Kinder Institute of Life Planning

08/25/2026

When advisors consider taking nearly a week away from their practice for EVOKE®, a reasonable question is whether the impact sticks once they get back into client meetings.

We recently received this message from financial advisor Mike Daniels, looking back on his time with George Kinder in Maui:

“𝘐 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘐 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘔𝘢𝘶𝘪 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘐 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘦/𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘰.

𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘝𝘖𝘒𝘌 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥, 𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘫𝘰𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦.

𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘴,

𝘔𝘪𝘬𝘦”

That kind of staying power comes from learning through direct experience. Once you build genuine listening skills, you don't unlearn them.

Join George Kinder in Cornwall, UK from September 22–27 for the upcoming EVOKE® training.

https://www.kinderinstitute.com/course-overview/?eventtemplate=8-evoke®-life-planning-training&event=735

07/20/2026

Every financial planner knows a lot about money. The Seven Stages of Money Maturity is about something harder to come by: understanding what money does to people.

George Kinder spent years mapping the psychological and emotional terrain that every person moves through in their relationship with money. Seven distinct stages exist, from the innocence of early childhood when money is simply there, or not there, through the pain and fear that most people carry quietly into adulthood, through knowledge and understanding, and eventually into something most clients have never experienced: genuine vision for their own life and what money can make possible within it.

Here is what is striking about the framework. Most financial planning operates in the first three stages. Innocence, pain, and knowledge. The client shows up carrying their history with money, their anxieties, and their inherited beliefs about what they deserve or do not deserve. The planner offers expertise. The gap between those two things is where plans fail to land, where clients disengage, where the best technical advice in the room goes largely unused.

This course changes that. As the financial professional, you experience the arc of the Seven Stages as a hero’s journey so that you can identify each of the stages as they surface in your client’s relationships.

Mary Zimmerman and Scott Frank, with help from Ohan Kayikchyan, are teaching this as a pre-conference to XYPNLIVE 2026 on September 27–28, 2026, 9AM–5:30PM, San Diego, CA

We’re in San Diego in September! Spaces are still available.

Register at kinderinstitute.com or reach out to us directly.

07/09/2026

FREE Webinar on The Seven Stages of Money Maturity® Training!!

🧭 Do you want to support your clients' life ambitions?
💸 Do you want your clients to FOLLOW THROUGH with their financial plans?
🤔 Do you understand your own money stories?

Our two-day course, The Seven Stages of Money Maturity® Training, teaches advisors to recognize the human dimensions of money such as self-sabotaging behavior, inappropriate risk-taking, lack of interest in executing a plan, and goal confusion – and how to address them to create greater agency and meaning in their lives.

If you've been curious about attending The Seven Stages of Money Maturity® Training, we invite you to participate in our upcoming information session with trainers Mary Zimmerman and Scott Frank. Moderated by Kinder Institute's Lora Woodward, the trainers will share why the course was integral to their development as financial planners, how it helps participants understand their own relationship with money, and why it is a key element of the Registered Life Planner® designation curriculum.

Bring your questions, they're eager to answer them!

The Seven Stages for Advisors
Thursday, July 16
1 hour
10AM PDT / 1PM EDT / 6PM BST
Free!

Register: https://kinderinstitute.arlo.co/us/register?sgid=98e1ffa9baf045b9a0526dfa2b635ca4

05/19/2026

47% of UK adults say their retirement finances feel largely outside their control. A third have done little or no planning at all.

Those figures come from Standard Life's latest research. Scottish Widows put it differently: 31% of UK workers are on course for pension poverty.

The policy debate focuses on contribution rates, and that matters. But the research is pointing at something else: people don't feel in control. And a percentage increase alone doesn't fix that.

When someone doesn't know what they're actually saving for, what kind of life they want to build, what retirement looks like for them specifically, the numbers stay abstract. Abstract things are hard to act on.

This is where financial planning done well makes a real difference. When someone gets clear on what they want their life to be, and the financial plan is built around that, they start to feel like an active participant. The plan belongs to them.

That shift in relationship, from passive to engaged, is what life planning training is designed to enable.

05/18/2026

Last week, a group gathered near Walden Pond in Littleton, Massachusetts, for a full-day Three Domains of Freedom Workshop with George Kinder and Kathy Lubar.

The workshop is built around three domains. The first is mindfulness, the practice of being present, moment to moment, in your own life. Kathy led the group through sitting and walking meditations, and a technique called "sitting on the stoop" — staying fully present with eyes open, which turns out to be harder than it sounds, and more useful.

The second is life planning. That's where George's three questions come in.

Most participants found their answers had shifted since they last encountered the questions. That shift matters. It tells you something about where you actually are now, not where you thought you were.

The third domain is about civilization and the idea that freedom doesn't end with the individual. The workshop introduced FIAT, George's proposal for a fiduciary standard that extends beyond financial services to all institutions: corporate, non-profit, governmental. The standard asks that every institution place the interests of truth, democracy, humanity, and the living planet above its own self-interest and that this be legislated, not just volunteered.

Participants spent time in pairs, wrote personal FIAT statements, and left with specific commitments. The room near Walden Pond where Thoreau lived and wrote, whose ideas reached Gandhi and then Martin Luther King felt like an appropriate place for that conversation.

The next public Three Domains of Freedom Workshop is June 8th.

05/15/2026

Sometimes we expect freedom to look dramatic. Someone walking away from a career, selling a house, relocating to a different country.

In my experience it is usually quieter than that. It looks like a person who finally has clarity about what they want and starts making decisions from that clarity instead of from obligation or habit. The external circumstances might not change much at all. What changes is the quality of the choices and the sense that the life being lived is the one that was actually chosen.

That is what the Three Domains of Freedom framework is built around. Freedom as a lived experience, not an event. Something that can be cultivated inside a business, inside a family, inside a community, and not only as an individual pursuit.

05/01/2026

Financial planning has become very good at the technical side of things. The industry can model tax scenarios, optimise portfolios, and project retirement outcomes with impressive precision.

What it has been slower to develop is the ability to sit with someone and ask them what they actually want their life to look like — and then stay quiet long enough to let the answer arrive.

That is the skill the Kinder Institute trains. George Kinder's approach starts with the premise that the most important financial planning conversation has almost nothing to do with money, at least not at the beginning. It starts with the person. What do they want? What are they afraid of losing? What would they do if they knew they only had a limited time left?

Those questions are not new. But being trained to hold them well, and to let them reshape the entire planning relationship, is what separates life planning from conventional advice.

05/01/2026

"I am so thankful for this training. They made me feel like family, I made so many new friends, and I now feel ready to have deep wonderful conversations with clients."

Congratulations to Chris Castoro AAMS®, Cole Williams, Jan Taylor, FPQP®, Joe Carry, Maura Griffin, CFP® MBA, Nelson Reveley, Tom Lo, CFP®, MBA, and Tom Thalman,CFP®,CRPC® for completing The EVOKE® Life Planning Training this week! We are eager to see each of you live into your greatest potential and launch your clients into their most profound and meaningful aspirations.

Many thanks to Louis Vollebregt and Danqin Fang, CFP®, CFA, RLP® with help from Alexander Alderson and Ohan Kayikchyan, PhD, CFP®, RLP®, EA for empowering these professionals in the listening skills and methodology that centers clients' lives within their financial plan and strategies.

Are you curious about how earning the Registered Life Planner® designation can create more meaning and impact in the lives of your clients, leading to a more fulfilling lives for your clients (and for you!)?

Reach out to these graduates or learn more at kinderinstitute.com.

Kinder Institute equips advisors to listen deeply, plan authentically, and lead their clients—and themselves—toward lives of greater freedom and fulfillment.

We change the world by changing the profession.

04/30/2026

Inspired employees are 125% more productive than satisfied ones. That's according to Bain & Co. And yet only 18% of workers currently feel they are working for a company whose purpose they believe in. By age 37, the average worker has already held nine different jobs.

The Three Domains of Freedom Workshop addresses that gap head-on. Based on George Kinder's book *The Three Domains of Freedom*, the workshop uses the inspiration and listening skills of life planning within a fiduciary framework that puts people first — what we call FIAT: Fiduciary In All Things.

The June 8th workshop takes place in London, led by George Kinder, Kathy Lubar, Julian Powe, and Michelle Hoskin. It runs from 9am to 5pm BST and is open to everyone. RLP® designees earn 8 CEs for attending.

Business leaders who have been through the process describe it as transformational, both personally and commercially. It is one day that could change how your organisation thinks about productivity, culture, and what it means to put people first.

https://www.kinderinstitute.com/the-three-domains-of-freedom-workshop/

Learn how to guide clients to discover what drives their relationship to money and how to change those dynamics to create greater, more meaningful lives.

04/29/2026

Michelle Hoskin attended the Three Domains of Freedom Workshop after a challenging 18 months. She almost didn't make it that morning, but she came anyway and left with something she said she had been missing for a long time: clarity on what she actually needs.

She described the workshop as a space where, through great questions and honest conversations, she was able to stop giving everything to everyone else for the first time in months and reconnect with what matters to her. She went home knowing what she needs to do differently. That is exactly what the Three Domains of Freedom Workshop is designed to create.

"I need to reconnect with myself a bit more because I think we are all very guilty of giving so much to other people all of the time."

"If you feel like you're carrying quite a load, whatever that might be, I think this is as good a workshop as any to take you out of that life just for the day and through great questions and great conversations really give you the space to reconnect with yourself."

Our next workshop is on June 8th in London.

https://www.kinderinstitute.com/the-three-domains-of-freedom-workshop/