Life by Design Jessilyn and Brian Persson

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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Contact Jessilyn and Brian Persson | Discover Life By Design: 
Website: DiscoverLifeByDesign.caInstagram: DiscoverLifeByDesignFacebook: Discover Life By DesignLinkedin: Discover Life By Design—

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

Jessilyn and Brian Persson explore the topic of perspective versus perception in this episode. How different is perspective from perception and how does that affect us and our relationships? Perception is how we view the world as individuals. Our perception of things is fairly stable. Perspective, though, can change at will. We can choose to see the world from other points of view. Which one helps us better connect with others? Jessilyn and Brian have that answer.

Using very relatable personal examples, Jessilyn and Brian share times when their perception was limited and how challenging perspectives opened them up to greater expression and connection. They walk us through three takeaways that can change how we connect and move through our lives: 1. Failure is only a matter of perspective, 2. Perspective is a powerful tool, and 3. Growth requires different perspectives. The lessons and insight explored in this episode can lead to more authentic relationships, personal growth, and a way to see failure as part of greater success.    

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Contact Jessilyn and Brian Persson | Discover Life By Design: 
Website: DiscoverLifeByDesign.caInstagram: DiscoverLifeByDesignFacebook: Discover Life By DesignLinkedin: Discover Life By Design—

Transcript 

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 of how we broke through the barriers to create our wealth.
 
Brian Persson: [00:00:19] We are also the creators of the Discover Define Design framework, which supports you in resolving conflict and communicating better. We also recently created a branch of that teaching we are calling Riches Relationships and Real Estate. We have a lot of experience, and there is a lot of demand from couples who want to get on the same page so they can powerfully invest into real estate.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:41] Our topic today is perspective versus perception. So what do we mean when we say perspective versus perception?
 
Brian Persson: [00:00:50] So perception is how we as individuals view the world. Our perception of things, I would say is relatively stable. It can change as we learn new ideas and modify our perception of the world, but the new perception is still relatively stable. Perspective, on the other hand, can change at will. You can choose to see the world from different angles. We'll talk more about how perspective is a very powerful tool for connecting with others later on in this podcast.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:19] So why is it important?
 
Brian Persson: [00:01:22] I would assert that most everyone has a fairly narrow perception of the world, so imagine only understanding what you perceive. It would be very difficult to connect with a wide variety of people, because the large majority of people would not have your same perception. You guys would miss each other. I would also assert that this is why people feel most conversations are shallow, as they're only connecting on where their perceptions match. This makes perspective critical. To be able to change your perspective so you can view things from other angles allows you to get into another's world.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:59] Yeah, I can definitely relate to that. I do a lot of networking as I'm a part of many different women's groups, and in the groups there are a lot of people come and they're there because they want business, which that's kind of the point of networking, is to meet people and eventually grow your business. But there are people who show up and I think just expect to get business on the first day they show up. And so when, you know, I talk to them and they'll tell me everything about what they do and I'm sitting there going, okay, but you never asked me what I do. You haven't made it relatable to me. And I get it. I mean, back in the day, I'm sure I was probably similar, but a new style of how I like to network is

Hosts Jessilyn and Brian Persson talk about the differences in being attached to a pathway versus being committed to one in today’s episode. In their words, attached is a one-path solution whereas committed is a multi-path solution. Is the way we get to a goal more important than the result itself? This is what they explore today, investigating how this mindset can affect colleagues, friendships, and even family.

The three takeaways that Jessilyn highlights define how committed is a more flexible and freeing way to achieve a goal. Being committed means focusing on the outcome, it means moving on, and it means deciding if presumed expectations in life are meaningful. What sorts of things do we get attached to and how does that manifest in our lives? How can we shift to a committed perspective instead? Are there things we are clinging to that aren’t serving our journey the way they should? Join Jessilyn and Brian as they break down what committed versus attached can mean to relationships and outcomes in our lives. 

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Contact Jessilyn and Brian Persson | Discover Life By Design: 
Website: DiscoverLifeByDesign.caInstagram: DiscoverLifeByDesignFacebook: Discover Life By DesignLinkedin: Discover Life By Design—

Transcript 

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 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 Relationships, Riches 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 that they can powerfully invest in real estate.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:42] Our topic today is committed versus attached. So what do we mean when we say committed versus attached?
 
Brian Persson: [00:00:50] Right. So attached, we can think of it as a one-path solution. There's only one way to do a particular thing. Committed is a multi-path solution. There is multiple ways to do the same thing. So one example is just doing dishes. We have some stories of our own ways of doing dishes. And we have one we want to share about some friends of ours. But attached would look like having only one way to load the dishwasher, and that would be the glasses have to go here, the dishes have to go there, whereas committed would be the dishes have to get clean if they run, if they get run through the dishwasher.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:31] Right. Right. Yeah. No, I remember a story with the good friends of ours that came over probably about a month ago now. We're having dinner, and he was very kindly loading our dishwasher, and you could tell he was a little hesitant of whether he was putting them in the right spot. And I was just kind of like, yeah, whatever, load them how you want. And I know his fiance, he's like, well, at home I have to load them a very specific way. And I remember looking at his fiance and kind of smiling, and you could tell, she's like, well, yeah, that's how they get done. And you, I remember you went to her and you're like, well, if you came home one day and the dishes were all clean and put away, would you be happy? She goes, yeah, he goes, would you have cared how he loaded them in the dishwasher at that time? And she thought about it. She goes, no. It's like exactly.
 
Brian Persson: [00:02:19] Yeah. Before that conversation she was attached to a particular way of doing the dishes. And I hope I brought her around to being committed to doing the dishes.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:27] And more so the fact that you can get a lot more help from your fiance if you just let him trial and error, do it his way, see if it works, maybe correct him along the way if you have to,

Hosts Jessilyn and Brian Persson talk about meaning in today’s episode. Why does the same situation or item have a different meaning for one person than it does for another? The same apple may be delicious and coveted by one person and viewed as gross and undesirable by another. Jessilyn and Brian explore how we form meanings and how we can change those meanings to reach different understandings of situations.

One of the key examples of something that almost everyone in the world places meaning on is money. Money means many different things to many different people and can cause a lot of conflict in relationships. Jessilyn shares how she came from a poverty mindset growing up, rather than an abundance mindset, because her family did not have money. But even when she and Brian started achieving financial success, she maintained her poverty mindset until she explored where that meaning came from and could learn to change it. Jessilyn and Brian discuss how to discover where our meanings originated, why those meanings get stronger the more we experience a situation, and how a meaning that is held today can be changed tomorrow.

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Contact Jessilyn and Brian Persson | Discover Life By Design: 
Website: DiscoverLifeByDesign.caInstagram: DiscoverLifeByDesignFacebook: Discover Life By DesignLinkedin: Discover Life By Design—

Transcript 

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

Jessilyn and Brian Persson introduce part two of their discussion on adversity. Based on CORE, originally created by Paul Stoltz, part one focused on the C and the O, Control and Ownership. This episode explores the R and the E, Reach and Endurance. How far does the adversity reach into our lives and how long is it going to endure? And how do we recognize and make peace with that?

Adversity is a big topic and CORE explains how impactful it can be while also introducing ways of facing it that allow for handling it to the best of our abilities. Jessilyn and Brian explain that the reach adversity has will flow through us, into our partners, into our children, and into our larger families if we are not careful. It can endure for years if we let bitterness take hold and we don’t assess it. They each share examples of large adversity from previous work that led to burnout and health stress within families to demonstrate how reach and endurance creep into daily life. But they also describe how they embraced personal growth, a different mentality, to get around the bitterness to stop the adversity’s continued existence. This is a valuable second part to pair with the first as a guide to dealing with adversity.

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Contact Jessilyn and Brian Persson | Discover Life By Design: 
Website: DiscoverLifeByDesign.caInstagram: DiscoverLifeByDesignFacebook: Discover Life By DesignLinkedin: Discover Life By Design—

Transcript 

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:09] Welcome to the Life By Design podcast with your host Jessilyn and Brian Persson. We work with professional couples to help resolve conflict and elevate communication within their relationship.
 
Brian Persson: [00:00:19] We are the creators of the Discover Define Design framework, which supports you in resolving conflict and communicating better.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:26] This episode we're going to talk about adversity part two of CORE, originally created by Paul Stoltz. Our last episode, we focused on the C and the O, which is control and ownership. And we went into unpredictability. This week we're going to go into the R and the E, which is reach and endurance, and we're going to wrap that one up talking about when you're up to big things, it can cause big adversity.
 
Brian Persson: [00:00:51] Yeah. Reach and Endurance. The way I like to think about reach and endurance versus control and ownership is control and ownership is you can be proactive with it. You know where your control and where your ownership lies. But with reach and endurance, I find for most people it tends to be a lot slipperier. You don't notice it as much, it just kind of as it says, reaches out and grabs on to things. The adversity kind of gets you and the endurance just keeps going and you don't really notice it.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:23] Yeah, no, that's a good way, good way to put it. So when we're saying reach like it's one thing to impact you, but the reach we're talking about here is when it rolls into your partner, your children, your work, wherever it's going to reach and it creeps in there. And then endurance is more like, how's it impacting you long term? If you don't like, wrap it up and let it go in a sufficient time manner?
 
Brian Persson: [00:01:46] Yeah. Reach is like, you know, the waves of a pond, right? It starts with you, goes to your partner, goes to your kids, goes to your family, your extended family, keeps on traveling. How far is that reach of that adversity and the impact that it made to you? How far is it going?
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:03] Yeah. So when we're talking about reach here, we are looking at situations that reach into other areas of your work, your life. And to what extent does the adversity extend beyond the situation at hand. So we have a great story where your old position as an employee, how adversity struck and how we let it go further than it maybe should have.
 
Brian Persson: [00:02:29] Yeah, I think it's a common aspect of most careers and

Jessilyn and Brian Persson address the topic of adversity in today’s episode. Adversity can impact us in many ways and can strike everyone, so they are breaking the subject into two parts. In today’s part one, they focus on the first half of their CORE ideal. CORE stands for Control, Ownership, Reach, and Endurance. Control and Ownership in adversity are the focus of this episode as Jessilyn and Brian break down how to deal with adversity.

Adversity, as Brian explains, is arguments and problems that come with all the stuff living throws at us that impacts our way of life. Adversity comes from a multitude of angles: illness, job loss, destruction of the home, the pandemic, money, and so many more. Jessilyn and Brian use very personal examples from their own lives to illustrate the unpredictable nature of adversity and how it often shatters our sense of control. They explain how accepting what cannot be controlled about adverse situations makes them easier to handle and get through. They detail how taking ownership of what must be managed, within the strengths that we have, is how to move forward. The three takeaways they share - control, ownership, and that adversity is unpredictable - offer guidance and a plan for tackling adversity together.

—
Contact Jessilyn and Brian Persson | Discover Life By Design: 
Website: DiscoverLifeByDesign.caInstagram: DiscoverLifeByDesignFacebook: Discover Life By DesignLinkedin: Discover Life By Design—

Transcript 

Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:10] Welcome to the Life by Design podcast with your hosts, Jessilyn and Brian Persson. We work with professional couples to help resolve conflict and elevate communication within their relationship.
 
Brian Persson: [00:00:20] We are the creators of the Discover Define Design framework, which supports you in resolving conflict and communicating better.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:00:27] This week our topic is on adversity. Adversity can impact us in so many ways, and because it does strike everyone, we're actually going to break this into a two part series. And in our two part series, we're going to focus on what we call CORE. And that stands for Control, Ownership, Reach and Endurance when it comes to adversity. So this part one is going to focus on the C and O, Control and Ownership, of adversity. So Brian, what is adversity?
 
Brian Persson: [00:01:00] Yeah. Well in relationships it happens a lot as everyone out there probably knows. There's a, you know, you and your partner, you and your family, you and your kids often engage in arguments and problems of all sorts. And that's pretty well what adversity is. It's all the stuff of life that comes at you and tries to impact your way of life.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:25] Yeah. And that, I mean, can come from angles unknown. It can be anything from an illness, job loss, destruction to the home, the pandemic, whichever one experienced.
 
Brian Persson: [00:01:37] Pandemic is a huge one, yeah.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:01:38] So why is it important?
 
Brian Persson: [00:01:40] Because you have to face it. It's going to happen. There's no way to avoid adversity in life. There's no way to avoid adversity in your relationship. And there's no way to move forward. Especially moving forward you have to experience adversity in order to get anything new and anything bigger in life.
 
Jessilyn Persson: [00:02:00] Right. And the sooner you can understand it and understand your role in it, the easier you can move through it. So typically, how does it work?
 
Brian Persson: [00:02:08] In a relationship? It usually looks like blame or maybe resignation. So one partner just giving up, maybe you just kind of give up on your kids because they're little brats for whatever reason. Maybe you give up on your family, like you know, you got sisters or brothers or a mom and a dad that just don't communicate or operate properly inside of the family. And you just experience a lot of adversity and conflict when it com