Country Music Fan Hits The Decks As Part-Time DJ

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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Hello, hello, what's up, what's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. This is your host, Chris Guillebeau. I'm so glad you're joining me. Wherever you are listening in the world, this is all about creating freedom, expanding your options, providing security for yourself, so that if something unpredictable happens, some perhaps, you know, worldwide global black swan event, or just something that happens to you and your job, you have that security, you have that backup plan, you have that extra income.

And people all over the world are pursuing that in different ways. I'm so grateful to be able to speak to you each day. Now, I often talk about taking a stand and demonstrating your personality. I think this is kind of under appreciated, especially if you're trying to develop any sort of brand that features you. And I think when you take a stand and demonstrate your personality, this will inevitably result in you encountering some people who don't like it, and that's okay.

In fact, I think that's good. I'm often reminded of something Gretchen Rubin said, which is a strong voice will repel as well as attract, okay? So you're gonna attract people, but you're also going to repel. That's just how it works. With that in mind, I wanna give a shout out to Chelsea Baldwin.

And what's funny is I can't actually say what her brand is because we kind of keep it clean here on Side Hustle School. No profanity, but I can spell it out for you. It's not that bad. It's just like, you know, try to be respectful. Her brand is the business B-I-T-C-H, okay?

So right from her name, you either like it or you don't. I mean, it's beautiful in that way because some people are like business B-I-T-C-H, like that's really great. Or some people are like, that's not good. I don't like that. Her tagline, by the way, is impatience is a virtue.

I thought that was cool. I wanted to steal that part. I wouldn't steal the other one though. That one's hers. So if you're not offended by strong language, 'cause it goes on from there, like that's just the brand.

If you're not offended by strong language and you wanna see how she positions herself, the website is businessbitch.com, which we will link up in the show notes as well. And now for today's story, when a student starts frequenting a local country music bar, she decides to turn the tables as an aspiring country music DJ. This Hawaiian student slash music fan then hits the decks and builds a solid side income. That's what we'll talk about in this episode. [Music]

It was 10 years ago that Kate Williamson was living in Hawaii, studying full time.

She had a full course load, but the life of a student offered a lot of downtime as well. Evenings out usually meant going to a local bar. Kate was a big country music fan. So she often hit up bars that only played the type of music she liked. The types of establishments where hearing Blake Shelton or Carrie Underwood wouldn't feel out of place.

Kate's favorite bar was called the Country Bar in Pearl Harbor. The Country Bar, just, you know, pretty descriptive, pretty basic there. So she had spent many a night there enjoying the music and eventually she got to know the staff, including the DJ. One night he told Kate he would love to have a backup DJ. Up until that point, he wasn't able to find anyone.

That's why he had to be there every night, but Kate was up for it. So you could say she decided to add pitch to an idea. Kate in this house DJ made a deal. She'd become the backup DJ and work for free for the next two months to learn the ropes. She'd taken all the information she could about mixing turntables and how to seamlessly glide from one song to another to keep the beat going.

Then when they both felt ready, Kate could take over as a part-time paid DJ. With that, she had her training sorted out and then with some free DJ software she found online, she was ready to go. When the first time came to solo DJ, it was exciting, nerve-wracking and panic-inducing all at once. As Kate came up to the decks for that first time, her heart was pounding harder than the bass through the speakers. But the worry was all for nothing.

The learning had paid off and Kate was able to DJ her first night, earn a few bucks and start a new side hustle all in one go. Cue the music. From that night on, Kate had a regular gig at the country bar. When the house DJ took a night off, she would drop by with her computer and a collection of country tracks to spend the place into a frenzy. Now it's a small community on Oahu and Kate's reputation spread around the island.

The fact that she was the state's only female country DJ certainly helped, but it also came with problems. She often felt like she wasn't taken seriously in what was traditionally a male-dominated industry, but she didn't let the haters get her down and kept improving her skills. Kate's reputation grew. Soon she received invitations for more gigs in different bars. That work converted into DJing weddings and private events, all on the side and without a lot of promotion or pressure.

After a few years, Kate finished studying and got a job in radio. Her DJing experience was helpful and although she started as an intern, over the course of the next few years, she built a career in the space, but she always kept one foot firmly in the DJ scene, occasionally working bars and events. When she wanted to further her education and went back to being a student, luckily she had the skills to seamlessly step back into her old side hustle and begin DJing more regularly. By now, though, she'd branched out and even though country was her first love, she explored other genres. This enabled her to get different gigs at different types of venues.

Kate has no plans to take her DJing full-time and her nights out have been on hold during the pandemic. However, over the last year, she's earned over $7,000, enough money to help her avoid debt and pay some bills. [Music]

DJing is a big business with some of the biggest names of the industry being worth over a hundred million dollars. Some estimates indicate that there may be up to one million professional DJs out there, not sure if that's true, but that's what we read online. So I'm passing it along up to one million professional DJs.

And whether being a DJ is in the cards for you or not, what skills can you fall back on? What side hustle do you have that you could rely upon if you needed to make some extra money and you could also just not do that for a while. It's always helpful to build up this kind of skill that is essentially another form of asset or another form of protection for you. So that if things change, you can't do one thing and you'll be able to do something else. It's always good to develop those skills.

All right, listeners, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. To find the show notes for today's episode, just go to sidehustleschool.com/1228. Thank you so much for listening. You are a country music superstar. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the Onward Project.