This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Everything begins with a goal. Hello, what's up? Welcome. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
Let's look today at the topic of goals, agenda, and your first assignment. For our long-time listeners, I'll explain more about our new format as I go along. And for our new listeners, I'll explain how everything works to you as well. As the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland said, "If you don't know where you're going, "any road will take you there." That's why goals are so important. And as Socrates said on his deathbed, "Go make that cash money." Now, just as there's more than one possible path in life, there's all kinds of things you could do in life, right?
There's not just one way. So too are there multiple reasons why you need a side hustle. So right here at the outset, for anybody who's new, I have no problem saying that my goal is to help you make money. That is my agenda here. And it's not like money is the most important thing in life.
It certainly isn't. But when you are burdened with debt, or you're trying to build a savings account, or you just like the idea of not being dependent on one employer, you need more than one source of income. And this can make a huge difference in your quality of life. I've seen over and over literally thousands of times now, just how empowering and exciting this can be. Especially for anyone out there who has never identified with being an entrepreneur.
This is not about being an entrepreneur. This is about using a skill you already have to find a way to make some extra money. Perhaps a lot, but at least something significant. So good news, you don't have to be an entrepreneur. You don't have to take a lot of risk.
And you can see whether or not your idea works in a short period of time. Just to be clear, it won't always work. And that's a big part of it. In all the stories that I've told on the program thus far, more than 1,000, there are often a lot of false starts. There are mistakes, there are missteps.
There are things that the person learns as they go along that will increase their odds of success and so on. Now, last week, you got a bit of a preview of the new format starting here in 2020. It's a week long format. So this is actually the first full week of the year. And here in brief is the schedule.
Every Sunday, we'll have a new episode in the classroom series. That's exactly what this is. Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, we're gonna have question and answer. You can ask a question of your own at sidehustleschool.com/questions. So it's gonna be all about listener question and answer.
Tuesday and Friday, we'll have case studies. So for our long time listeners, those are like the stories that you heard every single day in 2017, 2018, and 2019. And then on Thursday, we're working on a feature called Where Are They Now? Which is essentially like a little throwback Thursday, an extended look at one of our previously featured sod hustlers. So the format is still seven days a week.
It's still completely free. And I will still respect your time by keeping the episode short. You're not gonna hear any 60 minute interviews. You're not gonna hear any long form, 90 minute memoirs. It's all about something that is helpful and practical to you.
At least that's my goal. So now let's look at this classroom series, which is something I'm particularly excited about. This new series will have some built in structure to it, beginning with goal setting. That's today, that's what we're doing here. And going all the way through the entire process of starting an income generating project.
Not only that, but I also hope to work directly with a number of listeners to actually build that side hustle that they've been thinking about. And we will do that in real time throughout the year with reports to you. So if you'd like to be considered for that, all you need to do is put your name down. There's nothing for sale. And you can do that at sodustleschool.com/classroom.
Coming up, we're gonna talk about the two problems everyone faces in trying to start a money making project, or at least the two problems that are the most common. And I'll give you your first assignment, because there are gonna be assignments for this classroom series. Now, before I go on, I wanna bring you a message from our sponsor. There are just two of these per episode, typically one right at the beginning and the second part way through. And these sponsors allow all of this to be completely free.
As I said, we often work with partners who are bringing valuable offers to our listeners. So here is a shout out to today's sponsor. [Music]
So here's a question for you. Actually, a couple of questions, but they're all wrapped up into one big thing. Why are you here?
I don't mean on planet earth necessarily. We're not going that deep, but why are you listening to Sodustle School? What is your greatest problem when it comes to money and/or your career? And what would your life look like if that problem were resolved? Again, what is your greatest problem when it comes to money and/or your career?
Again, what would life look like if that problem were resolved? Whatever your specific answers are, it's my goal to help you achieve your objective. You'll be the one doing the work, of course, but that just means you get the credit too. So what I've seen over and over, new sod hustlers typically struggle with one of two problems and these are connected, but also distinct. They either don't have an idea, they have no idea what they would do for their sod hustle, or they don't know how to make that idea happen, right?
So two groups of people. The rest of January and February, we're gonna be all about those ideas. We'll have a bit of making it happen mixed in, but the focus is on ideas. Then we'll make a shift and the remaining 10 months of the year will be focused on implementation, that whole thing about making it happen. So you might wonder why isn't it more balanced?
You know, if these are two problems, why not six months on each? It's because ideas are the easier part, actually. Like the real value is in going from idea to income from your dream to your reality. It's not gonna take you that long to come up with ideas. And if you're already an idea person, well, you can hone your skill during this time and just know that the bulk of our year is gonna be focused on implementation.
Each classroom feature will include an assignment. And here is your assignment for today. I want you to come up with at least two ideas for your first or your next side hustle, just two ideas. And listen, I know we haven't talked about where ideas come from. We haven't talked about all kinds of stuff if you're brand new, but that's okay.
I don't want you to overthink this. It's a really simple exercise. These ideas that you come up with, they don't have to be good. They don't have to be feasible. They don't have to be practical.
You don't have to be well-suited for them. You don't even have to have any intention of pursuing either of these ideas. Though if you do, that will help later. I just say that because I don't want there to be any excuse for not completing this very easy assignment. So you might go away and say, okay, what's my idea?
Maybe I wanna start a blog about my favorite new gadgets and tech products. What about something that helps people connect more offline? Or maybe you're thinking, okay, it's the new year. I wanna start a habits journal. When I start a little journal, a little planner that helps you stay on track for the year with the things that are important to you.
Or maybe it's a podcast for fans of Japanese comic books. I'm just throwing out a bunch of examples there. It really could be anything. There's just one requirement. So you can have any idea, but you also have to have a way to make money with the idea.
Even if you're not sure how it's gonna happen, that's okay. This is because I want you to associate these things together whenever you identify new ideas. You shouldn't just think, oh, that would be cool. You wanna think, oh, that would be cool. And there's an easy way to see how I can make money.
Like I can see a connection between my idea and some sort of product or service that people will pay for one way or another. So for all those random examples I just threw out, you have to blog about your favorite new gadgets. Maybe that generates income through affiliate commissions when people click links on amazon.com or elsewhere that you link to the habits journal as a physical product. Maybe you sell it online direct to consumers or maybe you work with retail stores. So you have more of a wholesale relationship there.
The point is somehow there's a connection to something that makes money. Even the podcast for fans of Japanese comic books. There are a few different things you could do there from advertising to a membership site, a monthly Patreon campaign, just to name a couple of options. Now, before I wrap up, here's a hint. If you really don't have any ideas at all, like I think you probably can have something, but if you really don't have any at all, then just steal one of mine or steal one that we have featured before on the show.
Okay, there are more than a thousand episodes in the archives, all completely free and available on demand. If you don't see them all in your favorite podcast player, because what happens sometimes is they just include the most recent 200 or so. Remember, you can get access to the complete archives completely free at sidehustleschool.com. Those are available on demand, which means whenever you want. Okay, so next week we'll look at where ideas come from and how you can cultivate the skill of having more of them.
Then we'll look at how to have better ideas because not every idea is created equal. And you'll learn what distinguishes a high potential idea because ultimately that's what you want, high potential ideas. [Music]
Okay, I hope your year is starting well. You can read notes for this in every classroom episode this year at that same URL I mentioned earlier. It is sidehustleschool.com/classroom.
You can also hit me up on social media and let me know what your ideas are. My name is Chris Guillebeau on Twitter and Facebook. That's G-U-I-L-L-E-V-E-A-U or 193 countries on Instagram, 193 countries. Thank you so much for listening. I'm excited to build up this year for you and I can't wait to see what you come up with.
All right, my name is Chris Guillebeau. This has been episode 11.01, 1,101. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
