The LoCo Experience

EXPERIENCE 232 | Growing a Dream, Serving Community and Continuing a Family Legacy - Reed Miller, Owner of Northern Colorado Insurance Agency

• Ava Munos • Season 5 • Episode 232

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In this episode of The LoCo Experience podcast, I sat down with Reed Miller, the owner of Northern Colorado Insurance Agency (NCIA) and a LoCo Think Tank member!  Reed shared insights on the changing landscape of insurance, detailing how NCIA serves multiple areas for health insurance, including employee benefits, Medicare, and individual plans. We also delved into the various options for group plans, the principles guiding his business, and the significant growth NCIA has experienced since he purchased the business 2+ years ago.

Reed spoke at length about his family legacy in business, starting with his grandfather's Coca-Cola distribution company and continuing with his father's agency’s inception and growth before partnering with a larger insurance brokerage - which grew to become the dominant regional player over time.  Reed's desire to strike out on his own was fueled by a commitment to transparency and ethical business practices, seeking to align his financial incentives with those of his clients. This focus extends to his personal life as well, where he balances business responsibilities with spending quality time with his wife Hannah and their two young boys.

Outside of work, Reed is actively involved in his community, notably serving as the President of Northern Colorado United for Youth, a volunteer organization that raises significant funds for local children’s charities - and has their annual Suitcase Party coming up on August 15th! Despite the various responsibilities, he manages to find time for travel and personal interests. Stories from his travels, including a memorable and somewhat nerve-wracking visit to Israel, highlight his adventurous spirit and commitment to both personal and professional growth.  So please join me in enjoying my conversation with Reed Miller.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Speaker:

Welcome back to the Local Experience Podcast. My guest today is Reed Miller and he is the owner of Northern Colorado Insurance Brokers. Uh, Northern Colorado. Insurance Agency. Insurance Agency, NCIA. So is it, is it a brokerage or is it an agency? It was both, frankly, I don't know the difference. Okay. Um, brokerage agency sounds nicer. Agency sounds a little more professional. Yeah. Like interchangeable. White collar.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Insurance broker, insurance advisor, consultant, salesperson. All synonyms

Speaker:

in ways And specializing in anything or specializing in everything.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Everything in the sense of health insurance. Okay. So health insurance being, uh, three primary business functions. Employee benefits for companies. Uh, work with, you know, two small, small companies, two employees up to a thousand. Okay. Uh, second component would be Medicare. Medicare has several layers within it. Uh, Medicare Advantage, Medicare supplement prescription drug plans. Mm-hmm. And then individual insurance generally applicable for people under age 65. Uh, usually don't have access to employer coverage. Yeah. Um, also self-employed, stuff like that. Correct, yep. Also don't have access to like Medicaid government programs and different things, Obamacare stuff or whatever. Yep. So all health insurance technically is Obamacare, but Yeah. You, you got the idea. Fair. Okay. And then there's two subsets of, in individual insurance, there's both on exchange and off exchange business. So

Speaker:

Okay. That's like the, like the normal, it fits everywhere. And then like kind of the less. How easy to place

Speaker 2:

the exchange has been. Interesting. The last few years, uh, you know, the, the a CA or Affordable Care Act regulation was passed under Obama. Uh, the primary thing that Trump did the first go around was he removed the penalty for not having insurance, which was generally seen as favorable. Uh, Biden, his primary contribution was, uh, expanding the definition of, of income or changing the determination for income, uh, increasing the threshold so higher earners could actually qualify for, for government assistance. Gotcha. To help offset premiums. Yep. And then, uh, those, those, that expansion has, uh, sunsets at the end of 2025 and, uh, Trump. Oh, so there's a big bunch of new stuff happening? Well, kind of, it, it's in a way just reverting back to the original rule. Gotcha. Before Biden. Yep.

Speaker:

Tinkered

Speaker 2:

with the big, beautiful Bill Trump, uh, just passed. Uh, there was two big things that, that were relevant to health insurance and, and more so benefits. Um. One is they, they allow for, uh, HSAs to now pay for direct primary care. Oh, yeah. And then that's what we use my wife and I and local does. Mm-hmm. Yep. And then telemedicine, uh, not disqualifying, uh, HSAs either. So, uh, really good additions, uh, for, for that subset. But, uh, yeah. Cool. I didn't expect to get into legal use in the first three minutes. Little,

Speaker:

you can't help but nerd out a little bit. Mm-hmm. You're kind of an insurance nerd. That's okay. So I can't remember, I know you purchased a business a couple years ago, two and a half years ago. Correct. Was it this name? Did you purchase the name and the assets

Speaker 2:

of the business? Uh, yeah. So, uh, correct. I only purchased the assets, uh, purchased the, as you know, the assets being the brand. Uh, there was a different legal entity. And then I have my, my legal entity, but Sure. Okay. It's DBA Northern Colorado Insurance Agency. Uh, prior to that I had worked at a large insurance brokerage and. Uh, just over time desired to have my own business. And yeah. Uh, the stars kind of aligned for that to happen. Uh, in, in, you know, may of 2023 is when I completed the purchase and Okay. So

Speaker:

just over two years now. Just

Speaker 2:

over two years, which

Speaker:

is great.

Speaker 2:

Congratulations. Yeah. And there's all this, you know, data and, and whatnot about being a small business owner and, and many don't make it two or three years and Yeah. Uh, for us to be growing, uh, significantly, uh, it's been a lot of fun. So

Speaker:

what's your, can I be curious how, how much change to the monthly revenue stream or the annualized revenue have you done since you got, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'm up about a hundred percent. So

Speaker:

you've doubled it in two years? Mm-hmm. Good job. Yeah. Well, and you weren't really, you bought mostly a, like a Medicare and supplements agency. Correct. But that wasn't really your expertise. Uh, yeah. In your prior employee, is that true statement? Correct. You were working more with complex employer packages and stuff, correct?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Previously, for 10 years I was an employee benefits broker, a producer, advisor, whatever, uh, we want to call it. And, uh, that was great. Learned a ton, uh, but didn't have any experience with Medicare. And so it was nice, uh, to get into a new line of business because there is a lot of overlap. Uh, you know, there, there's, it's not a unique story for it to be, uh, for there to be a small business owner. Maybe the owner, uh, maybe is 65 years old and medi Medicare eligible. Right. Uh, potentially has a spouse that wouldn't need to be considered. Um, let's just assume in this situation the spouse is under 65, which, you know, brings him, happens often. Yep. A different

Speaker:

Oh, right. Different deal. And he's no longer on the company plan, so she doesn't get it or something. Well,

Speaker 2:

yeah. So then the question is, is should I offer benefits and, and how do I buy my own insurance as the business owner? Mm-hmm. And, um. And being able to advise on all three things. You know, here's the pros and cons of moving to Medicare. Here's the pros and cons of an individual plan. Here's the pros and cons of a, you know, small business plan and the tax implications and everything. And how are we good stewards and manage, manage our business, you know, expense well. And all three things really need to be considered a lot of the time or. For maybe medium or, or larger businesses. It's not uncommon to have 65-year-old and older Sure. You know, members of your workforce and, you know, coming up with strategies for them. And, and then again, like when Biden expanded the, the subsidies for, for individuals and increased the income thresholds, uh, that there was a lot of companies that actually canceled their, their group plan moved people to individual plans. Oh, interesting. But then individuals got, you know, 50, 60, 80, 90, a hundred percent subsidized plans. Oh, interesting.

Speaker:

Um, and so all that, it's fascinating that an individual subsidized plan could be cheaper than a group plan. Yeah. Yeah. And there's just

Speaker 2:

so much pros and cons Yeah. For the different strategies. And so, you know, and one of the reasons that led me to be to being independent is wanting to be able to offer all three strategies, uh, to truly be a, an independent, unbiased advisor for my customers. And. Uh, so far so good. Yeah, it's been,

Speaker 3:

been tremendous. So what's your, do you have a helper at all yet, or what? Just, just me for now. Just you. Okay.

Speaker 2:

Yep. I, I definitely have leveraged technology and, and, uh, automations, systems, processes and whatnot, automated workflows, uh, to be more efficient. Okay. You know, our industry, you move that back a little bit, that's fine. Yeah. Our industry definitely has, uh, some, some nuance and paperwork with it, but, uh, you know, we make our money with that face-to-face interaction, and, and that's still important. And so, uh, I would prefer to spend most of my, my time as most valuable with people. Yep. Uh, but I'm, I am approaching, or I'm, I'm frankly, I'm at the time when I'm, you're boiling over almost Yeah. Strongly considering, um, how to hire a person. I, I, you know, technology can only take you so far and what they should do. Um, precisely. Do you have a

Speaker:

vision for building a, a larger team, or do you wanna be just a, a really stable solo return? Mostly, maybe with a really good helper.

Speaker 2:

I, I think we could do a really, really good job for our clients. Um, you know, be, maintain strong profitability with a small team, two or three people, including myself. Mm-hmm. So maybe four, like one

Speaker:

more producer. Mm-hmm. Maybe two more producers, but then one kind of support person for that team. Correct.

Speaker 2:

And, you know, there, there's, there's different levels, you know, that, that you can pay as much money as you, as you're willing to For sure. For staff and, um, you know, the expertise component. You know, we can teach that. The, the thing that will cause me to be slow to hire is finding the right person that I'm gonna, you know, work intimately with. Mm-hmm. And make sure that we can be aligned in, in our, in our values and, and ethics and everything because, um, ultimately we have to prioritize and always put the needs of our clients first. Especially when we get into a sales, you know, function. I, I just, every incentive is always gonna be aligned with the, with the customer. Yeah. Um, you know, the, the industry, there's, there's a lot of funny business that can happen and. Um, you know, can we talk about some of it?

Speaker:

Like what do you mean funny business? Mm-hmm. Like selling them the wrong Medicare plan because mm-hmm. They are willing to pay for it and you make more money selling that one or what? Correct.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, and I mean, that's true for any of the lines of coverage. You know, there's different commissions for different products and sometimes we have control over what those prices are. Sometimes we don't.

Speaker:

Okay. There's like a base price and if you mark it up, you get most of that markup kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

Uh, potentially, uh, there's different tiers based upon volume. There's overrides, there's, there's bonuses. Um, I think specific to Medicare, I think a lot of. Independent Medicare brokers advise customers to sign up for Medicare Advantage because they generally, we, we would make more money, um, in that first year with a Medicare Advantage program compared to the alternative would be original Medicare with a supplement and prescription plan. Um, obviously the there I'm speaking in generalities. Yeah. Not necessarily

Speaker:

for some people that is the right choice. Absolutely. But the easy button maybe tends to be Medicare Advantage'cause it covers extra and you make a little more and it doesn't even cover extra, it doesn't cut.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And that's the misnomer is oftentimes Medicare Advantage is at$0 premium, so it doesn't cost people per month. Um, and so they think, oh, it's free. And we're actually explicitly disallowed from saying the word free. Yeah. We have to say zero premium. Uh, but then they start going to the doctor and the bills start rolling in and they're like, well. I, I thought this was gonna be the same, and it's not. And so again, the financial incentive for an advisor is Medicare Advantage. We make more money on that, on that rail. Yeah. Yeah. Um, consequently, the, the book I purchased and, and the way I continue to advise Medicare members is, uh, generally we, we advise Medicare, original Medicare with a Medicare supplement and a prescription plan, um, at least for the first five or 10 years of, of someone's,

Speaker:

if they're in good health eligibility,

Speaker 2:

that kind of thing.

Speaker:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

Uh, there can be a time for Medicare Advantage, certainly. Uh, and it's when, uh, health deteriorates, you're no no longer able to pass Medicare underwriting for a new Medicare supplement policy. Mm-hmm. Um, and at which point, maybe you're 75, 80 years old, you're not traveling as much, you don't, you're not as worried about access to care, you know, in, in across the country. Mm-hmm. Um, where now you're, you're more okay accepting the smaller networks and smaller access and different things. But, um, I, I have. You know, plenty of Medicare Advantage customers. The majority of our Medicare customers are on a supplement policy. Um,

Speaker:

well, and it all kind of sounds, sounds to me like it's relationship driven. You have to know your customers, know their lifestyle enough, know even their health condition a little bit. Do you get That's right. Like, do you get under the hood with their health or do they to you or do they fill out paperwork that they put in or like Yeah. How's that, what's that health privacy level with this work?

Speaker 2:

So, you know, you get into HIPAA laws, so that's the health law that restricts my access or, or my, uh, it dictates the security protocols I have to take with. Any information you gather. Yeah, PHI, personal health information, PII, personal identifiable information, and, um, so all of our files and systems and whatnot, they have to be encrypted to a certain level and, and whatnot. But yeah, we we're very intimate with our, our customers, um, really all of them, because we need to understand whether it's an individual Medicare, an individual under age 65, a, you know, a corporate client, a, a person, or a company's claims data. Um, the, the thing that they're gonna use their health insurance for is paramount to how we advise people on, on which policies to buy, how to structure the plans. And so, like, for example, Medicare, uh, part of the enrollment process is gonna be getting a list of your, your doctors and a list of your prescriptions that naturally bleeds into, well, what health conditions do you have? And, and, uh, sometimes when, when appropriate, uh, we have to ask just direct medical questions. You know, do you have this, do you have that? When we get into like, corporate, isn't

Speaker:

Medicare. You, you just get it anyway. Or, but not the supplements or certain things.

Speaker 2:

Yep. So there, there's different components. Okay. So Medicare generally has four parts. Medicare, part A, part B, part C, and part D. Uh, traditional Medicare or original Medicare is Medicare part A and B through the government. Uh, when you turn 65 or become Medicare eligible, you get part A at no cost. Uh, part B does have an additional monthly premium. That's all through the government. Okay. If you participate in those programs, uh, that's original Medicare, then you would be strongly encouraged to get a Medicare supplement. That would be an addition and a prescription drug plan. Those four things together would be full coverage. Uh, if you choose the Medicare Advantage route, you're actually disenrolling from original Medicare and you're signing up with the private insurance program. I see. That's Medicare. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Qual Medicare Advantage. Okay. You know, qualified. Um, and all of them have different rules. Generally, Medicare Advantage doesn't. Well, it, it doesn't have medical underwriting. You just are restricted through, uh, signup periods, open enrollment period. Gotcha. You have initial initial eligibility period. You have your annual eligibility period, um, and whatnot compared to the Medicare supplements for the underwriting. This is really sexy

Speaker:

talk, huh? Yeah. This insurance stuff. We, we've

Speaker 2:

lost all the list. All the listeners. Boring.

Speaker:

Um, maybe we should take some shots, uh, get things live up a little bit. You gotta drive from here though, so we're not gonna get too crazy. Yeah. Um, so talk to me about like health company health plans. Mm-hmm. A little bit like. What are the big factors changing? I, I hear a lot of horror stories of, you know, up 25 percents and stuff. Yeah. Some of the most recent years and things. Um, and then there's kinda like be your own group and stuff like that. Yeah. Is a trend. I, I, I don't know. I I, I haven't paid attention to it much over the last five years or more and I, I know I, all I know is changed.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. You know, more than, than, you may not use quite the right words, but you know more than, than you lead on, I think. But a group insurance is complicated. Like everything, you know, there, there's nuance. That's partly why our industry exists. Uh, and it, it oftentimes, uh, matters how many employees there are. Yeah. You know, there, there's kind of three different. Types of, or, or strategies to buy insurance? Uh, there's fully insured, there's partially self-funded, and then there's, you know, completely self-funded. Mm-hmm. Oftentimes, I'll say fully self-insured, which is a bit of a Right. You know, confusing term. But, you know, if you're, if you have less than 10 employees, you're probably gonna be in a fully insured arrangement. Right. That's gonna absolutely be the most expensive, uh, bucket to be in, uh, smaller groups under 10. You know, we would look at fully insured options. We'd also look at, uh, some sort of co-op arrangements or like PEO arrangements that can sometimes give you some group buying power. Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

And save some money. But otherwise, with a group of under 10, if somebody gets a$2 million cancer treatment. It, you couldn't be self-insured, it would just wreck the whole lot.

Speaker 2:

Correct. And, and it, it just gets into pooling risk. Right. You know, that's what insurance is. Right. Right. And so we need, there's not a big enough pool. Exactly. Now, some of that happens at the, the insurance company level. Um, but the next bucket, you know, roughly from 10 or 20 employees up to maybe 50 to a hundred, that's gonna be that middle section where you're partially self-funded, you know, other, other languages, level funded plans. Uh, this is now starting to actually underwrite the group based upon their actual risk profile.

Speaker 4:

Hmm.

Speaker 2:

Uh, that superfund, uh, interesting for me because it starts to expose, uh, what the actual problems are, the problems being, what are the claims cost, what are the employees spending the money on? What, what medical conditions are there. Mm-hmm. Um, and then when we get into the larger section, you know, 50 and up, a hundred and up, uh, depending on structures and whatnot, if we structure it correctly. And, and, um, most aggressively is kind of what you're alluding to, where we essentially are, are rebuilding insurance companies and allowing the, the company, you know, my client to have their own plan where they're, they have the ultimate authority, they're 100 people or something. Mm-hmm. Is

Speaker:

kind of the claims history of that drives the pool.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker:

And so now we, there's probably some kind of a super high risk thing or something like that, or, yeah. And that sometimes

Speaker 2:

that, that gets into this idea of stop loss or reinsurance. Reinsurance. Yep, yep, yep. If you're large enough, you can actually drop your reinsurance'cause you have statistical certainty on what claims are gonna come in. And, and you can fund appropriately. Yeah. And you have enough premium.

Speaker:

What I love about that is too, that if a company gets after it and starts giving everybody gym memberships or having, you know, healthy. Living habits coaching or, or whatever. Even a mental health counselor on site once in a while might be one of those things that reduces the overall spend through the traditional insurance

Speaker 2:

system. Yeah. And what they say is an ounce of prevention's worth a pound of cure. Yeah. The best way to survive cancer is to not get cancer. Right. And so when, when the company has this, you know, complete visibility into their claims, they're benefiting directly, they're retaining the savings from all of those avoided, avoided visits down the road. You know, if, if someone. You know, start, which

Speaker:

actually is an incentive to,'cause a lot of times people think we have a, a sick care system instead of a healthcare system in America. Mm-hmm. Just because of the incentives. But at least in this capacity, there's an incentive for a company with a group of employees That's right. To try to get them healthier. Yep.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So if we can get a guy, you know, he's 300 pounds. If we can get him to lose a hundred pounds and eat apples and, and change his diet, I'll give you free apples, babe. Exactly. But if, if we avoid a heart attack, I mean, that's a hundred thousand dollars claim. Right? Easily. That, that now the company in these, these strategies, they're retaining the savings. So maybe they're spending a, you know, a few thousand dollars extra per year on, on their, you know, health and wellness programs, but truly crafting a wellness strategy. Um, I mean, it can. Pay itself dividends. The, these insurance companies are very, very profitable organizations. Yeah. And like when Obamacare got passed or the Affordable Care Act, a lot of people thought, oh, this is kind of the beginning of the end when all it's done is made these institutions made a bunch more customers for'em. Exactly. More valuable. And you've seen it in the stock prices and, um, the, you know, the, the health insurance industry is not gonna change, uh, dramatically. You know, people talk about single payer and different things one way or another. You know, Anthem United Healthcare. You know, Cigna, Aetna, Humana, you know, these are, these are large, huge companies. Um, they have deep, deep, they're gonna have a seat at the table. Exactly. They have deep, deep pockets. They're funding the lobby groups. They're paying, you know, they're, they're influencing elections. They, they have the, the politicians in their pockets, they can't influence

Speaker:

Trump. Well, yeah, they're, yeah. Right. I just tasing. Yeah, not sure. They're probably the creators of the Epstein list right there. Wow. Yeah. You never know.

Speaker 2:

We will get crazy on this, this show. Oh, yeah.

Speaker:

We can talk about anything That's, I said, I can't really tell you what I'm gonna ask. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But it, it's fascinating. But it now's it's more important than ever as costs continue to rise up, there are solutions. You know, we've talked a little bit about preventive care. Uh, some other strategies I'm seeing with, with customers is carving out their pharmacy benefit plan. So now, instead of using these large integrated. Pharmacy benefit programs are, they're called PBMs, pharmacy Benefit Managers. Instead of using the integrated one with any of the big carriers, we carve it out. Well now we're, we're getting passed through pricing. We're seeing transparent pricing. Um, we're also contractually allowed to, to do mitigation strategies. So whether that's international sourcing for, for drugs, you know, we can get drugs outta Canada mm-hmm. Or the Cayman Islands. Um, there's even been times when employees have gone down to, uh, different countries, gone down to Mexico, Cayman Islands, whatever, had a full, you know, week long vacation just to go pick up their drug and, and the company can pay for it. Right. You know? Well, and I was just

Speaker:

thinking about, we talked about, uh, direct care practitioners. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

Direct Primary care. Yeah. Direct

Speaker:

primary care, you know, a lot of those kind of offices, a hundred bucks a month or something like that to be a, a client and having somebody actually kind of engaged in conversation with you for more than 30 minutes a year can probably help a lot of people be more healthier.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And that, that, that's another fundamental strategy. Again, we want. People to access primary care. We want them to go in for, at a minimum, their annual checkup. Right. Uh, but to your point, your health is not just a one once a year deal. Right. You know, you need to have regular check-ins. Well, many people don't go to the doctor even for their annual checkup. So, you know, preventive care is covered a hundred percent under Obamacare. That that should reduce the, the, you know, the barrier for people to get care. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Right. People and people are just lazy and mm-hmm. Patterns. You know, if I ignore it, it'll go away. And then oftentimes you go in for that insurance appointment, you know, you, you go in, you sit in the, the waiting room for t 20, 30, 40 minutes, you talk to the nurse practitioner for, you know, do your height and weight and do the simple like intake form. Mm-hmm. And then you actually talk to the doctor for five minutes. They say, well, is anything wrong? You say No, and then they're off the next appointment. Totally. And that's what they have to do in order to be profitable. Right. Under the current insurance model. So you pivot and now you, you get into these ideals, these direct contracts, you know, with largely primary care, a big company

Speaker:

you could even bring a few doctors in and just have'em there. Yep. Site

Speaker 2:

clinics. Yep. Yeah.

Speaker:

And

Speaker 2:

that's not, I mean, Northern Colorado here specifically, and even most of Colorado, most of our employers aren't that big. Yeah. You know, most of our employers are 20 to 50, you know, employees. Right. That that's not taken. It's so of

Speaker:

those bigger ones, there might be more infrastructure for that kind of mechanism, but, well, with my experience with having the direct. Uh, primary care is they're like, oh, you know, let's talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Okay. We're gonna do some blood work. Yep. Uh, and then we're gonna get that result. And depending on what we see, we might supplement you and then have you come back and do some blood work again in eight weeks. Yep. You know, and it's just so. Focused instead of brief.

Speaker 2:

Yep. Well, and instead of having a 10, you know, 5, 10, 15 minute appointment, you, you're gonna have an hour appointment. Yeah. Oftentimes. And these direct primary care doctors, it's really fascinating because the, these family docs, they, they have tremendous knowledge and, and training and. Um, they've gone through years and years and years of schooling to be where they're at. They can do so much more than just, you know, tap your knee for, for, you know, reflexes. And so what it actually does is it allows you to spend money at the cheapest part of the healthcare system. Mm-hmm. Invest the money there. And now you, you don't even have to go see a cardiologist. Uh. I kind of have talked about financial incentives a little bit, but, uh, similar to like the retirement question, when someone asks, uh, or when someone is concerned about how am I gonna retire? How am I gonna pay my bills in retirement? Well, if you talk to a financial advisor, they might say, oh, well, you know, we're gonna do a dollar cost averaging strategy and do a Roth IRA. Well, if you talk to a real estate broker, they're gonna say, well, you need to buy rental property. Sure. Um, and so you can, and you know, and if

Speaker:

you talk to a doctor at a hospital, they're be like, let's just be sure about this. And have you see the cardiologist Exactly. Have a few tests. And so, so that's the thing is, is have

Speaker 2:

a few$3,000 tests. The, the same applies for our healthcare. If we go straight to the, the cardiologist, they're gonna look for a heart problem. Well, if you started at primary care, they may say, no, you, you know, yeah. You're having kind of heart pain. Most likely you have, you know, acid reflux indigestion, and, and they might. You know, prescribe you Tums, right? Instead of spending thousands of dollars on, on heart problems. Now obviously if the, if you know you have a major condition, go get the care you need and whatnot. But primary care is kind of that quarterback that can kind of see the whole, whole scope instead of, uh, going too far down one, I've enjoyed it so

Speaker:

far, you know, but I'm kind of a rebel mm-hmm. Against insurancey things and stuff. Yeah. In general.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I, well, you get into financial incentives and under the insurance model, the way doctors make money is by filing claims. The more claims they file, the more right, the more money they make. With direct primary care, it flips it and it changes the financial incentive where the doctor's gonna get their a hundred dollars a month regardless. Right. Whether they see you every day, or whether they see you once, you know, once a quarter. Right. So now their incentive is actually to keep you well, so that you're not showing up. So if they, if you're showing, showing up once a month,

Speaker:

they're like, Hey, let's fix some of this crap. That's right.

Speaker 2:

Um, and so it's just that that's kind of the theme in, in getting back to wanting to start my own agency is, uh, I needed every financial incentive to be aligned, uh, for my, my customers.

Speaker:

So how do you do that? And, and, and let's talk about kind of the values and like, have you defined those for yourself, even though it's just you so far? Um, and is that something you have to do before you really hire that next person?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Like mission, vision, values type thing. Yeah.

Speaker:

Kinda that stuff. And you know, obviously when it's just you, you're like, it's all kind of here. I'm living it, you know. But

Speaker 2:

yeah. Articulating that, uh, it's actually something I've been working on. Um, I don't have anything I can share at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I have this like perfectionist, um, problem where I consistently have to tell myself progress over perfection. Just make, make, make the step because I could fidget on, you know, four keywords that I perfectly identify with for the next 40 years. Fair. And so part of me wants to have the NCIA kind of acronym spelled out. Uh, you know, there, there's, there's words. I also hate cliches, you know, like care. Everyone says character, right. Integrity. Um, I, I'm, I'm, I desire integrity. Would, uniqueness would take the, I it could, I have different ideas, so, okay. I'm not gonna say anything into the mic. Well, let's talk about to it, but about the,

Speaker:

the incentives alignment. Like you said, you wanted to have your incentives aligned to the benefit of your customers. Yep. And how do, how do you do that differently maybe?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So to your point right now, my personal ethic is my business ethic. It, it's the same. And I will always do what's in the best interest of the customer. Um, our industry gives massive financial incentives for performance and, and it's kind of the opposite of what I'm saying. The insurance company is trying to align the financial incentives for me to sell us their product. Yeah, well, whether that's Humana or somebody else's thing

Speaker:

or whatever. You, to focus it on what?

Speaker 2:

Correct. And, and they generally have both new business requirements as well as, as, you know, current business or

Speaker 4:

mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

Or, you know, they call'em block bonuses or persistency bonuses, so you gotta make

Speaker:

more the more. Loyal you are to these various folks.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker:

Whether or not

Speaker 2:

it's the right fit for your customers. And so, for example, you could have a really good proposal from an a competing insurance company that if you move a customer from insurance company A, the insurance company B, it could sacrifice those persistency bonuses or Right. You could be right on the threshold of qualifying for, for a dollar bonus or a trip trip

Speaker:

Disney little world.

Speaker 2:

But if that's not, if that proposal's not in the best interest of the customer, you know, now you're getting into the, the misalignment. Yeah. And so, um, part of me desires to only accept direct pay from my customers in practice. That's very, very difficult, especially at a small agency like I am. Mm. Mm-hmm. I don't have the volume to. To dictate to the insurance company Yeah. What the terms gonna be. Right. And so again, my preference would be for a customer to just pay me direct. And, and gen, I should preface this by saying this is, this is related to employee benefit compensation, uh, individual and Medicare, a lot of that is just cookie cutter. Right? Right. Um, and it's generally the same. It's

Speaker:

more production work on the Medicare side especially, you gotta know your shit, but it's

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker:

Here's the options. Yeah. But on

Speaker 2:

employee benefits, I would prefer the customer to pay me directly. Hmm. Um, so they pay me per month and then they know that I don't have any other, you know, actors in the rooming influencing us. Yeah. Um, but again, I, oh, and then whether have customers, whoever you're placing it with, I just reduce the commission to zero. So I get nothing. I, again, in my perfect scenario, I would get nothing from the insurance company. Interesting. And I'd actually be paid by my client directly. Now Uhhuh, um, you know, you use the example of like a lawyer, I would never allow my. My legal opposition to pay for my attorney.

Speaker 4:

Right, right. But that's effectively

Speaker 2:

what's happening when I allow the insurance company to pay, or, or I should say it this way, my client allows the insurance company to pay me for their service. Right. It's, it's, it's a financial misalignment. And so, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I can't entirely get out of the system, you know, part of it's just baked into to the industry. Yep. Um, but, but it's fascinating where, you know, you start asking this question, what are the financial incentives for any part of your life, whether it's banking or healthcare, or insurance or, or, you know, your youth sports or it's just the financial alignment generally drives the outcomes.

Speaker:

So you're really, uh, kind of trying to operate the advisory Correct. Element is really the heart of your, of your personal ethic, if you will, and mm-hmm. However you're making your money, what you're paying me for is my learning about your situation and my advisory around what you should do, given your situation. Correct. And, and the market dynamics. Yep. Right? And, and what's available, what are the options? All

Speaker 2:

that. And even if I can't control my compensation for, let's just say we're in a situation like a Medicare customer. Sure. I have no authority over that. Um, at a minimum I must disclose to the customer saying, Hey, just so you know, like, you know, this is why I recommend this. This is why I recommend that at some point during the conversation. Um, it, it should be disclosed. I will make X dollars for this arrangement. Yeah. I don't make X dollars for that arrangement. And then it's like, okay, wow. You're actually advocating for the, the option where you'll make less money. Yeah. Or, oh, okay, I see. Um, you'll actually make more money this way, but here's why it's justified and here here's the substantiation for it. But, um, oftentimes compensation's never discussed. And, and that's what kind of gives our industry a bad rap. And, um, yeah.

Speaker:

It's interesting. One of the, I was just reflecting on the, the three thumbs up at Loco. Okay. Or you probably, you're familiar, but it's been a while. How long have you been a member at Loco?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Joined, uh, I don't know exactly when. I think around the first part of 2024. Um, I know summer last year I did my first presentation, and then I have my second presentation, uh, in August. Okay. All right. Uh, with my chapter, uh, great. I mean, I'll just give you your organization a little plug, but, uh, being self-employed, having no staff, it's vital for me to be in community with other, other people, and especially people that are like-minded in the sense they're, you know, other small business owners, uh, similar revenue, similar employee counts, you know, some of the, the members within our group have, uh, one or two employees, but generally they're independent practitioners. And, um, us getting together once a month is just tremendously valuable. One, for, for just the, the human comradery element. Sure. But then also there's some very smart business people that have for sure, uh, given me a lot of good insight and, uh, well, and

Speaker:

you're one of'em too. Like even before you were in business for yourself, it was obvious that you. We're cut from the right kind of cloth to be a local member someday. Thanks. Um, but anyway, the third thumbs up, uh, is really because of that same inherent conflict of interest, you know, with with local think tank. You know, if you join local think tank, I will make more money. Yeah. You know, I have a little bit more revenue on every new customer that joins. And, and the same thing for the facilitator. You know, they're, they're a contractor and they get paid based on how many members they have as well. So both of us have, well, we might wanna do the right thing. We also have an inherent conflict of interest. I might look at you through rose colored glasses because Yeah. Um, we're gonna make more money. So, well, Moses, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

But, um, giving the chapter that third thumbs up, so basically a, a veto from anybody that's already a member Yeah. Is what kind of purifies that notion of, hey, if this person would add value to the chapter, you could have him. Yeah. We think he would. We think, we think, but we've also recognized that we've got a conflict here, and so that's why we're giving you the last vote. So I didn't know that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Um, that's, that's good to know. Um, I know we're considering another member here, uh, soon for our chapter, but, um, it, it, it's powerful and I just think transparency is so important and, and, um, I dunno, that's how you build trust, you know? Yeah. People wanna say integrity, authenticity. Well, I think we all have integrity. It's, you know, we are who we are. Integrity, you know, integer, whole number, wholeness. Um, you know, it's, it's impossible for someone to be incongruent with themselves. You know, if they're, if they're gonna cheat at, at, you know, the ping pong tournament or whatever, they're probably more willing to cheat in other areas of their life too. Yeah. Interesting. Um, and so it's just, I mean, we, we have to hold ourselves to high standards and. Um, I had another comment about the group, but it's, I'm sorry, I derailed you. Yeah. It's escaping me. But who's

Speaker:

your favorite, uh, fellow member of that group so far?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Favorite's a bad word.

Speaker:

Um, it, it just, somebody whose business seems similar to yours that you've learned a lot from or with,

Speaker 2:

uh, I actually learned more from non-insurance folks. Uh, I mean, we do have another insurance person in the group and, and she's tremendous. But, uh, I just think that our industry seems to be so antiquated. Even when I started, I'm, I'm only 35 years old. I started in, uh, 2012. Wow. And our industry still. I mean, not so much today, but, but 10, 12, whatever it was years ago, 13 years ago, we were still sending faxes. Like I literally was in the copy room and, uh, the, the copy machine had this word on it and it was facsimile. And I just completely, you know, honestly asked one of the, the ladies there, I was like, what in the heck is this word? This, I didn't even know how to say it. Right. And they're like, oh, it's, that's just means facts. Facts. I'm like, oh, I like never even had heard the word facts similar. And it's not like I'm a, and people too young, 22

Speaker:

year olds today are like, oh, what's a fax? I don't have

Speaker 2:

a fax number. Yeah, I don't. And, and if a insurance company requires me to fax them something. It's a pretty clear indicator that I, I'm not gonna continue to work with them. Right. Um, it's just not, not part of our, our day-to-day business. So, um, has there

Speaker:

been anything specific to your, your systems or process, um, that was either gleaned or reaffirmed from a chapter meeting along the way that comes to mind?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so again, our, our industry's somewhat antiquated, um, right. You know, even like building Yeah. Like sales CRMs or client, you know, databases, management systems, whatever you wanna call'em. Uh, they're not commonplace on our industry and even within our industry, you know, that cut these big brokerages might use Salesforce, but getting the, the agents and the the employees to actually use them, take any notes or anything is tough. And so that's one thing that I've now been challenged by, by the other members, as in. As well as effectively implemented. And the reason I've been able to, to make it this far with no support staff is, is the technology and the systems and the automations that are built in, um, to, to what else you've got

Speaker:

reminders that, Hey, it's time to send this person or let's get together. Not even,

Speaker 2:

I sometimes, I certainly have reminders and, and based upon like renewal intervals and whatnot, but some of it, it'll automatically send emails and signups and different things. Hey, yeah.

Speaker:

Time for our check-in meeting again, and, and you just allows, booked, allows

Speaker 2:

the customers to input all the data. Like I, I, I need the prescription and providers and nice, uh, different signed forms. Um, most of that will or can happen annually, um, without me doing anything. Wow. Oh, that's super

Speaker:

cool. Which is, which is great. And then well, and that would like AI as a whole. Well, and that would be great if you add, as you add team members in the future too.'cause they're like. Oh, I can carry X number of customers now. Exactly. Because my systems are so much better and therefore I can, you know, make more money by working less hard potentially. Exactly. Or whatever. But even, even the entry level people or have time for kids,

Speaker 2:

nobody likes being just a robot. Computers should do computer work and humans should do human work. Yes. Um, I want the humans that I have, I want them to be either in person or on the phone with the customers or the pro prospective customers as much as possible. You know, we will automate the, the tedious stuff. And, um, but even getting into ai, like that's an ethical question I have is how do I effectively leverage ai? You know, I, I think we all can, can see the, the benefit to our companies and society through AI and just the massive access to information, um, that exists. Uh, but we also, I think it's pretty easy to see some

Speaker:

of the. There's already some data, like, uh, you know, people that use AI for everything. Mm-hmm. Forget how to think. Yep. Pretty soon. You know,

Speaker 2:

and so then, you know, there's getting into like, like the, the audible ai, you know Right. Phone bots and different things like that, right? Mm-hmm. And so, you know, how do I leverage it? I, I'm, I'm, I'm doing work with ai. I won't get too far into the details on it, but just as a business owner, if I can pay an AI agent 500 bucks a month, you know, maybe a$10,000 investment, then a$500 per month fee, right?

Speaker:

You can't

Speaker 2:

hire somebody for that.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And, and it's very good at data. Um, it's even good at like interpersonal, like, like emotional response and then whatnot, which is getting kind of wild, but

Speaker 5:

interesting.

Speaker 2:

Um, but then what. What is my responsibility to my customers? And we've all probably also been frustrated interacting with some, even if it's the simple, rudimentary like telephone tree. Sure. Press one for this, two for that. But even talking to like an an, an adjunctive ai, uh, it can be frustrating if, if they kind of get held up now it's rapidly progressing where that's becoming less of an issue. And I'm sure we've had phone calls with like AI agents, you probably get a lot of phone calls.

Speaker:

Right? Is that a big

Speaker 2:

part of how people contact you? Uh, each business segment's different. The individuals, uh, tend to call, especially the Medicare customers are older. Yep. You know, some of them don't even have emails, which is always mind blowing. Um, but the, the corporate customers is largely email. Sure. Um, and then in person mm-hmm. Send

Speaker:

proposal or whatever, that kind of stuff. Interesting. I was just thinking that you could have almost a telephone tree. Where it's like, you know, to connect with mm-hmm. One of our agents press one for an easy walkthrough AI agent. Yeah. Press two. You know,'cause people might self-select even the efficient AI agent. Yeah. Or many cases. That's probably option one. Well,

Speaker 2:

the younger generation will. Right. And that's where I want to serve people, where they want to be served. And so, right. If that's a in-person meeting for, you know, one person and a email for another person in a phone call for a third person, you know, I wanna meet people where they're at. Yeah. While being efficient. You, I think

Speaker:

you should get a, a, like a ai like of you an avatar. Yeah. An avatar that looks like read, but maybe just a little more accentuated features and stuff.

Speaker 2:

My, uh, friends, I don't know who listens to this, but, uh, many friends would probably laugh because many of my profile pictures on, whether it's social media or like email, little logos, uh, is a little like, animated, uh, picture is myself. Is that it's not, it's not, it's not, I shouldn't say gra animated. It's a, uh, like a cartoon, A cartoon up kinda character shirt deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I did that because I was like, oh, I don't want my face everywhere. And, you know, then they'll steal my face and do deep fakes. And then I, you know, have since kind of realized like, there's so many pictures of us all out there anyways, like Right. We're all compromised. Um, I've got

Speaker:

it right in my podcast. Uh, stickers. Yep. My face right on there. Yep. So, um, what was I gonna ask? I remember, and then I spaced it. That's why I should have my notebook, which I left at home for the audience disclaimer. Um, oh. But yeah, I think, you know, having a, uh, a, a, a personality, a Reed, Reed Junior, you could just call them mm-hmm. Kind of, and uh. It's another for Zoom meetings and stuff. Right.

Speaker 2:

It's another thing I'm considering you say Reed Junior. Uh, I, I would love to train, you know, a a young person in their career and, and help them be, you know, wildly successful. Whether it's a, an intern arrangement from, from one of the universities, whether it's CSU or UNC or uh, or if it's someone, you know, new in their career, uh, I would love to develop kind of that person. Uh mm-hmm. You know, I don't know what my exit plan is. You know that some of the business, you're only

Speaker:

35,

Speaker 2:

by the way. I can't believe

Speaker:

you're only 35. Yeah. Uh, so what, we must have met like 2015 or something. Yeah. When you had long hair. Oh, so it was even soon. I was still banking when we met. Mm-hmm. So that would've been like, yeah. 2013 or something like that. Yeah. It, you were,

Speaker 2:

I, I don't remember the details, but you're one of the first like professional people I remember connecting with. Is that right?

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker:

Um, damn, you were, you made a good impression for a young man at that time. I can't believe you were only like 22 at the time or something. Yeah. Thank, thank you. I, your primary characteristic was, I barely matured was your long hair. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. I, I am losing hair on one side, which I'm just one side. Again, my perfectionism would prefer my loss of hair to be symmetrical. Right. If I'm gonna lose hair,

Speaker:

at least be, uh, even, but whatever. Interesting. So yeah, that was, we're all human. That was during the season when I was the interim president probably of Capital West Bank. Yeah. And, uh, I had just joined the Rotary Club and they had. Um, they had had a Locks of Love program not too many months before. Yeah. And I was already pretty shaggy, but there was like five or so fellow Rotarians that were growing their hair out to try to donate it to Locks of Love, including Charlie Peterson, one of my favorites ever. And so, yeah, I basically was on a haircut strike until they found me a new boss. Yeah. Uh, and

Speaker 2:

then you quit slash Yeah, I left not too long later. Yeah,

Speaker:

exactly. Uh, was he gonna

Speaker 2:

say got fired, but I don't think you got fired.

Speaker:

Um, I was put on probation for meeting with, uh, real estate owners about a potential, uh, restaurant space on company time. Um, but that was, we'll,

Speaker 2:

we'll chalk it up to cutting your hair. Yeah.

Speaker:

Then I re then I resigned. Gave him 90 days notice. It was, it was fine. Whatever. Yeah. Life,

Speaker 2:

life comes at you quick.

Speaker:

So what do they say? Days are long, years are short. Tell me what the, like having doubled the business already, you're probably. You're not up to your former income levels, but at the end of next year you might be or something like, how's that experience of doing everything for yourself compared to working in a big firm?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I, I've actually surpassed old income levels. Really. Congratulations. You know, the old commission structure, 25% that always take quite a bit of the, yeah. 25% on, on uh, you know, renewal business. And, um, it's, I mean, it's a good industry. It's, it's very profitable, but I think the standard is just very low within the industry. Yeah. And, uh, I think a lot of our industry is filled with people that have, have, um. You know, tried other, other careers and for whatever reason, fallen into insurance and then made, you know, pretty good money. But I, you know, nobody grows up wanting to be an insurance broker. And so, uh, having kind of my, my dad get me into it when I was younger and, and everything definitely gave me a leg up. And, uh, you know, I, I don't think I ever wanted to be an insurance, but it exposed me to an industry that there is tremendous need and, and tremendous opportunity again, to, to do good. And, you know, when, when people come with the problem, whether it's a business or an individual, and basically it's like, Hey, I, I, I need to lower my costs and, you know, I need to still have good coverage, but this is getting outta hand. Can you help? Certainly we can never guarantee results. Sure. Uh, but there, there is enough strategies within each bucket where we usually. I usually leave, you know, the customer's pretty satisfied. Now, one thing, uh, that I'm, I'm just personally proud of, and, and part of the, the encouragement of the the think tank group is I'm up to between 80 and 90, uh, reviews and Oh, wow. I'm already one of the highest reviewed, uh, company insurance brokerages in the area. You're two years in, and I'm two years in. And, and that's been intentional and, and all that. But, um, you know, having exclusively five star reviews, it just, it, you know, I, I'm not doing this, you know? Yes, I need to make money and yes, I wanna support my family and all this, but ultimately I wanna do good. And it just, it's something that's really, really touched me. Some of the things people say, because you know, first to leave a review, you have to have some level of, of intentionality. Sure. But then it's easy to just click one of the stars and be done. Right. Uh, so many of the people actually leave a little comment. And I've just been shocked because when I go back and read them, uh, I can actually think of like a moment that the person's referring to of mm-hmm. You know, something like, oh, Reid was so patient or kind, or whatever. And, and it, those are the things that oftentimes gets, gets complimented more than like a. You know, I'm sure that's on there. Oh, Reid knows so much or this and that, but, but that's less common than, than like how you make them feel. Yeah. And those things, they touch me because I mean, that's why I do what I do is to help people. Um,

Speaker:

I, uh, I mentioned to you, I, I booked Kyle Speller is gonna be our, um, post breakfast speaker at the next level summit. He's new, new public announcement. Yes. Yeah, you heard it here, folks breaking news. And so Kyle and I had a, a 20 minute conversation earlier, probably 30 minutes even. And, uh, talked about the event and, and his background and stuff and his story. Uh, I'm sure he is told it a bunch of times and I'm not breaking any confidence'cause we just met. But he was doing a number of other things. He was a a FC, a fellowship of Christian athletes kind of person right outta school and stuff. But then he had his own kind of prison ministry where he would go around and play basketball in prisons. Him and a team of ball players would play up against the different prison teams. Um, and. On his kind of own, uh, volition. He became the announcer for those games. And, and kind of that act of seeing those men was really impactful to the ministry itself. You know, it wasn't just about the base basketball, but also they had a name, you know, and they're part of a team. Mm-hmm. Um, and that he did that for quite a few years before the Nuggets had an open audition for their new public announcer and like they got a thousand applicants and, and one finalist, which was him. Yeah. Uh,'cause he was already so, you know, experienced in doing that, but he did it all for free as a volunteer ministry for years before that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

I don't work for free. Well, no, believe it or not. Yeah. But I could, but people. He learned how to listen to people and have them be seen and heard.'cause every NBA player gets seen and heard, but Yeah. But he was helping it be for that kind of overlooked person for a lot of years before. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

The, and this gets, and so are you, well, frankly,

Speaker:

like you'll do those big groups and stuff, but you'll meet with any onesie twosie that a lot of insurance agencies don't really want to even mess around with.'cause they take a lot of time. They don't make that much, you know?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I'll, I'll comment on that and then I'll also share that, that that's kind of the catalyst for what motivates me to, to volunteer. Um, but, but you're exactly right. Again, under old commission structure, one large agencies oftentimes will have commission minimums where they'll say, we're not paying commission on, on accounts below, you know, some threshold of revenue. Hmm. And so there, there's. Again, financial disincentive for people to serve them. Right. And, and, you know, none of us can work for free. Certainly, I'm, I'm willing to be charitable both with my time and my, you know, time, treasure talent is something I'll reference here in a minute, but, um, but, but I can't give all my time away. Right. All my treasure house payment needs

Speaker:

to get made. Yeah. You know? And so kids are gonna wanna go to college someday.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. That, that's right. And so, uh. Uh, one of the things I do outside of work, uh, you know, my family's tremendous. I, I love them and, and try to, again, getting into wanting to be self-employed. Another primary factor was having complete autonomy and authority over my time. Hmm. You know, I could work more and make more money, but if that's at the sacrifice of time with my family, I, I'm not interested in it now. Yeah. Yeah. Are there always exceptions? Of course. Like some days I'll have to work late, you know, especially, you know, we have a cyclical, busy season. Yeah. Your Medicare season

Speaker:

is November e right? Kind of thing? November, December or something? Yeah,

Speaker 2:

October 15th to December 7th. But that's like your tax season. Yep. But the rest of the year I try to be done between, you know, 3, 3 34 o'clock, you know, four o'clock's, kind of my like personal hard stop most of the time and. Um, and that, that matters again, to prioritize time. We have two little boys and, and I want, uh, make the most of that. How old are they? Uh, three in one. Okay. Yeah. So they're, and, and we're hopeful for another one, but, uh, especially these first years, you know, maybe when they're teenagers, they're, they're driving around and, you know, I can work late, but they're like, dad, I don't need to be around anymore. Yeah. But right now, I, I still, uh, they still think fondly of they will for a long time. But getting into volunteer work, so currently I serve as the president of Northern Colorado, United for Youth. Oh, you're the president of the board now? No. Coun Unified. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Uh, that was an organization I joined, uh, right outta college and, and the beginning of my professional career, I was just aging out at that time that it was kind coming together.

Speaker:

Yeah. So I was like, I only got a couple years left before

Speaker 2:

I'm 40. Yeah. And so it's, it's a great group. For those that don't know, we're the ones that throw, uh, the Kentucky Derby party in May. We have a golf tournament, and then the Suitcase Party's kind of our marquee event. August. When's the golf tournament? It already happened this year was in June, so Yeah. Uh, most years it's in July, but we moved it up this year for, okay. Some strategic reasons. And

Speaker:

suitcase party is when?

Speaker 2:

Yep. Uh, Friday, a August 15th. Okay. Uh, so coming up here in, in a couple weeks, uh, definitely would be a, a prime opportunity to plug, uh, that tickets are on sale. Uh, website is, uh, the organization's website, noco unified.org, uh, or suitcase party.com is the, uh, okay. The event specific website, can

Speaker:

you tell me where the suitcase part, where the winner's gonna fly this year?

Speaker 2:

Uh,

Speaker:

yeah, they're flying to, yeah. California. Oh, it's not a secret. Anyway, I thought it was a secret sometimes.

Speaker 2:

Uh, we announce it strategically. We usually know internally quite a bit before. Gotcha. Gotcha. Uh, uh, Palm Springs this year for Okay. For, uh, the winners. I have a really cool exclusive VRBO that, that they're gonna, uh, for the first time, all the winners will actually stay together, but we basically got a, a,

Speaker:

like a five bedroom mansion. A huge mansion. Exactly.

Speaker 2:

That'll, and a private chef for, for a meal. And, uh, it should be a very premium experience. That's cool. And then there's a, a local music festival going on the same time that they'll have passes to Oh, fun. And spending money and all that. So you, that's, that's the grand prize of the, of the evening. But. For those that don't know about Suitcase Party. Uh, at six, please. Yeah. 6:00 PM on, on, uh, Friday, August 15th. It's at the, the Loveland Airport. Uh, it's at a private hangar. It's at the Discovery Air Hangar. And so it's where like Woodward houses their jet. Cool. Uh, they clear out the jets and we kind of spend over two days converting it into a, a massive party scene. You know, we, we put in, uh, temporary carpet and Oh wow. Bring in vendors

Speaker:

and,

Speaker 2:

and I was there early.

Speaker:

I

Speaker 2:

haven't been there in a

Speaker:

few years'cause it's usually conflicts

Speaker 2:

with my birthday weekend. Well, you need to come for your birthday weekend. Uh, potentially. It's usually around the first weekend of school, uh, and everything. But then, you know, there's, there's, you know, food and, and drinks and, uh, silent auction, all sorts of different prizes. Some of the new things this year, uh, that we'll, that we'll have. And, um, this might be breaking news. We don't really announce this stuff anywhere. So I guess this might be the, like a hopeful insider's knowledge. Hopefully website crash or anything. The board might reprimand me, but, uh, we'll have like a golf simulator. Oh, cool. Um, option. This year we're doing a thing called an Infinity Barrel, where we basically, uh, have, have combined, uh, as much donated bourbon as, as we could get donated. So we're somewhere between a hundred and 150 bottles that we're, we're blending together. It's blend together, it's together, and then we'll we'll sell, uh, at the event. Oh, that's, so people have an option to, to. I do the,

Speaker:

that's such a clever thing. One of the pastors from my church actually, uh, has infinity bottles of bourbon where he just has, you know, the last, uh, shot from each bottle goes all in a big mix.

Speaker 2:

Yep. Yeah. So that's a, a, a unique thing. This year, uh, we're gonna have a drone show, and, and again, then the, the grand prize is, is four couples, eight people will leave that night right there from the party on the private, private plane. Uh, can't call it a private jet'cause it's not a jet, it's a plane, but it's a, a very nice plane turboprop at least. Right. Yeah, it's a very, very nice plane. Uh, that will take him out to California. So super fun event. And then the proceeds Go ahead. Yeah, well, that's exactly what I was gonna lead to. So for the year, uh, we will raise a net about$400,000. Oh, wow. Uh, this year we're trending higher than that, but then we give all the money back to, to local charity. So our requirements for charity gifts is, uh, have to be, uh, primarily focused on, uh, disadvantaged youth. And so that can be a broad term. Yep. You know, helping single moms also helps youth. So, uh, definitely, uh, a lot of need in the community. Uh, and then we, we ex That's crazy. Explicitly focus on Weld and Larimer County. So Northern Colorado's, I had no idea it was up to that kind of money.

Speaker:

Yep. And did you guys do other stuff too, or just plan these big events and raise a bunch of money? Or do you have like a club meeting every month? Yep. Also, or something.

Speaker 2:

There's 40 active members. Okay. We have no, no salary, a staff. We're a hundred percent volunteer organization. Uh, we do pay a few contractors like our accountant and a marketing person. Sure. And, you know, we have a little bit of overhead, but, uh, we're a very, very lean organization. Um, our members pay dues, so, uh, you know, we, we do fund member activities that kind of covers a lot of the, all of our member related activities comes outta dues. Cool. We would never take any of the donated money for, for that. But then, um, yeah, give, give back 400,000 each year. And then this year we've had a few things, uh, extra unique happen, uh, where we've actually accumulated an additional, about 300,000.

Speaker 3:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Uh, the three easiest stories to, uh, to talk about is one person in the community passed away. A person I'd never interacted with. And, uh, that gentleman left us$168,000. Wow. Uh, which was tremendous. Uh, that just, it, it speaks to him observing our organization, you know, and having relationship with Sure. With some of our members Yeah. Who were very exuberant about it. And unbeknownst to anybody, you know, we were, we were listed in his will, which was yeah. A tremendous gift. Cool. And, um, I would love to meet that gentleman on the other side of the, of the veil and I give him a hug and thank him for his contribution. Um, that, and then we had another, uh, family give us$50,000, uh, and, and, uh, you know, very excited about that. And then a, uh, a third family sold their business and gave us$25,000. And there's a few other things that are a little bit less, uh, less easy to talk about, but it's

Speaker:

almost like a little foundation becoming Yep. And so, and are you gonna give that money back out to specific things or do something?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So our normal, bigger, normal language with sponsors and donors is money and money out. Uh, we don't necessarily have that same restriction with, with this, this extra money. Yeah. This, this new money we're calling Amplify. And we want to use the money to create a lasting imp impact, an amplification of sorts. And so one thing we talk about is we want to, uh, we want to compound or multiply the money that's given to us. And so, uh, for the first time. I shouldn't say for the first time, but we're in a unique position, uh, to have this extra money where we can sit on and we certainly desire it to make an impact as soon as possible. Sure. But we won't want to be thoughtful and diligent in, in what that looks like and how to best proceed. Um, we've partnered with, uh, the Northern Colorado Community Foundation to set up a, an account there. So, um, the money will be invested or is invested generating returns. Uh, one of the unique ideas that's been pitched to us is, uh, not just gifting money, but uh, giving money in the form of like a low interest or a no interest loan. Um, and so that kind of creates this idea of perpetuation where now we can give that money multiple times. You know, give it once it's repaid, give it again repaid. Um, and so we also, if you're

Speaker:

good enough at lending, you've probably got some bankers in there.

Speaker 2:

We, yeah, we, we, we, we have ample connections.'cause if you give it,

Speaker:

give it once and it doesn't come back, then you don't give it once.

Speaker 2:

And, uh, so that, that's one thing we wanna set up potentially. Uh, our, our own internal version of a matching program. Hmm. Um, that's cool. We're we're figuring out details on that, but we've also been exposed to people that say, Hey, we love, love what you guys do. Uh, we, like, we wanna partner with you, but we're not interested in, in the marketing, you know, assets we're not interested in Yeah. 10 tickets to the events. You know, we just want to help. And, um, we haven't really had a great answer to that question before. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, and we're starting to, to, you know, create that answer. Yeah. Yeah. So, um,

Speaker:

our Rotary Club has become that way with the peaches. Cool. Yeah. Peach Sale is going on now. Okay. I might as well, uh, uh, I forget breakfast rotary.org or something like that as a website. Um, but we sell a couple thousand. Cases of peaches usually. And we fund literacy programs Yeah. Throughout the Puter school district with that. Yeah. And there's a, just putting a donation button on there when people are buying peaches. And like a lot of people buy a box of expensive peaches for 60 or$65 and then give us a hundred bucks too. Yep. And then that's really, yeah. Good margin on that one.

Speaker 2:

And that's something even coming mean to that, to that point, our organization, you know, I, I don't. It. I would be disappointed if we were just reshuffling the Phil philanthropic bucket within the community in the sense of like Right. I would never tell someone to give to unify in lieu of something else. Yeah. Um, though I could make an argument as to why we, we do compound the money. Um, you know, if people are passionate about a specific charity, absolutely. Give to that charity. Right. Um, I think were the big

Speaker:

benefactors for you guys this year, or I know you have sometimes that you've been

Speaker 2:

some big gifts. Yeah, there's three. Uh, I wish I had my cell phone right here. I could, I don't wanna mis I quote Matthew's House people. Why was that last year? Uh, we've given them recently a fair amount of money. They're a good one. You know, it's, it's Weld County, uh, Larimer County Boys and Girls Clubs. Sure. United Way Teaching Tree Sava. I mean, we, we've pretty much every charity in Northern Colorado. Do you know about guys who give? I do. I was a member for a while. Well,

Speaker:

you should get back into it. I was a member for a while too, and I finally got back into it. Yeah. And the next one is for second Wednesday of August. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'm a little strapped for time, but, uh, it's a good organization and people should continue contributing. Well,

Speaker:

you live out of

Speaker 2:

town now. Yeah. So let me finish on, on Unify. Uh, but I, I would say I, I'm proud to say, I think, uh, our organization generates like, incremental value to the community. Yeah. Um, I don't think that we re we necessarily like harvest or replace Sure. You know, people's charitable gifts, but I think a lot of people come to our parties, um, and spend extra money, uh, because it's, it's, it's a fun party. Yeah. They

Speaker:

know that

Speaker 2:

any extra

Speaker:

overflow is just gonna go to a good cause anyway. Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Where I don't, I don't think people, if they don't come to our event, I don't think they're spending that extra thousand dollars at Yeah. You know, at a, at a charity. But,

Speaker:

um, I wanted to ask about that. Yeah. You said you have 40 members. Mm-hmm. Um, and is it like, what are the qualifications for membership? Yep. If you will. I know you have to be under 40 still. Is that true? Yep.

Speaker 2:

Yep. So we. We have continued the legacy tradition of our, our founding. So we were founded under an entity called, uh, the Active 2030 Group. Uh, active 2030 is uh, again focused on raising money for children's charities and it's specifically targeting men. Um, age 20 until age 39. Uh, professional men. And the reason that they choose that, that demographic is because it's, it is. And who does the research? I don't know, but it is allegedly the least, uh, philanthropic or least volunteering demographic. Oh, really? And so active 2030 specifically is targeting, uh, you know, young, actively charitable young men Exactly. And, and developing the leaders. And so that's our two primary, uh, you know, purposes or mission statements is one to raise money for, for disadvantaged youth. And the second part of it is to, uh, cultivate leaders, uh, in the community. Mm-hmm. And so I, I think that a lot of that leadership development happens through our organization by putting on these events. Yeah. But we're also intentional about, um,

Speaker:

mentoring and, and well, and probably becoming board members of some of these benefactor organizations and things like that as well.

Speaker 2:

Yep. So it's a really good brotherhood. But to your point, you turn 40, you get aged out. And uh, and then, uh, after aging out, uh, there's a secondary organization that's been established called, um, I don't know the legal name of it actually. Old Bad Club. Well, yeah, we call it North 40. I'm there might be a different, I got it. There might be a different legal name, but, uh, north 40 is, is past members do the charcoal broiler.

Speaker:

cause they should meet the charcoal broiler.'cause I believe that's, that back room there is still called the North 40.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it, it might be, I don't know. Anyway, that's a suggestion for you, you guys. I'm not a, I'm not a member yet. So for you alumni

Speaker:

members or whatever, uh, look into that. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

I'm not a, not a North 40 member yet, so I can't speak to them, but, uh, but those guys, I mean, they, they do so much for us and, um, it's fun because I'm, I'm one of these, uh, kind of links between the old guys and, and the young guys. Yeah. And many of the young guys don't know the old guys and many of the old guys don't know the young guys. But, um, so it's kind of one on one. How long have you

Speaker:

been part of it?

Speaker 2:

Uh, I'm in my 13th year. Wow. And I have five, five more to go, so I'll, I'll, I think I'll age out at about 17 or 18 years. Yeah.

Speaker:

You're probably one of the longest serving members ever.

Speaker 2:

Uh, that, that may be true today. Most, yeah. But it will certainly be true in five years.

Speaker:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Um, and then I got a shout out Blake Burrows. He's, uh, he's one year behind me. Okay. But, uh, he'll also,

Speaker:

you'll gonna have to kick it to the finish so he won't, uh, be able to pass you. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I think, we'll, I think he's one year younger than me and one year behind me. So I think once we both turn 40, we'll both be at 17 years. Okay, cool. Which is, uh, good job, Blake. Kind of a long And what's Blake do? I don't know if I know him. Yeah. Blake's awesome. He's a, a, you know, very, very successful young guy. He, uh, he owns top shelf printing and embroidery outta Greeley. Okay. Uh, you know, he, he can print anything on anything cool, you know, if it's, that's wrapping cars or if it's, uh, build, you know, printing mugs or laser engraving or a t-shirts or whatever. He, he has a really big operation out there and, uh, and his business partner, um, very cool. Sounds like a

Speaker:

potential local thing. Tank member.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. He's, he's in a few groups already. I'm not Fair enough. Not, I'm not sure he would, uh, have time. I'm, I don't know. I, I shouldn't connect you guys, but he, he's, uh, he's been a huge part. He actually, one of his achievements within the group, um, among many, but when, uh, you know, we, we had these, these big fundraising, he asked, and we commit to these charities, you know, at the beginning of the year and then ask them to kind of come, come alongside us to, uh, to raise the money. Money and stuff. Yeah. Well, when COVID happened, our events were, were, you know, canceled, right? Essentially. But we still had these, these fundraising. Kind of commitments that we wanted to fulfill. So, uh, during COVID what we did was we pivoted from, uh, the Derby party to, uh, we, we built these, uh, they were kind of silly and we had so many leftovers, but we still raised money from it. We built a, uh, derby in a box deal. So we distributed these derby parties in these shoe boxes essentially with, you know, a couple shots of whiskey and all sorts of fun. Like party your for only$200 kind of thing. Something like that. Yeah. And

Speaker:

donated bourbon and whatever else. Yep. That's cool.

Speaker 2:

So

Speaker:

that was one thing we did, but, uh, Blake Oh, and he made a super cool box for him and whatnot or something.

Speaker 2:

Well, kind, kind of. That was a, so Blake Blake, uh, he organized our golf tournament during COVID. We'd never done a golf tournament before, but we had no other events and mm-hmm. Uh, he was able to, uh, very quickly on short notice with no, no blueprint or anything. Right. Cool. To, uh, to good for him generate a golf tournament for us. And that first year was our biggest year. Yeah.

Speaker:

Well, at that time everybody was like. Oh, I could go see people. Yeah. And golf.

Speaker 2:

Well, and all of our donors, they're, I mean some of them still gave us money regardless, but many of them are like, no, we want the marketing exposure. And so if we have no events, there's nothing, nothing to sell. So Blake Yeah, that makes sense. Blake, Blake, Blake's left a huge, so good job Blake. A huge impact there. So, um, I

Speaker:

wanna take a break and then come back and talk about Little Reed a little bit and your great beautiful wife and family a little more and stuff like that. Can't wait. Alright, thanks. And we're back. Welcome back. Um, so we were talking during the break and I understand that, uh, you mentioned your father earlier had, was working, uh, with the firm that you were working in or encouraged you to get into the industry, but also your, your grandfather was an entrepreneur as well. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And it's something, you know, my grand, my grandfather passed, um, almost exactly a year ago, uh, August, first of last year. Um, just reminding myself of that. And, you know, after people pass that there's questions that you don't get answers to. And I'm sure my grandma and, and get dad and uncle would, would know some of these answers. But, um, I don't know how my grandpa started the, the business he had. So he owned a Coca-Cola distribution company. Okay. And, uh, served, uh, Western half of Nebraska, parts of Wyoming. Okay. I'm not, I think Colorado potentially. And, uh, I mean, that was back when, you know, my dad's job was sweeping the, the, the warehouse floors. And he would drive at an early age, he'd drive the delivery trucks and, you know, people would, they would drop the product off at, at, you know, whether it was stores or Sure. Houses and Yeah. All the old

Speaker:

red colored cases and

Speaker 2:

bottles and stuff. But they would pick up the, yeah, exactly. They'd pick up the old glass bottles mm-hmm. And then they'd wash'em, you know, rinse'em out and, and reuse'em. And, you know, somehow that practice obviously wasn't economical enough or, or wasn't. Right. The lowest cost option, uh, for the reuse. Now

Speaker:

we

Speaker 2:

just buy$3

Speaker:

bottles,

Speaker 2:

plastic bottles and throw'em away. Coke

Speaker:

and throw'em away. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And

Speaker:

so

Speaker 2:

I, uh, or

Speaker:

recycle them, which basically means

Speaker 2:

throwing them away. Exactly. Yep. And so we have lots of Coca-Cola memorabilia, uh, which is always gonna be, you know, oh, cool. I'm a staunch Coke supporter. Uh, Pepsi is

Speaker:

the enemy. I'm a Coke guy as well. Actually, we had a tour of the Coca-Cola distribution business when I was a kid, and I rocked a, what had become a sleeveless Coca-Cola shirt. Yeah. Like, well into my, uh, early thirties. It was. So far gone. It shouldn't have been worn probably for the last five years at least. But, uh, I just love my Coca-Cola

Speaker 2:

shirt. Yeah. Yeah. So we have lots of Coca-Cola memorabilia. Some of the really cool things are, uh, you know, incentive deals that Coca-Cola would, would give to their production leaders. And, uh, you know, some, they have stories of different trips, but one of the prizes, uh, one year, many of the years was these Coca-Cola me memorabilia pins. And so we have like sports, uh, uh, NFL uh, football helmet pins. We have Super Bowl, uh, commemorative pins. Uh, we have, uh, uh, Olympic like, um, large deal with all these pins on it from all these different countries. Sure. Um, just stuff that's really meaningful to me, but, uh, yeah. And where was

Speaker:

this like

Speaker 2:

were,

Speaker:

were, were you born and raised around here or did you

Speaker 2:

grow up partly in Nebraska too? Yeah, so I'm, I'm born and raised in Greeley. Okay. Uh, but this was all in western Nebraska. Okay. So my parents like Alala region or something like that. Yeah. Uh, west of their gearing. Gearing and Scotch Bluff. Yeah. Yeah. So not, not far from here. About two hours from Fort Collins. And so that's where my parents were born. That's

Speaker:

like the nicest part of Nebraska. Just about,

Speaker 2:

it's near and dear to my heart. It can be awfully windy, I'm sure. I'm sure. But it's, uh, where all our family is, but it's

Speaker:

pretty, like they got a nice bluff hills there and stuff like that's Monument. Nice. It's a nice little, it's a nice little nice little uh, cool spot in the midst of a lot of other less cool stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Some of my, you know, family immediate fam or what? My aunts and uncles, some of them are farmers and Sure. Um, still most of, most of my family's still in that area, Scotts Bluff Gearing. And so my mom and dad, uh, both went to Gearing High school and, uh, my dad's four, four grades or three years older than my mom. And, uh, you know, he was a senior quarterback and she was the freshman cheerleader. Oh. Oh. And, uh, they kind of started dating. And then when my dad went off to college at CSU, uh, well du first, and then CSU, he would drive back every weekend to be with her and all that. And then, uh, I think it was the year, 1986 is when my grandpa sold the Coca-Cola company and retired. Okay. Okay. Okay. You know, he was, he was pretty young to retire mid forties, and then he and my grandma moved to, uh, to Vail and oh, basically spent the next 30 years hiking and biking and snowshoeing. And

Speaker:

So retirement stuck for him, huh?

Speaker 2:

Yep. And then, uh, that, I don't know exactly my dad's, uh, journey immediately thereafter. I'm sure they all worked for the, the new corporation. But then, uh, my dad moved to, to Cheyenne, and then ultimately to Greeley. And he started a men's clothing company. Oh. And, uh, he was selling Okay. You know, suits and ties and dress shirts and Was it like, uh, Miller Cloth or something? Yep. Yeah. TD Miller. Okay. Td, I think it was TD Miller and Coe and kind of the running joke in our family is, uh, we still all these, you know, he, he shut down the clothing company in 1992. Okay. And, uh, we still have Miller TD Miller boxes that every year at Christmas reemerged circulate. And we admittedly are finally down to like, the last couple are getting reused. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uh, but for years and years, we, that's awesome. We had just

Speaker:

a,

Speaker 2:

an enormous supply of these,

Speaker:

just the standard like folded corner things. Yeah. Whatever. We could get a dress shirt in or whatever.

Speaker 2:

Yep. And so then he started doing insurance in 1992. Uh, joined a local firm and, uh, he did that and became a partner in 2007 and then ultimately sold that company in 2017, uh, to form the large, uh, insurance brokerage. And so, just lots of different, you know, experience, but, uh, how

Speaker:

big was his firm when he merged and became part of the partnership?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. When we merged, we were I think three or 4 million. Okay. Uh, when we, when he retired and when I quit, uh, I think we were between five and 6 million. Okay. Um, in revenue and, uh, 25 odd employees. Yeah. Uh, super interesting getting

Speaker 3:

to see, you were kinda the junior guy

Speaker 2:

there. Mm-hmm. And there were, there was three families. Yeah. Three, three fathers, three sons. And, uh, really, really interesting going through that merger.'cause we actually merged a 24 independent insurance brokerages to form a national firm. And Interesting. And so at inception we were at about 158 million in aggregate revenue. Oh wow. And then when we left, we were had just eclipsed a billion in, in annual revenue. Oh, dang. So that

Speaker:

was like gigantic, like a strategic roll up of all these kind of market dominant firms, basically.

Speaker 2:

That's it. All across the country. Yeah. Yeah. Did it all

Speaker:

happen at the same time too? Well,

Speaker 2:

or

Speaker:

nearly

Speaker 2:

24. Yeah. 24 legally merged, uh, January 1st, 2017, which was super interesting. And then, uh, thereafter there was subsequent acquisitions and Right, right. And whatnot. More and more up into the blob. Yeah. But strong, yeah. Organic growth, private equity funded. Mm-hmm. Or who's the mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, private equity sponsored and, uh, was a good deal, you know, for, for all the parties and, and everything, everybody, the

Speaker:

employees

Speaker 2:

and the customers. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that, that's still a very prominent local, that's the way that works. Yeah. Local firm and, and all that. I just, you know, grandpa was a small business owner. My dad, you know, was a, a partner and, and owner. And I just, I've always wanted to have my own firm and yeah. Now I get to live that reality and. Um, I know you've asked about my, my little boys, but I mean, wanting to, to create a legacy and, and something for them, uh, to have the option for. I'm, I will never force them to do anything. Sure. Whether it's sports related or business related, but nothing would make you

Speaker:

prouder than if they wanted to go to work with dad too. Yeah, I,

Speaker 2:

I would love it. You know, I, I would either or wanna make sure to set up intentional structures and, and different things where they're getting, you know, mentored by people besides me. Right. You know, I'm, I hope I can, can

Speaker:

send'em out to work for a big firm first for a while

Speaker 2:

potentially, or, or a different industry altogether. Yeah. But you know, if, if they, when they're 20 years old, if they call me something like their primary mentor, like what, what greater honor as a dad could I have?

Speaker:

Well, they won't when they're 20, but they may when they're 40. Yeah, exactly. Looking back to when they were 20, you know, but I hope they have, they're like most boys.

Speaker 2:

I hope they have many good influences and, and all that, but, um. Yeah, that, I mean, they're just little right now and, and so fun. You know, they still jump outta bed and, and want to come cuddle and, you know, give me a kiss and Sure. Stuff like that. Which is the 1-year-old, uh, walking yet? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's, he's been mobile for a while and Nice. He's more work than the 3-year-old, you know, is Right. People say terrible twos, you know, two's nothing. Three is tough, but one is harder than three. So what are their names, if I may? Yep. So the three year old's. James. Who's James? Uh, James Dudley and, uh, James will probably listen

Speaker:

to this one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. James is, uh, my, my, for a little while. My wife's father, my in-law is his middle name, Dudley's, my dad's middle name. And then, uh, when we found out we were having another boy, I thought, well, shoot, we already shot both family names that we were fond of. So, uh, the 1-year-old is Isaac and his middle name's Reed. So my, oh, my name Reed, obviously, but my legal name is Tyler. Yeah, I was gonna

Speaker:

say, your phone says T Reed Miller in it when I call you. Yeah. I can't remember your real name. Yeah, so my legal name is Tyler Reed. Okay. So

Speaker 2:

Isaac is now Isaac Reed and Okay. Uh, we are hopeful for a third. Yeah, I think three boys would be wild and crazy and fun, and I think two boys and a girl would be, um, equally awesome. Well, and

Speaker:

if you get three boys, you could also try for one more to just try to get that girl in there if you need to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we, I don't know. So

Speaker:

Jill's dad was one of seven boys, no girls. And that's

Speaker 2:

the risky run. So I think, I think when, um, my wife, you know, we're, we're not spring chickens, but I, I know we don't wanna wait too much longer to, uh, to have a third, but yeah, they're, they're so much fun. And my wife's Hannah. She's, she's the best. Um, she, where'd you find her? Yeah, so mutual friend set us up. Okay. Super interesting day. How long ago? That was June 2nd, 2018. Okay. I actually know off the top of my head, a friend of ours, uh, called me on a Saturday and said, Hey, let's go out on my boat. And I said, uh, no, I, I'm, and, and to be fair, I'd gone out with him a couple times that week, I believe, um, on his boat. And I was getting caught up on things, but I was literally folding my socks or underwear or whatever, and he finally called me and said, Hey man, you know, Hannah's coming. I was like, oh, I see. So he invited us out. You had heard about her, but not met her yet? Mm-hmm. Yep. Heard about her and. She's just a great, great lady. And we spent that, that first day, uh, out on horse tooth boating and doing the wake surf thing. And then we took some friends back and it was an another friend of ours birthday that we met up, you know, after dinner day, an old town. And then we went back to our, the first friend's house and did different, you know, all sorts of recreational, well, no. Oh, recreational drugs. Yeah, no recreational activities. We were playing volleyball. Oh, okay. We were doing like sprints and handstands and pullups and shots. All sorts of stuff. Smoker joints and none of that. Yeah. Maybe a shot or two, but so super fun. And then got our number and said, well, I guess we had a fun, you know, like literally like an 18 hour first day. Right. And then, uh, the next week went out to dinner and, um, actually liked each other, you know, it wasn't just like the euphoria of the, the fun activity. Right, right. But it was, uh, actually like a, a deeper relationship. And funny story about her, actually, we. We, uh, so that was June 2nd, 2018. Started dating July of 2018. I proposed August 26th, 2019, and, uh, she needed a, a new passport. Okay. And, uh, we,'cause we had decided to get married in Mexico. Okay? So I said, well, you know, we need to get this done. You can either get your passport and your name, or you can, we can just. Do it once and basically get married and, and get your passport in, in my name. And, uh Oh, interesting. After a couple days of thinking about that, we actually, uh, legally got married August 29th, 2019, four days after I proposed just few days after

Speaker:

engagement.

Speaker 2:

Oh, cool. And then we, uh, the date that we celebrate and the date that we honor was, uh, January 20th, 2020. So, uh, that Mexico flew back to Denver, then got on a plane to go to Fiji for our honeymoon. Oh, wow. Came back from our honeymoon on February 1st, um, which was right about the time that the COVID murmurings were, were coming about. Mm-hmm. And so we were in the LAX airport and I remember watching a few, you know, whether Instagram or YouTube videos about, uh, this, this virus in, in China. Sure. And sure enough, a month later, the world shuts down and, uh, and all that. So we.

Speaker:

Did you guys live together or anything before you got married? No.

Speaker 2:

Nope. Nope. She moved in, uh, I had purchased, that was the third house I had purchased at the time. Um, I, I bought that in June of, uh, 2019, right before I proposed. And, uh, kept my roommates with me and then, uh, kicked them out around the first of the year. And she moved in after our, uh, our, our, you know, ceremonial wedding on in January. So yeah, she, she's great. And, um, she had a very successful career in, in real estate. She was making good money and all that. And then after, where'd she come from around here? Uh, she's from Loveland. Okay. State champion softball pitcher. Oh, okay. From Loveland High school class at two. My mom

Speaker:

was a fast pitched softball pitcher. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

I think she was class of 2004. Okay. Interesting. But, uh, yeah, she was, she was good. And then she, after we had kids, decided that she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and us. It just really interesting how women's, uh. Kind of emotions get all tangled after kids and everything. And you know, she always wanted to do the real estate thing and just loved her career and still loves it, but just wants to be with the boys more.

Speaker:

Yeah. Well for the, you know, she can go back in five years or eight years or something if she decides she wants to Yep. Or even dabble in a few years, you know? Exactly. Yeah. So

Speaker 2:

she, she's still doing a little bit of work on the side, um, you know, select friends and family. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, largely just a stay at home mom and she's loving it. And Cool. We're debating the pros and cons of public school versus homeschool, versus charter school versus co-ops and, you know, I don't know the right answer to that. Is there a lead

Speaker:

horse right now?

Speaker 2:

It depends on the day. So we just moved out to Eaton. I love the little community out there. Um, kind of returning to Weld County and Fort Collins definitely will always have a special place for us, but, uh, Eaton, you know, we just, we've always desired to live in a small, in a small town and all that, so, yeah. We have more questions and answers today. Well, you just moved like a month ago or something, right? Yeah, two months ago. Two months ago.

Speaker:

Memorial Day. Yep. And you've got like a little acreage or something? Mm-hmm. Right? A little uh, a few acres or something?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, two and a half acres. Okay. And it's just kind of the dream. We'll have chickens at some point and, you know, different outdoor Yep. Water rights activities. Can you have horses

Speaker:

or things?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Make hay. No horses, no cows, no pigs. That's about the only restrictions. No real water. You have a, well, probably not. Uh, no. Still city water, but, yep. Um, just those extra things, you know, taking care of the land. We want to have a pretty extensive garden at some point, you know, the chickens and, you know, I'm not, I'm not gonna go as far as I say homesteading, but, you know, we, we want at least to instill some of those values into the boys. And, um, you

Speaker:

know, uh, gathering eggs and feeding the chickens is actually a pretty useful, uh, man developer. Yeah,

Speaker 2:

I think so. And building, building the chicken coop and, you know, tending to those things. And, you know, boys, boys, boys don't do good. You know, what Hannah would like to do is, uh.

Speaker:

Make goats milk. Yeah. We'll, we'll ask her our goat cheese. Yeah. Yeah. We'll, we'll, I found your new hobby, Hannah, our to-do list sourdough and goat cheese.

Speaker 2:

Our to-do list is growing faster than it's shrinking. I'm sure. I'm sure. And so, uh, but the first weekend we moved in the, the ditch behind our house, the farmers ditch, you know, we back up just to the north of us is, I don't know, a hundred or a thousand acres of farmland. And the ditch broke, uh, on that Memorial Day rainstorm. And so the, our front yard just filled up with, uh, about 2 million gallons of water. Okay. So our neighbors and I, uh, nothing in the basement or nothing. Yeah, house is fine. Uh, fortunately, but it. That first weekend was definitely traumatic. Yeah. But, uh, the neighbors already had some of these trash pumps and I now own a three inch trash pump. And, uh, each pump pumps about 290 gallons per minute. So we're, we're roughly 2000 gallons a minute in aggregate between the seven pumps. And those pumps ran nonstop for two or three days. And, um, and that's happened three times. Uh, so the farmer has since rebuilt the ditch and, uh, hopefully we're kind of in the clear, but it, it was a stressful couple months

Speaker:

I learned about pumps from, uh, a frack water, uh, moving business gal, uh, Emily mm-hmm. Some years ago. And when fracking kind of went down to nothing, COVID Nation and stuff, she got some work keep'em alive for doing sewer bypasses Yeah. And stuff like that for cities. And I was like, God, I must take like a bunch of pumps. Right. Because a sewer is like five feet wide and four feet tall or whatever. And she's like. Well, yeah, but my things are 16 inch lines, but we run at 240 PSI. Yeah. So you could grab a lot of poop in a tube. Yep. If you're running 200 PSI I've learned, as it turns out,

Speaker 2:

I've learned a lot about stuff I didn't even know existed in months. And even in that case, last two months,

Speaker:

like water moved at pressure through a hose. It's pretty crazy how much different it is than just a river flow.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And these little pumps, you know, they're 500 bucks, whatever, from Harbor Freight. Right. Um, and they're just little gas powered Honda engines and, and they just move a tremendous amount of water. Yeah. Yeah. And it still took us two days to move it. It just, then it, it's caused me to think about like these dams that, or even this, this Texas, you know, flood and everything. Sure. When they talk about this quantity of water, it's just, you can't comprehend how powerful it is. Yeah. Um,

Speaker:

but thankfully we're, we're safe. Our kids are safe, our property's safe. Irrigation is, the repairs have been made. It shouldn't happen again too soon. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. We're, and if it does, we'll be prepared. But, you know, God's been really good to us, and, and we have a lot to be thankful for. And again, our, my primary role to steward what, what he's given us, and both, whether that's our property or, you know, finances or the business or the family. Yeah. Like, that's an important part.

Speaker:

You mentioned your faith, uh, yeah, a couple times now. Were you raised in the faith? Was your dad raised in the faith? Yeah. Did that go back to grandpa or further? Yeah,

Speaker 2:

no. Yeah, that's actually an interesting part of our story that I, uh, have, have recently learned, um, more, you know, around my grandpa's death last August. Um, you know, I've only known my grandparents to be faithful people and, and, uh, my parents, uh, that's all only memories I have. But come to find out, my parents, uh, became Christians when they were, uh, young parents and, and, uh, about when my dad, I think was like 10 or 13 years old, something like that. Okay. And so. Uh, really, you know, my kids, well, I guess myself, I was the first generation to be raised, you know, with the, the Christian traditions and, and yeah. You know, routine and whatnot and so, yeah, I remember going to, to church, uh, in Greeley. We went to Greeley Wesleyan for my childhood and okay. Uh, you know, Nancy Buckingham was the, the youth director and I'll like all, will never forget her and the impact she made. And, um, a few other people shout up to Nancy. Yep. And a guy, actually Trent, uh, Trent, uh, I think it's Trent Johnson. I'm his. I don't know his last name, but I remember him as Trent, the game guy. Okay. He was like the, uh, the youth activity director. Sure. Well, Trent owns, uh, Greeley Hat Works, and so, uh, a very kind

Speaker:

business over there now too.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Very prominent, you know, well-known, uh, you know, Western Cowboy hat apparel company, and he's done, you know, hats for all sorts of famous movies and actors and things. He was recommended

Speaker:

to me to get on the podcast here, actually, and I neglected to follow up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I, I've bumped into him a few times as an adult, but I mostly remember him as a, as a kid and Sure. He's a tremendous, tremendous man and, uh, I'm sure has a great story. And, uh, he's just, he's a larger than life character. Yeah, cool. And, uh, definitely would endorse him. I don't know

Speaker:

much about Wesleyan. Is that like, uh, I don't either. Where does that fit with, don't ask me anything about, we like God, we love Jesus. Yeah. How is your, do you sing? Is it traditional hymns and stuff, or more new age? E Jesus, my boyfriend kind of stuff. I, you're not there anymore. Anyway.

Speaker 2:

I, I, as a kid, we sang. Children's songs, you know, as an adult and in college, you know, I was very active with Campus Crusade for Christ. Okay. And then as an adult in Fort Collins, you know, I, one time I attended ESUs Church, and then I attended Mill City Church, and then most recently, two Rivers Church. Okay. Now moving out to Eaton, we've been to Christ Community Church in Greeley a few times. Okay. We've been to Cowboy Church in, in Lucerne. Um, you know, generally I would describe myself as non-denominational. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. You know, the, the person of Jesus',

Speaker:

we've got a redemption church as part of our Crossway network. Oh yeah. Um, we, yeah, we go to the Crossing, Jill and I, but Mountain View is kind of the Yep. Original branch of that. Yep. But they've got a redemption Pastor Aaron

Speaker 2:

Santini.

Speaker:

Yeah. Yeah. You know, know that guy.

Speaker 2:

Podcast host candidate, potentially. Yeah. Previous? No, he's been on. Oh, he has? Oh, I'll have to be listen. Yeah. He's on

Speaker:

with Daniel Smith. Yeah. That was like number 2025, something like that. I'm honored to share Same seed as him. Yes. Well, he, we didn't have that fancy coach. At that time we were sitting around a, across the table, I think at the time. Oh, bring him back. Season one. Oh, yeah. No, I, uh, first repeat customer just talked. I just talked to Aaron yesterday. No, Aaron Everett has been on like six times. Oh yeah. He sponsored the show for a while. He was our real estate expert.

Speaker 2:

Well, maybe I'll get invited back six times.

Speaker:

Maybe two. Let's, let's work on two first.

Speaker 2:

I know insurance isn't the most captivating. Uh,

Speaker:

do you wanna play the, uh, random question game? Yeah,

Speaker 2:

let's

Speaker:

do it. Okay. So you're gonna grab three of these balls? Mix them up real good. Okay. I'll take them.

Speaker 7:

There you go. You can set

Speaker:

that down on the floor, on the couch, whatever. Alright, so I've got question ball number four, 14 and 22. Do you have a particular order? It's

Speaker 2:

interesting. 22 is my, uh, favorite number. Well,

Speaker:

let's start with

Speaker 2:

that one. Great. 22.

Speaker:

Yeah. If you could live anywhere for three months, a year, where would it be and why? If I could live three months Yeah. Just three months, a year, every year, somewhere. Where would you choose?

Speaker 2:

Uh, that's interesting.'cause it kind of, in some ways an answer to your question about school and leader in the clubhouse for what we're gonna decide, which, I don't know, one of the attractions of homeschooling would be not being tied into the children's school calendar. Mm-hmm. Um, you guys could travel and

Speaker 3:

do stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know, live the hard stuff. Your work is pretty remote. Yeah. I, I can certainly function remote a lot. I would have to be in person some, but Sure. Um, but whether, you know, if we did traditional school and we had the summer, you know, months available, you know, this is kind of something that we're, we're interested in. So we Cool. Um, we, some of the places that we frequent, uh. I don't know if we would live in any of these places or commit three months every year. We definitely like new places, but we, we got married in Cabo, uh, go to Cabo every January, or at least have every year since we've

Speaker 3:

cool.

Speaker 2:

Known each other. Um, Hannah and I would love to spend extended time down there, whether in, in

Speaker:

Jill and I are thinking about taking a road trip down there in the van, maybe not this year, but next year

Speaker 2:

and, and there's little towns north of Cabo. Yeah, yeah. Um, that are just, yeah. All those tremendous, all beaches are great for surf beaches and stuff I'm hearing. Yeah. Moses does that. Yeah. We were just talking about it. Yeah. So definitely, you know, love that area. Uh, also love the mountains. Um, every summer we have taken. Maybe not every summer. Most of the summer since we've been married, we've taken a, uh, at least a few days, if not a week or more, uh, whether camp trip or Airbnb or whatever to a different mountain town. So we've been to Crested Butte. Uh, lake City's one of our favorites, Ray Telluride, Gunnison, uh, Montrose, uh, grand Junction. Those are a little more, you know, yeah. Plateau. But yeah. Uh, love, love any of those towns. Would love to live in. Uh, also spend a fair amount of time in Wyoming, uh, with my parents. They have a little place up there that, that's fun. What, where do they choose, uh, Glendale Little Reservoir Town. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's nice. So yeah, I mean, those would, those three spots would definitely, probably, uh, would warrant a spot, but we are already go there, so Right. I don't know, maybe, um, Italy or, you know,

Speaker:

Bali or something. Fiji, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Fiji was awesome, but so far away. Would you went three months a year there though? No. You'd be like, too, too far. Well,

Speaker:

and it's small. After like two weeks you're like, okay. Saw all of this stuff. Yeah. Pretty much snorkeling every day. Yeah. I went to all five reefs, you know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't know what else, um. I, I think the idea of like living three months in an RV and seeing a variety of places Yeah. Would probably be more attractive. Um, alright.

Speaker:

I like it. Well, maybe we can be a RV carpooler someday.'cause Jill and I would like to do that. Yeah. More and more as time goes on. We might go to Florida next year. Maybe I'll just borrow your rv. Yeah, you could. I, I'll run it to you anyway. The, yeah, the, yeah. Emergency response vehicle tank takes quite a bit of, uh, maintenance as it turns out. Uh, I'll rent it and you can maintain it. Right, exactly. Alright, number 14. Let's do, huh. What's the biggest mistake you've made in business so far? Biggest mistake.

Speaker 2:

I don't, I'm just gonna say what comes to mind please. I value authenticity. Uh, I don't feel as though I've made any mistakes in the sense. Like nothing has really been catastrophically wrong. Yeah. However, I think if you asked me that in five years or 10 years, I think I would probably say not hiring someone sooner. I like that. I think it's

Speaker:

easy to do not leaving your previous job sooner. Yeah. How do you feel about that?

Speaker 2:

Uh,

Speaker:

like I'm assuming it was the timing pretty good? You were early career and then after the big corporate thingy it became less and less fun. Probably

Speaker 2:

the, it's really hard to quit on your dad, but I was disenfranchised with corporate for a while.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But in hindsight, the timing was perfect. Yeah. Um, and I wouldn't change anything about it. Um, and that's a whole nother spiritual discussion Sure. About God's timing and, and his provisions in Providence and whatnot. But, um, I think it's easy for me to say that, that I wanna, you know, pay down. Like I'd love to pay off our mortgage. Sure. You know, that's an ambitious goal. Um, I think it's easy. Uh, I'm kind of a control freak and it's easy for me to just control everything. Yeah. Yeah. And with humans, you have to trust them. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I'm, you know, not the most trusting person, and so I'm sure my biggest mistake would be something like, oh, I should have hired someone sooner. Um, I'm hoping to hire someone in the next 12 months, probably between January and March next year. Um, but even potentially as soon as August. It just depends on what the price range

Speaker:

and depends, like if you get somebody that can actually help in the Exactly. In the fall season with the heavy season, that would be great. If you're trying to train somebody to not be a moron while you're in your busiest season, then that will be a hobble instead.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. So those things are, are, uh, decisions, you know, strategic decisions, but I, I, uh, am grateful for the position I'm in, but also, um, eager to have that one or two people even, you know, just like I bought a star link satellite deal. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so that we can go camping. Yeah. But I can't be entirely disconnected'cause there's no one else to pick up the slack. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a blessing and a curse, but, um,

Speaker:

I dig it. Um, question number four is your final, and that is, uh, what would you estimate your burp to fart ratio to be?

Speaker 2:

Burp to fart. Burp to far, like

Speaker:

burp is the, the numerator. Fart is the denominator on a, you know, weekly basis. Probably just you average some days are strong in either, either category. I bet.

Speaker 2:

One burp to five

Speaker:

farts. Nice. That's pretty solid. Yeah. You, so you don't burp too much, but, uh, yield too d sometimes.

Speaker 2:

No, I, so Hannah and I, um,

Speaker:

oh, do you, do you play call my fart?

Speaker 2:

No. Quite a bit. No. Have you seen that? No. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Speaker:

It's where your spouse is supposed to try to just try to make the sound that your imminent fart is going to make. Didn't know this was a thing. Yeah. Get on the internet. It's pretty fun stuff. So you're like, call my fart. They go, I

Speaker 2:

probably won't search that

Speaker:

I had on. You would love that. I know it.

Speaker 2:

But, uh, we, we,

Speaker:

did I meet Hannah? Was she at Magic Rat with you one time for the Brothers Fountain show?

Speaker 2:

She, we, so we had Brothers Fountain play at our wedding reception. Okay. Um. Not in Mexico, but we had a, a reception here, uh, locally that they, uh, performed at. And so we are big brothers, fountain fans. A JJJ, you know, shout, I feel, shout out to them. I feel

Speaker:

like I remember meeting her there in that. Yep. So we have seen them. Noisy capacity. Maybe I've met her before. I don't know. Sometimes I lose track. I've been

Speaker 2:

to Jamma land, done seen them at Magic Rat, seen them at other, you know, spontaneous deals and, uh, and whatnot. But, uh, Hannah and I, um, probably 18 months ago significantly reduced our, our alcohol consumption. Okay. And, um. For, so you're farting a lot more now because of that? Well, no, I'm burp. I don't burp ever. Oh. Because I don't, I don't drink. You don't drink beer anymore? Yeah. You know, I sip on, uh, bubbly, you know, seltzers and all that. Uh, bubbly. What do they call'em? See, those actually drift. Make me burp a lot more if you sip'em slow. No, but when the, if you chug a half a can'cause you're thirsty. Well, exactly. And that's what I'm trying to get to is the only time I burp is when I chug one of those bubbly waters. Okay. Um, but I don't, don't drink a lot of beer anymore. I'm, I mean, we're not What

Speaker:

do you think makes you fart more than other things? Just being human. Yeah. I don't know. I don't fart. I don't Five spicy food, I guess day. That's not too much. Right. That's a Well you're only burping once

Speaker 2:

a day then you're thinking. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Alright. I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I feel like I'm a normal start tracking it way more, way more context than we needed,

Speaker:

but, um, um. Would you like to talk about some current events or anything like that?

Speaker 2:

Sure. Yeah.

Speaker:

Uh, yeah.

Speaker 2:

What, what is on your mind? And I probably have an opinion on it.

Speaker:

Um, well, I guess the, the hottest current events. Well, we talked about Epstein slightly earlier. Yeah. But the Epstein, there's wild, you know, the list that don't exist, it's the Epstein list. Yeah. Um, but also like the more explosive is probably Trump saying Obama and treason in the same sentence. Yeah. More than once.

Speaker 2:

Well, and today, this morning, I mean, today is what, Wednesday, July 23rd. Yeah. And Tulsi Gabbard gave a very heated, loaded press conference this morning, basically saying she has concrete proof that the Russia collusion, you know, Trump collusion deal was all spearheaded and coordinated by both Barack Hussein Obama and Yeah. And. Right. Hillary Clinton, Hillary Rodda, Clinton. Um, that's wild. If that's true. It it's a massive, uh, story, you know, treason. It, it's not a exaggeration. Right. And with the current political climate, I, I would like to see like substantiated, you know, proof and evidence, and I think people, you know, that, that I don't think we're, would, that

Speaker:

could potentially wreck the Democratic party if true.

Speaker 2:

Well, that, that's, that's what I was just gonna say is, you know, I don't think our country is as divided on Democrat versus Republican. Mm-hmm. As like, that's, that's the facade that exists, exists. It's a theater. The real separation is the haves and the haves nots and the, the top 1%, or the top one 10th of a percent and all of the rest of us. And I think if we saw it that way, um, I think the bottom 99%, I think we're, we're pretty similar. Now, yes, we may have different beliefs on. You know, whatever, marijuana or abortion or whatever. But I think the bigger issue is, is the people that, uh, seemingly don't have to play by the same rules Right. As the rest of us. Right. Right. And, um, thing I would like to see that exposed

Speaker:

thing, this thing with the America Party and Elon Musk's kind of bromance failed with Trump and stuff. It's like, well, yeah. So, so we need one more party created by an oligarch. Exactly. Yep. You know, like where is the grassroots grassy?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And I, and then there's all the memes, you know, the endless it, endless hole of Instagram or, or whatever social media where, you know, it's, it's some caricature of like George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or whatever, saying like, what do you, you know, we, we had a revolution over 3% taxes or 2% taxes or whatever. And you guys are paying 40% tax. Right? Well,

Speaker:

and you know, a hundred years ago there were a hundred private employees for every government employee, and now there's. Four or

Speaker 2:

something. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think there's a lot of things that I, I don't know my, my political opinions. Any friends that are listening are probably laughing when I'm talking about this in a moderately politically correct way. But I think, um. I could be best described as like a, a capitalist wanting the free market enterprise to, to, to prosper. I think that would allow for innovation and, and, you know, exceptionalism to, to flourish. And I think that roots out and takes away some of these other incentives. But the problem is, whether it's insurance or other industries, is, I'm not sure anything's a free market now. Well, dirty

Speaker:

deeds are done dirt cheap when you control the market,

Speaker 2:

you know, and the government's got their hand in everything. And, and, uh, I would just like to see, you know, the, the power returned and, and continue to be with the people. And, you know, the constitution is meant to restrict the government mostly. And, um, and I think that that, you know, the government has just ballooned, like you said, you just tremendously, whether it's you to get into like the, the, the debt and the budget and the deficit and these things or, or you get into like social issues about, you know, you know,

Speaker:

well, I mean, in the future we're gonna probably know about universal basic income of some sort or Exactly, you know, AI disruption to. Societies, how do you temper that?

Speaker 2:

So, um, I, I don't know. I, I think that we, I, you know, many people wanna be in this, like, catastrophic doom or gloom. Like, you know, if we don't make a, a revolution this year, you know, we're never gonna be able to, I, I don't, I don't think we're that far off in the sense, I, I think that, um, America's still the best country to live in. Sure. I think we still have, you know, the longest major world power. We can carry a hundred trillion in debt instead of just 37. I'd prefer it to go down instead of up, but I don't think we need to pay it off immediately. Right. But at the same time, I, I don't know. That's, that's kind of having kids makes you think about legacy and, and, and the future. And, and I hope that I can pass on good, you know, legacy to my kids. Yeah. Yeah. Whether it's family, you know, family values or, you know, ethics or, you know, work ethic, whatever, or if it's. Or I, I don't know. But one of the things that we have to pass on is, is our freedoms. And, you know, that, I don't know which famous person said that we're one, one generation away from losing our freedom. Yeah. And every generation has to basically pay their version of the price. And sometimes that's, you know, with the cost of life and war and, and sometimes it's personal sacrifice. Right. And accountability. But, um,

Speaker:

well, and you wonder what the, like, you know, we were kind of promised some, some JFK files and you know, some other stuff along the way and like, do we, are we confident, especially if, if EYs and, and Obama were Yeah. Conspiring to deprive the people of a vote? Yeah. Um. Like, maybe it's been 50 years since we were really a free country.

Speaker 2:

Dunno even that like, you know, Democrat, Republican. It, it to me was very concerning this last year when, when the Democrat primary basically came and went, Biden was the, the presumptive, you know, appointed democratic. It didn't even

Speaker:

have a symbolic gesture of a primary at the mm-hmm. At the convention or nothing? No. It was just like, nothing. Okay. Here's, and then, but then when,

Speaker 2:

then when he resigned, then it's Kamala and it's just like, how, how can we pretend to be a democratic republic if we aren't doing anything close to the democratic process? Exactly. So

Speaker:

did you hear about the, uh, the leaked New York Times actually leaked some of the, the early diagnosis of the postmortem of the, uh, Kamala campaign mm-hmm. And the like, it's like, well, because, uh. Yeah. Only 13% of the ads attacked Trump or something. And I dunno, it was basically everything, but we had a terrible candidate and Joe Biden and then a terrible candidate in Kamala Harris.

Speaker 2:

We'll never know the, and

Speaker:

tried to like blame the glass grassroots, not the party elites for the failings.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And we'll never know the answers to some of these questions, but it's fascinating for me to think about, like, there's a report after Kamala was the, you know, the, the appointed replacement for Biden. Sure. Allegedly there was infighting between like Obama and Biden and Clinton and all this about like, who that should be and, and Biden or Obama thought it should be somebody else. And even that, I would love to know the full story on.'cause again, getting back to whether it's insurance or whether it's politics,

Speaker:

well ultimately it came down to the money. Well, that's the thing.'cause Harris was on the ticket with Biden, like the 170 million or something that had already been collected. They didn't, money would've had to give it back or something, sacrifice it.

Speaker 2:

But that, that's what I'm trying to say is, is whether it's insurance or politics, like transparency is what, what I think the American people desire. Mm-hmm. And if we are in this, this free country by the people, for the people, it's what we deserve. And, uh, I would be supportive of anything that increases transparency. Um, you know, the light shines out the darkness Well, you know, in matters of faith

Speaker:

and in government. That's

Speaker 2:

right. And so, I, I just, you know, it's, it's, you talk about like ethic and everything, you know, that's, that some, I think my high school football coach said it this way of, um, your ethic is what you do when no one's looking right. And. You know, transparency kind of takes away that, that protection for these people that think that they're operating in the darkness and they'll never be found out. Yeah. And so, yeah. Yeah. Um, that's interesting. Anyways,

Speaker:

let's do our final segment. Great. It's the low co experience, uh, which is the craziest experience. The craziest story day in the life, week in the life, uh, that Reed's willing to share with his, with our listeners and your potential future clients. So don't get too crazy Cake stands, anything like that. Craziest, crazy travels. Yeah. Near death experiences.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Lots of stuff coming to mind. Almost ask

Speaker:

the wrong girl to marry you.

Speaker 2:

I never had that problem. The problem I had related to that was, uh, girls would break up with me and say, Reid, you're the guy type of guy I'd like to marry, but I don't want to date you. And that was really hard. Still, I, I don't know what that means, but, um, I would say so a few things came to mind when you said that. So, the day that I met my wife is definitely one of my most memorable days.'cause it was literally like 8:00 AM until yeah, 2:00 AM of just all sorts of spontaneous, all different groups of friends. But we, we already talked about that. Yeah. You were

Speaker:

journeyers together through that.

Speaker 2:

It, it, again, if friends are listening, they know that I'm a pretty reserved person. I don't have a lot of like, crazy stories. Um, however, there was a time I, I took a. Uh, a 10, 11, 12 someday trip to Israel, uh, in 2019. Okay. In the fall of 2019, uh, there was about 20 of us from our church that did like a Holy Land tour. Okay. And we flew into Tel Aviv, we went down south, um, stood on the border of Gaza, came back north, hit the, you know, the Dead Sea, and, um, you know, all sorts of historical Sure. Religious sites along the way. And it, you know, ended up in Jerusalem, then went north into, uh, Bethlehem or something. Well, went to Bethlehem and then went to Capernaum, and then back down to Tel Aviv. And, uh, it, it, it was the, there's a town right on the border, and I'm sure it's been destroyed, uh, with the recent events, but there's a town on the border of Israel and Hamas in Gaza. And, uh, this town's called, I'm not sure I'm gonna say it correctly, stir ot. It's S-D-E-R-T-O-T. Okay. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. We were in, in this town and, uh, the tour guide, her name was, um. Kira, uh, a, uh, messianic Jewish person. So, uh, spiritually, uh, yeah, believer in Jesus is the Messiah, like a cultural Jew, but a cultural Jew. Yep. Yeah. And so super interesting, like, yeah, uh, lady and, and t just her, like, she, she's a tremendous, um, couldn't say enough good things about Kira. Um, I'm sure she'll never hear probably, but you could send it to her podcast. But, um, she was telling us in this town of ot, uh, that at any moment if you hear the siren, you have seven seconds to get into one of the bomb shelters, because these spontaneous attacks from Hamas, and she pointed out as we were sitting, standing on the street corner, you know, just a normal four-way intersection, stoplight, and everything she pointed out, where all the. The bomb shelters were okay. I didn't, wouldn't have even noticed any of them prior to her pointing them out. Huh. But having seven seconds for those people to get into a bomb shelter if they hear the siren was like profound. And then we were walking past the, uh, police station and on the side of the police station, there was a pile of both used and unused, um, bombs. And they were obviously disassembled. Oh. If they were like, yeah, yeah. They were faulty of some sort, they would disd. Right, right. But

Speaker:

there was, sometimes they crash and go boom, sometimes they just crash, stuff like that.

Speaker 2:

And that just shows like how, how, um, unsophisticated the Hamas people are. Sure. And then after that we, we went down and we literally stood on the border of, of this town and of Israel and Hamas. And we looked over this hill and, and we prayed for, for that, that region in Gaza. I'm sorry, I keep saying Hamas. We stood on the border of Israel and Gaza and overlooked the area that Hamas was, was occupying. Prayed for the Hamas people and, and the, you know, the, the Gaza, the terrorist and Yeah. And then the, the people that were under their, their control. And, um, we finished praying. And while we were standing there, uh, there was another gentleman that was a local to that town that said you were certainly being looked at through a military, like a sniper rifle scope right now or something. Um, there's basically no risk of us being attacked because they know what the repercussions would be thereafter. But just know, like you probably like with almost a hundred percent certainty have a rifle cross hairs on you right now. Yeah. A rifle being pointed at you. And I mean, you talk about craziest experiences and so that's a memory that I'll never, never forget. Right. And I have pictures and everything, but then this conflict happens where the Hamas people go and do the terrorist attack on the, the Israeli, you know. Concert that was going on. Sure, sure. October 6th, whatever. Yeah. Then all the subsequent, you know, stuff and then seeing the pictures of what Hamas or what Gaza looks like now, and it just, it, it's wild to, to think that like humans are capable of doing this to each other and all that. So I know it's not the crazy story that you were probably hoping for, but No, I mean, it's pretty crazy, but it's pretty crazy. It's something, it would've

Speaker:

been even better if a bomb would've come sailing in and yeah, thank God it didn't,

Speaker 2:

um. But I mean, just some of this stuff, like we are so fortunate to live in the United States where one, we have the best political system in the world. Does it have its fault? For sure. Has it deviated from its original intention? For sure. It's still the best country in the world by, by structure. And then the blessing of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean Right. Are tremendous buffers for our, you know, our day-to-day safety. Keeps the crazy off. Yeah. A little bit. Um, and all that. So, yeah. I don't know. Hope people enjoy, I'd love to, uh, anyone that's interested in these conversations, I, I'd love to talk more about whether it's, you know, insurance stuff, you know, whether it's how to fix the system or join whatever Unify. Yeah. Talk about unifying raising money for kids. You know, I. I prefer, you know, small, intimate conversations. And, uh, I mean, we've talked for what, almost two hours and Yep. It goes so quick. But I, uh, I've always appreciated your friendship in part because you also enjoy, you know, intimate conversations, conversation, conversations, this setup. So here we're, I'm glad, uh, glad to do this. I didn't lead

Speaker:

you astray. You did not. Um, well thanks Reid. It's been nice to spend this time with you. Thanks for being a Loco member and always an advocate. Uh, you know, years before you were able to become a member, you were always a encourager. So thank you for that. Thank you. It's one of your strengths. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Thank

Speaker:

you. Godspeed. Thank you. Look'em up. Northern Colorado Insurance Agency. Yeah. Northern

Speaker 2:

co insurance.com.

Speaker:

Okay, there we go. Got speed. Thanks.

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