First Steps to Shift from a Scarcity to Wealth Mindset

Life by Design

In this episode, Jessilyn and Brian Persson explore the initial steps required to shift from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset, sharing their unique personal experiences. Jessilyn candidly reflects on her life growing up in poverty and how the ideas she learned in childhood followed her into adulthood. She describes how she worked on her mindset to move past the need to save every dollar to embracing self-care and budgeting even a modest $60 monthly for personal grooming.

Brian, raised in a middle-class family, grappled with a comfort-based scarcity mindset, initially hesitant to step out of his financial comfort zone. Together, they highlight the importance of acknowledging your personal limiting beliefs, seeking out continuous financial education, and finding the courage to take small, consistent steps to grow your wealth. They emphasize the value of reframing mindsets and appreciating money’s abundance as key steps in achieving financial goals and a fulfilling life.

To help listeners on their own journeys, Jessilyn and Brian offer practical strategies, including automating savings and making gradual, manageable changes to foster a sustainable wealth-building habit. They advocate for self-acceptance and remind listeners that consistent action can help compound results over time. The Perssons encourage listeners to recognize how their upbringings may shape their current financial beliefs and to reframe those beliefs to support growth and resilience. Their message is clear: through self-reflection, education, and small actions, anyone can build a healthier relationship with money and move towards financial abundance.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• The 3 Mistakes that Keep High Achieving Couples from Building their Wealth, Freedom & Living a Life they Love
• Grant Cardone

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Contact Jessilyn and Brian Persson | Discover Life By Design:

• Website: DiscoverLifeByDesign.ca
• Instagram: DiscoverLifeByDesign
• Facebook: Discover Life By Design
• Linkedin: Discover Life By Design

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Transcript

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:10] Welcome to the Life by Design Podcast, we are your hosts Jessilyn and Brian Persson. Are you and your partner looking to align your financial goals and build wealth together? Have you ever wondered what might be stopping you from confidently investing in real estate or growing your wealth as a couple? Or why it feels so hard to get on the same page financially?

Brian Persson: [00:00:30] That's exactly why we created this podcast and the 'Riches, Relationships, and Real Estate' program to help couples like you invest confidently and achieve both your financial and relationship goals. If you're curious to learn more, head over to discoverlifebydesign.ca/wealth and download our free guide,'The 3 Common Mistakes Couples Make When Building Their Wealth'. Let's start building the life you deserve, together.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:59] All right, today's topic is 'your first steps to shift from a scarcity to wealth mindset'. I wanted to chat about this one because I've had several people reach out to me lately through social media, DMs, emails, after they've seen some of our posts that we do on mindset, and they're like, but how do you do it? So I thought about it and I'm like, instead of replying back one by one, let's do a full podcast so we can reach our entire audience and have them share it for those who are interested in shifting their mindset from one of scarcity to one of wealth and abundance.

Brian Persson: [00:01:36] I think a really great place for this podcast to start is to talk about our own personal experience and make people understand that you might have had a mindset of scarcity in the past, but that doesn't mean that it's going to ever leave you or that you can't change it. So let's just talk about our mindsets and how we've evolved over time. Do you want to go first?

Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:00] Sure. As I've shared openly before, I grew up in poverty. We didn't have much money growing up, but we had a farm, and so we worked hard to have everything we did. The way I learned it were things like money was scarce, you had to work really hard for your money. It didn't stretch far, so you had to save as much as you can to stretch it for that rainy day. There are times we had to go without certain things because there was no money to provide for that. As I grew older and moved away and went through university and into my first few corporate jobs, I still carried that. Thinking, it didn't matter what I made, I had to save it. Then we're talking a couple decades later, where we'd had a sizable real estate portfolio. We both had incredible incomes from our careers, money set aside, putting away for our kids, and I still thought I couldn't spend.

Brian Persson: [00:03:04] I think that's a great thing to do, is contrast it. You have this idea of poverty in your head and you're saving everything. I saw it in you because you would go on these roller coasters. You knew you had money, but something in the back of your head said, I didn't have money. There would be these roller coasters through our finances where you would just be spending a whole bunch of money because something triggered that you had money, and then all of a sudden that scarcity mindset would kick in and you would lock down every single account and not spend anything. For me, I was kind of confused. It's like, why can't this be an even keel ship where the spending is consistent and the income is consistent, let's keep it like that. But part of that was your mindset, and that roller coaster developed out of it.

Jessilyn Persson: [00:04:05] Now, to be clear, earlier in our marriage, when it was the big spend, I was never a big spender earlier. I would scrimp and save and frugal and I'd go for deals. Everywhere I could, I just wouldn't save. I wouldn't spend on clothes much for me or nails, anything like that. The big spend generally would be, I'd save and be like, I got enough to buy a house. Then we'd spend it, and then I had nothing. I'm looking at an account with nothing. Yes, I had an asset, but that's not the way my mind saw things. Plus assets take time before they're starting to be producing. Save again, buy another asset. Then we got to a point where it was steady, more money, more savings and higher income, because of course that grew with age and advancements and shifts in our careers. Even then I was still, because I know for the longest time I just always wanted to treat myself and get my nails done. I would watch so many women do these things and I'd be like, how do they afford it? They don't have a job like I do. If they had a job, like some of them were stay at home moms. Obviously it was a part of the mentality around how they viewed money and how I viewed money. It wasn't until my 40s that we reviewed our finances and we're finally like, Jess, we can absolutely afford for you to go get your nails done.

Brian Persson: [00:05:31] In our 40s, that's where the traction was really starting on our money mindset, too. We were in a lot of different circles, we were around a lot of different people that had much more abundance mindsets starting in that...