The first thing I wish someone had told me was that I shouldn’t listen to everybody. I should be incredibly careful with who I take advice from. It would’ve cut out a lot of confusion early on because there were so many conflicting pieces of advice when I sought out wisdom and tried to increase my knowledge in various disciplines.
As part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brian Page.
Brian Page is an author and speaker focused on passive income creation. He has worked with such heavyweights as Grant Cardone, Tai Lopez, Dean Graziosi, and Kevin Harington from Shark Tank and has been featured in Entrepreneur, Inc., MSNBC, and Forbes. Page is best known as the creator of the BNB Formula, the world’s #1 bestselling Airbnb™ coaching program with over 25,000 students in 47 countries. He is the host of the “Digital Titans Podcast” and the star of the reality show “House Hackers.” His current Passive Income Vehicles™ include digital products, short-term rentals, online coaching, affiliate offers, commercial real estate, mortgage notes, dividend stocks, and cryptocurrency staking, to name a few. Page’s latest book, “Don’t Start a Side Hustle!” released Nov. 8, 2022 via HarperCollins Leadership.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
My life growing up was moving around constantly. My father was a traveling pastor, and my mother was a nurse…so we never stayed anywhere very long. Oftentimes, we would move several times in one year. Most of my childhood we were very lower middle class but there were several times when my parents were out of work, and we were homeless. We would have to stay with friends or pretty much live out of our car. More times than I can remember, the only way we had food and groceries was from the kindness of strangers providing for us. I think growing up that way had a huge impact on me wanting to not only become wealthy but also become financially independent from a source that would be stable and long-term.
When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action or changed your life? Can you share a story about that?
The first time I took an interest in books was in high school and the book that most profoundly impacted me was called “The Magic of Thinking Big” by David Schwartz. I remember it was recommended to me by somebody who I looked up to in the network marketing company I was involved in at the time. It completely changed my way of looking at the world, specifically making me think that anything was possible. It’s still one of my favorite books!
Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or take away did you learn from that?
I guess the biggest mistake that I can think of was getting involved in the cryptocurrency industry back in 2013 when bitcoin was around $300. I sat on the equivalent of what today would be worth tens of millions of dollars but sold it just a few years later. I guess nobody would have known where it would go today but I do regret that I didn’t have a longer-term vision when it came to crypto.
Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?
I want to change the paradigm around the time/money correlation. I want people to stop thinking that they should sell their time or work harder with their time in order to earn more. True wealth is not created as an ongoing direct result of our personal efforts. In fact, that’s a recipe to stay poor or middle class. I’m hoping my impact will shift the collective consciousness around money and even more importantly encourage people to value their time for what it is: priceless.
Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
In my book, I share the story about how I made my first million dollars online just 43 days after I did my very first webinar. I also share about how nearly a year of effort with no pay at all went into making that possible. The story revolves around the concept of linear versus exponential income and it’s a very important theme in the book.
What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
For me, it was just experiencing the kind of life that I always dreamed of. To be able to have total choice freedom and the money to find the kind of lifestyle that I wanted to have. My “aha moment” was realizing that what I’ve done for myself wasn’t really all that special. It’s just that many people either don’t believe it’s possible for themselves or don’t decide to do it for themselves. I want to change that.
Without sharing specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
Yes, one of my clients went through my online coaching program. Within nine months, he walked away from his six-figure plus job and also quit his side hustle business. He ended up making more passively than he did from those two sources and now has so much more time to spend with his family and doing the things he loves. He’s just one of hundreds of stories like this.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
Yes, everything comes down to education. Ignorance is what keeps more people poor than anything else. Even more dangerous than ignorance is being taught misinformation or believing what isn’t so to be truth. It’s particularly important in life that we only take advice on a topic from somebody who has produced exact results that we want to produce for ourselves. For example, I wouldn’t think it would be wise to take marriage advice from somebody who’s been divorced five times, nor would we take somebody who is morbidly obese seriously when they try to give us fitness advice. In the same way, most of the people we take financial advice from are not wealthy or financially independent and we wonder why we all end up average just like those authorities. If you’re going to take my advice, take it from people who are in the financial position that you want to be in and only listen to what they say. That takes courage though because sometimes that means you have to ignore what people you really respect have to say like parents, teachers, spouses, spiritual leaders, etc.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
Leadership is nothing more than serving others. If you would aim to be great, then you would make your life about helping other people get what they want. If you help hundreds of people, you may make thousands. If you help thousands of people, you can make millions. If you help millions of people, you can make billions. It truly is the Golden Rule not just with money but with everything else in life.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
Number one: The first thing I wish someone had told me was that I shouldn’t listen to everybody. I should be incredibly careful with who I take advice from. It would’ve cut out a lot of confusion early on because there were so many conflicting pieces of advice when I sought out wisdom and tried to increase my knowledge in various disciplines.
Number two: I wish I were told that it was not going to be easy. I wasn’t prepared for the kind of discipline it would take to be more than average. I naïvely assumed that there would be some challenging times but overall getting to my goal would be a pretty linear process. I wish somebody told me that often success is right around the corner from the point of giving up.
Number three: I wish somebody had explained asset allocation to me. I became a millionaire in my 20s with real estate, but I held all my wealth only in that one asset class. When the real estate market crash happened in 2008, I lost everything. Had I simply diversified into precious metals stocks businesses and other asset classes, I would’ve weathered the storm fine. And now, I make doubly sure that I do not have all of my wealth in one asset class. Sadly, nobody teaches this.
Number four: I wish somebody had told me how challenging it would be to try to balance marriage, family, business, social and spiritual life all at the same time. Being single for most of my life, there weren’t a whole lot of things to juggle. Once I was married and had a family everything changed. I was not prepared and I’m still trying to figure some of those things out. It’s not a challenge that’s unique to me but it is something that I felt unprepared for. Balancing life is way more challenging than aiming to be successful in just one area like business. I think it’s essential to a happy and fulfilling life to understand how to do this balance.
Number five: I wish somebody had told me to enjoy life more. They say that the number one regret people have when they get to their deathbed is not that they did certain things but more regret around not doing the things they wish they had done. Most people regret not taking the opportunity to really savor and enjoy life — to take full advantage of the opportunities that present themselves. Life traveling and seeing the world, spending more time with people they love. Most people are just caught up in the day to day of working and paying bills. That’s what I want to help change. But it’s not possible until we are freed up from being a slave to making money.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
One of my favorite quotes is from Jim Rohn: “Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better”. What I love about this quote is that in it you see the two philosophies that separate winners from losers. Losers focus on their life and the results on what is around them. They wish for different circumstances, or a better hand dealt to them or that they had been born to different parents or given special gifts or opportunities. The problem with this philosophy is that you have no control or very little control over things outside yourself. In retrospect, winners focus on what they can control — their thoughts, their actions and their beliefs. They know that by becoming a different person everything around them will change in response. Winners spend no time thinking about or dwelling on what they can’t change and take absolute responsibility to get stronger and focus on how to develop themselves personally. They aim to make themselves better not to change the world in their favor. It’s an enormously powerful message.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He/she might just see this, especially if we tag them.
Absolutely and without a doubt it would be Elon Musk. Love him or hate him, the one thing you can’t deny is that he is a big thinker. He believes at a level that is so far beyond even other visionaries that people often accuse him of being crazy. But yet repeatedly, he continues to make steady progress towards the big visions and objectives that he is laid out. He’s also working on what he believes are the biggest global problems and threats that face humanity. Most people are not working on problems that big. I want to meet him so that I can understand how to expand my own beliefs on what’s possible and create a bigger vision for myself.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I would suggest people follow me on social media where I post content regularly on my thoughts and philosophies. You can learn more about me at https://brian.page/ or by searching @bpagester on any social platforms.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Authors: How & Why Author Brian Page Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.