This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hello, hello, what's up and welcome. This is Chris Guillebeau here with you, your host for Side Hustle School. And today is our weekly recap. Fun thing about the weekly recap, it happens once a week. We have just finished week number 39 of the show.
I wanna jump right in because wow, it's been a busy week. This is now week two that the Side Hustle book has been out. I have been on the road. And it seems that this week has actually been more intense for me than the first week. I came to the East Coast, I did five cities.
I got on a plane and flew to London. I arrived yesterday morning, went straight to a magazine event, and then I took a nap, it's true. Today I'm settling in, I'll be here two and a half more days before heading back to the East Coast, Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix, and Chicago. And yes, if you're thinking that Phoenix is not actually on the East Coast, nor is Chicago, well, that may be true. I should have looked at a map before booking this tour.
Fortunately, I work and record the show from wherever I am. And this week, something really awesome happened. Well, several really awesome things happened. One of them was Side Hustle was featured on Good Morning America. That's right, the new Side Hustle book and some footage from our Powell's event in Portland, Oregon made it on the Monday morning primetime edition of Good Morning America for millions of people, which of course is super awesome.
I'm gonna post a link to that clip in the show notes at sidehustleschool.com/274. And I'll also include that in the email roundup that goes out if you are joining the show. If you are just now listening to Side Hustle School as a result of hearing about us in Good Morning America or from something else associated with the book launch, well, welcome. This is a daily show all about creating more freedom for yourself, creating a side hustle, and income-generating project without quitting your day job. It's a show for busy people who aren't afraid to take action.
Now, speaking of taking action, I wanna read you a couple of listener emails. I've been getting some emails from people who are already following the 27-day plan in the Side Hustle book. There's a subtitle, it's called 27 Days from Idea to Income. It's kind of subtle. You have to think really hard to figure out what it's about.
And fortunately, it seems some people are already figuring it out. I wanna read you two emails. The first one is from Brittany. Brittany says, "Hey, I heard Chris speak this past week and I have basically devoured Side Hustle. I had no idea what the contents would inspire and I am now three hours away from the launch of a new program inspired by this book, all within 48 hours of the book purchase.
Just wanted to say thank you. Very excited to see what comes in the next 48 hours of my life since the past 48 have been so epic." Amazing job, Brittany. Thank you for writing in. I'm glad the book has helped you, but I want to acknowledge that you have done all the work. So, good job.
Next up, a note from Valerie, who came out to our New York event just a few days ago. Valerie said, "Hey, Chris, thanks so much for the event last night. I really enjoyed it. I wanted to take a moment to let you know. I'm feeling inspired.
I'm the woman at the very end of the book signing line who is working on the online event planning toolkit. I thought you would like to know that I took your words to just start, even though things are not quite ready. And although the event toolkit isn't completed, I told several people about it last night. And lo and behold, I got a private coaching client. I'm very excited and I hope to send you an update about my successful side hustle in the near future.
That's awesome. Good work, Valerie. And there's a lesson to all of you. Be sure to come out to the side hustle tour. You never know, you might get a client or a customer for your new product or service, perhaps one you haven't even developed yet.
Anything is possible. In just a moment, I'm going to do a quick recap of some of the episodes from this week, a couple of highlights and observations, in addition to a quick preview of the week ahead, as well as some thank yous to some people who make the show possible, including you. But speaking of thank yous, here's a quick shout out to this week's sponsor. [Music]
Looking back on this week's stories, a number of things stand out. First of all, episode 268, Woman Sells Hair Grips earns fringe benefits, get it?
But also earns $4,000 a month. See, if you like the puns on the show, you've got some fringe benefits. If you hate them, well, you heard about somebody making $4,000 a month. Can't complain about that. Now, this story was really great because she is cornering the market on the intersection of, no joke, Orthodox Judaism, cancer patients, and drag queens.
These are the three primary markets who purchase her hair grips. Now, she actually started this side hustle focused on that first group, Orthodox or other women who identify with the Jewish tradition and prefer to cover their hair. That's who she thought she was serving, and she does and continues to, but also discovered along the way that there are other people with similar needs. Now, that's the fun thing about a side hustle. Sometimes you can't predict, necessarily, who you're gonna end up serving.
Even if you have this intention, it might go on to be far more than you initially imagined. That's how it was for me when I started writing my blog, by the way, long ago. And I'll tell that story at some point, but the short version is I ended up serving a whole lot more people and a whole lot of different kinds of people than I first imagined many years ago when I started writing about travel. The next episode, 269, was about a computer teacher who turned $2 of PVC plastic into $800 a month. This is the kind of project that doesn't take a ton of time.
He's kind of worked on it over the years in different iterations. He began doing it one way, simply taking orders for somebody else who was making these bows, as in bows and arrows, like archery. And that guy was older. He eventually retired. So at first he thought so much for that.
But then later, he actually uses YouTube to learn how to make bows himself, restarts the side hustle in a different way. This reminded me of a story I've been telling on tour about a guy who learns to make candles, also by watching YouTube, and turns it into a very profitable brand, actually earning a lot more than $800 a month. If you're interested in hearing that story, it was episode 80, 8-0. So for any episode of the show, you can just go to sidehustleschool.com slash the number of that episode. So that would be sidehustleschool.com slash 80.
Then we had a writing duo who makes a vow to improve wedding speeches. This was about someone who was a technical writer, had a degree in English, and found a creative way to do freelance writing, where she's not just pitching magazines and newspapers like a lot of freelance writers set out to do, but she chose to specialize and working together with a partner, created this side hustle to help brides and grooms and best men and maids of honor. Is that the plural of that? I think so. Other people involved in weddings to craft beautiful heartfelt vows and speeches.
And by the way, they were actually featured in that Good Morning America segment as well. So that was pretty cool. There was also an episode 272 of a PR consultant who launches a local restaurant week. Lots of cities have these restaurant weeks. She lives in Long Beach, California, and until she started it, there wasn't one.
But she worked in PR, she was connected with the media, she knew lots of people. So she used the skills she already had, ended up creating this recurring income source, recurring project that takes place year after year. Last but not least, a story about two friends who team up to create care packages for students called Study Box. That project is still getting off the ground. We'll see what happens with it.
Now I like to feature a range of different stories on the show. And just as I say that, I realized I forgot one. Episode 270, the Spanish language learner who earns $350,000 helping fellow students. You just gotta go listen to that episode because it's pretty cool what he's done. Episode 270.
And I remembered it just now because I was thinking about that range of different kinds of stories. Here you've got two students who are starting a project just getting it off the ground. We'll see what happens with it. Earlier in the week, you had the woman who's selling the hair grips to Orthodox Jews, cancer patients, and drag queens, earning $4,000 a month. You've got this annual seasonal project with the woman who started Restaurant Week, the other stories I mentioned, and then this one, episode 270, where somebody is earning $350,000 in the first year, literally.
So is one story better than the others? Well, $350,000 is probably better than $800 a month. But really, the whole side hustle way is about identifying a goal, thinking about the skills that you have, figuring out what you're trying to achieve, with the awareness that once you put something out into the world, all kinds of things could happen that you never expected. People are always afraid that their project is gonna fail. And if it does fail, that's normal, that's okay.
That's why you're not risking a lot of money. That's the whole side hustle model. But when you have those thoughts, I would just encourage you to also think, what if my side hustle succeeds? What if it takes off far beyond what I imagined? What if I'm gonna look back a year from now or even 27 days from now and say, oh my gosh, I'm so glad I started.
I'm so glad I had these ideas for a while, but I didn't do anything about them. Then I finally did. And look what happened. That's my encouragement to you as we close out this week. And looking ahead to next week, I've got another batch of awesome stories for you.
I'm gonna tell you about a 16 year old who earns more than $10,000 selling watches. When I was 16, I was experimenting with side hustles too, but I didn't sell anything that made $10,000. So I'll tell you about that process. There's also a university lecturer who creates a $2,000 a month hustle by introducing kids to new cultures. If you are a socially minded side hustler, you're not alone.
I often tell people you can do well and do good. It's not a false choice. Or if you prefer to flip it, you can do good and do well. In other words, you can do good for the world, advance a mission, do something that makes the world a better place, and also get paid for it. As for myself, as I mentioned, this is week number three of the tour coming up in London for a couple of days, then flying to Atlanta at the end of the week, Miami and Phoenix over the weekend.
I neglected to tell you where you could find out about that. And that was a mistake, because when I was telling you my itinerary at the top of the show, I should have immediately said, oh, and if you get a chance, go to sidehustleschool.com/tour, and you can see exactly where I'm going. And you can sign up for tickets. Most cities, they're actually free. In some cases, there may be a small charge.
So check that out, sidehustleschool.com/tour and sign up. If you don't see your city listed, we are adding more cities. You can also add your name at the bottom where it says don't see your city. Again, we try to be subtle. When I say don't see your city, enter your email address here and tell me where it is.
That basically means if you don't see your city, you can enter your email address, tell me where you live. And if I add that stop at some point, you'll get a notification. I'll also be telling you more about the 27-day plan from idea to income in 27 days, including some free resources you can get just for owning a copy of the book in any format. And if you've already purchased the book, you qualify for this too. You're not left out.
But just so you know, if you haven't picked up the book yet, in addition to that 27-day plan, there's some additional stuff that I'm creating for you that you'll have access to when you register it on the website. Well, as I said, it has been an action-packed week, at least for me. I'm gonna wrap this up and say to our new listeners, welcome, I hope you make this part of your routine. I do this show every single day. It's short, it's designed to keep your attention for all the ADD folks out there like me, or even if you don't have ADD, but you're busy and you don't have time to listen to a 60-minute or 90-minute conversation like some podcasts do.
Nothing wrong with those podcasts, by the way. I'm just trying to do something different here. And for our old listeners who've been with me for a while, especially those folks on tour have been coming up to me and saying, "I've been listening since January 1. Well, you guys are awesome. Thank you so much.
Wherever you are in the world, whatever you're up to, if you're listening to the show, you're the reason I make the show." I said at the beginning of the year that I commit to supporting you and your quest to create a side hustle. We are moving into a new gear here. With the book, with the tour, with more high-quality stories, some other features that we have planned that I haven't talked about yet, good stuff is on the way and we're all in this together. At least I hope you're with me, 'cause I'm with you. I'd like to say thank you to a couple of folks who make the show possible.
Side Hustle School is recorded on location all along the way. I actually recorded in five cities last week, true story. It is then transported to Brooklyn, New York and Washington, D.C. to be produced at the Panoply Studios. Our production team is led by A.C. Valdez.
It also features Adelia Rubin. Show notes are by Whitney Karinek. Jed Chang has been helping me with the Side Hustle Tour. Owen Handy from Penguin Random House has also been helping out with the tour. It takes a village and it also takes a cat.
Want to give a shout out to the official show cat, Liberia Gillibo, also known as Libby, holding down operations in Oregon as I travel the world. Side Hustle School is part of the Onward Project, led by Gretchen Rubin. I've actually known Gretchen for nine years. I realized this week since we got to do two events together and we were talking about how we got to know each other. I found her blog many years ago and she's been an inspiration to me.
So it was so fun to come full circle and do events in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. She is on tour promoting her new book, The Four Tendencies. Be sure to check that out. And one more quick thing.
If you've been listening throughout the year, you know that I often ask for reviews during this time. I only ask once a week. I don't wanna hassle you about it all throughout the week. But it's super awesome if you've been enjoying the show and you're listening, if you could go and leave us a quick little rating or review in Apple Podcasts. Just takes a moment.
It does make a difference. And by the way, if you've already done that, that's awesome. I would also be grateful if you read the book, would love it if you'd leave a review in particular on Amazon or goodreads.com. Those are two websites that lots of people in the book industry look to to see reviews, to kind of see what people are saying about books. And just to be clear, you can say anything you want.
Like, I hope you like the book. I hope it's worthy of a five-star endorsement, but I'm not telling people what to say. It's just in your own words. If you think this is something that other people should check out as well, that helps a lot. And that's all.
That's my only ask. Mostly, I want to encourage you to remember that inspiration is good, but action is even better. I want you to follow the model of those emails I read at the top of the show. Think one was from Britney and one was from Valerie, who aren't just listening to the show, who aren't just reading the book. They are applying it in their own way to their own lives.
That is awesome. And I want you to take action too. I would love to tell your story to the world one day. And by one day, I don't mean 10 years from now. I mean soon.
This is your time. Over here, I'm going to do everything I can to keep bringing you stories. Moving forward in the Side Hustle Revolution, episodes go online at 601 a.m. Eastern time every single day. You are a rock star.
I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School.
