June 9, 2025 • 52 mins
What if every moment of your life was truly yours?
In this powerful episode of The Real Retirement Show, we sit down with the legendary George Kinder — father of the life planning movement, mindfulness teacher, and global force for authentic living.
With heart, humility, and poetic clarity, George shares how to design a life rooted in freedom, purpose, and presence — and why your dream of living fully can’t wait until retirement.
From the serenity of his New England cabin to the bustling streets of London, George reveals his journey of awakening, the power behind his EVOKE® process, and why the future of retirement — and humanity — depends on trustworthiness and values-aligned action.
We explore:
- How to uncover your true purpose and make it real
- The three domains of freedom — and why they matter now more than ever
- Why fiduciary duty belongs not just in finance, but in every institution
- How mindfulness and deep listening shape our ability to lead, connect, and transform
Whether you're reimagining your next chapter or simply seeking deeper meaning, this conversation will awaken something in you.
Listen in — and begin the journey to your most meaningful life.
00:00 Introduction to the Three Domains of Freedom
01:35 Welcome to The Real Retirement Show
01:45 Meet George Kinder: Pioneer of Life Planning
02:56 George Kinder's Journey and Philosophy
06:23 The Power of Trustworthiness and Freedom
08:51 Maintaining Passion and Purpose
10:05 The Serenity Cabin and Nature's Influence
13:37 The Three Dimensions of Freedom Workshops
20:57 Global Impact and Cultural Embrace
23:35 Reflections on Age and Passion
25:01 The Evolution of Fiduciary in Business
26:14 Building Trust in Client Relationships
27:06 The Financial Therapy Movement
28:33 The Importance of Trustworthiness
28:42 Kitchen Table Conversations on Fiduciary
30:32 Life Planning for Everyone
31:47 The Role of Trust in Financial Advice
36:46 Humanity and Global Communication
42:10 The Impact of AI on Humanity
44:25 The Future of Fiduciary Standards
46:57 The Three Domains of Freedom
49:35 Closing Thoughts and Future Meetings
About George Kinder
George Kinder is a globally renowned thought leader, author, and mindfulness teacher, widely recognized as the father of the Life Planning movement. He is the founder of the Kinder Institute of Life Planning and creator of the EVOKE® process, which helps individuals align their financial lives with their deepest values and dreams. With over 50 years of mindfulness practice and decades of experience as a financial advisor, George has trained thousands of professionals across 30+ countries to lead with purpose, empathy, and trust. Through his books, teachings, and art, he continues to inspire people around the world to live with greater freedom, authenticity, and meaning.
Website:
https://www.kinderinstitute.com/
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Episode Transcript
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George Kinder (00:00):
I think talking about the relative value of the
(00:03):
three domains of freedom ispretty interesting.
and a lot of your focus is ofcourse on the life planning
aspect.
'cause you're in the financialworld, and I put that as the
second domain of freedom and thefirst domain being in that each
moment is yours.
I think the first domain is themost profound because it gives
(00:25):
you everything.
But if I were to advise anyone.
One of my teenage daughters, youknow, anyone just out of the
blue, which of those three wouldyou go to first?
Get life planned.
Live your life planned, whatlife planning is really about is
(00:45):
it's designing who it is thatyou've known you really wanna
be, and then making sure ithappens and happens in short
order.
usually it's a matter of monthsthat we do in the evoke process,
And at most it's two or threeyears.
that's the story of your life.
You keep telling yourself asyou're going through your life,
(01:06):
oh, darn, I can't do this.
Oh, they're blocking me here,there, whatever.
Oh, if only I could do that.
So we make sure that happens.
And then once you have that andyou feel that, then you can go
anywhere and you can go back tothe moments and you have the
courage.
You have the story of your lifeas you want it to manifest.
(01:28):
You have the courage to go outand tackle these larger issues
about humanity that are so rightnow, and
Yasmin Nguyen (01:36):
Welcome to The Real Retirement Show.
My name is Yasmin.
Here with my co-host Kathleen.
Today's episode is more thanjust a conversation.
It's a gift.
We are honored to welcome atrue, pioneer, visionary, and
gentle force of transformation,George Kinder.
If you've ever wondered what itmeans to truly live with
(01:57):
freedom, purpose, andauthenticity, this is the
episode that will stay with youlong after the credits roll.
George is globally known as thefather of the life planning
movement, but that onlyscratches the surface.
He's a poet of possibility, arelentless champion of personal
truth, and a mentor to thousandsof financial professionals
(02:18):
across 30 plus countries,helping them guide clients
towards lives filled not justwith wealth, but with meaning.
He is the founder of the KinderInstitute of Life Planning,
creator of the Profound Evokeprocess, and author of timeless
books like The Seven Stages ofMoney Maturity, life Planning
for You and his latest, theThree Domains of Freedom.
(02:42):
For over five decades, he'swoven together the practices of
mindfulness, creativeexpression, and financial
integrity into a movement thatempowers people to dream boldly
and actually live those dreams.
In today's conversation, Georgeshares how his life's journey
began with a deep hunger forfreedom and truth.
(03:03):
What it takes to sustain passionand purpose over 30 years, even
when swimming against thecurrent, the deeper dimensions
of trustworthiness and why it'sthe foundation of all real
relationships.
Why freedom is not just apersonal journey, but a human
right.
We're all called to protect Andhow the wisdom of nature, poetry
(03:25):
and presence can help guide usthrough life's transitions,
including retirement.
We will also explore how Georgeis evolving his legacy with his
recent move to London in a boldnew workshop series that brings
the concept of fiduciary duty,beyond finances, into society,
into organizations, and into theheart of humanity.
(03:46):
This episode is full of hearthumility and hope.
A rare opportunity to sit withsomeone who is quietly and
powerfully shaping what it meansto live well.
So settle in.
You're about to hear fromsomeone who doesn't just talk
about living authentically.
He embodies it.
Thank you, George for joiningus.
My pleasure.
I, I've heard about you guysand, and I get to meet you, so
(04:08):
it's wonderful.
Kathleen?
huge, huge footsteps to try andwalk in.
George Kinder (04:15):
Oh gosh.
I'm a little guy.
Really?
Yasmin Nguyen (04:17):
you have, you have such incredible heart.
And presence and the commitmentthat you have been on this path
for many decades and the impactthat you've made has really been
resounding, and we are just soreally honored and delighted to
share with you a conversation tolearn about your journey as well
as you know what's next
George Kinder (04:38):
Wonderful.
Well, I'm really looking forwardto it.
Kathleen Mundy (04:41):
I love your story.
I feel like I know you, and it'san odd situation now trying to
craft my concept, my,impression.
the influence, the astonishment.
I don't know how many words Ican use, but to be perfectly
honest, I was so incrediblyimpressed by what you've
accomplished over the last 30plus years.
(05:03):
It's just monumental.
It's inspirational.
And, I'm just so excited tolearn a little bit more about
how you got here.
This is, it's an incrediblejourney and how you sustain that
because, you know, we're on asimilar journey and that some of
the people just, they're not inthe boat with us yet.
George Kinder (05:23):
Yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (05:23):
and so as we paddle from one show to another,
picking up passengers andhopefully, you know, getting
from, well, we've gone from arowboat to maybe a schooner and
hopefully we'll get to somethinglike the, queen Elizabeth or the
Queen Britannia or whatever, youknow, that boat that now you're
gonna be very part, probably apart of if you go and have a
(05:44):
look at it.
I'm excited for you and yourjourney in London.
It's one of my favorite citiesas well.
George Kinder (05:50):
Oh, thank you.
I'm really lucky to be here.
Kathleen Mundy (05:52):
I am just so impressed with what you have
accomplished over the last 30years.
this was, an adventure.
That few people would even thinkof taking and the courage that
you had to swim, I don't wannasay upstream, but certainly
against the current.
George Kinder (06:08):
Yeah,
Kathleen Mundy (06:10):
I'm curious as to how you were able to a.
Fight the force against you andwhat you used to maintain the
momentum that you've continuedover the last 30 years.
George Kinder (06:23):
well, you know enough about my work and about,
life planning to know that whatwe do in life planning, what
life planning advisors do isthey design Through
trustworthiness.
And by the way, thank you somuch for that wonderful article
and my friend.
Charlie Green and, and, RobAlford, did workshops with both
(06:43):
Charlie and Rob.
Did workshops with my wifeKathy, who's part of this
fiduciary movement, but I'mdigressing.
But the, the, you know, thefirst thing of course is
building, trustworthiness, but,what we're most famous for, and
I think what people grasp mostquickly is that we create a
dream of freedom for a person.
And then we deliver it.
(07:04):
Now, you can't design that.
artificial.
You can't design it withoutbuilding that quality of
trustworthiness, that you guysknow very well.
but for myself, I.
To, to fight the force.
I, mean, it goes back to birthreally.
I mean, I came out of the wombfighting for freedom.
(07:25):
It really, really does.
And, um, uh, I've got storiesabout that, but we're not gonna
go back that far here.
I knew early on I was passionateto live a life of freedom
myself.
So it starts with yourself.
It has to start with yourself.
And, you can't be a greatadvisor unless you're a great,
unless you've lived your dream,unless you're living your dream
(07:47):
of freedom.
You can't be a great listenerunless you can listen really
deeply and subtly and profoundlyto yourself.
I'd already done a lot of thatinterior work, but I think the,
when you say fight the force,man, I mean that, that's having
that dream, having it in frontof you and knowing I'm going for
it.
It doesn't matter what forcegets in the way, I'm going for
(08:08):
it.
This is the right thing.
I know it's the right thing.
There'll be a few people thatwill join me along the way.
And sure enough, the, and thebest of people, joined along the
way.
And so that to fight the force,it's really that your dream is
strong and life planning helpswith that, obviously.
and my dream was strong.
I really believe in freedom.
that's huge for me.
(08:30):
As much as I'm promoting thisfiduciary in all things.
Think fiduciary in all things isessential.
we are to have freedom availablefor everybody.
And that's what that, that's mygoal.
It's like this is the humanitygoal and it's time for that, the
globalization and, of where weare in the world and the scale
that take things to.
(08:51):
But the other question is, howdid I maintain it?
Right?
You're going, how did I keepgoing?
I think the other thing is Ifelt I had very little To lose.
that's helpful too.
I never put the dollar, or nowthat I'm in the uk, the pound
ahead of me and say that's mygoal.
A lot of people do, most peoplethat, that will be listening to
(09:14):
this podcast, they've been told,your business comes first and
you gotta have the goals.
There's the 20% rule and allthat kind of stuff.
I never did that.
I always felt that what was mostimportant was the truth and was
delivering freedom.
first learning to live itmyself, delivering it to myself,
but then seeing how to deliverit to others.
And I, Kathleen, I was.
(09:36):
Passionate about it.
I, and I just kept returning tothat passion.
Like I didn't have it on therefrigerator door, but you
could, you know, the image onthe refrigerator there's your
image of freedom.
Anyway, that, that's what it wasfor me.
a lot of passion
Kathleen Mundy (09:48):
there's no question that you still maintain
that passion, and now it'sbecome infectious.
Because anyone who listens tosome of your podcasts reads your
books.
Now here's another really deepquestion for you.
George Kinder (10:04):
Yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (10:05):
You have left the serenity cabin and the
environment in which you startedyour morning.
Did your meditations, began yourday until you were ready to
write?
George Kinder (10:18):
Yeah,
Kathleen Mundy (10:18):
you going to replicate that now that you're
in the city of London?
George Kinder (10:23):
you know, I have a dear friend in, Massachusetts,
one of my very best friends formany years, who, I.
He is a wonderful student ofpainting.
He's a great painter in and ofhimself.
He was, I forget what the termis, but he redid, he brought,
would, heal, 19th centuryAmerican paintings in this hub
on, Newbury Street in Boston.
(10:44):
he is a, as I am, fond of.
paintings from all over theworld and, uh, one of the ways
that we linked up early on wasour love of Chinese landscape
paintings.
And, they have influenced, and Isee Yasmin nodding, and I know
they, you know, they'veinfluenced art throughout Asia,
Vietnamese art, Japanese art.
(11:04):
and so we were pa we both imppassionate about it.
And of the things he said to me,he said, you know, George, you
know, and a lot of thoselandscapes, Chinese landscapes
that are so beautiful and sospecious, that spaciousness
speaks to, The profound natureof consciousness of our,
awakening really they speak to.
But he said, you know, thatlittle cabin that's often there
(11:26):
in the, in
Kathleen Mundy (11:27):
right.
George Kinder (11:28):
Yeah.
That ca that's the cabin,Kathleen.
And that, and he said, that'sthe symbol of enlightenment.
And I said, what?
Kathleen Mundy (11:35):
Wow.
George Kinder (11:36):
I based of course this whole 30 years of, my.
What I think of my legacy isactually my books of poetry and,
photography.
Putting them together, in waysthat, draw upon the,
calligraphy.
I didn't do calligraphy, but itreally is the same thing as the
great arts in Asia ofcalligraphy and, great painting.
So that cabin, you're right,it's not just the serenity of
(11:57):
it, but it was, a practice,every day.
I wanted to know what the natureof the present moment was, and
I.
And I spent 30 years exploringthat.
And my hunch was that it had agreat deal to do with Mother
Nature because, you know, thinkabout it, when you go, you know,
here we are, we're all like,we're all in these rooms, right?
(12:19):
We got four corners and all,four walls.
But when we walk outside.
Immediately there's somethingthat comes alive in us and
whether it's the breeze thatsubtly touches us or subtle
temperature differences, theslight changes in humidity, but
something's alive.
And it's not just the sounds ofbirds, it's mother nature making
(12:39):
connection to us.
And it's moment by moment and ithappens much more rapidly than
thought.
In fact, there's a recentscientific American article
that, in December that talkedabout how we're actually.
Experiencing that information ahundred million times as fast as
we think.
and that's the power of comingback to life planning, great
(13:02):
listening.
And that's the power ofmindfulness.
So when you say, how am I gonnaleave that serenity, I did those
30 years so I could bring itwith me.
Kathleen Mundy (13:13):
Oh my gosh.
George Kinder (13:15):
Yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (13:16):
is a talent, but I hope it doesn't take us all 30
years to, to acquire that.
Yasmin knows that I live in anarea that we're our backyard is
a forest.
George Kinder (13:27):
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (13:28):
understand your, Of the ethos about connecting
with nature and being there andlistening to the birds and
watching things grow anddevelop.
And as I, I think about this, Ithink about your three
dimensions of freedom workshopsthat you're starting in
September.
How have you taken that?
Your sense of everything youbelieve in is freedom.
How have you taken that to aworkshop kind of philosophy?
George Kinder (13:54):
Right.
So, first of all, I think thebook really captures the cabin
in a very profound way.
certainly the first third of thebook, which is about this, the
first freedom, which is astunning freedom when you think
about it.
And at first it's kind of one ofthese obvious things like,
Einstein would say the mostprofound questions are the ones
(14:14):
that children know already, orask.
And so that first domain offreedom is that each moment is
yours.
we might do lip service to it.
We, but we don't really get itand we don't really take
advantage of it, and we don't.
Deepen into it.
It's the most profound thing youcan have is because every moment
that's what your life is each ofthese moments.
(14:35):
so I just want to give a shoutout to the book The Domains of
Freedom.
It is the summary of my life'swork, of everything I've done.
And it's really simple.
It's, and it's, and again, I wasthinking of some great works
from Asia, Lazu Chang and, otherworks that are that.
Simple.
And I wanted to write somethingthat was simple people could get
(14:58):
and do.
Read in a sitting, you can readit in an hour and a quarter,
although you're so tempted topause with, there's a lot of
wisdom.
I think in it, you're tempted topause with it and really think
about it.
so I wrote it because it's a wayof getting it out to everybody,
and I wrote it so people couldreflect on it, sit with it, and.
Is something that they wouldvalue at home.
(15:18):
and so your question abouttaking it into a workshop
setting is a really interestingone.
And the place, and I don't knowif you were just alluding to
this or not, but gosh, where insuch a crazy time in the world.
Such a crazy time.
And, and my strength in, inbusiness, my strength
(15:40):
professionally, let's put itthat way, is, has been
workshops.
I designed a workshop thatreally has, It transformed so
much, and it's a tiny corner offinancial, planning or financial
advice.
the people who are there,they're, those people are
powerful, profound people.
They're really goodpractitioners, the best, I
think.
(16:01):
And, so it will have, influencein that way.
What happened for me, of things.
I finished the work, I finishedthe, that being in the cabin and
doing that work andunderstanding what it was.
You probably know how old I am.
I know.
Thank goodness.
I don't look quite this age, butI'm 77 years old.
(16:22):
my golly, in 10 years I'm gonnabe 87.
And it's oh, you know, you know,and you know that's really, you
think that's, boy, you shouldhave been retired a long time
ago.
And, and my wife Kathy, and I.
You know, we think about, she'salmost 10 years younger than me,
but we think about where wouldwe wanna be if we were retiring?
And we thought about, you know,do you go to a, you know, a
(16:43):
retirement center of some sortand what do we do?
and one of our thoughts was,what could be better than the
city of London?
You can walk out the door justlike you can in any retirement
center.
there.
Everything's there.
and what if we were close tothe, you know, the galleries
that we love, the parks that welove, and of course they're good
(17:05):
people that I know over theyears I've met.
People.
so that was one thing.
And the second thing was there'sa devastation that we have to
weather whenever we finished amajor, a legacy and the, that
five book series of poetry andphotography is my legacy.
I finished it, I gonna do next?
And then this terrible timethat's happening in the world.
(17:27):
And I thought, you know, I'dwritten the three domains of
freedom.
That third domain, I feel reallyat peace and on target in the
first domain of each moment ismine.
And I have lived a life hasclaimed that, your eyes on the
prize that your life is yours.
that's that prize I was thepassion I was talking about.
(17:48):
But the third domain of freedomreally requires all of us.
It's something that's about allof us.
It's about humanity and we'rereally not there.
and we should be.
Each one of us look at this.
Each one of us has one of these,right?
We all do over the world.
Do you know?
it, I think it's 90%.
I think I wrote about this inthe book.
It's 90% of humanity has asmartphone.
(18:12):
Well, imagine if this smartphonethat we all have was required
and did to speak the truth, thewhole truth, and nothing but the
truth.
Kathleen Mundy (18:24):
Oh, what a world that would be.
George Kinder (18:28):
Yeah.
And wouldn't we as humanity now,not, you know, this camp over
here and this camp over here andthis warrior camp over here, but
wouldn't we, as humanity,wouldn't we be able to make good
decisions?
we might differ.
We live in different places.
in different circumstances,we're different ages.
We have families or we don't.
(18:49):
We have different ideas, butstill, if it told the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but thetruth, don't you think humanity
could make wise decisions?
I do.
Kathleen Mundy (19:00):
I
George Kinder (19:00):
And so why aren't we doing it?
So that, and that hit me and Ithought, want to wanna make that
happen.
I realize, again, I can just doit small bit, but I wanna make
that happen and.
and America didn't feel like thesafest place to do it in right
now.
I don't, you know, my attitudetoward bullies.
(19:20):
I don't take kindly to bullies.
And, in America right now, it'sa, you know, standing up to a
bully.
if you're Bruce Springsteen, youcan do it, but
Kathleen Mundy (19:29):
right.
George Kinder (19:30):
thank God there's one boss in America, as they
say.
but,
Kathleen Mundy (19:33):
I just wanna,
George Kinder (19:34):
yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (19:34):
On that a little bit.
I don't know if you knew I wasCanadian.
George Kinder (19:37):
Oh, wow.
That's so cool.
Yay.
So we're we got Yeah,
Kathleen Mundy (19:42):
you know what King Charles just did?
George Kinder (19:44):
I do.
I do.
Yes,
Kathleen Mundy (19:46):
bully in his place.
George Kinder (19:47):
absolutely.
and, so I thought, I, I can doit in the uk and then I went
through a huge, very difficultprocess.
It took me three months to writea business plan.
I'd never written a businessplan before in my life.
it, and I wanted to make sure.
That they honored it becausethere's a rare visa that they
give out called innovatorfounder Visa, there's only a few
(20:10):
hundred a year they give out,and often it takes months for
them to make the decision.
The endorsing body made itsdecision on my proposal in nine
days.
Kathleen Mundy (20:22):
wow.
Congratulations.
George Kinder (20:25):
Yeah, so that's, so basically the workshop is to
take these ideas of freedom intobusiness where we really think
it's profit that it's all about,and give them yet another
alternative, the fiduciary to BCorps, to the profit model.
and to bring it to their people,to the workforce,
Kathleen Mundy (20:47):
Right.
George Kinder (20:47):
to give them of freedom.
Yasmin Nguyen (20:50):
George, as you've, Taught and shared your
wisdom in this movement withmore than 6,000 people, over 30
plus countries.
I'm curious if you founddifferent regions or countries
or pockets like, the UK that areembracing this type of mindset,
this type of philosophy aboutfreedom, about, the fiduciary
(21:10):
of, making that type of adifference in people's lives.
George Kinder (21:14):
As a child, as a young man, I never in a million
years thought I would be, ableto have, any influence at all in
another country, much less 30,30 countries.
And so it's been, a joy.
I love the word in yourbackground there, Yasmin Joy.
It's been a joy and a pleasureand a great honor and, and.
(21:34):
Different things happen.
You know, obviously cultures aredifferent, and over here in
England there's the stiff upperlip and the, but everywhere I go
I, everywhere I went, I hadpeople say, everywhere in every
culture they say, oh, th thiswill never land here.
I.
Kathleen Mundy (21:50):
Oh yeah.
George Kinder (21:51):
every culture they'd say, this will never land
here.
And they'd say, you in America,you've got that therapy stuff
and you got a soft, squishystuff.
And and I said, yeah, sure.
we got red states and bluestates.
And do you know what?
People in the red states love itas much as people in the blue
states.
this is about, being, a humanbeing, and that's what, that's
(22:13):
ultimately what happened wasthat people recognized that what
we've had to do, because wehaven't had, it's not like we
went out and sought.
big bucks from funders, and Ithink that's helped us not
seeking that out, but because wehaven't had that, we go with the
low hanging fruit.
where are people, where dopeople grab it immediately?
(22:34):
And where can they pay enough?
that, that we can make ithappen.
And it's helped, but everywhereI've gone it's, people have
loved it.
you know, as I'm looking at youall, I'm thinking of India,
which is, I wish I could go backmuch more.
And I wish it was moreaffordable for them, because
they have really embraced it.
They really loved it.
I took my gold and civilizationconversations to them and they
(22:57):
just ate it up.
But the places where it's beenstrongest are.
places that have stood for,historically have stood for
freedom and democracy.
so it's, the three strongesthave been the, the us, the uk
and the Netherlands.
And, the Netherlands has been alovely bridge to other European
countries'cause they speak somany languages over there.
(23:18):
So that, that's been, that'smostly what it's been.
Kathleen Mundy (23:21):
Well, Yasmine, I could ask a million questions,
but I'm gonna just let go alittle
Yasmin Nguyen (23:25):
oh.
Kathleen Mundy (23:26):
because, I'm just, I, I am motivated, I guess
that's the word.
Every time you speak, itmotivates me to do something
that I haven't done.
I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna be74 in, in 10 days,
George Kinder (23:38):
No way.
You look, you look so, you lookat least 20 years younger than
me,
Kathleen Mundy (23:44):
So I felt the same way.
You know, what should I be doingat this point in my life?
I agree with you.
You know, if you have a missionand you want, if you're so
passionate about something, agehas nothing to do with it.
George Kinder (23:57):
right
Kathleen Mundy (23:57):
means I think you have to travel a little
faster.
George Kinder (24:00):
there, there are definitely challenges because
there's a part of you that'sslowing down in various ways
and, and you have to deal withthat.
But if you're, if you arepassionate where there's a will,
there's a way and you find it,
Yasmin Nguyen (24:11):
Yeah.
George, I'd love to dive alittle bit deeper into, your
journey through this lifeplanning movement that you've
inspired and really, movedforward.
And I'm curious, and where hasit now?
and where could it be?
Because.
My observation at this point iswe're still at the early stage
of adoption and there seems tobe some, either lack of
(24:34):
awareness or appreciation forthe impact that it could make.
And so I'm curious to get yourview from a historical as well
as the present and what it couldlook like in the future in terms
of adoption and really the,rollout of more experiences like
this.
George Kinder (24:49):
Yeah.
I'm.
I am optimistic by nature.
uh, so don't trust me on this.
Yes.
Kathleen Mundy (24:59):
I love that.
George Kinder (25:03):
But I, but I am, it's, I think it's intimately
tied up with the notion offiduciary and, I really do.
And the, Partly because when I'mtalking about fiduciary in all
things and taking that notioninto businesses, that's a whole
new ball game.
(25:23):
And it's as, that's asrevolutionary in many ways as
life planning was at the verybeginning.
When you ask about it at thevery beginning, you know, the
huge percentage of the financialadvisors in the world were
salespeople.
And then those who weren't, werelawyers or had legal kind of
backgrounds, they were all aboutcontracts and putting things
(25:45):
together in, in legal frameworksand that kind of thing.
and so I on the scene with, whatthey interpreted as, and this is
a fair interpretation, as apsychology of money.
And teaching people to betherapists in the, in, in the
world.
And of course, quite soonthereafter, there was a, it's
not a major split, but I'causemany, so many friends in the
(26:08):
financial therapy world.
But I said, no, there's a, it'ssimpler than therapy.
it, and it's much easier.
And, it really has to do withjust building a sense of trust
in the.
Your relationship with yourclient and then, and then
catching fire and helping themcatch fire.
And here's how you do thecatching fire.
(26:28):
And that's really all you needto do.
And that's a lot of greattherapy, is that.
but I felt it was, you didn'tneed to go back in the past and
figure things out.
All you need to do was build abond of trust so that people
could go through the hero'sjourney of empathy.
Around their tough stuff andfeel it internally, feel it from
you, the mentor, and then as aconsequence of feeling that
(26:52):
trustworthiness, I.
they're ready.
Little sparks, you light andwhew, boy takes off.
And so that was the kind of theessence that I boiled it down
to, even though Seven Stages isreally a psychology of Money
book.
And, and we still do theworkshop, it's a very important
workshop.
and many of the people whostarted the financial therapy
movement came from, train majortrainings that I gave.
(27:15):
So you ask where it's been andwhere it is now, and where it
will be you.
You know, we get, fiduciary is aterm that in America we find it
often lost in this.
Right, right now I'm still inthe world of pensions, you know,
and it's very legalistic
Yasmin Nguyen (27:35):
Yep.
George Kinder (27:36):
and it's got and I'll throw it out, I'll throw
out something about, hey,fiduciary means putting your
client first.
and they'll go into all theselegal details or sales details
or something.
I, that's fine, but this is whatit really means.
And this is what I'm reallypitching right now, and I'm
building, I think what you'vejust shared at the beginning,
Kathleen and Yasmin, yourappreciation for the work that
(27:59):
I've done.
It gives me a platform, eventhough I don't think it's really
very much, if you look at howfew the numbers are.
Yeah, it's 6,000 or it's six or700, whatever, but that's still
very small in relation to theworld in relation to financial
advice.
But The purity of it, thestrength of it.
I do think, I think it's thebest model out there for this
(28:22):
kind of work and that strengththat it has me an ability to
talk and to reach largeraudiences.
And right now, I think what theworld needs is trustworthiness.
Kathleen Mundy (28:37):
a hundred percent.
George Kinder (28:38):
you know, Kathleen, as you're saying that,
and Yasmin.
Yasmin, as you're nodding.
One of the things I'veencouraged people to do around
Fiat is to take it to theirkitchen table, gather their
friends around the kitchen tableand dining room table, whatever
it is, and have a conversationand ask them just one really
(28:59):
simple question.
'cause what we're trying to dowith fiat is to make fiduciary
in all things, includingfiduciary, toward the truth and
toward democracy, toward people,and toward the.
What if it were the law of theland?
What if every institution thatyou encountered as you walk
through your day, wastrustworthy toward you in every
(29:23):
possible way?
What if the world was like that?
How would your world change?
How would your life change?
And we ask it in, you know, it,it's a great kitchen table kind
of conversation.
Get people, think about it.
I had my kids and they're, hadchildren late in life, so
they're just, you know, they'restill in college.
And, and they brought theirfriends and I, we had some other
(29:44):
friends around and of the kidssaid, and this reflects on this
dystopian time that we're in.
One of the kids said, well, youknow.
That would be incredible.
You know, I think it would be soincredible that would actually
think about having kids
Kathleen Mundy (30:02):
Wow.
George Kinder (30:04):
think about that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Think about that.
This is how dark it's becomegenerationally.
other people just said, oh myGod, it would be such, so much
ease in my life would happen.
And other people have said, oh,I'd have so much freedom to do
what I want to make that happen.
So I think it's tied to thatand, and that's, and so that,
(30:27):
and that's where I'm pushingright now, I'm trying to make it
much broader in that way.
But the three domains of FreedomWorkshop as you probably gather,
one third of it is about lifeplanning.
I'm getting to bring lifeplanning into businesses and one
of my passions that hasn'tdeveloped, and part of this is
low hanging fruit.
And where does it, how does ithappen?
I think life planning belongs toeverybody.
Kathleen Mundy (30:50):
Mm-hmm.
George Kinder (30:50):
think it's shame that it's just, I mean, I love
my advisors dearly, all the onesthat have studied, but I think
it belongs to everybody.
I don't, everybody's got a dreamof freedom and if you link up to
that passion, they can deliverso much more into the world.
And I think it's a shame that wehaven't yet fully brought it,
whether it's the foundation,whether it's nefi or it's the,
(31:14):
foundation for financialplanning.
I think it's a shame that wehaven't brought it yet, to
everybody.
So that's one of the, one of thethings about bringing it into
business, you're bringing it tothe workforce.
Kathleen Mundy (31:24):
I love what you said, and I think this is a
really powerful word to take asecond and just think about is
yet I.
George Kinder (31:35):
Yeah, yeah,
Kathleen Mundy (31:36):
and that kind of speaks to the possibilities and
maybe even the responsibilitiesof what it might take that yet
into a now.
word.
Yasmin Nguyen (31:47):
Yeah.
George Kinder (31:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yasmin Nguyen (31:48):
George, you touched on the word
trustworthiness quite a bit, andit's like the common core of
your, the theme of your beliefsand approach and we align with
that very much so in, in ourwork as well too.
I've always been curious todeconstruct and dissect and
understand what.
What creates trustworthiness?
(32:08):
And one of the, models that havereally influenced my thought
around this has been, onepresented by, Charles Green and,
David Maister, the trustequation and looking at the
components that drive trust,whether it be credibility,
reliability, intimacy, andself-orientation.
I think oftentimes we overlookthe, intimacy and the
(32:28):
self-orientation piece of it,and I find that.
The work that you do and theimpact that you're making,
really emphasize or expandsthose two components to be able
to deepen that, thattrustworthiness in addition to
the credibility or thereliability piece.
and I'm curious what is yourperspective on how
(32:49):
trustworthiness, how has itevolved over time as we are
considering the state of wherewe are in the world?
George Kinder (32:55):
Yeah.
really good question.
and it's still, you know, you'vegot the.
that hard edge of business thatthinks still it's just
credibility and reliability
Yasmin Nguyen (33:04):
Yeah.
George Kinder (33:04):
and Right.
and that's their attitude.
and they'll brush you off out oftheir office like and you're
done.
I was there.
I remember, the moment whereCharlie, added intimacy to the
equation.
It used to be C plus R dividedby, self-orientation.
And, and as I mentioned, Rob andCharlie and maybe David as well,
used to give workshops with mywife.
So we were, connected, and, lot,lots of d different connections
(33:28):
and connections through theEvoke trainings as well.
with Charlie, what people don'trealize, just to e emphasize.
and you know, I wanna tosseverybody toward your article,
which is about this, recentarticle you did, Yasmin.
But the, self-orientation issomething that, I think is very
closely related to theself-orientation.
(33:49):
one of the ways that I framethis is that if you think about
Who, among all the advisorsthat, you know, if you were to
give a generality of what's thecharacteristic that makes for
the very best advisors?
And some people might say, well,they're really technically,
brilliant.
I think we would all say, no,that's really not it.
(34:10):
And and what it is that they'regreat listeners.
Yasmin Nguyen (34:13):
Okay.
George Kinder (34:14):
The best advisors are always the great listener
because those are the ones whoreally know who you are, so that
the advice is really fiduciary.
It's tailored to and this notionthat you can do it by having the
cleverest, you know, scheme fora tax product or whatever, is
not only old fashioned, butit's, It's criminal, really.
it's just, it shouldn't behappening.
(34:35):
but it still does happen some.
so the greatest advisors are thegreat listeners.
And among those, you know, wheredo we find if we were to do
another categorization amongthose great listeners who are
the best listeners?
And I would argue that they're,life planners.
and it's because in fiduciary,we think fiduciary is about
(34:56):
charging, it's about being feeonly, and that's one layer of
it.
Yasmin Nguyen (35:00):
Yeah.
George Kinder (35:00):
But if you really put the client first, it also
includes the whole holisticquality of the CFP.
And clearly it involves lifeplanning as well, because
they're the, our hearts are justright.
They're connected to the client.
so then the question becomesamong the life planners who are
the best.
the best listeners, and I thinkaverage they're the ones that
(35:24):
have the strongest mindfulnesspractice.
And the reason is that whatmindfulness does and you Yeah,
and you can see I've got a mapof mindfulness that out.
I outlines what happens as youpractice it, but what
mindfulness does is that itreduces that self-orientation
that Charlie, I.
It references in such a cleverway, brilliant way, really.
(35:46):
it reduces that self-orientationFor your audience who don't know
what that means, it means thatnormally, you know, you've got
your marquee of who I am outthere and you got your
PowerPoint that shows who youare and your credentials and
everything.
but if you have a very lowself-orientation, it means that
you've pulled yourself out ofthe equation.
And so rather than going, oh, I,I had something like that, and
(36:09):
taking over the conversation bysharing your similarities, you
just really give the meetingover to the client and the
client knows that they feel thatand then, that, that's what
leads to their ability to dreamwith you.
So that lowing lowering ofself-orientation is really
helpful.
And when you ask where are wewith that?
(36:30):
Well, clearly there's this, youhave to go back to what's
happening.
you look at the horriblepolitical situation that we're
facing right now, and you haveto go, you have to look for a
moment at what's going on there.
I just, I wanna say somethingabout that and humanity.
We talked about the smartphone.
This is the first time in humanhistory.
(36:54):
That we've all been together.
It's the first time you, wenever had this communication
possibility.
We, I was talking to someone in,in, in Vietnam.
is that where you're fromoriginally?
Your family of origin?
Yasmine.
Yasmin Nguyen (37:08):
I am actually from Vietnam.
George Kinder (37:10):
That's what I thought.
Yasmin Nguyen (37:11):
Yeah.
George Kinder (37:11):
was talking with someone who, in fact, I did a
podcast with someone in Vietnam,who was based in America
originally.
and went over there and he said,you know, this phone has really
changed.
'cause I brought up the samepoint.
He said, you know, my kid talkto his grandmother in the States
every day.
Easily every single day.
(37:33):
And it used to be, you know,when I first got here, he said
I'd go into a phone booth and,you know, I'd be, you know,
counting the minutes and all ofthis.
He said it's totallyrevolutionized.
So we humanities together, he.
Doesn't feel like it because thepolitics is, we made some
mistakes giving more and morepower to, basically to wealth
(37:53):
basically.
And so that power is accumulatedand accumulated in the media,
accumulated in politics, and andit accumulated the, it
accumulated in business.
And the, let me go a few moresteps with this
Yasmin Nguyen (38:06):
Yeah.
George Kinder (38:06):
Really very interesting.
So humanity is really together.
and we need to emphasize thathonor, that, understand that,
and speak to that all of uswe're heart to heart, to person.
We're together and we need to dothat and emphasize that.
And there, there are a number ofthings historically that are
(38:27):
really interesting because,coming to this place where
finally humanity comes togetheras a species.
Just astonishing.
Not a, not an ethnicity, not anation state.
We're a species and we can makedecisions as a species.
That's incredible.
and, but here we are.
we have these terrible problems.
(38:47):
And before the politicalsituation got so dystopian, we
had global warming, right?
That was a major thing.
And we'd think, oh gosh, how didthis happen?
We have a wonderful term that Iknow you both are very familiar
with, called going to scale andgoing to scale is, you know,
it's a value we have, is itright?
We want our business to go toscale'cause we want it to be big
(39:10):
and powerful.
I'd love your podcast to go toscale.
I wanna see you guys be reallysuccessful with this.
these are wonderful things andbut what happens when.
we go global a as a species andas markets, what happens when we
go global?
All the good stuff that's there.
All what economists call all ofthe negative externalities, that
(39:34):
go along with
Kathleen Mundy (39:35):
Thank
George Kinder (39:35):
the good stuff.
Also go global.
Kathleen Mundy (39:39):
that's true.
George Kinder (39:40):
and the reason for that is that goes back to
when we first set up thecontract for, incorporation.
We allowed people to get allthese benefits, tax benefits,
and the main benefit ishierarchy.
allowed them to gather moneythrough capital.
Well, that create, creates ahierarchy right there.
It's no longer just me as a soleperson.
(40:02):
And then they could borrow awhole bunch.
Well, that makes the hierarchyeven larger.
And then they can use theircommunication, which makes the
hierarchy even larger.
we've made this, you know,terrible thing about, oh, well a
corporation is a person so theycan get involved in democracy.
And so that makes the hierarchyeven larger.
and those negativeexternalities, because those are
(40:23):
not people that, those are nothuman beings.
These are artificialorganizations.
Our corporations are.
And so what happens is that theworst of humanity, I.
Kathleen Mundy (40:34):
That's exposed.
George Kinder (40:35):
Comes out and gathers because we're growing
for greed or power.
So that's why fiduciary, think,is really compelling.
And because I, if we have afiduciary standard that's
required for every corporation,none of those externalities will
come out.
if you, you're, if you're stillallowed to accumulate, uh, the
(40:56):
hierarchy of power, but you'rerequired to be a fiduciary to
the truth.
How could we have social mediawho's going off on crazy, false
stories?
If you're required to be afiduciary to democracy.
How could you possibly undermineit with your power and likewise
to the planet and to people, youwouldn't have the kinds of
inequities.
So it, it all comes together.
(41:18):
I don't know if I've gone toofar afield, but I think that it
links now this little piece thatwe're talking about, intimacy
and self-orientation,orientation links in a way to
the largest piece about, how,our economics are structured,
how civilization is structured.
for the first time, we arehumane it.
(41:40):
That is meant to be humanity.
Structure.
Humanity is civilization.
And now we're coming togetherwith a single civilization, with
many elements and many differentethnicities and cultures and all
this.
How wonderful.
But, it's meant to come togetherwith the human heart that's ary.
Yasmin Nguyen (41:59):
Wow.
Kathleen Mundy (42:00):
Oh, I, this podcast is not long enough.
I can just tell you right now,I'm, I've got a tangent I'm
gonna go off on.
When you talk about humanity,people have those, there's many
people who object still to AIbecause they think the human
element isn't involved.
And how do we deal with this andwhat is it gonna mean to our
(42:22):
future?
And am I gonna be lost in all ofthe negative?
I'm just curious.
I love the way you questionedDan about his Yes.
About his article on this.
And for those of you who arelistening, it's a wonderful guy.
we've actually had him as apodcast guest.
I was not available, so I reallyfeel I'm in the dark on that
(42:44):
one.
I didn't get to participate.
But, he again is in the uk.
and we talked about ai and ofcourse you probably know that's
a nice structure within our,offerings or program, whatever,
the way we wanna help people.
George Kinder (42:57):
Right.
Kathleen Mundy (42:58):
so what are your thoughts about the future of AI
and how we should it or, denyit, and for what reasons On each
side of the fence and what doyou see the future being?
George Kinder (43:13):
Great.
and I wanna say that this is oneof the areas that we get,
polarized separated.
And then strong forces, mediaforces, political forces can
manipulate us because we're indifferent camps.
Kathleen Mundy (43:29):
caps.
George Kinder (43:30):
So I want, I wanna say that's, first of all,
because I.
We can go out and we can fightglobal warming, we can fight for
democracy.
We can fight for truth in media.
We can fight for having AI thatis responsible and humane.
we can fight for, equality in,in so many ways, whether it's,
gender or income or whatever.
And we, or we fi fight for localissues and what's happening in
(43:54):
every one of those.
Is we're setting a situation upwhere we can be divided because
we don't have a system thatresponds in a humane way toward
everything.
There is a way to address this,everything.
And so I will address yourquestion about ai, but I think
(44:16):
that it's wrong.
I think we, we are shortsighted.
To focus on any of theseindividually when the system is
gonna undermine us.
And that system is one that justsimply is not fiduciary.
So if we don't band together,and it's not that we don't need
to fight all those fights'causewe do, and they're all
important, they're all valuable.
But we also need to jointogether around fiduciary.
(44:38):
And if we don't, it won'tmatter.
because the powerful forces willmake whatever they want
eventually happen.
so coming back to ai, how couldit not be one of the greatest
and coolest things that has everhappened to the world?
it's stunning what it can do,but if you have political system
(45:01):
that gives the power of it.
the wealthiest people are themost powerful.
And then again, they can divideus and they can take the
portions that they want and theycan undermine, our humane kind
of trying to craft it.
I think it's a wonderful thing.
I don't know enough about yoursystem, but I'm really glad
you're doing it'cause I can seethat you're really good people
(45:22):
and, have humanity at your base,yet you're in your heart.
but I do think that.
It getting too caught up in, inthat, without bringing fiduciary
in and saying, look, we'vegotta, we've gotta address the
whole system.
'cause the next thing that'scoming is mirror molecules,
which will destroy humanity.
Or there's other biologicalstuff that's coming.
(45:42):
And just as AI arrived, we areso ingenious as a species, gonna
be a lot more coming.
AI is not the end game.
There's a lot more coming, andeach one of those things is
gonna be incredible with thegreatness that it could bring to
us.
And with the horrors.
That it will bring to us if wedon't address the fiduciary
(46:05):
element.
so whatever you do, I just urgeyou to make sure that the
fiduciary piece, always bringthat in as a, the base.
We need to shift the base of theeconomic system so that it's
always humane in everything thatit does.
Yasmin Nguyen (46:21):
we would certainly welcome and appreciate
your guidance on that as wecontinue to shape the, the path
of, the impact that we're.
We're making in the work thatwe're doing too, George.
George Kinder (46:30):
Yeah.
Yasmin Nguyen (46:31):
we're getting close to the top of the hour
here.
and I'm curious, George, youhave, had so many conversations.
You've been a guest on manyshows and had many appearances
And have there ever been aquestion that someone's yet to
ask that you've wished thatthey'd ask?
Kathleen Mundy (46:50):
That's a great question.
George Kinder (46:54):
Well.
Kathleen Mundy (46:55):
my guy.
George Kinder (46:58):
Well, I'll tell you one that, and again, I might
have mentioned, I did mentionthis, ultimately in the book I'm
thinking about it, there's notone that exactly comes to mind,
but I think talking about therelative value of the three
domains of freedom is prettyinteresting.
and a lot of your focus is ofcourse on the life planning
(47:19):
aspect.
'cause you're in the financialworld, and I put that as the
second domain of freedom and thefirst domain being in that each
moment is yours.
I think the first domain is themost profound because it gives
you everything.
But if I were to advise anyone.
(47:40):
One of my teenage daughters, youknow, anyone just out of the
blue, which of those three wouldyou go to first?
Get life planned.
Live your life planned, whatlife planning is really about is
it's designing who it is thatyou've known you really wanna
be, and then making sure ithappens and happens in short
(48:02):
order.
usually it's a matter of monthsthat we do in the evoke process,
how we train.
And at most it's two or threeyears.
that's the story of your life.
You keep telling yourself asyou're going through your life,
oh, darn, I can't do this.
Oh, they're blocking me here,there, whatever.
Oh, if only I could do that.
So we make sure that happens.
(48:24):
And then once you have that andyou feel that, then you can go
anywhere and you can go back tothe moments and you have the
courage.
You have the story of your lifeas you want it to manifest.
You have the courage to go outand tackle these larger issues
about humanity that are so rightnow, and the bullies are trying
(48:46):
to keep us from addressing.
Kathleen Mundy (48:49):
That is exactly what we needed to hear, so I
appreciate that so much becauseeverything that Yasmin has
designed, Has always been from aheartfelt need and want to help
others
George Kinder (49:04):
Yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (49:04):
and so fiduciary, it is at the core of
it, although we didn't reallytalk about it in those terms,
but that's really, you know,it's there.
George Kinder (49:13):
Right.
Kathleen Mundy (49:13):
when I first saw you.
When I first saw your Fiat, givean acronym.
just came back from Europe and Ithought I, I drove one of those
while I was there, I'm glad you,I'm glad you explained that for
our audience today anyway.
George Kinder (49:34):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yasmin Nguyen (49:34):
Wow.
Well, George, it has been suchan incredible experience with
you today, not only learningabout, your yourself, your work,
the wisdom that you've sharedfrom the journey, but also to
really feel heard and, seen.
it's interesting, you know, as,I say the interviewer in these
types of formats here, a lot oftimes we're asking the questions
(49:57):
and all that, but.
your own way of your enthusiasm,your smile, your presence, are
an incredible listener yourself.
And I so appreciate you modelingas well as being, what you share
in the world, and we are sograteful to have this
opportunity to share that withyou.
George Kinder (50:11):
Wow.
Wow.
really hope we meet again, guys.
it's been a lot of fun for me aswell.
Meaningful,
Kathleen Mundy (50:18):
Well, you don't have to hope because I know I
said to Yasmin just before westarted this podcast, I said, I
think we need to meet.
That's what I think we need todo.
it what I'm gonna put it outthere to the universe and I am
just gonna say that it willhappen.
I don't know when, but it willhappen.
(50:38):
And with your guidance and yourenthusiasm, I have no doubt.
George Kinder (50:42):
I will say, and, I have a place that I love in
some ways even more than London.
it's in the UK so you canincorporate London with it.
And the place, I love it just asmuch, if not more than Hawaii.
And that is Cornwall.
and my family, we've been goingthere for, 10 years now.
It is where we go, where ourheart goes there and, and we're
(51:05):
giving an evoke program.
We'd love to see you at programthere in Cornwall in September.
yeah, so anyway.
Kathleen Mundy (51:12):
Something to look for at in the future.
Yasmin Nguyen (51:15):
Wow.
Well, thank you so much.
It's been truly a gift to, to behere and to share this
experience with you, George.
George Kinder (51:23):
Wonderful.
Thank you so much guys.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yasmin Nguyen (51:27):
All Thank you for taking the time to join us
today.
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Join us again for another realretirement conversation.
I think talking about the relative value of the
(00:03):
three domains of freedom ispretty interesting.
and a lot of your focus is ofcourse on the life planning
aspect.
'cause you're in the financialworld, and I put that as the
second domain of freedom and thefirst domain being in that each
moment is yours.
I think the first domain is themost profound because it gives
(00:25):
you everything.
But if I were to advise anyone.
One of my teenage daughters, youknow, anyone just out of the
blue, which of those three wouldyou go to first?
Get life planned.
Live your life planned, whatlife planning is really about is
(00:45):
it's designing who it is thatyou've known you really wanna
be, and then making sure ithappens and happens in short
order.
usually it's a matter of monthsthat we do in the evoke process,
And at most it's two or threeyears.
that's the story of your life.
You keep telling yourself asyou're going through your life,
(01:06):
oh, darn, I can't do this.
Oh, they're blocking me here,there, whatever.
Oh, if only I could do that.
So we make sure that happens.
And then once you have that andyou feel that, then you can go
anywhere and you can go back tothe moments and you have the
courage.
You have the story of your lifeas you want it to manifest.
(01:28):
You have the courage to go outand tackle these larger issues
about humanity that are so rightnow, and
Yasmin Nguyen (01:36):
Welcome to The Real Retirement Show.
My name is Yasmin.
Here with my co-host Kathleen.
Today's episode is more thanjust a conversation.
It's a gift.
We are honored to welcome atrue, pioneer, visionary, and
gentle force of transformation,George Kinder.
If you've ever wondered what itmeans to truly live with
(01:57):
freedom, purpose, andauthenticity, this is the
episode that will stay with youlong after the credits roll.
George is globally known as thefather of the life planning
movement, but that onlyscratches the surface.
He's a poet of possibility, arelentless champion of personal
truth, and a mentor to thousandsof financial professionals
(02:18):
across 30 plus countries,helping them guide clients
towards lives filled not justwith wealth, but with meaning.
He is the founder of the KinderInstitute of Life Planning,
creator of the Profound Evokeprocess, and author of timeless
books like The Seven Stages ofMoney Maturity, life Planning
for You and his latest, theThree Domains of Freedom.
(02:42):
For over five decades, he'swoven together the practices of
mindfulness, creativeexpression, and financial
integrity into a movement thatempowers people to dream boldly
and actually live those dreams.
In today's conversation, Georgeshares how his life's journey
began with a deep hunger forfreedom and truth.
(03:03):
What it takes to sustain passionand purpose over 30 years, even
when swimming against thecurrent, the deeper dimensions
of trustworthiness and why it'sthe foundation of all real
relationships.
Why freedom is not just apersonal journey, but a human
right.
We're all called to protect Andhow the wisdom of nature, poetry
(03:25):
and presence can help guide usthrough life's transitions,
including retirement.
We will also explore how Georgeis evolving his legacy with his
recent move to London in a boldnew workshop series that brings
the concept of fiduciary duty,beyond finances, into society,
into organizations, and into theheart of humanity.
(03:46):
This episode is full of hearthumility and hope.
A rare opportunity to sit withsomeone who is quietly and
powerfully shaping what it meansto live well.
So settle in.
You're about to hear fromsomeone who doesn't just talk
about living authentically.
He embodies it.
Thank you, George for joiningus.
My pleasure.
I, I've heard about you guysand, and I get to meet you, so
(04:08):
it's wonderful.
Kathleen?
huge, huge footsteps to try andwalk in.
George Kinder (04:15):
Oh gosh.
I'm a little guy.
Really?
Yasmin Nguyen (04:17):
you have, you have such incredible heart.
And presence and the commitmentthat you have been on this path
for many decades and the impactthat you've made has really been
resounding, and we are just soreally honored and delighted to
share with you a conversation tolearn about your journey as well
as you know what's next
George Kinder (04:38):
Wonderful.
Well, I'm really looking forwardto it.
Kathleen Mundy (04:41):
I love your story.
I feel like I know you, and it'san odd situation now trying to
craft my concept, my,impression.
the influence, the astonishment.
I don't know how many words Ican use, but to be perfectly
honest, I was so incrediblyimpressed by what you've
accomplished over the last 30plus years.
(05:03):
It's just monumental.
It's inspirational.
And, I'm just so excited tolearn a little bit more about
how you got here.
This is, it's an incrediblejourney and how you sustain that
because, you know, we're on asimilar journey and that some of
the people just, they're not inthe boat with us yet.
George Kinder (05:23):
Yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (05:23):
and so as we paddle from one show to another,
picking up passengers andhopefully, you know, getting
from, well, we've gone from arowboat to maybe a schooner and
hopefully we'll get to somethinglike the, queen Elizabeth or the
Queen Britannia or whatever, youknow, that boat that now you're
gonna be very part, probably apart of if you go and have a
(05:44):
look at it.
I'm excited for you and yourjourney in London.
It's one of my favorite citiesas well.
George Kinder (05:50):
Oh, thank you.
I'm really lucky to be here.
Kathleen Mundy (05:52):
I am just so impressed with what you have
accomplished over the last 30years.
this was, an adventure.
That few people would even thinkof taking and the courage that
you had to swim, I don't wannasay upstream, but certainly
against the current.
George Kinder (06:08):
Yeah,
Kathleen Mundy (06:10):
I'm curious as to how you were able to a.
Fight the force against you andwhat you used to maintain the
momentum that you've continuedover the last 30 years.
George Kinder (06:23):
well, you know enough about my work and about,
life planning to know that whatwe do in life planning, what
life planning advisors do isthey design Through
trustworthiness.
And by the way, thank you somuch for that wonderful article
and my friend.
Charlie Green and, and, RobAlford, did workshops with both
(06:43):
Charlie and Rob.
Did workshops with my wifeKathy, who's part of this
fiduciary movement, but I'mdigressing.
But the, the, you know, thefirst thing of course is
building, trustworthiness, but,what we're most famous for, and
I think what people grasp mostquickly is that we create a
dream of freedom for a person.
And then we deliver it.
(07:04):
Now, you can't design that.
artificial.
You can't design it withoutbuilding that quality of
trustworthiness, that you guysknow very well.
but for myself, I.
To, to fight the force.
I, mean, it goes back to birthreally.
I mean, I came out of the wombfighting for freedom.
(07:25):
It really, really does.
And, um, uh, I've got storiesabout that, but we're not gonna
go back that far here.
I knew early on I was passionateto live a life of freedom
myself.
So it starts with yourself.
It has to start with yourself.
And, you can't be a greatadvisor unless you're a great,
unless you've lived your dream,unless you're living your dream
(07:47):
of freedom.
You can't be a great listenerunless you can listen really
deeply and subtly and profoundlyto yourself.
I'd already done a lot of thatinterior work, but I think the,
when you say fight the force,man, I mean that, that's having
that dream, having it in frontof you and knowing I'm going for
it.
It doesn't matter what forcegets in the way, I'm going for
(08:08):
it.
This is the right thing.
I know it's the right thing.
There'll be a few people thatwill join me along the way.
And sure enough, the, and thebest of people, joined along the
way.
And so that to fight the force,it's really that your dream is
strong and life planning helpswith that, obviously.
and my dream was strong.
I really believe in freedom.
that's huge for me.
(08:30):
As much as I'm promoting thisfiduciary in all things.
Think fiduciary in all things isessential.
we are to have freedom availablefor everybody.
And that's what that, that's mygoal.
It's like this is the humanitygoal and it's time for that, the
globalization and, of where weare in the world and the scale
that take things to.
(08:51):
But the other question is, howdid I maintain it?
Right?
You're going, how did I keepgoing?
I think the other thing is Ifelt I had very little To lose.
that's helpful too.
I never put the dollar, or nowthat I'm in the uk, the pound
ahead of me and say that's mygoal.
A lot of people do, most peoplethat, that will be listening to
(09:14):
this podcast, they've been told,your business comes first and
you gotta have the goals.
There's the 20% rule and allthat kind of stuff.
I never did that.
I always felt that what was mostimportant was the truth and was
delivering freedom.
first learning to live itmyself, delivering it to myself,
but then seeing how to deliverit to others.
And I, Kathleen, I was.
(09:36):
Passionate about it.
I, and I just kept returning tothat passion.
Like I didn't have it on therefrigerator door, but you
could, you know, the image onthe refrigerator there's your
image of freedom.
Anyway, that, that's what it wasfor me.
a lot of passion
Kathleen Mundy (09:48):
there's no question that you still maintain
that passion, and now it'sbecome infectious.
Because anyone who listens tosome of your podcasts reads your
books.
Now here's another really deepquestion for you.
George Kinder (10:04):
Yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (10:05):
You have left the serenity cabin and the
environment in which you startedyour morning.
Did your meditations, began yourday until you were ready to
write?
George Kinder (10:18):
Yeah,
Kathleen Mundy (10:18):
you going to replicate that now that you're
in the city of London?
George Kinder (10:23):
you know, I have a dear friend in, Massachusetts,
one of my very best friends formany years, who, I.
He is a wonderful student ofpainting.
He's a great painter in and ofhimself.
He was, I forget what the termis, but he redid, he brought,
would, heal, 19th centuryAmerican paintings in this hub
on, Newbury Street in Boston.
(10:44):
he is a, as I am, fond of.
paintings from all over theworld and, uh, one of the ways
that we linked up early on wasour love of Chinese landscape
paintings.
And, they have influenced, and Isee Yasmin nodding, and I know
they, you know, they'veinfluenced art throughout Asia,
Vietnamese art, Japanese art.
(11:04):
and so we were pa we both imppassionate about it.
And of the things he said to me,he said, you know, George, you
know, and a lot of thoselandscapes, Chinese landscapes
that are so beautiful and sospecious, that spaciousness
speaks to, The profound natureof consciousness of our,
awakening really they speak to.
But he said, you know, thatlittle cabin that's often there
(11:26):
in the, in
Kathleen Mundy (11:27):
right.
George Kinder (11:28):
Yeah.
That ca that's the cabin,Kathleen.
And that, and he said, that'sthe symbol of enlightenment.
And I said, what?
Kathleen Mundy (11:35):
Wow.
George Kinder (11:36):
I based of course this whole 30 years of, my.
What I think of my legacy isactually my books of poetry and,
photography.
Putting them together, in waysthat, draw upon the,
calligraphy.
I didn't do calligraphy, but itreally is the same thing as the
great arts in Asia ofcalligraphy and, great painting.
So that cabin, you're right,it's not just the serenity of
(11:57):
it, but it was, a practice,every day.
I wanted to know what the natureof the present moment was, and
I.
And I spent 30 years exploringthat.
And my hunch was that it had agreat deal to do with Mother
Nature because, you know, thinkabout it, when you go, you know,
here we are, we're all like,we're all in these rooms, right?
(12:19):
We got four corners and all,four walls.
But when we walk outside.
Immediately there's somethingthat comes alive in us and
whether it's the breeze thatsubtly touches us or subtle
temperature differences, theslight changes in humidity, but
something's alive.
And it's not just the sounds ofbirds, it's mother nature making
(12:39):
connection to us.
And it's moment by moment and ithappens much more rapidly than
thought.
In fact, there's a recentscientific American article
that, in December that talkedabout how we're actually.
Experiencing that information ahundred million times as fast as
we think.
and that's the power of comingback to life planning, great
(13:02):
listening.
And that's the power ofmindfulness.
So when you say, how am I gonnaleave that serenity, I did those
30 years so I could bring itwith me.
Kathleen Mundy (13:13):
Oh my gosh.
George Kinder (13:15):
Yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (13:16):
is a talent, but I hope it doesn't take us all 30
years to, to acquire that.
Yasmin knows that I live in anarea that we're our backyard is
a forest.
George Kinder (13:27):
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (13:28):
understand your, Of the ethos about connecting
with nature and being there andlistening to the birds and
watching things grow anddevelop.
And as I, I think about this, Ithink about your three
dimensions of freedom workshopsthat you're starting in
September.
How have you taken that?
Your sense of everything youbelieve in is freedom.
How have you taken that to aworkshop kind of philosophy?
George Kinder (13:54):
Right.
So, first of all, I think thebook really captures the cabin
in a very profound way.
certainly the first third of thebook, which is about this, the
first freedom, which is astunning freedom when you think
about it.
And at first it's kind of one ofthese obvious things like,
Einstein would say the mostprofound questions are the ones
(14:14):
that children know already, orask.
And so that first domain offreedom is that each moment is
yours.
we might do lip service to it.
We, but we don't really get itand we don't really take
advantage of it, and we don't.
Deepen into it.
It's the most profound thing youcan have is because every moment
that's what your life is each ofthese moments.
(14:35):
so I just want to give a shoutout to the book The Domains of
Freedom.
It is the summary of my life'swork, of everything I've done.
And it's really simple.
It's, and it's, and again, I wasthinking of some great works
from Asia, Lazu Chang and, otherworks that are that.
Simple.
And I wanted to write somethingthat was simple people could get
(14:58):
and do.
Read in a sitting, you can readit in an hour and a quarter,
although you're so tempted topause with, there's a lot of
wisdom.
I think in it, you're tempted topause with it and really think
about it.
so I wrote it because it's a wayof getting it out to everybody,
and I wrote it so people couldreflect on it, sit with it, and.
Is something that they wouldvalue at home.
(15:18):
and so your question abouttaking it into a workshop
setting is a really interestingone.
And the place, and I don't knowif you were just alluding to
this or not, but gosh, where insuch a crazy time in the world.
Such a crazy time.
And, and my strength in, inbusiness, my strength
(15:40):
professionally, let's put itthat way, is, has been
workshops.
I designed a workshop thatreally has, It transformed so
much, and it's a tiny corner offinancial, planning or financial
advice.
the people who are there,they're, those people are
powerful, profound people.
They're really goodpractitioners, the best, I
think.
(16:01):
And, so it will have, influencein that way.
What happened for me, of things.
I finished the work, I finishedthe, that being in the cabin and
doing that work andunderstanding what it was.
You probably know how old I am.
I know.
Thank goodness.
I don't look quite this age, butI'm 77 years old.
(16:22):
my golly, in 10 years I'm gonnabe 87.
And it's oh, you know, you know,and you know that's really, you
think that's, boy, you shouldhave been retired a long time
ago.
And, and my wife Kathy, and I.
You know, we think about, she'salmost 10 years younger than me,
but we think about where wouldwe wanna be if we were retiring?
And we thought about, you know,do you go to a, you know, a
(16:43):
retirement center of some sortand what do we do?
and one of our thoughts was,what could be better than the
city of London?
You can walk out the door justlike you can in any retirement
center.
there.
Everything's there.
and what if we were close tothe, you know, the galleries
that we love, the parks that welove, and of course they're good
(17:05):
people that I know over theyears I've met.
People.
so that was one thing.
And the second thing was there'sa devastation that we have to
weather whenever we finished amajor, a legacy and the, that
five book series of poetry andphotography is my legacy.
I finished it, I gonna do next?
And then this terrible timethat's happening in the world.
(17:27):
And I thought, you know, I'dwritten the three domains of
freedom.
That third domain, I feel reallyat peace and on target in the
first domain of each moment ismine.
And I have lived a life hasclaimed that, your eyes on the
prize that your life is yours.
that's that prize I was thepassion I was talking about.
(17:48):
But the third domain of freedomreally requires all of us.
It's something that's about allof us.
It's about humanity and we'rereally not there.
and we should be.
Each one of us look at this.
Each one of us has one of these,right?
We all do over the world.
Do you know?
it, I think it's 90%.
I think I wrote about this inthe book.
It's 90% of humanity has asmartphone.
(18:12):
Well, imagine if this smartphonethat we all have was required
and did to speak the truth, thewhole truth, and nothing but the
truth.
Kathleen Mundy (18:24):
Oh, what a world that would be.
George Kinder (18:28):
Yeah.
And wouldn't we as humanity now,not, you know, this camp over
here and this camp over here andthis warrior camp over here, but
wouldn't we, as humanity,wouldn't we be able to make good
decisions?
we might differ.
We live in different places.
in different circumstances,we're different ages.
We have families or we don't.
(18:49):
We have different ideas, butstill, if it told the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but thetruth, don't you think humanity
could make wise decisions?
I do.
Kathleen Mundy (19:00):
I
George Kinder (19:00):
And so why aren't we doing it?
So that, and that hit me and Ithought, want to wanna make that
happen.
I realize, again, I can just doit small bit, but I wanna make
that happen and.
and America didn't feel like thesafest place to do it in right
now.
I don't, you know, my attitudetoward bullies.
(19:20):
I don't take kindly to bullies.
And, in America right now, it'sa, you know, standing up to a
bully.
if you're Bruce Springsteen, youcan do it, but
Kathleen Mundy (19:29):
right.
George Kinder (19:30):
thank God there's one boss in America, as they
say.
but,
Kathleen Mundy (19:33):
I just wanna,
George Kinder (19:34):
yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (19:34):
On that a little bit.
I don't know if you knew I wasCanadian.
George Kinder (19:37):
Oh, wow.
That's so cool.
Yay.
So we're we got Yeah,
Kathleen Mundy (19:42):
you know what King Charles just did?
George Kinder (19:44):
I do.
I do.
Yes,
Kathleen Mundy (19:46):
bully in his place.
George Kinder (19:47):
absolutely.
and, so I thought, I, I can doit in the uk and then I went
through a huge, very difficultprocess.
It took me three months to writea business plan.
I'd never written a businessplan before in my life.
it, and I wanted to make sure.
That they honored it becausethere's a rare visa that they
give out called innovatorfounder Visa, there's only a few
(20:10):
hundred a year they give out,and often it takes months for
them to make the decision.
The endorsing body made itsdecision on my proposal in nine
days.
Kathleen Mundy (20:22):
wow.
Congratulations.
George Kinder (20:25):
Yeah, so that's, so basically the workshop is to
take these ideas of freedom intobusiness where we really think
it's profit that it's all about,and give them yet another
alternative, the fiduciary to BCorps, to the profit model.
and to bring it to their people,to the workforce,
Kathleen Mundy (20:47):
Right.
George Kinder (20:47):
to give them of freedom.
Yasmin Nguyen (20:50):
George, as you've, Taught and shared your
wisdom in this movement withmore than 6,000 people, over 30
plus countries.
I'm curious if you founddifferent regions or countries
or pockets like, the UK that areembracing this type of mindset,
this type of philosophy aboutfreedom, about, the fiduciary
(21:10):
of, making that type of adifference in people's lives.
George Kinder (21:14):
As a child, as a young man, I never in a million
years thought I would be, ableto have, any influence at all in
another country, much less 30,30 countries.
And so it's been, a joy.
I love the word in yourbackground there, Yasmin Joy.
It's been a joy and a pleasureand a great honor and, and.
(21:34):
Different things happen.
You know, obviously cultures aredifferent, and over here in
England there's the stiff upperlip and the, but everywhere I go
I, everywhere I went, I hadpeople say, everywhere in every
culture they say, oh, th thiswill never land here.
I.
Kathleen Mundy (21:50):
Oh yeah.
George Kinder (21:51):
every culture they'd say, this will never land
here.
And they'd say, you in America,you've got that therapy stuff
and you got a soft, squishystuff.
And and I said, yeah, sure.
we got red states and bluestates.
And do you know what?
People in the red states love itas much as people in the blue
states.
this is about, being, a humanbeing, and that's what, that's
(22:13):
ultimately what happened wasthat people recognized that what
we've had to do, because wehaven't had, it's not like we
went out and sought.
big bucks from funders, and Ithink that's helped us not
seeking that out, but because wehaven't had that, we go with the
low hanging fruit.
where are people, where dopeople grab it immediately?
(22:34):
And where can they pay enough?
that, that we can make ithappen.
And it's helped, but everywhereI've gone it's, people have
loved it.
you know, as I'm looking at youall, I'm thinking of India,
which is, I wish I could go backmuch more.
And I wish it was moreaffordable for them, because
they have really embraced it.
They really loved it.
I took my gold and civilizationconversations to them and they
(22:57):
just ate it up.
But the places where it's beenstrongest are.
places that have stood for,historically have stood for
freedom and democracy.
so it's, the three strongesthave been the, the us, the uk
and the Netherlands.
And, the Netherlands has been alovely bridge to other European
countries'cause they speak somany languages over there.
(23:18):
So that, that's been, that'smostly what it's been.
Kathleen Mundy (23:21):
Well, Yasmine, I could ask a million questions,
but I'm gonna just let go alittle
Yasmin Nguyen (23:25):
oh.
Kathleen Mundy (23:26):
because, I'm just, I, I am motivated, I guess
that's the word.
Every time you speak, itmotivates me to do something
that I haven't done.
I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna be74 in, in 10 days,
George Kinder (23:38):
No way.
You look, you look so, you lookat least 20 years younger than
me,
Kathleen Mundy (23:44):
So I felt the same way.
You know, what should I be doingat this point in my life?
I agree with you.
You know, if you have a missionand you want, if you're so
passionate about something, agehas nothing to do with it.
George Kinder (23:57):
right
Kathleen Mundy (23:57):
means I think you have to travel a little
faster.
George Kinder (24:00):
there, there are definitely challenges because
there's a part of you that'sslowing down in various ways
and, and you have to deal withthat.
But if you're, if you arepassionate where there's a will,
there's a way and you find it,
Yasmin Nguyen (24:11):
Yeah.
George, I'd love to dive alittle bit deeper into, your
journey through this lifeplanning movement that you've
inspired and really, movedforward.
And I'm curious, and where hasit now?
and where could it be?
Because.
My observation at this point iswe're still at the early stage
of adoption and there seems tobe some, either lack of
(24:34):
awareness or appreciation forthe impact that it could make.
And so I'm curious to get yourview from a historical as well
as the present and what it couldlook like in the future in terms
of adoption and really the,rollout of more experiences like
this.
George Kinder (24:49):
Yeah.
I'm.
I am optimistic by nature.
uh, so don't trust me on this.
Yes.
Kathleen Mundy (24:59):
I love that.
George Kinder (25:03):
But I, but I am, it's, I think it's intimately
tied up with the notion offiduciary and, I really do.
And the, Partly because when I'mtalking about fiduciary in all
things and taking that notioninto businesses, that's a whole
new ball game.
(25:23):
And it's as, that's asrevolutionary in many ways as
life planning was at the verybeginning.
When you ask about it at thevery beginning, you know, the
huge percentage of the financialadvisors in the world were
salespeople.
And then those who weren't, werelawyers or had legal kind of
backgrounds, they were all aboutcontracts and putting things
(25:45):
together in, in legal frameworksand that kind of thing.
and so I on the scene with, whatthey interpreted as, and this is
a fair interpretation, as apsychology of money.
And teaching people to betherapists in the, in, in the
world.
And of course, quite soonthereafter, there was a, it's
not a major split, but I'causemany, so many friends in the
(26:08):
financial therapy world.
But I said, no, there's a, it'ssimpler than therapy.
it, and it's much easier.
And, it really has to do withjust building a sense of trust
in the.
Your relationship with yourclient and then, and then
catching fire and helping themcatch fire.
And here's how you do thecatching fire.
(26:28):
And that's really all you needto do.
And that's a lot of greattherapy, is that.
but I felt it was, you didn'tneed to go back in the past and
figure things out.
All you need to do was build abond of trust so that people
could go through the hero'sjourney of empathy.
Around their tough stuff andfeel it internally, feel it from
you, the mentor, and then as aconsequence of feeling that
(26:52):
trustworthiness, I.
they're ready.
Little sparks, you light andwhew, boy takes off.
And so that was the kind of theessence that I boiled it down
to, even though Seven Stages isreally a psychology of Money
book.
And, and we still do theworkshop, it's a very important
workshop.
and many of the people whostarted the financial therapy
movement came from, train majortrainings that I gave.
(27:15):
So you ask where it's been andwhere it is now, and where it
will be you.
You know, we get, fiduciary is aterm that in America we find it
often lost in this.
Right, right now I'm still inthe world of pensions, you know,
and it's very legalistic
Yasmin Nguyen (27:35):
Yep.
George Kinder (27:36):
and it's got and I'll throw it out, I'll throw
out something about, hey,fiduciary means putting your
client first.
and they'll go into all theselegal details or sales details
or something.
I, that's fine, but this is whatit really means.
And this is what I'm reallypitching right now, and I'm
building, I think what you'vejust shared at the beginning,
Kathleen and Yasmin, yourappreciation for the work that
(27:59):
I've done.
It gives me a platform, eventhough I don't think it's really
very much, if you look at howfew the numbers are.
Yeah, it's 6,000 or it's six or700, whatever, but that's still
very small in relation to theworld in relation to financial
advice.
But The purity of it, thestrength of it.
I do think, I think it's thebest model out there for this
(28:22):
kind of work and that strengththat it has me an ability to
talk and to reach largeraudiences.
And right now, I think what theworld needs is trustworthiness.
Kathleen Mundy (28:37):
a hundred percent.
George Kinder (28:38):
you know, Kathleen, as you're saying that,
and Yasmin.
Yasmin, as you're nodding.
One of the things I'veencouraged people to do around
Fiat is to take it to theirkitchen table, gather their
friends around the kitchen tableand dining room table, whatever
it is, and have a conversationand ask them just one really
(28:59):
simple question.
'cause what we're trying to dowith fiat is to make fiduciary
in all things, includingfiduciary, toward the truth and
toward democracy, toward people,and toward the.
What if it were the law of theland?
What if every institution thatyou encountered as you walk
through your day, wastrustworthy toward you in every
(29:23):
possible way?
What if the world was like that?
How would your world change?
How would your life change?
And we ask it in, you know, it,it's a great kitchen table kind
of conversation.
Get people, think about it.
I had my kids and they're, hadchildren late in life, so
they're just, you know, they'restill in college.
And, and they brought theirfriends and I, we had some other
(29:44):
friends around and of the kidssaid, and this reflects on this
dystopian time that we're in.
One of the kids said, well, youknow.
That would be incredible.
You know, I think it would be soincredible that would actually
think about having kids
Kathleen Mundy (30:02):
Wow.
George Kinder (30:04):
think about that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Think about that.
This is how dark it's becomegenerationally.
other people just said, oh myGod, it would be such, so much
ease in my life would happen.
And other people have said, oh,I'd have so much freedom to do
what I want to make that happen.
So I think it's tied to thatand, and that's, and so that,
(30:27):
and that's where I'm pushingright now, I'm trying to make it
much broader in that way.
But the three domains of FreedomWorkshop as you probably gather,
one third of it is about lifeplanning.
I'm getting to bring lifeplanning into businesses and one
of my passions that hasn'tdeveloped, and part of this is
low hanging fruit.
And where does it, how does ithappen?
I think life planning belongs toeverybody.
Kathleen Mundy (30:50):
Mm-hmm.
George Kinder (30:50):
think it's shame that it's just, I mean, I love
my advisors dearly, all the onesthat have studied, but I think
it belongs to everybody.
I don't, everybody's got a dreamof freedom and if you link up to
that passion, they can deliverso much more into the world.
And I think it's a shame that wehaven't yet fully brought it,
whether it's the foundation,whether it's nefi or it's the,
(31:14):
foundation for financialplanning.
I think it's a shame that wehaven't brought it yet, to
everybody.
So that's one of the, one of thethings about bringing it into
business, you're bringing it tothe workforce.
Kathleen Mundy (31:24):
I love what you said, and I think this is a
really powerful word to take asecond and just think about is
yet I.
George Kinder (31:35):
Yeah, yeah,
Kathleen Mundy (31:36):
and that kind of speaks to the possibilities and
maybe even the responsibilitiesof what it might take that yet
into a now.
word.
Yasmin Nguyen (31:47):
Yeah.
George Kinder (31:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yasmin Nguyen (31:48):
George, you touched on the word
trustworthiness quite a bit, andit's like the common core of
your, the theme of your beliefsand approach and we align with
that very much so in, in ourwork as well too.
I've always been curious todeconstruct and dissect and
understand what.
What creates trustworthiness?
(32:08):
And one of the, models that havereally influenced my thought
around this has been, onepresented by, Charles Green and,
David Maister, the trustequation and looking at the
components that drive trust,whether it be credibility,
reliability, intimacy, andself-orientation.
I think oftentimes we overlookthe, intimacy and the
(32:28):
self-orientation piece of it,and I find that.
The work that you do and theimpact that you're making,
really emphasize or expandsthose two components to be able
to deepen that, thattrustworthiness in addition to
the credibility or thereliability piece.
and I'm curious what is yourperspective on how
(32:49):
trustworthiness, how has itevolved over time as we are
considering the state of wherewe are in the world?
George Kinder (32:55):
Yeah.
really good question.
and it's still, you know, you'vegot the.
that hard edge of business thatthinks still it's just
credibility and reliability
Yasmin Nguyen (33:04):
Yeah.
George Kinder (33:04):
and Right.
and that's their attitude.
and they'll brush you off out oftheir office like and you're
done.
I was there.
I remember, the moment whereCharlie, added intimacy to the
equation.
It used to be C plus R dividedby, self-orientation.
And, and as I mentioned, Rob andCharlie and maybe David as well,
used to give workshops with mywife.
So we were, connected, and, lot,lots of d different connections
(33:28):
and connections through theEvoke trainings as well.
with Charlie, what people don'trealize, just to e emphasize.
and you know, I wanna tosseverybody toward your article,
which is about this, recentarticle you did, Yasmin.
But the, self-orientation issomething that, I think is very
closely related to theself-orientation.
(33:49):
one of the ways that I framethis is that if you think about
Who, among all the advisorsthat, you know, if you were to
give a generality of what's thecharacteristic that makes for
the very best advisors?
And some people might say, well,they're really technically,
brilliant.
I think we would all say, no,that's really not it.
(34:10):
And and what it is that they'regreat listeners.
Yasmin Nguyen (34:13):
Okay.
George Kinder (34:14):
The best advisors are always the great listener
because those are the ones whoreally know who you are, so that
the advice is really fiduciary.
It's tailored to and this notionthat you can do it by having the
cleverest, you know, scheme fora tax product or whatever, is
not only old fashioned, butit's, It's criminal, really.
it's just, it shouldn't behappening.
(34:35):
but it still does happen some.
so the greatest advisors are thegreat listeners.
And among those, you know, wheredo we find if we were to do
another categorization amongthose great listeners who are
the best listeners?
And I would argue that they're,life planners.
and it's because in fiduciary,we think fiduciary is about
(34:56):
charging, it's about being feeonly, and that's one layer of
it.
Yasmin Nguyen (35:00):
Yeah.
George Kinder (35:00):
But if you really put the client first, it also
includes the whole holisticquality of the CFP.
And clearly it involves lifeplanning as well, because
they're the, our hearts are justright.
They're connected to the client.
so then the question becomesamong the life planners who are
the best.
the best listeners, and I thinkaverage they're the ones that
(35:24):
have the strongest mindfulnesspractice.
And the reason is that whatmindfulness does and you Yeah,
and you can see I've got a mapof mindfulness that out.
I outlines what happens as youpractice it, but what
mindfulness does is that itreduces that self-orientation
that Charlie, I.
It references in such a cleverway, brilliant way, really.
(35:46):
it reduces that self-orientationFor your audience who don't know
what that means, it means thatnormally, you know, you've got
your marquee of who I am outthere and you got your
PowerPoint that shows who youare and your credentials and
everything.
but if you have a very lowself-orientation, it means that
you've pulled yourself out ofthe equation.
And so rather than going, oh, I,I had something like that, and
(36:09):
taking over the conversation bysharing your similarities, you
just really give the meetingover to the client and the
client knows that they feel thatand then, that, that's what
leads to their ability to dreamwith you.
So that lowing lowering ofself-orientation is really
helpful.
And when you ask where are wewith that?
(36:30):
Well, clearly there's this, youhave to go back to what's
happening.
you look at the horriblepolitical situation that we're
facing right now, and you haveto go, you have to look for a
moment at what's going on there.
I just, I wanna say somethingabout that and humanity.
We talked about the smartphone.
This is the first time in humanhistory.
(36:54):
That we've all been together.
It's the first time you, wenever had this communication
possibility.
We, I was talking to someone in,in, in Vietnam.
is that where you're fromoriginally?
Your family of origin?
Yasmine.
Yasmin Nguyen (37:08):
I am actually from Vietnam.
George Kinder (37:10):
That's what I thought.
Yasmin Nguyen (37:11):
Yeah.
George Kinder (37:11):
was talking with someone who, in fact, I did a
podcast with someone in Vietnam,who was based in America
originally.
and went over there and he said,you know, this phone has really
changed.
'cause I brought up the samepoint.
He said, you know, my kid talkto his grandmother in the States
every day.
Easily every single day.
(37:33):
And it used to be, you know,when I first got here, he said
I'd go into a phone booth and,you know, I'd be, you know,
counting the minutes and all ofthis.
He said it's totallyrevolutionized.
So we humanities together, he.
Doesn't feel like it because thepolitics is, we made some
mistakes giving more and morepower to, basically to wealth
(37:53):
basically.
And so that power is accumulatedand accumulated in the media,
accumulated in politics, and andit accumulated the, it
accumulated in business.
And the, let me go a few moresteps with this
Yasmin Nguyen (38:06):
Yeah.
George Kinder (38:06):
Really very interesting.
So humanity is really together.
and we need to emphasize thathonor, that, understand that,
and speak to that all of uswe're heart to heart, to person.
We're together and we need to dothat and emphasize that.
And there, there are a number ofthings historically that are
(38:27):
really interesting because,coming to this place where
finally humanity comes togetheras a species.
Just astonishing.
Not a, not an ethnicity, not anation state.
We're a species and we can makedecisions as a species.
That's incredible.
and, but here we are.
we have these terrible problems.
(38:47):
And before the politicalsituation got so dystopian, we
had global warming, right?
That was a major thing.
And we'd think, oh gosh, how didthis happen?
We have a wonderful term that Iknow you both are very familiar
with, called going to scale andgoing to scale is, you know,
it's a value we have, is itright?
We want our business to go toscale'cause we want it to be big
(39:10):
and powerful.
I'd love your podcast to go toscale.
I wanna see you guys be reallysuccessful with this.
these are wonderful things andbut what happens when.
we go global a as a species andas markets, what happens when we
go global?
All the good stuff that's there.
All what economists call all ofthe negative externalities, that
(39:34):
go along with
Kathleen Mundy (39:35):
Thank
George Kinder (39:35):
the good stuff.
Also go global.
Kathleen Mundy (39:39):
that's true.
George Kinder (39:40):
and the reason for that is that goes back to
when we first set up thecontract for, incorporation.
We allowed people to get allthese benefits, tax benefits,
and the main benefit ishierarchy.
allowed them to gather moneythrough capital.
Well, that create, creates ahierarchy right there.
It's no longer just me as a soleperson.
(40:02):
And then they could borrow awhole bunch.
Well, that makes the hierarchyeven larger.
And then they can use theircommunication, which makes the
hierarchy even larger.
we've made this, you know,terrible thing about, oh, well a
corporation is a person so theycan get involved in democracy.
And so that makes the hierarchyeven larger.
and those negativeexternalities, because those are
(40:23):
not people that, those are nothuman beings.
These are artificialorganizations.
Our corporations are.
And so what happens is that theworst of humanity, I.
Kathleen Mundy (40:34):
That's exposed.
George Kinder (40:35):
Comes out and gathers because we're growing
for greed or power.
So that's why fiduciary, think,is really compelling.
And because I, if we have afiduciary standard that's
required for every corporation,none of those externalities will
come out.
if you, you're, if you're stillallowed to accumulate, uh, the
(40:56):
hierarchy of power, but you'rerequired to be a fiduciary to
the truth.
How could we have social mediawho's going off on crazy, false
stories?
If you're required to be afiduciary to democracy.
How could you possibly undermineit with your power and likewise
to the planet and to people, youwouldn't have the kinds of
inequities.
So it, it all comes together.
(41:18):
I don't know if I've gone toofar afield, but I think that it
links now this little piece thatwe're talking about, intimacy
and self-orientation,orientation links in a way to
the largest piece about, how,our economics are structured,
how civilization is structured.
for the first time, we arehumane it.
(41:40):
That is meant to be humanity.
Structure.
Humanity is civilization.
And now we're coming togetherwith a single civilization, with
many elements and many differentethnicities and cultures and all
this.
How wonderful.
But, it's meant to come togetherwith the human heart that's ary.
Yasmin Nguyen (41:59):
Wow.
Kathleen Mundy (42:00):
Oh, I, this podcast is not long enough.
I can just tell you right now,I'm, I've got a tangent I'm
gonna go off on.
When you talk about humanity,people have those, there's many
people who object still to AIbecause they think the human
element isn't involved.
And how do we deal with this andwhat is it gonna mean to our
(42:22):
future?
And am I gonna be lost in all ofthe negative?
I'm just curious.
I love the way you questionedDan about his Yes.
About his article on this.
And for those of you who arelistening, it's a wonderful guy.
we've actually had him as apodcast guest.
I was not available, so I reallyfeel I'm in the dark on that
(42:44):
one.
I didn't get to participate.
But, he again is in the uk.
and we talked about ai and ofcourse you probably know that's
a nice structure within our,offerings or program, whatever,
the way we wanna help people.
George Kinder (42:57):
Right.
Kathleen Mundy (42:58):
so what are your thoughts about the future of AI
and how we should it or, denyit, and for what reasons On each
side of the fence and what doyou see the future being?
George Kinder (43:13):
Great.
and I wanna say that this is oneof the areas that we get,
polarized separated.
And then strong forces, mediaforces, political forces can
manipulate us because we're indifferent camps.
Kathleen Mundy (43:29):
caps.
George Kinder (43:30):
So I want, I wanna say that's, first of all,
because I.
We can go out and we can fightglobal warming, we can fight for
democracy.
We can fight for truth in media.
We can fight for having AI thatis responsible and humane.
we can fight for, equality in,in so many ways, whether it's,
gender or income or whatever.
And we, or we fi fight for localissues and what's happening in
(43:54):
every one of those.
Is we're setting a situation upwhere we can be divided because
we don't have a system thatresponds in a humane way toward
everything.
There is a way to address this,everything.
And so I will address yourquestion about ai, but I think
(44:16):
that it's wrong.
I think we, we are shortsighted.
To focus on any of theseindividually when the system is
gonna undermine us.
And that system is one that justsimply is not fiduciary.
So if we don't band together,and it's not that we don't need
to fight all those fights'causewe do, and they're all
important, they're all valuable.
But we also need to jointogether around fiduciary.
(44:38):
And if we don't, it won'tmatter.
because the powerful forces willmake whatever they want
eventually happen.
so coming back to ai, how couldit not be one of the greatest
and coolest things that has everhappened to the world?
it's stunning what it can do,but if you have political system
(45:01):
that gives the power of it.
the wealthiest people are themost powerful.
And then again, they can divideus and they can take the
portions that they want and theycan undermine, our humane kind
of trying to craft it.
I think it's a wonderful thing.
I don't know enough about yoursystem, but I'm really glad
you're doing it'cause I can seethat you're really good people
(45:22):
and, have humanity at your base,yet you're in your heart.
but I do think that.
It getting too caught up in, inthat, without bringing fiduciary
in and saying, look, we'vegotta, we've gotta address the
whole system.
'cause the next thing that'scoming is mirror molecules,
which will destroy humanity.
Or there's other biologicalstuff that's coming.
(45:42):
And just as AI arrived, we areso ingenious as a species, gonna
be a lot more coming.
AI is not the end game.
There's a lot more coming, andeach one of those things is
gonna be incredible with thegreatness that it could bring to
us.
And with the horrors.
That it will bring to us if wedon't address the fiduciary
(46:05):
element.
so whatever you do, I just urgeyou to make sure that the
fiduciary piece, always bringthat in as a, the base.
We need to shift the base of theeconomic system so that it's
always humane in everything thatit does.
Yasmin Nguyen (46:21):
we would certainly welcome and appreciate
your guidance on that as wecontinue to shape the, the path
of, the impact that we're.
We're making in the work thatwe're doing too, George.
George Kinder (46:30):
Yeah.
Yasmin Nguyen (46:31):
we're getting close to the top of the hour
here.
and I'm curious, George, youhave, had so many conversations.
You've been a guest on manyshows and had many appearances
And have there ever been aquestion that someone's yet to
ask that you've wished thatthey'd ask?
Kathleen Mundy (46:50):
That's a great question.
George Kinder (46:54):
Well.
Kathleen Mundy (46:55):
my guy.
George Kinder (46:58):
Well, I'll tell you one that, and again, I might
have mentioned, I did mentionthis, ultimately in the book I'm
thinking about it, there's notone that exactly comes to mind,
but I think talking about therelative value of the three
domains of freedom is prettyinteresting.
and a lot of your focus is ofcourse on the life planning
(47:19):
aspect.
'cause you're in the financialworld, and I put that as the
second domain of freedom and thefirst domain being in that each
moment is yours.
I think the first domain is themost profound because it gives
you everything.
But if I were to advise anyone.
(47:40):
One of my teenage daughters, youknow, anyone just out of the
blue, which of those three wouldyou go to first?
Get life planned.
Live your life planned, whatlife planning is really about is
it's designing who it is thatyou've known you really wanna
be, and then making sure ithappens and happens in short
(48:02):
order.
usually it's a matter of monthsthat we do in the evoke process,
how we train.
And at most it's two or threeyears.
that's the story of your life.
You keep telling yourself asyou're going through your life,
oh, darn, I can't do this.
Oh, they're blocking me here,there, whatever.
Oh, if only I could do that.
So we make sure that happens.
(48:24):
And then once you have that andyou feel that, then you can go
anywhere and you can go back tothe moments and you have the
courage.
You have the story of your lifeas you want it to manifest.
You have the courage to go outand tackle these larger issues
about humanity that are so rightnow, and the bullies are trying
(48:46):
to keep us from addressing.
Kathleen Mundy (48:49):
That is exactly what we needed to hear, so I
appreciate that so much becauseeverything that Yasmin has
designed, Has always been from aheartfelt need and want to help
others
George Kinder (49:04):
Yeah.
Kathleen Mundy (49:04):
and so fiduciary, it is at the core of
it, although we didn't reallytalk about it in those terms,
but that's really, you know,it's there.
George Kinder (49:13):
Right.
Kathleen Mundy (49:13):
when I first saw you.
When I first saw your Fiat, givean acronym.
just came back from Europe and Ithought I, I drove one of those
while I was there, I'm glad you,I'm glad you explained that for
our audience today anyway.
George Kinder (49:34):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yasmin Nguyen (49:34):
Wow.
Well, George, it has been suchan incredible experience with
you today, not only learningabout, your yourself, your work,
the wisdom that you've sharedfrom the journey, but also to
really feel heard and, seen.
it's interesting, you know, as,I say the interviewer in these
types of formats here, a lot oftimes we're asking the questions
(49:57):
and all that, but.
your own way of your enthusiasm,your smile, your presence, are
an incredible listener yourself.
And I so appreciate you modelingas well as being, what you share
in the world, and we are sograteful to have this
opportunity to share that withyou.
George Kinder (50:11):
Wow.
Wow.
really hope we meet again, guys.
it's been a lot of fun for me aswell.
Meaningful,
Kathleen Mundy (50:18):
Well, you don't have to hope because I know I
said to Yasmin just before westarted this podcast, I said, I
think we need to meet.
That's what I think we need todo.
it what I'm gonna put it outthere to the universe and I am
just gonna say that it willhappen.
I don't know when, but it willhappen.
(50:38):
And with your guidance and yourenthusiasm, I have no doubt.
George Kinder (50:42):
I will say, and, I have a place that I love in
some ways even more than London.
it's in the UK so you canincorporate London with it.
And the place, I love it just asmuch, if not more than Hawaii.
And that is Cornwall.
and my family, we've been goingthere for, 10 years now.
It is where we go, where ourheart goes there and, and we're
(51:05):
giving an evoke program.
We'd love to see you at programthere in Cornwall in September.
yeah, so anyway.
Kathleen Mundy (51:12):
Something to look for at in the future.
Yasmin Nguyen (51:15):
Wow.
Well, thank you so much.
It's been truly a gift to, to behere and to share this
experience with you, George.
George Kinder (51:23):
Wonderful.
Thank you so much guys.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yasmin Nguyen (51:27):
All Thank you for taking the time to join us
today.
If you enjoyed this episode orfound it valuable, please
subscribe, follow or leave acomment on your favorite
platform.
If you have friends, clients, orloved ones who are on a
transition journey, we inviteyou to share this show with
them.
Check out our show notes withlinks to resources mentioned in
(51:47):
thisepisode@realretirementshow.com.
Remember, retirement is a joyfuljourney.
We get to experience together.
Join us again for another realretirement conversation.
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