This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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The sculptor who thrived on disaster. That's today's topic, today's story. What if getting held at gunpoint, losing your job, and having a building collapse on you could actually become the three best things that ever happened to your business? I'm not making this up, it's a true story. This is exactly what sculptor Rachel K. Vargas discovered
when a series of disasters transformed her into one of America's most resilient entrepreneurs. Welcome to Side Hustle School, it's Chris Guillebeau. This segment is known as Weekend Workshop. It's all about helping you learn the key steps to a new hustle, one step or concept per week. We're using the book Side Hustle from idea to income in 27 days, available wherever books are sold.
And for the first half of the year, we went through the 27 steps in the book. In the second half, we've been doing these detailed case studies so you can understand how people apply the framework. So let's talk about Rachel and just an important note here at the top. Rachel K. Vargas was actually known as John T. Unger
for 54 years. I actually got to know Rachel when she went by the name John T. Unger. This was maybe 15 years ago that I met Rachel in the form of John. Rachel has since transitioned and now operates her successful sculpture business from Hudson, New York.
So going forward, I'll refer to Rachel as Rachel, of course. Okay, so Rachel K. Vargas, she was a sculpture artist working from a studio in Michigan when disaster struck in the most literal way possible. There was a heavy snowstorm. She was on the studio roof, shoveling snow when the entire structure collapsed beneath her and the building was completely destroyed.
She spent the brutal Michigan winter alternating between shivering while she worked and warming herself with an illegal, unvented kerosene heater. It was pretty much a nightmare scenario, but something unexpected happened when the bank came to assess the damage. They gave her a $10,000 commission. Like they were impressed enough with her business that they're like, "Hey, we want you to make some sculpture for us." So she used that money as a down payment on two other buildings she'd been trying to purchase for years. And weirdly enough, she realized the bank wouldn't have actually taken her business seriously without the disaster forcing them to evaluate her actual work and potential.
So that was one disaster. And I'll just summarize the other two quickly. The second best thing as she describes it was losing her last day job during the dot-com crash many years ago. This basically forced her to spend even more time on the art business that she'd already been spending up to 10 hours a day on. So she really went all in with the business then.
And then the last disaster which she describes as the best thing that ever happened was a terrifying late night encounter with a cab driver who pulled her into a diner's back room and held a gun to her head for 10 minutes screaming threats. So she finally escaped. She walked out into the Michigan night and she's under the street lights and she yells out at the sky, like, I get it. I'm just so lucky. And in her words, she says, you don't really worry about the small things after that.
Everything takes on a whole other level of meaning. So these are obviously the life events that inspired Rachel to go all in with the art, to push it further, to build it into something truly sustainable which I'll tell you about in the second half of this episode. And also how might you apply this perspective to your own side hustle or business idea? [Music]
Rachel's sculpture business has thrived beyond imagination. She specializes in fire bowls, which are really cool.
She sold more than 2,200 of these fire bowls, shipping them to all 50 states, over 20 countries. More than 60 restaurants, hotels, churches, and public spaces have installed these fire bowls as dramatic decor and outdoor gathering spaces. She's also worked with Google, Calvin Klein, the Sheraton Waikiki, Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, just, you know, a wide, wide range of clients. She's done exhibits and installations, lots of places. And ultimately comes back to her skill and talent, but also her resilience, transforming some of these, you know, worst experiences of life, which most people would consider worst experiences, those disasters, into her business's greatest advantages by choosing resilience and opportunity, and just kind of learning to live authentically as herself.
And when I first met Rachel, again, living under a different name and identity many years ago, I was impressed by just how dedicated she was to the art and the commitment to making something without compromise. And we often talk about sometimes you do need to compromise in art and work and life, and it's not always like the worst terrible thing, but there are authentic ways, you know, to stay true to yourself through the course of your life, work, art, and so on. And Rachel has certainly chosen those. So I hope you take that as a point of inspiration today, perhaps there's something you can do as well. So we always encourage you to think about what is your next step?
What is it you can do? How are you going to make a difference in the world and make a difference in your life? Perhaps as we come to the end of a year, you begin thinking more about next year, what do you want that to look like? And what steps are you gonna take, you know, to make that reality happen? I'm thinking about that a lot myself.
I've got some more to share with you soon. I really appreciate you. Thank you for listening. As always, it's better to have a simple idea. You can start right away than a brilliant idea that never launches.
This was episode 3277 of the podcast. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
