Rob Cook | Inheriting Grandpa's Money Mindset (and What to Do if You Want to Change It)

Rob Cook | Inheriting Grandpa's Money Mindset (and What to Do if You Want to Change It)

 Heather Murphy: Hi, Rob. Thanks for joining me today. Could you start off and just introduce yourself a little bit.

Rob Cook: Yeah, my name is Rob Cook. , by day I work as a financial advisor at night my passion project is my podcast Contenders Wanted, and I'm a husband and father first and foremost, and yeah, that's a little bit about me, I guess.

Heather Murphy: Okay. Now you mentioned your financial advisor. And when we talked before. You said that your grandfather's example and life really had a lot to do with your mindset about finances and money. Could you tell me a little bit about him?.

Rob Cook: Yeah. So my grandfather's name is Jack Edward Schmidt. he was born, in 1937. so he grew up kind of that tail end of the depression first part of world war two. and his dad was an immigrant from Southern Russia. He, they were actually Germans who had immigrated from Southern Germany to Southern Russia during the era of Catherine the great, but that's a whole nother story, but anyways, his dad was an immigrant to the United States and his dad died when he was about 12 years old.

And he was the oldest. He had one younger sister and his mom. So his mom picked up some odd jobs. Keep in mind, this is, you know, early fifties, the era at the time, you know, in this era, women are supposed to be home. So she, she couldn't make a lot. That's what really came down to. So he very quickly grew up.

He wound up picking up some odd jobs as a kid to help the rest of the family. And then he ended up leaving and going into the military. Shortly before he graduated from high school. so he goes in the military, everything he makes, he sends back home to the family, his sister and his mom comes home and marries my grandmother.

 serves well does actually just desk job mostly during the Korean war. because by this time it's, you know, post-World war II, pre cold war. And he starts working at a forms, company, paper forms, company, almost like a Dunder Mifflin. You could imagine, you know, if anyone's familiar with the office and, uh, marries my grandma, she's not even graduated from high school.

And she winds up getting married to my grandpa and they ended up having four kids in five years and they bounce around from various places. And my grandfather worked up the corporate ladder and realized he had this entrepreneurial bug and he could do it on his own.

So at this point, his family, he had moved his family up here to the Sacramento area where I am from now and, laid down roots, started his own company. And many, many years later, He was my grandpa. He had a very, very successful paper company actually up here. Um, not so much so that, you know, like tons and tons, but he was, he was very financially successful, but he didn't really have to worry about it.

and as a kid, I always thought my grandpa was super, super rich because he could just pay for anything. Right. I mean, as a kid, like anything is like 20 bucks. but the thing that, how grandpa impacted the way that I look at money and the way I look at wealth really came later as he told me these stories of his life.

Um, cause he, cause when I was a kid, I was fortunate enough that I live close to my grandfather. And so every summer I got to work with him on his property. He lived on 10 acres out here, caught on the edge of the suburbs. and so I'd help him mow the pastures and fix fences and paint and all the things that you gotta do to just keep property up.

And every summer we'd worked together on his property and he'd drive me to Carl's Jr. for lunch. And on those drives to and from, and as we sat there at lunch and then inevitably when it just gets too hot for him to keep working, when we're just sitting on the back porch, drinking a cold glass of water, we talk about life and we inevitably money and finances would come up because that's part of life.

Right. but my grandfather was the first person that I remember talking to me about money and finance and investing in things as if I was an adult. And so he would kind of blow my mind a little bit as a kid. And he'd tell me these stories of when he was a kid and how things that he had done, or when he was first starting the business, things that he had done to, to grow it or how he, you know, did certain things that as a kid, what it did is it wound up just peaking my curiosity so much so that it became this like lifelong passion to learn about.

Finance to learn about investing, learn about how people make money to learn their stories and figure out, okay, what did you do? A plus B plus C. Got you here. Okay. Well, this guy did a plus D plus F got him here. Okay. What could we take between those, you know, type of thing? and so my grandfather and his story, really his stories that he used to tell me about himself as a kid and things that they did, Sparked this curiosity in me that has just fan this flame. That's it's just grown into a bonfire that now feeds right to was my, my, day job, my profession.

Heather Murphy: Do you have one of those stories that you can tell that maybe stuck out to you?

Rob Cook: Oh, there are so many little ones, I guess I could tell a kind of a funny one that in a way is kind of related to it. So my grandfather used to tell me, Tell all sorts of stories from when he was a little kid and his dad was still around. so this was, you know, post depression, early world war one era timeframe, and money was really tight.

And so they got really good at saving their money and being very purposeful about what they did with their money. So if you lost money, you've gotten a lot of trouble. And my great grandpa would go out. He was really smart and he, but he wasn't like a super well educated man, but he was bright.

And the fact that his mind was really sharp. So he would, he play cards, but he would count cards so that he could then win every hand and not lose any money. And so he taught my grandpa how to do that as a kid. And grandpa would tell me these stories about how they would play. There's An old board game, then it has a like sets of two holes that go around and kind of like a U shape you go around that they would play the kids and they would bet money on it.

 My grandpa got really good at it. And he wanted to play with like the teenagers and the younger adults that were playing. And he was to bet money. And you'd tell me stories about how his grandpa would literally beat him if he lost money. So he got really good at counting cards and memorizing and knowing exactly what he was doing.

Cause I remember I learned that game as a kid and I was like, Hey Grandpa, this is the game you used to play. Can I play against you? And he goes, do you want. Do you really want to? And I was like, yeah, of course. I want to, and needless to say he kicked my trash the first few times. Cause he could literally just pick up the cards, know exactly what was the score.

And it was, it was fun anyways. Yeah. That story of the very first time that he played that card game and he ended up losing money, his dad talking about how his dad kicked his heinie and he talks to me still about how he says to this day. I still think every time I'm about to take any sort of a bet about on an investment or a business or whatever.

Have I hedged my bets. Do I know exactly what I'm getting into? Will I, what have I done to protect myself? So I don't lose my money, you know, type of thing. So it's, it's a little, much, a little things like that little random stories that you would tell.

Heather Murphy: Yeah. And that's a good example of how, we look at money when we're children can still or see our parents, how our parents look at money can affect how, when we're, uh, as an adult look at money and the choices that we make,

Rob Cook: Your money script has actually the phrase that they use to describe that in our industry. What is your money script? What have you learned in the past, from your family that then influences the way that you view and use your money today? Yeah, it's a great point.

Heather Murphy: So. Even though he, he still made sure that he had a good thing going, how did his view of money evolve maybe from, cause I don't think it was always that scarcity. It doesn't sound

Rob Cook: no, not at

all.

Heather Murphy: How did it evolve as he kind of became an adult and kind of owned his own course?

Rob Cook: Yeah. That's a great question. the short answer is, I don't know exactly if there was one specific thing, but. I have a hunch. my grandfather grew up in a family that wasn't very religious, but when my grandpa and my grandma had the four young kids, they met some missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints.

And they wound up getting baptized. And my grandma talks about how grandpa. Completely changed in certain ways in that moment. And I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of those, because for the rest of his life, my grandpa, although he worked hard and he built a very successful business and he was financially successful.

He gave abundantly all the time, whether it was of his time or his resources. In fact, there are stories in our family where like, for example, there was a young man in our area who had recently been baptized in the church and wanted to serve a mission in the church of Jesus Christ, latter day saints. That's a typical thing that, you know, the guys in the white shirts and ties for two years.

Well, it costs money to do that. And this young man didn't have any money in his family. Wasn't willing to financially back him. So my grandfather stepped in and paid his entire mission just because he wanted. To give that man young man an opportunity, something that he was never able to do as a young man, but because he had the financial resources, he wanted to make sure that that young man was taken care of.

And he did stuff like that all the time. In fact, my father was actually in a very similar situation, same exact type of thing. my father got baptized a member of the church when he was roughly 18 ish and, uh, you know, met my mom around that same time. Who was a member because of her mom and dad getting baptized when she was younger.

And um, my dad decided he was going to serve a mission. And in order to do that in order to fund that he sold his prized truck to so he'd have enough money to be able to do that. And my grandpa saw the commitment of my dad and without telling my dad went and then paid for his mission. But didn't tell my dad at all.

So my dad thought he was paying for his mission the whole time. And he's, you know, his, my dad jokes here. I was eating beans out of cans, trying to make sure I didn't run out of money from my truck because my dad went to Italy. And uh, when he came back, all of his money was still in his bank account and he went to the Bishop and he said, Bishop, you guys are supposed to take the money.

So you can just use it to pay for the mission. He said it was already, it was covered. Someone paid for it. And for the longest time, my dad had no clue who had done that. And it was only until years and years later that I think grandma may have let it slip that it was grandpa that had paid for it. and so you're right grandpa had maybe have had a bit of a scarcity mentality growing up. But then I think in that moment, when his whole perspective about what's actually most important in life switched when he, he made that commitment to God or however you want to describe it, you know, whatever faith you might be from.

One that I think switched it from the scarcity to this abundance mentality and for the rest of his life, he gave back in his time and his money to his family, to his faith and to anyone else that he could help that was standing in need. Honestly,

Heather Murphy: What other family members or ancestors stick out in your mind that have influenced you and helped you to become who you are?

Rob Cook: that's a great question. Both. My grandfathers actually were really influential on me. My, grandpa Schmidt, the one I've been talking about, he was alive for basically all of my childhood and early adulthood, but my Grandpa Cook, he passed away about two months before I was born. And I've always felt a closeness to him. and ironically, as I've learned the stories of his life and the stories of his parents' lives, I see myself so much in them.

So like here's a perfect example. My grandpa Cook, born about the same time as my grandpa Schmidt during the Korean war, he served the military, like so many people back then, but he was a military police officer and he went to Colorado to get his training and then went off and lived in, served in Germany.

Well, when he was in Colorado, he was in his basic training while he was there. And he was talking with another guy from the area, from the Sacramento area up here in California, where we're from. And, uh, they're both talking about the girls that they were writing. There was really, and this other guy he was talking to, he's really excited.

This is really cute, girl. I want to get this picture. Let me show you. He pulls out this picture and it was the picture of my grandpa's wife at the time. Now this was before he met my grandma. So this was his, his first wife. And he looks at that and he doesn't say anything. He just goes, oh yeah, she's a cute girl.

Real cute girl. That's exciting for you guys. And they finished their conversation. He goes to his commanding officer and requests, some leave the commanding officers. Like, I mean, you said you have four or five days, 1 0 2. It was, yes, sir. Gets in his car that night drives for a day and a half from Colorado to Sacramento goes to the hospital where at that time wife was working and just shows up on her shift and she's like, oh Bill, what are you doing here?

Ah, you know, I'm, I'm on leave for a few days. You want to go for a drive? Sure. So they go for a drive. He takes her straight to the courthouse. Divorces are there and leaves her on the steps and drives back to Colorado.

And that might sound a bit harsh, but there's this intensity and intentionality behind everything that grandpa did. And the more stories I hear about, so like this idea of like, You burn the bridge I'm done. I don't care if I have to drive four straight days, I'm going to do what I think needs to actually be done.

And that I can see that same, like intensity, that same fire, that same commitment to like, what I think is actually right all the time in my own life that I didn't even realize that was something that I may have genetically inherited in some way from my own ancestors. And it's funny cause there's other stories of his dad doing very similar things as well that we found in, in our family history.

So needless to say that intensity has come down the family line. And for me before I used to view my intensity as this like negative thing. And now I view it as this like, gift that I got from my ancestors that I can learn to use and channel for good. And as long as I put it in the right direction and it really is a, a great. strength and a benefit for me. So hopefully that kinda answers your question

Heather Murphy: Yeah. Yeah, it does. That's great. , So you mentioned before though, about your grandpa's Schmidt's cabin. Can you tell me about that?

Rob Cook: Yeah. Okay. So, like I mentioned before, grandpa Schmidt, his thing was faith and family. Those were first and foremost for him. so one of the things that he did in order to foster family love and unity and give us a place to all be together as he built a cabin up here in the Tahoe area, actually in Truckee specifically a couple of years before most of us grandkids were born.

It wasn't anything huge. It hadn't, you know, three, four rooms, a couple, a couple bathrooms and a nice, larger living area where we could all hang out. But as a kid, we loved the cabin because holidays, Frankly any holiday doesn't matter if it was winter or summer, we always want to go up to the cabin because we knew our cousins would be up there.

And it wa it backed up to a golf course. That, of course, during the winter time, it was just this big, giant, snowy field where we gonna have intense snowball fights. And it snows enough in Truckee that you could slide off of the, the roof down into the trees, that one on either side of the house and an uncle who had built like a little lean two type of Fort in amongst the trees, you know, and we would build snow case. And during the wintertime in the summertime, we'd go exploring and we'd make makeshift bows and arrows and different things. It was just this, this place for us that as kids was just a place of adventure, it was this place where we felt so at home. So close to our family members we'd stay up late playing games.

And the aunts and uncles would always be, go to bed, you know, banishing us to sleep as they're sitting down and, you know, downstairs playing games on the big giant table that was done. And so as kids, we loved the cabin, but when I was about 10, 11, 12 ish, years old, grandpa sold the cabin. Someone came to him with an offer that he couldn't refuse and he sold the cabin.

And when us grandkids found out, we were so mad because that was our place. We loved the cabin. We loved being there with our cousins. I mean, because of that, I mean, I was, I can count my cousins as some of my best friends, just because of the, really the experiences we had there at the cabin. , And I remember we had our first family gathering after the cabin was gone and it was at grandma and grandpa's house and all of us cousins.

I mean, I have 32 cousins on my mom's side and my grandpa Schmidt side. So a bunch of us that are like, you know, at this time, probably like 15 and below 15 to like eight all got around and surrounded grandpa. So there's at least a dozen of us. And they're like, Hey, you sold the cabin, not cool. You need to build us a new cabin grandpa.

And he just laughed and he's like, you know what? You're right. We need to have a cabin. And my oldest cousin, Krista, she was probably 15 at the time. She, she was smart. She goes, no, no, no, no, no. I don't want you to just say, you're gonna build the cabin. I want you to sign a contract

Heather Murphy: No.

Rob Cook: and grandpa goes, oh, okay. So she goes and gets a piece of paper and then she hands him the piece of paper and she goes, do you have to sign this?

And he goes, there's nothing on there. She's like, okay, fine. Write something. So he says, you know, to my grandchildren, I promised that I will rebuild you a cabin. And then he signed his name and dated it at below it. And we all wrote our names around it. And he'll, held ontothat piece of paper and a couple of years goes by and we're like, grandpa, we just haven't rebuilt the cabin grandpa. We still haven't rebuilt the cabin. Now, granted, in hindsight, we had No idea what it costs to actually build a cabin or like what we were actually asking our grandpa to do. We just knew how much it meant to us and reflection of what kind of man he was, he did it. He started looking from that time and he found a spot, he built a cabin and about four year, five years later, after he had signed that contract, we had a new family cabin.

and that family cabin is still in our family to this day. it's still a place where. We love to go as cousins. It's still, even though as cousins at this point are in our thirties, twenties and thirties, we're all have our own families and stuff. We will still get a there's sometimes some of us just to, just because it's the cabin.

and so when I think of my grandpa, I think of stuff like that, he knew what was most important. Yeah.

Was it going to cost a lot to build a new cabin? Is it cheap to maintain the cabin up there? And we probably don't use it as much as we should or we used to? For sure. But he knew what was most important, creating a place where we could be together as a family where we could go and make memories where we could feel like we could escape every once in a while from all the stuff that happens in life and just be together.

And that's a beautiful thing. , because to me, It showed me that at the end of the day, although I work in a profession that's focused around money. Although money is a big stressor and it's a part of life. It's just a tool. It's a tool to create experiences and places and memories that bless us in our families for generations to come.

It's not something to be hoarded. It's not something to it's B spent frivolous. But to be used to make what I like to call a real legacy.

Heather Murphy: Yeah. And that was something that popped out to me when I was reading your bio, is that you said that wealth, isn't just money. It's about legacy. So how do you take that example from your grandparents and parents and look forward to the future? What do you do with what, you know, from them?

Rob Cook: Well, what it's actually done, I feel like in to their credit is it's made me much, me personally, much more intentional about what I do. In terms of the type of career that I build, the things that I put my time and my energy and my money into myself. But it's now also informs the way that I serve my clients today.

 a lot of advisors might sit down and they're like, okay, what are your goals? You want to spend X amount in retirement? Okay. You can go on this vacation. Okay. You're going to do these things great. This is What you need design you to be allocated to. This is what investments you need to do This is the return I need to get you

Okay. That's great. Those are all important.

But at the end of the day, all those things are footnotes when it comes to real life. Right. Those are just minor details. Yeah. As an advisor, do I need to know how to properly allocate client's portfolios and where to put things in the proper tax planning and everything else that comes with being a good advisor?

Of course, but my focus isn't on those things. My focus is on sitting with my clients in getting to know them, getting to, coming to understand what's really important in their family. What are the real goals? Not just all right. What you want to spend. All right. what, do you know, what kind of return you want? It's more like, all right.

How many kids do you have? What's the situation with them? How old are they? Where are they headed? What do you want to do for them? All right. Well, when you think of your family, 15, 20 years from now, what kind of family do you want to have? What do you want to be able to do with them? What are the memories that you want to make with them?

What are the kinds of experiences that you want to be able to give your family because of your hard work and working hard and saving money. Why, why do you want those things? And it's in those conversations that I have with people where real buy-in from clients takes place and real purpose behind what we do is found, , 'cause if, if it's just a bunch of numbers, if it's just a bunch of arbitrary goals, if it's just ones and zeros, there's really no meaning behind it.

But if there's a purpose and a goal for a real reason beyond just I want to retire. Okay. That's good. But why, and what does retirement really mean to you? Suddenly you flush them out and they have so much more power here. in their life.

Heather Murphy: I think that's great that you've been able to take the example of your ancestors. Take the parts that you see the good in, and that you not only use them for yourself, but that you're helping other people with them. And that kind of goes along with what your grandfather was doing, sharing what he had with other people. And that seems to be, this is the way that you're doing it.

Rob Cook: I'm trying. I feel like he did a good job. If I can try and be like him, I feel like I'd be doing a good thing,

Heather Murphy: Would you have anything to say to someone who maybe has a scarcity mindset from their ancestors from generations and how they might be able to shift that to a more positive way moving forward?

Rob Cook: Great question actually. I think the first, very first step is just the recognition. So if you have at least recognize that you have that scarcity mindset, that's a great first step. I think most people it's kind of, we're like fish in water. You asked the fish, what's it like to be in water? And they don't know any different because that's just, just the way it is.

And I think this idea of a scarcity mindset is the exact same way. Most of us just live that way. So we don't recognize that that's what it is. So first coming to recognize it. And then I think the second thing is taking purposeful action to push against that mindset to test if it's really actually true.

Right. so like, okay. Here's a, here's a prime example. one of the scarcity mindsets out there is that there's not enough to give, I can't give charitably. I can't give to. Others in need. I can't give to my church because I don't have enough. Right. Or if I do, I won't have enough. And that is a total scarcity mindset.

for those of us that are faith based, there's a whole faith aspect of that as well, but from just a purely abundance versus scarcity mindset practice, if you recognize that you're having that thought like, oh, I can't do that. I can't give, I can't donate because I won't have enough push against it.

Maybe. All you can get yourself to do is to donate $5 right now. Okay. Well then do that because before you wouldn't have donated at all donate $5, does it break the bank? See if it actually does. Right. cause one thing that I have come to see is that some of the most successful and financially well-off people are some of the most giving people I have ever met in my entire life.

Contrary to what. Cultural stigmas are out there currently that those with money are just greedy son of a guns that only look after themselves and my personal experience amongst all of my clients and hundreds of other people that I've come in contact with. It's quite the opposite. They are some of the most generous and thoughtful people I have ever met.

And if you want to move that direction, Overcome that scarcity mindset learn to give. Yeah, you might say it's easier to give when you have lots. That's true. But if you never learn to give, when you have nothing, it'll be that much more difficult to give when you have a lot, because then the expectation is you'll give more.

so start small, overcome that mentality and it just takes some practice recognizing it, and then practicing on pushing against it. Even if it's just a little bit, just a couple bucks.

Heather Murphy: Yeah, and that's good. And some people like you, they have examples in their family of people who have been generous but also looking at your ancestors that maybe needed that generosity.

Rob Cook: Oh, yeah.

Heather Murphy: helping that to help you move your mindset. You're like if I could have helped my grandparent when they were a new immigrant, I wish somebody would have helped them. Maybe we can use that in our own, helping other people

Rob Cook: I think that's a great idea. Great idea.

Heather Murphy: Well, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been great to talk about your experience with. Your grandfather and how he looked at money and how that's transferring to you and how we can all kind of change or improve how we, how we see finances, even in spite of maybe family narratives that that would kind of, us back from accomplishing things that we didn't think we could otherwise.

Rob Cook: Yeah, happy to. Glad I could come here and thank you so much for the invitation.