“What matters most becomes your ‘yes’, and everything else becomes a ‘no’.”

In this episode of Lead with Culture, Michele Marquis, Senior Executive Coach at Floyd Consulting, shares how to approach the fourth quarter of life with intention, joy, and purpose. Drawing from Matthew Kelly’s workbook, The Fourth Quarter of Your Life, Michele shares her insights into helping clients reflect on their past, identify what brings them joy, and plan for a meaningful future.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• How reflection helps uncover what matters most in life
• The power of planning and perspective for a vibrant fourth quarter
• Strategies to say ‘yes’ to priorities and ‘no’ to distractions

Things to listen for:

(00:00) Intro

(00:25) Understanding the “fourth quarter of life”

(02:58) Reflection: A key to uncovering joy and purpose

(07:42) Addressing regrets and redefining your future

(13:23) Perspective: Creating a 5-to-25-year plan

(18:42) Intention: Setting boundaries and focusing on priorities

Resources:

• Floyd Coaching
• The Culture Assessment
• Matthew Kelly’s Books
• Floyd Coaching’s Blog
• 24 Regrets Of People Who Are Dying

Connect with Michele:

• Michele Marquis’ LinkedIn

Connect with the Host & Floyd Coaching:

• Kate Volman’s Linkedin
• Floyd Coaching on Linkedin
• Floyd Consulting on Facebook
• Floyd Consulting on Twitter
• Floyd Consulting on YouTube
• Floyd Consulting on Instagram

So while you're reflecting, you need to define your joy. What does joy really mean to you? Whatever it is that you want. Is it peace? Is it joy? Whatever it is, you need to be super specific about it so that you can make the choices necessary to get you there for your fourth quarter.

This is Lead With Culture. I am Kate Volman, and we are so excited about this episode because we are talking about the fourth quarter of your life. And today I'm joined by Michele Marquis, who is one of our executive coaches who does a lot of our Q4 coaching here. And we were talking the other day and realized, oh, we haven't done an episode about the fourth quarter of life. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. So, Michele, how are you?

Awesome. I'm going to be 64 tomorrow, so I am well into my fourth quarter, so I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah.

Yes. There's no one better to talk about it than you because you are in your fourth quarter and you are living your best life. You are one of the most energetic, engaged people on the planet. You just love Michele. If you don't know Michele, Michele just loves everyone. Everyone's awesome. Everything's amazing. Every.

There's always a solution to every. We're going to figure stuff out.

And.

And that's one of the things that I feel like a lot of times going into the fourth quarter, it can be, gosh, you're going into the fourth quarter. And most people wonder, where did my life go? Where has time gone? What have I been doing?

How did I get here? Yeah. How did I get here? Yeah.

Well, I'll never forget. I was in the car with my dad. This is years ago. I don't even know how old he was, but probably, like, approaching fourth quarter. And I remember we were talking, and he said, he was like, you look in the mirror, and sometimes you're just like. You look in the mirror, and then you look down at your hands and you're looking to. And you're like, wait, that's not me.

What's going on?

And you look in the mirror and you're like, where? That's not how you see yourself. Sometimes you feel younger than you look, and sometimes you just feel. Maybe some people feel older than you look.

Yeah.

That was the kind of the first time that I had heard somebody talk about it that way when they were like, I'm looking in the mirror. That's just not who I see. You know, that's like, it's so different and so so let's talk about the fourth quarter because Matthew Kelly wrote yet another book, no Regrets, all about fourth Quarter. It was a beautiful, really, it's a beautiful story about a woman that was going into her fourth quarter. So talk a little bit about the book first before we dig into the book.

Really catapults you into like, okay, I get it, what am I going to do about it? And so really, for me, it was very interesting to think about your life that way, but to think about five years ago, would I have ever thought that I would be here where I am today? So it really makes you think about the choices you make in life where you give your time and attention, all of those things. So the book really again, puts it into perspective. And then the workbook, which is what I use in the coaching process, is a phenomenal way to really get more intentional about your life at really any quarter. However, I feel like a lot of the coaching clients that I have are in their 50s or they're just getting into their 60s. So this really speaks to them loudly at that point in their life. Because to your point, all those things that you just said about like, how did I get here, what was I doing? 20 years have gone by and still haven't accomplished this dream or that goal or whatever. So it's been an incredible process for us. We just started this a couple years ago and it's been amazing.

Amazing for people.

Yeah. And part of the, the workbook, Matthew lays out the, your 25 year plan. Like, he puts together that plan. And so we had done a, a webinar on your 25 year plan and going through. Okay, helping us be decade thinkers, which for some people going into their fourth quarter, they're like, wait, what decade thinkers? Like, but how important it is to really think about. Well, you still have a lot of time to do some things. This is, this is not over. This is not the ending.

Everyone goes through a lot of different experiences. You could talk about women experience it differently than men. And so there's a lot of emotions and feelings and this really helps people be more intentional and figure out, hey, what do I want that fourth quarter to look like? It's been a beautiful process and some really incredible breakthroughs have happened for a lot of people. So let's talk about. You wanted to share a couple things for people to consider in their fourth quarter.

Yeah. Before we begin, I just wanted to also in the beginning of the workbook, it talks about like, who's in which quarter. Right. Like what age group. Right. That doesn't matter as much to me. However, think about this. The average life expectancy for an American person now is 80.

Okay, I'm going to be 64. That's 16 years. 16 years. 35% live to be 91% get to live to a hundred. So I say this because you could say 25 years, but depending on when you really start this process for yourself, you may have more years. Right? If you start this at 50, you may have more than 25 years. However, the point of it is, is to start, start doing this for yourself right now. And the process that Matthew put together, I feel like it fell into three different areas.

The first area is reflection. So reflection really talks about. It's all those great memories, all the great choices that you made. Really looking back at your life in decades, maybe don't remember much of your 1 to 10, but 10 to 20, 20 to 30, 30 to 40. What are some of those memories from the past or being more specific about, like what were you drawn to as a child, as a teenager? Maybe something that you were very involved with early on, but you let it go a lot of times. I've had several clients. It's music. Oh yeah, I used to play the piano when I was younger or I used to do, you know, they had a hobby back in those early years and they are going back to them.

They're going back to them and saying, well, you know what, this is what I'd like to spend time on in my fourth quarter. And if they have children, they put them into the plan too, of course, and say, I want to teach my granddaughter how to play the piano. And then we're going to do a duet together. I mean, and then they start to really get excited about some of the things that they plan out for themselves. But it's also in this reflection time, looking at regrets. What are some of the things that you really regret you regret? Maybe a choice that you made. It's not that you're going to live with that regret, but think about how to not have that regret going forward because now you're going to have the clarity, the self awareness of what really matters to you. So that's the first, I'd say big chunk of the of the workbook is really reflecting on your life.

What is your story when you're working.

With some of your clients on this in the reflection? Can you talk about some of the emotions that come up for people when they're jotting all of this stuff down?

Oh yeah. Well, some of them are. We blame everything on our Parents. My mom and dad were tough. I had to do this, or I was really into sports. My dad didn't believe in sports, so I ended up being in the band. It really does bring up a lot of emotions from that perspective, but it's more about the role. You know, when you're younger, your relationships are this big, right? You got your mother, your father, your siblings, your grandparents, cousins, maybe around you, friends from school.

So how did all of those people influence you way back when? They really did influence the things that you did and the choices that you made. So, yeah, that comes up, but it's usually a parental. A parental thing have to say. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. I think so. So often we forget to reflect on the past and really look at all of the. All the wins that we've had along the way. There's a lot of mess, right? Matthew Kelly's book, Life is Messy. Life is definitely messy. And so there's a lot of challenges. We go through a lot of struggle, but then a lot of beauty that comes out of those times and situations.

And to go back and reflect and think about, oh, my gosh, wow, it was really hard. Raising those kids was a lie. But now you have a really great relationship with your children and you want to be able to do certain things with them. And so I think it can take a lot of different emotions, almost like a roller coaster, because a lot of times, people, you're heading into the fourth quarter and you do have certain regrets, or maybe not regrets, but you look back and think, what if I would have made this choice? What if I would have made this decision? It's like when you're in your 20s, you just make decisions. You know, I decided to leave this particular role and take another role at a different organization. And I didn't really understand the impact that was going to have on me. It was just kind of, oh, it's my next step. It's no big deal.

But it is a big deal. Like, that changes the whole trajectory of your life. Looking back, you know, hindsight, 20 20, it's so easy to see that. But when you're going through it and then when you do have a little bit of time to kind of look back at your life, it's really important to look at all of those components, all of those decisions that you made and. And not think about what would have happened, but just be grateful for the decisions that you did make and that it got you to where you are today and that you get to start from here and start moving forward and not, not getting stuck in the past, which can be really easy to do.

Well, I think that dying has a negative connotation.

Right.

At 20, you're not thinking about dying. And we don't talk about dying, but, you know, we know we're all going to die. It's inevitable. So for the time that we have here, what do you want to do? You want to make the most of it, right? And how can you do that? I do want to just talk about. Matthew did a video and I tell everybody about it because I feel like that is really such a catalyst for really thinking about the fourth quarter of your life. Not just the fourth quarter, your life in general. And it's the 24 regrets of dying people. Matthew had lunch with some hospice nurses and he just asked this question, like, what do dying people talk to you about? So I just want to just throw out just like five responses that there's 24 in all.

And they're pretty. They're like a wake up call when you think about the different areas of your life. And I feel like these are like five. That really hit me. I wish I had spent more time with the people that I love. Again, the busyness of our lives. We spend a lot of time at work, but things to think about. I wish I hadn't spent so much time working.

I wish I had discovered my purpose earlier. I wish I had learned to express my feelings more. I wish I had taken more risks. I wish I had cared less about what other people thought. And I wish I had taken better care of myself. So these are really, again, things to think about. Not wanting to say. I highly recommend viewing to the.

Oh, yeah, it's. It's pretty intense and it's really short too. He just shares all of those, all of the responses and they are really powerful. And some of them are. We hear them all the time, right? Like, how many times have we heard. When are you the happiest? It's usually the simplest when you're spending time with the people that you love.

Quality time.

Yeah. It's that carefree timelessness that Matthew talks about. It's just giving yourself that. That time to just be and be connected. In fact, Matthew came out with another book this month. It's called Slowing down to the Speed of Joy. You just have to listen to that title and immediately you feel this sense of calm and peace because you're like, yes, I want that. I want some of that.

You know, I think we can all slow down a little bit. It goes back to reflection, right. To reflect Back, So. All right, I love that. I love that. And we'll add the. A link to that video of Matthew's in the notes.

Yeah, what you just said is super important also. So while you're reflecting, you need to define your joy. What does joy really mean to you? Right. Or whatever it is that you want. Is it peace? Is it joy? Is it whatever it is, you need to be super specific about it so that you can make the choices. Right. Necessary to get you there for your fourth quarter.

All right, so reflection. What's the second one?

Perspective. So this is, again, gets back to defining what it is that matters most to you now. And then what matters most to you five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years, all the way out to the 25. People have a hard time with 20 to 25 years. Really have a hard time. So I say, you know what, just focus on five and 10 years. So if you can get those to a really good place, the rest of the years will come out so much easier. Five years.

Five years. You'll be prepared, you'll have a strategy, you'll have a framework to use going forward. Because we all know whatever we say today, five years from now, we could be dealing with a totally different set of circumstances. It's one thing to plan however life is going to happen. It's just a matter of really being specific about what matters most to you right now. And then five years from now and ten years from now. So I'd say start with that. And so he takes you through all of these questions, what's your story? So that you can really dial into those specific priorities for your life for the next 5, 10, 15 years and really being clear about what it is.

So I'd say the four key areas to think about is physical health, intellectual development, relationships and financial. And then your home, living space, that's kind of the last thing, but it's something that. It comes up a lot, right? So someone had a big family, and then 10 years from now, my kids are out. They have their own houses, they have their own place. Are we going to keep this big house? Are we going to stay in this big house? Oh, my. Am I going to be able to go up those stairs like I can now? It's really super important to think about those things.

And I love this because you're giving yourself the plan. We have to have a plan, right? We've got to have that North Star. What are we looking towards? What are we working on? This is why dreams are so important. When we have that dream, we're like, okay, this is where we're anchoring to when we're making decisions, and then you're pushing forward. But to your point, things change. So many things happen in our lives that are unexpected, some good, some bad, and it changes the course of where we're going. And so that's why our dreams might change. In fact, if you look at your list of dreams this year versus last year, I would guess that there are probably some dreams on your list that are no longer important to you, that don't really matter.

Because if you've worked on your dreams this year, then from January to December, you're a different person. You've achieved some things. You've become a different person because you went through the messy middle. You did all the things that you needed to do in order to achieve that dream. And so you look at life a little bit differently. I have a friend of mine who had a dream of buying a beautiful home, gorgeous home, huge, much bigger house than they were used to. And all of a sudden they're like, I don't even like this. It's too big.

I have to buy all this new furniture. I don't even want this space. And, like, they're like, I miss my condo. And that's okay. You sometimes have these dreams and not knowing what it's going to feel or look like, and that's okay. That's what happens.

Yeah, no doubt. I had that happen with myself just recently. As you know, I had a house in Rhode island, and we bought a condo in Florida. Been here two years. We were going to do the snowbird thing. However, thinking it all through, like, it sits there all year in the winter. Every time we go up, there's something wrong. I just let it go.

I said, you know, what if we want to get something later? But it would definitely be a condo, not a house. Because there's a lot that goes into that. And as I get older, I don't want to deal with that. That's not how I want to spend. Like, some people wouldn't go that drastic, but we sold the house, and we're. We're very happy. It felt very freeing because the house was loaded with stuff. That's another thing that Matthew addresses in here.

All the stuff that we accumulate in our lives. You don't want to leave a mess for your people when you leave, because they're going to have to go through the big mess. So, yeah, there's just so many different areas to think about. When you think about that fourth quarter of your life. It's amazing. The other thing in the perspective area is fear. What are the fears that you have right now that aren't real? Recognizing those fears, addressing those fears. And I love the way Matthew said, name them.

Because when you name them, you take away the power. You take away the power of that fear. So prior to me wanting to sell the house in Rhode Island, I had always said, I will never sell this house if anybody ever sells this house. It really meant that much to me when we bought it 15 years ago. Was a dream of mine to have a little cottage on the water and all of that. But it doesn't mean as much to me right now as spending time with the people that I love. So the reflective period, there's a big chunk of the workbook is on reflection and then perspective.

Yeah, I love that. All right, Reflection, perspective, and what's number three?

Intention. This is where the action comes in. What I usually do with clients is so once they've filled out their 25 year plan, some specific things that they want to make sure that they're accomplishing, 5, 10, and some go to 15 years. Then we talk a lot about what should you be saying no to? Because that seems to be a very particular area that people struggle with. So I flip it around and I go, so what's your bigger yes? So what matters most becomes your yes. But what do you have to say no to so that you can make sure that that yes becomes your guiding light? All those things that matter most to you become your yes. So it just makes it easier because so many people, they're people pleasers, they don't want to ruffle any feathers. And you don't really want to go to that party with your husband, but you're going to go and being able to have that conversation to say, I don't really want to spend my time with people I don't know.

I want to spend time with people that I care about. Not that you don't do this once in a while, but however, how many times are you doing that? How many times are you saying no to something that doesn't serve your yes, your bigger yes, your priorities in life and things that matter most to you. So a lot of that is that part of the program, it centers around setting boundaries for yourself and being able to say no, thank you, Love to maybe do it some other time, but doing this and then also the energy factor, right. I can attest to this. I have less energy. I know you say I'm energetic, but I have less energy than I did 10 or 20 years ago. What are my time wasters? What are my soul destroyers? Like, what's taking up my energy that I really want to make sure I put in reserve for my. Yes.

For my priorities. We really take a deeper dive into that as well. And one of the biggest ones in that category is what do you think? What do you think, Kate? Time wasters or soul destroyers? Oh, gosh.

Like email and social media, number one.

Don'T let it rule your life. Yeah, it's amazing.

What's crazy is how we know that these companies are strategically creating their products for us to be addicted to them and we continue to use them. Obviously we can use them, but so many people have a challenging time to just like get beyond them and use them for the good. And we connect to people. And of course you have a business and you promote all of those things. It's amazing. I'm not, I'm not anti social media by any means. However, you talk to some people who do a social media detox or they get off of it for a while. And in fact, Cal Newport, I've read few of his different books and he talks about taking a 30 day social media detox.

And what I love about it is he talks about do it for 30 days and just know, hey, I'm just going to do it for 30 days. And it might be challenging, especially the first couple days. Especially if you're so used to it. Right. So many of us are used to waking up in the morning and you get on your email first thing. You go on YouTube or whatever social media platform of your choice and you're just on it for way longer than you expect to be or you intend to be.

Yeah.

And he said, so give it 30 days. And the cool thing is after 30 days then you can start to recognize, huh, what was I using that? Was it actually enhancing my life or was I just addicted to it? And you start realizing, oh, maybe I don't need Instagram as much as I thought. Maybe I don't actually need to go onto Facebook immediately. And so you can bring back some of those. Like if you really recognize, hey, in 30 days. I realize I love Facebook because I get to connect with the people that I love and care about and I don't get to see that one I want to bring back. But maybe you decide I'm going to get rid of, I don't know, TikTok off my phone because I really felt like it was more of a time waster. And I think to your point, with energy.

I would argue to. For some people who. They take a break and what is their break? Their break is scrolling on social media.

Yeah.

Do you feel more or less energized when you've been scrolling on social media for 20 minutes?

Less energized.

Right. You feel guilty sometimes because you're like, oh, my gosh, I meant to just go on and send a message to a friend and I ended up going like, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling again. Because these companies are literally. That is why that they are. They know how to make them. So we stay on there. They're feeding us dopamine and all the things. And all of a sudden you're feeling like, oh, my gosh, I wasted all this time and I'm procrastinating.

And they give us. You know, it's really become a problem for a lot of people. But intentionality. Right. That could look like, I'm not going to get off social media. But maybe you're going to delete the apps from your phone. Maybe you're going to give yourself a time limit. I'm only going to use it for 20 minutes at night before.

Well, not before you go to bed. You're not supposed to do that. There's so many rules. But, you know, you can just give yourself a little bit of a time limit so that you can be on there and then jump off. I think that the people that have done it successfully and they talk about their experience of getting off social media. And in fact, I was listening to something and he was talking about how he has not watched the News for like 10 years. He was like, guess what? I get everything that I need to know from people. Like, I don't need to watch the news.

There's no reason to be on there to just like, they're saying the same thing over and over and over. If something's critically important, I'm going to hear about it.

My husband does that for me.

Oh, my gosh. Right.

He watches all the news channels. And then I go, okay, what are the highlights for today?

And the highlights are probably a couple bullets. Yeah, you didn't need to watch hours of the news. Anyway, we're getting off track, but this is like a whole different podcast. But it can be challenging because it does put a hold on us, especially with email. You know, how many times have have we heard the advice of don't check your email first thing in the morning? How many of us check our email first thing in the morning?

Yeah, for sure. Well, I'm going to relate this back to regrets Most of the 24 regrets had to do with time. Where are you spending time? Don't say you're busy. Don't say you didn't have time. Find that time.

I heard a speaker, I think it was James Elcher, I forget who it was, but saying that when he gets asked to speak in an event, he would start asking himself because he was making the decision, should I say yes or no? And he would say yes to all of these speaking opportunities. And then when the time came to actually do the speaking engagement, he was so annoyed that he said yes, he didn't actually want to do it. So he started making the decision based on if he was asked to speak at an event. He would say, if this event was tomorrow, would I be excited to go? Just a little bit of a reframe. And he said, I started saying no to so many engages because I just knew I wasn't going to want to go. If it was tomorrow, I wouldn't want to do it. And I thought, oh my gosh, that is so good. So if you are someone who says yes to all of the things, the baby showers, the birthday parties, the holiday part, the all the things, and maybe there's some that you don't want to go to think about.

Okay, will you be excited when you're, hey, it's tomorrow, you have to. Or is it tonight? Do I have to get ready and get dressed up? And anyway, I thought that was a cool little reframe.

That's awesome. I wanted to leave with three things for people to do. Name three things, write these down that you need to start saying no to. So three things you need to start saying no to right now so you can really start to set yourself up for the fourth quarter. Write out five dreams that you really want to accomplish in the fourth quarter. So this is great to reflect back. Maybe a dream that you gave up on or something that you really wanted to do and you want to get it done in the fourth quarter. And then the third thing I mentioned those five different categories, physical health, relationships, intellectual development, can be mental health as well, financial and home living space.

And I want you to really think about where you are now and then just in those areas, where do you want to be five years from now? Because what's interesting is when I do these coaching sessions with people, it's a year long process, right? So at the end of the year, I say four more years left. We just went through one whole year. So these years, especially when you're your fourth quarter, they do go faster. There's no doubt about it. Time starts to really, really pick up speed. So there's my three things to do.

I love it. Well, Michele, thank you so much. And for those that are listening, we hope that something in this episode inspired you to take action on your dreams. And regardless of if you're in your fourth quarter or not, the book is impactful either way. Most of the people listening are probably at least in their third quarter. And so looking through your life in that way and that 25 year exercise is really powerful because it does feel like it's such a long ways away, but it does help us build that decade thinking muscle and really think about, okay, 25 years, okay, that's too much. 2010, five. And then you'll start to be able to really see out into, into the years.

Because it reminds me of that quote that Matthew has, which is, we overestimate what we can accomplish in a year and underestimate what we can achieve in a lifetime. And so when we think about it like that, then we're, we're really just setting ourselves up for success and also to make sure that we don't have to deal with one of those items on the list of regrets that people have.

Absolutely.

All right, awesome. If you are interested at all in fourth quarter coaching, then we would love to talk to you about that because that's one of the things that we do here and we would love to serve you in that way. And no matter where you are in your life, it's going to help you that reflection, perspective and intentionality. And so what do they say? The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. So today is the day you get to plant your tree and get into fourth quarter coaching. So you can go to Floyd coaching.com and you can talk to someone on our team about what that would look like for you to help you have your best fourth quarter ever. Michele, as always, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you all so much for listening. Until next time, Lead With Culture.