Are you living your own dream—or performing a script someone else wrote for you?
We had a big podcast planned that was never produced that we will get to at the end of 2026 called 51 miler.
This will serve as the prequel to that podcast and a bookmark for the mysterious 41st podcast that was never dropped.
In this raw, unfiltered episode of Ideas by Mike™, host Mike Milligan, CFP®, steps up to the microphone alone to deliver a urgent message about sociology, borrowed desires, and what it truly takes to break free from the sea of financial sameness.
Drawing inspiration from Canadian artist TALK’s hit songs Run Away to Mars and GTFU, sociologist Erving Goffman, and philosopher René Girard’s concept of “mimetic desire,” Mike explores how so many hardworking professionals end up on a stage they never chose, chasing someone else’s version of retirement.
A portfolio built on envy, a career built on someone else’s expectations, or a legacy built on corporate templates is NOT a One-of-a-Kind Life. Learn what is the true process to be One of a Kind. We’d love to hear your thoughts, listen, share and download.
Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a comment below!
Do you have any financial inquiries wanting to get answered?
Leave us an email – contact@mikemilligancfp.com
Call/Text Mike Milligan to help you out – 757-909-7151 Visit our website at: www.1oakfinancial.com Read our blogs to learn more insights: 1.oak Financial Blogs page
Episode 41 of Ideas by Mike™ is also available on YouTube!
Is your financial advisor still stuck in the 1960s? In this episode of Ideas by Mike™, host Mike Milligan, CFP sits down with Eric Runge, a third-generation entrepreneur and founder of Veritas Wealth, to discuss the institutionalization of financial planning and why standard commoditized products like the 60/40 portfolio are failing modern investors.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
– The Problem with Big Banks: Why institutions like Merrill Lynch and Edward Jones have more incentive to sell what has always worked instead of staying on the cutting edge.
– The History of Money: How walking off the gold standard in 1971 accelerated government debt and consumer inflation.
– Bitcoin vs Crypto: Why Bitcoin is a completely separate structure from the thousands of other cryptocurrencies on the market.
– The Future of Digital Currency: How SEC regulations, institutional family offices, and payment rails are shifting the landscape for Bitcoin.
Eric Runge Eric Runge is a third-generation entrepreneur who transitioned from corporate America to establish his own path in independent wealth management. In 2017, he founded Veritas Wealth to escape corporate compliance constraints and better serve his clients with fully customized decisions. He has since specialized his practice into a highly specific niche, establishing himself as a registered investment adviser expert in Bitcoin.
Drawing from a rich family history of business ownership—ranging from his grandfather’s heavy equipment rental shop to his father’s real estate business—Runge brings a direct, transparent, and agile entrepreneurial mindset to his practice. He caters extensively to high-net-worth investors and family offices, translating complex economic shifts into clear, actionable financial strategies.
Do you have any financial inquiries wanting to get answered?
Leave us an email – contact@mikemilligancfp.com
Or Call/Text Mike Milligan to help you out – 757-909-7151
In this latest episode of Ideas by Mike™, our guest speaker, Erika Wasserman shares a deep-frame work and explains the history why retirement as an emotional and subconscious journey, drawing in listeners searching for deeper understanding. It then unpacks Erica’s key insights with concrete examples, tools, and frameworks—highlighting tangible benefits and outcomes.
Erica Wasserman, a renowned financial therapist, reveals how childhood stories, cultural beliefs, and subconscious patterns shape your money decisions today—and how recognizing these stories can transform your retirement journey. Erica guides us through how to identify and reframe these deep-rooted beliefs, so they serve your future—not sabotage it.
You’ll discover the surprising power of renaming your retirement accounts to boost motivation, learn simple exercises to connect with your retirement vision, and understand why emotional readiness is equally vital as financial planning.
With practical tools like conversation cards and a step-by-step framework, Erica shows how even the toughest talks—about money, aging parents, or transitioning roles—can be approached with confidence and clarity.
This episode breaks down the common money myths that keep couples silent, explores the critical conversations for harmony, and shares how to create a flexible, meaningful retirement—what Erica calls Phase Three—where passion, purpose, and financial security blend seamlessly.
If you or your clients are approaching retirement or questioning their money mindset, this is your essential guide to navigating it with emotional intelligence and purpose.
Perfect for financial advisors, couples preparing for retirement, or anyone ready to make their money story work for them—not against them.
Don’t let subconscious scripts define your future; learn to tell a new, empowering story today.
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About Our Guest:
Erika Wasserman is CEO of Your Financial Therapist, which she founded in 2019. As a Certified Financial Therapist CFT™, a sought-after certification held by only 100 people in the world, she combines her education in finance and international economics with her passion for helping others, empowering individuals, couples, and companies to reshape the way they think about money.
Do you have any financial inquiries wanting to get answered?
Leave us an email – contact@mikemilligancfp.com
Or Call/Text Mike Milligan to help you out – 757-909-7151
Stop focusing only on the spreadsheet and start designing a life that matters. Join Mike Milligan, CFP® and design sociologist Dr. Gary David as they explore the human side of retirement, from navigating the “identity cliff” to the sociology of meaningful moments.
Learn how to transition from a job title to a purposeful new chapter, bridge the communication gap with your spouse about legacy and money, and create “storyable” experiences that last a lifetime. Whether you are a pre-retiree or already in your next phase, discover why retirement is a sociology project, not just a financial one.
Watch it on YouTube and don’t forget to subscribe for more!
About our Guest:
About our Guest: Dr. Gary David is a professor of sociology and experience design at Bentley University, where he has taught for over 25 years. He holds a PhD in sociology from Wayne State University and specializes in the intersection of how humans relate to one another and the art of designing meaningful experiences.
As a design sociologist, keynote speaker, and host of the Experience by Design podcast, Dr. David studies how individuals build connection, belonging, and meaning, particularly during major life transitions like retirement.
His professional background also includes judging international customer experience awards and applying his expertise in conversational analysis and linguistics to help people navigate the complex human elements of work, identity, and personal relationships.
In this latest episode of Ideas by Mike™, Dr. Ives Machiz, PhD, CFP®, a fee-only pioneer, shares lessons from 4 careers on retiring into purpose. Learn how coaching and financial education build self-sufficiency & reduce anxiety.
Join Ideas by Mike™ host Mike Milligan, CFP® & Dr. Ives Machiz, PhD, CFP®, a clinical assistant professor and financial planning pioneer, shares the wisdom gained from his extraordinary four-part career: founding a fee-only firm in the 1980s, teaching high school, navigating a family business exit, and earning a PhD.
They both tackled and discusses the emotional nature of retirement and business transitions, the core lessons of self-sufficiency from coaching basketball, the relationship between financial education and health, and the advisor’s critical role in building client trust to mitigate financial anxiety.
This episode offers essential retirement advice for pre-retirees seeking to leap from working to living a one-of-a-kind life.
Key Takeaways:
Objective Advice Requires Total Alignment: True fiduciary planning centers entirely on the individual’s specific long-term goals rather than a high-pressure push for a specific item, commission, or asset product.
Master the Fundamentals First: Successful retirement planning is built on basic, non-glamorous behaviors: consistent long-term saving, clear spending budgets, and maintaining discipline through fluctuating financial environments.
Transitions Are Emotional First: Selling a business, leaving a job, or entering retirement forces individuals into an identity vacuum. You must establish a clear plan for your lifestyle and purpose before executing the final financial liquidation.
The Inherent Value of a Third-Party Fiduciary: Much like medical professionals who refuse to treat their own families, everyday investors need neutral professionals to remove toxic emotion from highly personal wealth decisions.
About our Guest:
Dr. Ives Machiz, PhD, CFP® earned his doctorate in Personal Financial Planning from Kansas State University. He is currently a Clinical Assistant Professor in the personal Financial Planning program at Arizona State University. (Source link)
Are your childhood memories secretly managing your money? 🤔
We ALL have these stories.
On this week’s episode of the Ideas by Mike podcast, I sat down with Dr. Megan McCoy, one of the top academic minds in financial therapy. We went deep into the psychology of how we handle money across every generation.
Dr. McCoy even shared her own vulnerable money story about how wanting to “save the world” made her think she had to take a vow of poverty—and how she rewrote that narrative. It was absolute podcast gold.
If you’ve ever felt paralyzed by a financial decision, or if you’re arguing with your spouse about money, this episode is basically a free therapy session.
Is your wealth over-concentrated in company stock? In this episode of Ideas by Mike podcast, host Mike Milligan, CFP, sits down with Keshav Kolur—a former software engineer at Amazon and Meta who walked away from the cubicle to build Clive Capital.
Keshav reveals how he applies a “tech brain” to evaluate real estate, oil, and gas deals to minimize downside risk. If you are a high-income earner who is “time poor but cash rich,” this episode is your blueprint for rewriting your financial story through passive income and sophisticated tax strategies.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why tech employees are often dangerously over-concentrated in RSUs.
The specific “engineering guardrails” Keshav uses to vet private equity deals.
How to legally and ethically slash your tax bill through alternative assets.
The journey from Georgia Tech robotics to managing a multi-million dollar fund of funds.
Alternative Investments 2026 and the Passive Income for Tech Employees.
Real Estate Syndication Strategies and how to do RSU Diversification.
Tax Saving Strategies for High Earners.
Meta & Amazon Employee Wealth.
Oil and Gas Passive Income and doing Engineering Mindset in Investing.
In Episode 48 of Ideas by Mike podcast, Mike Milligan, CFP sat down with Ronnie Sadka, Chair of the Finance Department at Boston College and co-founder of MKT MediaStats. We dove deep into a fascinating concept he calls “Narrative Momentum.”
We humans have bounded rationality—we simply cannot process the millions of articles, tweets, and news stories published every single day. Because of this, the market often underreacts to a narrative as it slowly gains traction.
Ronnie’s research uses technology to systematically analyze these narratives, identify which topics are gaining momentum, and correlate them with asset class returns.
It’s not about guessing what the next big thing will be; it’s about systematically measuring what the world is already talking about, and positioning your portfolio accordingly.
In this episode, we cover:
How “Narrative Momentum” differs from traditional price momentum.
The danger of the “trampoline effect” (why buying the dip isn’t always smart).
How technology is bridging the gap between academic theory and actionable trading strategies.
If you want to understand how the flow of information is actively moving markets, you need to hear Ronnie break this down.
Cut through the “sea of sameness” in financial advice by using communication as your competitive edge. In this episode of Ideas by Mike (Ep. 47), Mike Milligan, CFP, talks with communication expert Deirdre Van Ness about the three common mistakes advisors make, why effective speaking starts with strong content and emotional resonance, and how AI and gender dynamics are shaping the industry.
Main points: three advisor mistakes, content-first speaking, emotional connection, AI’s role, fewer women in finance.
Like, comment, and subscribe for more episodes on financial communication and advisor growth.
Episode Summary: This episode of Ideas by Mike features Deirdre Van Ness discussing how financial advisors can escape the “sea of sameness” through powerful communication.
Main Topics:
The Power of Communication: Using communication as a “superpower” to build trust and influence.
Three Communication Mistakes: Avoiding common pitfalls by treating every conversation as a leadership audition.
Human-AI Collaboration: Leveraging AI for efficiency while using the human element to customize the Final Output.
In this 46th episode of the Ideas by Mike podcast, host Mike Milligan, CFP interviews KC Chohan, founder of Together CFO, who specializes in tax strategies for high-net-worth individuals and entrepreneurs.
KC shares his journey from working in a Fortune 500 company to becoming a fractional CFO, emphasizing the importance of understanding tax loopholes and structures to optimize financial outcomes.
The conversation covers various topics, including the future of taxes, the differences between W-2 employees and entrepreneurs, charitable giving, and real-time tax planning scenarios. KC also warns about scams in the tax planning space and stresses the importance of understanding tax strategies before signing any agreements.
KC Chohan is a tax strategist and the founder of Together CFO, a firm dedicated to helping entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and high-net-worth individuals legally minimize their tax liabilities. He specializes in transitioning business owners into family office structures to protect their assets and optimize their long-term wealth.
