This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey listeners, thanks for tuning in today. Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name's Chris Guillebeau. Today is our feature. Comes out every Friday, known as Failure Friday.
Isn't that funny how it works? We have our Failure Friday episode coming out on Friday. We talked about doing it on Wednesday or Thursday, but it just seems so much better to put it here at the end of the week. It is a collection of short stories about mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course, failure, all of the things that go wrong. It's fun for me to work on because just like our Throwback Thursday segment, you get to hear directly from a side hustler who has struggled to get something off the ground.
They usually tell you this short story in often direct transparent fashion of whatever that thing was that went wrong. Often it begins with an idea and then it turns into, okay, what was that reality? In fact, how did the idea transfer or not into reality? So without further ado, or without much further ado, let's say today's short story features Sarah. She works by day for a tech company.
And of course she wanted to start a side hustle like we all do. And so she tried, it didn't quite work out, but let's let her tell you the story precisely along with a lesson. So we've had a lot of stories of things that didn't work out, that's normal. I'm not sure we've ever had this particular lesson before. So do pay attention.
I'll come back at the end with a quick wrap-up. [Music]
My name is Sarah and I have a failure story that's different from any I've heard on the show so far. For my day job, I work for a tech company. It's how should I put it? Okay, I don't love it and I don't hate it.
I guess that's how a lot of jobs are. Anyway, for lots of reasons, I've been looking for a side hustle for a while. I kept putting it off because my job pays well, but obviously that's not a good excuse. I want extra income because of all the things you say about possibilities and a backup plan. And just because it seems like it's something missing in my life.
Six months ago, I thought I found the answer. I went through a training and set up a website and waited for customers. Long story short, it didn't work out and that's okay. My investment wasn't very big and I have no problem whatsoever with trying something different next time. The much bigger problem was that I was so excited at first that I made the mistake of telling my friends, family, and even coworkers about the project.
And when it didn't work as well as I'd hoped, I felt embarrassed. Even now, several months after I've done anything with that project, people at work still ask me about it. It just feels a little awkward. Well, looking back, I wish I hadn't said anything to anyone or at least most people. If it started taking off, I could have told them then, but when I changed course, they never would have known.
I wanted to pass this on because maybe someone else is in this situation or can preemptively avoid it. As I said, this experience was a failure. Next time, I'm hoping for better results and either way, I'm not gonna tell the whole world when I'm up to until I feel a bit more confident in the direction. Thanks, Chris and team for all you do. Hope to see you on the road for your next tour.
[Music]
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. That's the theme of Failure Friday. And what an interesting lesson here, as you heard from Sarah, she's going to persevere. She's gonna try something new and she wasn't overly discouraged by the failure. The greater problem was she wishes she hadn't told people about it.
And I think that's an interesting lesson because sometimes you want to tell people, you want to have cheerleaders, you want to have, I don't know, accountability or at least just people that you get to talk to about stuff. But maybe in some cases it's better to just kind of do it on your own or find someone outside your normal friend group or your colleagues, you know, or even your family in some cases to tell them about it, right? So that you're not in that situation if it doesn't work out where it feels a little bit awkward later. Lots of projects fail or just wither away and it's great if you can just, you know, pick yourself up and move on. But sometimes it's hard to do that if you're in a situation like what Sarah has described.
Obviously every situation is different and you've got to figure stuff out for yourself. But I really appreciated Sarah sharing this transparent story. So thanks Sarah and thanks listeners. If you've got a question or an update for us about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. I'm excited to bring you a new episode every day for the rest of the year, perhaps beyond, we shall see.
But this has been episode 2,141. Stay tuned, 2,142 is coming up tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]
