This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, greetings and welcome back. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. Got a fun story for you today. It's about a rocket scientist, yes, a real one, who in her spare time charges more than $400 in appointment for nutrition consulting, focusing on herbal remedies. Through her own personal experience, she had struggled and now she helps others.
This is also a good reminder of who the show is for. We have a lot of people out there listening in different situations. And if you're like me, you work for yourself, you're self-employed, that's cool, like I'm glad you're there. But the purpose of Side Hustle School is actually to serve people who are still working jobs. So if you're out there working for a company or an organization, Side Hustle School is on your side.
My whole goal with this resource, and the reason why the show is 10 minutes or less a day on average, is because I know you're busy, you don't necessarily want to become a full-time entrepreneur, but you believe in investing in yourself, and you do want to create a side hustle. You've seen other people do this, you know you can do it too. And since day one, my goal has been to help you do that. We've already had a lot of success stories come from the show. And if we don't have yours yet, well, I want you to keep working.
I want you to know you're not alone. This is a process and I'm gonna do everything I can to support you. That's my pep talk for you today, and that rocket scientist story is coming up right after this. [Music]
Today's story comes from Lisa Akers in Denver, Colorado. By day, Lisa is a rocket scientist, often traveling from her home to build spaceships, most commonly in the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
And her side hustle is herbalism, or for some of our listeners outside the US, herbalism, specifically working with private clients suffering from autoimmune diseases. Lisa got the idea from this from her own personal health struggles. As a result of the long hours, high stress, and the not so non-toxic chemicals, as she calls them, that are used in spaceship building, she found herself with some systemic illnesses that doctors couldn't figure out. She spent the better part of a year going to various experts, specialists, and both traditional and non-traditional practitioners to try to find a solution, but it wasn't until she found an herbalist that she was able to figure out what was happening in her body and how she could improve her health. While she was healing her mind and body, Lisa decided she wanted to learn more about herbal medicine.
So she worked to get her master herbalist certification and eventually completed postgraduate education in nutrition. Lisa was able to complete much of her certification through distance learning. She would download the lessons on her phone and work on her coursework while waiting for appointments, traveling, or on lunch breaks. Now this is interesting, and if you're currently working at a job, pay attention. Because at first, Lisa wanted her side hustle to be her main gig.
She hired coaches, found mentors, and took classes, all in hopes of quitting her day job and following her herbal dream. But she was making those decisions while recovering from a serious illness and wasn't in a great frame of mind to see how she could change her workflow at her day job to fit with her health and wellness needs. So after starting down this frustrating path, she realized she could both keep her day job and have an herbal business, which I think was a great decision. This is the side hustle way. You don't have to quit your job to create this new source of income.
Lisa's first sale was a group program that completely sold out. She had a business coaching group that she could share the news with, and they all celebrated together. After running the program, however, she realized that groups are difficult for health practitioners to manage. It was challenging to tailor the content to meet the participants' needs while keeping their private information confidential. So she now prefers one-on-one consults where she can customize suggestions for individuals, so she's decided to focus on that.
She charges $450 for an initial appointment package and then $250 for follow-ups. Lisa works with clients in six areas, nutrition, sleep, movement, environment, stress, and joy. This approach helps them build a foundation of good health before working to restore their energy and build resilience. She's got a new program where she'll do a personalized review of lab tests and give her clients some detailed insight into their results, which is more informative and empowering than that call from your doctor where he or she says, "Hey, your lab work is fine." Lisa makes sure to tell clients to see their physician if there's a situation outside of her ability to manage. She's not a doctor, so she can't diagnose or prescribe treatments.
She sees herself as an educator, offering information and insight to help people find a healthier lifestyle based on her own experiences with plants, food, and supplements. Lisa also has access to a great herbalist community where people share their tough cases and get insight from one another. To promote her classes and offerings, Lisa uses social media marketing, but also does in-person and referral marketing. In fact, most of her clients come from referrals from other happy clients. She does talks and web classes to reach out to people who are interested in learning more holistic approaches to their health situation.
She also goes to groups where people who have autoimmune diseases hang out to participate and build relationships with people, and whenever it's appropriate, she'll let them know what she does to open the door to future conversations. Her work in building spaceships ebbs and flows, sometimes she's really busy with assembly and testing, and other times she's not. So she schedules appointments when she's got time and mental capacity, and then begins a waiting list whenever it's necessary so that she doesn't overcommit. While she's helping spaceships take flight, Lisa is also helping people get well, and she's building an asset for herself. [Music]
All right, well, first of all, congratulations to Lisa, and you might be wondering, what's the big deal about an herbal success?
Well, here's the thing, when you're a rocket scientist, you're obviously very smart, but you don't necessarily know how to get started in this whole money-making process. Your whole life, you've trained for a certain career, and that career comes with a process, certain expectations, you do these things, you get this paycheck. So most rocket scientists and most people in all kinds of other careers, they haven't been trained for the side hustle way. So just as Lisa had to learn to heal herself, when she was frustrated with the lack of results she received through traditional treatment, she also had to go through this learning process of making money and creating a new asset. And at first she thought she would do this full-time, but then she realized, just like a lot of side hustlers do, maybe eventually she will, but she doesn't have to make this false choice.
It's not like, oh, I can have this career, or I can try this new thing, I can go and be a pioneer. No, she realized she could keep her job and continue to explore. And it seems like her explorations are going well. She's able to charge a good amount for those consultations. When she gets busy, she has a waiting list, making sure that she cares for herself first.
And who knows what the future will hold. Maybe she'll keep doing this hybrid approach. Maybe she will eventually go full-time into this work. But the point is she's opening doors and creating options for herself. Side hustle school listeners, you heard it here first.
Your success is coming up to all in good time. Well, at least as long as you're working on it. Because inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes are online at sidehustleschool.com/215. That's 215.
If you're enjoying the show, tell your friends about it. I'll be back tomorrow. I'm Chris Guillebeau for "Side Hustle School." [Music]
