This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
I have a really interesting listener question for you today. I'm actually excited to work on this episode because it's a question that's come up a couple of times. It's something I didn't expect. When we started the Failure Friday segment, I guess it was two years ago, that quickly became one of our most popular segments just because we were looking at vulnerabilities and mistakes and things that went wrong, as opposed to all the things that go well in lots of side hustle, case studies, success stories and so on. But this also kind of produced not really a backlash, but just like something underneath the surface that a couple of people have asked about, if you're sharing stories that don't work out, can that also be discouraging?
It's actually meant to be encouraging, which I'll discuss here in my response, but might it sometimes feel discouraging to have stories of failure? So as we begin, I want to propose a couple of questions that I think are very helpful to think about in lots of scenarios. And the questions are, what's the worst that can happen? And what's the best that can happen? If you're thinking about any particular scenario in life, it could be a side hustle idea.
It could be a big move or a change, maybe even just a trip. Could be a relationship decision. Could be a choice to attend an event or not attend an event. If you ask yourself these questions like, what's the worst that can happen? And what's the best that can happen?
Can help you make decisions, can help you kind of reframe the process of success versus failure or the interplay between the two and such, because often the worst that can happen is not that bad. And the best that can happen could actually be amazing, right? And of course, it all depends on the specific situation and such. But to get to our question, 'cause I don't want to preempt it too much. I just think it's so interesting.
She's actually asking about how these episodes sometimes can make her feel anxious. So rather than ignore that, I wanna address it directly. Let's talk about how we can turn stories of failure into perhaps stepping stones for success. We'll turn to that in just a moment. [Music]
Hi, it's Amy Meakin.
I've been following your podcast for a while now and I really enjoy the success stories. However, the failure Friday episodes, I don't know, they make me kind of anxious about my own side hustle and pet grooming. I started doubting my choices and my business's potential. Is it normal to feel this way? And how do I overcome it?
Sometimes I even consider quitting because the story sounds so much like my own situation. - Amy, I wanna thank you so much for raising this question. I actually heard it recently from another listener as well. I believe he was at our Denver book event. And so obviously Amy's not the only one wondering about this.
I don't want you or anybody else to feel anxious with the story of something that didn't work out. I understand that sometimes a story can be tough to hear, especially when you're in the early stages of your own side hustle. But I really try to keep this in perspective and I'll try to do a better job going forward. These stories are shared not to discourage you in any way, but to equip you with the insights to avoid a similar pitfall or a similar mistake in the case that it was a mistake. It's not always a mistake.
Sometimes things just happen, right? So I guess it's normal to feel anxious or feel worried when hearing about a failure, but really the whole point is kind of the opposite to relieve that anxiety. And so as I said, to equip you with insights, but also maybe just to make sure everybody knows that it's okay for things to not work out sometimes. So there's also a goal of kind of normalizing failure or normalizing not every idea is gonna work. Not every idea is gonna work at first.
Sometimes an idea might be working for a while and then stops working. Sometimes your idea intersects or collides with something else that causes it to not work. So it's not a judgment on you or the person being featured. It's more just kind of a dissection or an analysis of like, let's look at how this happened and what we can learn and how it felt and how you feel afterwards and such. So I guess my suggestion, my proposal for anyone in that situation would be, instead of letting a story, whether it's from me or somebody else, a story of something not working, make you anxious, try to turn that anxiety into action.
You know, we're always about like idea to income, let's go anxiety to action. That's gonna be the new theme of side hustle school for next year. I mean, probably not, but I do like the idea. Learn from someone's mistakes, pivot where necessary, learn from your own mistakes. And so whether it's a pet grooming business or anything else, ultimately I want it to be a success story.
And that is the goal of everything, both the tips and the case studies, and also looking at things that don't go so well. Ultimately, I hope that this podcast, everything that we make here, ultimately it's a community, it's not just a show. I hope that the community is inspirational to you and helps you feel that you're not so alone. That's my goal. That's why we make side hustle school every single day, seven days a week in short little action-packed episodes.
So thank you, whoever is out there for being part of this and listening, keep listening. We got more planned. And as I said, I really want it to be helpful to you, but I also appreciate any questions or concerns. All right, gonna wrap up for now, episode 2,475. New one's coming out tomorrow, of course.
You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Chris Guillebeau, this is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
