This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Friends, listeners, community, thank you for tuning in today. I am excited to bring you this new episode of Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau, and today's episode is part of our $1,000 series. Wait a second, it's actually called Your First $1,000. There we go.
It's not like I've been doing this every Monday since the start of the year. Your First $1,000, and as you might surmise from the title, it's all about how somebody made that first $1,000. How did they get to that point? How did they discover their side hustle idea or their business idea? In some cases, these little businesses have grown to become six-figure, seven-figure businesses.
But of course, it all started with an idea. It started with an idea and then some action steps on that idea, right? Because as I sometimes say, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Now with that in mind, today's feature comes from Brad de Commermond in Los Angeles. And as you're gonna hear, he is known as the comeback card investor.
This is all about sports cards. When his business was derailed at the beginning of COVID, a different business, he also struggled personally, didn't we all? Like I appreciate him sharing about that because I struggled a lot at the beginning of COVID, also in the middle of COVID, also sometimes now, that's life. And in Brad's case, the side hustle he discovered ended up bringing him both joy and money, which are two good things, right? Joy and money by buying and reselling these sports cards.
So let's hear the story in more detail. Brad's gonna give it to us. I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap up. [Music]
Hey guys, I'm Brad. And in the sports card world, I'm known as the comeback card investor.
Basically my journey to my first thousand dollars in this very unique and seemingly random income stream was highly unexpected, but just like a lot of wonderful things in life, that's just how it goes. So long story short, it was early March of 2020 and I was building my financial coaching business. I was essentially helping people here in Los Angeles make better decisions with their money and get out of debt and start building wealth. And then all of a sudden COVID hit and the world just completely stopped. And you know, from a career standpoint, I thought that this would lead to more clients, but the problem was that I was struggling, not with my money, but I was struggling emotionally and mentally since pretty much everything enjoyable was taken away from me and everyone close to me was now far away.
And I had my closest friends isolating themselves from me and the rest of the world. My girlfriend at the time was tending to her daughter in New York and I was just having zero fun. You know, everything was just so serious that I felt completely drained and I could barely do any work and there wasn't even an incentive to do work because pretty much everything I wanted to do and everything that I was enjoying had now evaporated. And so the big turning point for me was late in March, 2020 when the business coach I hired to help me get my coaching business off the ground recognized how drained I was. And he just flat out asked me, what is bringing you joy right now?
And I told him, I said, the only thing that is bringing a little bit of a smile to my face is learning about sports cards. And I told him, his name is James, I said that I heard Gary Vee talk about sports cards and how they're coming back. And I've just been fascinated learning how you can invest in cards in a really similar way to artwork and stocks and these other investment vehicles. And so he reminded me that the goal of all of this is to find the overlap of my strengths and my passions and then also something that can produce income and that he saw this niche as something that had a lot of potential for me. So back then, April, 2020, James flat out challenged me to only invest in sports cards and then also create content around what I'm doing.
Just for 30 days straight as an experiment. And so that was April, 2020. And I have not looked back and it started with flipping a few $2 sports cards to $6 and then $6 sports cards to $25 and then just getting smarter and taking more calculated risks. And then after a few months, I realized I'd made my first $1,000 just by remotely flipping cards from the comfort of my bed while most other people were just waiting for this storm to pass. And as of right now, not only have I made five figures from sports card flipping, but I've also made five figures from creating content around it.
I've gotten featured in an upcoming documentary about the return of sports cards. And I'm also working with some high level people in the industry. And it all just started by committing to following my journey and sharing my journey with others. So a couple of things to leave you with. Number one, I decided to go all in and drop everything I could that was slowing my progress or draining my mental or emotional energy.
And I kind of look at it like Xing out of all the different programs on your computer. So the one screen you want is the only one there. And then the computer can operate at its highest level if that's the only program running. So just eliminating distractions in my life was far more beneficial than adding new things. Second of all, the compound effect is real.
It is like so real and it's not just in money, but also in effort and skills and relationships. So every handshake you make, every skill you learn and sharpen, every good seed that you plant is actually leading to a massive tipping point. So if you're thinking that success is based on this linear model, the good news is that it's not. Every step you're taking is just another swing of an ax at this massive tree. And while most swings look like they're not doing anything, they're actually getting you closer and closer to that final swing that will knock down your own tree of breakthrough.
[Music]
Hey, thanks so much, Brad. Really appreciate you telling us about that first $1,000. Listeners, I hope you found it encouraging. I wanna encourage you to check out Brad's YouTube channel, the Comeback Card Investor. So just search for it on YouTube or youtube.com/thecomebackcardinvestor.
I watched some videos. I really liked his focus on helping people identify this small minority of profitable cards. And this is a thing for collectors of all kinds. If you wanna collect something and potentially resell it in that world, is this really a key lesson that most people learn the hard way? Just because something supposedly has value based on whatever book or guide says this is the value of the thing, doesn't mean it can actually be resold, at least not easily.
And so if it can't be easily resold, does it really have that value? And how do you know the difference between profitable items, in this case sports cards, as I said, it could be something else, and just the items that most people don't actually want to pay to acquire. How do you know? Well, Brad tells you. So check it out in his videos.
Also, what's bringing you joy right now? I really liked the emphasis on that. What's bringing you joy right now? It doesn't have to connect to something money-making, but maybe it does. It's always nice when these two worlds connect, just like Brad discovered.
So maybe just ask yourself that question and see, what is bringing me joy right now? What can I do to get a little bit more of that? I'll leave you with that thought today. And if you have a question or an update for us about your hustle, let me know what's going on. sidehustleschool.com/questions.
Say hi on social media. I don't use it much, but once in a while I'm there. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1976. And that's it. Oh, we've got a new episode coming up tomorrow.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
