From Massage Therapy to Financial Empowerment: Liz Mundey’s Journey (Ep. 27)

Welcome to Ideas by Mike, the podcast with Mike Milligan, where you will find one-of-a-kind financial planning advice for your one-of-a-kind life. With over 22 years of experience as a certified financial planner, Mike shares experiences and advice on crafting simple, easy-to-understand financial plans based on your values and priorities. He believes that taking a personalized approach is the best way to prepare for the future and give meaning to your finances. So, follow along as Mike, and from time to time, his guests, explore different strategies and tools that could help you secure your financial future in retirement. Now, onto the show.

Hello and welcome to the Ideas by Mike podcast with your host, Mike Milligan.

I'm Wendy McConnell.

Well, hey there, Mike.

How are you? Wendy, it's great. It's a great day to be here.

It is a great day.

You know, we are— it's a great day to be one of a kind also. That's the beautiful thing about our podcast is over this— over the last few episodes, we've had a great chance to get to know some amazing human beings that just happen to be the people that make up Ideas by Mike. And today's episode is going to be no different. No different at all. And so I am happy to welcome Liz Mundy to the Ideas by Mike podcast today. I'm gonna let Liz tell her story a little bit as we go on. But Liz, you make our team better every day. I want you to know that before we get started.

Thank you.

And I cannot wait for the people who listen today to hear, like, your humor, your thoughts, who you are, where you've come from. So, you know, without further ado, just in your words, Liz, tell us who you are.

First off, I am super grateful to be here, and thank you for creating this space for me and our other team members as well. My name is Liz Mundy, and I'm the Senior Client Services Manager here at Ideas by Mike. And at a high level, I support our clients by making sure that their experience with us is smooth, clear, and in alignment with their goals. And my job is really to help translate financial planning into something more practical and easy for our clients to understand as their financial journey and life unfolds.

We try to, in the One of a Kind Financial Plan and Ideas by Mike, make financial planning that is somewhat complex simple. But I love the fact that you then translated even into simpler forms, right, with our, with our team. But you, you've not been in the financial planning field your whole life. You told me a story recently about something that happened to you in school, and I would love for you to share that story and then, and then kind of take us through the journey of from that story to how we ended up together, and then we'll talk about how the stars aligned.

I love it. So it's interesting how memories work because this is something I had forgotten about, and it came to my mind and was just this light bulb realization I had. So I'm not sure what they're doing in high school today, but when I was a junior in high school, we had to take this written quiz. And the test was supposed to help you envision what careers are going to be best for you and help you to start to plan what your next steps look like, whether it be college, a trade school, etc. So I remember taking this test and the job recommendation for me was in the field of finance. And Keep in mind, this is 17-year-old Liz, and I don't know if you know about this Liz, Mike, but she wore cowboy boots every day and big spring dresses, had hair down to her hips, and believed that peace and love could save the world. So when my quiz came back saying that I was going to work in finance, I thought, this is garbage. I go, finance doesn't make a difference. This is— I can't do this with my life. I want to make an impact. So I totally disregarded the test and went a very different direction. So what I knew at 17 and still today was that I wanted to have a career that made an impact and truly helped people. And I also wanted to work in a field That every person needed it. It was, it was something that everyone needed and available to everybody as well. And in my 20s, what I ended up doing is deciding to go to massage school. And funny enough, when I decided to take that career path, I knew it wasn't my end-all. I had been trying to figure out what I wanted to do for my whole life. And it was too, too big of a bite to take in my early 20s. How am I supposed to know what I want to do with my whole life? But I thought massage is a great jumping off point. It impacts people's lives, it helps people, and everyone needs it. So I went on to be a massage therapist. I was the only person from my graduating class to jump out of school and start a business right off the bat, being self-employed. And it was really successful. I love doing massage. I ended up growing the business on a very prominent street in Portland, Oregon, and grew the business to be a collective of eight therapists. I expanded to a second room, and I reached a point. This is around I don't know six, seven, or eight years that there was an opportunity to grow more. So. Where we were in this building, the, you actually had to go through these doors to enter where the 2 massage rooms were, but the 3rd door next to us opened up to a much bigger facility that was actually a storefront. So I had gotten a lot of my business by having a, uh, A-board out on the sidewalk. And I would do funny quotes and things like I would have Beyoncé quotes and just getting people interested to either walk through the door or call and book with me. And actually having a brick-and-mortar storefront was going to be a game changer. So I started to dream up financially what that looked like, how I'd have to expand the staff, what services we would offer. And I started to see my future unfold with massage. And to my surprise, I realized that I didn't love where it was going because I saw a cap. I saw the most I could impact and do. And I wanted more. So I ended up selling the business and I didn't have a plan. And I love that you said like how the stars aligned because I truly feel that Finding Ideas by Mike was an answer to a prayer. Because when I sold my business and didn't have a plan, I jumped around jobs a little bit, which is not in my nature, but I was trying to find my next career, and I had my first 2 non-negotiables. It had to impact people and help people, and it needed to be something for everyone. But I had 2 new non-negotiables. I wanted no cap. I wanted to be able to help beyond limit and continue to grow. And then the 4th thing is that I wanted something where I use my brain. I love massage, but it was physically taxing, and I'm a smart girl. So I wanted to use what was up here, and I had been praying for what that career was going to be. And it's so interesting because I wasn't looking for a job when Mike and I got connected. I actually was so burnt out at my current job, and at that time I had my daughter who was 1 year old, and I didn't have time to look for a job, but I was not happy. And I got connected with Mike through a mutual person. So he actually reached out to someone who I, someone that I know for a client service job. And that person said, I don't think this is the right role for me, but I think I know someone who it could be the right role for. And they had referred me and man, from the first conversation with Mike, I felt like It was too good to be true. And what I can say so proudly now, almost 2 years with Mike, is that Mike isn't too good to be true. Mike is the real deal. And it's truly an honor working with, uh, someone who is a leader who truly cares about not just us as individuals, your staff, but you care about every conversation you have. You care about our clients. You want— everyone to win around you. And the impact you've created in the financial space is just incredible. Um, I, I really feel like I found a place that's my forever home, and now I'm here with Ideas by Mike.

Well, it is your forever home because you signed a 47-year contract when you came to work here.

I might as well, right?

And so, uh, and, and, and there's a, there's a dot Dot, dot in Liz's story about how we got connected that will be connected in an episode coming up, because the person that actually connected us is actually on our team but was not on our team at the time. And so, uh, it just shows about how we brought a collective group of people together with the goal of building one-of-a-kind financial plans for our clients' one-of-a-kind life. Liz, I would say you live a one-of-a-kind life. But people that are listening right now don't probably know that side of your story. You have 2 of the most beautiful kids that are out there, next to my grandson Daniel, of course.

There.

But, but Eisley and Hayes are just like your sun, moon, and stars, right? Walk through what it's like to do your, your daily your daily activities with Ideas by Mike and to be the mother of 2 rambunctious, I guess is a good way to call them, or future world leaders. I don't know what they're going to be, but they're going to be something amazing because of your dedication to them. So, talk about what that's like.

Yeah. So, I feel like people talk about work-life balance a lot, and one of the gifts that is received working at this company is that I feel like I don't have to put on my work hat or put on my mom hat. I actually feel the capacity to truly live authentically in both roles, which I know some people think it's bad to respond to an email at 9:00 PM or a text at 7:00 while I'm making dinner. But for me, I just feel like I have the flexibility and autonomy to be available at different times. It could be random during the day. I need to be available for my kids and I'm able to do it. And it can be random some nights I need to be available for a client and I'm available to do it. So there's definitely a lot of autonomy. And really my era in life is this. I say when people ask me what I'm about, someone just asked me that recently. They said like, what are you about? And I said, Oh, that's easy. My finance job and just growing my financial literacy, which is the gift I get to give to my clients as well. My kids and just loving the era they're in. They're young. I have a 1-year-old and a 3-and-a-half-year-old. So we just play and we're learning how to color inside the lines and we have Friday dance parties. And then God, you know, a big part of my life is church on Sunday. We go with my kids and that's the biggest Our favorite day of the week. We got to meet a donkey yesterday and go on a train ride. And so that, that's what I'm about right now. It's just, it's finance, kids, and God.

You, you mentioned something that wasn't something we're not going to talk about today, but we are now. That's the beautiful thing about this. You said work-life balance, right? And I, one of my beliefs is that it is the biggest myth That is out there, because I don't think there's such a thing as a work-life balance, right? We are— we're called to work, or we're expected to work 40 years at a job, and then we get retirement for like 10 or 12 years if you base the life expectancy, right? It's really just unfair, to be honest with you. If you think about like the— our lifespan, you know, 20 to 30, you know, you know, 20 years of of education, 40 years of work, 10 to 12 years of retirement. And Liz, we see this every day, right? We see people that have given 30, 40 years to multiple companies, and they've accumulated, right, the sum of what they've accumulated over this time. They're coming to us in a time of a lot of emotion. Some of them are fearful. Some of them are just downright confused. Some are facing major life transitions beyond retirement, like with the loss of a spouse. Others just need people that they can talk to. I mean, the work-life balance stuff that you said is one of our core competencies in Ideas by Mike is family first. And so, we give our employees that. But like when you hear me talk about how it's just not fair, right? You spend all this time working for this little bit of time at the end of your life where it's not healthy. How do you deal with those clients at the end who, you know, some have, you know, maybe some diminished capacity, definitely diminished physical capacity? They're not nearly as active as they were in their 20s and 30s. How do you bring yourself into the role to help them end well?

Yeah, you know, I think it's different for everyone, everyone. And what's so important is really just having a conversation. I think each person, we, in order to help someone, like we can't offer solutions to someone unless we know the problem, right? So I think every time I'm talking to a client, I'm always trying to understand what's working for them. and what's not working for them so that we can realign or readjust for the future. With Ideas by Mike, like where we're at, we have so many tools and resources to help people plan. So I feel like if I hear someone that can't work as long as they need to, immediately I'm thinking, okay, we need some more tools and resources to help be, honestly, be creative. I feel like we're really creative with our clients. There's no one-size-fits-all here. We really listen to that individual and find ways to make it so that they can retire, that they can have the one-of-a-kind life that they want. I will say it's not always exactly how we picture it. Sometimes something has to give, and that's the conversation we have too. You know, I could say I want to retire right now, but do I have the capacity to? No, I can't right now. But I can make a plan and start to see what I need to do to get there. And I feel like that's what's really cool about what we do with people is we help make plans. So they're not just blindly walking anymore. They know that the work they're doing, even if it's hard work or difficult work, they're actually taking the steps they need to, to get to their end goal. And as client services, it's fun to get to see the wins. Like when someone pays off a mortgage or pays off a car, before that just meant to me like, oh, good for you. But before I worked in finance, and now I think you just got $1,800 back a month that you can now invest into, you know, an IRA, a Roth conversion, maybe your long-term planning, maybe you can start vacationing. Like for everyone it's different, But getting to see the wins that we work hard for and celebrating it with our clients is really exciting.

One of the, one of the very first clients you got to deal with with us, and I don't know if you've ever pieced this whole story together, Liz, but me, Joseph, Marcus, our sales team, we talk to people up front before they come to you on client service. We always ask them, why is money important to you? And there was a client, if I said her name, you'd know exactly who it is. But she said, I want to have money available so that I can travel. I want to travel to Europe. I want to travel to Mexico. I want to travel this. And she became our client around the time you started, right? So in the summer, she actually became a client in July 2 years ago. Then all of a sudden, we get to November and she calls and she asks for $6,000 out of her account. I was like, you know, we were trying to save that so you can go to Europe next year. And she said, well, my grandkids are coming home for the first time, and they're coming back to my house in Virginia, and I want to spoil them. And I said, you know, this will change your ability to go to Europe. And she said, yep, but my priorities have changed. She said, my new Why? On why money is important to me is so I can see my grandkids every year because my family has committed to come home. And Liz, we processed, and you're going to be able to figure this out after the show, but we processed another withdrawal last year. And I was just speaking with this client over the weekend, which is why this brought home right now. And she said, they're coming home for Easter.

Right.

And like this, what you do, right? And it's not just like processing money into bank accounts, right? It's not just changing beneficiaries. It's not just updating addresses. It's not the conversations you have via text at 9 o'clock or Saturday or the reassurance you have, right, that you give to people. It's not just that, right? It's the time with family over holidays, right? It's the vacations that people take overseas. It's the reassurance, the calm reassurance you give them when the stock market's down 20% to just, when in doubt, zoom out. It's those little things that you are learning that you do is just absolutely amazing for our company, but also mainly for our clients. And you entered, and this is where the stars aligned, right? We talked about that earlier, right?

Yeah.

When you took that test as a junior in high school to become in finance. All the way to opening your very successful service-based industry, very successful, where you, uh, you put A-frames out with Beyoncé quotes. I'm sure one of them said, all the single ladies are welcome. I'm sure you said something like that, right? They came through the door, but then you wanted more. Liz, if you could, if you could see yourself 5 years from now, Right. With what more means, what is it?

Before I was in massage, I was a corporate trainer for a few years. And what, you know, it wasn't the right fit for me. But what I learned from that job is that I love sharing information with people. And as I've gotten older, what I've learned is that when I learn something that impacts and changes my life, I want to give it away. I want to give it to everyone I know so that they can have the same gift to improve their life as well. Now that I work in finance and the literacy I have gained, it has changed my entire perspective. I thought, which I think many people think this way, that you can't Save money. You can't invest money unless you make make money. You got to be rich to invest and save and have these things, or to travel, or you have to be rich to do these things. And that is just not the case. So much about finance is making your money work for you instead of working for your money. And in five years, what I would love to do. Is be helping. I mean, we help so many of our clients exactly where they're at. But I'll say like, the majority of our demographic, there's a wide range, but the majority of our demographic is, is in the kind of foreseeing retirement in the future or retiring. But my goal and dream is to impact a younger community. So the people who are our beneficiaries for our clients, people that are juniors in high school taking career tests. Like, I want to give knowledge at a younger age and make it so that finance isn't so scary. That the 1% that's being rich, I feel like they're only rich because they know the rules. And I wanna share the rules in a way that's digestible and easy to understand to a younger community. So that more people can be in a better place rather than that really scary place of starting to see where retirement is and going, I don't know how I'm ever gonna do it. You know, I don't want people to have that. I want them to already be financially secure because they learned when they were 15, 18, 20 what they should be doing and Thank God for meeting you and the impact it's been on my life, because my kids are good. I'm not worried about my— my kids are gonna be able to retire. They're gonna have the financial literacy. They already have some accounts open for them. They're good. And I want every parent to have that. I'm not rich. You know, I'm not swimming in a bath of money, but I have a way to budget and put some aside for them. And I, I adjust my life accordingly because there's value there, and we just need to know how to do that. So I'm, I'm really excited to impact a younger community with finance.

And while at the same time help their parents and their grandparents end well, because ultimately, like, the way our, our company is set up where you're generally servicing grandparents and parents, right? You are impacting the next generation because I know what your heart is. I know where you want to go with this. And, uh, it's, it's interesting, uh, uh, you're changing the game. Ideas by Mike is a one-of-a-kind financial planning company. We build one-of-a-kind financial plans for our company's one-of-a-kind life. But in order to really truly be one of a kind, you have to have game changers. And Liz, you are a game changer, right? Because you understand from where you came from. We didn't even get to talk about your mom, who is an amazing woman, and we'll, and we'll reserve that for another, for maybe another episode in the future about how, as a single mom, she got you to where you are and how that somewhat comes full circle. So we'll leave that as a dot, dot, dot for you to come back in the future. I appreciate who you are on our team. I think you would agree with me, right, that we have an amazing team at Ideas by Mike?

We have an amazing team. And I also feel like a lot of that is you though, Mike. You have a way at finding— I am a game changer, so I'll take that compliment. I feel it. I feel like I've always been that. Like, I don't go against the grain in any way. I'm a rule follower, but I'm very creative as well. And I'm— it's really an honor to work somewhere that lets me have the autonomy to be creative and to have these dreams. And like, you love where client services is going, going, and the more we want to do. But you find people who are game changers, Mike. You find people who are creative, who are hardworking, self-motivating. And honestly, I think you do a good job of finding people with heart. And that's one thing I love about our team. We are Everyone's got a great heart.

And the great part about that is when you combine all of you together, it just ups it even more because you guys, you know, you want to be better because of who you're hanging around with. You know, the sum of all your life's choices, right? And, you know, if you want to see where you are in life, just look at the people you hang around with. And when I see like you and Tiffany and Caitlin hanging around each other, January, Barb, Marcus, Joseph hanging around each other around our office, Although we're virtual, we still hang out with each other, right? We are, we are changing the game to be the one-of-a-kind financial planning firm. Liz, thank you, thank you for today. Um, for those of you who are listening, I, I joked in our pre-production side that this is, uh, this is Ideas by Mike, Mike the Farmer's Edition, because of Liz's overalls and Wendy's plaid. Next time I'll get the hint and I'll wear, you know, my own overalls that To the podcast.

How about a cowboy hat? That'll look good.

A cowboy hat. That'll work. That'll absolutely work.

Okay, Mike, how do people get in touch with you if they have some more questions?

So we are on all the socials at Ideas by Mike— Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. You can go to Mike Milligan CFP or to our company site Ideas by Mike on LinkedIn. On the website, we, um, we're at ideasbymike.com. Connect with us anywhere. Send us a contact request form on our website and our team will get in contact with you. As Wendy, you can see, our team is talented, right? Every week we're rolling through all-star, game changer, inspirational person over and over again. And we are changing the game, Liz.

Yeah.

And we're going to continue to do that. So, I'm looking forward to our continued growth in 2025 and to see what our next 5 years looks like as we continue to grow.

Well, thank you to both of you, and thank you for listening today. Please like, follow, and share this podcast with your friends. Until next time, I'm Wendy McConnell.

Thank you for tuning into Ideas by Mike, the podcast, the show where ideas turn into money. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to click the follow button to stay up to date on future releases. For additional information on becoming a part of the Ideas by Mike community, check out our website at ideasbymike.com. Don't forget to take a look at the show notes, and for more financial insights, subscribe to the Ideas by Mike YouTube channel or visit the website to find one of the upcoming webinars. Also, connect on Instagram or Facebook @IdeasByMike. Ideas by Mike is an LLC headquartered in Virginia with offices in 42 cities. The company owns an insurance agency registered in all states directly or through affiliate companies. Mike is an investment advisor representative with JB Wealth Advisors. Any financial planning information shared on the show should not be construed as financial advice for you personally. For your one-page financial plan, please reach out to Ideas by Mike through the website. The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Ideas by Mike. The content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investment advice. Any financial planning information shared on the show should not be construed as financial advice for you personally. For your one-page financial plan, please reach out to Ideas by Mike through the website.