Why the Financial Industry Wants You Confused: A Conversation with Mike Milligan

Have you ever wondered what true financial wellness really looks like? Not just having money in the bank, but building a life that creates community with the people you care about, is focused on being healthy in every aspect and having an impact? Welcome back to another episode of the Vital Wealth Strategies Podcast. I'm your host, Patrick Lonergan, and today I'm joined by someone who's redefining what it means to live and plan with purpose. My guest is Mike Milligan. He's a purpose-driven financial advisor, educator, and entrepreneur whose story started in his family's small business back in North Carolina. Today, he's the founder of Ideas by Mike and One Oak Financial, one of the leading voices in client-centered, impact-driven financial planning. Mike holds both the CFP and accredited investment fiduciary credentials, and he's helped thousands of clients make sense of their wealth extend their wellbeing, and live out their goals with clarity and confidence. What I love about Mike's approach is how he blends decades of expertise with empathy and a genuine focus on helping people design lives that reflect who they truly are. He has a gift for turning financial jargon into simple, actionable strategies that anyone can use, whether you're managing your first big windfall or building generational wealth. And before we dive in, if you're ready to take control of your tax strategy and start keeping more of what you earn, Visit vitalstrategies.com/tax. That's where you can find the tools and insights to start building a plan that fuels both your business and your life. If this podcast serves you, I'd love for you to leave a quick rating or review. It helps more entrepreneurs like you find these conversations and join our growing community of vital thinkers and doers. All right, let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Mike Milligan. I'm excited about our conversation today. We've got Mike Milligan on the show and we're really going to get into understanding about having a financial plan that we can all understand that really supports our life. Mike does a great job of really making it simple for people to understand their plan, have an audit of all the things they're doing, and make sure that people are on the right track. So Mike, thank you so much for joining us here today.

It's great to be here. Absolute honor.

Yeah, thank you. So I'm just thinking about finance in general, and oftentimes it feels overly complex. I will go to an industry conference and not even understand what people are saying. You know, they're full of jargon and they're disconnected from, I'll say, the real lives that people are living. And then it can also feel overwhelming. You know, when somebody's talking to me in a certain way, I'm just like, now I'm Uncertain about what's going on. I'm frustrated that my wealth doesn't reflect the life that I want to live. And then at the end of the day, I feel like our wealth should create freedom. It should help us improve our wellness and our impact, not create confusion, stress, or constraint. So thank you for helping us guide through these challenges here today.

Well, you know, the industry is a setup, Patrick. I mean, it's everything that you mentioned about jargon, overcomplication. It's just a setup to make individual clients, small business owners, retirees feel like they have to have the company do the work for them because otherwise they would be lost without them. And it's just simply not true. Financial planning can be a very simple complementary piece to an overall plan for your life that is well-lived.

Yeah, I love this. And I think about some of the authors that I've read. I like to read books and J.L. Collins does a great job of A Simple Path to Wealth, and I appreciate his approach. Now, I think As wealth grows, I think it brings some complexity, even if, you know, you've set a bunch of these things up and it can help to have an advisor in your life to like make sure you're not making some mistakes, especially when it comes to like things like Roth conversions and some of those other pieces. But I do believe our industry makes it overly complex. We make it sound like there's, this is not something the average person should do and they should, you know, lean on an advisor. But I On some hand, there's some people that probably should have an advisor. They think they're going to outperform the market with their stock picks. And unfortunately, the 300 million people in the United States, effectively no one has done that. We might be able to point to Warren Buffett, but even him, it's like, I would argue he's more of a business owner. All of the Forbes list is a business owner or a real estate magnate. So it's like there isn't—

Who, by the way, everybody that's on that list that is a magnate, they found inefficiency And where it was able to turn massive profits because of finding the inefficiency.

Yeah. Yep, absolutely. And we own a fair amount of real estate and we're always looking for the opportunity. You know, the value's based on the cash flow. We find inefficiencies in the cash flow, we figure out how to force more cash to the bottom line and the number starts compounding. So, right. Yeah. This is great. So Mike, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into finance and sort of putting the people first?

So, I mean, I did college like most people did with this understanding that I wanted to help people with money. I liked what it looked like, and that really went back to my upbringing when I was out of necessity, My grandmother had to become an entrepreneur. See, her husband who owned a construction company got diagnosed with cancer. He soon passed away and the stay-at-home mom had to now become an entrepreneur. And what she sold was something totally unique. She sold collard sandwiches, just fried cornbread with collard greens in the middle. And she sold them around construction sites, at convenience stores. And eventually at our local annual fair, what, you know, a 3-day event where people would come. But what I really realized in looking back on her entrepreneurial spirit, the spirit is that she sold love. It just was wrapped in a couple pieces of cornbread with collards. And so I, in her, in my journey of helping her, because I was 11 years old when that started, I got to go with her to make sales calls. I got to go with her to pay bills because when she was doing this, you know, you would still take money orders or cash into the local utility company.

Yeah.

So I got to see like how it operated. One of the things that I noticed over and over again with her is just the relationship aspect of building a business. Well, one of those relationships happened when we walked into a bank. She was not well educated. In the bank that she walked into had a guy wearing a suit, a tie. The only other person I knew at that time that wore suits and ties were preacher men, and I did not want to be a preacher.

Right.

And so I was like, I want to dress like that guy. And so I found the path to go work at a bank, and that was to go to college, get a degree, and then I got a job at a bank. In their management development program. And for 10 years, I walked the halls, conference rooms, and trading floors of some of the biggest institutions in America. And that's how I learned that the system is rigged against individuals.

Yeah.

It's there. These companies are earning record profits. You know, look at the 3rd quarter profit numbers that are coming out for big companies, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup, right? And they're records. Well, how are they making record profits? They're making them off the backs of individual businesses and companies through trading and net interest margin. And they don't sit around their conference rooms talking about how to make a client's life easier. They sit around conference rooms saying, how can we profit off doing business? It's such an interesting concept because many of the places that we trust with our money are breaching the trust because they're taking a greater share of the profit than what you're taking.

Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. And I think one thing that's really interesting when we start looking at people's financial incentives, and we start looking at the data around the decision-making, all we have to know is their financial incentives and it will start to skew the advice they give, right? And so when I think about, oh, I'm taking advice from somebody that now has financial incentives, the information they're giving me, even though they might seem like my friend, they might be, you know, talking about and showing me how all of the decisions that I'm about to make are going to be in my best interest. I think it's not always the case. And so I appreciate you bringing this to light because I don't think there's a lot of people in our industry shining the light on this.

Well, they don't. Well, the industry doesn't want to talk about it because the industry is a profit-first industry. It's profit-first. I have a motto or a mentality where it's profit with purpose. And like, if individuals, if entrepreneurs will take a profit with purpose mentality, the impact multiplies. The happiness is exponentially bigger. Then the companies you work with, you use them for what they're meant for, right? You use a bank for checking, use an insurance company to play defense, right? Use an investment company to multiply your money, right?

Yeah.

By owning assets. And you don't blindly or illiterately go into a relationship without knowing What the pros and cons are. Patrick, people would never go into a surgery, especially an elective surgery, without knowing the pros and cons of that surgery. But they do that every day with their money. Yeah.

Yeah. I love this. So if it's okay, can you start to unpack what it— you have a book out, The one-of-a-kind financial plan. Can you talk a little bit about what is that? What is this and how is it different than what I'm going to get if I walk into my local investment advisor's office?

Well, I have 2 core beliefs in my life. One is to never miss a moment. And number 2, that everybody is one of a kind. And people that don't realize their uniqueness and try to do what everybody else tries to do, if they try to follow the herd, they're literally robbing this earth. They're robbing their community of the skills that they could bring to the table. And so I promote living a one-of-a-kind life, building a vision. So when I wrote the book, it's from over 30 years of academic, you know, being in academic, but being front and center with clients, you know, sitting across the kitchen table, looking at them in the conference room, Hearing the struggles. Well, I basically boil down that a financial plan has 5 key pillars. You know, the first one is tax planning because that's the biggest expense you'll ever have in your life. And there's hands down nothing more expensive in life than taxes.

Yeah.

The second one is retirement income. See, people, In my research and in working with thousands of clients, people have gotten the retirement world, or they've gotten the use of retirement world wrong. You know, 401s, for instance, were created to be a supplemental piece to pensions and Social Security. Yet, Yet employers have made that the primary source of generating retirement income. And it puts all the risk, like the investment risk, the filling the retirement income risk back on the employee, the person that's putting money aside. And they don't really have time to understand what a proper asset allocation is. What a proper investment structure is, how you actually turn income. And what we find is that when people get to retirement, they enter retirement with high levels of fear and anxiety. And our book tries to alleviate those by actually walking you through how to create retirement income. Then we go to the third pillar is investments. Investments are overly overcomplicated intentionally. They're not, they're not meant to be simple. And so if people don't understand them, they naturally gravitate to too conservative of an investment. And when they do that, they often don't get the returns they need to retire. So the system, investment system is kind of rigged. So we like to educate on investments. And then the last 2 components of the play, the last 2 pillars are long-term care and healthcare. Like, how does the current version of yourself take care of the future version of yourself? You notice I didn't say long-term care insurance.

Yeah.

I think insurance is oversold. And I think through proper planning, you could solve for healthcare and long-term care needs. But the people who defer making those decisions, that's when they have to rely on insurance more and more.

Yeah.

And then the last component of the one-of-a-kind financial plan is legacy. And yes, it is meaning that you have a will and a trust, but a legacy is more about experiences, family heritage. It's about family secrets. It's about making sure the next generation has the wisdom that you've accumulated. in that when you pass away, they really know you love them. And so we walk through those 5 pillars of those. But then what we also do in the book, The One of a Kind Financial Plan, is expose what a real fiduciary is. And we can, you and I could talk about that for hours, but we talk about what a real fiduciary is. And then we give action steps for how to build vision for retirement, And then how to build your plan. Our book is a do-it-yourself guide that then you pick and choose the investors where, I mean, you pick and choose the advisors that you need to implement those instead of blindly following an advisor with whatever one-size-fits-all plan they have. Yeah.

Yeah, Mike, this is great. So I feel like you're preaching to the choir here when you talk about starting with tax and it being the most expensive thing. We couldn't agree more. It's the number one reason clients come to us. They're like, hey, solve the tax bill. And on average, we save our clients $280,000 of income tax on an annual basis. So it's like, yes, moving that needle makes an enormous difference. I've seen this illustration and we've used it in the past about a penny doubling every day and how many dollars that's worth at the end of 30 days. And it's a tremendous amount. I think it's like $12 million or something like that.

Yep.

But once you factor in tax, if you just take out 37% tax on all of that doubling, you know, the impact you have, again, I don't remember the number, but it's a fraction of the amount of money. So the more tax we can get out of the equation and let our our dollars work without that friction, the better. And then to your point on the fiduciary side, you know, I think our industry has problems in general. I think the commission model, you know, has its issues. It's like, well, is this best for me or is this best for the advisor? You know, it's hard to tell because again, you start looking at financial incentives and there's an issue. And then we look at, The fiduciary standard where I am paying a fee to get this service. Well, again, when the financial incentives don't line up with the advice, oftentimes if my goal is to pay down my debt right now, I might understand that financially it could make sense to leave that debt in place and go invest my dollars over here. But there's also a peace of mind factor. There's also, you know, my beliefs could say the scriptures tell us that, you know, we're slave to the lender and I don't want to be slave to anybody, so I'm going to get rid of that debt. And the financial advisor may go, hey, well, you know, here's all the reasons why that's a bad idea because you're going to have to pull money out of this account that I'm charging you on to, you know, to do that thing. And I don't want my income to go down, so I'm going to advise you to keep those dollars in. And then the last problem I have with that structure in general is I'm paying the advisor based on the value I'm bringing to the equation versus the value that they're bringing to the equation. And it's like, well, this is an interesting approach. So, you know, it would be odd if, you know, when I brought my car in for an oil change, they said, oh wow, this is a, you know, this is a nice car, $100,000 vehicle. Like, we're going to charge you not based on the complexity of that oil change, but based on the value of your car, it'd be like, wait, time out a minute. What are we doing here? So again, we could probably run down that rabbit trail for a while, but I love the direction that you're heading with your planning. So if you don't mind, Tim.

Well, I'll tell you what, if I can elaborate on that just a minute, Patrick, is like this conversation needs to be had more because change in the industry is coming. I mean, it's because as people have access to more information, they will make changes. My fear is that it's going to go too far too fast where people start relying on AI to get financial advice. I was just actually reading an article in Rethink 65 that said, according to like Credit Karma, 82% of people under the age of 40 used AI for a financial question in the last 6 months. And this, in the survey, surveyed over 10,000 people. Well, 75% of people acted on that. So here's the, here we are again, right? Where we talk about the current system being rigged for the profits Right? Because everybody gets the same solution over and over again. And if you go to AI, guess what you're going to get? You're going to get the same solution over and over again. So like the difference between working with like corporate America and working with AI is human interaction. Because AI is, if you don't have discernment, Right. And that's a word we could also talk about for a long time. But if you don't have discernment, all you, and you're using AI or you're working with, you know, a blind advisor, all you have is a Google search.

Yeah.

Right. It is working with licensed professional people who, like you said, bring value to the table greater really than what you've ever got before.

Yeah.

To be able to grow wealth that otherwise is going some other place.

Yeah. And I do want to make a point. I am not opposed to profit. Like, I don't think that's a problem. And like you said, like, let's just make sure that we're like, let's just make sure our values are aligned and that our incentives are aligned. Like, I think that's where a lot of the issue comes.

So, That's why we talk about profit with purpose as opposed to profit first, because listen, we have to have profit, right? In order to be able to have the lifestyle my wife and I and our kids want to have, we have to have profit.

Yep.

Right? If we are like, if your firm on average brings $280,000 of value, right, from tax planning and somebody expects to get that for free. They are, they are, that, that's insanity.

Yeah.

That's absolutely insanity.

Yeah.

You know, you go out and pay that $280,000.

Right.

Don't pay to have it done.

Right.

Right.

Yeah. Or, or try to do it like most of our clients. There, there's some aspects where you, you need the professionals to help execute, you know, that, that, you know, are, are setting up the pieces. Maybe not, maybe you can figure it out all on your own, but the time and energy it's going to take you to figure it out, you're better off Especially when you're running this multimillion-dollar business to just focus your efforts there versus get yourself bogged down in becoming a legal expert or tax attorney on some niche strategy that you think may or may not make sense. So yeah, this is wonderful. I think you're right. We could be talking about this all day long. If you're serious about building wealth, here's the truth. You can't just earn your way to freedom. You have to strategize your way there. That's why I built vitalstrategies.com/tax. It's where entrepreneurs like you can discover proven ways to minimize taxes, keep more of what you earn, and use that money to grow your business and your life. Whether you're already scaling fast or just getting started, the right strategy can put thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars back in your pocket each year. So don't wait until tax season to think about your plan. Visit vitalstrategies.com/tax. So I really like the, that you're bringing values to the discussion, right? Like you're understanding the values that the client has. So, and that's, I think, done through, you know, vision and just starting to really build out those pieces. So I have a plan that's customized for me versus, you know, getting the cookie cutter. So I want to touch on that. I also want to go back to your point on the AI thing and the value of having somebody in our lives that can help us. You know, I can go to AI and I can have it, and I'm going to use a health fitness example, right? I can go find the right exercise plan, the right nutrition plan. But at the end of the day, I need somebody that for most of America to walk alongside me in that, right? I need somebody that can help me execute on that because I'm going to get distracted by this thing or that thing, or not put the structures in place that are going to help me be well from a fitness point of view. And so I think the same thing is really true in our financial lives as well. So I just threw a couple things out there. I don't know if you want to grab either one of those and run with it. But yeah.

Well, I mean, like, I, one of the problems, right? Whether it is our health, right? I mean, there's 3 things that I think people have that they should apply individually, not apply like a general base template to or an AI to.

Right.

Is I think like the community, the places you want to spend your life, The people you want to live with. I think that is so unique in saying no along the way is so important, right? Everything you say no to creates an opportunity for yes. Like I'll tell you, like when we meet with clients, we have the ability to say no, that we're not going to work with that client, just like they have the ability to say no, that they don't want our plan.

Yeah.

But in life, you could say no in a community, which would open you up to other opportunities. So So health, right? Health is a thing that you either have it or you don't. And those that don't have it, their only wish in life is that they had their health. Yep. Yep. And so you can waste the opportunities when you have great health, or you could seize the opportunities. And the third thing I think that you can't really go to AI or phone in every day is what impact you're going to have in your life. And so like, if you like the impact, if you don't have a clear vision and the impact for where you want to go, you can't really go there. We actually, with that community health and impact, we call that chi, not like the Far East chi. We call that like retirement chi or financial chi.

Yeah.

You can kind of lease out or ask people to give you advice or strategies around other things, but the vision for your life can only come from you. And if you create a vision around community health and impact, what you could do in your life is unlimited.

Yeah. Yeah. I love this. And Mike, you're talking about so many of the things that we think are important. We have this acronym called REACH. Okay. The R is for relationships. E's for experiences, A's for advancement or growth, and I'm looking forward to getting into that. C's for contribution. Scriptures tell us it's better to give than receive. And then H is our health. We think there's 3 components to that. It's our physical health, our emotional health, and our spiritual health. And so I love what you're— I feel like you're touching on all of these things. And there's, I think the truth is good planning comes from a solid foundation in things that truly matter. And love that you're building all of this. So can we talk a little bit about, we'll call it financial fluency or learning the rules of the game? Because I think that's a key part. And you touched on, let's bring the knowledge to the people and help them in this process. So how important is it to bring clients along in the process?

Well, you have to meet people where they are. And everybody brings a different level of attached financial fluency where they've heard, they may have heard 3 minutes of this podcast, right?

Right.

Or they may have heard 2 minutes of a guy on a radio show, or they may have watched Suze Orman for 4 minutes, or, you know, the guy at the water cooler at the office said, You know, invest in Bitcoin, or, and they're just bringing all these kind of things that to attach to them. And they're bringing snippets or soundbites into, they're trying to bring soundbites into their financial planning process. I believe in financial literacy so much as not only am I the founder of One Oak Financial and have written the book, The One of a Kind Financial Plan, We have our, we have a podcast, Ideas by Mike. Well, I also am a, I'm a lecturer. I teach at Old Dominion University.

Yeah.

And one of the courses I teach is a non-credit course called Personal Financial Planning. It's a 6-week course that walks through the philosophy of money, cash management, debt management, budgeting, the defensive strategies you've got to have in your life. you know, the requirements like homeowner's insurance and auto insurance and health insurance and why you have those. And then the insurances you should avoid. We, I teach that also. Then we talk about investments. Like we go through how investments should align with timeframe and risk, and then ultimately your goals. And then we walk through like healthcare, long-term care planning, Disability income planning.

Yeah.

And then we walk through building a will and a trust. I think like it's so much, right, that I teach a, I teach a 6-week, 9-hour course, right, that, that is perpetually running, that has hundreds of students in it.

Yeah.

And I don't, I don't do that, by the way, to— I'm not doing that to build One Oak Financial. I'm not doing it. I'm literally doing that because If you're going to negotiate with companies, right, for a mortgage, if you're going to negotiate for, uh, to purchase a car or insurance or investments, you have to be equipped, right? Uh, a football player that walks onto a football field in nothing but his cleats is ill-equipped to play football.

Yeah, absolutely.

A person that walks into a meeting with a financial advisor And they're not equipped with basic definitions and terms. They're going to be talked at and they're going to blindly sign because of something, some other reason that makes no financial sense.

Right. And I think you're touching on a critical thing. The course you're teaching to these college kids is probably the first financial education they've gotten in their entire lives. The education they've gotten up to this point is probably watching their parents who most likely have some terrible habits if we just look at the average American. But they haven't proactively gone out and done anything. They haven't read any books on personal finance or any of these other things. And so they're just wandering blindly out there and in the marketplace and it doesn't turn out well. So I appreciate the fact that you're helping people lay that solid foundation of like, Hey, let's get our P&C coverages in place and make sure that we've got our homeowners and car insurance. And here's how to do that in a way that makes sense. Don't, you know, have an emergency fund so you don't take the lowest deductible possible so you can save some money on your insurance premiums, things like that. The mortgage interest, you know, behind tax interest is another compounding factor that can work for us or against us. If we're earning it, great. If it's, we're paying it, it's a problem. And the fact that we can, you're helping people understand the value of that cost is tremendous. So this is so good. I don't know if you have anything to add to sort of the state of our nation and how we fail to educate our society on finance, but we might need to do another episode on this. But—

Holy cow. When you keep a people uneducated, then their dependency on you grows. And it's, and it's in that, and you could say that for like, like true, like literal education. You could say it for financial education. You could say it for health, right?

Mm-hmm.

You know, if you, if you create a dependency culture, you know, people are less likely to revolt or try new things or innovate. And so, yeah, I mean, from a financial standpoint, I do believe that you can't teach, you can't effectively teach a teenager about money. It's impossible. You could teach them a couple concepts, but they don't have experience with it. And education without experience is nothing more than education.

Right.

And so I think education should be Like, I think employers should be, you know, the personal financial planning class I teach is for, it is for college students, but it also is a class that you could pop into as an adult and come in. And I think like we built this course with the idea that in hopefully 2 to 5 years, it is like a core competency that an employer gives to their employees.

Mm-hmm.

Right. To try to get their financial lives almost like an employee benefit. Like, I want you to have your ducks in a row financially so that when you come to work, you're not worried or you're not out looking for another job. You're not out, you know, you're not out, you know, talking to your insurance company in the middle of the day when you should be, you know, operating the code for our company or completing payroll or—

Yeah.

dealing with our patients, right? So hopefully, you know, hopefully we will get to a world where, at least from an education standpoint with finances, that more universities like Old Dominion are willing to invest in adult education on how to properly negotiate in this world of overcomplicated products.

Yeah. I also feel like you've touched on this dependency thing. I mean, we could run down the avenue of healthcare and politics and like, I think there's so many areas that we were sort of blind to. We've just kind of put on our blinders and assumed this is the way it is. And we don't slow down and sort of look around us and go, wait a minute, why are— I've been voting for that person for a long period of time and Actually, my situation's just gotten worse, you know. And so I don't know. Same thing with with healthcare, man. It's like I don't know if I should trust the system that needs to sell me, you know, medications and procedures to to fix my health. So I don't know. Again, whole different tangent. But I I love what you're talking about there because it's so true. And if you you open up your eyes and look around you, I think you start to see. Those things.

We're also a media world also too, right? And so most people who have their eyes open to this, especially in the financial world, financial world or the health world, when you have your eyes open to them, it's because you're not distracted by everything else out there. And listen, I'm a historian, I'm an academic who happens to be an entrepreneur, and it's a bad combination, Patrick. That's a Awful, because like I could bring some truth to a situation that most people don't. But if you look at every great, if you look at every great civilization, 100% of them have failed eventually.

Yep.

And at the end of the failure, it is the entertainment era. You know, when Rome started to fall, that's when they started gladiators. When Greece started to fall, that's when the Olympics started. And if you look where we are now, we have more entertainment options than we ever have had in this country, right? From, you know, you could stream. It would be impossible for somebody to get from the beginning to the end of Netflix ever in their life.

Right.

We have a joke. My wife and I have a cousin and he retired recently after being in the military for a lot of years. You know, he, it would be like, it'd be like 7 o'clock in the morning and he'd be up like at 5 because he was used to waking up at 4 or 5 to get to work. And so I'm like, hey, hey, hey, hey, how's your day going? He's like, well, I got all the way to the end of Instagram today. Right? And he, it's a joke that he has, right? That he's bored because he doesn't have anything to do. But it's true, right? Bored people will consume, right? They'll consume entertainment.

Yeah.

At the expense of educating themselves and being, and being independent in their own thought.

Yeah. And, and we have to also understand that, that, that media platform is not doing it for free. They, they are, uh, selling my attention to somebody and, uh, and it's influencing me in probably negative ways. So, I love this. Getting back to financial planning, is there anything else we should be talking about when I'm thinking about, I'm constructing my financial plan? What should I be paying attention to to make sure that I'm on the right path?

Well, you know, the media in this world will also distract you in your financial planning process. I mean, there's very real, there's the book that I wrote, brings the attention to the things that you should be paying attention to. Like for instance, taxes, we talk about that.

Yep.

But then all of a sudden we will get in this culture of if 10 people, or if one person walked into 10 financial planners, they're going to get 10 different financial plans. But the financial plans don't always highlight how they can help you. They highlight how everybody else can't help you because, you know, you'll have these blanket statements out there that says something like, I hate annuities. I hate life insurance. I hate assets under management. I hate fee-for-service, right?

Yeah.

And the reason people say strong things like I hate, is because what they're really saying is my system is your way. I mean, people love that when they pass away that their families get tax-free money that wasn't exist. People love a guaranteed paycheck. People love not paying 1% of your total assets, right? Instead of you just pay, know, $2,000 a year, no matter how your assets do. Advice. People love that stuff. But the market will tell you that you hate it because they're trying to disillusion you to be what's there. The things that really matter in a financial plan is number one, can you understand it? Number two, can you execute it? And number three, does it get you where you want to go? Yeah. That's like the basics of any good financial plan. We overly complicate it. Again, the more sophisticated you are as a person, multiple business owners, 8-figure net worth, tax bills that are 6 and 7 figures. Yeah, there's a little more complexity there, but it still comes down to those 3 steps. Can you understand it? Can you execute it? And does it get you where you want to go?

Yeah, I love that. So good. And I also think that going back to media for just a second, because I think this ties in. Yeah, I think the thinking that the media creates and it around what we need to have from a lifestyle point of view is a problem. I think consumerism is a problem. Now, I'm a person that has, you know, plenty of stuff. But I'm also looking at this with my eyes wide open going, hmm, I see what's happening here. I see this draw to like want to go buy a new fill in the blank because I feel like I need it. I'm missing out, you know, keeping up with the Joneses is real. And, you know, so I think there's a level of this FOMO that screws up our finances and sort of ties us to not being financially free, ties us to a job or a career that we maybe don't love where, man, if we had if we had financial margin in our lives, it would be a lot easier. And I find, and I'm sure you'd do the same, it's really hard to plan for somebody that has no financial margin. You know, if you're, and we've seen this, we've seen this with people making $2 million a year that spend $2.1 between their taxes and everything else. It's like, I can't help you. You know, there's just not a lot we can do to build wealth, to create financial freedom because you're not willing to Bring our lifestyle down because there's always a nicer fill-in-the-blank, bigger, faster, shinier, or whatever that we can go buy. That's why we see the billionaires have a 300-foot yacht and then their buddy gets a 320-foot yacht, so they go buy a 350-foot yacht. It's like, I promise that isn't going to improve your satisfaction in life. So I think that's just a key piece too to think about. I don't know if you have any thoughts or comments to add to that.

Well, like breaking it down to the basics, right? We, in that personal financial planning class, we talk about in high strokes that you have to pay yourself first. Because if you don't, you know, people of faith will say, you know, you have to give first. That's part of paying yourself first, right?

Right.

Let's not be crazy, right? You know, just because I'm saying pay yourself, that doesn't mean that you're not Giving, right? You give first. The Bible calls that first fruits, right? You give first fruits, you give both away, but you also give to yourself for your future. There's a fixed expense, right, that everybody has in their life. There's every month it's going to be the same cost and you have to put a percentage toward fixed expenses. If you have a mortgage, that's going to be pretty high. That's going to be 40 to 50% of your fixed expenses.

Yeah.

Then there's the variable expenses. But at the end of it, in these 4 categories, paying yourself, fixed, variable, there has to be a margin. And it has to be, for most people, it has to be 10 to 15%. Because if you don't have the margin, you, most people tend to overspend anyway. And if you leave margin, you leave some bluff to save something. But most people need a 10 to 15% margin in their income because life happens and you got to be able to adapt to it without becoming a servant to the master, the lender relationship. You really have to focus on that.

Yeah, I love that. And I think one thing you're highlighting here on the pay yourself first concept is it's something that's illustrated in the 401. The 401 is one of those things that just sucks people's money out before it ever gets to their bank account. And shockingly, they get to retirement and they've got a million bucks in their account. So it's like as many of those things as you can automate, if you can automate on the front end, your savings account, your emergency fund, your brokerage account, you know, as an additional source of liquidity, you know, your retirement savings, you know, whatever we want to build up that that pool of cash, and then it gives you freedom and flexibility. If your boss is giving you a hard time and you hate work, quit your job. You have 6 months of savings in the bank. Now you can go find a new job that you don't have that stress and you don't have to worry about it. So I don't know, I think that wisdom is really good to just pay yourself first, find lots of opportunities to make sure that you are setting yourself up for success and not funding. We have, you know, yep, go ahead.

We have called, we have mislabeled the emergency fund as the emergency fund for so long. It is really not an emergency fund. It's a replacement fund or it's a freedom fund. That's the 2 things it really is. I mean, we say it's an emergency, but emergency's like, Are most of the time not emergencies.

Yeah.

You know, like you're like, like you need new tires on your car. Well, you knew as soon as you bought the car that you needed new tires eventually.

Yep.

The refrigerator goes out. Well, it's 16 years old and I've had it for 13 years. I knew it was going out soon. Right. So it's really the emergency fund's really replacement, but it's also a freedom fund. Like you said.

Yeah.

Like if something is not going right in my life and I need space to get it right, It allows me the freedom to step away from a situation, get it right, use my freedom fund to be able to get back into revenue-producing activities.

Yeah, this is great. Mike, there's so many things that we can talk about. I think, is there anything else we should look at? Because I'm just thinking of your book, The One of a Kind Financial Plan. I think it's a critical place for people to start. So many of the things we've talked about here, I hope we're opening up people's eyes to like, man, there's a different way out there in the marketplace than everybody else that I've been talking to. So anything else we should discuss before we wrap up?

Well, the only other thing I'd say is that I don't think there's a substitute for wisdom. And people just, like I mentioned discernment earlier, but you just, people, when you deal with your money, I would say you need to trust your gut. Now, if your gut is uneducated, it's going to tell you that you want a donut, right?

Yeah.

But an educated gut will not crave a donut. It'll crave something that's actually going to provide sustainability to you. I would say, so I'd say trust your gut, but get educated. I would say seek out opportunities, whether it's like the personal financial planning class that we teach at Old Dominion. If it's the, if it's like something within your church, like financial peace, right? If it's something out there, trust, you know, get educated, then trust your gut, but then do seek advice.

Yeah.

But seek advice that is on your terms, that is not on the terms of the person sitting on the other table. And if the person is not willing to fully explain how they get compensated, don't sign anything.

Right. Yep. Yeah. When they say there's no fees, they're not doing it for free, right? Somebody's paying them somehow, some way. And yep, that's so good. So I think some other resources people should check out, ideasbymike.com. You've got so many good links to your media there. I think that's That's fantastic. And then we've also got oneoakfinancial.com. You know, if somebody's listening to this going, hey, I need some help, I need somebody to point me in the right direction with my planning, I think that's a fantastic resource. Anything else that people should be looking at as far as—

I would just, yeah, I'd just say Ideas by Mike is my podcast. So like if you want to hear more interviews like Patrick and I, Patrick, I'll probably have you on my podcast.

Yeah, that'd be fun.

Right? Because I think that'd make a lot of sense. Ideas by Mike is the podcast. One Oak Financial is the number one oakfinancial.com. So don't spell out one, it's the number one because you are one of a kind. It's the number one oakfinancial.com. And then if you want to know more about me, like we talked about, like the book, or if you want to know about like personal financial planning course, Just go to mikemilligan.com. So really a couple different outlets to connect with what we're doing to try to help people live a one-of-a-kind life.

Yeah, this is great, Mike. And we'll have links to all of that in the show notes. I think that is fantastic. And there's just a few things, you know, when I think about the stakes that are at hand, you know, if we don't take action on these things, we'll just continue to feel overwhelmed by the complex financial systems out there, which exposes us to risk of making poor decisions and costing us freedom and wealth and wellbeing in the long term. And then we're just living a life disconnected from our true values where on the opposite end of that coin, I think about success. You know, we've got clarity and confidence and peace of mind. I think that's what we're all looking for anyway. We've got financial strategies that we understand and we can implement that really supports this one-of-a-kind life that we're building. And then we get to enjoy the wealth. We get to enjoy the health and the impact and the community that we're creating. And I know I've got those in the wrong order. It's the community, the health, and the impact, the CHI, which I think is great. And so I love the work you're doing. I think this is important. I think this conversation matters for our industry, and I really just appreciate all the good work you're doing.

I appreciate you too. Thanks for having me on today.

Yes, you're welcome. Thank you. Thanks so much for joining me for this conversation with Mike Milligan. I hope it gave you a fresh perspective on what it really means to build not just wealth, but well-being. Because your financial strategy aligns with your purpose, everything else starts to click into place. If you got value out of today's episode, it would mean a lot if you shared it with someone who could use this message. And if you left a quick rating or review wherever you're listening, it helps more entrepreneurs find the show. And become a part of this community. And if you're ready to take the next steps in your own strategy, visit vitalstrategies.com/tax. You'll find resources, tools, and proven frameworks to help you minimize your taxes, keep more of what you earn, and use that wealth to build a life that truly fits you. And remember, you're a vital entrepreneur. You're vital because you're the backbone of our economy, creating opportunities, driving growth, and making an impact. You're vital to your family, building abundance. And freedom in every area of life. And you're vital to me because you're committed to growing your wealth, leading with purpose, and creating something truly great. Thank you for being a part of this incredible community of vital entrepreneurs. I appreciate you. Can't wait to have you back here next time on the Vital Wealth Strategies Podcast, where we help entrepreneurs minimize their taxes, master wealth, and optimize their lives.