This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to Side Hustle School. This is Chris Guillebeau. I believe today's episode is going out on the 15th of October, the middle of October. What a year it's been, episode 2,114, to be precise.
We've had so many great questions from listeners this year. I got another one today that I think is so interesting. I think a lot of people have this problem. It is a detailed technical problem. No, actually, it's not.
It is imposter syndrome, basically, which they, I believe the caller describes as a limiting belief of low self-confidence. Have you ever heard of that? Do you have that? Well, if so, you're not the only one, for sure. So let's hear from our caller and consider what can be done.
Detailed question and my answer coming up after this short message. [Music]
This is Sarah from Minneapolis. I've been side hustling for a while and I'm trying to get out of my dead-end job. Hopefully my boss isn't listening to this. Aside from the job itself, I have a problem that has nothing to do with making a website or asking for a sale.
I'm actually pretty good at logistics and can figure things out along the way. My problem is one that most of your stories don't seem to experience, a lack of self-confidence. I just don't feel that I'm good enough to take action on following my dreams, even if the dream is fairly simple. This is a limiting belief, but I don't know how to move past it. Have you ever heard of anyone in this situation?
I'm really hoping you have some advice to help me get over my insecurities. [Music]
You know, here is the thing with imposter syndrome or the lack of self-confidence, the second guessing, the questioning yourself. Honestly, I think most people, at least most people I know, most people I hear from, I think it's pretty common. I think most people struggle with this in one way or another. Maybe it manifests differently for each of us, depending on our own life experience, depending on our context, where we're coming from.
So it might not be universal, but I think it's pretty typical. I was actually listening to an interview recently with Magnus Carlsen, basically the greatest chess player of all time, and he was talking about imposter syndrome. And I was like, wow, here's this guy who makes millions of dollars a year, is an absolute genius. He's able to play blindfolded against 10 or more good opponents, again, blindfolded, and memorize every one of the games and crush them, basically, not to go off too much into Magnus Carlsen fandom. But the point is, this guy is like, he's got imposter syndrome.
The point of that is just understanding that this is pretty common should help, at least a little bit. And next, there was this phrase, get over my insecurities. I don't think you have to get over your insecurities. You just can't give in to them. So there's a big difference there.
Like getting over implies a sense of permanence, like this is in the rear view mirror, whereas giving in is like, oh, this is allowing these insecurities to determine the course of my future and my decisions and such. And so that's not okay. You may still have these problems for a long time in one way or another. They may go away for a while and come back. But as long as you're not giving in to them, that's the key point.
At least that's how I see it. And I would just leave you with this, who are you? You are a person who wants to be more independent. You want more money, nothing wrong with that. And by the way, I'm speaking to you, our listeners, not just our caller, if you have a day job, you want to be in a situation where you do that day job, or you go to that job because you like it, not because it's an obligation.
Like if it became overly stressful, you could walk away. And so for all those reasons, that's why you want a side hustle. That's why you want more than one source of income. So let that longing lead the way. I really believe your insecurities will lessen over time just by doing the work.
So how about that? Focus on doing the work. Hope that is helpful. Listeners, let me know what's going on. What are you up to?
What's challenging you? What's going well? sidehustleschool.com/questions. And of course we have a new episode every single day. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Thanks for being out there. I hope you'll come back again tomorrow. All right, that's it. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
from the Onward Project.
