George Kinder: 0:00

I think talking about the relative value of the three domains of freedom is pretty interesting. and a lot of your focus is of course on the life planning aspect.'cause you're in the financial world, and I put that as the second domain of freedom and the first domain being in that each moment is yours. I think the first domain is the most profound because it gives you everything. But if I were to advise anyone. One of my teenage daughters, you know, anyone just out of the blue, which of those three would you go to first? Get life planned. Live your life planned, what life planning is really about is it's designing who it is that you've known you really wanna be, and then making sure it happens and happens in short order. usually it's a matter of months that we do in the evoke process, And at most it's two or three years. that's the story of your life. You keep telling yourself as you'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. And then once you have that and you feel that, then you can go anywhere and you can go back to the moments and you have the courage. You have the story of your life as you want it to manifest. You have the courage to go out and tackle these larger issues about humanity that are so right now, and

Yasmin Nguyen: 1:36

Welcome to The Real Retirement Show. My name is Yasmin. Here with my co-host Kathleen. Today's episode is more than just a conversation. It's a gift. We are honored to welcome a true, pioneer, visionary, and gentle force of transformation, George Kinder. If you've ever wondered what it means to truly live with freedom, purpose, and authenticity, this is the episode that will stay with you long after the credits roll. George is globally known as the father of the life planning movement, but that only scratches the surface. He's a poet of possibility, a relentless champion of personal truth, and a mentor to thousands of financial professionals across 30 plus countries, helping them guide clients towards lives filled not just with wealth, but with meaning. He is the founder of the Kinder Institute of Life Planning, creator of the Profound Evoke process, and author of timeless books like The Seven Stages of Money Maturity, life Planning for You and his latest, the Three Domains of Freedom. For over five decades, he's woven together the practices of mindfulness, creative expression, and financial integrity into a movement that empowers people to dream boldly and actually live those dreams. In today's conversation, George shares how his life's journey began with a deep hunger for freedom and truth. What it takes to sustain passion and purpose over 30 years, even when swimming against the current, the deeper dimensions of trustworthiness and why it's the foundation of all real relationships. Why freedom is not just a personal journey, but a human right. We're all called to protect And how the wisdom of nature, poetry and presence can help guide us through life's transitions, including retirement. We will also explore how George is evolving his legacy with his recent move to London in a bold new workshop series that brings the concept of fiduciary duty, beyond finances, into society, into organizations, and into the heart of humanity. This episode is full of heart humility and hope. A rare opportunity to sit with someone who is quietly and powerfully shaping what it means to live well. So settle in. You're about to hear from someone who doesn't just talk about living authentically. He embodies it. Thank you, George for joining us. My pleasure. I, I've heard about you guys and, and I get to meet you, so it's wonderful. Kathleen? huge, huge footsteps to try and walk in.

George Kinder: 4:15

Oh gosh. I'm a little guy. Really?

Yasmin Nguyen: 4:17

you have, you have such incredible heart. And presence and the commitment that you have been on this path for many decades and the impact that you've made has really been resounding, and we are just so really honored and delighted to share with you a conversation to learn about your journey as well as you know what's next

George Kinder: 4:38

Wonderful. Well, I'm really looking forward to it.

Kathleen Mundy: 4:41

I love your story. I feel like I know you, and it's an odd situation now trying to craft my concept, my, impression. the influence, the astonishment. I don't know how many words I can use, but to be perfectly honest, I was so incredibly impressed by what you've accomplished over the last 30 plus years. It's just monumental. It's inspirational. And, I'm just so excited to learn a little bit more about how you got here. This is, it's an incredible journey and how you sustain that because, you know, we're on a similar journey and that some of the people just, they're not in the boat with us yet.

George Kinder: 5:23

Yeah.

Kathleen Mundy: 5:23

and so as we paddle from one show to another, picking up passengers and hopefully, you know, getting from, well, we've gone from a rowboat to maybe a schooner and hopefully we'll get to something like the, queen Elizabeth or the Queen Britannia or whatever, you know, that boat that now you're gonna be very part, probably a part of if you go and have a look at it. I'm excited for you and your journey in London. It's one of my favorite cities as well.

George Kinder: 5:50

Oh, thank you. I'm really lucky to be here.

Kathleen Mundy: 5:52

I am just so impressed with what you have accomplished over the last 30 years. this was, an adventure. That few people would even think of taking and the courage that you had to swim, I don't wanna say upstream, but certainly against the current.

George Kinder: 6:08

Yeah,

Kathleen Mundy: 6:10

I'm curious as to how you were able to a. Fight the force against you and what you used to maintain the momentum that you've continued over the last 30 years.

George Kinder: 6:23

well, you know enough about my work and about, life planning to know that what we do in life planning, what life planning advisors do is they design Through trustworthiness. And by the way, thank you so much for that wonderful article and my friend. Charlie Green and, and, Rob Alford, did workshops with both Charlie and Rob. Did workshops with my wife Kathy, who's part of this fiduciary movement, but I'm digressing. But the, the, you know, the first thing of course is building, trustworthiness, but, what we're most famous for, and I think what people grasp most quickly is that we create a dream of freedom for a person. And then we deliver it. Now, you can't design that. artificial. You can't design it without building that quality of trustworthiness, that you guys know very well. but for myself, I. To, to fight the force. I, mean, it goes back to birth really. I mean, I came out of the womb fighting for freedom. It really, really does. And, um, uh, I've got stories about that, but we're not gonna go back that far here. I knew early on I was passionate to live a life of freedom myself. So it starts with yourself. It has to start with yourself. And, you can't be a great advisor unless you're a great, unless you've lived your dream, unless you're living your dream of freedom. You can't be a great listener unless you can listen really deeply and subtly and profoundly to yourself. I'd already done a lot of that interior work, but I think the, when you say fight the force, man, I mean that, that's having that dream, having it in front of you and knowing I'm going for it. It doesn't matter what force gets in the way, I'm going for it. This is the right thing. I know it's the right thing. There'll be a few people that will join me along the way. And sure enough, the, and the best of people, joined along the way. And so that to fight the force, it's really that your dream is strong and life planning helps with that, obviously. and my dream was strong. I really believe in freedom. that's huge for me. As much as I'm promoting this fiduciary in all things. Think fiduciary in all things is essential. we are to have freedom available for everybody. And that's what that, that's my goal. It's like this is the humanity goal and it's time for that, the globalization and, of where we are in the world and the scale that take things to. But the other question is, how did I maintain it? Right? You're going, how did I keep going? I think the other thing is I felt I had very little To lose. that's helpful too. I never put the dollar, or now that I'm in the uk, the pound ahead of me and say that's my goal. A lot of people do, most people that, that will be listening to this podcast, they've been told, your business comes first and you gotta have the goals. There's the 20% rule and all that kind of stuff. I never did that. I always felt that what was most important was the truth and was delivering freedom. first learning to live it myself, delivering it to myself, but then seeing how to deliver it to others. And I, Kathleen, I was. Passionate about it. I, and I just kept returning to that passion. Like I didn't have it on the refrigerator door, but you could, you know, the image on the refrigerator there's your image of freedom. Anyway, that, that's what it was for me. a lot of passion

Kathleen Mundy: 9:48

there's no question that you still maintain that passion, and now it's become infectious. Because anyone who listens to some of your podcasts reads your books. Now here's another really deep question for you.

George Kinder: 10:04

Yeah.

Kathleen Mundy: 10:05

You have left the serenity cabin and the environment in which you started your morning. Did your meditations, began your day 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 for many years, who, I. He is a wonderful student of painting. He's a great painter in and of himself. He was, I forget what the term is, but he redid, he brought, would, heal, 19th century American paintings in this hub on, Newbury Street in Boston. he is a, as I am, fond of. paintings from all over the world and, uh, one of the ways that we linked up early on was our love of Chinese landscape paintings. And, they have influenced, and I see Yasmin nodding, and I know they, you know, they've influenced art throughout Asia, Vietnamese art, Japanese art. and so we were pa we both imp passionate about it. And of the things he said to me, he said, you know, George, you know, and a lot of those landscapes, Chinese landscapes that are so beautiful and so specious, that spaciousness speaks to, The profound nature of consciousness of our, awakening really they speak to. But he said, you know, that little cabin that's often there 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's the 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 is actually my books of poetry and, photography. Putting them together, in ways that, draw upon the, calligraphy. I didn't do calligraphy, but it really is the same thing as the great arts in Asia of calligraphy and, great painting. So that cabin, you're right, it's not just the serenity of it, but it was, a practice, every day. I wanted to know what the nature of the present moment was, and I. And I spent 30 years exploring that. And my hunch was that it had a great deal to do with Mother Nature because, you know, think about it, when you go, you know, here we are, we're all like, we're all in these rooms, right? We got four corners and all, four walls. But when we walk outside. Immediately there's something that comes alive in us and whether it's the breeze that subtly touches us or subtle temperature differences, the slight changes in humidity, but something's alive. And it's not just the sounds of birds, it's mother nature making connection to us. And it's moment by moment and it happens much more rapidly than thought. In fact, there's a recent scientific American article that, in December that talked about how we're actually. Experiencing that information a hundred million times as fast as we think. and that's the power of coming back to life planning, great listening. And that's the power of mindfulness. So when you say, how am I gonna leave that serenity, I did those 30 years so I could bring it with 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 an area 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 and listening to the birds and watching things grow and develop. And as I, I think about this, I think about your three dimensions of freedom workshops that you're starting in September. How have you taken that? Your sense of everything you believe in is freedom. How have you taken that to a workshop kind of philosophy?

George Kinder: 13:54

Right. So, first of all, I think the book really captures the cabin in a very profound way. certainly the first third of the book, which is about this, the first freedom, which is a stunning freedom when you think about it. And at first it's kind of one of these obvious things like, Einstein would say the most profound questions are the ones that children know already, or ask. And so that first domain of freedom is that each moment is yours. we might do lip service to it. We, but we don't really get it and we don't really take advantage of it, and we don't. Deepen into it. It's the most profound thing you can have is because every moment that's what your life is each of these moments. so I just want to give a shout out to the book The Domains of Freedom. It is the summary of my life's work, of everything I've done. And it's really simple. It's, and it's, and again, I was thinking of some great works from Asia, Lazu Chang and, other works that are that. Simple. And I wanted to write something that was simple people could get and do. Read in a sitting, you can read it in an hour and a quarter, although you're so tempted to pause with, there's a lot of wisdom. I think in it, you're tempted to pause with it and really think about it. so I wrote it because it's a way of getting it out to everybody, and I wrote it so people could reflect on it, sit with it, and. Is something that they would value at home. and so your question about taking it into a workshop setting is a really interesting one. And the place, and I don't know if you were just alluding to this or not, but gosh, where in such a crazy time in the world. Such a crazy time. And, and my strength in, in business, my strength professionally, let's put it that way, is, has been workshops. I designed a workshop that really has, It transformed so much, and it's a tiny corner of financial, planning or financial advice. the people who are there, they're, those people are powerful, profound people. They're really good practitioners, the best, I think. And, so it will have, influence in that way. What happened for me, of things. I finished the work, I finished the, that being in the cabin and doing that work and understanding what it was. You probably know how old I am. I know. Thank goodness. I don't look quite this age, but I'm 77 years old. my golly, in 10 years I'm gonna be 87. And it's oh, you know, you know, and you know that's really, you think that's, boy, you should have been retired a long time ago. And, and my wife Kathy, and I. You know, we think about, she's almost 10 years younger than me, but we think about where would we wanna be if we were retiring? And we thought about, you know, do you go to a, you know, a retirement center of some sort and 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 just like you can in any retirement center. there. Everything's there. and what if we were close to the, you know, the galleries that we love, the parks that we love, and of course they're good people that I know over the years I've met. People. so that was one thing. And the second thing was there's a devastation that we have to weather whenever we finished a major, a legacy and the, that five book series of poetry and photography is my legacy. I finished it, I gonna do next? And then this terrible time that's happening in the world. And I thought, you know, I'd written the three domains of freedom. That third domain, I feel really at peace and on target in the first domain of each moment is mine. And I have lived a life has claimed that, your eyes on the prize that your life is yours. that's that prize I was the passion I was talking about. But the third domain of freedom really requires all of us. It's something that's about all of us. It's about humanity and we're really 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 in the book. It's 90% of humanity has a smartphone. Well, imagine if this smartphone that we all have was required and did to speak the truth, the whole 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 and this 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. We have different ideas, but still, if it told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 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 I thought, want to wanna make that happen. I realize, again, I can just do it small bit, but I wanna make that happen and. and America didn't feel like the safest place to do it in right now. I don't, you know, my attitude toward bullies. I don't take kindly to bullies. And, in America right now, it's a, you know, standing up to a bully. if you're Bruce Springsteen, you can 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 was Canadian.

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 do it in the uk and then I went through a huge, very difficult process. It took me three months to write a business plan. I'd never written a business plan before in my life. it, and I wanted to make sure. That they honored it because there's a rare visa that they give out called innovator founder Visa, there's only a few hundred a year they give out, and often it takes months for them to make the decision. The endorsing body made its decision 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 into business where we really think it's profit that it's all about, and give them yet another alternative, the fiduciary to B Corps, 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 with more than 6,000 people, over 30 plus countries. I'm curious if you found different regions or countries or pockets like, the UK that are embracing this type of mindset, this type of philosophy about freedom, about, the fiduciary of, making that type of a difference 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, able to 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 your background there, Yasmin Joy. It's been a joy and a pleasure and a great honor and, and. Different things happen. You know, obviously cultures are different, and over here in England there's the stiff upper lip and the, but everywhere I go I, everywhere I went, I had people say, everywhere in every culture they say, oh, th this will 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, squishy stuff. And and I said, yeah, sure. we got red states and blue states. And do you know what? People in the red states love it as much as people in the blue states. this is about, being, a human being, and that's what, that's ultimately what happened was that people recognized that what we've had to do, because we haven't had, it's not like we went out and sought. big bucks from funders, and I think that's helped us not seeking that out, but because we haven't had that, we go with the low hanging fruit. where are people, where do people grab it immediately? And where can they pay enough? that, that we can make it happen. And it's helped, but everywhere I've gone it's, people have loved it. you know, as I'm looking at you all, I'm thinking of India, which is, I wish I could go back much more. And I wish it was more affordable for them, because they have really embraced it. They really loved it. I took my gold and civilization conversations to them and they just ate it up. But the places where it's been strongest are. places that have stood for, historically have stood for freedom and democracy. so it's, the three strongest have been the, the us, the uk and the Netherlands. And, the Netherlands has been a lovely bridge to other European countries'cause they speak so many languages over there. So that, that's been, that's mostly what it's been.

Kathleen Mundy: 23:21

Well, Yasmine, I could ask a million questions, but I'm gonna just let go a little

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, it motivates me to do something that I haven't done. I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna be 74 in, in 10 days,

George Kinder: 23:38

No way. You look, you look so, you look at least 20 years younger than me,

Kathleen Mundy: 23:44

So I felt the same way. You know, what should I be doing at this point in my life? I agree with you. You know, if you have a mission and you want, if you're so passionate about something, age has 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's slowing down in various ways and, and you have to deal with that. But if you're, if you are passionate where there's a will, there's a way and you find it,

Yasmin Nguyen: 24:11

Yeah. George, I'd love to dive a little bit deeper into, your journey through this life planning movement that you've inspired and really, moved forward. And I'm curious, and where has it now? and where could it be? Because. My observation at this point is we're still at the early stage of adoption and there seems to be some, either lack of awareness or appreciation for the impact that it could make. And so I'm curious to get your view from a historical as well as the present and what it could look 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 of fiduciary and, I really do. And the, Partly because when I'm talking about fiduciary in all things and taking that notion into businesses, that's a whole new ball game. And it's as, that's as revolutionary in many ways as life planning was at the very beginning. When you ask about it at the very beginning, you know, the huge percentage of the financial advisors in the world were salespeople. And then those who weren't, were lawyers or had legal kind of backgrounds, they were all about contracts and putting things together in, in legal frameworks and that kind of thing. and so I on the scene with, what they interpreted as, and this is a fair interpretation, as a psychology of money. And teaching people to be therapists in the, in, in the world. And of course, quite soon thereafter, there was a, it's not a major split, but I'cause many, so many friends in the financial therapy world. But I said, no, there's a, it's simpler than therapy. it, and it's much easier. And, it really has to do with just building a sense of trust in the. Your relationship with your client and then, and then catching fire and helping them catch fire. And here's how you do the catching fire. And that's really all you need to do. And that's a lot of great therapy, is that. but I felt it was, you didn't need to go back in the past and figure things out. All you need to do was build a bond of trust so that people could go through the hero's journey of empathy. Around their tough stuff and feel it internally, feel it from you, the mentor, and then as a consequence of feeling that trustworthiness, I. they're ready. Little sparks, you light and whew, boy takes off. And so that was the kind of the essence that I boiled it down to, even though Seven Stages is really a psychology of Money book. And, and we still do the workshop, it's a very important workshop. and many of the people who started the financial therapy movement came from, train major trainings that I gave. So you ask where it's been and where it is now, and where it will be you. You know, we get, fiduciary is a term that in America we find it often lost in this. Right, right now I'm still in the 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 these legal details or sales details or something. I, that's fine, but this is what it really means. And this is what I'm really pitching right now, and I'm building, I think what you've just shared at the beginning, Kathleen and Yasmin, your appreciation for the work that I've done. It gives me a platform, even though I don't think it's really very much, if you look at how few the numbers are. Yeah, it's 6,000 or it's six or 700, whatever, but that's still very small in relation to the world in relation to financial advice. But The purity of it, the strength of it. I do think, I think it's the best model out there for this kind of work and that strength that it has me an ability to talk and to reach larger audiences. And right now, I think what the world 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've encouraged people to do around Fiat is to take it to their kitchen table, gather their friends around the kitchen table and dining room table, whatever it is, and have a conversation and ask them just one really simple question.'cause what we're trying to do with fiat is to make fiduciary in all things, including fiduciary, toward the truth and toward democracy, toward people, and toward the. What if it were the law of the land? What if every institution that you encountered as you walk through your day, was trustworthy toward you in every 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, had children late in life, so they're just, you know, they're still in college. And, and they brought their friends and I, we had some other friends around and of the kids said, and this reflects on this dystopian time that we're in. One of the kids said, well, you know. That would be incredible. You know, I think it would be so incredible 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 become generationally. other people just said, oh my God, 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 that and, and that's, and so that, and that's where I'm pushing right now, I'm trying to make it much broader in that way. But the three domains of Freedom Workshop as you probably gather, one third of it is about life planning. I'm getting to bring life planning into businesses and one of my passions that hasn't developed, and part of this is low hanging fruit. And where does it, how does it happen? I think life planning belongs to everybody.

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 ones that have studied, but I think it belongs to everybody. I don't, everybody's got a dream of freedom and if you link up to that passion, they can deliver so much more into the world. And I think it's a shame that we haven't yet fully brought it, whether it's the foundation, whether it's nefi or it's the, foundation for financial planning. I think it's a shame that we haven't brought it yet, to everybody. So that's one of the, one of the things about bringing it into business, you're bringing it to the workforce.

Kathleen Mundy: 31:24

I love what you said, and I think this is a really powerful word to take a second 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 responsibilities of 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, and it's like the common core of your, the theme of your beliefs and approach and we align with that very much so in, in our work as well too. I've always been curious to deconstruct and dissect and understand what. What creates trustworthiness? And one of the, models that have really influenced my thought around this has been, one presented by, Charles Green and, David Maister, the trust equation and looking at the components that drive trust, whether it be credibility, reliability, intimacy, and self-orientation. I think oftentimes we overlook the, intimacy and the self-orientation piece of it, and I find that. The work that you do and the impact that you're making, really emphasize or expands those two components to be able to deepen that, that trustworthiness in addition to the credibility or the reliability piece. and I'm curious what is your perspective on how trustworthiness, how has it evolved over time as we are considering the state of where we are in the world?

George Kinder: 32:55

Yeah. really good question. and it's still, you know, you've got the. that hard edge of business that thinks 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 of their office like and you're done. I was there. I remember, the moment where Charlie, added intimacy to the equation. It used to be C plus R divided by, self-orientation. And, and as I mentioned, Rob and Charlie and maybe David as well, used to give workshops with my wife. So we were, connected, and, lot, lots of d different connections and connections through the Evoke trainings as well. with Charlie, what people don't realize, just to e emphasize. and you know, I wanna toss everybody toward your article, which is about this, recent article you did, Yasmin. But the, self-orientation is something that, I think is very closely related to the self-orientation. one of the ways that I frame this is that if you think about Who, among all the advisors that, you know, if you were to give a generality of what's the characteristic 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. And and what it is that they're great listeners.

Yasmin Nguyen: 34:13

Okay.

George Kinder: 34:14

The best advisors are always the great listener because those are the ones who really know who you are, so that the advice is really fiduciary. It's tailored to and this notion that you can do it by having the cleverest, you know, scheme for a tax product or whatever, is not only old fashioned, but it's, It's criminal, really. it's just, it shouldn't be happening. but it still does happen some. so the greatest advisors are the great listeners. And among those, you know, where do we find if we were to do another categorization among those 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 charging, it's about being fee only, 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 holistic quality of the CFP. And clearly it involves life planning as well, because they're the, our hearts are just right. They're connected to the client. so then the question becomes among the life planners who are the best. the best listeners, and I think average they're the ones that have the strongest mindfulness practice. And the reason is that what mindfulness does and you Yeah, and you can see I've got a map of mindfulness that out. I outlines what happens as you practice it, but what mindfulness does is that it reduces that self-orientation that Charlie, I. It references in such a clever way, brilliant way, really. it reduces that self-orientation For your audience who don't know what that means, it means that normally, you know, you've got your marquee of who I am out there and you got your PowerPoint that shows who you are and your credentials and everything. but if you have a very low self-orientation, it means that you've pulled yourself out of the equation. And so rather than going, oh, I, I had something like that, and taking over the conversation by sharing your similarities, you just really give the meeting over to the client and the client knows that they feel that and then, that, that's what leads to their ability to dream with you. So that lowing lowering of self-orientation is really helpful. And when you ask where are we with that? Well, clearly there's this, you have to go back to what's happening. you look at the horrible political situation that we're facing right now, and you have to go, you have to look for a moment at what's going on there. I just, I wanna say something about that and humanity. We talked about the smartphone. This is the first time in human history. That we've all been together. It's the first time you, we never had this communication possibility. We, I was talking to someone in, in, in Vietnam. is that where you're from originally? 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 same point. He said, you know, my kid talk to his grandmother in the States every day. Easily every single day. 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 of this. He said it's totally revolutionized. So we humanities together, he. Doesn't feel like it because the politics is, we made some mistakes giving more and more power to, basically to wealth basically. And so that power is accumulated and accumulated in the media, accumulated in politics, and and it accumulated the, it accumulated in business. And the, let me go a few more steps with this

Yasmin Nguyen: 38:06

Yeah.

George Kinder: 38:06

Really very interesting. So humanity is really together. and we need to emphasize that honor, that, understand that, and speak to that all of us we're heart to heart, to person. We're together and we need to do that and emphasize that. And there, there are a number of things historically that are really interesting because, coming to this place where finally humanity comes together as a species. Just astonishing. Not a, not an ethnicity, not a nation state. We're a species and we can make decisions as a species. That's incredible. and, but here we are. we have these terrible problems. And before the political situation got so dystopian, we had global warming, right? That was a major thing. And we'd think, oh gosh, how did this happen? We have a wonderful term that I know you both are very familiar with, called going to scale and going to scale is, you know, it's a value we have, is it right? We want our business to go to scale'cause we want it to be big and powerful. I'd love your podcast to go to scale. I wanna see you guys be really successful with this. these are wonderful things and but what happens when. we go global a as a species and as markets, what happens when we go global? All the good stuff that's there. All what economists call all of the negative externalities, that 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 the contract for, incorporation. We allowed people to get all these benefits, tax benefits, and the main benefit is hierarchy. allowed them to gather money through capital. Well, that create, creates a hierarchy right there. It's no longer just me as a sole person. And then they could borrow a whole bunch. Well, that makes the hierarchy even larger. And then they can use their communication, which makes the hierarchy even larger. we've made this, you know, terrible thing about, oh, well a corporation is a person so they can get involved in democracy. And so that makes the hierarchy even larger. and those negative externalities, because those are not people that, those are not human beings. These are artificial organizations. Our corporations are. And so what happens is that the worst 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 a fiduciary standard that's required for every corporation, none of those externalities will come out. if you, you're, if you're still allowed to accumulate, uh, the hierarchy of power, but you're required to be a fiduciary to the truth. How could we have social media who's going off on crazy, false stories? If you're required to be a fiduciary to democracy. How could you possibly undermine it with your power and likewise to the planet and to people, you wouldn't have the kinds of inequities. So it, it all comes together. I don't know if I've gone too far afield, but I think that it links now this little piece that we'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 are humane it. That is meant to be humanity. Structure. Humanity is civilization. And now we're coming together with a single civilization, with many elements and many different ethnicities and cultures and all this. How wonderful. But, it's meant to come together with 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 AI because they think the human element isn't involved. And how do we deal with this and what is it gonna mean to our future? And am I gonna be lost in all of the negative? I'm just curious. I love the way you questioned Dan about his Yes. About his article on this. And for those of you who are listening, it's a wonderful guy. we've actually had him as a podcast guest. I was not available, so I really feel I'm in the dark on that one. I didn't get to participate. But, he again is in the uk. and we talked about ai and of course 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, deny it, and for what reasons On each side of the fence and what do you see the future being?

George Kinder: 43:13

Great. and I wanna say that this is one of the areas that we get, polarized separated. And then strong forces, media forces, political forces can manipulate us because we're in different 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 fight global warming, we can fight for democracy. We can fight for truth in media. We can fight for having AI that is 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 local issues and what's happening in every one of those. Is we're setting a situation up where we can be divided because we don't have a system that responds in a humane way toward everything. There is a way to address this, everything. And so I will address your question about ai, but I think that it's wrong. I think we, we are shortsighted. To focus on any of these individually when the system is gonna undermine us. And that system is one that just simply is not fiduciary. So if we don't band together, and it's not that we don't need to fight all those fights'cause we do, and they're all important, they're all valuable. But we also need to join together around fiduciary. And if we don't, it won't matter. because the powerful forces will make whatever they want eventually happen. so coming back to ai, how could it not be one of the greatest and coolest things that has ever happened to the world? it's stunning what it can do, but if you have political system that gives the power of it. the wealthiest people are the most powerful. And then again, they can divide us and they can take the portions that they want and they can undermine, our humane kind of trying to craft it. I think it's a wonderful thing. I don't know enough about your system, but I'm really glad you're doing it'cause I can see that you're really good people and, have humanity at your base, yet you're in your heart. but I do think that. It getting too caught up in, in that, without bringing fiduciary in and saying, look, we've gotta, we've gotta address the whole system.'cause the next thing that's coming is mirror molecules, which will destroy humanity. Or there's other biological stuff that's coming. And just as AI arrived, we are so ingenious as a species, gonna be a lot more coming. AI is not the end game. There's a lot more coming, and each one of those things is gonna be incredible with the greatness that it could bring to us. And with the horrors. That it will bring to us if we don't address the fiduciary element. so whatever you do, I just urge you to make sure that the fiduciary piece, always bring that in as a, the base. We need to shift the base of the economic system so that it's always humane in everything that it does.

Yasmin Nguyen: 46:21

we would certainly welcome and appreciate your guidance on that as we continue to shape the, the path of, the impact that we're. We're making in the work that we'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, you have, had so many conversations. You've been a guest on many shows and had many appearances And have there ever been a question that someone's yet to ask that you've wished that they'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 mention this, ultimately in the book I'm thinking about it, there's not one that exactly comes to mind, but I think talking about the relative value of the three domains of freedom is pretty interesting. and a lot of your focus is of course on the life planning aspect.'cause you're in the financial world, and I put that as the second domain of freedom and the first domain being in that each moment is yours. I think the first domain is the most profound because it gives you everything. But if I were to advise anyone. One of my teenage daughters, you know, anyone just out of the blue, which of those three would you go to first? Get life planned. Live your life planned, what life planning is really about is it's designing who it is that you've known you really wanna be, and then making sure it happens and happens in short order. usually it's a matter of months that we do in the evoke process, how we train. And at most it's two or three years. that's the story of your life. You keep telling yourself as you'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. And then once you have that and you feel that, then you can go anywhere and you can go back to the moments and you have the courage. You have the story of your life as you want it to manifest. You have the courage to go out and tackle these larger issues about humanity that are so right now, and the bullies are trying to keep us from addressing.

Kathleen Mundy: 48:49

That is exactly what we needed to hear, so I appreciate that so much because everything that Yasmin has designed, Has always been from a heartfelt 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 really talk 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, give an acronym. just came back from Europe and I thought 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 such an incredible experience with you today, not only learning about, your yourself, your work, the wisdom that you've shared from 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 of times we're asking the questions and all that, but. your own way of your enthusiasm, your smile, your presence, are an incredible listener yourself. And I so appreciate you modeling as well as being, what you share in the world, and we are so grateful to have this opportunity to share that with you.

George Kinder: 50:11

Wow. Wow. really hope we meet again, guys. it's been a lot of fun for me as well. Meaningful,

Kathleen Mundy: 50:18

Well, you don't have to hope because I know I said to Yasmin just before we started this podcast, I said, I think we need to meet. That's what I think we need to do. it what I'm gonna put it out there to the universe and I am just gonna say that it will happen. I don't know when, but it will happen. And with your guidance and your enthusiasm, 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 can incorporate London with it. And the place, I love it just as much, if not more than Hawaii. And that is Cornwall. and my family, we've been going there for, 10 years now. It is where we go, where our heart goes there and, and we're giving an evoke program. We'd love to see you at program there 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 be here 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

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