Derek was recognized as one of the “Top 50 Most Innovative Voices in Advisor Growth (2025),” a curated list highlighting the leaders whose ideas are shaping how advisory firms grow, adapt, and serve clients. The list includes influential experts across marketing, enterprise strategy, behavioral finance, technology, and practice management.
In this episode of The Get Ready Money Podcast, Derek Hagen discusses the powerful role psychology plays in improving financial decisions. As Director of Education and Communication at Money Quotient, Derek shares how aligning money with purpose, values, and goals leads to more fulfilling financial lives. He explores the connection between life planning and financial planning, emphasizing that true financial success comes from meaning—not just numbers.
In this episode of Financial Behavior Thought Leaders, Amy Mullen, CFP®, President of Money Quotient, joins Dr. Mary Bell Carlson to discuss how financial advisors can evolve with changing client expectations. Amy shares insights from her journey in values-based financial planning, exploring how understanding clients’ motivations leads to lasting, transformational relationships. She highlights new research on communication gaps between advisors and clients and offers practical strategies for bridging them through empathy, curiosity, and continuous dialogue.
In this guest article for eMoney Advisor’s Heart of Advice, Derek Hagen unpacks how overconfidence bias—fueled by social media and digital “expertise”—can derail clients’ financial decisions. He explains how financial professionals can use Motivational Interviewing and behavioral coaching techniques to help clients think critically, recognize blind spots, and make more intentional money choices. Through tools like the OARS framework and “decision rules,” Derek shows how advisors can empower clients to slow down impulsive actions and reconnect their decisions to values, goals, and evidence-based strategies.
In this episode of Healthy Love & Money, Derek Hagen returns to discuss the hidden emotional costs of wealth and why money alone can’t buy happiness. Derek and host Ed Coambs explore how financial success often shapes our identity, the grief that can accompany loss or change in wealth, and the deep-seated beliefs that drive our financial behaviors. Derek also shares insights into how storytelling, childhood experiences, and emotional awareness can help people find balance between external success and inner fulfillment.
In this episode of Healthy Love & Money, Derek Hagen joins host Ed Coambs to explore how our childhood experiences and unconscious beliefs shape our relationship with money. Drawing on his work in financial psychology, Derek explains why money is about meaning, not math—and how curiosity, reflection, and communication can lead to healthier financial and relational decisions. He also shares his personal journey from growing up with a scarcity mindset to becoming a financial therapist helping others align money with purpose and connection.
In this episode of Planning and Beyond, Derek Hagen joins host Ashley Quamme to explore how financial advisors can use motivational interviewing to transform client relationships. Derek explains how to resist the “righting reflex,” foster client autonomy, and create deeper, more collaborative conversations. The discussion covers the four key components of motivational interviewing—Spirit, Stages, Skills, and Speech—and offers practical techniques for applying MI across discovery meetings, annual reviews, and major life transitions.
In this episode of How Did We Get Here, Derek Hagen shares his remarkable journey from growing up in poverty and washing dishes to becoming a Chartered Financial Analyst and financial therapist. He discusses the lessons learned through hard work, education, and perseverance, and how his experiences shaped his philosophy that money should be a tool to improve life—not the goal itself. The conversation explores resilience, career growth, and finding purpose through financial well-being and meaning.
Amy shares the importance of integrating the emotional and psychological aspects of money into financial planning. She shares insights on how financial advisors can enhance client trust, satisfaction, and motivation by adopting a holistic, values-based approach.
In this episode of Humans vs. Retirement, Derek Hagen joins to discuss how creativity, intention, and values can guide a meaningful retirement. He explains why money should be seen as a tool—not a goal—and how purpose and personal values should drive financial decisions. Derek and host Andy Hart explore the importance of diversifying sources of meaning, being present with time, and designing retirement as a new, fulfilling phase of life rather than a finish line.
