"It's more than just numbers. There's an emotional component, a psychological component there, that money has meaning to us, that we ascribe to it,” says Ashley Quamme. “And when we make financial decisions, it's not just making financial decisions from a number standpoint, but it's also making it from an emotional place as well.”

A therapist and Certified Financial Behavior Specialist®, Ashley is the founder of Beyond the Plan, which connects firms with financial behavior officers (FBO) so they can navigate sensitive client financial decisions. In this conversation with host Shane Tenny, CFP®, Ashley suggests that financial decisions aren't driven solely by logic; they're deeply intertwined with our emotions, beliefs, and past experiences.

“Financial psychology,” she explains, is about “understanding how people or how clients, how their emotions, their thoughts, their experiences, their behaviors, their attitudes, beliefs – how all of that impacts their financial decisions.” In working with advisory firms to help advisors and clients, Ashley focuses on how trauma and deeply held beliefs shape money behaviors. Past experiences create patterns – from scarcity and abundance mindsets to financial trauma and comfort spending – that either help or hinder our financial success.

The discussion delves into the fundamental dynamics at play in couple relationships around money, with Ashley describing how anger often masks deeper fears and how financial arguments are rarely about the money itself. She also shares practical strategies for identifying personal money beliefs, including her "money timeline" exercise for self-discovery and her "think, feel, do" framework for understanding financial decision-making patterns.

For medical and dental professionals juggling high-stress careers with complex financial decisions, Ashley's insights offer a pathway to better understand the emotional undercurrents that drive financial behavior and ultimately achieve greater financial wellness aligned with personal values.

Name: Ashley Quamme, LMFT, CFBS

What she does: Ashley is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Financial Behavior Specialist who serves as a fractional financial behavior officer for advisory firms. As the founder of Beyond the Plan, she helps financial advisors understand how their clients think, feel, and behave with money. She specializes in uncovering the psychological and emotional factors that drive financial decisions, working with individual clients and couples to navigate complex money-related challenges.

Company: Beyond the Plan

Words of wisdom: "Although it may not logically make sense, comfort shopping – to the extent that we are depleting resources, no, that doesn't make logical sense – but to our brain, comfort shopping is serving a purpose there, and it's serving us well … Ultimately, those that are engaging in shopping or spending to this extent, there's a pleasure component there that they're receiving. And while that might make sense, we need to, or my job really then, is to understand: ‘Okay, well, we're receiving pleasure from this, but what are we lacking?’”

Connect: LinkedIn | Planning & Beyond Podcast | Instagram

Top takeaways from this

Women in medicine encounter unique challenges and opportunities. Five female physicians who formed a tight-knit bond during medical school have been actively examining these issues.

Over the past few years, they have shared their experiences and developed strategies to support women in various aspects of their medical careers, including applying to medical school, navigating residency and fellowship, understanding compensation, balancing work and family, and planning career trajectories.

On this episode of the Prosperous Doc®, our host, Shane Tenny, CFP®, dives deeper into the insights and initiatives of two of the authors, Dr. Sylvia Morris and Dr. Angela Walker. They discuss the experiences that brought them to write “THE GAME PLAN: A Woman’s Guide to Becoming a Doctor and Living a Life in Medicine.”

After years of mentoring and finding support within their own group of friends, the book was born out of the desire to reach a wider audience of professionals beyond what one-on-one mentoring could accomplish. It was important to both Dr. Morris and Dr. Walker to provide practical insights into navigating the real-life scenarios that they encountered but were not adequately prepared for on their own career journeys.

“If you don't have people around you who have an intimate understanding and knowledge of what we're going through, then you're right, [the profession] can be very lonely,” explains Dr. Morris regarding building a community and having resources available to support medical professionals.

Both authors wrote this book with a clear audience in mind. Dr. Walker wrote for the medical school version of herself, who did not have a clue what life would look like outside of school, and to answer the questions she wished she had known then. Dr. Morris wrote for her parents, as a guide to help parents and loved ones know what to expect.

Name: Dr. Sylvia Morris MD, MPH

What she does: Dr. Morris's goal is to utilize the media to improve our nation's public health by combining her training in internal medicine and public health. She has made guest appearances on local and national news outlets to deliver her message. She is currently a hospitalist and Area Physician Market Lead at Kaiser Permanente.

Company: Kaiser Permanente

Words of wisdom: “It's really important to take care of ourselves. Because if we don't take care of ourselves, we cannot take care of the people in our block.”

Connect: Website | Linkedin | Instagram

Name: Dr. Angela Walker, MD

What she does: As an OB/GYN caring for women for 25 years, she shares her journey as a wife, mother, daughter, and woman of color along her path of achieving optimal health and wellness. She helps others succeed by...

Healthcare access is not equal across all countries around the world. Pediatric orthopedic surgeon Dr. Brian Scannell is actively working to address this issue. Recently, he resumed his passion for medical missions, embarking on a journey to provide essential care to underserved communities.

In this episode of the Prosperous Doc Podcast, as Dr. Scannell joins host Shane Tenny, CFP®, to share his experiences and insights, offering inspiration for those considering similar humanitarian endeavors.

Project Perfect World started in the late 80s with the refurbishment of a medical clinic in Ecuador. Dr. Scannell began volunteering with the group around 2010. At that time, the project’s focus was shifting toward pediatric orthopedics. Now the group organizes twice-yearly missions to the area, providing medical care each spring and fall.

“Anytime you're doing mission work, I think of going in and making sure that local surgeons and physicians are involved, making sure that there's good communication, making sure that there is good follow-up for those patients,” Dr. Scannell says. “So it's never something that you go in and you do these big surgeries, and then you're just gone.”

The trips have been profoundly fulfilling for Dr. Scannell, both in terms of fighting burnout, reigniting his passion for the profession, and building long-term friendships with the other doctors who travel with him.

Name: Dr. Brian Scannell

What he does: Dr. Brian Scannell specializes in pediatric orthopedic surgery at OrthoCarolina in Charlotte, NC, and serves as the Orthopedic Surgery Residency Program Director at Carolinas Medical Center Atrium Health. He is currently the Chief of Pediatric Orthopedic Surgery at Levine Children's Hospital Atrium Health.

Company: OrthoCarolina

Words of wisdom: “It's one of those things that refills the bucket. There's other things that I do to kind of help refill my bucket. But medicine and healthcare is hard and burnout is real. We all feel that at times. It's a fun, selfless thing that I found that the patients are unbelievably grateful for, and that refills my bucket.”

Connect: Website | Project Perfect World

Top takeaways from this episode

• Project Perfect World brings surgeons to Ecuador. The initiative was originally started to honor the memory of Bob Simpson’s son, who was killed by a drunk driver. The original projects included assisting medical clinics and slowly became more specialized over time. Dr. Scannell found the organization through peers in the industry who invited him on his first mission around 2010.
• Education is an important part of the missions. Dr. Scannell explains how the team typically operates with two American surgeons in each surgery, one serving as the primary surgeon and the other focusing on education. Ensuring ongoing communication and follow-up care for patients is an important part of their trips. The team also conducts educational sessions for nurses and local surgeons, creating a supportive environment for skill development and knowledge sharing.
• The absence of screening protocols results in more surgical needs. Dr. Scannell sees more cases of congenital hip dysplasia, often in older children, which means they may need surgical intervention. He also performs foot and ankle surgeries for clubfoot, something that is rarely seen in the US.
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