Can a frugal mindset be an abundant one? FunCheapOrFree and Jordan and Bubba Page declare that it absolutely is.
While raising their family and having minimal finances, Jordan came up with really creative ways to live within their means while raising a family. And they found incredible ways to live a very memorable and fun life while keeping things on the cheap. She decided to share her knowledge on her blog and YouTube channel. And now, millions and millions of views later, they are thriving in life, because of this frugal mindset.
Discussing these topics with them, it became very evident that frugal did not equal scarcity. They have lived a very, very full life, despite business failures, ups and downs of life, etc. One of their most important focuses in life focuses on lifestyle rather than acquiring material things.
They have also spent a considerable amount of time teaching their kids the value of hard work rather than taking their now-current financial blessings for granted.
We also talked about the pros and cons of social media and discussed how none of their kids currently have social media accounts. All wise words and advice. Great time chatting with great folks. Enjoy this podcast!
Get to Know FunCheapOrFree and Jordan and Bubba Page
Jordan and Bubba Page are behind the YouTube channel and blog FunCheaporFree, where they teach people how to save money and they make frugal fashionable. Jordan is also known as the “Cheap Queen” or “Free Queen.”
She started her blog, not with the intention to have it blow up and become the bible for frugality but simply to post coupons and deals. It turns out more people were interested in saving money than she could have imagined.
Jordan and Bubba Page seek to help people to save money while living their best life. They aim to prove that frugality does not necessarily mean that you will live in a substandard way.
About Jordan and Bubba Page
Jordan Page grew up in a small town in northern Oregon. She later went to Brigham Young University, where, in her own words, she had “the time of her life.” She majored in Recreation Management and Youth Leadership. While she was in her sophomore year at college, love came to visit in the form of Bubba Page. She met him at a friend’s house and was instantly attracted to him.
When she realized that she was taller than him in heels and he found her to be very immature, they decided to be friends. They had a lot of fun being friends — until Bubba developed a crush on her when she went off to work in leprosy colonies in India.
He realized that she was no ordinary person, that there was something special about her and he fell in love. It wasn’t long before his crush was reciprocated and in 2007 they were married.
Their Family
They started their married life in an inner-city two-bedroom townhouse in Salt Lake City. Jordan worked with at-risk youth during the day and Bubba decided to leave his job to start a company.
Right before they celebrated their third anniversary, they had their first child. They had their second child in 2011, their third in 2013, their fourth in 2014, their fifth in 2016, their sixth in 2018, and in 2020 they had twins.
In the span of less than a decade, Jordan and Bubba became the parents of eight wonderful kids. They love living in Utah and enjoy an amazing life in their dream home in the suburbs of Draper.
The Business
In 2010, when the bills started piling up, Jordan and Bubba found themselves $10,000 in debt on one of their credit cards. They also had no money in their savings account. That’s when they decided that they needed a better life for themselves and their children.
They decided that they wanted to not just scrape by but that they wanted to get ahead. They decided to set some goals. Within a year of working hard, they had paid off all their debts and had saved quite a bit of money.
During their financial meltdown, Jordan noticed that there was no one online she could relate to who had given birth to five babies in 6 years. There was no one who felt the stress that she had of having to choose between an essential item of clothing or something to eat.
She realized there was no one out there who was telling people how to live abundantly but frugally. There was also no guide to how to start over financially when your finances were in a disastrous state.
This is when Fun, Cheap or Free became a reality. Jordan began to focus and learn everything she could about family finance and living frugally. Then she began to share it with the world.
Jordan and Bubba want you to know that living frugally is a lifestyle and a mindset. It’s a mindset that stops you from thinking that you can’t afford something and asks you to realign your thinking so that you can see how you can afford it. It’s not about depriving yourself; it’s about working towards finding how you can frugally and systematically get what you want.
Jordan and Bubba are proof that this mindset shift actually works because they have been able to accomplish so many things by living what they teach. Through the principles that they teach, they show all of us how to overcome our financial struggles by simply realigning our thinking about frugal living.
FunCheapOrFree and Jordan and Bubba Page Podcast Transcription
Charan: Hey, what’s going on guys, this is Charan Prabhakar with the Lemonade Stand Stories podcast, and I’m here with two incredibly delightful people… No, no, no. You need the praise.
Charan: I will take some time-
Jordan: Oh, go on.
Bubba: I’ll take it.
Charan: Okay, Jordan and Bubba Page are people that you think I just recently met them, but Jordan just told me that she was in India, in my home town of India, which was shocking and glorious, so I already feel like… And I was there around the same time, we discovered.
Jordan: Yeah, we decided that we were best friends in ’06.
Charan: I’m pretty sure we crossed paths.
Jordan: We did.
Charan: Because she was telling me she never even ate Indian food while she was there, only mac and cheese.
Bubba: I think that’s a horrible thing to miss that.
Jordan: I know. It was a tragedy. It’s my favorite food, Indian food. Anyway, so I think we need to go back to India and do it right.
Charan: Absolutely.
Jordan: What do you think?
Charan: Well, funny story about that.
Bubba: We need a tour.
Charan: Well, here’s the funny thing. We just barely made another connection that the Bennetts are good friends of yours.
Bubba: That’s right.
Jordan: Yes.
Charan: And I’m planning a trip with the Bennetts to India right now.
Jordan: What?
Charan: Yeah.
Jordan: Oh, my gosh. We’re doing this.
Charan: [crosstalk 00:02:31] I know.
Jordan: Our daughter’s name is Priya-
Charan: Which is crazy.
Jordan: … I love India so much. It’s a twist on a common Indian-
Bubba: Can we just put that on the calendar?
Jordan: Yeah, let’s do it.
Charan: Let’s do it. We have to.
Jordan: In fact, this podcast can be done in 10 minutes, right?
Charan: 100%. We can get to the flight on time. Absolutely, while we’re at the ticket counter, let’s see if we can get our passports. It will be great.
Jordan: That’s a problem.
Charan: But no, you guys. This is so great. I’ve heard many, many things about you guys from our mutual friend, Derek Miner. Then I got a chance to research you guys. What’s funny was not just Derek Miner, other people that I was associated with that I’m doing shows with, they were saying, “Oh, my gosh. Jordan and Bubba Page, we’ve got to talk to them and connect with them.”
Charan: My friend Melissa didn’t really know you super well, but she’d seen your stuff and had seen what you guys have been up to, so I’m like, “Oh my gosh, let’s dissect this and see what you guys are all about.”
Jordan: Oh, that’s so nice.
Charan: So I stumbled upon all of your stuff, like Fun, Cheap or Free, and I got really excited, because that is the story of my life. If it’s not fun, cheap or free-
Jordan: Like what is it?
Charan: … I’m out, I’m done. So I want to talk a little bit about that, and as part of your budgeting plan that you guys have been doing, because I heard you’ve been saving people tons and tons of money, which is so epic.
Bubba: Tons.
Jordan: Millions and millions.
Charan: So, so epic. Yes, and why that’s not donated to me, I don’t know. Anyways, it’s perfectly fine. But yeah, guys, so welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Bubba: Happy to be here.
Jordan: So exciting.
Charan: So tell me first off, you guys met at BYU, is that right?
Bubba: We did. Here in the good old town of Provo, Utah.
Charan: That’s so good. And was it love at first sight? Or how did that all go down?
Jordan: No.
Bubba: It depends on whose story you want to hear.
Jordan: Oh, stop. We were friends. We put ourselves in the friend zone pretty quick, and that’s the best place to be to find your future spouse. You want to-
Bubba: You didn’t know something was going to happen because you were just friends. And then something evolved.
Jordan: Yeah, we had a mutual friend-
Bubba: Oh, my gosh.
Jordan: It’s really, we should make the story cooler. Okay, so I was swimming in the ocean. There was a shark and-
Bubba: I came to save her.
Jordan: Bubba was in these short shorts and I was just like, “You!” No, I’m kidding. It’s not that exciting. We had a mutual friend, we met. I was too young, he was too short.
Bubba: Hence the friend zone.
Jordan: [crosstalk 00:04:54] promptly put ourselves in the friend zone. I was way too immature. And then we went to The Price is Right together with friends, went on a road trip.
Bubba: We went on this road trip and had a three-page itinerary.
Jordan: Okay, listen.
Bubba: It was quite organized. And I was impressed.
Jordan: It was kind of before cellphone era. We had to print out the MapQuest [crosstalk 00:05:14]. Anyway, so we were just friends for a long time, and then I went to India, and I was there, and I came back and I came back a woman.
Bubba: While she was gone is when I was like, “Wait a second, she has a soul. This girl that I think is fun is now amazing.”
Jordan: I tell you, India brought us together.
Bubba: So it changed. Things changed for me.
Jordan: I was there-
Bubba: The problem was, things changed for me; they just didn’t change for her, yet. So it took a little while for her to go, “Wait a second, you’re not just my friend anymore. You’re actually taking me out?” I’m like, “Yes, I am.”
Jordan: I still say to him sometimes, I still can’t believe that college Bubba is the father of my children Bubba. It doesn’t even feel like the same person.
Bubba: Of our eight children Bubba.
Jordan: Yeah, we have eight kids, by the way.
Charan: Wow.
Jordan: So it worked out.
Bubba: It worked. We love each other.
Charan: I love it. You know what? I have a motto that says, “The friend zone leads to the end zone.”
Jordan: Oh, my gosh.
Charan: Did I make it up right now? Maybe.
Bubba: No, no. I don’t know, I may have heard of it.
Jordan: Oh, my gosh, [crosstalk 00:06:19].
Charan: I’ve been wanting to say that for the person that I end up marrying; I just haven’t had the chance.
Bubba: “Friend zone to the end zone.”
Charan: “Friend zone to the end zone.”
Bubba: And you know what? Go on a road trip with that person.
Charan: Yeah.
Jordan: With others.
Bubba: With others. Because you just get to know them in all their different weird circumstances.
Jordan: You see them sleep-deprived and road-raged-
Bubba: Tired, hungry.
Jordan: Tired, yeah. Anyway, it’s highly recommended.
Charan: Oh, my gosh. That’s the way I live my life. Tired and hungry and full of road rage.
Bubba: And road rage.
Charan: All the time. I look like I live on a road trip every day of my life, which is great, so that’s awesome. So you guys met then and you guys fell in love, and it was a fun process, but how did that all come to you saying, “Okay, you know what? Now we want to change the world.” There must have been a point when you’re like, “Okay, this is the catalyst. This is the moment where we’re going to make our lemonade and make the world love us.”
Bubba: I did get in a lot of trouble when we were dating when she asked me, “Why do you love me?” And I said, “Because I see so much potential in us.” And she was like, “Wait a second.” She did not like the word potential.
Jordan: Don’t listen to him.
Bubba: Even though it’s very amazing-
Jordan: [crosstalk 00:07:25] friend zone trying to move to the end zone, don’t use the “P” word.
Bubba: I loved it.
Jordan: It means “fixer-upper.”
Bubba: Only to her it meant “fixer-upper.”
Jordan: Whatever, we’re good.
Charan: This is so great. I will be your therapist.
Jordan and Bubba Page Talk About Becoming Entrepreneurs
Jordan: So interestingly, Bubba is the entrepreneur. We decided early on in our marriage-
Bubba: Both entrepreneurs, I just got started first.
Jordan: This is the story. I never had an interest in it. I worked with at-risk teenage boys. That was where my heart is at. I know. I love it. And then we started kids of our own. Our own at-risk kids, hopefully not.
Charan: Totally.
Jordan: And I just wanted to be home. But I am creative in a sense and also very easily bored. I’m a yellow personality.
Charan: Me too.
Jordan: I was supporting Bubba and his business endeavors.
Bubba: So I started a startup. I was like, “Look, I don’t think I’m going to be able to support our family for a little bit.” She made me promise that by the time we had our first kid, if I couldn’t bring home a paycheck to support us, I’d have to quit and go get a job.
Charan: Oh, wow.
Bubba: I was like, “Okay, that’s fair. Fair.”
Charan: J-O-B word.
Jordan: You know what? That was actually his… I was nervous about him quitting his job and starting a business. And he said, “I promise, you give me a year and then by the time we have a family, if I can’t support us [crosstalk 00:08:37].”
Bubba: I’m pretty sure it was one year later, the child came and I was barely able to take a paycheck.
Jordan: Yeah, it was rough.
Bubba: That was a little spotty.
Jordan: So the story is, he quit his job to start a business. We had kids. I stayed home. Self-employed income, all over the place. 2008 hit, that was fun.
Bubba: That was so fun.
Jordan: Yeah, good times. And we were living off of credit cards. And we were always pretty frugal. In fact, Bubba wouldn’t take me to dinner when we were dating. He was a “dessert” date because it’s cheaper.
Bubba: “Can I pick you up at 8:00 PM?”
Jordan: Yeah, if you take them out after 8:00, you don’t have to buy them dinner.
Bubba: That means you’ve already eaten your dinner.
Jordan: Yeah.
Charan: Oh, smart.
Jordan: And I was like, “I know what you’re doing. I can smell that; that’s great. Let’s do this.” So we were a good match. Frugal wedding, the whole bit. Coupons to go eat dinner, but then, boom. All of a sudden, our security was stripped out from under us. We put our life’s savings, which wasn’t much, but at the time it felt like a lot, into a real estate investment that didn’t work out, and we were just stuck.
Jordan: Anyway, I went online, which is a little different than it is now, but to try and find someone to help me.
Bubba: Blogosphere.
Jordan: To try to help me with budgeting. And truthfully, it was a bunch of old, white guys. They just were telling me about Roth IRAs and 401k’s and pay cash for your car. And I was like, “I don’t speak any of this. Just tell me about Costco. Can I do Costco or Target?” Anyway, so I was frustrated, couldn’t find anything that spoke my language, and I just started making some stuff on my own using visual story problems and not thinking about money as money but thinking more about things that I could relate to, because I’m not good with numbers.
Jordan: I’ve never taken a finance class. And it worked. And then with Bubba as well, we paid off — okay, ready for this?
Charan: I don’t know if I’m ready but go, go.
Jordan: Brace yourself. Okay, it was $15,000 of credit card debt that we’d built up. It was $10,000 on one credit card and several on others, and we also had a car we couldn’t afford, which was $10,000, and then he was making $31,000, but we paid off all that debt in one year.
Charan: Wow.
Jordan: So we paid off $15,000-
Bubba: Sold the car, that helped.
Jordan: Yeah, we paid off $15,000 of credit card debt plus our auto loan in 13 months, making $31,000, and we weren’t miserable. We didn’t feel like we were suffering. So that’s when it was like, “Oh my gosh, this is exciting. This is not like these old, white guys are making it sound like. This is actually really fun.”
Jordan: So we had this family blog, I remember back in the day, BlogSpot-
Charan: Oh, my gosh.
Jordan: With this scrapbooking backgrounds. So I started just posting tips and tricks on that, but then I had this weird… I wanted our family life private. So I made that private, started a blog and spontaneously called it Fun, Cheap or Free, and just started posting for fun and here we are.
Jordan: So it’s been… That was 2011-
Bubba: It took me a year and a half to convince her that she should at least put ads on the site.
Charan: Right.
Bubba: She was doing all this for fun and having a good time, and then I looked at the stats, and there are hundreds of thousands of people reading your blog. Let’s at least… They don’t have to pay anything. They just come and you’ll at least get compensated for your time.
Jordan: It’s been a long road. It was kind of an accident entrepreneur situation because I didn’t… I resented and pushed back on making money, because I said, “Once I make money, it’s going to be a job. People are going to require things of me,” and that is the case. It really has its downsides, but by putting ads on the site, and now we have products and programs that can help people, we now have a staff, a team of 17-ish people plus some contractors, and a lot of them are supporting their families.
Jordan: Everyone works from home, mostly women, and now we reach millions of families all around the world and just help them with their… We just help them build stronger families with budgeting, productivity, meal planning and cooking and just laughing, hopefully. We think we’re funny. We’re not actually that funny.
Bubba: Kitchen dance parties.
Jordan: Kitchen dance parties.
Charan: Oh, my gosh. Listen, you guys are a laugh a minute. I’m barely holding it in. Here’s one thing I was going to ask, because you guys also do YouTube, right? Isn’t that part of your whole thing?
Jordan: Yes.
Charan: It’s so interesting to see how people that have become viral sensations and things or like the influencers all stumbled upon it by accident, is what they say. But I really think it’s divinely appointed in a way. You solved a problem for yourself, and then you realized, “Oh, everyone’s got this problem.”
Charan: I remember, man, when I first got into acting, it turns out acting’s not a very stable career.
Jordan: What? No.
Charan: It’s shocking, it’s very shocking, I know. It’s very, very bizarre. So I’m like, “I’m going to go to LA,” and so I moved to LA for nine years. And it turns out, it’s even harder there.
Jordan: I bet.
Charan: It’s a very interesting-
Jordan: It’s very saturated.
Charan: Yeah. Very, very interesting thing. But somehow or other, I found that those principles that you’re talking about, about living cheap and free and having fun with it, was the key to becoming a successful actor.
Bubba: Interesting.
Charan: You know what I mean? Because it changed my mentality. It changed my mindset. It made me realize I already had everything I needed before I book a part. And when I had that attitude, I would book the parts. I would go in fully confident. I didn’t feel, “Oh, I need this part. I need to get this thing. I need to focus [crosstalk 00:14:14]-“
Jordan: No desperation behind it.
Charan: There was no desperation. It was just a very relaxed energy.
Bubba: That’s cool.
Charan: And the casting director felt that, and they’re like, “Hey, this guy just seems so relaxed.” And my career actually took off because I had a certain type of mindset, which I think is the “fun, cheap and free” mindset.
Charan: You may have experienced this when you were in India, but when I went to India, one of the things I noticed was how, I guess you could say, how little material things people had. And yet how happy they were.
Jordan: How happy. I have always said that.
Bubba: You don’t need a bunch of stuff to make you happy.
Jordan: You don’t. I talk about that in my program. I come back a different person. I walked out a friend zone when I came back to Utah, because it really did change me. The perspective of exactly what you said. You have everything you need.
Charan: Yes.
Jordan: You really do. Everything else is just gravy. And I agree. When you look at it as a blessing, instead of an entitlement or a necessity or something you have to have, it just changes. It changes the energy behind it, for sure.
Charan: Absolutely. Now, what about yourself. Did you ever feel like when these things were taking off, did you feel that same energy shift as well? Were you like, “Oh, wow, I’m happy not needing all this stuff?”
Bubba: I mean we always had the frugal nature. That’s just the way we were raised and the way we lived our lives. When you start a business, typically, anybody out there starting businesses, you’re usually not rolling in the dough, right?
Charan: Yeah.
Bubba: And so having that frugal mentality really helps you, I think, go a little further with your business. As the businesses began to be more successful, we tried to not just live. A lot of people earn more, and so they spend more. They start spending above their means, even when they’re making great money.
Bubba: We wanted to set a rule and say, and you guys probably heard a quote something like this, but, “Let’s live like nobody else will for at least five years, so that we can live like nobody else can after.”
Charan: I love that.
Bubba: That rule was really helpful for us, early on, to be able to scrimp and save and me ride my bike to work instead of needing a car. So we went down to one car to do it. Making sure that we weren’t buying expensive clothing. There was no reason for that. Or jewelry for no reason.
Jordan: Furniture. We didn’t really decorate our house.
Bubba: But those sacrifices, it was just in the money that was saved. It was much more ingraining a habit. And I think we still live by those things today. Even though business has been great, we’ve been really blessed with a wonderful team to help us produce such great content. And the business that I started that she supported, we ended up selling it last year.
Charan: Oh, wow.
Bubba: So even after 11 years, having a business that we exited and then continued to grow these businesses together, it’s been a wild ride.
Charan: I’m sure.
Bubba: It’s just been definitely blessing like crazy. God’s taken care of us.
Jordan: But it’s been really neat, because those years of sacrifice which ended up being more than five, but it didn’t feel like it. It was just a happy life. We now, any one walking in, would look at us and be like, “No, they’re not frugal. No, they don’t do that.” But we live the life we live because of the mentality, because of the practice, because we still budget the same way. We still watch every dollar. We still don’t waste anything. But at the end of the day, we have more now than we did, but our mindset is different.
Jordan: If it burned down tomorrow, it’d be frustrating but whatever. We’re not emotionally attached to our stuff, because we didn’t have any for so long. And my biggest fear and the hardest challenge we have now is instilling that in our kids, because they are reaping the rewards of our hard work. So we fight every day to make them grind a bit. We just really don’t want to give them everything.
Bubba: We fight every day.
Jordan: We fight.
Bubba: We fight together.
Jordan: Fight. Fight the good fight.
Bubba: To help our children.
Charan: Oh, man, you guys.
Bubba: That’s a big point. When you have, especially living where we do, just comparing to parts of India, or I served on a mission in Brazil, and you see maybe what Third World countries might be going through, and it puts you in a perspective. So we want to be able to make sure our kids understand what hard work is and what that means.
Bubba: I think being an entrepreneur can be a huge blessing to a lot of people if that’s what they’re supposed to do. So trying to teach them entrepreneurial skills, even at this young age. We’re here at the Lemonade Stand, and our kids did a lemonade stand.
Jordan: It’s true.
Bubba: And my daughter did face painting. And they walked away-
Jordan: Except at the lemonade stand, somebody tipped her 20 bucks. And I was, “No, that’s not teaching her anything, dang it!”
Charan: Yeah.
Bubba: [crosstalk 00:19:04] 20 bucks. But anyway, they came back and it was just one of those experiences that gets ideas in their mind. So the next day, I think my son was grabbing anything in his room that he could sell at school.
Bubba: We were like, “That’s awesome.”
Jordan: They did spinners and…
Bubba: That’s really awesome that you’re thinking that way. I don’t think your school’s going to appreciate that. But let’s keep that mentality going.
Charan: Dude, I love that. I absolutely love it. There’s so many things I want to share with you guys regarding all of that stuff. Are you guys familiar with the movie Jaws? Steven Spielberg?
Bubba: I haven’t seen it, but you’ve seen it.
Jordan: Oh, it’s been a long time.
Charan: It’s been a long time, so spoiler alert: the movie’s about a shark.
Jordan: What?
Charan: I know. I’m so sorry, I apologize. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s too soon. It did come out in ’78 though, but one of the best things that happened to Steven Spielberg when he was making that movie was that the shark didn’t work. It didn’t work.
Jordan: The mechanical thing.
Charan: The mechanical shark did not work; there were malfunctions and it didn’t work. So he had to get extremely creative, and he had to figure out ways to make it seem like the shark is coming, but you don’t actually see the shark. So you’d see the camera going up, you’d see the sound effects, and the imagination goes…
Charan: And, of course, they did show the shark at times, but it was very tight shots and closeup shots and stuff, because if they showed the actual thing, it wouldn’t-
Bubba: It didn’t work.
Charan: It wouldn’t work. But what I loved about that story was he was faced with a severe limitation, and in that limitation he found creative solutions and found ways to make things thrive. And now it became a huge hit and he’s Steven Spielberg. But I love that idea of having limitations and boundaries put upon you and then saying, “Okay, within these boundaries, within these things, how can you be more creative?”
Charan: So kind of going back to India, I was saying, I was with my cousins and I said, “Hey, if you could live anywhere in the world, anywhere at all, where would you be?” And without even hesitation, my cousin said, “Oh, Pondicherry.” Which, was where he was currently living. And I’m like, “I’m so sorry. Let me rephrase the question, anywhere in the world.” And he’s like, “No, Charan, Pondicherry.”
Charan: I’m like, “Why would you choose Pondicherry?” He said, “Because I’m never lonely.” And I’m like, “Dude, that’s a profound-“
Jordan: All he needs is there.
Charan: … profound answer.” He said, “I have all my friends here, my cousins here, and we are always celebrating. We’re always enjoying life and we’re always having each other.” And it was such a fun answer, because I remember being panicked. I feel like in the States, I’ve got so many things and I’m always lonely. I’m just kidding, but do you know what I mean, though?
Jordan: Oh, are you okay? Give you a hug. No, I know what you mean, yes.
Charan: It was an interesting thing when I realized, “Oh, it’s not even about material things for them; it’s just about the connection that they have.”
Bubba: That’s really cool.
Charan: But his heart, and I’m glad you guys were mentioning about your kids, because we live in a completely different time than even in India, or whatnot.
Jordan: Yes.
Bubba: I think the idea behind problem-solving, and this is something you’ll hear a million times in our household, where the kid can’t tie his shoes, so either crying or getting mad and throwing his shoe, and it’s like, “Hold on, how can you be a problem-solver. Let’s try and solve these problems.” Even little bite-sized pieces of solving problems can lead them to solve larger problems future. And bringing it to the entrepreneurial world, I think really that’s what entrepreneurs are doing is trying to solve problems.
Bubba: They’re seeing something out in the world that’s maybe done one way, but it could be done better, or maybe it can be done cheaper, or maybe it can be done… And you’re just solving problems.
Charan: Absolutely.
Bubba: And that’s what I think is miraculous about putting yourself at risk, starting a business, getting something going and trying to solve that problem. Sometimes you’re going to fail, and I had a business that I went out there and tried for two years, blood, sweat and tears, didn’t work. Failed. So you have some wins, you have some losses, but throughout the whole process you’re learning and you’re hopefully building yourself to be a better person.
Charan: The cool thing is, if you can, which your mentality is going to help you guys with, detach yourself from the exact outcome of what you want it to be. Then it’s like, “Hey, cool. This is going to be a great learning experience, whatever happens.”
Bubba: That’s a good point.
Jordan and Bubba Page Talk About Their Kids and Social Media
Charan: But I was going to ask you as well, did you feel like when you’re raising kids and all that stuff, how are you able to get them to, I don’t know. How would you say it? Not get so attached to the social media and then all these things.
Jordan: Oh, gosh.
Charan: Because it such a crazy world that we’re living in right now.
Bubba: None of our children have social media accounts.
Jordan: Okay, here’s the thing. Social media is, I believe, one of the greatest gifts of our day. It connects people. It shares information. It helps you find the communities that you’re so desperately looking for. It opens your bubble. Now, I believe in opposition in all things. So for all the benefits and joys and blessings that social media brings, it has an equal amount of distortion and evil and negativity and all of that.
Jordan: That’s with anything. I think if you’re floating in the middle ground, you’re not living your fullest life. You really have to be willing to take the bad with the good in order to feel that greatness. So social media is definitely that. It is one of the greatest blessings that we have; it’s also one of the biggest curses in my life.
Jordan: For our kids, we will not-
Bubba: We’ve chosen to not engage in social media for their [crosstalk 00:24:53].
Jordan: We’re not going to let them do that. When they are out of the house and can make their own decisions, that’s fine. But for now, I mean our oldest is 11. We still have some time to go. Who knows what social media will look like in five, six years? But we will hold off for as long as we can.
Bubba: We just want to make sure that their brains and decision-making capabilities are developed enough to be able to know how to stay away from so much. We’re talking about pornography is everywhere.
Charan: Everywhere.
Bubba: And by a click of a button you can find it. So even them using a, not a smartphone, so there’s not an ability to access that. Of course, we need to train and help them learn how, so it’s not just avoid, avoid at all costs.
Jordan: Yeah, we don’t believe in that, for sure.
Bubba: You have to teach them to be able to handle it, and put up a fight towards whatever evil is out there. But that’s really, it’s something important.
Jordan: Okay, so a friend once told me, he’s a bishop at our church. Not this one, a different one. He said, “Look, if you look at the scriptures, because history repeats itself.” You know?
Charan: Yeah.
Jordan: He said, “Back in the day, you would just flee. You would flee Jerusalem. You would flee when there was discontent, discord, you would flee to protect your family. And then that kind of stopped working. So then you would just build barriers, build up walls, build fortifications. And then that kind of stopped working.” He said, “Now is the era of hand-to-hand combat.” He said, “We can’t run anymore. We can’t protect our kids anymore. You have to give them the tools to fight.”
Jordan: And we feel that even as adults in our own life that we can’t run. So with anything, everything we’re talking about, problem-solving and social media and turning lemons into lemonade, it’s like you have to learn to embrace the tools and do something good with them.
Jordan: So that’s our biggest goal, is not to shelter our kids. We obviously will protect them as much as we can but to give them the right tools to know.
Charan: It’s interesting. I have a buddy, you guys might know him. He actually passed away last year. His name was Collin Kartchner.
Jordan: Yeah.
Charan: You know Collin?
Jordan: Yeah.
Charan: So we went to high school together and just really good friends and he had this whole campaign, Save the Kids, and he talked about the dangers of social media and everything like that, but it was interesting, because a lot of his message focused on not using it. Almost like, “Put the phone down, put the phone down, put the phone down,” which I think is very powerful, but the truth is, social media is here to stay.
Jordan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Charan: It’s here to stay, so for better or for worse, it’s like equipping kids with the right mindset. Equipping kids with the right ability to distinguish right and wrong, especially when no one’s brains are able to take that much amount of stimuli at the exact same time. And for kids’ developing brains, I think it’s very, very smart that you guys have chosen, “Not right now, kids. We are not going to have social media accounts right now.”
Jordan: That being said, it’s what we do for a living. Social media is a huge part of how we reach people in India, in South Africa, in the UK. And it allowed us to build this community. So our kids are very aware. We talk about it. We talk about the dangers of YouTube. I don’t know, anyway.
Jordan: I know we’re getting off-tangent.
Charan: No, it’s great.
Jordan: But I do agree that it’s kind of like abstinence only. Yes, that’s a way to protect yourself from a lot of things, but then what else? What’s the rest of the story there?
Jordan and Bubba Page Talk About Budgeting
Charan: Yeah, it’s very interesting. Okay, I want to shift topics just a little bit. Now, you guys have a budgeting program that you’ve developed.
Bubba: Budgetbootcamp.com.
Jordan: Oh, gosh. Bubba’s our walking billboard.
Charan: No, it flowed. That was really amazing.
Bubba: Get you a deal.
Charan: Well, fantastic. Tell me about this deal that you have.
Jordan: Oh, gosh. You can have one of our eight kids to babysit on Wednesday when you buy today.
Bubba: That’s right.
Jordan: So again, going back to this accidental situation. Necessity is the mother of all invention. And by necessity, I had to grow up and budget. And I still think it’s annoying. I don’t like it. I don’t like budgeting or numbers or any of that. So I call it “budgeting for the rest of us,” because people who love it are really good at it.
Jordan: So gosh, where did it start? I started teaching on the blog; that grew. I started doing TV segments; that grew.
Bubba: She did hundreds and hundreds of blog articles, and they were a little bit hard to organize. If people wanted to say, “Okay, just teach me how step A through Z.” So essentially, she took all of this incredible content, plus a bunch of proprietary knowledge, put it together in a program.
Jordan: First, before that, though, we started doing one-on-ones, because people would want one-on-one help, and then we started up to work with Reality Bootcamp.
Bubba: Of course.
Jordan: We did this tiny, little 20-person mini-conference in the conference room of his office that he was renting. And that got big. And then it was an in-person thing. And then I just kept having kids and was really tired, and it was hard for people out of state. So I basically took what I used to do one-on-one and then to a small group, and then a bigger group, and then just yeah, what Bubba said, made it digital. And it allowed me to be able to step back and bring in other content, more free content, like the YouTube and blog post and teach other people other things.
Jordan: Then it got to the point where it’s a little tricky, because it’s kind of like someone who’s on this weight loss journey, but then loses the weight. So now they’re not counting their calories as closely anymore, they can eat cake once in a while and now they’re maybe worried about other things, like what’s the next phase of life.
Jordan: So we have all the budgeting, but we hit all of our goals. We got out of debt, did all these things, and then I started talking more… We together actually, started talking more about lifestyle productivity, how we were managing marriage and business and family and people had more questions about that.
Jordan: So kind of out of left field came Productivity Bootcamp, which is a second program we have that’s about managing your time as well as you manage your money. So it’s a little random, but here we are.
Bubba: Covered all the bases.
Charan: It’s freaking amazing is what it is. It’s so exciting.
Jordan: [crosstalk 00:30:56] it’s so fun.
Charan: My gosh. My goodness. You know what? I want to get in debt just so I can take your program.
Jordan: Actually you don’t have to be in debtl; there’s a lot of people who aren’t.
Charan: Okay. All right, I’ll just take my-
Jordan: We’ll just give it to you. You’ll be fine.
Jordan and Bubba Page Talk About Turning Lemons into Lemonade
Charan: Thanks, guys. This is awesome. So again, shifting topics a little bit. Every entrepreneur, every person has moments where they’re dealt severe limits. And it’s up to them to decide, “How am I going to turn this into lemonade?” Was there ever a moment in your lives where you’re like, “Oh man, this was a lemon. This was a heavy, heavy lemon”?
Bubba: Absolutely. So I started the one business early on in our marriage, and about six years into it, I hired a CEO to run the day-to-day, so I wasn’t involved being in the office every day, which was an amazing miracle, blessing. But that’s when I went to start my tech company, even went and raised venture capital.
Jordan: Moved away for a couple of months.
Bubba: Moved away to Colorado. She was on her own, three kids, pregnant with the fourth.
Jordan: It’s fine.
Bubba: By herself.
Jordan: I’m fine. It’s fine.
Charan: Are you okay?
Bubba: Pretty rough.
Jordan: [crosstalk 00:32:03] we made it.
Bubba: And it didn’t work out. Two years of just incredible hard work, away from the family, sacrifice.
Jordan: Raising money for the first time. That was hard, too.
Bubba: And we had to shut it down. I know I went probably for, I don’t know, three to six months of kind of this depression. I didn’t even know what it was, because I’d never felt those feelings before. I felt like my reputation was the business. And it was a really unique opportunity to come to realize that I am not the business. That we as people are much more than whatever stamp you put on yourself.
Charan: It’s very interesting when you place your identity on something external.
Bubba: Absolutely.
Jordan: It’s hard not to.
Charan: Yeah, it’s hard not to.
Jordan: Yeah, it’s true.
Bubba: So I just thought that I had failed life in general, instead of saying, “No, the business failed. But that doesn’t mean you can’t pick yourself back up and go.” It took me a few months to get out of that. So that was probably one of the areas where I was low.
Jordan: But flip side of that coin is business A, the first one that he just sold last year, we couldn’t even go away for a weekend. His phone was always ringing. If he was away physically from the office, everything would fall apart. He lived and breathed it. There was no clocking in and clocking out.
Jordan: And when this opportunity presented itself, he presented this idea at a business function and it won, this idea won. And it happened for him, basically, this second business. He’s like, “Well, if I’m going to do it, might as well do it now.” It forced him to release the grip a little bit. He had to try three times, finally found a CEO that could do it, and it forced him, allowed him to walk away.
Jordan: And then the second business kind of humbled him a little bit and also showed him this world of venture capital and all the stuff that his sights were set on it. He’s like, “Actually this kind of sucks. I don’t really like it. It’s not the lifestyle I love. I don’t want to be schmoozing people for money all the time.” I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
Bubba: Sure. But I met some of my best friends through this new process and read a million different books and learned. It was a phenomenal learning. Talk about getting an MBA, that was “life MBA.”
Jordan: Yeah, because that was plan. He wanted to do an MBA. But what’s interesting is, this failure, our marriage super suffered, not only because of that but because for so many years we had just become ships in the night and we were really good roommates. We were really good co-parents. We were super good at it, and then all of a sudden something happens to rock the boat, and you realize how sandy a foundation we had.
Jordan: It was rough. We weren’t sure we were going to make it, and it was what we needed. It was our wake-up call, but also it allowed us to grow so much and, in the end, when all the dust had settled, he realized, “This isn’t the lifestyle I want.” And he ended up working with this company, selling his company. Now we work together and we live a really minimal… Not minimal, we are not minimalists as in any sense of the word. I am a full blown maximalist; give me all the things.
Jordan: But meaning business is not our goal anymore. And it used to be. Now our lifestyle is our goal and how we raise our kids and the quality of time we spend together and business is an amazing blessing that allows us to live the life we want, not the other way around.
Bubba: The business has allowed us to try and help change the world to be a better place.
Jordan: Amen.
Bubba: I think that’s what’s allowed Jordan to do so well on social media is that she’s just produced amazing content. Her followers, whether it’s YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or blog, they’re so incredibly loyal because of her realness on camera. Or her just speaking the truth and not waking up in the morning with no makeup on and hair’s crazy and talking about herself and what’s going on.
Jordan: Oh, stop.
Bubba: So people have just fallen in love with the real nature, instead of just the fake things that you see online all the time.
Jordan: But we decided early on, and we work together now, because the end of the story is this business disaster, if you will, was actually the greatest blessing because now we work together and he is able to bring his talents and his skills. I just want to connect with my people. I just want to create the content. I don’t want to worry about algorithms and Facebook ads and payroll and all that stuff. So he manages a lot of that, and it’s been a huge blessing.
Jordan: But we constantly sit down and we say, “It’s not about the numbers.” And we train and in our training that we have twice a year with our employees, we’re like, “It’s not about the sales. It is not. It is not about revenue; it’s about building stronger families.” And we have to constantly refocus. But anyway, but we’re able to do that because of this lemon. This bold lemon.
Charan: Yes, of course, yes.
Bubba: Lemonade.
Charan: You know what’s interesting? And I love this. I think those lemons helped you guys learn what truly is authentic for you and what’s not authentic. I remember last year when COVID hit, I was praying a ton and I’m like, “What am I supposed to be doing?” Because, everybody… My career just kind of ended. There were no acting jobs going on and stuff.
Charan: And one of the things I kept feeling was, “I needed to go have more fun in life.” And I’m like, “Well, I like that revelation. That’s amazing. Yeah, I’ll take that all day long.” But I remember praying more and more and asking, “Well, why is that so important?” And then I realized because for me, when I’m having fun, I’m authentic. I’m truly authentic.
Charan: That was such a powerful revelation for me to learn, because so much of my priorities were mixed up into thinking, “I should do this because of this and this and this, and this will lead to eventually this, which will lead to eventually this. We need to do our business first and keep our business growing because that’s going to help this and this and this.”
Charan: But at the end of the day, at the end of the day you realize, “No, no. It’s about our lifestyle. It’s about building families and that’s the most important thing.” And once you get your own intentions clear, I feel like people can really thrive. But when your intentions… and you’re not completely authentic to yourself, you either hit walls of resistance or you feel like things aren’t going to thrive or whatnot.
Charan: I don’t know, it’s just been a really interesting experience for me to even see that happen.
Jordan: That’s cool. Good for you.
Charan: Yeah, so I want to ask, because you texted me a picture of this, of you in a spacesuit snowboarding, which was amazing. And I’m grateful that you did-
Bubba: Thank you.
Charan: I didn’t know my eyes could get blessed like that.
Jordan: It’s a framer. It’s a framer. Bubba will even sign it.
Jordan and Bubba Page Talk About What Brings Them Joy
Charan: So what are some of the things that you do right now that brings you joy, other than wearing a spacesuit snowboarding?
Bubba: Absolutely. Well, the spacesuit snowboarding has a very specific reason.
Charan: Yeah, tell me.
Bubba: I’ve now invented — this is going to go in the dictionary someday — it’s called “body sliding.” I know it’s not a thing yet, but it will be.
Jordan: Like body surfing but on snow.
Bubba: But on snow, and you have to have a full body suit that is very slick, and then you can just slide as fast as you can.
Charan: Yeah.
Bubba: It is amazing. I even did a 360. I was pretty proud of myself.
Jordan: Are we talking like bum, back, stomach?
Bubba: That was on my back with my snowboard up and me spinning, holding my legs, snowboard in the air, spinning and then getting back up and going [crosstalk 00:39:35]-
Jordan: That’s my man. That’s my man, back [inaudible 00:39:37].
Charan: That’s the end zone right there. That was the end zone.
Jordan: That’s it, gate number nine. Keep talking about body sliding.
Bubba: Thank you, thank you. So I love anything board sports, love it. I just got back from a mountain biking trip in St. George. Love mountain biking. Outdoors, getting exercise is a ton of fun. If I can incorporate family and exercise outdoors, that’s the best. But-
Jordan: I’m a little different.
Bubba: Our kids are a little bit-
Jordan: Yeah, no.
Bubba: But anyway, I love all those things.
Charan: Amazing.
Bubba: On the money thing, she’s been really good at setting up our family systems and making sure we’re doing the budgeting. I just like to invest our money and go find things to-
Jordan: He likes to spend it.
Bubba: I spend it on things that can make more.
Jordan: Bubba’s really good at investing.
Bubba: I love that. [crosstalk 00:40:27]-
Jordan: When he sold his business, it was really hard, but we didn’t use any of it. Not a dime for fun, which took a lot of self-control. We used it all for a number of [crosstalk 00:40:41]-
Bubba: A lot of times you’re like, “I sold a business. I went and got a Porsche.”
Jordan: “Got a boat.”
Bubba: Yeah, no. We just put it in investments.
Charan: That’s awesome.
Jordan: Which allows us to live the life we’re living.
Bubba: It’s a huge blessing.
Jordan: We just moved and got us into our awesome house.
Bubba: That’s some of my fun stuff, though.
Charan: I love that. What do you still love?
Jordan: I love gathering people. It brings me so much joy, having people for dinner, throwing parties in the backyard. Having people to our cabin. I have gathering people because I felt lonely for so much of my life that I love facilitating, I don’t know, familial experiences for people. I also love it for my kids. I really love for them to be super social and have a lot of friends and see a lot of different diverse backgrounds and people. Anyway, that’s important to me.
Jordan: I love-
Bubba: She likes dancing.
Jordan: … going out to eat. I love dancing. Trying to think. I have eight kids, okay? [crosstalk 00:41:40].
Bubba: She loves shoes.
Jordan: Yeah well, I do. I love spending time with my family. I also really like breaks from my family, so I love it when Bubba and I go out to eat on the weekends and I get to just-
Bubba: Date night. Got to keep the date night going.
Jordan: … drink my Diet Coke and talk about things, about kids-
Bubba: We try to do… This has only happened after 10 years of marriage, but we try to do one trip for just us a year. And then one trip with the whole family with the kids. And that’s been a really fun adventure.
Charan: That’s so awesome.
Bubba: Then we try to spend as much time as we can at the cabin, which is just….
Charan: Now, going back to what we were discussing earlier. Is there anything you guys do, making memory-wise, that’s totally free, but you love doing it because it’s [crosstalk 00:42:19]?
Bubba: Absolutely. Hikes.
Jordan: I would say most of what we do as a family is free. We went… Going to MacDonald’s is like a $45 experience. There’s 10 of us.
Bubba: When you have 10 people in your family.
Jordan: We really don’t take it lightly. And I think people would be really surprised at how little we spend week to week.
Bubba: Right.
Jordan: They’d be really surprised. We just spend our money on other things, like our home or a cabin or whatever. It’s all different. Some people eat out; we don’t really, much. Yeah, we love being outside. Bike rides are a big one for us.
Bubba: We’re not video gamers. So it’s all about being outside. We want to play music together, so the kids are learning piano, and I’ll play the guitar with them, and Jordan’s a wonderful singer and piano player.
Jordan: Oh, my gosh, what?
Charan: Oh, my gosh [crosstalk 00:43:02]. Hang on.
Jordan: Stop. He literally is lying.
Bubba: Let’s hear it. Solo.
Jordan: [inaudible 00:43:08] box like a [inaudible 00:43:08] .
Charan: Like Bishop Miner.
Bubba: I’m not going to put her on the spot.
Charan: Oh man.
Bubba: We do a lot of fun things like that. Literally, we talked about kitchen dance parties.
Jordan: We have an actual disco ball in our kitchen. Like an actual one.
Bubba: Well, it’s attached to a speaker-
Jordan: Multiple colors.
Bubba: So it’s very fun.
Jordan: We do need to put one in the ceiling though. We do a lot of movie nights, because we don’t do a ton of screens during the week, so that for our kids is really special. Games. Oh, my gosh. We’re obsessed with board games. My kids-
Bubba: The kids are getting good.
Jordan: … dominate us at Uno.
Charan: Of course, it requires so much skill to play that game. You know what’s interesting, because all of these things you’re talking about can create so much memories forever. And it also, it dictates a lot of, “Oh, we had so much fun doing this and that’s why we’re going to make this into a business.”
Charan: I remember while I was a BYU, my buddy, I was always hanging out with him, he just had so much fun calling random girls when he was in the dorm. He would just call random girls and see how long he could talk to them on the phone before they are like, “Wait, who is this?” So he just loved doing this.
Bubba: He sounds like fun.
Charan: And I’m like, “You’re so dumb. Why are you doing that?” So while I’m hanging out with him and he’s doing this, he all of a sudden gets the idea and says, “Listen, the reason why I’m calling you is because I have a foreign exchange student with me.” And I’m like, “Oh, crap.” I’m like, “Dude, why would you… ?” And I knew he was roping me into his schemes. I’m like, “Dude, no. Stop, stop.” And he’s like, “No.” And he keeps talking to this girl.
Charan: He’s like, “Look, he really wants to talk to you.” And I’m like, “I don’t. I really don’t want to talk to her.”
Jordan: Oh, my gosh.
Charan: And he’s like, “He’s just really shy and everything, but just humor him please, if you don’t mind.” So, of course, I get on the phone, and I have to have an accent how, so I’m like, “Hello, yes. I’m very excited to meet you and thank you very much.”
Charan: Well, he proceeded to say, “Yeah, he’s in one of your big classes.” I’m like, “Dude, this is getting worse and worse.”
Jordan: Now you’re scamming the guy.
Charan: Yeah, poor girl. And then this girl, I remember she was saying to him, she’s like, “Come on, this is the same guy, you just had the accent.” He said, “I swear. It’s a different person. Look, he’s really shy, but he really wants to meet you.” I’m like, “I don’t, I really don’t want to meet her.”
Jordan: Oh, my gosh.
Charan: And he just keeps going on and he’s like dying laughter. He’s like, “He’s really shy. He has a lip disease.” I’m like, “A lip disease? What in the world is happening?”
Bubba: You needed a new roommate at this point.
Charan: I’m like, “Dude.” So after he hung up, he’s like, “Dude, we’ve got to go meet her.” I’m like, “What are you… ? No, I don’t want to meet her.”
Jordan: Wait, wait. She still wanted to meet you?
Charan: Yeah.
Jordan: Even with the lip disease?
Charan: [crosstalk 00:45:45], “Go say hi to her.” So then I’m like, “Well, what do I do about the lip disease.” He says, “Dude, I’ve got that covered.” So we call our other friend and she comes over and brings her bottle of mascara and paints this weird thing from the corner of my lip all the way down to my chin, my jaw line or whatever.
Jordan: Stop it.
Charan: It just looked so ugly.
Jordan: Oh, my gosh.
Charan: So I go down to… Back then it was Heritage Halls where [crosstalk 00:46:08], and they were in Helaman. So we had to go down to Helaman Halls.
Jordan: That’s where the party’s at?
Charan: I guess so. So I started pretending. And we finally meet this girl, whoever this girl was. And she was just shocked, because she’s like, “Oh, my gosh, there really is an Indian guy.”
Jordan: With a weird lip fungus.
Charan: Lip disease. And my name was Abu, because that’s what my buddy said. So I’m like, “Yes, hello. Very nice to meet you.” So after she left, I’m like, “Guys, that’s so dumb. Let’s just get the heck out of here. This is so bad.”
Jordan: Oh, my gosh.
Charan: “No, dude. We just got here. We just got here. Let’s just see how long this can go.”
Jordan: At your expense.
Charan: At my expense, of course. So then they were saying to me, they’re like, “Okay, you come to us and ask where the bathroom is, whenever the girls come by…” No, where Heritage Halls is, that’s what it was. “And we’re going to point you to the bathroom.”
Charan: I’m like, “Okay.” So I would pretend to go up to them, “I’m trying to get to Heritage Halls. I’m very lost.” And they’re like, “Oh yeah, it’s right in there.” And they’d point me to the bathroom, just to see what the girls would do. Well, after a little bit of this, this one really beautiful girl grabs me and pulls me away, and starts yelling at my friend, “You do not deserve to be at BYU. How dare you-“
Jordan: Good for her.
Charan: “… insult this poor kid!” and I’m like, “Oh, my word, what am I going to say?”
Jordan: [crosstalk 00:47:28] getting out of hand.
Bubba: [crosstalk 00:47:28] say without the accent.
Charan: Right. So then what was funny, because she’s like, “Are you okay?” I’m like, “I’m very fine. Please no need to encourage me.” Anyway, we finally got out of that situation. The following year, after my friends had all left on missions, I’m outside reading scriptures. It’s a beautiful day. And all of a sudden I hear a girl go, “Abu?” And I’m like, “You’ve got be kidding me.”
Bubba: No.
Jordan: Stop it.
Charan: I cannot believe a year goes by, and I’m like, “What am I going to do?”
Jordan: Did you throw on the accent?
Charan: I had to, I had to.
Jordan: Of course.
Bubba: The lesson is, you never screw with people, because you never know-
Jordan: Never know.
Charan: You just never know when it’s going to come back. But the reason why I share all this stuff is that whole ridiculous thing with that whole character ended up being a thing where now I’ve actually created a TV show because of those things.
Jordan: Those experiences.
Charan: So it’s interesting to see how little things or ridiculous things that you would do. Like, “Hey, I want to live cheaply. I want to live fun and it’s what we’re going to do.” Now, is-
Bubba: It became something.
Charan: It became something, right?
Bubba: Yeah.
Jordan: Here’s the thing. I feel like maybe our next program should be “How Not To Get Murdered,” because that girl had no business meeting two random people. She clearly doesn’t listen to True Crime. I’m just saying that could have been Ted Bundy for all she knows. I need to talk about that, next YouTube video.
Jordan and Bubba Page Talk About Their Greatest Fears
Charan: I’ll be a part of that if you want. I’m happy to be a part of that. No, you guys, this is so awesome. So I only have a few more questions. One: what are your greatest fears right now?
Bubba: Greatest fears? Greatest fears? That’s interesting. We might have a somewhat similar fear, I think, something happening to our children. That’s a big fear. It’s like, “Hey, if I get struck my lightning and die, it’s… you know what? Then it was my time to go.” But if something happened to our kids, that’d be really tough.
Bubba: That’d be tough as a parent to watch someone that you helped bring to this world go through something hard.
Jordan: I know. Our little six-year old has a stomach bug right now. And I kind of wanted to curl up and die just watching her be so miserable. Even just last night. I don’t know. So a lot of what we do and a lot of where our business is at, is we’ve actually made a lot of shifts to allow for more time to be present with our kids.
Jordan: Because even if it’s not physically protecting them, it’s helping them practice that hand-to-hand combat and just be more present during those integral times of their day. So people online have noticed. They’re like, “Wow, where’d you go. I don’t feel like you’re around as much?” I’m like, “Yeah, I’ve got eight babies that-“
Bubba: That’s on purpose.
Jordan: … that I’m all in. And the business is second.
Bubba: What’s the quote, “No success…”
Jordan: Or “no failure.” I don’t know, something.
Bubba: No success…
Charan: “No success in the workplace can ever compensate for failure in the home.”
Bubba: “Failure in the home.” That’s right.
Charan: I don’t think it was the right quote, but it was-
Bubba: Something like that.
Charan: Something like that, yeah.
Jordan: So we want to do right by our kids, physically, emotionally, socially. Anyway, it’s hard to remain private when you’re online, and that’s something I feel a very great sense of duty and responsibility that I signed up for this, but my kids didn’t.
Charan: Right.
Jordan: So it’s this very delicate balance of-
Charan: Protecting them from your actual space.
Jordan: Yeah, but it’s also a great joy, and our kids are really, really capable and super responsible. And a lot of the blessings we have are based on this path that we’ve chosen. So I agree. That’s a fair… I’m afraid of snakes. I think they’re gross.
Charan: I read something about that. About my elbow being twisted a certain way.
Jordan: I will literally snap your elbow-
Charan: Yeah, that was it was.
Jordan: …if you throw a snake at me, no hesitation. I’m afraid… What are we afraid of, Bubba? So here’s the thing. I believe that living your life by fear lends itself to a lot of anxiety-
Charan: Completely.
Jordan: And a lot of doubt and a lot of… I could imagine that someone that bases a lot of their decisions off of fear, that at the end of their life, they’ll look back and see a lot of missed opportunities. I believe in caution, but I believe that fear is not of God, and I believe that we are given, fill in the blank, your intuition, your conscience, the Holy Ghost, the Light of Christ, whatever, that guides you and keeps you safe for the most part.
Jordan: But I could walk down those stairs and break my neck and die today, but does that make me afraid to walk up the stairs or down the stairs? I forget the example I gave. But anyway, so we talk about this a lot where, if one of us is feeling afraid, we try to check ourselves and say, “Is this caution, or is this fear?”
Jordan: Our babies, our kids, they all have to wear helmets, but I’m not going to not let them ride their bikes. So I don’t know. Fear is an interesting question.
Charan: Yeah, I like that you’ve said that. I’ve shared this analogy before, but when I was… And this happened to me when I was about 12 or 1;, I was 12. My parents had just divorced. My dad and my brother were sleeping on the bed, and I was sleeping on the ground and for whatever reason, I just couldn’t fall asleep. It was summertime, it was around 12:30 at night. And I’m laying down, and I’m just stretching, where I have my arms above my head, I’m stretching. And all of a sudden someone comes and grabs my right wrist.
Jordan: What? Is this for real?
Charan: For real, for real. Someone comes and grabs my right wrist. And I do one of those sucking screams. That type of scream. And when I finally got the courage to speak out loud, I yell out really loud, “Dad or [Sareth 00:52:53]?” Because, Sareth is my younger brother. And I thought, “For sure, it’s got to be my kid brother, because only he would decide to freak me out in the middle of the night.”
Jordan: Oh, my gosh.
Charan: But the hand that was holding it felt bigger. It felt bigger than my kid brother’s hand. Then I’m like logically, “Dad. Is it you?”
Jordan: Dad.
Charan: But again, no noise. No noise. So I was like, “Okay, I’ve got to face this. I’ve got to face this fear.” So I slowly pull my arm back, my right arm back and I still see this hand, just holding on. So I follow it, and it led to my left hand.
Charan: Apparently, my left arm fell asleep-
Jordan: Stop it, you jerk. I’m dying. I’m dying [crosstalk 00:53:39]. Stop it.
Charan: I needed you guys to go there with me. Didn’t it feel good?
Jordan: Stop it.
Charan: Didn’t it feel good?
Jordan: Oh, you jerk.
Charan: I totally threw an emotional snake on you, I apologize.
Jordan: If I could reach your elbow, I would snap it right now.
Charan: Emotionally, you would. Yes, absolutely. Here’s the thing, though, here’s the thing.
Bubba: I think that’s happened to me before.
Charan: I literally, like my arm comfortably fell asleep and I’m like, “What in the world just happened? That was so insane.”
Jordan: So maybe I’ve had some experiences like that. Mine is draped over my head.
Charan: Totally.
Jordan: So then it’s just this dead weight on the side of your face. Okay, I get it. Do you have gangly arms?
Charan: I don’t know.
Jordan: It’s a thing. I don’t know; we’ll have to measure.
Charan: Let me take a look, you never know. We’ll have to measure our arms. But the thing was, it was so terrifying, but when I finally faced my fear I realized, “Oh, my gosh. This was in my mind and I’m an idiot.”
Charan: But I love the idea of distinguishing fear versus caution. Caution, danger, you’ve got to protect yourself. But I’m glad you guys have this measurement of saying, “Well, fear. That’s me holding myself back. That is me grabbing my own right arm and holding myself back.”
Jordan: Holding myself back.
Charan: Holding myself back.
Bubba: For the tune of entrepreneurs, and a lot of people who’re like my greatest fear is my business failing. And the reality is, you’re going to fail at some point and that’s okay. And so I don’t even think that comes to mind that, yeah, our businesses could fail at any point. But that’s okay, because you can start another one.
Bubba: I think it’s the same thing, I think, in most elements of life. If you flunk a class, you can go do it again, and you’re going to have to deal with the consequences; there are good consequences, bad consequences.
Charan: Sure.
Bubba: But the reality of choosing to live not in fear will be a lot better life lived.
Jordan: A practice that we do is you just say the word and. So it’s like, “Oh, my gosh. I’m afraid. Oh, whatever, I made a post online that people… I’m so afraid of saying this, standing up for what I believe in online because I’m afraid.” “And why?”
Jordan: “Well, I’m afraid that it’s going to hurt feelings.”
Jordan: “Okay, and?” And it’s like and really when you boil it down, it’s, I don’t know, if you’re right with God, everything in the end is going to be fine. It’s not that it’s not going to hurt. It’s not that it’s not going to be uncomfortable, but I don’t know. So if you really stop and breathe it out and boil it down and you focus on the truth of the situation and eliminate the fear, see it for what it is, it brings a lot of clarity.
Charan: In acting, there’s an improv game called “Yes, and… .” It’s not even a game, it’s just the rules of improv, which is really the rules of life, I think. It’s where you accept the situation and then you add upon it.
Jordan: Ooh, that’s fun.
Charan: Yeah, and so-
Bubba: Is that the game we’re playing?
Charan: I don’t know; let’s play the game. So the idea is, whatever happens in life, you just accept it and be like, “Okay, this happened and now we move on.” And that’s kind of like what you’re saying-
Jordan: “Okay, and…”
Charan: That’s exactly it. Okay, guys last question. You guys ready for this? Okay, final Jeopardy. I’m just kidding.
Jordan: Blue.
Charan: Blue, dang it. That’s close.
Jordan: 26.
Charan: No, man. Okay.
Jordan: Florida.
Charan: Shoot.
Jordan: I’m really good.
Charan: Oh, you’re really good.
Bubba: Dude, she’s really good.
Jordan And Bubba Page’s Advice to Their Younger Selves
Charan: Dang it. What advice would you give your younger selves?
Bubba: Younger selves?
Charan: What advice would you give your younger selves?
Bubba: Keep laughing at yourself.
Jordan: Yeah.
Bubba: That’s one thing.
Jordan: That’s a good one. Hmm.
Bubba: Don’t take yourself too seriously.
Jordan: Yeah. I would, younger self, I would definitely tell myself to stop making decisions based on anticipating other people’s reactions of them. To stop living your life for other people. High school is the epitome of that. The things I wore, everything I did, I was just constantly wondering what other people would think about it.
Charan: Sure.
Jordan: And even during our newlywed years, it was a hard habit to break. So I feel now I’m at the point where I can really focus on my family and God and the pure intent behind what I do and doing it purely for the right reasons. Motive. “Focus on your motive” would be a fancier way of saying that.
Charan: I love that. It’s so true, I remember when I was a kid, sixth grade, I bought Reebok Pumps. I was just so stocked.
Bubba: Loved those shoes.
Charan: So great. I loved those shoes.
Jordan: What color were they?
Charan: They were the ones with the red-
Bubba: The actual basketball?
Charan: The actual basketball versions.
Bubba: Mine were black and white with the basketball pump.
Charan: Yeah, it was so great. In fact, I’m just trying to get some right now. But I remember thinking, “Oh man, I’m so cool. I love these shoes, this is so great.” But I also remember thinking, “I wonder what my friends are going to think?” I was always thinking about, “What are they going to think? Because I have the Reebok Pumps.”
Charan: But it is interesting, when you can let go of the expectation of other people and just live life fearlessly and joyfully and authentically, magic just happens.
Bubba: Yeah.
Charan: So it’s awesome.
Jordan: I agree. Do you believe in magic?
Bubba: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Just like that.
Jordan: That should be our life theme song.
Charan: With that song, that’s the greatest way to close I’ve ever known. Amazing. Guys, you guys are awesome. Thank you so much.
Bubba: Thanks for having us.
Charan: Seriously, for being on this podcast, and so wonderful to get to know you guys. I would love to keep in touch and work with you guys. This is amazing.
Bubba: Absolutely.
Final Words from Jordan and Bubba Page
Charan: And thank you. Any last words before we wrap up?
Bubba: Stay strong.
Charan: Like that.
Bubba: Be true. That’s what I say to my kids before they go on dates. Stay strong.
Jordan: Uh, our kids are 11 and 9.
Bubba: I know. I’m just practicing. I’m warming up for when they are teenagers and that actually happens.
Jordan: Urch. We’re just going to back that up for a second.
Charan: Yeah, I was like you know what? That will make it interesting, that’s a very… But hey, you know what? Listen, every family’s different.
Bubba: Yeah.
Charan: So-
Bubba: I’m just getting started now. I’m practicing these words.
Jordan: All right, I’ve got-
Bubba: And I’m cleaning my gun, too. Just practicing that for when the boys come for the girls.
Jordan: I’ve got good final words. Our six-year old, when she was five one night, let’s see if I can do this. Not a good actor. Can’t keep a straight face.
Charan: Can’t wait to see this.
Jordan: Okay, she was five, and Bubba-
Bubba: You better be ready to laugh because she’s building this up right there.
Charan: I know.
Jordan: Bubba was tucking her in. He’s like, “Oh, goodnight, baby.” And she’s like, “Good night and big balls.”
Bubba: Okay, okay. There’s a video game called Wipeout.
Charan: I know it.
Bubba: And they have big, red balls.
Jordan: “Goodnight and big balls.”
Bubba: And they say that on the show.
Jordan: So those are my final words.
Charan: [crosstalk 01:00:23], honestly I don’t know if I want to do another podcast after this, because that was the final ending of all things.
Bubba: [crosstalk 01:00:30].
Jordan: Clearly needs some acting lessons there; keep at it.
Charan: No, you guys were great. Seriously, thank you guys so much for joining me on this podcast. It’s been such a fun journey. Great to get to know you all, and let’s go to India together.
Jordan: I was saying-
Charan: Let’s go to India.
Bubba: Let’s do it.
Jordan: Let’s go too. We’ll be in India.
Charan: In India with the Bennetts and we’ll have a big blast.
Jordan: I’m not kidding. Let’s do it.
Charan: Okay, awesome. Thank you, so much.
Bubba: See you.
Charan: Thanks so much for listening to Lemonade Stand podcast and we hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you use, to be alerted when we release new episodes. We’d also love to hear your feedback and reviews and if you or someone you know has an awesome Lemonade Stand Story, please reach out to us on social media and let us know. Thanks so much and have a great day.