Life by Design

Jessilyn and Brian Persson talk about resentment in this episode. They define resentment as bitterness about something or someone that we perceive as having done wrong by us, or some action unfairly taken against us that we hold anger about. Resentment, as they will explain, gets buried deep within and puts us into a cycle of negativity. They further dive into how we identify and address resentment so we can break free of the negative cycle.  

Jessilyn shares personal examples of past resentment in her family and years of anger over actions her sister had taken. She and Brian then talk about the different perspectives they had in resentment when they became new parents. These stories pave the way for the three takeaways they share on how to deal with resentment: 1. Watch for the signs, 2. Put it in check, and 3. Practice empathy and forgiveness. Why do these takeaways work and how can you implement them? Jessilyn and Brian have the insight to answer those questions. 


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Transcript 

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:09] Welcome to Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian Persson. We help couples create the wealth they desire by sharing our stories of how we broke through the barriers to create our wealth.
 
Brian Persson: [00:00:19] We are the creators of the Discover Define Design framework, which supports you in resolving conflict and communicating better. Recently, we've created a branch of that teaching we are calling Riches Relationships and Real Estate. We have a lot of personal experience, and there is a lot of demand from couples who want to get on the same page so they can powerfully invest in real estate.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:40] Yes, our topic today is resentment. I love this topic because I harbored a lot of resentment for many years in my early 20s and 30s, before I learned what it did to me and how to let it go. But when we say resentment, what do we mean?
 
Brian Persson: [00:00:55] Yeah, it's just a bitterness to something that you think was done to you unfairly or some action or person who has treated you unfairly.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:04] Yes, absolutely. And so why is it important to understand not only what resentment means - I think most of us can appreciate what that means - but like what it does to you and and why you should let it go?
 
Brian Persson: [00:01:19] Well, as you know, because as you said, you've experienced it, I think pretty well everyone in the world has experienced it. And it takes you out. It puts you in a cycle of negativity and, you know, resentment. You just keep having that resentment come up and up and up over and over again, sometimes out of the situation that it even started in. So if you can't break that cycle and you can't understand what and where the resentment came from, then it's going to cause your life a lot of problems going forward.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:54] Yeah, problems you might not even realize until years later.
 
Brian Persson: [00:01:58] No, you might not even call it resentment until years later. You might not even see it as resentment.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:03] Yeah, yeah. So our first takeaway is watch for the signs. And when we say signs, we mean like bitterness, anger, negative feelings that are repetitive or repeating and may not on exactly what you're resentful for, but maybe to the person you're resentful against. Stiffness in your body, avoidance of topics or avoidance of people that maybe you have resentment with. I know, as I alluded to, I had resentment with my younger sister for years, mostly, you know, from a lot of what she did back in 2010 to my parents. And I didn't realize until, well, I had resentment before that for some of the things she'd done. But she did a real big number in 2010 that impacted my family, and I held on to that until 2015, when I did, I went to a course, and that's when I even realized I was even holding, like, it's not that I wasn't aware I didn't care for her. It was a matter I didn't, I wasn't aware that I was holding this resentment right here, so firmly, so close to home, that when I accepted it and then I forgave her, this just weight came off my chest and I started to see her in a different lens.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:18] I started to forgive what she'd done and open up my house and my invite to her to be around more. I mean, I wanted to be a bigger part of my nieces' lives, so that played a part of it as well. Plus, I mean, she was family, so she was always there anyways when it came to holidays. Now that being said, some stuff went again, a little sideways again a couple years ago where I just, a whole different story. It's not, I don't have resentment for her anymore though. Now I feel it's just, I just cut her out of my life saying, okay, what you bring adds negativity to our family and I'm not okay with that. But I don't resent her. Now I wish her all the best and I am grateful for what she did bring, like my nieces to our life and that. But it's now, it's in her court. It's no longer holding me hostage, if you will, to these feelings that are negative and detrimental to my health.
 
Brian Persson: [00:04:08] Yeah. And how long did it take you to notice that, right? A long time. And that's why we say like watch for the signs. Because you didn't even recognize it as resentment. You just thought that your sister was annoying to the family, is basically what it kind of showed up as to you and that she should, air quotes, be doing something different and, you know, be treating your parents differently and be treating you differently. All these things that you think should have been happening and that, it was ultimately resentment because you believed that the situation your sister was creating was unfair.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:49] Yeah, yeah.
 
Brian Persson: [00:04:50] And it was creating new bitterness. So if you don't watch for those signs, you'll never see them. And you'll just assume that the world is unfair. You'll just assume that your family is unfair. And then the bitterness starts to creep in and all of a sudden, you know, 5, 10, in some people we know it's like 40 years later, the resentment is still there and they have not truly identified it.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:05:18] Yeah, yeah. I got another really good example I want to share, just because for all the moms out there, when we had Jack, our first one, I was, you know, I was a stay-at-home-mom in the beginning and I didn't love it. And I, you know, I openly share how I had the baby blues. I was really depressed. Coming from a thriving, successful professional to suddenly just taking care of this little infant was not my cup of tea. And you still went to work. Obviously you had a career. And I just remember you came home all happy one day and I was not in a good mood for whatever reason. And you were mentioning how you went out for wings with a buddy at lunch, and then you went for ice cream, then you went back to the office and I swear daggers were shooting out of my eyes, I was steaming, I was so mad. I resented you so hard because you got to leave the house. Leave the crisis of what I called my life. Even if it was for just the eight hours of work, I would have given anything to be out like at lunch with a girlfriend, or even in the office where I'm with colleagues or focusing on my work instead of a crying, pooping, hungry baby.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:23] And I just, it took until we talked that out, like otherwise I held on to that resentment to you like every time you'd have to leave the house, I was resentful, right. And I think that probably was one of the turning moments, those daggers where I was like, I just had to let you know, like, I'm hating you right now. Like I was hating you for the luxury I saw you had.
 
Brian Persson: [00:06:43] Yeah.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:43] And you also didn't obviously understand what I was going through or had the appreciation because you never had to, you've never stayed home with the baby full-time, day in, day out, had to give up the life you knew like from a career perspective. So I think a lot of moms probably go through a phase of that in their lives where if they're, they choose that situation, which most of us do in the beginning because we're breastfeeding and recovering from from surgery or labor or whatever it is, but I don't know if the partner, the husbands are necessarily aware of the resentment their wives are harboring just based on the situation. The circumstance. Right?
 
Brian Persson: [00:07:23] There's no perceived unfairness on our side. Like the husband side. We don't have to deliver the baby. We don't have to take care of the baby, generally we don't have to take care of the baby. In your case, you know, there was, you perceived it as very unfair that I would get to go out for lunch when it was probably, you know, just a last minute decision and circumstance of me just being out of the house at work for eight hours a day at that time.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:07:49] Yeah.
 
Brian Persson: [00:07:49] And that that was very, very unfair for me. You know, it was very difficult for me to see that because there was no unfairness on my side.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:07:59] Right.
 
Brian Persson: [00:08:00] So, yeah. How do I perceive that? Right? For you, very easy to perceive. For me, you got to, I have to spend a lot of time looking deep to try and figure out that. Yeah. And then it, on the flip side of my story with the kids is I saw them as eating too much of my time early on, and I was like, you know, I don't know how you possibly think this as an incoming parent, but like, kids take time. Why would they take so much time?
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:31] Yeah. Your life you knew cannot coexist with new, like young ones especially, babies and toddlers. No.
 
Brian Persson: [00:08:41] And that's why they say, like, you can never be prepared for parenting.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:44] Never.
 
Brian Persson: [00:08:45] Because no matter how much you think about it, no matter how much you prepare, things are going to happen that you are going to perceive to be unfair. Right? And one of those things that I perceive to be unfair was the time it took. You know, it annihilated our social schedule. Any friends that we had over in the past was very difficult to find time now to have those friends over or go out. You couldn't just leave the house when you wanted to. There, everything had to be planned and taken care of. So there was a lot of resentment on my side for that. Again, not sure how I didn't see that coming, but...
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:09:24] But I mean, in some respects, I can't say I fully understood it either, but I don't know if this is a mom or just me - I think it's a mom thing - where I just, I think I was able to accept it more because I was, I already had the ten months of the incubation period where I was limited in certain things anyways, certain things I couldn't eat, certain things I definitely couldn't drink, certain things I couldn't do, especially at the end. I was too big. I needed more rest. It just was factually, I'd already shifted my mindset and my physical being because I had to just to carry the baby. And then the healing time, I was down for weeks. And also just that care, like I wanted, I was excited to come home and see my baby whenever I had the opportunity to go out, wasn't a lot at first, but you know, it was always like, oh, I miss him. I mean, as much as like, I need a break, but it's like, oh, I miss him. Whereas I'm not sure fathers are attached the same way.
 
Brian Persson: [00:10:18] No, not, I don't think exactly. No, no. I think if I was in a, I had a different mindset back then, I probably would have been a little bit more attached. But as we've told many times in this podcast and in our coaching and in our workshops, it's a growth period. There's lots of growth periods in your life where you're going to look back and you're going to say, holy crap, like, was I really like that? The topic of resentment itself, when we decided to do this, I was sort of stuck because there's so few things that I resent in my life anymore that I was really wondering, how am I going to talk about this on a podcast? Because, like, it doesn't, I don't, I almost don't even get it anymore.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:11:04] Yeah. But I remembered, I was like, how about this and that? And I was like, and you're like, oh, you're taking notes. I'm like, it was a lot of resentment in between even our relationship in real estate, as we'll get into, and kids, a lot of different things. But resentment in terms of watch for the signs. So just, again, steps to get there: bitterness, anger, negativity, that angst in your chest. If you're feeling any of that towards a topic, a person, a job, an outcome, look at that.
 
Brian Persson: [00:11:33] Yep. Watch for those perceived unfairness signs that are going to come up and, you know, if it happens once, okay, great. There are things in life that's unfair. Resentment is going to be cyclical. It's going to happen over and over again. And you're going to perceive the unfairness to come up over and over again. So if you see it more than a couple times, start watching for that, start figuring out how to forgive that situation. Start figuring out how to have some empathy for wherever you might see the perceived unfairness and put it in, put it in check early.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:12:09] Yeah, I know that rolls great into our second takeaway, which is, like you said, put resentment in check early. And I'm glad you touched on the fact that it's never going to go away. Resentment in and of itself, sure, resentment towards something or someone absolutely can go away. I think we've dissolved a lot of resentment we've had in different times in our life, but there's still going to be triggers or something that comes up, maybe a promotion, or maybe you're working on a project that got canceled, or like maybe someone, your neighbor won the lottery that you thought, you know, like they're still going to harbor some resentment, but it's recognize it and then put it in check. And I mean, I can speak to that I think with, again, the example of my sister. Right? Like the first time I had it for who even knows how long I had some resentment and I'm sure from a teenager at some point and then of course through my 20s. And then it wasn't till 2015 that I learned about it and recognized, accepted, forgave. But then the next time something came up which, like I said, did about three years ago. And I remember when it first came at me and I was just kind of like numb at first, like that she even sent this letter to my sister and I.
 
Brian Persson: [00:13:18] Yeah.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:19] And I was just, I was beside myself because firstly, I was like, I wasn't expecting it. I was like, whoa, I thought we had grown past this. But obviously I'm still, I'm mindset in forward thinking. She still lives where she lives without any--
 
Brian Persson: [00:13:35] -- mentally lives where she lives, yeah--
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:36] -- positive influence or change. But this time what I did is we were just leaving on holidays the following day, and I decided to park it. I was like, nope, this is bothering you enough, you need time to think about it, think it through, park it till at least we came back from our holidays. Now, in hindsight, I don't know if that was also the best decision because I still carried it. You carry it when you got something, but it gave me the space to think it through. And after I got over the pain of what it was, and I had the conversation with my older sister and my parents to let them know very clearly what my plan was - of course, you and I discussed it first - and that's when I decided, like, I was cutting her out my life. She would no longer be a part of it, but I didn't harbor resentment at that point. It was now like I had hurt, because it was painful, but I accepted it for what it was. I accepted the decision I made, which also wasn't easy to just be like, yeah, I'm cutting my sister out, right? I had to analyze what that looked like, accept it, and then move past. And of course now I'm on the other side going, yep, I'm okay with everything about that. And I can honestly and openly say I feel no resentment towards her at all.
 
Brian Persson: [00:14:46] Yeah. You forgave her on a certain level.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:14:49] Yeah.
 
Brian Persson: [00:14:50] And then you decided to take care of yourself first is basically what you, what it came down to. And sometimes you just can't change people or things, and if you want to just sit there in that cycle of unfairness because you can't change what you can't change, you're going to have a bad time.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:09] Yeah.
 
Brian Persson: [00:15:10] So, so like you just did, or did in the past, you know, you looked at it, you went, I got to figure this out. I got to put this in check, as we were saying. And you decided on a course of action. Pretty well the only course of action you had because, like you said, you know, you can't change your sister.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:27] No, no.
 
Brian Persson: [00:15:28] I think a lot of business people have very similar things, obviously not family related, but where they can't control certain things inside of a situation. And so they have this unfairness going on in their head about why their business isn't doing as well as it should be or why they can't, you know, take on a particular skill as well as they should be, and they look at it as an unfairness, and they end up getting stuck in a cycle of resentment.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:59] Yeah, I think that works with partners too, like business partners, I mean, obviously maybe relational partners. But I mean, I know I've had several business partners over the years. And I just remember sitting there, I was doing all the work, period, and I at first was like, so psyched about doing it that it didn't really faze me. But then as the months went on and I realized I was still the only one doing the work, I started to build that resentment where it's like, whoa, this is supposed to be a 50/50 partnership. Why is it 100% work here and nothing there, right? But instead of resentment, I mean, well, not instead of, I guess I had it at first, but I had recognized it and went, okay, well, there's resentment here. Look at it. Why? Address it, which I did, and realize it just wasn't going to change. I was still going to be the one doing most of the work, and that's where I had to decide to just, this partnership wasn't for me and I had to get out.
 
Brian Persson: [00:16:50] Yeah. And you're a little bit of a whirlwind, so it's hard to catch up to you.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:16:57] That's true.
 
Brian Persson: [00:16:57] So some of it is your own problem, your own doing.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:17:01] Yeah. Yeah.
 
Brian Persson: [00:17:02] It's like, why won't the world catch up to me? But even so, right, you did take appropriate steps and say, you know what, like there's a minimum level of effort that has to happen here. I get that, you know, we're not all going to run at the same speed, but we have to run at a certain speed, a minimum speed. And that wasn't happening. And you started to resent the fact that that was going on. I know between you and I, there's a lot of skill differences in our skill sets. You're very management orientated, as you said in the beginning of the podcast when I was having trouble thinking what I was even going to talk about with resentment, you're kind of the story person, right? You, I'll give you a topic and you'll just hammer out, like all the stories over the last 20 years.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:17:57] When you say it that way it doesn't sound the greatest, but no, I just, ideas, right?
 
Brian Persson: [00:18:02] It's an amazing skill. To me it's an amazing skill. Right? Because I can't do that.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:06] Okay. Yeah.
 
Brian Persson: [00:18:07] But then I remember you have a lot of, you know, in the past, you had a lot of resentment about some of the skills that I could take on very, very easy. And any time I even had one sentence come out of some type of coaching to say, hey, like, you could do it this way, you would just shut down, like it was instant.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:26] I don't know what you're talking about.
 
Brian Persson: [00:18:28] Yeah, and very similar, very similar with me, right? If there, if it came down to management, as soon as I started to get involved in it, I was just checked out. I was like, you know what, this is not my thing. I am not dealing with this. And I would get annoyed and bitter that I couldn't deal with it because it just wasn't in my wheelhouse. And you would go and take it over, and five minutes later--
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:52] -- I would get annoyed and bitter that you didn't deal with it yourself first.
 
Brian Persson: [00:18:54] Yeah, both ways.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:55] No, but I mean, it did happen both ways with the skill set, like you said. But then you're right. We had to figure out where our grooves were. And we just knew it was natural for me to come in and see the big picture and see how the objects came together and manage it. And this is priority and this is this is why. And you're just like, okay.
 
Brian Persson: [00:19:11] Or we could have been bitter at each other for a long, long time. And then what, build nothing, right? Build nothing out of our lives. Build nothing out of our business. Build nothing out of our real estate. Because all we were sitting in is resentment about how our partner is better than this in this particular category. And instead we, not that we, we went through the resentment phase. That happened.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:19:37] We did.
 
Brian Persson: [00:19:38] But we figured it out and we said, you know what? Maybe stereotypically the man is more the manager, but this isn't me.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:19:47] We're not stereotypical.
 
Brian Persson: [00:19:48] Yeah, no we're not. But I had to give that up. I had to give it up, and I had to give you the management and the control, and I had to put my skills to work where they were best used.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:19:59] Yeah. You know, I'm glad you said that, because you're right. Stereotypically, the man, the male usually is the head of the household, the CEO. There's just certain roles they're deemed to do. And I had that perception, too. I knew I could do it. That wasn't the question. I just thought you were supposed to do it because you were the man. And it had to take me accepting that it's okay that I am doing it. I know it's not typical for the female to do the roles I do, but it didn't work the other way for us. I mean, I'm just a very Type-A style personality. But then if people were to, as people are starting to get to know us better, they're probably looking at going like, okay, like, yeah, I'm the mom because I birthed our beautiful babies. And of course, I love them and I take care of them, and there are certain things I do as a mom, but there are a lot of things you do as the dad that are typical mom roles. And I had this conversation on Friday when I was at a conference with some other women where it was like the typical soccer mom, when you hear that, everyone knows what that looks like. You just get this image in your eyes, right?
 
Brian Persson: [00:20:59] Soccer, hockey mom, yeah.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:00] That's not us. You're the one driving them to their sports, picking them up from school, taking them to school, making sure they're ready for school. Like, I didn't even come up until ten minutes before they had to be out the door this morning, because I was getting ready to prepare for the recordings and the meetings today, I'm like, that's generally the guy. He's getting ready. He's getting his business stuff, he's out the door. Whereas it's reverse. If you weren't here to do that, my kids would be chaos. I don't have the capacity to manage them at that level to make sure they're ready to roll and get them to school. They'd be like, yo, here's the keys. Walk. Right? But you do that, I don't want to call it a mom role, but it's a typical mom role. It's a parent role in our lifestyle. But I guess I just kind of want to point that out so that, you know, people see that there's different dynamic, whether it's business, relational, parental, marriage, and there can be resentment harbored like me thinking you're the man you should be doing this, harboring that, when there's also a part of me going, I can do this, why do you need to do it, right? But it's that turmoil and accepting and coming together on the same page to be like, no, this is our greatness, and let's excel in our greatness.
 
Brian Persson: [00:22:04] Yeah. But I mean, even if you have a typical, air quotes, typical relationship where, you know, the man is more or less out of the house before the kids wake up, you know, that kind of average American family, I guess you could say, you should have conversations about it, because otherwise the resentment is going to go unchecked. It's going to fester for a long, long time. And you you don't know which side sometimes is going to be the resentful party. Maybe the guy is resentful for having to always be out of the house and not ever see his kids. Right? Gets a short period of time where he comes home from work and he's exhausted from whatever job he's doing and has an hour, which is not really a quality hour, with his kids. And vice versa for the woman, right?
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:22:53] Yeah.
 
Brian Persson: [00:22:53] Maybe she's resentful from being at home and stuck with the kids and having all the chaos of the household descend on her every single day.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:01] Yeah. So when you, when there is resentment, pretty much what we're saying is get to work as soon as you notice it, just stop it in its tracks and move forward. And then our third takeaway is to practice empathy and forgiveness and look at your responsibility in the matter. I think this is huge.
 
Brian Persson: [00:23:17] Huge, huge, huge. Yeah. If you can't find where you're responsible for any situation in your life, you're just not looking hard enough.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:27] Yeah.
 
Brian Persson: [00:23:28] You gotta you gotta pull somebody in if you can't find out where you're responsible and ask them, as we do very often in our relationship, we pull in, you know, we're good communicators between the two of us. There's not really a standoffishness if I, say, come to you and I have some issue and I want to bring it up. You don't immediately be like, well, okay, you know, that's not my problem, I'm not dealing with this, which is, I think perhaps how a lot of relationships work. But if you are there where you can't really talk to your partner and you can't find your responsibility in it, go talk to somebody else. Bring somebody else in from outside the relationship. Have a really factual conversation with them about what it looks like, and see where you can get to.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:24:17] Yeah, I'm very fortunate, I feel, because my best friend has a very similar personality to yours. Right? And I think she's very, very lucky as well because I'm very similar to her husband. But I could take a situation to her, and of course, she loves me unconditionally so it doesn't matter what I say. There's no, I'm not worried about being judged or lashed back that you sometimes get from a partner. I'd bring it to her, but she'd just be like, well, have you thought of it from this perspective? I'd be like... but because she thinks a lot more like you do, she can get into your shoes a lot easier. But because she's my best friend, I'm more accepting of her telling me than, say, maybe if you had, right? And I find that's the dynamic generally of partners. A lot of times they have trouble bringing certain things to each other and they don't know how to go about it. But sometimes the best source is outside.
 
Brian Persson: [00:25:04] Yeah, yeah, it's impartial. There's no stories. There's no history. There's no baggage. You're not immediately assaulted by however many months or years of stuff that has gone on already in that situation.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:25:19] Right.
 
Brian Persson: [00:25:20] As soon as you think about it and as soon as you start trying to figure out the forgiveness and figure out the empathy and figure out the responsibility for yourself, you're just not assaulted by that.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:25:32] Yeah.
 
Brian Persson: [00:25:32] Yeah. When you're dealing with the person or the thing that is actually who you perceive to be the cause of that.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:25:38] So one way, back to the situation with my sister there, that I was able to forgive her is I literally put myself in her shoes. I went, after I realized all of how this played out, I went and put myself in her shoes back then. I'd be like, oh. I don't know what she felt like when she was going through this and this and that. I wasn't there, I didn't ask, and it just, I had this whirlwind of like, oh my gosh, like, her life I have no idea what it was like with all the pressure and stuff she was putting on my family. Not saying what she did was okay, but what I'm saying is I didn't put myself in her shoes to see if she needed help at the time, or assistance so I could understand where she was coming from. And so like one of the best ways for forgiveness, I think, or empathy, is to put yourself in their shoes and be like, okay how would I react if I was in their shoes? Or even like, what else they got going on? Because you don't, we don't know. We don't know half the thing that's going on in our partner's head or their lives. Like, I'll come up here sometimes and I'll have an expectation of you. You said you're gonna have certain thing done, it's in the calendar. And you're like, well, I didn't get to it. And I'd be like, what? But before I'd be, like, mad, I'd be like, oh my God, you're supposed to have done blah blah blah, right? But now it's kind of like, you're like, yeah, I had a fire go off here, and I had to go help this tenant, and this happened and a water leak. And I was like, all right, we're moving it in the calendar, right? Like, it just, it is what it is now. We just move it. But we get so tied up in that, well, you said it, you didn't do it, now we're angry and we're resentful because you didn't do what you promised. But we didn't stop to say, hey, firstly, what's going on in your world? Secondly, what's my role? What's my responsibility in this? Like, you had all this going on. Where was I to help you with this so you could actually get to this piece that I thought we were going to be working on. Right?
 
Brian Persson: [00:27:18] Yeah. It's a matter of looking at the person and understanding that they are probably not a malicious person. And all they're doing is working with the best tool set that they know how to work with. And sometimes it's just not a great tool set but it's the only one they know how. If you can, if you can be empathetic and understand that they're not, perhaps working with your tool set or your body of knowledge around whatever you're feeling resentful for, then you can really get some power in that situation and understand that, you know, they're literally being exactly who they are. They're not like this--
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:28:01] They're not sitting there planning how I'm going to get my partner.
 
Brian Persson: [00:28:05] Exactly. Yeah.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:28:06] There's like fires are going off left, right and center and they don't have the time, the capacity to tell you what's going on sometimes. And--
 
Brian Persson: [00:28:12] No, no, they're not this monster that only comes out when you're around, you know.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:28:17] Unless they are. But I mean that's definitely--
 
Brian Persson: [00:28:19] -- no for the most part.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:28:20] No I know, I know, I'm teasing, but yeah. Put yourself in their shoes. For sure.
 
Brian Persson: [00:28:25] Yeah. Really understand the tool set that they're working with because it's very often not the tool set, the mental tool set, that you're working with. And that can lead to a huge disconnection. Yeah. And if you can understand that not everybody operates on the same tool set.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:28:41] Yeah for sure.
 
Brian Persson: [00:28:42] Then then you can really like forgive a lot of people around you and have some empathy. And just by doing that, forgiveness and empathy for people that maybe have caused you some resentment, you would be surprised how well your relationships change with those people to the better.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:29:01] Also just yourself. Like the whole dynamic of how you see the world changes or how you see them or the support you can get from them when you kind of forgive them and just look at them for who they are, everything they can and can't do, and just know that there's some things that aren't in their wheelhouse.
 
Brian Persson: [00:29:17] Yeah, yeah. And you might not like it. You might not like the fact that they don't have the right tool set or they are that particular way, but just like you were saying earlier in the podcast, sometimes that person maybe just no longer belongs in your life and you got to take care of yourself first. You gotta find your peace around your business, your family, your life and make sure that you can take care of yourself. Because otherwise you're the one living through the negativity. And it's perhaps not them, it's that you're coming along with them.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:29:51] Yeah, it's a great way to wrap up the podcast. So I'm going to just share our three takeaways. So number one, watch for the signs of resentment. Number two, put resentment in check early. And three, practice empathy and forgiveness daily. Our next topic is going to be how to get your partner on board with real estate.
 
Brian Persson: [00:30:10] Very important topic for us because it was something we really struggled through.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:30:14] Yep.
 
Brian Persson: [00:30:15] Yeah. And I think it's something that we can help a lot of people with by just starting to share about how to come together on the same page.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:30:24] Yeah. You want your wealth to soar? Get on the same page as your partner.
 
Brian Persson: [00:30:27] Yep, yep. We release podcasts every two weeks. Be sure to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app to journey with us and create your life by design.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:30:38] Thanks for listening to the Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian.

What is Life by Design?

Life by Design is a podcast that shares the experiences and tools you need to start living the life you desire, free from indecision, anxiety, and compromise.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:09] Welcome to Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian Persson. We help couples create the wealth they desire by sharing our stories of how we broke through the barriers to create our wealth.

Brian Persson: [00:00:19] We are the creators of the Discover Define Design framework, which supports you in resolving conflict and communicating better. Recently, we've created a branch of that teaching we are calling Riches Relationships and Real Estate. We have a lot of personal experience, and there is a lot of demand from couples who want to get on the same page so they can powerfully invest in real estate.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:40] Yes, our topic today is resentment. I love this topic because I harbored a lot of resentment for many years in my early 20s and 30s, before I learned what it did to me and how to let it go. But when we say resentment, what do we mean?

Brian Persson: [00:00:55] Yeah, it's just a bitterness to something that you think was done to you unfairly or some action or person who has treated you unfairly.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:04] Yes, absolutely. And so why is it important to understand not only what resentment means - I think most of us can appreciate what that means - but like what it does to you and and why you should let it go?

Brian Persson: [00:01:19] Well, as you know, because as you said, you've experienced it, I think pretty well everyone in the world has experienced it. And it takes you out. It puts you in a cycle of negativity and, you know, resentment. You just keep having that resentment come up and up and up over and over again, sometimes out of the situation that it even started in. So if you can't break that cycle and you can't understand what and where the resentment came from, then it's going to cause your life a lot of problems going forward.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:54] Yeah, problems you might not even realize until years later.

Brian Persson: [00:01:58] No, you might not even call it resentment until years later. You might not even see it as resentment.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:03] Yeah, yeah. So our first takeaway is watch for the signs. And when we say signs, we mean like bitterness, anger, negative feelings that are repetitive or repeating and may not on exactly what you're resentful for, but maybe to the person you're resentful against. Stiffness in your body, avoidance of topics or avoidance of people that maybe you have resentment with. I know, as I alluded to, I had resentment with my younger sister for years, mostly, you know, from a lot of what she did back in 2010 to my parents. And I didn't realize until, well, I had resentment before that for some of the things she'd done. But she did a real big number in 2010 that impacted my family, and I held on to that until 2015, when I did, I went to a course, and that's when I even realized I was even holding, like, it's not that I wasn't aware I didn't care for her. It was a matter I didn't, I wasn't aware that I was holding this resentment right here, so firmly, so close to home, that when I accepted it and then I forgave her, this just weight came off my chest and I started to see her in a different lens.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:18] I started to forgive what she'd done and open up my house and my invite to her to be around more. I mean, I wanted to be a bigger part of my nieces' lives, so that played a part of it as well. Plus, I mean, she was family, so she was always there anyways when it came to holidays. Now that being said, some stuff went again, a little sideways again a couple years ago where I just, a whole different story. It's not, I don't have resentment for her anymore though. Now I feel it's just, I just cut her out of my life saying, okay, what you bring adds negativity to our family and I'm not okay with that. But I don't resent her. Now I wish her all the best and I am grateful for what she did bring, like my nieces to our life and that. But it's now, it's in her court. It's no longer holding me hostage, if you will, to these feelings that are negative and detrimental to my health.

Brian Persson: [00:04:08] Yeah. And how long did it take you to notice that, right? A long time. And that's why we say like watch for the signs. Because you didn't even recognize it as resentment. You just thought that your sister was annoying to the family, is basically what it kind of showed up as to you and that she should, air quotes, be doing something different and, you know, be treating your parents differently and be treating you differently. All these things that you think should have been happening and that, it was ultimately resentment because you believed that the situation your sister was creating was unfair.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:49] Yeah, yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:04:50] And it was creating new bitterness. So if you don't watch for those signs, you'll never see them. And you'll just assume that the world is unfair. You'll just assume that your family is unfair. And then the bitterness starts to creep in and all of a sudden, you know, 5, 10, in some people we know it's like 40 years later, the resentment is still there and they have not truly identified it.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:05:18] Yeah, yeah. I got another really good example I want to share, just because for all the moms out there, when we had Jack, our first one, I was, you know, I was a stay-at-home-mom in the beginning and I didn't love it. And I, you know, I openly share how I had the baby blues. I was really depressed. Coming from a thriving, successful professional to suddenly just taking care of this little infant was not my cup of tea. And you still went to work. Obviously you had a career. And I just remember you came home all happy one day and I was not in a good mood for whatever reason. And you were mentioning how you went out for wings with a buddy at lunch, and then you went for ice cream, then you went back to the office and I swear daggers were shooting out of my eyes, I was steaming, I was so mad. I resented you so hard because you got to leave the house. Leave the crisis of what I called my life. Even if it was for just the eight hours of work, I would have given anything to be out like at lunch with a girlfriend, or even in the office where I'm with colleagues or focusing on my work instead of a crying, pooping, hungry baby.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:23] And I just, it took until we talked that out, like otherwise I held on to that resentment to you like every time you'd have to leave the house, I was resentful, right. And I think that probably was one of the turning moments, those daggers where I was like, I just had to let you know, like, I'm hating you right now. Like I was hating you for the luxury I saw you had.

Brian Persson: [00:06:43] Yeah.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:43] And you also didn't obviously understand what I was going through or had the appreciation because you never had to, you've never stayed home with the baby full-time, day in, day out, had to give up the life you knew like from a career perspective. So I think a lot of moms probably go through a phase of that in their lives where if they're, they choose that situation, which most of us do in the beginning because we're breastfeeding and recovering from from surgery or labor or whatever it is, but I don't know if the partner, the husbands are necessarily aware of the resentment their wives are harboring just based on the situation. The circumstance. Right?

Brian Persson: [00:07:23] There's no perceived unfairness on our side. Like the husband side. We don't have to deliver the baby. We don't have to take care of the baby, generally we don't have to take care of the baby. In your case, you know, there was, you perceived it as very unfair that I would get to go out for lunch when it was probably, you know, just a last minute decision and circumstance of me just being out of the house at work for eight hours a day at that time.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:07:49] Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:07:49] And that that was very, very unfair for me. You know, it was very difficult for me to see that because there was no unfairness on my side.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:07:59] Right.

Brian Persson: [00:08:00] So, yeah. How do I perceive that? Right? For you, very easy to perceive. For me, you got to, I have to spend a lot of time looking deep to try and figure out that. Yeah. And then it, on the flip side of my story with the kids is I saw them as eating too much of my time early on, and I was like, you know, I don't know how you possibly think this as an incoming parent, but like, kids take time. Why would they take so much time?

Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:31] Yeah. Your life you knew cannot coexist with new, like young ones especially, babies and toddlers. No.

Brian Persson: [00:08:41] And that's why they say, like, you can never be prepared for parenting.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:44] Never.

Brian Persson: [00:08:45] Because no matter how much you think about it, no matter how much you prepare, things are going to happen that you are going to perceive to be unfair. Right? And one of those things that I perceive to be unfair was the time it took. You know, it annihilated our social schedule. Any friends that we had over in the past was very difficult to find time now to have those friends over or go out. You couldn't just leave the house when you wanted to. There, everything had to be planned and taken care of. So there was a lot of resentment on my side for that. Again, not sure how I didn't see that coming, but...

Jessilyn Persson: [00:09:24] But I mean, in some respects, I can't say I fully understood it either, but I don't know if this is a mom or just me - I think it's a mom thing - where I just, I think I was able to accept it more because I was, I already had the ten months of the incubation period where I was limited in certain things anyways, certain things I couldn't eat, certain things I definitely couldn't drink, certain things I couldn't do, especially at the end. I was too big. I needed more rest. It just was factually, I'd already shifted my mindset and my physical being because I had to just to carry the baby. And then the healing time, I was down for weeks. And also just that care, like I wanted, I was excited to come home and see my baby whenever I had the opportunity to go out, wasn't a lot at first, but you know, it was always like, oh, I miss him. I mean, as much as like, I need a break, but it's like, oh, I miss him. Whereas I'm not sure fathers are attached the same way.

Brian Persson: [00:10:18] No, not, I don't think exactly. No, no. I think if I was in a, I had a different mindset back then, I probably would have been a little bit more attached. But as we've told many times in this podcast and in our coaching and in our workshops, it's a growth period. There's lots of growth periods in your life where you're going to look back and you're going to say, holy crap, like, was I really like that? The topic of resentment itself, when we decided to do this, I was sort of stuck because there's so few things that I resent in my life anymore that I was really wondering, how am I going to talk about this on a podcast? Because, like, it doesn't, I don't, I almost don't even get it anymore.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:11:04] Yeah. But I remembered, I was like, how about this and that? And I was like, and you're like, oh, you're taking notes. I'm like, it was a lot of resentment in between even our relationship in real estate, as we'll get into, and kids, a lot of different things. But resentment in terms of watch for the signs. So just, again, steps to get there: bitterness, anger, negativity, that angst in your chest. If you're feeling any of that towards a topic, a person, a job, an outcome, look at that.

Brian Persson: [00:11:33] Yep. Watch for those perceived unfairness signs that are going to come up and, you know, if it happens once, okay, great. There are things in life that's unfair. Resentment is going to be cyclical. It's going to happen over and over again. And you're going to perceive the unfairness to come up over and over again. So if you see it more than a couple times, start watching for that, start figuring out how to forgive that situation. Start figuring out how to have some empathy for wherever you might see the perceived unfairness and put it in, put it in check early.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:12:09] Yeah, I know that rolls great into our second takeaway, which is, like you said, put resentment in check early. And I'm glad you touched on the fact that it's never going to go away. Resentment in and of itself, sure, resentment towards something or someone absolutely can go away. I think we've dissolved a lot of resentment we've had in different times in our life, but there's still going to be triggers or something that comes up, maybe a promotion, or maybe you're working on a project that got canceled, or like maybe someone, your neighbor won the lottery that you thought, you know, like they're still going to harbor some resentment, but it's recognize it and then put it in check. And I mean, I can speak to that I think with, again, the example of my sister. Right? Like the first time I had it for who even knows how long I had some resentment and I'm sure from a teenager at some point and then of course through my 20s. And then it wasn't till 2015 that I learned about it and recognized, accepted, forgave. But then the next time something came up which, like I said, did about three years ago. And I remember when it first came at me and I was just kind of like numb at first, like that she even sent this letter to my sister and I.

Brian Persson: [00:13:18] Yeah.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:19] And I was just, I was beside myself because firstly, I was like, I wasn't expecting it. I was like, whoa, I thought we had grown past this. But obviously I'm still, I'm mindset in forward thinking. She still lives where she lives without any--

Brian Persson: [00:13:35] -- mentally lives where she lives, yeah--

Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:36] -- positive influence or change. But this time what I did is we were just leaving on holidays the following day, and I decided to park it. I was like, nope, this is bothering you enough, you need time to think about it, think it through, park it till at least we came back from our holidays. Now, in hindsight, I don't know if that was also the best decision because I still carried it. You carry it when you got something, but it gave me the space to think it through. And after I got over the pain of what it was, and I had the conversation with my older sister and my parents to let them know very clearly what my plan was - of course, you and I discussed it first - and that's when I decided, like, I was cutting her out my life. She would no longer be a part of it, but I didn't harbor resentment at that point. It was now like I had hurt, because it was painful, but I accepted it for what it was. I accepted the decision I made, which also wasn't easy to just be like, yeah, I'm cutting my sister out, right? I had to analyze what that looked like, accept it, and then move past. And of course now I'm on the other side going, yep, I'm okay with everything about that. And I can honestly and openly say I feel no resentment towards her at all.

Brian Persson: [00:14:46] Yeah. You forgave her on a certain level.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:14:49] Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:14:50] And then you decided to take care of yourself first is basically what you, what it came down to. And sometimes you just can't change people or things, and if you want to just sit there in that cycle of unfairness because you can't change what you can't change, you're going to have a bad time.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:09] Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:15:10] So, so like you just did, or did in the past, you know, you looked at it, you went, I got to figure this out. I got to put this in check, as we were saying. And you decided on a course of action. Pretty well the only course of action you had because, like you said, you know, you can't change your sister.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:27] No, no.

Brian Persson: [00:15:28] I think a lot of business people have very similar things, obviously not family related, but where they can't control certain things inside of a situation. And so they have this unfairness going on in their head about why their business isn't doing as well as it should be or why they can't, you know, take on a particular skill as well as they should be, and they look at it as an unfairness, and they end up getting stuck in a cycle of resentment.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:59] Yeah, I think that works with partners too, like business partners, I mean, obviously maybe relational partners. But I mean, I know I've had several business partners over the years. And I just remember sitting there, I was doing all the work, period, and I at first was like, so psyched about doing it that it didn't really faze me. But then as the months went on and I realized I was still the only one doing the work, I started to build that resentment where it's like, whoa, this is supposed to be a 50/50 partnership. Why is it 100% work here and nothing there, right? But instead of resentment, I mean, well, not instead of, I guess I had it at first, but I had recognized it and went, okay, well, there's resentment here. Look at it. Why? Address it, which I did, and realize it just wasn't going to change. I was still going to be the one doing most of the work, and that's where I had to decide to just, this partnership wasn't for me and I had to get out.

Brian Persson: [00:16:50] Yeah. And you're a little bit of a whirlwind, so it's hard to catch up to you.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:16:57] That's true.

Brian Persson: [00:16:57] So some of it is your own problem, your own doing.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:17:01] Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:17:02] It's like, why won't the world catch up to me? But even so, right, you did take appropriate steps and say, you know what, like there's a minimum level of effort that has to happen here. I get that, you know, we're not all going to run at the same speed, but we have to run at a certain speed, a minimum speed. And that wasn't happening. And you started to resent the fact that that was going on. I know between you and I, there's a lot of skill differences in our skill sets. You're very management orientated, as you said in the beginning of the podcast when I was having trouble thinking what I was even going to talk about with resentment, you're kind of the story person, right? You, I'll give you a topic and you'll just hammer out, like all the stories over the last 20 years.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:17:57] When you say it that way it doesn't sound the greatest, but no, I just, ideas, right?

Brian Persson: [00:18:02] It's an amazing skill. To me it's an amazing skill. Right? Because I can't do that.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:06] Okay. Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:18:07] But then I remember you have a lot of, you know, in the past, you had a lot of resentment about some of the skills that I could take on very, very easy. And any time I even had one sentence come out of some type of coaching to say, hey, like, you could do it this way, you would just shut down, like it was instant.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:26] I don't know what you're talking about.

Brian Persson: [00:18:28] Yeah, and very similar, very similar with me, right? If there, if it came down to management, as soon as I started to get involved in it, I was just checked out. I was like, you know what, this is not my thing. I am not dealing with this. And I would get annoyed and bitter that I couldn't deal with it because it just wasn't in my wheelhouse. And you would go and take it over, and five minutes later--

Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:52] -- I would get annoyed and bitter that you didn't deal with it yourself first.

Brian Persson: [00:18:54] Yeah, both ways.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:55] No, but I mean, it did happen both ways with the skill set, like you said. But then you're right. We had to figure out where our grooves were. And we just knew it was natural for me to come in and see the big picture and see how the objects came together and manage it. And this is priority and this is this is why. And you're just like, okay.

Brian Persson: [00:19:11] Or we could have been bitter at each other for a long, long time. And then what, build nothing, right? Build nothing out of our lives. Build nothing out of our business. Build nothing out of our real estate. Because all we were sitting in is resentment about how our partner is better than this in this particular category. And instead we, not that we, we went through the resentment phase. That happened.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:19:37] We did.

Brian Persson: [00:19:38] But we figured it out and we said, you know what? Maybe stereotypically the man is more the manager, but this isn't me.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:19:47] We're not stereotypical.

Brian Persson: [00:19:48] Yeah, no we're not. But I had to give that up. I had to give it up, and I had to give you the management and the control, and I had to put my skills to work where they were best used.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:19:59] Yeah. You know, I'm glad you said that, because you're right. Stereotypically, the man, the male usually is the head of the household, the CEO. There's just certain roles they're deemed to do. And I had that perception, too. I knew I could do it. That wasn't the question. I just thought you were supposed to do it because you were the man. And it had to take me accepting that it's okay that I am doing it. I know it's not typical for the female to do the roles I do, but it didn't work the other way for us. I mean, I'm just a very Type-A style personality. But then if people were to, as people are starting to get to know us better, they're probably looking at going like, okay, like, yeah, I'm the mom because I birthed our beautiful babies. And of course, I love them and I take care of them, and there are certain things I do as a mom, but there are a lot of things you do as the dad that are typical mom roles. And I had this conversation on Friday when I was at a conference with some other women where it was like the typical soccer mom, when you hear that, everyone knows what that looks like. You just get this image in your eyes, right?

Brian Persson: [00:20:59] Soccer, hockey mom, yeah.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:00] That's not us. You're the one driving them to their sports, picking them up from school, taking them to school, making sure they're ready for school. Like, I didn't even come up until ten minutes before they had to be out the door this morning, because I was getting ready to prepare for the recordings and the meetings today, I'm like, that's generally the guy. He's getting ready. He's getting his business stuff, he's out the door. Whereas it's reverse. If you weren't here to do that, my kids would be chaos. I don't have the capacity to manage them at that level to make sure they're ready to roll and get them to school. They'd be like, yo, here's the keys. Walk. Right? But you do that, I don't want to call it a mom role, but it's a typical mom role. It's a parent role in our lifestyle. But I guess I just kind of want to point that out so that, you know, people see that there's different dynamic, whether it's business, relational, parental, marriage, and there can be resentment harbored like me thinking you're the man you should be doing this, harboring that, when there's also a part of me going, I can do this, why do you need to do it, right? But it's that turmoil and accepting and coming together on the same page to be like, no, this is our greatness, and let's excel in our greatness.

Brian Persson: [00:22:04] Yeah. But I mean, even if you have a typical, air quotes, typical relationship where, you know, the man is more or less out of the house before the kids wake up, you know, that kind of average American family, I guess you could say, you should have conversations about it, because otherwise the resentment is going to go unchecked. It's going to fester for a long, long time. And you you don't know which side sometimes is going to be the resentful party. Maybe the guy is resentful for having to always be out of the house and not ever see his kids. Right? Gets a short period of time where he comes home from work and he's exhausted from whatever job he's doing and has an hour, which is not really a quality hour, with his kids. And vice versa for the woman, right?

Jessilyn Persson: [00:22:53] Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:22:53] Maybe she's resentful from being at home and stuck with the kids and having all the chaos of the household descend on her every single day.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:01] Yeah. So when you, when there is resentment, pretty much what we're saying is get to work as soon as you notice it, just stop it in its tracks and move forward. And then our third takeaway is to practice empathy and forgiveness and look at your responsibility in the matter. I think this is huge.

Brian Persson: [00:23:17] Huge, huge, huge. Yeah. If you can't find where you're responsible for any situation in your life, you're just not looking hard enough.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:27] Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:23:28] You gotta you gotta pull somebody in if you can't find out where you're responsible and ask them, as we do very often in our relationship, we pull in, you know, we're good communicators between the two of us. There's not really a standoffishness if I, say, come to you and I have some issue and I want to bring it up. You don't immediately be like, well, okay, you know, that's not my problem, I'm not dealing with this, which is, I think perhaps how a lot of relationships work. But if you are there where you can't really talk to your partner and you can't find your responsibility in it, go talk to somebody else. Bring somebody else in from outside the relationship. Have a really factual conversation with them about what it looks like, and see where you can get to.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:24:17] Yeah, I'm very fortunate, I feel, because my best friend has a very similar personality to yours. Right? And I think she's very, very lucky as well because I'm very similar to her husband. But I could take a situation to her, and of course, she loves me unconditionally so it doesn't matter what I say. There's no, I'm not worried about being judged or lashed back that you sometimes get from a partner. I'd bring it to her, but she'd just be like, well, have you thought of it from this perspective? I'd be like... but because she thinks a lot more like you do, she can get into your shoes a lot easier. But because she's my best friend, I'm more accepting of her telling me than, say, maybe if you had, right? And I find that's the dynamic generally of partners. A lot of times they have trouble bringing certain things to each other and they don't know how to go about it. But sometimes the best source is outside.

Brian Persson: [00:25:04] Yeah, yeah, it's impartial. There's no stories. There's no history. There's no baggage. You're not immediately assaulted by however many months or years of stuff that has gone on already in that situation.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:25:19] Right.

Brian Persson: [00:25:20] As soon as you think about it and as soon as you start trying to figure out the forgiveness and figure out the empathy and figure out the responsibility for yourself, you're just not assaulted by that.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:25:32] Yeah.

Brian Persson: [00:25:32] Yeah. When you're dealing with the person or the thing that is actually who you perceive to be the cause of that.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:25:38] So one way, back to the situation with my sister there, that I was able to forgive her is I literally put myself in her shoes. I went, after I realized all of how this played out, I went and put myself in her shoes back then. I'd be like, oh. I don't know what she felt like when she was going through this and this and that. I wasn't there, I didn't ask, and it just, I had this whirlwind of like, oh my gosh, like, her life I have no idea what it was like with all the pressure and stuff she was putting on my family. Not saying what she did was okay, but what I'm saying is I didn't put myself in her shoes to see if she needed help at the time, or assistance so I could understand where she was coming from. And so like one of the best ways for forgiveness, I think, or empathy, is to put yourself in their shoes and be like, okay how would I react if I was in their shoes? Or even like, what else they got going on? Because you don't, we don't know. We don't know half the thing that's going on in our partner's head or their lives. Like, I'll come up here sometimes and I'll have an expectation of you. You said you're gonna have certain thing done, it's in the calendar. And you're like, well, I didn't get to it. And I'd be like, what? But before I'd be, like, mad, I'd be like, oh my God, you're supposed to have done blah blah blah, right? But now it's kind of like, you're like, yeah, I had a fire go off here, and I had to go help this tenant, and this happened and a water leak. And I was like, all right, we're moving it in the calendar, right? Like, it just, it is what it is now. We just move it. But we get so tied up in that, well, you said it, you didn't do it, now we're angry and we're resentful because you didn't do what you promised. But we didn't stop to say, hey, firstly, what's going on in your world? Secondly, what's my role? What's my responsibility in this? Like, you had all this going on. Where was I to help you with this so you could actually get to this piece that I thought we were going to be working on. Right?

Brian Persson: [00:27:18] Yeah. It's a matter of looking at the person and understanding that they are probably not a malicious person. And all they're doing is working with the best tool set that they know how to work with. And sometimes it's just not a great tool set but it's the only one they know how. If you can, if you can be empathetic and understand that they're not, perhaps working with your tool set or your body of knowledge around whatever you're feeling resentful for, then you can really get some power in that situation and understand that, you know, they're literally being exactly who they are. They're not like this--

Jessilyn Persson: [00:28:01] They're not sitting there planning how I'm going to get my partner.

Brian Persson: [00:28:05] Exactly. Yeah.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:28:06] There's like fires are going off left, right and center and they don't have the time, the capacity to tell you what's going on sometimes. And--

Brian Persson: [00:28:12] No, no, they're not this monster that only comes out when you're around, you know.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:28:17] Unless they are. But I mean that's definitely--

Brian Persson: [00:28:19] -- no for the most part.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:28:20] No I know, I know, I'm teasing, but yeah. Put yourself in their shoes. For sure.

Brian Persson: [00:28:25] Yeah. Really understand the tool set that they're working with because it's very often not the tool set, the mental tool set, that you're working with. And that can lead to a huge disconnection. Yeah. And if you can understand that not everybody operates on the same tool set.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:28:41] Yeah for sure.

Brian Persson: [00:28:42] Then then you can really like forgive a lot of people around you and have some empathy. And just by doing that, forgiveness and empathy for people that maybe have caused you some resentment, you would be surprised how well your relationships change with those people to the better.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:29:01] Also just yourself. Like the whole dynamic of how you see the world changes or how you see them or the support you can get from them when you kind of forgive them and just look at them for who they are, everything they can and can't do, and just know that there's some things that aren't in their wheelhouse.

Brian Persson: [00:29:17] Yeah, yeah. And you might not like it. You might not like the fact that they don't have the right tool set or they are that particular way, but just like you were saying earlier in the podcast, sometimes that person maybe just no longer belongs in your life and you got to take care of yourself first. You gotta find your peace around your business, your family, your life and make sure that you can take care of yourself. Because otherwise you're the one living through the negativity. And it's perhaps not them, it's that you're coming along with them.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:29:51] Yeah, it's a great way to wrap up the podcast. So I'm going to just share our three takeaways. So number one, watch for the signs of resentment. Number two, put resentment in check early. And three, practice empathy and forgiveness daily. Our next topic is going to be how to get your partner on board with real estate.

Brian Persson: [00:30:10] Very important topic for us because it was something we really struggled through.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:30:14] Yep.

Brian Persson: [00:30:15] Yeah. And I think it's something that we can help a lot of people with by just starting to share about how to come together on the same page.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:30:24] Yeah. You want your wealth to soar? Get on the same page as your partner.

Brian Persson: [00:30:27] Yep, yep. We release podcasts every two weeks. Be sure to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app to journey with us and create your life by design.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:30:38] Thanks for listening to the Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian.