Picky Eater’s Year Abroad Cooks Up $500/Month Side Gig

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Hey there, welcome back to Side Hustle School. I'm your host, Chris Guillebeau, bringing you episode 350 today. That's right, 350. Today's episode is about someone who is a picky eater. Now, why is that relevant to Side Hustle School? Well, this person was a picky eater, went on

a journey to become a health-conscious adventurer of foods, and that turned into a consultation service. Apparently there's a whole community of adult picky eaters who are trying to change. I had no idea. That's why I learned all kinds of things in the research for the show. There are all sorts of ways to make money, so today we'll talk about the picky eater industrial complex. Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch. We'll just call it the picky eater niche. That

story is coming right up after this quick thank you to our sponsor. Mac and cheese, pizza, grilled cheese, and chicken fingers. For 23 years, these were the main food groups of Jackie Limenzo's diet. She wasn't just a picky eater, she was a notoriously picky eater. Each attempted a new food earned gasps and shocked faces from her friends and family. Wow, Jackie's trying something new, they would say, every single time. It was

always a big fuss, so big of a fuss that Jackie just embraced the label and stopped even trying new foods altogether. It wasn't worth making a scene every time she ate a green bean, but things were about to change and change quickly. Jackie's application to teach a year abroad in China was approved, and before she knew it, she was off to the other side of the world. As you can imagine, she was in for a rough ride, at least culinarily speaking. The thing is it actually wasn't that hard for Jackie to break outside of her self-imposed food boundaries. All she needed was a mindset and environmental shift. That's what she found

in China. From her very first dinner, she tried everything, yes, everything on the table. Since dinner was served family-style to her and her fellow teachers, she got to eat what she wanted, in the time that she wanted, and in the amount that she wanted. There was no pressure to eat everything on a paid-for plate. There were no friends staring her down, ready to applaud if she tried something new. In fact, to her new friends in Beijing, Jackie

wasn't known as a picky eater, she was just Jackie. Without that label, the pressure and the expectations, Jackie began to thrive. She learned to appreciate all kinds of foods that she would've never considered even tasting back at home. She not only had an easier time eating with friends at restaurants, she also felt healthier. Finally, at age 23, Jackie no longer considered herself a picky eater. She wanted to help others break away from

that label as well. At that point, she had found a Facebook group catering to picky eaters and realized that many of them had tried to unlearn their picky habits but were struggling. The nutritionist or therapist they were working with didn't understand what it was really like to be an adult picky eater. They would just say, "Why don't you change?" Jackie understood that it was more complicated than that. She had been there herself. She knew

she could help others outgrow their limited diets more effectively than confused and frustrated health coaches. So only six months into her year teaching in China, Jackie completed the online health coaching certification program from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and took her passion for good food and wellness to an official level. By this point, Jackie had made a bit of a name for herself in that picky eater's Facebook group. And when she announced that she was now officially certified to be a health coach, she quickly found her first client. Together, they created an action plan for beating food pickiness that included five one-on-one phone coaching sessions, personalized recipes, and a variety of handouts to help fight embarrassment, stand up to fear, and look toward a healthier future. The program

worked well for that client. And as she moved on, happier and healthier than other, Jackie got another client. She continued to stay active in that picky eater's Facebook group but she also built a blog and website. She also found other pockets of adult picky eater communities elsewhere online. I'll come back to that at the end, by the way, 'cause I didn't know those existed either. And she knew that as a small-time side hustler, she didn't have

money to figure out paid advertising, but she did have time to invest in these online communities by building relationships and a reputation. And it wasn't just her growing knowledge that made people look up to her in these communities, it was her thorough honesty about her own story, struggle, and transformation. At the end of the year, Jackie moved back to Austin, Texas and started a new job as an operations manager for an elementary school. Word spread among her friends and family in that local community of her eating transformation. And before she knew it, she had more clients. Once she started offering

a free consultation to get people in the door, she saw an instant boost in the number of people that contacted her. Of course, many of these people would not convert to the full coaching package she sold, but it did lower the barrier to entry for some folks who were interested but skeptical. By a few months into the hustle, this just started this year, by the way, Jackie was consistently earning at least $500 a month through the niche health coaching. She also began wondering if there was a way to treat picky eating early on rather than wanting to become an adult lifestyle. So she began to offer a service for parents of picky eaters, but she didn't want to stop there either. In 2018, Jackie Lomensa will

release her first print book for children. It's about a child who overcomes her own food pickiness, but the book is also full of lessons and reminders for parents of picky eaters, such as reducing pressure around food and avoiding offering bribes. Jackie's thrilled that her story and hard work have resulted in changing lives and widening pallets, but she's eager to see if she can impact far more people with that upcoming book. She also still has more new foods to try. Well, this was kind of fun. I related to it a bit myself because for a long time I was

also a pretty picky eater, at least through a lot of my childhood and young adulthood. Pretty much everything that Jackie mentioned, the mac and cheese, the pizza, the grilled cheese, etc. Those were definitely staples in my diet. I do still eat a fair amount of pizza, to be honest. And I was also really curious about this market, this concept of pockets of picky eater communities.

I read that in my notes and I was like, "What's that about?" So I asked Whitney, who works with me on the show, to track some of those down and include links in the show notes. I thought it was an interesting shared identity point to rally around and even more interesting because I think to join one of those communities or to participate to be part of it, it seems like you almost have to want to change. There are two different groups here. You've got people who are picky eaters and have no desire to change. Then you've got people who are like, "You know what, it really would be good to eat more than mac and cheese and grilled cheese and pizza every day." But I've just had these struggles and whenever I try something new, my friends make a big deal out of it.

So to me, this points to one of the very positive things about the internet is it allows people to connect based on all these weird little shared interests. Not to say it's weird, but it's just like, I can't really imagine a picky eater's group meeting up at the local Starbucks. And of course, wherever there are communities of shared identity, those communities have needs. And if somebody becomes an expert like Jackie did in this story, she's got a way to meet those needs and she's got a way to make some money from it. So good for her. Congratulations, Jackie. And if you want to see those show notes, learn

about her website, as well as pockets of picky eater communities, just swing on by to www.cytussleschool.com/350. That's 350. As always, remember, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Thank you for listening today. I'll be back tomorrow with the weekly recap. I'm Chris Guillebeau for Cytussle School.