This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Oh, hey there. Thanks for tuning in today. What's up? Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name's Chris Guillebeau.
I'm so glad you're out there. We just have an amazing group of people all over the world who are interested in making money without quitting their job or by using the skill that they have to go on and in fact, make the leap from quitting their job. So that's what we're talking about here today in this Throwback Thursday themed segment. Every week, we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them. Now, last week we heard from Dave Simpson in Calgary, Canada.
He's the founder of Honolulu Ukuleles. So it turns out that Ukulele is good for more than just, "You are my sunshine." You can play more than one song on it. I learned that in my extensive research last week. Today in our latest feature, we'll hear from Lisa Long from Texas. Lisa is a multi-hustle side hustler, multi-faceted, doing all kinds of stuff.
Sometimes people out there, we have a hard time getting them to focus on one story for us because they're just doing so many things, which I do respect. Although of course, editorially, we like to focus a bit. So as you'll hear, Lisa's had a bunch of projects. We first featured her ceramics and lettering under the brand Intentional Touchstones way back on episode, I think it was 1,071. So that would of course be well over a thousand days ago.
And she has since moved on to several other things, including a weekly lunch series on YouTube. So all kinds of stuff here. Let's hear more about this evolution from Lisa, along with some words of advice, and I'll come back at the end to wrap us up. [Music]
I'm Lisa Long. I'm in Dallas, Texas.
So my side hustle was Intentional Touchstones under the umbrella of Lisa Long Designs. And I've also branched out and started making miniatures under pint-sized world. And now I have a YouTube channel called Lunch with Lisa. It just kind of like me making a bunch of different designs and I put those designs on pottery and just made digital art. And then I came up with Intentional Touchstones, which are ceramic stones that you can hold in your hand or put in your pocket that have inspirational words on them or phrases that you can carry with you and remind yourself of your intention for the year, for the month, however often you wanna create an intention.
So it's just a touchstone to bring you back to all your thought processes around what you're doing and who you're being in the world. And then pint-sized world, I started making miniatures and I niche down into making miniatures for pottery studios and doll houses. So I made miniature pottery wheels and anything that you can put into a little pottery studio. And I sold quite a few of those. So that was fun to do for a while.
And I still have those up on my website for sale. And then I also now I'm creating quick and easy healthy meals that I'm cooking and producing content for on YouTube where I'm making videos of me cooking in my kitchen and just having fun with the camera. Stuff happened with my kid inside the public school system that really prompted me to say this, it's now, I need to quit my job now 'cause he needs to come home. And I ended up quitting my job in spring of 2019. And I pulled him out of school later that year in December, 2019.
But during that time, I had a few paychecks where I was able to kind of test myself, like see, can I keep up with the ceramics? Can I do this? During the summer, I had booths at all these art fairs and such. And then in the fall, it was nice to put my kid back in school to really kind of ramp up to see like if I could really keep this up. And then everything came to a head where I had to pull him out.
So that happened. And then it was kind of divine timing 'cause then 2020 happened. And I was already set up with an online store, with like some product and I was able to keep going. I did end up like cashing in my retirement to help me and supplement me. So there was some like safety nets that kind of arrived or that I noticed I could use that showed up that I didn't even realize were there.
So like taking the leap, it was like a leap of faith where I just had to trust that I would figure it out in the moment. One of my marketing friends taught me that you can go off and teach yourself something totally random, like find some creative outlet that you wanna do. And I know she was mainly telling me that because that's when our brain comes up with the best ideas when it's doing something not related to what we're thinking about or what we wanna do. But thinking about your interests and finding something to learn towards that, like even if it's embroidery or something like that, then you like find ways that you can use it with what you're doing sometimes. Like it's just, it can be magical.
And having the motivation, like you really have to be self-motivated. I found that I got a little comfortable there 'cause I did have a pretty big safety net for a little while where I wasn't worried about money for a bit and I found I was slacking and like everything. And I think that, so having the money problem is really actually a good thing 'cause it keeps me moving towards my goals. Otherwise I just kind of stop. [Music]
Awesome, glad to know she has not in fact stopped or if she did at some point, Lisa has definitely picked it up, picked it back up and is doing all kinds of things again.
So thanks so much Lisa for sharing those updates with us. Listeners, check out her YouTube channel. Just go and search lunch with Lisa or you can see some of her art at lisalongdesigns.com. I think she's got some other websites, some other social out there. Like I said, she's just doing a bunch of stuff.
So I really respect when people are starting projects and experimenting and taking that leap as you just heard about. So let me know what you think and who you'd like to see featured from our archives of more than a thousand stories, more than 2,000 episodes, more than 1,000 case studies so far. If you've got a question or an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. And of course, take care of yourself out there as we go into the holiday season. There's just a lot of stuff in the mix.
I know everybody's busy, but be sure you take care of yourself and do something that's important to you. All right, that's my reminder for today. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
