As I've noted here before, journalists are taught to be objective. For "objective," read "cynical and suspicious." I didn't need much training, as I was cynical and suspicious before I decided to become a journalist.
And then I went to George Kinder's two-day workshop on money maturity, this one in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., at the end of August. I was won over. I felt like part of the group. I wanted to be part of the group. Indeed, I wanted to be part of the group more than I wanted to be an objective observer. So, fair warning on this column: I may sound more like a groupie than a reporter. This has never happened to me before. Take it for what it's worth.
Most advisors are familiar with Kinder's work. In 1999, he wrote The Seven Stages of Money Maturity, a book intended to help readers work through the emotional issues around money so that they could prepare to do regular financial planning. He first tried offering life planning workshops to consumers but that didn't work out. He found a more receptive audience, however, among financial advisors wanting to learn holistic life planning. Kinder began structuring programs for them, first a two-day workshop, then a five-day workshop and finally a six-month mentorship that could lead to certification as a Registered Life Planner (RLP).
In 2000, Kinder sold his financial planning practice. In 2002, he founded the Kinder Institute to work full time on training planners, which he is now doing all over the world with recent workshops in the Netherlands, South Africa and London.
Perhaps what surprised me most in the workshop I attended was that Kinder was not just talk and fluff. He had developed a clear structure to help planners work with clients to uncover the true passion in their lives so that their financial plan will be more effective. And he worked-hard-for two full nine-hour days to convey his excitement to workshop participants about how this kind of work can change clients' lives.
Kinder is perhaps best known for the three questions he recommends each person ask himself: How would you live your life if you had all the money you needed? What would you do if you learned you had only five to ten years to live? Finally, what would you most regret if you had just 24 hours left? In our workshop, after we'd written out answers to these questions, we went on to learn about what brings us anxiety-and what brings us joy-in our own experiences with money.
Although most participants, about 25 to 30 total, were financial planners-some from independent firms or from large multifamily offices like GenSpring, and some from small community banks or large global banks-the workshop was a personal experience first rather than a professional one, and it opened our eyes to money disorders in our own lives. This allowed us to focus on the crucial preliminary step, which is to understand and clear away the obstacles before turning to the dollars and cents of planning.
We worked with partners, exploring how early money experiences shaped us or singed us. For example, Kinder had each attendee tell a personal money story to his partner, who was not allowed to say anything during the story. Listening is a crucial part of what Kinder teaches. He cites a study that claims the time between the advisor's first question to the client-"Why are you here?"-and the beginning of sales talk about a product is 82 seconds on average. Not much time to get a flavor of the client's life. Listening proves critical.
I found it to be true. I told a story to my empathetic partner, Eric, that I had never told to anyone before. When I was five, my family lived in a cabin without plumbing or electricity on a lake in northern Minnesota. One winter night, my father was gone, as was often the case; my two-year-old brother was toddling around, bumping into things and falling down; Mom was in bed, crying out to me: "Bring more towels. Bring more towels." When I took the used towels away, they were soaked in blood. Mom said she needed help and I must go to a store, which was a couple of miles away, at night, in a snowstorm, with a note asking for a doctor and for help. I don't remember much about my trip to the store. But I will never forget the incident, which I later came to learn was one of her many miscarriages. These are stories we were shamed into burying, into keeping secret. They are the stories that formed us.
Eric sat and looked at me as I told my story. He didn't say anything. And I felt listened to and seen and heard. The stories others told were not mean and spiteful but touching, nuanced stories about generosity or fear that had moved this person deeply. One planner talked about the first time he bought something for his dad-a riding lawnmower-and the conflict and doubts he went through. Kinder also led several meditations and brought some of his Buddhist teachings into the seminar. (He leads weeklong Buddhist retreats several times a year.)
One participant expressed my own thoughts when I first learned of Kinder's seminars. He said: "George, people say you're nutty." He wanted to know if Kinder had taken part in est and Silva Mind Control, movements in the 1970s that were that decade's idea of self help but seemed to involve the participant giving over control of his own mind to the workshop leader and relishing the freedom of having someone else make his decisions. If you don't have to worry about controlling your mind, this thinking goes, you have less to worry about. Kinder knew of both movements. I don't think he saw them as similar to his work and neither do I. Kinder's work has no agenda of serving a sales model. Instead, he helps advisors-and their clients-dig in to find the issues that are holding them back from realizing life dreams.
One of the most impressive parts of Kinder's presentation was the focus on integrity, honesty and personal freedom. Like all of you, I hear a lot of contemporary philosophies such as: "It's all about me." There's even a book you can purchase with the title: All About Me. You just fill in the blanks. The "Me" philosophy suggests that life is unfair because everyone is getting ahead of "me," even though I am more worthy and so I'm going to focus on getting everything I can for myself. I'll sue anyone I need to in order to get more because I'm entitled to it.
Kinder will have none of this. He calls on us to act with integrity, from a place of wholeness and clarity, in regard to personal values. He urges us to "identify and face the places where you lack integrity regarding money and clean them up." Whether we believe money is fair at its base or unfair at its base, Kinder says, if we cling to one side and see all of life through that lens, we are trapped, excluded from adulthood and unable to achieve all we could in life.
He talks about the patterns of "resent, blame and complain," which are more familiar to most of us than clarity and integrity around money. If you've ever had a client who can't move off the idea that Dad didn't leave him enough money and life is unfair, you know what a hopeless stumbling block this can be. Rather than urging us to get ours, whatever the cost, Kinder urges us to seek personal freedom and integrity and urge clients to do the same.
I've been writing about financial planning for more than 20 years. Ten years ago, I wrote a book for Bloomberg Press called Best Practices for Financial Advisors. When I started the book, I respected financial advisors but I wasn't certain they could do anything for a client that he couldn't do on his own if he were diligent. When I finished the book, I was convinced that everyone could have a better life with the help of a good financial planner. Not because the planner could deliver double-digit portfolio returns, but because the advisor could bring a fresh eye to the client's financial picture and identify what is missing.
Kinder's workshop takes that thinking full circle by providing a structure to help planners identify what it is a client most desires in his life, what he feels most passionate about and then organizing a financial plan to help achieve that goal. I believe that this is the best answer yet to client-centered financial planning. Not every planner should do this. Not all planners can, partly because they have not gone on this path themselves. But it seems this is the most satisfying answer we have to financial planning-to helping another person marshal his money to accomplish what he would from life.
Full disclosure: Journalists are allowed to attend the $995 workshop free, as long as they participate in the entire program and do not quote any material without asking permission.
I had the additional benefit of staying at the home of Marjorie A. Burnett, a CPA and lawyer who has been through all of the Kinder workshops to earn the certification of Registered Life Planner, or RLP. She was a great host and allowed me to continue my own life planning over dinner. For me, it was a fabulous learning experience.