Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of being interviewed on one of my favorite podcasts, Speaking of Partnership, hosted by Ken Bechtel.
Click here to listen to the podcast.
For those of you who prefer to read over listening, here's the transcript of our conversation, edited slightly for ease of reading.
Ken[00:00:03]Welcome to the Speaking of Partnership show that brings you the personal partnership stories of experts from all walks of life so you can turn their stumbling blocks into stepping stones to healthy long lasting partnerships. I'm your host, Ken Bechtel. You know that the partnership game is not easy but it's so worth it. If you're struggling with attracting or maintaining partnerships, go to speakingof partnership.com right now. Click on the big red button and attend a free webinar on the secret to starting your ideal partnership today. Now let me introduce you to today's guest. I'm so excited to bring you today's featured guest Marie-Elizabeth Mali. Marie-Elizabeth, welcome to the show.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:00:50]Thanks Ken. It's great to be here.
Ken[00:00:51]Yeah it is so great to have you here. I know we got a chance to meet at the new media summit in February. And I'm so excited that we got a chance to get you on the show here because, well, let me tell the audience why I'm so excited. So Marie-Elizabeth Mali is a Midlife Transformation Specialist and she actually shows people how to let the love and pleasure they cultivate in their relationships expand their professional success. She's also a published poet and—this is a first for the show—an underwater photographer who has a thing for sharks. Well Marie-Elizabeth that is certainly an intriguing intro. Tell me a little bit about you know how you got started doing the work you do now with helping people tap into that love and pleasure to expand their professional success.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:01:43]Well, it really started with myself. What started happening with me was that I love so much what I do. I'm work driven, I'm driven by service. For my whole life that has been a priority and relationships always took a back seat. I found myself in the past few years in a relationship that I actually really want to keep. I want it to really work. And so I had to do this inquiry for myself. Like how do I, rather than seeing relationships as something secondary, make them primary and link them with what I do in the world?
Ken[00:02:28]That is super cool and I can totally relate to that. I think there are a lot of people out there super driven with their work and they're sitting there going, "Do I even want to take the time for relationship?" I mean, I hear it all the time when I'm talking with women that are successful in their career. Maybe they've got a certain mission or a focus they're working on, and they actually see starting a relationship—even though they deeply want it—as something that's going to take them away from their mission.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:03:03]Sadly that's it. As long as we have that crossed wire that somehow our relationship will take us away from our mission, it's never going to work. I mean, we'll always have conflict and tension there. So the shift is recognizing that being in a loving relationship, learning how to communicate better, learning how to ask for what you need, how to receive someone's requests, all of the things that work well in a successful relationship, all of that is going to make you better at what you do in the world. It feeds it. It's not a distraction.
Ken[00:03:49]Yeah. One hundred percent. And you know the other thing that I've noticed personally, as I'm in a relationship with someone who's very mission-driven and has a lot going on, is it also requires finding some balance. And you've got to go, "Yes there's always going to be more to do on my mission. There's always gonna be more work on my plate. But if I want this relationship, I need to find balance, I need to prioritize." Those pieces of self-care.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:04:21]Absolutely. Yeah. How have you two found your way to that? Was there an initiating event or was it just something you both realized like, "Oh we need to prioritize this and this will actually help us be better in the world." How did that unfold for you?
Ken[00:04:48]Well we actually met at a personal development training and we might have spoken for two minutes and exchanged information. She gave me her number. I really didn't have any idea, but there was something compelling. I thought, "I want to follow up with this person," and she said the same thing. We both were at a point where we had already realized for ourselves that we did want this and that we'd kind of let ourselves hide in our in our missions and our work. So we already had that momentum going in that direction, but it's still in process.
Ken[00:05:32]I mean it's still about discussing those things. Because you know you don't just have today planned, you've got things on your calendar for quite a while in the future. And now you meet somebody new and all that busy-ness is already planned. So you meet the person on Monday, there's not room for them on Tuesday. Right? It could be months before they actually have a free weekend or you have a free weekend or you both have the weekend that's the same that's free. Right? So you've got to look at this and go, "OK, how could this work?".
Ken[00:06:07]For example when we first got together—and to add to that we don't live in the same state—the first time I went to visit her, it was very clear for both of us that a good chunk of this time we were going to both need to be working. But we still could have evenings together, that type of thing. So that was going to be where we can go right now. It wasn't going to turn into, "Oh I'm the focus of your life right now." That wasn't possible.
Ken[00:06:44]So we had to go, "Well, what is available right now?" And start looking, "Ok, how do we do that? What's the next thing that's available?" And one of the things we found is, because neither one of us is saying "Hi, oh wow you're amazing, I'm gonna give up my life," we have gotten to know each other on such deeper levels. Like literally the first time we got together we were like, "I don't think this is the typical first date conversation."
Marie-Elizabeth[00:07:18]Right.
Ken[00:07:18]Yeah for sure because we were living in our truth and our passion and going, "I'd love to add this relationship to that."
Marie-Elizabeth[00:07:26]Yes, you're speaking my language.
Ken[00:07:32]Awesome. I think that's the myth right? We think, "Oh it's just gonna turn around and we're going to be spending all this time together." We already have a life going on before before we met.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:07:51]Yeah that's so true. And for us it was funny. We've been living together three and a half years now. When we met, we weren't living in the same place either, but eventually we were living in the same place and we ended up getting together. Recently we've spent the past year in New York City—we usually live in California—and I just got busier and more engrossed in my business. My hours got longer, and I'm also in several mentorship programs, so I also had work to do for that.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:08:36]All these different things started really encroaching on our time and we decided to hire a coach, because I saw this old pattern of mine gaining traction again, this prioritizing of work and this, "Can't you just leave me alone, I need another hour," pattern began to really impact our connection. So we hired a couple's coach six months ago and it's done wonders for us.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:09:06]We were in a good place but we knew we wanted it to be better. We knew we wanted our connection to be deeper. We knew we wanted more skills to navigate these times when an old pattern does come up for one or the other partner, to know how to do things differently I didn't want to just repeat the old mistakes, so we saw the pattern really as an opportunity, rather than, "Oh no, here we are, I'm doing my overwork thing." Instead, we said, "Okay how can we use this to further our connection, to deepen it to become even closer?" That's exactly what we've been doing for the last six months and it's been amazing.
Ken[00:09:47]That's fantastic. And I love what you just said, Marie-Elizabeth, which is that nothing was broken but you also were being proactive and going, "But this could go down that path quickly."
Ken[00:10:00]Exactly. So what can we do to be proactive about this by being partners and going, "Look, we know this can go off the rails at any time. We know our old habits. Let's look at this, so if it does we know how to manage that and even be pre-emptive and not ever get there.".
Ken[00:10:18]I think so many times we think we don't need guidance or a counselor or mentor until there's a problem, and then it's hard to admit there's a problem, at least a problem you can't fix yourself. By the time you go get help it's a train wreck.
Ken[00:10:34]This is just like anything else in the world. Let's say you want to get exceptional at running. Everybody can run but if you really want to make the most of that, then you get somebody that can guide you. It's not because you don't know how to run, it's because you want to enhance what you already have.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:10:59]That's right. Be proactive.
Ken[00:11:02]I think that's key.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:11:03]One of the main ways that I approach relationship is as a vehicle for each of our personal growth. You know the age old thing of having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. When you live with a growth mindset, everything in your life has the opportunity to fuel your growth in some way or another. For both my partner and me, our relationship is not separate from how we integrate and work with our relationship in the context of our purpose in the world. All of it is fuel for us to become more fulfilled, more skilled, and more of who we each are.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:12:07]I think another part of what has our relationship be different than so many of the normal trajectories of people who work too hard and don't put attention on their spouse, and then the spouse gets sad or bored or starts looking elsewhere. The kind of things that happen in our relationship are different because we see it as a vehicle for each of us and how do we serve the relationship. We call it the union.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:12:35]So there's me and there's him. And then there's our union which is like the apex of a triangle, for example. And when you have an orientation like that and you ask yourself the question, "OK I want to do this thing. Does it serve the union or does it detract from the union?" It gets the attention off of the power play of whether or not I get to do my thing. The union is more important than my thing.
Ken[00:13:06]Absolutely. Absolutely a hundred percent. I'm curious, having had this discussion so far, what is it that brings you back? I call it my my guiding principle, but you could have a quote or a mantra that's your anchor for when you notice you're getting off-track, something that brings you back to into partnership. What is it for you?
Marie-Elizabeth[00:13:29]Am I serving the union? Is what I'm doing serving our union? It brings me right back. Whoops! Nope, not serving the union right now. My being cranky and nasty right now is not serving the union! Let me try to recalibrate myself, go to the bathroom, take a little break and close the door, take some breaths and come back.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:13:53]You know another thing that has served us well and also helps to bring us back when we are getting off track is the concept of asking for a redo. So if I say something or he says something in a way that doesn't land well, we'll catch it. Usually the person speaking catches it and says, "Whoops I don't like how I said that, may I have a redo?" Then the other person can can say "Yes, let's try this again," or "No, I got the message and I don't need to hear you repeat it." There's freedom within our relating for that level of of play, transparency, and shifting together. The fundamental thing under that is that we really hold ourselves as being on the same team.
Ken[00:14:57]Yes.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:14:58]So even when we're fighting there's still underneath it a recognition that we're on the same team. And one of us will usually bring us back to that truth as well.
Ken[00:15:08]Yeah. I think that's great because there's a couple of things that I want to draw attention to for our listeners that you may not have caught. One is when you say, "Can I have a redo," you're owning your part, that it may not have been the most elegant. And the fact that you know he can say yes or no, or she can say yes or no, like, "I got the message, you don't need to do it again, I know that wasn't the most elegant but I got it and we don't need to go back there because all I'm hearing is your anger," or whatever.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:15:45]Yes.
Ken[00:15:46]But the other piece of that is and this is the part that I want everybody to hear so clearly the choice you make for partnership is always the tougher choice. Because the easy thing is to do what only matters to you and then that's your instincts about self-preservation. And guess what. Self-preservation means, "Oh here comes a bear. I don't care about my friend as long as I can run faster." It's when our instinct kicks in we don't care about anything else except self-preservation. There is zero opportunity for partnership.
Ken[00:16:30]So you have to catch that your instinct is what made you say something in a certain way. You catch that and decide to step out of your instinct, because that was not partnership. "Can I have a redo." "Yes." And like you said, they may need it and they may not. They have the opportunity to say, "Actually I think I'm clear."
Ken[00:17:26]Would you share with us a brief story of a time when you actually ran something like this where you actually tripped up in a partnership and what actually happened? What were you doing when you tripped up and where did that lead you? What allowed you to move forward from it?
Marie-Elizabeth[00:17:43]Well, last Friday . . .
Ken[00:17:47]This is ongoing, right. I wanted to just really affirm that we're all human and we all have stuff and we're all working on stuff as we speak.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:17:56]Totally. So last Friday we were in Los Angeles and it was our last day there. We were leaving Saturday afternoon and we had made a plan to meet up at home at four o'clock. We each went off and did our thing and four o'clock came and went. I was there waiting and sent a text saying hey what's your ETA, because he was playing golf and I know that that can run long. And so I wasn't stressed about it. I was just kind of like, "Hey what's up." He got back to me eventually, and he said, "Oh I'll be I'll be back around 6:00," with no acknowledgement that we had a 4:00 plan.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:18:43]In my head I had created a whole scenario for the afternoon. We were going to meet up at 4:00. We were going to debrief the daym we were going to make out, we would have some wine in the backyard where we were staying, then walk down and have dinner on Abbot Kinney. I mean I had this whole plan but it wasn't like we had this whole plan. It was me who had this whole plan and I hear from him like I'll be back at 6:00 and I was like, "What?!?!" I was also very hungry. That was another part of it. So by 6:00 I was losing my mind, because I was very hungry, and he continued to be delayed because the round ran even longer.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:19:27] At that point, I just was like, "Look, it's getting late. I'm just gonna walk down to the market and eat by myself." He's like, "Is that what you want?" And I'm like, "Right now it is, because I'm about to eat the chair." And I was so mad. But what I realized was that under the anger—I paused for a moment because I really wanted to lash out at him and criticize him for not meeting our agreement—What I realized was what was actually just under the anger was hurt. It touched the spot, like a historical spot, in me around feeling like I don't matter and that my needs don't matter. And feeling brushed off or abandoned. I had the presence of mind in that moment to realize, "Oh, that's what's happening. I'm not actually upset about today, I'm upset about something in my childhood." I was able to do the vulnerable thing.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:20:31]So the trip up was, "Oh I got triggered and I started to go down this road of my life. But very quickly I turned it around and I sent him just this really vulnerable text, "I'm crying right now." Tears are coming up as I talk about this, but I just sent a text saying, "Hey, I'm feeling really sad and I feel kind of abandoned. That's actually what's going on." That changed the whole interaction. So instead of going into defensiveness, he also didn't go into caretaking, which is a measure of his skill. He's very skilled in that place. But he was able to just meet me there and say, "Ok, thank you. I recognize that I was late and I'm not abandoning you. I love you." And then he asked, "Do you want to meet up?" He ended up taking a scooter to meet me on the way home from the market and we walked home together.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:21:42]Now I was still mad. It wasn't like the anger went away right away. But what I celebrate about that communication is that I stayed self-responsible. I got vulnerable, which was the toughest thing to do in that moment when I wanted to bite his head off. And he also got self-responsible and an apology came out, where in the past he might have been defensive.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:22:04]We talked it through once we were in person and we realized I had this whole plan for the afternoon that he didn't even know about because I hadn't communicated my plan, it was just kind of like, "I'll see you, I think I'll be done with golf at 4:00." So we just were operating under completely different assumptions. That's where the upset happened. But then I got to do the more challenging thing for me which was to soften and get vulnerable and actually let him into my real experience.
Ken[00:22:45]What a great example. What a fabulous example. Thank you for being so open and honest about that. And you know, there is what you described around realizing that you felt sad and that this was triggered from your past. You reminded me of a comment that was made by a guest on the show a couple of years ago. She said when we get triggered, it tells us is there's a spark inside of us. It's not about the other person. The other person's like lighter fluid. And if you put lighter fluid on a charcoal grill it does nothing unless you add a spark.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:23:20]Yep.
Ken[00:23:21]So your partner is not the fire, your partner is just the opportunity to show you where you still have sparks inside of you.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:23:30]Oh that's beautifully said.
Ken[00:24:04]But we believe the story we've been running in our own head as if it's real. As if everybody agreed to it then we get pissed off at the other person.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:24:47]Exactly.
Ken[00:24:51]I mean, I've literally had people say well we talked about it and then they realized they never did. That's how strongly it was in their brain.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:24:59]Wow.
Ken[00:24:59]I'm so excited about this that I never bothered to actually express it to you, because to me it's just seems like the obvious thing we would do when we're staying here, like you were saying about there being a nice garden to have some wine here. To you that was an obvious thing to do in the afternoon. And he didn't even know that was on the map.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:25:20]He had no idea. No idea.
Ken[00:25:22]Not that he wouldn't have wanted to do it if he had known, but he didn't know. This is the thing: our brains are so powerful we believe we actually said it. We literally think we had that conversation. And I've talked to so many women when we were working through something like this, and I'll say. "So did he actually say this?"
Marie-Elizabeth[00:25:42]And they actually think they had the conversation.
Ken[00:25:58]And we do convince ourselves. And the other thing was talking about being hungry which is such a great example. I mean we've all done that.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:26:12]We're supposed to meet for dinner. Now I'm starving because I was planning on eating right at that moment. And you're not here. And now I put myself in a position where there's no wiggle room for me to be happy.
Ken[00:26:25]Right. And the thing is to your question earlier what would be best for the partnership. Well I can still eat when I see you, but I obviously need a snack right now. And every minute becomes an hour because you're seeing the guy really it's been another five minutes. And it's like, "Why didn't you have a snack?" "Because you were supposed to be here." That doesn't make any sense. That's not doing what's best for the partnership and it's not even doing what's best for you.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:27:18]Exactly. Basically just giving all your power up to the fact that there was some idea of what it was going to happen and it didn't. It's the old saying, "You know how to make God laugh? Tell God your plans."
Ken[00:27:30]Well guess what. God's laughing and you're starving.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:27:31]I'm starving and then in the moment I'm not loving my man very much here.
Ken[00:27:42]You're a capable adult. You can put food in your mouth.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:27:45]Exactly. It's not like I have to go eat a great big meal and then I won't be hungry. Just have a snack.
Ken[00:27:50]Yeah. Get yourself to where you're your best when you get together. Such a great illustration of so many different pieces that happen every day every single night.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:28:00]And to tie this back to the how do you use your relationship to fuel your professional success. All of the things we just talked about apply in our purpose and our business, this kind of ownership of our own experience. This kind of self-responsibility to say, "Oh this isn't working for me," or, "I thought we were doing this, but we're doing that," kind of flexibility. Staying open and curious and being willing to have a conversation and be transparent.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:28:28]All of that serves us in what we do in the world, too. There's no need for it to feel so separate. I think that many of us who are very driven by work have developed these skills in our work, but we never learned how to translate them over to partnership, because partnership is perhaps more bound up with our childhood wounding, family, and all that stuff. It's just more charged.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:28:56]Most people I work with already have a lot of skill when it comes to their work and what they do in the world. They feel confident, secure, and clear about that. Then they turn their attention to their relationship and all of a sudden they're just in this morass of uncertainty and insecurity, not knowing what to say. A lot of the work is really translation, like, "Ok you know how to do this over here, what would that look like over there?"
Ken[00:29:24]Exactly. 100 percent. And I mean to use a very generic cliché about this, "We all have everything we need already." We just have to go, "Oh I do this every day at work. I do this every day with the kids, I don't ever do this with my partner.".
Marie-Elizabeth[00:29:45]Exactly. Why isn't it safe to bring it over there? There's lots of reasons. But recognizing that we have these skills and sometimes it takes having an outside neutral party that can actually see. We don't see it because in other areas of our life we just do it as a default. We don't even think about it. And so we don't realize what we're doing.
Ken[00:30:12]I had a client like this. She was amazing. She gave the best accolades to people all the time and she would never do it in a relationship. Like appreciating what your employees do and you don't say one good thing to your partner. She's like, "You're right. I don't." And she was like, "I love doing that with with my employees." It was a mess.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:30:44]Yes.
Ken[00:30:45]So we do miss those things. This is cool, I love what we've been talking about, and you know it's unfortunately we've gotten to that time of the show where we're going to do our bringing it home portion here. Marie Elizabeth is going to give you some concrete takeaways that everybody listening can apply in their partnerships right now. The first thing I want to ask you is, what's the best partnership or relationship advice you've ever received from someone else?
Marie-Elizabeth[00:31:21]Oh I love that. I would say to stay curious. To stay open and remember your partner is not you, they're a whole other person over there on the other side of the table with their own background, dreams, reactions, defaults, and all of that.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:31:42]The more we can stay curious and open to those things, rather than get locked in some kind of default of, like you said before, "My way or the highway," or the other one, which is, "Oh I already know everything there is to know about this person," which is lazy, in my opinion, and inaccurate, because you can never know everything there is to know about another human being. That's what makes them amazing and mysterious. So I would say, that's the best advice that I got.
Ken[00:32:10]Yeah I think that's fantastic. And you know it is funny right that we think, "Oh I know everything about them." Do you know everything about you?
Marie-Elizabeth[00:32:20]Exactly right. And you spend way more time with yourself than with them. So why would you think you'd know everything?
Ken[00:32:26]Yes. But sometimes we're afraid that we might find out something we don't like. We like this container we've created. Here's this list of things I know about that person and I want to keep it that way.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:32:38]What you're saying just reminded me of something I said to my partner a couple of weeks ago, which was, "I would rather you bring me something that makes me deeply uncomfortable than for me not to know the truth of how you actually feel." Now that may not be true for everybody in relationship. My ex-husband was much more about security than he was about challenge or growth.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:33:06]I'm not saying I want our relationship to be challenging and difficult, but I'm saying that if something is coming up in you (I'm speaking to him now in my mind), if something is coming up in you that's true for you, I want you to not hold it back because you're afraid to trigger me or or offend me or disappoint me in some way. I would rather know your truth and then we look to the union. Well, what does the union want with this truth, right?
Marie-Elizabeth[00:33:40]I want him to have the room to be his own person and to be his real person. And I want to have the room to be my real person and trust that our union has a solid and deep enough ground that it can handle each of our truth instead of padding around each other trying to stay comfortable.
Ken[00:34:07]Yes.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:34:08]Because that's just not for me. That's not a winning strategy long-term. And the thing that's going to feed my work with my clients is me being on the edge of my growth, and what I can hold, and how much room there is in me to receive another human being. I learn that with my partner and then I bring that receptivity, and that space, and that nonjudgmental awareness to my clients.
Ken[00:34:45]I love that. And, on behalf of all men everywhere, I want to thank you for that comment you made to your partner, because as a man that is possibly the biggest gift you can give him. What I mean by that is for the masculine to be able to be complete where they are. The feminine is always about improvement, the future, and the masculine is very much in present time.
Ken[00:35:18]So for you to say that and say, "Even if whatever you've got might make me uncomfortable, I want you to speak your truth." Which could be, "I'm really pissed at you right now." Could be anything. But it's letting it be OK. He's complete where he is he doesn't have to be the perfect man all the time.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:35:37]That's right. Oh, that's exhausting.
Ken[00:35:38]I used to do a course for men years ago here in town where we would do an exercise, and this still gives me chills. We would go around the room, and each man would look to the guy next to him and he would say, "My mom says I'm the best." And they would repeat that around the room. When we get done with that exercise every man said, "Oh my God, I know that feeling."
Ken[00:36:11]And then we did it again where we didn't have to hold that, "I have to be the best all the time." The term I would use is complete and complete simply means you're doing the best you can with what you have in this moment. Doesn't mean you're finished, which scares women when they hear the word complete. That means to them, "Oh he's done he's never getting any better, what's the point?" We're ruined. But for the masculine it's freedom.
Ken[00:36:42]And so they'd go round the circle saying, "I'm complete," and when we got done, they're all beaming, and are like, "I've never in my life felt that way."
Marie-Elizabeth[00:36:53]Gorgeous.
Ken[00:36:54]So much of this, "You've got to be the best you can be." This competition. So that's why I said that what you said to your partner is quite possibly the biggest gift ever.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:37:09]Well thank you, I so appreciate hearing that. I didn't think of it that way before, so that's beautiful. And what sparked with what you said, was the difference between trying to be the best, or get better, or all that kind of striving that as a culture we are indoctrinated into versus where I move from now.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:37:46]You already have everything you need. You already have all the tools inside of you. You already have a person who knows how to relate to another person in a loving way inside of you. And very often there are just layers obscuring it that you haven't shed yet.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:38:02]And so I work from that premise. We are all whole. We are all wise. We are all complete in the way that you said. And there are filters or veils in the way of that and that's where our work lies. It's not trying to be somebody we're not. It's it's trying to reveal the perfection of who we already are, even as we work on the stuff that's not quite so skillful, in those spots where we fall down and get tripped up and don't do things very well. That's all the veil stuff that we work with, but it doesn't diminish the fact that innately we are already complete.
Ken[00:38:42]Absolutely. Absolutely 100 percent. Well as expected I would love to continue this conversation for the next week and a half. So do this for us, Marie-Elizabeth, would you please let our listeners know how they can contact you and learn more about what you do?
Marie-Elizabeth[00:39:04]Yes, you can go to my Web site at memali dot com and schedule a Breakthrough Session with me there. It's a complimentary session. I love to work with people in midlife because they already have a lot of skill in a lot of dimensions, like we've talked about, and the work is very often a refinement or a tweaking.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:39:42]Also, in midlife, many of us wake up and realize, "Oh my god, I'm not living the life I want, I'm living the life that my parents taught me to live or my religion, culture, education. What do I really want?" I love to catch people in that inquiry of, "What do I really want and what's going to truly make me happy, Instead of all these trappings of success that I'm realizing aren't as fulfilling as I thought they'd be? How do I make my relationships better and and more nourishing, so that I can work even more purposefully in the world?" Those are often midlife questions. And so that's typically where I come in.
Ken[00:40:23]Fantastic. I love it. And anybody who is currently mowing the yard, or walking the dog, or on the treadmill and didn't grab a pen, you can go to speaking of partnership dot com and type in "Marie-Elizabeth" to go to her show page. There'll be links there. So it's really easy for you to connect with her and follow up with her.
Ken[00:41:05]This has been a pleasure. Absolute treat. So glad we got to do this. And thank you again for being on the show today.
Marie-Elizabeth[00:41:11]Thank you, Ken, I so appreciate it. You're very welcome.
Ken[00:41:16]Thank you for listening to Speaking of Partnership. Head over to speaking in partnership dot com for links and recaps of every show and so much more. Be sure you catch the bonus stories from our guests on follow your yes Friday. It's easy to do. Just go to your favorite podcast directory search for speaking a partnership and click SUBSCRIBE. Like what you hear. Leave us a rating and review on Stitcher or i2. The greatest compliment you can give the show is to refer us to someone else either in person or on the web. Have a great day. And remember even when you stumble you're still moving forward. Peace.
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