes me. Through that magic, found that article and reached out to me initially about another book. And that project didn't work out. And we stayed in touch and continued to stay in touch, and probably it took maybe a year and a half, almost two years, I want to say, where they were working on a Questions book and looking for a writer to write it, and then approached me. And in the interim, there were other projects that either they said no to or I said no to. And this one, when it came across, I was like, this is 100% aligned with who I am and what I teach. And I love, love, love the idea that the very first book that I ever put out into the world is not a book you read. It is a Book. You do?

Yes. I love that. That's so you. Yeah, it's so fun. It's so you. I felt that way about life after college, that not only was it not my interest to research and provide all these statistics stories, I just wanted. I called it Twitter meets what colors your parachute for 20 somethings.

I love it.

Meant to be like popcorn. Coaching questions, tweetables, facts, quotes, all the things that engage a different part of our brain.

I absolutely love that. And so then the opportunity came to work on this book, which is a very, you know, mainstream book for anyone that can come across questions books and all kinds of questions books are out there. And however, most questions books are not written by life coaches. Right. So for me it was like, oh, I'm going to bake life coaching values into the questions and the approach and the mindset of this book. And so in the instructions on the book, basically I mentioned how to approach answering these questions with your partner. And one of the most important points that I make is this idea that open hearted curiosity is a big fat yes and judgment and criticism is a no. So when you're answering the questions of the book, or are you an open hearted curiosity or are you judging your partner's answers? And for me, the idea that a couple could buy this book, answer the questions and practice the energy of open hearted curiosity and see what that is, and practice the energy of saying, oh, if I'm being judgy and not humorously, like actually judgy, that's what that feels like. The idea that they could learn that sort of very important partnership lesson through the lens of this really sort of fun book, it just sang to me.

I love that. Practicing the energy of open hearted curiosity. You mentioned judgment. It seems that that is probably a big and common obstacle in any relationship is one person thinking that they're right or judging the choices or actions of the other. Why do you think that's so common and what is the antidote? I mean, maybe it's simply open hearted curiosity, but how do you help get people out of judgment when they don't even realize they're doing it? Or they're so entrenched in thinking that they're right that they don't care. They're like, I might be being judgy right now, but I'm right, damn it.

Yeah, that's totally. I hear that all the time, but I'm right.

People must come to you as their coach, like, validate me, you know, like, tell me I'm right.

Right. And it's like there, you know, people come to me. I, in my consultations, I'm like super transparent and like clear hearted around. Sometimes coaching feels confronting. Are you sure you want that? Like, I will be your biggest cheerleader. I will love on you. I will like be so excited for your progress. And also sometimes I will tell you something that will piss you off. Are you in for that? Right. But the idea of judgment, like, why does it happen? Because we're human. Literally, judgment keeps us alive. Like, that tree is dangerous. Eating that berry will kill me. Right. Judgment is, to me, I think it's just inherently part of the human state and so, so, so useful in so many contexts that are really, really important. And one of the things that I talk about a lot with my clients is this idea that context really, really matters. And I would love to give you an example. What do you think?

Please do.

Okay, so I have a client who is a pediatrician and she openly allows me to share her story. So she has no problem with that. And at her work, being right is really, really, really important. Right. She's a pediatrician, she's dealing with children. Her judgment, her ability to say this is wrong and this is right and is absolutely essential for the well being.

Of her patients. Then she goes home and she wants to be right about all these little things that don't really matter in the big picture of life. Like, should the steak sauce be more spicy? Is there a right answer or a wrong answer kind of thing? And a lot of the work that I do is helping my clients understand the difference in the context that it's absolutely the best thing they could possibly do to have analytical judgment, you know, analytical thinking, critical thinking skills in this area and in this other area, the absolutely best thing to do is to just relax.

And what if they say, well, that sounds easier said than done.

Yeah, that's why I work with people usually for six months.

And that's when you send them why talking isn't enough.

Yes. Yeah. It is a good process. Right. That's why I record the podcast. That's why I do so many different. Like, it's not just being coached on one particular thought, it's really becoming a different version of yourself. And that takes practice and repetition and falling down and getting back up again and seeing. Oh, when I'm staying in judgment, I suffer and my husband suffers and we all feel bad. But when I'm able to move to open hearted curiosity. Why does he want the steak sauce to be spicy? What is it about the steak sauce that he's Delighted by. When I'm able to go there, I can just enjoy his presence in his company and neither of us suffers. And you have to practice that a few times. But as you know, in your own experience, once you practice it a few times, you're like, oh, this is so much better. I'm going to keep doing this.

Absolutely. And it's that lesson that judgment is suffering because you're wanting things to be different than they are. And this is where Byron Katie's work was so helpful for me, that I'm the one suffering. Like, if I'm the one judging and therefore upset about something that's happening, I'm the one suffering. And that doesn't feel good. So for me, relationship has been such a journey of acceptance and letting go. Acceptance and letting go. Let's add kindness, you know, like, acceptance, kindness, letting go. Acceptance, kindness, letting go. And there's a Byron Katie example of if you notice dishes in the sink, you could get pissed off at your partner. They left their dishes in the sink. Or you could say, oh, there's dishes in the sink, and I noticed it. Why don't I do them? Because I'm the one that noticed. And then you do the dishes and they're not holding on to this resentment. Now. Every now and then, I'll arrive at the sink and I'll think, I'm tired of always doing this, you know, or. So Michael and I now, we have a rhythm, and it's not just one person or the other. But in the beginning, it was so helpful for me, me not to attach to these external states of being or things in the apartment and try to derive happiness or not from them.

That is so, so brilliant. And I love what you said because it brings another point that I also see very often is that I primarily work with women, and one of the things they say is, why should it be me? Like, why do I need to do this work? Why? Like, he should be here. Right. And my answer is, because you're the one who's suffering. He's fine.

Yes, I've had that same conversation.

Right. He's not disturbed at all. So it's like, you want to feel better? Let's help you feel better now here, Right.

Or I've had friends say, why am I the one having a coach? Or why am I the one in therapy? He should be. But that energy of trying to fix him is making you both upset. It's actually, you know, so. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. I'm glad you brought that up. Because. But then, okay. Okay, as a coach, because I think you just have such an interesting vantage point, being that you see across a large swath of relationships. Is there ever a moment? Because I've often wondered this. At what point does the viron Katie like of letting everything go, go, go, go, go? At what point does the person say, actually, yes, I do want some help on this front, you know, or, no, I don't want to be the only one. At what point do you make that switch where you do ask or make a request of some kind?

I think that it's really interesting. I call it a dance between acceptance and boundaries. And I think of boundaries in the Brene Brown definition of simply what's okay and what's not okay. That's it. That's simple as that. So it's this dance between, I fully accept you exactly as you are with your five cups and please put them in the sink.

But what's okay and what's not? Doesn't that shift? Like, can't. What if your husband said, I love that she has five cups, and he just got to that point where he didn't even need to ask you, and please put them in the sink?

Yeah.

When do you. How do you figure out what's okay and what's not if that itself can shift totally.

So like we said in the beginning, like, marriage and life is this, like, ongoing living thing that shifts and evolves. Something that might have been okay in your first year of marriage would not, might not be okay in your fifth year and vice versa. Right. So we're constantly checking in with ourselves. Absolutely. And also, it's this dance. It's literally like a dance. You're moving forward and you're moving back, you're twirling and you're dipping and you're going in and you're going out. Acceptance and boundaries. Acceptance and boundaries. And so there are times when you say, I don't care about any of those things. I'm just here to love you and I'm happy and I'm satisfied. Or you say, I really love you, but I care about all those things. And in this case, the highest and best outcome for this relationship is for it to transform, is for it to be different.

I do love thinking about the highest outcome. You're so good, too. Even every time we would start a call, a coaching call, you would say, let's invite our highest and best self and our highest and best outcome.

Yes. Yes. I think that that's so, so important. And I'll tell you one of the things that I know you do this as a coach and I do this as a coach is I'm constantly in this idea of helping my clients develop their own discernment and trust themselves more and more and more and more. And even as the code, sure, like, I've read more relationship books than they have. Right. But I don'. Better for them than they do. They know what's better for them. And that moment in the session where we start and we invoke our highest inner wisdom, yours and mine, let's have us partner together to figure out your next step. To me, it's every week that it might be the only time in their life where someone is talking to them about their own highest inner wisdom and how wise they are and how they do have the solution and how they can be resourceful. And it's such a subtle thing, but I think it's so important.

Absolutely. And what great modeling of being a coach and not having all the answers. But I love what you said of holding that space for somebody to hear their own inner or highest wisdom or even give them permission. Your inner voice counts here. Your inner voice is whispering to you. What is it saying? Yes, talk to us about. Oh, go ahead.

No, no, go ahead.

Talk to us about the process of working on this book. You mentioned you had some ups and downs with your husband. What? You know, you've been together 13 years, probably more now, but.

What did that project introduce into the relationship that you hadn't maybe tackled together before? And what did you learn working on something like this book?

Well, here's what was really fun. So when I started blogging.

A couple of things happened that really impacted then later how we would work on the book, which is such a great example of doing what's right in front of you right now. You may not have the whole path in front of you, but you just do what's right today and it will always lead you to the next thing. Tomorrow is one of my philosophies. So when I started the blog, he became the editor of the blog, and for two reasons. One, he's much better at grammar and punctuation than I am. I'm just one endless run on sentence if left to my own devices. And during that time that he was the editor of the blog, I also wanted him to have veto power because I share a lot of stories and things that we do that I think are sort of like useful examples for people. And I always wanted him to feel comfortable that if there was ever a story that I would share that for any reason he didn't want me to. He could just be like, nope, don't share this one. And that would be fine. So when I went to work on the book, I would like, I showed him the introduction, I had him read through the questions before I sent them to the editor to see, like, do they make sense? Are they clear? And that was really one of the challenges of the book is when you write 400 questions on any topic, the biggest challenge is not to repeat yourself and not to ask the same question in different ways. And Hugh was a brilliant, brilliant thought partner in saying question 47 sounds a lot like question 88. You might want to take a look at that. And to me, they were totally different. I was like, what? They are not the same. But having him not know what was going on in my brain, he's like, no, really, look at it again. Like, oh, yeah, you're right. So that was awesome. And I wrote the book in the holiday season, so it was November and December was when we were working on the book and we really practiced the idea of trade offs. So we love to, for example, decorate our Christmas tree. And we have a very, a beautiful tradition that we really love, which is whenever we travel, we'll buy an ornament. And when we put up our tree every year, it's beautiful because we remember all the places we've been. So we'll have like, oh, remember when we went to the Bahamas, Remember when we went to the NASA space station? Remember when we were in New York, you know, and we have all these different things and we were looking at the very tight deadlines we had for the book. And I was like, you know, I think I need to spend whatever five hours working on whatever I was doing. And he said, yeah, you know, I think we shouldn't put up the Christmas tree this year. I think we should just let you focus on your deadlines. And so we went to Walgreens or cvs, I don't remember, and they had this little tabletop tree that you'd like, had little lights and it just came ready to go and you just put it on your dinner table. And I always looked at that tree while I was writing. I was like, that is my book tree.

That is the tree we have because I'm writing. And that was really fun.

Yeah, I love that. Being willing to be flexible and just right. And make. I love how you, how you said it. Practicing trade offs that and not seeing it as permanent. I think that's a big, that's a big part of trade offs is seeing that, okay, this is the. As you said, it's a dance. It's an evolution. It's unfolding. So we're always making certain trade offs. And as long as we know those aren't fixed, it definitely helps me at least give. Give room for whatever those trade offs are or request trade offs sometimes.

Yeah, absolutely. And talk about what matters most to you and what are your priorities. And I think it's just so important and to reassess. This was really important to me then. It may not be important to me now to just keep that the lines of conversation open, which of course one of the things I love about the book is, one of my philosophies is it's really not useful when all you talk about is maintenance and problems. Everyone listening, just think about your significant other. The last conversation you had with them, probably most likely it was either about maintenance, what to have for dinner, what to do for lunch, what to do with the kids and the breaks, whatever it may be, or a problem that needed to be solved. Right? And it's like we need to have conversations about our goals and our dreams and our visions and our deepest desires and fun, wacky things. And if there's not a container to do that in, for many couples, they really struggle with that because you're already exhausted from all the other commitments you have. How are you going to come up with something creative to talk about over dinner? And then I love that you can just pick up this book and be like, hey, let's ask this question today.

Yes. Well, that's what starts. Why talking isn't enough. I'm sure you remember she uses the analogy of there's a wound, you have a wound on your arm, and talking about the wound is just poking at it, investigating it. It doesn't heal the wound to just poke at it. Poke, poke, poke, talk, talk, talk, solve, solve, solve. That actually does not heal the wound. That it's the context of loving awareness and acceptance that heals the wound. So actually, if you don't talk about the wound, this is the whole thing why talking is not enough. If you don't talk about it, but you focus on how healthy you both are or how what hike you want to go on, you won't even notice that the wound is there. And that context of acceptance can actually. Is the only thing that can actually heal that wound.

I love that so much.

Yeah, it was, it was very powerful. So sometimes that will come to me like, oh, we're poking at the wound right now.

And here's here's an example of, like, coaching homework. Like one coaching question or one piece of homework which is like, here, go read. This book can shift your awareness in such a powerful way that you're forever a different person. And that's what I love for coaching as a client of coaching. And that's what I love about coaching as a coach myself.

That's what we talked about in the episode I did with Steve Morris on Beautiful Questions. The whole notion of a beautiful question is a question that can reorient your entire life trajectory.

Yes. Yes.

So speaking of beautiful questions, can you share with us three of your favorites from the book or three that come to you in this moment in time on this podcast?

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I couldn't possibly have favorites. But let me see.

Let me pick up the book. I'm gonna just randomly.

I know I should have told you before we started.

Yeah, it's all right.

Go grab the book. In fact, we could play question tarot. You could just open the book to three different pages.

Perfect. Okay. So I opened the book to random page and one of the questions, which is just perfect for you and I, of course. How do you decide when it's time to reassess a goal?

I love it.

Yeah. And it's like, think about that. That's nothing. You would never have that conversation with your partner unless you were prompted. That's true. Conversation.

That's true.

And sometimes how many of us spend a lot of time on a goal that should be reassessed and we take too long to do any kind of assessment on it because we're so emotionally attached to the goal.

Okay.

I love it.

Yeah. Okay, here's the next one. Okay. I happen to open to this page in the book, but it's also the very first question my husband and I answered. And doing the book. So this is kind of fun. When we were right, when I was writing the questions, I didn't actually answer the questions right because I had to write a lot. So when the book finally came, I said, you know, now we get to go through the book together. So this weekend, we started answering the questions in the book. And the very first one we answered is, your life story is being made into a TV show. What is it called? Who plays you and who plays your partner? And here's kind of a funny behind the scenes. Even though I wrote the book right, I turned to that question, and I took it super seriously. I Googled, like, Latina actresses in their 40s to determine who I wanted to play me and Who I wanted to play him. And my fantasy casting is Gina Rodriguez from Jane the Virgin.

Yes. Oh, my gosh. Here I was thinking Sofia Vergara. Like that wouldn't be a bad choice either.

Right. Can't go wrong with either of them. Yeah. But I thought for sure that show would be a sitcom and we need someone who can do comedy. And then for my husband, I picked Javier Bardem.

Good one.

Delightful. Right? And then he got to pick. And he picked Eva Mendez for me, which I thought was like. Yes.

Yeah.

And he picked Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Oh.

Because, you know, we like to think that they look alike.

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. That is so funny. I love this question. I'm always saying you're the main character in a movie. What is this time teaching you? But I have never stopped to think if you're, if they're making a sitcom or a TV series about you. And, and certainly not in the context of relationship of who's playing the two characters.

Isn't that fun?

Oh, my God, that's so good.

I'm going to put you a little bit on the spot off the top of your head. Who would play you?

Oh, my gosh. Well, I don't know because the first thing is I often get people say, oh, I look like so and so, or vice versa. But I think I'm going to go with Jennifer Garner.

Oh, yes.

Yeah, I'll pick Jennifer Garner. Or I've always liked Jennifer Aniston. Just her style. I like her just jeans and a white T shirt style. But probably Garner. And then Drogo. What's his name? The.

Oh, yes.

He would play Michael. He would definitely. Yeah. Because Michael right now, especially with Shelter at home, I mean, he would do it anyway, but like full on beard, like the thickest beard, gray hair. He's got a Drogo, like I love it. What's his name? Jason Momoa. Yeah, Jason Momoa.

He's awesome.

Yeah, yeah.

Or casting.

Or I would cast Joe Manganiello just because. Why not?

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. I wonder what Michael would say. That's so funny. And then what's your. You're in your husband's. What's your sitcom about? What's the premise?

So my choice, because I now that I launched the podcast, it's called the Marriage Life Coach Podcast. And I changed everything to my name. So everything is Maggie Reyes and Maggie Reyes dot com. But for almost eight years I had Modern Married. So my, my TV show is called Modern Married Life.

That's what it's called.

I like it. I think this could be a show.

Maggie.

Let's get this on the air.

So I think so. I think it'd be so good. It would be hilarious. And there'll be cups. There would be a running joke in the episode about all the cups. Of course. Of course.

Michael, ours, ours. Lately, Michael's was eating these very yummy power bars that he loved. So he would eat two or three a day. The wrappers, they're just all over the house. Like, it's like a Easter egg hunt for these rappers every day.

There you go. So that would be a running joke. And then my husband's. He chose the name the IT guy and the life coach.

Love it. That is so funny. I know. I'm thinking, I'm like, mine would be some kind of shark tank, you know, business pitch show or something. And then Michael's would be some rollicking adventure, like off in Lord of the Rings New Zealand territory. Yes, Yes. I don't know how these two story lines converge.

Oh, my God.

Flashbacks and flash forwards maybe.

Yeah, totally. Dream life, the waking world, or who knows? Oh, that's good. This is fun. Okay, can you give us our third tarot question?

Absolutely. And one thing I just want to mention, rather than, yeah, like, this is exactly what the book is about. Like, notice that Jenny and I just had a blast. Just enjoying each other's company, fantasizing about our casting. We're already ready to send these shows to Hollywood. Like, it's happening. And that is my whole intention with the book. And I'm just so happy. Like, everyone who's listening got to witness us doing that.

Very meta. I love that. Yeah, that's true. And it is fun. I'm having a blast.

Okay, so here's the last one for today. There are 400 more so you can get the book. But for today it's. Did you have any hobbies as a kid and what were they? So what was your hobby?

Mine, I used to do fake news broadcasts and dance routines and a family newspaper. Oh, and I used to make my brother play school. And the hilarious thing is that that's all what I do now. So my hobbies were always making things and always playing business. So I used to steal. I don't know if I can say steal. Grab a few extra copies from a ski resort of the contact paper. I thought contact paper was just magical where you draw on it and three copies are made.

Yeah.

And so I would use that to play office at home or make forts. That's kind of my repertoire. One time I Hosted a carnival for the neighborhood kids. There were different stations. I had tickets. I don't know why. I always enjoyed, like, mirroring business in some way.

That is so fun. I love it so much.

Restaurant. How about you? How about you, Sue?

Here's what you and I had in common or have in common that we never would have known had I not asked you this question. I used to play business and teacher as well. So I used to have Barbies and I would play Barbies with my best friend and my best friend's Barbie would always be getting married like that. Like, we would just have all these weddings happening all the time. And then I owned like Barbie Town. So there was like a Barbie McDonald's and a Barbie pool. Like Barbie neighborhood. I like, was the landowner of all the businesses. There was a Barbie boutique. Right. And I was always like the CEO of Barbie Land. Right. So fun.

I love it. Oh, my gosh, I love it. I just love it. And then, yeah, directing the whole community. Right. It's like the whole ecosystem. That's so fun.

Yeah. Yeah. These are great.

I love these. Thank you for sharing these questions. You get to experience the book and not just hear about it. So fun.

Ah, I love that.

Maggie, this has been a true delight. I'm not surprised. It always is every time I talk with you. Oh, my goodness. Just where can people find you? We've mentioned a couple things, but just give us the details if listeners want to keep in touch.

Absolutely. The easiest way to find me is Maggie Reyes.com and the links to all the things we've talked about are there so you don't have to worry about remembering everything. As Jenny mentioned, they do have a Facebook group called the Better Marriage Club and I post things in there about all these concepts that I teach on a regular basis. And I, I spend, you know, quite a bit of time in there. So I always look forward to welcoming new members and talking about how to have a five star marriage. So, Maggie Reyes.com the Better Marriage on Facebook. Those are the two easiest ways to.

Find me and the Marriage Life Coach podcast. And I can't help but ask because now I just have these, these two curiosity open loops.

Sure.

Did you fully explain a five star? Of what? How you ended up at five stars as the way to describe. And I'm also curious if you could just share your pivot from Modern Married to the branding and platform names that you have now.

Oh, absolutely. Okay. So five star was because I used to work in ultra luxury hospitality and we would talk about five star standards and what was five star all the time? Just in the course of my, I worked in HR before I was a life coach. And so the concept of five star was really inside, like inside me. Right. And very alive. And then I like to use a lot of analogies and ways to explain sort of complicated content concepts in a simple way. And when I tell people, listen. You could have a five star marriage or a one star marriage. One star is like the motel, the scratchy sheets, the shower that's cold when you supposed to be hot, or hot when it's supposed to be cold. That's a motel. You can have a great marriage at a four star. Right. Really solid. Right. But we're always aspiring towards thriving. That's where we're going. And so it's really easy for people to imagine, no matter what stage they're in in their relationship. Oh, this is what thriving looks like. This is what thriving can be about. And so in a five star environment, I make a lot of parallels. Like when you, you walk into a five star hotel, they on purpose engineer this welcome home feeling that they are very intentional about. And it's like when we don't feel that when we come home, it's because we have not been intentional about the feeling we want to create when we come home.

That is so beautiful. And I'm so happy that I asked because that makes a lot of sense. I was thinking five star reviews on Amazon.

Yeah, right.

Not going to lie. I love, love a good luxury hotel experience. It's my Libra. So I love how you describe that and the intentionality behind it. That's really beautiful. Thank you.

You're welcome. Absolutely. My pleasure. And then the change from Modern Marriage to the Marriage Life Coach and to my name, basically when I started Modern Married, I really had no idea what the heck I was doing. Right. I, like I just said I'm going to start a blog like all of us do and we have a dream or want to do something new. And over time, what I found was that Modern Married wasn't a really good explanation of what I actually do. Like you could say, oh, I listened to Modern Married this morning and you wouldn't have any idea what that, what just happened. But if you're like, oh, I listen to the Marriage Life Coach podcast, you immediately understand that you're improving your relationship, that you're learning coaching concepts and that you're there to like win at the game of life and marriage. And that was really sort of. I sat with, how will people know what I'm talking about in the easiest, simplest way. And that's what came up.

I love that. And even the better marriage club, it's a movement, it's going in a new direction. I have to say, I did like Modern Married too, because Maggie's whole premise was marriage doesn't have to be this miserable drudgery ball and chain the way, you know, what's the modern definition of joy and delight that you bring? But I understand the shift you made too. It makes a lot of sense.

Thank you for asking. I'm so glad that you were curious about that. That's, like, really fun. And I just, I'm so grateful to behind the scenes.

It's from a Shark Tank sitcom. You know, we got to know why you pivoted, what the logic was, and now when did you start blogging?

Oh, wow. I want to say 2012.

Yeah, I knew it was. It was a while. It's been a long time. Very exciting. Maggie Reyes, I'm so happy for you. In this new book, listeners check out Questions for couples journal. 400 questions to enjoy, reflect and connect with your partner. And now we can take it down to 397more.

There you go.

From this conversation. This is so fun. Thank you. Thank you so much, Maggie, for being here.

Thank you for having me. And thank you. You're just so amazing and I'm so grateful that we're still connected after all these years.

Me too. And I'm looking forward to all, all that's to come.

Yes.

Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter at Jenny Blake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.