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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: [00:00:09] 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: [00:00:20] With our extensive personal experience and increasing demand for 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, we're going to talk about why you deserve to be wealthy. We're going to dig in with our thoughts and perhaps what people think about when it comes to wealth and how it pertains to them. I mean, we believe you deserve to be wealthy because wealth is not just about money. It's about the freedom to live life on your terms, the freedom to pursue your passions and to create a legacy for yourself and your loved ones.
Brian Persson: [00:01:01] And if you're willing to put in the effort and make smart decisions and take control of your financial future, then wealth is in your reach. As Jess said, we both believe that everybody deserves to be wealthy, and I think that leads right into our first takeaway, which is that wealth is a mindset.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:19] Yeah. So the difference between those that are wealthy and those that are not is simply their mindset. And we know that because we've been on both sides of the fence.
Brian Persson: [00:01:29] All kinds of stories we could tell.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:31] And we will. So, I mean, we've been fortunate enough to never, like, go bankrupt, lose it all. But we, you know, we did choose to do some adventures and businesses and not have active income coming in. And our real estate supported us, which we are very grateful for. But we were redlining. We got to a point where we had to make some hard decisions and shift back into some contract work that we originally hadn't planned on doing, but we knew we took some risks. They didn't go the way we'd planned. And so we took plan B to get ourselves back up and our bank accounts fluffed up a bit more so we could continue to build our dreams and our passions.
Brian Persson: [00:02:14] Mhm. Exactly. We did redline it really, really close. But the funny thing is, is that we were building our mindset throughout those years while we were doing it. So even when we did redline, you know, it wasn't what we wanted to do to get out of that. It was more along the lines of we already built our mindset up, and now we were able to effectively and more powerfully come out of that situation.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:40] Yeah. Like there were points where we had a lot of money in our account, but we didn't feel wealthy.
Brian Persson: [00:02:48] No.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:49] Maybe a little more me, I think actually both of us, but I just remember having five, six digits in my account. And while I thought it was exciting, I still had the scarcity mentality. I was still like save, save, save, save, don't spend, don't spend. Right? And then we got to a point where the flip, several years later, where we were redlining and we're like, wow, there's lots of money out there. We can make more. We can do this. We can do that. Right? Like it was just, it was a shift in our mindset.
Brian Persson: [00:03:18] Yeah, there's definitely a pre and a post us in the sense that, yeah, like you were saying, we had very good jobs. We had a lot of money coming in and yet we still felt kind of poor because our mindset was poor back then.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:36] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:03:37] And then we went through a bunch of business building, ended up having very, very little money for a number of years building those businesses. But I don't really recall ever feeling poor. It's just the sensation I remember is, what do we need to do next? Not necessarily like, oh my God, you know, I'm so poor I can't afford anything.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:59] We didn't look at it like that at all. It was like, yeah, we're building our wealth as our bank was declining, we're building our wealth. And we were just pumped and we were working on all kinds of different avenues. And yeah, we didn't think about it that way at all. So it's not your bank account. It's literally how we thought about it.
Brian Persson: [00:04:18] Yep, yep. And now we have approximate amount of money coming in as the pre sort of broken mindset Brian and Jess. And back then we felt quite financially shaky. And now we feel quite financially indestructible.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:36] Absolutely.
Brian Persson: [00:04:37] Yeah. And our, what we call the basement, like what is the lowest level of finances that we are willing to accept, has risen up. And so just due to mindset, pretty well, the actual numbers are relatively closely the same. And yet our mindset has risen that basement up so that we're significantly multiple zeros higher than we were before, and we won't go below that.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:05:06] Yeah. So your mindset is the foundation of the wealth. And we learned that. Again, we learned it the hard way. We didn't come from that mindset. But once we shifted it we went, oh it's our mindset. And once we understand everything around that concept, our wealth grew.
Brian Persson: [00:05:22] Yeah, yeah. We kept building up that bedrock so that we could build a larger, bigger, wealthier foundation on top of it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:05:30] Yeah, absolutely.
Brian Persson: [00:05:31] Yeah. And I think a lot of other mind shifts happen in that over the years as well. Like, I know I used to be more on the socialist side when I was younger. Like, you know, spread the wealth around, the government should take care of you and everybody should pay their fair share of taxes and stuff like that. But now, as we've become more and more solid business owners, it's quite a bit different the way that you look at that same thing. And I look at it now as I now get the choice to spread my wealth around. I'm not counting on any government to spread the wealth around, and it's my opportunity to actually help other people become wealthy, whether they're through my employment or whether they're through our coaching or just meeting and having a casual conversation that maybe sets them on a new trajectory.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:22] 100%. Yeah. That leads us into takeaway number two is to be intentional. There is enough to go around. Money is not scarce. There's abundance of it everywhere. And once you shift your perspective, you will start to see how available and accessible money is. And I know that happened to both of us when we shifted our mindset. I see it everywhere now, like, like, I'll hear things on the radio and I'll be like, what? Like for example, you know, where we live in a close city here we have a big event that's a ten day festival. And I heard on the radio, I think it was last week or the week before that, they had over 750,000 people go through in that ten days. And I was like, just instantly my head goes to math, right? I'm like, okay, so this is not a cheap event. Like your minimum 50 bucks if you want to do the rides, 20 bucks just to get into the gate, never mind all the food vendors and the games. Like, let's just say 100 bucks. You're at 75 million plus dollars spent in that ten day one event that people are spending. So right there I'm going, people have money. It's just where they choose to spend it.
Brian Persson: [00:07:32] People absolutely have money. Yeah. It's, again, back to that mindset of what are they thinking about as they spend their money.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:07:40] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:07:40] Yeah. And in that example that you just gave, I mean, that only includes the surface level ticket sales. Right? And, you know, you got cleaning services. You got all kinds of other services that are supporting that festival, which is just inflating the amount of money flowing through just that one event, a huge amount. And one of our mentors, Grant Cardone, he has an exercise that you go through. And this festival is kind of like along the lines of that exercise where just drive around and look at everything around you and just start adding up the dollars of what all that stuff is worth. You know, the building over there that took however many X million to build and then it has X million to renovate and maintain over the lifetime of that building. Ask yourself if you want to be wealthy, be intentional about how you're going to get some of that money that is out there, because once you start looking out there to find it, you will find it. And you can grab a little bit of it for yourself.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:46] Oh yeah. Yeah, I know, and it's funny now that, you know, we speak about it out loud here a little bit, I find I just instantly see that everywhere I go now. I remember this was several months ago, it might have been back in the winter, I went to Sephora, which is like a beauty place where you can get like makeup and face and hair stuff. I ran out of something and I went there, and there was, in the middle of the day, of a weekday, a workday we're talking here, I went there and there was a lineup. I think I took a picture and I sent it to you and I was like, wow, no one can convince me that there's not money out here. Because firstly, this is the middle of a workday that people are here. There's a lineup like you wouldn't believe, and that stuff there is not cheap. Like you're $40 or 50 minimum per, up to 100s per item. And I'm like, so people have money. It's just where do they choose to spend it? And for our listeners, you can have a piece of that money.
Brian Persson: [00:09:44] Don't let it happen by default. I know years ago I was in that scenario where it was very, very difficult for me to understand how to go out and create any kind of business. It was like, who's going to buy my product, who's, you know, what kind of product am I going to sell? And the numbers in my head were so skewed that I would need like millions of customers in order to just get enough by to make a regular paycheck. Because I really couldn't understand, like the seesaw effect of that where on one side, here's your mindset and it really just can't see through the other side and it's weighing you down.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:10:24] So it sounds like your self-worth there. Like so if you're saying millions of customers, it's like, how much were you charging for your time? Right? And that was a self-worth because if it was like a low amount and it's like, well, you didn't feel like maybe you were worth charging it, but it's like, well, no, you're offering your gift of whatever service it is that is worth a lot more.
Brian Persson: [00:10:46] Yeah. Or millions of people that you just had to know in order to generate enough business. I had all these weird, misconceived notions about like how business worked. And nowadays we, you know, we have fewer clients, significantly fewer clients than millions, for sure. But we're doing okay. And that's just it is that you can make a lot more money in a lot smaller scope than you think.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:11:11] Absolutely. Put it in perspective. We did a quick Google search right before we hopped on this podcast, and it tells us that there's $83 trillion in the global money supply.
Brian Persson: [00:11:23] Yeah. Lots of money out there.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:11:25] I can't even conceptualize that. That number is so massive. To even have a little dust of that is still lots of money.
Brian Persson: [00:11:34] Well, the thing is, is that's just printed paper.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:11:37] Yes it is.
Brian Persson: [00:11:37] So that does not include, say, a house that you might live in that does not include the value of that house.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:11:45] Right.
Brian Persson: [00:11:46] Because it's not made of printed paper.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:11:48] Right. So there's, again, just go back to the comment that there is so much money out there and it's not as hard to get as you think. Like, I know a simple example is if you do some kind of a coaching service, for example, and you charge $2,500 per person, which is not unrealistic when you look out there for coaching, you know, four people, that's ten grand.
Brian Persson: [00:12:12] A month.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:12:13] And that's like, so you think--
Brian Persson: [00:12:16] -- well above minimum wage.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:12:17] Yeah. And that's four clients. So, because I know people can get overwhelmed when they want to start their businesses and they're like, oh, I need, like you said, millions of clients, which you're just like, yeah, not happening. Like that's, it's just overwhelming to even think that you need 1000 clients can be a bit overwhelming. But you're like, four? Really? It's--
Brian Persson: [00:12:36] -- that's all you need--
Jessilyn Persson: [00:12:36] -- bite sized chunks. And then you build up as you grow your portfolio, your business, how much money you want. Right? But it's absolutely achievable to make the money you want, doing what you love without having to necessarily be tied to a 9 to 5.
Brian Persson: [00:12:50] No, absolutely. It's totally achievable. But again, it's intentionality. How intentional are you about going out and finding that money and getting it. Like I said, in the past I always thought that rich people were lucky. You know, they just happened to have the right business that was doing the right thing at the right time. And they just lucked into their successful business.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:19] Right. But wealth is not about luck.
Brian Persson: [00:13:23] No, wealth is not about luck.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:24] It's about intentionality, mindset, and the actions you take to build it.
Brian Persson: [00:13:28] Yeah, yeah. What's the phrase? The the harder I work, the luckier I get.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:33] Yeah. Absolutely. So I encourage our listeners, if you just take one simple thing when you're out driving around, out doing your groceries, out whatever it is, running your errands, just keep your eye out and look at how much money is out there. You're going to see it everywhere. Suddenly you're going to see people driving all these incredibly expensive vehicles. You're like, whoa, right? It's just once you start putting it as something, it's like that vehicle, you know, you go, you want to buy a vehicle and you're like, this is awesome. No one has it. The red car. Then you go buy it and it's everywhere. You're like--
Brian Persson: [00:14:05] -- everybody has a red car. Yeah.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:14:06] What just happened? But you're just more aware of it. So you see it, right? Same thing with money. When you become more aware of it, you see it everywhere.
Brian Persson: [00:14:13] You start to see it everywhere. And it becomes a lot more achievable and possible for you in your future. And it does not, it does not look like the impossible scenario that it was before.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:14:23] Yeah. And I also want to just point out that just because you get money doesn't mean you're putting someone else out. It's everywhere. And if you have a 9 to 5 and you deserve a promotion or a raise or a bonus or whatever it is, ask for it. And just because you get it doesn't mean that your coworker doesn't or think about when you're asking for it, your coworker has the equal opportunity to work as hard as you do for it, to ask for that raise or that increase, right? So yeah, I just want to note that just because you're getting the money or whatever that looks like, doesn't mean you're putting other people out. There is so much to go around.
Brian Persson: [00:15:09] There's a ton to go around. And the question is, who's more intentional about getting that money? It's not a greedy thing. It's just you put in the effort, you put in the work, you should be rewarded for what you did.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:23] Yeah. And that takes us to takeaway number three, which is you need to be willing to give something up to be wealthy. I mean, there's a saying that you need to give something up to get something, and we can speak a lot of experience through that because we've given up quite a bit. But like, for example, you know, you might have to give up going out for a month to start studying finance and wealth so you get a better understanding of it. Or you may delay having kids or marriage until you can save up to invest in whatever it is you're looking for before you start that family journey. To be wealthy takes discipline and effort and if you're more disciplined, then why shouldn't you reap the rewards of it?
Brian Persson: [00:16:03] Exactly. Especially if you're willing to give up what you need to give up to be wealthy, there should be a reward for it. And, you know, a lot of people look at it like time or they can't go on vacation, but the things you have to give up are not just that. I remember when you were asking for your raise at one of your previous contracts, like you fretted and you freaked out about it and you were stressed, and what you had to give up was the comfort of not going in there and asking for that raise, so other people would just want to stay comfortable.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:16:36] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:16:37] Yeah. And they just wouldn't ask for it because of the stress or the anxiety that they would experience to ask for that raise. But you pushed through it and you asked for it and you got it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:16:48] I did.
Brian Persson: [00:16:48] Yeah. Yeah. But you had to give up being comfortable in order to do it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:16:52] Yeah. And then I know the next time that I did that, my approach was a little bit stronger and it was more willing of I wasn't just asking for the raise, I was now saying, this is what I want. If not, that's okay. I'm willing to walk. That's a huge, uncomfortable position to be in. But again, I did it. And what did I get? I got the raise. Right? So but man, it's like it's not easy. I will never say it was easy. As a matter of fact, I'll tell you how hard it is. But, and how stressful it can be, but man, the reward on the other side is incredible.
Brian Persson: [00:17:28] Yeah, yeah, sometimes it's not about what all the money and the time that you have to give up. It can be just about getting out of your comfort zone. And being being comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:17:40] Yeah. And points to consider about giving up. It could be something like how you spend your time. Right? So instead of watching Netflix, maybe you're now studying wealth books or you're going to networking events to learn more about wealth. It might be about where you put your efforts.
Brian Persson: [00:17:57] Yep yep. Also, one that I like is just giving up the now now now factor and that--
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:03] -- instant gratification--
Brian Persson: [00:18:05] -- instant gratification. That's very, very it's almost a pandemic in the world today of everybody wants something right now. But if you can delay that gratification a little bit, then you can become much, much more wealthy than if you just need wealth now. You'll spin your tires and you won't get anywhere.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:23] Yeah, I know we went for years without vacations. I mean, part of it was also choice because we had really little, little guys and we just found it not, it was a little more stressful to travel when you were carrying a car seat, a playpen, a stroller, a diaper bag, two kids, a toddler, and it's like, oh, wow. Like, this is so much work just to pack up and carry them. And so we just were like, you know what we'll do? We'll do local, local vacations, if you will, like going to the cabin or, you know, somewhere where we can drive and just have everything accessible in the car. But with that came, you know, it's not as freeing some of those vacations. But then we chose to save up and invest in real estate. And now here we are, and we're starting to take a lot more vacations over the last year or two because, well, a) our kids are older, so it's way easier, um, but also we saved up and we invested. And so now we're getting cash flow. We're getting passive income that we can spend it on instead of our active income for our vacations. Right? But we gave up like, what, five, six? I don't even know how many years we gave up of vacation because we used to do quite a few, quite a bit of traveling before kiddos. And then when kiddo number two came along, it was like, yeah no. Kiddo one was enough to try and fly with, but with two, it was like, let's just give ourselves some space. But we gave it up, right? There were times I know we gave up a lot of TV, like we didn't watch much TV at all. To this day, I know I say, I wouldn't say we still watch a ton, like we'll watch movies with the boys, but like, we used to watch certain episodes and we'd just power through two, three in a night and you're like, yeah, now we don't do that at all. And we...
Brian Persson: [00:20:03] Well this Netflix thing, right? Like yeah like that you mentioned earlier, imagine if you powered through three 40 minute episodes. What is that? Right? Over two hours. Now if you took that two hours and did anything, just even if you took those two hours and only put half an hour of it towards some type of business building on every single day, you would be so much farther ahead in six months to a year than you would be if you just sat and watched Netflix and stayed in your comfort zone and tried to de-stress through Netflix.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:20:39] Listen to a podcast, watch a YouTube video on...
Brian Persson: [00:20:42] Educate.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:20:44] Educate yourself on real estate and investing or saving or how did you start a business? Or a side hustle, getting multiple streams of income, like there's so many different things, right? If you, yeah, like you said, if you gave up even one episode, like you would be so much further ahead.
Brian Persson: [00:20:59] Yeah. And what's helping your stress better? Watching that episode or knowing that you're becoming financially indestructible into the future.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:08] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:21:08] Right? And that you can do whatever you want and that you have the wealth that you want.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:11] Where you will have time freedom, which is what most people want.
Brian Persson: [00:21:15] That, to me, that's a lot less stressful knowing that than trying to de-stress watching an episode of Netflix.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:22] Oh, yeah. And just having that freedom to choose what you do in your time is an incredible place to be. I mean, with, also another thing under what you're willing to give up is how you spend your money, right? Like, if you're used to going out for dinner every couple of days or every week even, maybe you start with giving up one a week, right? There's like 100 bucks, because dinner is not cheap anymore, but like something like that. Or even the shift we did where it was, we would go out for date night, but we shifted it to happy hour.
Brian Persson: [00:21:55] Yeah. 3 p.m. before we picked up the kids.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:21:58] Yeah. And we'd be done by, at that time we didn't have to pick up the kids till 4:30 I think it was, but we'd be in, we'd have a great, you know, hour-ish to ourselves because we have travel time there. We'd spend half of what it would cost if we went out for dinner outside of that time.
Brian Persson: [00:22:13] Sometimes less than half.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:22:14] But still, we got what it was we were looking to achieve.
Brian Persson: [00:22:17] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Got that relaxing little bit on a Friday afternoon at the end of the week. And one of the exercises we run our clients through, and surprises every single one of our clients, is the budgeting exercise where we get them to go back through the last three months of their expenses. And every single one of them is surprised at how much they spend on food. And not necessarily like food for your refrigerator, but like...
Jessilyn Persson: [00:22:44] Entertainment.
Brian Persson: [00:22:44] Yeah. Coffee. And, you know, drinks here and there and whatever other kind of little bits of food that they usually buy throughout the week. They're always surprised about it. And it's way, way higher of a number than they ever thought it would be.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:00] Yeah. And sometimes once they realize that, they're just like, oh, yeah, but, like, I could give that up. Like, it's not a big deal to them. It's just a habit that they just did. So they just kept doing it. But once they realize it and they give it up, it's no big deal either. And now suddenly they've got that five, ten bucks a day for coffee back in their budget.
Brian Persson: [00:23:21] Yeah. I mean, and it's just because they didn't see it, that's all. Like they didn't actually go through and measure their bank account to see what the impact of it was. Yeah. And then when they do, all of a sudden it is super simple and a no-brainer for them to change their ways.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:38] Yeah. Another simple one I found, I think we ran into with past clients, is subscriptions. It's like, why don't you make a list of all the subscriptions you have.
Brian Persson: [00:23:47] Going back to Netflix.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:47] And let's see, are you using them all? Right, there's so many subscriptions out there. And I mean, we've done this exercise a few times and we've cut, we're like, oh man, I haven't watched that in like three months. Why do we have it? Cut, cut, cut. Right? And then we're like, okay. And we keep the ones that we know we're actively using and love. But it's like, even if it's like one, you're cutting a month, you're now like, I don't know, 10, 15 bucks a month, which over time adds up.
Brian Persson: [00:24:15] Yeah. And one strategy I like to use is just rolling subscriptions. We advise our clients a lot on that where, you know, nowadays you can have Netflix, Apple, Prime, like there's so many out there.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:24:27] So many.
Brian Persson: [00:24:28] Yeah. Not only your $100 internet bill, but your $100 subscription bill plus your $200 phone bill. Like just to be connected in that way can run up to $400, $500 a month, instantly. But like we, you know, people do need to relax a little bit. And I'm not saying everybody here stop watching Netflix, but like you can roll it, right? So have Netflix for three months, then cancel that and then go to Apple for three months. And that way you're not spending $100, you're spending $10 to $15 per month.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:25:01] Yeah, we'll do that sometimes. There'll be a certain show that we really want to watch. I think it was the Harry Potter series we wanted to, I wanted to watch with the boys, several months ago now, and it was only available on I can't remember which one, so we're like, all right, guys, we'll buy it, we'll watch the series. That's the only thing we watched, because we knew we only had a limited time on subscription, and then we canceled it and we just stuck with what we, what else we currently use. But you still get that fix, if that's the right word, of something you really want to see, but without the year expense. And I say year but it rolls into years because we, generally we sign up and we just forget about half the things. So I mean, there's definitely some simple things to do today that can help you be more wealthy in the future.
Brian Persson: [00:25:43] If you start looking into your life, you will find all kinds of things that you can very easily give up and and not have to spend money on that you can go and build your wealth with that money. That time, whatever it looks like.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:25:57] Yeah absolutely. So to recap our takeaways. Number one, remember that wealth is a mindset. Shift it and everything around you will shift. Number two, be intentional. There is always enough to go around. And number three, you need to be willing to give something up to be wealthy. Our next topic is going to be on how your belief systems affect your wealth.
Brian Persson: [00:26:20] We release podcasts every two weeks, so be sure to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app to journey with us and create your life by design.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:26:29] Thanks for listening to the Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian.