This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, hey, what's up? This is Chris Guillebeau. Welcome back to Side Hustle School. This is the weekly recap. We have just finished week number 22.
We are going strong, and I'm going to Washington, D.C. this week, doing a Side Hustle School workshop on Thursday night, which I believe is now sold out, or very close to being sold out, but I also have one in Atlanta on Saturday morning that does still have a few spots. Otherwise, I have been mostly home in Portland, Oregon. We have had beautiful weather. It does rain a lot here, but that just means when the sun comes out, the entire city gets really excited.
So I have been running along the waterfront just about every day while thinking about what to make for the show. Now, last week I asked you for your Side Hustle failure stories. I got a lot of interesting responses. All next week, I'll be playing those responses, and I've certainly had a lot of projects I've started that haven't worked out. For me, I always think like if I try something and it doesn't work out, like that one thing might technically be a failure, but for me, I'm really focused on the long term and what I hope that thing will connect to, and what I'm gonna do next, and if something doesn't work, I'll try something else.
And to me, the real failure comes when people give up and stop trying. Not give up on any particular project because I think it's good to give up on projects, but give up on their mission or their vision. Now, there's this quote from Churchill, and I'll probably paraphrase this, but it's something like success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. So think about that over the next week as you hear some of these stories from listeners, and I'll have some more comments as well. Now, today on the weekly recap, we have listener questions, a look back at some of the episodes of the week, and a look ahead to week number 23.
Let's jump right into those questions. - Hi, Chris, this is Shannon calling from California, and I just purchased my first domain, and I'm still super confused about how this whole process works. I can see from my Google domain that I purchased that I can link up through them to web hosting using Squarespace, or I think Blogger is another choice, and I am looking to make a blog, but I don't know that that is all I want to make. There may be an opportunity for maybe a store or some other things that I might want to do later on, but I do want to start with a blog, so I don't want to make the wrong initial choice in choosing, let's say, Blogger when I may later on need other kinds of services and things. And I am also very interested in WordPress and the things you've been talking about regarding that, and I have no idea how any of these things work together or what I'm even supposed to be doing here.
So I would love any input I can get to just get the ball rolling. I bought the domain, I'm excited about the project. Now what? Thank you. - Hey, Shannon, thanks so much for the question.
So first things first, when you register that domain, that domain is yours to do with as you want. It is separate from whatever you do to host your website. So yes, you can take it to Squarespace, you can take it to WordPress.com, or you can get your own hosting account from a different company and assign your domain to them. This is not a permanent decision if you change your mind a year from now or two years from now, as long as you continue to renew that domain, which is usually $10 a year, you can always change what you do with it. Now let me send you as well to a detailed page on the website that has a lot more information.
It is sidehustleschool.com/buildawebsite. And build a website is three words hyphenated. So sidehustleschool.com/build-a website. And I will link it up in today's show notes as well. Congratulations on your domain, and I wish you the best with your hustle.
- Hi Chris, my name is Ravi and I'm calling from the UK. Side hustle school has shown me how to look for hustle ideas everywhere, which is truly a new skill that I'm getting better at every day. I'm new to side hustles and don't have many business minded friends around. And I find that when I talk to other people about some of the side hustles I'm working on, I receive a lot of negative or not positive energy. What are some tips to stay motivated when people around you don't feel the same enthusiasm you do?
Thanks for teaching me how to combine inspiration with action and we'll talk to you soon. - Hey Ravi, thank you. I'm so glad you're learning the power of observation, being able to spot those different ideas. That is in fact a tremendously valuable skill, no matter what you do next. So good for you.
Now about the negativity, man, this kind of applies to a lot of things in life, I think, not just side hustling. But whenever you pursue some kind of dream of your own, something you wanna do for yourself, especially if it's a bit different or unconventional, it's not unusual to encounter this resistance or skepticism from people, especially those who don't embrace doing something different and are kind of on this set path. As to what to do about it, I think a couple of things. You know, sometimes it's okay to keep your ideas to yourself, especially in the early stage where you're just kind of figuring things out. If you don't want that negative energy, maybe don't share those ideas with those people.
I just mean you might want to wait until you're a bit further along with the idea. And so then when they have the inclination to be negative or say, oh, that's never gonna work or whatever, you can say, well, actually I already started. So it's almost like you have proof of concept, or at least you're showing them that you've made some progress. 'Cause in the long run, a lot of people do change their minds, especially when they encounter positive results. However, I also think if your friends don't believe in your ideas and they're negative about them, well, you need some new friends.
You need people in your life who are supportive and affirming, willing to give constructive feedback, of course, but constructive feedback is very different from negative energy. So good luck with everything, Ravi, and I look forward to hearing how you apply the power of observation to all these new ideas. [Music]
Now, when I look back at the stories of the past week, we had quite a range from a balloon artist to a speech-language pathologist, an IT manager, and more. But there are three things I want to touch on briefly. One of them was episode number 150, which was, of course, a milestone.
But more important than being a milestone for the show, this was the story of a software engineer who turns an engagement ring hunt into a side hustle. That story is an affiliate model, meaning that the person featured makes money when he refers other people to a website and then they make a purchase. Now, in his case, he developed this diamond resource or this directory, a creative kind of search engine, and when visitors go to that website and then click through, he gets paid. Now, I don't usually make predictions, but with this one, I did go out on a limb and say that even though it's relatively low income right now, I think it has tremendous potential. So I will hold myself accountable to that prediction, and you can too.
If a few months go by and I don't give you an update, feel free to write in and I will check back with this guy. I believe that guy's name was Tony. So Tony, if you're listening, I'm feeling the pressure here, so I really hope you grow this side hustle. It's such a smart idea. Now, speaking of smart ideas and affiliate models, if we skip ahead to the end of the week, there's a story of another guy who creates an online book registry as kind of an alternative to traditional gift registries or to events when people just bring a random gift or bring a card.
And I think that's also pretty interesting. And if we just compare the two, the guy from yesterday's story with the book registry, in just a couple of months, he's made $500 on affiliate commissions for books. Now, books are pretty low price point compared to diamonds. So Tony, who's the diamond affiliate, that's why I think if he can increase traffic to his website and get the right kind of targeted visitors, he's gonna do really well. And last, I wanted to mention the story from episode 151 about the couple who moves to Canada, immigrates to Canada actually, and then writes a very timely ebook aimed at Americans and others who are hoping to move to Canada as well, answering their questions, kind of showing who's eligible, who's not, if you are eligible, what do you need to do?
What are the next steps? What should you be careful not to do, et cetera? And I was just thinking about this topic in general, whenever there is a really abrupt change in society, major transition, like a shift in presidential administration, especially such an unexpected one, the status quo is disrupted, there are people who are winners, there are people who are losers, a lot of people feel very isolated, a resistance begins to form. There's all this shared language and vocabulary on people from either side, perhaps a lot more concerns about security and privacy. So the reason I mentioned this is, we talked about the power of observation in the listener question earlier.
Whenever there is this time of major transition or change, use the power of observation to ask if you spot any opportunities. This might also be worth thinking about if you're interested in social good projects, social entrepreneurship, et cetera. Like during a time of change, how can you make the world a better place? And how can you do it from a for-profit model? Because I believe very much in charity work, but as part of side hustle school, I also believe in economic empowerment, which is the main priority of the show.
So anyway, I thought that episode was a great illustration of that principle, times of change create opportunities for interesting projects. [Music]
Looking ahead to next week, I've got a bunch of fun stories. I have another feature of an artist, in particular, a ceramist, who's actually a New York City office manager by day, and then transforms into a ceramist at night. I had to learn that it's ceramist, not ceramicist, or actually both are correct, but ceramist is preferred. I believe that story is in a couple of days.
The story that's coming up tomorrow, I am really excited about. This is an incredible success story. Like we're gonna talk about failure stories all next week, but it's kind of funny because the first one tomorrow is gonna be juxtaposed against an incredible success story of an army veteran who makes more than $600,000 in a single year with a new hustle he just starts. And this is not ordinary, this is not usual. I'll tell you the whole thing tomorrow.
He did get a little bit lucky, but he also kind of positioned himself to be lucky. And he had never done anything like this before. He had never made anywhere close to that amount of money. But because he made a couple of key decisions, he was then able to profit from this project in an extreme fashion. So I'm looking forward to sharing that with you, the artist feature, and of course, a different story every day as well.
And before we close things out for the week, I wanna say a big thank you to a few people who work on the show and also to you, the listener. Side Hustle School is recorded on location at World Domination headquarters in Portland, Oregon. It is then packaged in balloon art and shipped to Brooklyn, New York to be produced at the Panoply Studios. My production team is led by A.C. Valdez.
It also includes new rockstar producer Odilia Rubin. Show notes and host wrangling are by Whitney Karinek. My cat Libby Gillibow is complaining about the lack of animal features recently. It's actually been a long time since we've talked about live crickets or Bruno's Barkin Biscuits or somebody with a worm composting blog or really anything like that. So can you help me out?
If you know a good animal side hustle story, please let me know. Fun fact of the week, what are the two seasons in Canada? Winter and July. You might need to know that before you immigrate. We, Side Hustle School, are part of the Onward Project curated by bestselling author Gretchen Rubin.
She's also the host of the award-winning show, Happier, and a dear friend of mine. You can check it out at the onwardproject.com or search Happier in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Now, speaking of that, this is a free listener-supported show. We just have one sponsor per episode. We try to keep it light and fun.
One small thing you can do to help if you want to be awesome is leave me a little rating or review in Apple Podcasts, which used to be known as iTunes, or you could also do it wherever you listen to podcasts. We have more than 700 ratings or reviews on Apple Podcasts so far, and some of them are even good. I know, it's shocking. One of our recent reviews mentioned the increased number of puns, and they said the show is 20% better because of it. I said, "Well, thank you, that's awesome." For anyone who feels differently, I don't mean to punish you.
I'm just trying to be punctual and delivering a helpful resource to you every day, and really, the commentary is a fundamental part of the show. Last, but definitely not least, I want to thank you, the listener. You are the reason I make this show every single day, and in every episode, I always say that inspiration is good, but action is even better. I want you to take action. I want you to work on your idea this week.
I would love to hear how it goes. Maybe I will see you on the road. Maybe I'll see you online, or if nothing else, in your headphones. It is truly an honor. Episodes are uploaded at 601 a.m. Eastern time
every single day. I'm Chris Guillebeau This Is Side Hustle School.
