The Father of Financial Life Planning (Part 1) | George Kinder | 140 - Catching Up to FI: Financial Independence for Late Starters

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
the layer of maturity.
And that's pretty cool.
And that's what you guystalk about a lot, I think.
And wonderful, wonderfulto hear your lessons.
So the first one , I heard morein the podcast I listened to of
yours than any of the others.
And that is knowledge, just simplyknowing how money works, how budgets
work, how the stock market works, howfreedom works in relation to money, how

(00:25):
you put together money, you know howyou have a plan and structure it so that
you can live the life you wanna live.
in that cubicle, I was plottingout can I sell my practice?
Should I move to Costa Rica?
How can I get free?
Because I had a passion.
And my passion was not a,a financial guru, not to be

(00:45):
a visionary thought leader.
My passion was to be an artist and to be aspiritual, to live a deep spiritual life.
So those were my two passions, andthe world just did not give me a
path to do that and give me money.
You know, there was a saying back then, dowhat you love and the money will follow.

(01:08):
we go through a darkness, we come to amoment of awakening and then we expand
and we're able to do many more things.
Just an incredible thing.
It is a hero's journey.
What you guys have done is heroicand you're now modeling that with
your podcast, which is really cool.
but everybody has their version of thatin a way, and it's this trajectory right?
From birth to death.

(01:29):
And there's a story.
So we've all got our stories.
and the question that, what I realizedwith that, and this is back to life
planning in the three questions

(02:07):
Hello and welcome backto Catching Up to FI.
I am so excited today.
The rain is pitter patteringon the outside of my house.
It's spring is coming.
Everything's in bloom.
And today we have one ofmy heroes on the show.
Jackie, one of your heroes too, andyou learned from his works as part
of your CFP and A FC education.

(02:28):
But I started my journey asa late starter reading the
seven Stages of Money Maturity.
And today, Jackie, we get totalk to the author George Kinder.
What do you think?
We get to be in the same space aswonderful people like George Kinder, and
obviously he's had such an impact on you.
As you know, part of my program atKansas State was financial therapy

(02:50):
and George Kinder was like the topof the hierarchy as far as financial
psychology, living a better life.
And we'll talk more about his workand how, to me, he kind of changed
how we look at financial planning bycoming up with this whole new genre.
So I'm excited too.
Our audience may not know who he is.
He, he's sort of the best kept secret infinancial planning for some reason, and

(03:13):
we need to shout it to the mountaintopsand, and bring him to the forefront of our
late starter audience because they willbenefit from his teachings really well.
And this is only gonnascratch the surface.
We're hoping to peak yourinterest into diving deeper into
all the work that he's done.
But let me introduce him.
George Kinder is an author, apoet, an accomplished photographer,

(03:34):
international thought leader, consummaterenaissance man and visionary futurist.
He's known as the father of life planning.
George has been at the forefront of thefinancial services industry for decades.
He spearheaded a movement that centersthe lives that clients long to live
within their own financial plan.
Through his books, workshops, andkeynotes, George has introduced

(03:55):
thousands of professionals globallyto the field of financial life.
Planning his three books on money,the Seven Stages of Money Maturity
Lighting, the Torch, and Life Planningfor You are Considered Foundational
Works in delivering client-centeredadvice after nearly 30 years as a
practicing financial planner and taxadvisor, George founded the Kinder

(04:15):
Institute of Life Planning in 2003.
Under his leadership, George'sKinder Institute has taught over
6,000 professionals across 30countries through its immersive
experiential training programs.
His recent book focuses on civilizationstarting with a golden civilization and
the map of mindfulness, understandingcivilization as both human evolution and

(04:38):
the evolution of environments of freedom,which is what we're talking about today.
People, his passion is to help create acivilization that is organically fosters
the best of humanity as it diminishes.
Its very worst.
read his latest book, the Three Domainsof Freedom, and here he inspires
readers to experience three profoundfreedoms, the freedom of each moment, the

(05:01):
freedom to live one's, life's purpose,and the freedoms of civilization.
He advocates a sustainable approach forinstitutions to prioritize humanity.
Democracy, the earth, Gaia, aswe would say, and the truth above
all their own self-interest.
A concept.
He terms fiduciary in all things, or fiat.

(05:22):
My claim to fame is that George and Iwent to the same high school and we're
reminiscing about that just moments ago.
George, welcome to Catching Up to FI.
What an intro bill.
My golly thank you so muchand wonderful to connect.
We've connected briefly,but at a great distance.
So nice to actually see yourface and hear your voice.

(05:43):
Well, you live your life in England,in Massachusetts, and in Maui.
Why all those three places?
Why does it take threeplaces to live life?
you know, that's a really good question.
It was one place at a time.
But I think my passion from the verybeginning and possibly from birth,
my passion has been for freedom.

(06:03):
and the first place that I foundfreedom was here on a, pond called
Spectacle Pond in not far fromWalden Pond in Massachusetts.
And it felt like paradise to arrive here.
I'd always wanted to live in the country.
I'd grown up in the country, not,not too far from where you guys are.
But southern Ohio was where I grew up.
And then I just lived inthe northeast pretty much.

(06:25):
I discovered Maui and I'mlike, go, whoa, holy cow.
And I moved to live withan indigenous community.
Maui one of the smallest townsin the and most indigenous
towns in the Hawaii islands.
And then London came up.
It was a really weird thing.
I know we're gonna talk about some ofmy visioning exercises for people.

(06:46):
And in one of those visioningexercises about 15 years ago, out
of the blue in the most profound,in answer to the most profound
question, the city of London came up.
And it was basically calling me andsaying, you gotta come over here.
And from then on, I've spent a coupleof months, a year over there and it's a
great place for me working internationallyto engage with financial institutions,

(07:13):
with advisors all over Europe.
So it's a wonderful kindof place to to be for me.
Well, I would call you a financialanthropologist in many ways.
You are a historian and a futurist atthe same time, and an anthropologist
because you're looking at howmoney, fiat currency, financial

(07:35):
planning, all intersect with whatit means to be human and what it
means to live a fulfilling life.
Right.
Right on.
That's it.
And too often, and, you guys know thistoo often, people get looped into money
in crazy ways, and they don't put whothey are really meant to be first.
And I know your frame onit is a freedom frame.

(07:57):
And that's my frame too.
I mean, I read your book The SevenStages of Money Maturity, and it
was kinda like a rebirth for me.
And we're now what 30 years later andyou're writing a new book that's shorter,
that distills all this information.
But let's go through so under peopleunderstand what the seven stages are.
Take us through what thoseare, because our late starters

(08:20):
live these stages as well.
They just don't know it.
yeah, yeah.
I mean, the seven stages it's somethingI gathered from philosophical and
religious and literary traditionsfrom all over the world and really
trying to put something together.
I can't claim it as being totallyoriginal because I borrowed
it from many different places.
And it's a notion about howwe grow as human beings.

(08:41):
How we're meant to grow.
And that money, in a way maps thatfirst with our grasping nature, our,
desires and, kind of getting lost in it.
And then we mature.
And then from that maturity, sothere are three basic phases.
One is childhood, where we'rekind of wrestling with it.
We don't really know, and we'rejust driven by our feelings mostly.

(09:02):
And then adulthood, wherehopefully we grow in and learn
some lessons of maturity.
That's the second huge stage.
And then the third frame is whatI call awakening or maturity.
But there's.
The seven stages.
Two of 'em are in the first, are in, arein childhood, and then three in adulthood,

(09:24):
and then two in maturity or awakening.
So the two in childhood, those arethe ones we kind of get caught by.
And we really don't know.
What we're doing is, is, is themain thing that you see in it.
But what happens is we have somekind of messages that we begin to
live our life by often they comefrom our parents, sometimes they

(09:45):
are in reaction to our parents.
Could be either way, or it could befrom others, some other life lesson.
But we haven't gained maturity.
We don't really know . Sowe act in those ways.
You know, they're belief systems andthe notion is that every belief system.
Every just about, I mean,I would say is partial.
There's always an exceptionto it and incomplete.

(10:08):
Meaning you could, or you could evenframe the opposite for most belief systems
that aren't just simply about virtue.
So the belief systems catch us up.
We think the world is one wayand, we have some tough lessons.
Those tough lessons bring up the secondstage, which I call pain, but it's
really it's emotions that we don't knowreally how to handle and what to do with.

(10:31):
So it could be the basic three darkeremotions of fear and sadness and anger,
or it can be all different kinds.
It can be envy andjealousy and humiliation.
There are a whole bunchanxiety, frustration.
So what happens is thatthose innocent messages.
Those beliefs that don't quitework, get hooked to these emotions.

(10:55):
And what I realized was thatthat's a structure of suffering.
If you think about anytime you thinkabout the last time you didn't feel
so good about yourself or about theworld and what was happening there.
And usually there was somebelief system about the way it's
supposed to be or I want it to be.
And then the, the sense that it isn't and.
These uncomfortable feelings,they get hooked together.

(11:17):
And I call that thestructure of suffering.
So that's the first layer, and then thenext layer is the layer of maturity.
And that's pretty cool.
And that's what you guystalk about a lot, I think.
And wonderful, wonderfulto hear your lessons.
So the first one , I heard morein the podcast I listened to of
yours than any of the others.

(11:37):
And that is knowledge, just simplyknowing how money works, how budgets
work, how the stock market works, howfreedom works in relation to money, how
you put together money, you know howyou have a plan and structure it so that
you can live the life you wanna live.
So that's the knowledge piece, butthere's two other elements to maturity
that I think that are really important.

(11:59):
One of them I call understanding, andit's this area of how do you deal with
jealousy, rage terror, fear paranoia.
Tho these are things that arecoming up right now in civilization
a lot, but they come up withmoney, you know, all the time.
And of course, civilization is pullingthe rug out, out from under a bunch
of people so that can throw The moneyloop can make it go pretty crazy.

(12:21):
So what happens is that weget hooked again by our fear.
Our anger, our sadness, ourdepression and understanding it is
this middle layer in the maturity,in the three things, in maturity and
of three things of, of adulthood.
And it's where we learn to be atease the midst of difficult feelings.

(12:43):
It, it's where we learn that they're justbasically, they're primarily sensations
in the body and it's one of the ways thatmindfulness comes in and helps, I think.
But the, anger is only a problem if I,my ego gets hooked and it's only gonna
get hooked if I've got some idea thatI'm clinging to around this anger.

(13:07):
And then I'm in bad shape.
And I even after all my years, Icould occasionally fall into it.
I must say it, it's justpart of being human.
So the skills in understanding are great.
It's about letting learning to letyour thoughts go and they're basically
meditative or contemplative skills.
Learning to let your thoughts go andlearning to let your feelings be.

(13:28):
So getting to know thosefeelings is incredible.
It's like going to a great movie.
You know, 'cause the movie takesyou through this arc, right?
You go down into the depthsand then you rise up.
And that's what really a healthyrelationship with difficult feelings
in involves, is it involves feelingit in a deep way that's rich
and transformative, heroic even.

(13:50):
And so that's the understanding element.
And then the third one is vigor.
You can't do nothing unless you got somebig, you gotta have some vitality, man.
Right?
You gotta, you gotta get going.
And I heard that in both yourstories when you woke up and you
go, Hey, I'm, I'm going for it.
I know what I'm going forand I'm gonna make it happen.
And that vigor pieceis extremely important.
And one of the insights I had, and Iknow we'll cover this, is, is that

(14:15):
one of the, I mean there are manyways of getting it and you guys
got it in, in a variety of ways.
And I would say that you hadpart of what I was, my teaching,
it didn't matter 'cause you gotit, you got it, you landed it.
But the teaching that I came up withwas, what I realized is if people had
a really kind of brilliant vision.
Of who they wanted to be, who theyreally wanted to be, that that vigor

(14:39):
gets stimulated like nobody's business.
It's just amazing.
And then they can do almost anything.
They're almost superhuman if theyrealize they can actually have
that because they've got enoughknowledge or they've got the right.
Financial advisor supporter whosays, Hey, you can have that.
You can do it.
Then they get tremendously invigorated.

(15:01):
And when you put those threetogether, knowledge, the heart, so
the brain, the heart, and the body,put those three things together,
man and boy, you're going for it.
And, you're gonna deliver something.
And what the two things at the topof the, of the heap here that in the
final stage of maturity or awakeningare what I call vision and aloha.
And of course, aloha comesfrom my time in Hawaii.

(15:24):
You know, getting to live in the midstof people who've lived there for a
thousand years is really something.
And but before I get to aloha, vision,vision, the way I'm using it there,
it's just a term of art and visionis simply seeing what's necessary
in your community around you, andhaving the knowledge, understanding,
and vigor to make it happen.

(15:46):
And you, you called me a visionaryearly on, and that's where the three
Domains of Freedom Book comes from.
I mean, the first book, sevenStages comes from that too.
But that three domains , is like, here,here I am as a visionary and this is
what we need to do in civilizationand for ourselves to be really free.
But the final stage I call Aloha.

(16:07):
And in aloha it is more personal.
It's like meeting a greatmentor, you know, meet, meeting
somebody who just surprises youwith their kindness or grace.
You might never see them again.
It might be a moment in a grocery store,it might be, it could be anywhere.
And they stun you withhow gracious they are.

(16:27):
And how I think of it it islike the passing of a blessing
from one person to another,regardless of economic difference.
Regardless of economic difference.
we grow, I think we realize what awonderful thing both to receive as
youngsters and all, and as we grow olderto deliver those surprises to people.

(16:48):
We may never see 'em again, but if we cangive them something gracious like that
you know, that really settles everythingand, and gives them the ability to move
through those difficult stages early on.
So those are the seven stages,
those are beautiful.
And you know, as you were going throughthose stages, I'm thinking in my head
about some of the stages that I wentthrough and our late starters for sure,

(17:11):
like the vigor to me kind of stood out.
It's like some people have trouble findingthe vigor or that is almost like that
peak where you're doing something else.
And then as of course, I, referencedyou as a visionary because you
created this life planning and itwas something that did not exist.
Until you had this vision, and we'regonna go back and talk about that

(17:36):
foundation and like where you startedand how did you start to discover that.
I think things need to bea little different and this
birthed an entire new genre.
So this is something that all of ourlate starters should walk through,
Well, what's interesting to me, Jackie, isGeorge's life kinda mirrors his teachings.

(18:00):
What I mentioned before was the visionthere is he's kind of in a cubicle.
But look what's happened fromthe cubicle here and your life
has exploded in each stage.
You went from being a taxaccountant to a certified.
Financial planner where you're dealingwith the money, then you realize the piece
was missing and you went to certifiedlife planner, which is like we're helping
them with their lives, their dreams, theirgoals, and then you move on to, local

(18:22):
communities, society, and civilization.
Your view, your vision hasgotten bigger with each stage
of your life, George, right.
, no question about it, bill.
No question about it.
And you know, a lot of times we thinkif only, if only we, the human species
can be kinder or more thoughtful,that everything will work out.

(18:43):
And there's a lot of truth to that,but there's also a lot of truth
to if we don't have structures.
That facilitate that flourishingfor ourselves and for our neighbors
and for civilization that even if weall, but a handful of us do, that,
that handful could very well be atthe top of hierarchies and power.

(19:04):
And there we are startingto fight each other again.
what I realized was that I wanted to movefrom my initial work with us, with you
and me, with each of us individually.
And what I realized was thatcivilization, I, I mean, I, I
shed a lot of tears about thiscivilization for all the work I'd done.
Look at it.

(19:24):
what's going on here?
And I realized that we also needto do work around the structure and
that's where the the civilizationpiece comes in, but right on.
Yeah.
I mean, you talk about loops, which isinteresting, and as a late starter, I
felt like I got stuck in the innocenceand pain loop where, with regards to
money, I didn't get the external orthe internal influences that helped

(19:46):
me break free of childhood with moneyand into adolescence or adulthood.
And I got stuck in the pain I wasn'taware that I was in pain because that's
the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle.
You're just running to keepfrom falling on your face.
And then somebody needs totap you on the shoulder.
This is the aloha, this is the giving.
Tap you on the shoulder andsay, maximize your 401k.

(20:09):
And then you can move into adulthoodwhere you're obtaining the knowledge.
And people talk about divingdown the rabbit hole of the
FI movement or the financialindependence, retire early movement.
And they go into the blogs,the podcasts, the vlogs.
They come listen to our show, they listento you and your workings and they realize
there's such a more brighter, largerworld out there than I was living in.

(20:31):
And it does get bigger.
But then the piece where I think someof our late starters might not graduate
to, 'cause you talk about vigor andthe goal there is potentially to
reach your own financial independence.
There's a next level, that awakening.
Tell us a little bitmore about the awakening.
'cause we wanna push peopleto not just stop at adulthood.

(20:52):
I.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
And, I just wanna say, you know,that we can have a misguided
notion with the seven stages thatthey are a ladder that we climb.
And as we finish with one rung ofthe ladder, we're onto the next
and we keep climbing higher andhigher, and we end up at, Aloha.

(21:13):
So, Aloha, it's a wonderful example.
Aloha living in an indigenouscommunity in Hawaii.
The people I know are filled with aloha.
And yet what, what happened whenAmerica kind of took over Hawaii?
At first they were embraced withaloha by the native people there.

(21:34):
And what happened was the Americanswith guns kind of took over.
And the people that weredisplaced they had gotten PhDs.
They embraced our education.
They traveled to Englandto sit with the queen.
I mean, they were in.
And then we somehow took over in away that took their land from them

(21:55):
and took a lot of their spirit.
even though they were, withall that aloha at the top in a
way, they fell back quite a bit.
And we can too.
If we don't realize that life is allseven of those stages all the time, when
we get stuck in some place, we need tobring out those skills in adulthood.
We need to get that spadeout and dig the earth.

(22:16):
You know, we gotta put our muscle intoit and we gotta put our brain into it
and we gotta put our good hearts into it.
And if we do that, then wecan climb back out again.
So back to the vision piece, sowe can get stuck in innocence and
pain at any stage of our lives.
What happens by studying these stagesis that we get more and more capable.

(22:38):
Of working our way through.
So the difficult stagesdon't last as long.
So you're talking about thevision stage and the aloha stage.
How do we get that from thatto vigor, from vigor to that?
And again, I think, and this maybetakes us into, toward Evoke and the
other work I've done and that maybethe three domains of freedom, but
I, I think that the most incredibleway to stir up more vigor, so it's

(23:03):
beyond the money, is really to get avision of who you really want to be.
And, and, and I just wannasay, I wanna pitch the people
who are early in your program.
I think you can do this.
If you're mature enough, evenin your late teens or twenties.
Not as well, but certainly bythe time you're 30, you can be
doing a lot of this work to visionwho it is you really wanna be.

(23:26):
And if, if that vision is powerfulenough you'll be able to achieve it.
As you guys have demonstrated, you canachieve it a lot quicker than you realize.
Um,
say that.
Yeah, you That's so true.
It is.
And, and, yeah, I always tell peoplethat once you get started and you
get that vigor, I love that word,vigor, you're going to be able to

(23:47):
move way faster than you ever imagine.
And you, actually did that.
So you've obviously created thisincredible framework, but in the early
days, you know, like Bill was mentioning,you know, you were A-C-P-A-C-F-P-I,
I wanna hear a little bit more aboutyour process and your evolution of

(24:09):
starting out in an industry thatalready had a framework already had,
a repeatable way and a repeatablepath to you saying, you know what?
I've got this vigor, I've got this vision,and I wanna do something different.
And then that was the birthof your life planning.

(24:29):
So, so Bill, what you got?
Well, there's a quote andwe're gonna migrate to the
three domains of freedom here.
And the first freedomis each moment is yours.
And I think that's where we're headed withthis question you have for George and.
I quote him by saying, here we aretrapped by our habits and by the paths
civilization is made available to us.
Paths that only promise freedom many,many years away hobbling into retirement.

(24:52):
And I think that's what you meanwhen you ask what was the vision when
you were sitting in that cubicle,potentially as a tax accountant.
Yeah, that's a great question.
And, and it felt like a cubicle,green eye shades and all the rest.
And I, I did primarily tax returns.
That was what I did.
But here's the, thing that was, was a,I mean, how it was, I got outta there.
The reason I got into taxreturns is you can do 'em just

(25:14):
three months out of the year.
If you're willing to livea very simple lifestyle.
You can do 'em three months out of theyear and then you got a long vacation.
And my passion from thevery beginning was freedom.
And freedom to me meant more aboutmy time than it meant about money.

(25:35):
I mean, money o obviously began tointerweave and more and more as I grew
older, but I was passionate for freedom.
So I was, early on Jackie and Bill, Iwas, you know, in that cubicle, I was
plotting out can I sell my practice?
Should I move to Costa Rica?
How can I get free?
Because I had a passion.
And my passion was not a,a financial guru, not to be

(25:58):
a visionary thought leader.
My passion was to be an artist and to be aspiritual, to live a deep spiritual life.
So those were my two passions, andthe world just did not give me a
path to do that and give me money.
You know, there was a saying back then, dowhat you love and the money will follow.

(26:18):
Yeah.
Yeah, I remember
Yeah, I remember that.
Alright, so Jackie, I never founda single person who would pay
me a dime for one of my poems.
So, so I'm curious, so at what, howold are you at this point, George,
when you're, doing tax returns, you'relike, I don't wanna really do this.
I want to paint and Iwanna do this other stuff.
How old were you?
I was in my twenties, I was in my,

(26:40):
yeah, I was in my twenties.
But I knew even before I, got taxreturns, the reason I chose it
was 'cause I wanted this freedom.
So I was passionate aboutgetting freedom and I actually
think it goes back to birth.
But that's for your psychologycourses and happy to talk about this.
So I, I was passionate and, Bill'stalking about this other notion.
So, so the, dream offreedom is what motivated me.

(27:02):
And we can talk about that in thecontext of either seven stages or we can.
As Bill's pulling us along, and I love it.
We can go to three domainsand look at it there.
The dream of freedom is in thesecond domain, but the first domain
is really interesting and maybe wecan interweave go back and forth.
What do you think?
I
I, I find your first domainis kind of like the atom.

(27:24):
It's the nucleus of everything.
It's the genesis of the power becausepeople don't think about the freedom
is not a place, it's a moment.
It's this moment.
It's sitting here with you right now.
I am free in talking to you, and I've gotto be, we have a hard time in our lives.
It's constructed not to be present.
It's constructed to follow somehabitual path and it's almost autonomic

(27:48):
kind of path what we need to do.
And you talk about meditation andmindfulness as ways of getting
there as structures to get there,but just being present is so hard.
Why is it so hard?
And why is it so important?
Yeah, great question.
and I mean, we live in a world ofillusion in a lot of ways around
this bill because, you know, youlook at I, there's a trick question.

(28:10):
You read it in the book, butthere's a trick question.
If I get an audience of a thousand man,I'm gonna ask this question and I'm
gonna get everybody to raise their hand.
I'll tell 'em it's a trick question.
But the question is, haveyou ever experienced a moment
of freedom in the past?
You know, walking the beach, makinglove, playing with your kids,
doing something wildly creativeyou know, having a great vacation.
Have you ever experienced amoment of freedom in the past?

(28:33):
absolutely.
absolutely.
No, not Wait, wait, wait.
Not in the past.
Not in the past.
I gotcha.
I I caught up to it.
No, you, you can't, you can't.
I mean, I'm, I'm experiencinga moment of freedom right now,
uh, in, in creating, catching up to FI.
no, the past is more like theshackles that hold us back.
but , the past people will remembersomething that feels extraordinary,

(28:54):
which is why they raise their hand.
It feels wonderful, but the truth isthe only place we've ever experienced
freedom is in the present moment.
You know, that's the experience pastdoesn't have an experience, it's gone.
It's a, it's a thought structure now.
It's history.
It's abstract.
But the present moment is alive.

(29:14):
And, this is a curious thing, you, you'reasking a curious question, why is it that
we study so much the past and the future?
That's really how we navigate.
That's what our, our courses in,in our education's all about.
It's how we think about our lives.
We constantly look at what wehappened in the past, and we're
looking to accumulate something sowe can do something in the future.

(29:35):
So the habit is very, very strongbecause we are also creatures
that were born and move throughlife and eventually come to death.
And so there, there's a pastand there's a future that makes,
that makes a lot of sense to us.
And where we're planning is really goodfor that, and we get some freedom from it.
But we miss, we miss thegreatest freedom of all.

(29:59):
And that is that eachmoment we can be free.
if we know the secret, ifwe know that, and we keep
challenging ourselves to go there.
And the reason I, talk about mindfulnessa lot, but there are many ways to do it.
But mindfulness is, mother Nature isthe best of all because you just go
and she's immediately talking to you.
You know, her breeze is on your cheek.
You feel a littlewarmth on the other cheek.

(30:21):
You hear the bird songs in your ear.
The, the wind comes flowing by.
Your limbs are moving moment,after moment after moment.
Do you know, talking about thisfreedom thing in moments, there was
a Scientific American article inDecember of 2024, just a few months ago.
And what it showed, what itshowed, they've now proved that

(30:43):
thought is very, very slow.
And, but that our senses justthink about mother nature in
this regard are senses experiencethings much faster than thought.
And you might go, yeah, that makes sense.
And you think about it,you go, how much faster?
And you go, well, maybe 10 times as fast.

(31:03):
What about a hundred times as fastyou go, well, that may be maybe not a
hundred million times as fast as thought,our senses are gathering information.
That's just incredible.
So we've got it, I mean, Ican't, I can't do it even after
many years of mindfulness.
But we have access to freedom that'smuch, much larger than we realize.

(31:26):
Much, much grander andmindfulness is a practice.
People think of it, oh, it's ameditation practice and it's a bit
woo woo or whatever, but it's, whatit is, is it's actually a practice
to master the present moment.
Mm-hmm.
That's what it's,
It is to expand that time, sortof stretch it out so you can live

(31:47):
there potentially a little longer.
It's really flow.
How can you experience momentaryflow, like the runner's high or the
Japanese that talk about a forest pathwhen they're walking through the woods
and experiencing freedom in the woodsand, reenergizing, if that's a word.
But I, I, I experienced this stuffwhen I'm able to clear my thoughts.

(32:08):
I'm not in a habit.
I'm out in the world outsidegenerally, and on a run, my
thoughts are much clearer.
I come up with new ideas, then peopledo that when I'm sitting at my desk.
It's really hard to force, to forceyourself to come up with a new idea.
I would imagine that all ofyour ideas came up in nature.

(32:28):
Absolutely.
I don't know if all of 'em,but pr practically all of 'em.
I mean, it's a huge number.
And in fact, when I arrivedhere on Spectacle Pond it,
it is kind of a peninsula.
We've got, we've got our home andI saw the end of the peninsulas
about, oh, 110 yards away.
And I thought, and there's a, there wasan old hockey shack of a cabin there that

(32:49):
we'd that was rat infested and everything.
And I thought, boy, I'm gonna make this.
I'm gonna have windows on every sideand I'm gonna immerse myself in nature.
That's where I wrote all 12of my books because of that.
Exactly.
Just to feel nature all around me.
Yeah.
I was gonna say, when it comes towriting, it's the same thing for me.

(33:10):
Like people will say they have awriting schedule and stuff like that.
It doesn't work like that.
Right?
you get in the zone.
Hopefully with maybe some external thingslike nature, sort of encouraging it.
And then once you get in the heartof like writing, you just go, go, go.
When it's flowing.
And that's how, that's howwriting happens for me too.

(33:30):
So it's so interesting thatall of your writing took place
with that type of setting.
Well, tell us a little bit about,tell us a little about Spectacle Pond.
I mean, you're a big fan of Ralph WaldoEmerson and you know, we, we have.
Have ponds in our life.
We have nature in our life.
But you have this pond there and youwrote a book actually didn't write a book.

(33:51):
You produced a book ofphotography and poems.
Tell us about that, because that's whereI think it sounds like you were most
in tune with nature on a daily basis.
Yeah, absolutely.
Bill, and it's it really was a bookthat I, I was doing for 30 years.
I thought of it as I, I still think of itas my legacy, even though people in the
world primarily see me in the money world.

(34:13):
But when I arrived here, I, Icouldn't believe how beautiful it was.
And I was just taken away by thislittle acre and a half, and I
thought, I can do something here.
This is where I was meant to beand all my dreams of freedom.
This felt like it.
And what I did was I gave myself a task,which was to, and, and I used the best

(34:35):
part of my day to make this happen.
So from 6:00 AM till noon.
Every day for those 30 years, I wouldget up, I'd walk out to my cabin
and I would experience nature as Iwent, and I'd come back and forth.
Some always experiencing nature again.
But my, I did,

(34:55):
you know,
I did, I did.
But, and, and have a, have a mealsometimes or something, or, you
know, something's happening in thefamily and have to deal with it.
But the but it was , my task formyself was to live in the present
moment and then to go into the cabinand compose also to go into the cabin

(35:17):
and live a, a meditative life or beoutside and live a meditative life.
So for those six hours, I wastrying to understand what is the
nature of the present moment.
If it's the only moment that is reallyreal, how come we aren't studying it?
So I spent 30 years really looking at,that with the great aid of Mother Nature

(35:40):
around me and writing about it, writingabout it mostly in poetry, sometimes
prose, and then putting together,it's nearly a thousand pages, two page
spreads of photography and poetry.
Which I had a right here, I show you.
But you, you can, you can subscribefor it to it for free if you go on
my website and get, pictures of it.

(36:01):
But, so each day of the yearI wanted to provide some kind
of inspiration for people too.
Explore for themselves.
What is it to be present?
How do I do that?
So I recorded my struggles,I recorded my successes.
Those blissful states that youget to when you do that kind of
work and and the love of nature.

(36:21):
Absolutely.
The wonder of it, the awe of it.
A very different way from what, youknow, just kind of taking advantage
of it, you know, in a, corporate way.
Um.
I mean, it's a journal of momentsand in its own way mentors
us how to do it ourselves.
I look forward to accessing it on yourwebsite and we're a financial podcast,
but look what we're talking about.

(36:43):
We're talking about the essence oflife, the definition of freedom and
money is only a tool to help us reachthese higher states of being so that
we can afford to be free and takethe time to be six hours in nature.
We have to do it, but itisn't a goal in itself.
It's only a tool.
Right.
George?
Right on.

(37:03):
Right on.
And, and you know, that six hours innature, I came back after those six
hours and I'm right here in frontof my computer and I'm engaging
in communication with people.
I'm emails, bills that need toget taxes, need to get paid,
get, yeah.
The reality kidsscreaming around the room.
but having, starting the day with a,a very solid chunk of what I love.

(37:26):
The most gave me anincredible amount of energy.
And as you said earlier, I got alot of ideas even about business
and about family and about, you knowreal life out there as I was crafting
this, work on the present moment.
Yeah.
And George, I was watching a lotof your videos last night where
you were talking about this, butwe'll definitely drop a link to your

(37:47):
website and to the YouTube becausethis is definitely worth going into.
But guess for me, and I have alittle bit of a financial mind.
I'm a CFP and I know thefinancial planning world, so
I am still hang with me, bill.
I'm still trying to bridge the gapand I know a lot of our listeners
are, are thinking the same thing asapplies to them bridging the gap.
CPA at what point?

(38:09):
Did you even get into the financialplanning world where you saw this void
and started the early thoughts of, Ithink I can do it better, and I think
we should be veering in this direction.
That's what I wanna hear about.
it was a transition.
It was a movement becausein a way, Jackie, I did it.
Before I even entered the worldwhen I was I went home to my

(38:31):
family in, in rural southern Ohio.
And I said, I wanna be an artist.
I wanna do these things.
And I said, I, I think I said tothem, naively a young man, I said,
I, I think I would be a farmer andI'll just work this many hours.
And so my dad took me out to oneof his favorite, farmers in nearby.
And I watched him with his workand he was working, you know,
many hours a day, as you know.

(38:52):
And, I came back and, and my dad askedme, how old do you think that guy was?
And I said, I, I, boy,he looked like he was 70.
And he said, no, he was 46 years old.
And it's just that he was weather beaten.
He worked, like crazy.
And I would never havebeen able to do my writing.
So my mom said, go dotax returns for a living.
Try that.

(39:14):
That was, that was really cool.
So right from the beginningI was thinking, how do I
use money so I can be free?
And then as I, I was good at math.
I mean, that was, I started offas a math major at Harvard, and I
ended up being in English becauseI also had this imagination.
But I, I was terrible when I wasat the high school that Bill and I

(39:35):
went to, I was terrible in English.
But I ended up doing it because, Idon't know, I wanted to be well run.
I don't know what it was, but, but in the,in the long run, I, I wanted to be free.
And so as I was building that taxpractice, I realized, Hey, you
know, maybe I could sell this.
So that was an idea.
So it was before I got the CFP, andthen I realized, you know, the way I

(39:55):
can learn this, I went and saw some CFPsand they were, I hate to say it, but
the people that I saw were horrible.
I mean, they were, in those daysthey were, and still we have some
today they were salespeople and theywere not listening to me at all.
And I thought financial planningwould be about my life and getting,
getting me to where I wanted to go.

(40:16):
And all they really wanted to dowas sell me a limited partnership.
I mean, it was terrible.
So I, I came back from that experienceand I thought, I, I think maybe
I need to get a CFB 'cause I knowmoney can give me this freedom.
It can, it can set up the structure so Ican live the life of freedom I wanna live.
So I went back and got it and prettymuch right away as I was doing it,

(40:39):
this was in the early eighties.
I think I won the bronze medal in theCPA exam in Massachusetts in 1975.
Look at you.
I didn't know that.
There you go.
I I was about, I was about tosay, how hard was the CFP exam?
Well, clearly you did great on it.
You know, the part that was hardest was,was the part I knew the best because
I knew taxes left, right, and center.

(41:01):
And the CFP exam is, kindof is pretty superficial.
I mean, I don't wanna, you know,but compared to someone who really
knows it and who's read many, manytax volumes, you can figure reasons
and things that go beyond whatthey really want you to answer.
So, anyway, that, but, but Idid, I did very well on it.
And and this, yeah.
CFP program is fantastic and I, Ijust wanna give a, a shout out to it

(41:23):
because it's one of the ways that wecan be fiduciary for our clients, which
means putting their interest first.
Life planning is another way, but Iwas right from the beginning looking
at this question, how can I get free?
And what happened was, as I intermingledmy financial planning practice
with my tax clients, I began to askthem questions about their life.

(41:46):
Who they really wanted to be.
'cause those were thequestions I was asking myself.
And I was discovering that everysingle one of them didn't wanna
be what they were and didn't wannabe doing what they were doing.
And I thought I was all alone becauseI, I had this artist side, but they
didn't, they had different goals,but they, they felt the same way.

(42:09):
And I thought, wow, well, we're notaddressing that in, in financial planning.
And one of the first workshops I went to,one of the first conferences I went to was
at napfa, the, the fee only organization.
And back then it was revolutionary.
And that organization at theone course was on goal setting.

(42:29):
And I went to it and the personasked some life and death
questions and I thought, that's it.
You know, if you ask people some lifeand death questions, something that
gets them kind of feel the fear ofnot living their life the way they
really wanna live it, then that's gonnamotivate 'em to do the kind of work
that you two did around with fire aroundfiguring out what the tasks are around

(42:53):
money to get me where I want to go.
So my, my thought was thisis, and it was related to me.
I, I had a great burning passion,and that's what drove me.
And I thought, let me find out whatthat burning passion is for everybody
I meet, and then we'll, get 'em there
in
Well,
, this brings up the three famous kinder questions.

(43:16):
You probably can't get through atalk, you can't get through a podcast,
you can't get through anythingwithout answering these questions.
But they're pivotal andthey're in your book.
In the second domain offreedom, your life is yours.
It helps people distill and crystallizewhat their life really means.
Take us through those questions and.
Maybe ask him of one of us.

(43:37):
Yeah.
Great.
All right.
So here, and let me do a littlepreamble 'cause we're going
through the book in a way.
So we just tapped the first domain offreedom, which is each moment is yours.
And I just want to pause, youspoke to the profundity of it.
I wanna pause with that for a moment,because how many billions of moments
given what scientific Americanjust told us, do we have every day?

(44:01):
So that's incredible to realizethat in any moment I can
pause and experience freedom.
I. That's amazing.
And I, I try to give ways ofdoing that in the book, of
course, but that's incredible.
It's the most profound of all.
One of the ways you do it, and before weskip past this is this map of mindfulness.

(44:23):
Is there a way you can verballygive us a visual rep representation?
Because this isn't sit down on apillow, do meditation to get there.
Everybody can do this.
And you gave us a constructcalled the map of mindfulness.
Yeah.
It's one of the things I'm proud of.
Very few people know about it,but I, I think it's, it's a kind
of a revolutionary kind of thing.

(44:44):
And if, if the present moment is themost real moment and the only real,
really real moment that we experience,it's the only moment we experience.
Then how come when we look at mapsof time and space, we don't see
the present moment in all its gloryin all its experience of freedom.

(45:06):
In all its freshness and wonder whyisn't that at the center of the map?
And it made me realize that themaps we normally see, these ovals
of time and space are abstract.
They don't have the presentmoment anywhere there.
If anything, it's totally ephemeral,but that's not how I experience it.
That's not how I experiencedthe two of you right now.

(45:28):
I mean, this is a wonderful engagementwe're having with each other.
What could be moreextraordinary than this?
It's not this tiny little ephemeral thing.
So what I did was, I saidthat map's gotta be wrong.
There's gotta be a better map of theuniverse of how the universe works
with the present moment at its center.
So what I did was I createdthis oval at the top.

(45:49):
I left the oval there, thatoval of time and space.
And I put that oval at the top,like of an hourglass, right?
And the center of the hourglassis the present moment.
There's more to it.
This is only halfway through.
We're halfway through, and that presentmoment has this engagement relationship

(46:09):
with time and space, which is pretty cool.
You know, and, and in all kinds of ways.
We, we have our kids, we have culture,we have you know, plans, we have,
you know, all, all kinds of ways.
So what happens in that ovalis civilization, the self,
all of our definitions of whowe are and time and space.

(46:31):
Here's the present moment.
What else is there?
There's something else.
And what else is there?
Is that it?
What I did was I created a bottom oval.
So you've got the present moment at thetop now, and and there's noble down here.
And what I found from my work on SpectaclePond and from my work with mindfulness
was that if you really focus on thepresent moment, I. Your whole sense of

(46:58):
self, of, of your whole self-centeredness,your selfishness, your I, me and mine
diminishes, diminishes, diminishes.
And so what happens in thatbottom oval is great peace,
great virtue and great spirit.

(47:18):
And you feel that more.
So that first domain isincredibly profound, and thank
you for bringing that map up.
That's a, it's a powerful,
It sounds like that's where youexperience enlightenment in aloha.
You know, and that's where the stagesof money maturity probably come in.
I love the fact that it's an hourglass,in some ways the stages of money maturity

(47:39):
start at the top and migrate throughthe hourglass, through the present
moment to the bottom, and that oval.
love that metaphor and I wannamake sure everybody goes to your
book, the Three Domains of Freedomand Sees it visually depicted.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you.
It's, it's worth contemplating reallylooking at it and then thinking about it.
And I think it, it helps you to, bemore curious about, can I be here more?

(48:03):
And what can I learn from that moment?
I step out into na, into naturefrom my h home or, or can I
just do it right now at my desk?
And those are wonderful.
The more you do it, themore freedom you have.
So that's the first domain of freedom.
And where we were headed with thethree questions, that's where we're
going is the second domain of freedom.
And let me give you the arcof it first, and then we'll go

(48:24):
right to the three questions.
So the second domain is really interestingbecause it's how we identify ourselves.
We think of ourselves, you,you, you guys in your podcasts
about your life experience.
You tell a story that's incrediblymoving about who you were and what you

(48:47):
had to go through to come to that momentwhere you woke up and you realized,
oh, I've gotta do things differently.
And then you went forward with that.
So for most of us, we have somethinglike that and Joseph Campbell
and his mythological writingscalled it the Hero's Journey.
And , we go through a darkness, we come toa moment of awakening and then we expand

(49:10):
and we're able to do many more things.
Just an incredible thing.
It is a hero's journey.
What you guys have done is heroicand you're now modeling that with
your podcast, which is really cool.
but everybody has their version of thatin a way, and it's this trajectory right?
From birth to death.
And there's a story.
So we've all got our stories.
and the question that, what Irealized with that, and this is

(49:32):
back to life planning in the threequestions, is I wanna live that life.
I always wanted to live thatlife, maximizing the amount of
freedom in that story, whichdoesn't always map each moment.
'cause moments are just right here.
Whereas the story has some past andsome future in it, and I'm going
somewhere, I'm on a mission, man,I'm gonna make something happen.

(49:55):
And so that's where the, the threequestions are these questions that ask.
They, they can get kind of deep, butthey're deep in a really good way.
They make you thinkabout should I be living?
How do I really wanna live?
what's the meaning of lifein a way, my life, this
trajectory, the story of my life.
So I'll, should I share them?
The three
Oh, absolutely.

(50:15):
Absolutely.
And I'm willing to try answering them too.
If you want a Guinea pig.
Let's go, let's go for it.
That's fantastic, bill.
All right.
And Jackie, are we stealing your thunder?
Is that all right?
If we go to Bill on this
No, that's totally fine.
I would actually like to hearJackie's answer to these questions
too, because I think hers are moreevolved and robust than mine might be.
well, and also our audience, Iwould like for them in their own

(50:38):
space to pause and answer thesequestions for themselves as well.
I think that's great and if you're, youknow, you're listening after the fact,
you can pause the recording and, and just
notes.
That's what I do.
I take three to five minutesand your first thoughts, your
first thoughts are really good.
So don't think you have to thinkabout they're big questions.

(50:58):
I gotta think about this one.
No.
Put, put five minutes ofwriting in and you'll, you'll
have a really good response.
So the first question, you do them inorder because it's tough to go deep first.
So the first one is just, isjust this experience of freedom.
It's about money and it is, you won thelottery or you know, so yet an inherit,
something happens and you wake up and yourealize, holy cow, I've got everything I

(51:23):
need for the rest of my life financially.
I've got everything I need.
And in a way it's fire, right?
And I got everything I needfor the rest of my life.
It's not like you'd be as rich asRowling or, Elon Musk or, you know,
one of those ultra billionaires.
No, you just have everything.
You have enough that you can do everythingyou really wanna do in your life.

(51:46):
And then the questionis, what would you do?
What would you do with it?
And so scribble down your answers, takesome time and scribble down your answers.
And I'm gonna ask this directly of, Bill.
And and then Jackie, if she wantsto answer it too, what would you do?
And so what, what are your, your thoughts?
You have all the money youneed for the rest of your life.

(52:07):
What would you do, bill?
this is about the definition of enough andin some ways the definition of freedom.
You've reached monetary freedom andor you're happy with what you're doing
now, and what would you do different?
And I think I've evolved past thatfact that I'm happy with what I'm
doing now, at least professionally.
I would stop.

(52:28):
Probably doing what I'mdoing professionally.
And I've been a physician for years andyears, taking care of people's health,
but not their, not my own wealth.
And I want to take care of wealth now.
And wealth of knowledge,wealth of freedom.
Not just wealth of money,it's life planning, right?
Maybe I would be a CFP life planner.
Maybe I can still do that becauseI've got, the best years ahead

(52:49):
of me and I just need to take theclasses and evolve through those.
You know, I've got a lot of the knowledge.
I just need to distill it into theconstructs that society accepts
in order to be able to practice.
Now, Jackie's a financial educator andmaybe that would just be my role and not
necessarily take care of people's wealth.
I don't know.
But I would, I definitely would stop whatI'm professionally doing now, but the rest

(53:12):
of it, the personal enough, I have it.
It exists in front of me.
The answer to this question is always,you know, if you're designing a
house, what do I need to do with this?
Well, the answer is inwhat's right in front of you.
and you can look past that and, youknow, your glasses just aren't focused
correctly, like the mindfulnessmap, you know, you, you, you need

(53:32):
to focus on the moment because theanswer is in the moment, I think.
So I wouldn't do what I would do now.
I would spend my timeeducating financially.
I would spend my time doing this podcastbecause for me, just like for you,
what lit me up, I had my wake up call,which is where I experienced in that
hourglass the moment I woke up in themoment and I realized I needed to spend

(53:55):
life differently in order to achievethe bottom half of the mindfulness map.
And.
The moment for me later was Iwas a consumer of creativity.
I would read the books, I wouldlisten to the podcasts and I
went down that rabbit hole.
But I evolved into being acreator just like yourself.

(54:16):
And this podcast was like alaunching pad for creativity.
The right side of mybrain had just atrophied.
I had not exercised that I'd beenliving in the left side of my brain.
In those habitual things, the, thesort of the mechanics of life and not
in the creative pursuits of life, theflow and this podcast, and working
with Jackie, being able to meetyou, that's where things exploded.

(54:40):
Yeah.
Fabulous.
Boy, that is so exciting, bill.
And really wow.
I mean, I feel like I'm gettingto the core of things right away
with the very first question.
And that doesn't always happen often.
It's more about traveling and,
You can travel in the moment.
You, we, we are momentary travelers.
How about that?
Love it.
Love it, love it.

(55:00):
And Jackie, do you wanna, do you wanna
Yeah, sure.
sure.
Well, and, and I wanna say to Bill, Ikind of knew that would be your answer.
As someone that spends a lot of timewith you on the podcast, I, if I'm
chatting with people, I always say,you know, if Bill could leave that
doctor job tomorrow, he would, becauseI see your energy, I see your passion,

(55:22):
and I see how it lights you up.
So I feel that already.
I feel that energy, I feel that vigor.
And I'm glad to be a part of it.
So I think for me I, so I'vebeen retired for six years.
I retired in December of2019, right before Covid.
But at that point, a lot of people mightsay, oh, you don't have enough money.
You shouldn't be retiring.
You need to keep working.

(55:43):
And to your point, George.
I had to answer that question formyself, and that was my enough.
I had gotten to my enough to whereI felt like my cup runneth over
and I want to make an impact.
I think of big words like legacy.
I don't just wanna make sure me andmy daughter and my family are okay

(56:05):
and learn about this money stuffin relation to finding freedom
or as a tool to find freedom.
I want to make sure many, manygenerations in the future have this.
And I think a lot about, you know,reflecting of where I came from.
I just don't think a lot of communitiesthat were underserved, poor, barely making

(56:29):
ends meet that that's how I grew up.
I think a lot about that becauseit's so close to me and so close
to what I know these people.
Are just as smart as a lot of thepeople I find that are professionals,
that have degrees, that are wealthy.
So how do we take, how do we give thisinformation and educate and teach these

(56:52):
people to the point where they realizethey can overcome this money part
like we did, and be able to have thefreedom to do the things that they love.
So mine would be all around agenerational building, a legacy for years.
Decades, you know, centuries to come.
And plus I'd probably love a, a bigmansion with a lot of nature around,

(57:16):
with a lot, a lot of nature around.
And, and this is something weird, I don'tknow if I've ever told you this bill, but
I've always wanted like a personal chefand nutritionist that would be there,
and I would wanna have a staff that werewell treated and they were a part of.
Learning how to build on what theyhave so that they can reach the freedom

(57:39):
to live the life that they want.
Everyone around me I would want that for,
and you're outsourcing the thingsthat you don't necessarily want to do
with your life and letting the, someof the mechanics of it be somebody
else's passion so that you can pursuea more focused version of your passion.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
Well, I, I, I just have to respond.
I mean first of all, just to, I'm gonnacome to the heart of your, notion in

(58:01):
a moment, but the last things thatyou mentioned are common responses.
Having a, a bigger house, maybenot a mansion, but maybe a mansion.
If you have all themoney you need, why not?
And
Yeah.
I wanna, I wanna buy your house, George.
I, I, I want, I want thepond, I want spectacle pond.
Is there, is there a lot or aneighbor's home that you know
would allow me to live next to you?

(58:23):
I, I want that house.
well , keep in touch.
Bill.
There's a strong pull for meright now towards civilization
over in London, so keep in touch.
so the, the mansion and nature, thepersonal chef, my wife always has the
personal chef and that first question forher, and I've seen it multiple places,
having a staff, absolutely fabulous.

(58:44):
And, you know, having all themoney you need and then you can
do all the things you wanna do.
That's just fantastic.
But I wanna speak for a moment justpersonally to your sharing because you
touched me in a way that connects with whoI am and how I've felt and how I grew up.
And also growing up intown that I grew up in.

(59:05):
I mean, I don't know how I gotto the great school that, well, I
do know, but that's another storythat Bill and I went to, but.
had never heard of the school.
This is an interesting story.
And it was a New England prep school.
I had lived in England for a year,went to a small boys private school,
thrived in a smaller environment.
It had nothing to do with it.
Being private, everybody had to worktogether in order to create the community.

(59:28):
I was captain of the basketball team.
I was a monitor in the school.
There were only 25 people in my class.
I came home and got lost ina very large public school.
I became unhappy.
I became depressed, and I went to myparents and I said, I want to go away.
They, I want, I just want to go away.
I don't know where, but I want to go away.
And they took, my word and my momtook better Homes and Gardens that

(59:52):
had an article on prep schools in it.
And she read about three or four of'em and said, okay, these are the
three or four we'll look at for you.
And I landed at our combined prep school.
And it changed my life.
It, it totally changedthe trajectory of my life.
yeah.
That's such a powerful story, bill.
Beautiful.
And, you were coming from Chicago, right?

(01:00:13):
That, that.
Well, I, no, at that point I was in North
North Carolina.
Okay, so you're south because I
And North Carolina hasn't heard ofNew England Prep schools by and large.
no, no.
Nora had, Nora had the the smallsouthern Ohio town that I lived in, and
they didn't know have a clue about it.
And my mother would talkedalways about how how poor the

(01:00:33):
education was, where we were.
I mean, it was a really,really, really poor school.
And the people around us, youknow, we were, it was coal
mining area strip mining area.
And the people were were poor.
And I grew up more with the middleclass contingent of that, but I. Always
felt that, I mean, we grew up on theedge of the Ohio River Valley where

(01:00:56):
the, in the Great Depression, theyhad the highest levels of unemployment
and in the Rust Belt they had thehighest levels of unemployment.
anyway, the, the family was in, involvedin all that caring about all of that.
And I grew up feelingthe same way, Jackie.
Expressed her feeling was thatthese people that I've grown up
with are as smart as anybody.

(01:01:18):
When I went to the big school, I feltthat, , they weren't any smarter.
They, they might've had better educationbackgrounds, but they weren't any
smarter, they weren't any better.
They weren't any kinder.
And, and so my passion also,and Jackie, I'm with you.
I'm with you for generations, centuries.
I'm with you.
I want you to have this, this isincredible to hear you say that.

(01:01:42):
And no wonder you came upwith the word visionary.
And I feel the same thing.
And I'm really, it's a stronger tomeet you and hear, hear your vision.
I just wanted to say that to you because
And everybody has the visionary in them.
They just have to tap into it.
It's like a large oil well that theyjust haven't found yet, and they've
gotta do the work and drill for it.

(01:02:02):
And everybody has thepower to make a difference.
And that's what we're gonna getto with civilization I'm sure.

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The Father of Financial Life Planning (Part 1) | George Kinder | 140

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Father of Financial Life Planning (Part 1) | George Kinder | 140