This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
Oh, hey there. Thanks for tuning in today. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School, a daily podcast all about creating extra money without quitting your job. Now, we have looked at so many different stories throughout nearly 2000 episodes daily, every single day since January 1, 2017. All these different ways that people are creating freedom
for themselves without going into debt, using a skill they already have, all these good things. And my whole hope, my entire hope, let's say my mission, my singular mission with this podcast is to empower you to do the same thing. So one of the things we talk a lot about is the knowledge economy, basically a fancy way of selling information in terms of online courses and other digital products. And there's a reason why a lot of stories have kind of focused around that topic, or that broad medium, let's say, it's because many of these courses and resources can be very profitable. It's also a common path to go from being a creator in a certain field to teaching people how to do something similar.
It often happens organically, it's not always strategic. But today we have a question about this from a listener. Question is, does the tale sometimes wag the dock? Okay, that's not actually quite how they put it. But basically, they're wondering is, you know, if people are just going to do something to then eventually start teaching about it, why do the thing in the first place? Okay, do these course instructors earn more from the courses they
did in their actual field? So really interesting, there's a lot we can do with this. I'm going to try to provide a helpful answer, especially to those who are trying to decide, you know, what do I do next? How do I choose the best idea for me? How can I go from idea to income?
So do most people make more money from courses than from doing the thing? The listener question and my answer coming right up. Hey Chris, this is Trevor and I've been following your projects for a while. I've noticed that a lot of case studies on side hustle school tend to switch pretty quickly to making a course about the thing they did, as in their product or service, instead of just continuing to do the thing. Is it the case that teaching is better than doing? I don't mean to be overly
skeptical, but I wonder if their business was so good. Why don't they invest more time in that instead of pivoting so quickly? Hey Trevor, totally valid question. We know we cover a lot of topics and industries here. So it's not a one size fits all answer. You know, Trevor says like is teaching better
than doing? And why don't they just do that in the first place if that's what's better or more profitable, whatever the metric of success is. Well, I mean, I too am a little bit skeptical sometimes. Nothing wrong with being a little bit skeptical, I think. We don't have a lot of stories here of people who are making courses on marketing or starting an online business. I try to be fairly careful about not getting too circular with that kind
of thing. First of all, that's what I'm trying to help you with from an overarching principle and second, like a lot of people who have courses on making money online haven't actually made much money online. So again, it just becomes circular. I tend to stay away from it. I personally am a big fan of people who are just doing the thing, you know, to use Trevor's reference here about doing the thing versus making a course on doing the thing.
You know, I think about this guy who has a course on medical Spanish. He's helping other medical professionals, you know, improve their Spanish proficiency, you know, those who are not native speakers. Now I realize that is a course, but it's marketed towards the professionals who will use that knowledge in the field. So it's not a course on how to teach courses on medical Spanish. Like that's where it gets kind of meta. But like I said, it really depends
on the field because, you know, in some cases like the person might be more successful, you know, with the teaching model and there's a perfectly valid use case, you know, for pivoting to the online course model of teaching about their thing instead of just doing the thing or as an additional revenue source. So it really just depends. And ultimately, I think, you know, rather than I don't want to say judging other people's projects, but even if it is judging, I would say the more important thing to do is for you to figure out what's best for you, right? The more important thing is to not care so much about what else is out there, but what is the best thing that I can make right now? And lastly, you know, just as I say, maybe don't be too judgmental about others, also don't be too judgmental about yourself. Like if it is better for you to teach about something instead of doing
the thing, again, to use that analogy, then that's fine, right? You got to decide what is best for you. That's my encouragement. That's what I will leave you with here today. Do what's best for you. Listeners, if you have a question, something you're trying to
work out, whether it's an online course or something else, let me know, sidehustleschool.com slash questions. And of course, come back tomorrow, new episode every day. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.
