Special feature: A course in life with Kinder

Maryrose Fison attends one of George Kinder's two-day life planning seminars and finds herself becoming involved in more than she bargained for. 

When my editor told me I would be attending the Kinder two-day workshop on money maturity, I envisaged something of a spiritual camp for advisers. Images of evangelical hand-clapping, group hugs and awkward emotional outbursts sprang to mind. But my curiosity was aroused further when I learned that I could only attend on condition that I fully participated.

Had I known that I would be singing, dancing and revealing personal details with a group of strangers, I might never have agreed to go.

A day to remember

The workshop was destined from the outset to be memorable. It began on the day the country had its heaviest snowfall for 20 years, making five million workers homebound as the transport network ground to a halt.

Of the 10 participants who managed to trudge to the snow-covered offices of UBS at London’s Broadgate Circus, the majority were financial planners and advisers, although there was also a literary enthusiast and private bankers.

As I arrived, shivering and dishevelled, George Kinder, the man credited with bringing life planning to the UK, was standing in front of a crescent of chairs congratulating us for making the effort to get there. Flanked by flipcharts and in a pale suit, he exudes warmth and has the rare talent for putting a roomful of strangers instantly at ease.

Over the next two days we would learn how to listen, empathise and develop the foundation skills needed to inspire clients – the hallmark of Kinder’s movement and what he calls ‘lighting the torch’.

The seven stages

The session began with an explanation of the seven stages of money maturity. Kinder classifies the stages into various phases of life: childhood was represented by innocence and pain; adulthood by knowledge and understanding; and maturity by aloha and vision.