Jeanetta Robinson Warnick
“There's nothing anybody dislikes MORE than a LIAR.”
Mom always made sure we learned the value of honesty and integrity.
(Excerpt from an interview with Jessica Butler Cook, wealth planner extraordinaire and mom of 3 kids)
Florida, US
My mom was born in Maryland and was raised in a small town called Rainelle, West Virginia. It’s a small town that only has one stoplight, and she lived up on a mountain very close to her grandparents. We come from a long line of coal miners. Her grandfather was a coal miner, her father was a coal miner. Their family did a lot of farming, grew their own food, had chickens. She grew up riding horses. Our family still actually has the land and we have a family reunion there every year. It's pretty remarkable.
Mom was raised around a lot of family. Her mother had seven siblings, so she had a lot of cousins, not only from her mom's side, but her dad's side as well. And she was, from what I understand, a very hyper little girl so she had tons of energy and was always running around. Mom had this amazing childhood out in the wilderness, where they cooked and ate food made from scratch. I would consider it to be a unique upbringing which shaped her into one of the most beautiful humans. The family remains very close, in fact, all of her brothers and sisters all relocated to Florida and everybody lives here.
My mom is always a huge proponent of forgiveness. Imagine that there's lots of things that happen in a large family, things that could really deter you from nurturing relationships with one another. But she always showed us and reminded us the value of forgiveness. I think that's why her family thrives so much. We forgive each other. We maintain kindness, love, and acceptance in our relationships, and we forgive each other. We don't hold on to the dark clouds and that's really something that my mother has spread. That’s why she is exudes being sunshine and joy.
I always felt like my mother is our safety net and as we got older, my siblings and I learned to create that for each other. I have sisters and brothers that I know I can count on and they can count on me. And we maintain very close relationships with one another as well as each other's children. We have group family messages. We still plan our events together, Easter, Christmas, Mother's Days, etc. It's because we really know that we can trust and count on each other. If something ever happened to me, I know that my children would still feel that kind of love from my family. And if something happened to my siblings, their children would still feel that love from us. I find myself thinking all the time how lucky we are. We really are lucky.
Sometimes I've been in a better place than my siblings. My siblings have been in a better place than me before. And we always lift each other up. Nieces and nephews, second and third cousins too. I have a cousin that lives in Wyoming. I've seen her once in ten years but you wouldn't know it because we're so close. And she has children that have met me once, but they probably are closer to me than people that live right around the corner from them, because we just maintain that really high level of family connectivity.
There are many things I learned from my mom and one that’s most impactful is about honesty. If you ask me specifically what she says is that “there's nothing anybody dislikes more than a liar.” It was an ongoing conversation. Imagine as a child, you're always testing the limits, and instinct tell you not to tell mom because you might get in trouble, but she always instilled the sense of honesty. She encouraged us to be honest with her, and even if we were in trouble, if we’re honest with her, there won’t be any repercussions. She honored that. And because she did, we always felt like we could come to our mom with anything and we could deal with anything and everything. Imagine how valuable that is as a teenager, right? And taking that into my life, it's really shaped who I am as a person.
As a financial professional/wealth planner, a field where there could be a lot of really dishonest people, there's a lot of trust that needs to be developed when you're managing people's money and future. And because of my deep sense of honesty, it is not difficult for me to create this level of trust with people because I come from honesty. As a mother, I also was able to create honesty with my own children so that they're able to come to me about everything in the same way I was able to come to my mom. And even outside of children and outside of work, I've been able to form really deep friendships with cousins, friends, because there's just this innate sense of trust. People value honesty and integrity. And thanks to my mom’s guidance, that's the way I've lived my life.