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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 the Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian Persson. We help couples create the wealth they desire by sharing our stories and how we broke through the barriers to create our wealth.
Brian Persson: [00:00:20] We are the creators of the Discover Define Design framework, which supports you in resolving conflict and communicating better. More recently, due to high demand, we decided to create the relationships, riches, and real estate segment of our teaching. After all, who does not want to be wealthy, right?
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:37] Yeah. So our topic this week is meaning. So what meaning we put on things. For example, why does the same situation have a different meaning for you or for I? I'm going to use a real simple example here, like eating an apple. When you're eating an apple, that is what it is. You're just eating the apple. But someone might say, this apple is delicious. I love apples, crisp and juicy and they make me happy. Then there can be someone on the other side who hates apples, and so they put a meaning onto it that apples are gross, they're disgusting. So it's a different meaning for a different person depending on who it is and what they put on that simple situation of eating an apple.
Brian Persson: [00:01:19] Yeah, the exact same action, two different like feelings and outcomes to that exact same action. Another super important thing that pretty well the whole world puts on a whole lot of meaning on is money. And that happens a lot in relationships. You have two different people inside that relationship, and they have two very different ways of viewing money. Some view it as bad, some view it as good, some view it as they don't understand it, some view it as I got this like, let's go make a bunch of money. And that can cause a lot of conflict in relationships, even though a dollar is a dollar is a dollar. And there's really no difference between the physical form of money.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:06] Right. So meaning kind of comes down to our interpretation or our intention of whatever it is we're looking at.
Brian Persson: [00:02:14] Yeah. It's literally what you've laid on top of whatever the situation or object is, like in the case of money, you've put something on top of it, which it really is not.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:26] Right. So the first thing we really want to discuss is how meaning came from a situation a long time ago that you probably don't even remember.
Brian Persson: [00:02:36] Nope. Most people, I would say, don't have any idea why they've come up with the meaning for just about anything. Like why they like a thing, why they don't like a thing. Why did you start liking apples in the first place? Right? Why did you not like apples in the first place? Why did you come up with your opinions on money in the first place? Like do you, can you really recall the moment where you went, as a 3 or a 4 or 5 year old maybe, aha, like, this is what I think about money. My parents said this and this is my opinion. And all of a sudden the whole next 20, 30, 40, 50 years of your life is defined by that one moment that you can't even recall.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:03:22] So true. You know, I look, money is a great topic for me because, I mean, we came from two different backgrounds when it comes to money, and I was raised without much money, obviously, as I think I've shared several times, and we worked really hard on the farm to make ends meet, and we didn't have a lot of money. And I watched my mom, who came from a lot less money than even what we had, and she saved every penny. She would hide it, she would store it, and I get it, right? And so that's what I grew up watching and learning. And so as an adult, I started hoarding money as well, thinking like, I never know when that rainy day is going to come and if I'm going to need it. And I never put much thought past. Why I do that? Is that the right thing to do? Should I be looking at it differently? Until later in life when we really started exploring money.
Brian Persson: [00:04:19] Yeah. Later in life, both of us started to really, like, analyze and get retrospective and go deep into some of the reasons why we came to be the people we are today. And then all of a sudden you realize, like, hey, you know what? Like this wasn't really created by me. This was created by my five year old self or my ten year old self. And it's really not who I am today, but I'm still living into it. Like your mom, for example. Still to this day saves money like crazy.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:51] Oh yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:04:53] We're trying to help your parents out, and we're finding all kinds of stuff that she's, like, squirreled away. Literally like a squirrel.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:05:01] Yeah. More bank accounts than I can count on both hands. And I'm like, why? Why? But it's interesting because, I mean, obviously I can't remember what age, definitely mid probably to late 30s where we went and did it was called a money clinic at the time, and that was the first time I had to really delve in to what money meant to me and where I dug up that meaning. And that's when my first aha came was like, oh man, like definitely stems from my mom. I picked up my mom's genetics when it comes to the money, and I say that because my dad's very different with how he deals with money, as is my older sister, she's more like my dad. But to dig into it and go, man, this is my mom. And that's, is that who I want to be when it comes to money management and my thoughts around money? And it was a real eye opener for me to kind of shift and relate. Wait, wait, what is my opinion of money and what is it I want to do with money? How do I want to see that?
Brian Persson: [00:06:01] Yeah, you started to own it instead of it owning you for the last like 30 years of your life. As you mentioned, we came from very different backgrounds. But here's a really good example on where meaning came from is that you look at yourself like, you know, you came from a very poor background. But for example, there were times when in my middle class life, as you were saying, I viewed us as poor, right?
Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:29] Right.
Brian Persson: [00:06:29] Because like, we weren't able to afford certain things. And I remember one incident where my parents were deciding to on whether or not they wanted to buy a boat because we would go up to a town just out of our main town here and fish with our uncle and and auntie.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:06:47] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:06:47] And as we were discussing whether, we're at the boat shop, like, deciding to buy this boat, and just something in the way that my parents approached it, I, something struck me as a kid, and I was like but, like, wait a minute, if we buy this boat, are we going to have to, like, eat Kraft Dinner for the rest of our lives? And that was the idea I had about money, even though my parents had significantly more money than than your parents at that time. It's like I still viewed us as poor and potentially right on the edge of, like, destitution. Right?
Jessilyn Persson: [00:07:23] Yeah. And it's interesting. And I remember this was years ago, I was speaking to a long time friend of mine, and, like we grew up, we went to school together, and I remember her just commenting once, she goes, yeah, I loved coming to your house. She goes, you guys had money. We were so poor. And I'm like, what? Yeah, like if you're poor and I'm poor, like, how poor are you? Like it just kind of, I think, the concept of how we perceive things. And it was interesting for her. I'm like, well, why did you think we had money? Because, like, we busted our heinies on the farm to just eat. And she's like, well, you guys made chocolates at Christmas and you decorated and I'm like, oh yeah, we did. But that was our one, one of our one few things as a family that we really kind of put our energy towards is, and again, we homemade our chocolates and homemade our decorations, but she didn't do that and she probably viewed it as well they must have more money because they can do this.
Brian Persson: [00:08:18] Yeah. It looked like riches to to her.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:20] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:08:21] Yeah yeah. Meaning goes so far past money too. Like in that situation you just brought up, I hear, you know, the fact that your friend saw your parents making homemade chocolates.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:34] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:08:34] You know, little cute mice and turtles and stuff like that. I've had them. They still come around every Christmas.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:08:41] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:08:42] But, like, imagine. Right? What that looks like to someone who's maybe parents didn't really pay attention to them too much. I'm not saying your friend, it was in that situation, but just generally in life, imagine what that looks like. The amount of meaning that person would have put on to like homemade chocolates. And getting that, all that love and that attention and that Christmas spirit inside of that household would have been like this other planet for them.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:09:12] Like gold and riches. Yeah, yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:09:13] Yeah it almost wouldn't have been understandable.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:09:16] Yeah. So definitely chances are your meaning on money, it started probably with your parents, if not your grandparents or your great grandparents. It goes way back. Something to explore for sure.
Brian Persson: [00:09:30] You can do a lot of personal development. And this is one thing that I learned about trying to find out where the meaning comes from, you won't probably find it. What you need to do, though, is you need to keep looking and just assume that you're never going to find that moment where it was like the aha of, and genesis of, what your meaning on whatever situation you're looking for, that meaning on and where it came from. Just keep looking because you will drive yourself mental like I did, trying to find the exact moment and thinking I'm a failure because I can't find the meaning, the genesis of the meaning that I'm looking for. And then in the end, what happened to me was I couldn't find the meaning of the meaning.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:10:17] I vaguely remember that. You did really struggle with it.
Brian Persson: [00:10:21] There was a perfectionism there where I had to find the moment.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:10:25] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:10:25] And I just encourage everybody out there to just look. Just look. And if the first thing you find is, like from three months ago, fantastic. If the first thing you find is from five years ago, fantastic. Just keep looking because you'll just keep on layering all the meaning of what you're looking for. And you'll discover, you'll discover very interesting things about yourself.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:10:49] 100%. And I remember that because when we were working on this assignment or whatever it was we were digging into for money, I because I do remember mine and I did remember mine, and it was very clear and concise for me. I think for you, you're like, wait a minute, mine's got to be that easy too, right? But I just remember as a teenager, I can't remember how old I was exactly, but I would say between 13 and 15, I remember very clearly, I can still see it. I'm standing in my kitchen on the farm watching my parents fight, and it was money. That's all they ever really fought about was just money, right? And I remember telling my young self then saying, I will never raise a family without money. And then you fast forward decades later and look at everything I put in place before I even had a family.
Brian Persson: [00:11:37] Mhm.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:11:37] And like because I was 34 before we had our first son and we were very well established. But I was, there was for years, I was not even going to have kids. Like I think I was 28 before I finally went, well, you know, maybe, maybe I might want to have kids. But whereas a lot of women generally around 21, 22, they think they want to have kids. And I was like no. Right? But I was focused on a career and making money and making sure I was never in that poverished state.
Brian Persson: [00:12:03] Yeah. Yeah. That leads into one of the other things we want to talk about. And that is that your meaning grows stronger the more you experience a situation. So like in that example you just gave where you witnessed your parents fighting about money, it almost likely was, almost for sure was not the very first situation.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:12:24] No.
Brian Persson: [00:12:24] But you keep putting meaning and putting meaning and putting meaning on watching your parents fight about money. And I had very similar experiences with my parents. But like, that build up and like, just brick by brick by brick by brick puts meaning on top of the meaning. And all of a sudden you're so deep into the meaning that you really can't even figure out where it came from.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:12:47] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:12:47] And so that's one thing you got to watch. Now that we know, you know, we really are conscious of what did that situation that just happened really mean. And is it the meaning that we want to put on it. Because if it is, then great. Like let's let it grow stronger. If it's not okay, let's nip this in the bud and figure out how we can change the meaning over that situation. Because it's going to be habitual. It'll just start repeating until the meaning grows so strong it is very, very hard to break.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:24] Oh for sure. Like, obviously the meaning I put on money from a kid right up until who knows how old I was, I mean, there were times we've had conversations, fights, arguments, debates--
Brian Persson: [00:13:37] -- oh, tons--
Jessilyn Persson: [00:13:37] -- because we were so, we had such different views on money. And I remember when we took, I think it might have been the money clinic as well, that was the first time we really understood the perspective of the difference between poverty versus abundance. Like, I just kind of was like, wait, what? Because I had a poverty mentality and I'm okay with admitting that. But I didn't really understand the meaning of having a poverty mentality and how it impacted me as a whole. Not necessarily just saving and money, but like how I viewed the world, how I spent things, whether I'd go out or not, whether I'd take a vacation or not, whether I'd buy this or that for you or for the kids. Like it was all poverty mentality, poverty mentality. And then when I understood that and learned and was able to shift to the abundance mentality, it changed everything as well.
Brian Persson: [00:14:24] Mhm. Yeah. The way you viewed it really kind of threw you for a loop sometimes, too. It was almost like, almost like you were in and out of rehab.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:14:35] Yeah. No, it took, this wasn't overnight. It was years for me to really, I would relapse, I would be like, no, we don't, stop, stop spending. And I would go cold turkey. I would literally just stop spending everything. And you're like, well, why don't we have this? I'm like, oh no, we don't have the money.
Brian Persson: [00:14:50] It got to the point where I was very hesitant to say certain things about money, because I didn't know which way you were gonna swing. I didn't know if you were gonna just, like, cut all the bank accounts out or all of a sudden empty them all out, right? Like, you know, were you gonna just stop spending everything at all or all of a sudden go on a binge? And it was very difficult for me to interpret what I was going to say versus like how you were going to react because you were still in that swing of figuring out what money and wealth and riches and everything really, really meant to you. And now, years later, you know, we're much more habitual again, but in a good way.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:31] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:15:32] And now the swing is much more gentle. Right? And we understand, that's the biggest thing is, we understand why we swing one way or the other, like it's less about, like, some meaning from the past that we put onto it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:15:48] Yeah. It's not oh my poverty. We're not gonna have enough. Now I think we view it more as okay if our situation is changing, like, for example, your contract that you're currently on is ending this week. And so it's like, okay, now we know that income isn't guaranteed. There's no, your income for that piece of work isn't coming in. So we reviewed our budget. Okay, what are we going to need to spend for the rest of this year corporately as well as personally? What does that look like if it's just me on the contract, how are we going to spend our money, is there anywhere we should maybe cut back on? And again, that's not a swing of poverty versus abundance. That's a wait a minute, we know our situation is changing. That's going to impact the money. Let's review everything as a whole so we can have a plan moving forward. And then, I imagine, if you decide to get another contract, we'll review it again.
Brian Persson: [00:16:36] Yeah.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:16:36] And just see what that looks like.
Brian Persson: [00:16:37] Because we've slowly changed the meaning of what we put onto those things. So like in the past, that meaning of ending the contract would have been like, oh my God, oh my god, oh my God.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:16:48] Yeah. Like we gotta do everything ourselves. We gotta cut any help we have, right?
Brian Persson: [00:16:52] Yeah. We're broke tomorrow if we don't get another contract.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:16:54] Exactly.
Brian Persson: [00:16:55] Which is totally not the reality at all. Even back then, it was not the reality. But we were, again the situation was so flavored and so colored by what our past experiences were and all the layers that we had put onto it, that we literally would think we were going broke if we didn't have a contract.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:17:14] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:17:15] And then come, you know, come 2020, you know, the pandemic happens. We decide to go build a business with some partners. And we, I don't think we pulled a paycheck for a year and a half.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:17:27] No we didn't.
Brian Persson: [00:17:27] And what happened, we were a) relatively okay with it. There were some issues inside of it, like, you know, building a business that there's always issues, but the point is that we went a year and a half without virtually anything coming in. And we had a little bit of to support us, not like, definitely not the full month of expenses to support us. But we had such a vastly different meaning put towards money and wealth that we were able to manage that year and a half, whereas before we could barely manage two weeks.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:06] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:18:06] Without like freaking out. Right? So, and I think that's something that you really got to ask yourself, is like if you experience a situation and you don't like how it feels, start looking for a different meaning that you need to put on it. So we did the same thing. We said, hey, you know what, this, there's something bigger, there's something better to life. We don't like the feeling of not having a contract or not having a job or not having this. How can we change the meaning that we're putting on to that?
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:44] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:18:44] And then all of a sudden we go build a, you know, $20 million business with some partners, don't pull a paycheck for a year and a half, and we're a-okay with it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:18:55] Yeah. It's, I mean yeah, exactly. You said it very well and that just goes to show like meaning today can change tomorrow.
Brian Persson: [00:19:08] Yep. The habit. The habit you put onto it of whatever meaning you're layering on top of that situation, whether it's how much or what you think about your partner, how much you think about money, how much you think about your kids, family, everything. You've habitually put that feeling into place, whether you remember it or not. But now is your chance to habitually review every feeling that comes through a situation and actually have the opportunity to decide a different meaning for it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:19:42] Yeah, I know a great story we love to share. We probably shared it on previous podcasts, but all around real estate and just our mindset on it. And, you know, we bought our first property together in 2009, and I just fell in love with the concept of real estate investing. Right? You handed me the keys or the realtor maybe did and I was like, ahhh. I told myself, every two years we're buying a new property. But I told myself, not you. And I stayed on track.
Brian Persson: [00:20:10] You did tell me. You did tell me.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:20:11] Not till later, though.
Brian Persson: [00:20:12] I 100% did not agree with it at the time.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:20:14] And I'm not sure you shared that either. But we did stay on track until I think it was 2017, end of 2016, early 17, where, you know, you came home and you're like, I'm done. Like I cannot manage anymore. We're maxed out and like, that's no more properties. And of course, little me on the inside was like, mmMmm, like, no, we're not done. This is our wealth. This is what we're building. You can manage more, you just don't know it yet. Right? But so then, you know, as I shared, I went and did a bunch of Google while you were out of town and looking at one of our properties in another province. And I found this real estate investment networking group, and I signed you up. And you were mad. Oh, you were mad. You didn't want to go.
Brian Persson: [00:20:53] Initially, yeah. Initially.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:20:54] But you went because, well, I'd already paid for it. And that was one of the best moves I and you ever made. And it shifted your whole meaning around owning real estate, managing real estate, and what that looks like.
Brian Persson: [00:21:10] Yeah, yeah. The meaning that I had yesterday completely changed from the actions you took today, in that day back then, and then all of a sudden tomorrow, today, you know, we have a much larger portfolio. I spend very little time managing it because again, I asked myself like, what's the meaning of this? And I started to layer different actions on top of it. But I remember two things that happened that changed my perspective and my meaning around real estate. And that was one) we were listening to a podcast. What did the guy say? He said, he just said something like, you know, oh yeah, I bought a house and like, I did this and that and like, then I took $30,000 out of the house and it's rented. And I'm like, wait a minute, like the house paid you $30,000 and you're still renting it? That was one thing. Because it blew my mind, I didn't even realize you could do that in real estate. And then I remember going to that meeting that you signed me up for, and I was all annoyed. And then I met a guy who just very flippantly said, oh, yeah, you know, I'm on track to, like, have $25,000 of passive income per month in, like, probably less than ten years. And I'm like, what? Like, you can do that in real estate? Yeah. So part of it was just exposure, right? Never been exposed to things like that. And all of a sudden the meaning I had around real estate changes and now it's like, probably even though I don't spend a lot of time on it, it's actually one of my number one focuses. Like in my head, I'm just like, oh, I love my real estate. Oh, like, I love my tenants. Oh, I, you know, I love going and changing out a dishwasher. I don't change a dishwasher, but like buying a new dishwasher for my tenants, right?
Jessilyn Persson: [00:22:47] Yeah.
Brian Persson: [00:22:47] Because it's important to me now.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:22:50] But if you think back to what we're calling yesterday versus today, before you shifted your meaning around real estate, like tenants were a pain in your butt. Every time something broke, you had fix it was like, oh, now what? Whereas now it's like, you know, this building our wealth. We got this, right? It's, and again, it's what the meaning we put on it.
Brian Persson: [00:23:12] It doesn't drag me down. I'm not gonna say I'm like super, super excited to go and run out to a property.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:17] Well fair.
Brian Persson: [00:23:18] Yeah. But I do understand why I need to go to a property and there's absolutely no energy expenditure for me going to managing my real estate. Like, it's not like a job where, which you don't like, and you come home from the job every day and you're exhausted. You barely have any energy or time for your family or your friends. That that part of real estate does not do anything for me anymore. I can go and deal with like the worst tenant situation, not that I have a whole lot of those anymore, but I can go and deal with that and then come home and have supper and chat with the kids. And it's no big deal, right? Because what I've put on to real estate is so, so different.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:23:59] Yeah. And I obviously I see it and I recognize it and it's a lot to do with like how you feel around it. Like before it was dragging you down, like you said. And then when you went had all these aha's of like, oh my gosh, that's the kind of money you can make? I love, I'm gonna love this because it's going to help me long-term. And you just, the feeling around it shifted, right, in the situation and it totally showed.
Brian Persson: [00:24:24] Yeah. I actually don't know if I ever told you this story, but, I went for lunch with a friend, a couple of high school friends, a few years ago now, I think? A couple of years ago now? And I was telling him about our real estate portfolio. And one of the guys who I went to high school with was like, Brian, do you realize, like, in high school, you were like, real estate is horrible, and I'm never buying property. And he was telling me all these stories about what he remembered of me back in high school saying, talking about real estate. And here I am sitting at lunch with these guys, owning a couple of million dollars and or more, I can't remember how much I owned back then of real estate. And they're telling me, like, stories about how I hate real estate. And that's their opinion of me back then. And so it's just amazing from high school to, like, buying a condo, which I did exceptionally well on in my early 20s to meeting you to, like, going back into, like, not liking real estate to like, oh my God, we got to build the biggest portfolio ever.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:25:26] Yes. That's funny. I don't think you did share that story.
Brian Persson: [00:25:28] I'm not sure I ever did, but yeah, it was really funny having those things thrown back at me going, oh, really? Like I was that way? And I can't even conceive myself being that way back then, right? But even in just what I just said, you know, there's four different versions of me and all the different meaning I put onto this one thing called real estate. And it's just like this way, that way and the other way. Yeah, same person, same object, same situation, completely different outcomes from how I just felt about it and how I treated the meaning around it.
Jessilyn Persson: [00:26:06] Right. Yeah. No, that's a great story. So I'm going to recap the takeaways. The first one, meaning came from a situation a long time ago that you probably don't even remember. Takeaway two, meaning grow stronger the more you experience a situation. And the third takeaway, meaning today can be changed tomorrow. Our next topic is going to be committed versus attached. So if there's a certain outcome you want to achieve, you got to ask yourself, are you committed to achieving that outcome or are you attached to everything that surrounds it?
Brian Persson: [00:26:38] Really important to think about. So 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: [00:26:50] Thanks for listening to the Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian.