May 11, 2025 • 53 mins
George Kinder is the pioneering mind behind Life Planning and founder of the Kinder Institute. He joins us for the second half of our enlightening conversation about the essence of financial freedom from last week. George is best known as the Father of Life Planning and creator of The Three Kinder Questions that probe deeper into our hopes, dreams, and fears. This episode brings you:
- The real meaning behind the Kinder Questions
- A little live therapy session with Bill & Jackie as they share thier answers to the Kinder Questions
- The EVOKE life‑planning process (Exploration – Vision – Obstacles – Knowledge – Execution)
- The Three Domains of Freedom: the freedom of each moment, the freedom to live one's life purpose, and the freedom of civilization
- 'The Freedom Song' — written and performed by George Kinder & his daughter London Kinder
Be sure to go back and listen to last week's episode 140 to catch the first part of our conversation with George Kinder.
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Freedom Song || London and George Kinder
Kinder Institute of Life Planning Youtube
The Three Questions presented by George Kinder
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Last week we had an extraordinaryconversation with George Kinder,
the father of life planning,and also the creator of those
three important kinder questions.
Today, you're gonna be listening to parttwo as we continue that conversation.
So listen in.
you go to Bill and he's been doing sometests, and you've been feeling perfectly
(00:25):
healthy, and you go in and he said,gosh, I, got some tough news for you.
First of all, the good news, aslong as you live, you're gonna
feel as good as you feel right now.
You're gonna feel great, okay?
But unfortunately, you've got thisrare ailment that will kick in.
You don't know the exact moment,but sometime between year five and
(00:46):
year 10 from now, it's gonna kickin and you're gonna pass away.
No pre notice of it all.
Bang, you're gone.
Okay, so, you know, you have fiveto 10 years left to live, and
the question then is knowing thatwhat would shift in your life?
What would you do?
How would you live your life?
(01:08):
What would be different?
he says, I misdiagnosed.
I didn't realize, these tests say that youhave a, a terminal illness and it's come
to term, you have 24 hours left to live.
And the question here is not what youwould do with it, with your daughter,
(01:31):
your granddaughter, your family.
It's not what you would do with it.
The question is looking on how you hadanticipated living your life for the
rest of your life what did you miss?
Who did you not get to be
and what did you not get to do?
(01:54):
You learn from the dark times.
And it's just like the stock market.
It's volatile.
It goes up and down and there's nostraight line hockey stick trajectory.
But over the long run, you grow.
And it compounds just like the term inJapanese, Kaizen, 1% better every day.
And, and then I struggle with perfection.
(02:15):
And there's another concept in Japaneseculture called Ikigai, where the beauty
is in the broken and piecing it together.
They'll take a piece of pottery thatthey've made beautifully and ornate
break it, put it back together andcall it perfect in its imperfections.
(03:04):
Let's, carry on to this.
We got two more questions.
All right, number two.
Here we go.
So the second question here is you go tothe doctor this time, there's a scenario.
Alright,
Well, you come to me in the er.
there you go.
You gotta,
Yeah.
Dr. Bill.
but it's gotta be a GP that you're goingto, it's not an er 'cause you're so you'd
have to transform just a little bit.
(03:26):
Are gps, we are the, the safetynet of the nation as far as gps.
We practice a lot of family practicejust on an episodic, isolated way, and
we try and dig into things that maybehaven't been found in preventive care.
So let's say you go toBill then, and here we go.
Okay.
Bill, you twisted his arm.
Okay.
exactly.
I, I love the er people.
(03:47):
I mean, I have so much respect.
I had a number of clients who weredoctors working the er routine.
And so I knew a lot about thestruggles of it, the challenges of
it, and also the great virtues of it.
So, anyway proud to, proudto know that about you, bill.
And so you go to Bill and he'sbeen doing some tests, and you've
been feeling perfectly healthy,and you go in and he said, gosh,
(04:11):
I, got some tough news for you.
First of all, the good news, aslong as you live, you're gonna
feel as good as you feel right now.
You're gonna feel great, okay?
But unfortunately, you've got thisrare ailment that will kick in.
You don't know the exact moment,but sometime between year five and
year 10 from now, it's gonna kickin and you're gonna pass away.
(04:33):
No pre notice of it all.
Bang, you're gone.
Okay, so, you know, you have fiveto 10 years left to live, and
the question then is knowing thatwhat would shift in your life?
What would you do?
How would you live your life?
What would be different?
Why don't we let Jackie take it first?
(04:54):
Cool.
All right.
I'll go first.
Okay.
So the, the legacy, life and purposethat would matter, but obviously I, I
feel like really building the legacy andall of that would take the longer Okay.
But we, this is compressed into fiveto 10 years, so I have to decide.
Okay.
So I think what I wouldwanna do is like different.
(05:15):
Creative works.
I would wanna get out there in theatmosphere that I know will live forever.
You know, maybe even, this podcastthat's creating content and
things that will live on forever.
You know, there's at least one lastbook that I wanted to write, so I need
to quit moving the gold Post and writethat last book on kind of my story.
(05:35):
Also thinking about, my daughter, Iguess sort of making sure I've got
her pointed in the right direction.
I would probably speed that up.
And my soon to be grandchild,
I've shared it to people.
Yes.
I think that might've been the
first time
I devotion
Oh my.
Oh my.
I'm gonna be a grandmother.
(05:56):
I know I'm gonna be a grandmother.
She is over her first trimester.
So first time grandmother.
So that baby would be five or 10 years.
And so I would want to spendeven more time with her.
We did find out that it's a girl.
We've got a family of nothing but girls.
So I would think similar to if,you know, there was no timeframe
(06:18):
but having a compressed timeframe.
These are the tangible things thatI would want to do, and I would
think about the experiences withdaughter and granddaughter, but also.
Creating things that Iknow will live forever.
And also Bill has been bullyingme about writing a book on HSA.
So I need to get that out there.
(06:39):
'cause I believe I have a unique
I.
all Right.
All right.
That's nice.
So that's a nicer word.
You're right.
So Bill has been a cheerleader and abig supporter, and having me do that
because I have some very unique thingsto say that no one else is saying.
And I could put that off foryears, and it would be time to stop
putting things off that I could getdone a lot sooner if I knew that
(07:02):
I had to compress amount of time.
So I guess that's my answer.
Fabulous.
Fabulous.
Great Jackie.
I love 'em.
And and, and maybe I'll justcomment briefly that the creative
stuff, kids and family come tothe foreground with this question.
For a lot of people, I. And thosethings that you have put on the shelf
(07:23):
and you know you gotta get done.
Well now there's a timeframe and sothose come to the foreground too.
But then the legacythings are still there.
And so that weaves in.
So wonderful to hear.
Great to hear thing.
I'm honored to hear aboutyour grandkid coming along.
Alright.
Bill your turn.
What do you got?
What do you
say, man?
great questions.
I love these questions and I'm gonna altermy answer to the first one a little bit.
(07:45):
With this construct, I might notcompletely leave my job completely.
I would strip away the art of subtraction.
I'd take away night shifts,I take away weekends.
I try and negotiate,one or one day a week.
To give back as an emergencyphysician because I think I truly
have something to give there.
And it provides a little bit of structure.
(08:07):
It is part of my identity, so maybenot leave everything and I am more 0.8
part-time now, but I go ultra part-time.
And I think with longevity in theplace that I work, they would probably
want me to do that because of whatI offer the community, so to speak.
And I practice in a small community.
(08:27):
So maybe a little bit ofan altered decision there.
As far as the five to 10years, I wouldn't regret.
feel like I have enough now and I wannalive the life of enough going forward.
I wouldn't regret anything I've done.
And it just gives me anopportunity to focus my energies
on things I still want to do.
Expand this podcast, becomemore of an entrepreneur, be
(08:49):
more creative in my pursuits.
This is also assuming a littlebit that you have the freedom
financially to do this.
I think it's not necessarilypart of the question.
And, and I don't knowwhere I would stand there.
And then I've seen this, Ihave to say I've seen this
in the ER just the other day.
I, I had the unfortunate honor tocare for a 30 5-year-old woman that
(09:12):
came to me with non-specific achesor pains, and things were just
off and it hadn't been discovered.
It hadn't been found.
And then we did some, a little bitof a deep dive because we have to do
that not only to quote unquote coverour ass, but to sort of give them
the efficiency of finding out either.
There's the reassurance there that, wedidn't find anything bad, but in this
(09:36):
woman we found metastatic melanoma.
And it turned out that she hadhad melanoma two years before, and
that sneaky disease had come back.
And she was a single momwho had that to think about.
She was surrounded by hermother and her sister-in-law.
And I, I get a lot of complimentsfor changing people's lives.
And the podcast, the mother ofthis daughter came to me after
(09:59):
spending some time with them.
And I only get a brief amount of time.
It can be five 15, sometimes30 minutes, but it's, focused
energy, it's living in the moment.
And she said, thank youfor your compassion.
And So it, this does exist andpeople don't know if they're gonna
have a car crash the next day.
I have a real good friend that thathappened to her with four kids.
(10:20):
So you, you really don't know.
And, these stories don'tjust happen to other people.
They happen to you in your life.
And you have to spend as I wouldmore time with friends and family.
More time meeting new people.
Both young and old, because Ithink that's important to get
outside of your generation.
(10:40):
You know, like yourself, you're a, you'rea 20-year-old in a 50 year old's body,
George, you know, I, I, I, we don'tknow how old you are, but I couldn't
tell, I honestly couldn't tell how oldyou are, and I appreciate that you're.
20 years my senior, which we do know.
And I can already call you a friend.
That's where I would focus my energy.
(11:01):
Friends, family.
I would focus it on travel too.
I love the world.
I love looking at my countryfrom outside my country.
I lived in Germany for a coa total of about two years.
I lived in England for a year.
Gives you a completely differentperspective and you can get lost in
your own bubble as an American citizenunless you get outside of that.
(11:22):
And Jackie's doing that now.
She's gonna be traveling the world,getting all these things going on.
Bali is next on the itinerary.
Thailand was and good for her.
These are important things.
Not important to everybody.
Some people grow up and live ina community their entire lives
and travel in their own minds,travel in their own moments.
I'm not discounting that in any way,but and I would try on new things.
(11:46):
You know, that's, this is whereyou have five to 10 years.
That's still a long time.
You still have time to experiment.
I'm not done yet.
Right on, man.
All right.
Well, there's a lot of energy there.
You see this building of energy andyou can really feel it in you, bill.
And, and with Jackie, I felt moreof a deepening in the heart, going
(12:06):
to the family and everything.
And this, this is kind ofclassic what happens there.
There's a deepening no matter what, onedirection or another with this question.
And the third questiontakes us deeper still.
And that's why you can't ask it first.
You have to have this kind of movement,and you're, again, you're moving in this
funnel toward the present moment in a way.
And this is one again, we'lluse Bill as an example.
(12:28):
You're, going to Bill and, he's beengenerous enough to let you come on in
and, again, he is been doing some testsand, you go in there and you're feeling
perfectly fine, feeling great, and Billsays, I, I just can't believe I, you know,
the sorry, bill, he says, I misdiagnosed.
I didn't realize, these tests say that youhave a, a terminal illness and it's come
(12:53):
to term, you have 24 hours left to live.
And the question here is not what youwould do with it, with your daughter,
your granddaughter, your family.
It's not what you would do with it.
The question is looking on how you hadanticipated living your life for the
rest of your life what did you miss?
(13:16):
Who did you not get to be
and what did you not get to do?
These are regrets of the dying.
be, could be framed that way.
I disagree with you that Iwouldn't not do something.
(13:36):
I would both reflectand still do something.
It would be very simple.
I would fly my kids into the home.
Bill, bill,
I would, I would get, I can't do it.
no.
All I'm interested in
You gotta follow the directions bill.
Follow directions.
I'm, I'm known as a rule breaker.
All right?
(13:57):
So I would go out toyour cabin on the lake
What did
and what, what did I miss?
this is, this, this, I wouldsay is the toughest question.
it's hard.
This is a hard one.
I'm, I'm thinking as well.
It's a hard one.
I gotta think on this for a.
I could go ahead with what Ikind of think about the regrets.
(14:19):
Okay.
So for me, the, I'm thinking aboutmore tan, some, some tangible things,
I guess is I do wish I would'vedone more worldwide traveling.
I never got to travel when I was young.
I barely went outta state when I wasyoung, and I'm just starting to do that.
So I would regret that.
And the other thing that comes to mymind, and Bill, I don't know you were
thinking of this too, but I think aboutJonathan Clements, who has been very
(14:43):
vocal, since he got a cancer diagnosis.
I think he had like a year tolive or something like that.
So this is obviously a lot shorter.
It's 24 hours.
But I would almost try to, think aboutthe things that I miss and think about, is
there anything I can make up in 24 hours?
You know, and you were kindof asking us not to go there.
But for instance, there's a lot ofthings that I would love to talk about
(15:06):
publicly and maybe even to have podcastepisodes that I wanted us to do more of.
And I would keep telling Bill, bill, weneed to do more one-on-one, podcasts,
we have a lot of cool things to say.
Can't do that.
So that's something I wish.
'cause he's always beenlike, well, let's do it.
Let's do it.
And we just never did it.
(15:26):
So that's a regret that we didn't, we'restarting to turn the corner on that.
But slowly, and I would say tooslowly, if I only have 24 hours.
Yeah.
can you regret the future ordoes it have to be regretting the
No, no, you're, no.
This is, this is as much aboutthe future as about the past.
It's,
So, would regret not seeing mykids continue to grow as adults.
(15:50):
I would regret not seeing them findpartners, friends in the world,
whether it be marriage or not.
And if they chose to have kids,I would regret not seeing another
generation come to life and grow.
I would probably regret moreof the future than my own past.
(16:10):
I did a lot of regretting about my past.
When I was stuck in the loop of childhoodin the seven stages of money maturity.
I'm done with that.
I'm done with the anxiety over that.
I'm done with the shame over that.
I don't want those emotionsin my last 24 hours.
I want hope.
I want love I want intimacy.
(16:33):
And I would regret more of the future.
Well, that's, right.
And, bill, the, again, thequestion is what did you miss?
Who did you not get tobe, that's the future.
What did you not get to do?
And that's the future as well.
So it's not, it isn'tjust regretting the past
so George, do other people, youasked this question, has the type of
anxiety or the angst that Bill and Ihad, this was the hardest we thought.
(16:56):
Is that what you typicallyget or is it just me and him?
No, there's a wide mix of it, but,and, and there's a stutter step there.
You know, what is it, I mean,how do I reflect on this?
I haven't reflected on it, butif you think about it, this
is where the legacy really is.
If you came to the moment and you hada death sentence that you were only
(17:17):
going gonna live another 24 hours,you would have a lot of feelings
about in your case, missing your,that world travel, clearly missing
your daughter and your granddaughter.
You didn't mention that so much,but that's clearly there 'cause that
was so strong in the second one.
And developing the podcast andBill brings up for the first
time really strongly here.
(17:40):
This is also quite, quite common.
The family that not seeing them growup, not seeing the kids get married
or find partners or have grandkidsthat's, that's also very common.
And, the thing that is reallyvaluable here is that I, I mean,
normally I would've given youlike three to five minutes.
You go sit, you, you reflecton it, you write on it, right?
(18:02):
You were in the moment.
And that's tough to do it in
Yeah, that was tough.
That was tough.
I find it as an emergencyphysician, I find it easier.
To think on my feet as a podcaster, Ithink it easier to think on my feet.
I would be sort of stuck writing this downbecause I would get lost in perfection.
I have to get this rightand, and this is messy.
(18:25):
I'd rather talk about it now.
I feel like I'm in a therapy session.
you know, and that's what it'sabout with financial planning.
You've got to get to yourcore to understand yourself.
Be before you understand whatyour money can do to get to
a better version of yourself.
the point here for the for yourselves,for the life planner working with each
(18:47):
of you, is that I hadn't heard travelbefore with Jackie, and I hadn't heard
your, your, your family, the sweep offamily, and how you think about it, bill,
and how you would, what you would miss,and those things suddenly to me, as your
financial planner, as your life planner,suddenly those become extremely important
(19:12):
to deliver them into your life soon.
And Jackie, it's easier to do 'causeit's travel and that's obvious.
But one of the questions that comes upwhen someone has these, questions like
Bill has about missing the, the familygrowing up is what do you do to give Bill
that now as much as you possibly can?
(19:35):
And what it does with an advisor.
And I'd say if you're doing this on yourown, what you wanna be thinking about is
how can you spend more time now with thefamily so that whatever your legacy with
them is and your, your both, your gainsfrom it and their gains from you you're
accelerating that right in this moment.
(19:57):
'cause that's what's most important,
You're bringing the future forward intothe moment and then, 'cause there's
barriers to this and most peoplethink that the obstacle is money.
But as you say in your book,and Jackie, do you know what
the real obstacle is here?
yeah.
It's your mind.
Yeah.
You your own self and I love that.
(20:22):
And then you move into, let,let's give the people some hope.
Let's give our audience some hope,because as a life planner, you talk
about two things, the evoke methodand the categories of the torch.
Now we wanna move on and we wanna giveyou the hope of this is how you do it.
Or at least you know, scratchthe surface because you created a
method to help people get at this.
(20:45):
the method is called Evoke and it's inmy life planning for you book as well
as in the three domains of freedom.
So the quickest, easiest route toit is the three domains of freedom.
It also is what I've trained.
Thousands of advisorsin all over the world.
So there are people, and the very best ofthose, the most trained of those advisors
(21:05):
are what we call registered life planners.
So I think of them as theyare, they're fiduciary.
They put you first and your dreamsfirst, and your goals first.
So if you have a place where you feellike you need a financial advisor,
who also will really place you firstand your dream of freedom first,
these would be people to go to.
(21:27):
But the, so what we do, we, the,the process is called Evoke, and
it's an acronym for five stages.
And the first stage stageis called E for exploration.
The second stage is called V for vision.
The third stage is O for obstacles.
The fourth stage is K for knowledgeand the final stage is E for execution.
(21:50):
Now, Jackie and I studied K and eand are getting our C, F, B, right?
We studied that a lot and, and Billknows it in spades 'cause what he's
done is just incredible with this work.
so we've got that covered, but E,V and O are how do we get there?
So the V is the vision ofwho you really want to be.
(22:13):
It's your Dr. Dream of freedom is how Icall it, or your torch as I also call it.
What is it that you, you would wannacarry forward your flag of freedom?
What is it?
And so the way evoke works ise for exploration means the
first thing we do, and it'ssomething you both do beautifully.
You have rarely if ever interrupted me.
(22:35):
That's a great listener, and mostpeople aren't that good at listening.
And so the first thing that you dois if you're working with an advisor,
you want that advisor to totallygive the the ground to you, even
if it's 90% of a two hour meeting.
You wanna be able totalk and talk and talk.
(22:55):
And so for yourself, you wanna be ableto write and explore and talk to your
best friends and talk to your spouse.
This is who I really wanna be.
And then, but then the second one, butalso you, that EE for exploration.
When you go into an advisor's meeting,what I ask is, why are you here?
(23:16):
That's it.
Why are you here?
What do you, what, what would you wantto come out of our, time together?
Whatever.
Why are you here?
And, and they'll share stuff.
Like, my dad was abusive.
I. Or, you know, I've always,I just love gardening.
Okay.
And there you have two thingsright away that are, would be
part of that torch in some way.
(23:38):
I'm not a therapist, Idon't train therapists.
What we do when a difficult thing comesup as we empathize and give them the
space, if they want to go further, theycan, but I don't say, tell me more.
Oh, I'm so sorry If they'resaying it about gardening,
I go, wow, that's so cool.
Again, I don't ask them more.
I just, you know, I'memotionally connected with them.
(24:00):
So that's the e and we need to getemotionally connected with ourselves
around what, what's been toughand what do we look forward to.
And then the v meeting is where.
We just were beginning to hang out.
It's a two hour meeting, so spendinglike five minutes with the two of
you really didn't give it justice.
You know, I'd be looking at whatyour ideal day, your ideal week,
(24:22):
your ideal year would look like.
I'd be doing a lot of different things.
There's a number of different exercises,but I, out of that meeting where you're
sharing, I would toward the end ofthat meeting, I'd say, Jackie, so look,
we're gonna do this financial planningwork together, but let me ask you this.
If it's a consequence of our worktogether, I, or we were able to deliver
(24:46):
to you, a nice home in nature, okay?
And, and maybe a littlehelp around, what you do.
A little bit more than what you got morehelp around what you do and that you
have an incredible relationship withyour daughter and your granddaughter
and and it's just getting richer andricher and you can't, believe it.
(25:10):
What is happening there?
And your podcast has gone in directionsthat are stunning to you, whether it's
the HSA or it's, you know, other creativepieces that, nobody's been talking
about, and you're there, you're making ithappen, and you've even begun to make it
(25:31):
happen in places like Thailand and Bali.
You're carrying yourmessage wherever you go.
And how, how would that be if wewere able to deliver that to you?
How would that be?
Oh my gosh.
I would say that's wonderful.
I wanna do it like right away.
Yeah.
And, and, and it'd be betterif I, if I'd had two hours with
(25:53):
you in each of these meetings.
That's even better.
But that's the torch.
and Bill, it would be, be similar insome way for you where and, and I, I
don't have it quite as clear, but what Iprobably would say is, if as a consequence
of our work together, I, or we wereable to deliver to you just a few years
from now and I, I give it a date, let'ssay two and a half years from now, two
(26:16):
years from now, maybe a year and a half.
You're working you're still in er, butyou're just doing it one day a week.
And your role is tremendously asmentor and as wise human being.
I. To the people you're both, tothe people you care for and to
the other doctors in the, office.
And you've got the podcastis just singing and you're
(26:39):
feeling so creative with it all.
And you're, you, you have really deepenedand you've realized just how important
your time is with your kids and you arereally connecting with them so that you
know, whatever happens in your life and intheir life, this piece is going forward.
(27:00):
Your, your connection with them.
So the, the question would be howwould that, how would that be?
How would that feel?
No, it'd be awesome.
And actually I'd add to that too becauseit would be fun to transition from.
Physician, full-time to entrepreneur
Oh, I.
and, doing something for free is onething, but doing something where you
(27:23):
get remuneration tangible monetarysupport for what you're doing.
And we have monetized our podcast.
It does support itself, but why notlet it support the, the staff and the
partners that I work with a little bit.
Why not let it support me?
Allow me to go to a conference,allow me to take a trip, allow me
(27:44):
to go with my partners to do that.
So there would be sort of agrowth aspect to this for me.
And I'd feel really good.
And maybe you could help guideme there, because I don't know
how to be an entrepreneur.
You're in your own business,you know, how do you do it?
Or who do I go to to figure this out?
So that's the next step.
That's obstacles.
(28:05):
So, you know, how do we do it?
And, and the the first thing is gettingthe vision really, really bright.
What Bill did just then wasbeautiful and brighter and do it,
the end of the process as we go.
Is anything missing?
Entrepreneur?
Well, and then the other thing too isI'd want to reach, just like you've
done a much larger audience, becausethere's so many people that aren't
(28:25):
in our bubble that need the message.
And how do we draw them in?
How do we touch them externallyto where they internally want
to be with us on the journey?
Because they're a lot like myself.
They're lost in the woods, youknow, and without direction, per se.
And they want what we're talkingabout, but they don't even know
(28:48):
that it exists and they can have it.
so exciting, bill.
So exciting seeing your roadmapand knowing you're on your way.
And I'm just gonna, I'm just gonnamention what happens in obstacles.
'cause I think we really do needto get to that third domain given
what the timeframe is that we have.
But here's the thing with obstaclesand what I would say to you is you
already know how to do it, man.
(29:09):
You've got it, you areso passionate about this.
I would build and buildand build the passion.
And then I'd say, Hey Bill you know,I, I've got lots of ideas, but I'd love
to hear yours 'cause you know your lifeand you know your experience and your
skills and your connections and all that.
(29:31):
So I. You know, I, I, I'd get a few ofthe visions out there for an entrepreneur
and I entrepreneurial life, and I'dsay, so how would you do this one?
You know, what wouldyou be your first step?
How would you do it?
Can you do that this week?
I, the first thing I do is ask forhelp because like I, I've been a
lone wolf in my life because as an ERdoc, you're pretty much a lone wolf.
(29:52):
You're captain of the ship.
You have to be self-sufficientand to be an entrepreneur.
You can't be you know, youneed a coach, for example.
There, there are things, but, and thenthere becomes a financial barrier too.
Can you justify just like, if I'mgonna do this and I'm paying for it,
like I'm paying for a gym membership,am I really going to embrace it?
Right, right, right.
(30:12):
So that's what, that's what a registeredlife planner would do, is they would,
they would basically take you along thatpath and it would be an intermingling,
it would be really be a partnership.
It's why when I lit the torch,particularly in the way I framed it
for Jackie, I said, if I, or we wereto deliver to you, and it's because
there's a partnership would behappening here, but you are ultimately
(30:34):
the one who's gonna deliver it.
You're gonna deliver it because the torchis gonna be so brilliant for you that
it's gonna light a fire inside of you.
And I'll be able to help facilitate that.
I'll have lots of ideas, but you'regonna have a lot of ideas too.
And it'll be a fun, fun,fun trip to do together.
Well, it, it, this, thejourney should be fun.
(30:54):
I mean, it's gonna, it's gonna have itstravails and you learn from your mistakes.
You learn from the dark times.
And it's just like the stock market.
It's volatile.
It goes up and down and there's nostraight line hockey stick trajectory.
But over the long run, you grow.
And it compounds just like the term inJapanese, Kaizen, 1% better every day.
(31:14):
And, and then I struggle with perfection.
And there's another concept in Japaneseculture called Ikigai, where the beauty
is in the broken and piecing it together.
They'll take a piece of pottery thatthey've made beautifully and ornate
break it, put it back together andcall it perfect in its imperfections.
(31:36):
on.
Right on.
Yeah.
Oh, you wanted to get tothe third domain of freedom.
This is your life's work today.
This is where you live today.
Take us on that journey.
So again, I frame mylife in terms of freedom.
I'm passionate about living alife of freedom, but what has
(31:57):
happened, and I as, you both havespoken about your audience and your
background, how you grew up and all.
I feel the same way.
I wanna bring freedom everywhere.
It isn't something, freedombelongs to all of us.
There's a song that my daughterLondon and I did called The Freedom
Song, and you can listen to it.
(32:17):
It's on Spotify, it's also onYouTube, and it talks about the,
the earth is being a domain offreedom an environment of freedom.
We are meant to live in freedom andthis feeling that we're trapped or
that the world's going wrong, thatjust shouldn't be happening right now.
Think about this for, for a moment.
You've got one of these, right?
(32:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, we all got
those.
I'm, I'm noting
down and you heard me typing.
I'm noting down the Song of Freedombecause we're gonna play this on the show
'cause every, everybody should hear it.
But yes, we have a smartphone.
Tell us what we can do with
If, if you can show me in Londonsinging it in our cabin out
here, that's really special.
(32:59):
You know, I'm this 70-year-oldgeezer, you know, and, and she's 16
years old and we co-wrote those songs.
We did a whole album.
It was in Covid time and, and it wasthat first Covid summer where we, we
didn't know what was gonna happen.
Right.
They were 16 years old.
And how do you as a, an old parenthang out with two teenage girls?
(33:22):
During Covid where they can'tgo out and do anything, right?
What are you gonna do?
So one of 'em actuallyhelped me curate photographs.
She's got a wonderful eye, and theother one wrote these songs with me.
Seven songs.
and a number of 'em are protestsongs and a about the earth.
A number of 'em are songs of of freedom.
So anyway the Freedom Songwhere Am I Going Here?
(33:42):
Civilization, we were able todo that because of civilization.
We're hanging out togetherbecause of civilization.
We've just made friendship with eachother from, you know, a thousand
miles apart 'cause of civilization.
Put put this ability, this technologytogether for us made us wealthy
enough that we can do it, canafford it, and talk to each other.
(34:03):
It's pretty amazing.
And imagine if.
I mean, people don't realize thehuman species is coming together.
feel like that.
Yeah.
But historically, we've gone through aplace now of nation states, you know,
we were tribal and much smaller earlier.
(34:24):
We've now graduated to nation states now.
Right Now we see this thing about arethere gonna be three big powers out there?
Or maybe four.
That can't be what's happening.
Everybody on the planet.
90% of people, you travel overthe world, look at Bali, look
at Thailand, where you're going.
They all have these, right?
Yeah.
I mean, so imagine if this device onall things that we might vote on and
(34:53):
on, all things that we might purchasewas required tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth.
Okay, would we be able to vote?
Would humanity be able to come together?
We'd still have differences of opinion.
(35:14):
There's still a bell curve around truthand all of that, but it wouldn't be major
conspiracy things taking over the news.
And it wouldn't be billionairescontrolling or governments or corporations
controlling what our, what our newsfeedis, be required to tell the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Humanity's coming together.
This is the first timewe've had this capacity.
(35:36):
And what I did, I mean theGolden Civilization book came
out of the, the great recessionand the map of mindfulness.
That's part of it there.
And what happened was I.
I got Jackie.
You were asking me earlier about howdid I do this with the financial world.
And this was at the end of the bankingcrisis and I got really ticked off.
(36:01):
I, you know, I think I mentioned,I thought, how could, how could
the financial services be doingthis terribly and bringing so many
people into harm, huge recession allover the world, people losing their
homes, people losing their jobs.
How could this be happening?
And I thought, I wannado something about it.
(36:21):
This is a time for people to cometogether and there's no excuse for
all of us not living in freedom.
Every one of us should.
Agreed.
Absolutely.
And what a difference it would make ifwe all did in terms of, you know, now we
can't, talk to some people you've got inpublic and you don't dare say some things.
'cause you know, who knows what, wherethey are standing on that and all that.
(36:43):
I mean, it's just, it's crazy.
We've got big hearts.
Everybody wants kindness, andeverybody, you might not think it,
but everybody really wants truth.
Even my, the people that I know on theopposite side of the political camp,
they wanna know what the truth is.
They have a different opinion,but they wanna know what truth is.
Well, let's make sure we do that.
Well, I'm kind of going all over the placehere, but what I, what I wanna say is that
(37:06):
I went back and I put on my economics hat.
I, I went, I minored ineconomics at Harvard before
I got to English literature.
I went from math to economicsto art, history of art, and then
ultimately English literature.
But I really loved howe economists thought.
And I put on this economics hat,and I thought, how, how is it that
(37:28):
we know that the earth is on fire?
Why haven't we reallydone something about it?
Right?
Right.
Now we know that democracyis being challenged.
Why aren't we doing something about it?
We know that, that media isnot telling us the truth.
One, we know one side or we don't, mightmight have an opinion as to which one,
why can't we do something about it?
(37:49):
Why aren't we doing something about it?
So I went back and I thought, likean economist, I went back, first
of all, to the beginning of whatallowed you, the three of us to come
together in this wonderful meeting.
And the technology, the hugepower of growth that you all have
invested in, that we all haveinvested in as part of our freedom.
Okay?
And it's just an amazing thing.
(38:10):
And you know, a lot of people say it'sthe best system there could possibly be.
And they challenge you tocome up with, show me a better
one if there's a better one.
But if it was, and I love it.
But if it was the very best system thatthere could be, wouldn't it make sense
with all the entrepreneurial stuff, bill,where we know what entrepreneurial is?
It's, it's this competition andthe best thing rises up to the top.
(38:34):
That's the nature of, of howcapitalist entrepreneurialism works.
And it's a great thing.
I love it.
But if, if the system as a whole was thebest thing, wouldn't we find that in that
competition of entrepreneurial endeavor?
After 250 years of doing thiscompetition, wouldn't we find that
the very best of humanity would be atthe top of every hierarchy of power?
(39:01):
How come we don't find that if it'sthe best system we've had all this
competition, all this growth, we sothat question I, I thought about,
I thought about it deeply and Irealized that not only do we not see
it, we don't really see it anywhere.
I mean, we only come up with one ortwo little things, but really, you look
(39:22):
at the Fortune 500, you look at as inwhatever it is, we don't see it anywhere.
So if our system is not producingthe very best of us, and I'm thinking
of our kindness and compassion,I'm thinking of our wisdom.
I'm thinking of, of your littlegranddaughter that hasn't been mourn.
(39:44):
And her spirit of joyand innocence coming out.
And I'm going, why is it thatevery hierarchy of power doesn't
have those things at the very top?
And it filters all the way through.
Okay.
If we had the best system,I think that would happen.
So then I went, okay, soif that's not happening,
(40:06):
then is there a solution?
That's simple.
'cause what happens with us politicallyis we go out and we do all this work
to, to make the earth better or makeour neighbors better, or make, our
relationships with others better.
Or to make the politics work in some way.
We do all this work in all thesedifferent areas, all these good causes
(40:27):
that we have, health and, and welfare,and there's a new one coming up.
Ai, we're getting worried about that.
That's gonna be a worry.
And then there's the, the onethat's coming up after that, which
is, it is called mirror cells.
You probably know about it, bill,which are, which could throw the
whole planet in all of us in danger.
And we're, we're fightingrear guard actions.
(40:49):
We don't need to, if we have neverproduced the hierarchy of power
that has wisdom and compassion atits top and joy and delight, then
there's something wrong at the base.
And that's a simple solution.
That's a really simple solution.
And so what I did was I put togethera suggestion for it, and it's called
(41:11):
fiat or fiduciary in all thingsyou mentioned at the beginning.
And it's a single sentence.
Legislative proposal, and I'm nowtalking about it all over the world.
Wherever I can get, some, atold or a podcast or whatever.
And it's a really simple thing.
And it, what it is, is that it wouldrequire every institution when it becomes
corporate or government or nonprofit.
(41:34):
So the, it reads like this eevery institution is required.
Let see.
I should read it directly.
got it right here if you want me to
Yeah, read it Bill.
Read it.
Great
Because I'm a believer and I actually Iam gonna ask that now for permission to
put the avatar of this on our website,
yes, yes,
(41:54):
uh, because you, you put togethersome graphics that we should put out
there and be a part of your world.
So, quote, this is from GeorgeKinder regarding how to make the
world, how to bring the best of usto the top and start at the base.
A fiduciary standard of obligation isrequired for all institutions, corporate,
nonprofit, and governmental, to placethe interest of all stakeholders, of
(42:19):
truth, of humanity, democracy, and theliving planet that sustains us first
above all their own self-interest.
imagine,
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
What if we lived in a world like
Exactly.
would be amazing.
Yeah.
Wouldn't it, wouldn't it?
I I and, and I've done these kitchentable conversations where I, where
(42:39):
I'll gather people together andI'll ask exactly that question.
How would your life change?
And people talk about trust andbeing able to have conversations.
Some, I mean, it broke my heart.
One of the one of the young girls thatis young women who's a friend of my
daughter said, you know, if that happened,I'd actually, maybe for the first time
think that maybe I'd want have children.
(43:04):
Yeah, well, it, it's kind of likethe art of passing the torch too
to the next generation and, youknow, using Kaizen to improve each
generation in sort of a macro scale.
And it, it, it's not somethingthat happens quickly, right?
This takes time and it takespeople like you that bring this up.
But, you know, a. Fiduciary standard thatisn't just a financial fiduciary standard.
(43:29):
It is a standard upon which we live ourlives where it's not a fight to the top.
It's a fight to elevate those around usso that we don't need to be at the top.
You know, there's always gonna needto be leaders, but let's have a,
you may not be the right leader.
And you know, as Jackie alwayssays, she wants to elevate those
around her and, let them be betterthan us at the skills they have.
(43:52):
It doesn't matter that,it's an ego thing, right?
Yeah.
on, right on.
And I, your, your audience probably knows,but one of the questions people come up
with is what's this term fiduciary mean?
And you, you probably have talkedabout it in your, in your podcast,
but it means that you, you care.
It, it's a standard of care and itmeans that you place the interest of
(44:14):
the person you're working with, theirinterest ahead of your own self-interest.
It's like, it's like the Hippocratic Oath.
it's exactly like the Hippocratic Oath.
And when you think about it, bill,you know, how is it, you know.
A corporation, a government, a nonprofit.
These are artificial constructsthat humanity came up with and
(44:35):
were, they're experiments, they werecreative, really wildly creative.
They did amazing things, but it's time torecognize that they also weren't perfect.
How could we possibly have given aninstitution of any kind, the freedom
to think their own self-interestcould come ahead of democracy or the
truth, or of people or the planet?
(44:57):
How?
No sensible human being would'veever set that up and we didn't
realize, and what the reasonthat we're in this amazing time.
I think this is an amazing time becausewhat happens is when you go to scale with
a great business, the bad part is youtake the negative externalities to scale.
So what we're doing with thisHippocratic Oath of fiduciary.
(45:19):
We're eliminating those negativeexternalities so that instead when
a great corporation creates, they'realso thinking about the planet.
They're thinking about theirpeople and the people around them.
They're thinking about the truth andthey're, and they're honoring democracy.
Wow.
What an amazing thing.
And what we don't realize as we had withJanine Firpo, we vote with our money.
(45:41):
Money is a, a sourceof truth power a tool.
It's probably the strongest vote,green investing, investing for the
corporations, the governments thenonprofits that are doing this elevates
the best of us to the top right.
Right on.
Right on.
And, and George, I have to sharethis both with you and Bill.
(46:03):
So I think of you two and whatyou're doing, you know, this is
George, the man behind life planning.
This was a young boy that just, wantedhis freedom, but he created an entire
movement, an entire genre that is gonnahave a huge impact on the world and
financial planning and life planning.
(46:24):
And they'll, I always tell you, eventhough you're still working, look at
the gift that you have given to so manypeople with creating catching up to FI.
Sure, I had it as an idea inmy head, but I didn't do it.
There's probably hundreds of otherpeople that had a similar idea.
You are the only one that didit and brought it to life.
So I just want our audience to thinkabout that thing that they're feeling
(46:49):
like they're not big enough to do.
They won't have a big enough impactthat if you brought it to the
world, it could make a difference.
Whether it's five people.
5 million people.
It just makes a difference.
So I am lucky.
I'm so happy that you guysfollowed your dream and did your
thing and you're still doing it.
(47:10):
I'm better for it.
Our audience is better for it, and I hopethat they will realize they're in some
position, some talent, some skills, somepassion that they have to contribute to
the world just to make it a better place.
Like you were saying, George.
So I have to say that I just
Well, this is, easily one of the mostimportant podcasts that we've done.
(47:31):
This is the umbrella under whichprobably everything else lives.
You know, I'm just so grateful andgratitude is a part of what we need to
have more of for what we have and what,and the gratitude for what we will build.
So George, I've loved the fact that we'vegiven a platform for our audience to.
(47:53):
Grow with your wisdom.
Do you have, and I wanna make sure,and that you live on with this legacy
within our community, do you have anyfinal thoughts for our late starters?
Well, I, I think building on what you'reboth saying and what Jackie was saying,
I forget the great anthropologist'sname, Margaret Mead, who said, you
know people, people often challengeme as to how, a very small group of
(48:18):
people could do something enormous.
And she said, well, it's reallythe only way it's ever happened.
That's where, how it's always started.
It is just with one of us, agroup, small group of us, a handful
of us, and I'm with you both.
I mean you both, you're two ofthe most creative people I've
met in this, financial world.
It's wonderful to be with you andI think I hope that people will.
(48:39):
Read, read the Three Domains of Freedom.
I hope that because it, it gives a,a flavor of all the different things
that I'm doing or go to my website,but the three domains of freedom
we're meant to live in freedom.
We're meant to live moment by moment.
In freedom to have that freedom toknow how to do it, we're meant to
have a tra trajectory of freedom.
A life that we know is moving moreand more, as you said with the
(49:02):
Japanese principle more every day.
1% more every day into freedom.
And civilization right nowis meant to deliver freedom.
It's not a utopian worldto deliver freedom to us.
It's the beginning of the humanspecies working together for millennia,
to pick up Jackie's notion of forcenturies, this is how we are meant
(49:25):
to come together and work together.
Now, not to be fighting and have allthese weapons around and be divided
into these self-centered places.
We're meant to come togetherand civilization is meant
to be a dream of freedom.
I hope you'll read the book andand I'd love to come back if you
guys have a another, you haveanother idea about how we might go?
(49:45):
Well, I, I underlined it like a textbookaround the Harkness table, and I hope
actually your book makes it to theHarkness table if it hasn't already.
I hope you've been a speakerat assembly at our school.
If you haven't been, you needto be because that's where great
leaders come to educate thefuture leaders, and I have hope.
(50:08):
Jackie, what are your thoughtsand feelings on today's show?
Yeah.
I was about to ask you the samething, but I am feeling so motivated,
invigorated, and you know, we've bothknown George's work for a long time,
but to be able to have this very meatyconversation with you, and I love.
Money stories.
I love to strip things down and that'swhy I kept asking you those questions.
(50:31):
I need to understand how did yougo from being A-C-A-C-P-A to a CF?
So those journeys, those are mostpeople can see themselves in.
I started with this, you know,habit path that was drawn for me to
asking bigger questions and saying,I think it should be this way.
(50:52):
Most people never act on that,that question or that statement.
I think it should be different.
Okay.
What do you do about it?
George Kinder did something aboutit and he created life planning.
Well, that is a great place anda great quote to close the show.
I know I speak for Jackie whenI say we're forever grateful
(51:13):
for joining us here today.
I think we've createdsomething that is special.
I think we've created something unique.
I. That didn't exist in the world before.
I hope this message gets out there.
You're more than welcome to takethis message on your platform to get
it out to your worldwide platform.
I think we've done, quite honestly,a great job of distilling your
(51:35):
world, your journey, your story,and your work into a two hour show.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, George.
Thank you both.
Thank you so much.
Last week we had an extraordinaryconversation with George Kinder,
the father of life planning,and also the creator of those
three important kinder questions.
Today, you're gonna be listening to parttwo as we continue that conversation.
So listen in.
you go to Bill and he's been doing sometests, and you've been feeling perfectly
(00:25):
healthy, and you go in and he said,gosh, I, got some tough news for you.
First of all, the good news, aslong as you live, you're gonna
feel as good as you feel right now.
You're gonna feel great, okay?
But unfortunately, you've got thisrare ailment that will kick in.
You don't know the exact moment,but sometime between year five and
(00:46):
year 10 from now, it's gonna kickin and you're gonna pass away.
No pre notice of it all.
Bang, you're gone.
Okay, so, you know, you have fiveto 10 years left to live, and
the question then is knowing thatwhat would shift in your life?
What would you do?
How would you live your life?
(01:08):
What would be different?
he says, I misdiagnosed.
I didn't realize, these tests say that youhave a, a terminal illness and it's come
to term, you have 24 hours left to live.
And the question here is not what youwould do with it, with your daughter,
(01:31):
your granddaughter, your family.
It's not what you would do with it.
The question is looking on how you hadanticipated living your life for the
rest of your life what did you miss?
Who did you not get to be
and what did you not get to do?
(01:54):
You learn from the dark times.
And it's just like the stock market.
It's volatile.
It goes up and down and there's nostraight line hockey stick trajectory.
But over the long run, you grow.
And it compounds just like the term inJapanese, Kaizen, 1% better every day.
And, and then I struggle with perfection.
(02:15):
And there's another concept in Japaneseculture called Ikigai, where the beauty
is in the broken and piecing it together.
They'll take a piece of pottery thatthey've made beautifully and ornate
break it, put it back together andcall it perfect in its imperfections.
(03:04):
Let's, carry on to this.
We got two more questions.
All right, number two.
Here we go.
So the second question here is you go tothe doctor this time, there's a scenario.
Alright,
Well, you come to me in the er.
there you go.
You gotta,
Yeah.
Dr. Bill.
but it's gotta be a GP that you're goingto, it's not an er 'cause you're so you'd
have to transform just a little bit.
(03:26):
Are gps, we are the, the safetynet of the nation as far as gps.
We practice a lot of family practicejust on an episodic, isolated way, and
we try and dig into things that maybehaven't been found in preventive care.
So let's say you go toBill then, and here we go.
Okay.
Bill, you twisted his arm.
Okay.
exactly.
I, I love the er people.
(03:47):
I mean, I have so much respect.
I had a number of clients who weredoctors working the er routine.
And so I knew a lot about thestruggles of it, the challenges of
it, and also the great virtues of it.
So, anyway proud to, proudto know that about you, bill.
And so you go to Bill and he'sbeen doing some tests, and you've
been feeling perfectly healthy,and you go in and he said, gosh,
(04:11):
I, got some tough news for you.
First of all, the good news, aslong as you live, you're gonna
feel as good as you feel right now.
You're gonna feel great, okay?
But unfortunately, you've got thisrare ailment that will kick in.
You don't know the exact moment,but sometime between year five and
year 10 from now, it's gonna kickin and you're gonna pass away.
(04:33):
No pre notice of it all.
Bang, you're gone.
Okay, so, you know, you have fiveto 10 years left to live, and
the question then is knowing thatwhat would shift in your life?
What would you do?
How would you live your life?
What would be different?
Why don't we let Jackie take it first?
(04:54):
Cool.
All right.
I'll go first.
Okay.
So the, the legacy, life and purposethat would matter, but obviously I, I
feel like really building the legacy andall of that would take the longer Okay.
But we, this is compressed into fiveto 10 years, so I have to decide.
Okay.
So I think what I wouldwanna do is like different.
(05:15):
Creative works.
I would wanna get out there in theatmosphere that I know will live forever.
You know, maybe even, this podcastthat's creating content and
things that will live on forever.
You know, there's at least one lastbook that I wanted to write, so I need
to quit moving the gold Post and writethat last book on kind of my story.
(05:35):
Also thinking about, my daughter, Iguess sort of making sure I've got
her pointed in the right direction.
I would probably speed that up.
And my soon to be grandchild,
I've shared it to people.
Yes.
I think that might've been the
first time
I devotion
Oh my.
Oh my.
I'm gonna be a grandmother.
(05:56):
I know I'm gonna be a grandmother.
She is over her first trimester.
So first time grandmother.
So that baby would be five or 10 years.
And so I would want to spendeven more time with her.
We did find out that it's a girl.
We've got a family of nothing but girls.
So I would think similar to if,you know, there was no timeframe
(06:18):
but having a compressed timeframe.
These are the tangible things thatI would want to do, and I would
think about the experiences withdaughter and granddaughter, but also.
Creating things that Iknow will live forever.
And also Bill has been bullyingme about writing a book on HSA.
So I need to get that out there.
(06:39):
'cause I believe I have a unique
I.
all Right.
All right.
That's nice.
So that's a nicer word.
You're right.
So Bill has been a cheerleader and abig supporter, and having me do that
because I have some very unique thingsto say that no one else is saying.
And I could put that off foryears, and it would be time to stop
putting things off that I could getdone a lot sooner if I knew that
(07:02):
I had to compress amount of time.
So I guess that's my answer.
Fabulous.
Fabulous.
Great Jackie.
I love 'em.
And and, and maybe I'll justcomment briefly that the creative
stuff, kids and family come tothe foreground with this question.
For a lot of people, I. And thosethings that you have put on the shelf
(07:23):
and you know you gotta get done.
Well now there's a timeframe and sothose come to the foreground too.
But then the legacythings are still there.
And so that weaves in.
So wonderful to hear.
Great to hear thing.
I'm honored to hear aboutyour grandkid coming along.
Alright.
Bill your turn.
What do you got?
What do you
say, man?
great questions.
I love these questions and I'm gonna altermy answer to the first one a little bit.
(07:45):
With this construct, I might notcompletely leave my job completely.
I would strip away the art of subtraction.
I'd take away night shifts,I take away weekends.
I try and negotiate,one or one day a week.
To give back as an emergencyphysician because I think I truly
have something to give there.
And it provides a little bit of structure.
(08:07):
It is part of my identity, so maybenot leave everything and I am more 0.8
part-time now, but I go ultra part-time.
And I think with longevity in theplace that I work, they would probably
want me to do that because of whatI offer the community, so to speak.
And I practice in a small community.
(08:27):
So maybe a little bit ofan altered decision there.
As far as the five to 10years, I wouldn't regret.
feel like I have enough now and I wannalive the life of enough going forward.
I wouldn't regret anything I've done.
And it just gives me anopportunity to focus my energies
on things I still want to do.
Expand this podcast, becomemore of an entrepreneur, be
(08:49):
more creative in my pursuits.
This is also assuming a littlebit that you have the freedom
financially to do this.
I think it's not necessarilypart of the question.
And, and I don't knowwhere I would stand there.
And then I've seen this, Ihave to say I've seen this
in the ER just the other day.
I, I had the unfortunate honor tocare for a 30 5-year-old woman that
(09:12):
came to me with non-specific achesor pains, and things were just
off and it hadn't been discovered.
It hadn't been found.
And then we did some, a little bitof a deep dive because we have to do
that not only to quote unquote coverour ass, but to sort of give them
the efficiency of finding out either.
There's the reassurance there that, wedidn't find anything bad, but in this
(09:36):
woman we found metastatic melanoma.
And it turned out that she hadhad melanoma two years before, and
that sneaky disease had come back.
And she was a single momwho had that to think about.
She was surrounded by hermother and her sister-in-law.
And I, I get a lot of complimentsfor changing people's lives.
And the podcast, the mother ofthis daughter came to me after
(09:59):
spending some time with them.
And I only get a brief amount of time.
It can be five 15, sometimes30 minutes, but it's, focused
energy, it's living in the moment.
And she said, thank youfor your compassion.
And So it, this does exist andpeople don't know if they're gonna
have a car crash the next day.
I have a real good friend that thathappened to her with four kids.
(10:20):
So you, you really don't know.
And, these stories don'tjust happen to other people.
They happen to you in your life.
And you have to spend as I wouldmore time with friends and family.
More time meeting new people.
Both young and old, because Ithink that's important to get
outside of your generation.
(10:40):
You know, like yourself, you're a, you'rea 20-year-old in a 50 year old's body,
George, you know, I, I, I, we don'tknow how old you are, but I couldn't
tell, I honestly couldn't tell how oldyou are, and I appreciate that you're.
20 years my senior, which we do know.
And I can already call you a friend.
That's where I would focus my energy.
(11:01):
Friends, family.
I would focus it on travel too.
I love the world.
I love looking at my countryfrom outside my country.
I lived in Germany for a coa total of about two years.
I lived in England for a year.
Gives you a completely differentperspective and you can get lost in
your own bubble as an American citizenunless you get outside of that.
(11:22):
And Jackie's doing that now.
She's gonna be traveling the world,getting all these things going on.
Bali is next on the itinerary.
Thailand was and good for her.
These are important things.
Not important to everybody.
Some people grow up and live ina community their entire lives
and travel in their own minds,travel in their own moments.
I'm not discounting that in any way,but and I would try on new things.
(11:46):
You know, that's, this is whereyou have five to 10 years.
That's still a long time.
You still have time to experiment.
I'm not done yet.
Right on, man.
All right.
Well, there's a lot of energy there.
You see this building of energy andyou can really feel it in you, bill.
And, and with Jackie, I felt moreof a deepening in the heart, going
(12:06):
to the family and everything.
And this, this is kind ofclassic what happens there.
There's a deepening no matter what, onedirection or another with this question.
And the third questiontakes us deeper still.
And that's why you can't ask it first.
You have to have this kind of movement,and you're, again, you're moving in this
funnel toward the present moment in a way.
And this is one again, we'lluse Bill as an example.
(12:28):
You're, going to Bill and, he's beengenerous enough to let you come on in
and, again, he is been doing some testsand, you go in there and you're feeling
perfectly fine, feeling great, and Billsays, I, I just can't believe I, you know,
the sorry, bill, he says, I misdiagnosed.
I didn't realize, these tests say that youhave a, a terminal illness and it's come
(12:53):
to term, you have 24 hours left to live.
And the question here is not what youwould do with it, with your daughter,
your granddaughter, your family.
It's not what you would do with it.
The question is looking on how you hadanticipated living your life for the
rest of your life what did you miss?
(13:16):
Who did you not get to be
and what did you not get to do?
These are regrets of the dying.
be, could be framed that way.
I disagree with you that Iwouldn't not do something.
(13:36):
I would both reflectand still do something.
It would be very simple.
I would fly my kids into the home.
Bill, bill,
I would, I would get, I can't do it.
no.
All I'm interested in
You gotta follow the directions bill.
Follow directions.
I'm, I'm known as a rule breaker.
All right?
(13:57):
So I would go out toyour cabin on the lake
What did
and what, what did I miss?
this is, this, this, I wouldsay is the toughest question.
it's hard.
This is a hard one.
I'm, I'm thinking as well.
It's a hard one.
I gotta think on this for a.
I could go ahead with what Ikind of think about the regrets.
(14:19):
Okay.
So for me, the, I'm thinking aboutmore tan, some, some tangible things,
I guess is I do wish I would'vedone more worldwide traveling.
I never got to travel when I was young.
I barely went outta state when I wasyoung, and I'm just starting to do that.
So I would regret that.
And the other thing that comes to mymind, and Bill, I don't know you were
thinking of this too, but I think aboutJonathan Clements, who has been very
(14:43):
vocal, since he got a cancer diagnosis.
I think he had like a year tolive or something like that.
So this is obviously a lot shorter.
It's 24 hours.
But I would almost try to, think aboutthe things that I miss and think about, is
there anything I can make up in 24 hours?
You know, and you were kindof asking us not to go there.
But for instance, there's a lot ofthings that I would love to talk about
(15:06):
publicly and maybe even to have podcastepisodes that I wanted us to do more of.
And I would keep telling Bill, bill, weneed to do more one-on-one, podcasts,
we have a lot of cool things to say.
Can't do that.
So that's something I wish.
'cause he's always beenlike, well, let's do it.
Let's do it.
And we just never did it.
(15:26):
So that's a regret that we didn't, we'restarting to turn the corner on that.
But slowly, and I would say tooslowly, if I only have 24 hours.
Yeah.
can you regret the future ordoes it have to be regretting the
No, no, you're, no.
This is, this is as much aboutthe future as about the past.
It's,
So, would regret not seeing mykids continue to grow as adults.
(15:50):
I would regret not seeing them findpartners, friends in the world,
whether it be marriage or not.
And if they chose to have kids,I would regret not seeing another
generation come to life and grow.
I would probably regret moreof the future than my own past.
(16:10):
I did a lot of regretting about my past.
When I was stuck in the loop of childhoodin the seven stages of money maturity.
I'm done with that.
I'm done with the anxiety over that.
I'm done with the shame over that.
I don't want those emotionsin my last 24 hours.
I want hope.
I want love I want intimacy.
(16:33):
And I would regret more of the future.
Well, that's, right.
And, bill, the, again, thequestion is what did you miss?
Who did you not get tobe, that's the future.
What did you not get to do?
And that's the future as well.
So it's not, it isn'tjust regretting the past
so George, do other people, youasked this question, has the type of
anxiety or the angst that Bill and Ihad, this was the hardest we thought.
(16:56):
Is that what you typicallyget or is it just me and him?
No, there's a wide mix of it, but,and, and there's a stutter step there.
You know, what is it, I mean,how do I reflect on this?
I haven't reflected on it, butif you think about it, this
is where the legacy really is.
If you came to the moment and you hada death sentence that you were only
(17:17):
going gonna live another 24 hours,you would have a lot of feelings
about in your case, missing your,that world travel, clearly missing
your daughter and your granddaughter.
You didn't mention that so much,but that's clearly there 'cause that
was so strong in the second one.
And developing the podcast andBill brings up for the first
time really strongly here.
(17:40):
This is also quite, quite common.
The family that not seeing them growup, not seeing the kids get married
or find partners or have grandkidsthat's, that's also very common.
And, the thing that is reallyvaluable here is that I, I mean,
normally I would've given youlike three to five minutes.
You go sit, you, you reflecton it, you write on it, right?
(18:02):
You were in the moment.
And that's tough to do it in
Yeah, that was tough.
That was tough.
I find it as an emergencyphysician, I find it easier.
To think on my feet as a podcaster, Ithink it easier to think on my feet.
I would be sort of stuck writing this downbecause I would get lost in perfection.
I have to get this rightand, and this is messy.
(18:25):
I'd rather talk about it now.
I feel like I'm in a therapy session.
you know, and that's what it'sabout with financial planning.
You've got to get to yourcore to understand yourself.
Be before you understand whatyour money can do to get to
a better version of yourself.
the point here for the for yourselves,for the life planner working with each
(18:47):
of you, is that I hadn't heard travelbefore with Jackie, and I hadn't heard
your, your, your family, the sweep offamily, and how you think about it, bill,
and how you would, what you would miss,and those things suddenly to me, as your
financial planner, as your life planner,suddenly those become extremely important
(19:12):
to deliver them into your life soon.
And Jackie, it's easier to do 'causeit's travel and that's obvious.
But one of the questions that comes upwhen someone has these, questions like
Bill has about missing the, the familygrowing up is what do you do to give Bill
that now as much as you possibly can?
(19:35):
And what it does with an advisor.
And I'd say if you're doing this on yourown, what you wanna be thinking about is
how can you spend more time now with thefamily so that whatever your legacy with
them is and your, your both, your gainsfrom it and their gains from you you're
accelerating that right in this moment.
(19:57):
'cause that's what's most important,
You're bringing the future forward intothe moment and then, 'cause there's
barriers to this and most peoplethink that the obstacle is money.
But as you say in your book,and Jackie, do you know what
the real obstacle is here?
yeah.
It's your mind.
Yeah.
You your own self and I love that.
(20:22):
And then you move into, let,let's give the people some hope.
Let's give our audience some hope,because as a life planner, you talk
about two things, the evoke methodand the categories of the torch.
Now we wanna move on and we wanna giveyou the hope of this is how you do it.
Or at least you know, scratchthe surface because you created a
method to help people get at this.
(20:45):
the method is called Evoke and it's inmy life planning for you book as well
as in the three domains of freedom.
So the quickest, easiest route toit is the three domains of freedom.
It also is what I've trained.
Thousands of advisorsin all over the world.
So there are people, and the very best ofthose, the most trained of those advisors
(21:05):
are what we call registered life planners.
So I think of them as theyare, they're fiduciary.
They put you first and your dreamsfirst, and your goals first.
So if you have a place where you feellike you need a financial advisor,
who also will really place you firstand your dream of freedom first,
these would be people to go to.
(21:27):
But the, so what we do, we, the,the process is called Evoke, and
it's an acronym for five stages.
And the first stage stageis called E for exploration.
The second stage is called V for vision.
The third stage is O for obstacles.
The fourth stage is K for knowledgeand the final stage is E for execution.
(21:50):
Now, Jackie and I studied K and eand are getting our C, F, B, right?
We studied that a lot and, and Billknows it in spades 'cause what he's
done is just incredible with this work.
so we've got that covered, but E,V and O are how do we get there?
So the V is the vision ofwho you really want to be.
(22:13):
It's your Dr. Dream of freedom is how Icall it, or your torch as I also call it.
What is it that you, you would wannacarry forward your flag of freedom?
What is it?
And so the way evoke works ise for exploration means the
first thing we do, and it'ssomething you both do beautifully.
You have rarely if ever interrupted me.
(22:35):
That's a great listener, and mostpeople aren't that good at listening.
And so the first thing that you dois if you're working with an advisor,
you want that advisor to totallygive the the ground to you, even
if it's 90% of a two hour meeting.
You wanna be able totalk and talk and talk.
(22:55):
And so for yourself, you wanna be ableto write and explore and talk to your
best friends and talk to your spouse.
This is who I really wanna be.
And then, but then the second one, butalso you, that EE for exploration.
When you go into an advisor's meeting,what I ask is, why are you here?
(23:16):
That's it.
Why are you here?
What do you, what, what would you wantto come out of our, time together?
Whatever.
Why are you here?
And, and they'll share stuff.
Like, my dad was abusive.
I. Or, you know, I've always,I just love gardening.
Okay.
And there you have two thingsright away that are, would be
part of that torch in some way.
(23:38):
I'm not a therapist, Idon't train therapists.
What we do when a difficult thing comesup as we empathize and give them the
space, if they want to go further, theycan, but I don't say, tell me more.
Oh, I'm so sorry If they'resaying it about gardening,
I go, wow, that's so cool.
Again, I don't ask them more.
I just, you know, I'memotionally connected with them.
(24:00):
So that's the e and we need to getemotionally connected with ourselves
around what, what's been toughand what do we look forward to.
And then the v meeting is where.
We just were beginning to hang out.
It's a two hour meeting, so spendinglike five minutes with the two of
you really didn't give it justice.
You know, I'd be looking at whatyour ideal day, your ideal week,
(24:22):
your ideal year would look like.
I'd be doing a lot of different things.
There's a number of different exercises,but I, out of that meeting where you're
sharing, I would toward the end ofthat meeting, I'd say, Jackie, so look,
we're gonna do this financial planningwork together, but let me ask you this.
If it's a consequence of our worktogether, I, or we were able to deliver
(24:46):
to you, a nice home in nature, okay?
And, and maybe a littlehelp around, what you do.
A little bit more than what you got morehelp around what you do and that you
have an incredible relationship withyour daughter and your granddaughter
and and it's just getting richer andricher and you can't, believe it.
(25:10):
What is happening there?
And your podcast has gone in directionsthat are stunning to you, whether it's
the HSA or it's, you know, other creativepieces that, nobody's been talking
about, and you're there, you're making ithappen, and you've even begun to make it
(25:31):
happen in places like Thailand and Bali.
You're carrying yourmessage wherever you go.
And how, how would that be if wewere able to deliver that to you?
How would that be?
Oh my gosh.
I would say that's wonderful.
I wanna do it like right away.
Yeah.
And, and, and it'd be betterif I, if I'd had two hours with
(25:53):
you in each of these meetings.
That's even better.
But that's the torch.
and Bill, it would be, be similar insome way for you where and, and I, I
don't have it quite as clear, but what Iprobably would say is, if as a consequence
of our work together, I, or we wereable to deliver to you just a few years
from now and I, I give it a date, let'ssay two and a half years from now, two
(26:16):
years from now, maybe a year and a half.
You're working you're still in er, butyou're just doing it one day a week.
And your role is tremendously asmentor and as wise human being.
I. To the people you're both, tothe people you care for and to
the other doctors in the, office.
And you've got the podcastis just singing and you're
(26:39):
feeling so creative with it all.
And you're, you, you have really deepenedand you've realized just how important
your time is with your kids and you arereally connecting with them so that you
know, whatever happens in your life and intheir life, this piece is going forward.
(27:00):
Your, your connection with them.
So the, the question would be howwould that, how would that be?
How would that feel?
No, it'd be awesome.
And actually I'd add to that too becauseit would be fun to transition from.
Physician, full-time to entrepreneur
Oh, I.
and, doing something for free is onething, but doing something where you
(27:23):
get remuneration tangible monetarysupport for what you're doing.
And we have monetized our podcast.
It does support itself, but why notlet it support the, the staff and the
partners that I work with a little bit.
Why not let it support me?
Allow me to go to a conference,allow me to take a trip, allow me
(27:44):
to go with my partners to do that.
So there would be sort of agrowth aspect to this for me.
And I'd feel really good.
And maybe you could help guideme there, because I don't know
how to be an entrepreneur.
You're in your own business,you know, how do you do it?
Or who do I go to to figure this out?
So that's the next step.
That's obstacles.
(28:05):
So, you know, how do we do it?
And, and the the first thing is gettingthe vision really, really bright.
What Bill did just then wasbeautiful and brighter and do it,
the end of the process as we go.
Is anything missing?
Entrepreneur?
Well, and then the other thing too isI'd want to reach, just like you've
done a much larger audience, becausethere's so many people that aren't
(28:25):
in our bubble that need the message.
And how do we draw them in?
How do we touch them externallyto where they internally want
to be with us on the journey?
Because they're a lot like myself.
They're lost in the woods, youknow, and without direction, per se.
And they want what we're talkingabout, but they don't even know
(28:48):
that it exists and they can have it.
so exciting, bill.
So exciting seeing your roadmapand knowing you're on your way.
And I'm just gonna, I'm just gonnamention what happens in obstacles.
'cause I think we really do needto get to that third domain given
what the timeframe is that we have.
But here's the thing with obstaclesand what I would say to you is you
already know how to do it, man.
(29:09):
You've got it, you areso passionate about this.
I would build and buildand build the passion.
And then I'd say, Hey Bill you know,I, I've got lots of ideas, but I'd love
to hear yours 'cause you know your lifeand you know your experience and your
skills and your connections and all that.
(29:31):
So I. You know, I, I, I'd get a few ofthe visions out there for an entrepreneur
and I entrepreneurial life, and I'dsay, so how would you do this one?
You know, what wouldyou be your first step?
How would you do it?
Can you do that this week?
I, the first thing I do is ask forhelp because like I, I've been a
lone wolf in my life because as an ERdoc, you're pretty much a lone wolf.
(29:52):
You're captain of the ship.
You have to be self-sufficientand to be an entrepreneur.
You can't be you know, youneed a coach, for example.
There, there are things, but, and thenthere becomes a financial barrier too.
Can you justify just like, if I'mgonna do this and I'm paying for it,
like I'm paying for a gym membership,am I really going to embrace it?
Right, right, right.
(30:12):
So that's what, that's what a registeredlife planner would do, is they would,
they would basically take you along thatpath and it would be an intermingling,
it would be really be a partnership.
It's why when I lit the torch,particularly in the way I framed it
for Jackie, I said, if I, or we wereto deliver to you, and it's because
there's a partnership would behappening here, but you are ultimately
(30:34):
the one who's gonna deliver it.
You're gonna deliver it because the torchis gonna be so brilliant for you that
it's gonna light a fire inside of you.
And I'll be able to help facilitate that.
I'll have lots of ideas, but you'regonna have a lot of ideas too.
And it'll be a fun, fun,fun trip to do together.
Well, it, it, this, thejourney should be fun.
(30:54):
I mean, it's gonna, it's gonna have itstravails and you learn from your mistakes.
You learn from the dark times.
And it's just like the stock market.
It's volatile.
It goes up and down and there's nostraight line hockey stick trajectory.
But over the long run, you grow.
And it compounds just like the term inJapanese, Kaizen, 1% better every day.
(31:14):
And, and then I struggle with perfection.
And there's another concept in Japaneseculture called Ikigai, where the beauty
is in the broken and piecing it together.
They'll take a piece of pottery thatthey've made beautifully and ornate
break it, put it back together andcall it perfect in its imperfections.
(31:36):
on.
Right on.
Yeah.
Oh, you wanted to get tothe third domain of freedom.
This is your life's work today.
This is where you live today.
Take us on that journey.
So again, I frame mylife in terms of freedom.
I'm passionate about living alife of freedom, but what has
(31:57):
happened, and I as, you both havespoken about your audience and your
background, how you grew up and all.
I feel the same way.
I wanna bring freedom everywhere.
It isn't something, freedombelongs to all of us.
There's a song that my daughterLondon and I did called The Freedom
Song, and you can listen to it.
(32:17):
It's on Spotify, it's also onYouTube, and it talks about the,
the earth is being a domain offreedom an environment of freedom.
We are meant to live in freedom andthis feeling that we're trapped or
that the world's going wrong, thatjust shouldn't be happening right now.
Think about this for, for a moment.
You've got one of these, right?
(32:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, we all got
those.
I'm, I'm noting
down and you heard me typing.
I'm noting down the Song of Freedombecause we're gonna play this on the show
'cause every, everybody should hear it.
But yes, we have a smartphone.
Tell us what we can do with
If, if you can show me in Londonsinging it in our cabin out
here, that's really special.
(32:59):
You know, I'm this 70-year-oldgeezer, you know, and, and she's 16
years old and we co-wrote those songs.
We did a whole album.
It was in Covid time and, and it wasthat first Covid summer where we, we
didn't know what was gonna happen.
Right.
They were 16 years old.
And how do you as a, an old parenthang out with two teenage girls?
(33:22):
During Covid where they can'tgo out and do anything, right?
What are you gonna do?
So one of 'em actuallyhelped me curate photographs.
She's got a wonderful eye, and theother one wrote these songs with me.
Seven songs.
and a number of 'em are protestsongs and a about the earth.
A number of 'em are songs of of freedom.
So anyway the Freedom Songwhere Am I Going Here?
(33:42):
Civilization, we were able todo that because of civilization.
We're hanging out togetherbecause of civilization.
We've just made friendship with eachother from, you know, a thousand
miles apart 'cause of civilization.
Put put this ability, this technologytogether for us made us wealthy
enough that we can do it, canafford it, and talk to each other.
(34:03):
It's pretty amazing.
And imagine if.
I mean, people don't realize thehuman species is coming together.
feel like that.
Yeah.
But historically, we've gone through aplace now of nation states, you know,
we were tribal and much smaller earlier.
(34:24):
We've now graduated to nation states now.
Right Now we see this thing about arethere gonna be three big powers out there?
Or maybe four.
That can't be what's happening.
Everybody on the planet.
90% of people, you travel overthe world, look at Bali, look
at Thailand, where you're going.
They all have these, right?
Yeah.
I mean, so imagine if this device onall things that we might vote on and
(34:53):
on, all things that we might purchasewas required tell the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth.
Okay, would we be able to vote?
Would humanity be able to come together?
We'd still have differences of opinion.
(35:14):
There's still a bell curve around truthand all of that, but it wouldn't be major
conspiracy things taking over the news.
And it wouldn't be billionairescontrolling or governments or corporations
controlling what our, what our newsfeedis, be required to tell the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Humanity's coming together.
This is the first timewe've had this capacity.
(35:36):
And what I did, I mean theGolden Civilization book came
out of the, the great recessionand the map of mindfulness.
That's part of it there.
And what happened was I.
I got Jackie.
You were asking me earlier about howdid I do this with the financial world.
And this was at the end of the bankingcrisis and I got really ticked off.
(36:01):
I, you know, I think I mentioned,I thought, how could, how could
the financial services be doingthis terribly and bringing so many
people into harm, huge recession allover the world, people losing their
homes, people losing their jobs.
How could this be happening?
And I thought, I wannado something about it.
(36:21):
This is a time for people to cometogether and there's no excuse for
all of us not living in freedom.
Every one of us should.
Agreed.
Absolutely.
And what a difference it would make ifwe all did in terms of, you know, now we
can't, talk to some people you've got inpublic and you don't dare say some things.
'cause you know, who knows what, wherethey are standing on that and all that.
(36:43):
I mean, it's just, it's crazy.
We've got big hearts.
Everybody wants kindness, andeverybody, you might not think it,
but everybody really wants truth.
Even my, the people that I know on theopposite side of the political camp,
they wanna know what the truth is.
They have a different opinion,but they wanna know what truth is.
Well, let's make sure we do that.
Well, I'm kind of going all over the placehere, but what I, what I wanna say is that
(37:06):
I went back and I put on my economics hat.
I, I went, I minored ineconomics at Harvard before
I got to English literature.
I went from math to economicsto art, history of art, and then
ultimately English literature.
But I really loved howe economists thought.
And I put on this economics hat,and I thought, how, how is it that
(37:28):
we know that the earth is on fire?
Why haven't we reallydone something about it?
Right?
Right.
Now we know that democracyis being challenged.
Why aren't we doing something about it?
We know that, that media isnot telling us the truth.
One, we know one side or we don't, mightmight have an opinion as to which one,
why can't we do something about it?
(37:49):
Why aren't we doing something about it?
So I went back and I thought, likean economist, I went back, first
of all, to the beginning of whatallowed you, the three of us to come
together in this wonderful meeting.
And the technology, the hugepower of growth that you all have
invested in, that we all haveinvested in as part of our freedom.
Okay?
And it's just an amazing thing.
(38:10):
And you know, a lot of people say it'sthe best system there could possibly be.
And they challenge you tocome up with, show me a better
one if there's a better one.
But if it was, and I love it.
But if it was the very best system thatthere could be, wouldn't it make sense
with all the entrepreneurial stuff, bill,where we know what entrepreneurial is?
It's, it's this competition andthe best thing rises up to the top.
(38:34):
That's the nature of, of howcapitalist entrepreneurialism works.
And it's a great thing.
I love it.
But if, if the system as a whole was thebest thing, wouldn't we find that in that
competition of entrepreneurial endeavor?
After 250 years of doing thiscompetition, wouldn't we find that
the very best of humanity would be atthe top of every hierarchy of power?
(39:01):
How come we don't find that if it'sthe best system we've had all this
competition, all this growth, we sothat question I, I thought about,
I thought about it deeply and Irealized that not only do we not see
it, we don't really see it anywhere.
I mean, we only come up with one ortwo little things, but really, you look
(39:22):
at the Fortune 500, you look at as inwhatever it is, we don't see it anywhere.
So if our system is not producingthe very best of us, and I'm thinking
of our kindness and compassion,I'm thinking of our wisdom.
I'm thinking of, of your littlegranddaughter that hasn't been mourn.
(39:44):
And her spirit of joyand innocence coming out.
And I'm going, why is it thatevery hierarchy of power doesn't
have those things at the very top?
And it filters all the way through.
Okay.
If we had the best system,I think that would happen.
So then I went, okay, soif that's not happening,
(40:06):
then is there a solution?
That's simple.
'cause what happens with us politicallyis we go out and we do all this work
to, to make the earth better or makeour neighbors better, or make, our
relationships with others better.
Or to make the politics work in some way.
We do all this work in all thesedifferent areas, all these good causes
(40:27):
that we have, health and, and welfare,and there's a new one coming up.
Ai, we're getting worried about that.
That's gonna be a worry.
And then there's the, the onethat's coming up after that, which
is, it is called mirror cells.
You probably know about it, bill,which are, which could throw the
whole planet in all of us in danger.
And we're, we're fightingrear guard actions.
(40:49):
We don't need to, if we have neverproduced the hierarchy of power
that has wisdom and compassion atits top and joy and delight, then
there's something wrong at the base.
And that's a simple solution.
That's a really simple solution.
And so what I did was I put togethera suggestion for it, and it's called
(41:11):
fiat or fiduciary in all thingsyou mentioned at the beginning.
And it's a single sentence.
Legislative proposal, and I'm nowtalking about it all over the world.
Wherever I can get, some, atold or a podcast or whatever.
And it's a really simple thing.
And it, what it is, is that it wouldrequire every institution when it becomes
corporate or government or nonprofit.
(41:34):
So the, it reads like this eevery institution is required.
Let see.
I should read it directly.
got it right here if you want me to
Yeah, read it Bill.
Read it.
Great
Because I'm a believer and I actually Iam gonna ask that now for permission to
put the avatar of this on our website,
yes, yes,
(41:54):
uh, because you, you put togethersome graphics that we should put out
there and be a part of your world.
So, quote, this is from GeorgeKinder regarding how to make the
world, how to bring the best of usto the top and start at the base.
A fiduciary standard of obligation isrequired for all institutions, corporate,
nonprofit, and governmental, to placethe interest of all stakeholders, of
(42:19):
truth, of humanity, democracy, and theliving planet that sustains us first
above all their own self-interest.
imagine,
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
What if we lived in a world like
Exactly.
would be amazing.
Yeah.
Wouldn't it, wouldn't it?
I I and, and I've done these kitchentable conversations where I, where
(42:39):
I'll gather people together andI'll ask exactly that question.
How would your life change?
And people talk about trust andbeing able to have conversations.
Some, I mean, it broke my heart.
One of the one of the young girls thatis young women who's a friend of my
daughter said, you know, if that happened,I'd actually, maybe for the first time
think that maybe I'd want have children.
(43:04):
Yeah, well, it, it's kind of likethe art of passing the torch too
to the next generation and, youknow, using Kaizen to improve each
generation in sort of a macro scale.
And it, it, it's not somethingthat happens quickly, right?
This takes time and it takespeople like you that bring this up.
But, you know, a. Fiduciary standard thatisn't just a financial fiduciary standard.
(43:29):
It is a standard upon which we live ourlives where it's not a fight to the top.
It's a fight to elevate those around usso that we don't need to be at the top.
You know, there's always gonna needto be leaders, but let's have a,
you may not be the right leader.
And you know, as Jackie alwayssays, she wants to elevate those
around her and, let them be betterthan us at the skills they have.
(43:52):
It doesn't matter that,it's an ego thing, right?
Yeah.
on, right on.
And I, your, your audience probably knows,but one of the questions people come up
with is what's this term fiduciary mean?
And you, you probably have talkedabout it in your, in your podcast,
but it means that you, you care.
It, it's a standard of care and itmeans that you place the interest of
(44:14):
the person you're working with, theirinterest ahead of your own self-interest.
It's like, it's like the Hippocratic Oath.
it's exactly like the Hippocratic Oath.
And when you think about it, bill,you know, how is it, you know.
A corporation, a government, a nonprofit.
These are artificial constructsthat humanity came up with and
(44:35):
were, they're experiments, they werecreative, really wildly creative.
They did amazing things, but it's time torecognize that they also weren't perfect.
How could we possibly have given aninstitution of any kind, the freedom
to think their own self-interestcould come ahead of democracy or the
truth, or of people or the planet?
(44:57):
How?
No sensible human being would'veever set that up and we didn't
realize, and what the reasonthat we're in this amazing time.
I think this is an amazing time becausewhat happens is when you go to scale with
a great business, the bad part is youtake the negative externalities to scale.
So what we're doing with thisHippocratic Oath of fiduciary.
(45:19):
We're eliminating those negativeexternalities so that instead when
a great corporation creates, they'realso thinking about the planet.
They're thinking about theirpeople and the people around them.
They're thinking about the truth andthey're, and they're honoring democracy.
Wow.
What an amazing thing.
And what we don't realize as we had withJanine Firpo, we vote with our money.
(45:41):
Money is a, a sourceof truth power a tool.
It's probably the strongest vote,green investing, investing for the
corporations, the governments thenonprofits that are doing this elevates
the best of us to the top right.
Right on.
Right on.
And, and George, I have to sharethis both with you and Bill.
(46:03):
So I think of you two and whatyou're doing, you know, this is
George, the man behind life planning.
This was a young boy that just, wantedhis freedom, but he created an entire
movement, an entire genre that is gonnahave a huge impact on the world and
financial planning and life planning.
(46:24):
And they'll, I always tell you, eventhough you're still working, look at
the gift that you have given to so manypeople with creating catching up to FI.
Sure, I had it as an idea inmy head, but I didn't do it.
There's probably hundreds of otherpeople that had a similar idea.
You are the only one that didit and brought it to life.
So I just want our audience to thinkabout that thing that they're feeling
(46:49):
like they're not big enough to do.
They won't have a big enough impactthat if you brought it to the
world, it could make a difference.
Whether it's five people.
5 million people.
It just makes a difference.
So I am lucky.
I'm so happy that you guysfollowed your dream and did your
thing and you're still doing it.
(47:10):
I'm better for it.
Our audience is better for it, and I hopethat they will realize they're in some
position, some talent, some skills, somepassion that they have to contribute to
the world just to make it a better place.
Like you were saying, George.
So I have to say that I just
Well, this is, easily one of the mostimportant podcasts that we've done.
(47:31):
This is the umbrella under whichprobably everything else lives.
You know, I'm just so grateful andgratitude is a part of what we need to
have more of for what we have and what,and the gratitude for what we will build.
So George, I've loved the fact that we'vegiven a platform for our audience to.
(47:53):
Grow with your wisdom.
Do you have, and I wanna make sure,and that you live on with this legacy
within our community, do you have anyfinal thoughts for our late starters?
Well, I, I think building on what you'reboth saying and what Jackie was saying,
I forget the great anthropologist'sname, Margaret Mead, who said, you
know people, people often challengeme as to how, a very small group of
(48:18):
people could do something enormous.
And she said, well, it's reallythe only way it's ever happened.
That's where, how it's always started.
It is just with one of us, agroup, small group of us, a handful
of us, and I'm with you both.
I mean you both, you're two ofthe most creative people I've
met in this, financial world.
It's wonderful to be with you andI think I hope that people will.
(48:39):
Read, read the Three Domains of Freedom.
I hope that because it, it gives a,a flavor of all the different things
that I'm doing or go to my website,but the three domains of freedom
we're meant to live in freedom.
We're meant to live moment by moment.
In freedom to have that freedom toknow how to do it, we're meant to
have a tra trajectory of freedom.
A life that we know is moving moreand more, as you said with the
(49:02):
Japanese principle more every day.
1% more every day into freedom.
And civilization right nowis meant to deliver freedom.
It's not a utopian worldto deliver freedom to us.
It's the beginning of the humanspecies working together for millennia,
to pick up Jackie's notion of forcenturies, this is how we are meant
(49:25):
to come together and work together.
Now, not to be fighting and have allthese weapons around and be divided
into these self-centered places.
We're meant to come togetherand civilization is meant
to be a dream of freedom.
I hope you'll read the book andand I'd love to come back if you
guys have a another, you haveanother idea about how we might go?
(49:45):
Well, I, I underlined it like a textbookaround the Harkness table, and I hope
actually your book makes it to theHarkness table if it hasn't already.
I hope you've been a speakerat assembly at our school.
If you haven't been, you needto be because that's where great
leaders come to educate thefuture leaders, and I have hope.
(50:08):
Jackie, what are your thoughtsand feelings on today's show?
Yeah.
I was about to ask you the samething, but I am feeling so motivated,
invigorated, and you know, we've bothknown George's work for a long time,
but to be able to have this very meatyconversation with you, and I love.
Money stories.
I love to strip things down and that'swhy I kept asking you those questions.
(50:31):
I need to understand how did yougo from being A-C-A-C-P-A to a CF?
So those journeys, those are mostpeople can see themselves in.
I started with this, you know,habit path that was drawn for me to
asking bigger questions and saying,I think it should be this way.
(50:52):
Most people never act on that,that question or that statement.
I think it should be different.
Okay.
What do you do about it?
George Kinder did something aboutit and he created life planning.
Well, that is a great place anda great quote to close the show.
I know I speak for Jackie whenI say we're forever grateful
(51:13):
for joining us here today.
I think we've createdsomething that is special.
I think we've created something unique.
I. That didn't exist in the world before.
I hope this message gets out there.
You're more than welcome to takethis message on your platform to get
it out to your worldwide platform.
I think we've done, quite honestly,a great job of distilling your
(51:35):
world, your journey, your story,and your work into a two hour show.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, George.
Thank you both.
Thank you so much.
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