Ep 44. Designing Wealth With Purpose with Mike Prokop
Designing wealth isn’t about chasing the biggest exit, it’s about aligning money with what matters most.
In this episode, comprehensive financial planner Mike Prokop shares how founders and leaders can build a wealth strategy rooted in clarity, purpose, and long-term impact. From preparing years before a sale to avoiding the post-exit identity crisis, Mike explains why true financial stewardship starts with one essential question: What is all this for?
You’ll learn:
Why early planning creates peace of mind and better outcomes
The smartest financial moves founders should make before selling
How to separate personal and business finances to increase valuation
How to design a wealth strategy that reflects your values, not just your net worth
Why money should mirror what you care about, family, faith, lifestyle, or legacy
What legacy really means beyond inheritance and documents
A grounded, insightful conversation for anyone who wants their wealth to create meaning, not just numbers on a spreadsheet.
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Mike Prokop is a comprehensive financial planner and partner at Strategic Financial Partners, where he helps founders, business owners, and high-net-worth families design wealth strategies rooted in clarity and purpose. Known for his holistic approach, Mike integrates financial planning, investment management, tax-awareness, and estate considerations to help clients align their wealth with what they value most.
After shifting from a traditional sales career into financial planning, Mike built his practice around one core philosophy: money is not a scorecard, it’s a mirror. His work focuses on helping clients understand what their wealth is for, so they can make intentional decisions before, during, and after major liquidity events.
Whether guiding clients through pre-sale planning, legacy design, or multigenerational stewardship, Mike brings depth, empathy, and a values-driven approach to every conversation.
Connect with Mike:
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00:00 – Why Money Stories Shape Everything
02:15 – Teaching Kids What Wealth Really Means
05:40 – The Shift From Building a Business to Building a Life
08:10 – What Founders Miss When Planning an Exit
10:05 – The Hidden Risks Buyers Spot Immediately
12:30 – Adjusting to the “After” Once the Adrenaline Is Gone
15:20 – Reframing Wealth as a Tool, Not a Trophy
17:45 – The Cost of a Business That Can’t Run Without You
20:30 – Decoupling Net Worth from Self-Worth
27:10 – Defining Legacy in a Way That Actually Feels True
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Your growth will come from the different sources. When you realize that wealth is a tool and not just a trophy you're trying to reach, that's when the real clarity kicks in.
Welcome to the Legacy Branding Podcast. I'm your host, Laura Beauparlant, here to guide you through the journey of selling your business, and building a personal brand that leaves a lasting impact. On the show, we'll explore real life founder stories, expert insights, and actionable strategies to help you navigate the transition, avoid post sale crisis, and create your impact driven legacy brand. Whether you're thinking of selling, building to sell, or already on the other side, this podcast is your go to resource for making your next evolution, your best one yet. Let's dive in.
Today on the Legacy Branding Podcast, I'm joined by Mike Prokop. He's a financial advisor exit planning guide, and someone who believes that true wealth is about more than money. As a financial advisor with strategic financial partners, Mike works with business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives to align their personal and professional goals so they can build wealth with clarity, confidence, and purpose. His approach is grounded in relationships, values, and long-term vision, not just spreadsheets, whether he's guiding a family through generational wealth planning, or helping a founder prepare for a meaningful exit, Mike's mission is to create freedom and peace of mind. Outside of the office he's a devoted father and husband and active in his church and community, and serves as a board treasurer for the Tennessee Alliance for Kids. Mike, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me.
So before we dive into more of the strategic, kind of tactical things that you do with founders who are exiting, who are the people that are going to be listening to this, I wanted to talk to you first about your own relationship with money and finances and wealth. I think it's a topic that a lot of people struggle to talk about, and being that you are in this world and you deal with money and wealth on a daily basis, I'd love to know sort of your perspective on the relationship you grew up with money, and maybe how you deal with that conversation with your own family and kids.
Yeah, I appreciate the question. It's relationship with money. I think, at least in my experience, has evolved over time and it's changed a couple of different times during my life. Had some good highs and some good lows throughout my working career. But if I rewind the clock and go back to when I was a kid, my parents were that generation where it just, it wasn't discussed money was not something that we talked about as a family.
And I'm sure a lot of the listeners on the call they're gonna have the same experience. I remember this phrase is ingrained in my mind, and I don't know if it's trauma or not, but every, maybe not every time, most of the time when we'd ask for something additional, right?
We're, we took family vacations, but when we'd ask for this toy or to go out to this restaurant or whatever, I remember the phrase of, things are a little bit tight right now. And in my mind that was, we just don't have any money. My parents don't have any money. And that kind of continued.
I started to see that change a little bit once, I got into high school and my brothers and I kind of started to grow up a little bit. I started to see that my father started doing a little bit better financially. At least it looked like it. We moved into a bigger house and, he bought a boat and all these things, but that phrase of things are a little bit tight still lingered around from occasion. From time to time that would still be the response. And we just never had conversations about what that meant, whether or not we were comfortable asking the question was probably no. But I don't think we'd have gotten the answer we were looking for anyway.
I feel like we would've been stonewalled and said, that's our, that's mom and dad's finances. Right. We don't worry about that as a family. One of the things that Candace and I, my wife, we're, we do, and we are doing more of now, is creating this kind of family vision of what do we want to have happen for our family?
And it's not just about finances. It's about our faith and what we want our really, the last name of Prokop to mean, but money ties into that as well. So it's not just when we work with clients, we have this same type of blueprint, but us personally are putting together this blueprint of a monthly family meeting, and let's make sure that we have our kids understand where things are from a financial standpoint, not into the weeds of it, right?
We're not pulling out the budget and the spreadsheets and going through every line item. Maybe we will as they get older, if they're interested in finance, but it's just making them understand what money means and what it can do for them as they move forward. My wife's an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur, so we have our kids in entrepreneur type programs so they can get a foundation early on of what money is.
I love that and you're walking the walk and you're not just telling your clients what to do, but you're actually doing it for yourself. We do that as well with our kids. We have family dinners a lot, but every month we have a month in review and a planning for, what's coming up the next month. And it doesn't always necessarily revolve around money, but we do have a lot of conversations around that. Earning money and spending money and habits and where things are in our business. And like you, it's
the nitty gritty. I think it is important because just like you, I didn't grow up with that.
I remember the phrase, money doesn't grow on trees.
Yeah. Yeah,
I think I remember saying once, well just go to the bank and get money.
Like I,
You know, very nonchalantly like, of course the bank is where all the
Yeah. You got this card, you stick in this machine. It just comes out. Just go get more of it.
And I think it's probably maybe worse today because there's so little cash that you're actually, it is literally just a tap of the card, so the kids
only have that experience and then suddenly it's like, oh, I've now run out of money. Because there's no physical showing of like, oh, the doll, the bills are reducing in your wallet it's just a plastic card and you have to look at your balance. It's a very different, I think, psychological experience.
Yeah. No, it certainly is. And you even think about the simplicity of us having to balance a checkbook register at the end of each month or the end of each week, that's gone. I mean, they're the kids nowadays that I don't even think they know. I don't even know if I have a check. Like if I, you told me to write a check, it'd take, I'd have to call my wife to ask where it is, and she'd probably ask me where it is.
Yeah. I'd have to go digging. I think there might be one somewhere, but I mean, I have no idea where it is and, uh,
the kids wouldn't even know how to write a check.
Oh, no, no, no, no. It's my daughter is at UT Chattanooga. She's in college, and she needed, some of her financial aid or something that was coming through part of her scholarship or whatever. It didn't get there in time. So I fronted her whatever the amount was for her to pay her tuition. And then she was just gonna, when she got her check, she was gonna send it to me. She got the check and she goes, dad, what do I like? What do I do with this? I'm like, well, you can either endorse it over to me or you can deposit it in your account, and then you can send, had no idea what I was talking about.
So I, maybe I failed her a little bit. I gotta reel, reel that one back in a little.
But it's those little things that you don't, you wouldn't even think about that experience that we grew up with the whole checkbook thing. It sounds like you're doing a pretty good job,
Well, maybe there's some hope. Yeah, there's, there's hope.
Exactly. Oh my gosh. I love that. I always love hearing people's stories about their relationship with money growing up because it is something that so many people just don't even talk about. So having that insight into, and I think, we're from a similar generation, so how our parents grew up with money and their experience and, scarcity and war and all of that that changed, how they went about thinking about money and addressing it and then not talking about it with sort of our generation, like all of those things you can see the trickle down effect from, grandparents right down to
and it is on us to do the work for ourselves, on our own mindset around money, and then hopefully share that with our kids.
The benefit now obviously with all the technology is that if kids are interested, they can get the education pretty quickly. I think we have to just plant a little bit of seeds and then these kids are gonna be able to do a lot of things that we didn't have the ability to do.
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so let's, let's switch.
Talk a bit more about, these founders who are exiting. So I know those are people that you work with. They're thinking of selling their business, and I'd love to ask what do you find gets overlooked in those early stages of financial planning? I think a lot of times they kind of get to a stage and kind of go, oh, I should have been doing this years ago. So what do you see that gets overlooked?
Yeah, when we think about founders when it comes to a sale, they're kind of like a hawk on a mouse, right? They are laser focused on the deal, valuations and earnouts and equity splits. At that point it's kind of spreadsheets and adrenaline.
But what is that they make it's overlooked is typically their own financial future. So things like estate planning and post-sale income strategies and how to not get walloped by taxes those things tend to get backburnered. So, it's kind of like the analogy of you spend all this time, you plan a wedding for months, but then you just kind of wing the honeymoon, right?
So it's really romantic, but it's pretty risky at that point. So when we work with clients, right? My business partner and I, Cole Crocker. We encourage owners to make sure that they understand what that gap is gonna be. So the gap really being that the difference between the amount of capital and income that you're gonna be required, or that you're gonna need to meet your post-sale financial needs and the net after tax proceeds from that sale.
So all of this really it needs to be evaluated prior to the sale. And then it's also a good time to consider any, any estate planning opportunities that might arise ahead of that as well.
Yeah, and I guess, after an exit, so many entrepreneurs really find themself in that unfamiliar territory, right? As entrepreneurs, you're an entrepreneur. I'm one. You're working hard, you're building this business. You're growing you're constantly pushing forward and building, and then they have to, adjust from building wealth to managing and preserve it. So what do you see is the biggest adjustment that founders go through after when it comes to going from that growth and building to managing and preserving?
Yeah, it's like switching from a Formula One race car to driving a Prius, right? And there's nothing against a Prius, right? So, but you get in a Prius, the adrenaline's gone, right? So now you just have to make every gallon, or in this case, every dollar it just needs to count more. So the biggest adjustment is learning that not everything needs to be this big moonshot.
We don't have to swing for the stars every single time. Managing wealth is more about patience and diversification and sometimes just saying no and mitigating risk altogether. But the good news of that is that peace of mind is, is really underrated until you have it.
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's certain words and phrases that I think we hear all the time, and they sound a bit trite, like, of course you wanna be happy or have peace of mind. It almost sounds like a throwaway, but the reality is when you don't have it, that's when you're like this is not good. And when you do have it, it is that, huh? Okay, I can breathe now. Things are good. I no longer have to worry or feel like I'm in this state of fight or flight.
Yeah.
Yeah. But even getting the business owners to get to that, the thought is just that breath out where you're like, now I can relax. Right? That's, that's the big adjustment is, is doing the planning on the front end so we can have that now I'm okay moment.
Yeah, and I think what I found with the clients that I've worked with in my business that I've worked with after on their brand, like a personal brand or a new business, is hearing their stories of that shift from building and growing and their identity being so wrapped up in the business to now suddenly their inbox is empty.
They don't have an office to go to, a team to support people to chat with, water cooler conversations, whatever you wanna call them, and they're left a bit rudderless and purposeless, and they have maybe all the money in the world, but it's not maybe solving the problems that they thought it might because now they're having this identity shift and, and that's I've really focused on the audience that we support in these founders planning to exit. Obviously we still work with them post, but if I can support them while they're still running their business, like when you're helping them with that pre-exit
from a financial and wealth perspective, I'm helping them with purpose and understanding who they are and the impact they wanna have after.
So hopefully, we're supporting the same people, but in slightly different ways on the same journey, and they're both so important.
Yeah, absolutely.
So now you've worked with founders that are before, during, and after an exit. So do you find there are patterns that you see that come up around money mindset or how mindset influences their ability to really move forward with that clarity and confidence?
Yeah. Yeah. So there's a noble lariat that once summed up the constant need for personal growth and what they said was that those not busy being born are busy dying. So in that same fashion, founders tend to see money as momentum. And if that money's not growing, then it's dying. But when you think about this post exit, the name of the game changes, which is kind of what we've been talking about, and the ones who thrive in that are the ones who reframe their mindset and really it goes from kind of chasing returns to designing a life.
Right, and then what that's gonna look like afterwards, right? Because your growth will come from the different sources. And then when you realize that that wealth is a tool and not just a trophy or that pedestal you're trying to reach, that's when the real clarity kicks in. And spoiler alert is spreadsheets don't bring confidence. Having a plan in place brings confidence.
Yeah, definitely. So do you have any examples like obviously without naming any names of people you've worked with, whether it's something that went well, something like a cautionary tale. Would love to hear some of your experiences with people that you've worked with.
Yeah. There's a few that come to mind. And this story has been told, at least we've seen this one play out a number of times. We have business owners that we work with, and one in particular super, like he was so eager to sell this company. For whatever the reason was, there's a number of reasons why people wanna sell, right? But wanted to sell this company and going back to what you mentioned, his identity was so wrapped up in this company, and the day-to-day tasks were completely wrapped up in him. It. He had never built a strong management team or a leadership team around him.
He never documented all the processes that he used and everything about the business really ran through him. So when buyers came in on paper, at least they see this thriving business, but then when they look at it, they saw nothing but risk. Because without that owner in place, the company is not gonna operate smoothly.
And it wasn't a PE firm that was gonna come in and buy the company. It was someone that they needed to, they had to be able to run it internally. So instead of that big payday, the really, I mean, the sale stalled and the offers dropped out. His mistake wasn't about the amount of money, it was about not building the business to run without him.
So that's from day one, is start planning out the processes. And then start figuring out how you can remove yourself from the business and still extract the value from the business.
📍 From what I've heard a buyer wants to see that the founder could be outta the business, on vacation for. Three months and the business still runs without them, then they know that, they've got the systems, they've got the team. It's not reliant on one person. I think that it sounds like that was the piece that was missing is he, was the one kind of running the engine.
yeah, no, exactly. We have another one that we're kind of in the process of onboarding, runs a very successful business. And I was on the phone with his wife who kind of helps him run the business. And my question was, when you guys go out of town, they're going out to Vegas for some car show.
I'm like, when you guys go out to Vegas, who's running the business? She's like, well, he is. I mean, he'll be on the phone all day, he'll be doing all this stuff and like, we have to figure this out now. And they're not even looking to sell anytime soon. But that planning starts as early as we can get it started.
A hundred percent. Yeah. I always say I'd rather start from day one, building a brand
sellable and that is looking at not making it founder centric, building a personal brand for the founder, getting the team on board so everybody is supporting the business, making sure their systems, all of these pieces are integral and it can't just wait until the 11th hour when you're like, oh, I wanna sell in six months or a year.
You need a runway from a financials perspective, a systems perspective, a brand perspective, these aren't last minute,
Right.
Decisions.
Yeah. Spot on.
yeah, absolutely. So, we've already talked a little bit about this idea of identity. And I talk a lot about this in my work and on this show identity and reinvention. So how do you help founders navigate that emotional side of wealth, especially when their self-worth is often been tied to the business success?
Yeah, you mentioned earlier when the founder sells and they no longer have a million emails.
Right. What do they do? And when your inbox, you're used to your inbox buzzing 24/7 and now the only stuff you get are, is spam from your HOA or something like that, right? So it can feel like an identity crisis. So once again, on the front end of this, as we help founders decouple their net worth from their self-worth and it's not an easy breakup, right? We talk about what does fulfillment look like when your calendar isn't jammed up with all these meetings. And then, reinventing or the reinvention of yourself isn't about finding the next big thing. It's about rediscovering who you are when there's no business deal to advance. And I think it comes back to the foundation of why did you start doing what you're doing and how can we perpetuate that in some other fashion.
Yeah, I love that. I always tell my clients that I don't necessarily care what you do after. But if you know the impact you want to create and the contribution you wanna make to the world, then it doesn't matter how you deliver it. If you have that as your North star, then it makes it easy to find the path and it's gonna be different for everybody. But if you have that clarity around who you are and the impact you wanna create, then it becomes so much easier to find your way and to stay on track.
Yes, absolutely.
So what do you find are some of the smart moves that founders make before selling that set themselves up for that peace of mind that we talked about and that flexibility post
sale.
So, running numbers early so that the reality doesn't feel like a big surprise or a bad surprise at that point. If necessary, consider income and estate planning liabilities and move some or all of the equity to vehicles like trust, before any term sheet hits the table. Once again, this goes back to pre-planning, before the sale is even, not even on the table, but even really a thought that it's gonna happen in the next couple years is do this on the front end and, know what you want next.
Even if it's that, a year of sabbatical and surfing. Understand what you're wanting to do so you don't have that moment when you wake up the next morning and then you call me and go, Hey Mike, I got all this money, but what am I supposed to do now? Okay.
Separate personal and business finances. That's something that's really important. Your life shouldn't depend on a corporate credit card. The best thing you can do is remove personal expenses from your business, which will make the company's bottom line way more attractive and a lot of times we get the question of what are these personal expenses, right?
What are we referring to here? We've seen a number of things on some of these books and, family and personal travel, unless it's directly tied to the business with documentation, get that off the sheets. Meals and entertainment, right? Only those legitimate meals qualify for business expenses. We see people using paying personal insurance premiums. Gifts for clients un, unless they can be deducted within the IRS limits, we've seen people, paying spouses to be on the books and they don't do as much with the business as the income warrants or the payment warrants.
So, removing some of those things are gonna be really important. To make sure that the books align with what the seller or what the the buyer's expecting there. Then finally build a good, solid team around yourself. And that's, legal advice, tax advice, estate planning, investment advice, and we believe a comprehensive planner is really crucial in there.
And that last role is an advisor it helps you complete the process while helping you understand how the result will impact you and your family after the sale.
Yeah. So is that typically one person, one company? How do you see that team? I mean, obviously it's a team, so I'm assuming it's multiple people, but you just listed a lot,
of people and that can feel overwhelming.
yeah, yeah. So the answer it's not either or. It can be both and Right. So you can piecemeal that together. The way that we see it be most valuable is by, let's say you start with. I think starting with a comprehensive planner or a planning firm is the way to go 'cause we have the planner that can also handle the investments, can also handle some of the risk mitigation from insurance standpoints. And then having estate planners that are on staff or an extension of that firm. And then working in conjunction with the legal and tax team. That seems to be the most beneficial because when we have our clients and we recommend using one of the CPA firms that we use for business owners, we go with our clients to those meetings.
We sit in those meetings with them when they're going and they're getting new trust taken care of or some sort of wills or cos or whatever it is, we go with them to make sure that there's some clarity coming down. And typically we have good relationships with those CPA firms and the legal firms as well.
I love
It feels very comprehensive, you are supporting them in that, but you're also aware of all these things and it feels like they're not, it's not siloed. Like you're doing this piece and they're doing that piece and you are, but yet you're kind of holding it all together for them. And I think that's a beautiful thing you do for your clients.
Because there's things that we don't advise, we can't advise our clients around, or I can't advise my clients on what to do necessarily from a direct tax standpoint. So we have the relationships in place that can offer that to 'em, and it just, it gives our clients much more clarity and comfort. The relationships we have with our clients are obviously pretty deep, and we want that to be an extension from there as well.
Yeah, I love that. I know that financial stewardship is something that's really important to you and not just financial success, so I would love to know what that means to you and how you help your clients understand, how to align their wealth with their values.
Yeah. To me, financial stewardship, it really means knowing that your money isn't a scorecard, it's a mirror, right? It should reflect the things that you care about. And that goes, we could list off hundreds of things that reflect what someone cares about.
So the biggest thing is helping clients stop and ask, what is all this for? Why am I doing this? that for family? Is it for philanthropy? Is it for faith? Is it future proofing their lifestyle? It passing this generational wealth strategy. Whatever the answer is, we structure their wealth to serve those values. That old saying that money talks, that's true, but if money does talk, it should be speaking your language. I can't stress the importance of that enough. And that's going back to the initial part of our conversation is you have to foundationally figure out what does money mean to you and what do you want that to do moving forward for you and your family or your church or whatever that nonprofit is or whatever you want to steward moving forward, we need to create a wealth strategy that reflects that piece.
Yeah, absolutely. So legacy is a big theme on this podcast. Obviously it's called Legacy Branding.
I would love to know what legacy means to you and how does that show up in your life, in your family with your clients.
It's not just about what you leave in your will, right? It's about what people say about you when you're not in the room. And hopefully it's not that you're just a good golfer, right? That's, that'd be great if that's what they said about me but that rarely happens, or that's gonna be mentioned, but it, in all seriousness, we see legacy show up when clients really, really get intentional., And that's where some of those difficult conversations where we're nose to nose and we're really having some deep conversation about what this is gonna look like.
That comes down to writing family letters, funding different causes, mentoring the next generation. And that's not just from a business standpoint. It's mentoring the next generation of your family to perpetuate what your reflection needs to be or what you'd like to see that in them. True legacy is not about monuments. It's about the meaning that's behind what you're trying to do. So we hope to make sure that it's built more than just what's on the bank statements. It's what is internal to you, and how do we put that out?
Yeah. And how about for you? Do you have a thought on your own legacy that you're creating?
I hope so. And in a number of different ways. I hope so 'cause it's, I think legacy is the lasting impact that you leave on others. It's the influence, the values, the contributions that continue long after we're gone. And it really, like me, I got into this line of work because in my previous career I was just a sales rep. I was selling steel, right? And I wasn't doing any good for anybody really. I was, I'm selling steel. I could have been selling, pick anything in my office. I could have been selling that, and it didn't make a difference. So I, kind of had to kind of reflect back myself and say, what is important to me?
What do I want to accomplish? How does my faith fit into this? And how can I steward those things better? And what it boiled down to me is I wanted to find a career that was meaningful and impactful to others? I just, like I said, when I leave a room, I don't want people just to talk about, hey, that he was a pretty good guy. It's what does he stand for and, and what is he trying to accomplish?
It sounds like you've done a lot of that deep work for yourself to get clear on what do you value, what is that impression you wanna leave on people so that they can see that, long after you've left the room.
Yeah. And, it's a dynamic process. It's a work in progress. It's, I'm never gonna be complete in that, but like anything else, if we just keep ticking away and just show up every single day with it, we'll eventually get closer.
Yeah, we're all a work in progress. I think that is just what life is
That's right.
Yeah. Thank you so much for this conversation. I would love for you to share, what's the best way for people to connect with you , follow or learn about working with you at Strategic Financial Partners. What's the best way?
Yeah. So there's a number of different ways. I can be reached via email. My email is mjp@strategicfinancialpartners.com. My direct office line is 615 435 4160. If you want to shoot me a text, you can do that too. The number is 615 551 1367. And then you could also just go to our website at, at strategicfinancialpartners.com and take a look at all the fascinating stuff we have there.
Amazing. We'll make sure to have all those numbers and emails and website in the show notes. Mike, thanks again for being here and sharing all of your amazing insights.
I appreciate it very much.
Thanks for tuning into the Legacy Branding podcast. I hope today's episode has inspired and empowered you on your journey to building a brand that truly matters. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with other founders who you think would benefit from listening.
And if you're ready to take the next step in building your legacy brand, visit our website, labcreative.ca to learn more and book a call. Don't forget to join us next time for more conversations that will help you navigate your transition and create your legacy. Until then, I'm Laura Beauparlant.