Tune in for an episode packed with practical takeaways, inspiring stories, and actionable advice that will resonate with entrepreneurs at every stage of their journey.

Welcome to another episode of the Empowering Entrepreneurs Podcast, where hosts Glenn Harper and Julie Smith explore the journeys that shape successful business leaders.

In this episode, we meet Mike Milligan—certified financial planner, author, podcast host, adjunct professor, and passionate baseball coach—whose entrepreneurial path is anything but ordinary.

Growing up in Laurinburg, North Carolina, Mike Milligan’s childhood was shaped by strong family values, resourcefulness, and a firsthand view of survival through innovation.

From selling collard sandwiches alongside his grandmother to avoiding the IRS with cash hidden in coffee cans and labeled “liver” in the freezer, his early life sparkled with lessons in grit and ingenuity. As the first college graduate and millionaire in his family, Mike’s story is a testament to forging your own way, inspired by the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit of those closest to him.

Unpacking his career, Mike Milligan shares candid reflections on his time inside the banking industry, the pitfalls and opportunities of working in financial institutions, and his unwavering commitment to putting clients first—well ahead of Wall Street’s profit motives.

He reveals how he pioneered unique business models within banks, eventually founding 1.oak Financial, and offers wisdom on leveraging connections, trademarks, and word-of-mouth to grow his business.

Listeners will also discover the surprising tax-saving strategies available in places like Puerto Rico, where Mike Milligan now lives and runs his practice, and how geographic arbitrage and creative planning can help entrepreneurs pay zero federal income tax—legally.

But beyond finance, the conversation is filled with heartfelt moments and powerful advice on embracing life's opportunities, never missing a moment, and building a meaningful legacy.

Brought to you by Harper & Company CPAs Plus

Here are three key takeaways:

1. Adaptability Breeds Opportunity: Mike’s childhood experiences taught him the value of hard work and creative problem-solving. When his family faced tough times, innovation and grit were the answer, setting the tone for his entrepreneurial journey.
2. Tax Strategy Is a Gamechanger: Mike’s approach to leveraging the Puerto Rico tax code is a masterclass in thinking outside the box. Understanding and utilizing unique tax strategies can radically improve your bottom line—all it takes is planning and a willingness to learn.
3. Never Miss a Moment: At the heart of entrepreneurship is the drive to craft a life with purpose. Mike’s “endgame” is not just about business success, but about living fully and intentionally—embracing every opportunity to create meaningful experiences.

Running a business doesn’t have to run your life.

Without a business partner who holds you accountable, it’s easy to be so busy ‘doing’ business that you don’t have the right strategy to grow your business.

Stop letting your business run you. At Harper & Co CPA Plus, we know that you want to be empowered to build the lifestyle you envision. In order to do that you need a clear path to follow for success

Our clients enjoy a proactive partnership with us. Schedule a consultation with us today.

Download our free guide - Entrepreneurial Success Formula: How to Avoid Managing Your Business From Your Bank Account.

Glenn Harper, CPA, is the Owner and Managing Partner of Harper & Company CPAs Plus, a top 10 Managing Partner in the country (Accounting Today's 2022 MP Elite). His firm won the 2021 Luca Award for Firm of the Year. 

An entrepreneur and speaker, Glenn transformed his firm into an advisory-focused practice, doubling revenue and profit in two years. He teaches entrepreneurs to build financial and operational excellence, speaks nationwide to CPA firm owners about running their businesses like entrepreneurs, and consults with firms across the country. Glenn enjoys golfing, fishing, hiking, cooking, and spending time with his family.

Julie Smith, MBA, is a serial entrepreneur in the public accounting space. She is the Founder of EmpowerCPA™, Founder of PureTax, LLC, COO for Harper & Company CPAs Plus, and Co-host of the Empowering Entrepreneurs podcast. 

Named CPA.com's 2021 Innovative Practitioner of Year, Julie led Harper & Company's transition to an advisory-focused firm, doubling revenue and profit in two years. She now empowers other CPA firm owners nationwide through consulting and speaking, teaching them how to run their businesses like entrepreneurs. Julie lives in Columbus, OH with her family and enjoys travel, coaching basketball, sporting events, and the occasional shopping spree.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Copyright 2026 Glenn Harper

Mentioned in this episode:

Brought to you by Harper & Company CPAs Plus

Running a business takes vision, grit… and the right financial partner. At Harper & Company CPAs Plus, we don’t just crunch numbers—we empower entrepreneurs. From proactive tax strategy and accounting to business advisory services, our team helps you keep more of what you earn and scale with confidence. Whether you’re launching, growing, or preparing for exit, Harper & Company is in your corner with expert guidance built for business owners like you. Visit www.harpercpaplus.com to book a complimentary discovery call today - or call us at 614-456-7222.

Brought to you by Harper & Company CPAs Plus

Hello everyone.

Welcome to another edition of the Empowering Entrepreneurs podcast.

I'm Glenn Harper.

Julie Smith Going on Julie, Is this podcast episode sponsored by the man cold?

It is.

It's a miracle I'm even here.

I should be in the hospital, but I'm mudding through it.

If we all know that colds are way worse for guys than chicks.

But that's just the way it is and I'm just.

I'm sorry you don't have it.

I'm glad you don't.

You would be not even noticed.

But guys, it's brutal.

We've got a great guest today.

Mike Miller Milligan, a certified financial planner, author, podcast host, adjunct professor, and of all things, a sports coach.

As a baseball enthusiast, he commands respect as the head coach of the Norfolk Christian High School baseball team.

In fact, he loves baseball so much that he moved to Puerto Rico to be in the cradle of the best baseball players in the world.

He is the founder and owner of Oneok Financial, a firm dedicated to the individual clients dreams and goals, not what Wall street and private equity says.

TUD is a one of a kind financial planner.

He has helped many a client for the last 24 years map their future and help his clients achieve their goals.

Even though he's done this for 30 years, this is for this particular company he's founder of.

Mike's journey started in the hills of North Carolina, ended up with him as a dominant authority on the subject of financial planning and paying zero income taxes.

Sounds crazy, but there's a way to do it if you want to make some changes in your traditional life.

Knowledge is power and Mike has a plethora of it.

Even though he has worked as a financial planner at, dare I say at banks, he's managed to keep his core values and not be swayed by megacorp.

He loves to work remotely in shorts and khaki shirt but with zoom.

Does one really know what one is wearing?

He wanted Doberman pincers but his wife wanted dash hounds so he has got dachshunds and live better than himself.

Please welcome Mike Milligan to the show as this is bring up to be one of the one in a million podcasts as we seek the shortcuts and the why from Mike the that we can use in our day to day lives.

Thanks Mike for being on our show.

Well great.

That was a really good podcast.

Thanks for giving away everything about me.

As you know it's funny what's out there that you can find on people appreciate you being here.

Absolutely.

I love to stalk on The Internet and find obscure facts and things.

And you got some stuff out there.

I don't know if you even know about it, but I'm going to separate some things.

But I figure if.

If I can track you, then the IRS should be able to track you, but somehow you've managed to do all this cool stuff.

And I can't wait to get in that later.

But it says you grew up in Mount Airy, North Carolina, where you set the record for climbing Pilot Mountain.

Is that true?

No, that's.

That's.

That's another person in my family.

Same name.

Same.

Same name, right?

Same name.

All right.

It's interesting.

The town that I grew up in there was two Mike Milligans.

One owned the newspaper and one was an athlete.

The one who owned the newspaper.

That's.

That's his.

That's his.

How about that?

I'll give that to him.

Is that.

What.

Is that the town you grew up in, or were you close?

I grew up in Laurenberg.

Mount Airy, if, you know, like pop culture.

I don't even know if this is really pop culture.

But that's the town where Andy Griffith.

Mayberry.

Yep.

The show.

Yeah.

Right.

That's.

That.

That's America's Mayberries.

Mount Airy, North Carolina.

That's how I picked it because I just made that whole part up.

But it's.

But I didn't know if you were from.

You said the hills.

I wonder if that was the area of where you were from.

No, no, no, no.

I'm from.

I'm from Laurenberg, North Carolina, which is opposite side of the state.

Mount Aries, just above Greensboro.

Yep.

Larberg's down in the sand hills, which is just right at the.

If you ever traveled down Interstate 95.

If any of your listeners have traveled down Interstate 95 and you come to the North Carolina.

South Carolina border, you see this hideous Pedro thing called south of the Border.

It's a amusement park, or.

I don't even know what it is anymore, but it's.

But you start getting.

You start getting billboards for, you know, thousands of miles away.

So.

And that's the place.

Yeah, that's where.

That's where I grew up.

Outstanding.

Well, we always try to get a story from our.

From our guests because our fans that listen to the show and entrepreneurs in general, it's all about the journey.

Right.

How do they got where they got where they come from?

How'd they get there?

And so we like to start from the beginning, if that's okay with you.

And you Know just where you grew up, you know what your parents do for a living.

Were they entrepreneurs?

They work for the man.

How'd that look for you?

How many siblings did you have?

Yeah, so I was actually, I actually grew up in Laurenberg, North Carolina.

Went to Scotland High School.

When I was 11 years old, my, my grandfather got diagnosed with stage four cancer everywhere.

It wasn't just like colon or it was everywhere cancer.

He owned a construction company that, that supported our family and he couldn't do that anymore.

So my grandmother, who was his wife of 50 years, had to start doing something.

And so she sold collard sandwiches, pieces of fried cornbread with collard greens in the middle, and she took the 11 year old version of me with her to sell those.

We paid bills and then at the end of the day, we counted money and we, we put that money and you know, my, my grandmother avoided the IRS by working in a cash business.

Yep, that's.

That's one alternative.

Yeah, it's one way.

Yeah.

And she, and she would, she would store that money in Folgers coffee cans in the cupboard.

And then the big bills, the $20, $50 bill, she would, she would wrap them up in tin foil, put them in the freezer.

But before she put them in the freezer, she would write the word liver across it because she's like, hey, if somebody's going to rob us, they're never going to steal the liver.

That's amazing.

So, yeah, so she paid, she paid 0% tax over her life by working in a cash business.

But, you know, I, I went, I went the hard route.

I went to, after, after we, I did that with her through high school.

I went to college.

First person in my family to go to college.

Went to Campbell University in North Carolina.

Got a trust and investment degree, master's degree.

I now teach personal financial planning and principles and ethics of financial planning at Old Dominion University.

But I did, my, my grandmother, my grandfather were entrepreneurs.

My mother worked odd jobs for other entrepreneurs through her life.

Mostly doctors, podiatrists, eye doctors.

And so I was around entrepreneurs my whole life.

I didn't know I was around entrepreneurs.

I was around people and I, but I saw how they lived and I was like, that's pretty cool.

I think I'd like to do that.

And so I figured out a way.

I did start in banks.

I heard you say, dare you say banks?

Do you have a problem with banks?

You know, there's a general disdain as an entrepreneur for banks because when you need money, they never give it to you.

And when you don't need money, they want to give you all you want, but they want to put their hooks in you.

So it's just this love hate relationship most entrepreneurs have with banks.

It's just so hard to get a loan when you need it.

And it's this general distrust for banks.

I would 100% agree with you on that.

And I, and, but I saw it, I saw it from inside the belly.

Yeah.

Like I, I worked my, my first, the first third of my career was in banks where I would sit around conference tables and it would be profit first.

How much does this client provide in profit to us?

They wouldn't really call people by names.

They would call them by account numbers or products.

And I just kept seeing entrepreneurs and individuals stories get lost in systems that were rigged against them.

And I did not like it at all.

So back to when you were growing up, what did your dad do for a living?

Great story.

I have a couple of them.

So I have a dad who was a sperm donor.

Right.

I guess I could just call that out here on the air.

But he was a sperm donor and then he went off to pursue his hopes and dreams in life.

I had a stepdad.

I had a stepdad that married my mom when I was five years old.

He, he actually taught me some really good things about work ethic.

He was a grocery store manager.

Okay.

And he would, he would wake up, he would wake up every day and begrudgingly.

Right.

I, you could tell he didn't love his job, but he knew he had to do it and he would work the extra shifts to make things work.

So I really learned something really cool from him.

And then, and then my, and then he and my mother divorced when I was senior around senior and high school, freshman in college.

And my mom married a great grandfather to my kids who was, who was in politics.

He was the clerk of court in the town.

And so all three of those men taught me something.

And I, and I, and you know, I'm probably most like my sperm donor dad because like genetics, right?

We were talking about that earlier about genetics.

You can't outrun those genetics.

So I'm a lot like him.

But I bring a little bit of those, of those traits from each of those three men into what I do every day.

That's awesome.

You know, you kind of had a mixture of all three.

And then you get to pick eventually who you want to be because you got to see the best of the best and the worst of the worst.

And you get to glean out the good stuff, which is kind of cool.

Yeah.

And they're, and they're all three.

I mean, they're really good men, right?

My sperm donor dad, he was 17 years old with a bright eyed future.

Pet him, right?

I don't, I don't, I don't begrudge him for the choice he made.

It's not the choice I would have made, but the choice he made.

It's the, I wouldn't, the choice made I would have made.

Now like maybe when I was his age, I'd have made that choice.

But like my, my, my, my, my grocery store stepdad was absolutely freaking amazing because he, he got hurt at work, but he would still go, he would still show up, right?

And then, then my, my stepdad who's now like my grandfather, that's the one that my kids know.

He is an absolutely rock in our family.

Just, just this man who's got the utmost morals.

He, he, he knows how to bring the fun to a situation, but also the seriousness at the same time.

Just, just amazing individuals.

See, that's how it's supposed to be.

You know, that, that work ethic.

And that's the thing you see, you know, somebody who's not an entrepreneur get up every morning, crack of dawn, go pack up their lunch pail and go grind it out and not appreciate it.

They got to do what they got to do because that's what they feel they got to do.

Then you have the entrepreneur person that is fighting a whole different battle, but the same thing they just do in a different way.

And as a young man, you're trying to watch that and figure out, well, who's doing, which one do I want to be or how does that look and which is, you know, the hard work is there.

You just don't know which direction it is.

And it looks like your grandma took you under a wing and said, hey, we can do this cash business on the side.

It was, I mean, she, she had to, she had to innovate out of desperation like she had.

She had no other choice.

They were, they were products of the Great Depression.

They didn't, they didn't trust the government because of what happened or what the tales of what they had heard happen.

So they didn't have a huge Social Security check coming in because they didn't pay taxes right during their life.

And so it's, it was a, you know, I look back and I, I've, I've studied a lot of great, great people like Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs and a lot of other Warren Buffett.

I've studied, like, all of their stuff from an academic standpoint, but often think of myself as an entrepreneur.

Like, what would my granny have done?

Because she was the one that was there surviving.

So that, that was a.

It.

It was.

It's great to have an upbringing like I had, you know, first generation college person, really, you know, success story.

A first generation.

Because I'm.

I'm the first, you know, millionaire in my family.

Not.

Not that that means anything these days.

It's not that much money.

It's still.

It's a real thing, though.

It's a real thing.

So I have to, I have to ask, do you have liver in your freezer?

To date?

But up until that point, I loved liver and onions the best.

It was so good.

But that's a great question.

I think she's probably also asking, do you have any big bills in the freezer?

Yeah,

we can't talk about that.

I cannot tell you.

And that's weird that you're asking in that phrase.

You have liver there.

I cannot tell you the last time I've held a dollar bill.

And I'm not joking.

I bet I haven't had a dollar bill, a $20, $100 bill in my hand in two years.

Wow.

Right?

And it's.

And it's.

It's, you know, we're getting to those times.

I was thinking about that the other day because I was like, I was thinking, I wonder if I could go all of 20, 26 without ever touching a dollar bill.

And then I thought about last year, and I don't think I touched a dollar bill all of last year.

You know, it's.

It's a tricky thing.

Excuse me.

Because we.

There is definitely this thing to go without cash.

But it really gets in my craw when I go give somebody $100 and the credit card company dings them for 3%, they got $97.

Then they go buy something, they get dinged for 3%.

By the time it makes around 20 iterations, that $100 is really only 15 bucks.

And that's just not fair.

And who got all the money?

The big bank.

And so for me, it's hard to pay in cash because a lot of people don't do it that way.

Ach.

Is nice, but it's.

I just hate the credit card.

But it's.

We.

It's a tool.

We have to do it today.

Right?

There's no other way to get around things.

No doubt about that.

Except for It's a system that I somehow found my way out of.

And I, and you know, I know it's not right.

My wife will carry cash.

Like when we go out to eat.

One of our favorite restaurants that we go to, they.

They charge you less for paying with cash.

But what we also found out is that at the end of the night, the wait staff gets to carry cash home, but on credit card receipts have to wait to pay day, two weeks.

And so we found that out.

She carries cash around.

And when we go to that restaurant, we always pay cash at that place.

That's solid.

I think there's a lot of places that do that, though.

Like, not, you know, the, the beauty places, the restaurants.

I mean, small time places.

Crying out loud.

My kids are always like, Can I have $2?

Can I have $5?

That she went to a skating rink the other day for a field trip.

She's like, I need 20.

Do like $20.

Who's got a 20?

But like, it's funny how, like, you can evade that.

But I feel like we, I feel like in my day to day, just with the kids or certain things, like,

it's always cash is still king.

Give me.

They need.

They want to touch it.

That's it.

Well, I got, you know, it's as the.

I don't know.

I couldn't tell by.

And we're going to get into that here in a little bit, but I couldn't tell that you had any.

Most entrepreneurs, they had some cataclysmic event or some huge valley that they fell in that they had to climb out, and they became a better version of themselves.

I feel like it seems like from looking at your stuff that you've been pretty steady and steady and there's not been a huge swing one way or the other.

Is that a true statement or have you had some really big peaks and valleys?

I have had big valley peaks and valleys, but I have had failure.

Never use the F word.

Never.

You had some pivots in life.

Setbacks.

Pivots.

Yes.

Well, I mean, that's, that's very nice of you guys, but my therapist tells me to call them failures.

My therapist says pivots.

All right, So I, my, my pivot is a former.

I mean, my, my therapist is a former Marine.

Oh, boy.

Listen, so that's a, that's a different, that's, that's a difference in philosophy.

Higher standard.

Yes, that's right.

And so I've had some failures in business, but nothing that's been like, catastrophic where I've had to shut down and start over and dust off and start from nothing.

But I always feel like.

I always feel like I'm a decision away from that, truthfully.

I mean, I feel like, you know, a wrong hire, you know, a bad.

A bad year, a bad quarter, bad client.

A bad client.

Right.

Is.

Is.

Can.

Can cause a lot of destruction.

You know, I've been.

I've been in the SEC world in the financial planning space and investment advisory space for a long time, and I've.

I've suffered through and come across, you know, I've had SEC audits come in.

You know, just the general routine ones that they have, but they feel like it's horrible, you know?

Yeah, they're awful.

They're like a prostate exam.

It's very violating.

Yeah.

But, like, you know, you feel like you always get nervous when they come in.

I have.

I have weathered IRS audits because those are real things, because I.

There's black and white in the tax code, and I live in the gray.

And.

And it's all, you know, taxes, just like investments in my world, it's a risk, you know, it's a risk that you have to.

You have to either have to be willing to take or not be willing to take it.

I. I'm not going to evade taxes.

I pay.

I pay what I have to pay.

But there's.

There's a lot of structure and loopholes that exist in the tax code that, when you can stack them on each other, can make sense if you're willing to, you know, if you're willing to do the work.

And it.

It comes by planning.

First, you have to have an outcome in mind, and you have to plan what that outcome is, because if you, if you, if you get into a business or an investment without contemplating taxes, you're.

You're.

You're missing the biggest expense you're going to have of making that investment or going into the business, because taxes are the biggest expense we have.

Is it.

And wait, I want to hit the reverse button real fast, so reverse back.

You're going to Campbell University.

Oh, yeah.

How does that treat you?

What do you do?

How did you pick it?

Yeah.

And, you know, like, what do you do during your time there?

Are you an athlete?

Are you focused on academics?

Are you doing side jobs?

And then take us through you.

You graduate, you know, what are your neck.

Walk us through that phase of your life.

Oh, great.

Campbell's in a little small town in North Carolina also called Buoys Creek.

It's.

There's 100 counties in North Carolina.

And there's one dry county in North Carolina.

Guess where that was founded by the

Baptist guy that founded the university.

Yep.

Correct.

And so, you know, I didn't have what many would say is a typical college experience because I was not, you know, we weren't going out to parties every weekend.

Although we did find a way over to Wake county and found an upperclassman to bring some stuff back for us.

I went to college during the Zima years.

I don't know if you guys remember Zima.

The drink was horrible.

Horrible.

That was so bad.

Right.

But also good at the time.

But, you know, that was our drink of choice.

But like, while I was there, yes, I did play baseball because that was, that was my passion.

That's what I thought was going to take me places in this world.

I played baseball.

I, I then started coaching baseball when I was there in my graduate program also.

I, I, I, I thought that I would be, I, you know, when I was a kid, right.

It was always baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball, always.

Was that a baseball scholarship to the, to the school or what's that?

It Was that a scholarship to the school for baseball?

You just chose there because you could play?

Yeah, I just, I chose there because I could play.

Gotcha.

Right.

I was, I was somewhat smart enough to get a full ride from an academic standpoint, which I later realized is just.

My family was so poor that the government subsidized whatever it takes all together.

Right?

Thanks.

Thanks, Uncle Sam.

But I didn't have a lot of, I didn't have any expense in going to, into college and I actually stayed there for a fifth year to get a master's degree.

But baseball was a big part.

I did to earn some money.

I did deliver pizzas for Little Caesars.

Ah, pizza, pizza.

Yeah.

Right.

And eventually I learned how to make the pizzas and now I don't like pizza.

What?

Yeah, I mean, I'll eat it, but, but it's not like, it's not like my good.

I mean, you work and.

Have you ever worked in a pizza restaurant before?

I worked in fast food restaurant and it's pretty nauseating.

Yes.

And so imagine the pizza side.

I mean, it's the same thing, right?

Yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, Campbell was great.

I ended up, you know, I met a lot of lifelong friends there.

I still have connections to the university because they have a, they have a great program for, you know, training the next generation of estate planners.

Trust investment folks.

It'll always have a special place in my life.

But it's also where, you know, I found my, you know, I found my first job out of there, and that was where I.

And I can.

I can give almost 150% credit, 100% credit to.

To the professors there who had the connections at my first place, because they're the ones who really got me that job.

It was all about connections, and they did that.

Do you.

Do you think that the college, the classes you took and the degree you received that you earned, did that mirror the real world in your discipline?

Because you did what you did.

You had a lot of different things that you got into, especially a minor in history, which is interesting, which is fun.

I love history.

But did it prepare you for that first job and you're like, oh, I know exactly what's going on here?

Or did you have to figure out.

You learned a theory, but then you had to figure out the real world like we all did, and accounting.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

That's what we had to do.

Right.

Learn the theory first.

Right.

But they set you up.

The application is much harder because in the application world, in the job I chose, it had people with real money on the side, and people love three things.

They love their kids, they love their religion, and they love their money.

Trust, trust, work, financial advising.

That almost includes all three of those things.

And I learned that application really fast.

You know, I'm going to throw something here for fun when you are ahead, when you have any, like, I will call them a little bit of a valley or anytime.

Do you ever.

I find myself doing this.

Some other entrepreneurs do this when things turn south a little bit.

Do you ever, like, go and get yourself that fried collard green sandwich and go, this is where I came from.

I got to stay focused because.

And I can do this, but I really want to go do that.

And you get a little bit of that, like, bring you back to your roots thing and retool it up.

Did you ever do that?

My, my, my.

I. I say that I have a mouth rush more people in my life.

My grandmother's one of them.

I cannot replicate the cornbread, the fried cornbread, and I can't find anybody that can do that.

So, yes, I will go have collard greens, but I can't find anybody to do the cornbread and like it.

It's.

They never give you the secret ingredient.

They never tell you.

She.

She never told anybody her secret for the cornbread.

She writes the recipe, but just.

It's missing the one thing.

Everything it is.

And, like, everybody has tried it, but it doesn't hold together.

Like, she was able to make cornbread that was almost like the consistency of bread.

Right.

So it would be a bun.

And nobody.

Nobody has been able to do it.

So.

But every once in a while, for fun, I will put collards in between a biscuit, because that's also not bad either.

Oh, yeah.

So I have a question.

How did you pick your major?

Did it have anything to do with your background, or did you just, you know, blindly pick something to make it through?

No, I loved money.

And where was that passion come from?

Yeah, I'm like, counting it from the liver in the freezer.

So with your grandma counting the cash, you're like, I love this stuff.

Yeah.

All right.

It was really like.

I mean, like, my grandmother taught me how to, like, clean a penny, use Tabasco sauce and clean a penny.

She taught me how to count it.

I was really good in math.

I was not very good in English.

It's ironic that I can even be on a podcast and put sentences together.

But I.

But I loved money, and I wanted to do something that was.

That was directly attributable to it.

And so when I found Campbell in this trust and investment management program, they.

The.

The promise at the end of theirs is that they would get you a job in a bank.

Banks had money.

And so that's why I.

That's why I chose that.

I also got accepted into, like, Chapel Hill.

It broke my.

Broke my family's heart that I didn't go to Chapel Hill to UNC because I would have been on my.

On my sperm donor side.

I would have been the fifth generation, right?

To.

To go to Chapel Hill.

But it broke.

It broke my granddad on that side's heart that I didn't go there.

But he understood, you got it.

You got to do what you got to do.

Right.

I had to pave my own way.

So you land your first job.

I'm just gonna guess here.

It's at a bank.

Walk us through.

What's that look like?

How many times do you change jobs?

Where do you find this passion for what you do now?

Because he worked.

You worked at the bank this whole time while you started your own firm.

So you were doing double dipping at the same time, which I found interesting because most times you can't do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So like, I was at.

I started at a bank called BB&T in the management development program.

So at BB&T, it was a great eastern North Carolina bank that later grew up to what is now truest.

Right.

Merger of.

I learned A lot in a couple years there.

But when I got into the banking industry, it was always, it was right during the great merger acquisition consolidation period.

And so BBT was on a buying spree.

Like they were buying all regional community, anything they could buy.

And so when I moved up to Norfolk, they had just acquired a bank.

Norfolk, Virginia was my first out of the training program.

They just bought a bank called Commerce Bank.

Commerce bank was run by a gentleman named Bob Ashton.

Bob, upon the acquisition of the bank, found a loophole out and went out and formed Town bank as soon as I moved to Norfolk.

And he took a lot of employees with him.

Town bank is, has been in existence ever since.

And they're a fantastic organization, fantastic bank.

But I stayed there for a couple years.

I went to Wachovia because of some transitions that BB&T was going through.

Wachovia was later absorbed by a bank called First Union that was later absorbed by Wells Fargo.

That's rare.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, it was rare.

And so like you literally, and that's where I became like an entrepreneur is because Interstate Johnson Lane was the division of that.

But you could be an affiliate member of their, of their broker dealer.

And so that's when I, that's what I became.

And then eventually I took that affiliation and moved it over.

When Wachovia became Wells Fargo took it over to another community bank where I stayed as my own entity affiliated with a bank.

And then I'm like, that's enough of this, right?

It's just enough.

Because there was the, the, the reason to be affiliated with an organization, a bank, was to get referrals.

But I was, I was not really.

But it was a. Yeah, I mean, I, I, in total, I was affiliated with seven banks.

But in that time, my office only changed one time, my address only changed once.

I'm fascinated.

Usually when you go into the bank, you, they own you your butt.

Like that's where you got to be exclusive to them, your employee.

You don't even really own your book of business.

So that's pretty cool.

I mean, that's yeah, if you, that's pioneering.

Wells Fargo still has that.

Wells Fargo still has that setup.

Wow, that, I mean, that's awesome.

So that basically you got to hang your shingle, do your own thing, advise the way you wanted to.

Did you develop the, your strategies and plans?

You're like, did you take the best of the best and then add your own shtick that you merged together or did you already have your own thing that you were running?

I like to think of myself more as like a marketing person than a financial advisor, truth be told.

Like, I'm always trying to, I mean, I'm on your podcast, right?

I'm always out speaking to people and I'm learning from other folks and I, and you know, so it's plagiarism if you use the exact same words from one source.

It's brilliance if you take a little bit from everybody and you create your own thing.

I see you smiling on that one.

But it's, it's such a, it's such a true statement right there.

There's nothing new under the sun.

And like if you, if you listen to a lot of people and if you're a real student and you can make complex things simple, you can build something like the one of a kind financial plan or, you know, you could take.

I was absolutely shocked that one of a kind financial plan was not trademarked.

I was shocked the term one of a kind was not even trademarked.

I'm like, how is this possible?

Right?

What is a trademark?

It's one of a kind, right?

And so I went out and got that.

And then ever since, I've just, I've learned how to trademark different terms and key items and the, the defending of them is very hard.

Defending the trademark.

They come at you.

Yeah, but I, but I, you don't, as an entrepreneur, you don't need a million followers.

You don't even need a hundred thousand clients to be really successful.

You need to have something that attracts your tribe, your type of people.

And when you're virtual, there's a lot of hidden millionaires in America that have put their money in 401ks.

They trusted a system, and then when they hear somebody say that this system puts you in a bind when it comes to taxes and risk and creating a retirement income or even looking at your long term care or building a Legacy.

It resonates with people who want to, want to stay, want to stay secretive in their communities.

I deal with a lot of people in small towns in America who don't want to see their financial advisor at the grocery store or at church.

They want to stay secretive because they think people will treat them different if they know they have $3 million that they saved over their life in their 401.

So when you are going after getting clients and doing your marketing, are you trying to get these clients directly to them?

Are you going through their CPAs, their tax advisors?

Are you going through their accountants?

Are you going through these different boards?

Where do you get your clients from?

You know, everybody has to have that marketing plan.

Where do they get their ideal client?

Where's your best source of clients come from?

Word of mouth, primarily.

Now that's where I get the best clients.

But then I also get them from people who hear me speak, and I make it easy for them to reach out to me.

I do have A couple of CPAs who refer business back to me because they know that our firm is ethical.

We put the clients first.

A product is not the end game for us.

It's, it's the outcome of the individual.

I want to, I'll say something, and please don't hang up on me when I say this.

No judgment here.

CPAs, you're your worst enemy.

CPAs are stressed out and busy people.

Oh, yeah.

And I think you're giving a stereotype.

But I, I, I see what you say.

No, it's 100% true.

And, and I, I would bet you that when you, Because I kind of know a little bit about what you do.

Right.

And how you do it enough to be dangerous.

But your biggest obstacle is probably convincing the CPA that this is okay to do.

The biggest obstacle is getting on the CPA's calendar and giving them enough time to be able to show it to them.

Yep.

Right.

But when I do, most of them, most of them are like, yeah, that's, that's, that's a green light strategy.

Right.

I always ask CPAs that when I, when I share with them.

I just want you to analyze this for our client and I want you to tell them, red light, yellow light, green light.

Because people will understand that.

They don't, they don't understand the tax code.

But if you, but they trust you because you've done their taxes for a long time.

But I just need you to say, red light, yellow light, green light.

And if it's red light, we'll do something.

Else.

Right.

But if it's yellow light, let's, let's explain to them what could come and are we on the same page?

If an audit comes and then what's a green light?

And it makes, it makes a lot of sense that way.

But CPAs.

CPAs are busy and you have to.

Most of them don't do what they initially wanted to do, which was planning.

Most of them just do tax prep.

And like in once.

Once January 15th hits.

January 15th to October 15th is man accountants are.

They don't go on vac.

Most don't go on vacation.

They work 10, 12 hours a day, six days a week.

Because it's all.

They're, they're, they're, they don't know how to say no to doing more returns.

It's a curse of the account.

We want to help.

It's the curse.

Yeah.

We're working to change that.

Oh, we made changes.

That's great.

But yeah, it's hard to say no because you, It's a first nature of a CPA is you want to help people because it's complicated.

You want to help them and it's hard to say no.

But as you navigate through life, like, you know, I'm lucky enough that we're getting that direction now, so it's good.

Well, like if there are a lot of CPAs.

Listen to this.

I have a solution for CPAs.

Say no.

Say no to W2, folks.

Yep.

Let, let, let H&R block and TurboTax do that job.

Right.

Because that's.

And then.

Because if you do that, you then have more time to work in the entrepreneur space where, by the way, where most businesses are these days, you have time to work in the entrepreneur space and you have a.

You have the ability to impact real change.

Create value.

Create value.

That's right.

And like in most.

And most don't do that.

Most anybody who comes in with the tax thing, they're like, here's our engagement letter.

Sign up.

And yeah, it may only take you 30 minutes to do that tax return, but that's not the issue.

Sign the electronic file, do all the thing, collect the money.

It's a whole thing.

I couldn't agree more.

Can I ask you this?

Can we go to the finish line of.

There is.

I don't expect to give away the secrets today, but there is a finish line that when you are exiting a business or you have a big year, you can do something with Puerto Rico and you are obviously living there.

Is there a, you have to give up residency of the US Or a citizenship or can you have dual.

But there's a living and working or something in Puerto Rico that has this, a tremendous tax benefit, right?

Yeah.

Well, Puerto Rico is still part of the United States.

They're just the territory.

And so I still am a US Citizen, still hold a passport.

Matter of fact, all of my, all of my business entities, with the exception of one, are housed in the, on the mainland, so in Virginia.

Okay.

But the, the, the tax, the tax savings goes in, comes in importing and exporting.

Like the biggest import to Puerto Rico is money that's made in the United States.

That's the biggest import.

I mean, like, for instance, food that goes into Puerto Rico can only be brought in by container ships that have Americans on them.

Like, they can't be brought in by anybody who has non Americans or a non American ship with that.

That causes the price of food to be higher in Puerto Rico.

But there is a code in Puerto rico called Act 60, that if you live more days in Puerto Rico than anywhere else, if you have a closer connection to the island and, and you are, and you are invested in the nonprofit activities of the island, allows you to import revenue on work you do back in the mainland while on the island, allows you to import, and that's free of that money, is now free of federal tax because Puerto Rico and the United States have different tax codes.

So, you know, we in the United States, we have, we have a 0% federal tax bracket because we import everything to the United States.

And I, I do spend time on the mainland.

I, I go and I speak and I have family there.

Family comes to visit me.

But I have kids that I have a kid in Alabama, two kids in Virginia that I go see.

They're adults.

But I just don't work while I'm there.

Like, when I go back to the mainland, I'm on vacation.

Is it a challenge on the island?

Is it a challenge to ensure that those days on and off the island, that would be the big change for most people is to, like, you got to kind of leave your hometown or wherever and you got to spend more time on Puerto Rico, which sounds horrible, by the way.

I mean, who wants to spend time in the tropics.

But is that.

That was probably the hardest adjustment, but now you're probably used to it.

It's no problem.

It's, it's not a problem.

Now.

The, the hardest, the hardest adjustment to leaving the mainland is, is learned.

For me, it's learning Spanish for my wife.

She's.

She's got it.

She's down, right?

She's got it all down.

But it's also the community that you give up.

I mean, there's.

Geographic arbitrage is a real tax code thing.

Most people just use it in the United States by moving from, like, California to Nevada or Connecticut to Florida or New York to Florida or, you know, Ohio to Tennessee.

But people have been playing geographic arbitrage forever since the tax code.

This is just the ultimate geographic arbitrage because you're, you're not just getting out of state tax now, you're getting out of federal tax.

If, if you do it right.

I mean, like, there's, there's, there's hazards all along the way that if you, if you do a tripwire, watch out, the IRS is going to come for you.

But, like, if you, if you dot the eyes and cross the T's, just like with any tax strategy, you know, there.

I'll give you, you guys, you guys know of the Augusta rule, right?

So the Augusta Rule is one that entrepreneurs can use back in the states all the time.

If you don't get a signed contract after using your house incomparables of other places and you get audited, the IRS is going to disallow that.

Mm.

It's like, it's like mileage.

It's like mileage deductions on your car.

If you're an entrepreneur and you take a mileage deduction as opposed to some others, if you don't have a documented log of the mileage, the IRS is going to be like, whoa, wait a minute.

Yeah, so it's, it's, it's about, it's about dotting the eyes and crossing the T's in doing it.

But, yeah, we, we have a, we have a zero percent federal tax.

So you found this niche that you, I don't want to say exploit that you utilize, because I think that's a fair term that it's available.

Just because somebody doesn't know about it doesn't mean that it's wrong or right.

It's just, this is a strategy.

Why wouldn't use just like somebody's deducting their home mortgage interest?

Well, you don't, don't deduct your mortgage interest.

If you don't want the deduction, you're taking some other deduction that people might not have the ability to take.

There's no problem issue with that.

So is a.

When you're looking for a customer as you on your entrepreneur journey, did you fall into this section by helping the financial planning and thinking outside the box?

Did this piece of the Puerto Rico part, did that come as like the coup de grace to get these clients or was that just something that just happened to be adding on that you would add as a bonus because you're already doing the other things very well.

Well, if I, if I'm going to continue to repeat and remind people over and all that taxes are the biggest expense you're ever going to pay in your life, well, I better go live in a place to reduce that expense.

So to me it's a mission.

Yeah.

And I, and I, and I, I live it now there, there.

There are over 10,000 x 60 residents on the Puerto Rico island.

So I'm not doing it like alone.

A lot of people have done this.

The thing I look about this by doing it in the financial space is you know, federal banks and credit unions compete against each other but one has an unfair advantage and that's the credit

union pay no tax.

They pay no tax.

So like in my space, I think about this like this way, if we're going to build a firm that's going to be comparable to like a Fisher Investments like that.

Right.

Fisher Investments is going to pay tax.

We're not going to pay tax.

And so if I can take some of the tax savings that I have instead of charging, you know, one and a quarter or one and a half assets under management fee charge 0.8, I'm still making the same amount of profit, if not more.

Winter.

Winter, right.

And that, that's the key.

And plus I get to tell this great story about being on the island.

The interesting part of it too is I, I literally have clients who come down to the island and they call.

It's like, hey, what are you doing?

And I'm like going to lunch with you.

Yeah.

And it's, and it's a beautiful thing because like I, I love, I love interacting virtually.

I do love interacting face to face, but I love doing it in flip flops and shorts.

I figure that, I mean that's one of the perks of being there.

Right?

There's other.

My wife and I thought that we always knew we were going to live internationally.

Right.

We are somewhere away from the mainlands.

Because we have for years embraced this one of a kind life.

We love to experience culture, we love to experience different elements.

We did not know it was going to be Puerto Rico.

We thought it was going to be Lima, Peru, or Santiago, Chile.

But this one came about after we dove into the tax codes.

And there's some other great tax codes out there, like Paraguay or Paraguay has a great tax code for US Citizens.

Colombia, Ecuador, Portugal has cracked down on theirs recently very significantly.

But like, there, there's, there's great tax strategy for, for being in other parts of the world if you're a U.S. citizen and an entrepreneur.

So, Mike, I get to ask the last question of the podcast, and it's by far the hardest one.

You didn't study for it, unfortunately.

But, Mike, what is your end game

to do?

To never miss a moment.

Okay.

I mean, that's a good one.

Most so entrepreneurs is what we found is once you get to the point of your life that you're at, you just have so much knowledge, expertise, passion for what you're doing that the likelihood of you ever stopping what you're doing is, is slim.

So there's really no end game for you.

There's not.

And that's why, I mean, that's why I say when people ask me.

But you said, I've never studied or prepared for that question.

I have.

It's.

I never want to miss a moment.

And that, that is like, in my everyday life, in the, in my future.

Like, I don't want to be so engrossed in, like, running a business that I can't, that I can't embrace something that is truly unique or one of a kind.

And I've built a business where I can do that.

And I've also got a business where I've empowered employees to be able to do that, too.

And I, I just, like, you guys are on a movement to help CPAs, right?

And entrepreneurs build, you know, vision that is beyond, you know, building an ideal client profile or building a practice that brings life back into their practice.

I want to help individuals realize that they could have clarity about their money, but I also want them to realize that at the end of the day, you're not going to be on your deathbed saying, I wish I would have worked more.

I wish I would have spent more, you know, I wish I'd have spent more time in the office.

You're going to be on that deathbed saying, I'm thankful that I took that trip with my family, or, I'm thankful that I, I You know, I, I wish I could go back.

If I could go back anywhere in time and, and be at somebody's deathbed.

I would spend every day with my grandmother.

Yep.

Every day.

I would give anything for that.

And it's not just to get her collar or, you know, or collar sandwich.

Right.

And it's a perk for sure.

But that's not the whole reason.

It is, it is just because the love is so real.

Right.

That I would, I would give anything to be with her.

And, and I, and I think that's what we all have in our life is when you find that passion for what it is you do in your life.

You know, for me, it's flip flops and shorts in Puerto Rico.

For others, it's watching over their grandkids, you know, so that their kids can go off and build a business, build an entrepreneurial business.

For others, it's, you know, putting their feet on every continent over the next five years.

For others, it's, you know, driving a movement with CPAs.

Right.

But we, we all have to find that purpose for why we're called to be here.

And, and I'm not saying it's a spiritual purpose.

It's just a daily life calling purpose.

And when you find that we really never work another day in our life.

We just get to meet really cool people like you guys and have great conversation.

You know, it's funny, you know, Certified financial planner.

If you don't plan what you want to do and how you want to do it, and when you, and what that looks like, you're just meandering through the forest and you're lost the whole time and you're just grinding and you never really get the joy that you should get.

How long did it take you?

I have to ask this because you said last question.

I know, I'm sorry, but how long did it take you in your journey?

When was that moment when you're like, boom, I got it.

This is now how I want my life to look.

This is what I need to do to make that happen.

Because I'm not grinding anymore.

This is what I want to happen.

Manifest it.

And then you go do that.

When did that happen?

It happened the day I was standing over my brother's casket.

Oh, man.

So you asked if there's ever been failures in business, but the day I stood over my brother's casket, he was 41 years old.

He was in a head on car collision.

And I'm looking at him and my brother was a white guy just like me.

But he grew dreadlocks so that he could relate to his clientele for the business that he was operating.

And I literally looked at him and said, you and I, I was all.

I had had this talk about you being one of a kind your whole life before that day, but I literally looked at him and said, you lived a one of a kind life and I'm going to do the same thing for the rest of my life.

Boom.

That's what it's all about.

It is.

And I mean, he, he lived in 41 years more than I probably would have ever lived, will ever live, if I live a hundred and hundred years.

But that's when I discovered, that was the point that I discovered that this life is short.

And if you don't get out and do it, if you, if you let a moment pass by without telling somebody you love them or investing a little bit or giving a little bit, expecting nothing in return, then, you know, what's the point?

You'll have those regrets on your deathbed.

What would be the point?

Well, this has been a great, great conversation, Mike.

If you can you give a little plug if people want to get a hold of you, because I'm sure everybody's.

You can't give them all the secrets because then the island's gonna be too crowded.

But you know, you got to give them a couple for the select clients.

Well, if you want to, if you want to read the book, the one of a kind financial plan, you can go to Amazon and just look for the one of a kind financial plan.

It's almost got a five star rating.

Almost.

There's a couple fours and threes in there.

I don't know how the three got in there because she loved the book.

But you can you go listen that or you could just go.

I have a personal website, mikemilligan.com that's M I K E M I L L I G A N dot com.

Awesome.

Well, we appreciate you spending some time with us today.

There's going to be a lot of nuggets that I hope our listeners will glean.

And that's another great empowering Entourage podcast.

I'm Glenn Harper.

Julie Smith.