Sitting at a kitchen table, George Kinder asked a question of a young woman. Her response opened the door to a decision that could genuinely transform her life. She might reconsider having kids after all.
George Kinder has helped transform the world of financial planning without a single quantitative calculation, focusing instead on finding the right questions. His legendary 3 Questions exercise has helped many connect meaning to money, but now he’s asking even bigger questions, and he’s asking them of institutions as well as individuals.
I recently had an opportunity to speak with George about his FIAT (Fiduciary In All Things) initiative, which wonders what the world would look like if the fiduciary requirement for financial advisors, to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own, had universal adoption beyond the domain of wealth management.
And whether Kinder’s questions are destined to change the world or not, they are certainly extending their reach beyond financial planning and into companies (especially B corps) and industries that may be considering the F-word (fiduciary) and its application for the first time.
Yet at the tail end of our conversation, an insight emerged that wasn’t an intentional part of our interview, but that may just be the key to finding—and being—a true fiduciary. It’s the counterintuitive, countercultural notion of self-forgetfulness, and it’s my goal to help you understand its application, both as a financial advisor and as a client in search of (a better) one.
Being A True Fiduciary
The letter of the law requires true financial advisors, beholden to the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, to put the best interest of the client ahead of their own, as fiduciaries. This was deemed a necessity after the dust settled from the Great Depression, but considering that financial advisors are still deemed one of the least trustworthy of all professionals in the 2020s, methinks we need to revisit the spirit of the law behind this 18-point Scrabble word—fiduciary.
For too many, the fiduciary duty has turned into a regulatory box to be checked—like, we could defend this particular recommendation in a court of law—and that’s unfortunate, because it’s the deeper essence of this word that opens a door to a new level of interaction between advisor and client.
You see, fiduciary isn’t just legal compliance; it’s practiced self-forgetfulness. As an advisor, this means you’re not thinking about yourself, your ego, your AUM, your commission, or anybody else’s perception of your work in that moment. You’re just thinking about the client.
This leads to a multidimensional approach to listening and learning, a skill that Kinder notes is a virtual superpower relative to cognition slowed by the effort of thought. (This is one of the reasons, by the way, that Kinder rarely takes notes in a client’s presence, because he wants to be fully present.)
And while the notion of self-forgetfulness might seem anathema in 2025’s it’s-all-about-you twist on self-improvement, this notion has long been the domain of some of the world’s great thinkers:
- Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, gently bursts the bubble of all short-form life coaches with this mic drop line: “You actualize yourself precisely to the amount to which you don’t concentrate on self-actualization. You forget yourself. You give yourself to the task at hand.”
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist and originator of Flow Theory, adds fuel to the fire with his paradoxical finding that “the self expands through acts of self forgetfulness.”
- The ever-quotable C. S. Lewis wrote that “humility is self-forgetfulness,” and I love pastor and author Tim Keller’s artful paraphrase of Lewis, suggesting that the essence of “humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.”
Please note, advisor friends, that self-forgetfulness in client practice is not necessarily natural; it may not satisfy the desire for short-term profit, and will almost never be counted in your favor in a performance review.
BUT.
When self-forgetfulness becomes institutionalized—when it’s not just you on your best day, but the ethos of your entire practice—something remarkable happens. Clients begin to sense it, and this is when trust compounds. This trust may not be measured in assets under management (initially), but it’s the kind that builds careers, transforms lives, and yes, eventually shows up in your business metrics.
What does (and doesn’t) it actually look like in practice? C. S. Lewis wrote that a truly humble person won’t be “greasy” or “smarmy,” constantly telling you he’s nobody. Rather, he’ll seem like “a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”
This is the financial advisor as true fiduciary—not performative humility, but practicing self-forgetfulness.
Finding A True Fiduciary
But here’s where it gets really interesting. When advisors practice self-forgetfulness, they create the space for clients to do the same. And this, friends, is when financial planning becomes financial life planning.
When clients get beyond the intellectual belief that you’re a letter-of-the-law fiduciary and experience your self-forgetful presence, it frees them from the need to look smart, the impulse to defend themselves, the fear of judgment, and, perhaps most importantly, it inspires a more expansive canvas upon which to engage in human-first financial planning.
It’s when questions evolve from “Can I afford to retire?” to “What would I do if money were no issue?”
And what are the signs that you may have found a self-forgetful fiduciary?
- She listens at least twice as much as she talks.
- He seems more enamored with your problems than his solutions.
- They are unhurried.
- They’re comfortable with silence, not rushing to fill the space with their expertise.
- You leave meetings feeling energized rather than educated.
- They remember the details of your life—not just your portfolio.
- When you achieve something meaningful, they celebrate without taking credit.
The Liberation Principle
As Kinder reminded me in our conversation, “You can’t meet the moment without forgetting yourself. It’s a prerequisite.”
So, whether you’re an advisor trying to serve clients more deeply, or a client searching for someone who truly puts your interests first, self-forgetfulness is the litmus test.
The Investment Advisers Act of 1940 gave us the legal framework. But it’s the spirit behind the law—the practiced art of self-forgetfulness—that transforms fiduciary duty from regulatory compliance into something that can change lives.
The aim, Kinder suggests, is “liberation, not accumulation.” This is beyond textbook financial planning, and it’s more than mere “financial independence.” Personally, I believe it’s the ultimate end goal of the work we do in wealth management, and as we observe the rapid commoditization of most of the calculative aspects of the work we do, I’m optimistic that the future of advisory work may finally satisfy the aspirations of its 1940 founders.
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