Is It Too Late to Save Your 401k? Lessons from Mercy Me’s Bart Millard

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Welcome to the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily with your host, Mike Milligan. Easter has become one of the biggest holidays in the United States, deeply rooted in Christian beliefs. Not all people's beliefs, but many people, as many people identify in the United States, they identify themselves as Christians or Catholics. And, uh, it's a time where there are more people at church in the United States than almost any other weekend in the United States. And so on the One of a Kind Financial Show this past weekend, I took a segment out to just, uh, um, analyze how the most popular Christian song of all time, a song by MercyMe, I Can Only Imagine, how it relates to financial planning. Now, whether or not you are Christian or Catholic or some other religion, Uh, the song has many lessons about our legacy, uh, our purpose, but more importantly, a rhythm of how we can write things down and it become a vision for something that is great. So, uh, listen to this segment from the One of a Kind Financial Show where I broke down the song, the backstory, and how it became truly one of a kind. Welcome back to the One of a Kind Financial Show. This is your host, Mike Milligan. It is, uh, normally Gary Nolan is on the, uh, the show with me this week, but because of some scheduling snafu, you just get me this week. And, uh, here we go, Easter weekend. And I want to talk, take a little detour, but I promise you we're going to bring it all the way back home because sometimes the most, the most powerful financial lessons don't come from a spreadsheet or a tax code. Sometimes they come from a song. If you've listened to our show over the years, you know that Gary and I will sometimes pick up songs and extract financial knowledge from those songs. And there's one song playing in churches and on radio stations and in living rooms all across the country this weekend. You know it. It's a song by MercyMe that came out in 1999. It's called I Can Only Imagine. Now, this is where I want to give you an opportunity to reach out to me this weekend. If this song actually means something to you, or it's a song that speaks to you, or it's a song you never heard before, I'd love to hear from you. Text the word ideas to 600-700 or call me at 757-403-5078. That's 757-403-5078. That's my phone directly, and I look forward to talking to you this weekend. So let me set the scene. It's 1999. A young singer named Bart Millard is on a tour bus late at night, and his band needs one more song to finish their album. He opens an old notebook and finds a phrase he had been scribbling on scraps of paper for years. I can only imagine. He sits down and writes the entire song in about 10 minutes. 10 minutes, folks. No rewrites, no edits, no second drafts. Just raw, honest, Spirit-led words pouring out of a young man who had lived through something most of us can't fathom. The song was released in 2001. It hit number 4 on the mainstream adult contemporary chart and cracked the mainstream top 40. By 2003, it was one of the most requested songs in radio history. Stations played it for hours at a time because listeners kept calling in begging to hear it again. Today, It's certified 5 times platinum by the RIAA, the best-selling Christian single of all time. A song written in 10 minutes on a tour bus is the greatest-selling Christian song ever recorded. But here's what makes it even more powerful, and that's the story behind it. Bart grew up in Greenville, Texas. His father, Arthur, had been a beloved high school football star. Everybody called him Bub. But when Bart was just a toddler, his father was struck by a diesel truck while working a highway construction job. He fell into a coma for 8 weeks, and when he woke up, he was a different man. His personality had darkened, his temper had sharpened, and the man who was once a teddy bear became someone terrifying to live with. Bart's mother eventually left, and Bart, just a young boy, stayed with his father. He lived in fear. He was beaten. So severely at times that he couldn't wear clothes or go to school. He lived for years wondering if the next day would be the last under that roof. But then, and this is where the story turns, Art got cancer, pancreatic cancer to be exact, terminal. And faced with his own mortality, something broke open inside of him. He found faith. He surrendered his life to God. And in the final chapter of his life, Art Millard became, and this is in Bart's own words, The godliest man Bart had ever known, his best friend, the father he had always wanted, but just for a season. And Art passed. Bart found himself hearing his grandmother say those words, I can only imagine what he must be seeing right now in heaven. And Bart couldn't let it go. He wrote it everywhere, on notebooks, napkins, anything in reach. Years later, alone on the tour bus, Those 3 words became the greatest Christian song ever written. In 2018, that story became a movie, I Can Only Imagine, starring Dennis Quaid as Art and J. Michael Finley as Bart. And it grossed $86 million worldwide on a $7 million budget. That's what I'd call a good return on investment, earning more than 12 times what it cost to make. And just this past February, I Can Only Imagine 2 hit theaters. Continuing Bart's story. Have you seen that movie? I'd love to hear your stories about it. Text the word ideas to 600-700 or call me at 757-403-5078. Now, you might be asking, Mike, this is a financial show. Heck, it's called The One of a Kind Financial Show. What does any of this have to do with my 401? That's a fair question, but let me tell you exactly What it has to do with you. Art Millard's story is a story of transformation. It's a story that proves no matter how deep the damage, no matter how far off course things have gotten, a new chapter is possible. And I see that same dynamic play out with money every single week in my practice at One Oak Financial over on Colley Avenue. I sit across from people who feel like Arthur in His dark days. They've made financial decisions they regret. They ignored their 401 for 20 years. They claimed Social Security too early and lost 30% of their benefit for life, or they waited too late and now they're terminal and they're not going to receive what they thought they would have received. They never wrote anything down. They never had a plan, and they carry that weight, that shame, like a heavy coat that they can't take off. That's where the one-of-a-kind financial plan comes in. Just like Bart never gave up on his dad, I want you to know it's never too late for your story to change, your financial picture to come in view. This Easter message, the resurrection message, and yes, it's a one-of-a-kind financial message. The song wasn't written when things were going great. It was written out of pain, out of loss, out of complication. And a beautiful redemption story. See, the best financial plans I've ever built, same thing, people in debt over their head, a 401 down 10% or 15%, a sudden loss where a widowed wife does not know how to balance a checkbook. Bart wrote one phrase on a scrap of paper for years before it became a song. He wrote, I Could Only Imagine. This Easter weekend, I want you to do something bold. I want you to imagine what your life, your legacy is like. And number 2, I want you to imagine what your retirement, what the rest of your life could be. I want you to imagine. I want whatever you've been writing on that paper, let's turn it into a one-of-a-kind financial plan. To get ahold of me, text the word ideas to 600-700 or call me directly this weekend at 757-403-5078. Let's write the next chapter of your life together, the one-of-a-kind financial plan. This has been the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily with your host, Mike Milligan. Uh, I am an investment advisory rep with Advisory Alpha LLC, Ideas by Mike, doing business as One Oak Financial. Is an unaffiliated entity of Advisory Alpha LLC. All material on the One of a Kind Financial Show and the One of a Kind Financial Show Daily is done for educational purposes only. Please consult with your accountant or enrolled agent for tax planning advice, a licensed financial professional for investment or insurance advice, and an attorney to, to complete your estate documents. Or you can reach out to our team at One Oak Financial. That's the number oneoakfinancial.com and request an appointment for yourself. Thanks. Look forward to talking to you soon.

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