Rick Kahler, MS, CFP®, founder and president of Kahler Financial Group, is a fee-only financial planner, speaker, educator, and columnist. Rick is renowned as a pioneer in integrating financial planning and psychology. He is the past chairman of the South Dakota Investment Council, charged with the investment oversight of over six billion dollars.

A pioneer in combining financial planning and financial therapy, Rick is co-founder of the five-day Financial Integration Workshop offered by Onsite Workshops of Nashville, Tennessee. The Wall Street Journal referred to it as “an innovative effort that combines experiential therapy with nuts and bolts of financial planning.”

Rick’s work and research has been featured or cited in such media outlets as ABC’s 20/20, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Money, Journal of Financial Planning, Financial Planning, Parenting, and Self. In addition to Conscious Finance, he is a co-author with Dr. Brad Klontz and Dr. Ted Klontz of three other revolutionary books on money, financial planning, and therapy: Wired for Wealth (Health Communications, 2008), Facilitating Financial Health (NUCO, 2008), and The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge (Health Communications, 2005, 2008).

Kathleen Fox, despite college majors in English and art, has never had a job requiring her to ask, “Would you like fries with that?” She is a writer, editor, and speaker who grew up on the South Dakota prairie and now lives on the edge of the Black Hills.  Kathleen has edited and ghost-written numerous self-help books and articles and is the author of Making the Best of Second Best: A Guide to Positive Stepparenting.

Kathleen has five adult children and stepchildren, who could point out all the ways that she was frugal when frugal wasn’t cool. She can remember the birthdays of all 17 grandkids but admits to occasional vagueness about their ages. Her first marriage ended in divorce and her second marriage ended with the sudden death of her husband in an accident. Much of the insight in her work has been distilled out of the pain of those life-changing circumstances.

One of the things Kathleen has learned is the healing power of stories and laughter. Her latest book, Once Upon a Different Story, is a slightly twisted retelling of five classic fairy tales. In her Practical Prairie Woman blog, she takes a wry look at life’s misadventures but embellishes only when strictly necessary.