50. What Is the Human Side of Money? A 50th Episode Conversation with Brendan Frazier Artwork

Planning & Beyond®

Planning & Beyond® transforms how financial advisors approach client relationships by bridging psychological insights with practical planning strategies. Hosted by Ashley Quamme, a licensed therapist and financial behavior specialist, each episode delivers actionable techniques you can implement in your next client meeting.

Unlike traditional financial planning podcasts that focus primarily on technical aspects, Planning & Beyond® explores the behavioral and psychological elements that shape client relationships. Through in-depth conversations with leading experts in behavioral finance, financial psychology, and financial therapy, you'll gain evidence-based strategies to navigate emotional client situations, build lasting trust, and create more meaningful relationships.

Whether you're preparing for discovery meetings, helping clients through major life transitions, or looking to deepen client connections, you'll walk away from each episode with practical tools and confident approaches to enhance your practice. Join a community of advisors who understand that exceptional financial planning goes beyond the numbers.

Topics include:

Mastering discovery and prospect meetings
Navigating difficult money conversations
Understanding client psychology
Building trust and deepening relationships
Managing emotional client situations
Enhancing communication skills
Developing behavioral finance strategies
Supporting clients through life transitions

New episodes release bi-weekly. Subscribe now to transform how you connect with clients.

All Episodes

Planning & Beyond®

50. What Is the Human Side of Money? A 50th Episode Conversation with Brendan Frazier

May 21, 2026 • Ashley Quamme

0:00 | 1:02:29

Text us to share what you found helpful!

You've heard the phrase. It shows up in keynotes, LinkedIn posts, firm marketing, and increasingly, your own conversations with prospects. But if someone put you on the spot and asked what "the human side of money" actually means, could you articulate it? And more importantly, could you tell them what to do about it on Monday morning?

For the 50th episode of Planning & Beyond, Ashley zooms way out with Brendan Frazier, Chief Behavioral Officer at RFG Advisory and host of The Human Side of Money podcast. Brendan has been sitting with this exact question since 2017, when reading The Undoing Project cracked open his interest in behavioral finance and set him on a path that quickly outgrew that label.

Together, Ashley and Brendan unpack why "behavioral finance" was only ever the gateway, not the destination. They walk through the many dimensions that make up being human (individual, relational, cultural, societal) and how money layers on top of all of them. They draw a distinction that most advisors have never had named for them: the difference between the human side of money (what's happening inside your client) and the human side of advice (how you actually do this work).

You'll hear Brendan's honest take on where advisors should start (hint: it's not a four-step framework), Ashley's Five Human Domains as a reframe of traditional planning categories, and the research-backed reason why helping clients vividly picture their future changes behavior in the present.

A few ideas you'll walk away with:

Why money is a tool to fund the life someone wants to live, and what that means for how you structure conversations
The "just-in-time learning" approach to building behavioral skills without getting overwhelmed
How to think about security, freedom, connection, legacy, health, and growth as the real planning categories
Why communication skills offer the highest ROI of anything you could develop as an advisor

This one is less tool and technique, more map and compass. If you've been doing this work for a while and feel like you're ready to think about it at a different altitude, press play.

And thank you, seriously, for being part of 50 episodes.

RESOURCES AND GUEST INFORMATION

About Brendan Frazier

Brendan Frazier is the Chief Behavioral Officer at RFG Advisory and the host of The Human Side of Money podcast, where he has spent hundreds of conversations translating behavioral science, psychology, and communication research into practical tools for financial advisors. His work sits at the intersection of behavior change, client communication, and advisor practice management.

Connect with Brendan: