Financial Planning Today editor Kevin O’Donnell recently caught up with George Kinder, author and founder of the US-based global Life Planning movement, about his new book The Three Domains of Freedom and the development of Life Planning.

FP Today: How are you doing George, has it been busy with a new book being published?

George Kinder: I’m full of enthusiasm right now. I launched The Three Domains of Freedom and have been on a whirlwind publicity tour.

FPT: Can you tell us about your new book - what is it about and what inspired it?

GK: It is a brief, easy to read, book of wisdom summarizing my life’s work, with advice on how to live in freedom both inside ourselves and across civilization. It goes deeper and is more far-reaching than my other books, searching out solutions to the economic and political crises we’ve fallen into the past few decades.

FPT: What are the Three Domains of Freedom?

GK: The subtitles say it all—Each Moment is Yours, Your Life is Yours, Civilization is Yours.

FPT: This book is a little shorter than many of your others – was that deliberate?

GK: I wanted it to be my most accessible book. I recommend it as a starting point for those unfamiliar with my other works.  

FPT: In the book you spend about a third of the time talking about Life Planning, a third on the concept of fiduciary and about a third on mastering the current moment. Can you explain those concepts?

GK: Nobody’s ever experienced freedom in the past. It’s always right here, right now. The present moment is the only moment we ever experience. So why not master it?

I’ve been teaching the first domain, “Each Moment is Yours”, for nearly 40 years. We think that mindfulness is about stress reduction or better health or greater focus. In our life planning trainings, we teach mindfulness as a way to be a great listener, to gain emotional intelligence. But really mindfulness is about the mastery of the present moment. It brings freedom.

The second domain, “Your Life is Yours”, is what financial Life Planning gives us, our finances aligned to our passionate purposes.

Civilization is who we are. It should be the best of us, a domain of freedom for all. And yet, the world's burning up. There's no truth in media. People are turning their backs on democracy. Nobody trusts anyone. This is not how any of us want to think of ourselves or our species. It’s not what we want to bequeath to our children. And there's a simple solution: Celebrate the freedoms that we do have and insist that all institutions be Fiduciary In All Things (FIAT), that they be trustworthy and humane.

FPT: Fiduciary is a big theme in the book but how do you define that and how important is it to clients?

GK: A fiduciary is one who provides trustworthy service for another, placing their clients’ concerns ahead of their own. It means everything to our clients. In financial services, our greatest challenge is our trustworthiness.

FPT: In your book you also talk about the importance of ‘living in freedom’ all the time, both in a personal and political sense. This sounds wonderful but is it realistic when so many people have little financial or political freedom around the world?

GK: That’s really why I wrote the book, to give people everywhere the practical skills to come to freedom. Even under oppressive political regimes or limited financial resources, there is a freedom accessible in the first domain: each moment is yours. And in the second domain, the EVOKE methodology of Life Planning was designed to be used by everyone, regardless of economic means, to pursue a life of freedom. These first two domains lay the foundation for securing civilization as a domain of freedom and making a fiduciary standard the law of the land. This is our greatest challenge. It is why I am so excited about the simplicity of the fiduciary concept, and by its familiarity across cultures.

FPT: How is the Life Planning movement doing around the world? The UK has been a big adopter of Life Planning – was this a surprise to you?

GK: Each country has been a surprise. UK advisers were the first to reach out. Now thousands of advisers from over 30 countries have taken at least one training, with over 650 professionals earning the Registered Life Planner designation. Our niche audience has been independent financial advisers but in the last two years we’ve developed partnerships with larger firms that are embracing the life planning method as their competitive advantage in the financial industry.

FPT: What’s next on the agenda for yourself and the Life Planning movement?

GK: The goal is for life planning to be the way financial advisers globally work with their clients. Life planning is Financial Planning done right. I’m thrilled right now to be speaking about fiduciary and democracy. We look forward to spending more time in Cornwall, offering some of our trainings there, including meditation retreats and workshops on The Three Domains of Freedom.

• This is an edited version. A full version will appear in the next issue of Financial Planning Today magazine to be published in mid-September. You can subscribe to the magazine by registering for Financial Planning Today website and follow the upgrade options. If you are already logged in go to ‘My Account.’