What if the hardest financial planning work isn’t about numbers—but sitting with someone who’s dying? Rose Zealand reframes birth and death as parallel forms of “labor,” involving both the individual and their circle of care. She exposes a critical gap in traditional planning: when a midlife diagnosis hits, technical advice collides with shock and emotional shutdown. As both CFP® and death doula, she works in that space—where timing matters more than urgency. Push too fast, and clients retreat. Move with readiness, and real progress begins. Her insight is clear: money shapes care, but presence and trust determine whether planning can actually happen.
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The Labor of Dying – with Rose Zealand
About Rose Zealand:
Rose Zealand is the founder of Golden Thread Collaborative, a practice devoted to guiding people through the intersection of money, meaning, and mortality. As a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, Certified Financial Transitionist®, and End of Life Doula, she helps individuals and families navigate two of life’s most vulnerable realms—death and money—with dignity, empowerment, and intentionality.
This work is deeply personal to Rose. Within a few short years, she lost her grandmother, father, and uncle, and she is now accompanying her mother through her final chapter. Along the way, Rose has experienced firsthand the challenges of being both a working caregiver and an estate administrator while moving through the fog of fresh grief. Her parents’ very different end-of-life journeys—one marked by avoidance, denial, and unfinished business, the other by courage, grace, and intentionality—revealed how profoundly our relationship with money and mortality shapes not only our final chapter, but also the legacy we leave behind.
Rose’s path to this work has been as winding as it has been wholehearted. She earned a degree in cell and molecular biology and worked as a birth doula throughout college and for several years afterward. Following the Great Recession, she unexpectedly found her way into financial services, a career shift that ultimately led her back to companioning people through life’s most significant transitions—this time as a death doula.
Today, her career has come full circle. Rose believes deeply that she is called to walk alongside people as they cross major life thresholds. To her, there is no greater honor or privilege than accompanying souls as they enter and leave this world through the experience of being human.
At Golden Thread Collaborative, Rose weaves together the many strands of her life and experience, creating a place where financial wisdom and soulful care meet. Her work recognizes that money is never just about numbers, and that planning for life’s transitions requires equal measures of practical guidance and compassionate presence.
About Rick Kahler:
Rick Kahler, MSFP, CFP® , CFT™, CeFT® , Certified Internal Financial Systems™ Financial Therapy Practitioner, president of Kahler Financial Group, is a lifelong resident of Rapid City, SD. He began his professional career in 1973 selling and appraising real estate He founded Kahler Financial Group in 1981. He became the first fee-only Certified Financial Planner™ (CFP ® ) in South Dakota in 1983. In 2020 he became one of the first Certified Financial Therapist (CFT™,) in the nation.
His firm, specializes in the integration of investment advising, financial planning, financial coaching, and financial therapy, serving small business and real estate owners, professionals, and retirees, as well as individuals and families.
He served on and chaired the South Dakota Investment Council and served in leadership capacities with the Financial Planning Association and the National Association of Financial Planning Advisors. Kahler is also a nationally renowned speaker and educator. In 2003, National American University recognized Mr. Kahler with the Alumni Distinguished Service Award.
Interested in working with Rick Kahler, MSFP, CFP®, CFT™, CeFT®, Certified Internal Financial Systems™ Financial Therapy Practitioner? Please go to our website, Book a Financial Therapist Appointment and fill out a request for a 30-minute free consultation.
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