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Life by Design is a podcast that shares the experiences and tools to help couples align their wealth goals and reclaim their time, enabling them to experience freedom, abundance, and a life by design.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:10] Welcome to the Life by Design podcast with your hosts Jessilyn and Brian Persson. We support couples in achieving their wealth goals by sharing our journey of overcoming barriers to build our financial empire.
Brian Persson: [00:00:21] With our extensive personal experience and increasing demand from couples seeking alignment to invest confidently in real estate, we created the Riches, Relationships and Real Estate program to help you achieve your goals.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:33] Today's topic is why wealth is important. There are numerous reasons to be wealthy, and we're going to talk about some of the more common ones before we dig into the gold. First and foremost, I think we hear a lot that financial security and stability, so if you're wealthy, you have that. And that's a big one. I know for me, you know, being raised without much money in our family, I watched how much we struggled and worked really hard for a lot of the things we had. So financial security was a big one for me. I knew I didn't, when I was a young teenager, I decided right then and there I was not having kids unless I could afford to have them.
Brian Persson: [00:01:12] News to me.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:13] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:01:15] First I've heard of that.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:16] Hence why I had a career before, like a really good career before I even met you. But no, I just remember watching my parents fight. And the only thing I recall them really ever fighting about was money.
Brian Persson: [00:01:25] Yeah.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:25] And so one day, I watched them fighting and I said, no, like, I, this isn't a lifestyle I want. I'm not having kids and raising kids that are going to just watch me fight with my partner over money.
Brian Persson: [00:01:36] I had some of that too. My comfort level in growing up was probably a little bit higher than yours, but I remember around the time I was 18, just at the end of high school, my dad had gone through a series of like bad jobs and people were screwing him over. And I mean, the level of arguments in our family went skyrocketing up during that period. It was night and day from probably the two years before to the two years after my dad finally landed a good job. So I mean, it can happen fast. Those, the arguments in your relationship and that financial stability when it goes away, literally pulls the carpet out from under you.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:18] Yeah, I mean, rolling into that one, having wealth reduces stress and anxiety. That's a big kicker. You know, when you're stressed out about not having a job or not having a good job, I mean, you're dealing with not having a good job, which in and of itself can be extremely stressful, but wanting to leave and not having the ability to leave, or not making as much money, or having downtime between gigs and not having the money. When you're supporting a family, you know your family of five, we were a family of five as well, that's expensive. And between spouses and partners, I mean, that's going to be the main conversation because you talk about what you're stressed, or you fight about what you're stressed. And if it was money and jobs, that's where it's coming from.
Brian Persson: [00:02:58] You listening to this podcast might be in that boat. You might be in a job where you think you can't leave because you don't know what your financial future will look like if you leave that job. And that's just another stress on top of the stress already that you're perhaps experiencing from your job. I can't, you and I can't imagine that anymore. Like, I, we've kind of, we've chose our hard as we like to say. We chose the hard of working to get wealthy so that we don't have to experience that stress and choose the hard of experiencing the stress and not doing anything about it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:37] Yeah, I remember one time in one of my contracts when it was super stressful, super stressful contract and they wanted to renew, and I was at a space where I was like, okay, I'll consider renewing, but you're increasing my rate. And I remember having that conversation with you because it was uncomfortable, because it was like, okay, I need to, if I'm going to stand so firm in the increase for the rate, you said, you need to be willing to walk away if they don't want to give it to you. Are you willing to do that? And I was like, you know, my chest just went tight. And I'm like, then I came to peace with it. I'm like, all right, let's do this. And I went in and I asked for it and I got it. But it was stressful leading into that. But there was a calm on the other side knowing that, okay, if I didn't get it, I was willing to walk away and I would find something else. But we were financially in a position that I could do that.
Brian Persson: [00:04:29] Right. But let me ask you a question. If you did not have that safety net of wealth and financial stability, what would your decision have been in that same position?
Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:40] I either wouldn't have been as adamant about the raise I wanted or just accepted what they gave me.
Brian Persson: [00:04:46] Just to make money?
Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:48] Yep.
Brian Persson: [00:04:48] Yeah. Instead, you had that safety net. You could take the leap. And if you missed, you landed somewhere, right? You didn't pancake onto the ground. So it's huge.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:05:00] Exactly. Another, more common reason that wealth is important is it allows for a better quality of life, and we know that, we can speak to that just even in this example we shared where I was able to leave a stressful position because we had money aside and we didn't need me to work at that time as I was sorting things out and getting my health back.
Brian Persson: [00:05:21] Yeah, you can reduce your hours if you need to. You can have the opportunity to take the time to choose better positions. You can just do things that are more meaningful to you, to just improve your quality of life and your kids too. Like for us, we have our kids in summer camps because they would be a nightmare in the house if we were working because we both work from home. And, but the amount of experience that we're able to afford our kids, like I didn't have that. I'm not complaining about growing up. We also didn't have internet growing up. So there was sticks and stones. But you know, our kids go to rock climbing camp and soccer camp and all these different camps. Our youngest goes to code ninja camp, where they get to learn how to program and build little 3D printed objects of whatever they want. Just the amount of experiences that we can afford our kids is crazy.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:19] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:06:19] Like, it still blows my mind a little bit.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:21] Yeah, I would agree. I didn't have camps as a kid. It's called the farm. But another, more common one, and I think most people are well aware of this one, is it allows you to be prepared for retirement, should you choose to take that path or are forced to take that path.
Brian Persson: [00:06:37] Yep. Us, we've talked about it a lot. We don't really plan on retiring, working and doing what we, all we plan on doing is graduating into more and more meaningful activities. And so our retirement, it just means like, less work and more meaning. And for you, that might be the same thing out there in the audience. Or it might just be like true retirement. You know, you hit 65 and you just know you're well taken care of. You can go to Arizona or Florida or wherever your dream destinations are, and take and babysit your grandkids whenever you want. That might be your ideal retirement. But imagine if you're at 65 and you're not able to quit because you can't afford anything, if you do quit and you have no income, that would be very scary.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:07:26] And stressful. Absolutely. So today we actually want to talk about the less common talked about or known reasons why wealth is so important. And so our first takeaway is because wealth enhances your relationships.
Brian Persson: [00:07:41] Mhm. This is literally our entire program. Our entire program, the Riches, Relationships and Real Estate program is designed to get your relationship in alignment when it comes to wealth. And then for you to go off and build the wealth that you and your partner want. And the difference that it can make between where you were before and you didn't know where your wealth was, or you didn't know how you were going to be wealthy, to after is night and day.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:10] Huge, huge, as we kind of mentioned earlier, is like financial strain can put a significant burden on your relationships and cause stress and that. If you're in a stressful space because of finances, that's what your conversations are going to be.
Brian Persson: [00:08:26] If they're conversations. More often than not, they're going to be arguments.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:29] Arguments. Hence, Stats Canada leading to the number one reason for divorce is--
Brian Persson: [00:08:34] -- money disagreements. Yep.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:35] Yep yep. But if you're wealthy, you don't, those conversations aren't, you don't need those conversations. I mean you definitely there's other conversations we encourage you to have around your wealth, but there's no fighting and arguing about wealth. So that opens up space to have other conversations with your partner.
Brian Persson: [00:08:53] You don't have to spend every moment trying to crack through the stress just to get to the other side, so that you can have a meaningful conversation with your partner. Yeah, instead that, you know, that barrier is already gone and you can just get there, have more meaningful conversations, not have conversations about the stress of money.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:09:13] Yeah. And knowing where you're going when it comes to wealth gives you a sense of peace, right? A peace between you and your partner, your family as a whole. And this allows you and your partner to focus on other things.
Brian Persson: [00:09:27] And accomplishment. Gives you a sense of accomplishment.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:09:30] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:09:30] When you get that sense of accomplishment, it just makes you want to go and do more and more. And so you end up being wealthier and wealthier when it really comes down to it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:09:39] Yep. And I believe Stats Canada also said something along the lines that the wealthier you are in your relationship, the less likely chance of divorce.
Brian Persson: [00:09:48] Yeah. As wealth goes up in the marriage, your rate of divorce goes down.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:09:53] Yeah. That in and of itself says it all.
Brian Persson: [00:09:57] Yeah, yeah.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:09:58] Second takeaway, why wealth is important, is it allows freedom and flexibility in your career choices and to pursue your passions. I mean, we definitely can speak to that. We are pursuing our passion and new business as we speak. We love coaching couples to help them build their wealth, their wealth strategy, and just becoming financially free. But if we didn't already have that built in, we would be tied to our typical 9 to 5 and we would be doing something we didn't love for the money to make sure we could pay the bills.
Brian Persson: [00:10:37] Yeah, the whole program came out of us going through the fire and knowing how we transformed our relationship from one that was stressed and full of anxiety about money to one that is significantly more open and flexible.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:10:53] Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, having wealth gives you freedom and flexibility so you can pursue more meaningful in your, whether it be your professional life or meaningful interests, which again, could be like traveling the world, starting your own business, dedicating time to a hobby. It's just freedom. And for us, it gave us freedom to choose the work we want to do, which we chose to do virtually, which gave us freedom to be there more for our boys to take them to and from school, to and from sports afterwards, attend in school little events and shows and stuff that they put on that we would not have done when we were working in our 9 to 5 office job.
Brian Persson: [00:11:35] Nope. Also, it allowed us both to quit our jobs. One you burnt out of your job. Whereas I made the option to quit. But for basically two years, we worked on another business with a number of partners, got very educated, very well trained inside of that business and learned a lot of stuff about what it takes to build a business, what it takes to have partners, what it takes for us to find sort of rock bottom in our finances so that we know exactly where the lowest level that we will land is. We learned tremendous amounts of stuff over about ourselves and about other people and got very, very skilled over those two years because we leaned on our real estate. We basically didn't pull a paycheck for almost two years.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:12:27] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:12:28] And that would absolutely not have been possible, and we would not be the people we are today, without the freedom to be able to do that.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:12:36] Oh, 100%. Yeah. That was a beautiful space to be in, from the ability to not pull a paycheck and just put our, focus our energy on learning about ourselves, our partners, other people, and growing those skills.
Brian Persson: [00:12:53] Yeah. Don't get me wrong. There was stress in those two years. It's not like we were living free. But the thing is, is that stress also taught us a lot. Right? Like where, you know, how do we, it taught us a lot about how we handle money. And again, what our lowest common denominator is. So now our lowest common denominator of like where are the bottom of our financial bucket is, has actually started to creep up and up and up and up and up. So that what we thought was sort of our financial safety net is actually starting to get raised higher and higher and higher through the experiences that we had over those two years. It's kind of like inverse logic in a way that we didn't pull a paycheck for two years, and where our financial bottom is, is all of a sudden significantly higher than it was before, because we were able to work through all those problems and build all those skills and make all those relationships to know that we're going to be okay, significantly more okay than we were when we started that two year journey.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:57] Yeah. I mean, being wealthy makes change much more comfortable and seem possible, right? Had we not been in the the state we were in when the pandemic hit, there is no way we would have gone two years without pulling a paycheck, without finding something.
Brian Persson: [00:14:15] Oh my God, no.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:14:16] To pull a paycheck from.
Brian Persson: [00:14:17] No, no, we would have both been panicking. I probably would have never left my job, and that would have been an absolute emotional and mental disaster, I think, because I was already fairly stressed in that position, you had already burnt out from your position. I can't imagine if we had to, if we were forced to stay into that.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:14:37] Yeah. No. So I mean, like we mentioned, wealth gives you the space to leave an uncomfortable job or position. But again, we don't advocate to just drop and go, right?
Brian Persson: [00:14:50] No, we knew what we were doing. We had a plan.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:14:52] You had to, have to have a plan with some targets to enable you to leave your job.
Brian Persson: [00:14:57] Yeah. We knew exactly how long we could go. And actually, inside of those two years, we found out that once you really start focusing on that, you can actually go a lot longer than you think. We figured, I can't remember what the original timeline was, but we, I'm sure we doubled it from what we thought we could do to build this business to how long we were able to stretch out a lot of our finances and a lot of our business building activities. Yeah. It was, everything kind of just expanded in that two years, even though we were like air quotes broke. Right?
Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:33] Right.
Brian Persson: [00:15:34] Yeah. Or we felt very broke because we weren't pulling a paycheck.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:37] Yeah. And that's going to lead us into takeaway number three of why wealth is important. It allows you to build and leave a legacy.
Brian Persson: [00:15:48] Yeah. Very much part of our training in those two years was building that legacy with our partners. They're all legacy builders. They teach on building legacy. They coach on building legacy. So we got imbued in that entire atmosphere. And now we do the same. And that's part of the reason why, again, why we want this program to be successful and be for everyone out there. Because not only does it improve your relationship, but you can build a legacy for your family.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:16:20] Yeah. And when we hear legacy, I think a lot of people think, well, what am I leaving for my kids and my grandkids and what does that look like? And that's, I mean, if you have a legacy plan and wealth built in, again, there's that sense of peace and that calm because you know they're taken care of. We know, thanks to our real estate portfolio and the choices we've made, our kids are taken care of. Our grandkids, should we be blessed with any at some point, are taken care of. Right? And that's a really good space to be in. But another thing when you have wealth is in terms of a legacy that maybe people don't think of as much sometimes, is just your ability to give back in a larger, more meaningful way. You know, everyone wants to give back. And I watch when I'm in different groups and organizations and, you know, someone's given ten bucks here, 20 bucks there, 100 bucks maybe over here. But if you're wealthy, you can sign a bigger paycheck over. 1000 bucks, $10,000, or if it's in your legacy, obviously you can give part of your estate, whatever that looks like, to your charity of choice or multiple charities, but your ability to give back in a bigger way is much more. It's just a much more bigger give back than 20 bucks to a charity, maybe local charity.
Brian Persson: [00:17:39] Oh, huge. Yeah. Huge. Yeah. And not only that, but if your wealth happens to come from business or your wealth happens to come from some way of employing other people, now you're not only building wealth for yourself, but you're also providing means for other people to build wealth. I had a struggle with that recently. I was worried about upcoming payroll things and who we had to pay and how we were going to continue building this business in a bigger and bigger way. And obviously bigger business means bigger expenses. And my coach reframed it for me and it was just consider that you're spreading the wealth around. And he turned what was a payroll paycheck into like a giving thing. Like here, take some of my wealth from me and go build your own. And that totally reframed how we pay our contractors and other people.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:32] Yeah, I'm going to riff off that because I remember, because we have house cleaners and we have for a while now, and I know some people would look at it and be like, well, I can clean my own house, and they'd feel like there's just a sense of, I'm not sure if it's pride or whatever. And it's like, you could yes, you could also spend that time more wisely doing something else and give to someone else who may need that money, aka your house cleaners. Help them build their business, their profits, their company, their family. Right? I don't think people necessarily look at it that way. They first look at it like, oh, well, you can't clean your own house. Well, yeah, I can, but I choose not to. And I choose to support others who are pursuing those passions or those dreams of theirs. And so there's definitely multiple ways to look at things. And when it comes to wealth, you just get more options and more views on ways you can see things and give back holistically.
Brian Persson: [00:19:25] Yeah, make sure you keep those options open too. We meet a lot of people who for lack of better words, just write off their financial future. So they'll look at the rising prices of houses, they'll look at the rise, especially over the last couple of years, the inflation has been significant. And they're just like, yeah, that's too bad. My kids just aren't going to have the same opportunities that I had. And it's like, well, how old are your kids? And it turns out usually most of their kids are fairly young. So you have 20 to 15 years to build wealth for your kids, that they will have the same opportunities that you have, and they will be able to do some of the same things that you were able to do, and they won't have some of those stresses that you think that they're going to have to experience. It's really just unfortunate that people are just kind of looking at the world as the way that the world is, and I can't do anything about it. You actually can. You can start today and you can start building your wealth so that your future generation, your kids are going to have a way different experience growing up than they would have if you just kind of accepted the reality of the air quotes the reality of the world, because the reality is what you make it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:20:40] Absolutely. And if you're worried about what your kids can buy, say, 15, 20 years from now because they're young versus what you could buy now, that house, that property, whatever it is you buy, will double or triple its value by the time your kid needs it. That's just one, right? That's just one property. I mean, you could buy multiple and there's not even a hesitation for your kids. It's like, no, they'll be fine. But you're right, you leave it all to them without any kind of financial guidance or assistance or whatever it is you want to give, yeah, you're just throwing it out there and hoping for the best.
Brian Persson: [00:21:19] You start looking at things at too small of a point in time. So like what are the housing prices today? Okay, they're expensive compared to last year. And then you think about like well what are the housing prices into the future? And they're like, oh, and you're like, oh my God, they're super, super expensive. But you don't, I don't think most people like understand that there's a gap there that you can actually profit on. So if your house price in the future is $1 million and today it's $500,000.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:48] Hello.
Brian Persson: [00:21:48] Well, take the half million dollar paycheck. I remember my parents always used, like they still talk about how cheap their houses were.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:58] Yeah mine too.
Brian Persson: [00:21:59] Yeah. They bought, like 1000 square foot or maybe 1200 square foot, I don't know, it wasn't terribly big house in Calgary for $20,000. I think it was maybe $22,000. My very first property was a townhouse about the same size for $155,000.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:22:15] And that was still a good deal to us.
Brian Persson: [00:22:17] And I sold it, or it peaked actually at $325,000 in the heyday of Edmonton here where pricing went through the roof in 2008. But then I ended up selling it for just about double that amount. And I mean, that's going to happen again in the next ten years, the housing prices are going to double or go up 50%. Like you don't know, but they're going to go up for sure. So yeah, build the wealth for your kids because things are not getting cheaper. And yet that means people can profit on that. Right? You can profit on those housing prices that are going up.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:22:56] Yeah. I mean, you as the listener can profit on it, not to mention your kids. It's in your legacy. I mean, you buy that house and rent it out and you reap the rewards by the time your kids need it. Maybe it's paid off, maybe it's not, depending on how you choose to invest in that, but it's something they could take over and manage. It's something they can live in while they go to university should they choose that, or for their first family, should they choose that. However that looks. But you will both benefit out of it and they can keep it and there's, now their legacy, part of their legacy that you leave for them, on top of you building your own wealth for your lifestyle. Because if your kids are young, odds are, well, you're still young too. So you still got 20, 30, 40 years before you're probably going to want to retire and then you still have retirement. So what does that look like? So starting today, tomorrow, is a great time to buy that property. Even if you think it's expensive, you think it's expensive today, wait 20 years.
Brian Persson: [00:23:55] Yeah, yeah. The worst possible opportunity you can take is no opportunity. So take action. Yeah.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:24:03] Absolutely. So to recap our takeaways today for why wealth is important, is one, it enhances your relationship. Two, it allows for freedom and flexibility in career choices and to pursue your passions. And number three, it allows you to build and leave a legacy. Our next topic is going to be on why you deserve to be wealthy.
Brian Persson: [00:24:26] We release podcasts every two weeks. Be sure to hit your subscribe button on your favorite podcast app to journey with us and create your life by design.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:24:35] Thanks for listening to the Live by Design podcast with your hosts Jessilyn and Brian.