Unlocking Purpose in the Fourth Quarter

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 00:00

It's fascinating how much people gravitate toward that topic of regrets. The one that always gets me is, I wish I'd had the courage just to be myself. How much time that we spend placating other people or pretending to be somebody that we're not or pretending to be invisible? We're not having that courage. Matthew and I can both attest that in terms of YouTube video views, in terms of requests for talks, regrets is always the number one one.

Kate Volman (: 00:29

This is another episode about thriving in the fourth quarter of your life. And who better to be our guest than the fourth quarter guy himself? Dr. Allen Hunt. He and Matthew Kelly wrote the books, No Regrets and The Fourth Quarter of Your Life. We talked about the books and what it takes to live a meaningful and joyful fourth quarter of your life. Dr. Allen Hunt, thank you so much for joining us today.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 00:59

The fabulous Kate Volman. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Kate Volman (: 01:04

I'm so excited about this conversation. Fourth quarter coaching, you're the Q4 coaching guy and this topic after you and Matthew wrote the book, No Regrets, and then the workbook, The Fourth Quarter of Your Life. It's just made such an impact, not only on our clients but the world. And I know that this workbook is just selling hotcakes and just completely every month on Amazon, it's selling out. It's crazy and it's just so exciting.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 01:40

It's baffling is what it is. Baff. It's exciting and it's baffling, but it does, like you said, it's selling well on Amazon. So I can go to Wendy's twice a week now instead of once. So it's fantastic. It's good. Which when you're in your fourth quarter, that matters. That matters. They got those cheap discounts like before four 30 and everything.

Kate Volman (: 01:58

Are you guys really that surprised that it's doing so well?

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 02:03

Shock in all sincerity, people don't believe me. We wrote this book because we'd made a promise to the church that we would create a resource around aging and dying. And originally it was originally the project was called Death and Dying. Now that's a sexy topic right there. I mean, everybody wants to be a part of death and dying. So we got into it. He said, maybe we want to tweak this a little bit. So we kept procrastinating and kicking the can down the road and finally Matthew says, Allen, you're 10 years older than I am. You're closer to Diane. Why don't you take the lead on this thing? So I started doing all this research and what we discovered, Kate, is after the books came out, we severely had underestimated how much people really want to talk about this. We knew that there was a need.

(: 02:46

We didn't realize that people actually felt the need the way we saw the need. We began getting all these emails from folks, thank you for talking about this. I feel invisible. Thank you for talking about this I year and talking about this, but nope, people just look at me like I've got eight eyes when I talk about these kinds of things. And so we knew that corporate America, lots of times is done with you when you're 50, but just in life, how much once you turn 60 because the average American lives to be 80. So when you turn 60, do the math whether you like it or not, people go 60 is the new 40, well, 60 is actually 60. So you're in your fourth quarter. And how much really our culture sort of ignores that and just kind of shunts you off and says, we don't want you to die, but we would kind of prefer that you live over in this older person's ghetto and please don't interact with us anymore. And people really want to talk about this. It sounds cheesy, but we were stunned. We really were.

Kate Volman (: 03:40

Wow. Well, it's a beautiful book and before I hit record, we were even talking about how this is a great book, not just if you're in your fourth quarter, but when you're in midlife and just getting prepared for that fourth quarter. So why don't we, for those that are listening, why don't we kind of define what is first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter, so people can visualize like, okay, what quarter is everybody in?

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 04:05

Alright, well I'll give you, so again, the basic math, and my mom was a math teacher, so we were all about numbers at our house. Feelings were not welcome. So average American lives to be just under 80. So let's be generous and say that the average person lives to be 80. So zero to 20, you're essentially growing 20 to 40. You're essentially second quarter, you're building your life, you're making decisions about marriage and jobs and careers and education, 40 to 60, you're kind of in your prime at that point because you built your life. So third quarter, you're in your prime and 60 to 80 is your fourth quarter, which a lot of people, and if you get to live past 80, which a lot of people do, you get bonus over time. And a lot of my friends joke, sudden death over time kind of thing.

(: 04:48

And if you're lucky, you get to, but most of us don't make it past 80. And so as you get to that 60 to 80, you do realize already shift a little bit, you begin to see things differently and you also begin to realize, okay, there is an end to this. And so it does rearrange things in your head, and some people process that better than others. But the one study that always go back to Kate, that to me is sort of the landmark. One is from out of Yale where a woman who was an epidemiologist, I don't even how she got on this project, but she began to study all the studies of aging, like hundreds of them. And she found a really simple fact that if you have positive beliefs, positive hopes, positive dreams and positive expectations about aging in your fourth quarter on average, you will live eight years longer than people who don't. And that actually is more effective in elongating your life and giving you higher quality life, not just longer, but quality that's more effective than lowering your cholesterol. It's more effective than losing weight, and it's even more effective than quitting smoking. That's the one that got my attention. It's like just having positive expectations and dreams for your fourth quarter actually has a massive impact on the quality and the quantity of life that you have. Even better than quitting smoking.

Kate Volman (: 06:08

Oh, wow. I mean, that doesn't feel very surprising just because isn't that life in general that I mean, you have a better, if you are thinking more positively and you have a plan and you are working towards something and making progress. I hear a lot of stories about people who after they retire, they can become very depressed. They get very sad because they don't have a purpose every day. And if you wake up and you don't have a purpose, I know to some people it might seem like, oh, I just want to wake up and I want to play golf and lay at the beach and hang out. But do we really want that kind of life?

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 06:47

It's good for about a week. Yeah, week 10 days. Yeah,

Kate Volman (: 06:49

You need purpose.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 06:51

Yeah, and you're right. I mean, you're the queen of dreams. I mean, you're the dream queen. And so you get that. I mean, whether you're 20, 40, 60 or 80, having dreams and that positive anticipation and something that's driving you makes all the difference in the world in terms of your quality of life and your satisfaction and your vibrancy. You, you're right, but I mean, I guess maybe it's because I grew up in North Carolina where everybody smoked, and I'm in the generation of people that we were always taught not to smoke. To actually think that to have the data that shows to have positive dreams, hopes, expectations and beliefs about your fourth quarter is more effective to elongating your life than quitting smoking. To me, that was jarring. It really was because all your life you've been talking about, oh, if you smoke, you're going to die. You're going to die early, you're going to die this painful, horrible death. And the best thing you can do is quit smoking. It turns out, actually, like you said, having dreams and expectations is more powerful. So I guess maybe I'll start smoking and see what finds out and see what I

Kate Volman (: 07:50

Can find out. No, no, that could not be good. Don't do that test. That's probably not a good thing. This

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 07:56

Podcast sponsored by Camel.

Kate Volman (: 08:01

Oh my gosh. Well, let's talk about that because for, well, a couple things. One, obviously we help people with their dreams and we are helping them rediscover their dreams and then achieve their dreams. And it's so, I don't know why it still sometimes shocks me how many people don't ask that question or aren't thinking about or have never written down their dreams or have lost their dreams, and this is when they're still in their thirties, forties and they don't really think about it. And the importance of really having not only those dreams, but then actually working towards those dreams, having a plan for their dreams. And so with fourth quarter, what we sometimes hear, in fact, I was speaking at an event a few months ago and it was a group of older people and we were talking about dreams and one of them was not the most positive person in the room. And she talked about how, what are you talking about? I am 67 years old, my life is over. What am I going to dream about? I've done everything that I what? And it was very sincere, sincerely, what are you talking about? We don't have lot after 60. So that's a conversation that you have with a lot of people. And how do you have that conversation? What do you say to them?

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 09:30

I do a lot of work with guys. I don't know, it just sort of worked out that way. And I do a lot of work in groups. A lot of groups want to be talking about this together, which is fascinating that really more people want to be talking about this collectively than they do individually one-on-one. Fascinating. And they kind of learn from each other and they're surprised by each other. And no matter whether I'm doing a 12th session thing or a four session thing or whatever it is, I always start with what are your dreams for your fourth quarter? And it really is, it's an interesting question for some people, like you said, it's like, oh, I never really thought about that. I mean, I just gave this talk not long ago to a group of about 125 men, all professional guys from 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM on a Friday morning, so many hardcore dudes.

(: 10:11

And guy comes up to me, he goes, man, I never really thought about this. He said, I'm turning 60 this year. I'm an executive vice president of Ernst and Young, or Pricewaterhouse, one of those big accounting firms. He said, and I just realized when you said that I have spent my entire life engineering it to get to this point, to have this career and to have this title, and that's all going to go away. What am I going to do? Well start dreaming now. That's what you're going to do. And so some of it's around travel, some it's around, like you said, the purpose. Some of it's how am I going to interact relationship wise? There's lots of good stuff around that. And one of the things that Matthew and I really focused on in the book that really makes what we do different than anybody else that's out there really talking about aging and that kind of stuff is what kind of person do you want to become?

(: 10:58

I mean, we come at this from a best version of yourself, model and also from a faith model, and we are all going to die. And from a faith model, you are going to encounter your maker. And so what kind of condition do you want your soul to be in? Do you want to be the most generous version of yourself? Do you want to be the most patient version of yourself? Where do you need to grow? What are your strengths? And so we are the virtues inside of you, not just what are you doing? I think that's so wrong with how people approach this. It's all external. It's like now let's go internal for a minute. Who are you? What are the virtues that you really want to develop in your fourth quarter? And how do you do that so that you finish? Well, if you're a golfer, drive for show putt for dough. If you're a runner, it's that you finished strong in that last lap, and that's what we're talking about is the race doesn't run out. So how do you finish? The beauty is you get to define that whether you're a faith-based person or not, you get to define what does it mean in my life to finish well and who do I want to be, not just what do I want to do, but who do I want to be when I finish?

Kate Volman (: 12:03

Yeah, I thought that that section is interesting because it asks about picking the virtue that you want to work on in your fourth quarter. In the Dream Manager, we talk about it from a perspective of, okay, what do you want to work on over the next year? But then in the fourth quarter, it's very intentional. What is that virtue that you really want to focus on? And when you're working with your groups and one-on-one, is there one virtue that you feel like lots of people have in common that they want to work on?

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 12:39

To me, that's the most fascinating part about what we get to do because the premise that in all the research, we boiled it down to five real keys or secrets to thriving in your fourth quarter. And one of those, like you said, is to embrace your fourth quarter virtue. If you focus on one virtue and really intentionally pursue that, it will actually bear fruit in other parts of your life and other virtues. If you try to pursue six or eight virtues and try to become more generous, more patient, more loving, more forgiving, all those kinds, you don't make any progress, but do focus on one and these other ones begin to sprout. And so when we start talking about that, first of all, people find it, like you said, very captivating. And I really thought most people would gravitate toward generosity that they would say, because we think about in your fourth quarter, giving money away, volunteering, giving your time away and those kinds of things.

(: 13:26

And some do. But it's funny how many, I mean for me was I realized that I'm not anywhere near as loving as I would like to be or as that I think that I should be and that I think I have been and tend to be more selfish than I desire to be. And so I really kind of focused my fourth quarter around becoming the most loving version of myself and in different situations and conversations, pausing for a minute and go, okay, what's the most loving thing I can say here? What's the most loving response that I can do? Or what's the most loving act in this situation? And so I've got one client, his is humility, which really surprised me, CEO of a public company. He goes, I really need to work on humility because people tell me how great I am all the time, and I know that I'm not, but I know that as soon as I retire all that, I've gotten used to all these people telling me how great I am. So I really want to work on humility. So it is fascinating. It really is the ones that people pick

Kate Volman (: 14:20

Just for the listener. We're talking about being loving as this is, we're recording on Allen's wedding anniversary to his beautiful wife of 37 years, which is so wild. So I'm sure she's happy that that's your focus.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 14:39

Yeah. So I was going to say that's another example of how unloving I am, is that here I'm on my 37th wedding anniversary and I'm talking to you doing a podcast. What is the matter with me? Thanks for pointing that out. I appreciate that. That helps my

Kate Volman (: 14:50

Humility. Get it together, Allen,

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 14:52

Get it

Kate Volman (: 14:52

Together.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 14:53

That's right. Yeah, you're my humility coach. That's right.

Kate Volman (: 14:56

So I think it's interesting that when you talk about group coaching and how people want to talk about this, women, I am fascinated by women. We will share our deepest, darkest secrets with the stranger we just met at the table or that we ran into in the ladies room or something.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 15:18

And

Kate Volman (: 15:19

Then they don't do that. They don't come together. It feels like it's not as natural for them to come together. That's not true. They come together, but they don't talk about the things that women talk about. They'll come together and they'll just talk about sports or their set

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 15:36

Beer, golf,

Kate Volman (: 15:38

The kind of service level. I mean, I think every woman that will share that their boyfriend or husband or significant other will get off the phone with them and Oh, my buddy's getting married. And they'll ask him questions like, oh, when did it happen? How did it happen? And how long have they been together? And he knows nothing about anything. And it's like, what is this? And so I think it's wonderful to be able to have groups like this where people are talking about life in this way, and I think that it's so meaningful and that men really do want it, but there doesn't seem to be as many opportunities for them as there are for women.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 16:16

And that's a great observation. And I guess two thoughts on that. One is I was a pastor for 20 years before I transitioned to writing and speaking and that kind of stuff. And so I think people that I meet with tend to self-select oftentimes in church and faith-based settings, first of all. So there's that bias. And secondly, it is, I guess, surprising to me. It's not shocking, but it is surprising to me because I've spent so much of my life talking about these kinds of things. And it's surprising to me. I've got one group of 75 men that I meet with one half Saturday, a Saturday morning, once a month for a year. So we completed one cohort last year. We doing another cohort this year. And these are all guys that are, they're fairly affluent, they're fairly successful, is a certain demographic in this area that I lead this workshop in, and they all fit that demographic.

(: 17:10

And it is surprising to me how many of them, and to your point, a lot of them are in their thirties, forties, and fifties, which is good, but how many of them say, this is so helpful to me because I don't ever have anywhere in my life where I can take a step out and actually look and ask myself some of these larger questions. And that kind of makes me sad, to be honest. It's like you're so busy with the stuff of life taking care of your kids and working and traveling for this business event and making that sale and taking your wife out to dinner, that you never take a step back and go, where am I actually going and why am I going there and what am I trying to accomplish in this? And so they're really grateful for that. But I guess I spent so much of my time in my life thinking about stuff from a 30,000 foot level that it surprises me that people don't occasionally take that step out to do that, to really think about, I've been on this boat for a long time, but I don't have any idea where it's going.

(: 18:02

Or in fact, I'm not even sure who else is on the boat with me. It is fascinating. It really is.

Kate Volman (: 18:07

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I mean, this is why coaching exists, right? It's that opportunity to have someone to talk to have that third party person. In fact, I remember a couple years ago I was coaching someone in Dream Manager, and it was so cool because he said, and this is someone that told me right in the beginning, I'm not sharing my feelings, so if you think I'm sharing my feelings, I'm not. And I'm like, okay, you can do, this is your session.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 18:33

Thanks so much. Exactly.

Kate Volman (: 18:35

Yeah. Meanwhile, three months in, he's in tears. And I was like, yay, we're making some progress. But I'll never forget, he was talking about how he said, I wish that I've made more progress in this program, but what it feels like is I feel like I have been steering a ship in one direction and it's slowly moving, and I know that it takes some time to turn a ship around, and I've been going in one direction for so long, and it was like, oh, just that idea of he feels like he is making progress, but it's just taking a little bit of time because he's just so used to the grind and doing the same thing.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 19:18

Yeah. It's like the guy that was the senior vice president or whatever it was of Ernst & Young or whatever it was. All I've done is this now, because when all you've done is that you're not going to just turn on a dime, it's like, okay, first of all, I got to start thinking and dreaming, and then I got to begin mapping this out, and then I need to bring my wife and my family along on this. It's not just me on this fourth war journey. And that's what we tell because all these guys that in that one cohort, I mean, they're all get it done, fixer leader, blah, blah, blah, spreadsheet, Gantt, sharp, blah, blah, blah. And so they don't want, in the beginning they're like, we just get to our fourth quarter plan. I was like, no, January and February, I said, in November, December, we will. But this is a process of helping you really listen for the voice of God and listen into yourself as to who you are, who you want to be, and if you just rush to the plan, it's just going to be yet another thing. You stick on the bookshelf and you never come back to. It's like, no, but people want to rush through it just like is another part of life. It's not. It's really not. And it matters, man. It matters. I mean, how you finish matters.

Kate Volman (: 20:21

It does matter. I know. Look,

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 20:25

Doesn't matter. Thank you for validating my feelings, Kate.

Kate Volman (: 20:33

Well, it's so great too, right? When were you talking, what page should I flip to? What matters most?

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 20:38

What matters most?

Kate Volman (: 20:39

What matters most? So why don't you share a little bit about what are some of the things that we can do to have a great fourth quarter, have the best fourth quarter?

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 20:52

So like you've mentioned, we wrote the two books. One was The Fable, No Regrets, A Fable About Living Your Fourth Quarter Intentionally, because we really felt like when we started this project that when you talk to people in the US about aging, I don't know what it's like to talk to 'em in Brazil or Germany, but in the US when you talk to people in the US about aging, their eyes just sort of glaze over and they go, yeah, I know I'm going to get old and I'm going to die in, they tune out. And so we thought, how do we get people's attention? That's why we wrote the Fable, to kind of try to lead them into a story where they go, oh, wow, I probably should think about this a little bit. And then the fourth quarter of your life, which you're pointing out, and I appreciate you wearing the matching dress today, that was over and above the call of duty. Well done. You think I could, at least on my anniversary, I could at least have worn a shirt that matches my book cover.

(: 21:43

That one's, like you said, it's kind of a workbook. It's 40 exercises, some of which you can do in a few minutes, some of which you're going to need to reflect on for a few days or weeks even, but it's not necessarily meant to be done sequentially. You can kind of come in and out in that book however you want, depending on what's grabbing you at a certain time. And so what that does is it gives you different kinds of exercises to begin thinking about your fourth quarter from different perspectives and angles and kind of baked into that are the five keys to thriving in your fourth quarter. And the first one, again, we come at it from a faith perspective, is to say yes to God, because that opens up a whole different dimension of your life, and it also reminds you of who you are and where you're going.

(: 22:25

The second one is to forgive often. I think that's one of the things that has surprised me the most along the way, Kate, is how much baggage people bring into the fourth quarter and it kind weighs 'em down. And I would venture to say that even like the woman you were saying, the 67, 60 9-year-old woman says, my life's essentially over dreaming stuff I would venture to say might be wrong, that there's probably some stuff there, there's some regrets, there's some pain, there's some wounds and stuff that she realizes she can't really get past. And so she's just kind of stuck. And so that forgiveness thing matters more than it initially appears. Third one is to give it away. That generosity really is a hallmark of a thriving fourth quarter. All kinds of good research on all five of these. By the way, these aren't just things that we made up, but to give your money away, to give your time away, to give your love away, to give your friendship away, to give yourself away in your fourth quarter actually is like you were talking about earlier, that sense of purpose when all you're doing every day is figuring out, okay, what's going to give me pleasure today?

(: 23:29

Is it playing golf? Is it going to the beach? Is it even taking my wife out? That's a pretty empty life in a hurry if you're not careful. And so that giving it away in every aspect of your life is crucial. Number four is to be open to life. You and I were talking about this along the way. The tendency as you age is to kind of shrink your life, to develop habits and say, these are the things that I do, and I don't do anything else. These are the places I eat. I don't go anywhere else. This is where I vacation. I don't go anywhere else. These are my hobbies. I don't do anything else. These are my four friends. I don't do anything else. And your world gets smaller and smaller and smaller, and all the research shows you need to do the exact opposite.

(: 24:08

You need to push against that tendency, try to make some new friends, particularly people who are younger than you, indulge yourself, learn a new hobby, go on a trip that you never would've envisioned. Learn a new language, learn to play a musical instrument, something so that you're pushing yourself to stretch and grow in new ways. And then the fifth one, as you mentioned earlier, is to embrace a fourth quarter virtue that really lends a real fuel and momentum to your fourth quarter if you have that virtue, that kind of is a centerpiece each day that I really am working on joy. A lot of people want to pick that one. It's like, yeah, I think I lost my joy along the way. And so in my fourth quarter, I really want to rediscover that joy, or again, using generosity as one of those that it wins a real crisp focus to your fourth quarter that produces all kinds of other blossoms and fruit in your life.

Kate Volman (: 24:58

You say all of them, and it makes so much sense if we get these things right.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 25:03

Yeah, do those five.

Kate Volman (: 25:05

Yep. And one of the chapters that I really love is the one about regrets and the story about how Matthew and visited the hospice nurses and how he shares the regrets of the people who are dying and oh my gosh, just read that list alone. And I feel like it inspires us to say, oh my gosh, I don't want to be saying these things at the end of my life, and so what do I need to do to make sure that that doesn't happen? Some of the ones that I highlighted was, I wish I had made spirituality more of a priority. I wish I hadn't spent so much time worrying about things that never happened. I wish I had stayed in touch with old friends. I wish I had touched more lives. I wish I had lived more in the moment. There was one about I wish I had loved more just to your point of giving stuff away, but the whole worrying about things that don't happen. I mean, I think about how many people, we talk about scenarios and what if this and that, and we spent all this energy when instead we could be focusing on some of these other things. And these other things are part of what's in the workbook. So is there a chapter or a section that you really love doing the most with people or that has surprised you the most when it comes to the people's outcome or just how they interact with the content?

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 26:38

And you just hit on it. It's fascinating how much people gravitate toward that topic of regrets. The one that always gets me is, I wish I'd had the courage just to be myself. How much time do we spend placating other people or pretending to be somebody that we're not or pretending to be invisible? We're not having that courage, but Matthew and I can both attest that in terms of YouTube video views, in terms of requests for talks, regrets is always the number one. One. I have a session I do in my retreats and workshops and that kind of stuff around regrets. I tell you there's essentially three things that you can do with your regrets. One is to learn from them learning moment two is to redeem them. Like a friend of mine, an extreme example, but he and his college girlfriend got pregnant and he really, really, really encouraged her to have an abortion.

(: 27:31

And he regretted that for 40, 50 years. And in his fourth quarter, he is really used his position in his money to help create pregnancy centers and that kind of stuff to help women really think about that. So you can learn, you can redeem. And what I really focus on is the rest of what we're going to do together in our fourth quarter. Visioning, dreaming, mapping is you can create a plan if you know that these are the regrets, because the chapter that you alluded to, these are the most frequent ones. So these are the ones that you're most likely to have. If you know that now you can create a plan to avoid having those regrets. So you can only redeem regrets and learn from regrets that you already have. You can also map out a plan that's going to reduce the likelihood that you're going to have these 15 or 20 regrets, because if you don't, you probably are going to have 'em. So how do we create those positive dreams and expectations and a plan so that you say, I actually did have the courage to be myself. I actually did love the people that mattered most to me. I actually did use my gifts, et cetera.

Kate Volman (: 28:31

How do you coach people on helping them let go in order to move forward if they have something in their life? I feel like some of us like that gentleman. I mean, you made a decision. Obviously we know we, we can't go back but it, it's so challenging to let go, and if we can't let go, it's so hard to move forward. So how do you coach people through a challenging situation so that they can open up their heart and their mind to really take advantage of the workbook and all the activities and have a great fourth quarter and envision it in a way that makes them excited?

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 29:09

Well, I mean there's a lot of layers to that. As you know, Kate Volman, one of them is that forgiveness, that forgiving often, and a lot of times it's forgiving of self that we need to really spend some time on that. And so I've got some exercises to help people work through how do I forgive myself? And secondly, I mean, again, not to toot your horn as the queen of dreams, but the dreaming really helps you to forgive me for quoting Vince Gill, but there ain't no future in the past. And so the dreams help you to envision the future. You can't change that past or CS Lewis said, you can't go back and rewrite the beginning, but you can begin right now to write the ending. And so let's talk about that. Let's talk about forgiveness and forgiving of self, and let's talk about how we might redeem some of those regrets and what we need to learn, but let's focus on what we can actually control and let's actually listen for the voice of God in terms of what do I want this fourth quarter to look like and let's move toward that.

(: 30:07

Now, sometimes it takes some people longer than others because they're, like you said, they're really stuck in the mire and other people are able to move kind of quickly through that. But the forgiving, the dreaming are really, to me would be the two biggest words. Forgive and dream.

Kate Volman (: 30:23

Can you share a story of someone that you're coaching that stands out to you that you're really proud of? That was a really incredible kind of breakthrough that they had because of the Q4 coaching.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 30:37

Let's call him Bill, give him a fake name there, or whatever the word pseudonym. Bill came to me actually because his wife was really concerned about him, and she called and she said, I need to help Bill because Bill is stuck, and I'm really worried that this is going to spiral even more downward than it already is. And he was mid to late fifties, just busy doing his stuff, had kind of bounced around from a few jobs, wasn't happening, any of them. And the place that he was at, he had recently changed, and so he couldn't change again, but he felt completely invisible and not like he was adding value or was even significant in the place. And he really kind of lost track along the way of who he really is. And I think what helped him the most was what you said there in chapter seven of the book is what matters most?

(: 31:38

Let's spend some time Bill thinking through, don't worry about what matters most to your boss or your company or let's don't worry about what matters most to your wife or to other people that you feel like have expectations of you, what matters most to you. And as we talked about that and as we worked through that, we kind of identified the several things that really are the hallmarks of Bill. None of them are professional achievement. None of them are income. I mean, that stuff just doesn't matter to him. And so some of that is the courage to be myself. It's like these things over here are what actually really matter to me. And I said, you can be in a job that you don't like that pays you. As long as you're not trying to attach all of your identity and value and worth in the world to the job that you don't like, they don't appreciate you.

(: 32:25

This is the stuff that gives you life. This is where you find meaning. This is what you want to be remembered for. This is the legacy you want to leave. These are the investment. I mean, the relationships you want to invest in. Let's create a plan that allows you to do that. And the job is just over here, but so many, and you can speak to this better than I can about women, but so many men, this quite well from the work you do. So many men identify and define themselves by what their job is and what they do. A lot of what I try to help them understand is what you do, not just your job, but what you do. Anything is only one expression of who you are. First of all, it's not who you are. And second of all, it's not the only expression of who you are.

(: 33:03

So let's ratchet that down a bit because at some point that's going to go away. And the people that I find struggle the most are the people that can't let that go. And so they're in their fourth quarter, they're 70, they're 75 and they're 80, and they're still desperately clinging on in the third quarter trying to be professionally relevant and trying to be successful by the business world, standards, that kind of stuff. And they don't realize that everybody else is looking at it. I'm like, what are you doing? You're just kind of flailing around. But they can't change in their mind because they invested so much in that third quarter of being this premier lawyer or this premier entrepreneur or this premiere speaker, whatever. They can't let it go. And their fourth quarter really just becomes, it actually becomes pretty miserable for everybody around them because they don't ever recognize that they're in the fourth quarter.

Kate Volman (: 33:45

Oh my gosh. Yeah,

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 33:47

It's fun. I love getting to do this. I mean, I really, really do. And I actually come to these group settings a lot in terms of the transformation of these guys sitting. Usually there'll be six of 'em at a table and there's like 10 tables or whatever, and the little interactions that they have is actually listen to each other, and as they slowly but surely, like you were talking about, slowly but surely, they begin to open up a little bit. And once one or two guys opens up, that's the advantage of having been a pastor 20 years is that I can kind of accelerate that process on how to do that. Once one or two of 'em do it, the flood gates begin to open, you're not quite as vulnerable. And so identifying somebody that you feel like early on, if I can just get this guy to stand up and share a little bit for the whole group, everybody else is going to open up in a hurry. Those little kinds of things that really accelerate it.

Kate Volman (: 34:32

Yeah, I really appreciate that group setting too, especially because I know that it can be challenging for men to really open up in those ways, but what's beautiful about it is, gosh, you need it. Because I wonder how many people are going to bed at night thinking I'm the only one. I'm the only one that feels this way. I'm the only, and you and I, of course you're not. That's why people resonate so much with books because we read these books and we're like, oh my gosh, they're speaking directly to me. Yeah, they're speaking directly to you because you are having the same challenges. Millions of people not only are having, but have had hundreds and hundreds of years ago, these are not problem E

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 35:16

Would've struggle with this. That's right. That's right. Yeah. And I think that's why the response surprised us to the books. Back to your original question, it was so many people felt like they were the only one. And wow, it's nice that somebody else will talk about this, and then if there's other people that want to talk about this, how can I talk about this because I can't find anybody to talk about this with. And it turns out there's gazillions of people like that. And the related point of you're talking about with the men, that's unrelated to that aspect. But the other aspect is one of the longest studies, I think it was like 70 years studying multiple generations of families and aging found this was done by Harvard, found that the single greatest, I guess, factor or predictor of your happiness and life satisfaction in fourth quarter was having positive relationships.

(: 36:07

So whether those are family or some close friends, but people three to five people that you really are genuinely sharing life with because as we're saying, a lot of men struggle with that just to have friendships, and they struggle to really be genuinely close to their wives and close to their kids. And so a lot of guys are incredibly lonely, and so you put 'em in these settings where they can actually begin to make friends and see other guys that are struggling with the same stuff. There's some real fertile ground there as well as they begin to bond with each other and go, okay, yeah, I can figure this out.

Kate Volman (: 36:41

Yeah, I love that. Okay, Allen, you're so awesome. Thank you for not only coming on the show, but thank you so much for writing these books.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 36:54

Welcome

Kate Volman (: 36:54

And for putting them out in the world. And I mean, you've written many other books as well. This book is, it is just amazing and incredible how it is impacting people's lives. We, of course, at Floyd love using it as a resource and with our Q4 coaching clients, and I'm just so grateful for the work that you're doing. It's obviously very needed and it's just a remarkable book.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 37:21

We are very, very blessed that this has kind of opened up before us and we've kind of stumbled into it. Who knew? So thank you for having me. And last thing I'll tell you, Kate Volman, back to your thing about worry, Cornell study, 85% of the things that we worry about never actually happen.

Kate Volman (: 37:38

I know. Crazy, right?

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 37:41

And of the 15%, this is the best part. So 85% does ever happen. Of the 15% that does happen, 12 of those, 15%, 12% of the time, we go, I'm glad it happened. I actually learned something from this, or I handled it better than I thought that it would. So there's only 3% of what we worry about actually happens and turns out bad. So 97% of the time,

Kate Volman (: 38:01

This is why this is, it's these small, it's these little things that we need to do continuously. It's not this one quick fix. It's like this constant learning, and it's just this is why.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 38:13

And that's where a good coach, yeah, like you said, that's where a good coach comes in.

Kate Volman (: 38:15

That's where a good coach comes in. All last question, what's it like writing a book with Matthew Kelly?

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 38:23

I don't know who that is. Just kidding. It's funny because when we started working on those things and Matthew goes, have you got any thoughts on how we do this? Because I've never actually written a book with somebody else before, and I said, neither am I.

Kate Volman (: 38:36

Oh,

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 38:37

Wow. It was a fun experience. We wrote the two books differently and we collaborated on them differently, but it was really fun. What I love about Matthew among many things, but one of the things I love about him is he just thinks about stuff really differently than the average human being. His brain is just different. And so I'm a real extrovert, give me a lot of people kind of thing. He's not. He's a real creative thinker. And so it was fun. It was just fun.

Kate Volman (: 39:08

That's awesome. Oh, I love it. All right, Allen, you're amazing. We'll have to have you come back on because there's obviously, we could dig into all these different topics. I mean, every chapter could be a whole episode, really. So, all right. You're awesome. Thank you so much.

Dr. Allen Hunt (: 39:25

Peace and love, Kate. Peace and love.

Kate Volman (: 39:31

I hope you enjoyed this episode, and there was at least one idea, one story, something that Allen shared that is inspiring you to think about your life a little bit differently if you are in the fourth quarter of your life, or hey, if you're in the second or third quarter and you just want to be a little bit more intentional about your life, and like Allen talked about, not only do we have to create those dreams and have those dreams for ourselves, but then we get to create a plan to achieve those dreams. So if you are interested in digging into the workbook, I highly recommend you get a copy of The Fourth Quarter Of Your Life as well as No Regrets and dig into the workbook, dig into the workbook. And like Allen said, you don't even have to go chapter by chapter. You can go to different sections and see what is really resonating you at this time in your life and focus on those areas.

(: 40:25

Obviously, going through the workbook is amazing, but if you want some support, if you want some coaching, someone that's not only going to encourage you but also hold you accountable to doing the things that you say you want to do to make sure that you have the most incredible fourth quarter of your life, we would love to have that conversation with you. So of course, you can reach out to us here at Floyd, and we would love to talk about what coaching might look like for you. So if you're interested in learning more, you can go to q4coaching.com. Thank you so much for being here. Until next time, Lead with Culture.