Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 This is Annuity Straight Talk. Since 2008, your host Brian Anderson, has helped clients nationwide navigate the complex market for annuities With Brian's assistance, hundreds of clients have achieved a profitable and secure retirement. I would know because Brian has answered many of my questions concerning annuities and retirement planning, so that you can benefit as well. Let's get started. Here's Brian.
Speaker 2 00:00:47 Hello and welcome everyone to the Annuity Straight Talk podcast, episode number 94. I am your host, Brian Anderson, founder and creator of Annuity straight talk.com. Welcoming everyone back quickly, approaching a hundred episodes. I'm excited about this topic. It's going to be fun for me to share some of these stories and I hope you guys all enjoy it. It's time to take a break from the super technical stuff and the title may not make sense to a lot of people. I'm gonna try to tell you why, uh, this is an opportunity for me to tell a story. I gotta kind of tie 'em into, uh, some of these, uh, you know, some of the, the topics that we're really trying to cover on the website and the reason why you guys are all have all found me. So what if a grizzly bear kills me? Pretty tragic deal.
Speaker 2 00:01:31 I would assume that'd be tragic. I guess it probably heard a little bit too, but, um, I've thought about this in episode 43. I took some time. I've done a few, uh, examples of this where I try to draw parallels in my life. I wanted to ta tell a story about grizzly bears cause I've had a lot of encounters with them and they're just, you know, everybody seems to be interested. They're kind of fun stories to tell wa wasn't always fun encounters, but I thought about, you know, how do I relate it to it? And I thought finally got the idea. I'm getting ready to go on a really cool pack trip with a couple of friends and, uh, should be a good time. We're traveling in grizzly country. So I thought this is a good time to do it. So, um, and the reason I brought it up, how do I, uh, how do I draw the relationship between grizzly bears and what I'm doing?
Speaker 2 00:02:17 Um, and the question always comes from people, like, what would they do if something happened to me? And part of that comes from, uh, the fact that I promote alternate strategies. So how are they gonna find someone who also understands the strategy and could do with the same thing that I'm doing? If they adopt that strategy, what's gonna happen? And then part of it comes from the fact that we're working on a remote connection. And not everybody, I don't have the chance to meet everyone. You know, everyone is welcome. Uh, I'll call you when I'm in your town if that ever happens. So I have met a lot of people, but you know, not being local, it's not as tangible to people. And to be honest with you, most of the guys in this business, in fact, probably 99.9% of them, if not an even, even stronger percentage, are not near as likely as me to spend a lot of time in deep wilderness and unpredictable situations.
Speaker 2 00:03:03 But fortunately, I have worked on a solution already if things happen to not go as planned. But before I get too far into it, I'm gonna tell you guys I'm not worried at all. And that's kind of what I'm gonna explain today. It was funny, somebody, uh, several years ago said, oh, hey, it's really cool that you got mules and all that stuff. What, what happens to me though? What do we do if some, if a mule kicks you in the head? I'm like, well, my mul are really good. They're well trained and they, in fact, they do like me, so I really doubt they're gonna kick me in the head. Um, and then he said, well, what if a grizz bear yells you <laugh> like laughed? That's not gonna happen either. So I need to clear up another thing as well before we really get started.
Speaker 2 00:03:41 So when I say camping, it means to me traveling into the national forest or wilderness to spend at least two nights. It's not pulling a tent out of ans U V and pitching it in a park next to a highway that's just sleeping outside. And I do not mean to, I don't mean any disrespect to anyone who enjoys that. It can be fun and can be a good time, but it's not the same thing. One night is a nap. Two nights requires more planning. That's camping from a very early age. I went camping the way I was understood it to be. And so that's what I thought it was. It's not a knock on anybody else's style, it's just saying that's how I always did it. Uh, from when I was a really little kid, we hiked into mountain lakes and went fishing. My dad, my brothers, cousins, uncles, grandpa.
Speaker 2 00:04:27 And I had to clear this up with my dad before I put this down cuz I have a memory that's a faint memory of a place that we used to go as a family that was a, you know, a couple mile hike. It's really not all that bad. But I wasn't even four years old at the time. The first time I slept in the woods with my dad. We were always in gr grizzly country. Every time Western Montana, we played outside, we went hiking, we traveled into the mountains, grizzly bears live out there. The men in my family, my dad, my uncle, my grandpa are very much into tough love. Every single one is kind, generous and strong. But they made sure that I, we learned hard lessons. There was no coddling or let letting any of the boys avoid responsibility. We were never taught that life would be easy and we sure as hell were made very aware of the danger present in wilderness travel, falling, cutting yourself bad weather, unexpected events can make things l very miserable and often deadly.
Speaker 2 00:05:30 Let's not forget that grizzly bears are out there too. We were always fishing. My dad used to tell us to wash your hands. Really good. He said, wash your hands. And I'm gonna share my screen cause I got some cool photos. And as I do this, I guess I was a little late on that five minutes in. So these co these, uh, photos, courtesy of my buddy Spud, that's why I printed out the newsletter so I can read it and show everybody photos. So if you're watching the video, you'll see these. If you, uh, are listening to the podcast, they're gonna be in the newsletter. So you read the newsletter, you'll see 'em buddy. Uh, Spud is a great photographer. I worked with him for a lot of years in Alaska and I'll just kind of move through these at leisure, you know, while I talk.
Speaker 2 00:06:17 So we were fishing and my dad said, make sure you wash your hands really, really well. He said that if the smell of fish stays on your hands, a grizzly might come into the tent and get ya. So we were little, we were little. I mean, I was doing this. I was 4, 5, 6, 7 years old. We scrubbed religiously. We had soap. We would never know whether we did a good enough job. Night was always around the corner. And now I love in, in the wilderness. The night is the most beautiful time. I always stay up a little bit late. No light pollution. You see the stars really well, but I was always scared of it when I was a kid. We tried to go to sleep, but we would never know whether we did enough good enough job and a grizzly was gonna come and drag us out of our sleeping bags. Of course, that never happened, but dad put the fear of God in us and we always respected the possibility of a catastrophic event so that we knew what to do if it happened. Now after all this time on that little story, I think my dad was probably just trying to get a couple dirty little kids to clean up a little bit.
Speaker 2 00:07:20 But because of those lessons, my dad trusted me to go out on my own at a relatively young age. I was 14 years old when they sent me and my cousin without adults on a multi night backpacking trip in the Jewel Basin in Montana. Another beautiful area, northwest Montana. I wasn't even in high school yet. I think it was in eighth grade. Dad gave me his 44 magnum just in case he knew that I knew how to use it when and how to use it if necessary. Now, on that trip again, it went fine. We were prepared. So I could do all sorts of things about being prepared for catastrophic events and financial things. Now we're gonna stay on topic. This is about what I do. Something happens to me. What's the plan, right? We didn't use the 44 Magnum just ended up being another heavy thing.
Speaker 2 00:08:07 I had to carry my backpack. Now we could have done some target practice, but I couldn't really afford to pay my dad back for the shells. And I thought those were probably only free if I'd had to defend my life. Activities like that. From that point forward became more common. And that's the stuff that I enjoy doing to this day. My cousin and I came back alive. Our parents trusted us to do, to do it again. Teenage summers spent the same exact way. I did that all the time. Every spare moment when I wasn't working or lifting weights, spent climbing mountains in grizzly country just to go fishing. I used to see people hike into lakes and they would just take a couple pictures, turn around and go away. I'm like, what? What in the world is people doing? They're not, they're not even fishing.
Speaker 2 00:08:49 Why would you do that? High school days, girls and booze were strictly forbidden. The only thing be besides sports that could keep my attention was climbing and going after fish. Now, that worked pretty well for me because I got a lot of great <laugh>, uh, experiences outta sports and fishing. So I don't re I don't regret all that stuff. You know, the o the other two things, what I mean a whole lot of trouble could have. But I ended up getting, as everybody knows from episode 43, best annuity training possible on my days guiding of fishing trips in Montana and Alaska. That's part of the reason to do it because when I, at a young age, I was very capable of taking care of people, uh, out in the woods, right after a few years in Montana, um, I told the story before Alaska introduced me to a whole new experience with grizzly bears.
Speaker 2 00:09:38 Changed the photo, got a bear eating a salmon. So we were mostly fishing for trout. The trout eat salmon eggs, and when the salmon are spawning, the bears like to eat them. So we were in close proximity to bears almost every day. But when a bear has in Alaska has salmon to eat, like this one right here, he's got no interest in humans at all. A grizzly bear kind of roaming by at about five 10 feet away. Very unsettling at first, but you do get used to it. However, it's not something you gotta take for granted. You can because you can be assured of relative, relative safety. 99 times out of a hundred encounters when salmon aren't available, the bears can be more of a problem. And a so with cubs is always dangerous, but you still have to pay attention. I had close calls with bears in Alaska on either side of salmon season and it wasn't pleasant, but I survived experiences around them taught me about their behavior.
Speaker 2 00:10:41 So it was easier to avoid conflict. That helps now that I'm back in Montana because bears here are much more like the ones in Alaska when they don't have salmon to eat. The bears in Montana are hungry and are always looking for something they've got, they're a little more curious when they run into, you stumble upon 'em in the woods. I'm always looking for 'em. I'm always watching. You wanna make sure you're not the next thing on the menu. So one side story, when I was in Alaska, so before the bears can eat salmon, they cruise like the lake shores and the river banks looking for the fish. And so we were mostly in boats and so we'd see 'em from the boat and it was no big deal because we, you know, we could get away if we needed to. And there was a time I was walking up this little creek and it was kind of a dried up creek bed.
Speaker 2 00:11:23 It had probably 50 or 75 yards of gravel next to this small stream. I walked a few hundred yards away from my boat and I didn't have my shotgun. Never do that again. Right? And I saw on the other side of the stream there was an old river bank and a bear was on the bank kind of cruising, looking for stuff in this stream. Well, I think we saw him about the same time. I saw four salmon as all in this tiny little water. And the bear saw him too. So of course he jumped off the bank and he started coming towards me. Well, based on my experience, I thought I knew. I was like, oh, he's just gonna go get those salmon. No big deal. Before I go any further, lemme tell you, I was 80 or 90 miles from a lodge. I was in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 2 00:12:08 I had no human being within me for, or, or within 60 miles of me. I was all by myself. I sat there and think, wow, this bear's gonna go hammer those salmon. I'm gonna watch it. Well, he starts kind of jogging down to the be to the edge of the creek and he stands up on his four feet to see or his on his hind feet to see the salmon and his. Soon as he stands up, the salmon see him and they take off and they're gone. I'm like, oh, the salmon are gone. Well, he'll probably leave. He dropped down off his hind legs and started sprinting toward me. And I saw him and we locked eyes. He took about three steps to hit the water and he kept coming and he ran through the stream. Now, I'm gonna tell you, don't take my advice on this because what they tell you to do, don't run, uh, bullshit.
Speaker 2 00:13:01 You're gonna run. I ran, I was scared more than anything, any time in my life, all the way out there by myself. I had probably a hundred yards to go to get to any brush, any cover where I could defend myself or get out of it. I turned and took a few steps. I saw a big stick. I grabbed it and wheeled around as he was closing in on me. This hole happened at about four seconds and he skidded to a stop on the gravel in front of me, spray sprayed rocks on me. He was probably about five to seven feet away. I could smell his breath. I had the stick. And the only thing I think I could do was like, I'm gonna get one good swing at him before he takes me down. He stopped and looked at me, snapped his jaws a couple times, then he took a dump on the ground and walked away.
Speaker 2 00:13:50 Ha huh. That's what happens when bears are looking for food. Now a hunting guide that I know that I worked with said, well, he probably didn't know what you were, he thought you're like a moose calf. And then when he got close enough to really see they apparently don't have very good eyesight, right? Or if he smelled, you figured, nah, that's not what I want to get into. So I lucked out on that one. There's a cute bear. Looks like he wants a hug, but don't hug him. So in Montana, uh, some of those experiences kind of taught me how to deal with bears expected behavior. What you do to stay away from 'em, what happens if you run into 'em? I got a pretty good handle on it in Montana. It mostly comes into play during hunting season. Now you hear stories in Yellowstone or in glacier every year.
Speaker 2 00:14:34 Somebody uh, comes here. They always wanted to go come see Montana and they get bitten by a grizzly bear sometimes killed a lot of times just really hurt. And so they spend a few days in the, in the woods out here and this happens to 'em. I've spent thousands and thousands of days in grizzly country and it's never happened to me. So either I got really lucky or, or, or maybe I just know what I'm doing. I'm not sure. That's why, that's one of the reasons I have confidence in everything I do. When I say I get good at it, I'm saying, honestly, yeah, I'm pretty good at this. Right? I'm good at annuities. So in Montana, bears in some areas are conditioned to, uh, to the direction of gunshots. They'll move toward it. They hear a gunshot. They think, oh, dead deer, dead elk.
Speaker 2 00:15:16 Right? Happens a lot in, uh, you know, south of Yellowstone Park, high elk population, high grizzly population. There's a couple of places in Montana we've hunted where it happens. Yeah. But if some, some poor bastard is busy dressing an elk, when a grizzly with a sore tummy rumble or come coming by finds the kill site, two world's gonna collide. Either the person or the bear is going to die. And sometimes both will, if the person even gets scratched, then fish and game's gonna go find that bear and they're gonna kill it, right? Maybe the bear kills the guy and if the guy's lucky, no one encountered at all, or he gets a shot and kills the bear before that happens, that is not gonna happen to me. Cuz the experience I have with, and the respect I have for the grizzly bears and what they're capable of doing, you gotta keep your head on a swivel.
Speaker 2 00:16:05 So you gotta have a buddy to keep watch. Or better yet, I got mules. So I make sure if I'm in a sticky situation where it's potential for an encounter, I'll tie up my horses, I'll turn a couple mules loose and they'll just roam around while I'm doing what I gotta do. Uh, they will protect me. So in other words, I'm set up to deal with it no matter what. Uh, you got a buddy watching guard, it's like being in at war or something. So I've told the story before about taking Kerry Hector the retirement income journal on a back country trip several years ago. Uh, it was great. We experienced, uh, the high level financial conversation around that campfire was amazing. I wish I could have recorded it and released it. Uh, it would've been great information for everyone. Uh, but we experienced, you know, horses, meals, campfire grilling, and of course fly fishing in the wilderness piece of cake, right?
Speaker 2 00:16:58 Obviously it bears were a thought in his mind, but I kind of told them some of these stories. Wanted him to be comfortable with the fact that I knew now we're all capable of, uh, succumbing to an unpredictable situation. But in this, uh, in this case, I'm as comfortable, I think as, as as somebody could be, right? So I shared that with him. We did well, we had a great time on the way home. We stopped for burgers at a little dive bar. We had two trucks cuz we had enough horses. We need two trailers. One of them, there was a knocking sound in the engine and we were still a hundred miles from home. So after we got done eating our burgers, the questionable truck was a Chevy obviously. So it's my little, little little JT Chevy <laugh>. So Carrie rode home with me.
Speaker 2 00:17:39 So in addition to everything we did, traveling a bunch of miles in the woods, being in grizzly country fishing and having to meal plan and prep and cook on a campfire, I'm really, really good at that by the way, <laugh>, um, if you ever get a chance, my campfire cooking is amazing. So not to pat myself on the back, but I think I deserve it. So to that the pro possibility of a truck problem, right? Tire going out truck or trailer. And I think I said this some somewhere before, but Carrie just kind of shook his head and he said, and I'll never forget him saying, he said, you do a lot of stuff where things could go really wrong, <laugh>, yes I do, but I know how to deal with it because I've been doing it for so long. I've been doing things like that for 40 years now.
Speaker 2 00:18:22 Uh, I took my, my my friend and uh, his son on a ride last weekend and the kid's 14 and we had a great time. And there's two things I really told him. Number one, you're spoiled because we used to have to, you know, bust up here and carry Pax, you're sitting on a horse just enjoying the view. He agreed. But I was happy to do it and it was really, really fun to see a kid, uh, you know, back when I really had the fire for, I love it now, but I just, I I'm just as happy watching other people do it. The kid was catching fish in this beautiful lake. Uh, it was, uh, you know, it was stunning. But so there was that part. But then I also, when we're riding back, so it was about a two hour ride in and the two hour ride back out.
Speaker 2 00:19:04 So we're halfway in the ride back out. So three quarters of the way through the ride, everything was growing great. He was relaxed, he was having fun, was taking pictures with his phone. And I told him, Hey kid, I just want you to remind and keep this in mind. Like this trip is going pretty smoothly. You know, we got three, four miles left. We'll be done in an hour. So I can't guarantee it's gonna go smoothly, smoothly from here. I said, but you have to realize that once you bring, especially if you add, you know, five large animals to that mix, you have to be prepared. Uh, cuz things can go sideways in a hurry, I said. So don't ever just get comfortable and relaxed. You've gotta pay, be alert and pay attention. What are you gonna run into on a trail, right? Could be a grizzly bear, could be a herd of the herd of elk that startles the horses, right?
Speaker 2 00:19:50 So don't take for granted this a smooth, easy day. It's going to be harder at times and you have to be ready to deal with it. Maybe that's why I'm an annuity guy because I've been in some, some of these sketchy situations, right? But if something happens to be happens to me, my family's gonna be sad probably. And I'll really wish I would've cleaned my bathroom first. So I do that pretty regularly just in case <laugh>. Um, but you guys might have noticed other advisors who I've been bringing closer to the business in the past few years. And this is one of the major reasons why Oke Ram Ramji was the first. John Ballmer was the second one. I'm closest to John. We've done a lot of work together and all the guys from Midland National that I'm starting to introduce to other people around the country, I've been able to curate a business succession plan.
Speaker 2 00:20:39 It's not fully complete, but I have no, uh, all the confidence in the world that if something does happen to me, that everything's gonna be taken care of for you in the event of a tragedy. And I wanted to explain all the stories why I'm prepared for it. I've got the experience with it. It's a very, very, very unlikely event. Honest, sincere, like-minded people that I know would be happy to be of service to you. Provide what you deserve. And so you've got nothing, nothing to worry about. I'd say just wish me a good time. Don't worry about anything bad happening to me because I'm ready to take care of it. I may be get bit, get bitten by a grizzly bear, but it's not gonna be this weekend. All right guys, thanks so much for letting me share the stories with this. Uh, close it off last picture of the fish, uh, grizzly bear catch in a salmon in his mouth that Brooks falls Spuds a good photographer.
Speaker 2 00:21:26 These are not stock photos, seen nowhere else but on annuity straight talk.com so far as I know maybe he sold a couple. I don't know. Anyhow, but this has been episode, episode 94. Let me know what you think. Tell me about your adventures, what you enjoy doing, okay, that's part of retirement is enjoying life. So, uh, I can demonstrate financial knowledge, but I also demonstrate well, hey, yeah, I do know how to have a good time and that's kind of what it's all about. But I would, uh, invite you guys all to like, subscribe or comment on any of your favorite podcast website or podcast platforms or on youtube.com. Uh, just go su search annuity straight talk to see all the past episodes. You can give me a call at (800) 438-5121. I will be out of town for from probably July or June 30th through July 5th.
Speaker 2 00:22:15 So taking a little bit of a break. It's pretty dead around there. Everybody's doing, uh, summertime, 4th of July stuff. Uh, but if you wanna schedule a call and get on my calendar for the days when I am around or top right corner of any page on annuity, straight.talk.com, schedule a call button, click it, pick your time zone, write your name, phone number, email address, tell me what you wanna talk about, schedule it, you book me. And there I am. Thank you again for joining me. I'll be back next week for episode 95. Not sure it's gonna be as exciting, but it's gonna be good information. I look forward to seeing you again. Thank you again and have a great day. Okay, bye.
Speaker 1 00:23:02 You have been listening to Annuity Stray Talk. The proceeding information is for informational and educational purposes only and does not represent tax, legal or investment advice. The views expressed by guests on this program are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of annuity, straight talk or its partners. No information presented today should be acted upon without meeting with the qualified and licensed professional. It is important that you read all insurance contract disclosures carefully before making a purchase. Decision guarantees are based on the financial strength and claims paying ability of insurance company.
