Rick Kahler's Financial Awakenings

Next week, Rick will speak to a group of Australian financial planners on his award-winning research, “Becoming Consumers of the Profession We Practice-Who’s Planning for the Planner.”

He will additionally do a presentation on integrating financial psychology into a financial planning practice called  “Growing Your Practice By Shrinking Your Clients.”   Rick will also appear as a guest on a local radio show in Sydney, Australia.

If you have a question for Onsite’s money disorder experts, Psychologist Ted Klontz, clinical psychologist Brad Klontz and financial planner Rick Kahler, submit it by going to this link.   Go to the “20/20″ page at ABCNews.com beginning Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 5, to read some of their answers.

YoungMoney.com features advice from Rick today that you don’t have to be rich to have a financial planner.  You can read the article by clicking here.

Written by Stacey Tisdale, On-Air Financial Journalist and Author of The True Cost of Happiness

ABC’s 20-20 is airing a segment this Friday at 10:00 PM Eastern in which they filmed one of Dr. Ted Klonz and Rick Kahler’s money workshops at their Onsite Workshops entity.  I was so moved by Dr. Klonz and Rick’s work, as well as a few other financial professionals that truly ‘get’ that there is more to our financial choices than dollars and cents, that I was inspired to write a book about it.  That decision has been one of the defining moments of my career and life. I am truly blessed to be able to call them mentors. Continue Reading »

Here is another story on the ABC 20/20 segment that is to air Friday, July 31st, on the financial therapy workshop Rick co-facilitates at Onsite Workshops, near Nashville, TN.  You can read the story by clicking here.

Be sure to watch ABC’s 20/20 this Friday, July 31st, 2009.  The segment featuring the Healing Money Issues Workshop, co-founded by Rick Kahler and Ted Klontz, will be aired.  The segment was filmed last April at Onsite Workshops near Nashville, TN.  Over 30 hours of filming was done during the 5 and one-half day workshop, plus follow up interviews with the attendees.  It will be quite interesting to see how they reduce that down to 10 or 20 minutes. 

Click here to read the full ABC news brief.

An image we often associate with lizards is basking in the sun. Imagining such a relaxed reptile might be a useful tool for making wiser financial choices.

As discussed in a previous column, to make the best financial decisions, we need to keep our limbic system, the lower or reptilian brain, calm in the presence of a perceived financial threat so it does not shut down our cerebrum. Then the right brain can recognize data, the left brain can reflect and analyze the data, and the response is a reasoned one that is in our own best interests.

It does little good to work on training our left brain in investment strategies and money management tools until we get the lizard under control. The million dollar question, literally, is “How does one learn to do this?” Continue Reading »

You may have heard about TD’s announcement to buy back auction rate securities.  This doesn’t affect any KFG clients, as no KFG clients held any of these securities.

According to Reuters, “TD Ameritrade said it would take a one-time charge of between 5 cents and 10 cents per share in the current quarter, after agreeing to a settlement, announced Monday, with New York’s attorney general to buy back auction rate securities.

Management said on a conference call it could not predict the outcome of its offer to buy back between $400 million and $500 million of the securities — 90 percent of which it said was held by one “reputable” mutual fund firm that has been “the most active in the market at redeeming them.” Continue Reading »

Due to President Obama’s Thursday news conference, a Charles Gibson piece that was to air that night is now shifting to 20/20 which has resulted in the story on the HMI workshop being bumped. 

I will know more next Wednesday when the piece may air.

If the government health plan proposed by Congress makes it into law, it will devastate at least one small business owner who called me this week.

His business has 20 employees, each making about $25,000 a year in retail positions that typically attract younger, entry-level workers. He currently can’t afford to pay health insurance. Under the proposal, he will either have to pay an 8% tax on his $500,000 payroll, which will cost $40,000, or provide health insurance, which may cost even more. The owner’s gross salary and profit is $120,000 a year, or $100,000 after taxes.

He is considering four options: Continue Reading »