This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello, what's up, friends, listeners, community. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host of Side Hustle School. We have just finished week number 39 of season three. This week featured the wildlife biologist who shoots and scores with gloves for outdoor hockey players, a student who gets a perfect score on the SAT and then builds a $20 million business on the side while going to med school, as one does, among other highlights. What can I say?
We had to level up this week because we crossed over the Rubicon to episode 1,000. That's correct, this is episode 1,002. It feels totally different to look at my screen and see, wow, there's four digits there. There used to be three. For 999 days, there were three and now there are four.
So just some brief comments on this. Before we keep rolling along, I don't wanna be super self-referential. I know that your time is limited and valuable. I just wanna say, I feel really great about this. 1,000 episodes and counting.
And I don't mean, wow, I feel great that I recorded 1,000 episodes because as I say, pretty much every week, if not more often, it really is a team effort. But I do feel great because of this community, because of the community that sustains this. I feel great and grateful. So thank you to all 900 stories that these 1,000 episodes draw on. Everyone who has submitted a story, everyone who's been featured on the program, anyone who has referred us to someone or passed it on, thanks to everyone who has left a review.
We've got thousands of reviews now in Apple Podcasts and elsewhere that helps a ton. And thanks to anyone who passed this on or told their friends about it. Thanks to everybody in the Sida Sol Society. I'll have more to say about that soon. And to anyone who's come out to any of my tour events or read my books or just otherwise, if you've been listening to the program, I am grateful for you.
1,000 episodes and counting. I really do believe the best is yet to come. We will be continuing through the end of 2019. And after that, I can't tell you yet exactly what will happen. It's still kind of in the works, but I will say that we don't plan to stop, at least not completely.
We might modify a little bit, but you'll be the first to know whatever happens. And we do plan to continue in some fashion. Hearing about the projects our listeners have started is extremely motivating to me. So I'm just grateful for this virtuous cycle. I think that's all I have to say.
Among other things in the next two months, I'll be making updates to the Sida Sol School site. I know that some of those are greatly overdue. It's wonderful that we've done 1,000 episodes, but I've got some things on the website that really needed to have been updated like a year ago. So I'm sorry about that. I need to update some stuff about events that I'll be doing.
More about the Sida Sol Society, more resources, free and low cost that our listeners have been asking for. So that's in the works as well, all in the next couple of months. So let's go on to the audio update. Each week on the weekly recap, I'd like to hear from one of the people that we've featured on the program in the past. This update comes to us from Arkansas.
I believe. And I'll have some comments on it as well, but first let's hear directly from her. I believe this is Stacy. - Hey, this is Stacy with Bang@Betty. You might remember my handmade jewelry side hustle from episode 124.
A lot has happened since then. On a personal note, and thanks to my Bang@Betty side hustle income, I purchased my first home with a big room to serve as my office for the business. I got married and I quit my day job. Yep, I'm now calling Bang@Betty my full-time gig and my side hustle now is putting my marketing and editorial experience to work, writing for local publications and helping small businesses with their social media. Bang@Betty has grown steadily, just about doubling what I made before.
I've released a lot of new jewelry collections and expanded my wholesale reach. I even did my first national trade show in 2019. That was probably my biggest challenge of the year. If you ever do a trade show, be prepared for everything to be difficult. I built my own displays and flew with them inside a guitar case to Las Vegas and carried them on my back to the venue.
I hope my chiropractor wasn't listening to that. Anyway, my newest news is that I partnered with one of my favorite local gift shops in Little Rock, Arkansas called Stift Station Gifts, and I'm calling it home now. I've never had a physical location, which is something I think is important in a place like Little Rock that has a small town vibe, and I'm thrilled to get to live that experience finally. I just set up shop there on 1st of September, and I'm already having so much fun. - What a great report.
Congratulations, Stacy. I almost said congratulations, Betty. That's the name of her business, Bang@Betty.com. Stacy Bowers is indeed the featured side hustler. She purchased her first home, got married, and quit her day job, all since we heard from her last.
That is fantastic and good to know as well about trade shows being a challenge. I've heard that from a number of people. They can be amazing in terms of connecting you with lots of different distributors, retailers around the country, but they are a lot of work. So maybe there's someone out there who needs to hear that. Don't go into a trade show environment until you feel ready because it can be a lot of expense and effort.
All right, everybody, you can follow along with Stacy at Bang@Betty.com or visit the Stift Station gift shop in Little Rock, Arkansas. More of these to come, and I always welcome your comments and questions as well. Call up 844-9-Hustle. That's 844-948-7853. Or you can email podcast@sidehustleschool.com.
You can send an actual email. You can use your phone and make a voice memo, whatever is good for you. I'd love to know what's going on, what you're working on, what you're building, and what your challenges are. We're not afraid to talk about challenges here on the program. Nothing is perfect, except for, I guess, that perfect SAT score that the student had in episode 996.
But otherwise, nothing is perfect and we're all on a journey. All right, in addition to our awesome listeners and our fantastic team, one more group that I really appreciate, and that would be our sponsors. Thank you so much sponsors for providing valuable offers to our community and enabling the whole program, all 1,000 episodes and counting, to be completely free. So speaking of sponsors, you might never guess what's coming next. Oh, that's right, it is a message from our sponsor, indeed.
And I'll be back again at the end to wrap us all up. [Music]
Well listeners, as I said at the beginning, I really appreciate you so much. I don't want to belabor the points or overextend or dwell upon or any other expression for just going on too much. So I'll just say quickly, if you're listening, you're the reason we make this show 1,002 episodes and counting. I'm very grateful to our team as well, producer Chuck Reed, community liaison Jed Chang, cat herder and now content manager, who's working with all our team of writers, Tina Hart, and of course, the official show cat, Libby Gillavoe.
In fact, she's the only team member who's been with the program all 1,000 episodes, besides me. But she already thinks she's a princess, so we don't need to give her any more appreciation. All of us at Team Sodasil School are part of the Onward Project that is led by best-selling author and a good friend of mine, Gretchen Rubin. Be sure to check out her show, "Happier with Gretchen Rubin," as well as "Happier in Hollywood" and the program from Melissa Urban, known as "Do the Thing." You know what I say sometimes? Inspiration is good, but action is better.
It's my hope that you'll take action. If I have not heard about your story or what you're working on in the past, what, in almost three years now, I would love to hear about it soon. I really would love to feature your story or at least know that it's making a difference to you. Do come back tomorrow and each day next week. Consider it a short daily investment in yourself.
Our episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern Time. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Sodasil School. [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
