Good morning.

Thursday afternoon, Nebraska won its first NCAA Tournament game in program history. 129 years of basketball. Nine trips to the tournament. Zero wins — until now.

It got me thinking about the places and moments that stick — the ones that are impossible to replicate and easy to overlook. This week's main piece is about that.

Also this week: a new podcast episode on bringing consumer fintech into wealth management with our friends at Wealth.com, our upcoming webinar on building workflows that actually work (March 25th — register if you haven't), and where you can find the Milemarker team on the road.

Here's the Rising Tide. Have a great weekend.

1. There Is No Place Like

2. Bringing Consumer Fintech and Wealth Management Together 🎧

3. Webinar: Building Workflows That Actually Work

4. Milemarker On the Road ✈️

There Is No Place Like

It’s a beautiful Thursday afternoon here in Charleston. I just wrapped up a marketing summit with my team — we held it at my house — and we finished just in time to flip on the 11:40 Central tip.

Nebraska vs. Troy. First round. NCAA Tournament.

Quick context if you’re not a college basketball person: Nebraska men’s basketball has been one of the least successful programs in NCAA history. Going into today, they were 0-8 all-time in the tournament. The only power conference program to have never won a first-round game. Not once.

This year was different. The Huskers came in 26-6. No. 4 seed. Best in program history. A team that opened the season 20-0. And today they didn’t just win — they dominated. Nebraska 76, Troy 47. Pryce Sandfort hit seven threes and scored 23. The defense held a team averaging 80+ points to 47. It was the largest margin of victory for any program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament win.

My oldest son Gideon is a freshman at Nebraska. He was home with us — he’s part of our marketing team, so he was at the retreat. And I got to watch this historic game sitting right next to him.

Now here’s the thing about being a Nebraska fan. The good, the bad, sometimes the ugly — there’s this pervading part of your identity that at the end of the day, there’s just something special about that place. Something special about the people. How it all works. There’s a saying: there’s no place like Nebraska. I was born there and spent a lot of my years all over the country and I fundamentally believe it. It’s deep in me. It’ll never go away.

Sorry, this isn’t really a Nebraska tourism newsletter. Thanks for making it this far.

The chances are, if I asked you, there are parts of your life — subcultures, communities, experiences — that are just distinct. Different. Maybe it’s how you grew up in whatever part of the world. Maybe it’s a moment in time when you were building something. Maybe it’s the instant you all of a sudden hit that inflection point and everything changed.

There’s no place like it.

And I’m afraid that in the way the world goes — rapid building, consolidation, scale at all costs — this idea of uniqueness gets lost. It gets underappreciated. Because it’s not monetary. Usually it’s actually far from that. Sometimes money can even be a distraction to the thing that matters. But it’s something that’s really important to everyone there. It’s palpable.

I’ve been fortunate to experience a few of these.

There’s no place like seeing At the Drive-In play to 150 of your community in an underground club — the last time before they headed off on a 17-year hiatus.

There’s no place like seeing Rage Against the Machine play their second-to-last live performance at MSG.

There’s no place like when I was at Orion, when we hit the moment and implemented the tweaks that let our inbound marketing flood in. We became the brand. We changed the game.

There’s no place like when we unified all those brands at a national RIA and built a far more modern infrastructure — and all of a sudden transformed the lives of our advisors.

There’s no place like hitting product-market fit on an idea that is deeply ingrained in what you believe in and what you know will reshape the industry.

There’s no place like working alongside a team that you love more than yourself and would do anything to take care of.

There’s no place like working with that team late into the evenings, through the weekends, and building something from nothing.

That’s zero to one. And honestly, for me, zero to one is where the magic happens. It’s heads down. Doing the work. Getting through differences and finding consensus. Creating something from nothing. It’s this crazy thing that allows you to create a world that is completely its own.

I’m so thankful for every opportunity I’ve had to be part of that. And I believe I’m part of it right now.

There’s no place like it.

I hope you have those places you can recall. Or better yet — I hope you’re making them right now. Because this isn’t something that happens to you. It’s a place you create.

There’s no place like it.

Have a great weekend.

— Jud

On the Pod: Bringing Consumer Fintech and Wealth Management Together

Episode 136: On this week’s episode, Kyle Van Pelt sits down with Nicole McMullin, Senior Vice President of Product at Wealth.com. Nicole is a seasoned product leader with a proven track record of building and scaling high-performing product organizations. She brings deep experience in product strategy, cross-functional leadership, and translates customer needs into meaningful outcomes. 

Nicole talks with Kyle about the intersection of consumer fintech and advisory technology and how modern fintech principles can transform the advisor-client experience. She explores how new tools, AI workflows, and integrated platforms are helping advisors move away from manual processes and toward more proactive, emotionally intelligent conversations with clients.

In this episode:

(00:00) - Intro

(03:09) - Nicole's money moment

(09:42) - What advisory firms can learn from consumer fintech

(12:58) - Nicole's 'aha' moment at Wealth.com

(13:37) - Wealth's new tax planning strategy

(14:44) - Addressing fragmentation in wealth management

(16:26) - What attracted Nicole to join Wealth.com

(21:46) - How advisors should evaluate new technology

(23:33) - Nicole's outlook on the future of wealth management

(27:56) - How Wealth.com provides the best wealth management experience

(30:16) - Nicole's Milemarker Minute

Webinar: Building Workflows That Actually Work

Workflow automation promises better processes, smoother handoffs, and more efficient teams. But in many firms, even well-designed workflows end up being ignored.

Join us in this upcoming webinar to explore why that happens—and what it actually takes to build workflows that teams will actually use.

Register here:

Milemarker on the Road
Catch my team on the road at the following events or cities:

1. Tampa, FL — March 24

2. Scottsdale, AZ — March 24-26

3. Tampa, FL — March 28-29

4. Baltimore, MD — March 31

5. New York, NY — April 9-10

6. San Francisco, CA — April 14-15

7. Tampa, FL — April 21-22

8. Chicago, IL — April 23-25

If you would like to arrange a meeting time, please reply to this email, and we’ll schedule something on the calendar.

Jud Mackrill