Wealth Beyond Riches: Building Prosperity With Purpose, Values, and Impact

The Three Domains of Freedom with George Kinder (Ep. 21)

• Abbey Henderson, CFP®

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Imagine a financial plan that doesn’t just tally your wealth but aligns with your deepest values.

Abbey Henderson welcomes George Kinder, a pioneer in the life planning movement, who reveals how focusing on clients' core values and aspirations builds genuinely meaningful relationships—far beyond the numbers.

George introduces his Three Questions Exercise, a powerful tool that invites individuals to envision life with unlimited resources, limited time, and only 24 hours left. This introspective process aligns financial strategies with true life goals, helping people achieve fulfillment faster.

Key Highlights:

  • Discover the power of life planning as a transformational approach to financial advisory work
  • Experience George Kinder’s Three Questions Exercise to uncover clients' true desires and life goals
  • Learn how life planning accelerates clients’ achievements and eliminates regrets
  • Explore The Three Domains of Freedom—personal freedom, purposeful life planning, and societal responsibility
  • Understand George’s advocacy for fiduciary standards prioritizing truth, democracy, and environmental care across sectors
  • Get insights into future initiatives promoting a global “fiduciary society” through conferences and collaborations
  • And much more!


Resources:

Connect with Abbey Henderson: 

Connect with George Kinder: 


About Our Guest:

George Kinder, the Father of the Life Planning movement, has transformed financial advice for over 35 years. A Harvard graduate, he founded the Kinder Institute of Life Planning and has trained thousands of professionals worldwide in client-centered financial planning.

Author of seven books, including The Seven Stages of Money Maturity, Kinder blends mindfulness and finance, emphasizing freedom and personal growth. His recent work, Reflections on Spectacle Pond, offers weekly meditative insights and is available via Substack.

Recognized for his impact, Kinder has received numerous industry awards and is a dynamic speaker, presenting globally at major institutions. He splits his time between Massachusetts, London, and Hana, Hawaii, continuing his mission to integrate mindfulness into financial life planning.

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Wendy (00:01)

Hello and welcome to the Wealth Beyond Riches podcast with your host, Abbey Henderson, where we talk about enriching your life in every way. I'm Wendy McConnell. Well, hey there, Abbey, how are you? I'm good. So we were talking in the green room a little bit, how about when your pets decide that, you know, they're done with you, they don't need you anymore.

Abbey Henderson (00:13)

Well, how are you?

Yes, my older lab is a fan of being obedient when she feels like it now. And I am her servant. And that's about what it boils down to.

Wendy (00:31)

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Well, loner's gotta be alone, Abbey. So, you know, that's what we have to keep in mind. But yeah, I think we're all seeing this now and I feel for you as I know you feel for me. So, okay.

Abbey Henderson (00:48)

I do feel for you. Although, you know, we're talking about life planning in this episode and I think Maya, my lab has her life plan down to a science and it's get the humans to just deliver the food. So.


Wendy (01:01)

We just gotta figure out how to get everybody else on that plan, right?


Abbey Henderson (01:06)

Yeah, or she needs to support me in my life plan or something. I don't know.


Wendy (01:11)

Maybe there's someone else that can support you in the life plan. Speaking of which, we have a guest today.


Abbey Henderson (01:17)

We do. And he has graciously already offered to help me with my life plan. So Wendy, as you know, I am a registered life planner designee, as is my colleague here at Aberus, Liz Malgarry. And we would not have that honor if it were not for our very special guest today, George Kinder. And before I welcome him, I'm going to throw out some of his accolades. He is an author.


He's an international thought leader. He is like the end all be all life planning pioneer. He's been at the forefront of financial services for more than 35 years. After he was a practicing financial planner and tax advisor, he founded the Kinder Institute of Life Planning in 2003, which is where we got our designations from. He's written seven books and has just


too many awards, accolades, and appearances to name here, because we use up our whole 30 minutes. So, George, it is so great to see you.


George Kinder (02:24)

Wonderful to see you, Abbey. And I'm just realizing that we've got to redo that bio because I think I'm up to 12 books. I completed five books in the last couple of years. So there you go. Yeah. So anyway, thank you for that. It's really nice to be here and nice to be with you and to know that you talk about life planning with Wendy and everything and your dog. Yeah.


Abbey Henderson (02:32)

Gosh, then.


there you go.


All the time. Well, so for those who don't know, and since I have the father of the life planning movement here with me now, give us the, what you consider to be sort of the official definition of life planning and a little bit about why a prospect or client would want to go through this.


George Kinder (03:11)

Well, first of all, it really, think, is the only way to do financial planning. I don't see how you can possibly do financial planning that is not life planning. Unfortunately, lot of people do. And how they do it, the other model, is that they sell products and they primarily focus on the spreadsheets. And that's it. It's a numbers-driven process. Whereas what we do is, I mean, and what you want, you


If you're searching for a planner, you want someone who is a master of those, the product side of things and the spreadsheet side of things. You want someone who really knows the law. And what the mark of a great financial planner is they put you first. Not your money, not the numbers, not the spreadsheets.


not their marquee, who they claim to be, but they put you first. And you feel it in the first meeting because you realize that they're hardly saying a thing. it's not really suddenly you realize that you're in a conversation that's real and that's dynamic and that's getting at who you are and who you really want to be rather than just the numbers stuff. So that's how you know a great financial planner.


Abbey Henderson (04:07)

Thank you.


George Kinder (04:34)

And that's a life planner. So what a life planner does, why you'd want a life planner is that in that process of listening to you. I mean, it's stunning. There's so many things that we don't share with someone that we think of as our broker or, you know, our even our financial advisor. We don't share because, you know, you read the Wall Street Journal or you read Money magazine, whatever you read. And it says, it's all about the numbers. Here's the numbers for this, the numbers for that.


And you think you've heard more terrible stories about financial people. And so you think, I don't trust them. So I'm just going to make sure we stick to the numbers and I stick to what I read in Money Magazine. And we're going to get, we're going to make sure that this is my meeting, not theirs. And it ends up being their meeting, not yours, because you never talk about yourself. And, and what people discover, I've seen it time and again, they discover that there's something.


that they haven't quite delivered in their life just by talking it out. And sometimes they've never shared it with somebody else, even their spouse sometimes they haven't shared it with. It's quite amazing. But there's something that they haven't delivered. Sometimes they're quite knowledgeable about it and they're shy about it or they feel it's none of the financial person's business or I'll take care of that in retirement or something like that. They've got an excuse.


Abbey Henderson (06:00)

Mm-hmm.


George Kinder (06:01)

And what happens if they really listen, if they put you first, you start talking about it. And before you know it, they're planning all around it. And before you know it, rather than being 10, 15, 20 years off, you're living it. They make it happen in relatively short order. So it's a pretty amazing thing. That's all I can say.


Abbey Henderson (06:16)

You


Well, you you're preaching to the choir, but it's nice for our listeners to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak. And it's the power of an advisor just saying something as simple as say more. It's amazing. So tell us what your three questions are and what do you hope a client will discover by answering?


George Kinder (06:31)

Go.


Yeah. So in the, usually it's in the second meeting, but it can happen earlier. After you've built this great relationship where you feel real trust in the person you're working with and you're excited to actually go in and be with them, there's an exercise. Sometimes it's given as homework before the meeting. Sometimes it's done in the meeting.


And it's an exercise we call the three questions. And it's the thing I'm probably most famous for, which is why Abbey's picking it up. And it's kind of the sexiest thing. And it's easy to go, that's what life planning is. And it's a series of three questions. And it's not the only exercise we use, but it's designed to get at who you really want to be, what you really want to do with your life. And it works.


Pretty darn well, as you'll see. just really briefly, the first question is, and it has to go in progression, all right? So, because the first one's easy to kind of play with, but the third one, if you started with that, be challenge. So the first one is, if you suddenly realize that you have all the money you need for the rest of your life, what would you do differently? It's all there, everything you need.


What would you do differently? How would you live your life? It's a pretty wonderful question. Usually people imagine winning the lottery or something like that. It's kind of a going to Disneyland when you're a kid question. But it begins to loosen you up and you think about all the things that are important to you. And as you're...


Abbey Henderson (08:37)

I find it's also the easiest of the three questions. I don't know if you would agree with that, but it's the one that clients, as you said, sort of warms them up and it's the one that the most things sort of come to mind the easiest.


George Kinder (08:51)

Absolutely. And you want that first, because if you ask one of the difficult ones, if it's a relatively new client, they might not want to answer it because they're personal. It gets more personal. So the second question is personal, it's imagining that you just went to the doctor and they some bad news for you. And that is that you have a rare ailment. You're going to live as healthy as you feel right now. That's the good news.


Abbey Henderson (08:59)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.


George Kinder (09:20)

You're only going to make it five to 10 years. And there's going to be no forewarning of the moment of your death. So there you go. You've got five to 10 years left to live. Now what would you do? How would you live? What would you do with the remaining time, with the money that you have? And you can see that that gets more serious. And most people think more about their family then.


There may be other legacy issues, but family's always a big one. And yeah, so that's the second one. And the third one goes even deeper. And it's actually often the basis of a life plan. I mean, you use out all of this, but the third one is you go into the doctor and this time they really shock you. They've been doing some tests and you've been expecting nothing at all. And they say, gosh, you know, I'm


They flub their mouth and they go, you know, I can't believe I've misdiagnosed.


You have a terrible ailment and you only have 24 hours left to live. There's nothing I can do.


So the question is not what you would do. You we have some people who go to the bar, gather their friends and family around, you know, but, you know, it's not what you would do. The question is imagining, bringing to mind all the things that you'd imagined that you would be doing, that you might've been doing, those things that you might've wanted to become or to be. The question is, what did you miss? Who did you not?


get to be. What did you not get to do?


And it's that question that raises the most personal and the deepest things for most people. Some people have trouble with it and they land more on the second question. But for most people, that question brings up everything that is legacy oriented that you've missed so far. So you know what your life planner is going to do?


They're going to make sure you nail every single one of those. Even where one of them sounds like it's about someone who died years ago and all that, they're going to find a way to nail it so that it's no longer there as a regret. And so you're filled with vitality and with a thrill of living the life that you're meant to live. Things that you thought would take 10, 15, 20, 30 years, you're going to be accomplished with in a matter of, sometimes in a matter of weeks, certainly in a matter of months, never longer than a few years.


Pretty amazing.


Abbey Henderson (12:01)

Does anything come to mind where you, or maybe a client was surprised by what came out of these questions?


George Kinder (12:12)

think the thing that surprises people more than anything is that when they actually look at and address these questions and realize that there's a financial aspect to them, you never think there is. Frequently a client will go, yeah, but this doesn't have anything to do with money. And I'd like to be with my kid more. Well, that has a tremendous amount to do with money.


And usually money's the excuse. what's been stunning to me is how when people realize they can have what it is, and in relatively short order that they've longed for, that they feel they've missed or they've regretted, they can put that to bed.


how much vitality comes into their life. And I think that's what, and how much love, how much kindness comes into their life, how much generosity of spirit. So I think that's the most amazing thing. I mean, I see it in practically everybody.


Abbey Henderson (13:17)

And I think it's such a powerful exercise or set of questions as well because it really helps clients clarify their values. And oftentimes a client walks in the office and you know, because a lot of advisors do like the value exercise, but a lot of times people haven't really thought about what their values are. And these exercises really bring it to life.


George Kinder (13:37)

Yeah, these are much more experiential than what are your values, which is more of an abstract kind of thinking thing. So I agree with you. I think that's one of the secrets of this. In fact, the whole life, as you know, the whole life planning training is phenomenally experiential. that you, mean, what's amazing about it is that if you enter into it, you experience being delivered into your life plan.


just as you're learning the skills of life learning the person you're with. And so it's just, it's very different from a normal kind of academic kind of learning, PowerPoint driven or whatever it is.


Abbey Henderson (14:18)

I couldn't agree more when I went through the program. There were things in my life plan at the end that I never thought I would do. Like one of them was I wanted to spend winters in the Florida Keys. And I was like, that'll never work. through your process within, I mean, we probably finished that maybe in the spring and by the following winter, I was in the Florida Keys for the winter.


George Kinder (14:46)

I'm


Abbey Henderson (14:47)

And one of the nice things about our profession is that we can work from anywhere. And it also was a real life example of how your life plan evolves. Because while that was perfect for me then, that's really no longer part of my life plan. But I'm so grateful that it came to me. I experienced it and then sort of moved on.


George Kinder (15:09)

Yeah, that's a beautiful thing. as you're talking about client and advisor relationship around this, that's something also to be aware as a client is that you're going to get what you wanted and you're going to get what you didn't even know you wanted. it's going lift your sale. It's just going to be amazing. But two years later, it may be something quite different. It doesn't have to be, but it may be something quite different or some small thing that is just tweaked in and you happen to drop it in the meeting. You happen to mention it in the meeting.


Abbey Henderson (15:23)

Mm-hmm.


Mm-hmm.


George Kinder (15:38)

And your advisor notices it and goes to town, really empathizes with you or gets inspired with you. And suddenly it becomes part of your life. Amazing.


Abbey Henderson (15:50)

Yeah, it's a really cool process. I just had a curiosity, if you don't know this off the top of your head, but how many people have you trained in the life planning process at this point?


George Kinder (16:00)

I think overall, mean, not in the whole registered life, to become a registered life planner, we now have getting close to 700. That's worldwide. It's not just in America. We've taught people in 30 countries in at least the seven stages work. And worldwide, we've done and including, you know, at least anybody who's done at least a two day training with me, probably 5,000 people in 30 countries, Abbey.


Abbey Henderson (16:29)

That's awesome. We need more, but that's awesome.


George Kinder (16:30)

Yeah, it's been a lot of It's been very cool. Yeah. Thank you.


Abbey Henderson (16:38)

So your work, I think your whole career has really been centered around freedom. And I know that your most recent, or I think it's your most recent book, The Three Domains of Freedom, sort of has a new framework to talk about that concept. tell us about what the, love it, tell us about what the three domains are.


George Kinder (17:00)

Yeah, so before even getting there, people talk a lot about happiness. Right? I mean, it's very current. And the psychology of happiness and how it arrives and all that. And I think happiness is really important, obviously. But I've always been passionate about freedom. And it feels closer to kind of


what we want, most of us. I mean, surely we want to be happy too, but, and you can see it all over the globe. I mean, there's so many different layers of freedom. Countries that are very poor want freedom that has to do with economics. Countries that are run by autocrats. You go in and you talk to people if they will dare to talk to you and they'll say, no, we'd really like a democracy if we could. And so it's freedom is a variety of things.


I, as you know, I've taught mindfulness for 35 years, something like that. And I've been a practitioner, serious practitioner for a decade or two longer than that, for a long, time. And for a lot of time per day. mean, a lot. I've done a lot of work there. So the book is called The Three Domains of Freedom. And the reason I wrote it was I thought life planning is one domain, clearly, because


The second subtitle here is your life is yours. And that's what life planning does. It delivers your life. So you feel like it's yours and you're making it happen. It's an incredible thing. And I thought, you know, even with that, we get upset when, you know, the plumbing breaks down or there there are dear friends in Asheville or with their the floods rushing, rushing through their their home, the basements and their first floor of their homes. And and


Abbey Henderson (18:27)

Mm.


George Kinder (18:53)

You know, they don't feel free right now. And so there's a freedom and we can feel it in small ways. We get a news of a friend's illness or we lose a friend or something happens in our business that we're upset about. So there are moments where we don't feel free.


And my thought there was, wow, well, there's another domain of freedom. So your life is yours is kind of your trajectory. It's like your hero's journey, so to speak. But wow, wouldn't it be incredible if we got every moment would be ours? And that's the subtitle. First subtitle of the book is each moment is yours. So I get to riff on that. And it's really been, as I say, I've taught mindfulness for 35 years. So.


It does deliver freedom. It's amazing. People think that mindfulness is about, you know, reducing your stress. Yeah, that's true. Or getting greater focus, and that's true too. And it's a bit woo-woo, they think. Well, I don't think so at all. But it is, it does deliver emotional intelligence. And what it really is about that you won't read anywhere, other than now people are beginning to pick up on my thought here, you won't read this anywhere.


Mindfulness is about the mastery of the present moment. That's what it's about. And if you think about it, the present moment is the only moment we've ever experienced. It's also the only moment we've ever experienced freedom. So why would you not want to master it? so anyway, talk, give basics and some pretty deep stuff there too about what is that about?


Abbey Henderson (20:19)

Mm-hmm.


George Kinder (20:35)

That's a whole different way of thinking of reality. When we think about the present moment as the only moment we ever experienced. The map, I have a whole map of mindfulness that isn't a map of the past and the future when it does space and time. It centers on the present moment.


which is how I think we ought to have a map of the universe. It's centering on the present moment because it's the only moment we ever experienced. So mastery, so each moment is yours is the first domain. Second domain is this life planning story, the hero's journey, your life is yours. And then the third one is the one, uh-oh, this is the one where we're really troubled right now. Here we are talking, what, a month before this huge election. my God. the country is in turmoil and terrified.


paranoid and everything else. And we're not, we don't trust, we can't even talk to our neighbors. And it's a really terrible time. So the third one is a challenge to that. And I think it's true. The third domain of freedom is civilization is yours.


Abbey Henderson (21:39)

Hmm.


George Kinder (21:40)

Civilization is yours. So too often we feel like, I can get the moments if I do some mindfulness. Yeah, and I'll get a good life planner like Abbey and we'll get going on this. But civilization is mine. Well, yeah, maybe. But there's all those politicians, all the big governments, there's wars everywhere. There's bigotry and...


oppression and all these things and and what who am I I'm one person out of eight billion what can I do and so we kind of live in a codependent world there even though maybe when we grew up our parents told us you live in a democracy the world is yours it's yours to craft so I re vivify that idea and I get


I hope I get it. The book's inspiring. think it's a small book. It's just a it's a really thin book. You can read it in about an hour and 15 minutes. And I think it's inspiring. I've wrote it to be a kind of a book of wisdom. It'll draw you back again and again. So the first part of the civilization is yours is about living with that spirit of of a freedom that, you know, Walt Whitman talked about, that their ancestors talked about, about democracy and what it means. But


Then, and Steven Pinker now, you're a reader, would talk about, but then I go, yeah, this is all good. Live like this, but what about the oppression? What about the bigotry? What about the huge disparity of wealth? What about the threats to the earth? What about the threats to democracy?


And I go, well, let's take that enthusiasm, that freedom of all of these things. Let's take that. And let's go after these things. Civilization is yours, meaning it's something we haven't really thought about, but who are we as a species? know, the human, what is it to be human? What is it a human being? civilization is who we are. It's almost apians. That's who we are.


And if we look at it and we go, boy, I wouldn't want my kids to grow up in that world. Well, let's get together and change it. I'll join with you. Let's go. Let's do something. so I inspire that. But then I have a particular idea, which is about fiduciary. And I don't know if you wanted to talk separately about that.


Abbey Henderson (24:11)

Nope, that's a great segue. mean, you know, as an advisor, being a fiduciary is near and dear to my heart. And it blows my mind that we even have to have a conversation in this industry that there are people not serving as a fiduciary, but take it away on that topic.


George Kinder (24:23)

Yeah.


Yeah. So most people in the world, most people in America don't know what fiduciary means. And one of the reasons I'm kind of excited about the book and being in the world I am of training financial advisors is that every financial advisor knows what fiduciary means. And most of the ones that I teach, almost all of them, all of them either aspire to be a fiduciary or really are a fiduciary. Because why would you learn life planning if you weren't going to put your client first, which is the essence of fiduciary?


Now there's other elements to it that you'll hear more about in the press and you'll hear if you study the Department of Labor rule, which is now the big debate in Washington about whether you should be a fiduciary or not. It's also about how you charge so that you're not just selling product. That's not being a fiduciary. And it's also about being aware of all the


the ways money impacts our lives and all the different vehicles that are there and the law and everything to use to help make a person's life better. So there are three elements, I think. And the third element that I believe is the most important one is this life planning element because it actually puts the client first. So fiduciary means putting your client first. So I've had this idea and I kind of really bring it out in the book and


And it's called fiduciary in all things. And my thought was, Abbey, you know, know, this, this thing that goes on between us as fiduciaries and we get polarized. I mean, it's so amazing. We're polarized in America right now, right? It's the reds and the blues and you know, it's, terrible. And we feel horrible about it. We feel scared about it, but we're polarized. So how does that polarization happen? Well, the same thing happens in financial advice.


And the place that it happens most is, are you a fiduciary or are you not? And if you're not, then you're a salesperson, you're a terrible person. And we end up fighting advisors who don't think of themselves as terrible people and certainly don't want to be terrible people and by and large want to put their clients first. But we find ourselves fighting with them, just like we fight with our neighbors about red or blue or whatever.


Abbey Henderson (26:39)

Mm-hmm.


George Kinder (26:51)

And what you realize, what I woke up and realized was that it's not about us as fiduciaries versus them as not fiduciaries. That isn't the issue. We've gotten conned. And the same thing happens in the media. It's basically a media issue. But the reason we've gotten conned is that nobody, not a single financial institution, not a bank, a mutual fund,


A stock brokerage, an insurance company, not a single one of them is a fiduciary. Not a one of them. So they're quite fine not having anybody notice that and instead have us who are fiduciaries fight the salespeople who aren't. And it works, you know, just like it works in politics. Let's get them polarized and they won't see how much money we're making up here. And it's just, it's just, it's all wrong. So I thought.


Abbey Henderson (27:24)

Hmm.


George Kinder (27:47)

Why don't we challenge, it's time to challenge all institutions. How on earth did we ever create a world where we didn't expect every corporation, every institution to place the truth ahead of their own self-interest? Or to place democracy ahead of their own self-interest? Or to place the planet Earth


ahead of their own self-interest, you know, or humanity. So I've got a single sentence that puts it all together and it's a legislative proposal and I'm popularizing it through talking with you and talking with other people, trying to get it out and say, look, it's time. And this is like, you know, we've, we've been accumulating rights. The bill of rights is full of them and we're worried about our rights being taken away right now or worried about that. But


We're about accumulating rights. That's what freedom in our civilization is about. And I think it's time for us to have the right to assume that every institution we work with is trustworthy toward us. that's


Abbey Henderson (29:05)

Wouldn't that be an amazing world to live in?


George Kinder (29:08)

Wouldn't that be amazing? So that's what that's about. And it's been a lot of fun popularizing it. And I'm looking forward to debates. I'm hoping I get some conferences. That's what I'm looking for now is some people who might sponsor some conferences in associations or universities. let's Yeah, well, to get you.


Abbey Henderson (29:25)

To debate you?


to them.


George Kinder (29:32)

Well, to debate also, because I was talking with an economist the other day from one of our top universities. He said, this is really cool. And he said, I think we could get together a conference around creating a fiduciary society. Let's do it. So after the election, I'm going to start talking to him and a number of other people and try to put together a number of conferences. Because we need to get people invested and say, yeah, you can do this. You can do it. Yeah.


Abbey Henderson (29:58)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, because it doesn't necessarily, sorry, Monday.


Wendy (30:02)

George, did you mention that you're looking into creating legislation around this?


George Kinder (30:09)

Yeah, the actual, let's see if I can show you it, the actual, I've crafted a single piece of legislation that is a single sentence. And I am, and it's right here and you'll see it on my websites and on my, yeah. And it's a single sentence piece of legislation that simply says that every institution, government, nonprofit, corporate,


Abbey Henderson (30:26)

We will link to it in the show notes.


Wendy (30:28)

Okay, yeah.


George Kinder (30:37)

is required to have a fiduciary standard of obligation to place the truth, democracy, the planet, and people, humanity, above their own self-interest. It's very simple. It's just very simple. part of the reason I came up with it, Wendy, was that I look back about this explosion of growth we've had. It's been so amazing for 250 years, right?


And look at us, we're talking together, where are you all? And we're talking together and it's just astonishing. And you can look at my gray hair and know that I'm living a lot longer than my ancestors did. So there's lots of good things we've done that have been amazing, including democracy, which is one of the reasons I'm out there right now is I want that to be important. Yep.


Abbey Henderson (31:07)

you


Wendy (31:24)

So the next step is to popularize it, do the conferences or whatever, and then try to get it enacted.


George Kinder (31:32)

Yes, what I want to do is right now I'm trying to just popularize it by telling a lot of people about it. And then I want to go to key figures that I've talked with and I've been already doing this, who are near in the upper echelons of either universities or trade associations or financial advisors. Those are the main places I'm looking right now. But I'm open to other places as well to basically make a conference of a day, a day long conference or several day conference.


where we really look at how would we create a fiduciary society? And you could take my piece of legislation and pull it apart and debate it and say, what would be better or worse or whatever? And then how do you get through the politicians? What would the economic impacts be? All of these things. How do you popularize it? How do you actually make it so people actually think about knowing what the word is fiduciary? So that's kind of the next step. then as part of that process,


we're fine tuning the single sentence that I've started with about, let's just do a single sentence piece of legislation. We're fine tuning that. But I think, you know, one of the things that I was about to say that we've had these 250 years of growth, what's happening right now is that we've gone global. So you've probably heard the term scale, how to scale a business. Well, when you scale a business that has gone global,


You are scaling not only the great things that it does, but you're scaling something that all the economists call negative externalities. What are the down, down sizes of oil, for instance? What are the down points of, of corporations paying politicians for their elections? Okay. And you're taking that to scale, meaning that those things become global issues.


And what we're finding, of course, and you look at AI and that's obviously global, what we're finding is that that's really dangerous to humanity. Really dangerous. so what I'm and it's just happening now, it's fine that, you know, what's happened so far. But we're we create our civilization. And right now we're being challenged to create a new way of approaching this particular element.


so that we don't have these negative externalities that threaten humanity.


Wendy (34:03)

I love it. I love it.


George Kinder (34:05)

All right. Thanks, Wendy.


Abbey Henderson (34:08)

So what is the one thing you want our listeners to remember from this episode?


George Kinder (34:15)

Well, think it's really valuable to realize we can live in freedom and that we're meant to live in freedom. We don't feel right when we don't, right? And so I think that it's really valuable to recognize that we're not only meant to live in it, but we're meant where it isn't quite there to claim it.


and also where it isn't quite there for others to deliver it.


So this is, it's a wonderful, amazing creative time, much as we feel terrified, this is the way great change happens and it's time. So I think that's what I'd say.


Abbey Henderson (35:10)

So when our listeners Google you, they will come up with probably thousands of places to find information on you. But where would you want them to go first?


George Kinder (35:21)

Well, there are two places. One would be www.georgekinder.com  and there you'll find all my thought leadership. And I've done lots of things. mean, the five books I mentioned are books of poetry and photography that I'm really thrilled with. I think of them as environmental works. But lots of things, including a rock and roll album with my daughter London during COVID years that we composed together and sang together. It's kind of a project album. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.


Abbey Henderson (35:49)

You


George Kinder (35:50)

GeorgeKinder.com will take you to all of that. And then if you really want to look for life planners, financial advisors, www.kinderinstitute.com  is where all that work goes.


Abbey Henderson (36:00)

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been such a pleasure to reconnect with you. It's been too many years since we chatted.


George Kinder (36:09)

Always happy. It's always, it's so good to see you. Thank you.


Wendy (36:14)

How can people get in touch with you? Tell us all the places.


Abbey Henderson (36:18)

all the places. So email is great. It's Abbey at abarisfinancialgroup.com. can also check out the website, abarisfinancialgroup.com and then LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and then it'll all be linked in the show notes.


Wendy (36:34)

All right, great. Well, thank you both and thank you for listening today. Please like, follow and share this podcast with your friends. Until next time, I'm Wendy McConnell.