Vol. 21 - From Traumatic Childhood to Mindful Millionaire
Our CFP Leisa Peterson opens up to us about her journey from a tumultuous childhood to who she had to become to be a Mindful Millions. We discuss:
The impact of growing up in a drug-dealing household
How she made her first million dollars
Her ruthless pursuit to build wealth
What had to change in order for her to become a Mindful Millionaire and help others do the same
Learn how to overcome your money stories to become a Mindful Millionaire! Get Leisa’s Mindful Millionaire Book.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy (00:00): All right, nurses on fire. We are back with our certified financial planner, Leisa Peterson, and we are going to talk about her book, the mindful millionaire, and just, we're going to actually talk about this over a few episodes, because I really want to dive deep into this book because she has so many gyms to share. But the first thing I want to talk about is that Leisa, you yourself are a mindful millionaire. You became a millionaire. And soon discover, like it's not all that it's cracked up to be. And a lot of times, like when people hear you're a millionaire, it automatically becomes something that that's good for you. Good for you. But that's nothing for me. And especially for my audience, I mean, be like, of course she's a millionaire, she's a white girl, blonde hair, like, so I want to go there. I want to talk about your story, your journey to become a millionaire.
Naseema McElroy (00:55): And then some of the limiting beliefs that people have that might be holding them back from being a millionaire.
Leisa Peterson (01:01): So the first thing that I want to say that I think is helpful just to like ground set is that, you know, my parents, both of them barely finished high school. They, my dad was in prison. Like when he, before he met my mom, they, he, I think he was 20. My mom was 18. Yeah. Like, and later on, when I was growing up, my parents, I think he wasn't into drugs. Thankfully, that was one good thing when they first met. But by the time I was five, someone came over to our house, brought a joint. And literally my dad already had an addictive personality anyways, that began sort of the drug thing. And so grew growing up, there's a movie that Ray Leoda is in Goodfellas.
Naseema McElroy (01:45): And at the end of the movie, he's going crazy because he thinks like the helicopters that are circling the house or the FBI coming to get him well, that's how I grew up. Like, my dad became a pretty big drug dealer and his connections were in the Bay area. I was born in Oakland, but we were in Dublin. And so when one of his best friends went to prison, my dad started receiving all the deliveries for the drugs. And so I don't think that people realize, you know, like I don't look like someone who came from that experience. Right. But it was really scary growing up. I thought the FBI were going to take my family away at any moment. And I literally lived that way for, probably from the age of like seven or eight until I graduated from high school. Just not what people would expect exactly.
Naseema McElroy (02:33): Like I didn't have to deal with that. Like, thank God. Like I grew up in West Oakland and was surrounded by probably the guy that I dated probably were drug dealers, but it wasn't my dad, it wasn't my household. And I could escape from that, but that's a pretty hard childhood to live, like in constant fear that your parents are going to be taken away from you. So, yeah.
Leisa Peterson (02:56): So the other piece of it that I, when we talk about beliefs is that, you know, when I was young, my dad would always, he would have spare cash, but I knew where it was coming from. And I knew it was dangerous money. So I just, that was a belief system. But at the same time, I also got the belief system from him. And from kind of the things going on is that you did whatever it took to make money.
Leisa Peterson (03:21): And I had a really messed up idea of like what that meant growing up and even going into financial services. Honestly, if I hadn't had that belief, I don't think I would have even gone into financial services because there's a lot of corruption in the industry. And I fit right in as far as I was concerned, because that was similar. But, but at the same time, I was trying to get educated because my parents weren't educated. They couldn't help me beyond fourth grade. I cheated a lot. I mean, it's not something I'm proud of, but like I was all about getting out of a bad situation and you do whatever you possibly can do. And I won't say I'm proud, but Naseema, if I hadn't done that, like my brother, he got his GED in jail. It was the way that things were like, he was always in trouble with the law, just like my dad had been.
Leisa Peterson (04:15): So when I, you know, when I was eight or nine, I was like, they're messed up with money. I was more adult than my parents. And I just decided if I got money, then my life would be okay. If I got educated, then my life would be okay. Like I just built this story in my head and it's served me because it got me out of those situations. But it also hurt me really bad because as I talk about in the book, the first line of the book, I mean, I think this will hit home and I just want to read it for everybody. Cause this will make points. Many children have big dreams of one day making the world a better place. I wasn't one of them. I wanted to take care of myself. So I had to reinvent who I was and how I saw myself because I had a ton of shame.
Leisa Peterson (05:08): I knew my parents were doing illegal things. I knew that stealing wasn't really a big deal in my home. Like there was a lot of messed up beliefs and it wasn't until my dad was murdered in 1999, that it all sort of blew up. And I was like, you're actually totally messed up. Like, you don't even know the meaning of life. And that was when I was like 32. I had a one year old plus baby. I kind of sacrifice my family stuff all for work. I did everything work first money first success first. It was terrible. Like I was unhappy because I was creating, even though I was making money, I was selling myself out for it. And so I just want to share that because if I can be where I am today, isn't just about the money. But like I have been married to my college, sweetheart, you know, for like, we've been together for like 33 ridiculous years.
Leisa Peterson (06:06): I mean, that's just not easy. When you come from a background like mine, I have two, well, adjusted, stayed, happy children. And I have never been happier in my whole entire life, but I spent the first half of my, more than half of my life, really depressed, really suffering a lot and beating up myself because I knew like that I didn't fit in. And I knew I was kind of ruthless as it pertained to money and success. And so, you know, the journey of the book, isn't what people are expecting when you read the title, like mindful millionaire. You're like, Oh, she's got it all figured out. And I'm like, no, the reason I had to write the book was because I didn't have any of it figured out. Yeah. I could make money, but I was really, really a mess.
Naseema McElroy (06:52): Wow. That's a lot like, and of course I wouldn't have ever thought that cause you know, I think of you and I think it would be like your shakras and your years then and all those kinds of things, but it had to be an incredible journey for you to get to where you are. Let's go back a little bit though, and talk about your path to becoming a millionaire. And then we'll talk about how you had the flip and become the person that you are now and heal from a lot of that.
Leisa Peterson (07:22): So I got my MBA in 1992 and at first it was just about getting a job. And I started working in insurance and some time in that two or three years out of my MBA program, I got my hands on Robert Kiyosaki's book, rich dad, poor dad, the millionaire next door and your money or your life. And those three books are very different, but they all had this premise that I held onto. And it was like, you have no reason why you can't be a millionaire, no worry isn't that you can't do this. And granted, I worked hard. I got the MBA. Like wasn't easy for me cause I wasn't a great student and I wasn't so great at math, but it was just that tenacity.
Leisa Peterson (08:10): And it was the same tenacity. I used to go to college and then get my masters that I used again to, to build wealth. I just said, why not me? My husband, money's never really been that important to him, but he kind of went along with it. He's like, well obviously you are. So I made a few big decisions early on one was I was working for state farm insurance and they had a disaster pay opportunity where I could go to the Northridge after the Northridge earthquake in 1994, I was sent down and I had just moved in with my husband. We had been married for almost a year and I couldn't get a job where he lives. So we live separately. Finally, move in, finally get the job. And then off I go for six months to work in Los Angeles, without him, we were living in Redding in Northern California.
Leisa Peterson (09:01): And that six month period, I spent none of the per diem. I saved every penny that they paid extra. And by the time I was done, I had $30,000 to work with. That was a game changer for me in the nineties, like game changer because now I had some money work with and I literally looked at that and I said, this is my way out. I'm going to figure out a way to use this. So the next step was we were living in a home that my husband had built. His parents had helped us buy, but we had negative equity in it. It was like terrible. It had lost value, even though we had built it ourselves, it was not good. And I got hired by Wells Fargo to go to the Bay area and they were willing to move us. Same thing again, I looked at that $30,000 and I said, I can use this because they're going to help us do a relocation.
Leisa Peterson (09:56): They're going to do some other things for us. I'm going to save my per diem again and put it all into trying to find a house. We bought the cheapest house in the Bay area, probably in Walnut Creek, which was a good neighborhood, but it was falling down. The house was literally falling down the cliff. But my husband's a contractor. We bought it for like $220,000, teeny little house though. And we proceeded to literally use credit cards and that money and like everything. We could get our hands on, borrow from family, whatever to renovate that house. And two years later when we sold it, it had doubled in value. And I think we had invested maybe 30 or 40,000 plus the purchase of the house that changed everything. Like all, I remember driving my car, calling the title company saying when does that money come into the account?
Leisa Peterson (10:49): Cause I knew we had sold the house and it was going to be deposited and we're going to get like $250,000 deposited into our account because of this just intense work. We lived with that house with no walls and no ceiling, no roof for like six months while my husband, we lived in it and he worked on it at the same time. Like people don't understand when you're tenacious and my husband and I was like, this is kind of not a great idea and I'm going along with it. Cause that's what I do. But that was how we did it. Like then again, we had some money to work with and that is really how we built our wealth as we did it over and over again. And we were willing to deal with hardship and difficulty and manipulating to like this money is over here and here and this is how we're going to do it.
Leisa Peterson (11:37): And then I became a mortgage banker, which allowed me to start realizing how I would know all the terms of how to get a mortgage. I'd know how much money we could get. Like I started using that and we got a construction loan and we built another, like we just kept basically plowing the money and we live so frugally. Like we didn't buy anything without money. My husband just bought a new car. He has had the car since 1997 that he has been driving till now.
Naseema McElroy (12:10): Oh my God. That is incredible. And I knew your story about like real estate investing, but I didn't know that it went that deep. Like, I didn't know that you were like living in a roofless house and like all the sacrifices that you had to make and how you like basically Rob Peter to pay Paul in order to get it done. Like you were making moves, but from that first $30,000 to become a millionaire, how many years did it take you?
Leisa Peterson (12:39): So I made that decision in like 1995, 96 got really serious reading all those books. And by 2006, we were millionaires 10 years.
Naseema McElroy (12:52): 10 years. That's like the magic number. I tell everybody with a little bit of hard work and planning 10 years to be a millionaire is totally attainable. So, Oh, that's perfect. But okay. What was that shift that has to happen to pull you out of that person? That was all about survival mode grind. It's all about me. I have to do this for myself to becoming this really mindful, thoughtful, just engaged in really just a positive light in this world. What shifted.
Leisa Peterson (13:26): A lot of it had to do with the resentment and hatred. I think that I had for myself and also indirectly for my family. I'm going to be honest. Like my mom was my best friend, but she had a lot of emotional problems. She had bipolar, she would be super high and then she check out for weeks and we wouldn't like couldn't even talk to her. And my dad had his own challenges. And so, and then my brother, this isn't crazy. I mean, these are the sorts of stories when I was growing up. My brother was so had such bad ADHD that if I was put in charge of taking care of him, I would have to tie him up on a chair because he would come after me with baseball bats and knives to try and kill me. Like this is weird, but these are the emotional issues that, that were going on in my home. Probably made it worse. My brother probably had some challenges, but it just made it worse.
Leisa Peterson (14:19): Like he was out of control. And so I had all of that stored inside of me and I had a lot of resentment and a lot of anger. And I'll tell you, I see these videos of Karen, you know, like the Karen that's out there and I'm like, Naseema I had not done this work for this past 21 years. There are things. And I'm like, that would have been me. Like I had my Karen moments seriously, like on a customer service phone call or something where you're just like, mean and angry and disrespectful. Like I do remember times where I would take my inner hatred out on other people that was part of my story. And thank God because once my dad was killed, I had a big wake up call and I literally wasn't even sure I wanted to live. Like I even with a baby, I was like, I don't know if I want to do this.
Leisa Peterson (15:13): Like I just hated my life. And I, um, I was drawn to Buddhism. I had kind of a mixed relationship with God. And at the time I think I was an atheist. And so then it was like, Oh, I have nothing. And I started practicing meditation and going on these retreats. And in the course of sitting with myself, I started seeing how much I hated myself and how much I hated my dad and how much I hated my brother. And, and I all had to come out like slowly but surely and be healed and forget. I had to forgive myself. I had to forgive each and every one of them to the point where I just feel absolute love for everybody in my family now. But back then, I didn't,
Naseema McElroy (15:59): That speaks to just your stregnth because it takes a lot to really do everything that it takes to love yourself. And that's what you had to do. And in order to love yourself, you had the pill bag, so many layers of trauma and hurt and pain in your life. I can see where that point will come, where you're just like, is it even worth it? Like, is it even worth living? Because this is just a lot. And thank God you're still here. Because like I said, you're, you're just an inspiration, just an amazing person. And I appreciate each and everything that you do for me and just you being in my life. So I'm grateful for your journey, but I wanted to share your story because like I said, I think it's easy for us to dismiss that it was easy for you because you have all this privilege. You're a white girl in America and you know, of course you would be a millionaire because you probably got it from your dad, but you know, but that's not the case.
Naseema McElroy (17:06): And I think it speaks to a lot of the stories, that money stories that we have, or just our relationship with money, what it really stems from is our lack of self love and not knowing what we're capable of. And so I think we'll dive more into that in future episodes, but just wanted to really highlight Leisa's story and know that it didn't come from a place of extreme privilege. Of course she's had some privileges and you know, there are certain things and certain levels of experiences that she had only because you show up differently in the world than most people, but she still did most things that she did despite of the things that she had to overcome. And that's what most of us have to do. We have to persevere we have to succeed despite of so yeah.
Leisa Peterson (18:01): Well I think the other piece is, is that we don't know how much of our beliefs have to do with how other people see us. And this is where I think, like I do understand that probably better than someone who did come from a very privileged, wealthy background, but I do understand too that the way the world treats us matters a lot and it matters in the way we see ourselves before we do the work. But what I guess, I like to just remind everybody on is just because the world has treated us a certain way or we feel like we've been excluded from things. At some point, we've got to turn things around and say, I don't care what the bleep you think about me, but I'm going to do this for myself. And you watch me, do you know what I mean.
Naseema McElroy (18:58): is what I've had to struggle with my whole life. Like, despite it all, I'm going to do this. And yeah. I mean, and almost to a fault, I kind of lived off of like this whole thing. Like just wait and see what I'll do. Yes. Yeah. I think that this is a good place to kind of in this episode, but knowing that we're going to dive deeper into this story and dive deeper into the ways that this book can help you realize how you could become a millionaire too. So thank you, Leisa, for sharing your story, being so vulnerable with us, because I know that somebody needed to hear this and needed to know that what you needed to know what you've had to overcome so that they know what's possible for them. So thank you.
Leisa Peterson (19:51): Thank you so much. I shared things I've never shared before, so yeah.
Naseema (19:57): Oh, I'm honored. I'm totally honored. Thanks Leisa.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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