This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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One of my favorite things of going on book tour, which I have not been able to do for a while and still don't have any immediate plans to do, but hopefully again at some point, one of my favorite things is talking with listeners and readers come out to an event and helping them find their idea, okay? Because this is probably the greatest problem people have is like, what is my idea? How do I make it happen? Which is technically two problems, but let's focus on the first one. So just kind of helping people understand that there is something that everyone can do.
And often it's not even myself that's helping them figure out the idea. It's the rest of the group or somebody else in their life. And we're just kind of imparting some tools that they can use on their own. So today's listener, there's a segue here. Today's listener is feeling stuck because they have tried everything, or at least they've tried a lot of things and they still aren't sure how to go from idea to income.
Okay, so what is the best way to get unstuck? How can we move forward here? Very common problem. You know, people have tried different stuff. It hasn't worked.
They have gone through the common exercises and they still can't just figure it out, okay? So I'm gonna try to be as actionable as I can with my answer so that if you two are feeling discouraged in any way, you will go away with at least one thing, maybe even more, so that you can take real action and get closer to an actionable idea. You notice the action theme there. That's what it's all about, okay? The question, I've tried everything.
I still can't think of a good idea and my answer is coming up in just 30 seconds after this quick shout out to our sponsor. [Music]
Hi there, Chris. This is Nina and I've been listening for a while now, but I feel like your worst student. I've listened to 600 episodes and read three of your books, but I still don't know what I do to get paid without just trading time for money, which is what I do for my day job. The whole point is to earn passive income, but I don't have much money to invest and just end up feeling tired at the end of the day.
Do you think I'm a lost cause? I feel like I need a way to reframe this whole situation, but I'm not sure what it would be. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. - Nina, thank you for the note. Thank you for the message.
You are definitely not a lost cause, definitely not a lost cause, nor my worst student. In a lot of ways, what I'm trying to do here is just provide examples of how real people have been able to navigate these situations, and a lot of people feel stuck. Like a lot of people feel like, "Oh, I've tried some stuff and it hasn't worked," or just like Nina said here, I have gone through everything I can think of and I still don't know what I should do. Like I hear the stories about other people and they sound great, but how does it work for me? So definitely not a lost cause.
Let's use this as a chance to recap a bit. And then also to use Nina's phrase, reframe the whole situation. Like how do you reframe the whole situation? I think you do that by focusing on what you know instead of what you don't, and what you have instead of what you lack. So in Nina's case, she's like, "I've listened to 600 episodes and read three of my books." Hopefully something has stuck out from all that.
What is it? As opposed to thinking like, "Well, there's a thousand other episodes that I haven't listened to. I need to go through all of that." I don't think that's what needs to happen at this point. At this point, again, let's recap a bit. Start with skills, not passions.
Start with skills. What are you good at? What do you not just like to do, but what do you have expertise in? Make an inventory of everything that you know how to do. Just make a list, pretty simple exercise.
Maybe you've done it before, but go deeper. If you had seven things on the list before, try to get to 12. And then in terms of some initial experience, like I know Nina mentioned trading time for money and not wanting to do that. But I'll come back to that in a second. I think to get initial experience, if you really have no idea what to do, then just start by selling something you already own.
Just start by selling something you already own. That's it, like list it up on one of these platforms or networks, eBay, Facebook, Marketplace, OfferUp, Craigslist. There's lots of different ones in other countries and markets. Just start with that. And you're gonna get some skill out of doing that and some experience.
To get second level experience, buy something from one place and sell it somewhere else. So buy something from one of these platforms and then resell it, hopefully for more money than you paid. Well, that is a side hustle. I'm not saying that's what you want to be doing every day for the rest of your life. Unless you end up specializing as a reseller, you're probably better off developing a product or service of your own.
That's what you wanna do is get out of that trading time for money situation. But sometimes you have to start with doing that and then transfer out of it. Because as you gain skills, you also gain confidence. As you gain experience, you also gain maybe a greater vision. You're like, oh, I can actually do something else.
And that's most of what I try to focus on here is, again, these examples and case studies of people who have gone from idea to income. And if you can't find the idea, I would say, just start with whatever is in front of you right now. Also the "100 Side Hustles" book that I published a couple of years ago now. I mean, it's full of, guess what, 100 ideas. One hundred ideas, some of them are pretty strange or unique, but many others are fully replicable.
And I was gonna say stealable. I don't know if stealable is a word or not, but you are welcome to steal those ideas. I really don't mind. I want people to take action. That's my greatest hope is that this podcast, this conversation, that's what I think of it as, is a dialogue that we have every day.
My hope is that it will motivate you and give you the tools you need to actually move forward with this thing that you know you've wanted to do for a long time. But you just haven't been able to move forward or figure it out or whatever roadblock is in your way. So Nina is not alone in feeling this way, but I also think there's a path forward. And I really want you to find it. I hope that you do.
Let me know what happens, Nina. Anybody else out there as well. If you are stuck or if you have a specific question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Let me know how it's going. We will continue to feature them throughout the year several times a week along with updates from other listeners as they launch their projects.
Thank you for being part of this global community of amazing people. You're not alone out there. Do come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
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From the Onward Project.
