Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Mike Milligan, Founder of 1 Oak Financial Discussing The Five Pillars of Your Unique Plan

Episode Date: July 13, 2025

Mike Milligan, a Certified Financial Planning Professional, author, podcast and radio show host, and university lecturer, brings 26 years of experience to the financial planning industry. After beginning his career in large banks and insurance companies, he founded his first firm 15 years ago with the belief that “everyone is One of a Kind; and they deserve a One of a Kind Financial Plan.”Challenging the “One Size Fits All” approach to financial advice, which he refers to as “Retirement Déjà Vu™,” Mike developed The One of a Kind Financial Plan™. This comprehensive plan addresses taxes, retirement income, investments, long-term care, and legacy, enabling clients to live a “One of a Kind Life.” Recognizing the need for a clear retirement vision, he then created Retirement CHI™ to supplement the plan. This innovative approach focuses on community, health, and impact, further reducing stress for his clients. Mike leads a team of over 20 professionals across the United States, including Hawaii.Learn more: http://www.1OakFinancial.comThe information provided is for illustrative purposes only and does not constitute investment, tax, or legal advice. Information is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. Neither Mike Milligan nor his guests are liable for the use of information discussed. Always consult with a qualified investment, tax, or legal professional before taking any action or schedule a meeting with Mike Milligan.Annuity guarantees are based solely on the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing company. Individuals should thoroughly review the contract for specific product features and costs. Income payments and withdrawals from deferred annuities are generally taxable as ordinary income in the year they are taken.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-mike-milligan-founder-of-1-oak-financial-discussing-the-five-pillars-of-your-unique-plan

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have back with us, Mike Milligan, who's the founder of One Oak Financial, and we'll be talking about the five pillars of your unique plan. Mike, welcome back to the program. I'm so excited to be here, Mike. Yeah, me as well.

And I just love your perspectives on retirement and the emotions that are involved in that and the plans that you can put into place. And so I want to dive into this concept and this topic here. And I know you wrote a book on the one of a kind financial plan. So I know that that becomes a foundation for everything that we're talking about here. So get us started with what you start educating your clients on regarding the five pillars of your unique plan. So, yes, I did write the book called the one-of-a-kind financial plan. See, I have for so long, I have believed that everyone is unique.

Matter of fact, I have two life mottos, Mike, that I live by. One is never miss a moment. See, I believe that we often have got, or we have so often recent, in a recent, because of social media and the internet, we get trapped into a box or a phone of what other people are doing. And so I want to inspire people, first of all, never miss a moment because your life is right in front of you. It's not found in a phone or the internet or somewhere else. So never miss a moment. Be present.

The second thing I say over and over again, my own life motto, is be one of a kind. You know, I mentioned on the last episode of the podcast that Mark Twain said, you know, be yourself, right? His famous quote is, I just lost it. Be yourself, right? Everybody else is taken. Everyone else is taken, yeah. Right. So I did write this book called the one-of-a-kind financial plan.

And it was, it's a book that challenges the traditional one-size-fits-all approach to financial planning. With my 26 years of experience, I believe that there is a standardized model that primarily benefits Wall Street insurance companies in the financial markets, not individuals. And so I emphasize in that book. that everyone lives a one-of-a-kind life. We are all unique, you know, with different life expectancies, different health expectancies, different experiences. We walk in parallel and sometimes in perpendicular to people, but, you know, we will intersect with hundreds of thousands,

if not millions of people in our life. But our path is unique. Our path is truly one-of-a-kind. And so in that book, there are three parts to that book. And I tell very personal stories of my journey, right? And then I highlight in that part, now what? What do you do when you realize that this is very personal? In the second part of that book, I actually go over the five pillars,

and we're going to talk about those more today here. But in the third part of that book, I actually share with you exactly, how to create a one-of-a-kind financial plan. So after you build your retirement cheer, your vision, building a one-of-a-kind financial plan should not be unattainable for people. And so often,

Wall Street insurance companies in the financial markets want you to believe that it is unattainable and that you could only do it by working with them. I believe that you are one-of-a-kind, you are unique,

you have mental capacity and reasoning capacity to know what is best for you. Now, does it substitute having an advisor or coach alongside of you to help you along that way? But I believe if you focus on these five pillars, right? Well,

I believe after you build your retirement vision, if you focus on these five pillars, you can break retirement deja vu. You can have the life that you want with the peace, comfort, stress-free and anxiety-free, that only your knowledge of your life and your vision for your life can create. I love it. So if there's five pillars, what are they?

And then how do you use them to design that plan so that as your life changes, it doesn't lock you into stuff that, you know, is old and dated now, but is kind of living and breathing? So the five pillars. Now we're talking very specifically money talk now. Okay, so the five pillars of a financial plan. The first pillar is tax planning. See, taxes are the biggest expense you are ever going to pay in your life. And we get taxed on income, both at the federal and the state, some of us at the city level. We get taxed on consumption.

Those are sales tax when it comes to buying things. And then we get taxed, and we can't even get taxed at the end of our life with a state tax. And so tax is being the most important thing. I can have, I can have more impact on somebody's financial life by doing tax planning than I can with any other element of these pillars. Because if I can save somebody five to seven to eight percent in tax over their life, that is a significant amount of lifetime money. And so tax planning moves the needle in the one-of-a-kind financial plan. And a lot of people will say, by the way, Mike, on tax planning, well, I have a CPA. Well, I think CPAs are very bright people. But a CPA really is a historian. They are taking

last year's data on forms that you received after the tax, you know, after the year ends. They're putting on another piece of paper and then filing it with the IRS, which is a historical society to be, to make sure that, you know, you've reconciled throughout the year the taxes you've owed with the taxes you've paid. So CPAs are most of the time, they're overworked. They're great people, but they're overworked. They work 90, 120 hours a week, you know, from end of January to April 15th. You know, we need to give those guys a break.

And the way we give them a break is by doing tax planning proactively throughout the year in the financial plan. Okay, the second pillar that comes in this is retirement income planning. See, retirement income is putting money in your, checking account when you voluntarily voluntarily decide to stop working. So I'm going to give up my paycheck for my job. So I need to make sure every month and a couple

times a month that I have money coming into the account to pay my utilities, my food, my travel to give gifts. Right. So retirement income is the second pillar. The third pillar is investment planning. And by the way, this is where all a majority of Wall Street firms

and insurance company start. They start here at the investment piece. But without a retirement vision, retirement fee, and then without tax planning, and then without retirement income, how could there really be purpose on investments? I mean, I just, I just, I say that with all sincerity to people who are listening, there are a lot of really good investment managers in this world. But if that's all they do, they're not financial planners. They have not necessarily done you a service that is lasting because they've only focused on one aspect. And they may courtesy, you know, courtesy give you some advice. But if they're not given as much weight to tax and retirement income as they are to the investment plan, you have an investment

manager. You don't have a financial planner. And so investment planning is making sure that the risk is where you need it to be. Your assets are positioned. So the risk is where you need it to be. And that you're paying a fee that is worthy. Right. So often people pay the fee because they think they have to. But we point out in the one-of-a-kind financial plan is there is a worthy fee to pay. We all are going to buy products in our life. You know, if you put your money in a CD in a bank, that is a product.

And you pay a fee to have money in the bank, right? It's the interest fee where the bank is. profiting by using your money. You're still buying a product. We buy products in life. Just make sure that you have the set of products that you need to live a one-of-a-kind life. So the third pillar is investments. The fourth pillar is long-term care planning.

The only person, Mike, that can take care of the older version of you is the younger version of you. That's the only person. And so if long-term care planning is not insurance, it doesn't mean that you purchase long-term care insurance, put it up on the shelf, and just forget about it. Long-term care planning is finding out what my health expectancy is, what my life expectancy is, and what's the present value cost of those future expenses I will pay.

And then looking within your investments to make sure you have enough to cover those expenses. And then finally, the fifth pillar is our legacy. You know, it's the one that is the most overlooked because if you're listening and you have a will and you have a trust, you're in the minority in the United States of America. The majority of people will always say, will say, I need to get a will. I need to get a trust. The second thing they'll say is I don't have enough to need a will or trust. Yeah. Well, if you've got young minor kids at your house and you don't want them in a devastating situation where there are no parents still around because of death, if you don't want them to become boards of the court, you need to put a will in place. I don't care if you have no money. If you have minor kids, you need a will. If you have some money and you want to just say, I love you to my family when you pass away because you've organized, you know, you've put a organized plane. in place where they don't have to waste time chasing around where you had your money

placed and running to the probate court, a will and a trust is for you. So the one-of-a-kind financial plan addresses those five pillars, tax, retirement, income, investment, long-term care, and legacy planning. And when you put them all together, it puts purpose to your vision. And that's why the book that I have goes a whole lot detailed with more exercises to be able to help you create one or to be able to find a one-of-a-kind financial planner to actually help you. Love it.

So once people realize those pillars, which I just love the flow of those. And I agree with your points about investment planning, the positioning and timing of that. What are some of the things you're teaching your clients on to design that plan based on these pillars so that when life changes, not if, but when life changes, that things are going to be all, you know, all the balls are still in the air heading in the right direction. So when a plan is created, you need to create the plan to be dynamic. You need to give it some flexibility, some wiggle room.

I, you know, I talk about this. Like, you can go out and, you know, find a lot to build a home on. And you can literally go over to the Home Depot. and at the Home Depot you can go down aisle 17 and buy the cinder blocks and aisle 15 and buy the plywood and aisle 13 and buy the roofing material. Take it over to the lot and you could build the shell of a house and then you can go back to the other aisles and get your plumbing and wiring and all that. But Mike, nobody does that. Nobody finds a lot and just goes to the Home Depot and starts putting together themselves. They actually, once they find a lot, they then go and sit down with,

an architect who on paper maps out what that house is going to look like. And they have conversations about should the bathroom be here or there, should the kitchen be this way or that way. And then they hire a builder, right? And the builder is going to look at finishes. And on those finishes, they're going to look on there and say, should we design, you know, should we design your doors? to look like this and the paint to look like that.

And then that builder is going to hire subcontractors. And when they hire subcontractors, guess where they go to get all the materials, Mike? Right. They go to the Home Depot. Yep. So the end solution, right, where you purchase the thing from are exactly the same.

But the difference is nobody goes to the Home Depot to build their own house, but a lot of people just go out and does it buy financial products without having a plan in place? And so this is where the design comes in. A good financial planner who has a process like the one of a kind financial plan is going to set you down. And they're going to walk you through everything that you need to put the plan in place before you actually build it. And so when we designed the plan, the plan is designed with you in mind. First of all, you're in, you're in our mind first.

we've created your retirement cheat and then we look to build what you've already accumulated like your lot but this, what would you've accumulated more like your 401K, your IRA, your TSP, maybe a brokerage account and some cash in a bank,

we look to then decide, design those assets into a plan that fit into the five pillars so that you'll have a one-of-a-kind financial plan. Yeah, that's so perfect. And I love that flow of thought there. And I know we could probably do a three-day weekend seminar on each one of these pillars, obviously,

but we're just touching on these. But talk a little bit about the best and smartest way to pull out money, the withdrawals. Like I know that there's required minimum distributions, but doing those while keeping tax strategies in mind so that to your point, you're keeping more of what you've earned. So, yeah, and we go into a lot more of these in the book, the one-of-a-kind financial plan, and then individual consultations also. But sequencing withdrawals with tax planning can make a huge difference in your retirement income. A 2025 Vanguard study found that strategic withdrawal sequencing can reduce lifetime taxes by up to 20%.

A BlackRock study found a 2024 blackrock study found that if you properly allocate your investments between money at risk and guaranteed lifetime income, your ability to spend money increases by 15%. And then if you add a proper social security strategy to it, right, like a delayed social security strategy, that you can increase that spending by an additional 21%. And at the end of that study, it showed that at the end of the day, people have more risk by incorporating the right assets

at the right time in the withdrawal strategy. Yeah. That's, you know, and I think that one thing that that comes to my mind when you're mentioning that is this is not a do it yourself type of a proposition. Oh, good. I see those five pillars. I'll just Google that or chat GPT that. These are things that are intricate and need to be properly structured similar to tax brackets. So how do you coordinate tax brackets? Like when you're starting to think about taking Social Security, should I take it now or later? What about pulling money out? Is it going to kick me into a bigger tax bracket?

Should I take money from a 401k or IRA and put it into something like a Roth? How do you have that conversation with your clients regarding those tax questions? Well, those are all things that people are concerned about and people want a magic pill. They want an instant gratification and just say, tell me what to do and how to do it. And it doesn't have to be a long, exhaustive process to be able to create a, a unique financial plan, but a financial plan does take a little bit of time. It should not take you 20 hours a year to do, right? But it should take some time to look at your unique situation.

So Wall Street and the big financial planning firms around the country have this rules-based approach that they go by. So you could take, Mike, you've probably heard of the 4% rule. Yeah. Yeah, the 4% rule is a safe withdrawal rule that was created, that was made famous by a nuclear physicist back in the 90s named Bill Benjohn. He said in his thousands of iterations of studies, he showed that about a 4% safe withdrawal rate is something that people... So you should be able to take 4% of your retirement funds out and be good to go.

But, boy, that sounds pretty broad, huh? Yeah, at rules-based, right? So then people will say things like you don't need to do Roth conversions because it's just paying too much tax. It's a general broad stroke, you know, it's very colloquial, right? Like it's almost like small town talk about just like big pitchers, right? But we also call that water cooler talk, right? You know, water cooler talk is things that don't always apply to your situation, but they could apply to many people's situation.

See, we believe that things like Roth conversions, RMD planning, you know, sequence of return risk, and sequencing withdrawals at the right time in the retirement income phase are unique to you because everybody doesn't have the exact same dollar of assets. Everybody also doesn't have the exact same dollar need in expenses when they retire. Some people want to vacation in Europe for eight weeks a year. Some people want a vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for two weeks a year. And we would all agree that two weeks in Myrtle Beach does not cost the same as

eight weeks in Europe. And so see, the uniqueness of the one-of-a-kind financial plan is it's all about you. We build a retirement vision, retirement chief, and then we use the strategies that are available, the financial planning strategies like Roth conversions, RMD planning, tax minimization strategies. We look at retirement income sequencing. We look at risk in return assets and investing. We look at long-term care. And we put all of those to play to educate first and then build a plan that's unique to the vision you want to live over your life. Yeah, I love it. So thinking through these points, how do you blend the traditional concepts we always hear a lot about like growth and safety and flexibility so that your investments

are ready for anything that happens? Like you said, it's dynamic, like life changes. So maybe there's some overlooked tools or strategies that helps clients stay invested. without sacrificing their peace of mind. What is that approach that you are taking with your clients? Well, blending growth and safety and flexibility is the key. So often we've heard of this portfolio called a 60-40 portfolio, 60% in stocks or stock-based mutual funds, 40% in bonds or bond-based mutual funds. Other entertainers out there use the 25-25-25-25-25-20.

right rationale where you have 25% in large cap 25% in there still 25% in small companies than 25% in safety well what's interesting is everybody should have a portfolio that has like a core satellite like like the center like a centered approach that has you know some long-term leaning to it and you know we all need to have much some money at risk to be able to keep pace with inflation. But when you combine things like a dividend aristocrat strategy or inflation hedges that come through multiple products that are out there or even tactical rebalancing, there's a Morning Star report from 2025 that says when you combine all those, you outperform the traditional

6040 portfolio by one and a half percent annually over, over. the last 10 years. And you do that with lower volatility, which in which in layman's terms means less risk. That means you don't have to sacrifice growth for safety. And you can adapt as markets and your needs evolve. Yeah. Wow. And I think that the key concept to keep in mind there is it's when, not if. Because the only thing constant is in life has changed. And, life will change and outside forces will change. So having these tools and these things put into places so important. Let's wrap up with this thought. What are some of the tools and checkpoints that you use to help your clients stay on track and maybe pivot when life throws that curveball?

So as part of the one-of-a-kind financial plan, and as a reminder, we build the vision first, and we build the plan based on what you bring to the table and our expertise. But then tools, like when you become a client, when you adapt to the one-of-a-kind financial planning philosophy, tools like quarterly check-ins, Monte Carlo simulations, the Halo Assessment, Health Analysis, and Longevity Optimizer, and some dynamic rebalancing guard wells help you stay on track.

A 2004 Fidelity study shows that clients using these tools are 25% more likely to meet their retirement goals and adapt successfully to unexpected changes. So regular reviews and stress testing what your plan is aren't just for peace of the mind. They're your early warning system for when life throws you a curveball.

The bottom line, Mike, is the one-of-a-kind financial plan is flexible. It's tax-smart. It's built to weather whatever life throws at you. with the right strategies and tools, you're not just reaching.

You're staying ahead. I love it. Can you think of a client example that came to you from one of the traditional, you know, planners and was being told all of the things that you're saying like, hey, that's missing the mark. But then when you put these five pillars into place and they experienced it for, let's just say, a year or two, have you had a client say, wow, this is different because?

I have. And often we get those clients who have experienced retirement deja vu, the same experience over and over again with multiple advisors. We've had that people come in. I can think of a couple that's up in Connecticut. What was a federal employee? One was a therapist. And they had some serious stress and anxiety about retirement, about moving from once, you know, the working year. years into retirement. They didn't have a high need or a high expense barrier to overcome. It was literally just the problem with how do I get retirement income and how do I make sure I don't overpay taxes. And after building the vision, after building the financial plan and putting it in place, there is clarity in this. They have since referred their whole network of friends into our system to get the one of a kind financial plan. And we have a set of people up in the Northeast who love the vision and the plan that goes beyond because at the end of the day, they feel comfort and they feel peace. Matter of fact, Mike, do you know what they call me in their

inner circles? I would love to know. They call me Magic Mike. And it's not. It's not. It's not because I am the same person. I'm not that person who was in the movie Magic Mike. But just because, you know, that term of endearment that they have given me is a term that means they feel safe and they feel comfortable. And really, and really the comfort is because before we didn't change their assets. We didn't go in and make massive changes to where to their assets, right? We didn't all of a sudden take a million dollars and turn it into two million. What we did is we assigned purpose, you know, and even more so, they now have a vision for what their life's going to be like.

So now they're free. And a blueprint to get there. That's correct. That's correct. And that's what the one of a kind financial plan does. I love it. Well, Mike, let's wrap up with this. If someone is interested in finding out about these five pillars and getting that vision and developing and painting.

and painting that picture for the one-of-a-kind retirement, what's the best way they can reach out and connect with you? They can reach out to us on our website, which is one oak financial.com. That's the number one oak financial.com. I love it. Mike, thank you so much for coming back on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you again.

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