Brain Paes Braga: Episode 803

Transcript

[0:00:28] Brain Paes Braga: Brian Paes-Braga is a passionate entrepreneur who learned the value of hard work and humility from his parents. Brian realized that, despite his financial success, he was personally bankrupt, and this started him on a journey to balance his wellbeing with financial achievement. Today, Brian is an advocate for a more conscious kind of capitalism. A proven business leader who has built multiple mission driven companies, Brian’s passionate about sharing his wisdom with the younger generation to help them navigate the ups and downs on their journey towards authenticity and a meaningful life. This is part business book, part memoir. 8 is packed with personal stories and insights, from Brian’s experience walking on earth thus far. This is The Author Hour, I’m your host Benji Block and today, we’re thrilled to have Brian Paes-Braga. He’s just authored a new book, the book is called, 8: Reflections on Building Business and Balance. Brian, we’re thrilled to have you here on Author Hour today.

[0:01:29] BPB: Thank you Benji, it’s wonderful to be here with you.

[0:01:32] Brain Paes Braga: Absolutely. We’re going to dive into the book here in a bit. I’m sure some of our audience is already going to be familiar with some of your work, this is your first book though. Maybe tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and then why you’re writing a book?

[0:01:48] BPB: Sure. Well, hello everyone, I’m 33 years old. I’m a Canadian born entrepreneur, now author, probably just a – I call myself a curious individual, sprinkled with a lot of ambition and complimented probably with a – very thankful in my life to have the gift of life. I was born into a Canadian-Portuguese family and spent my young years, my teenage years in Canada in a pretty normal household and my father was in the hotel business and my mother was an incredible stay at home mom. She’s from a small prairie town, my dad being from Portugal and being in the hotel business, his great uncle was the president of Portugal so yeah, the lineage in Portugal is a pretty interesting one. Then I found in my early teens, I found this fire to go and work and I did everything from babysitting to removing people’s garbage to gardening work and then leading up into my teen years to work in McDonald’s, at Subway, at Starbucks and it was an amazing time for me to work to earn money, to learn what it meant to have money, to save, but actually, it was actually a place of loss. I didn’t realize at the time, but my father left to go work back in Portugal and on reflection, hence the name, 8: Reflections, realized that my drive to be successful was a lot of the void that I had in my life at the time from not having my father around.

[0:03:43] Brain Paes Braga: Brian, how old were you when he went back?

[0:03:47] BPB: I was 14, 15. Just turning 15.

[0:03:51] Brain Paes Braga: Very pivotal time.

[0:03:52] BPB: Yeah. I didn’t realize that. At the time, I didn’t realize the effect that that had on me but I’m thankful, I’m so thankful that I spent that time being productive. I think I could have gone down some other paths that made them probably pretty destructive, and I’ve witnessed it in other young men that I’ve spoken to through some men’s groups that I support, philanthropic side of my life, and women too. I’m just speaking specifically, in this example, of young men, you know, these are very pivotal years of going from boy to man and I think it’s a lot of pressure on our fathers to be perfect and no-one ever is going to be. But I think having a father leave was something that I didn’t fully grasp at the time, but I’m thankful that it’s led me to where I am today and I’ve been able to take the time to understand and kind of forgive my father, forgive myself, go back int those old wounds and understand them a bit better and be less selfish about them and actually more empathetic and compassionate to the entire situation, which my dad was just doing the best he could at the time.

[0:05:11] Brain Paes Braga: Right.

[0:05:12] BPB: You know, that’s all one can do.

[0:05:14] Brain Paes Braga: I think hindsight, there’s always – and people don’t necessarily always do this, but there is opportunity for empathy and sympathy, especially when you look back but like your teenage years when it’s hard to fully understand the whole picture or see it all and then you can look back years and years down the road and better, maybe, put yourself in the shoes of an adult, a parent. You know, life has this way of putting yourself in situations that maybe you’ve previously judged or thought differently of. So, I’m excited to kind of dig into much of your story. I did want to ask, why did you write the book now? What made this the time to put these stories and these learnings into that medium?

[0:05:58] BPB: Well, there’s a few answers to that. That answer has evolved. The way I’d answer you today is, it’s a humanitarian effort from me, and what do I mean by that? As I had some success in business, I started to give money away through my foundation and it wasn’t filling me up the way that I have felt speaking to people. You know, younger and older, about my experiences, some of my lessons because society, the society that we live in is very money centric and because I’ve done well financially, people look up to that, right? Which is not right or wrong, but it is what it is and actually, I just do my best to express the human element of that success. What I found is I was doing some of these talks, I was like, “You know what? Maybe it’s better I just write a book and that will be there forever, that will be around forever.” As I spent some more time looing inward and meditating and spending time in nature. I was like, “You know what? The book’s probably the most beautiful medium, I mean, we read books from hundreds of years ago.” I mean, the bible is 2,000 years old, it’s incredible.

[0:07:14] Brain Paes Braga: It is incredible.

[0:07:15] BPB: Yeah, it’s truly incredible and I also felt that there are so many incredible stories of entrepreneurship, but I found there was a void with young entrepreneurs, almost taking account for along the way, as supposed to nearing maybe the end of the journey. I struggle with being as – being able to relate myself as much to t hose stories as, you know, just young person to a young person. I am very passionate about trying to help other young people realize their potential. Yeah, I mean, I guess it’s a means of mind of humanitarian work which is just human to human in my mind, helping one another out and being in service to one another. A hundred percent of the proceeds from this book, in duration of its existence, is going to be given towards in a mission that I call Collaborate, which will just be funding projects that will be helping people become the best versions of themselves. Which is a bit of a cliché comment, but that’s been my journey, is just reflecting on, how do I become the best version of myself so I can show up every day, be in service to those I love and to those that I don’t even know, but be there for them and that’s in summary, I think why I wrote it.

[0:08:38] Brain Paes Braga: Yeah, the book is always a good format for that just because people can literally, in a sense, obviously, you want physical, real-life mentors as well, which we’re going to talk a little about here in a bit, but when you read books, you’re being mentored from a distance.

[0:08:52] BPB: Totally.

[0:08:53] Brain Paes Braga: By someone and their story and that’s amazing.

[0:08:56] BPB: Thank you.

[0:08:57] Brain Paes Braga: Let’s go back and rewind a little bit. You mentioned from a young age, your interest in just making money, business, and entrepreneurship. What was kind of the – maybe one of the first moves that you made to kind of get into entrepreneurship and start to grow your wealth?

[0:09:17] BPB: It was early.

[0:09:18] Brain Paes Braga: Yeah, I love it.

[0:09:19] BPB: You know, it was early. It was as early as under 10 years old, a young kid with a lemonade-stand type thing, and then I love garage sales, and I think it was, like I said in my introduction, I was curious, you know? I think complimenting that with our two centers of influence in our early years, our mother and our father. On the one side, my mom has such a thirst for knowledge, so I think that was my curiosity side. On my dad side, he came from a really incredible background in Portugal with leadership and he was educated at Swiss Hotel School and then worked in the Four Seasons Hotels, being a five-star hotel brand. So, I think the finer things in life were something that I was aware of at a young age, so high quality of life was a priority. Having said that, which was so interesting about our family is, my dad was a salaried employee, and he did a good living but nothing – We didn’t have excessive savings, my parents had a mortgage, my dad passed a few years ago and it’s not like – we lived a good life, but we didn’t go to private schools, paid for university ourselves but we grew up in a – I guess the backdrop of the world, I grew up in Canada, in a very beautiful place just outside of Vancouver. So not complaining by any means, but I grew up in a pretty normal household, but the priorities were very high quality of life and curiosity. I started to drive that, if I wanted a quality of life, I was going to have to work for it and I think my mom really helped me explore that at an early age when we’d sit down and talk about passive income, Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I had a friend that had an allowance, but it was a big allowance, $500 every six months and then $20 a week but he had to buy, pay for himself to go out for movies or go golfing or – at a young age, I was learning to budget, I was learning to – I call it, kind of discretionary spending habits.

[0:11:34] Brain Paes Braga: Yup.

[0:11:35] BPB: Stuff that, eventually as we come into adulthood, we all will learn about. I was fortunate enough just to learn early on and this is what I expressed a lot of my friends today that are – shared with me who are 29, in their late 20s, early 30s. I just started a bit early. You know? My early start was partly the influence from my interpretation of the influence of my mother and father but actually, mostly my level of wanting to be so successful and get so much recognition, which was actually a void from my father. It’s such an interesting thing that, I think if all of us look back at our lives and understand where we are today, that’s fine for today. Actually, being liberated and moving forward and putting a plan together to move forward is actually the greatest gift. To be able to look at our childhood which was very much out of our control, to now look at adulthood and say, “You know what? Actually, I got a bit more control over this ship than I think I do. I’m not going to drag the things that made me who I am today that maybe were out of my control, maybe were tough experiences. I’m going to free myself of that.”

[0:12:51] Brain Paes Braga: Yup.

[0:12:53] BPB: As I go back and look at them, and I’m going to move forward as a much more whole person. So, that helped me get into some of the businesses I did in my teenage years, which were, I bought my first investment property when I was 15 years old, I started a mobile carwash business when I was 17. I started trading stocks in around the same time, 16, 17 years old and I just was learning. I made some money on some stocks and lost money on others, and I still do that to this day but I just – it’s like I just started early, you know? I find with anything in life, whatever we’re curious about and passionate about and we apply hard work to, we’re going to be good at. It really is that basic, but it takes real behavioral change, which I think is the most difficult part.

[0:13:43] Brain Paes Braga: I’m personally so glad that – and maybe this is just in the people that I’m reading and listening to, but what you’re talking about when you talk about looking back at your mom and your dad and what you took from them and then also figuring out your personal agency as you come into adulthood. I feel like those are starting to become more talked about, your book is proof of that. These narratives are starting to be discussed more and looking back at our past and deciding what we want to take with us in all of that. I think it’s a healthy thing for those that – you talk about your therapy journey and all these different outlets. I would love to get into some of that. I say all that to say, what age were you when you started to realize, “Wow, I’m carrying some of this baggage of my dad leaving and I did all this business –”. You have this moment, I believe are you 26? Or – so when you, or no, you’re approaching your 30th birthday, right? When you have the quarter billion-dollar sale of Lithium X?

[0:14:49] BPB: Yup, 30th, exactly.

[0:14:50] Brain Paes Braga: Yeah, okay. Then right after that, you have kind of this fall into what you call this depressive state just what, a few months later?

[0:15:01] BPB: Yup.

[0:15:02] Brain Paes Braga: Okay. Walk me through that and is that kind of the time when you start to realize, “Wow, when I was turbot charged, tunnel vision, I’m going towards financial success, I’m going to have all these businesses, I’m going to –” You had that kind of ambition and different sort of monetary success from the time you’re in your teenage years all the way through 30 and then, is that sort of the moment when it hits you like, “Wow, I’ve been doing all of this partially just because of my, maybe that lack, that hole that existed because of my dad leaving.”

[0:15:38] BPB: 100%. Yeah, I mean, you’ve already nailed it. I think what I realized was, my dad’s passing in the spring of 2017 and then the sale of Lithium X in the early spring of 2018. I felt like I had conned myself. I had – without communicating, actually the way I was feeling, actually, I think I was doing all of this because I thought, it’s almost like at the simplest level, to receive love from my dad or recognition from my dad and my dad was an amazing man, he really was, he was so well-regarded, he was a gentleman. He had his shortcomings too, so I’m not trying to bash him, but we just didn’t have – what I realized was the value of time in my life with loved ones is way more important than the value of the monetary gain, okay? That was one understanding. To answer your question, this was at 30 years of age, okay? You’re not even there yet but it became a multi-year journey of reassessing, “What are my value drivers?” There were certain value – it wasn’t overly spoken about in my family, but I think about the health of a business, like putting together a mission statement, a vision statement, core values. I had spent, and this is why I joke about this personal balance sheet, not joke, I mean, it’s a real practical tool now, but I had taken all this care of worrying about mission, vision, core values, balance sheet, income statement, all these things of businesses and I completely neglected my own and it was a journey. It was a journey inward, I call it, which was – I’m so thankful I had the time to do it after this sale. I just did it really fast and as I’ve spoken to other kind of psychological experts, why my transformation’s been so profound, is because it was my entire commitment for probably almost a year. I probably did it a bit too obsessively. I think others that have jobs weren’t in this financial win-fall situation and weren’t used to being hyper-focused on building a business, which are just tools I picked up along the way. What I encourage people to consider is, just making time every week for yourself. Whatever that is, I really enjoy being in nature, I think nature provides us with many answers that we can’t even explain, like the living and breathing trees and plants and grass and you know, like reacquainting ourselves with nature is a very powerful tool. I think that meditating is a very powerful tool. I think whatever someone’s faith may be, Christianity, Buddhism, whatever it is, as we come into adulthood with the world that is so – there are so many distractions every day. Actually, just finding time for ourselves gives us way more in return. Again, I just did it in a very hyper-focused manner because I’d come off of losing some loved ones in my life that I felt so much pain and I was like, “This doesn’t make sense”. I feel like I conned myself. “Why do I feel all this pain when I’ve just done everything I thought I wanted to do?” That leads into also living more in the present, you know. How does one live more in the present? Well, they stop worrying about the future and regretting the past. I took me time to retrain my brain, human’s operating system, was to actually get my brain under control – not under control but understanding my brain a bit more and actually opening up my heart a lot more and my heart had closed up and I think I witness this with a lot of humans, I think we come into this world with a big, wide-open heart in love and then things happen to us and you said, that thing you shared before we got on recording, that you relate to so many things happening to people, who’ve all had very different lives. Well, that’s a great observation because I think it’s exactly what the world, as a human experiencing life, that’s what we go through. We go through, we come in at love, certain things are painful points along the way. For me, one was a wedgie, you know, did the guy who wedgied me ever think that that was going to be like a traumatic moment for me in my life experiencing pain?

[0:20:24] Brain Paes Braga: Right, probably not.

[0:20:25] BPB: Of course not. But until I unpack that, it was carried with me, which created fear in me, you know? I think we’re just going to have an amazing world as people have these conversations as we communicate better with our families and we actually build our own set of values, come kind of full circle, that are to us and then we teach our children, you know, if we have children, or our partners. Not teach our partners, we come up with these with our partners. Then we actually build great value systems, because I don’t think we can rely on that – especially the world we’re in today with governments, all this other stuff, we can’t rely on others for all of this stuff. We should actually just be accountable to ourselves.

[0:21:11] Brain Paes Braga: Yep.

[0:21:12] BPB: Sorry, it’s a bit of –

[0:21:14] Brain Paes Braga: That’s incredible.

[0:21:15] BPB: Yeah.

[0:21:15] Brain Paes Braga: No, it’s good because it’s your message and it’s what you’re learning and that’s the point of this and clearly that’s also the point of the book, which I think this gives great flavor for listeners out there because you are touching on all of these things as well as your professional success and your life’s journey, but this is where it ended up. And this is much of where you’re going. So, I actually kind of have two follow up questions coming off of that. One, you say you went really far into this kind of self-discovery, and you had time to commit to it. So now, when you look back at that season of just like, “Okay, I am going all in on self-love, on self-development, on learning about myself”, what were some of the most helpful resources or people, things that you did in that season of going, “Okay, I need to get better at self-love and self-development.”

[0:22:08] BPB: Yeah, and it’s a great – I love the game of poker, I did go all in on self-love and self-development. For me, journaling, became a very helpful tool for me to calm my mind. You know, my mind was very chaotic, and I had so much anxiety like my leg would go up and down like –

[0:22:34] Brain Paes Braga: Like twitches kind of?

[0:22:35] BPB: Yeah, not so many twitches but it’s just more like – yeah, more just like my leg was just going up and down, up and down, it was just constant, right? I felt, “So how do I relieve myself of this?” One was journaling, just getting things all out of my head and onto a piece of paper, which, it sounds like a basic thing but in writing it and not typing it, writing it down was so helpful. A product that I use that really helped me was the five-minute journal. Which is actually a good friend of mine, a lovely couple that are Canadian that live in London, England where I live, they came up with it and that was a super helpful journal that I recommend, you know, any of your listeners that are looking to journal. It’s kind of like a how-to and it is all about gratitude, so yeah, you know getting things out of your mind and starting with gratitude, what you are thankful for was very powerful. Meditating and when I first started meditating, it was a very tough thing. I always thought, “Am I doing it wrong?” and questioning myself but then actually, I found a rhythm that worked for me, which was stretching and meditating at the same time, which was for me deep breathing and being kinder to my body. Those are two of the daily habits. I’d say that working out for me was another great daily habit. What I found was, once I got back into a routine that I kind of forgotten about from childhood, which our parents dictate our calendar, our schedule and then actually coming in and saying, “You know, what are things that make me happy every day?” because there are certain things I can’t avoid. We all need to make a living and if we have dependents, we provide a living for dependents, but what about what helps us? And we all have time. I don’t think the world, I think the struggle right now is all the distractions whether it’s Netflix or social media or the stock market or whatever one’s stimulant is. Because they’re all so accessible right now, I think it takes us away from having good accountability to our schedule or to commitments like non-negotiables that we make with ourselves and you know, I say in my book, I fell in love with myself for the first time. I really did. I despised myself before that. I had such little self-worth and self-love and I think it was a number of things that happened in my life and then finally saying, “You know what?” and I forgave myself and I cried and then over months. It was like letting go, but actually what was I letting go off? I was letting go of that little boy that didn’t get what he thought he deserved, which actually is a very entitling thing to even say. But that little boy lacked – at the end of the basic level, lacked love in me.

[0:25:34] Brain Paes Braga: Yeah, it’s a bit of a coping mechanism but then just carried on over years.

[0:25:39] BPB: Yeah, and I looked back and said, “Why am I going to be a prisoner to this, why?” and as I went through this journey, I was in a privileged situation. I hired lots of life – two life coaches, I hired lots of different psychologists and part of the reason, again, I wrote my book was I wanted to share all of my learnings in my book, you know, not that people will pay whatever it is, $20, $25 for the book but then what I wanted to do to extend that, which was all that money, all that energy, I now look at money really as just energy, is going to go towards helping more people through becoming the best versions of themselves. It kind of went full circle and I think the biggest thing, the biggest thing I’d share with everyone is that you’re not going to get a different outcome if you keep doing the same thing over and over again. I think that definition is the definition of insanity. You know? You can’t expect different results if you don’t have new habits. The work that I did, behavioral change, it kind of takes a couple months. You know something, say a few weeks, some sources say closer to a year. My experience is, starting a fresh habit and creating that into a more of a daily discipline takes a month or two, and if you think about a lifetime, it just pays such dividends to bring in that new, you know, a daily habit. It can be as little as – my stretch meditation is like 10 minutes. I think people can find that in a day and it really changes my day. You know, a moment of gratitude and just being still, and a moment of gratitude has gone a long way for me.

[0:27:34] Brain Paes Braga: That’s amazing. As we start to wrap up, I want to hit on mentorship real quick. I want to talk about the resource you provide, the personal balance sheet, it is on your website and in the book, let’s hit on those two and then we’ll kind of start to wrap up here but talk about the role mentorship played for you? Because once your dad leaves and head back overseas, you are kind of left, in a sense, looking up to and finding role models and then ending up in rooms with some of those people who become mentors, even business partners. But talk about the role you think mentorship plays and then maybe for those listening, what you would recommend in seeking out a mentor.

[0:28:15] BPB: Yeah, so my story, again, was one of a hole I was trying to fill, so I probably took it too far, but I still do believe that anyone at any age can really find a lot of value in a mentor. What does a mentor mean to me? A mentor means to me someone that truly unconditionally, which a lot of mentorships, even ones I experienced I think had conditional relationships. You know, there is something back, something in return. There is just someone and again, you don’t have a personal relationship, but you find someone at work, or you find someone you like reading about. Finding someone that’s tread that path that you want to tread. Again, we all I think have our own paths that we trail blaze, but if there is one that looks a bit more like the one that is going to feel you and fulfill your life’s journey and your soul, whatever that may be, finding a person early on in life I found very valuable to my growth trajectory. I think it brought my growth, instead of it being, I don’t know, 10, 20, 30 years to reach some of the success that I have, happened much quicker because I was able to leverage off of that mentor’s experience, credibility, you know, mistakes that that person may have already made that I didn’t – you know, there are blind spots for me. I think, also, mentorship is a two-way street where, as I have people that look to learn from me now, it’s really just trying to create a healthy environment to share knowledge. To have one side the mentee, probably asking questions, the other side answering them and creating the right boundaries around that relationship.

[0:30:13] Brain Paes Braga: I was just going to ask; do you think there is a certain type of age gap that works best? Do you think it’s just a – for instance, in a career mentor is just someone that’s been down the road a little bit further than you or a lot further, obviously? Are there any practical tips there as far as finding one? Because I think what you’re saying is spot on as far as experience, ability, unconditional type relationship, yeah.

[0:30:37] BPB: Yeah, I think it depends. You know, why does it depend? I think it depends because if you’re going to be a – you want to be an Olympian, an athlete that’s probably younger and more relevant to that category is probably better, you know? I was just thinking intuitively. In business, I think it is good to have wisdom and gray hair around the table, but at the same time, what I found at my stage now, it’s actually great to have mentors almost at any age. You know, both genders, different ethnicities, because in ways you could, Benji, you could be my mentor. You could teach me something that I didn’t know and actually just having an open mind and an open heart, I think that’s important. How I think about an open heart is less ego. I think sometimes I have experienced in my life where I close my mind because, actually, I am feeling insecure or in fear, so I will respond to that with more egotistical and a closed mind trying to just be right for the sake of being right. It’s just like, I think about that even saying that to you, it’s bizarre behavior but I witnessed it quite often. Where actually, if we have an open heart, we actually learn from each other and anyone. But I think to slot in a mentor in a more practical way, one just needs to look up to where they want to be, quality of life, you know, professional fulfillment, personal fulfillment and keeping in mind where they think they want to be. That’s helped me so much and then slot in what are the names of people that you know yourself or that you can reach out to in this wonderful world of everyone being connected and just be persistent. Find that right person and I encourage them to be persistent but just to keep in mind, every relationship should be a two-way street for it to be healthy. For me, a big one was what am I going to provide for, let’s say, Frank Giustra who’s been a major mentor and influence in my life. What am I bringing to him? You know, I actually waited many years to meet him until I felt I was prepared, I could bring something to the table. It’s a balance but I think it’s been a major part of my life and I do really recommend people, if they want to grow at a pace at which is maybe quicker than they would on their own, it’s a wonderful tool.

[0:33:15] Brain Paes Braga: I think you summed it up really well. I think ego is probably the biggest thing standing in the way of those and in their 20s of actually stepping out and asking for a mentor or we just get fearful that they’ll say no. A couple of no’s is not a bad thing, so I think it’s worth it to find that.

[0:33:35] BPB: I mean, on that note, I got an entire chapter but sorry to interrupt you, Benji, but I got an entire chapter on some of my failures because I think it is so important for all of us, and failure is such a – I think we are taught in school like you got an F in your report card, you failed, you know? It is so daunting. It is such a – it is not – I actually look at failures or setbacks as the most incredible opportunity to grow.

[0:33:59] Brain Paes Braga: Right, fail forward.

[0:34:01] BPB: That’s beautiful, yeah. I haven’t heard that. Fail forward, that’s beautiful. If anyone makes one feel badly about making a mistake, I mean, that is like the epitome of ego. That’s like –

[0:34:15] Brain Paes Braga: That is such a good way to sum it up, yes.

[0:34:17] BPB: What do you mean? Yeah, an environment, you know, environments don’t thrive in a place of fear or ego, you know? Organizations, societies, I think a lot of the challenge of the world that we’re in today is a lot of it is fear and scarcity driven. That will go beyond into some of my philosophical thoughts but yeah.

[0:34:37] Brain Paes Braga: No, it’s so good. Let’s quickly hit on the resource you have. You have it in the book, you have it on your website I saw but there is this personal balance sheet. I think it is great for coming off a lot of what we’re having, what we are talking about in this conversation. Just quickly kind of sum up what it is and your goal with this, as you’re kind of giving that away to people.

[0:34:56] BPB: Sure. I think it was this – it was the best way for me to summarize my experience through my journey inward, which was reassessing the assets and liabilities in my life, and I figured out that I was feeling personally bankrupt although my financial bucket was full. I call it these five different buckets. Personally, I felt bankrupt, and the five buckets that I started to acknowledge in my life as one that I wanted to focus on was physical, mindful, spiritual, emotional and then financial. In each one of these buckets, making a list of what were the assets in those buckets that I was living in my life, for example, physical, going to the gym. That’s a great asset in that category. A liability at the time, excessive alcohol consumption. You know, why did I need that in my life? I think what it became, this tool, and I’ll give one more example maybe emotional, you know, good at building quick but ultimately shallow relationships, or people pleasing and being a yes man. You know, the yes man tendencies, not creating healthy boundaries, so it is just interesting as I took the time to understand these different buckets, I just realized I was becoming a much more whole person at more peace, less anxiety and I was pulling myself out of this depressive state without any pharmaceuticals, with nothing like that. This was just doing the work to understand myself better and create more balance in my life. I still don’t have all the answers to this day. I still struggle to find balance, but that’s why this tool, I’ve found, is so valuable because it is almost like a quarterly or sometimes monthly audit of where I’m at and if I can change some of the behaviors, I am ultimately going to feel more balanced. For me now in life, part of life is going to be painful. Part of life is going to be scary. Instead of it – and part of this life is going to be wonderful and exciting and happy, and it’s just helped me kind of detach from having my actions react to those waves of emotions that we’re all going to face in this incredible gift of life. I’d rather just feel them more in a more peaceful and balanced state, but not be attached to them and that’s been a powerful outcome for me.

[0:37:52] Brain Paes Braga: Yeah, it’s so good. It’s almost like buckets that you’re trying to be aware of and just make sure that again, they’re full of the right things, in a sense. There is always going to be things that are outside of our control but kind of going back to where we started this conversation, when we have personal agency, when we take control of what we can control and then we release what we can’t control, that’s where life really starts, I think, in a lot of ways to get fun and you do find that balance that this book is about. Man, Brian, it’s been such a good time getting to chat with you. For people that want to stay connected, maybe they want to reach out, what’s the best way to stay connected to the work that you’re doing and find you online?

[0:38:37] BPB: Yeah, I think LinkedIn and Instagram have been probably the most – the platforms I feel most comfortable on, so those two are good. My name, Brian Paes-Braga, it’s not an easy name to spell on either LinkedIn or Instagram and then I like to write, you know, I wrote a book, so I also like to blog. I share some of my thoughts on my blog, yeah, I haven’t morphed the content yet into or evolved the content into more TikTok and kind of current platforms. I like kind of the old school sit down, read, take your time, grab a cup of coffee or tea. I like some of the deeper stuff. If your audience is interested in that, I like to share my musings through the more depth and just a caption on a short video but yeah.

[0:39:40] Brain Paes Braga: Amazing. That’s awesome. Well, it’s been such an honor to discuss the book. The book is called, 8: Reflections on Building Business and Balance. It’s a great resource for so many, go find it on Amazon, pick it up today. Brian, best of luck moving forward. Thanks so much for being on Author Hour today.

[0:39:59] BPB: Thank you Benji and to you, set it for your 30th birthday coming up.

[0:40:03] Brain Paes Braga: Thanks man, that’s amazing. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Author Hour. You can find, 8: Reflections on Building Business and Balance, on Amazon. There’s a transcript of this episode as well as all of our previous episodes is available at authorhour.co. For more Author Hour, subscribe to this podcast on your favorite subscription service. Thanks for joining us and we’ll see you next time, same place, different author.