Derek Hagen, CFA, CFP®, FBS®, CFT™

“What people really need is a good listening to.”

-Mary Lou Casey

Clients often approach us with worries or problems weighing on them. While it may be tempting to jump in and “fix” their problem, sometimes the best support we can offer is a listening ear. Listening actively helps them articulate their thoughts, guiding them through a process of self-discovery and, ultimately, toward their own solutions.

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Our Sense of Coherence

Meaning researcher Michael Steger has found that the feeling of a sense of meaning in life is composed of three factors: purpose, significance, and coherence.

Significance is the feeling of being valuable and important. It’s the sense that our existence has worth, contributing to a sense that “life matters.”

Purpose is having something meaningful to pursue—a reason to get up each day and do the work.

Together, these create a foundation of personal significance and purpose, giving life a sense of importance. Significance is about feeling life matters now, while purpose drives us forward, giving us something worthwhile to achieve.

Coherence, the third element, is different. Rather than focusing on mattering, coherence is about understanding. It’s about seeing life as orderly and predictable, with a worldview that explains our experiences.

A sense of coherence helps us feel like life makes sense, and it’s crucial to our mental stability. When coherence is disrupted—when we encounter events that defy our expectations—our whole sense of meaning can feel threatened.

Sometimes, it’s a shocking or traumatic event that throws us off balance. I know someone whose husband passed away unexpectedly in his sleep at 46. An experience like this can shatter coherence, as people “aren’t supposed to” pass away in their sleep so young. But it doesn’t take death; a lost job, an unexpected political event, or other disappointments can have a similar impact.

Benefit of a Skilled Listener

Clients often come to us with a sense of broken coherence, weighed down by Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs)—those recurrent thoughts that make them feel powerless, frustrated, or anxious.

In these moments, our instinct might be to fix the issue by offering reassurance or solutions. However, emotional problems rarely resolve through quick fixes. Our clients’ shaken worldview needs more than logical answers to emotional problems; they need a way to turn their thoughts into words and, eventually, into clearer, more manageable concepts.

Our role as financial life planners isn’t always to have the solution but to give clients the space to articulate their thoughts. By doing so, we help them shift from chaos to clarity, from “Why me?” to “What now?” A good listener can make clients feel acknowledged and understood, helping them reshape their scattered thoughts into coherent ideas and allowing them to envision the next steps.

Listening well is a powerful tool in our work. When clients feel heard, they can begin to accept what’s happened, letting go of unproductive questions in favor of constructive ones. This process helps them make peace with current circumstances, enabling them to move forward thoughtfully and positively.

Encouraging clients to explore their thoughts—without judgment or interruption—can be transformative. They become empowered, less entangled in distress, and more open to the life transitions that lie ahead.

Want to Learn More?

Money Quotient trains financial professionals in the True Wealth process and helps them implement the concepts into their practices. The first step is to learn about the Fundamentals of True Wealth Planning.

References and Influences

Klontz, Brad, Rick Kahler & Ted Klontz: Facilitating Financial Health

Miller, William: Listening Well

Miller, William & Stephen Rollnick: Motivational Interviewing

Pennebaker, James & Joshua Smyth: Opening Up by Writing It Down

Reivich, Karen & Andrew Shatte: The Resilience Factor

Rosenberg, Marshall: Nonviolent Communication

Steger, Michael & Pninit Russo-Netzer: Meaning360 

Sofer, Oren Jay: Say What You Mean

Vos, Joel: Meaning in Life