This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Side Hustle School listeners, welcome. This is Chris Guillebeau here with you today for the weekly recap. We have just finished week number 28 of the show. This is a big weekend for me. I'm actually in Portland, Oregon, my hometown, with about 1,500 other people for the World Domination Summit.
WDS is a global event we've been putting together for seven years now. It's been going all week. It's very immersive. Basically been working on it full time every day, but it's also so much fun. So that's what I've been up to in addition to working on the show, of course.
I've got several good things for you today. First of all, on the Side Hustle Book Countdown, there are now 64 days to go until the book comes out and I begin my 100 City tour. Now, last week I mentioned pre-orders briefly. I've been thinking about what to give everyone who pre-orders the book. You can pre-order the book from any source, from your local bookstore, from amazon.com, from Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Chapters Indigo in Canada, wherever you prefer.
And if you hang on to your receipt, I'm gonna give you something special, maybe even more than one thing. So once WDS is over, I'm gonna get to work on that. Should have an update for you next week. But just so you know, you can pre-order the book anytime and you'll be eligible for that. One other special thing, from time to time I've mentioned Shopify as a great resource to help you start your online store, they have put together a free 20 lesson video training that you can access and nothing is for sale.
You can watch it without registering. And you can also get a free 21 day trial of Shopify as part of this, which I think is pretty great. But as I said, you can watch that video training regardless. So if you're interested in having an online store, especially selling a physical product, you can watch that training for free at sidehustleschool.com/onlinestore. That is sidehustleschool.com/onlinestore.
Now I've often said that I want to highlight your side hustle story, and we've been doing that a few different ways. A lot of the features from the show are actually now coming from listeners or being referred by listeners, which is fantastic. But I'm also getting lots of emails from people who are starting projects in response to different episodes or to something that they've heard or learned about through the show. I have a listener question today that I'll play in just a moment about a workshop. But first, I want to read you a message I received from a different listener.
This message is from Julie Coffin. Julie says, "I launched my side hustle today. Wanted to say thank you for the call to action. In the past, I would have stopped at inspiration, but now I know that inspiration combined with action is better. The side hustle is called peaceloveandsisters.com.
I've been listening to your podcast from the beginning, so my brain is always primed to think side hustle. My husband and I participated in a couples workshop recently. As I was sitting in the room, I thought to myself, of course, people give great feedback about this. It's a self-selecting group of people who are willing to participate. And pretty much a couple that spends two days talking constructively and calmly to each other will benefit greatly.
Then I thought about my relationship with my sister. Sister relationships are so important, yet there aren't any venues to support them. Light bulb moment, a sister workshop. I could plan a weekend for sisters to build connection with each other. So thanks to the encouragement on the show, I have secured a location and date, created a website, contracted with a therapist to be a guest speaker, and a yoga teacher to lead partner, Sister Yoga.
Next on my list is to decide on a caterer and create a beautiful t-shirt design. And Julie mentioned as well that she heard about the show originally from Gretchen Rubin. So thank you, Gretchen, and congratulations, Julie. That is very cool. I will check out peaceloveandsisters.com.
That's also a great segue to a listener question from Melinda. - Hi, Chris, this is Melinda from North Carolina. I'm currently a high school English teacher. For my side hustle, I'm interested in being a workshop facilitator in which I would train other facilitators and trainers on how to develop meaningful workshops. I have a master's in communication, and I do have experience developing workshops and, of course, lessons.
However, I was advised to join an association. But the membership fees in the conferences are very expensive, and I was wondering, is this necessary in order for me to network? I would love your advice because I'm definitely trying to act on my inspiration at this point in my life. Thank you. - Hey, Melinda, thank you so much for the question.
It definitely sounds like you are well-qualified for this topic. And, of course, the workshop format is a well-proven model for lots of different topics. So the main questions are, do people want it? Do people want what you're offering? And assuming so, assuming that there are some people who want what you're offering, willing to pay for it, et cetera, how do you find those people?
Now, whether you have to join the association or not, I mean, I don't think you have to do anything. I think it's up to you. The question is if it's a good idea for you to join the association. And things like that tend to vary a lot. There are some associations that have a lot of value and do focus on networking and could potentially connect to you with lots of people who might sign up or otherwise refer you or otherwise be beneficial to your hustle idea.
So if that's the case, great. There are also lots of other organizations and associations which basically just exist to enrich themselves. And they are essentially gatekeepers who try to control communication, try to control what people are allowed to do, et cetera. Or even if it's not that bad, they're not necessarily that beneficial to you. They're not really gonna help you find the people you need to find.
So obviously I don't know much about this particular association or set of groups. That's kind of for you to decide, but I think that's the question to answer. It's not whether you have to do it or don't have to do it. Do you really think that joining this association of these groups is gonna be helpful to you in finding the clients or students for the class? That's my two cents.
Of course, let me know what happens. And I wish you every success. [Music]
So looking back on the week, first of all, remember something I mentioned last week. Great listener tip about how not every podcast player downloads every episode. So if for some reason I refer to something that you haven't heard about, well, that episode does exist.
You just might have to manually go and download it. Thanks again to Chris Christensen who sent me that tip. Episode 191 this week was about a 14 year old who cooks up a storm with a class project turned condiment business. I love this story because you give a student a project to create an imaginary business and she goes and creates a real business that makes real money. Do please keep sending me stories of kids and teenagers starting side hustles.
They're always very popular. And I love to shine a spotlight on young people who are thinking differently and acting creatively. A couple episodes later, there were two tourism features. Episode 193 and 194 about a pilot in Oregon who makes his local tour business take flight and a woman in London who turns chocolate tours into a full-time job, well, really a full-time income, brought in more than 80,000 pounds last year, well over $100,000. And I like that story because it wasn't an overnight success or if it was, it was an overnight success that took 10 years, but she believed in it and kept steadily improving it, eventually quitting to go full-time with it, but only after she felt confident and secure.
Those are of course, very important values of side hustle school. I don't want you to take unnecessary risks. I want you to take good risks, smart risks, when you feel confident and sure. There was also an animal story, which I promised you we would do at least every two to three weeks on the show. And I think it had actually been more than a month since we had one.
So obviously I was deluged with hate mail and complaints. Okay, not really, maybe one person said something, but still I was happy to get back to them. And episode 195 was about birds of a feather flock to your bank account. The untold story of the homing hustle, which is now a told story. All you have to do is listen to it.
And last but not least, episode 196 was about a fundraiser. A woman who works for a nonprofit ends up creating a female led social movement where she is not only doing good, but also doing well. So it's a social movement, but not a charity. It's a for-profit business earning more than 3,000 pounds or about $4,000 a month. And she's doing that by reselling cork yoga mats, which I also thought was pretty interesting.
I've done yoga for a while, but I don't think I've ever seen a cork yoga mat. Anyway, lots of great stories. Be sure to go back and download and catch up if you haven't. Last week we talked about the concept of what if, so many side hustle stories come about by people asking what if? What if I took people on a chocolate tour?
Would people be interested in that? What if I tried to introduce a different kind of yoga mat? Would people want to have aerial tours of my home state or my home region? What if is a powerful question. And I encourage you to think what if as you go about your day and your week.
Coming up next week on the show, I go on vacation. Just kidding, I don't take vacation. I'll probably be a bit tired from hosting WDS all week, but naturally the show will continue. Got a really interesting story about a wedding ring advice service from the United Kingdom called Agent Engagement, which is a pretty awesome name. There's also a couple in Germany who goes to Denmark on holiday, then starts an arts and crafts side hustle that brings in something like two thirds of their income.
Also a profit earning photography series featuring confetti, which makes several thousand dollars a month and a coffee brand called Mommy Coffee, specifically for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. All of those stories and more are coming up each day on the show. And as we close out the week, I want to say thank you. I want to give some credit where credit is due. Side hustle school is recorded on location at World Domination headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
It then goes on a chocolate tour of London before being produced in Brooklyn, New York at the Panoply Studios. My production team is led by AC Valdez, also featuring Adelia Rubin, show notes by Whitney Karinek, Joly Gillebo provided advertising creative direction this week, and my cat Libby Gillebo has actually been on vacation hanging out at the Meow House, an awesome cat boarding facility in Portland. But I also want to say thanks to listener Robin in Dallas for sending cat treats in the mail for Libby, so cool. Now when we go get her at the Meow House, we can be like, hey, sorry for leaving you there for a week, but somebody sent you some cat treats, so you've got something to look forward to when you get home. Best alternate title of the week on the birds of a feather flock to your bank account story.
We really wanted to call it, I didn't choose the dove life, the dove life chose me. Had to really get it to runner up status. By the way, I had a tech problem this week. I bought a Bluetooth speaker for my bird, but I couldn't figure out how to pair it. Side hustle school is part of the Onward Project, a collection of podcasts full of actionable ideas about making your life happier, healthier, more productive, more creative.
Check it out at the onwardproject.com. And wait, don't go anywhere just yet. I want to thank you, the listener. You are in fact the most important part of this process. You're the reason I do this.
Side hustle school is for you. It is listener supported. If you want to help, tell your friends about it and show them how to subscribe because not everyone knows how to subscribe to podcasts. It would also be super awesome if you would leave a quick little rating or review in Apple podcasts that helps other people discover the show. But most of all, in every episode, I say that inspiration is good, but action is even better.
Like you heard at the top of the show, I want you to take action. I want to feature your story. And I look forward to hearing about what you're working on. I hope to see you tomorrow and every day next week. Consider this an investment in yourself.
Episodes are uploaded at 601 a.m. Eastern time every single day. I'm Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.
