Raising Entrepreneurial Kids: Mindset, Money & Life Lessons

Jessilyn Persson (00:30)

Today we’re going to talk about raising entrepreneurial kids. In a world where financial literacy is more important than ever, raising entrepreneurial kids isn’t just a trend, it’s a necessity. By teaching wealth principles early, we equip the next generation with the mindset, skills, and confidence to build independence and create opportunities. So today we’re going to talk about how you can start cultivating entrepreneurial thinking and smart money habits in your children.

 

So we have obviously done this with our kids quite young. ⁓ And the reason we start young is obviously we know what kids learn young, they take with them as they get into teenagers and adulthood and what you can ingrain in them early on helps create more of a habit that they can continue with as opposed to not teaching them and then having them have to retrain or relearn when they’re an adult.

 

Brian Persson (01:29)

Yeah, retrain or relearn. They’re sponges, right, of information. They just suck it up. So why not give them the right information early on? I imagine anyone listening and ourselves could think about all the bad habits and things that we learned over the years and how long as an adult it takes us to break that. And some of them perhaps don’t even go away.

 

Jessilyn Persson (01:52)

Yeah, well think about the money habits you had as a kid because of what you learned by watching your parents and we’ve spoken to this numerous times because I come from a farm, no money, poverty mindset and my mom to this day will not spend and watching that, wasn’t until my early, late 30s, early 40s where I was able to change that mindset and understand that.

 

Because it was maybe that way as a kid doesn’t mean that is the right way, the only way, or the way for me.

 

Brian Persson (02:25)

Yeah. So to clarify, you followed your mom’s pattern, right? And that’s where a lot of our patterns get learned from is our parents. So it was in your thirties and your forties that you realized that you could spend some money. So you, you you get your nails done nowadays, but also in other ways, like spending money on the business instead of, for example, working on the business. So a lot of entrepreneurs, they’ll, they’ll work in the business to try and prevent spending that money just because of their mindset.

 

So, hire it out sometimes.

 

Jessilyn Persson (02:55)

Yeah, so starting young, helps kids build confidence, responsibility, and independence with their money. And it can remove shame and fear, because again, money is something so taboo. Even if you look at adults today, now adults being generally for sure Gen X and older, ⁓ we were just raised that you didn’t talk about money.

 

Brian Persson (03:21)

No, I don’t recall too much of my household and I definitely remember some money problems when I was quite young. Like I remember ⁓ when I was going to college, I didn’t really understand credit cards and I would pay off the credit card occasionally, but I didn’t really understand the need to pay it off like consistently. And it was like only 500 bucks, I think was my first credit card, but I maxed it out with gas ⁓ driving into the city. ⁓

 

And I literally didn’t understand what happened there when the credit card got declined. And my mom actually had to come and pay for the gas bill.

 

Jessilyn Persson (04:00)

Wow. No, mean, my parents didn’t really, I mean, they fought about money, but they didn’t talk a lot about it. So when I was an adult moving out, I didn’t know anything about interest rates. I didn’t even know what that meant, what it was. I didn’t know anything about economy.

 

credit cards and I know I didn’t have one of those for sure. I had a bank account, I knew money went in and I could take money out, but I didn’t know anything about investing or saving or what that would really even look like or the long-term impacts my choices at a younger age would make for my older self.

 

Brian Persson (04:34)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I wasn’t taught most of that either It was kind of described to me and my parents threw some books at me like the wealthy barber But there was no real not the I recall anyway, no real hand-holding process No On-the-ground education as it were it was it was just sort of like that high level here’s a book and like, know You should go open up an investing account with the bank, but it wasn’t there wasn’t a lot of description on

 

what was going to happen and how it was all going to work.

 

Jessilyn Persson (05:05)

Yeah, so we recommend ⁓ teaching the basics first. Now, I know we just talked about interest rate, credit cards, bank accounts, but even something like income versus expenses and how they kind of need to match up. If you go to spend, you’ve got to have income to cover that at some point. Yeah. Right. And then ⁓ because we’re obviously passionate about real estate, buying high and selling low, like even teaching the kids now what that means.

 

Brian Persson (05:31)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, one of one of our kids our nine-year-old he’s ⁓ he’s saved up some money in his bank account and he wants to put some of it into an investment and so we’re looking at like literally looking at stock charts and he’s he’s trying to figure out you know which ones are the low ones and which ones are gonna have the chance of going high and which ones are the high ones and he wants to avoid those it’s quite interesting and just that super

 

innocent basic thing of buying low and selling high. ⁓ He’s already kind of got it at nine years old.

 

Jessilyn Persson (06:05)

Yeah. And we firmly believe in letting them earn money instead of always giving them an allowance. We actually never brought allowance into our household and we just did the trade off of yes, you have chores and we don’t pay you money for that, but you get to have the family vacations that we pay for. Which isn’t what it’s like in every household, but we had to teach them the difference and why we chose that. And I guess part of our beliefs there were because when you move out on your own,

 

No one’s doing your dishes, no one’s doing your laundry, and no one’s going to pay you to do your own dishes and laundry. ⁓ we taught them young that they have to do their own chores. Now there are some tasks around the house we will pay them to do, like pulling weeds or picking up rocks and stuff, just so they can understand the difference of their work.

 

Brian Persson (06:39)

Yeah

 

And we tried to be quite conscious on putting a line between it so that there’s things that we call family contribution time. And those are the things that always happen inside of the family. Doing dishes, making supper, vacuuming, things that have to happen every single day. And then there’s the odd stuff like weeds and we have a rock garden. So like the rocks get knocked out of the, out of the beds, rock beds. So the kids get to.

 

get paid five bucks or I can’t remember what the amount is, whatever it is to put the rocks back in every month. it’s very task-based, one-off things that they get paid for and not the consistent stuff that has to keep the household going.

 

Jessilyn Persson (07:38)

Right yeah and we we introduce concepts like needs versus wants because our our oldest is very materialistic. He will he thinks he needs so many things including the Lego and we’re kind of like you don’t actually need Lego to survive their sunshine. You want it ⁓ and so that’s that’s a good lesson to teach them the difference between what they need and they want and delayed gratification. This is an interesting one with with the ⁓

 

World War I now where everyone wants everything now, now, now, now, now. And we see that in our kiddos and especially our oldest. And we really had to learn to be like, whoa, like we need to slow this down and show him sometimes the gratification you can get from waiting. And I know I did that recently, his birthday just passed and he got some birthday money and he really wanted to buy this Lego car.

 

And I said, well, you’re going to wait a week because you’ve got a birthday party coming up and you’re going to get some gifts and we’ll see what you get. He’s like, well, I’m not going to get that. I’m like, well, you don’t know, but you’re going to wait. And sure enough, two days before his birthday party, he’s like, actually, I changed my mind. I’m like, aren’t you glad you made it? He goes, yes.

 

Brian Persson (08:50)

Yeah, yeah.

 

And speaking of Lego, I was having a conversation with him, our 12 year old, and he, I was talking about a buddy of mine who actually invests in Lego. So he’s bought many, many different Lego sets over the years and they’ve actually doubled and tripled in price some of them. So great investment. And ⁓ our Lego fiend of a child says, I’ll go over there and help him and help him like build them. Like, I don’t think you understand the point of why these things are sealed in their box and like never supposed to be touched. That’s the way.

 

that they retain their money.

 

Jessilyn Persson (09:23)

Well, he has a true love of Lego like he’s an incredible builder and he’s creative. So I get that but yeah, no just that delayed gratification of just wait and then let’s see if you still want it in a week.

 

Brian Persson (09:39)

Yes, but then the same conversation with our other son, our nine-year-old, he’s like, well, what else can I buy that is going to gain value like that? He’s looking for the alternatives, the other things that are going to start to grow in price. it’s funny the difference in mentality.

 

Jessilyn Persson (09:54)

curve.

 

Yes. So with your kids, you also want to encourage entrepreneurial thinking. So like help them explore many businesses. We’re all familiar with the lemonade stand. Those were very, very popular when I was younger. I still see a few of them out and about now. ⁓ But like dog walking. And then of course, ⁓ our nine year old did the paper route when he was seven. And now our 12 year old has the paper route and our nine year old has moved on to doing his papa’s books for his business, entering the data from all the receipts.

 

So they’re simple enough that they can still do them, but it’s starting to teach them the value of their money. So they know they only get paid a couple of weeks, I think, for the paper after it has been delivered. And then, of course, Papa’s books, he has to do the entire books for the year before he gets paid for that year.

 

Brian Persson (10:46)

Yep. And they start getting obsessed with ⁓ trying to grow their money actually. It’s interesting. So they, know, when they’re actively earning money, like, cause not all year they’re always actively earning money, but when they are actively earning money, they’re like, Hey dad, can I, can I see my bank account? Like, what does my bank account look like now? So they, they’re really getting involved with like what the

 

product of their work is actually looking like so they can see a measurable result in their bank account when that number goes up.

 

Jessilyn Persson (11:17)

Yeah. And I know over, over time we’ve taught them to solve problems and offer value. And we would teach them, you know, lessons on like, Hey, if you could solve this problem for someone, they would be willing to pay you for that. And so they’re like, really? And so they start to think like, well, what other problems can I solve and how else can I make money? And there’s definitely different creative outcomes for that. And I know another one that you really taught.

 

⁓ Our boys was the dollars per task instead of dollars per hour

 

Brian Persson (11:49)

Yeah, everybody most everybody in the world works on a dollar per hour basis But the the truly wealthy people find ways where their hour isn’t capped to that dollar. So You know ⁓ imagine if you’re going to make a lot of income The only way to do it if it’s based on your hour is to increase your hour. Well, how high can that go? Right, you know, all right you eventually

 

you’re going to get into the hundreds to the thousands and you’re still going to maybe want a little bit more for your wealth and that’s not going to be possible because it’s just per hour. So if you can find a way to do it by the task so that you can make that task more efficient and fit more tasks in, maybe outsource those tasks to other people, things like that, then there’s some true growth potential in there and also like for example the paper route.

 

If Jackson wants to be slow at it, that’s fine. He just starts to dig into his playtime now. Well, ⁓ if he gets fast at it and he does it in 45 minutes rather than half an hour, guess what? He gets paid the exact same, but also has 45 minutes to play. So you start looking at it like that and it starts making sense for them to do it by the task because now they can do a quality quick task.

 

and get the same amount of money as it would be if they just did that task for like an hourly rate.

 

Jessilyn Persson (13:21)

Yeah, and we do the same with our youngest. He gets paid a set amount to do Papa’s books, regardless of whether he wants to do it in a week or a month or longer. He’s going to get the same amount. And so we leave it up to him to be how fast he wants to enter that data or how long he wants to take to do it. And then they can decide the same with the rocks. It’s like, OK, you have to pick up these rocks once a month. And if it takes you five minutes or an hour, you get paid the same amount. So you choose.

 

Brian Persson (13:49)

So long as the quality is there, they can do that task as fast as they possibly want and get paid the same amount.

 

Jessilyn Persson (13:55)

Absolutely.

 

Brian Persson (13:57)

Yeah, and as for dollars in tasks per hour, ⁓ that will ultimately lead them to sort of more of a business entrepreneurial mindset where they will look for ways to expand that task. ⁓ that’s the idea is that, you know, if you can get them past what an hour looks like,

 

and get them into that growth mindset of what could many, many tasks look like that many people that maybe I’m employed can help me with. Then the ceiling just comes off and you’re ultimately going to create a much more entrepreneurial kid.

 

Jessilyn Persson (14:39)

Yeah, and we actually use that same analogy with time with our kiddos. So if we’re saying, OK, you have to fold these two loads of laundry and have them put away before you can have video games and you get video games in this set hour, I’m going to tell you that laundry gets folded in 10 minutes. But if they don’t have to worry about it and they’re just kind of playing around, it’ll take them an hour. ⁓ God. There’s like there’s motivation there. So it’s like, OK, I got exactly one hour to do this laundry and I get to video games for that hour.

 

So they’re not going to waste their video game time on laundry. They get their done and get it out of the way.

 

Brian Persson (15:13)

Yeah, it would descend into wrestling and other things if video games weren’t at stake. ⁓

 

Jessilyn Persson (15:20)

But

 

it also teaches them the value of time.

 

Brian Persson (15:23)

Yep, yep. The more efficient they can use their time and put it towards the absolute most effective ⁓ means for their time, then they can bulldoze through a lot of stuff and get to what they want to.

 

Jessilyn Persson (15:37)

Absolutely. ⁓ Another thing we recommend here is to make it a family culture. So talk about money openly and often. So and that could be at the dinner table, which what we do, I mean, we are entrepreneurial by heart, both of us, and we work from home. So we talk business all the time. Now, I’m not saying all day every day. There’s a lot of other things we talk about, but the kids are over here because they’re they’re in the house. But there’ll be times sometimes we’ll sit at dinner.

 

something will come up. We’ll talk about it. Maybe it’s about a mortgage or a tenant or it could be about a contract, right? Like, so depending on what we’re talking about, they overhear it. But then they ask questions too, in which we stop and we answer them. And if they ask like, well, what does that mean? And we’ll explain it to them.

 

Brian Persson (16:23)

Yeah, yeah, lots of real estate talk happens in the family and because of that they do ask a lot of questions. They want to know what a mortgage is. They want to know how fast they potentially buy a property. They want to know what it looks like to manage the property. You know, how much does it cost to get a plumber in there or fix this wall or do whatever it is. It’s really interesting that they get curious and imagine if we took that opportunity away from them.

 

We did all our business behind closed doors so that you know that the kids don’t get exposed air quotes ⁓ It would be It would be a totally different world for them They would be exposed to so much less than than they could have been early on in their life When they are sponges and they’re just sucking up that information yeah, and ⁓ We we really don’t hide anything from them. I’m remember

 

because like to check their bank accounts, as I was saying, with the active income that they’re earning. And ⁓ there was this one day that…

 

our youngest son, the nine year old, his bank account just happened to be higher than our personal account, like our sort of spending account where all the bills come through. It was at the end of the month, most of the money had come out and he’s like, hey, look at that. I got more money than dad in his account. And I just hope he doesn’t run around telling all his schoolmate friends that because we’ll look absolutely like destitute.

 

But the funny thing is that he equated it to like, you know, him doing well that like, he, you know, he’s now able to compete with his parents and it just motivated him to do more, right? And make that bank account grow a little bit more than it was the day before. So it’s interesting how they pick up on that stuff very, very quickly.

 

Jessilyn Persson (18:13)

Yeah, I mean you take them along for real estate jobs whether sometimes going to see a tenant or fixing something So they’re they’re seeing you, you know meeting with our tenants seeing these new properties The business of what you’re doing there and they’re just like you said they’re sponges So they’re they’re just watching learning asking questions and I think it’s great I remember our youngest was probably about a year and a half ago and they had just turned eight and I was driving them home from school and he’s like mommy

 

When I’m 15, are you going to buy me a condo? And I’m like, what? What? No, you’re too young to move out at 15. He goes, oh, no, it’s not for me. I’m going to rent it out. I’m like, no. I’m like, not quite, honey. But he’s already thinking about it and planning of how he’s what he wants to do when he’s what we would deem older, but not old enough. Right. Well, when you’re an adult, maybe, honey, but not. But it’s great that at such a young age, he’s already planning on how he wants to do it.

 

His business and his money.

 

Brian Persson (19:11)

Yeah, and for the families out there, is a good strategy if you can afford it. ⁓ One of the things that we possibly might do, I mean, our kids are still just coming out of elementary, so like it’s not really a tomorrow thing, but ⁓ you can buy a property with your child, have them either rent from you or whatever the situation you set up is, but the property becomes sort of a loan account for your child.

 

And the deal is that they can use it for their school. They can use it to like, you know, buy a car or do whatever they want out of that property. But at the end of the day, when they’re done their school and the property is going to get handed back over to them, they will either pay more or be able to like take less from the property. So the property ends up becoming like this sort of carrot in front of them where the better they manage their money, the better that they

 

do in school, the better that they kind of like organize their finances throughout those numbers of years, the more wealth they’re going to build into their future. But it’s really clear, like there’s an actual measurement and a number to it that they can watch and track. there’s a transaction as well that has to happen with the parents. Say if they need another couple grand for tuition for that year. Well, now they have to go to the parent, they have to like actually make the transaction to…

 

reduce the amount that they’re going to get from that property in the end and it ends up becoming like a scorecard for them to to do the best that they possibly can and create the most wealth for themselves into the future.

 

Jessilyn Persson (20:48)

Yeah, no, that’s definitely a great idea And when you’re Involving your kids let them watch you manage a budget or plan for investments or evaluate a purchase So they’re not just seeing us are the tenant and the property side But they’re seeing the numbers side and what it looks like to make this all happen and what is involved in the management of it all Yeah, and then you want to focus on mindset

 

you want to help them replace scarcity talk with empowerment. Like we choose how to spend money instead of we can’t afford that. And I know we can’t afford that was a very popular saying when I was a kid in my household. up until my, ⁓ you know, mid adults here, where now we don’t really use that kind of language. We don’t actually use it at all. It’s not, don’t say we can’t afford anything specifically, but we now are conscious of

 

choosing what we’re buying and why we’re buying and I do that with the kids sometimes when we’re out shopping and ⁓ for groceries or something and Jack will like can we buy this? I’m like yes we can. I said but you have to choose do you want this item or this item for your your treat or your whatever it is you’re looking for and then he gets to choose it’s not I didn’t say no to anything I just gave him the option and he has the the power to decide what he would prefer.

 

Brian Persson (22:15)

Yeah, and same kid, he loves kids. I should say kids love him and he does love kids too, but he’s got this like superpower of some sort with kids. They just seem to gravitate towards him and so he would be a very good babysitter. And he has opportunities around the neighborhood, but he is choosing not to take his time and put a pamphlet in the newspaper route so that all the neighborhood knows that he has babysitting services.

 

And, and he’s getting good at it. He’s, starting to realize that he is choosing to play on the weekends and he’s choosing not to, to put this pamphlet together instead of potentially a higher return. Right? So, one day he’s gonna, one day he’s gonna hit a point where it’s going to be meaningful enough for him and he will sit down and like crunch through that pamphlet and get it into his newspaper route. And then he will, his eyes will open up and, it’ll be fantastic. Like the hit.

 

he’ll start to understand that the delay cost him and that the work is actually rewarding him now.

 

Jessilyn Persson (23:18)

Yeah, and I mean, they’re still young. We want them to enjoy their playtime, whether it be outside or Lego or whatever it is. So we’re not pushing it either. It’s just making them conscious of the choices they’re making.

 

Brian Persson (23:31)

It’s the

 

life lesson that he’ll learn and ⁓ he’ll learn it a controlled and safe environment around that, right? He’s not going to come in into his 20s and like devastate his finances because he’ll have now learned it when he’s 12 or when he’s 14, know, whatever age early on.

 

Jessilyn Persson (23:49)

Yeah. And you want to teach your kids that it’s okay to earn money, build wealth and enjoy it. I find a lot of times we get stuck in one of those kind of pillars. We, we earn it, earn it, earn it. ⁓ but we don’t enjoy it because we feel like we got always safe, safe, safe, safe, or we’ll build wealth and then be like, ⁓ but I didn’t take a vacation for 10 years. Right? Like I think there’s a fine balance there that we’re teaching our kids.

 

so that they know that money is a tool and not, you know, the enemy, right? It creates a life. Yes, you have to work to make the money, earn the money, and to invest it and build your wealth, but you can have fun along the way.

 

Brian Persson (24:31)

Yeah, and I mean, we’ve fallen into that trap too, where like one of our catchphrases is wealth is a choice. We truly believe that whatever wealth you generate, it’s based on the choices that you’ve made. And one of the choices we made was to keep all the wealth in our real estate portfolio. And we’re like, it was this year actually that I sat down and I’m like, why are we doing all this real estate and not letting it like give us something? ⁓ And we were like,

 

Okay, well, you know, it’s because of the choice we made, we chose to keep all that wealth in there and let it grow as much as it possibly could. But we then changed our choice. And now we are taking a vacation or two per year out of the real estate portfolio. And we’re allowing that real estate to pay us. So you can change your choice. just like our kids, you you get stuck in sometimes a little bit of a habit.

 

where like our habit was keeping the wealth in the real estate portfolio. Now we’re taking a vacation every year for with our real estate.

 

Jessilyn Persson (25:34)

Right, absolutely. want to enjoy it. Life’s short, as they say. ⁓ Some great resources and tools that you can utilize to help your kids. know we bought a couple books for our kiddos. One was called Money Skills for Kids and the other one was Investing for Kids and both our boys are reading those. And the questions that come out of them. I know I had a conversation last week with our youngest where he said he wants to put a certain amount away every year.

 

Brian Persson (25:53)

multiple times they’ve read them actually

 

Jessilyn Persson (26:03)

⁓ For the next, I think he said 10 years. And then he was learning like what that would look like as it grows with interest. They made a simple graph in the book he was reading and showing the difference of if he started at age 15 versus at age 65 and then at age 40, they had the three different examples there and how much more he would have if he started at 15.

 

then the lady or the individual who started at 65 who put in way more money at the time could never match with the compound interest in time when it’s on your side. Yeah, there’s other books out there. Of course, you can research online and remember kids are quite tactile. Like they like to touch things, feel things.

 

Brian Persson (26:43)

Yep.

 

Jessilyn Persson (26:55)

So they should write their goals down and feel and count their money. So it’s a great idea. Like when they want to go buy something in the store is to give them like, especially if it’s for them, if they want their own little, their own little thing they want to buy. It’s like, okay, you can buy it, but you got to use your money. So remember if it costs you $20 for whatever item you want, remember how much work you have to do.

 

in a week to make that 20 bucks. And then they usually really think hard about, wait, that took me two hours and I’m going to get that out of it. But then let them also transact. So they get used to like giving money, realizing, oh, wait, that’s not the actual cost because you didn’t add tax on that. And then the change they get back. So they just kind of start to get that understanding of the concept of the exchange of money.

 

Brian Persson (27:45)

Yeah, and tap is so easy nowadays. It’s much better for a kid to be tactile about it so that they don’t think that it’s as easy as just tapping your credit card and you think that that’s how money is spent. It’s very, very slippery slope ⁓ if they don’t feel what it’s like to spend money.

 

Jessilyn Persson (28:05)

and see their bank account, because they could tap even if they had a card, but it still comes out of the account and they’re not seeing it. I don’t think it really conceptualizes in their mind that they just dropped $20 out of their bank account. gone. It’s never coming back.

 

Brian Persson (28:19)

That’s why they like to see their bank account so much. They’ve gone and they’ve spent some money sometimes and they’ll come directly home and they’ll ask me to open up their bank account and show me the number on it so that they can see the difference.

 

Jessilyn Persson (28:31)

That’s perfect. All right, we’re going to talk about the most important takeaways from what we discussed today. And I’d say mine is just starting that conversation young and involve them early.

 

Brian Persson (28:43)

And mine would be just don’t hide anything. ⁓ You know, if you’re embarrassed about a financial habit of yours, maybe consider changing the habit so that you can share it with your kids. The good habit that you’re looking to share. So just don’t hide anything. Open up your books and open up your head towards your kid and make sure that they understand what’s going on in your financial world.

 

Jessilyn Persson (29:06)

Thanks so much for tuning in. Listen for more real estate investing stories in the next episode of the Life by Design podcast.

 

Brian Persson (29:13)

Before you go, don’t forget to visit WeekendWealth.ca to take our quiz to discover what type of real estate investor you are. We release new episodes every two weeks, so be sure to hit that subscribe button on your favourite podcast app. Thank you for joining us on this journey to create your life by design.

 

Jessilyn Persson (29:31)

Thanks again for listening. It’s been a pleasure being with you today.