This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
This has been, of course, the strangest of years. I'm talking about 2020, of course, if you happen to be listening in 2021. I really hope that 2021 is a lot different than 2020. I think this is one for the history books. It's been interesting to have different conversations with people as the year has gone along through the production of this podcast and preparing and writing, scripting, all that kind of stuff. And of course, interacting with listeners,
which is my favorite part of all. So, well, first of all, I should say, welcome. This is Cidle Soul School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Today we've got an episode featuring this segment, Throwback Thursday, where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. Now, what I wanted to talk about here, just by way of introduction,
because in this feature, we're going to hear from a guy named Matthew. Matthew is an Australian musician who has created an online community to teach students how to play the saxophone. And, you know, as you'll hear a bit in the update, and if you'd like, you can go back to his original episode, which I think was episode 210. I don't know how long ago that was, three years or something now, it feels like. I guess it is like three years. And a bit of Matthew's story, just to kind of
summarize and condense a bit, is that he began pursuing this opportunity out of being made redundant or being laid off. We tend to say in the US, like when you lose your job, you are laid off. Other places say made redundant. So he was let go. And what I want to mention is, I've heard the same story in many variations about how when that happens, it has presented an opportunity for that person. And of course, at first, it's a little scary, or you feel panicked,
but then the opportunity comes, you know, when you ask yourself what you really want to do, and you end up going in a direction that's completely different from what you would have done otherwise. So losing that job, which, you know, as I said, can be distressing. And I want to be sensitive when I say this, but it can be distressing, but it can also lead to an all new future. And in Matthew's case, he talks about it, you know, being a godsend, actually, I think that's the word he uses because it allowed him the chance to reinvent himself. And now he's teaching saxophone from his home base in Melbourne, Australia to students from the US and Europe and South America and elsewhere. You know, it's a true global community that all came about because he used
that time to reflect and answer that question, what did he really want to do? So with that as my preamble, I don't want to steal all the thunder from him. What's happened since, again, the original episode was 210. Let's hear directly from Matthew and I will come back at the end to wrap us up. My name is Matthew. I'm in Melbourne in Australia. I was featured way back about three odd years ago
in episode 210. My side hustle now is online saxophone lessons. I run a website called HowToPlayTheSax.com where I teach, I help beginner saxophone players of all ages learn how to play their favourite rock, soul, funk and blues songs without reading music. I try and do it quickly and easily with my online saxophone lessons membership website. Part of my corporate gig two and a half years ago, I got made redundant. And what that means is my company got a massive restructure. There were
6,000 staff who were no longer required. I was one of those 6,000. You know, so this was a huge thing. So they gave me a bit of a payout and I had that rare combination in my life, as I suspect a lot of people do, of having a little bit of time and a little bit of money. So what do I do here?
I don't have to go to work tomorrow. I can afford to eat. I can afford the electricity bill. I can afford the mortgage. What do I really want to do? And so that soul searching process was just an
amazing godsend. So I've had some amazing experiences because I've been putting myself out there. My niche is the saxophone. And I've niched down again with saxophone lessons for rock and soul and funk and blues. I'm not doing jazz. I'm not doing classical. I'm deliberately not
doing musical theory. That's my niche. So my concept is I found my niche. And I think that's important for listeners to find your niche, whatever your niche is, and narrow it down, because the world's a big place. And just because, you know, just because I like this doesn't mean that you have to like this. You know, I like chocolate ice cream. You may actually hate
chocolate ice cream, but you're a strawberry ice cream fan. So you go down the strawberry ice cream path, because I'm going down the chocolate ice cream path and they're very different. Even though it's ice cream, even though it's saxophones, even though it is insert niche, or niche, however you say it, from a saxophone perspective, if you repeat, if you play it again, play your saxophone again, if you do some practice and more practice and more practice, you know, you get better at it from a business perspective. If you have fun, play saxophone, or do your thing, your business thing, be awesome, because you are helping people because you are doing your thing, your passion. Repeat. Do it again. Help your customers, help your clients,
help your buyers, help your people serve your customers. Repeat. Then you can't help but, simplistic, yes, but you can't help making a little bit of money about that, which in turn starts to snowball. And one day, maybe just one day, you might have a new Facebook or a new Microsoft or a new Amazon or insert mega company here. Or maybe not. Maybe you're very happy with
just serving 10 people or 100 people or 1,000 people. You do you. You do you. Awesome. Thank you so much, Matthew. Really appreciate those updates, that advice, et cetera,
lots of good stuff there. And listeners, as I said, this year has been so strange in many ways. The question that I've been asking myself is how can I use this time well so that I am better off at the end of it? When I say better off, I don't necessarily mean in terms of making money or something. I just mean how can I improve myself? And so my question for you is what opportunity is
waiting for you? Whether you've been through something like what he went through in terms of being let go from his job or just in this bizarre vortex world that we're all in right now. So anyway, I'm grateful to him for helping us with this segment. We're going to continue these throughout the rest of the year. If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your side hustle, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. If you would like a saxophone lesson,
that's not me. That would be Matthew, actually how to play the sax.com. We will link it up on the notes page along with anything else mentioned in this episode, maybe some other resources as well. That page is sidehustleschool.com/13561356. Thank you so much for listening. Be sure you're
subscribed. Take care of yourself out there. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
