Ep56: Retire 5 to 10 Years Earlier by Following These Finance Tips! with Amy Cook, CFP®

Do you want to accelerate your path to retirement? Join Amy Cook, CFP®, as she unveils actionable strategies to overcome financial fears and make smarter investment choices. Tune in now to start rewriting your financial story and steer a sure course toward financial independence.

Key takeaways to listen for

• How subconscious stories about money impact your ability to make empowered financial decisions
• Practical steps to significantly reduce your retirement timeline
• Techniques to help you overcome investment anxiety
• Real estate strategies to generate additional income and build wealth
• The importance of creating and practicing sustainable financial habits

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Your Money Narrative by Amy R. Cook CFP® | Kindle and Hardcover
• The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason | Hardcover and Paperback
• The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko | Hardcover and Paperback

Do you want to learn comprehensive services designed to align your financial decisions with your life goals? Visit https://www.mavenlanefinancialgroup.com/retirewealthyhappy for valuable resources and to schedule a discovery interview with Maven Lane Financial Group.

About Amy Cook, CFP®
Amy is a Certified Financial Planner™ professional residing and working in San Mateo, California, serving clients nationwide from her local office. With twenty years of experience in financial services, Amy and her team help clients across varied industries and life stages, underscoring that strategic financial planning is integral to making informed decisions and achieving long-term objectives. In her free time, Amy loves working on her decorating projects, building small-scale dollhouses, and restoring vintage typewriters.

Connect with Amy
Website: Your Money Narrative | Maven Lane Financial Group

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Amy Cook
Once you start becoming aware of things that you tell yourself that are just not necessarily based in any kind of research, and you just have a feeling or an emotion about money being spent on certain things, they're all typically rooted somewhere. 

[00:00:15] Podcast Intro
You are working professional but struggling to balance the workload of your career, family obligations, and preparing for your financial future. If so, this podcast is for you. You've spent years learning your craft, and now it's time to focus on your financial future. This podcast will teach you what you need to Retire Wealthy and Happy. Let's dive in. 

[00:00:38] Roger Jacobsen
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. Today we have Amy cook, who is the founder of Maven Lane financial group. How are you doing today, Amy? 

[00:00:47] Amy Cook
I'm good, Roger. How are you? 

[00:00:49] Roger Jacobsen
Doing good. So you've got about 20 years in the personal and financial advisory section. Tell us about what you've done and what you do. 

[00:00:58] Amy Cook
So, I'm a financial planner advisor. I work with people at all stages, really. Just getting started, accumulating, getting ready for retirement, people who want to retire early, people who never want to retire. What I do is kind of take a macro look and the entire picture and see where we can do better and improve on what clients are already doing just to make their situation better and to achieve their goals and ensure that they're on track.

[00:01:28] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. You wrote a book that teaches financial narrative and the story version. Can you tell us what a financial narrative is? 

[00:01:37] Amy Cook
Yeah, so I wrote your money narrative, which is a group of kind of fictional money stories that hopefully are relatable dilemmas that a lot of people go through money narratives are really just kind of the stories that we are telling ourselves that maybe we don't know we're telling ourselves that we carry through. Our adult lives and affect the decisions that we make so they could be things that are instilled in us at a very young age and we're making decisions based on those things could be family parents circumstances situations that have happened and it's a good idea to look at those as we kind of make decisions. Maybe some things aren't working out and see if they're serving us. 

[00:02:22] Roger Jacobsen
I like to think of that as being something where somebody might say, I can't afford this where somebody with a good financial narrative would say, how can I afford this? And a lot of that comes down to mindset. How do you teach a story that tells somebody what to do to change their financial narrative?

[00:02:41] Amy Cook
I don't know that I really Teach a story. I've just noticed kind of consistencies throughout the years of Stories that kind of surface over and over I guess you could say and my own as well and I think that just Kind of questioning it or subtly questioning that story and what's going on. And if there might be other possibilities is a start. Like I said, often, we don't even know that we're telling ourselves the story. So it's hard to call out something that you see if the person doesn't realize that they're telling themselves the story. Just fine by kind of illustrating options and saying, Hey, this might not be the case. And there's alternatives here that can start the ball rolling to changing it.

[00:03:26] Roger Jacobsen
Can you give me an example of a bad financial narrative? 

[00:03:30] Amy Cook
Well, I think that a lot of narratives are based on fear. So. Have you ever heard someone talk about the stock market dropping to zero? I'm afraid that i'm going to lose all of my money and that's a really really strong statement And it's not to say that it's impossible But if that were to happen, it would mean that every single company is bankrupt We've got far bigger problems if that happens So a lot of times fear will make us go like from zero to a hundred Versus looking at the real true risk, which is somewhere in between for sure.

[00:04:06] Roger Jacobsen
I hear that most in real estate and it's a lot of people saying, oh, it's impossible to buy a house right now. And I'm always contrary to that. And it's like, well, the best way to do it right now is to house hack and buy something that can also produce part of your mortgage or more with a mother in law apartment or a duplex or. Right now, there's a special loan with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae that you can buy a fourplex and get a great loan and be able to do it. And the financial narrative is, is I can do it by cheating the system and house hacking as opposed to, no, there's no way I can afford a house. And it's just hard to tell people that stuff.

[00:04:49] Amy Cook
I mean, I love that. I talk about the multi units all the time. As far as if you're in the Bay Area, real estate. Can get pretty up there. And a lot of times the multi units are above that threshold, but I think it's a fantastic opportunity for sure.

[00:05:04] Roger Jacobsen
How does sharing your financial narrative help boost your family's financial health?

[00:05:09] Amy Cook
Well, I think kind of sharing as you build an awareness of things that you might see going on in your own. financial picture. I think it can really help your kids, your partner, people you work with by saying, Hey, I was really worried about this. And I thought, well, should I really be so worried about this? And then it can open up the door to maybe other people thinking about their own narratives and sharing their stories. 

[00:05:36] Roger Jacobsen
And a lot of times you can get somebody's attention a lot better by saying the story as opposed to quote unquote, this is what you need to do. I think my favorite story is, is when I started out, I was 22 years old and I'm 51. So almost 30 years ago and I was driving around cleaning carpets and it was a dumb job. Just covered in cat fur and chemicals and I ran into a person that was like, yeah, I just made 40, 000 and thought it'd be a nice gesture to have the carpets cleaned. And that's like my livelihood and I'm making 30, 000 a year going around doing this and it would take me over a year to earn that much money. So then I bought a house without any knowledge of house flipping or anything like that and was. Broke, but owned a house. And so I had to learn how to do everything myself because I couldn't afford the contractors and everything else. So I learned how to do construction and then the rest, they say is history and got into construction.

[00:06:39] 
And now I'm more of like the construction side of all the different financial things that I'm doing because I have a knowledge of the way to do stuff and how to talk about it and how to vet and hire contractors and contracts and stuff like that. And so that's, My financial narrative, but then trying to teach that is a lot harder because a lot of times people won't accept the story, even though they have great experience in construction or an asset like me that can teach them how to do investing because they just have a fear problem or something else. So I hit that button 18 on the jukebox. It is, here's how I got started and try to teach through that a lot. 

[00:07:19] Amy Cook
Well, yeah, and it's like anything else, right? I'm sure once you did it, your comfort zone increased over time, and a lot of times it's just getting started with something that's the hardest part.

[00:07:31] Roger Jacobsen
That's for sure. How do you help people overcome their fear and get started investing and getting started towards their retirement and financial future? 

[00:07:40] Amy Cook
Well, I mean, I think it depends on the stage the earlier the better as everyone knows if someone comes to me and need to want to retire next year, we don't have a lot of time to make a ton of changes. And it's like, you're either in a good position to do so or not. But when there's 10 years now, we've got some time to make some changes. And I think with financial planning, because there's a lot of financial planners who just do the investments and I do that part of things, but I think the financial planning is so important because it illustrates the gaps. Like, here's where you want to be. Here's where you are. And You can see very clearly What's not working and what needs to change and that can be very motivating 

[00:08:26] Roger Jacobsen
I remember a line from the preview of your book That was nobody gets rich on a salary. Can you expound on that? 

[00:08:35] Amy Cook
So that wasn't my line That was uh, david merman scott who wrote the forward and he was telling a story about a teacher that he had in high school and tell that Really imprinted on him as far as His financial decisions and managing money. Well, first of all, I mean, with income in and of itself, you can make millions of dollars a year and spend all of it every year. And that's not really where you're building wealth. It's not what you make. It's what you save, what you invest kind of age old advice, I guess. 

[00:09:09] Roger Jacobsen
Yeah, I've heard that from a couple of different people. The richest man in Babylon is a pretty good story and narrates how you can save 30 percent and spend 10 percent of each of that 30 percent in three different ways. And the other one would be from Carlton sheets. That was exactly that line. That's don't tell me what you make. Tell me what you save. 

[00:09:33] Amy Cook
Oh, yeah. I mean, I've, I've worked with people that have really modest salaries, teachers who are in great positions for retirement because they're on top of their finances. So it's not an income thing. Always. A lot of times it's just habits and resetting those habits. 

[00:09:52] Roger Jacobsen
Yeah, I've worked around a few teachers that have become millionaires and kind of studied that seems like teachers are much more likely than several other Professions to be millionaires and seems to boil down to they have that confined time where they're teaching Maybe it's nine months a year and then three months that they can go and do something else and a lot of times that'll be Fixing up a rental house and renting it and then adding 1 every summer or something like that times several summers. So I find that very true. I like the idea of, uh, saving a percentage and right now I'm trying to teach multiple people that are mostly my kids how to go about spending and saying their goals. And I think a good goal would be to save 50%, but how do you set realistic goals for people to save money when they're seeming budget is so low, like, if they're going to earn 15 an hour, how do you help them set the goal? And what's a realistic goal or a way of setting goals for them? It's easy to say you need to save 50%, but a lot of times it's hard to figure that out. What can you do with that kind of. 

[00:11:02] Amy Cook
Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty, I mean, for a kid who's at home with no bills, I mean, absolutely. That's a realistic goal. I mean, it depends really on where it's at. I mean, if the thing, I mean, the last thing you want to do is go in and say, oh, you need to be at 50 because that's going to be like, well, I'm screwed. So I'm going to continue not doing anything. So I think part of it is everybody's different. I mean, you have some people who save too much and then they're afraid to spend any money on themselves or do anything that they enjoy doing. And then you've got other people who aren't saving enough. And I have no idea where they're going to find the money. The key though, is to pay yourself first as I'm sure you've heard a hundred times, but if you do get in that habit of pushing the money out to the non negotiables at the onset, then it's the habit that's set. And if you wait till the end, do all the other things that you want to do, and then go, Oh, there's not enough leftover. Then that's when you start kicking the can. So it's really, I think that. Taking the money off the top to fund your different goals is really important for sure. 

[00:12:10] Roger Jacobsen
And the problem is often you want to save and then something exciting comes up like a concert and those concert tickets just seem to get so expensive that it could ruin just about anybody's budget. 

[00:12:25] Amy Cook
Well, with kids, I mean, a lot of what kids learn, they're learning at home. It's because there isn't a lot around this being taught in school, unfortunately. So on one hand, like my kids, I was always kind of lecturing on like. Do you know how much this would cost if you got a job here and we were making X amount of dollars per hour, we take taxes out and then it's pulling, then they would just like gloss over. So I think a lot of times it's better to hear from someone else rather than your parents. And then some parents obviously their own financial habits aren't great. So they're not really in a position to teach as far as savings and things like that and investing. 

[00:13:02] Roger Jacobsen
It's very true. I have one friend that seems like her daughter is about 20. And I think she's living on 35 percent of her income living with mom and saving a huge portion and then all the other stories that I can think of, or you get a check, spend it all, you know, rinse and repeat, which is really sad and hard to understand. I wish I could teach. 

[00:13:27] Amy Cook
Personally, and I, I think that's more stressful. It's much more stressful to not have a cushion to not have an emergency fund to not know what you're going to do. If you need new tires on your car, something happens with the house, then to just suck it up and look at it and put some different habits in place. 

[00:13:45] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. I think there should be a rainy day fund that everybody has that covers those. Basic things that come up, whether it's a house and you know, that you're going to need a roof or a water heater or something like that, or a car, and you're going to need tires or whatever. And knowing what is going to be there and at least planning for the majority of the things that can happen. So you're prepared.

[00:14:09] Amy Cook
Agreed. 

[00:14:10] Roger Jacobsen
We're seeing a lot of that in real estate now, and interest rates are going up and insurance just seems to go. Higher because of other states misfortune than the states that we invest in. And so we're all paying the price and then not necessarily reaping the rewards because the insurance money is going to other problems and other places. And it's pretty insurance is crazy right now.

[00:14:32] Amy Cook
I mean, in California, too, with all the fires and a lot of people are getting. Their policy is canceled and some of the carriers are kind of pulling out temporarily And that's another like with those kind of costs like if you know What it is like homeowners insurance and property taxes like i'm a fan of keeping a literal separate account for that So if you pay it once a year or twice a year versus every month Just kind of putting that money aside so that when it's due you just pull it out of that account 

[00:15:07] Roger Jacobsen
Right. And a lot of mortgage companies is forced that issue by escrowing that money every month. 

[00:15:12] Amy Cook
And for some people, they need that to impound it. I mean, I prefer to keep it separate, but I also think that if the habits aren't there yet, then you got to kind of know yourself and do until as you're resetting some of those things, do what works best.

[00:15:26] Roger Jacobsen
For sure. And we do that. Sometimes as a necessity and sometimes as a smart business plan and seems to work out better when you've got it planned and stresses you out a little bit more to go over that month by month and wonder if it is going to cover the actual expense or just get the bill and then suddenly scramble and then it's even higher stress, but it's all at once.

[00:15:52] Amy Cook
Yeah. 

[00:15:52] Roger Jacobsen
Why don't you tell us about your money story? 

[00:15:55] Amy Cook
Yeah, so I mean, as I've worked in this business for 15 years and financial services for longer, one of the things that I realized over the years and working with clients was just looking at my own stories. And so that's kind of where the interest in all of this. I've been blessed to be in a business where I get to talk to so many other people about kind of what they have going on. And as I listen to other people's stories, I'm looking at my own stories and I've been making changes all along, but early on in my life, I formed some money narratives and I had a lot of fear around money. And so my solution to financial problems was that I was more money. My. Parents lost their house or our family home when I was seven and I didn't know what was going on other than just the stress in the house and seeing my dad so stressed out and just the fear around that. And so in my little head, it was like, this is a money problem.

[00:16:58]
 It was a money problem. But the problem was, is I didn't know anything else about the situation other than just. Money would solve the problem, but I didn't know how much was it a thousand dollars, a million dollars. I mean, what would solve this problem? So I then just kind of turned work into the solution and work more, make more, work more, make more. And that's a spiral in and of itself. And in a lot of ways it served me and built a great business and all that. But just looking at the core of it, it really wasn't about the money per se. It was. Not wanting to see people that I loved stressed out and the security of losing our house. And I definitely didn't want to be in that position, but the balance is realizing that there was more to it than just the money itself.

[00:17:45] Roger Jacobsen
So at age seven, you, you watched your parents go through a big hardship. How old do you think you were when you really understood what had happened? 

[00:17:54] Amy Cook
Last year, just kidding, I didn't even connect that beer and especially around, like, I'm super, you know, my house and having like, that security solid spot is super important to me. I started kind of diving into this stuff, maybe about 10 years ago. I mean, it's a work in progress. Like, I'll still kind of look at stuff sometimes and go, Amy, what is that about? Like, it's hard to name something specific, but once you start becoming aware of kind of things that you tell yourself that are just not necessarily based in any kind of like research or facts and you just kind of. Have a feeling or an emotion around something or a guilt about money being spent on certain things or certain areas. I mean, they're all typically rooted somewhere. So it's a constant evolving process of just looking at that stuff and kind of tweaking things and challenging the stories that you tell yourself.

[00:18:50] Roger Jacobsen
If you can only tell somebody three things and they couldn't ask you any follow-up questions, what would your top three pieces of financial advice be?

[00:19:00] Amy Cook
Based the music and don't ignore what's going on? Because it will only get worse. Number 2. It's probably not nearly as bad as you think it is if you think that situation is dire and there's always solutions to change it. Number three would be it's not a sprint. It's the tortoise and the hare. It's the slow and steady and the habits that create the change and the progress over time, but it's not an overnight win. It's a lot of small wins. 

[00:19:32] Roger Jacobsen
For sure. I see a lot of people that, Have the kind of mindset that is, if only I could win the lottery and 70 percent it's like a known fact, 70 percent of people that win the lottery, no matter how much it is go broke within a couple of years. It's amazing. I think the idea of going, we don't have the lottery at all here in Utah, but we can go to Idaho, Wyoming. Or other places fairly easily, you know, within an hour and small change from Salt Lake City and go buy lottery tickets. And I don't think lottery tickets are a good idea. So don't take this as financial advice to go spend money on lottery tickets. But I think the idea of planning what you would do with that money is actually well worth, uh, maybe 20 amount. So if you go and spend gas and spend 20 on a lottery ticket. Or lottery tickets and think about how you would spend that money and think of all the different parts of it. I think that's a really good financial practice.

[00:20:34]
 So, for an example, if you were to win, say, 300, 000, 000 dollars, you can do the financial planning on that and know that the 300, 000, 000 dollar thing would be an annuity that just paid you out. The cash equivalent would be 150 million. The taxes would be around 50%. So it'd be 75 million. Then what would you do with that 75 million? And I can do a better job investing that money than taking the annuity and everything else over time, because I can invest it smarter and better. So I would take that money and buy real estate and stocks, maybe a little cryptocurrency here and there, move it forward in a way that I could buy this much amount of real estate this much amount of stocks, their return would be this amount and then just apply it to what I actually do have and say, okay, so if I'm going to take 50 percent of my income, which is left after taxes and put it into my investment vehicle, I can do the same thing. And realistically, it's exactly like you said, rather than having it be the sprint, that would be the lottery winnings, have it be the marathon that is the 40 or so years that I'm going to be able to smartly make my income and reinvest the difference. 

[00:21:45] Amy Cook
Yeah. I mean, I totally agree. And the lottery piece is a great example. I mean, when I first started in financial services, I was in the mortgage business and that's kind of what prompted me to flip over to this side was I was in the mortgage business before, you know, the bus, you know, the 08 great depression slash recession. But I noticed that I would help someone refinance their house. They would pay off all of their credit cards. And then a year later they were in the same exact spot again. And of course that was recurring business for me, but it was like, we solved the problem. There wasn't any major crisis. Like you didn't lose your job. So it became very clear that it was. Habits and so it's really not about just the amount of money because people say, oh, if I had a million dollars or if I won five million dollars, whatever, I'd be all set. And that's not necessarily true. I mean, I've seen people blow through inheritances like quick, very quickly.

[00:22:45] 
Money that they'd never had money that they've ever seen and then it's just all of a sudden gone. So it's just something to think about because like big chunks of money, like inheritances or winning the lottery, let's say you're that person, you know, there's such an opportunity there, like you said, to really secure your future. And it's a great time to step back and say, Hey, let me make sure that I'm doing this right. 

[00:23:08] Roger Jacobsen
I look at that type of spending. And I think back the early years of the show wheel of fortune. You would get all the money at the end of the round and they'd spin the stage around and you'd get like a minute to spend all the money that you just made on the prize. And so they would say, I'll take the living room set for 2, 000 I'll take the jet ski for 2, 000. Couple thousand dollars or whatever they were back then. And then I'll take the rest in a gift certificate. And so they would spend all the money that they had just earned in like one minute. And then there was no money left over for the taxes that they'd obviously pay. And it was just a mindset that was just ridiculous. And I changed that a long time ago. So a lot of people might not even remember what that used to be, but I still see that today. And a lot of people spend. Plan and it's like, okay, so I got a thousand dollars for my paycheck and what can I buy with that? And then it's gone and then they go back to work and start the whole rigmarole all over from scratch every paycheck. 

[00:24:16] Amy Cook
Yeah, there's too much month left over at the end of the paycheck, right?

[00:24:19] Roger Jacobsen
Exactly. I like to think about in more of a strategy of. What can I avoid as opposed to planning? I think it's too impossible with my sporadic paychecks, or I'll get a check for flipping a house to say, okay, I'm going to spend 70 percent of it and save 30%. And so I just try to save all of it. And then sometimes it'll get a little crazy cause I'll get a big check. And then it's like, okay, now all of a sudden I can afford to go out to eat. I can afford to go to the grocery store and spend too much money. And sometimes my financial planning falls apart in almost a makeup for what has happened during the space of. What could be weeks or months? 

[00:25:05] Amy Cook
So, I think it's a lot harder for self employed individuals from a planning standpoint. I mean, when you've got your paycheck every 2 weeks, you can chop that up and just kind of push it out where it needs to go. And for people that are running businesses, I mean, there's some extra. Steps to get more organized that are necessary and it can be difficult But on the onset and I have a chapter about Someone who's self employed in the book and i've been self employed the majority of my life I mean, so I get it I find that structuring what you can with like a salary to yourself Even if it's just you from employer to employee And still taking those percentages putting the tax money aside first and things like that can really help You Because if you wait, if self employed people wait until they go to do their taxes, it can feel like you're always catching up and never getting ahead, even if it's not like you're going into debt, but if you're just kind of, oh, tax bills are this, and you're always kind of paying in arrears, it's so much more freeing to get ahead of it.

[00:26:13] Roger Jacobsen
For sure. And we do a lot of that where it's end of the year. Some people wait until tax day to figure out what their taxes are. A lot of real estate people wait until almost the end of the year, and then they try to sneak in the tax savings through cost segregation studies and doing different things that can help them in a scramble as opposed to a salary and a plan.

[00:26:35] Amy Cook
Yeah, real estate's tough. I mean, especially I know the last Well, when interest rates popped up, there was an adjustment. I mean, like you've got great, great years and I'm not talking about the investments, real estate side. I'm just talking about residential. I mean, so it can be really volatile. 

[00:26:52] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. And there's a lot of, uh. Realtors and mortgage people right now that had a good budget and plan in the good years, and now they're scrambling to find that income and side hustle and having to sell off real estate and some of the depreciating assets like cars and boats. To keep their head above water, which is really sad right now.

[00:27:14] Amy Cook
I was in the mortgage business in the early 2000s. I mean, there's some big living going on big Lifestyles and then 08 happened and then people are on their brother's couch and stuff. And I mean it's cyclical And we know that we know that it's cyclical. We know that that will happen. It repeats. So you just have to plan for it. We have cycles. 

[00:27:37] Roger Jacobsen
Yeah, I think anybody that lived through 2008 has a much different perspective right now what's going on as opposed to if they just started 4 years ago and we're in the heyday of real estate and you could do just about anything wrong on a real estate investment and somehow make money. Great money, because prices were going up so quickly that even if you bought a house to flip that wasn't going to make any money, you could still make 10 plus percent because the value went up just during your ownership of like 6 months. 

[00:28:11] Amy Cook
Yeah, I can bite you on the other side, right? So like with real estate, obviously, I mean, it's being able to weather through the storm, like the people who made it through those few years. I mean, they're a great spot now, but if people buy too much pre 08, and they couldn't keep those things afloat, that's where things turned into trouble for sure.

[00:28:33] Roger Jacobsen
Well guys, it's time for the final four. This is where we asked the same four questions of everybody to get an overview of their business sense and stuff. Question number one, Amy, what is your favorite business book? 

[00:28:46] Amy Cook
That's a tough one. I mean, there's a lot of good books. I think I like the millionaire next door. And I go back to that classic, the good one, that's one of my favorites.

[00:28:54] Roger Jacobsen
And every time I think about that, I think about my old truck. That isn't a Ford F one 50 that they side in there, but mine's a 2012 Dodge with 280, 000 miles. And although I want a brand new Cadillac Escalade for like 130, 000, my zero payment, don't care if it gets another scratch truck and don't have to worry about making a payment or anything else. So that was truly one of my favorite books. And it was one of those, you start it and I didn't put it down. I didn't sleep until I was done with it. So. I love that book. What thing or things bring you happiness? 

[00:29:39] Amy Cook
So I'm a cat person, a kitty cats, my kids. Sometimes I've got two grown girls. I I'm a hobbyist too. I've got a lot of hobbies and I enjoy that downtime of just kind of working on something where I'm not thinking with my day-to-day brain. I love to see people that I work with. When they do some of the things we talk about and they hit some wins, I mean, there's nothing better than that. 

[00:30:08] Roger Jacobsen
I don't think we'd be true to our podcast if you didn't say something about your hobbies and the motorcycles. I know we had a little conversation pre recording, but why don't you tell us a little bit about what you've done with motorcycles?

[00:30:21] Amy Cook
Well, some motorcycles not even really like one of my typewriters or it was my big hobby right now I build dollhouses and i'm like a massive typewriter collector and I write for a typewriter Even if there is a typewriter magazine that still exists and do some stuff with it, but I do have my childhood first motorcycle And I wrote about it in the book when my dad taught me how to ride a bicycle the next day He taught me how to ride. He gave me my weisinger Which I called it a YZ 50 in the book. I screwed that one up. It was a Weisinger. And I went out and got another one that's just like it was with the same little stickers and everything. And it looked so much smaller than I remembered it being. Like this is like the tiniest little bike you've ever seen. Ever seen so I do have a couple of motorcycles We grew up my brothers, you know raised and we grew up going to the desert most weekends and it was good times 

[00:31:17] Roger Jacobsen
I love it. I love motorcycles, too question number three What is your favorite way to give back? 

[00:31:23] Amy Cook
So I feel like I like to just give back as things happen and as life happens. And if there's an opportunity to help out, I think it's a good time to give back. I mean, I have been really involved in the community and different things over the years, which I kind of over involved and pulled back on that a little bit, just because there's too much of a good thing. And on top of running the business and committing to different boards and stuff, it becomes a lot, but. I think that there's a lot going on just wherever your backyard is, and I'm here in the Bay Area, but if there's an opportunity to help somebody out, I think that that's an opportunity to get back. I mean, I'm blessed, and I think that if I need to do more, I always feel that way. Like, there's more that we can do, there's more to be done, but if we see something and we just do a little, even if it's a little something, it helps.

[00:32:14] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. And I often get inspired when I go to Tony Robbins events and he'll say, just so you guys know, a portion of your tuition is going to fund meals for people in need. And every time it'll be an astounding number, like. This event has paid for 100, 000 meals for the homeless or people in need. And every time I hear that, I think, gosh, it would be so easy to go and do some donations over at the homeless shelter. And I always think, man, you know, I should. Just block out time to go and do something like that. 

[00:32:51] Amy Cook
So, it's such a cool thing to do whenever I do that stuff. It just, I want to do more of it. And I did not know that you were Tony Robbins guy. I'm like, I'm a T Robbins girl. We have that in common. 

[00:33:02] Roger Jacobsen
I think a lot of people have that mindset, whether they do or don't like Tony Robbins. They always have that exact same mindset, whether they've done it or not. Have you done UPW and walked fire? 

[00:33:16] Amy Cook
So I've done date with destiny. I've done business mastery. I've done life mastery. I've done a bunch of stuff, but I have never did that initial one. 

[00:33:24] Roger Jacobsen
I think that was The best event ever. The first time I did it, I did it recently back in, I think it was December of 2023. And so walked fire for the 2nd time, but the 1st time it was truly unleashing the power within is the stands for. Yeah. And I was in a full on trance across the fire and it was just 1 of the coolest events. There was. Parts of my feet that just felt like they had a tingling, like they had literally been cooked and I just couldn't feel it during the time of the firewalk because I just blocked out everything. And the event like was just life altering because you just go through all the steps and identify what you're dealing with and everything else. So I do love the Tony Robbins. I want to get to date with destiny. I've done business mastery and look forward to doing everything else. And it, it's, Also add there was a really funny movie that I watched last night that was couples retreat. That was kind of, uh.

[00:34:23] Amy Cook
I've seen that.

[00:34:24] Roger Jacobsen
 It was kind of.

[00:34:26] Roger Jacobsen
Farce on the Tony Robbins in Fiji where there was four different couples and they all went with their different problems and in the end, the guy that was like Tony Robbins had actually fixed them all, even though it looked like a complete failure, the whole entire movie. So it was really funny. Yeah. It is funny Question number four. What does your future retirement look like? 

[00:34:52] Amy Cook
That's a good question So I like doing Projects my hobbies and stuff. I'll probably be Fixing up a house Or two, when I just dive in, do a lot of it myself, when I step out a little more, I don't know what full retirement looks like, but, you know, over time, I'll probably free up and build the team out differently. And I like renovation type of projects. 

[00:35:19] Roger Jacobsen
Yeah, I think that everybody starts out with the idea that they're going to retire and when you look at it, you don't want to lose your purpose. And so it turns into what purpose will you redirect into. And stuff like renovations or hobbies get a high priority along with Giving back or charities and stuff that don't have the financial gain, but still have the activity and the purpose 

[00:35:46] Amy Cook
Right, and really it's just about having the freedom to do those things and whatever it is that you want to do I mean some people want to just travel non stop and some people want to garden and just being able to do it Yeah 

[00:35:59] Roger Jacobsen
Awesome. Where's the best place for people to find you online and social media? 

[00:36:05] Amy Cook
Yeah. So we have a page set up and I wrote it down. So my book website is your money narrative. com. I've got a couple of free checklists there. I've got different checklists that sort of correspond to the chapters that help with different stages and financial stages. But Maven lane financial group. com is my, Work website and then if you do Maven Lane financial group dot com forward slash retire wealthy happy. That's our page and there's a bunch of cool stuff on there. I've got various financial planning packages you could check out. And if you want to book some time to talk about it, there's a link right on the site there.

[00:36:44] Roger Jacobsen
Awesome. Thank you so much, everybody. We've had Amy cook on their show today, and we've talked about financial advice and how to get ahead and retire five to 10 years earlier. Thanks for being on the show, Amy. Thank you, Roger. I really appreciate it. It was fun. And we'll see you guys all in the next podcast.

[00:37:02] Podcast Outro
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