Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders, MBA - Interview with James Kroshus President of Treasure Valley Retirement Shield Discussing Achieving Financial Peace of Mind

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

James has devoted his life to assisting clients, friends, and family by protecting their assets through insurance and estate planning. James has been in the world of finance and insurance since 1979. As James matured right along with his clients, James became painfully aware of the need that comes at the other end of rainbow, when remaining assets are passed to the next generation. His focus expanded beyond just protection and accumulation to the distribution of wealth after the passing of loved one. With over 45 years of experience James has nearly seen it all.Learn More: [e-mail] or call 775-233-2203Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-james-kroshus-president-of-treasure-valley-retirement-shield-discussing-achieving-financial-peace-of-mind

Welcome to Influential Entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us James Crocious with Treasure Valley Retirement Shield, and we'll be talking about achieving financial peace of mind. James, welcome to the program.

Glad to be here. Hey, I'm excited to talk with you because I always love certain topics that just make you feel comfortable. And anytime you talk about peace of mind in life, whether it's personal, professional, it just really is a powerful topic. So I'm excited to see how you guide your clients in that. But before we dive in, give us a little bit of your story and background and how did you get into the financial services industry? Well, I'm 71 years old, and I've been into this business over 40 years. And so I didn't plan on getting into this business, but my mom cursed me when I was little. I don't know exactly when the curse started, but it seemed like it was always there.

She said, Jimmy, it's that mouth that's going to get you in trouble. well I thought trying to think positive if that's the case maybe I had to use it to try to make a living and it's worked out pretty good neat yeah that's I've heard people say you know your mouth could make you millions and you know people that that have a way with words so to speak you know yeah I think the antithesis of it's going to get you in trouble the antithesis of that is it could really do a great job for you in in how you see serve your your client so boy you've been in the business for a minute or two and you've seen the ups and downs and all around and today we're talking about financial peace of mind and it seems like every time we turn on the computer TV radio we hear about craziness in politics or environmental or economic shifts or inflation or deflation or whatever the case is talk about why this is such a powerful topic why you you know chose such a unique and time name for your company, you know, with Treasure Valley Retirement Shield, and, you know, get

started down the path of talking about financial peace of mind. Well, you know, we're in a battle, a battle against a big enemy that's bigger than us, a battle against the stealth tax, you know, the unrestricted control of printing of government money, then there's taxflation. Both of these robs Americans of their hard, earned purchasing power and have the ability of turning their own Treasure Valley into a field of weeds. And so my motivation, as I grew older, as my clients grew older, I saw some things that were going wrong in their own personal lives just because they didn't have, you know,

the proper advice. You know, it's really interesting, the field of weeks. And I love that wordplay because people think of field of dreams. And boy, the antithesis of that is it's not a field of dreams. It's a field of weeds. And I think when people can get that thought in their mind of, you know, where could some of those landmines be or problem areas and then be able to address them well ahead of the potential devastation or negative impact, whatever that might be.

boy when you're prepared you can make some wise choices given the time ahead but you don't want to make those decisions in the midst of it because you tend to react versus making wise choices so talk a little bit about lessening or mitigating some of those destructive effects from things that we can't control like inflation or taxation because we read about those things in the news we know what they mean like oh your dollar It won't stretch as far as it used to, but we can't control that. Well, you know, that question kind of brings us to the next question facing the security of our financial futures, trying to stay ahead of our politicians making ridiculous laws sometimes cause desperate investors to make desperate decisions, kind of compounding the risk. So the question you ask is, can an investor? participate in market gains with downside protection. That answers, of course, yes. Didn't Warren Buffett give us the two rules

for investing? Rule number one? Never lose money. Rule number two. Remember, rule number one. Yep. So the retirement shield that I present offers several kills several birds with the same stone.

So imagine a market gains when the market rises, then downside protection when the cycle is in reverse. Now, that's where a retirement shield is such a vital tool. Downside protection against loss, higher gains than any bank can offer. This strategy I've seen work for hundreds of my clients. actually at the heart of the retirement shield, market gains without risk, mitigating losses due to taxation and inflation. Now, that's a winning strategy. That is a strategy that brings peace of mind and I sell peace of mind. Yeah. You know, I think that a lot of times we all tend

to be creatures of habit and go along with the herd mentality and you get your first job and sign a bunch of papers with HR and you set up this 401k thing and you just sign away and you just don't think about things. But in reality, many of the retirement kind of strategies are the old school, you know, just put your money in the market and it was in the 401k and now I, you know, looking at retirement. So I guess we're just kind of leave it where it is or things like that. But with like what you're talking about with market gains, that sounds good to hear the word market gain, but there's a huge swing when you deal with that volatility. It's great when things are going good, but boy, when volatility rears its ugly head and then you've got those losses,

you know, you take these big, huge percentage points, 20, 30 percent loss on your portfolio. It takes forever to recoup and you might not have forever if you're closer to retirement age. How do you work with your clients and advise them regarding? the volatility aspect and when to start thinking about moving out of kind of those more volatile sectors and sections of their retirement income. Well, I've been, like you said, in this business going on five decades. And one of the things that is important to me is my sleep because I think I'm probably the world's number one insomniac.

But one thing I don't want to wake, I don't want waking me up is worrying about my client's money. And so when I started my career, I saw a lot of things happen. I saw a lot of people lose a lot of money. And I thought, you know, I could never look a client in the eye if I lost their money. And so I decided to stay on the side of safety. And I found over the years that my decision. decision to remain on the side of safety, my clients are doing just as well, and many of them a lot better than those who decided to live on the edge and take every risk that comes along.

Because see, here's every client that has money in Wall Street has heard this saying. It's not a loss unless you sell, right? Yeah, it's a paper loss. But they never hear this. it's never it's not a gain unless you sell right it's the buy and hold philosophy and i tell you i think the tortoise knows something that the hair doesn't know it's just being consistent and and not you know most people when they get into the retirement age they don't need to hit a grand slam they don't need to even hit a home run it's kind of like if you want to use a golfing terminology

people are on the 18th green and they still have a driver in their hand. When you're approaching retirement, there's only your club selection shrinks. And when you're actually on the retirement green, you don't need to hit a home run. You don't need to hit a 300-yard drive. You get a putter in your hand because all you really want to do is get. get the first base and then second base and then third base and you'll eventually get home but if you're swinging for the fence that's where people get in trouble yeah you know i love that um i'm i'm i think you know our wives kind of rolled their eyes when they hear us guys do analogies

but guys relate to analogies but the tortoise and the hair and the grand slam you know i think that too many times we all get enamored with those big numbers and returns and oh look i heard you know Bitcoin or this or that or the other and whatever stock. But in reality, I know that I have heard some people say in the past, I can show you quantifiable data, research and numbers, that someone that, you know, was in, you know, the ups and downs of the market compared to someone that had a nice safe, protected account that didn't take any losses at all, guaranteed. The person that was the tortoise, the guaranteed account, they made off better in five, 10 years

because all those ups and downs chip away and chip away. And I think that, you know, to your point, the paper loss, you know, people go, oh, I'm up 30%. But then when they go down 30%, they go, oh, it's just on paper. But yeah, to your point, you're only up on paper as well. And this is an interesting mathematical equation, which we don't need to get into the weeds of, but I know you'll relate to this. If you had a million dollars in your portfolio and you had a 20% hit, now you're down 200,000 or you have 800,000 left in the portfolio. Well, you need way more than a 20% gain to get back to ground zero because all of a sudden now you need 30, 35, 38, whatever the number is. And people don't think that way. They think,

oh, I've got time to recoup. How do you advise your clients to start making the move out of some of the more volatile money in the market per se into some of these safe accounts? At what age should they be starting to think of those moves? Well, it's different for everybody. But just let me tell you one more serious, you know, roadblock to our peace of mind. About 20 years ago, maybe as longer than that, I had a client come in and he had retired. And his company stock, which was all his 401K went from 750 to about 580. And he said, Jim, I like what I'm hearing about safety and stuff. But when my stock comes back, I'm going to, I'm going to come, I'm going to come to talk to you. I said, well, what if it doesn't come back?

Don't worry. I've put 30 years into this company. I know this stock is coming back. I said, do you mind if I call you every couple of months? He said, no, go ahead. Every time I called him, he was down another 25,000. Wow. And then 9-11 hit.

It was all airline stock. So his 750 went to just over 200,000. I never heard from him after that because he had to go back into high risk. So I don't know what happened to him. You see how desperate we become? There's really a cardinal rule is, man, you cannot be romantic with your company stock because you never know if that stock or that company is going to divorce you someday. So that's just one of the pitfalls that we talk about.

yeah you know i've even heard it said too that in i don't know that's a kind of a funny way to people talk about it but you said about being romantic with your company stock i've heard it said that the market doesn't care about your goals you know your goal might be to retire great and have plenty of money the market doesn't care about that the market's going to do what the market does and there's sometimes no rhyme or reason you know the dictator in zimbabwe might scratch his nose the wrong way one day and it causes every market to go crazy. We just don't know what is going to happen. So I think those are some of the points that, you know, you start saying, hey, in your 20s and 30s, okay, you can recover and, you know, take it

on the chin and have some time to rebuild back up. But once you get into your 40s, 50s, and certainly in your 60s, you better start circling the wagons and getting some of those safer, guaranteed protected accounts. What are some of the recommendations that you're making to your clients to start making those moves? What does that look like? Well, you know, it's interesting. that in the beginning, if Wall Street didn't sell it, it was a dog. But, you know, now Wall Street is looking towards more safer investments. Matter of fact, I got a Wall Street Journal article that talked about the indexed annuity. Well, I had a client recently who got a 30 percent, over a 30 percent return on an indexed annuity contract that has no risk.

can you imagine if the market tanks you sit the year out why would someone want to go into the market when they're approaching retirement with no downside protection if the market goes up you go up with it if the market goes down the worst thing that's going to happen that year is you don't have a gain i had a client call me one time when the market tanked and one of those big events that nobody can control or foresee. And he said, Jim, what's my account doing? I said, guess what? You didn't make anything.

Isn't that great? Right, right. I didn't make anything. He said, well, your neighbor lost 25%. Yeah. And then you just have to remind. Look, when the market tanks, we sit the year out. Yeah.

And then we go. But we have all of our money sitting, sitting tight and protected your neighbors are running for the hills and then next year when things kind of level back out and then we start creeping back up that's the tortoise and the hair and that tortoise is making progress and he sits out you know a leg of the race but then when he gets his energy back he starts plodding right back along that is a retirement shield you know every every professional sports team who has a great offense also has to have a great defense because you can score 150 points a game,

but if you don't have a good defense and the opposing team scores 151, you're never going to win. That's why you have to have a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. I love it. We focus on this. And some of these products give us both. you know and i think that when people hear their neighbors say oh my guy got me this and i you know like what you said like a 30 percent this and no downside and whatever the the specifics are

the temptation is oh tell me or oh i'm going to go online and find that thing you mentioned or you mentioned a fix whatever i'm going to go get that the problem with us doing that as humans is we feel like quick fix but the problem is these types of products they're they've been around hundreds of years but they still need to be set up and structured the right way with the right floors and ceilings or caps or whatever the case is so talk a little bit about the need for working with someone that is independent that has every option available not captured and only you know having four or five or six types of products to offer but working with someone that has your best interest in heart that can look at your end result make some recommendations

and really explain things well to make sure things are set up the right way well yeah again it's it's very subjective uh yeah but you do want to have you what you do want to have available more irons in the fire and if you are with a company that keeps you captive you have to sell what they offer yeah being independent all of my life uh has has opened up the field of of options for my clients there's just a whole lot more irons in the fire when you can look around to a dozen or more different companies and make sure you find the best solution. And you can't get that when you work for one company.

It's like if you have a tire store and they sell one brand, you don't know if you're getting the right fit for you. Yeah, that's a really good point. It's kind of like if you have a hammer on, and that's the only tool you have. everything looks like a nail. You know, so if you're trying to fit that square peg in a round hole and all you have are these certain products, that's all you can offer. Well, as a consumer, as a client, you might be limited.

And so I think that's a really huge piece. So, you know, I think this is this conversation has been so helpful to realize, protect yourself, have that sword and shield, have the right people on your side watching out for you, checking up on things. And, and I think that this would be. be so powerful for someone just to have like a second opinion. Hey, can you take a look at how my retirement is set up? So if someone is interested in connecting with you and maybe having that conversation, what's the best way they can reach out and connect? Well, they can reach out through

me, through email at TVR shield at gmail.com. The acronym is for Treasure Valley Retirement Shield, but it's TVR Shield at gmail.com. Or they can call me direct at 7.com. 1775-233-2203. Excellent. Well, Jim, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Thank you. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.

www.influentialentrepreneurs Radio.com.