Ideas by Mike™ – Ideas By Mike™ Podcast

A Story of Faith, Portfolio Design & Hidden Reasons to Get Annuities Right | Ideas by Mike™ EP56

By Ideas by Mike | August 14, 2026

Is Your Retirement Plan Built on Financial Truths—or Clever Marketing?

Most financial advice you hear online is completely broken. The biggest names in the industry yell blanket statements like “I hate annuities” or “Bitcoin is a gamble” just to get your eyeballs and pull you into their sales funnels. But what if the very tools you’ve been told to avoid are the exact ones that could save your retirement? And worse—what if your “fully diversified” portfolio is actually an overlapping financial trap?

In this thought-provoking episode of the Ideas by Mike podcast™, host Mike Milligan strips away the corporate fluff with this episode’s guest; Tracy Lownsberry, the raw, no-nonsense founder of The Annuity Giants. Tracy isn’t your average corporate advisor—he’s a small-town kid who went from Army Special Operations and law enforcement to training tens of thousands of financial professionals across America.

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 56 of Ideas by Mike™ with Tracy Lownsberry is also available on YouTube!

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Find Your One of a Kind: From Knowing the Problem to Fixing Your Retirement | Ideas by Mike™ EP41

By Ideas by Mike | July 31, 2026

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?

Episode 41 of Ideas by Mike™ is also available on YouTube!

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The Massive Structural Differences When Evaluating Bitcoin vs Crypto | Ideas by Mike™ EP55

By Ideas by Mike | July 17, 2026

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.

Watch it on YouTube!

Click this link: Watch Now!

About our Guest:

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

Visit our website at: www.1oakfinancial.com

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How to Never Miss a Moment in Your Next Chapter with Dr. Gary David | Ideas by Mike™ Ep. 53

By Ideas by Mike | June 19, 2026

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.

Websites: https://www.garycdavid.com/ | https://garyconnects.com/

LinkedIn: Gary C. David

**We’d love to hear your thoughts! Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a comment below!**

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How to Retire into a Dream Job: The Emotional Nature of Retirement | Ideas by Mike™ (Ep. 52)

By Ideas by Mike | June 5, 2026

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)

Connect with Dr. Ives on LinkedIn

Subscribe to our YouTube and Tune in to find your starting line!

Also Get the Book “The One of a Kind Financial Plan” on Amazon: https://a.co/d/hAOPAgM

#moneymanagementpodcast #financialplanningpodcast #Finance #Inflation #RetirementPlanning #EconomicHistory #IdeasByMikePodcast

**We’d love to hear your thoughts! Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a comment below!**

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Information is Cheap, Transformation is Rare | Ideas by Mike™ (EP. 51)

By Ideas by Mike | May 22, 2026

Are you endlessly consuming financial content but still feeling stuck?

In this special solo episode of the Ideas by Mike™ podcast, Mike Milligan, CFP® takes a step back to connect the dots. Over the last fifteen episodes, we’ve explored wealth, health, fear, and communication—but how do all these pieces actually fit together into a real, actionable plan for your future?

Join Mike as he bridges the gap between cheap information and rare transformation. You won’t hear any guests today, just a powerful look back so we can look forward to the next level of the show.

Discover why building a “one-of-a-kind life” is about much more than just a spreadsheet, and find out the single most important question you need to ask yourself to finally get unstuck. Stop doom-scrolling and start planning.

Subscribe to our YouTube and Tune in to find your starting line!

Also Get the Book “The One of a Kind Financial Plan” on Amazon: https://a.co/d/hAOPAgM

#moneymanagementpodcast #financialplanningpodcast #Finance #Inflation #RetirementPlanning #EconomicHistory #IdeasByMikePodcast

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Tax Strategies for High-Income Earners Who is “Time Poor But Cash Rich” with Keshav Kolur (EP. 49)

By Ideas by Mike | April 10, 2026

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.

Connect with Keshav Kolur:
Website: https://www.clivecap.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keshavkolur
Free Resource: 100+ Question Due Diligence Checklist – https://www.clivecap.com/alternative-assets

Watch the full episode here: YouTube Link

To learn more about us, visit www.1oakfinancial.com | Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel for latest updates!

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(Ep. 46) Real Reason Why Rich People Pay Less in Taxes – Tax Planning Tips & Tricks with KC Chohan

By Ideas by Mike | February 27, 2026

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.

YT Link: Ideas by Mike Podcast Episode 46 – Click this link to watch it on YouTube

About our Guest:

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.

Connect with KC Chohan on LinkedIn
Together CFO – (YouTube –‪@TogetherCFO‬)
Instagram – Kc Chohan Together CFO

To learn more about us, visit www.1oakfinancial.com | Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel for latest updates!

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(Ep. 44) Building Personalized Financial Plans That Speak to Your Values with Adam Dell

By Ideas by Mike | January 30, 2026

Most high earners are leaving money on the table—failing to leverage tax strategies, automation, and personalized financial planning that can skyrocket their wealth. Today’s guest, Adam Dell, reveals how innovative technology and tailored advice are transforming the landscape for affluent individuals and advisors alike.

Discover how Domain Money is rewriting the rules of wealth management for the mass affluent, offering flat-fee models, sophisticated tax strategies, and a relationship-driven approach that keeps clients engaged and on track. Adam shares insider insights on building a truly personalized financial plan—focusing on values, goals, and behavioral economics—to prevent costly mistakes like underinvesting during market dips or neglecting estate transfer complexities. You’ll break down:

The future of wealth management beyond AUM fees, emphasizing transparency and choice.

How high-yield savings accounts (like Marcus by Goldman Sachs) are critical in building robust emergency funds.

The real power of behavioral economics in helping clients stay disciplined, especially amid market volatility.

The role of advanced tax planning—HSAs, Roth conversions, and long-term care strategies—that most advisors overlook.

The innovative partnership between Domain and 1.oak, designed to serve clients with smaller assets and nurture their growth toward more complex needs.

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(Ep. 43) How to Stop Fighting About Money: “Financial Therapy” Tips w/ Ashley Quamme

By Ideas by Mike | January 16, 2026

In this episode of Ideas by Mike podcast, we dive deep into the intersection of love and money with Financial Therapist and “Fractional Financial Behavior Officer,” Ashley Quamme.

🎧 What You’ll Learn: Many couples struggle with financial arguments, not because the math doesn’t work, but because the psychology doesn’t align. Mike and Ashley discuss why financial planning often fails without a psychological component, how to identify your “money scripts,” and the secrets to building a “Wealthy Marriage.”

Whether you are a saver married to a spender, or a financial advisor looking to better serve your clients’ emotional needs, this episode bridges the gap between the spreadsheet and real life.

Guest: Ashley Quamme, LMFT, FBS®, CFT-I™ Visit Beyond the FP: https://www.beyondthefp.com/

Connect with Ashley Quamme: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-quamme/

Host: Mike Milligan, CFP®: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemilligancfp/

Visit 1.oak Financial: https://wwwwww.1oakfinancial.com

Also Get the Book “The One of a Kind Financial Plan” on Amazon: https://a.co/d/hAOPAgM

#FinancialTherapy #CouplesAndMoney #FinancialPsychology #IdeasByMike #WealthyMarriage #MoneyScripts #MikeMilligan

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