Interview with George Kinder: A design for life

George Kinder sees financial planning from a holistic point of view. It is not simply about arranging one’s financial affairs but ‘life planning’. Now one of the US’s leading financial planning coaches and theorists, he explains to Mark Battersby his philosophy and how he found inspiration from the poetry of William Blake.

A contemporary of Al Gore at Harvard University and a father at 59 of two three-year-old daughters, George Kinder these days spends much of his working time coaching other financial advisers. As president and founder of The Kinder Institute of Life Planning, Massachusetts, he is currently in the UK giving seminars on his particular style of emotionally charged financial planning.

THE POET

He has been a practicing financial planner and tax adviser for nearly 30 years though now he only has one or two financial planning clients. A big clue as to why Kinder has got so deeply into the psychology of advising clients lies in his passion for the arts. One of Kinder’s great loves is literature and he says although Shakespeare has been a huge influence on his life, ‘the man who has perhaps been the greatest influence is William Blake’.

Everyone knows some of the words in the hymn Jerusalem which is actually part of his poem Milton but Kinder highlights the book by Blake called Jerusalem, a 100 page epic illustrated poem which he says is one of the most challenging works in literature and also one of the most rewarding.

‘It’s really about the delivery of freedom into human lives which is what I think that life planning is all about. What I’m interested in doing is uncovering layers of freedom that have not yet been uncovered and using financial planning skills to deliver that freedom. That is really the essence of life planning.’

Can he quote any particular verse to illustrate that? ‘Gosh I wish there was. That would be great. My short-term memory is not as good it used to be!’ he laughs.

He has however read extracts from the new book he has published this year, his third to date, called A Song for Hana & the Spirit of Lehoula at a talk in London with The Blake Society, invited as part of the 250th anniversary celebration of Blake’s birth.

This book has nothing to do with financial planning at all and, ‘more influenced by William Blake than anything else. It’s more part of my life plan that I wanted to do, it’s a book that’s trying to save the Hawaiian culture and Hawaiian lands from development because the developers have really taken over the islands and at the same time it’s a love story. It’s a very accessible poem and filled with photographs that I took.’

He spends part of his time in Hawaii but he is also drawn to the UK, and this year he is spending a little over two months here. Having picked up on the big debate surrounding the FSA’s retail distribution review he says in the States they have wrestled with similar issues.